Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #8: Au revoir les enfants ("Goodbye, Children") (1987).

 

After breaking through with the French New Wave of the '50s and '60s before heading to Hollywood, Louis Malle returned to his homeland for his last and most autobiographical film, winning the 1987 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion and two Academy Award nominations. It's very easy to see why.

Based on a tragic incident Malle witnessed at age 11 involving a Gestapo raid of his Roman Catholic boarding school, it follows Julien Quentin (Gaspard Manesse) returning to school after Christmas. He assumes a tough, rebellious facade to mask his really being a pampered mother's boy who still wets his bed. Nothing seems to have changed in his classes until the school welcomes three new pupils, namely Jean Bonnett (Raphael Fejto), an awkward, sycophantic boy who Julien immediately despises. But one night Julien wakes to find Jean praying in Hebrew and wearing a kippah. After then rummaging through Jean's locker he learns Jean's real name is Jean Kippelstein, and that he is being kept here because school priest Pére Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud) has agreed to grant hunted Jews asylum in the school. Then, when they get lost together during a treasure hunt, they unexpectedly bond, until the Gestapo pays the school a fateful visit.

Au revoir les enfants is the only Malle movie I've seen, but I'm willing to call him a genius based on it alone. It's obvious how confronting it must have been for him to dramatize such a harrowing childhood memory but just by doing so he shows genuine bravery and remorse for the victims. More importantly, and perhaps thanks to the passage of time, he crafted a screenplay that effectively evokes the era and even how pre-teen boys interact, which he visualises very clearsightedly and delicately throughout. Very wisely also, all the boys (even Jean somewhat) are portrayed as mischievous or disrespectful but vulnerable (especially Francois Negret as Joseph, the school kitchenhand). The list of movies in various genres with child characters portrayed excessively with any of those traits is very long, and the balance here makes all the difference. Malle also gets very moving and sincere performances from Manesse and Fejto, who are now a composer and children's author respectively.

Obviously, this is a movie about childhood, not a children's movie. Subsequently, it is not a typical Holocaust or war (i.e. combat) film either. But it is no less authentic or universal. By revisiting something so unshakable for him at such a young age, Louis Malle not only shows how war and intolerance can shatter youthful innocence, more than any imagined childhood terror: he reminds us how, psychologically, adults are not so different from the children we once were. Au revoir les enfants is a masterpiece in every way.

Art rhymes. It rules all the time!

Everybody gets just one life to live,
And however we use it, it can really give.
But while we can't forsake what sustains that life,
Nor can we forsake what can get us through strife.

An example of this is any communication,
Which crosses the borders of all the world's nations.
And no kind goes deeper than the beating of your heart
Like the tangible creation that is any form of art.

Art may not be "real" per se, but it IS an expression,
And like things planned or common it still leaves an impression.
Especially since it's public and can't be ignored,
And that's still meaningful if somebody's bored.

But any artist can tell you about life in a cage,
Whether with a wall, a page, a screen or a stage.
If you dig deep and find something personal to gauge,
Everybody present will feel your rage.

That could have a cost,
Like feeling lost in a terrible frost.
But before chasing the mental Gingerbread Man becomes torture,
The tunnel light can help you grab him and say "Caught ya!"

That's just one reason why its appeal has never peaked,
Not even that of the tragedies of the Greeks.
And what ever its length, its themes or its flair,
It could even help you form a romantic pair.

Art is like food, in more ways than one.
We will always need it, and it comes from the Sun.
But just like for food we need teeth to bite,
Art needs an audience to stimulate and excite.

So whether or not I've shown artistic might,
Thank you all so much for reading this tonight.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #7: Detention (2011).

   

Joseph Kahn's horror satire Detention (2011) must be one of the most unabashedly weird, warped and garish films of this decade, maybe even of this whole century. Think The Breakfast Club meets Back to the Future meets Scream with a hipster motif applied to all, and you're getting close.

Driving the story are cynical, sarcastic loner scream queen Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell) and Clapton Davis (Josh Hutcherson who also executive produced the movie), the most popular but dumbest kid at Grizzly Lake High. The day after the release of movie-within-a-movie Cinderhella II: Beauty Scream, the title villain comes to life in Grizzly Lake and goes after the school's student body. Unfortunately for Riley and Clapton, they're stuck in detention under their bitter principal Karl Verge's (Dane Cook) watch. Now they must find a way of getting out, stopping Cinderhella, and saving the world, with their fellow detainees: narcissistic Sander (Aaron David Johnson), airheaded cheerleader Ione (Spencer Locke) naive Toshiba (Jonathan "Dumbfoundead" Park), surly, heavily made-up Mimi (Tiffany Boone) Canadian Gord (Travis Fleetwood), and the very enigmatic Elliot Fink (Walter Perez).

God know what former music video director Kahn and co-writer Mark Palermo were on when they wrote the screenplay for Detention (and Kahn is a reformed addict, which is the subject of one of its hilariously snide in-jokes), but the end result was well worth it. Besides the cinematic and cultural influences I've just mentioned, Detention also has a very whimsical, Dadaist vibe throughout that just feels so genuine and charming. Kahn and Palermo clearly revere all the films this homages, and even while serving up a very clever time travel narrative and satire of high school life, they've still filled it with very familiar, lifelike teenage characters.

The performances are also very natural. Caswell has great comic timing and conveys Riley's fury at the world quite relatably. Hutcherson may be best known as Peeta Mallark but this is his best role for me, and if you think he's not that versatile, just wait 'til you see him copy Patrick Swayze's Dirty Dancing routine to surprisingly enjoyable cover of MMMBop. And Cook is at his grumpy best.

Overall, it is so bizarrely plotted and broad in its influences that it should be truly unwatchable, but because Kahn clearly doesn't care if people hate his work, it is instead euphorically entertaining, and thoroughly cohesive narratively and visually (but mind you, I'm a certified nutcase). This kind of Detention is well worth landing in.

Oh, and did I mention another of the characters is a football quarterback with fly blood?

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #6: The Loved Ones (2009).

   

Welcome home. It's time I looked at a cult Aussie movie, huh? Writer-director Sean Byrne's The Loved Ones (2009) opens with teenagers Brent (Xavier Samuel) killing his father in a car crash, and then plunging into a grief-fuelled guilt trip. Keeping him going is Holly (Victoria Thaine), his girlfriend and date to the upcoming school dance. But as the big day nears, the quietest girl in school, Lola Stone (Robin McLeavy), also asks Brent out, but he declines. BIG mistake.

EFX Magazine described The Loved Ones as Pretty in Pink meets Wolf Creek, and that's quite accurate. This wickedly entertaining slice of Aussie horror is so gleefully tongue-in-cheek and macabre it would give Quentin Tarantino an orgasm. Byrne spent several years financing this as his feature debut and that was fortuitous, as his narrative control, visual cues and embellishments and music selections are all so assured and fitting. He gets strong performances from his whole cast as well, most notably McLeavy, who brings Lola's vindictive violence to life with relish but also lets us see the lonely little girl underneath, and John Brumpton as her equally demented and very protective Daddy. There's also an hilarious subplot with Brent's awkward mate Jamie (Richard Wilson) and his own ice-queen dance date Mia (Jessica McNamee, equally relishing her chance to counter her PC Packed to the Rafters image as a truly horny bitch).

Obviously, The Loved Ones is not a flick for the whole family, and that's even without the very brutal violence. But if you're a horror comedy nut, or you were bullied at school (in both cases like me), it should tickle your fancy endlessly.

And I promise, you will NEVER listen to Kasey Chambers' Not Pretty Enough in the same way ever again.

TIM BURTON TIME!

How many filmmakers have truly cut a lasting, individual swathe through modern cinemas? Tarantino, Scorsese, Campion, Lynch, Allen, Craven and of course Spielberg are among the most notable ones (even if in Lynch's and Allen's cases, admittedly I don't even respect their work). But maybe the most surprising case of all is an oddball genius, born in Burbank, California in 1958, whose films have nourished and inspired emos, Goths and assorted other misfits for nearly 30 years: Timothy Walter Burton.

After a rather lonely, impoverished childhood, Burton's first job in Hollywood was as an animator with Walt Disney Studios, working on The Fox and the Hound (1982) and The Black Cauldron (1985). However, Burton grew to hate working for Disney because his macabre visual style didn't sit well with them, and they refused to theatrically release his second directorial effort, the black-and-white short Frankenweenie (1984, after his '82 short Vincent, a semi-autobiographical tale of a boy who idolises Vincent Price, who even narrated it).

He then quit Disney and landed his first feature directorial job, with Warner Bros.: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985), which follows Paul Reubens' man-child title character trekking across America to find his stolen bicycle. It was critically trashed but grossed twenty times its budget, and marked his first collaboration with his usual composer, the remarkable Danny Elfman. Now with a box office hit to his name, he was able to direct Beetlejuice (1988) and Batman (1989), which made him even commercially hotter still.

But then, in 1990, Burton released what remains his favourite and most personal work: Edward Scissorhands. There is no way I can even describe this movie objectively so I won't even bother trying. No movie has ever resonated with me more than this one; just listening to Elfman's magical score makes me dance around and then well up. And of course, this was Tim' first collaboration with star Johnny Depp, who has never given a better performance.

Then, from Batman Returns in '92, to the stop-motion animation holiday classic The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood (his biopic of notorious director Edward D. Wood, Jr., with an Oscar-winning Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi), the hilarious piss-take of pro-American Hollywood sci-fi movies that is Mars Attacks! and then 1999's breathtaking period horror Sleepy Hollow, he came through the '90s flawlessly.

Entering the new century, though, Burton made his first turkey: 2001's Planet of the Apes (he was hitherto enduring a mid-life crisis and it shows). But that was the film through which he met Helena Bonham Carter, by whom he would have two children (and who starred in all his later films before they split in 2014). Next, however, came the powerful family saga Big Fish (2003) before a double dose of wonderful weirdness in 2005 with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride, and then the spellbinding adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007, and JFTR I usually HATE musicals).

Into the new decade, Burton then brought his own flavour to Alice in Wonderland (2010), and while not as resonant as it could've been, it still brought Lewis Carroll's iconic world leaping back to life. Then in 2012 came two remakes: of the '60s supernatural TV soap Dark Shadows, hilarious and daring; then of his 1984 short Frankenweenie, this time animated and with a very sincere fear-of-the-unknown allegorical side. 2014's Big Eyes found Burton's visuals actually feeling more reminiscent of Jane Campion or Gus Van Sant, but his connection with the narrative is thoroughly evident as he follows the life of artist Margaret Keane (a luminous Amy Adams), whose husband Walter found fame by taking credit for her paintings of large-eyed waifs. And now, his latest film is Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and while it falls short of Ransom Riggs' extraordinary novel, that's not by much.

Burton also in 1997 published a stunning children's book titled The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories, and 2011 a book called The Art of Tim Burton (he paints and draws literally everywhere he goes). He also has officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, perhaps unsurprisingly. But through channelling his demons into his unashamedly crazy and macabre but resonant directorial style, Tim Burton has helped himself, and moviegoers worldwide who feel marginalised and ignored, to instead feel loved, noticed, and understood. And he will keep working that magic on us for many years to come.

Reflection, change and me.

Where do we go? Where should we go? What else can we do? Everybody asks questions like these very often. Life is a very treacherous sea to navigate sometimes. But so it must be. All species are creatures of habit, and a life of comfort and familiarity provides safety and security, But how much of that is too much? There's a reason why one of the world's best-known board games is called Risk. In many ways life is a game itself, and rather than take perpetual refuge in our comfort zones, often we have to give a gallant roll of the dice.

And not just for professional or leisure reasons either. More fundamentally, we need to keep track of our values, characteristics and ethics, and this is where my angle comes in. I've been in a very reflective mood recently, re-examining various personal experiences and errors from the last few years, and that's proven obviously confronting, but educational.

I doubt anyone would call me an objective or impartial person. God knows I've tried hard to be both, but the opposites of both those traits are really just in my blood. I'm notoriously stubborn also, but I consider that both a pro and a con depending on the context, and how I show it. And most significantly, many of my feelings towards things aimed at women and girls (this is also in my blood and even my neurology, as we Aspies have been described as having an "extreme male brain"*) especially need work.

But I really don't know how to overcome any of these flaws. What will it take? A near-death experience? A falling out with literally all my family and friends? Or should I just keep looking long and hard at myself?

Let me assure you all, though: I'm not trying to make any of you solve any of this for me, and I don't hate myself.I just can't let any of this fester in my head. And maybe by publicising it, somebody else may learn they're not alone.

However, as glum as I may seem here, I'm becoming more self-confident through all my social activities. At the gym yesterday I found myself somehow thinking of all these issues and a few people I hate, and somehow it occurred to me: if I could survive twelve years of bullying at school, and then six of punishing study throughout uni, why can't I at least control these personal flaws to become a better man? The key, I feel, is to never forget about them.

I do want to change. I don't want to change completely, but I want, and have, to change these shortcomings I've just discusses. And hopefully if I do change in those ways, the world will improve with me: no more inequality or war et cetera (crazily idealistic though that may make me seem). Who will I be, even next year? Where will we be then? I have my aims and hopes for both, but no answers. Yet I firmly believe, passive or lazy though it may sound, sometimes you should just let life take its path.

* https://iancommunity.org/cs/understanding_research/extreme_male_brain