Nightlife

(Robin Lehman/1976/USA)

Nightlife is a light hearted, eleven minute look at marine life under the Irish Sea with the footage edited to the rhythm of the soundtrack to choreograph the creatures into a visual dance with good comic effect. You won’t learn anything about the nature onscreen but that’s not the point, it’s more about eliciting some smiles and maybe a few exclamations of wonder along the way too. It seemed very familiar to me and I would hazard a guess it aired on RTE TV on more than one occasion during my childhood of the late 70’s and early 80’s and I have most probably seen it before!

(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)       

The Western Isles

(Terence Egan Bishop/1941/UK)

A 15 minute short about Harris Tweed making on the Hebrides with the story of a young sailor returning from war thrown in for dramatic effect. It shows Flaherty’s continued influence at that time in creating stories to document some aspect of a community’s way of life. The family are all islanders but are not related thus the realism of some scenes is diminished by the sense of people reciting lines. However the shots of the tweed making are brilliant to watch and are obviously more naturalistic. The scene of the women singing as they pat down the material to soften it (waulking) is especially good. The background drama of the son, surviving a German submarine attack and rowing a lifeboat hundreds of miles home, ties the film in as a wartime spirit raiser. The son’s story is erroneously linked to the story of Angus Murray who similarly survived a submarine attack but that happened in 1942 a year after the film was made. Its value in capturing the old fashioned methods of production is obvious now but at the time it was blocked from distribution by the Ministry of Information as it fitted with Goebbels claim of the British being frivolous and hanging onto primitive ways of living.

The Western Isles on Scotland on Screen

(2.5/5)

Uncle Howard

(Aaron Brookner/2016/USA & UK)

Part documentary, part family memoir Uncle Howard looks at the life and career of Howard Brookner. A film director in the 1980’s who made his mark with his portrayal of writer William S. Burroughs in the film Burroughs: The Movie, Brookner’s star shone bright in the artistic community of New York City but for a tragically short time. His nephew Aaron Brookner begins with the discovery of part of his archives, stored in The Bunker, Burroughs old residence in New York. Jim Jarmusch, sound recordist on the Burroughs movie, assists in examining what’s been found whilst recounting tales from the time of making that film. He opens a film reel canister and sniffs, “Smells okay, I think this one’s good”. It’s moments like this that compel you to watch and Brookner’s tale, with the search for lost footage and notebooks, becomes a metaphor for the importance of preserving culture and art that might otherwise disappear into the ether. Shots of Brookner’s nephew with Tom DiCillo or Brad Gooch, Brookner’s partner, watching the old reels and the emotions elicited give testament to this. The film is not just a memoir; it’s about the importance of memoirs.

Anyone half interested in the Beats will find a lot in the first half hour to engage them as lost scenes flicker by of Burroughs and others in various NYC haunts. The footage of Ginsberg and Burroughs on a rooftop, arms around shoulders as Burroughs recites and gets wrong the opening lines to Howl are particularly poignant. There’s conversation with avant garde theatre director Robert Wilson who was the focus of Brookners second film and there’s on set footage and more interviews and recollections from his third film Bloodhounds of Broadway. But Aaron Brookner’s narration on his uncle and the impact the man had on his own life paired with old home movie footage of the family together raise this beyond a mere documentary of a long lost film maker. We get a slice of the man on a personal, intimate level. The warmth of his memories combined with the affection and warmth also of the people who worked with and befriended him all those years ago culminate to betray exactly what a huge loss it was when Howard Brookner passed. The names of the people involved, Jim Jarmusch, Sara Driver and Tom DiCillo and the work they’ve gone on to do can only make you wonder what might have been if Howard Brookner had lived. More importantly though, it might encourage you to seek out his films and revisit them.

(3/5)

The Trader (sovdagari)

(Tamra Gabrichidze/2018/Georgia)

Gela buys second hand clothes, knick knacks and assorted household goods in Tbilisi and carries them around the countryside of Georgia in his van selling them in villages for potatoes which hold more value than actual money. In the twenty or so minutes of this film we are gifted an insight into the hardship and beatitude of life in modern day Georgia. The essence of people’s humanity, their struggle to survive and the cut and thrust of old style bartering are all on show. Tamra Gabrichidze adeptly moves from moments of light heartedness to crushing bleakness, The Trader is a dense microcosm of the harsh realities of global economics with the human will to live as its shining heart.

(4/5)

Out of the Rubble

(Penny Woolcock/2015/UK)

Using footage from the BFI archives, spanning from 1950’s Glasgow to London in 2015, Penny Woolcock looks at urban planning and social housing in Britain since World War II. By cutting across years and juxtaposing footage from different areas and eras she manages to build a very forceful and coherent message using a form of cinematic impressionism. It’s quite an extraordinary 18 minutes that shows how little has changed in attitudes to the poor, immigrants and social housing in over half a century. Through the montage style of editing Woolcock disparages the move away from traditional community structures to suburban, distanced and isolated living. Early on the Isle of Dogs in London is described as a village where everyone looks out for each other immediately followed by someone expressing the wish to tear down all the old towns and build them anew. T.S. Eliot, in Birmingham, pinpoints segregation of class and race as the failings of these new housing drives. Shock expressed at levels of deprivation in 1967 follows footage of deprivation in 2015, the initial hope and optimism in high rise urban renewal projects of the 1950’s contrasts with residents commenting on luxury, private accommodation and retail developments encroaching on their community as property becomes a premium and gentrification spreads. Out of the Rubble is a visually lyrical lament for an older way of life but more so a barbed critique of the one that has replaced it. It is a film I have watched numerous times since first seeing it and its impact hasn’t diminished any. Penny Woolcock, by carefully selecting old, anachronistic clippings from across the ages and stitching them together to create something new, presents a searing and saddening vista on a very relevant current issue.

(5/5)

The Human Scale

(Andreas Møl Dalsgaard/2013/Denmark) 

Jan Gehl is a Danish architect who pioneered a move away from transport focused urban planning in the 70’s towards a more human, experiential centred planning philosophy. This documentary quite plainly, through the use of talking heads, outlines his approach and how it has influenced and been implemented by planners around the globe. Broken into five chapters it looks at various cities where Gehl’s approach has worked and could work. The piece on Christchurch in New Zealand after the terrible earthquake of 2011 is most revealing and a little surprising. The fact that the civic authorities went to the populace and sought their opinion on how to rebuild was heartening but the eventual reappraisal by central government in the face of private interests was typical. It was nice to see local government win out by legislating against any retraction of the peoples will. It’s a very informative film but isn’t very engaging. If you have an interest in the subject it’s going to broaden that understanding but it’s not going to light any fires in you either. I can’t imagine anyone stumbling across this and lasting through it all without some prior knowledge or interest in Gehl. But that aside it’s a decent, straightforward piece on a very pertinent and interesting concept for these times; personally, however, I think we have gone too far in damaging the environment for piecemeal adjustments to traffic and city living to counter or effect the real problem of pollution and overdependence on fossil fuels. That’s not Gehl’s goal obviously but I found myself coming to that conclusion repeatedly as I watched.

(2.5/5)

Mattress Men

(Colm Quinn/2016/Ireland) 

Mattress Men is a recession tale refracted through the phenomenon of Mattress Mick, a Dublin business man who re-invented himself using social media to survive the economic downturn. The mastermind behind this reinvention is Paul Kelly and it’s his story which is at the heart of the documentary. In debt, struggling to keep his relationship together and provide for his kids, Paul throws himself into getting Michael Flynn’s business back on its feet using guerrilla advertising and the persona of Mattress Mick. Lack of recognition for his efforts causes a rift between Kelly and Flynn but Mattress Mick has gotten too big to be brought down by personal conflict. Their relationship becomes a microcosm of post recession Ireland: Flynn, the business entity using every resource to weather the storm of the downturn, and Kelly, the employee, accepting conditions outside the norm for fear of that same storm. We see little of the real Michael Flynn, most of his dialogue is related to his business and how he can progress things otherwise he is seen flitting in and out of offices or waiting in corners on the sets of the videos Kelly makes to keep the Mattress Mick ball rolling. Paul Kelly is the real star, he singlehandedly creates a position for himself refusing to be ground down by the austerity that is crippling his personal life. And it’s his personal life that injects pathos into this film; his story becomes the real concern. There is a niggling feeling of things being too perfect when he lands a long sought contract from Flynn which will help him with his welfare status but assuming it as uncontrived one has to wonder how much this new situation will actually help him. Knowing Flynn as the astute business man he has projected throughout, having someone on contract and off the payroll surely suits him just fine. But this is a disservice to a man who employs someone fulltime to walk the streets dressed as a mattress, seems to be on genuinely good friend terms with all his staff and speaks fair and honest words about Kelly towards the end of the film. Whatever the truth, Mattress Men makes for absorbing viewing. 

(3.5/5)

Altman

(Ron Mann/2014/USA)

An enlightening biography of the fiercely independent American director Robert Altman, this documentary doesn’t get bogged down in interpreting or analyzing the films themselves and concentrates on his methodologies and the story of his personal life. There are lovely contributions from the many and varied actors he worked with and supported throughout his career and the love for him shines through. His family’s remembrances and the home movie excerpts add to the veracity and poignancy of the project. It does a very good job of representing the life’s work of this maverick film maker and added a lot more titles to my “to watch” list.

(3/5)

Older Than Ireland

(Alex Fegan/2015/Ireland)

Taking a sample of Irish centenarians and building interviews around a set of core questions relating to landmarks throughout life such as childhood, marriage, kids, bereavement this documentary excels in teasing out the characters on screen and hitting notes by turn comic, joyful, maudlin and poignant. There is no catchall message about how to survive to such an age or what the secret to life is; indeed the responses to the question about the meaning of life don’t look any different to the responses it might generate in people of any age! The settings of the interviews in the homes of each participant show just how much of a cross section of Irish life is on display also. It’s an insightful and witty documentary and whilst one or two interviewees imply that they might be tired of still being around it imparts a joie de vivre and sense of living life while you have it.

(3.5/5)

24x36: A Movie About Movie Posters

(Kevin Burke/2016/USA)

A documentary tracing the history of movie poster art which races through the early years and very quickly focuses on the modern day phenomenon of Mondo Art. It’s still an interesting and informative watch, providing a base point for further research for anyone interested, but personally I expected to see a lot more history. The initial birth of movie posters is dealt with briefly before a cursory mention of the likes of Reynold Brown and Albert Kaliss and their distinctive 1950’s and 60’s artwork. Too quickly talk moves onto the 70’s and 80’s and focuses on how iconic the poster art became in relation to movies like Apocalypse Now, E.T., Jaws and so forth. Bob Peak, John Alvin and Roger Kastel are all given their due as progenitors of an art form that became so integral to the film industry that they were often involved with the producers and directors directly. The decline of commissioned paintings by the early 90’s to be replaced by star portrait type posters that lacked creativity or imagination is blamed on the advance of graphic image tools, the rise of celebrity and increasing control actors have over their image as commodity. This allowed the traditional movie art of previous years to become fetishised and led to the creation of Mondo Art in the early 2000’s. It takes all of 30-40 minutes to get to this point and the next 50 minutes looks at the present day industry around artists making their own pieces for films, often unlicensed, to feed a geeky audience who collect the artworks similar to comics or toy collectors. The recognition within the film industry that these artworks garner a lot of attention and sales is slowly creeping in and the possibility of a resurgence in commissioned artworks for movie posters is increasing. It’s a good, enlightening film but I would have liked to have seen a lot more of the origins and early years of movie poster art.

(3/5)