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USA: Mel Gibson, 1995

I hadn't watched Braveheart in a while. Not since I was still in school, in fact. To be honest, I approached it with some trepidation: I quite liked it back in the day, but was worried that I would have mellowed towards it in the interim. Seeing The Passion of the Christ a few years back cemented my suspicion that Mel Gibson's style of moviemaking isn't entirely compatible with my own sensibilities. While he has a keen visual eye (The Passion has got to be the most visually stunning example I've ever seen of the so-called "torture porn" genre), I find him very obvious as a filmmaker. He's blatantly manipulative, paints his characters in only the broadest strokes, and seems to have an unhealthy obsession with the maiming of the human body (and this is coming from someone who is a fan of Italian horror movies). There's something very... medieval about his storytelling, with its righteously bloodthirsty heroes and fey, pantomime villains.

That sensibility, you can, I suppose, argue is rather appropriate for a film like Braveheart, which contrary to my expectations actually holds up reasonably well. True, the romance that consumes the first forty-five minutes is about as trite as you can imagine, and there's something rather silly about the fact that Gibson (adopting his best Scottish brogue and looking rather like an orang-utan) keeps harping on about the tyranny and brutality of the English but is happy to cut an even more vicious swathe through them, soldiers and civilians alike. Still, you can level the exact same accusations against the various historical epics of bygone days that is sets out to immitate - the Spartacuses and El Cids and so on. It's not, I suspect, a genre that has ever been too concerned with providing a balanced viewpoint (in that regard, epics like Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven are actually rather unique), but there's something rather rousing about it, and it's beautifully shot by John Toll (only his second movie as a cinematographer, believe it or not) and scored by James Horner (before he became lazy and started rehashing his own work or creating "sonic wallpaper" with every score). There's also something quite jaw-dropping about the sheer scale of the thing: in this film, when you see a thousand soldiers in a crowd scene, you know that there actually are a thousand soldiers there, not just a couple of dozen extras and a bunch of CGI dummies - which to me means a lot. I can actually believe that what I'm seeing is taking place, because in a sense it did - well, minus the actual bloodshed and slaughter.

Not, perhaps, a brilliant film, but I can see the appeal and enjoyed it a lot more than The Passion (hey, at least this one had a plot, however simplistic).

By the way, everyone gives Gibson stick for his Scottish accent, but watching the film again tonight I came to the conclusion that he's really not that bad. Catherine McCormack and the various Irish actors (such as the one playing Wallace's father in the opening scenes) are much worse.

IMDB reference

USA: Greg Mottola, 2009

Of late, there have been quite a few "coming of age" movies set during the 80s but at the same time not really saying anything specific about the decade. I suspect the reason for it is that a number of today's emerging young filmmakers themselves grew up during that period and are projecting their own adolescent experiences on to their films. Adventureland definitely falls under this umbrella. It tells the story of a recently graduated college student who finds himself working at a crummy fairground over the summer as he saves up enough money to go to graduate school. It takes place in the late 80s but, apart from the ridiculous clothes and hairstyles of a handful of the supporting characters, you wouldn't know it. It's a pleasant enough, enjoyable little movie, but a slightly vapid one, with the main character acting more like a high school student than someone who has just completed a university degree. It does well to avoid a lot of the trappings usually associated with "coming-of-age-cum-romance" storylines, and while the supporting cast generally consists of the usual clichés and outrageous caricatures designed to bolster the comic relief, the central characters are largely free of these generalisations and manage to transcend the generic trappings of the narrative. Oh, and Kristen Stewart, who was so good in Panic Room, finally redeems herself after The Messengers and Twilight... but I wish she'd stop touching her damn hair all the time.

IMDB reference

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