Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

When it’s on: Wednesday, 9 May (1.55 am, Thursday)
Channel: Channel 4
IMDb Link

A real guilty pleasure this, reminiscent of a lost childhood spent watching old Tarzan and Charlie Chan movies on BBC2, not to mention the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials the same channel churned out to pad its early evening schedules. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow groans under the weight of its own charm, its recapturing of not just a film-making era from seventy years previously, but also its look and style. Gwyneth Paltrow’s character comes straight from the pages of ballsy, 1930s heroines who gave as good as they got. Her verbal sparring with Jude Law has real sparkle, which almost matches the visual magic director Kerry Conran shoehorns into every scene.

It’s a terrific film, unfairly lambasted upon its release during the CGI backlash of the era. Whereas there are certainly instances of narrative, acting and urgency being lost amidst all that green screen filming (the Star Wars prequels come to mind here), Sky Captain is a cut above because every element has been considered carefully and works. I wrote a critique of it after being blown away during a cinema visit back in 2004 and, reading it now, I see no reason not repost the entire piece in full.

—

So what’s it to be? Computer generated imagery gone mad, or an evolutionary step in movie making? Is Sky Captain a curiousity, a visually mind-blowing experience but without a soul? Or does it keep its heart, marrying those lovely effects with a sizzling plot, good acting and pace? In short, is there room in this world for a picture where everything is filmed before the now infamous green screen, all the backgrounds, sounds, planes, killer robots and monsters added later?

The story behind Sky Captain’s making is the stuff of painstaking legend. A-list stars like Jude Law and Gyneth Paltrow were recruited to strut their stuff before the screen, using markers to interact with things that weren’t there. Once all that was done, the computer effects were added. Pretty much everything apart from the actors themselves was fake, generated by technology, and the reason for this? Sky Captain is set in the late 1930s, and looks like a movie made in that time too. The colours are muted. Visual trademarks, like a camera scaling the side of a skyscraper, or the characters flying some distance represented by a map covering the ocean below, are pure era stuff. The baddies – early in the film, New York is invaded by giant robots with single white lenses for eyes – appear as though they belong in this time. Milk of Magnesia is used to cure flying sickness. People go to the cinema, a grand, art deco affair with swishing curtains, and see The Wizard of Oz.

Sky Captain is played by Jude Law, who’s made for this this sort of caper. A Biggles type, square-jawed fighter pilot, he uses a variety of souped-up weapons in his improbable jet to combat the robots. Later, having collecting Polly (Paltrow, with whom he has had some previous) the pair find out more about the robot attack via a visit to the Himalayas, getting some help from Angelina Jolie as the commander of a floating aircraft carrier* and end up on a secret island… the home of… what, exactly?

The plot complements the extravagant look of the picture perfectly. The leads, Law and Paltrow, are perfect, particularly the latter who embodies the brassy, salty 1930s heroine with natural ease. Her interaction with Sky Captain sizzles, a couple who still have feelings for each other and hide it behind sarcastic wisecracks and anatagonism. Even better are the scenes with Jolie. Not only does she get to be in charge of one of those amazing vessels in the clouds (complete with Union Jack insignia on the side), but she also wears an eye-patch and leads her own fleet of planes.

This is a movie that has been accused of lacking substance, of being all about the visuals. Sure enough, the effects are fabulous. Sky Captain looks unique, with its retro setting and a genuine attempt to create contraptions as they would be imagined by 1930s film makers (other nice touches include the Captain’s boffin friend, Dex (Giovanni Ribisi), tracking the location of the secret island with the use of a wireless, ruler and stencil equipment), but it’s much more than that. Clearly, Paltrow and Law have chemistry, and as they’re in most frames together, we get to see an excellent use of a couple who are equal partners rather than the hero and his babe. It’s got humour, pace and suspense in equal measures. All involved are happy enough both to send up their roles through playing it straight, and look like they’re having a good time in the process. Heck, there’s even a posthumous appearance by Laurence Olivier, his scenes cobbled together from archive footage.

That said, Sky Captain is ultimately a forgettable experience, a treat for the senses that flashes by easily enough and never taxes the brain. But didn’t they say that about the Indiana Jones films, which this most resembles in spirit? When Spielberg and Lucas turned Harrison Ford into a tomb-raiding adventurer, they set out to make the archetypal matinee experience. And that’s just what this feels like. Just like Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s an absolute blast. Incidentally, the golden age of the matinee was the 1930s, and as it goes, Sky Captain has the look and feel of a movie that was made by thirties producers who suddenly found themselves with access to modern technology.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: ****

*Good to see that airborne aircraft career idea pop up again, first as the Valiant in Doctor Who, and more recently in Avengers Assemble. There’s sure no keeping a good concept down!

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

When it’s on: Sunday, 29 April 2012 (1.30 pm)
Channel: Dave
IMDb Link

Gladiator claimed Best Film at the 2001 Academy Awards, but in the list of nominees was a bit of an oddity – Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dagger, or Wo hu cang long as it’s called in China. The characters spoke in Mandarin, filmed against a range of Chinese locations and sets, on a production with American and Chinese money behind it. In the end, it had to be satisfied with technical awards and one for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, which was something of a fob off because it’s a better film than Ridley Scott’s Roman epic.

That said, the signs weren’t promising. Sure, the martial arts looked incredible, but these scenes were mixed in with long passages of people talking in that overtly mannered way that appeared to be the way of things in medieval China. Would people really go for it?

They did, transforming the film into the first foreign language picture to gross $100m at the American box office. That’s because it’s saved by several elements, beginning with the martial arts. Woo-ping Yuen had already earned plaudits for choreographing the fight sequences in The Matrix, following years serving Chinese cinema as an actor, stuntman, action director and indeed any suitable hands-on role. For Crouching Tiger, he choreographed a form of martial arts based around balance and meditation, the former to give its fighters the balletic speed that makes the combat such a delight, the latter to suggest they can achieve such a high level of awareness that they can actually fly. Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun Fat and Zhang Ziyi – its principal combatants – can’t really do the things they do in the film, but there is a logic underpinning their fighting ability that holds it together. The scenes are filmed beautifully by Peter Pau, the film’s cinematographer, who somehow stops it from becoming a confusing mess. Edited before the current fashion for quick, dizzying cuts, every kick, parry, block and blow is there on the screen, and these people are going at each other with incredible speed.

Crouching Tiger is a wuxia film. This is a Chinese genre of fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists. The earliest stories are more than two thousand years ago, written by artists who took full advantage of their country’s dramatic landscape to create epic visions. Lee and Pau replicated this in their location choices, whether filming in the Gobi Desert or the Anji bamboo forest to depict wildly differing backdrops to the action. Whatever its politics, China is a country with areas of breathtaking natural beauty. Its climactic scenes, set in the Wudang mountains, are just ravishing, and this is merely the last throw of a film that knows where to point its camera.

The film is based on a book by wuxia author, Wang Dulu, who stopped writing after the Chinese Civil war and eventually died in poverty, relegated to the role of farm labourer as a result of the Cultural Revolution. His books focused on the tragic element of the martial arts life, in this story the unspoken love between Li Mu Bai (Chow) and Yu Shu Lien (Yeoh) that has been suppressed by a life in service as warriors. At the same time, Jen (Zhang) is preparing for marriage, but yearns both for the mountain bandit she came to love years ago, along with a life of adventure that seems epitomised by Yu Shu. In disguise, Jen steals a famous sword, whilst her old Master in the arts, Jade Fox, is chased by the authorities by her previous crimes.

There’s lots going on, most of the exposition emerging through conversations that steadily become more barbed and suspenseful as the web of relationships emerges. It works because of the quality of the actors, too often an issue with previous, low budget wuxia productions that simply couldn’t afford the calibre of performers. The three principals might have spoken different languages, making the Mandarin dialogue torturous for all concerned, but despite this there’s no mistaking the lingering looks, facial expressions and repressed yearning.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: ****

Uzak (2002)

When it’s on: Thursday, 19 April 2012 (1.20 am, Friday)
Channel: Film4
IMDb Link

Shots of men standing, or sitting, alone, or together, smoking or not, staring into some uncommunicative distance, looking for… what? Contemplating the past? Guessing at an unguessable future? Sharing few words.

Welcome to the wintry Istanbul setting of Distant, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s 2002 film that was a darling of Sight and Sound and it was their gushing review (it’s a while since I last read it, but these used to be incredibly rare) that made me check it out. Whilst not a big mistake, Uzak took some getting used to, those long, lingering shots of almost nothing at all, the rare prize that was a glimpse of the personalities hidden beneath the inscrutable features of Mahmut and his young cousin Yusuf, the barely expressed pain teased at in the scenes of either character alone and smoking.

The slim plot involves Yusuf arriving in Istanbul after losing his job at the factory in his home town. He’s here to stay with Mahmut, who moved to the city years ago and set himself up as a successful photographer. Yusuf’s idea is to work on the ships, but it’s a vaguely considered plan. Soon enough, it becomes clear that step one was lodging with Mahmut, and that was about it. In the meantime, Mahmut is a divorced man. His ex-wife is about to move to Canada with her new husband, something he can hardly bear. He finds some solace in his tumbles with another woman, but it’s sad sex in an unfulfilled relationship.

The two men gradually wind each other up. Mahmut hates Yusuf’s slovenly ways. The younger man comes with the listlessness of being unemployed. He finds out the ships aren’t hiring and that even when work is available, it pays badly. In one beautifully shot scene, on his way to the shipyard Yusuf runs past a badly listing freighter, a sign that all is far from well in both his job planning and his life in general. Yusuf needs work to support his family, but there’s none to be had. He can’t bring himself to talk to women he finds attractive, so he waits and watches before they move away or walk off with another man.

It’s a sad film, filled with little tragedies that are hinted at yet never made clear. I guess it’s a comment on men, men whose last instinct would be to talk about their problems. Mahmut and Yusuf are certainly an odd couple. Over time, they may even end up being good for each other, but the chance of reaching that point will never be reached. They’re too distant.

Uzak: ***