www.list.co.uk/film HORROR/THRILLER THE GUARD POST (18) 120min (Cine Asia) ●●●●●
while the second chronicles the fortunes of the tireless and sensitive titular seamstress (Sarah Pickering, perfect), born in a debtors’ prison. Their lives intertwine against a sadly still topical yet also satirically observed backdrop of poverty and financial crisis. Floating atop Edzard’s tellingly detailed script is a raft of priceless character turns from the likes of Cyril Cusack, Max Wall, Miriam Margolyes, Eleanor Bron and many others. Joan Greenwood is devastating as Arthur’s embittered paralytic mother, but the crowning glory is Alec Guinness as Dorrit pere, a complex figure of unforgettably distressed comic dignity. An undersung British classic well worth the investment of time. Extras include trailer, photo gallery and cast interviews. (Donald Hutera) COMEDY I’M NOT RAPPAPORT (12) 129 min (Nouveaux Pictures) ●●●●●
There’s a quiet, mirthful kind of charm to Herb Gardner’s Broadway hit of 1985, here transposed to the screen in this 1996 version directed by the writer. It tells the story of two old men who meet in Central Park on a daily basis, one an elderly Jewish radical, trade unionist and
South Korea certainly has a healthy film industry. As the American magazine Film Comment mused when the wave of their films first crashed on American shores – ‘is there actually more bilge than brine in the splash?’ The Guard Post is mainly bilge, as R-Point director Su- chang Gong offers a knowing work that owes much to the nation on whose shores it crashed – Alien, Dawn of the Dead and The Thing. But it is a film that never quite plays up the no- exit aspect of the claustrophobic horror film. As a military investigator and army platoon go to a remote border bunker that has ceased contact with the outside world, so the bloodbath begins and the body count rises. The film has a great location concept: the labyrinthine bunkers (here set built) utilised by the South Koreans during the Cold War, protecting their border from the North, but it seems finally more interested in the grisliness of the goo. Extras include behind the scenes docs. (Tony McKibbin) ADAPTATION LITTLE DORRITT (U) 380min (Squirrel Film) ●●●●●
Released to coincide with the BBC transmission of Andrew Bleak House Davies’ new adaptation of Dickens’ great political novel, Christine Edzard’s low-budget 1987 beauty is an intimate six-hour epic split in two halves. The first focuses on the unloved Arthur Clennam (Derek Jacobi, the epitome of unfulfilled middle-aged decency),
former communist, the other a black janitor in fear of redundancy. The roles made
legendary on Broadway by Judd Hirsch and Cleavon Little are here taken over by Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis, and their cantankerous political discussions still ring with a bittersweet melancholy, serving to contrast the political inertia of the decades after the 80s with the achievements of these old codgers’ generation. The old men take on muggers and drug lords with realistically mixed results, and pull plenty of pathos in to their comeuppance. It all works pretty well, but there are times where the staginess of the piece detracts from its effect, and it’s perhaps 20 minutes overlong. Extras include a script and production notes playable on a PC. (Steve Cramer)
DOCUMENTARY THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME (E) 74min (Strike Force) ●●●●●
DVD Reviews Film FILM BOOKS ROUND-UP
Dirk Bogarde
‘Tis the season to settle down with a good old-fashioned film book. Having a stack of cinema related tomes on your bedside table is essential for any aspiring cineaste at this time of year. So after many hours of sifting through recent releases this is what I think you should put on you Christmas list or better, order from your local library today. Ever, Dirk (Weidenfeld & Nicolson ●●●●●) is a collection of legendary British actor Dirk Bogarde's letters to everyone from Luchino Visconti and Joseph Losey to Joanna Lumley. Bogarde's tetchy, obtuse, perplexingly closeted personality jumps off every page. His letter writing skills are second to none and this book paints a more accurate portrait of the British film industry between the late 1960s and early 1990s than any I can remember. Also the pictures are great. Michael Deeley's Blade Runners, Deer Hunters and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off (Faber ●●●●●) attempts to reclaim the producer's voice in the now largely over annotated period of cinema history. It's actually a whole lot of fun with Deeley revealing himself to be particularly good on the socio-economic rootings of many of the films he worked plus there's loads of drugs stories which is always a good thing.
If its erudition and semantics you seek you can't do much better than Widescreen (Wallflower) ●●●●●, a selection of Mark Cousins' film writing for Prospect magazine. Cousins’ writing is fresh and contrary and like all good film theory, it’s beholden of its own peculiar logic. Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando (Faber) ●●●●● is a fine and sustained examination of Brando's tumultuous life and art by New York Times and Time magazine cinema critic veteran Stefan Kanfer. Finally, Lights, Camera, Soundtracks (Canongate ●●●●●) is Mark C Strong's long gestating project to do for movies what he did for rock with The Essential Rock Discography. For sheer hard work and anal retentiveness Strong surely deserves a knighthood for service to film and music obsessives everywhere. Happy reading. (Paul Dale)
Originally released in 1916, right in the middle of World War I, this important documentary might not be known to viewers in its entirety, but individual moments will probably be familiar: its images are regularly ransacked for various historical documentaries. Basically showing the lead up to and aftermath of part of a campaign that continued after the film’s release, the film is clearly more optimistic than the reality of the battle itself. By the end of the four-month campaign that began on July 1 and ended in mid- November, the British suffered 420,000 casualties (according to Encyclopaedia Britannica). Not that the film shies away from
showing hardship, as it mixes moments of the soldiers simple day to day actions with the war wounded coming back from the battlefield and needing care, but it obviously lacks critical distance as it serves also as a propaganda piece for the British war effort. Extras include a 36 page booklet. (Tony McKibbin)
DOCUMENTARY THE WHITE PLANET (E) 86min (Optimum) ●●●●● French Canadian filmmakers Thierry Piantanida and Jean Lemire’s 2006 documentary attempts to bridge the gap between an National Geographic style infomercial
documentaries and the visual ambitiousness (and ambiguities) of more experimental eco friendly cinema like Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka. Unfortunately the film never quite engages. Maybe it is a problem of voice-over as we feel we are in the bog-standard nature documentary; or perhaps it’s that the small screen doesn’t do
justice to some of the images that hint at magnificence: the many caribou for example that we see in the process of migrating are no more than dots on the TV screen. There are some great, haunting moments though – the seals with astonishing inflatable nostrils that they puff up like balloons. But anybody who has seen Werner Herzog’s recent, fascinating look at man, extremity and beast, Encounters at the End of the World, may note the difference between what is adequate and what is inspirational in the pantheon of great natural history genre. Extras include making of doc and interviews. (Tony McKibbin)
11 Dec 2008–8 Jan 2009 THE LIST 57