Nominated for Best short film at the Oscar this year, this wonderful little film uses the “old” Groundhog Day formula to great effect and does something which is not just completely new, within a genre which never ceases to surprise me, but also manages to deliver one of the most important moral lessons and heartbreaking message.
It might not be subtle, but the circumstances are such that subtlety is meaningless at this point. The names over the credits serve as a reminder of how much out of hands this has gone. Just as I am writing this the news of 20-year-old Daunte Wright was killed by a policeman who “accidentally discharged a “handgun”.
This is an example of why the X-Files became so big: this is government conspiracy at its best: phone tapping, UFO sightings, secret informants, red herrings and dead ends. “Fallen angel” had givens us a taste and glimpse of all that, but here it feels like Mulder and Scully are getting closer to the truth (isn’t it fun to hear Scully actually saying “the Truth is out there”?). This is when the plot thickened.It gave us just enough to be intriguing and to feel like we were almost catching up with the secrets, while at the same time, adding a few more questions. This is what the X-Files is all about until it probably imploded over the later seasons with its over-convoluted machinations with way too many questions and very few answers.This is also the episodes that introduced us to the “Lone Gunmen”, the trio of weirdos which will become not just a recurrent feature on the X-Files but they will all start a spin-off series of their own (which I have never actually seen, and apparently I wasn’t alone at missing it). The episode is really intriguing, even if now I know what’s behind. There’s a tense sense of paranoia that builds up throughout, reminiscent of great classics like Coppola’s “The conversation”. I loved the detail of Scully’s bag, which she leaves standing before making a cup of coffee and she finds laying on the table on her way back. We as the audience notice the difference, but she doesn’t. Brilliant. It’s great to see her starting to believe a little bit more too. A really strong and essential episode.
Another strong episode enhanced by a really strong cast (especially the guy who play the older Barnett, creepy as hell) and eerie atmosphere throughout, though probably slightly spoiled by the title itself which basically is a giveaway to what is going on and solving the mystery. There are few good moments (like when Scully gets shot) and the scenes between Barnett and Mulder on the phone which are possibly the highlights of the episodes. But once again the final coda feels a bit rushed and the usual open-end (which in this season are beginning to feel a bit tired) is a little bit disappointing considering the big build-up.
This is a lot better than people gave it credit when it was first released. It’s certainly not the musical/sequel that many people were expecting, nor your typical happy-go-lucky Disney fair. I guess back in the 80s people were not quite ready for this story to take such a dark turn and didn’t quite know what to make of it. However since then “RETURN TO OZ” gained quite a cult status and I can see why. Watching it tonight after many years I was impressed not just by how macabre it is and by the many nightmarish images it conjures (the spooky hospital at the beginning, the wheelers, the desert that turns people to sand, the people petrified and of course the hall with those screaming heads which really beats them all), but also by how well it manages to walk that fine line between a fairy tale and the dark side of the original Oz stories.There’s no escape from the fact that the film creates an overwhelming sense of dread throughout (which us possibly why people found it difficult to stomach) and leaves very little space for laughters or even smiles, but somehow that’s also its strength as it makes it all feel very real. Those first scenes in the hospital are so incredibly tense!! The film is also constantly exciting, intriguing, full of ideas and great inventions and it’s mostly very well made too. some of the blue screen is a bit ropey for today standards, but the art direction is still very impressive and so it its cinematography.On the whole this might just be the closest thing to a horror for children, which doesn’t insult the intelligence of an adult too. In fact, there’s a certain pleasure in noticing, as a grown up, all the many little clever details of how things from reality morph and find their place in Oz.Not a masterpiece by all means and probably not even a full 4-stars movie, but way better than a lot of the “family garbage” we get these days and certainly in need of a re-evaluation…
And it’s directed by Walter Murch, the legendary film editor behind films like “Touch of evil”, American Graffiti, Apocalypse Now, Godfather II and the Talented Mr Ripley and so many others!
Agree with this take? Disagree? Let me know if you have a second.
If you have not seen the original film starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman from 1973 this re-telling of the true story of the French Papillon convicted for a murder he didn’t commit and sent to life imprisonment in South America, might actually look like a rather good movie.
And to be honest, it’s really not bad at all. In fact I think I quite enjoyed it (though probably “Enjoyed” is not quite the right word when discussing watching people enduring a life sentence in the most gruelling way). It’s nicely told, filmed and paced. Its old-fashion film-making style feels pretty timeless, like the film could have been made anytime in the last 30 years.But if you are familiar with the original then, aside from a prologue (which actually takes away a little bit of the mystery about the main character) and an epilogue (rather pointless) and a few bits of more explicit violence and sex (though, not much from the latter), this film adds very little to the mix. The beats of the story are the same. One wonders what possessed the makers to decide to redo it at all?I rewatched the original straight after this and even though they are actually very similar, both with different weaknesses and strengths, some of the relationship earlier beats work better in this version.
McQueen and Hoffman are of course a pretty hard double-act to beat. McQueen got most of the awards at the time (golden globe, Oscar nominations and so on), but Dustin Hoffman is extraordinary with his mannerism and I felt like Malick in the same role of Degas struggled a bit trying not to copy the previous performance. Having said that, his fears for prison life and his reasoning for looking for help in Charlie Hunnam’s character (The Papillon of the title) are probably better explained and developed here (I can hear people screaming “Heretic!!”).
Hunnam does his best with the role: he may lack the charisma that McQueen had and he doesn’t seem to express a lot of emotions, but his physical presence is undeniable and his transformation from healthy and muscular at the start to thin, sick and emaciated works a lot better here than in the original. It is also shorter film, probably darker, grittier but just as claustrophobic, gruesome and full of despair, but it is handsomely made and it got me glued to the screen.
It should probably get 2 different ratings: a first one (a pretty low one) for being a pointless film, but a second rating too for being actually quite a well made film.
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