www.list.co.uk/film ACTION BITCH SLAP (18) 110min (Momentum) ●●●●●
dancehall scene, home to Elephant Man, Lady Saw and Bogle. The violent death of this last figure, a dancer on the popular Wedi Wedi scene, kickstarts the film, setting a dual tone of riotous partying and sombre reflection — as old-timer Gregory Isaacs puts it, ‘Saturday a carnival/Sunday a funeral’. The film stays
largely impartial, while provoking the viewer into forming their own opinion with some stark cutting: for example, Elephant Man discussing his Christian upbringing, then inviting three buxom ladies onstage to simulate rough doggy-style sex. An essential guide to Jamaica’s music scene post-Marley, whose holy name is invoked at every turn. Extras consist of additional performance material, including Toots (he of The Maytals) serenading some school kids. (Niki Boyle)
THRILLER THE CLOUDED YELLOW (PG) 90min (Optimum) ●●●●●
This gripping, fast- paced British thriller from 1950 follows the man-and-woman- on-the-run formula popularised elsewhere by Alfred Hitchcock. Based on a witty screenplay by Janet Green (who later went on the write Victim), it is, perhaps surprisingly, directed with punch and
Writer/director and Corman protégé Rick Jacobson certainly earned his B movie/ fantasy-action spurs working on cult US television series Xena / Hercules. With cameos by Lucy Xena Lawless and Michael Hercules Hurst and Tarantino’s ‘stunt woman du jour’ Zoe Bell crafting the self-proclaimed ‘greatest chick fight in cinema history’, heck even Russ (Meyer) and Roger (Corman) might be given a run for their money? Whilst Jacobson certainly knows his bootie (the opening credits deliver a great found footage montage of mad, bad and dangerous to know femme icons), unfortunately the film’s post-modern parody soon hangs too long in the tooth. The plot itself concerns three badass chicks who find themselves in the hot Californian desert with a half-naked hostage, grindhouse guns, buried diamonds and a pesky cop under the name of Deputy Fuchs. Nevertheless, there is much to delight for fans of the genre especially the fabulous Modesty Blaise Alpine sequence towards the end. Extras include standard behind-the-scenes film. (Selina Robertson) DOCUMENTARY MADE IN JAMAICA (15) 107min (Network) ●●●●●
Following the template of Buena Vista Social Club this music doc steadicams its way round the ghettos of Kingston, exploring the variety of music on offer: the venerable reggae scene, represented by Bunny Wailer and the like; and the younger
flare by Ralph Thomas, who’s better known for his Doctor comedies with Dirk Bogarde. Trevor Howard plays a spy forcibly retired by his boss who takes a quiet job in the country cataloguing butterflies and promptly falls in love with his employer’s niece (the late and lovely Jean Simmons). When she’s framed for the murder of a local lad, the old instincts kick in and the ex-spy takes flight with the girl in tow, whereupon the fugitives are pursued up and down the country by the police and by Kenneth More’s wry spook. The location work — Newcastle, the Lake District and Liverpool docks — is excellent and the performances spot on, although the ending is oddly abrupt. No extras. (Miles Fielder) DRAMA THE HIGH COMMAND (PG) 84min (Optimum) ●●●●●
This the first of the nine features made by the brilliant but undervalued British filmmaker Thorold Dickinson may not be a patch on his masterpieces, Gaslight and The Queen of Spades, but this 1936 drama set in colonial West Africa is striking in several ways. The script, based on a novel by Lewis Robinson concerning a general coming to terms with a crime he committed during WWI, isn’t one of them, largely because it incurred problems with the censors over its negative depiction of the military that necessitated awkward rewrites. However, the film’s geo-political authenticity and its sly dig at the British colonial presence (both attributable to Dickinson’s field
DVD Reviews Film INTERVIEW
WEIRD BEAT Phil Hoad talks to Takeshi Kitano about the long delayed release on DVD of a film he made in 2005
Takeshi Kitano has shown signs of eccentricity, but what happened to his filmmaking in the 2000s was weird even by his standards. Slipping tap dancing into a samurai film in 2003’s Zatoichi was the early- warning beacon, but that was nothing compared to the surrealistic wormhole — the trilogy of Takeshis’, Banzai! and Achilles and the Tortoise —he slipped into immediately afterwards. Takeshis which stuck in the wormhole for five years before finally
emerging now for UK release, plays, like the other two, with aspects of the Japanese icon’s past and public personas: a meeting between ‘Kitano’, a fame-seeking, bottle-blonde convenience store clerk, and arrogant celebrity heavyweight ‘Beat Takeshi’ is what sets this showbiz fever dream alight. It’s definitely not autobiographical, says the real- life Kitano. ‘Not to overvalue my modesty or anything, but I don’t act as arrogantly as my character in the TV studio.’ And don’t make the mistake of taking the film as a self-referential dip in Charlie Kaufman territory: ‘The biggest subject of this movie is not so much about the matter of fame, more about the two characters having the same kind of dream, and how those dreams end up intertwining with one another. I thought if I gave one my directorial moniker and the other my stage moniker, it would give a kind of authenticity — or to use a contradictory term — a reality to the dream. That’s the main focus — it’s more about dreams and reality.’ Kitano calls the 2005 film his first attempt at ‘cubism’, and its stream
of idiosyncratic imagery is clearly picking up cues from his visual-art exploits — recently showcased in a major exhibition at the Cartier Foundation in Paris. He acknowledges that the film is not for everyone: ‘I wouldn’t say I was afraid of alienating people, because I knew ... the majority of people are going to go, “What the—?” But I also knew that the small amount of people who got the film would get it enthusiastically.’ But the esoteric Takeshis’ feels as much for his benefit as for ours, its disorientation ploys a way of piercing the boundaries of his past incarnations. He says that his late-noughties trilogy marks his transition from middle to old age. In which case, what to make of the news that his next film, Outrage, will be a return to the staple of his filmmaking heyday, the yakuza thriller? Rejuvenation or retrenchment? It’s clear that Kitano, as director, always feels the pressure to get things right. ■ Takeshis’ is out now on DVD (Artificial Eye).
research and both much admired by his contemporary critic Graham Greene) make up for those shortcomings.
Moreover, Dickinson’s skilful way with editing, camerawork and sound are much in evidence and he has a strong cast in Lionel Atwill, Lucie Mannheim and - in his third role - a young James Mason. Extras: introduction by film historian Philip Horne. (Miles Fielder)
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