Review: 13 Minutes - A Great Time

13 Minutes

Starring: Christian Friedel, Katharina Schuttler

Directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel

Written by: Fred Breinersdorfer, Léonie-Claire Breinersdorfer

114 Minutes      Rated MA 15+ 

I reckon Adolf Hitler was the luckiest despot ever to live. If we believe what we are told he narrowly escaped death in assassination attempts more times than anyone else. Were all the would be assassins unfortunate, unlikely or incompetent or did Adolf just have a whole lot of inexplicable luck? Surely his redoubtable badness ought to have wrought the worst Karma upon him. And yet…

The film 13 Minutes is about Georg Elser a resistance fighter from a small town in the Swabian Alps who builds a bomb which he plants in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller. The plan is for the bomb to explode as Hitler is speaking on November 8 1939 and tear him apart. If this had happened history could have been changed and maybe Nazism and the war might have been stuffed. But…Hitler left the scene early, 13 minutes early and thus Elser failed.  He is found, arrested and imprisoned. Thus we find ourselves in a suspenseful and fascinating story of an intriguing man who saw what was developing in his homeland and wanted it to stop.

We see Elser in his hometown, in Munich, in prison and eventually in Dachau where his timing is not as fortunate as Hitler’s; in fact it is poignantly awful.

Christian Friedel is brilliant as Elser, calm and slight but also seething anger underneath it all. He sparkles and convinces and delivers a spot on riveting and touching performance. He is more than matched by Katharina Schuttler, Burghart Klaussner and Johann Von Bulow.

In the hands of director Oliver Hirschbiegel (also responsible for the masterpiece ‘Downfall’) this is a stunning and accomplished movie about a moment in history that is fascinating. Here’s the man who tried to kill Hitler and faced his torturers prepared to tell them to their faces that he wanted to prevent the bloodshed of what was to come, to save his fellow citizens and his homeland from them. How extraordinary is that?

I loved this film, found the story incredible and was riveted by the acting.

Make some space in your diary and see this movie.

4 ½ out of 5  

Review: Women He's Undressed Where A Lot Is Revealed

The Women He Undressed

Starring: Darren Gilshenan, Deborah Kennedy, Nathaniel Middleton

Directed by: Gillian Armstrong

Written by: Katherine Thomson 

100 minutes   Rated M

Hollywood can be thankful to our great wide land for stunt men, writers, directors, actors, soundtrack composers, directors of photography and more. They’ve had our best and recognised them through myriad awards, rightly so. Sometimes back home though they have not always been as well known.

You’d think a man from Kiama who had designed costumes in 282 movies for actors such as Bette Davis, Rosalind Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood, won three Oscars and been the favorite of Jack Warner (and the go to guy for anyone at Warner Brothers) would be a hero in his homeland. Surely there’d be a building or two, a street, a scholarship or a fashion design college named after him. At least his name would be as prominent and recognisable as Nicole Kidman, Errol Flynn, Peter Finch or Heath Ledger surely? Um actually no.

Orry George Kelly was born in December 1897 in the coastal town of Kiama NSW looking up at the

stars on those clear skies every night. Only a couple of decades later he would be dressing stars of a different kind in the Hollywood studio lots of Warners, MGM and Universal.  He was a gay man who didn’t hide that fact at a time when the man he loved had to hide his predilection lest his career be doomed. That man was a struggling Brit looking for a housemate Archibald Leach. Archy and Orry lived together for many years as Leach’s career steadily grew and exploded under the name Cary Grant. Orry’s status grew also as he worked on films which became classics - Casablanca, Some Like it Hot, 42nd Street, The Maltese Falcon, Gypsy, Mame and Oklahoma.

This finely crafted and extremely entertaining (as well as educational) documentary is told through minimal archival footage, comment pieces from Jane Fonda, fellow costumiers Ann Roth (a protégé of Kelly’s) and Catherine Martin, Angela Lansbury and others and dramatic monologues reconstructing Orry’s story performed by  Darren Gilshenan  sitting mostly in a red rowboat (don’t ask)- Deborah Kennedy plays his mother Florence, who gets to offer her input while hanging up the washing on a grassy hill in front of a lighthouse (again don’t ask).

I did find this monologue enactment a bit naff, theatrical and jarring. I think a bit more reliance on archival footage or simple reconstruction dramatically without the cheesy stuff would have been better. I like my documentaries to be ‘real’ and tell the story as is. As always though that is the device the filmmakers chose and it is what it is. There is surprisingly little footage of Orry Kelly himself (although his Oscar acceptances are quite available on YouTube) and frankly I don’t know if it simply does not exist, was too expensive to use or too hard to find.

Let me assure you though there is still a lot in the film and it does work well and I loved it. There is even a bit of a mystery to end the film off with. His memoirs are discussed throughout the movie, the knowledge of his relationships, particularly with Mr Leach are pondered upon especially what the memoirs might have revealed. But most of all, what happened to the memoir manuscript itself? Well stay tuned viewer, the movie has news!

This is a film for all Australian filmgoers, especially lovers of the days of Hollywood as it was. It is a great resource for students of filmmaking and film history. It is ultimately a choice piece of documentary making by a skilled film-maker.

I learnt a lot from ‘Women He’s Undressed’ but most of all I was entertained and delighted by a worthy homage of an Australian we all ought to have known about, celebrated and taken pride in.

Good on you Orry Kelly.

4 out of 5

Orry-Kelly: Dressing Hollywood  an exhibition will be at ACMI, Federation Square Melbourne from August 18th - Jan 17th (admission free)

Review: Mr Holmes - What's It All About Sherlock?

Mr Holmes

Starring: Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Frances De la Tout, Hiroyuki Sanada

Written by:  Jeffrey Hatcher (from the novel by Mitch Cullin)

Directed by: Bill Condon

Rated M   105 minutes

I wonder what it is that makes Sherlock Holmes so endearing as a character in film, theatre and TV (even radio in the past)? So many dramas with him as either the central character or part of an ensemble. Why the name ‘Sherlock’ is even part of the vernacular (‘No Sh*t Sherlock’ is one of my sarcastic favorites). I would venture that very few people today who love the character or know the name at least have never read any of the books. I have managed halfway through ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ but bailed.

The latest incarnation of Holmes is in this Ian McKellen star turn.  We see a 93 yr old Sherlock at the end of his life, getting his last story down in his own words – we learn John Watson has been the author of all previous Sherlock stories.  His memory is a bit skewed so he needs to get the story done soonest. He revisits a case that came late in his career. He is helped with the encouragement and possible hero worship given by the son of his housekeeper in the delightful seaside cottage in Sussex he spends his days in, writing and tending his bees. I guess if I read the books I’d know if that enterprise was something I’d have known (or not).

The plot is actually quite convoluted but terribly intriguing and entertaining. I’m not sure why it’s a story about Holmes rather than Conan-Doyle. This might have given the story a different edge or perspective that could have overcome some of the ‘oh dear’ moments but nevertheless we have this film and not another. I know the Holmes’ estate made an attempt to stop or at least edit the film but I don’t know the full objections or where that all ended up.

I very much admire the Sir of McKellen but I think he was a bit over the top in this and perhaps given too much free rein to roll out some acting ‘tricks’. His highly pronounced speech patterns, the somewhat mannered gestures and the arch pauses or delivery of lines was a bit much frankly. That’s not to say it was unbearable or awful just a tad grating and I did have a few ‘oh come on luvvy’ thoughts. Of course the character of Holmes is a bit OTT but the trick is to make him seem eccentric or skilful but human rather than caricature I think.  We need to be engaged by him not want to move away.

Laura Linney as the housekeeper Mrs Munro is baffling frankly, very good but baffling. I’m not sure if something is missing in the final edit or it’s simply a ‘let’s not spend time on that part of the story’ but she waivers from surly and sulky to sad and angry. We know she’s grieving her husband but she just seems a bit too pissed off with something and on the verge of exploding either in rage or tears and I don’t know why. Is it something Holmes represents, something he’s done or just that she’s a dreary, sad old thing? Let’s not be mistaken, Laura Linney is one of this generation’s great actors but her characterisation in this was a mystery to me and it bothered me – a lot.

On the other hand as the young boy Roger, maybe protégé Milo Parker was sensational. I’m soooo tired of these perfect child actors that crop up continually, it’s a disgrace that they are so convincing and so spot on and so watchable at such a young age. Maybe we’re just wrong to think they would be anything but what they are, maybe that’s the gift of being young, not the surprise. Whichever, I thought he was a-mazing.

The cleverness of the script is testament to the skills of. It is beautifully directed (apart perhaps from the loose grip on the Linney character and the excesses of McKellan)and shot, the locations are wonderful and the period is brought to life and nicely realised.

This is a delightful film, odd to be sure but worth a visit.

3 ½ out of 5

Review: Madame Bovary - Suds and Studs a Real Dud

Madame Bovary

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Ezra Miller, Rhys ifans, Paul Giamatti, Lloyd Marshall Green

Written by: Felipe Marino (as Rose Barreneche)

Directed by: Sophie Barthes

118 minutes       Rated M

I’m fond of the story of Madame Bovary. Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel is a spicy and moral tale of one woman in a world where it’s a little bit more difficult to exist in than for most around her, she’s simply not content to conform or to be told how to live. She is a woman with needs and her attempts to satisfy them transcends the precepts of the time and the expectations of her ‘class’. She’s a woman who likes men and what men and women ‘do’ for each other. If she were a bloke it would have all been fine but she was a woman, a chattel and married to a very dull but decent man. It wasn’t enough, it didn’t nourish the part of her that made up a yearn, the primal in her. That yearning provides a good yarn (see what I did there?). It’s a good book, nicely structured, dense but readable and it gives the reader much food for thought. You will not turn the last page of this once scandalous novel and have nothing to ponder on.

All the more disappointing then when a film version is dull and lifeless, hollow and almost formulaic. A visually stunning work that belies the emptiness elsewhere. It’s as though Constable or Monet did their best works only for them to be hung in a laundry without lights. Perhaps the emotional detachment and childish lead is giving us Madame Bovary at the National Gallery rather than that great story, that huge sweeping novel that has such life and spice and great characters…oh where did it all go?

Australian Mia Wasikowski rather bafflingly uses an American accent as Emily Bovary and portrays her as petulant, pouty, sooky and I would not have been shocked if she’d come out with a ‘whatev-ah’. Maybe she was meant to be a woman of today somehow but that would be simply ridiculous.

Somewhat more compelling is Henry Lloyd Hughes as the dull (or unsatisfying) Doctor Charles Bovary. His bewilderment and emotional incapacity is convincing but necessarily dull. The tempters are played well enough with the boyish Ezra Miller as the smitten law clerk Leon and then the hunky Marquis is played strongly and (go for it girl) appealingly by Logan Marshall Green.  Knocking everyone out of the park is the terrific Rhys Ifans as the con man dry-goods dealer Monsieur Lheureux. Thank heavens for him.

So I’m not sure what the director Sophie Barthes was trying to bring us with this re-telling of the classic. It was pretty, the costumes were a-mazing and it was all very ordinary. It was not a great film and it was not terribly entertaining.

Wait for the DVD and watch it either on fast forward (stopping at the pretty scenery) or in stages. Unless you’ve had trouble sleeping when it could just help you nod off for a missed doze.

Dull and disappointing

2 out of 5