"Julien Donkey-Boy" is an occasionally emotional, mainly tedious foray
into the art of Dogme 95, laden with grainy visuals and non-existent
plotting. It recalls the much better film "Buddy Boy," which came out
the same year. "Buddy Boy" director Mark Hanlon knew how to engage your
interest and make you care about his main character, despite his
shortcomings.
Julien is a 20-something paranoid schizophrenic played by Ewen
Bremner, one of the most underutilized character actors of today. Julien
lives with his equally disturbed father, younger brother, and sister,
who he has impregnated before the film's beginning.
Uncomfortable yet? The whole movie works to make the viewer feel
discomfort while also invoking sadness and emotion. At this it is only
moderately successful. The dialogue is often random and directionless.
The experience of the film is akin to having hundreds of puzzle pieces
of differing shapes and sizes, none of them fitting together in the
least.
Not your first pick for Mother's Day, The Living and the Dead is morbid and horrifying, and I mean that, strangely, as a compliment. It is a family drama, a psychological thriller, a tragedy, an art film, all these things at once, and and despite it's flaws, it doesn't overextend.
The film opens with Lord Donald Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd-Pack), a worn-down, silent shell of an old man, pushing an empty wheelchair through a quiet room. The image delivers the same feeling as a dark grey painting, lonely and despondent.
He watches, lip quivering, as an ambulance pulls into his massive estate. Cut back an undetermined amount of time. Donald stands straighter. He maintains a kind of pride that must come with being one of the British elite, but he is grieving. He has a lot to grieve about.
His wife, Lady Nancy Brocklebank, is terribly sick and probably won't be with him much longer. The bills are piling up, and they will soon lose their mansion. His son James (Leo Bill, in an over-the-top performance that works), dashes around the house with little clear purpose.
James is in his mid-to-late twenties. He is stuck in a kind of permanent childhood, the kind of childhood that is made up of nightmares, not whimsy. Although Simon Rumley, the director, describes him as "mentally challenged," I suspect paranoid schizophrenia.
James is by far my favorite character in the film. He is a complicated movie creation, and his emotional limitations do not hold back his complexity or ambiguity as a person.
Donald treats James with the casual cruelty that is most likely inflicted on the mentally ill more often than we think, condescending to him, forbidding him to use the phone or answer the door.
James is desperate to prove to his father that he is an independent adult and plans to do so by taking care of his mother.
His father understandably rejects the idea.
In an matter of days, James will have locked the door, shut out the nurse, skipped his pills, and may have destroyed the lives of those closest to him. Soon, as his lucidity deteriorates, the viewer begins to wonder if the past events were only in James' head.
This is a film for a patient audience -- it's a while before anything happens and the reality of the events is questionable.
The atmosphere is palpable, and the characters are well developed.
There are many plot holes and unanswered questions throughout the film, as the story itself seems on the edge of reality, with its Gothic features and abstract images.
People have had different opinions on whether James is "good" or "bad." He is a disturbing character, to be sure. He is not a sex maniac, mad slasher, or stony-faced killer, but an exceptionally childlike and deeply disturbed man.
This movie might make you feel differently about a crime, in the paper, in which mental illness was a factor. Despite naysayers, The Living and the Dead is an emotional bombshell and thought-provoking film.
Ralph Fiennes transfixes in this post-Freudian, Gothic psychological thriller. In 20th century Britain, Dennis, nicknamed "Spider," is released from an asylum and makes his way to a halfway house. One of the first scenes shows an array of passengers getting off a train.
Spider gets off last, feet shuffling, perpetually astonished by the hustle and bustle of the world as well as the chaos culminating in his own head.
Spider speaks primarily in an incomprehensible mumble, so be sure to turn on your subtitles.
Once he arrives at the halfway house, he is coldly greeted by Ms. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave), the nosy matron in charge of the establishment. He also meets Terrence (John Neville), a strange but friendly occupant, whose morbid anecdotes reflect Spider's own fractured mind.
But this film isn't about creating a new future. It's about a man who's stuck in the past, and his intricate and often inaccurate thought process. The halfway house is located near Spider's childhood home, and Spider begins to "follow" his younger self around.
Young Spider (Bradley Hall), who is about nine or ten, lives in a poor part of town with his father (Gabriel Byrne), who likes to spend an awful lot of time at the bar, and his mother (Miranda Richardson), who despairs at their relationship. Spider loves his mum just a little too much, so much so that the name "Oedipus" comes to mind.
Spider is just fine having his mum to himself, but Spider's mum wants Dad back in the picture. Then the unthinkable happens, but in Spider's mind everything must be taken at face value, and nothing is certain.
Davis Cronenberg creates a unique, uninviting atmosphere of British Gothic. where bathwater runs brown with rust, smoke from a nearby factory billows into the sky, and something strange is buried in the garden -- or is it?
The acting is exceptional, especially from Ralph Fiennes, who portrays a schizophrenic mind so delicately.
This is the movie that made me like him. He's good at anything he does, but Voldemort's Voldemort, you know? The other Potter-less Ralph Fiennes movie I recommend is The Constant Gardener. He handles both dramatic roles with dignity and grace. Spider is the kind of movie, that's twist lingers right under your nose, but you don't guess it, anyway, til the end. Then it seems obvious.
I would compare it to films such as Memento, The Butcher Boy, and The Living and the Dead. It is not a mega budget concept movie like Inception, but should be watched for its tremendous acting and psychological undercurrent.
Francie Brady, the young narrator of this dark Irish novel,
opens the book by saying, "When I was a young lad twenty or thirty or
forty years ago I lived in a small town where they were after me on
account of what I done on Mrs. Nugent." It's safe to say the reader has
fair warning that the book will not end well.
Set in Ireland in
the early 1960's, this novel takes us into the home of the Bradys, a
poor Catholic family. Francie's father is an alcoholic, and his mother
is mentally ill -- my guess is that she has bipolar disorder. The reader
lives in Francie's mind, carried along by a stream of consciousness
that reminds me a bit of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The flow of his thoughts and experiences is beautiful, brutal and often confusing.
As
Francie's family unravels, he becomes increasingly obsessed with the
Nugents, a relatively affluent Protestant family. Their cherished only
son, Philip Nugent, is one of his classmates; he has an impressive comic
book collection and takes piano lessons. When Francie enters Philip's
room, it is like stepping into a different world. Mrs. Nugent looks down
on the Bradys and calls Francie a "pig." This only stokes his
obsession. And gradually, Mrs. Nugent becomes Francie's scapegoat for
all the problems and tragedies in his life.
We follow Francie's
descent into madness, which continues through the death of his parents,
his taking work as the butcher's boy, the only job he's considered
suitable for, and the loss of his best friend. It also continues through
his stint at a Catholic home for troubled boys, where he yearns to get
his "Francie Brady is Not a Bad Bastard Anymore Diploma," and his
encounters with a pedophile priest.
Throughout all this, the narrative
veers between the real and the surreal; realities and delusions mingle
fluidly. As he plunges into sociopathy, Francie remains heart-breakingly
human and funny. And while the story is often disorienting and bleak,
at times it's incredibly beautiful.
While this novel was difficult to read, it is one that will stick with me for years to come.
"Julien Donkey-Boy" is an occasionally emotional, mainly tedious foray
into the art of Dogme 95, laden with grainy visuals and non-existent
plotting. It recalls the much better film "Buddy Boy," which came out
the same year. "Buddy Boy" director Mark Hanlon knew how to engage your
interest and make you care about his main character, despite his
shortcomings.
