Yep, there’s a lot to offload here. Four bigguns’ of varying quality, with one of them taking the current podium position as my favourite film of the year so far (Hint: It ain’t Wonka. Or The Boy and the Heron. Or The Iron Claw).
Wonka
Going into this as a huge fan of the original, and as a particular fan of Gene Wilder in general, I was kind of set against this prequel, as much as I adore Paul King’s Paddington films and his work on the iconic TV series like The Mighty Boosh and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. All in all though, it’s a nice little film, it’s just a bit ironic that Timothée Chalamet is the weakest part in the ensemble. Singing’s not his greatest talent, and his relentless eccentricity leans more to the irritating side of Johnny Depp’s rendition rather than Wilder’s more sinister tone. His southern twang, particularly his Blanche DeBois ‘I’ve relied on the kindness of strangers’ quip, are a tad grating. But I’ll pause for a moment to add a few of my favourite Wilder lines from the Tunnel of Terror scene, where a nice quaint boat trip quickly goes crazy (and excuse WordPress for forcing me to skip a line each time I press enter):
Not a speck of light is showing so the danger must be growing,
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing?
Is the grizzly reaper mowing?
I’m tempted to quote the whole darn thing, but those are my highlights. Speaking of which, Wonka doesn’t have any of the lyrical genius of the original in terms of its new tunes, but its heart is certainly in the right place. King’s prequel follows Wonka’s rise to fame as he tries to start his own shop in the cutthroat world of chocolatieering (not a word, but I’ll use it nonetheless) coupled with the evil shenanigans of Mrs Scrubbit (Olivia Coleman on typically fine form). It’s the fine array of secondary cast members that really make the film shine, and it’s fun to just check off the regulars like Ghosts alumni Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby and Charlotte Ritchie. Other British stalwarts like Matt Lucas, Rowan Atkinson. Plus Hugh Grant is present and correct too, along with The Mighty Boosh’s Rich Fuller (it’s nice to see him getting work outside the comedy series, even if it’s impossible not to think of him as Bob Fossil and other assorted characetrs). It’s these guys who give the film it’s real warmth and make it a fun watch, even if its eponymous character is less convincing.
The Boy and the Heron
I’m not a huge Ghibli fan. I’ve seen Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, but those are the big ones. The animation’s always amazing, and there’s always a mix between grounded reality and far less grounded fantasy, sometimes peppered with a bit of darkness and violence too. This is apparently the most autobiographical film of Hayao Miyazaki, who after getting the trophy for Most Accomplished Animator is quickly vying for The Guy Who Keeps Saying He’s Going to Retire But Actually Doesn’t Retire and Keeps Making Films award. Props to him.
Set during the Pacific War, it follows the adventures of Mahito after the death of his mother, coming across the titular heron and an assortment of other suitably strange anthropomorphic creatures. I saw the dubbed version rather than the subtitled original, and dayum, the English-speaking voice cast is stacked. I recognised Chrtistian Bale as the father straight away (he voiced Howl in Miyazaki’s previous film), but it took me a while to recognise Robert Pattison and Willem Defoe as well. It wasn’t The Lighthouse reunion I was expecting, but they nonetheless knocked it out of the park. And Mark Hamill too, along with Gemma Chan and Florence Pugh. And Dave Bautista. One of the most impressive voice casts I’ve ever seen. And they’re all awesome.
Miyazaki masterfully blends bleak realist imagery of fires and destruction with surrealist animal characters. Look out for some frogs and barbel fish addressing Mahito with deep hymnal tones, and I have to give a particular shoutout to those talking parakeets who have a particular penchant for sharp knives and human victims. Yeah…odd. For those unfamiliar with Ghibli style, they might not gel with this one, but viewers willing to dive into a bit of eccentricity mixed with love and loss will have a grand old time.
The Zone of Interest
Goshdarn, Jonathan Glazer knows how to create tension and utter dread with the black screen (see Under the Skin). And, as Zone of Interest proves, he’s a dab hand at doing the same with a blank white screen. And a blank red screen, too. The fear and dread are significantly bolstered by the reliably horrifying synths of Mica Levi, who is making a name for herself in vocalising the angst of central characters through music alone. ‘Vanity’ was a particular emotive standout out from Jackie, and ‘Love’ was the haunting highlight of Under the Skin. Here, there’s no particular standout, but Levi makes a huge impact with the ‘less is more’ approach. Other than her occasional intrusions into the soundscape, there’s no soundtrack at all. As films like No Country for Old Men and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre have supremely proved, it’s often what the camera doesn’t show you that makes the most emotional impact. Levi’s occasional synths are guttural, deep and utterly alien, distancing the audience from already distanced and doom-laden imagery.
Onto the plot, which Glazer loosely based on Martin Amis’ novel of the same name. It follows the Nazi commander Rudolf Höss and his family as they live their lives, with only a wall separating them from the horrors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. There’s not much more to it than that, but the way imagery and silences are used to evoke horror are unlike anything else. Images that might seem cute and innocent are rendered horrifying and evil through the background atrocities that are never shown.
Glazer makes the sensible decision never to show the sufferings, instead cultivating disgust in the audience by having commanders discuss the camps over unseen documents and detailed maps. When one commander is asked by another how ‘it’ went and he responds that ‘it’ went ‘better than expected’, we can guess exactly what they’re referring to, but the lack of specification makes the conversation all the more unholy. Never has a garden of colourful, healthy, beautiful flowers looked so ugly knowing the horrors that lie only yards beyond them, particularly when they’re filmed in extreme close-up hellscapes while chimneys continue to smoke and machines carry on pulsing. That red flower adorning The Zone of Interest’s central poster takes on a whole new kind of dread once you’ve seen the film. Images of babies and children playing are filled with sadness rather than calm. If you can picture the sheer foreboding and unease rendered in that beach scene from Under the Skin, imagine that feeling stretched across a whole film. The Zone of Interest isn’t an easy watch, but it’s a testament to the power of film and the myriad emotions that can be cultivated through imagery, sound and dreadful silence.
The Iron Claw
I still can’t really picture Zac Efron outside his High School Musical persona, despite the fact that I’ve never seen any of those films. Nonetheless, he puts in a solid performance as the wrestling champion Kevin Von Erich in Sean Durkin’s sports biopic. It was hard to follow up with this one after watching Zone of Interest a couple of hours earlier, but it’s still a decent effort. Maybe not helped by the two girls sitting close by who were talking, messing around on their phones, resting their feet on other seats and generally being irritating.
But despite their incessant volume (‘this is an English cinema, not an American one, so pipe down and watch the film properly!’ said my uptight internal monologue, not wanting to engage in an actual physical or verbal confrontation, as I’m too much of a dweeb), there were some strong performances, particularly from The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White, whose charisma helps lift the narrative a bit. And the wrestling scenes are well-choreographed too. Ultimately, despite some decent set pieces and heartfelt scenes, it’s difficult to get engaged in a sport that’s, y’know, fake. And it’s hard to mine too much psychological depth when the wrestling scenes, impressive as they are, often come at the expense of decent character development. If you’re a wrestling fan, though, The Iron Claw will probably be a, uh, RKO. Apparently that stands for Randy Knock Out, which is a top tier move in the wrestling world. The more you know.