Rush (2013)

First, the amazing news: Chris Hemsworth can act! The fact that the Australian’s most notable performances have seen him either wading through both improbable dialogue (as Thor) and unbelievable accents and improbable dialogue (Snow White and the Huntsman) was probably doing a good job at hiding his hunky light under some pretty clunky bushels, but in Rush he’s perfectly cast as James Hunt, the playboy racing driver who was one of the last embodiments of  that dying breed: dashing young men who flirt with death. Coming from the team that gave you Frost/Nixon - director Ron Howard and writer Peter Morgan - this is a vastly entertaining romp through the career of Hunt and his famed rivalry with Austrian, Niki Lauda, which ultimately led to Lauda’s near-fatal crash in Germany in 1976.

In essence, it’s a politically incorrect Boy’s Own tale of derring-do on the world’s race tracks: loud, cliché-stuffed and playing fast and loose with the facts. But, despite the nagging sense that somewhere Jeremy Clarkson and his reactionary ilk would be soiling themselves in pleasure on seeing the movie, I found myself completely drawn in. The masterful editing; the wholly authentic ‘70s fashions, palette and soundtrack (Slade! Thin Lizzy!!) along with a script that crackles with hilarity, never allows itself to be taken too seriously and yet still has something mildly profound to say about the allure of young men who love to show off in close proximity to speeding metal and high octane fuel: all of these things add up to a film that almost manages to explain why on earth millions are spent on a bunch of boys toys (as Hunt’s first wife, Suzy, refers to them on their first encounter) going round in circles for hours.

 Let me state for the record: I have no love for Formula One, cars, or any kind of dangerous ‘manly’ motor sports. But as a child of the ‘60s it was impossible to ignore the coming of age of Formula One that the Hunt/Lauda rivalry represented, as well as the pop star allure that F1 drivers held in those pre-Nigel Mansell days. I remember my sister being fairly lovestruck by Emerson Fittipaldi (and his black and gold John Player Special), and Rush does an amazing job via the sound of screaming engines, some diabolically kinetic camerawork and a bevy of doe-eyed female supports in conveying something of what it was like to be alive in those more freewheeling days. 

It’s no solid gold classic. However, I have an avowed weakness for larger than life biopics (hence my championing ad nauseum of Scorcese’s brilliant The Aviator) and let’s be honest here, this is a perfect example of the Hollywood biopic. By that I mean that facts are lost, twisted, mangled and outright forgotten in favour of a wholly romanticised duel of the upper middle class English eccentric with a love for a lifestyle every bit as fast as his cars, and the far more prosaic and meticulous Austrian for whom a ‘20% risk of death is acceptable. No more’. The characterisation of Lauda as a cold, friendless, driven (ha) man for whom the sport is all about performance and risk percentages verges on mild racism. But contextualised within the backdrop of the mid-‘70s , and also within a narrative that foregrounds a battle of head vs. heart you somehow forgive it. This is the true skill of Morgan and Howard. By the final battle under the shadow of a cloud-shrouded Mount Fuji I was biting my nails and feeling about as gung ho as a pasty middle class aesthete can get.

 Ron ‘Ritchie Cunningham’ Howard, of course, has form in the art of not letting boring facts get in the way of a cracking ‘real life’ story: Apollo 13; Frost/Nixon (also with Morgan); A Beautiful Mind; The Da Vinci Code (ho ho) - yet he also knows how to craft human stories. Whisper it, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Parenthood. 

No mention is made of the fact that Hunt and Lauda were friends (they shared a flat early in their careers) meaning that instead we’re told that a bitter tension between the two was the key reason for their explosive encounter in the 1976 World Championship, eventually (naturally) developing into grudging masculine respect for each other.  

But the basic facts of the story do remain intact. Lauda’s astounding determination to re-enter - after only six weeks - the competition following his near-fatal crash which saw half of his head burned away is jaw-dropping. And Daniel Brühl’s portrayal of the wiry Austrian (despite his accent being slightly more Amsterdam than Vienna) is fearless. Yet best of all is Hemsworth’s uncanny portrayal of Hunt as a man who can’t see the point of any life not turned up to 11. And despite publicly stating that he found it troublesome to master, his accent is pitch perfect. 

Up until this point I would have described Howard as possibly Hollywood’s most reliable mainstream director, consistently delivering huge box office hits while never really being mind-blowing (with the possible exception of Frost/Nixon), but the fact that he’s a well-known petrol head (urgh, I hate that term) seems to have unlocked a previously unseen passion in his film-making. Rush is by no means original, and as I say, contains more cinematic clichés than I’ve seen in a long time, and yet it still manages to be thrilling, funny and never, ever boring. I’m sure James Hunt would approve...

Rush is released in UK cinemas on September 13th

Empire of the Sun, Wilderness festival, Charlbury, Oxfordshire, Aug 9th, 2013

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A Field In England (2013)

Two weeks on and I’m still buzzing following the release of Ben Wheatley’s latest low-budget slice of oddness, A Field In England. Wheatley’s a reasonably new talent to me. I saw Down Terrace about a year ago and loved its refusal to be pigeonholed, and having since seen Kill List, which I can only describe as a the most violent post-modern gangster movie I have ever seen. Sightseers, his last and best known project, was comedy at its very blackest. But A Field In England? It’s a film about a group of men fleeing the English civil war only to find themselves digging for occult treasure in a drugged out quandary. Hurrah!

A Field In England, with its tiny cast (you can tell it’s tiny as Julian Barratt gets a screen credit moments after he’s killed by a bloody big spear)  and single locale dares us to look within for answers. The notion of a small area turned into a dangerous minefield of occult forces and unseen powers is taken, of course, from Tarkovsky’s masterpiece, Stalker. But Wheatley dispenses with colour and instead relies on bewildering close ups, furious cross-editing and slow motion to reproduce the effect of ingesting psilocybin mushrooms. The pun is that the revolutionary tenet of ‘the world turned upside down’ becomes a reality, albeit a reality filtered through minds unhinged by religion and hallucinogenic fungi. What’s not to like?

The subsequent reviews haven’t glowed, but the UK’s press seem less and less able to deal with oddity and non-conformity these days (while decrying the bland cookie-cutter CGI-heavy dross of Hollywood. You can’t win, can you?). The only possible major criticism of something this adventurous and freeform is that it weighs heavily on a rather masculine (and even juvenile) brand of weirdness. But the argument falls flat when you consider that it was written by Wheatley’s partner, Amy Jump, and that it seems genuinely interested in the period as well. But this may explain why two reviews by women seem to be a little down on it. Well, ok, one is a little down while one finds the whole thing interminable. Both, however, seem to find the first half hour completely incomprehensible. Really? Surely any child with a passing knowledge of Shakespeare wouldn’t find the language troublesome (oh, and by the way– no one would ever describe  late 17th century speech as Cromwellian). I was semi drunk – having just come off a fortnight’s alcohol free jag and it made perfect sense to me. In fact, all the interviews and reviews I’d read had led me to expect something amazingly obtuse. But Jump’s script was earthy, historically informed and had just the right amount of wit to offset the apocalyptic visions and allusions to revolutionary theology.

As for comments  that perhaps it was confusing or didn’t make sense? I’ve written about this many times, but where exactly does it say that art has to either make sense or be immediately understandable? Wheatley has teased audiences before: the ending to Kill List, while paying homage to The Wicker Man or Blood on Satan’s Claw was pretty ambiguous, but here he’s used a smaller budget and the opportunity to use a new release model (cinema, DVD, Blu Ray and VoD all on the same day) to really push baoundaries. Are we really that afraid of the avant garde?

It’s the 21st century for god’s sake. Besides which, if taken as a psychedelic experience seen from the protaganists’ (mushroom-enhanced) viewpoints it’s never going to be a straight three act blockbuster is it? Instead it dared to be multi-layered, Above all what made AFIE so special was the way Wheatley never shies away from startling imagery. The prolonged slow motion appearance of a rictus-grinning Reece Shearsmith from Michael Smiley’s tent (from whence only moments earlier unholy screams had emitted) was some of the most disturbing cinema I’ve ever seen. Added to this are the living tableaus, the graphic violence (and pox-ridden anatomy) Yes, Wheatley and Co. often seem to try too hard to pack in all their favourite genres, but overall it was something like Performance directed by Peter Greenaway on the set of Witchfinder General (there’s your PR tagline, right there). But these are all British movies, and that’s what makes Charlotte O'Sullivan’s comment at the end of her review that it’s: ‘Good to hear his next film is set in the US. It's high time he moved further afield’ so depressing. It seems to imply that Wheatley’s dogged insistence on reviving British cinema as something more than just bland Richard Curtis middle class politeness or gritty northern realism is wrong-headed. But I haven’t seen something so original and odd since... well, since the great days of Peter Greenaway.

By the hilariously protracted musket shootout near the denouement, we seemed to be in some acid drenched western (making whoever decided to show Jodorowsky’s El Topo afterwards some kind of genius). I just thank the lord that someone still cares enough to make something so idiosyncratic. It also has something to  say about the apocaplypse. But I'll leave that until next time...