Film Reviews INTERVIEW
DRAMA LEMON TREE (PG) 106min ●●●●● FANTASY INKHEART (PG) 106min ●●●●●
Christmas may not have been cancelled, but the withdrawal of the latest Harry Potter instalment left a gaping hole in the festive cinema schedules, with Iain Backbeat Softley’s long-shelved adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s children’s novel poised to cash in with a similar mix of expensive effects and outlandishly named characters.
Brendan Fraser plays Mo Flockart, aka Silvertounge, blessed with the magical ability to bring stories to life by reading them aloud, much like Adam Sandler in Disney’s Bedtime Stories (see Also Released). With daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennett) in tow, Mo traverses Europe in search of Inkheart, an ultra-rare book also sought after by pantomime villain Capricorn (Andy Serkis).
Whatever literary merits the original book might have, Softley’s by-the- numbers fantasy lacks charm or cohesion, liberating characters like Toto from The Wizard of Oz only to limit them to cameo appearances, while the eventual raid of Capricorn’s mountain-top castle raises nothing more interesting than a large CGI- storm to punish the guilty. While parents might be attracted to a promised homage to the ancient practice of reading aloud to children, Inkheart’s brainless and noisy bravado provides an illiterate and exhausting experience for all ages. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 12 Dec.
Based not so much on a single true story as a number of similar real-life events, this powerfully affecting Israeli- German-French drama uses the tale of a battle of wills between a Palestinian widow and an Israel politician as a parable for the troubled cross border relations. When the recently appointed defence minister Israel Navron (Doron Tavory) moves into his new home on the border he orders the lemon tree grove on the other side of the security fence to be chopped down for fear that it will be used by terrorists as cover for an attack. But he doesn’t reckon on the strenuous resistance from the owner of the grove, Salma Zidane (Hiam Abbass), a proud woman who’s fiercely determined to save her beloved late husband’s prize orchard.
Lemon Tree reunites excellent Israel- born Palestinian actress Abbass (recently seen in The Visitor) with Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis (director of the 1991 international hit Cup Final). The pair previously collaborated on 2004’s The Syrian Bride, and like that film (set in a Druze village in the Golan Heights) Lemon Tree deals with the difficult subject of Arab-Israeli relations in a very accessible way by focusing on personal stories played out against a political backdrop. Here, Salma’s the sympathetic protagonist and Navron the malevolent antagonist, but the film avoids a black and white view of Middle East relations by bringing into play other characters, namely Navron’s compassionate wife (Rona Lipz-Michael) and a wily Palestinian lawyer (Ali Suliman). (Miles Fielder) ■ Cameo, Edinburgh and selected release from Fri 26 Dec.
ROMANCE/MYSTERY FAR NORTH (15) 89min ●●●●●
After an auspicious debut with The Warrior, writer-director Asif Kapadia went to Hollywood with disastrous results in the form of super-lame Sarah Michelle Geller horror flick The Return. Adapted from the short story True North by Sara Maitland, Far North returns Kapadia to form with a slow-burning evocation of lives lived against the odds on the freezing wastelands of the inhospitable Artic Tundra.
Cursed from birth by a shaman, Savia (Michelle Yeoh) and her adoptive
daughter Anja (Michelle Krusiec) nurse frozen soldier Yoki (Sean Bean) back to health, only to trigger a shockingly violent finale which is grimly foreshadowed by the ruthless way that Savia murders her own dog in the opening scenes. Reworking themes from classic Japanese horror Onibaba and Don Seigel’s overlooked 1971 civil war mystery The Beguiled, Far North is a dark, macabre tale, made palatable by the stunning photography of icy wastelands and crowded campfires by Roman Osin and heightened by a creepy score by Dario Marianelli.
Kapadia has fashioned a spartan but carefully wrought character-piece with minimalist performances which belie the curse of international casting; Yeoh is much better than her martial arts/Bond girl pedigree might suggest, and even Bean is surprisingly convincing. (Eddie Harrison) ■ GFT, Glasgow from Sun 4 Jan–Tue 6 Jan; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 9–Thu 15 Jan.
CRIME SCENE Graphic novelist Frank Miller talks about his film adaptation of comic book legend Will Eisner’s groundbreaking 1940s crime-fighter strip, The Spirit.
‘At first I found it too daunting, because Will Eisner had been my mentor. But after three minutes of careful thought I decided that nobody else could touch it. So I went from protecting The Spirit to exploring what I perceived as Will’s intent, which was to create something new and exciting. Accordingly, I didn’t want to make a piece of stodgy memorabilia. I wanted to do something with modern technology that was as adventurous as Will was with his horsehair brush and ink.
‘We use digital effects similar to the ones Robert Rodriguez and
myself used in Sin City. What’s happened with computer technology is perfectly timed for someone with my set of skills. I tell stories with pictures. What I love about CGI is that if I can think it, it can be put on the screen. ‘The stories that make up the core of this movie were three: ‘Sand
Saref’, ‘Bring in Sand Saref’ and ‘Showdown’. The first two introduce one of The Spirit’s many femme fatales, played in the film by Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Jamie King and Paz Vega. The third story was a bloody fight between the Spirit and the villain the Octopus, played by Samuel L Jackson, that demonstrated both of them could withstand inhuman punishment. Working out how to justify that allowed me to make the Spirit a man who existentially confused about why he came back from the dead – he knows that he is a cop who was shot dead and mysteriously came back to life, but not why.
‘We set out to make a movie based on and with great love for The Spirit. But it’s not a translation or a replication. We stayed true to the heart of what Will Eisner did, but we made the film within the boundaries of our times. Will wrote his character to be contemporary and I followed his example. But we mix elements from different eras, so you have automobiles from the 1950s and cell phones.
‘Were he still alive, this is how I think Will would speak of the movie: “Frank, the Spirit never picked up a gun. That’s good! The chicks look great! I’m going to sell a ton of books!”’ (Interview by Miles Fielder) ■ The Spirit is on general release from Fri 2 Jan. Reviewed next issue.
54 THE LIST 11 Dec 2008–8 Jan 2009