Film Listing III

Distributors Blurb

 

"From writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense) comes Lady in the Water.

Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) has been quietly trying to disappear among the burned-out light bulbs and broken appliances of the Cove apartment complex. But one night, Cleveland finds someone else hiding in the mundane routine of the modest building - a mysterious water nymph named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), who has been living in the passageways beneath the buildings swimming pool. Story is being stalked by vicious creatures from her world that are determined to prevent her from making the journey from our world back to hers. Story's unique powers reveal the fates of Cleveland's fellow tenants, whose destinies are tied directly to her own, and they must work together to decipher a series of codes that will unlock the pathway back to her world. They must succeed in their quest to save her world...and ours."

 

Review

 

I included this one because of its exploration of the idea of a parallel world and the results of interaction. The story was developed from a bedtime tale that the director told to his children and as such creates its own mythology. The residents of the Cove apartments are an interesting collection which makes tracking down the individuals with the required talents to help Story get back to her world all the more difficult. Touching with some dark humour.

 

Grate Scot rating : 3/5

Distributors Blurb

 

"Visionary director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Blade II, The Devil's Backbone) creates a unique, richly imagined epic with PAN'S LABYRINTH, a gothic fairy tale set against the postwar era of Franco's Spain.

PAN'S LABYRINTH unfolds through the eyes of Ofelia, a young girl uprooted to a remote military outpost commanded by her new stepfather. Powerless and lonely in a place of great danger, Ofelia lives out her own dark fable as she confronts monsters both otherworldy and human after she discovers a neglected labyrinth behind the family home. There she meets Pan, a fantastical creature who challenges her with three tasks which he claims will reveal her true identity."

 

Review

 

A multi-award winning gothic fairy tale influenced by the likes of Lewis Carroll, Jorge Loius Borges, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood as well as the works of Francisco Goya and Arthur Rackham. The basic plot is of two worlds with a child moving between them. Both worlds are portrayed as dark and dangerous and I seem to remember squirming at a couple of scenes so you can safely assume that this is not a children's film.

It would appear that the English speaking distributors, as well as the French and German, were stuck with a bit of a problem when translating the title from the Spanish "The Faun's Labyrinth". I suppose that Pan has more of a dramatic impact but at the same time the director has stated that the faun in the film is not Pan. Language and culture don't always translate readily.

A strong story with rich visuals makes for a rare treat.

 

Grate Scot rating : 4/5

Distributors Blurb

 

"Edwardian magician Aleister Crowley, dubbed 'The Wickedest Man In The World', shocked the establishment with his exploration of sexual magic, experiments with hallucinogenic drugs and his bizarre occult ceremonies.

Although he gloried in his notoriety, calling himself The Beast 666, Crowley was a sensitive poet, a world champion mountaineer, a skilled chess player, and an expert in occultism, astonishingly he was also an enthusiast of the new science of quantum physics.

So when a secret experiment goes awry, leaving occult obsessive lecturer Professor Haddo (Simon Callow - 4 Weddings And A Funeral) believing he is the resurrected Crowley, his masonic counterparts at Cambridge try and put a stop to his progressively wild indulgencies in drugs, sexual magic and obscene rites. But when Crowley's magic comes into conflict with quantum physics the outcome is extraordinary. With one of the most amazing triple twist endings in movie history."

 

Review

 

Any attempt to portray Crowley is going to be fraught with difficulty simply due to the polar reactions which he induces and it is probably to this film's credit that it is mostly dealing with a contemporary fictional storyline with Crowley's character resurrected. Although made on a tight budget the resulting film doesn't seem to suffer.

Given the subject matter it goes without saying that this film contains sexually explicit scenes. For occult fans the names of various characters, and the references to others, will be a source of some amusement much as was the case with Crolwey's book "Moonchild". It is probably only fair to warn the occultists that this film contains explicit quantum physics references. Chaos theory or chaos magic?

Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. I'd imagine that is just the way that Uncle Aleister would have liked it.

 

Grate Scot rating : 4/5

Distributors Blurb

 

"A heroic crusader (Nicolas Cage - Knowing, Drive Angry) and his close ally (Ron Perlman - Hellboy, Sons of Anarchy) return home after decades of fierce fighting to find their world destroyed by the Plague.

Believing a witch to be responsible for the devestation, they are commanded by the church Cardinal (Christopher Lee - Lord Of The Rings) to transport the girl to a remote monastery where monks will perform an ancient ritual to rid the land of her curse.

But they soon discover the girl's dark secret and find themselves battling a powerful and destructive force that will determine the fate of the world forever."

 

Review

 

It must have been a very tempting idea to write a story which brings together the three themes; the crusades, the black death and the persecution of witches. The main problem is that these events don't overlap. What the hell, let's call it fantasy. The crusades, as we understand them, came to an end in 1291 with the fall of Acre which was the last stronghold in Palestine. The Templars (red cross on a white background) were suppressed throughout Europe by the Pope in 1312. In that case why bother placing the knights at the battle of Smyrna (in modern day Turkey) in 1344 which involved the Knights Hospitaller (a white cross on red background) and not the Teutonic Knights (black cross on a white background). The Black Death didn't hit Constaninople until 1347 and central europe until 1348 so they must have had a slow journey home if it is supposed to have overtaken them. The church's persecution of witches didn't get into full swing until the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum in 1486 which provided the inquisitors with a hand book for the treatment of witches so the main period of persecution was at least one hundred and fifty years after the intial wave of the plague.

Okay, I'll admit that I'm biased as there was a previous film which I quite enjoyed and which shared the same title so for me it is not a good start. At first I was beginning to think that someone was remaking The Seventh Seal which has similar historical problems regarding returning from the crusades to find the land ravaged by plague. If they had left out the references and depiction of the persecution of witches and just treated this as a story of demonic possesion it might work better. If they had left out Cage's character, a sensitive crusader is a contradiction in terms. If they had left out Cage (sorry to him and his fans but I think that he is seriously miscast with the possible exception of the US market). Fiction works best when it is believable.

A well produced film which takes the image of witchcraft a massive step backwards.

 

Grate Scot rating : 3/5