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ll-(Hll l l: R. NEW PRINT THE 39 STEPS (U) 85min 0000
Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1935 thriller finds its way back on to the big screen courtesy of a new digital cinema and 35mm print. Scottish author and unionist politician John Buchan’s novel has been filmed three times, but this, the first version made remains, justifiably, the most loved.
Made like all Hitchcock’s best British films at a time when a very English type of isolationism meant that most gentlemen above a certain class cared more about the Bodyline fast leg cricketing theory than they did about the meteoric rise and dominance of the brown shirts in Germany, The 39 Steps now looks like a Freudian dialectic on the need for modernism, fear of change and why a chap simply has to step up to the plate, sometimes.
Much copied but rarely equalled the plot deals with the accidental immersion of insouciant, impermeable Canadian Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) into the murky world of espionage. A chance encounter with a mysterious woman at a music hall leads him to be framed for murder. His attempts to clear his name take him to the heart of the Scottish Highlands, but it is a race against time as various officials slowly close in on him.
While undeniably dated The 39 Steps still pleases in so many ways. For a start there's Donat’s delightful turn as the well-spoken, self reliant, unflappable Hannay, a man born to wear tweeds as only the imperturbable can. There‘s the wonderfully cast Madeleine Carroll, the sexy but slow-to- catch-on love interest who spends much of her time handcuffed to a chivalrous would-be murderer. There’s Charles Bennett and Ian Hay’s frequently hilarious script, and of course there’s Hitchcock who, with this, his 23rd film (if you include his early shorts), was beginning to lay a remarkable style template that was to resonate through postwar American masterworks.
The weight of history has made this wonderful film ripe for readings for symbolism, but at its heart The 39 Steps is just a rattling good yarn, a man on the run thriller the likes of which we are unlikely to see again. (Paul Dale)
I Film/rouse. Edinburgh from Fri 7 I Apr.
I: we ;".'E ;,~ N BRUGES (18) 107min 0000
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prrrlrstrne Rat, (Colin Farrell and older cultured Kept (Brendan Gleesont argue the pros and (ti iris of the ( rl\ (paradise or purgatory?” while awaiting orders from their gangster lit rss. llarr‘,’ (Ralph Fiennesr. who remains rrr :‘r\ptrc phone contact.
The parallels. between Ray and Ken and the listless and philosophical Beckett protagonists Estragon and Vladrrrrrr. as well as those between off screen Harry and eternally absent Godot. are nicely teased out by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh in his feature frlrrr debut (follovrrng his Oscar Winning short. SIX Shooter).
Wrtlr its literate but expletrve-riddled script peppered wrth the frlthiest of Iarrgrrage. as errrrtted from this pair of gohhy Dublrners. In Bruges is frequently lrrlarrous. As is the wrlfully provocative nonPC attitude that runs the gamut of prejudice from xenophobia to takrrrg the piss out of the disabled. But it's all in the serVrce of the welldefined characters. who are at once rrronstrous and syrrrpathetic. And credit to Farrell, Gleeson and McDonagh for wrestling some hardwon but gerrurrrely affecting irroments from Ray and Ken's sturrrble towards redenrplron. (Miles Fielder)
I General release from Fri 18 Apr. See rntervrew, left.
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WAR ASSEMBLY (15) 123min 000
Reviews
DRAMA HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (15) 118min 0000
The social realisrrr orientated cinema of British frlrrrrrraker Mike 1 ergh takes on a slightly drffererrt tone wrth Happr Go-Lucky, his most recent foray into a kind of frlmrc anthropology of (to use the great frlmmaker's own words) ‘lrow we live and how we sun/rye.‘
Familiar yet reassurrnglv drffererrt from arrythrng he has done since 1997's Career Girls. Happr (3o 1 (Icky rs the affectionate portrait of 30 sorrrething Poppy (Sally Hawkins). Naturally l()vrng, responsible and caring wrth an arrarchrc sense of fun, Poppy is a Joy. She lives a normal. fairly carefree lrfe in a suburban corner of London. By day she teaches small children. by night she takes flamenco and trarrrpoline lessons and her weekends are dryidcd hetweerr a weekly drrvrng lesson wrth disturbed instructor Scott (Eddie Maisan). gettrrrg mashed up wrth friends.
Leigh and another well-selected cast have clearly worked long and hard to improvrse this slice of rrroderrr life drama. The director rs working on a different register here however than some of lrrs other darker films. notath Naked and Vera Drake. Accessing a very rrrobrle and lrghtwerglrt crew Happy-Golucky rs a frlm of rrrovement, lrglrt and fresh air that throbs wrth the motifs of the early Parisian keystones; of the French New Wave film. Most of all it's a frlm about everything and nothing, the dowrrtrnre and the uptrme. a lrfe lrved wrth posmvrty. It's a frlrrr that transmutes Oscar Wilde's wrtty assertion that the drffererrce between the optimist and the pessrmist, 'the optimist sees the doughnut; the pessnrrrst the hole' into something tangible and lrfe affirrrring. (Paul Dale)
I General release from Fri 78 Apr. See feature, page 78.
Chinese director Feng Xraogang delivers an impresswe anti-war epic based on a true story from the Chinese Crvrl War (1927-1950r. The stOry begins in the wrnter of 1948 in northeastern China. where Captain Gu Zrdr (Zhang Hanyu) leads a company in the comrirurirst PLA army in their fierce fighting against the nationalist KMT forces. The veteran officer from a peasant background is asked by his superiors to defend a strategic Dosmon overlooking the Wen River. but is only given 46 men for the task. The savage battle sequences of the film's first half call to mind those of Savrng Private Ryan, wrth their handheld camerawork. de-saturated colours and gruesome fatalities. and Xiaogang has spoken in interviews of his deSrre to ‘remind people of the horrors of being a regular soldier.' The second half of Assembly. however. unfolds in peacetime. where Gu Zrdr, gurlt-rrdden. deaf and half-blinded from his military sen/ice. has begun another campaign — this time to find the bodies of his fallen comrades (who have been labelled MlAs or desertersr and to ensure their sacrifices are properly recognised by the authorities. Anchored by Hanyu's powerful performance. Assembly becomes a moving portrait of mascwrne obsessron, which merits its redemptive conclu3ron. (Tom Dawson) I Film/rouse. Edinburgh from Fri 7 7 Apr.
10—24 Apr 2008 111E LIST 43