Happy New Year, Colin Burstead

(Ben Wheatley/2018/UK)

Ben Wheatley continues to move away from his esoteric roots in folk horror with what on the surface looks like a family drama centered on a new year’s party and the return of a prodigal son. But for me this is a comedy and falls in line with previous efforts in TV series Ideal, Sightseers and his last film, Free Fire. It is however comedy of the deadpan British wit variety and very much based on character observation. We are definitely supposed to be laughing at these people, from the gothish, grime techno dancing daughter to the beautiful, slightly mysterious German girlfriend, the characters start out being very real and believable but spend the rest of the movie inching towards parodies of themselves. The central character, Colin Burstead, played with sufficient bubbling tension by Neil Maskell, arcs from laddish, in control family man to jittering, existentially dread filled mid life crisis quite brilliantly. His proclamation toward the extended family of “Fuck them all” is a summation of the films subversion of family drama tropes. 

Wheatley and Amy Jump, his wife and long-time script writer, have presented the age old tale of a family at war, people who are obliged to be in each other’s company no matter their differences and animosities. The cliché of finding shared emotional ground and moving past those grievances is turned on its head when the main character is ostracized from the special moment only to continue his angst in a narrative that doesn’t really end. The film is snapshot of sorts with a myriad of players allowing it to flit between scenes and subplots and build a montage of smaller Polaroid moments into an overall picture of ordinary folk in their funny, ordinary lives. An understated but quite affecting film is the result.

(3/5)    

Dreaming Squares

(Paddy Cahill/2018/Ireland)

Dreaming Squares is a short documentary which consists of an interview with Dr. Ronnie Tallon, one of Irelands most prolific and innovative architects of the 20^th century. He gives a brief outline of his influences and approach before focusing on the Carroll Cigarette Factory in Dundalk built in 1970. His architectural philosophy and vision based around the geometric shape of the square was indebted to both the Katsura villa in Kyoto and Ludwig Mies, the Bauhaus exponent. The direct relationship of Tallon’s vision to the Carroll building should be obvious to anyone who has seen it or walked around and inside it but Dreaming Squares acts as a succinct summation of his theory and an exposition of how he put that theory into practice in the design of the building. It is an exemplary piece of modernist architecture and today forms part of the Dundalk Institute of Technology campus, the main reason for my interest in it and the film as I’m currently attending a part time course at the college.

(3/5)       

Local Hero

(Bill Forsyth/1983/UK)

Coming off the back of the success of Gregory’s Girl and having produced two youth orientated films Bill Forsyth took a step into more mature concerns with Local Hero; although you could argue the characters and their hopes and worries are extensions of those in his previous efforts. It tells the story of a big oil company man touched by the natural beauty of a place and the warmth of its community, things lacking in his own life in Houston, Texas. His time spent in Ferness changes him irrevocably, but the film isn’t sentimental or idealistic. Mac is in Ferness to get a job done and that job does get done but the beauty of Local Hero is that it creates space for compromise through the discovery of another way of life and thinking in Mac. It is wonderfully funny and light of touch in its message.

Sometimes the universe aligns so that elements of life coalesce to produce something truly extraordinary and I believe Forsyth was not only aware of this but lucky enough to have it happen with this film. But that’s not to detract from his skills as a film maker; as director he shaped the various elements in Local Hero into his best work and managed to channel a commercial sensibility into his own brand of cinematic philosophy to widen the appeal. The result is a film that transcends its place within early 80’s cinema and is capable of reaching out and touching the minds and souls of viewers decades later. It is his finest film and a work of affirmation and joy which deserves to be seen by all. 

(4/5)