Liverpool Calling.

There were a lot of criticisms levelled at Nowhere Boy when it opened here last year. Coming, as it did, from acclaimed artist Sam Taylor-Wood, a lot of people were hoping for something edgier, something a little more artistic. Probably coming off the back of films like Hunger and Le Scaphandre et le Papillon by artists of similar stature didn't help. Then, a lot of people had similar criticisms that were heaped on Coco Avant Chanel - why focus a biopic on the time before the subject was famous? Surely there are better stories to tell from that period. After all, that's the John Lennon/Coco Chanel/whoever that we all know and love, right?

The last sentiment I totally disagree with - if anything, we already know that story. All we may know of the earlier period is 'John Lennon grew up in Liverpool, primarily looked after by his Aunt. He was kind of rebellious.' His later life? So well documented that showing it on film isn't really going to provide any insights - we know it all already. Unless you take a different tack and go down the lines of something like I'm Not There, the Bob Dylan biopic (which is coming up on here shortly, when I catch up), which was an incredibly innovative way of presenting a story we may otherwise already know way too well.


The first criticism I can understand, however. Prior to the release of the film I was looking forward to it like... something that is is looking forward to something a lot. I was very excited about seeing what Taylor-Wood would do with this story, how inventive it would be. Then the reviews came out, and I thought 'oh, ok, maybe I won't rush out and see it.' And then I got busy and didn't see it. And then I saw it on DVD and hired it. And that brings us to here. (Please do let me know if you would like blow-by-blow descriptions of how I came about watching every movie. I think that was possibly the most thrilling few sentences I've ever put on paper. Or pixel. Shut up.)


So, I went into this exploration of Lennon's early years not expecting visual fireworks, and that's exactly what I got. What Taylor-Wood has provided, instead, is a solid little look at what it may have been like for our little Beatle (played by Aaron Johnson) growing up with his aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) without knowing his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff.) When he discovers his mother in fact lives close by, he rebels against Mimi, who may have been strict at times but is heartbreakingly portrayed as hoping for only what she considers the best for John, before discovering precisely how unreliable his real mother his - she is prone to fits of depression and despair, irrational anger that forces those near her again and precipitated the need for Mimi to take control of her son's life.


Throughout this John is beginning to spread his musical wings, fashioning himself after Elvis Presley as he puts together a band, including first meeting and collaborating with Paul McCartney (Thomas Sangster.) His music is an outlet as much as an escape route, but his egoism threatens to break everything apart - as we know, however, Paul and John went on to the incredible partnership with George Michael and eventually Ringo Star. And the rest is history. Which is presumably why it is not in this film.


Scott Thomas and Duff have been suitably lauded over the year since the film's release, so I won't really go into it again except to reiterate that they are, indeed, magnificent. Johnson is very good in his portrayal on Lennon, much better than my impression received from his turn in Kick-Ass earlier this year. Sangster has an incredibly intriguing look about him that is almost too distracting - I still remember him very well from his brief stint in Bright Star last year because he just jumped out at me. He is incredibly intense and just cocky enough to put up with Lennon and fight back when necessary. His is a job very well done.


Matt Greenhalgh, who penned the fabulous Control a few years back, was on scripting duty here, and did well, layering the characters nicely and providing depth to all who shared the screen. Goldfrapp duo Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory provided the great accompanying score, which featured pretty much no Lennon tunes - it was nice to see that in a biopic. Of course, it makes perfect sense - you can't feature a song in a biopic before it's written, right? And Seamus McGarvey shot the film very nicely - there was nothing flashy about it, but everything looked... well, right. Like it fitted. There were no visual distractions.


Ultimately, this is probably going to be my criticism here. Yes, the film was good. It was a good little film, well made, well acted, well told. But nothing popped. And when someone like Sam Taylor-Wood is at the helm, you kind of expect it to pop. Even if it pops in a terrible, terrible way. Like, put Andy Warhol at the helm of Lonesome Cowboys and you don't really get a great film, but fuckdamnit it's interesting! It's at least fascinating as an artwork. Sure, there's real money from real investors at stake here, so maybe you don't want it to be a total disaster, but you can take some risks. Steve McQueen's Hunger could have been a total failure. The film had virtually no dialogue, for god's sake. There's, what, a sixteen minute static shot in the middle of it? It could totally have fallen on it's face. It didn't, but without the risks it just would have been another biopic. This was interesting, and yes it turned out terrific. But only because the risk was taken.


In the end, I don't think a desire for what the film may have been in a situation like this should take away from the verdict of what the film was, and what I would have been perfectly content with had the director been someone other than Taylor-Wood. It's a definite 3.5 star film. And ok, while it may have been closer to 5 stars had Taylor-Wood pulled off some risktaking, it may also have fallen to 1 star. But what's better - mediocrity or failure?

Starving.

How lucky were we to get two incredible films by acclaimed artists in one year? Pretty damn lucky. Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon was a brilliant third film from Julian Schnabel, which I loved, but Steve McQueen's Hunger probably edges it out for me as my favourite of the two, one of my favourite films of the last decade, and rewatching it the other day confirmed it for me.

The film is about the IRA hunger strikes of the early 1980s amongst prisoners of The Maze, the notorious Northern Irish prison. Hunger starts with a new prisoner entering The Maze during a protest in which the prisoners refused to wear prison clothing and refused to wash. Beaten, tortured, searched, abused regularly, the prisoners, protesting for political prisoner status, put themselves through further hell, smearing their walls in their own shit, collecting urine and pouring it into the corridors, pouring the food they are given into corners of their cells where they grow maggot-infested and putrefy. Hardly a word is spoken as McQueen allows us to see the steadfast determination mixed with the desperation of this paramilitary subset so full of belief in themselves they will willingly create a world so despicable as to be next door to hell.


Into this prison comes Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), a leader among them, solidifying their resistance with his sanctioned hunger strike. Recognising that their current policies are not winning them any favours, he leads the men on this exercise of starvation, seeing the flaws in previous hunger strikes and working out a way to allow it succeed this time. Where before all prisoners had gone on strike simultaneously, thereby meaning a single person failing destroys the entire resolve, Sands determines that they will instead go on strike one by way, spaced apart. Therefore, one man's lack of resolve is bolstered by the support of those around him, still waiting for their turn to strike. One chink won't undermine the whole plan. Instead, others will be there to patch up the chink, to sew it up and push it forward. Yes, as pointed out by Sands' priest Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham), it is effectively suicide. In order to try and make progress with the English captors, Sands and his cohorts are willing to die, to deprive themselves of food to try and show their seriousness, convinced that their show of conviction will convince those with the power, and those behind the ones with power, that is, the people, that they are so serious about their perceived status that they are willing to die for it. Not only are they willing to die for it, they're willing to commit what, as Catholics, is a cardinal sin.

Hunger is a heavy film. It is very, very heavy. It is not easy to watch these prisoners put themselves through the hell that they do. It is not easy watching them thrown naked from their cells, beaten by riot police, searched and probed by police officers. It is not easy watching Sands starve himself and slowly die (this isn't a spoiler, as I assume the story is well enough known...), watching his parents mourn at his bedside at the same time as believing in his motivation, watching his hunger-induced hallucinations as his body wastes away to nothing. But it is, somehow, beautiful. Gaspingly beautiful. In amongst the faeces and the blood and dirt and the overwhelming lack of real hope on a day by day basis, McQueen gives us momentary fragments of light and happiness, simple as they may be. While maggots crawl on the hands of his cellmate, a prisoner jerks off to a smuggled in picture of a girl. Prisoners and their families and friends smuggle in cigarettes and even a radio to allow them a glimpse of the outside world. People love and are loved and believe in their cause so strongly as to deprive themselves of everything. And as desperate as that seems, it is beautiful.


Fassbender is amazing in what was his stunning breakout role. One of the most talked about scenes is the sixteen and a half minute shot of him and Cunningham talking in a visiting room, and it is worth talking about. The two sit at a table, across from each other, and McQueen has such faith, and their performances have such strength, that when the shot ends you feel like you have been holding your breath the entire time. And then he follows on shortly after with an epic close up on Fassbender's face again, a long monologue, a powerful and bold statement of conviction. But it is as much the intimate closeups on tiny little things, on the minutiae that is probably the only focus and distraction for our protagonists that provide the humanity of the picture, the beauty. The simplicity. The intimacy. It is this as much as the drama that binds us, the audience, to these characters.

McQueen does venture into enemy territory, as it were, with a subplot concerning a prison guard Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham), checking under his car for bombs, trying to maintain a normal life when his is so often under direct threat from supporters of those he is doing such cruelty to. In some ways this could be seen as similar to the treatment of Hitler in Oliver Hirshbiegel's Der Untergang, attempting to humanise him in order that you understand that this is real, this is not some two headed monster from a fairy tale but could quite easily have been your neighbour growing up. But it's also about showing the duality and the vicious senselessness of this war that wasn't a war in the sense that Hitler vs The World was a war. This is ideology, this is religion, this is so much more than politics and ego. And in a war like that there are no winners, only losers. On both sides there is so much death, so much destruction, and do Sands' troops get their demands? Not in so many words. Like all, they settle to stop the dying. It's not a win, but it's something.


5 stars and my infinite recommendations.