It’s official. The beauty of Neil Gaiman’s imagination has at last been realised in Coraline. The film is visually stunning, witty and most of all strangely moving; I haven’t enjoyed a film for children this much in a long time.
What worried me was that the young audience I was part of were not so appreciative. This isn’t a film for the very young, and maybe not even for the impatient adult (as I left the cinema I overheard a child asking her mother what long winded meant). Although only 100 minutes in length Coraline did appear as quite long (I think animated films are just more exhausting), and the ten year old film critic that accompanied me appeared oddly deflated. Perhaps it was the element of scare in the movie. Perhaps I had built it up too much. Perhaps Neil Gaiman is a matter of acquired taste.
But I loved it. Coraline is visually breathtaking, perhaps the best animated film I have ever seen. It isn’t just the level of technology; I found the effects weren’t just there to be showy and always complimented the story perfectly. Because Coraline is essentially a fairy tale, there’s a fairy tale logic to everything that happens. It’s very tight, and for all my scrutiny I could find no holes in the plot. Director Henry Selick (responsible for the vaguely similar James and the Giant Peach) does a very accomplished job. Probably both in 2D and 3D – the 3D version of the film we saw today doesn’t, I suspect, add too much. It’s just a great experience without the extra bells and whistles.
Those familiar with Gaiman’s work will already know the story of Coraline. A girl who briefly escapes her dull new home, where her parents spend most of their waking hours with their backs turned, to visit a half dreamlike alternative world where her mum and dad appear exciting and, most importantly, interested in her. Appear is the key world here, as the people in this “other” world have buttons for eyes. Something isn’t quite right because, quite rightly, buttons for eyes are the stuff of nightmares.
So unfolds the brilliant fairy tale. The animation realises it superbly, from button shadows covering the moon, to performing mice, a very wise cat and an eerie tunnel between the two worlds (pictured) that brought back the worst memories of Hellraiser from the corners of my memory. Best of all is how Coraline slowly realises that horror is around her and that she must act. Dakota Fanning (from Charlotte’s Web) is fantastic in the role, totally believable throughout. As I’ve said, it’s also moving; especially the scene when Coraline loses her real mum and dad and creates her own pair of button parents to prop beside her in the empty double bed.
The rest of the cast are also wonderful. Teri Hatcher is very impressive as both of Coraline’s mothers, Ian McShane plays an eccentric neighbour and Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders turn up as two rather odd sisters to provide some humour. Unlike many animated films, however, Coraline never knowingly assumes it can go over young heads, although the trade off I suspect is the very young, who just aren’t ready yet for this sort of sophistication. Unwittingly, this film may be just too advanced for much of its intended audience.
My pals on Twitter will already know that I’ve given this a nine out of ten. I’m sticking with that, but I feel that there was so much in this film that I need to see it again. It’s so lovingly made, and that’s a rarity these days in children’s cinema. This is quality, real quality. So hats off to this film, and even a bow; the best film I’ve seen this year.
In 1972 Alfred Hitchcock returned to London to make his penultimate film Frenzy. After a few lacklustre years which produced the below average Torn Curtain and Topaz, this was his last great movie. A return to form, and a return to his best and most recurring theme, the wrong man. Hitchcock had been away in Hollywood for a long time, and Frenzy fondly went back to his roots for what I’ve always thought was a very accomplished swansong. Looking at it again, I believe that Frenzy is a true classic of British cinema.
In Frenzy Jon Finch plays Richard Blaney, our man wrongly accused of being the necktie murderer, a quaint term for what films would be calling serial killers two decades later. Despite the subject, Frenzy is at times quaint. The Covent Garden setting reveals a bygone time, both in the styles and locations of 70s London and in the fact that sometimes Hitchcock appears to treat his capital as if he has never left it, and that it hadn’t altered in the intervening years. Characters appear to talk in an almost 30s twang, interiors of cars have a suspiciously fake backdrop, truck drivers still whistle, people still say “pleased to meet you, I’m sure!” And so on. Hitchcock also however takes advantage of a more permissive age of cinema; there’s nudity, nastiness and swearing in this strange 30s/70s world.
Where in The 39 Steps Robert Donat ran across the British Isles with the police in hot pursuit, which involved train journeys, noisy flocks of sheep (and a memorable meeting with John Laurie’s stern crofter), Jon Finch in Frenzy is content to dash around the nooks and crannies of Covent Garden. This is a London film, through and through. And although most of it is filmed on location, there is the tell tale sign of carefully orchestrated extras carrying sacks of vegetables, and the sometimes obvious jump between outside and studio scenes. Visually, it’s London as Hitchcock wanted it.
Frenzy opens somewhat grandly, the camera sweeping majestically across London from a great height above. Seeing the film again, I was reminded of the magnificent crane shot in Young and Innocent, where the camera slowly moves across a ballroom, then towards the band playing and finally at the drummer and the drummer’s eyes; the drummer’s twitching eye revealing that this is our man. This is our murderer. As Frenzy opens with the camera flying past Tower Bridge it settles on a crowd at the riverside, who are about to discover a murder (“it’s another one of those necktie murders!” they excitedly cry). The film thus starts very quickly, no time for preamble and straight into an almost textbook murder plot. Although this turns out to be the manual of suspense films; it is the textbook.
With the idea of the necktie murderer firmly in the mind of the audience Hitchcock delivers the first of his many deft touches throughout this film. The scene quickly cuts to the first sight of Blaney as he is fastening his tie. Surely not – no? So soon we see the murderer? But this is a double bluff; we know, we really know, that this is not going to be our villain, and we sink into the comfort of the wrong man plot. Hitchcock further fleshes things out for us; Blaney is down on his luck, an ex squadron leader now working as a Covent Garden barman. He’s sacked by his landlord (a very nasty Bernard Cribbins) who accuses him of fingering the till. Blaney wanders into another pub, arguing with the barman as two respectable gents also walk in and discuss their thoughts on the “necktie murders”. Is this tipsy and aggressive man the villain? No, of course he isn’t. But we can see why he will get the blame.
Blaney runs into an acquaintance called Bob Rusk, a cockney wideboy played by Barry Foster. He is also on fairly amicable terms with his posh ex-wife Brenda, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, who runs a “marriage bureau” (common in 30s/70s London). He also has a girlfriend in the more down to earth Babs (Anna Massey). It’s all fairly jolly really, until Hitchcock does a really terrible thing. In a truly chilling, chilling, scene, Rusk is unmasked as the real necktie murderer and kills Brenda. Hitchcock doesn’t rely too much in the permissiveness of 70s cinema, he just uses his genius as a film maker in the same way he does in his other great murder movie Psycho. He also adds the uncomfortable air of the voyeur in a far superior, and far more disturbing way, than the similar (and much overrated) Peeping Tom. Studies of Hitchcock consider his voyeuristic fetish as a director. By 1972, I think his genius was on autopilot. Perhaps it is odd that he could by now be brilliant without even thinking about it.
As Rusk slips away from his crime, and we remember to take a breath, the scene is set for our first Great Hitchcock Moment. Brenda has been killed in her office; now her absent secretary inevitibly returns to find her. As she disappears inside the building the camera stops to watch from the outside. We realise, so used to film that we are, that it will be only a few moments before she goes upstairs, discovers the murder and we hear her scream. We wait, but it doesn’t happen. The camera stays where it is. We keep waiting. Hitchcock manages to delay the scream as long as possible, playing with our expectations. He only delivers the scream when he can’t stretch things out any more. Until we can’t hold our breath any longer. And then we breath again. He’s laughing at us; but we forgive him and we laugh with him.
Although going on the run with Blaney, Babs is obviously next in line for the necktie murderer (poor Anna Massey, only just getting over her role in, coincidentally, Peeping Tom ). After all, Babs is no Madeleine Carroll in the 39 Steps. And although Blaney checks them both into a hotel as a married couple (“Mr and Mrs Oscar Wilde”), he’s no Robert Donat either. They intend to sleep together and don’t need a pair of handcuffs to draw attention to their chastity; Hitchcock even allows himself a brief glimpse of a naked Babs. Perhaps, deep down, he has no respect for such a girl. Perhaps this is why Hitchcock seals her fate so soon after, although he does it with a piece of subtle genius that becomes our second Great Hitchcock Moment. As she steps out from Cribbins’ pub into a London street the sound around her is cut; just a short burst of total silence and a close up of her face. The next thing we hear is Rusk’s voice beside her and then the sound is revived; somehow we know she is doomed.
Throughout the film Hitchcock toys with sound. With his background in silent films he’s always done it, but it’s odd that after more than 40 years of sound he’s still fascinated by the use of, or lack of, sound in cinema. Paul Merton has discussed this probably much more articulartly in his recent documentary on Hitchcock. One example is where Rusk wrestles with Babs’s corpse in the back of a potato truck (he needs to recover some incriminating evidence). Where a lesser director would flood the scene with dramatic music, Hitchcock just uses the crunching and wheezing sound of the truck’s gears, even the noise of the spilling spuds. Later, when Blaney is in court, a glass door shuts and numbs the sound for us. We can see, but not hear, what is going on. The scene is just silent until a young PC, curious to hear what is happening, edges the door open for us.
Frenzy was adapted by Anthony Shaffer from Arthur La Bern’s novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square. With such an impressive track record (including Sleuth and The Wicker Man), you may ask why Shaffer’s dialogue in this film is so ropey. Again, we go back to the 30s/70s dilemma and I think the antiquated script of this film is possibly deliberate in a, possibly misjudged, tribute to the director (although, for once, this may be a joke that Hitchcock wasn’t in on).
And as you might expect, there is some odd Hitchcock humour throughout. The mismatched couple briefly glimpsed at the marriage bureau are, again, straight out of 30s cinema. More successful is the camp hotel porter who gets the scoop of a lifetime (played by the great Jimmy Gardner), and most odd is the domestic scenes of Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen) and his wife, played by Vivien Merchant, who dishes him up some awful examples of kitchen cuisine as he explains the details of the plot to her. It’s almost as if Hitchcock, forever bored with the tedium of dialogue, just has to give his characters something visual and amusing to do.
The supporting cast are very good. The nasty Cribbins, and – another recent friend of Doctor Who’s – the excellent Clive Swift add a further level of quality. Billie Whitelaw makes an appearance, and there’s also Michael Bates (from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum) and Jean Marsh (as the stuck up secretary). Oh yes, and a bowler hatted Alfred Hitchcock – making the last of his cameos in a crowd scene. Jon Finch (fresh from playing Polanski’s Macbeth and no doubt hot property at the time) is okay in the lead, although somewhat wooden. Barry Foster is brilliant as Rusk. This is a role that Michael Caine turned down, perhaps not wanting to do another dark character so soon after Get Carter. Caine may well have ruined it if he’d taken the part; there’s just a certain creepiness that Foster gets over rather well. But sadly, like Jon Finch, this was his last important role.
So I come away from Frenzy realising that is a forgotten gem. There’s a perfectly precise closing scene which, although probably daft if you analyse it, works brilliantly in the context of the film. Should you ever need it proved, this film is a reminder that Hitchcock was a fantastic film maker. As they might have said in 30s London, he was the salt of the earth – and they broke the mould when he was born.
Oh, and a final Great Hitchcock Moment, which is another favourite of Merton’s. I’ve mentioned the chilling scene where we see the horrible and explicit murder of Barbara Blaney. Even more chilling is the murder of Babs, where we don’t see anything. Hitchcock simply closes the door on her and pulls the camera away, down the stairs and away. We see nothing and hear nothing, not even a scream. But he makes it most unsettling because we want to see. I’m sorry, but we really do. We’re the voyeurs. Very unsettling indeed.
But sometimes, in the street, without thinking, with a natural gesture, she took my arm, and then, yes, I surprised myself by missing the other life that could have been, if something hadn’t been broken so early. It wasn’t just the question of my sister; it was vaster than that, it was the entire course of events, the wretchedness of the body and of desire, the decisions you make and on which you can’t go back, the very meaning you choose to give this thing that’s called, perhaps wrongly, your life.
Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones is extraordinary; a detailed and sweeping account of the Second World War that is extremely well researched, intelligent and well written. It may be a classic, and it demands serious attention, but I am still to decide how much I liked this novel. At 975 pages this is a very difficult and demanding read; it is at times turgid, infuriating and meandering, whilst at others there is a genius in Littell’s writing that does shine through, albeit fleetingly.
Please note that as I attempt to make sense of this book, the following will contain spoilers.
The novel is narrated by Max Lau, an SS officer who, although open about his role in the massacres of the Holocaust, does often take the role of an observer of the atrocities of the Third Reich. Lau reveals that he escaped to France after the war by assuming a new identity and surviving to old age. The Kindly Ones is his memoir, which although ostensibly a part fictional part historical account of the Second World War, also features the dark undercurrents of incest and matricide.
The novel is divided into seven chapters; Toccata, Allemande I and II, Courante, Sarabande, Menuet en Rondeaux, Air and Gigue. Apparently this refers to the sequence of a Bach suite, although I had to look up the reference. Furthermore, each chapter is supposedly based on the style of each dance although, again, I did miss this allusion. Jonathan Littell has the tendency to be pretentious, although can overcome this with his talent as a writer.
The Kindly Ones is harrowing from the start, with Lau recounting his involvement in the horrendous massacre of Jews and Bolsheviks in the Ukraine. Although, as I’ve said, he’s more of an observer than a participant, Lau does appear to show a cold detachment to what is going on around him. His role on the sidelines make the terrible events all the more difficult to take. How could he stand by and let so much go on? Which is, of course, the rub. Nevertheless, the harrowing events do begin to play on his physical and mental faculties. Lau’s narrative also reveals his attraction to homosexuality and also to incest. We learn that Lau’s father mysteriously disappeared, his estranged mother remarried and that Max has a twin sister; one he is obsessed with.
Events move on to the battle of Stalingrad, which Lau manages to escape before the German defeat after being seriously wounded. Although shot in the head, he makes a miraculous recovery. His friend, Thomas, also suffers serious injuries but pulls through. After recovering in Berlin, Lau is awarded the Iron Cross by Heinrich Himmler. He decides to reacquaint himself with his mother and stepfather and in one of the novel’s strangest sequences, his mother and her husband are brutally and mysteriously murdered. On discovering the murder scene, Lau flees.
Lau is promoted to an advisory role in the management of concentration camps, here attempting to do some – although ultimately flawed – good, in trying to improve the hopeless conditions for the inmates. He is also dogged by two detectives who suspect him of the murder of his mother and stepfather. Although the case is eventually dropped (now in a senior role, Lau has many useful contacts), they continue to periodically surface to harass him. We also learn that his mother was in charge of two mysterious twins, whose parentage is unknown but who have fallen into the care of his sister. Around this time Lau considers a relationship with a young woman and tries to court convention, although he later decides to forget her.
The Kindly Ones reaches it darkest section with Lau visiting the empty home of his sister and indulging in lurid sexual fantasies. His one man orgy becomes a sequence of dreams merged with reality. Although deeply disturbing, Littell really reveals his brilliance here. The term nazi porn has been directed at the book, most probably with reference to this chapter. Although there is an element of dark pornography here, I still herald Littell’s writing. I can’t explain or defend this contradiction, but I will always be honest about what I think is talented writing.
Thomas eventually arrives to rescue Lau from his self indulgent breakdown, and they travel to Berlin as the war draws to its end; on route they meet a group of murderous children. We reach Berlin and Adolf Hitler makes a small but memorable appearance in the story. In an almost surreal scene, Lau attacks the Führer and assaults him, but whilst under arrest manages to escape in the chaos of Berlin falling. He is confronted by one of the detectives obsessed with the murder case (who, we presume, has been obsessively following him), although Thomas intervenes and kills the aggressor. The novel ends with Lau then coldly killing Thomas, thus stealing his identity (Thomas – perhaps foolishly – earlier revealing that he had a cunningly invented French persona as a line of escape) which enables Lau to flee to France to start a new life.
Littell throws many riddles at the reader that are left unsolved. Although the circumstances of his mother’s murder are never explored, I drew the conclusion that Lau killed her, especially as the original French title Les Bienveillantes relates to The Oresteia written by Aeschylus, which featured the vengeful Furies who tracked down those who murdered a parent. In Lau’s case, however, he makes a clean break. I’m also guessing that the enigmatic twins who feature in the story are the offspring of Lau and his sister; the twins of twins – an echo of duality running through the book, the duality of good and evil that Lau wrestles with before always succumbing to the latter.
The Kindly Ones has been descibed as having a “terrible twist”. This is misleading, suggesting something unexpected and surprising. That Lau kills Thomas is, sadly, not a surprise. He saves his own skin, giving in to his ultimate act of evil. Thomas gives him the germ of an idea. With it, he thrives. If you want to be really crude, it’s the survival of the fittest. But it is true that this is truly terrible.
The precisely written prose of The Kindly Ones is both a blessing and a hindrance. Littell’s narrative is so detailed that it provides an absorbing account of Lau’s world, which at times becomes so fascinating and real that you begin to doubt that he can really be a work of fiction. At the same time, the book grinds almost to a halt when it becomes preoccupied with nazi ideology, sometimes recounting detailed conversations that run over dozens of pages. And when the novel gets odd it really gets odd, at times uncomfortably so, but some of the sections – especially the account of the fall of Berlin at the end of the book – are beautifully written.
The Kindly Ones was rewarded with the attention that it ruthlessly demanded from me. But it wasn’t easy. It’s an absorbing book, but also an infuriating one. At times depressing, and rarely uplifiting, but one revealing talent in the author, and one stretching the reader. In my case, almost to the limit – the most demanding book I’ve ever read. But I’ve never said that good literature shouldn’t be difficult. If you are a real reader – and I think you are – there’s no option but to try this.
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