The Kid With A Bike (2011, Jean-Piere & Luc Dardenne)

Abandoned youth, directionless angst, and the limitless capacity for human kindness fills the newest offering from the Dardenne Brothers. The Kid With A Bike is the most accessible of their films to date, filled with genuine emotion and tenderness but also that cold slice of pseudo-reality that runs through all of their work. As usual you can expect a film devoid of any idea of closed romantic realism but still one of the most uplifting experiences of the year. 

Cyril is a young boy who has been rejected by his father, living in a foster home due to his father's lack of responsibility Cyril spends the first half of the story coming to terms with his unaffectionate parent. A struggle which unfurls heartbreakingly as you see the one way street of love the two of share. Within a struggle happening in a local medical practice between Cyril and his social workers, a woman literal topples into Cyril's life as he uses her as an anchor to meet his demands. This woman, Samantha, played by the wonderful Cécile De France, takes an instant liking to the troubled boy and later reunites him with the bike his father took from him. A relationship grows between the two as Cyril stays with Samantha on weekends before becoming his permanent foster parent. Not all is happy families at first, though; Cyril resents his new carer and doesn't stop at filling the gap left by the absence of a father figure which gravitates him towards a life of crime. The central drama revolves around Samantha's devotion to the young boy and her battle to keep him from ruining his life, desperately trying to restore his faith in the people who really care and not those out to exploit him. 

Samantha's love for Cyril is never explained through her own upbringing or any factors from her past and neither do we wonder her reasons, she just does, unconditionally through the sacrifices she makes from him from the offset. There is a moment when she breaks down realising Cyril is beyond help, her emotional outburst is heart wrenching, a mighty testament to De France's palpable performance and the sheer power of cinema on display. Pure cinema that comes from a human place, one that isn't moulded with a demographic in mind. The Dardenne's films, like the undeniable post-war movements they're so in tune with, are of small human crises that of course in the shadow of big budget Hollywood seem insignificant to some, but it's these stories that matter and are the ones we often live through ourselves. If the cinema is a vessel for the human experience then the Dardennes are creating pure cinema.

The film has a revelation in the form of Thomas Doret as Cyril who makes his acting debut here, the psychology behind his eyes is just remarkable as you can see his thoughts and feel his detachment. The pent up emotions of the film are beautifully displayed with the use of Beethoven's 'Adagio un poco mosso' which sporadically plays in dramatically heightened moments before refraining, only in the closing credits does the piece unfold beyond what was allowed during the drama.

The Kid With A Bike is as masterful and deeply humane as anything you'd expect from these two filmmakers who throughout their career seem incapable of making a film without relevance. They are two of the finest living directors, kings of understatement, achieving more than most artists ever aspire to or dreamed of. At times during the film I was so caught up in the lives of these characters during certain moments I could swear my heart ceased beating, very few films contain this power and even fewer filmmakers can harness it. The secret to their success is their sincerity and appreciation for basic human experiences with their most recent venture being perhaps the best example of this rare humanity.

Lawless (2012, John Hillcoat)

This seemingly hackneyed tale of cops-and-robbers blossoms beyond a mere exercise in narrative thrills, focussing on a formalist level of mythic storytelling, a rites of passage telling of a young man's confrontation with worldly evil. Lawless sees director John Hillcoat further materialise himself as a rising auteur and though the film seems over tuned compared to his previous work, there is little to be disappointed with here.

Based on the novel The Wettest County In the World, author Matt Bondurant drew inspiration for his story from his own family history; his grandfather and two brothers and their participation in The Great Moonshine Conspiracy of 1935. Shia LeBeouf plays youngest brother Jack, with Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke as his older more world worn brothers. The three of them make ends meet selling homemade (illegal) liqueur during The Great Depression in Virginia; the brothers are neither greedy nor are they violent unless called upon, they are merely honest and good natured people working a living in a depraved world. Though these characters are capable of great violence, they are not bloodthirsty, though others unfortunately are. Lawless isn't for the faint hearted.

In steps villain of the piece Special Agent Charlie Rakes played by Guy Pierce; Rakes is an incarnation of evil and perhaps the slimiest most detestable villain we're likely to see all year. Working for a crooked politician, his purpose is to press down on the Bondurant brother's business to take a cut of their earnings like everyone else in the county. So begins a war of pride and steadfastness as the brothers, particularly Hardy's 'invincible' Forest, refuses to bow down. As the journey into bloodshed commences so does Jack's personal journey, with LeBeouf providing a very fine assured performance of a young man dragged rather than drawn into a war zone. The adolescent Jack shown in the opening segment who didn't have it in him to kill a farmed pig is soon long forgotten as the horror sets in. The turns in violence that grow throughout and emphasis on family strikes genuine notes of tragedy in a similar manner to that of Jeff Nichols' brilliant Shotgun Diaries.

Survival and the family unit under pressure has formed the basis for Hillcoat's last three features; the father/son relationship of The Road and the three Burns brothers of The Proposition - the film that Lawless relates to most. Like the mythic beast that was Arthur Burns, in Lawless we have a similar figure, albeit a more compassionate one in Forest Bondurant; his presence brings the weight of experience with it, a still fairly young life hardened by the world. Forest, like his damaged veteran brother Howard know that for their young Jack to survive he must be like they are, waiting for the event to finally bring that transition around.

All three of Hillcoat's films take place in brutal landscapes where life has becomes cheap and human bonds tested to lengthy extremes and Lawless is no different, save for a feeling of economy in the storytelling more apparent than the others. Nick Cave's screenplay is a driven and purposeful one set on accomplishing it's goals without pretension, an admirable quality that finds the picture feel rather hemmed in when put against the expansiveness of his more at ease approach for The Proposition. Perhaps it's due to there being more tasks to complete this time round; there is, after all, the love interests for Jack and Forest played by Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain respectively. Then there's the matter of shoehorning Gary Oldman's criminal master Floyd Banner into the picture, a catalytic addition that helps along Jack's transition. Oldman is left with only two major scenes despite his name earning top billing, whether that is satisfactory will depend on the viewer's adoration over one of the world's finest performers. With such a striking screen presence Lawless would only have benefitted from more of Oldman's Banner, in fact the film could have benefited from being longer. At just under two hours it feels rather condensed, sometimes feeling stifled in its developments. Some extra time would have allowed it to unfurl more comfortably, leaving the incredible ensemble of actors feeling more necessary in their involvement.

The fact that Matt Bondurant dug up his family history through the grapevine and old documents provide the film with a touching personal quality of melancholia, a feeling of times past but with an essence of hope due to the story's timeless message of mortality. The film is bathed in a romanticised nostalgia, with Benoit Delhomme's photography producing as if from memory, Jack's memory? Or perhaps our version of memory as we try to imagine life of the past, relying only on films such as these to take us there. The photography heightens the landscape of the film's Virginia setting, a glorious land that probably didn't have trees as luscious as shown, or fields as vast and healthy, but if Jack Bondurant were alive today he would most likely imagine them as so.

As Lawless ascends to levels of ever increasing intensity before giving way to its impressively warm finale, the pieces of understated performances come together to form a rewarding conclusion, revealing how attached we've become to these largely reticent characters. Some well placed moments of humour are also fitting and work well to ease the nerves after an explosive third act. To analyse Lawless on the merit of narrative structure, characterisation, and plausibility would be ill advised as it clearly wasn't the intention of all involved to operate on such regular levels. This is a film playing off mythic conventions with archetypal characters representing more than the individual,  something bigger than all of us yet something unavoidable. For this, it's easier to forgive its imperfections - its clashes of performance and narrow narrative space  - because it's clear these were conscious decisions made to make the film work on a particular level, and it works just fine.

Cosmopolis (2012, David Cronenberg)

Cosmopolis unfortunately suffers from the same problem as David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, a problem in that it's far too expository for its own good. Both films harbour high concepts and insights into the human condition but flatline through their execution; Cronenberg has always been a cerebral filmmaker but with his last two films his departure from the flesh and into the psyche has delivered waning results - the Canadian auteur's strengths have always come from showing, not telling. Some of Cosmopolis' problems may lie in the very make-up of its story but that can hardly be classed as a saving grace.

Here Cronenberg channels Don DeLillo's 2003 novel about Manhattan billionaire Eric Packer travelling  across town via limo for a haircut. Does he need a haircut? Probably not, but he wants one and that's a start in understanding the film's heavily laden philosophy on mankind's relationship with wealth and technology. Twilight star Robert Pattinson plays Eric to a tee, his eyes distant, his manor at times awkward but again compulsive and headstrong at others. Here's a man wrestling with who he is and what he means in the world, you can argue that Packer is a man full of hubris and narcissism but really he's self-loathing to the core and Pattinson conveys it convincingly. The film predominantly takes place inside the limo as we witness several meetings between Packer and his associates; each new character's role in the billionaire's life are never revealed but the problem of his business in grave decline is made clear. Each visitor is beckoned to the limo, even a doctor's appointment takes place there, as well as sexual gratification Eric has the world at his finger tips with his car acting as shield from outside dangers such as anti-capatalist riots and personal threats to his life.

Cosmopolis is full of talking heads, while most films are dialogue heavy this involves each entering character to spew forth an extended monologue full of philosophical ramblings. No one in the film comes close to human; interactions feel robotic and disjointed, while that may be the point it displays only one gear and operates on the same level throughout, outstaying its welcome after the first hour. It's clear the film's automaton like players have purpose and direct connections to its conveyed themes of technology and wealth destroying life's essence, but its an element that engrosses as a concept but not in practice. It's incredibly jarring when scenes are played out as if characters are reading DeLillo's words straight from the source, this is just one of many issues the film has in alienating its audience to an alarming degree. Whether this was Cronenberg's choice to make us as indifferent to the characters as they are to each other (at one point Eric seems impressed that he and his newly-wed are maintaining a conversation) is besides the point as we're left outside in the cold while a good film plays inside out of view. Even Howard Shore's atmospheric pulsating score is sparse, never allowing a consistent tone beyond the endless chatter and dead-air.

Cosmopolis oozes with intelligence and ideas, ones that could form a whole evening with discussion and basis for infinite analysis, but here lies the problem - the film is retrospectively engaging but one that refuses to be an engaging experience at all cost. Cronenberg leaves us with plenty to think over but is this enough from the creator of such intellectually visceral films like Videodrome and Naked Lunch? Films that used powerful visual metaphor where mere words weren't enough.

There are some sporadic uses of imagery that sticks in the mind; the anti-capatilist riots involving giant rats is a highlight, also the sudden violence acted on Eric by himself. His excessive wealth and the technological world has left him lifeless and dead inside and there is a sense of tragedy in a man who's only chance to feel is to blast a hole through his hand. This tragedy lies in a larger worldly sense than just Eric himself, everyone in Cosmopolis are archetypal constructs after all. These moments are few and far between and only hint to elements that could have been used for further effect from a filmmaker who never feared to go further than the rest. Whereas A Dangerous Method saw Cronenberg become an interchangeable oddity in a film he was born to make, there is no doubt that only Cronenberg could have made Cosmopolis, the kind of failure only a great director can make. 

Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, 2011)

Take Shelter appears to be an exercise in genre from afar, an apocalyptic tale full of Godly spite and Biblical allegory; up close it's actually a shockingly intimate drama playing down expectations instead embarking on a familial drama charting resurgent mental illness. No need to feel gipped here though as the film is steeped in ambiguity regarding its central character who may (or may not) be plagued with prophetic dreams of the world's end, keeping the stakes high enough for an uncomfortable ride.


Michael Shannon plays Curtis, husband to Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and father to their young deaf daughter Hannah. He works as a construction worker and seems generally happy with his existence, that is until he's haunted by dreams of a deadly storm, a terrifying vision of post-apocalypic hysteria not too distant from Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2009). As the dreams intensify and hallucinatory symptoms emerge causing Curtis to confuse dream with reality he starts pushing those closest to him away as they become involved in his night terrors. With his behaviour become increasingly erratic his wife starts to doubt his health as he becomes determined to protect his family from the oncoming storm, obsessively building a bunker to save them at all cost.


What at first starts as an apocalyptic story not unlike many others proving popular as of late it divulges a different purpose all together; though we're never sure whether Curtis' psychotic episodes are imagined or part of a supernatural prophecy, Take Shelter ripens into a character study regarding the effects of mental illness in the family. Hardly a subject to depict in ease the drama never sets a wrong foot, always sincere and fully realised at every turn it never assumes anything and feels entirely confident in its execution. This is largely helped by the talents of Shannon and Chastain, as we witness the foundations of their marriage crumble we're completely transfixed in their troubles and feel both sides of their desperation. The film's two hours are spent almost entirely focussed on Curtis therefore sidelining Samantha; Jessica Chastain adds such depth and emotion to her that despite following another character throughout she manages to become our emotional compass as we feel her pain and worries over her husband's inexplainable behaviour. We're able to attach to both sides of the marriage making for a successfully conflicting and affective drama.

Writer/director Jeff Nichols announced himself as a young talent to watch with the stunning Shotgun Stories in 2007, which also starred Michael Shannon. With Take Shelter there's no doubt in Nichols as a rising filmmaker seeping with these two understated productions to his name. His knack for building atmosphere and wonder from the most acquainted of subjects - in this case small town America -  brings to mind the ponder-some otherworldly qualities of Terrence Malick. Like Malick who emerged in the 70s, Nichols has arrived as a fully formed talent producing confident stately pictures, an occurrence rarely seen in directors this early in a career. In just two films it's clear that Nichols has great affinity for actors, crafting deep resonating scenes around the talents of his cast; with Michael Shannon starring in his third film Mud we're seeing an exciting actor/director relationship continuously evolve. With Shannon - a huge talent with possibly the most impactful presence of any actor working today - able to be contained and used with precise craft by a director showing as much promise as Nichols, anything produced from them in the future will be highly anticipated.


Take Shelter is impossible to fault, those that can were perhaps expecting a middle-of-the-road genre picture offering cheap thrills. It operates as both a subjective supernatural thriller and topical family drama with the most fulfilling of results. It may not offer any new revealing notes regarding mental illness remaining reticent in its dealings though consistently respectful to the topic. This of course was never the sole aim and by remaining ambiguous till the end we never know how much truth was in Curtis' visions but from either side of the truth both remain fully realised and impressive. Everything about Take Shelter is stirring making it a firm recommended watch.

Winter's Bone (dir. Debra Granik, 2010)

Plot: An unflinching Ozark Mountain girl hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact.

Winter's Bone is the film that conquered the Sundance film festival and looks likely to conquer the next Oscars due to its young starlet Jennifer Lawrence's portrayal of a iron willed and warm hearted mountain girl.

Ree Dolly is a Missouri mountain girl who is made mother of the household due to her catatonic mother and absent father. She cooks cleans and does everything a mother should do for her young brother and sister while stricken in poverty.

When the local Sheriff arrives one day and gives Ree the news that her drug dealing father has put the family home up as collateral for his bail, Ree makes it her mission to find her father who may or may not be dead before they lose their home.

Winter's Bone is one of the bleakest and darkest films you will see this year but don't let that put you off as it's also one of the best. At it's core is a warm story about the lengths that a girl will go for her family no matter what the consequences are for herself, with its' young motherly lead character and its female director 'Winter's Bone' is very much in touch with its maternal side.

When Ree tries to track down her father, the locals take a sinister turn and warn her to keep out of her father's business. The underbelly of the town is largely hinted at and shown rather than talked about but it's clear that many of these locals as well as Ree's father are part of the cooking and selling of crystal meth.

The story and mood of the film is reminiscent of David Lynch's influential 'Twin Peaks', with its' northern rural town setting, missing person, shady locals and buried secrets. This link was made all the more relevant when Twin Peak's very own Sheryl Lee makes an appearance half way through the film.

The focus of the film is on Ree's character and the media have given much praise of 19 year old Jennifer Lawrence's performance and rightly so. As amazing as she is, another performance steals the show with John Hawkes tragic take on Ree's uncle Teardrop who is an interesting and troubled man worthy of a film himself in many respects.

At one point in the film Ree has been severely beaten by the locals for not adhering to their wishes, after she has been cleaned up by her best friend all Ree cares about is that her brother and sister get their homework done, this is the kind of person Ree is. The poverty in 'Winter's Bone' is awful to imagine but is also refreshing to see on the big screen, so many Hollywood films brush America's devastating poverty under the carpet by giving their characters swanky jobs, big houses and attractive vain friends. In 'Winter's Bone' this is as real as it gets, the American dream isn't on the mind of Ree as she struggles to feed her family each night and teaches her siblings how to use a rifle in case anything happens to her.

Summary:

If Jennifer Lawrence doesn't win best actress for this then to hell with the Oscars, we could have the next Charlize Theron on our hands with her promising talent. 'Winter's Bone' is a bitter pill to swallow but is also a film with a heart so big and so real that it is hard to resist...expect to hear a lot more about this title and especially Jennifer Lawrence over the next few months.

A Prophet/Un Prophète (2009, Jacques Audiard)

Charting the day to day survival and eventual rise to power of a young man while serving a sentence in a brutal French prison, A Prophet masterfully melds an intimate personal journey and sprawling crime thriller in a fashion as rich as the works of Bresson or Mizoguchi. Jacques Audiard has created an atmospheric boundless tour de force piece of cinema, one of the finest offerings of the year, and undoubtably his best work to date. 

The relatively unknown and fresh actor Tahar Rahim plays Malik, a 19 year old delinquent beginning his six year sentence. Introduced to him as he's admitted, the camera never strays far from him throughout the drama to come. Despite a close fixation on the young man we learn very little about him, omitting any hint of a backstory and only hinting at his convicted crime - the supposed assault of a police officer. 

It doesn't take long before Malik is approached by a Corsican gang headed by the frightful César (Niels Arestrup) who proposition him; a new inmate (Reyeb) has arrived who will later testify in court, in their interest Malik is told that if he doesn't kill Reyeb he will be killed instead. What follows is an uncomfortable sequence of Malik preparing to reluctantly go through with the plan, he must gain Reyeb's trust, get close to him and kill him with a razor blade hidden in his mouth. The plan goes through with intense digust and marks for a cataclysmic event in Malik's life. Now working under the protection of the Corsicans, Malik rises somewhat in the prison system through learning from his new dangerous liaisons and using the prison's education plan to its full advantage. 

As he rises and gains more and more control in and out of prison thanks to well orchestrated pardon days, Malick is haunted by Reyeb's death, appearing in ghostly apparitions throughout the film. Malik's guilt is shown quite literally in these visitations but is never voiced, in fact none of his thoughts or emotions are externalised here. While the film seems to paint its central protagonist as a blank slate muddied by his incarceration, it's Rahim's assured performance and natural likability that keeps us drawn to him. To be kept this emotionally distant from Malik but utterly absorbed by his decisions and general wellbeing is a mighty achievement.

A Prophet is such a rich piece of work it's difficult to decipher through the layers exactly what it's trying to say about a number of things, an obstacle that makes the film enigmatically irresistible. Audiard's films have always featured men on the fringes of society and here this is pushed even further; as Malik is pardoned on individual days for release he is a free man while remaining an inmate. More elaborately his mix of French/Arab ethnicity causes him to be segregated due to the prejudicial battle of his environment; to the Muslim inmates Malik is viewed as a Corsican and even by some of the Corsicans he serves is still seen as an Arab, thus treated disrespectfully by both camps. This sense of identity is perhaps more abstractly proposed in Reyeb's apparitions, after all, Malik never once shows any connection to his Arabic heritage (It's even hinted that he was an orphan) and through his reluctant murder of Reyeb (an Arab man) he is perhaps killing this disconnected part of himself, a sinful action with a fruitful return. One can even argue that Audiard is critiquing the justice and subsequent rehabilitation system as Malik combines his new background of organised crime with newly acquired knowledge from his economics class. With Malik's close friend Ryad released and struggling with family and minimum wage, the only answer is crime.

There is so much to be drawn from A Prophet, a film that on the surface seems like a barebones prison drama but is in fact one containing detailed nuances and more thematic levels than one would think possible in a narrative that never stops pushing forth the tropes of a standard crime thriller. 

If Jacques Audiard's male protagonists have always been situated on the fringe between societal normality and damaging undertow, I likewise believe his films have to this point been delicately balanced on the edge of great filmmaking. A career full of undeniable quality, though one could see this filmmaker was yet to peak as he slowly built towards a truly exceptional piece of work. With A Prophet I believe he's arrived there.