Woman at War

First Hit: A quirky and compelling story about one woman’s fight against the destruction of her homeland, Iceland.

Halla (Halldora Geirharosdottir) is a music choir teacher, and she conducts her choir group in singing native Icelandic songs of joy. However, she’s also a deeply committed activist who is willing to put her life on the line to stop Rio Tinto aluminum plant from producing products that harm the environment.

This plant is located in the rugged highlands of her native country and to stop its production Halla finds ways of shorting out the electric power grid used to run the plant.

This is how the film opens: Halla using a bow and arrow to short the high voltage electrical lines feeding the plant. Then we follow her escape and evade the government’s helicopters which are searching for the person or group of people destroying the factory’s electrical power source.

Then she shows up, well-dressed and out of her rugged clothing, to teach her choir students light-hearted songs. One of the choir member’s Baldvin (Jorundur Ragnarsson) is a member of the government, and he is working closely with Halla to fight the intrusion of this Chinese company into their Icelandic culture. They are cautious when they speak together, as noted by how they put their cell phones in the refrigerator each time they meet to talk strategy of Hella’s next actions.

During an escape from the government helicopters, Hella finds herself on the farm of Sveinbjorn (Johann Siguroarson). He lives alone and calls his dog “Woman.” Sizing up Hella, he decides to help her escape the agents that are looking for her.

Sveinbjorn and Hella develop a trust and friendship which is developed throughout the remaining part of the film. This is a lovely part of the story. Hella also has a sister, Asa (also played by Geirharosdottir), who teaches meditation and yoga.

Four years earlier, both Asa and Hella had applied to become adoptive parents. And just when Hella’s activist events are becoming more involved, she gets a letter and telephone call that there is a young Ukrainian girl ready for her to adopt.

The rest of the film takes us on the conflicted ride of Hella the activist versus Hella the soon to be a mother and letting us see how she attempts to reconcile the difficulties of doing both. It is a wonderful ride, as all the players have an active influence in her next steps.

The quirkiness of the story is added to by a three-piece band that arrives and is staged prominently in particular scenes to add an odd emphasis to each scene. Additionally, there is a three-girl chorus dressed in traditional clothing, that pop-up in scenes to give flavor to the scene’s importance. However, it is the odd interjection of Juan Camillo (Juan Camillo Roman Estrada) a Spanish man traveling through Iceland on his bicycle that brings both unusual enjoyment and how it doesn’t always pay to be in a particular place at a specific time.

I loved seeing the stark ruggedness of the Icelandic countryside, and it was beautifully shot by the cinematographer. The story was wonderfully paced, and the point of one person having an impact was clearly made.

Geirharosdottir was fantastic as both Hella and Asa. She embodied the strength and determination of Hella’s character and the more subtle spiritual aspect of Asa. Ragnarsson was excellent of the partially paranoid government operative who wanted to support Hella’s war against the aluminum company. Siguroarson was amazing. I loved his character and presence in the film. He embodied the single well-entrenched farmer who loved the land he worked as well as the compassion for Hella’s mission. Estrada was wonderful in his role as a sort of an accidental tourist. Olafur Egilsson and Benedikt Erlingsson wrote a very original screenplay. Erlingsson directed this quirky film with aplomb, and the ending was perfect to the cause.

Overall: This film will stay with me as it was both enjoyable and pointedly purposeful.

Teen Spirit

First Hit: This was a well-done film, and it’s Elle Fanning’s performance that seals the deal.

Although the formula for this story is well known it works because of the performances of the actors, the cinematography, and singing by Fanning.

A poor polish girl Violette Valenski (Fanning) living on the Isle of Wight with her mom Maria (Agnieszka Grochowska) in a big farmhouse. They work the farm, both work at jobs in restaurants, and Violette also goes to school.

They are poor, and they need all the money they can make. Both are sad, unhappy, and driven people. Violette’s father left them, and the two women are doing everything they can to keep the farm and survive. They are hanging on by a thread. The father left because Maria was unfaithful to him. They’ve not heard from him in many years. The story makes it seem that Maria is hopeful he’ll return, someday.

Violette is shown in scenes where she sings while listening to her iPod, in her bedroom, in the fields, and in the school church choir. We also see scenes of her dancing her heart out — privately. There is a scene with her singing at an open mic in a pub with maybe 4 people sitting, talking and paying no attention to her except one, an old bearded man named Vlad (Zlatko Buric). But it is us, the audience, that hears the beauty of her heart’s singing voice. Vlad, hears it as well and goes up and tells her that he thinks she sings really well.

She hears and then sees a poster about a contest called Teen Spirit. In this contest, the winner gets a record contract. She wants this and has no confidence in her ability to make it happen. When she talks with Vlad about this, he tells her he will help her but will require her to let him manage her for 50% if she wins. What makes this drunken man someone she can trust; he tells her he was an opera singer but took a wrong turn along the way.

Violette needs an adult to go with her to the auditions and Vlad agrees. When he signs the form as her guardian, the young man at the desk recognizes his name as his parent’s favorite opera singer. Watching the trust between the two building is beautiful.

The rest of the film is about Vlad teaching her how to sing, Violette trusting him and herself while putting herself out there in front of audiences. There are a few scenes with a record producer Jules (Rebecca Hall) attempting to sway Violette to sign a contract with her company before the finals.

I really loved the shot when Violette was called on to her final performance on the Teen Spirit stage, the walk from her dressing room to the stage was incredibly beautiful. The starkness of the halls, the red dress she was wearing, her nervous eyes and turned down lips, flashes of her mom and the congregation watching the program on television, flashes of Vlad standing there, excellent.

Everything was effectively created in the early part of the film so that when it comes together, she lets go and sings from her whole body and spirit. It is a fantastic performance.

Fanning was exquisite. I loved how she showed her sullen sad behavior and letting the volcano slowly build only to make it all erupt in the final singing stage. Buric was great. He was both a little scary and like Violette said at one point, a big teddy bear. His conversation with Maria about helping Violette was joyful and engaging. Grochowska was fantastic as Maria, the concern protective mother. Her joy at watching her daughter sing in the finals brought tears to my eyes. Hall was strong as the record agent putting the pressure on to make a deal before the finals. Max Minghella wrote and directed a wonderfully insightful movie. Some of the shots and the edits between all Violette’s been through were fantastic.

Overall: This was a very inspirational film, and the excellent acting put it as one of the better this year, so far.

Peterloo

First Hit: This historical event deserved a much better rendition.

In 1819 England was in turmoil because there was famine, unemployment, and the Lords in Parliament, along with King George III, were controlling the country with their own greed.

Wages for textile workers went from 15 Shillings a week down to 5 for the same period. Corn wasn’t allowed to be imported, so they had little to eat. Additionally, the people of Manchester did not have representation in Parliament which meant that almost all the people in Northern England weren’t thought about and were taken advantage of by the London led government.

This story is about how the people in Northern England decided to change their lot in life and support reform. They started by gathering and speaking to each other about change and what they needed. They also talked about bearing arms and doing whatever it takes to support a reform movement and get representation in Parliament. They want to be able to earn a living, not starve and have some say over their lives.

The leader of this movement for all of England was orator Henry Hunt. Hunt was a wealthy landowner who also wanted to support reform in England. His focus was to do it peacefully. The local Manchester group was to take arms against the government because talking hasn’t worked. However, Hunt won’t have anything to do violence, and before he spoke in Manchester, he required a commitment for no force and no arms.

The day of the rally, a Monday, where Hunt is speaking, 60,000 – 80,000 people show up. Unfortunately, so do representatives from the government who decide to teach the citizens a lesson, so they bring in the Army, who end up killing 15 and injuring 300 – 400 people.

This was a huge black mark in British history, and it was unfortunate that this film seemed to belabor conversations about suppression. I thought that the language and word vocabulary used by most the players was too sophisticated and really appreciated two women, during a woman’s meeting, speaking up saying they couldn’t understand the speaker. Yes, that was part of the point. But the words were used in this film didn’t seem specific or relevant to the time, and the speech making seemed way too sophisticated as well.

I didn’t think any of the actors really gave me enough to give me pause to write about performance. For example, Roy Kinnear as Hunt just seemed too out of touch with the time. He came off at too sophisticated and arrogant for even 20th-century speech making. Mike Leigh wrote and directed this film. The story is compelling, and this representation of it was weak.

Overall: This is a great story not done well.

After

First Hit: Good girl and bad boy, a predictable sappy story of young romance.

This film is made for young teen girls as witnessed by the number that showed up for the early Friday afternoon showing I attended. Cell phones screens lit the anticipatory faces of these young audience members and unfortunately, they kept looking at them during the film.

The Story: Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) is headed to college. Her mother Carol (Selma Blair) has worked hard to create this opportunity for her daughter. Tessa is smart, pretty, and wholesome. Her boyfriend Noah (Dylan Arnold) is a senior in high school and a year behind her in school. He’s wholesome and is liked by Carol.

Arriving at her dorm room, both Carol and Noah are taken aback by Tessa’s roommate Tristan (Pia Mia). She’s hanging out with another fellow girl on the bed, and she’s pulling on an electronic cigarette while dressed in a very skimpy outfit.

Carol immediately wants to go to the housing authority to find her daughter another room. Pulling her mother off the ledge of embarrassing her, Tessa tells her mom, “let me figure this out on my own.”

Getting to know Tristan loosens Tessa up a little and when she goes to a party Tristan knows about; she’s out of her element. At the party she meets the bad boy, Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin). During a truth or dare, Tessa is asked to kiss Hardin, she is lulled into getting close, but pulls away at the last second. Walking through the party’s house, she stumbles into Hardin’s room and sees all the books on his shelves. He comes in, she’s interested to follow through with the kiss, but she also wants to honor her relationship with Noah and pulls away again.

The stage is set because they both have had absentee fathers. We learn more about why Hardin has such a sad view of love and relationships through his upbringing which is demonstrated through a classroom discussion. We also see Tessa’s cautiousness towards intimacy because her father walked out when she was very young.

The story goes back and forth with Tessa and Hardin getting together and then splitting up. She’s naïve to some of the life that Hardin has lived. There are moments of wonderful tenderness between the two and then there are moments of coldness by them.

The pacing of this story is slow, and it isn’t difficult to know where the movie is going and why. I’m not sure how well it held the audience it was meant for, because a whole row of young girls got up and left two thirds into the film. Additionally, two others in the row in front of me left in the last fifteen minutes.

Langford was okay in this role. There was nothing outstanding about her performance and it was believable. It was good to see Blair again, it has been some time since she’s been in a film role and she was good. Tiffin was mediocre as the bad boy. It was predictable and there was nothing that really made his performance stand out. I didn’t think there was much chemistry between him and Langford. Arnold was good as the, wise beyond his years, high school boyfriend. Mia was strong as the slightly edgy fun lesbian roommate. Jennifer Beals and Peter Gallagher were good as Hardin’s new mother-in-law and father. It was a pleasant surprise to see Beals again. Susan McMartin wrote a slow-moving predictable story. Jenny Gage directed in a way that ended up feeling compromised and mediocre.

Overall: I patiently waited for this film to end and left knowing it wasn’t worth the cost of making it.

The Aftermath

First Hit: It took a while to develop, but Keira Knightley (as Rachael Morgan) made it work.

Keira Knightley has developed into a wonderful actress, and her look and presence are uniquely suited to period pieces.

The beginning shows Rachael on a train arriving in Hamburg, Germany. It’s a few short months after WWII has ended. She’s coming from England because her husband Captain Lewis Morgan is in charge of rounding up the remaining Hitler supporters, keeping peace in Hamburg, and trying to make things better for the ruined city.

This is a difficult position for him to be in and we see it in his face and demeanor. One thinks that having his wife join him that it will be better. But when he meets Rachael at the train station, there is a distance between them because they barely hug, and she turns her head away when he awkwardly attempts to kiss her. Something has happened between them, and this part of the story takes a long time to unfold.

Because of the distance between them, Lewis can’t share the difficulty he has with his job. He’s not only battling something that’s gone wrong with Rachael, but he is also facing own past actions in the war, and now he’s managing the aftermath of the war and its ugliness.

The Germans are giving up their surviving homes to the British who are managing this reconstruction. Because Lewis is the highest ranking, he gets the best home. They move into a large luxury home belonging to Stephen Lubert and his daughter Freda (Alexander Skarsgard and Flora Thiemann respectively).

Stephen’s wife died in a firestorm bombing by the Allied forces, and because of this, Freda acts out and is very resentful that the British are living in their home. Stephen and Freda are supposed to move to a camp, but Lewis’ kind heart convinces Rachael that he wants to offer the Luberts a place to stay.

The angst of Rachael and Lewis unfolds as the audience slowly learns that they had a son who died years earlier during a bombing run by the Germans over London.

Feeling very separate from her husband, Rachael’s inner passion is sparked to life by Stephen’s advances.

In another part of the story we see Freda and Rachael have a beautiful moment together at the piano but Freda’s resentment at the loss of her mother, home, and feeling distance from her father, she gets involved with Nazi sympathizers who want information to harm Lewis.

In addition to this, the inner conflict of Lewis is continually brought to a head by one of his fellow officers Burnham (Martin Compston) who is hell-bent on continuing to make the Germans suffer. Lewis is more reflective, seeing the pain of both sides, while Burnham wants the Allied victory to be oppressive and pronounced.

As Rachael and Stephen’s relationship grows, the distance between Rachael and Lewis becomes more pronounced, until the deep hurt and resentment come to the foreground. Will the attempt to heal their struggle be too little too late or can they reconcile.

That’s the point of the film. As I indicated it took a meandering path, and the story wasn’t really engaging, but because the camera stays on Knightley (as Rachael) it holds together because she made it work.

Knightley was excellent. She’s full of passion and approaches it angularly. I like how Kiera can project sexuality while also being proper. She’s very skilled. Clarke is keen as the embattled Army Captain who is battling both inner and outer battles. He’s effective at creating that hidden volcano look. Skarsgard was terrific as the lonely man attempting to deal with the ravages of war including the loss of his wife and the distance between him and his daughter. Thiemann was terrific as the young girl, lost. With no mother, distant father, finding some solace with a Nazi sympathizer teaches her what really is essential. Compston was good as the soldier wanting to assert his power over the Germans. Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse wrote the screenplay. It languished from time to time, but it did pay off in the end. James Kent adequately directed this film, but it was Knightley that made it really work.

Overall: It wasn’t a great film, and it did have something to say about sharing your pain with your partner.