Django Unchained

One thing that you can always guarantee with a Tarantino film is hype. The film will often be a financial success before it’s even been made, ending up as the usual bloodbath featuring naughty language. This time out, with ‘Django Unchained’, Tarantino takes his hand to the Spaghetti Western, using his usual brand of cinematic homage and borrowing.

Now, as you may have guessed, I’m not much of a Tarantino fan. There’s something about his films, and the man himself, that just irritates me. While his films are generally entertaining gibberish, I’ve always been left a little annoyed by them. I did enjoy ‘Pulp Fiction’ and Inglorious Basterds’, but on the whole, his films just don’t really do it for me.

As with ‘Inglorious Basterds’ before it, ‘Django Unchained’ was always going to come amid a wave a controversy. This time Jewish revenge against the Nazis is replaced African-American revenge against their white slave owners. With the main talking point about the film creating enough ‘controversial’ publicity, let’s get on to talk about the film itself.

Plot-wise, ‘Django Unchained’ is quite simplistic: a freed slave sets about on a journey for revenge and to find his wife. Freed by and partnering a German bounty hunter, he travels across America, often finding himself unwelcome due to the colour of his skin and/or his freeman status. Close to their goal, the pair’s plotting and deceiving is soon unearthed and an inevitable bloodbath ensues.

At close to three hours in length, watching this is like overtaking a National Express coach (not my words). Large amounts of the film are filled with long stretches of dialogue and storytelling, particularly by Christopher Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio. While both are good in their respective roles, they do feel designed to dominate scenes, with a ‘remember how much you liked Waltz’s monologues in ‘Inglorious Basterds’?’ feel to them.  There are also drawn out moments to facilitate a piece of music that have little purpose beyond aesthetics.

There’s a bit too much self-indulgence on display here. The overuse of special effects in shootouts goes a bit too far, being neither frightening nor comic. The script – that a decade younger Spike Lee would have had a lot to say about – is full of parables and monologues, many of which are unnecessary.

This is all at the cost of creativity. While much of what has appeared in his previous films are ideas taken from other, lesser known works, there is still a sense that he is trying to add something to them and make them his own. But with ‘Django Unchained’ it seems that a long-winded script, overly-comical gunplay and a controversial subject matter are the draws, with none really enough to make me want to sit for 165 minutes, especially when it started with Villa 2-1 up against QPR and I had to wait a good three hours to learn of the final score.

Fresh Wave Presents a Hong Kong Young Filmmakers Shorts Programme

Part of the 5^th annual Pan-Asian Film Festival, which seems to have largely passed me by, ‘Fresh Wave’ showcases some of the bets new directing talent in Asia. Taking place in Hong Kong each December, the focus is on short films by emerging talents – so, to some extent, you’re talking student film.

As part of the Pan-Asian Film Festival, four shorts (and some full-length trousers) were shown in London at the ICA, all having performed quite well a few months ago in HK.

To open was ‘The Little One’ by Tam Wai-ching, probably the worst of the bunch, in that it lacks some narrative structure and some blanks seem to require filling. A pair of step-siblings get the horn for each other, much to the anger of their father, who likes a bit of incest himself, forcing the teenagers to vent their frustrations. A bit patchy in places, ‘The Little One’ feels very much like student film, trying to throw-in lots of artsy shots and angles, without really delivering much substance.

Next was ‘Flowers with Aphasia’- which won Li Sum-yiet Best Film in December, and is perhaps my favourite – where a florist is ‘harassed’ daily by a young boy wanting him to make a reef. Irritated by the boy, the florist eventually gives in and gets to work on the boy’s design. Gradually developing a friendship, the florist is left to consider his relationship with his own son and lament what might have been. The simplest film of the quartet, ‘Flowers with Aphasia’ is also the strongest, being that it focuses on a story between two central characters, without straying too far from the point, making it perfectly suited to the short format.

‘On Sleepless Roads, the Sleepless Goes’ by Isabella Candice Lam is probably the most stylishly shot of the four, but again suffers from a few plot holes and fractured storytelling. Like ‘The Little One’, it perhaps needed a bit of a longer format to fully explore the characters and their motivations rather than glossing over them. But still, ‘On Sleepless Roads, the Sleepless Goes’ is a solid enough piece about a man finding himself trapped in a situation, as the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Winner of the Fresh Wave Best Student Film, ‘Dong’ focuses on Yang Dong, a schoolboy actor coming to terms with the world of women. Pursued by Nuannuan (the ‘warmth’ to his ‘winter’), Dong gradually grows a fancying for her aunt, a woman he can only stare blankly at. As the story progresses and the Beijing performance draws near, Dong is increasingly lost and confused by the world around him. More than just a simple childhood crush, Li Yushang hints that the lonely Dong’s affection for Nuannuan’s aunt is a longing of a different kind.

As with any short film, trying to do too much can leave a fractured and disjointed affair. ‘The Little One’ and ‘On Sleepless Road, the Sleepless Goes’ perhaps try to do too much in a short period of time, needing more depth to the characters to really work. Also, some being student film, there can, at times, be a sense of trying to do too much and not yet fully finding the best way to express ideas. It is no surprise that the simpler, gentler films are the ones that are much stronger and complete.

Sampling is Fun 3

Using dirty words...

The bastard speaks...



...And others follow...







Pardon my French...







...And other, more disappointing efforts...