Empire of Light (12A)
****
The cinema is one of the few workplaces that hasn’t provided the setting for a sitcom.
Sam Mendes’s film about a Margate cinema in 1981 has quite a few Croft/Perry elements: a seaside setting, a crusty projectionist (Jones), a seedy and pompous boss (Firth.) But, although there are several uproariously funny set pieces, humour is not its prime objective.
Instead, it dabbles in cineaste nostalgia, race relations, and a study of a middle-aged woman struggling with mental health issues - without establishing any clear focus.
Even its look back to the cinema-going experience of the early eighties takes an uncertain tack. The art deco Empire has two large auditoriums and plush red curtains, but there is a sense of it having seen better days. Like Mendes, this was the era when I got the bug for cinema going. But the marquee announcing Now Showing The Blues Brothers and All That Jazz, 20p boxes of Maltesers, and the bubbah-bubbah-bubbah-bubbah-bububbah of the Pearl and Dean adverts, didn’t send me spiralling back to the days of my youth.
The film centres on the relationship between the duty manager Hilary (Colman) and a new young black employee Stephen (Ward.) She drinks red wine, reads poetry, and has mental health issues; he is a sharp-dressed, confident and charming would-be architecture student who has to dodge the attentions of local National Front skinheads. These scenes are touching, but you might wonder why this is the story that Mendes - scriptwriting for the first time - has chosen to tell.
Olivia Colman is, needless to say, excellent. In the last half-decade she's risen to the tedious ranks of national treasures and busied herself doing national treasure deeds: winning awards; accepting other people's awards for them while they're asleep; playing the Queen; being a sport on Graham Norton. But you forget she is actually incredibly good. "Show me a film," is not a great line but her delivery makes it a heartbreaker.
Mendes has made just about every kind of film going: American classics, Bond movies; war movies; gangster movies, but this is his first parochial, not-so-good British movie. Compared to those other productions it is unfocused, soft, a bit rambling and aimless.
Yet I felt more for it than most of his more esteemed productions. It has a lovely score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that underlines its slapdash charm and heart.
Directed by Sam Mendes. Starring Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Tom Brooke, Hannah Onslow, Colin Firth and Toby Jones. In Cinemas Jan. Running time: 115 mins.
Till (12A)
****
Tis the season for a civil rights drama and this year’s Oscar pleader tells the infamous story of Emmet Till; a 14-year-old boy, who travelled south from Chicago to visit his cousins in Mississippi and was brutally lynched after paying a compliment to a white woman.
Till hits most of the usual beats of these kinds of movies, but differs from the norm by being an impressively accomplished piece of filmmaking.
Director Chukwu’s (Clemency) shot selection is both imaginative and evocative. In the beginning, we see Emmet (Hall) and his mother Mamie (Deadwyler) driving through Chicago. The scene is shot from below looking up, moving across from one face to the other, skillfully drawing out the mother’s fear and apprehension about her son’s upcoming trip.
The majority of the film is focused on Mamie’s search for some form of justice, and Deadwyler’s powerhouse performance. Though much of the time she is called on to do little more than stand and look dignified, Deadwyler is the equal of Leonard Rossiter as a performer whose face can be busy and communicative while theoretically doing very little.
Directed by Chinonye Chukwu. Starring Danielle Deadwyler, Jalyn Hall, Jamie Renell, Frankie Faison, Haley Bennett and Whoopi Goldberg. Running time: 130 mins.
Rashomon (12A)
***
Now that Greenaway’s had his turn, the BFI is devoting two months to a Kurosawa season: marvellous Samurai movies, the premake of The Magnificent Seven, the premake of the Bill Nighy cancer film.
And, of course, Rashomon, the one that was his international breakthrough and the title of which has become shorthand for any narrative that is told from multiple perspectives. The story sees bandit (Mifune) setting upon a couple in the countryside in 12th century Japan, raping the wife (Kyo) and murdering the husband (Shimura) – retold four times.
It’s a cinematic landmark but dare I to suggest that Mifune’s leaping, laughing nomad is a tad irritating, and maybe Rashomon is a film whose wonders and innovations have worn a bit thin over time? The latest Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films ever, is supposed to be a brash challenge to the complacent canon, yet it retains doddery classics like Rashomon, while discarding Lawrence of Arabia, Godfather Part 2, Un Chien Andalou, Raging Bull, Colonel Blimp, Nashville, all films whose impact I’d argue remains as strong today as when they were made.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa. (1950) Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura, Masayuki Mori, Minoru Chiaki, and Kichijiro Ueda. Japanese with subtitles. Running time: 88 mins.
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