Film Reviews
BIOPIC GAINSBOURG (VIE HÉROÏQUE) (15) 121min ●●●●●
Great songs, beautiful girls, lovely costumes and an artist in a constant state of flux are emphasised in Joann Sfar’s imaginative, beautiful and suitably bizarre musing on the life of Serge Gainsbourg. Starting off in conventional style with a young
Gainsbourg (Kacey Mottet Klein) being forced to play the piano by a seemingly tyrannical father (Razvan Vasilescu), the action quickly jumps into the abstract when a giant animated puppet appears lying beside the young Jewish boy in his bed right as he’s being told about the Nazi threat. This puppet caricature (actor Doug Jones hidden
behind hooked nose and big-eared mask) is the devil inside the artist. He follows the chain-smoking artist everywhere as he embarks on a journey full of song, girls and continuing identity crisises. Eric Elmosnino plays Gainsbourg with camp Gallic aplomb strangely reminiscent of Peter Sellers in Inspector Clouseau mode, flitting between humour, sadness, anger and one pin-up model after another.
First-time director Sfar is best known as a comic- book artist and his primary thesis is that it was the
women in Gainsbourg’s life that inspired him most. The film presumes audience knowledge about Juliette Gréco (Anna Mouglalis), Brigitte Bardot (Laetitia Casta), France Gall (Sara Forestier) and Jane Birkin (Lucy Gordon, the British model who committed suicide just after the shoot wrapped and to whom the film is dedicated) as very little time is spent explaining who they are or where they came from. It’s Casta playing Bardot as sex kitten that makes the biggest impact, while Gordon does a fine job imitating the dulcet tones of Birkin.
Sfar is interested in what made Gainsbourg such a
maverick performer. There are repeated flashbacks to his childhood. There are also similarities in the episodic structure to La Dolce Vita. However, when Sfar moves away from the abstract and into traditional biopic territory the movie falters, especially in the scenes that show his life post-Birkin. The doppelgänger puppet becomes an obstacle rather than a tool. As for the music, the choices are inspired more often
than they are obvious and this ambitious work is a great introduction to the crooner who died in 1991 aged 62. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ Selected release, Fri 30 Jul. See Take 5, page 45.
HORROR/SCI FI/THRILLER SPLICE (15) 103min ●●●●●
James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein meets one of David Cronenberg’s body horrors in director Vincenzo Cube Natali’s latest immersion into the world of scientific paranoia.
Geneticists and lovers Clive and Elsa (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, notice the very direct reference to Whale’s 1935 camp horror masterpiece) work together and spend their days creating ugly, unstable, slug-like new life forms for their corporate bosses in the hope of the major breakthrough to secure research funds. When the project is aborted, Clive and Elsa stay late at the lab and have one last go at creating a stable being. The result is Dren, a bald, semi-human woman. Dren soon grows into a beautiful young female (Delphine Chanéac), Elsa becomes obsessed with her creation and Clive worries about the ethical and practical implications of it all. They are both about to pay the price of bad science. Like all good genetic horrors, Splice plays with the ideas of the creator/god complex, empty womb syndrome, the sins of the parents and peer pressure with twisted and depraved abandon. Though less venereal and intellectually grounded than the Cronenberg horrors it is influenced by (most noticeably The Brood and Dead Ringers), it is hard not to admire the sheer gusto that Natali and his cast and crew bring to proceedings. That the film begins to run out of steam and takes an awkward veer into the metaphysical is regrettable, but the denouement is a killer. (Paul Dale) ■ Cameo, Edinburgh and selected release, Fri 23 Jul.
DRAMA/ACTION THE KARATE KID (PG) 139min ●●●●●
Rocky director John G Avildsen’s 1984 hit The Karate Kid was no masterpiece, so the prospect of a two-hour plus remake directed by Harald Zwart (Agent Cody Banks, The Pink Panther 2) and featuring Will Smith’s son Jaden promises as much fun as a kick to the solar plexus. But freshly reset in unfamiliar Beijing locations, and featuring a uniquely downbeat performance from the usually manic Jackie Chan, The Karate Kid packs a half-decent punch.
Malcontent 12-year old Dre Parker (Smith) and his mother (Taraji P Henson) relocate from Detroit to China, but the boy finds himself falling in love with violin student Mei Ying (Wenwen Han) and bullied by local gangs. Encouraged to defend himself, Dre enlists the help of Mr Han (Chan), a downtrodden electrical repairman whose unconventional teaching methods prepare Dre to kick butt at the climactic martial arts tournament.
While the tournament itself is a nonsensical affair, with bloodless child-beatings relayed on Jumbotron screens to braying audiences, The Karate Kid is all about the training sequences, which occupy some ninety minutes of screen-time. Despite Smith’s lazy performance, it’s Chan’s considerable charisma and charm in these scenes that provide Zwart’s film with unmerited, but welcome pizzazz. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release, Wed 28 Jul.
44 THE LIST 22 Jul–5 Aug 2010