Black Panther - the right film at the right time

If the Marvel Cinematic Universe was going to make a film about the company’s first black superhero then now would certainly be the time to do it. Circumstances have aligned to make Black Panther a good deal more relevant than it would have been previously.

There is a cultural momentum working in favour of this film and it would be almost impossible to take against it without seeming, at least, churlish. It will undoubtedly be over-praised and much virtue will be signalled in the process, however it is a good enough film to live up to at least some of the hype.

Black Panther is the story of T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) who has succeeded to the throne of Wakanda, a technically advanced African super society which hides itself from the world. He has also, if he survives the challenge, to assume the mantle of the Black Panther, a heroic, super-powered character whose duty is to guard and protect the people of Wakanda.

T’Challa’s reign, and his non-interventionist policy, is threatened by Killmonger (Michael B.Jordan), a distant relative who is determined to use Wakanda’s phenomenal wealth and fabulous technology to lead anti-colonialist insurrection and revolt throughout the world.

This is essentially a good, and interesting, story. It has themes of cultural identity, foreign aid, interventionism, and isolationism which all have a contemporary resonance. Yet at the same time it seems to shy away from really exploring a lot of these issues and relies on the old MCU trope of ‘with great power/wealth comes great responsibility’.

Similarly the execution is fairly safe. There are some serious third-act issues and, despite the talents of director Ryan Coogler, there are not many boats being rocked here stylistically. This is, to all intents and purposes, a Marvel movie with all the attendant traits and tropes. It may be the first film I can recall which borrows from both Frederick Douglass and Pope Francis but essentially this is a by the book Marvel origin story.

There is always a lot riding on these mega-franchise films, where the release date is set before a word of the script is written, and there are a couple of moments which remain unpolished, presumably because of pressure of time and budget. One or two ‘jungle scenes’ have the look of the sound stage while some of the crowd CGI seems a little poorly rendered. Still, it does feature armour-plated combat rhinoceroses which is not something you see every day.

In a strong cast Boseman is a little po-faced and reactive as T’Challa; he’s not as imposing as he should be. Jordan is much better as Killmonger, the best Marvel villain in ages, who is dynamic, and exciting, and seems to have a proactive purpose. Elsewhere Angela Bassett does a nice job as the Queen Mother, and Forrest Whitaker pops up as a tribal elder while Lupita Nyongo is a spy and T’Challa’s love interest.

Andy Serkis and Martin Freeman are the token white characters: now that’s a phrase I don’t get the chance to write very often.

There are a lot of scenes which seem to be heavily influenced by The Lion King on stage and screen, or even the Tarzan movies, and the film takes itself so seriously at times it doesn’t seem aware that its sincerity is veering close to parody. In the end though it is saved by its own good intentions,

I came away from the film thinking that, for me, the most interesting and lively character in the film is Shuri (Letitia Wright). She is T’Challa’s sister and apart from being smart and rebellious, she is also a scientific wizard. A smart, intelligent, funny, independent, strong woman of colour – not something you see every day in the movies.

In the comics Shuri succeeds T’Challa as Black Panther. If they were really serious about being transgressive in the MCU then that would be the way to go next. Somehow I doubt it.

The Shape of Water is a magical. wonderful experience

If you’ll indulge me, I’m going to have a meta moment and write about writing. When I did this professionally – that’s what the title of the blog is about – I always found it harder to deal with good films than bad ones. With a poor film like The Mercy you just pull on the heavy boots and go up one side and down the other, as I did in my most recent blog.

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel; a licence to snark.

With a good film however it is more difficult. The temptation is just to say ‘This is great, go and see it’. That however makes for a very short blog, also there are only so many ways you can praise the film before it looks like money may have changed hands. This is where I find myself with Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, hence my meta musings.

It’s great, go and see it.

If you want me to expand on that then you should go and see it because it is the closest thing we’ve had in the past few years to a piece of pure cinema. It relies on the magical alliance of image, sound, and setting to create a thing of wonder. Since both main characters are mute it also takes us back to the sublime eloquence of the best of silent cinema.

Del Toro’s story is a ‘sequel’ to The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), the last – and for me the best – if the Universal monster cycle. In this film an amphibious creature, The Gill-Man because he is half-human, half-aquatic being, is discovered in the upper reaches of the Amazon.

The Shape of Water is set indeterminately in the 50s/60s, presumably Eisenhower’s America, although there are musical cues from the 30s and 40s, when the creature – here referred to as The Asset - has been captured and brought to a secret installation to be vivisected and presumably militarised. Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) is a cleaner in this facility – mostly she has to clear up the consequences of other experiments. Elisa is mute as a result of childhood abuse so presumably can be relied upon not to tell anyone what she sees.

Elisa meets The Asset (Doug Jones) and is drawn to him. Their scenes together have a dream like quality as two mute characters who can only communicate through sound and movement begin to form a relationship. When she discovers that The Asset is being tortured by Michael Shannon who, with his handy cattle prod, is the embodiment of the military-industrial complex, Elisa decides to release him.

She is aided in her quest by her two friend; fellow cleaner Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and her neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins) a gay commercial artist struggling with his sexuality and the fact that his work is no longer fashionable. This trio of marginalised outcasts take on the might of the military industrial complex because it is the right thing to do. There is also a subplot involving a Russian spy (Michael Stuhlbarg) which drives the action at a fair old clip and prevents the film from being overly sentimental.

The Shape of Water is essentially a classic fairy tale with erotic overtones, a mood it shares mood with the 1954 film. If you take the scene where Julie Adams is swimming in her virginal white swimsuit while The Gill-Man swims unseen, underneath herm mirroring her movements, there is a strong and obvious sexual subtext.

Del Toro has taken a classic Beauty and the Beast theme and given it a political edge. In the process he has created an adult fairy tale in all senses of that phrase. His great strength as a director lies in the conjuring of worlds and settings which are totally compelling. His last two films Pacific Rim (2013) and Crimson Peak (2015) perhaps overdid it, but The Shape of Water echoes Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) in its creation of a setting which not only allows the story to unfold, but adds to its resonance.

Cinematographer Dan Laustsen has crafted a colour palette in various shades of green, from the murkiness of the government motives to a wonderfully optimistic opalescent quality in the magnificent closing sequence. Likewise the production designer Paul Austerberry has created a timeless setting where nothing seems out of place or anachronistic thus encouraging the suspension of disbelief. The final ingredient is Alexandre Desplat’s music which I normally find overly sentimental but strikes the right mood exactly here.

The Shape of Water is complex narratively but del Toro handles the story with guile and craft. A generous director, he gives each of the supporting characters a properly realised story arc. He is rewarded with some lovely performances, not just from Hawkins and Jones, but also, especially, from Richard Jenkins as well as the others.

Three Mexican directors – del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – have had a profound impact on 21^st century cinema. Del Toro is the only one not to have won an Oscar but I would expect the Academy to overcome its historic aversion to this genre and remedy that in a few weeks.

The Shape of Water is great. Did I mention you should go and see it?

The quality of The Mercy is a bit of a strain

The notion of a lone protagonist against the implacable force of nature generally makes for a compelling narrative. There are some great recent examples with The Martian (2015), All is Lost (2013), and Gravity (2013). If you go a little further back there is Cast Away (2000) or I Am Legend (2007) – not to mention The Omega Man (1971) – and further back still you have The Old Man and the Sea (1958).

It’s a winning formula. The conflict is clear and well-established and, in most cases, it is director-proof. You can go one of two ways; you can have the protagonist narrate their way through the film as in Cast Away or The Martian or – trickier but more satisfying – you can have the character get on with it in silence as in All is Lost.

Unfortunately if you hedge your bets, as James Marsh does in The Mercy then you are in big trouble.

The Mercy is the true story of Donald Crowhurst (Colin Firth), a weekend sailor who tried to sail single-handed round the world in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race of 1968. Crowhurst captured the imagination of the nation as he and his pioneering boat the Teignmouth Electron appeared to be on course to set new records.  Stories were fed to the media in this pre-internet age by a weaselly journalist turned PR man (David Thewlis) while Crowhurst’s anxious wife (Rachel Weisz) and doting children waited at home.

It would be unfair to reveal what happens but you can assume that it doesn’t turn out well; stories of smooth sailing rarely make good movies. The fact that I don’t think this is a good movie however  has little to do with Crowhurst’s travails and everything to do with how they are presented.

The story should be meat and drink to director Marsh, an Oscar-winning documentary maker, but, for me, it just didn’t land.

To begin with we have no idea who Crowhurst is. He could be a fool or a rogue, or even a dreamer, but the film doesn’t take a point of view. We get that Crowhurst wants to be famous and we get that he is a little bit of a Walter Mitty, but there is no underlying motive for his actions other than to promote some satnav precursor whose merits are never really fully explained.

Crowhurst should be clutching at straws, there should be some hint of desperation, but instead he rather sleepwalks deeper and deeper into trouble. Without any clear motive we are left with little to hold on to except Firth’s performance. There’s an issue here too.

Donald Crowhurst is not a Colin Firth character. Firth is a fine actor but he doesn’t do mavericks, he does stoic dependability and that’s not what this character needs. I appreciate that Firth brings the money with him but he is also exactly twenty years older than Crowhurst and it shows. He's an honest actor who tries hard but he is miscast.

Rachel Weisz is similarly ill-served by a part that requires her to be little more than a middle class housewife who is endlessly supportive of her foolhardy husband. I get that Clare Crowhurst loved her husband but this film has her being supportive to the point of negligence; if ever a man needed an intervention it was Donald Crowhurst.

With two big stars there is also an issue about whose film it is. Once we are out at sea and things go a bit Pete Tong, Firth should be the focus of our attention like Robert Redford in All is Lost or Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Instead he is presented in a series of lonely mariner clichés while we cut back and forth to Weisz fretting stoically. To be honest my focus was so split that I ended up not really caring about either of them.

Narratively the film is something of a disappointment and visually I found it curiously flat and unimpressive. All things considered, like the race at the heart of the story, The Mercy is a bit of an endurance event for all concerned.

Phantom Thread is worth all of its praise and more

Looking around at what’s been on offer at the cinema for these past couple of months, it seems that the only way to succeed is to be relevant. Everything has to be about something; I don’t mean in any sub textual sense because all films should do that, but in the sense that unless they’re about superheroes every film has to make a statement. Whether it’s Darkest Hour, or Get Out, or Dunkirk, or even Paddington 2, every film has to be accompanied by the great clunking fist of significance.

That’s one of the reasons Phantom Thread is such a triumph. It’s only significance is an attempt to reclaim classic storytelling in a film that celebrates classic Hollywood narrative. The highest compliment I can think of for this film is that it could have been made by Hitchcock in the mid-20th century rather than Paul Thomas Anderson in the first quarter of the 21^st century.

There is more than a touch of Hitchcock in this brooding drama about high fashion couturier Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Lewis) who, even at the moment of his greatest success, frets over his failures and his impending mortality. His sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) packs him off to their country retreat to recharge his batteries. On the way he stops at a country hotel where he is served by Alma (Vicky Krieps), a waitress to whom he is strangely attracted.

He and Alma begin a curiously co-dependent relationship. She becomes his muse, but she is stronger-willed than his usual type. Protected by Cyril, who possibly sees that Alma is good for her brother, she attempts to exert some control over his life with unfortunate consequences.

To go back to my original point, Phantom Thread is not without its subtext. It’s a film about need and desire, as well as obsession and control. In many ways it’s a melancholy ode to the human condition. However, more than all of this, Phantom Thread seems to be a celebration of classic filmmaking.

There is more than a touch of Hitchcock about this film. The superb Lesley Manville as Cyril echoes the sinister Mrs Danvers in Rebecca (1940) but with a greater threat of devastating violence. The relationship between Reynolds and Alma meanwhile echoes that between Scottie and Madeleine in Vertigo (1958), a film with which Phantom Thread has much in common.

Like Hitchcock there is an enormous amount of restraint in this film. The obsessive Woodcock is apparently modelled on the Spanish couturier Balenciaga; Day Lewis apparently learned how to make a Balenciaga dress in preparation for the role. Unusually for a film set in the world of couture it takes a muted approach to its subject, especially when compared to something like Altman’s Pret-a-Porter (1994).

This is a film of superbly composed shots from Anderson, acting here as his own uncredited cinematographer, and editor Dylan Tichenor’s cutting is as smooth and seamless as one of Woodcock’s creations. The colour palette from production designer Mark Tildesley and the sound design from Christopher Scarabrioso are also crucial to the story. Phantom Thread is a celebration of the film maker’s art and from Anderson, who also wrote it, we get a genuine bespoke piece of cinema.

None of this would work however without some extraordinary performances. Lesley Manville quietly steals every scene she is in as the protective Cyril, while Day Lewis drifts through the film almost in a fugue state. His Reynolds Woodcock is in the world but not of the world as he tries to reconcile his obsession with his creativity. Newcomer Vicky Krieps may be the pick of the bunch; it would be easy to play this as a blushing ingenue, but her Alma has an inner steel. She and Woodcock are more alike than either of them might care to admit and Anderson does an excellent job of balancing the narrative between them.

In the end Phantom Thread is a film that haunts you; just as Woodcock is himself ‘haunted’. It is almost impossible to dismiss, scenes and moments creep back into the memory unbidden and, like any great piece of art, it forces you to think about it and reconsider it long after it has finished.

On Oscar nomination day last month there was something of a surprise when this film came away with six nominations. I think it deserves every one of them and the only thing that surprised me was that there weren’t more. I doubt you’ll see many films this year better than Phantom Thread.