Wild Target (2010)

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Directed by Jonathan Lynn, creator and writer of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, known for directing My Cousin Vinny, The Whole Nine Yards and 1985's Clue, follows the British humour formula here of gathering together a group of quirky, unique characters and then letting them have a go at each other, seasoned with black comedy.  Lynn will never be heralded as one of the "great directors" because his films are too watchable while utterly indifferent to the viewer, as he creates characters we wouldn't like in real life while enjoying the hell out of them on screen.

The film stars Bill Nighy, coming off his new found success after Love Actually, after which he proved himself ready to play in relatively low-budget, imaginative and drily funny films including this one, Chalet Girl, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and the trio of spy films, Page Eight, Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield. A more reliable good-film plus actor is hard to find in this day and age. With him is Emily Blunt, at the start of her presently unstoppable career, presenting those skills that made her a hot property in Hollywood: cute, manic and perfectly willing to play dark parts.  Mixed in are Martin Freeman, Eileen Atkins, Rupert Everett, Gregor Fisher (Nighy's manager in Love Actually) and the hard to believe Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame, who is simply marvellous here. He should have stuck to British films.

A small part exists here for Rory Kinnear, who is now recognisable from Man Up, The Imitation Game and the later James Bond franchise. What I find delightful is that he's the son of Roy Kinnear, whose face was once everywhere in both black and quirky comedy films of the 60s, 70s and 80s; for a modern audience, the most likely chance is that he'll be recognised as Mr. Salt from 1971's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with Gene Wilder. Both father and son look amazingly alike — and if you know the father, and the parts he was willing to perform, then it's not hard to guess why the son would play the role he did in Black Mirror.

Films like Wild Target are why I keep gravitating towards British film and television over and above American. It may have something to do with my being Canadian, and being raised on Monty Python when most Americans at the time hadn't heard of them (at least, not until the films appeared), as well as a long list of patient, intellectual, down-to-earth UK television dramas, where the characters were quite ordinary people. I was effected to the point where I would rather sit and watch Father Duddleswell than J.R. Ewing. 

Summertime (1955)

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One of the worst ingratiating things I find about those who undertake to discuss film is how often the films chosen reflect a kind of insipid "macho" take upon life, upon plot structure and most of all, upon theme. Part of my eclecticism is that I am perfectly able to appreciate and enjoy a film that is entirely about a woman's point of view about life, without in the least feeling bored or that my manhood is being challenged.  Summertime is about as female as a film is capable of being, far more so than any of the rank shit that's been produced in the last 50 years, pretending to be so. This film, for example, is NOT Kramer vs. Kramer.

I shall explain.  As can be seen, the film is directed by David Lean and stars Katharine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi, both at a point in their careers where neither needs to explain what films they choose to appear in. This is a love story, but a bittersweet one.  It is not a story about a woman who is constrained by her times, who carps about her freedoms as a woman, or who does not like the way she is spoken to. It is about a woman who is on an adventure, to strike out alone into a strange world... where the tension lies in her not being ready for it.  Her troubles arise from her own actions and her own inability to embrace those actions when they occur. In short, the film is about a woman who takes responsibility, not one about a woman who whines and cries because she's not "allowed to."

In a modern film, women are specifically written so that they conflict emerges from something they don't control, a marriage they don't like, a career limitation imposed upon, a circumstance she did not create. In effect, the modern filmmaker's approach to the woman character is "Infantilise her first, then have her grow up." The result of this approach is pretty much always garbage.

David Lean here has not yet launched himself into the epic scope: Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago are all yet in his future. Here, within the setting of mid 1950s Venice, just at the point when pretty much everyone dreamed of visiting the city built upon the water, Lean demonstrates his directorial prowess by extracting every element of the city in perfect, brilliant and often uncomfortable detail. Direction here is not about pounding the city into his point-of-view, which is what other so-called great directors might of done; Lean lets the city breathe, he investigates the sounds, the beauty, the ugliness, the romance and the darkness with exquisite, patient detail, thus managing to produce a film that allows a Venice that no longer exists to remain fresh and still alive in the viewer's mind. It's not remotely presented like a travelogue, but exactly in the manner that someone walking through the city would see it — not only for the surprises it brings, but for those elements tourists do not want to see; fading stucco, dilapidation and the decay of a thousand years. He does this without soiling the desire to see Venice, if one could through a time machine, in the least.

Most of all the film is about love; not the silly misunderstandings of American romances, nor the sedentary domesticility of character who show love through restraint and care.  It is not the running, stupid, idiot love of the young before life begins. It is messy love, badly played out love, embarrassing, clumsy, sometimes accusatory, always not quite in reach despite the best efforts of two brillliant performers. It is an adult love that is hardly shown because, honestly, it hurts too much.

I expect it would not be popular with my readers. What matters with film, however, is not how much we "like" something, but rather how well we understand it. Far too often we cast aside films and other works of art that might make us better as human beings specifically because we don't understand it and we don't want to. That approach says only one thing about the assemblage of thoughts that we ultimately become as we age: our willingness to be blind to the real lived experience of millions who happen to not be like ourselves.