Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #165: Tsotsi (2005).

Young David (Benny Moshe), whose mother is dying, runs away from his abusive father to live with other homeless children in Johannesburg's slums. Several years later, David, now going by the name "Tsotsi," (Presley Chweneyagae) inhabits a ramshackle slum shack and leads a dangerous local street gang with his friends Butcher (Zenzo Ngqobe), Aap (Kenneth Nkobi) and Boston (Mothusi Magano). After Butcher murders somebody during a botched mugging, Boston and Tsotsi have a fight which almost kills Boston. Then Tsotsi shoots Pumla (Nambitha Mpumlwana), a young woman while carjacking her, and drives off only to find a three-month-old baby in the backseat. Tsotsi takes the baby home and, upon realising he alone can't care for it, recruits young mother Miriam (Terry Pheto) to breastfeed and nurture it while Tsotsi holds her at gunpoint. From here, Tsotsi's new role as a caregiver whose defences this baby quickly breaks through gradually helps him to find some decency, compassion and optimism for his future, although he must still do everything he can to resolve the conflicts he has caused on the streets, with police captain Smit (Ian Roberts) and his team out to get him and the baby.

This first and, so far, only Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner from South Africa (and indeed the only African film I've ever seen) is a dynamic and strikingly powerful secular tale of redemption and coming of age. Based on Athol Fugard's novel, writer-director Grant Hood demonstrates a vivid familiarity with this story's quite geographically specific setting and even, for a white man, with the indigenous languages the characters mostly speak. But most crucially his focus on Tsotsi's humanisation never wavers or veers into saccharine or exaggerated territory. He tells that narrative trajectory with such patience and genuine empathy that it becomes absolutely searing viewing, particularly the climactic confrontation and sacrifice. Helping Hood enormously are the central performances of Chweneyagae and Pheto (who were both shown at the 2006 Oscars as Hood accepted the award), who pour so much insight, authority and compassion into their roles that it's like they'd actually lived them, and together their chemistry is just electric.

Very few films try to show a villainous character trying to change their ways, and very few of those that do ask us to identify with that character from start to finish. Tsotsi does this, and does it so well that it becomes a suspenseful, thought-provoking and ultimately quite moving meditation on impermanence, mortality, and, both again and most chiefly, redemption. Finally, it may be set in South Africa but I promise you, Tsotsi's story is truly universal.

The cinema and the composer.

It began in 1927, with Al Jolson's immortal claim "You ain't seen nothin' yet!" In that moment, sound came to the cinema. Now, this burgeoning new art form truly came into its own and took over the world. And perhaps the most significant element sound brought to cinema was a much older art form: music. It's worth emphasising here that the original cinematic icon, Charlie Chaplin, despite being a resolutely silent filmmaker, was actually himself an accomplished violinist and composer (and even won his only competitive Oscar as a composer).

In recent years I've become quite an avid collector of film scores (or, at least, of the scores to my favourite films) on soundtracks; I recently bought those of The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and Schindler's List (1993) and collectively, those two albums are currently my pride and joy. (Hence, maybe, why I'm writing this entry.) But I digress. Even a dreadful or overrated film can have breathtaking music, and some scores are great by themselves whatever their movie's overall merits. Cinematic history is rife with scores that have become iconic themselves, from Max Steiner's love theme from Gone with the Wind (1939) to Bernard Herrmann's shrieking violins for Psycho's (1960) shower scene (which so impressed Alfred Hitchcock, who initially planned to have the scene with no music, that he doubled Herrmann's salary) to John Williams' legendary intergalactic compositions for the Star Wars saga (1977 onwards), and dozens more.

I love listening to film scores by themselves because it exposes me to qualities in them that I might've missed while watching the actual films, although if you've seen the movie enough times you can hear the music by itself and then recall and picture the scenes as the music plays. Even so, I find the experience absolutely intoxicating and transportive.

My list of the greatest-ever film composers: John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, Gustavo Santaolalla, Thomas Newman, Lisa Gerrard, Rachel Portman, Vangelis, Alexandre Desplat and Thomas Newman.

Finally, here is a stunning performance from the 2002 Academy Awards of some of the screen's most celebrated themes, under the baton of Maestro Williams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_0g3tEcM0w

I think I've just caused something horrible.

Firstly, I need whoever sees this to please read it all before passing judgment, if they see fit to do that. Secondly, let me provide some background information for context and so you know my side of this. Over the last few years, on Facebook I've had several friends who were initially helpful and kind, but who gradually became, to my mind, very clingy and sycophantic. I don't know why I find that excessive kindness very annoying or even if I should, but I just can't help finding it as such, and increasingly to the point where I must express it. Before today, I had told two of them about it via private messages; the first one (to my knowledge) copped it while the second deleted her entire account.

Last week, I felt I had to ask a third to follow suit. Initially, she apologised and then I told her how it annoyed me whenever anybody did it, and we left it at that. She then made several more posts so I took those as signs that she was coping, but that was until this morning when another message came. I won't post it here for privacy reasons and because doing so would mean having to re-read it which will make me dwell on it even further. However, she started it by saying I will never know or understand how I've made her feel, and ended it by calling herself a shit person and saying goodbye to me. In the process, she called me self-centred and deleted her account.

That is still sinking in now for me, but I am (internally) very afraid she then tried to self-harm, or is considering it strongly. I never wanted anything like that and I sincerely understand why she found my approach self-centered; I truly was just trying to help us both. I brought this to her attention because I did not want her to cop my anger and I didn't enjoy being angry with her. Anger is an unpleasant emotion for both sides. Plus, while I concede I should have considered her own feelings more in my manner of approaching her about this (and initially I did ask her if she was okay, although I wish I had subsequently repeated that question), I simply wanted to show her how sometimes being a true friend (at least IMO) means showing restraint, which is a lesson I've had to learn myself.

Now as I sit here composing this entry, I am very uneasy and I apologise if it's too much too take, but nobody can suffer in silence and I also didn't know quite how much she must've been struggling. I absolutely hope she is okay and I want nothing but the best for her and her family. It's just, without her phone number or address, I have no way of knowing quite what she has done. But if she's still here and she reads this, she knows who she is and I want her to know: I am deeply sorry, we all love you very much, and you have a great deal to live for.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #164: DOUBLE FEATURE! Frankenweenie (1984 / 2012).

When his beloved Bull Terrier, Sparky, chases a ball across the street and fatally meets a car, young Victor Frankenstein (Barret Oliver) is devastated. So much so, that he unsuccessfully feigns illness to get out of attending school. But when his science teacher shows the class about the miracle of reanimation, a light switch is flicked in Victor's head. With that entire lesson having firmly sunk into his brain, Victor now races home and gets to work. Then, with a big dose of electricity, Sparky is reborn! Victor now tries to keep the new Sparky hidden, but being a dog he is naturally restless and adventurous, and so it isn't long before Victor's parents (Shelley Long and Daniel Stern, then Catherine O'Hara and Martin short) and the neighbours meet his revived self.

Tim Burton's two takes on this parody/homage to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are rather different but obviously they essentially tell the same story. The original 1984 version is a 30-minute, black-and-white short, while the 2012 remake is 90 minutes and animated, but again black-and-white.

Both versions are delightful, and can stand on their own because of how Burton (perhaps with the passage of time between them) consciously and wisely infuses both with a different narrative flavour and insight. The 1984 version works the macabre and subversive central story around a very familiar depiction of post-WWII American suburbia, in order to expose just how dark and exclusionary those neighbourhoods could actually be. In the 2012 version, however, Burton seeks to uncover the fear of difference and the unknown that still lies under the boilerplate of modern suburbia. When he's not trying to welcome us into lands of pure, imagined weirdness, Burton invokes these anxieties and prejudices to become a very speculative but blunt and sincere polemicist as a filmmaker.

You can watch one version, or both; it's your choice. Regardless, Tim Burton is one of my ultimate artistic heroes, and both versions of Frankenweenie rank among his best and most resonant work.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #163: INXS: Never Tear Us Apart (2014)

In 1977, a fledgling young Australian New Wave rock band was born. Singer Michael Hutchence (Luke Arnold), bassist Garry Gary Beers (Hugh Sheridan), guitarist/saxophonist Kirk Pengilly (Alex Williams) and the Farriss brothers, guitarist Tim (Nick Masters), keyboardist Andrew (Andrew Ryan) and drummer Jon (Ido Drent) would collectively be known worldwide as INXS. The 2014 two-part mini-series INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, named for one of their greatest hits, judiciously recreates their meteoric rise to the pinnacle of music fame before their inevitable decline culminating in Hutchence's tragic death on this day in 1997 (and yes, I'm reviewing this now to mark that awful day).

INXS were probably the ideal Australian band for a two-part TV dramatisation because just for two other examples, the Cold Chisel story would've been too short, with numerous narrative intervals, and AC/DC's too long, and their private escapades and ordeals were every bit as high-profile and juicy. And while surely some anachronisms were made for narrative purposes, this hugely successful mini-series is every bit as compact, energetic, raw and forceful as you'd expect a rock music series to be. Director Daina Reid and writers Justin Monjo and Dave Warner faithfully recreate the band's story chronologically, but shake things up by interspersing this with faux-documentary interviews of the boys years later (sans Michael), which reveal sharp insights into what inspired all their biggest hits and why some of their private conflicts transpired. It's a technique that works not just to cut an aesthetic swathe but to reflect INXS' distinctive sound.

The performances all never miss a beat (pun intended) either, with the two standouts being Arnold, who deservedly won a Logie for his work, and Damon Herriman as long-time manager Chris Murphy, who quit in 1995 amidst the band's infighting. Keep an eye out also for Carolyn Bock and Andrew S. Gilbert as the Farriss brothers' parents and Samantha Jade as Michael's one-time flame Kylie Minogue. Overall, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart does full justice to the tale of Australian music royalty.

Queensland and New South Wales burning.

Australia's farmers and rural communities were already struggling, thanks to several years of intense drought. Now Mother Nature, and numerous deviants, have come along to compound their plight. Queensland and New South Wales are now enduring Australia's worst bushfire emergency since the 2009 Black Saturday fires.

These bushfires began in country New South Wales last month before crossing the northern border in Queensland, my state (but don't worry; I'm safe). It's currently believed many have been deliberately lit whereas others have the authorities unsure about how they started. However, police have notably arrested a 16-year-old on suspicion of lighting a fire near Yeppoon, Queensland, which has destroyed 14 homes, with another fire in NSW having claimed four lives.

But two things have swayed public attention away from the fires themselves. Firstly, the national debate they have sparked (pun intended) over the effectiveness and (alleged) role of green policies and environmental activism in the fires themselves. It's possible that such endeavours, if sincere but poorly informed and planned, could have a hand in starting bushfires, but as naive or idealistic as this may sound I highly doubt such people would ever intend to do anything like that consciously. Mischievous and/or bored rural teenagers, however... they are a totally different story.

Secondly, a public sledge against bushfire-battling firefighters. Feminist author Sherele Moody (above), during a press conference with Greens Senator Larissa Waters, claimed they would all head home from the frontlines just to beat their wives. Now, domestic violence is nothing to mock or trivialise, but not only does that issue have no relevance to this one, in just that one statement Moody tarred all these brave individuals - women and men - as violent spouse-abusers. That kind of generalisation is reprehensible, and surely as far as possible from the truth. 

But anyway, enough about those things. My heart goes out to everybody caught up in this bushfire emergency, may whoever started the fires be caught and convicted, and let's all raise our glasses to all the firies across Australia. We love and thank all of them.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #162: My Life as a Zucchini (2016).

In this 2016 Best Animated Feature Oscar nominee, young Icare (who prefers to be called "Courgette" aka "Zucchini") lives with his mother whose abandonment by his father has made her hit the bottle big time. After Zucchini then accidentally, and fatally, makes her fall down the stairs one day, he consults local cop Raymond (Michel Vuillermoz; Nick Offerman in the English dubbed version) who then takes him to an orphanage. There, Zucchini discovers a hive of bullying, teenage perversion and socio-economic hierarchy. Until he meets the sweet and beguiling Camille.

This French-Swiss adaptation of Gilles Paris' novel My Life as a Courgette (which is also the film's title in the French-speaking world) did initially strike me as being far more visually compelling and fresh than narratively, but while its plot doesn't cover any really new territory, the sincere understanding and allegiance with which it's told shines adequately through. Director Claude Barras and his co-screenwriters Celine Sciamma, Germano Zullo and Morgan Navarro adapt this story, whose source material I haven't read, with such deep heart and wry, subversive wit that it actually pulls off fooling you into thinking this is a children's story when really it becomes more of an adult-oriented story about childhood.

But naturally, the real meat in this sandwich is the flawless animation. Like a daring blend of claymation and stop-motion animation, Barras and his team bring this tale's world and characters to life with unfailing clarity and attention to detail, from the buildings and vehicles right down to how the characters play with their hair. I'd seriously compare it, at least visually, to the works of Aardman Animations, Tim Burton in animation mode, and even the films of Ray Harryhausen. This is one very delicious zucchini - or courgette - indeed.