Captivity - a nasty film experience (Fr Peter Malone MSC)
The Counterfeiters - not for the faint-hearted (Peter Sheehan)
Then She Found Me - provides a popular but inadequate answer to finding happiness (Fr Richard Leonard SJ)
The Ten Commandments (animation) - a missed opportunity (Fr Leonard)
CAPTIVITY
starring Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies and Pruitt Taylor Vince
directed by Roland Joffe
96 mins. rated MA 15+ (strong violence, blood and gore)
out May 8, Village Roadshow
reviewed by Fr Peter Malone MSC who directs the film desk of SIGNIS: the World Association of Catholic Communicators. He is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting.
This is a nasty film experience. Most audiences will want to leave fairly early in the film.
Elissa Cuthbert plays a model who is abducted and subjected to unrelenting torture by a masked figure for half the running time. By the time that some more interesting elements and twists come into the film, it is too late. Most audiences will have given up. Only die-hard horror fans (who proclaim their views on the IMD blog) have positive things to say about Captivity.
The main surprise is that the film was directed by Roland Joffe who had begun his career with The Killing Fields and The Mission. We are a long, long way from those achievements despite the publicity for the film constantly referring to his being a man 'of vision and profound philosophy'. He gives the film a glossy treatment and style but to little avail.
THE COUNTERFEITERS
starring Karl Markovics, August Diehl, and Devid Striesow
directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky.
98 mins. rated MA 15+ (strong violence).
out May 8, Madman Cinemas
reviewed by Peter W. Sheehan, an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting
This is an extraordinarily well crafted Austrian-German film, which won the Oscar for the best foreign movie in 2008 and was nominated for best direction at the German Film Awards and Berlin International Film Festival in 2007.
It tells the factual story, based on Adolf Burger's book, "The Devil's Workshop," about a Nazi plan to destroy the economy of the UK by flooding it with counterfeit British pounds.
The movie focuses on the story of Salomon Sorowitsch, the chief counterfeiter (played brilliantly by Karl Markovics), who is rescued from Auschwitz to run Operation Bernhard
and who is set apart by the Nazis among other captive Jewish professionals to help the Nazis finance their war effort.
The film is a gripping story about moral choice, and it confronts the viewer in almost every conceivable way. What would be our choice in similar circumstances - to preserve
moral integrity, use our skills to survive through self-interest, or be complicit in tolerating (and reinforcing) the tragic loss of life of fellow human beings in a place where prisoners
are abused and killed for no reason?
The film pits opportunity against cowardice and raises significant questions about the motivations of the Nazi officers who are not completely idealistic themselves and who also
struggle to survive just like the counterfeiters.
The film agues forcibly that there is no easy solution to the moral dilemmas it shows. The counterfeiters have made the choice to survive and the movie explores compellingly the
costs of their choice.
There is strong violence in the movie and the film is rated appropriately. It has visual depictions of sex and nudity but never is the display gratuitous though their depiction has to be
a warning for some. This film is grim and unsettling but it is brilliantly executed and it poses issues and questions that will linger in our minds.
The movie is magnificently scripted, but it is not for the faint-hearted.
The film's style, direction and the dark, brooding cinematography by Benedict Neuenfels set it apart from other movies dealing with why the Nazis did what they did.
If there is a single message in this film, it is that after seeing it we know that we need to think much more understandingly and knowingly about the moral issues associated with the
choices made by all people trapped in desperate human circumstances.
THEN SHE FOUND ME
starring Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler and Matthew Broderick
directed by Helen Hunt
101 mins. rated M (moderate sexual references and coarse language)
out May 15, Hopscotch
reviewed by Fr Richard Leonard SJ, the director of the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting
Based on the book of the same name by Elinor Lipman, Then She Found introduces us to April Epner (Hunt), who is 39 years old and somehwat confused.
Helen Hunt is a distinguished actor, having won four Emmys, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild awards and an Oscar for As Good As It Gets. Then She Found me
marks her directorial debut. In fact this film seems to have been something of a personal quest with Hunt directing, screenwriting, producing and starring in it.
This is a slow-burn film. After a sluggish start, highly neurotic characters grow on you, by stealth. It may come as a surprise to find just how affecting this film ends up being.
The writing is tight, the humour sharp and the acting is universally good, even from the over-the-top Ms Midler who plays an over-the-top long lost mother.
The script is unusually complex, touching on issues of fidelity in marriage, faith, prayer, the biological clock and a baby as a must-have commodity.
It is disappointing to note that the language is frequent and rough, and some viewers will find the way the Lord's name is abused particularly offensive. And this lack of discipline
even extends to casting Salmon Rushdie as April's obstetrician. This jars and distracts from the central story.
Then She Found Me is a modest film which keeps the focus on deeply flawed characters trying to find the secret to happiness. By the film's end it presents answers that most
Christians know are popular but in the long term quite inadequate.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
animation film voiced by Christian Slater, Alfred Molina, Elliott Gould, Kathleen Barr, Christopher Gaze
narrated by Ben Kingsley
directed by Bill Boyce, John Stronach
85 mins. rated G
out April 24, Anchor Bay Entertainment
reviewed by Fr Richard Leonard SJ
This children's film is a retelling of the life of Moses (Slater) and narrated in grand style by Ben Kingsley.
For obvious reasons I wanted to like this film, be able to recommend it and, indeed, promote it to you. Sadly for me, and maybe for the film, I cannot do any of these three things.
Given how good animation films can be these days, this version of The Ten Commandments looks like amateur hour. With such a star studded cast, I can only think that the
producers spent all their money on the actors and had little left over for the vision and the music. But this is not a radio play, it is a film, and, even though it only goes for 85
minutes, it fails to have any real visual or aural interest.
It also makes a number of biblical errors and unnecessary embellishments on the story. The most serious one is to use the word Jehovah as a translation for the Hebrew name for
God, YHWH. The term Jehovah was first used by Dom Raymundus Martini, a Spanish Dominican, who in 1270 tried to Latinize the Old Testament name for God. He did his
best but was wrong. Even a little bit of research by the filmmakers would have shown how inappropriate this is in the 21st century.
This is only one of several textual problems in the screenplay which means that 'spotting the error' might be the only creative way to view the film.
A missed opportunity if ever there was one.
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