Miscellaneous Films 7

The Missing Link

Another film from Studio Laika, I didn't find this as engaging as some of their others, perhaps because it's a more conventional story told within their framework of unique visual techniques: an unconventional Victorian explorer, desperate to join a gentlemen's club, chases the discovery of Bigfoot in order to win his place. Unlike the club members, he has no interest in killing, which is the point of difference.

Finding Bigfoot is a quick business; the bulk of the film is the tension between his desire to return Bigfoot to London (for his club membership), finding a new home for this last member of this species (he may be related to the Yeti), and the potential romance with the wife of his dead friend (and former adventuring buddy). It's well put together, a few twists and turns, and a satisfying if predictable ending. If it was Laika's first film, you'd applaud it unreservedly, but it feels like a step down in storytelling ambition from Kubo or Boxtrolls, rather than a step up. I enjoyed it - but it's not their best work.

The Jungle Book

The 2016 Disney remake immediately hits you with two things: gorgeous visuals and an amazing soundscape. A live-action remake, the integration of the animals and Mowgli is near-seamless, and the animation of the animals themselves is seamless: whether it’s Baloo and Bagheera or minor characters, they look like their real counterparts gifted speech. I enjoyed it, but it doesn't really add anything to the animated film, I think: it drops some of the humour of the original, it moves King Louie to a more horrific, less real figure. In a sense, I guess, it's closer to the feeling Kipling probably wanted, of the idea of a complex, mythical animal society that exists unseen by us.

Persuasion

Based on the Austen book, this adaptation cribs heavily from Fleabag: Anne breaks the fourth wall regularly with her gestures, pointed expressions, and observations, and like the titular character of Waller-Bridge’s series, alternates between pointed observations on those around her and despair at her own shortcomings.

Those looking for excuses to be outraged will no doubt find ample cause in the existence of actors who are not white in the cast; and the costuming, dance, and Anne swimming in the sea appear to my eye to be by people who are tired of feeling that they need a PhD in the stitching of Regency garments or foot placement in early 19th century dances before they’re allowed to make a film set at some point in the past.

Richard E Grant is an absolute fucking delight as the vain, egotistical father being sucked in by a much poorer and lower-class woman, being fixated on her generous breasts and (more importantly) endless rounds of flattery, while Cosmo Jarvis provided a pound-store Taika presence.

It was a fun film, but I’ve never read the novel, so I can’t tell to what degree the film might be considered a fun, if tremendously fast-and-loose version, or simply a desecration; either way I enjoyed it.

Fanny Lye Deliver’d

A period piece set in Puritan England. I don’t feel as though it every really quite landed for me - a strict Puritan, played by Charles Dance, and his wife have their existence disrupted by a free-living couple who happen upon them. Conflict of various sorts ensue, sticky ends befall various characters. I feel as though I ought to have enjoyed this more than I did. Alas.

Lynx

A often moving nature documentary beginning with the filmmaker’s desire to discover the life of a lynx, coming to the Jura region of France, a mountainous area that butts up against the Swiss border.

While it focuses primarily on the lynx and the other lynxes that overlap with it, we are treated to a view of much of the wildlife of the area: grouse, chamois, corvids, owls, and many others. It is beautifully shot, giving us the trees and mists, the snows, valleys full of clouds and rocky outcrops. Aerial shots that, before affordable drones, would have been impossible are commonplace.

Even in such a sparsely inhabited area, it is humans are the biggest risk to the wellbeing of the lynxes: one killed by a poacher and left to rot, another hit by a car.

Like the documentary maker I am puzzled by removing the mother that he’s followed for so long, leaving her remaining cub, not yet a year old, to fend for herself. In the wake of this, the young one is forced to abandon the mother’s former territory and find a new place for itself; Geslin tracks it but is forced to spend 8 months searching for her once she evades him at one point.

As the film advances, it re-captures scenes, emphasising the cyclical nature of the place: as we open with foxes and minks in the snow, so we come back to it, toward the end of the film.

Luck

Turns out that John Lassiter wasn’t a brilliant jerk, he was just a jerk. Apparently that’s worth a lot of money to some important people in California. Luck couldn’t even manage to be bad - it was just mediocre, like the rip-offs of Pixar films that people were doing in the 90s mediocre.

Les Amantes Criminels / Criminal Lovers

Life is too short for films where I hate all of the characters. So I didn't bother with it.