July 2017 movie review part 2.

MORE MOVIES

FREE FIRE (2017) D- Ben Wheatley.
In what appears to be early 70s LA, a group of felons go to a warehouse to buy an arsenal of weapons  big enough to start a small revolution. The guns are there, they've got their briefcases stuffed with cash, but somewhere along the line it all goes wrong and everyone starts shooting at everyone else. One by one the protagonists take hits and fall to the ground, but they aren't killed. They start crawling about, bleeding but still highly dangerous to anyone dumb enough to show themselves. Bang bang. You're dead. Nearly.
           Ben Wheatley has established himself, with films like A field in England and Sightseers, as one of the most talented young directors in Britain. Here he's taken the Hollywood dollar and made a very stylish, extremely violent (nothing new there then) movie which looks terrific but which lacks a certain something. Plot perhaps. What I have described above is indeed the whole movie; there's little opportunity for character development, and there's no real context we can place ourselves in. An interesting exercise certainly, but Ben needs a better script next time..

THE AMERICAN FRIEND (1977) D- Wim Wenders.
Tom Ripley has a friend who does excellent fakes of works of art, but someone who knows his stuff notices a problem with one of them. Psychopath that he is, Ripley decides to fuck with this guy's mind, just for fun, by exploiting his terminal illness by offering him a sack of money to murder one of his enemies.
         Based on Patricia Highsmith's novel Ripley's Game, Wim Wenders produced one of the finest adaptations of Highsmith's work long before a later generation of film makers took their turn. Shot in a strange, surreal colour, with brilliant performances by Dennis Hopper as Ripley and Bruno Ganz as his puppet, this is a strange, beautiful and dark movie. Very strong.

EDVARD MUNCH (1974) D- Peter Watkins
The tortured life and turbulent times of Scandinavia's greatest artist. Growing up in a devout Christian family where one family member after another succumbed to consumption, poor Edvard grew to adopt an analysis of life characterised by pain, frustration and rejection. And his desperate attempts to understand himself and a world that could bring about such suffering came out on the canvas. Misunderstood by a public not ready for his revolutionary approach, he pressed on regardless of their contempt, and went on to become one of the most renowned artists of the past 300 years.
           Peter Watkins made his name making "mocumantaries" for television, notably Culloden and The War Game. And he stayed with this "factional" style in making this, his greatest artistic creation. Neglected today, this film is extraordinary. Dwelling on the pain of Munch's existence in almost unendurable detail, we see how this pain is transformed through paint, woodcut and engravure into works of transcendent beauty and power. It is not an easy film (it's not far short of 4 hours long) but like many "difficult" films or books, the effort expended is richly rewarded. Unforgettable.