by Oscar O’Sullivan

Monday – The Living Daylights

Now here is the serious spy thriller Bond that was teased by For Your Eyes Only before Roger Moore spent his final two instalments back in comic-strip territory. Timothy Dalton is here at last to reinvent Bond (a few years too early, mind you) and reinvent he does – practically quivering with violent rage, Dalton plays Bond as a serious professional whose moral fortitude has been worn down by decades of dirty work. He’s also a bit of a maverick, following the spirit of his orders rather than the letter, but unlike Connery or Moore, he seems to take very little pleasure in the womanising the job calls for. His only lead as he tracks down a Soviet defector is the man’s seemingly clueless girlfriend Kara (Maryam D’abo), who Bond leads up the garden path with a series of manipulative cock-and-bull stories. While he’s all smiles and sweet words around his mark, the facade drops whenever he gets a moment alone, with Dalton playing both sides of the character to perfection. And he’d want to be taking things seriously, as this is one of the best plots in a while, a serious Cold War intrigue with deceptions upon deceptions keeping both Bond and the audience on the back foot right up until the exciting final act in Afghanistan, where Bond and an army of Mujahideen rebels storm a Russian airbase to hijack a cargo plane filled with opium. Director John Glen has capitalised upon the technical promise he showed in For Your Eyes Only to deliver the most refreshingly modern action film in the series so far. A welcome reminder of how brilliant these can be. 10/10.

Wednesday – 8½

A film that speaks for itself, even if what it has to say may not always be obvious. Director Federico Fellini had secured backing to create a new film, only to forget what his original idea was when it came time to begin production. This, in turn, inspired him to create 8½, a film about a director who has forgotten the idea for his new movie but is too embarrassed to tell anyone involved, leading to an increasingly surreal and hostile pre-production period as he tries to bluff his way out of making a film he no longer has a vision for. An obviously autobiographical film that sees the lead character come to the solution that autobiography is a useless practice for both artist and audience, a self-indulgence that must be overcome if actual truth is to be discovered in film. This all sounds a certain way on paper, but becomes properly tricky in motion, as dream-like imagery blurs the line between the full-blown dream sequences and the ‘real world’ that the protagonist inhabits. Every character is unnaturally verbose and erudite in that way only the best film writers can get away with. A beautifully realised postmodern artwork that questions the very validity of the narrative form while still telling a story that satisfies. 9/10.

Thursday – Irma la Douce

Irma la Douce is a wonderfully off-kilter comedy that populates Paris with Anglo-accented English speakers but still runs amok with playful French stereotypes. Fresh-faced copper Nestor (played with wonderful innocent buffoonery by Jack Lemmon) has one hell of a week on his new beat – after losing his job for embarrassing his boss during a sting on prostitutes, poor Nestor finds himself in fisticuffs with the toughest pimp on the street. To the surprise of all, including himself, he takes down the big brute and finds himself as the new object of affection for the title character, a much-loved and highly sought-after prostitute played by Shirley MacLaine. Nestor believes he’s lucked out, until he realises that his new sweetheart plans to continue plying her trade to fund their new life together. Driven mad by jealousy, Nestor concocts an improbable scheme to keep her all to himself involving borrowed cash, high-class disguises and plenty of easy-to-misinterpret skulking around behind his dear Irma’s back. The comedy is almost perfectly tuned, with especially excellent use of repetition to drive jokes home three or four additional times after their first payoff. A set-bound beauty with some genuine location photography to boot, the film also features a swinging soundtrack that points to the story’s origins as a stage musical. The one serious weakness is exactly that – an unnecessary seriousness that threatens to unbalance the tone during the occasionally staid action of the middle act. Thankfully, the whole endeavour rights itself in time for the final act, which keeps you guessing in some wonderfully funny ways. 8/10.

Friday – The Royal Tenenbaums

I’ve reviewed this before, an all-time favourite and almost certainly the most accessible film by Wes Anderson. Though he has achieved higher peaks in his visual style, no other film in his catalogue tells so perfect a story while mixing his perfectionist agenda with a certain amount of controlled chaos and happy accidents. Not to mention that this is an incredibly funny film with one the best ensemble casts ever put together. I’m actually going to have to stop myself before I waste the whole day gushing. 10/10.

Sunday – Je Tu Il Elle

Here is a question for you – where do we draw the line between an art film and a piece of pornography? The first answer that springs to mind is the presence of narrative or thematic aspirations, but where does that leave Je Tu Il Elle? There is no narrative here, beyond the presence of a single central character who we follow after an unseen breakup through three distinct but barely connected scenarios. The thematic intent is also a jealously guarded secret, with the film as a whole creating obviously intentional disconnects between what we are told is happening and what actually takes place in front of us. I’m certainly not calling Je Tu Il Elle pornography, but these are the questions that arise when a film spends it’s final twenty minutes on a graphic sex scene. Though it deftly invites interpretation through the liminal, transient presentation of the limited environments and sparse information, I wasn’t drawn all the way in. C’est La Vie? 7/10.