Reviews
Name Jaume Balaguero
Born 2 November 1968. Lleida. Spain
Background Studied media at university in Barcelona. Balaguero worked in radio before cutting his filmmaking teeth on several shorts. His feature film debut came in 1999 with an adaptation of British horror writer Ramsey Campbell's The Nameless. and was followed. three years later, by box-office success Darkness. After a brief foray into music documentaries. most notably OT: The Movie with fellow horror director Paco Plaza. Balaguero returned to his preferred genre in 2005 with Fragile. starring Calista Flockhart.
What’s be up to now? He's currently winning plaudits for his latest horror feature. [REC]. co- directed with Plaza. Set in Barcelona. the Blair Witch-style film follows a TV reporter and her cameraman as they tag along with the city's firemen on a late- night emergency call to a block of flats. where they're trapped and attacked by zombies. [REC] was one of Spain's biggest earning domestic titles of 2007. and picked up two Goya Awards. as well as tour awards at the Sitges International Film Festival, including Best Director. A Hollywood remake, Quarantine. has already been shot by The Poughkeepsie Tapes director John Erick Dowdle. Balaguero is now working on his next film. based on a book by Spanish author Jose Carlos Somoza.
What he says about [REC] ‘We wanted professional actors. but not well-known ones because it was very important for the audience not to recognise them. We tried to make the film as real as possible. Paco and I created a fake reality. put the actors inside it. and let them make a real report about this fake reality. The actors never got the script. We worked a lot with them on their roles. and when they knew them perfectly, we put them in the scene and let them improvise.‘
Interesting tact Both Balaguero and his [REC] co-director have made films based on Ramsey Campbell novels. (Jan Gilbert)
I [REC] is on general release from Fri 11 Apr. See review, right.
44 THE LIST 10-24 Apr 2008
{J’/,i;'.t£‘.'51~ :-' PROFILE SHINE A LIGHT
(12A) 122min CO
It was customary in early Creek and Roman books to have the portrait of the author on the opening page Martin Scorsese brings this tradition tr, his Rolling Stones concert moVie, The opening exchanges depict thr- ’lllft’lft ll desperately trying to get Mick Jagger to reveal what songs they 're going to play at a concert being hosted by Bill Clinton in New York (jity. Mick Jagger is haVing none of it and it's mildly amusing to watch him blank Scorsese
In making his opening sequence about the process of filmmaking Scorsese harks back to the intriguing 1968 Jean Luc Godard documentary One Plus One. in which the director interspersed images of the hand recording their tune 'Sympathy For the DeVil' wrth footage of political actiVIsts of the time. most memorably the Black Panthers. Once the Stones begin to play in Shine a Light. Scorsese disappears from the picture until the final scene. which is a shame as his intervention is the orin out-of the- ordinary aspect in this otherWise reverential documentary.
The Stones have been the SUDJCCI of some great documentaries — check out the Mayles Brothers' unforgettable 19708 Gimme Shelter — but Scorsese makes no new discoveries here. The best homage Scorsese has paid to the Stones remains the numerous occasrons he has used their songs as a soundtrack to memorable scenes in his features. (Kaleem Aftab)
I General release from Fri 7 7 Apr.
iiiiiii l l ll STREET KINGS (15) 107min COO
Writer-director David Ayer is no stranger to LA’s mean streets and actors often flourish in his company. Denzel Washington won an Oscar for Training Day, while Christian Bale (Harsh Times) and Kurt Russell (Dark Blue) ate up his scripts. In his latest release Keanu Reeves plays the type of cop that makes The Shield‘s Vic Mackey look tame. Reeves‘ LAPD veteran Tom Ludlow is a wreck, haunted by the death of his wife, who tends to business with a gun in one hand and a mini-bottle of vodka in the other. When a former colleague turned informant is murdered, fingers point and Tom is sidelined pending a cover-up. But remnants of a conscience prompt him to dig deeper and take on his own department.
Ayers’ film, based on a screenplay by James Ellroy, Kurt Wimmer (Utraviolet, The Recruit) and newcomer Jamie Moss, feels muddled and formulaic. But Reeves is impressive, displaying untapped levels of intensity, pain and anguish that are possibly drawn from the tragedy in his own life (his girlfriend died in a car crash in 2001). His backup is less so, with Forest Whitaker’s corrupt police chief blatantly borrowing from Washington in both appearance (Inside Man) and charisma (Training Day). Meanwhile, Hugh Laurie’s internal affairs captain and Chris Evans’ rookie are under-used.
Ayers’ clever use of LA heightens the authenticity, his set pieces are brutal and the conclusion is mired in moral ambiguity. Yet, for all its pedigree, Street Kings is a misfiring entry into the corrupt cop genre. (Roberto Carnavale)
I (Eerie/(ii release from April [8.
DRAMA FOUR MINUTES (15) 115mm 000
How about this for an enjoyany owrwmught contemporary German melodrama’.2 Traude Kruger (Monica Bleibtreu) suffered the trauma of seeing her female communist lover hung by the Nazis during WWII, and has spent the last (30 years teaching piano to female prisoners at Luckau Jail. Her life is thrown into turmoil. though. by the arrival of a Violent new inmate. Jenny lHannah Her/sprung). a teenage murderer who has been sexually abused by her own father. Jenny, it turns out. was also a former child prodigy at the piano. Will she be prepared to adhere to Traude's strict practice regime. and attempt to compete in a national competition?
Writer-director Chris Kraus offers the Viewer scant chance to breathe in Four Minutes. orchestrating a series of savage beatings. frenzied bursts of riiusical performance (Jenny can even work wonders at the piano while handcuffed) and blazmg arguments. wrth sun-drenched flashbacks to Traude's lesbian past offering some VlSLlaf relief from the oppressrve prison environrrient. And in her first leading role Her/sprung proves to be a compelling actress. unafraid to convey the anger COurSing through her damaged character. She delivers a powerfully intense solo reCital in the film's concert hall climax. (Tom Dawson)
I GFT. Glasgow. Fri iB—Mon 27 Apr; Fi'lmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 25 Apr— Thu 7 May. See profile, page 50.