Film Review: Welcome to Marwen

"I Was Beaten Up Because I Was Different, So I've Built A Place Where I Can Heal..."

Inspired by the life and artistic works of Mark Hogancamp, who in Kingston, New York on April 2000 was left with severe life changing injuries and little memory of his previous life after being the victim of a vicious and brutal hate crime, Welcome to Marwen takes inspiration from the 2010 documentary, Marwencol, from independent filmmaker, Jeff Malmberg, which focused on the titular 1/6 scale World War II-era model town embodied by a collection of handcrafted dolls all designed with an uncanny resemblance to Hogancamp himself, his close friends and his now incarcerated attackers. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) whose recent cinematic output has been somewhat rather patchy, with the likes of Allied and The Walk by no means reaching the lofty filmic heights the American is best known for, Welcome to Marwen blends a soppy, emotional drama with oddball digital effects for a movie which cannot decide whatsoever what it wants to be, resulting in a final picture that on the one hand does feel considerably admirable considering the heartbreaking true story sitting at the heart of the drama, yet on the other, does feel entirely misguided and just way too experimental for a picture that due to having Zemeckis' name stamped all over it, will arrive with certain high expectations from critics and audiences alike. 

Perhaps the best way to review Welcome to Marwen is to critique the movie in the two separate halves the film plays out against, with one half the grounded, real-life drama focusing on the life of Steve Carrell's (The Big Short) Hogancamp set during the aftermath of his vicious assault, and the second half whereby Zemeckis returns to his well-known knack for digital effects with a particular narrative which sees the Hogancamp crafted dolls come to life and play out WWII style fantasies, all with on-the-nose modes of symbolism which mirror the horrors and fears of Hogancamp's scarred mind. Whilst the approach is bold and the digital effects are impressive, blending a mix of Anomalisa inspired visual imagery with weird, off-beat action set pieces which seem to have fallen right out of the Team America textbook, Welcome to Marwen still fails to really have the desired impact the filmmakers were obviously intending, with the sensibility of the movie falling too heavy on the schmaltzy in regards to the true-life drama, even with yet another rather impressive dramatic lead performance from Carrell, whilst becoming more and more alienating and irritating each time we are dragged back to the world of the digital dolls, which even after the second time when the point becomes abundantly clear, just feels repetitive and come the end of it, rather quite pointless. With an over-exaggerated runtime, some sloppy and misjudged casting choices, with the awfully accented Gwendoline Christie (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) the prime example, and an overarching stench of sticky sentimentality, Welcome to Marwen is unfortunately the first ripe dud of the year. We expect better Zemeckis!  

Overall Score: 4/10

Second Opinion: Moonlight

"I Won't Let You Go. Hey Man. I Got You. There You Go. Ten Seconds. Right There. You In The Middle Of The World..."

Within the final paragraph of my first review for Barry Jenkins' Moonlight not but a week past, I came to the conclusion that the eight time Oscar nominated picture was indeed an impressive piece of drama, but too a film which seemingly didn't hold up to the impressive amount of hype which had surrounded its' release for months since it first hit the festival circuit in late 2016, at least on first watch. With the review out for everyone to see, the usual state of affairs would be to forget the film and move swiftly on to the next one, particularly as on first glance, Moonlight didn't seem to be the masterpiece many had declared it to be. However, in a rather surrealist fashion, this past week has been one in which a wild conundrum has been constructed within my cinematic mind, questioning my original decision regarding the movie's qualities, due mainly to the fact that the sensual feelings and visuals of Barry Jenkins' dramatic coming-of-age tale cannot escape my mind long enough for it to be regarded as something other than a work of excellence. For a reviewer who finds it hard sometimes to admit when he is wrong and hold his arms out to graciously accept a slice of humble pie, Moonlight is a strange case of a film which hypnotises you the more you think about it but more impressively, captivates you the more times you sit down and admire it. 

 Like many films before it in which repeat viewings has either resulted in a film being better or worse than it seemed on first watch, Moonlight is a movie which I now can fully understand for what it is; a social realist drama about the conflicted nature of love within the confines of Miami's drug-ridden gang-lands, and although the film does still suffer from a middling final act in which the quest for ambiguity and exploration in terms of its' character's emotions does still become slightly repetitive and arduous, Trevante Rhodes does do a superb job of portraying a character who although is powerful and intimidating on the surface, underneath is a firework of emotions, lit by the calling of his one and only experience of love, concluding in a battle of repressed emotion which bears similarities to Casey Affleck's performance in Manchester By The Sea, a similarly low-key drama which focuses on the understatement of feelings rather than the dramatic pull of shouty soap-like confrontation. As stated previously, Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris are indeed the stars of the show, with the former cementing an unforgettable performance of a cliche-avoiding drug dealer in the short time he has on-screen and the latter on second watch coming across as a terrifying entity of drug-infested mania, with the scene in which her character is filmed backwards harking towards more of a surrealist horror infliction and boy is it startling. 

Another element of Moonlight which was more noticeable on second watch was the superb choice of music encompassing the film's score, with Nicholas Britell mixing a crafty selection of modern hip-hop, classic soul and a striking use of strings, particularly "The Middle of the World", a violin-heavy piece of music which hits an arrangement of nerves in an almost Lynchian and somewhat surrealist fashion, adding breadth to the evidence of the film's more horror-inflicted elements. Concluding this particular feature therefore, Moonlight is indeed a working progress of a movie, where although La La Land and Manchester By The Sea are arguably more effective as an entire body of work, Moonlight is a movie which just can't seem to escape my train of thought for any meaningful length of time. What Barry Jenkins has here is a movie which has been scuppered by the tremendous level of hype surrounding it and whilst many would have shared similar views to my own on first glance, a second watch has improved and highlighted its' more impressive elements ten-fold. Whilst La La Land is still my personal preference for the Best Picture nod, Moonlight is the type of movie which wouldn't surprise me if it took the prestigious gong instead, a particular statement I wouldn't have said a week ago. How things change...

Overall Score: 8.5/10

(At Least on Second Watch)

Film Review: Moonlight

"At Some Point You've Got To Decide Who You Wanna Be..."

Striding hand-in-hand with La La Land for the two most hyped cinematic releases of the year, Barry Jenkins' Moonlight is the type of movie of which its' reputation more than precedes it, gathering overwhelming critical response from across the critical stratosphere and a fair number of Oscar nominations to support its' claim as a modern masterpiece of cinema. Where La La Land managed to actually exceed expectations, so much so that two visits to see it in the cinema just isn't enough, Moonlight is yet another example of a film-going experience which just doesn't seem to correlate with its' preconceived notions of excellence, with it being yes, a movie which is made with a huge degree of gentle care and dedication to its' source material, but is too also largely nonexistent in attempting to create a succinct relationship between its' leading characters and the audience, resulting in a movie which follows in similar strides to Martin Scorsese's Silence earlier on in the year in the sense that although its' craft is admirable, the final result isn't the masterpiece I was hell bent on expecting. 

Following in three acts the troubled early life of Chiron, a conflicted and withdrawn character born into the drug-ridden and crime inflicted surroundings of an unnamed geographical area of America, Moonlight delves deep into the organic nature of life itself, with its' central protagonist slipping through year after year without a crystal clear notion of his own true identity in a Boyhood style tale of discovery amidst the backdrop of an atmosphere that bears similarities to the nihilistic portrayal of society within HBO's The Wire. Although each of the three depictions of Chiron throughout the movie give solid performances, the true standouts of the movie are the double-header of House of Cards/Luke Cage star Mahershala Ali and Moneypenny herself, Naomie Harris, who each give rousing and emphatic performances within the quite shocking minimal time they actually appear on screen, amidst a screenplay which relies on the element of understatement to quietly and sometimes tediously get where its' attempting to finally go. Moonlight is no doubt a impressive piece of drama from second-time writer/director Barry Jenkins, but it too is a film which doesn't hold up to the impressive hype surrounding its' release, at least on first watch.

Overall Score: 7/10

Film Review: Hidden Figures

"Just 'Cause It's The Way, Doesn't Make It Right, Understand?"

As per expected this time of year, the ramble of releases which preempt the final preparations regarding Oscar season can become somewhat overpowering at times, with cinephiles across the globe attempting to squeeze in all the real hitters before the madness all begins. From the easily accessible Best Picture nods to the not-so easily found Foreign Language picks and across to endless repeat viewings of the work of the selected cinematographers, Oscar season is definitely one of a kind, and with the confirmed nominations for the ceremony now being released to the world, three remain to be seen by us here at Black Ribbon in their vow for supremacy in regards to the best the year has had to offer, beginning ever so swiftly with this week's release Hidden Figures and concluding with Fences and Moonlight in the coming weeks. Following in the critical success of St. Vincent, director Theodore Melfi brings the true tale of NASA's 1960's space program to life, highlighting extensively the importance of the groundbreaking trio of engineer Mary Jackson and mathematicians Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughn, all of whom were integral to the success of the space race in a time in which racial prejudice was inherently rife, an element of which plays an key part of Melfi's latest, an uplifting drama which effortlessly tells an important tale without ever seeping from its' addictive sugar-coated sweetness. 

If it wasn't for the absence of the prestigious gates of Disneyland preceding the beginning of the movie, Hidden Figures could be excused for being just another Disney-fuelled historical drama, with the film being a solid example of a movie which seeps so strongly and unashamedly from the cesspool of classic film-making, you wouldn't necessarily be smirked at for suspecting the world had travelled back to the 1960's itself. Whilst Hidden Figures gets the job well and truly done without any sense of real adventure or expansion into organic territory, Melfi takes the classical approach to the material by giving us a interesting non-fiction tale and ramping up the elements of racial tension to the extreme in order to successfully add another level of drama to a proceeding of just over two hours. Whilst the Oscar nod in terms of acting has ultimately been handed to Octavia Spencer for her supporting role in the movie, the real winner of the picture is obviously Taraji P. Henson for her portrayal of the mathematical genius Katherine Johnson. yet any recognition at all is undeniably deserved for a movie which although is indeed a dramatic success, ultimately isn't as dynamic or memorable as those figures of history it attempts to portray. 

Overall Score: 7/10