Review - Tsotsi (2005 - Dir. Gavin Hood)

When South African street hoodlum Tsotsi pinches a car from a well-to-do suburban couple the last thing he expects to find on the back seat is a baby. From this point on our hero’s life changes on a variety of levels as caring for the infant conjures up feelings of empathy, memories of his past and his hopes and aspirations. Yes it’s a little like a gritty version of 'A Christmas Carol', but how could that ever be a bad thing?

The film has its wince inducing moments, firstly as Tsotsi and his gang rampage around Johannesburg and latterly as he clumsily attempts to care for the baby. Any new parents could do a lot better than ignoring Tsotsi’s guide to looking after infants, especially nappy changing, feeding, transporting in a carrier bag and insect infestation. Ultimately, however the film leaves you with a lovely warm feeling as if you are soaking in a lovely warm bath of hopefulness for humanity, but without the candles and Lush bath bomb filth.

The lead, Presley Chweneyagae, deserves credit for producing this feel good factor as he struts around the township eliciting feelings of both fear and sympathy. Like the rest of his gang, he’s believable, detailed and likeable. Also worthy of special mention is the lovely Terry Pheto, who portrays a single mum who befriends Tsotsi. She oozes positivity, love and wholesomeness as if she’s some kind of supernatural South African earth mother on a mission to save the lost boys of the township.

It’s a great film without ever reaching the heights and complexities of City of God. South Africa has so much potential for gritty offerings and I’ll definitely be looking up other options from the country over the next year. Some lovely imagery, a great soundtrack and a meaningful story means that this is certainly worth a couple of hours of your time.

7/10
Doccortex

If you like this you could also try:
City of God, Gomorrah. 

Review - City of Men (2007 - Dir. Paulo Morelli

I’ve been craving a good old fashioned grit-fest and wasn’t disappointed by Morelli’s City of Men. There’s Brazilian gangsters with guns, women with guns and children with guns, all blasting each other in a favela based battle for the supremacy of their home area on a hill. The only person without a gun is a children’s football coach and I don’t need to tell you what happens to him. Woven into the mayhem is the a story of friendship, struggle and discovery for the two central characters Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) that provides the necessary hope and warmth to lift this above usual gritty fair. Don’t get your hopes up however, there’s no-one in underpants shooting machine guns, a complete absence of prostitution and a mysterious lack of the ubiquitous handheld gritty camera work.

Cut through all that gritty shooting and this is a lovely story. The tale of two boys in Rio de Janero as they graduate from boys to men is both warming and disturbing as they unlock the secrets of their past, against the background of poverty, deprivation and flying bullets. In a way they circumvent the violence, the drug gangs and the intimidation and live their lives in a separate bubble where hope, humour and love triumph over the general sense of nastiness. Both boys put in determined and believable acting shifts and are always natural, likeable and in the end we really care about their fates.

All the other characters may or may not be ‘actors’ as is often the norm in South American grit-drama, but all are enthralling and never break the veil of reality. The city is almost a character in its own right and from the sunshine of the beach to the ramshackle homes in the favela, the director lovingly depicts and portrays both its visual beauty and its inherent issues with equal measures of sensitivity and shock factor. It’s an intelligent piece of film making that allows us to understand the actions of the characters even if we can’t empathise with them.

All in all, it’s a great film, and as with all the best gritty films it tempers all that unsavouriness with lashings of hope. It’s a recipe for a satisfying viewing experience for grit-fans across the globe. It’s nowhere near as good as City of God, but it’s head and shoulders above the likes of Gomorrah. Add some brutal Elite Squad style cops, a seedy nightclub lavatory scene and Gael Garcia Bernal in a Zorro mask and you’d be looking at a 10/10, but as it stands, it’s a…

8/10
Doccortex

If you like this you could also try:
City of God, Gomorrah.

Review - Van Diemen’s Land (2009 - Dir. Jonathan auf der Heide)

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.

Review - Polisse (2011 - Dir. Maïwenn)

Certain films can be summed up in a single word. That word in Polisse’s case is ‘harrowing’. This is an undeniably gritty, fly on the wall style drama that is realistic, but at the same time disturbing and difficult viewing. For grit fans it may fall under the select few films that are just too real for their own good. On the other hand, if you enjoy a couple of hours of harrowing drama, then you’ll love this.

The whole film looks and feels like a documentary. It’s based around the work of the Child Protection Unit in Paris and follows the lives of the officers both on duty and in their private lives as they struggle to cope with the various horrific situations they meet on a daily basis. Maïwenn spent time with the actual unit and used the specific cases she encountered throughout the film. Needless to say it’s pretty harrowing stuff.

Sadly there are numerous reasons why I didn’t engage with the film rather than just the harrowing nature of the subject matter. The acting is not convincing from any of the unit’s officers with Joeystarr and Karin Viard the worst offenders at looking out of place, awkward and generally trying too hard. Secondly, the humour that the officers no doubt use as a coping mechanism in real life comes over as crass and distinctly unfunny in the context as the film. And finally, as I’ve stated before on several occasions (Biutiful, Gomarrah, etc.), a great gritty film needs hope. Polisse does not leave you with a grain of hope for humanity and leaves you feeling drained and depressed.

The ending also has the ‘bolt on’ feel of a sixth form goth’s poetic screenplay. And the sub plot about the seconded photographer woman is neither necessary nor coherent.  Do I need to go on?

When all a film has got in its favour is its ability to harrow, then it’s probably best avoided.
2/10
Doccortex



If you like this you could also try:
JACKPOT, False Trail, The Hunt.

Review - Sex, Party and Lies (2009 - Dir. Alfonso Albacete, David Menkes)

 In a similar vein to Y Tu Mama Tambien, Sex, Party and Lies can be confidently filed in the sub-genre of grittiness known as Sexy-Grit. Unfortunately, it has none of the warmth or charm of the aforementioned slice of Mexican film-making. This is basically lots of sweaty, Spanish youngsters taking drugs and having sex with each other, while at parties, where they tell lies.

And that's basically that. Never has a title better summarised a film, with virtually every scene containing some permutation of sex, partying or lying. You hardly need to watch the film really. If they'd called it Sex, Party, Lies, Sweating and Irresponsible Drug Taking you actually would not have to watch the film at all. This is a vacuous little tale of hedonistic fun in the sun, but surely there's more to life and cinema than this?

There are some decent performances mixed in with all that sex and sweat. Mario Casas is excellent as the lovelorn Tony and Anna de Armas is both stunning and talented as the deceitful friend Carola. My favourite is the much maligned (in the film anyway) Miriam Giovanelli, who adds the 'comedy' value to the film with a host of quips and references to her being fat. A) It's not funny, B) She's not fat at all, and C) If she is fat then that makes around 95% of everyone in South Yorkshire super fat. Surely all three of them could do so much better with a film that has a story.

On the upside, Sex, Party and Lies begins to define the checklist for the Sexy-Grit genre. No Sexy-Grit film can be complete without dirty, sweaty characters, someone having sex in a seedy toilet cubicle, someone having sex in a seedy alley, lots of drug action, and someone having an overdose. No-one gets shot, there are no children with guns and surprisingly, no prostitutes. Gomorrah fans will surely see this as grit-lite. If the film was a spreadable fat, it would definitely not be Lurpak, it would probably be more like New Balance Light Original Buttery Spread with Flax (look it up spreadable fat fans!)

Yes it's essentially rubbish, but it's gritty rubbish, and sometimes that's a good thing. In this case it isn't. Sex. Party and Lies is an annoying Spanish version of 'Skins' with no soul or originality. The Sexy-Grit genre deserves better.

2/10

Doccortex

(NB this film has obviously percolated in the mind of Doccortex and, as sometimes happens, his view is now a tad more positive. Positive enough to place the film at number 10 in his Top Ten Films of 2012 - evlkieth)

If you like this you could also try:
Y Tu Mama Tambien, 3some.

Review - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960 - Dir. Karel Reisz

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.

Review - Into the Abyss: The Savage Cinema of Dennison Rama (Various years - Dir. Dennison Rama)

This was a retrospective of shorts from Brazilian filmmaker Dennison Ramalho. My ratings will be based on comparisons with other short films.

Nocturnu

This short comes across as more of a music video, with admittedly great music. I'm never that keen on vampires, never have been, and this one contains vampires, so maybe I'm not the best person to comment on this. It had an unsettling atmosphere especially when a nun enters the fray. Not really my cup of tea, luckily better things are to come...
3/10

Love From Mother Only

This one was based on a song, quite a pleasant song about motherly love, and Dennison has slightly twisted it by throwing some Brazilian black magic into the mix. He's a total hero. Two lovers are about to split up unless he leaves his sick mother and runs away with his partner. The stakes gets raised when it becomes, "Kill your mother and bring me her heart." Adding sex, violence and devil worship to well-loved songs is inspired and this short starts to show some real potential.
6/10

Ninjas

Now to my favourite. Think Elite Squad but with even more excessive violence and you're about there. A Brazilian cop accidentally (yeah right) kills a young boy and it gets covered up by his superior. Things all take a turn for the worst as he has to prove his worth by taking part in executing and brutalising a couple of criminals. It was funny to hear how the director gets his funding from the government... and then makes a film that is very critical of the police force. Great stuff.

Ninjas contains one of the harshest uses of nails that I've ever seen (I'll never be able to look at high heels in the same way again) and some twisted religious imagery, but I'd love to see the director go even further with violence. This is really well-made and acted, and makes me think that a feature by Dennison would be fantastic. 
9/10
evlkeith

Review - The Damned United - (2009 - Dir. Tom Hooper)

The Clough family apparently loathe The Damned United in book and film form, and I started watching the film with some trepidation that the memory of Brian Clough may be in some way tarnished or sullied by Hooper's amalgamation of Yorkshire, football and grit. I needn't have worried as the film-makers clearly love Clough as much as the rest of us and treat him with a respect and reverence usually reserved for royalty. Admittedly this is a work of fiction and there's a great deal of artistic license used to pep up the story, but you get the feeling that the true story was possibly more outlandish than David Peace's novel could ever be. If they ever want to make a cricketing equivalent, Father of Doccortex would be an excellent lead character and would pep the story up with a whole host of half truths and rumours that would probably remove the need for a script writer altogether. It would have to be an 18 certificate though.

Anyway, the film is really enjoyable on every level. The plot is based on Brian Clough's 44 day reign as manager of 'dirty' Leeds and his apparent feud with then England manager Don Revie. Michael Sheen is immense as a vibrant, cocksure and charismatic Clough and is well supported by Colm Meaney as the dour, northern Don Revie and Timothy Spall as an understated Peter Taylor. All three provide faultless performances, but are almost upstaged by Jim Broadbent as the stereotypical, working class football club chairman as he struggles to cope with the success that Clough brings.

One criticism may be that the footballers in the film look nothing like footballers today, however in the seventies footballers were just regular blokes who smoked, drank and partied as much as the next man. The fact that Hooper portrays the Leeds team as a bunch of Neanderthals is less worrying than the fact that Billy Bremner is very much seen as a vindictive trouble maker in the dressing room. With no right to reply this seems a bit harsh on Mr. Bremner and was the only part of the film I didn't enjoy.

If I didn't like The Damned United there would have to be some changes in the natural order of the universe. It's gritty, it's from Yorkshire and it's about football. What more could you want? How about a great script, fantastic acting and plenty of humorous one liners?  It's even more enjoyable if you also have an intrinsic dislike for all things Leeds United and it could only be improved by a guest appearance by the trustworthy James Hayter as a ball boy.

8/10

Doccortex

If you like this you could also try:
The Red Riding Trilogy, Clough - The Brian Clough Story.

Review - Sin Nombre (2009 - Dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga)

Sin Nombre is a down to earth American/Mexican hybrid based on life in South American gang culture. It's an unusual film in that the gritty conventions are conformed to in the plot and subject matter, but the cinematography is anything but jerky handheld action. Fukunaga goes for the full Hollywood wide-screen production with some beautiful images of urban and rural Latin America as the backdrop for this tale of lost love and the search for sanctuary.

For Mexican grit fans the film provides few surprises, but equally little in terms of disappointment. There's a whole host of punishment beatings, gang based shootings, execution style killings and general organised crime based mayhem. There's even an accidental murder just for fun, and you almost hear the perp say 'Whoops!'. It's the two convergent story-lines that turn this into a film that is head and shoulders above the gritty waterline (Gomorrah). The plight of El Casper (Edgar Flores) and innocent border crossing hopeful Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) unite their contrasting lives while fleeing for the perceived safety of the USA in a epic journey through inhospitable urban dangers. The acting is universally brilliant with Tenoch Huerta Mejia a particularly charismatic and hauntingly frightening gang leader.

The background and setting of the film tells a second story; of the hardship and desperation of people attempting to escape to a better life. The director used real migrants in the film and this added to the realism of the danger, abuse and daily battle for survival that is fought on the tops of speeding trains. Some of the shots of the train, particularly at night, are stunning and worth the price of the DVD alone.

If there's any criticism, it is that the film could have benefited from being half and hour longer for that true epic feeling. At the end of the day though, if you want a gritty story in a gritty setting, but without the gritty camera work, this is quality piece of work and fits the bill to a tee. Watch on a big television for full effect.

8/10

Doccortex

If you like this you could also try:
Carandiru, Amores Perros, Elite Squad.

Review - Wasteland (2010 - Dir. Lucy Walker, Karen Harley,João Jardim)

This is a bizarre film. It's interesting and thought provoking, however not necessarily that awe inspiring. The premise of the documentary is to follow artist Vik Muniz as he creates art from the lives of the workers and recycled materials of the largest landfill site in all of Brazil. The film is enjoyable on some levels and less so on others, and can basically be split into three distinct areas.

1. As an investigation into the lives of the Jardin Gramacho 'pickers' the film provided an excellent portrayal of the tough and exhausting lives of the team of workers who root through tons of rubbish to scavenge for all manner of recycled material. The stories of all the participants were handled beautifully and it was a heart-warming experience to see the camaraderie and sense of family in the pickers association. If nothing else the project lifted their self esteem and bank balances, at least in the short term.

2. The exploration of Muniz's artistic process was also fascinating. From the initial concept and photography, through to the final gallery displays the attention to detail and love of the subject matter was evident. Ultimately the art was at times breathtaking in its scale and relevance. Muniz takes the idea of a 'large Art Attack' to a whole new level and just shows what Neil Buchanan could have achieved if he'd been given the budget to take Art Attack to global locations.

3. The most disappointing part of the film is the project itself, which left me feeling the participants had been used in some way. Vik's plan had certain aspects in common with the plot of  'My Fair Lady', but attempting to make the pickers into world famous artists which left me feeling slightly uncomfortable. The film doesn't shirk the issue as Vic's wife brilliantly voices her concerns and wariness, but Vic disappointingly refuses to listen and basically tells her to 'shut it.'  I'm sure he would argue the creation of this sense of 'unease' in the viewer is all part of the art. It did really make me think, but I'm still not sure of the morality of the whole project.

At first glance the juxtaposition of grittiness and art looks like an odd combination, but Walker produces an excellent and at times moving documentary that is engaging for both grit fans and art aficionados. If only they'd gone with Andy Goldsworthy instead of Muniz - the mind boggles at what he could have achieved.

6/10

Doccortex

If you like this you could also try:
Rivers and Tides - Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time, Love Is The Devil, Art Attack - Top 20 (VHS).