outsider cinema

Review Type: Vintage

  • Spider-Man

    Spider-Man

    Spider-Man (Raimi, 2002) has been rereleased in cinemas across the country, I’m guessing as part of some event to do with the superhero chain but more than anything just an excuse to be shown again in cinemas and for them to get more money from it. Even if it has been rereleased pretty much constantly, this is the first time watching the film in over 20 years. The last time I watched it I was 5 years old and would constantly watch it on repeat, the same way I did when I was young with films like 102 dalmations (Lima, 2000) or Looney Tunes: Back In Action (Dante, 2003). In the same way with these films I have also gone back to watch them again recently in somewhat of a retrospective way or maybe just to try and recapture a feeling of innocence or nostalgia attached with watching them at an early age. I also really enjoyed watching them again for this reason, being able to remember them pretty much scene by scene. Most importantly they were well made children’s films at the time.

    Of course Spider-Man isn’t necessarily a children’s film even if a lot of its audience were a younger demographic. The content of the film can be seen as far from it, The Green Goblin was definitely the most haunting villain from any film I watched as a child. But yet this is the reason why I have the memories of it today from seeing it as a child and the reason back then that I would watch it on repeat constantly. It created that level of evil needed in a villain that only Willem Dafoe could pull of in this role. It shows his weaknesses without pandering to his evilness, and more importantly became this dark vision of how a villain could be in a superhero film that wasn’t seen before. I still have that yearning to be traumatised by a character in a film in the same way as I was as a kid with this role. At an early age in many ways you are so attached to the emotions as they are new to you, that when something like this brings an excitement and fear at the same time it lodges deep inside you in a way that a film can’t really achieve as well as an adult. 

    Looking at the film itself and watching it now as a 25 year old, I still found it a really enjoyable watch outside of just previous emotions attached to it. It was of course at the start of a wave for the popularity of superhero films and many would say the catalyst for it. The film itself felt fresh in this way where it wasn’t tainted in its homogeneity and wasn’t concerned with any franchise that was to come from it. You clearly felt like Sam Raimi was free to make a film in his own image that let the film breathe a bit and allowed the backstory to happen without every other scene being an epic battle for survival. One key aspect that really stood out to me was the editing. If you look at some examples of it it could be seen as jaunty where for example an explosion from one scene is transitioned into graduation ceremony hats being thrown into the air for the next scene. It works in such a perfect way however that it creates a new dimension to the film itself. In the same way that the b-side to Abbey Road links the songs together in a harmonious way that it all feels part of one entity, the film does the same here. A lot of the scenes becomes a dichotomy of one another with good against evil and the best way to highlight this is by linking the scenes through the editing that shows this distinction but also how both opposing ends but stem from one another and can work in this fluid motion as they interact.

  • The Usual Suspects

    The Usual Suspects

    This year marks the 30th anniversary of The Usual Suspects (Singer, 1995). I watched the film for the first time over 8 years ago when I first started getting into watching films as a hobby, of course picking to watch it because it was in many films of ‘must watch movies’. One of the key attributes that I see as making a film part of these lists and how The Usual Suspects manages this is that it manages to capture a time and a place, but also have the retrospective appeal that still makes it relevant to audiences today.

    This film achieves this timeless classic in the way it mixes genres, along with time and place. At times it conveys the classic noir film where you follow the journey of the narrator to uncover a criminal case where the victim is not yet known. It also manages to become a heist film as the concept for the final part of the film unfolds. But most importantly it is a well-worked thriller during the scenes that create suspense, creating a refreshing break from the long scenes of dialogue. If a film copies this today it will of course not have the same appeal. The reason it worked so well for this film was because how unique it was at the time. The twist could in the modern age be seen from a mile off, but the use of untrustworthy narrator or time-shifting narrative is something that was fresh for the Hollywood blockbuster.

    My favourite part of the film is an edit at the start where one of the suspects throws a towel at the camera which also coincides with the end of scene and an edit away to another character. This to me indicates from early on that it is these suspects are in charge of the narrative shown on screen, not the audience, officers or even it feels like the production team. This becomes the truth by the end of the film where one of the suspects own made up narrative is what creates the story we have seen throughout, thereby determining the narrative we have seen for the last couple of hours.

  • Jaws

    Jaws

    When people talk about the cinematography in Jaws, most point towards the dolly zoom which was influenced heavily from Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958). I think what is so key to this scene and other uses of cinematography in the film is how they purvey their own emotion onto the film. This certain camera shot shows the sense of dread that has just been bestowed upon Brody (Rob Schneider), and also the uncertainty of whats just happened as we the audience are unstabilised by whats just happened. Scenes at the beach position the audience right in the middle of the stampede of people as they rush away from the water, suffocating the audience and preventing them from getting a moment to breathe. In other scenes the camera submerges itself in the water which acts calming as it falls silent and nothing can be seen, but this in itself is what creates the suspense as the silence doesn’t necessarily bring safety. At some points the camera floats in and out of being underwater like it is itself drowning and along with it destabilising the audience. These scenes don’t just purvey emotion of characters, they create emotion in themselves. A great thriller like this film brings the audience along with the emotions of the characters. This can’t be just achieved through narrative and acting, but needs cinematography that creates these emotions for the audience watching.

    As highlighted with its influence from Vertigo, the film clearly takes influence from others. Every crime thriller needs a killer and most of the time the audience gets a glimpse of the killers point of view which is also seen here. We see multiple shots from the sharks perspective as it approaches the humans it hopes to munch upon. These shots in themselves always contain a certain amount of voyeurism – they position you in the killers self which brings with it dread but also excitement as you wait for, in this case, the shark to strike again. It creates the juxtaposition of the dread seen from the beach goers as they try to escape, then you a thrown into the perspective of the shark which has no care to any human emotion and is just thinking about their next meal. Even a film he made a few years earlier seemed to have a big influence on this one. Steven Spielberg made Duel in 1971 which is a simple concept about a tanker chasing down a car for pretty much the full running time of 90 minutes. It shows how Spielberg can create great suspense out of the most unlikely of situations, which in itself draws heavily from The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963) that uses an every day scenario and pushes it to the max to create unnerve from the idea of the worst possible situation. At the point of Jaws, Spielberg is more than capable of making the last half an hour of the movie just about the ‘final battle’ of the three main characters against the deadly shark. It takes the full length of this time for the shark to be defeated but throughout it you are gripped and never feel like it is dragging on. A shark attacking three humans feels like it is bringing on the end of humanity, it brings in the emotions of the characters to represent something bigger than itself in the same way The Birds does.

  • Princess Mononoke

    Princess Mononoke

    This year marks the 40th anniversary of Studio Ghibli, and in line with this there has been a rerelease of Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997) in cinemas. It is such a great film and to be able to watch it on the big screen is so important to a film like this where visual spectacle is at the heart of it. It combines all the elements that make Studio Ghibli great into one film.

    The film sets itself in the forest, and throughout this is where it remains. The detail in the visuals is what gives the film so much depth and why setting the film outside throughout drives the story. It is a wide open space where all the animal inhabitants are free to roam, and the audience is free to take in the landscapes. This plays in contrast to the human inhabitants where their settlement feels enclosed and claustrophobic. The use of sound gives the outside world this depth as well. You hear the sound of a stream of water flowing down the river throughout. Most importantly, you hear it when Ashitaka (the main lead) is saved by the God of the forest early on. It signifies life and the energy that it brings with it, it is the life vessel that keeps the forest going. The film can still be silent when it needs to be, arrows being fired through the air bring minimal sound and without a score in the background in some moments of battle it creates an unknowingness and ambiguity that only the forest could bring.

    It brings with it the depth in landscape as it does with its narrative. There isn’t so much good against evil but more preservation of the spirit of the land. Spirit is key to this, its what unites the animals with each other and is the way in which they communicate. Whereas the humans aren’t open to any lines of communication apart from with themselves. They are the ones that live in fear, leading them to kill the God of the forest and try eradicate death but this is to their own detriment. As an audience you are positioned from Ashitaka’s perspective who tries to sew a divided forest and bring harmony to the land. Just like the evil that has infested his arm with his personal struggles, he is unable to quash the evil infested in the forest. Having his perspective is key to the distance from good against evil because he finds the humanity in their human settlement and tries to prevent any retribution from the animals.

    The film is great for the fact that it has a complex storyline which reflects the intricate nature that it is set within, it also brings a depth that can only be achieved from this environment. More than anything I just enjoy the way the film flows to it and the journey you go on with the main character. You follow him on this personal journey to solve his own evils within him, and also restore the whole forest from evils.

  • Lady And The Tramp

    Lady And The Tramp

    When I first seen that Lady And The Tramp (Luske etc, 1955) was showing in cinemas it made me quake in fright that Disney were demolishing the reputation of another popular film in their back catalogue. It turns out they already did this 6 years ago but it flopped enough that it was released straight to video. There was no need for such worry as this was the 70th anniversary rerelease of the original, and for me it was the first time of watching the film.

    To get the right elements to enjoy a film like this and make it be a memorable film to watch, it has to be all about the experience of it. If this is achieved, it can create the same memories of childhood animation as you would get as a child. You live through experiences, and these are what makes past ones so memorable. Therefore, to get to go to the cinema in a near empty room of the biggest screen in the cinema seemed to be the perfect start to the whole trip. It made me feel like a child experiencing something new, in my own exclusive screening.

    In terms of the film, I was quickly lost in the story and the ambiance that it brought with it. The way in which it positioned the audience from the dogs perspective was really cleverly done. You hardly even see the faces of any humans, creating a distance between audience and anything other than the dogs world which was more effective than any film about pets has been since. It also meant that when you did see a human face with the aunty, you could tell that she would be key to the story.

    The ending itself seemed a bit contrived, apologies for any spoilers but think I have the freedom to do this on a 70 year old film. Lady and the tramp are taken away to the compound at the end of the film but their dog pals stop the wagon before it gets the there. The family hardly cared about Lady after the baby being born and I’m sure didn’t hear the last of it from the Auntie about the nuisance she’s caused along with her new love. But then somehow after all this she’s back in the house in the next scene along with Tramp who I’m not sure how he would’ve justified his actions to the adults but it is a miracle he managed to win over their affection. I am maybe being a bit harsh here to slander the ending of a nearly 100 year old film, especially after it was a very enjoyable experience to go see this movie.

  • The Rocky Horror Picture Show

    The Rocky Horror Picture Show

    Its hard to say anything about this film that hasn’t been said so this is more a review of my experience of watching the film, seeing as it is my first time of watching. Doing film studies at university and being a fan of cult movies as a genre, it was only a matter of time before watching this. Its like approaching the Star Wars of cult movies, you have to try and cut out the noise and make your own measure opinion on it. Bringing in outside noise always leaves you worse off as expectation is handed to you rather than decided through the film in question. This is important in relation to the film being a cult movie as the genre has two key elements that seem to both run opposing to one another. You have to feel part of a community that all share in these underground and subversive movies being made, but at the same time individual discovery is just as important and part of your own story. This is where the high expectation comes from this film, it has the community of a mainstream movie where you already know all about it before watching and therefore don’t have much individual discovery left over.

    It included many elements to be expected: a Freaks (Browning, 1932) like community that comes together to be part of something bigger than mainstream society and preconceptions, and also the musical element that breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience. It also included a few elements I wasn’t expecting too much. The film felt very claustrophobic in its enclosed story throughout. Theres no escape from the world where the outside lets you breath for a second, or even get a grasp on what the outside world would look like apart from this enclosed community. I’m glad they didn’t as the craving is something that brings more when it is quashed rather than being granted. You leave with more questions than answers and the hundred minutes in which it is set acts as a snapshot of time into their world.

    Overall, when you look at the film from a solo perspective than it does deliver by being a fun and knowing tale of inclusion that uses the best elements of cult to delivers a knowing musical. Maybe its because its a musical or that it feels like you have to ignore the outside world to enjoy it, it feels like I need to rewatch it a few times to truly appreciate it. But again like theStar Wars franchise, it took me a few watchings to truly appreciate it. Here I feel the same is needed where the nuances and depth is appreciated in the more that you watch of it the more it becomes your own entity rather than those around you.

  • Summer Wars

    Summer Wars

    The opening part of Summer Wars acts as a cutscene in a game before the action starts and your thrown in headfirst into the narrative. It really shows how important world building and creating an atmosphere can be so important to an animation film and at the start of the journey you go on with the characters. You want to become enriched in the world they live in to feel like you can join them on the journey they go on. In the opening credits of this film, the editing and design elegantly show us the rich landscapes that follow Koiso on his journey towards the home of his crush, Natsuki. My favourite anime films are where the environment around them is just as important to the film as the narrative. Take for example Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997) that uses nature as somewhat its own character in the film, along with the recent release of The Boy and the Heron (Miyazaki, 2023) where the exploring of the outside world leads to the main plot point of the film.

    This film starts by exploring this well and uses the outside to the advantage. Then for twenty minutes in until the end of the film, it is all pretty much confined to the one house in which he has travelled to. The main plot line of the film is about cyberspace in which communication in their society relies upon its use, and therefore this becomes the ‘outside’ of the film where the characters travel into the cyberspace. This unconventional way to approach the story didn’t really connect as your either in this fast paced alternate world where the story isn’t really easy to follow, then your put back into the house environment which is mainly just family squabbles that has some funny moments but doesn’t ever add anything new.

    By the end of the film, the storyline became focused on the virtual world that included a two hour timer where they had to do something before it reached zero (I pretty much lost the plot at this point). The timer just became a visual clue to me for how long was left of the film where the less time that became on the clock, the more relieved I started to feel. The films biggest praise was that I never found myself getting too bored. Having an anime that was about technology, and more importantly set in the current day rather than the past, did feel like something different. But throughout I kept wanting it just to escape the confines that it placed itself in and just explore. It had potential and showed early on what it could achieve, yet it tried to be too relevant to the modern age and become about family drama that coincidentally included a cyberspace storyline.

  • Amadeus

    Amadeus

    Last year marked the 40th anniversary of Amadeus (Forman, 1984) being released in cinemas worldwide. In keeping with the Irish tradition of being late to the party, the film has been finally rereleased across the country in a new 4K restoration. It is important to start by highlighting what this new restoration brings to the film as a spectacle. As you would expect with any new restoration, it brings a polish to the film both in terms of visuals and also sound where every creak of the floorboards or fingering of the piano brings with it a closer bond between audience and screen. This isn’t to say it takes away from the original film before the restoration. Like many musical artists who have also hopped on the restoration merry-go-round, I find myself enjoying the new polished sound that creates more of a sense of atmosphere to the music but also love to listen to the original sound that grounds it all back in reality.

    It has been many years since I last enjoyed the wealth that the film has to offer, and what I remembered from it was the rockstar lifestyle that the film portrays Mozart (Tom Hulce) in the film, more in touch with the likes of The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle (Temple, 1980) or Breaking Glass (Gibson, 1980) which were released a few years earlier. The surroundings place you in a historic time that has no resonance with every day life, however Mozart’s characteristics in the film could place him in any modern punk band around the time of release where musical superiority is achieved through individual character and performance. In fact, Mozart’s wife (Elizabeth Berridge) is the only one who is remotely able to tame his frivolous lifestyle that is bringing down those close to him.

    The film offered alot more from the outset than what I remembered from it. It is Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) who from the start becomes narrator of the events that unfold. He is the one in which we trust to give an accurate set of events for what happens as he is the only one that gives us an account into the life of Mozart. When the film starts with Salieri being incarcerated into a mental instution, you’d be foolish not to doubt the validity of the stories in which he’s telling you. Salieri’s failures are what drives the narrative throughout as it is from his perspective that the story is told. There are narrative tropes in which the audience can create a sense of reality within the story, but throughout it is always important to remember that the story is always from an individual perspective and emotions. This isn’t a unique take on a biographical musical film of course, recently Elvis (Luhrman, 2022) is told from the colonel’s perspective or take A Complete Unknown (Mangold, 2024) that is told more from the perspective of those who influenced Bob Dylan’s life rather than his own particular take on events. A film that contains biographical elements about an individual doesn’t necessarily succeed based upon its validity to life and reality, but rather in the same way that every film has to succeed by telling a compelling and narrative driven story about an individual. This film succeeds because you both revel in the greatness that an individual like Mozart can achieve, but also get swept up in the jealousy and contempt of Salieri and some of the other characters within the film. This is also what makes the film so great in my view. The talent of Mozart is portrayed so well within the film, but also you wouldn’t want anyone else to tell the story other than Salieri.

    You do get elements within the story that bring it back to a sense of a true reality outside of Salieri’s emotions. In the same way that candlelight gives Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975) the atsmospheric feel it does through the mise en scene. Amadeus does the opposite of this through the use of sound and in this case being the squeaky floorboards. The surroundings may be elegant and unattainable to most people past and present, the only constant outside of narrative that could both be seen in a rich or poor home at the time would be the sound of the floorboards and Amadeus doesn’t shy away from bringing a touch of realism to an unrealistic surrounding. This in itself isn’t the most striking part for me, it is more the parts in which this sound appears within the film. Early on this sound can be heard whenever there is movement within a scene, the further into the film you travel, however, the less this sound can be heard. I see this as intentional for the film where reality starts to leave everything connected with the film the further you go into it. Mozart loses touch on with reality the more his fame grows (a story as old as time with the rock/pop biopic), Salieri’s jealousy of him further enwraps his emotions and taints the timeline of events, and also just like the crescendo at the end of an opera, the end is the part in which progressive intensity leads to the most heightened point which is also the furthest away from the reality of the start.

    I wouldn’t go to watch a biographical films in the cinema to get a true account of events, it is more about how telling the story of how people have been impacted by people around them rather than how people around them have impacted them. The film offers a story that transcends the time in which it was set, it uses universal themes like jealousy and superiority and plays it out between the two leading actors in a way that transcends the realities of the true story of Mozart and becomes more inwrapped in the emotions of Salieri’s life. Cinema is of course about emotion, and there is no better way of portraying this then by entangling the narrative in the emotions of the main antagonist within it.