This is a gloomy, tense depiction of the infamous Australian convict Alexander Pearce’s escape into the Tasmanian wilderness with his gang of convict buddies. Based on a true story, it doesn’t take long before the guys realise there is no food in this harsh and challenging environment and they must survive through cannibalism. Don’t expect any empathy or justification for their actions like the Andes plane crash film Alive, this is an altogether more brutal tale of the survival of the fittest.
I was expecting something akin to those Ray Mears reconstructions when I purchased this DVD. The ones where hapless tourists find themselves lost in the woods and have to dig up roots and filter the goodness out of bear droppings to survive. Van Dieman’s Land is no fluffy tail of bush-craft however. This is a dark, claustrophobic piece of Australian cinema with a tangible sense of fear running through every frame.
The soundtrack is stark and droning, the imagery is shadowy and oppressive, and the characters are dehumanised by the dirt, the cold and big bushy beards that make then difficult to differentiate. The most disturbing part of the film however, is when they decide to kill an unlucky member of the gang to form the basis of their next non-vegetarian friendly stew. This is invariably carried out by sneaking up behind the unfortunate comrade and whacking them with a sickening blow from the back of an axe. The accompanying sound effects and body convulsions are some of the most shocking scenes I’ve witnessed recently outside of Antichrist. It’s not pleasant, but after this the scenes of stew munching seem tame by comparison, although I doubt Linda McCartney would agree.
It’s another grueller to sit through and would seriously benefit from some humour, hope or even someone doing magic tricks or juggling. There is nothing positive on show for humanity in Van Diemen’s Land, only a selfish and steadfast will to survive. Maybe evlkeith will love the copious tracking shots of dense forest and undergrowth, but for me the film was a soulless piece of historical grit that depressed rather than inspired.
Maybe they should do a remake with Ben Fogle, Ray Mears and Bear Grylls to lighten the mood? 3/10
Doccortex
If you like this you could also try: Alive, Cannibal Apocalypse, Cannibal Holocaust.
This review may be different to other reviews of this remake of Maniac because I haven't actually seen the original. I've always liked the sound of it but never got round to it (The Prowler is another film that I'll watch someday). So I can actually take this version on its own merits and not be comparing it every step of the way. But even so, I'm guessing that the original's better...
Frank (Elijah Wood) is a rather disturbed individual with a hair/scalp fetish. In fact, he likes hair and scalps so much that he collects them, minus the rest of the head and body. The film is primarily shot from Frank's POV with Elijah Wood only being seen in reflective surfaces. Quite an interesting take on the serial killer genre that should put the audience into the mind of the killer. And on this level the film works. Almost.
Elijah Wood again shows his dark side (after his turns in Paris, Je T'aime and Sin City). He looks so shifty and grubby most of the time. But when he later scrubs up and dons a beautiful polo neck he gets even creepier. Who would have thought that the wide eyed little Hobbit would make such a great perverted murderer?
Apart from that I haven't got many positive things to say about Maniac. I'm not convinced that there isn't a hint of misogyny going on here. I can see that Frank is a misogynist and it's fine to have a film about a misogynist (I really liked The Woman that had a similar character at its centre). But why did all of his victims have to be so characterless or unlikeable? The only one of his victims that I actually liked was a ginger lady who he meets in a chat room. She takes him back to her place, immediately strips off and starts to partake in a portion of horatio. I don't think that it's a spoiler to say that she dies soon after. I'm not sure whether she was supposed to be likeable because that title seems to have gone to another character, Anna (Nora Arnezeder). But she's so self-obsessed and shallow that I couldn't have cared less about her. The whole depiction of women left a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth.
If you're a serial killer film then you've got to go toe-to-toe with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and American Psycho (the book). Henry works so well because it gives you a likeable character, in the form of Becky. If you haven't seen Henry I won't spoil it, but the power of the film comes from Henry's relationship with Becky. As I've mentioned above, there is no Becky equivalent in Maniac. American Psycho is brilliant because it escalates continually over the course of the book. Maniac doesn't. The loop goes roughly along the lines of: find girl, stalk girl, kill girl, remove scalp, add scalp to a mannequin. This then repeats and repeats. There is a slight escalation by the end but by then it's too late.
There's something else that irks me: there were moments during the killings that made me laugh. The killings in Henry didn't make me laugh. (Conversely, Man Bites Dog made me laugh a lot, and then cleverly pulled the rug out from under me.) Plus there are a couple of jump moments, one that is just a dreaded loud noise. This all adds up to a film that doesn't have the right tone to be a studied insight into the mind of a killer.
Maniac. The film's called Maniac. The title suggests to me, a person who is savage and completely out of control. There is one moment that can be classed as pretty brutal. One stabbing goes on for a fair while, (the only time when I thought that the title was apt) but even that could have gone on longer. I wanted to come out of Maniac thinking that it was really uncomfortable viewing, with some fairly extreme violence. I wanted to feel the need to look away from the screen due to the unrelenting violence. Yes, I was expecting a horror film. Instead, I came out bored.
The only thing that Maniac adds to the genre is the use of POV shots (one shot involving a car crash is really impressive as is a little nod to the cover of the original film). But that's it really. Elijah Wood comes out of the whole grimy affair quite well and I'd be quite happy to see him in other horror outings. But you might be better off watching the original Maniac instead. I wish I had. 2/10 evlkeith If you like this you could also try: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, American Psycho (the book), Drive.
The blurb proclaims that this is a near perfect film, and in so many ways it is just that. The whole thing is a technical masterpiece; it's shot perfectly, the imagery is perfect, the plot, characterisation and atmosphere are all perfect. However the question needs to be asked, "Why is it not a particularly enjoyable viewing experience?"
The answer almost creates a new genre of film in its own right. This is a grimy little film. There is no hint of positivity here, no hope, no humour. Just grimy degradation, exploitation, illness and deprivation. With more guns, drugs and prostitutes it would be full on gritty, but we are even denied this level of excitement and are left with a seedy, dirty and depressing picture of real life for the Bacelona underclasses. Call it what you want; 'Grimy', 'Grime-core' or 'Grit-lite', Biutiful almost writes its own grimy checklist.
There's no criticism of the actors and Javier Bardem (Vicky Christina Barcelona) in particular is stunningly downbeat and depressing. Parcel him up in a world of immigrant workers, disease, marital problems, guilt, lawlessness and bizarrely, clairvoyancy(!), and you have a deeply disturbing 141 minutes ahead of you.
The start and the ending are fantastically weird, it's the two hours in-between that almost make you lose the will to live. It has something in common with other grimy offerings like Sex Party & Lies, Y Tu Mama Tambein and Amoros Peros, but takes the whole genre down to a new level of hopelessness. The best gritty films add a sprinkling of hope to proceedings (City of God), but Inarritu ignores this convention and we are left looking into the abyss. Only watch if your world looks rosy, because a couple of hours later it will certainly have a darker tinge. 9/10 for technical.
1/10 for enjoyment. Doccortex
If you like this you could also try: Butterfly's Tongue, The Sea Inside, The Secret in Their Eyes.
Arthur (Albert Finney) works in a Nottingham factory . He's not that happy in his job and he lives for the weekends, when he can drink heavily and frolic with the ladies. He's having with wicked way with Brenda (Rachel Roberts), a married woman. He's also got Doreen (Shirley Anne Field) on the go too. His life is complicated.
I'm not sure that films like this get made now, where the focus is on the lives of the working class. Maybe they still do and I'm too busy watching horror. The closest thing I can think of is All or Nothing by Mike Leigh but that's hardly mainstream. People lapped this up at the time. The comedy version of this would have to be Steptoe and Son. It's interesting to see that things haven't exactly changed that much in fifty odd years. After a hard week's work, Arthur gets so tanked that he falls down some stairs on his night out. Maybe they needed a minimum price for alcohol in the sixties too.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning falls into that delightful sub-genre of gritty films known as grime. I can't see that the dirt would be as palpably grimy if this had been shot in colour. Black and white suits it perfectly. The factory looks particularly grim and Health and Safety is non-existent. Despite the noise no-one wore ear protection and they probably didn't use step ladders properly either to get an item from a relatively low shelf. Little tinkers.
Arthur is amoral and anti-establishment. When he hears that one of his girlfriends is pregnant he kindly pays £40 for her to have a back street abortion. (He tries the free option first: his Aunt Ada, who pops the lady in a hot bath for three hours then gets her to drink a pint of gin. It doesn't work.) He also has a novel approach to dealing with nosy neighbours spreading lies (well, the truth really) about him. Some of his insults are pretty tasty too, most aimed at his rather rotund neighbour. Finney turns in a cracking performance, making a fairly unpleasant character likeable.
This isn't your typical Sunday afternoon black and white film. It was one of the first kitchen sink dramas. It got an X rating probably due to the way that it portrays the grubbier side of life. Still, it's only a PG now. Let's face facts, if Arthur was knocking about now, he'd be on Jeremy Kyle. 6/10 evlkeith
If you like this you could also try: Vera Drake, All or Nothing, A Taste of Honey.
