CILLIAN MURPHY
(Pronounced with a hard C, as in Killian.)
Irish actor, born in 1976.
To my great shame, I had never heard of Cillian Murphy until I stumbled upon the gripping, wonderfully acted, visually stunning BBC series, Peaky Blinders, even though the first season came out in 2013. The fifth season came out in 2019, and Netflix has now acquired the rights. There is talk that the sixth season will be out in late 2021, with a seventh to come later. They can’t come soon enough. I decided early into the first season that I wanted to learn more about Murphy, an Irish actor busily employed on stage and screen for the last 24 years, and whose choice of roles is eclectic and challenging. (Apparently, I did see Murphy earlier in the excellent movie, Dunkirk, where he’s listed as “shivering soldier” in the credits, but the name did not register. I also saw him in Cold Mountain and Girl with a Pearl Earring, but again, the name did not register.) In the 2020 listing of The Irish Times, “The 50 Greatest Irish Film Actors of All Times,” Murphy is number 12.
In a rock band, The Sons of Mr. Greengenes, in his late teens and early 20s, Murphy also studied law for a brief, inglorious time before becoming involved with amateur college productions. He made his first professional stage appearance and then on tour as Darren in Disco Pigs (1996-98); it was made into a movie in 2001. He has been busy ever since in dozens of art house indies and commercial movie productions as well — at least 37 movies, two TV series, 14 shorts, and many stage plays, including the acclaimed, one-man show, Misterman in 2011-2012, and Grief is the Thing with Feathers, 2018-2019. Unlike my approach to Richard Gere where I watched most of his movies in chronological order, I skipped around with the Murphy movies. Initially, I didn’t think I would watch more than four or five movies, but ended up watching 31, a testament to his appeal and acting ability. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Murphy has a quiet, intense presence defined by his mellifluous voice, handsome face, dazzling blue eyes, and high cheekbones (sometimes referred to in the media as “the cheekbones of Cork”). Herewith is Peaky Blinders and a sampling of most of his movies:
Peaky Blinders, 2013-2019. Directed by Otto Bathurst, Tom Harper, Colm McCarthy, Tim Mielants, David Caffrey, Anthony Byrne (Seasons 1-5). Written by Steven Knight, Toby Finlay, Stephen Russell. (Available on Netflix.) The word “hero” has been debased in today’s world, but Cillian Murphy has elevated the word “antihero” to new heights with his performance as the leader of an Irish-Roma gang with strong family ties based in Birmingham, England. Beginning in 1919, the series is loosely based on true events and an actual gang by the name of Sheldon, not Shelby, the stories embellished and enhanced by writer and Birmingham native Steven Knight’s family memories. Murphy leads the ensemble cast as the head of the family, Thomas Shelby, that includes the inimitable Helen McCrory (MotherFatherSon) as Polly, his aunt and adviser, Paul Anderson as Arthur, the eldest son, Joe Cole as John, the third youngest son, Sophie Rundle as Ada, the only sister, and Sam Neill as a vicious, Irish inspector. The enormous cast also features Tom Hardy as an unhinged, duplicitous Jewish mob boss, Adrian Brody as a malevolent, vendetta-fixated Italian-American mafia assassin, Sam Clafin as Mosley, and Finn Cole, Charlotte Riley, Natasha O’Keefe, Annabelle Wallis, Paddy Considine, appearances by Winston Churchill (3 different actors), and many more.
Tom Shelby is smart, courageous, and ruthless. Often cruel but very controlled, he loves his child and family above all. He is fearless, not afraid of death, and this makes him a dangerous opponent. Anderson is the volatile, angry, resentful older brother, and Cole has such a calculated swagger, toothpick in mouth, that you have to laugh in sheer delight at his effrontery. Murphy and Anderson, the two eldest brothers are war-damaged but handle the after-effects very differently. Murphy was a clay kicker, a soldier who dug tunnels under enemy lines and was awarded several medals for bravery, but now has terrible nightmares. Anderson drinks too much, uses cocaine, and reacts brutally in most situations in response to his pain. McCrory is the master of imperiousness; the lift of her chin, the tilt of her head, and her revealing, sensitive face convey emotion in every scene. The brothers, Polly, and Ada frequently chafe under Tom’s command, but ultimately acquiesce. Over a sustained period of menace between 1919 and 1929, the series deals with labor unrest, bent cops, Italian, Jewish, and American mafia misdeeds, Russian debauchery with members of the aristocracy, countless murders and assassinations, racetrack goings-on, seductions, and the formation of the British Union of Fascists by Sir Oswald Mosley. The story is so interesting and well constructed that the violence and profanity appear as a logical consequence of the plot. As Arthur periodically shouts out to prove his point that the gang can get away with whatever they want: “We are the Peaky fuckin’ Blinders.” Pronounced with a Birmingham accent, it comes out sounding something like “paaky fockin’ blinderz,” something I can now intone with near accuracy.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES OF INTEREST: Everyone in Peaky Blinders smokes incessantly, but I learned that they are actually herbal cigarettes. There was on set joking that if Murphy really did smoke as much as is portrayed, he’d be on a stretcher. Irish whiskey is consumed at every turn as well; the handy bottle or decanter is always there, and, presumably, it is colored water. I learned that the distinctive haircuts (shaved on the sides and back, mop on top) featured on all the men in the gang was typical of the time, and derived from war efforts in the trenches to rid soldiers of lice. Now it is apparently a men’s hair fad. The original Peaky Blinders really did sew razor blades into the peaks of their flat caps so they could headbutt opponents and “blind them,” or hurl them like boomerangs. HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE ABOUT OSWALD MOSLEY: He married Lady Cynthia Curzon, but had affairs with her sister and step mother as well — at the same time. After his wife’s poisoning death, he married his mistress, Diane Guinness, nee Mitford, in the Berlin home of Joseph Goebbels where Hitler was a guest of honor. This footnote reminded me of one of my mother’s recipes, “Lady Curzon Soup,” which involved opening a can of turtle soup and adding a soupçon of sherry, cream, egg yolks, and curry powder. I always thought it was hilarious that such a high flown recipe title would involve opening a can of anything. You should also look up the Duchess of Windsor’s recipe for “pork cake” if you want more hilarity, but I digress. MUSIC NOTE: The contemporary soundtrack’s theme song is Nick Cave’s “Right Hand Man,” and includes music from Anna Calvi, Radiohead, Joy Division, Black Sabbath, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Arctic Monkeys, The White Stripes, Jack White, more Nick Cave, and other musicians.
Sunburn, 1999. Directed co-written by Nelson Hume. (Available on Tubi on Prime.) I watched this movie almost at the end of my Cillian Murphy odyssey, and was struck by his defining stylistic qualities — the same off-beat, off-kilter intensity that he displays in all of his movies. Murphy, a rakish ne’er do well running from a pregnant girlfriend, surreptitiously joins a group of poor Dublin college students who come to Montauk, N.J. for summer jobs, sun, and adventure, far away from family surveillance. This slice-of-life story is focused on three main characters — Aideen (Paloma Baeza), mature and responsible, is working as a taxi dispatcher, Robert (Barry Ward), a sweet, hardworking sort, ends up having an affair with an older woman (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), and Davin (Cillian Murphy), uncompromised by principles, can never keep out of trouble. The dialogue is realistic and humorous, and the essentially sweet story is well told — love conquers, reforms, and educates.
On the Edge, 2001. Directed and co-written by John Carney. (Available on Tubi on Prime.) I saw this movie a couple of months after this post was published, but wanted to include it because it is an excellent movie about suicidal teens who struggle to regain stability. Cillian Murphy is Jonathan, a recently arrived resident at a psychiatric hospital, who tried to kill himself by driving his car over a cliff. Stephen Rea is Dr. Figure, the doctor running a group therapy session for similarly suicidal kids. Tricia Vassey is Rachel, a disturbed, self-harming young woman, and Jonathan Jackson is Toby. The three are friends, but Rachel and Jonathan begin to fall in love with each other. Toby’s disturbing act of self-destruction creates a situation where the other two can assess and review their actions and lives.
Disco Pigs, 2001. Directed by Kirsten Sheridan. Adapted from the 1996 play by Enda Walsh who is the scriptwriter on the movie. (Available free on Tubi through Prime, I recommend adding subtitles unless you are Irish.) I used to approach coming-of-age movies with a shudder, a dubious life experience for many, but this is one of the strangest, most intense, exhilarating, and unsettling movies I have seen in a long time. The movie begins with the inner dialogue of a baby swimming in amniotic fluid, its delivery, and the subsequent delivery of another baby by an adjacent mother. The two children, now almost seventeen, Pig (Murphy as Darren), and Runt (Elaine Cassidy as Sinead) live next door to each other, and grow up with a bond so close that it excludes everyone else in their lives. As they approach their 17th birthdays, a series of events occur which accelerate the inevitable disintegration of that bond and the resulting tragic end. It is a study of madness, but portrayed in an almost lyrical fashion. The movie’s sometime poetic language is a mixture of Cork slang, childish phrases, and strange cadences. As tedious and off-putting as this sounds, it is not — the effect is sensuous, vibrant, and shocking. Murphy’s fierce, hyperkinetic performance as a doomed, mad dreamer is extraordinary, and the casual violence he perpetrates hastens his ultimate separation from the more restrained Cassidy. As his partner, she participates in much of the violence, silly jokes, and random escapades, but with the dawning realization that the relationship cannot ultimately continue. What performances! MUSIC NOTE: Murphy wrote and performed the song “So New.” AWARDS NOTE: Murphy won Best Actor and Sheridan won Best Director at the 2002 Ourense Independent Film Festival, they were both nominated in those categories in the 2003 Irish Film and Television Awards, and Cassidy won Best Actress, among other awards and nominations.
The Way We Live Now, 2001. Directed by David Yates. (Available on Netflix.) Based on Anthony Trollope’s 1875 novel, the six series BBC drama stars David Suchet (of Poirot fame) in the memorable role of Augustus Melmotte, a domineering, scheming charlatan. He has come to London with his family, a foreigner with a fabled fortune, to speculate on projects and insinuate himself into society. And what a society: they are an assortment of impecunious men and women of the upperclass and nobility who are desperate to make advantageous marriages as they struggle to maintain liquidity and prestige. Melmotte knows perfectly the kind of pretentious and snobbish people he is dealing with and manipulates them with ease. Although there are multiple story lines which converge on the Suchet character, most of the characters are complacent, indolent, anti-semitic, titled characters in search of a fortune to sustain their dwindling estates. Despite their scorn for the nouveau riche Melmotte, they are lured by his wealth and power. Cillian Murphy is a kind, honest engineer, Paul, who has returned to England from the United States where he and a partner are trying to find capital for a railroad project. He falls in love with Felix’s sister, Hetta (Paloma Baeza), one of only a few characters in the story with a semblance of honor. Matthew Macfadyen (Felix) is a womanizing scoundrel whose only talent is the ability to consistently lose at cards. He needs to marry well and causes Melmotte’s daughter, Marie (Shirley Henderson), to fall in love with him. Melmotte, the upstart manipulator makes a fortune through crooked deals which contrasts with the upperclass characters who inherited their wealth but through mismanagement and lack of attention have lost much of it. The one quality they all share is greed, and their mercenary intent is well drawn. This costume drama is thoroughly enjoyable with its clever plot, amusing and annoying characters, and lack of violence — only a few gentlemanly fisticuffs and the threat of a duel. Foppish and inconsequential dandies litter the landscape, but Murphy maintains his stalwart and honorable character throughout as does his sweetheart. There is also an American adventuress (Miranda Otto) from Oregon with a startling Scarlet O’Hara-like drawl who had a previous relationship with Paul, and who tries to lure him away from Hetta. This 19th century commentary on the upper class and its pretensions, the differences between those who inherited wealth and those who are self-made, is decisively portrayed.
28 Days Later, 2002. Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by Alex Garland. (Available on Prime.) I am venturing into unchartered territory here with Boyle’s “running zombie” movie, since my last zombie exposure was the 1968 movie, Night of the Living Dead, now a distant memory. The opening scene has three animal rights activists entering a lab full of abused chimpanzees who are confined to small cages and subjected to continuous scenes of video violence. The activists open a cage despite the angry remonstrance of a scientist who says the chimps are “infected with rage.” (What an accurate comment on our current political climate!) The chimp violently attacks one of the activists, and the next scene shows a nude Cillian Murphy waking up in an empty hospital, then walking the empty streets of London (clothed) — over Westminster Bridge, to Picadilly Circus and Oxford Street. He is rescued from crazed zombies by Selena (Naomie Harris) and her partner who explain what has happened. Ordinary people have been attacked by rage-infected zombies; once zombie blood enters the blood stream, there is only a 20 second period before that person then turns into a zombie. Thus all of England is mostly infected, and the infrastructure has crumbled. People are living on junk food and soft drinks from dispensers. There are nerve rattling scenes as Murphy and Harris fend off danger at every turn, eventually meeting up with Frank (Brendan Gleeson), and his daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns). Traveling in Frank’s taxi, they follow a military radio broadcast which is advertising safety and an antidote to the infection, and end up at a fortified mansion (near Salisbury) commanded by Major Burns (Christopher Eccleston). There matters go from bad to worse, and after a lot of very bloody, frightening scenes, you are presented with two endings. The original ending is much more somber, but was switched out for the happier, more positive ending for the movie’s U.S. release. I thought the happier ending was a welcome relief after all of the terror and gruesome mayhem, but that the darker version was a more logical, effective conclusion. This gripping apocalyptic vision could be an allegory for our times, as the psychological and ethical issues which emerge are well described. SHOOTING NOTE: Much of the shooting was done with a less cumbersome digital camera to allow for mobility, and the London scenes were shot before dawn in 45 minute increments, and with temporary police blockades on the motorways. Other scenes were shot in Salisbury, Surrey, and Cumbria. AWARDS NOTE: The movie revived the zombie genre, and propelled Murphy into the spotlight. It won Best Director, Best Horror Film, Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best British Independent Film, Best Cinematography, Best Breakthrough Performance (for Harris), Best Newcomer (for Murphy), Best Actor (Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (Gleeson), and many more. MUSIC NOTE: There is an interesting soundtrack, including songs by Brian Eno, Granddaddy, and Blue States.
Girl With a Pearl Earring, 2003. Directed by Peter Webber. Cinematography by Eduardo Serra. (Available on Prime.) It was a treat to see this beautifully photographed and subtly acted movie again. Adapted from the Tracy Chevalier book, this entirely fictional story behind the famous Johannes Vermeer painting is as plausible as any, and there are some historically accurate references. Set in 1665 Delft, Holland, but filmed in Luxembourg, the movie’s slow pace and notable lighting vividly illustrate daily existence and daily tasks in the town with charm and simplicity. Seventeen at the time, Scarlet Johansson is Griet, a modest servant girl in Vermeer’s household. Colin Firth is Vermeer, a renowned painter yet dependent on wealthy patrons to keep his family afloat. His wife (Essie Davis), his frugal and cunning mother-in-law (Judy Parfitt), and his many children and household staff require that he produce portraits at a rapid pace. His patron, Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), is a debauched womanizer with a penchant for young girls. He spots Griet and wants to have her portrait painted, most definitely with an ulterior motive. Griet has also caught the eye of the butcher’s son, Pieter (Cillian Murphy), and they begin a tentative relationship. Meanwhile, Vermeer intuits that Griet has an innate artistic ability, despite her lack of education, and puts her to work mixing paints and doing other tasks for him. He becomes attached to her and there develops a distinct sexual tension which is never consummated but which produces some electricity. The dramatic ending is not unexpected, and points out the class differences once again.
Intermission, 2004. Directed by John Crowley. Screenplay by Mark O’Rowe. (Available on Prime.) This is an excellent all-Irish ensemble cast with Colin Farrell, David Wilmot, Cillian Murphy, Kelly McDonald, Michael McElhatton, Shirley Henderson, Deirdre O’Kane, and Colm Meaney. A violent comedy that takes place in Dublin, the multiple story lines are ably juggled with great flair and panache. Farrell plays a brutal, seedy crook who drags two friends, Wilmot and Murphy, who both work as grocery clerks, into an ill-conceived plot to rob a bank. Murphy has lost his girlfriend, McDonald, to a faithless bank manager, McElhatton (who looks very much like Putin). McElhatton’s deserted wife, O’Kane, seduces Wilmot. Colm Meaney is a preening, violent cop with a bent for Celtic mysticism, and Henderson, sister to McDonald, is having her own sexual and image issues (she has a noticeable mustache). There are other characters to add to the intrigue, trained rabbits, bus and car crashes, and a young, evil boy in a red jacket on a bike who throws rocks into car and bus windshields which adds to the general mayhem in this clever, well constructed piece of theater. AWARDS NOTE: Crowley won Best Director in the British Independent Film Awards, Galway Film Fleadh, Galway Film Fleadh, Golden Rooster Awards, and Irish Film and Television Awards, and Colin Farrell, David Wilmot and Mark O’Rowe won awards in their categories.
Breakfast on Pluto, 2005. Directed and co-written by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game). Co written by Patrick McCabe and based on his novel. (Available on Prime.) Set in 60s and 70s Dublin, London, and a fictional town near the Northern Ireland border during the Irish-English conflicts, this unusual, quirky, and excellent movie stars Murphy as Patrick “Kitten” Braden, Liam Neeson as Father Liam, Stephen Rea as Bertie, an itinerant magician, Ruth Negga as Kitten’s friend, Charlie, and Eva Berthistle as Kitten’s mother, Eily. A baby in a basket, Kitten, is dropped off on the steps of the village church, and Father Liam places the baby in the care of a harsh foster mother. Kitten grows up always wanting to be a girl and always wondering about the identity of his mother and father. At the same time, he is never out of trouble with unenlightened Catholic school priests and officials and his foster family because of his effeminate and shocking manner and attempts at cross-dressing. In a masterful acting display, Murphy is completely convincing as a young, beautiful transvestite with a flair for feminine clothes— his fey affect, slim build, and fanciful and intuitive acting are completely authentic. The movie is a series of 36 vignettes, each effectively introduced by a pop song. Kitten escapes the provincial town headed for London and has many adventures along the way and once he arrives. He performs as an Indian maiden with Billy Hatchet and the Mohawks, a rock band whose leader falls in love with Kitten; he works as a Womble in a theme park with Brendan Gleeson; he works as a magician’s assistant, and the magician, Stephen Rea, in a reprise of The Crying Game, falls in love with him also. Kitten goes on to work as a prostitute, and in a forbidding scene with Bryan Ferry, learns something about the dangers inherent in the job. He ends up working in a peep show and learns the identity of his mother and father. Kitten’s innocence is contrasted with violent scenes of IRA bombings and assassinations and British brutality. This saves the movie from becoming a cinematic fairytale with a pop soundtrack; it is not all sweetness and light as a dark undercurrent of violence and deception lies beneath the surface. This is a story about innocence, forgiveness, redemption, friendship, integrity, and the power of truth. MUSIC NOTE: The eclectic soundtrack covers the soft pop music spectrum of the time: Van Morrison, Kris Kristofferson, Joe Dolan, Patti Page, Don Partridge (“Breakfast on Pluto”), Morris Albert (“Feelings”), Gavin Friday and Cillian Murphy (“Sand”), T-Rex (“Children of the Revolution”), Dusty Springfield. The Rubuttes, Buffalo Springfield, Bobby Goldsboro (“Honey”), “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” “Love is a Many Splendored Thing,” “Me and Mrs. Jones,” “Windmills of Your Mind,” and many more. SUBTITLE NOTE: In several scenes, chirping robins are subtitled as they observe the passing scene. AWARDS NOTE: Murphy was nominated for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for the Golden Globe Awards and the European Film Awards, and won Best Actor in a Lead Role in a Feature Film for the Golden Trailer Awards and Best Actor in the Irish Film and Television Awards. The director, and script writers also won Best Director and Best Script awards, as well as other nominations and awards.
Batman Begins, 2005. Directed by Christopher Nolan. (Available on Prime.) Let me start by saying that I was not a superhero fan (not even a hero fan), but, to my amazement, thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie, and watched the next two in the trilogy — The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises — with great pleasure. Christian Bale is Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Katie Holmes, Morgan Freeman, and Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, round out the ensemble in stellar fashion. Filmed in Chicago, Iceland, and England, the cinematography by Wally Pfister is striking, and the realistic Batman origin story is cleverly leavened with fantastical elements. Murphy’s role in this movie is small but incisive; he has a cameo in the 2nd movie, and a small role in the third movie. Bale and Caine in particular, and Freeman, Oldman, Hardy, Heath Ledger, Katie Holmes, Anne Hathaway, and Marion Cotillard are the charismatic stars in significant roles as the series becomes progressively darker. Others more experienced in the genre can give you the details and more analysis, but I must admit that I found the trilogy very entertaining.
Red Eye, 2005. Directed by Wes Craven. (Available on Prime.) I don’t remember ever seeing a Wes Craven film before, not even Nightmare on Elm Street. Slasher movies are not something I seek out, but this movie has a minimum of gore. It is a satisfactorily tense thriller with Murphy playing the role of a terrorist who has Rachel McAdams in his clutches on a red eye flight to Miami. He is ingratiating at the beginning and then becomes significantly more frightening as the flight progresses and the plot unfurls. McAdams is very believable as the brave, terrified young woman whose father’s life is threatened, as well as the life of the head of Homeland Security. There are some unbelievable and unnecessary plot complications, but all in all, it was a sufficiently tense yarn. LANGUAGE NOTE: As in all of the movies where Murphy plays an American, his accent is convincing.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley, 2006. Directed by Ken Loach. (Available on Prime.) Set in Ireland in 1920 and filmed on location in the towns and rolling, green mountains of County Cork, you might want to try subtitles since the accents are thick with some Irish Gaelic thrown in for good measure. That aside, this beautifully filmed, historically interesting movie about the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, although with a fictional plot, is worthy of attention. As theater, it is a striking commentary on peoples’ lives, and brings into perspective yet another bloody period in Ireland’s complicated struggle for independence. Cillian Murphy is Damien O’Donovan, a doctor on the verge of moving to London to pursue his medical career, but who alters his plans when he views two atrocities committed by the English, and joins up with his brother, Teddy (Padraic Delaney), the head of the local IRA. Orla Fitzgerald is Sinead, Damien’s girlfriend, Liam Cunningham is Dan, and the large Irish cast move the dramatic and tense plot on to the bitter end. AWARDS NOTE:This movie won the 2006 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and Best Cinematographer award. It also won Best Irish Film, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Best Film at the Goya Awards. LITERARY NOTE: I suggest reading Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series, for a contemporary, witty, opinionated, and mordant take on the Troubles in the 70s. Duffy’s strong musical and drink preferences are impressive, as is his obsessive checking for bombs under his car, particularly “tilt” bombs. MUSIC NOTE: The moving, 19th century lament, “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” was written by Robert Dwyer Joyce to commemorate the 1798 Irish Rebellion. Barley represents Irish resistance to the British as it renews every year. A version of the song was in the movie, and it has been covered by many groups and singers.
Sunshine, 2007. Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by Alex Garland. (Available on Prime.) I was really out of my element with this sci-fi thriller, and had no idea what was going on half of the time. The special effects, however, are breathtaking and beautiful, and the overall impact is strangely moving. Sometime in the future, Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his crew are on the Icarus II, a prophetically named spacecraft which is supposed to deliver a payload to the sun to reinvigorate its power in order to save earth from dying. Cillian Murphy is Capa, the physicist on board, and the other astronauts are Mace (Chris Evans), Cassie (Rose Byrne), Trey (Benedict Wong), Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), Searle (Cliff Curtis), Harvey (Troy Garity), and Pinbacker (Mark Strong). The enormous spacecraft is equipped with a massive shield to protect it from the sun’s rays, and has a large Biosphere-like garden. The crew pick up a signal from the Icarus I, a failed mission, and head off to explore the situation. There are multiple explosions, fires, floods, glass shattering, lack of oxygen, unexpected re-introductions of characters, and the gripping ultimate crash into the sun itself. There is a lot of technical chatter: “the mainframe is out of coolant,” and “we have to force the bomb into the sun — force the payload.” The interesting ethical question which comes into play — is it better to kill one person in order to save the whole world — is relevant and drives the movie to its conclusion.
Watching the Detectives, 2007. Directed and written by Paul Soter. (Available on Prime.) Comedy is difficult to bring off effectively. The last time I saw a memorable comedy was in 1987, Good Morning, Vietnam, with Robin Williams, but then I remembered Fargo. (I have laughed since, however, but only with friends or when re-reading old Sylvia cartoons.) It is a mystery that anyone thought this forced and obvious plot worthy of making into a movie. Murphy is the owner of a video store, and Lucy Liu, Murphy’s love interest, is gruesomely hip, obscure, and shallow in her role as a kooky free spirit, the fault of the script no doubt. In my opinion, this is the best scene in the movie.
The Edge of Love, 2008. Directed by John Mayberry. (Available on Netflix and Prime.) After some basic research, I discovered that almost nothing is historically correct in this version of a specific time in the lives of Dylan Thomas, his wife Caitlin, his friend Vera Phillips, and her husband Captain William Killick. The scriptwriter is Sharman Macdonald, Keira Knightly’s mother, and she has taken great liberties with the truth, but poetic license prevails, I suppose, in search of a more interesting story. Thomas, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys, is unflatteringly but not inaccurately portrayed as a spoiled, opportunistic, and devious artist, ever on the lookout for someone to sleep and drink with; Sienna Miller does a knockout job as his feisty, equally transgressive wife. Keira Knightly is Dylan’s old friend from Wales, and Cillian Murphy is the soldier who marries her, goes off to war, returns changed by his experiences, and instigates what became known as the Majoda Shooting. The first part of the film is set in London in 1940 during the Blitz, and is interestingly filmed with some realistic bombing sequences, and a wonderful scene set underground in a bomb shelter where a band performs and Knightly sings in the evenings for the assembled shelterers, including Murphy, who falls in love with her. The second part takes place on the Welsh coast in New Quay where the three non-combatants wait for Murphy to come back home. The relationship between the two women is nicely explored, but Rhys as Thomas is so unsympathetic a character that he becomes unbearable. When Murphy does return, he is a changed man — changed by his time working with Greek guerrillas as a sniper and by other atrocities. His bank account has been emptied by the three others, and he questions whether the child Vera has is his. The resulting violent act ends in a trial with the verdict accurately described. Not the greatest movie, but interesting as far as the acting goes, and with a better script, it could have been better. The photography is quite stylized at the beginning with close ups of red, lipsticked lips and illuminated faces amidst the dark, bombed out spaces, but then switches to the idyllic summer in Cardigan Bay where Thomas lived with Caitlin and Vera.
Perrier’s Bounty, 2010. Directed by Ian Fitzgerald. Screenplay by Mark O’Rowe. (Available on Netflix and Prime.) Murphy, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleesan, Jodie Whittaker, Liam Cunningham, and Gabriel Byrne as the voice of The Reaper feature in this violent and bloody caper. Set in Dublin, the plot is full of eccentric, criminal characters who pursue each other to regain stolen money and some sort of dubious honor. Murphy is a scruffy petty crook who owes money to a murderous loan shark, Brendan Gleesan. He is joined by his father, Broadbent, and his friend, Whittaker, as they take on waves of attempted mayhem.There are several other story lines which coincide in a grim, unpleasant finale involving trained killer/attack dogs.
Peacock, 2010. Directed by Michael Lander. (Available free on Tubi through Prime.) Just five minutes into this movie, and you recognize the unutterably sad dimensions of the main character. Cillian Murphy is John, an odd, compulsive, withdrawn bank clerk who scurries from his large, dark house every morning on a strictly adhered to schedule. He is also Emma, the opposite in behavior and a beautiful woman whom no one in the fictional town of Peacock, Nebraska, has ever seen before. The transformation is quite amazing. John’s hunched shoulders, pursed mouth, his worried, twisted frown, his lurching walk (his brown contact lenses), and his gravelly voice make Murphy almost unrecognizable. As Emma, he is serene, commanding, and friendly. John has dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder), and he has memory gaps between personality changes. A series of events beginning with a train derailment in John’s back yard create a gripping story where we learn about John’s abusive mother, and his relationship to Maggie (Ellen Page) and her son. Susan Sarandon as the mayor’s wife befriends Emma and tries to help Maggie. Keith Carradine is the mayor who wants to use John and the train as an election prop, and Josh Lucas is the police officer who has kindly looked out for John in the past. This gently macabre, gothic horror story deals sympathetically with identity and loss.
Inception, 2010. Directed by Christopher Nolan. (Available on Netflix and Prime.) This film propelled Nolan into film celebrity with its special effects and cinematography. The bewildering plot relies heavily on the theory that implanted dreams and memory can affect human behavior. The cast features Leonardo DiCaprio as a thief who implants ideas into people’s minds, Ellen Page is the architect, Cillian Murphy is the billionaire’s son, Marion Cottilard is DiCaprio’s wife, with Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Peter Postlethwaite, and others in supporting roles. Not usually my kind of movie, it was interesting enough, but it was too long, had too many car crashes and chases, too many explosions, too many crumbling buildings. Tom Hardy had the best line, however. As he and a comrade are under fire from the bad guys, the comrade is ineffectually firing an AK47 and missing, Hardy pulls out a bazooka kind of thing and says “we mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling,” and blows up the building. Piaf’s “Je Ne Regrette Rien” is a constant theme throughout and serves as a signal that one dream state is lapsing into another (I think).
Retreat, 2011. Directed by Carl Tibbetts. (Available free on Tubi on Prime.) Now this is my kind of horror story — beautiful scenery and only one psychopath. Filmed in North Wales and the Inner Hebrides, a married couple, Cillian Murphy and Thandie Newton, come to a remote, wind-swept island they have visited before to rejuvenate and patch up their foundering marriage. Instead, a bloodied soldier (Jamie Bell) washes up on shore and collapses in front of their house. He initially convinces Murphy that a virus is ravaging the world, everyone is dead or dying, and that they must board up the house and never emerge. (I wondered about firewood and food, not to mention toilet paper.) Newton, the doubting Thomas of this pair, is dubious, but eventually they both participate in the paranoia, even as we, the audience, know they shouldn’t be so trusting. Eventually, the pair fight back as their shared ordeal brings them together. The bleak end is a surprise. These three actors do a terrific job with their roles: Murphy is conflicted, initially wavering in resolve, but growing steelier as the movie progresses, Newton is the feisty, more aggressive partner, and Bell is completely convincing as the mentally ill escapee.
In Time, 2011. Written and directed by Andrew Niccoli. (Available on Prime.) I didn’t take it as a good sign when I saw Justin Timberlake’s name in the credits, but, again, I was surprised. His performance is somewhat believable, given the script. This sci-fi thriller concerns itself with the allotment of time, and pits the people from Dayton, a ghetto, against the people of New Greenwich, a wealthy, time-rich community. Their prevailing sentiment is: “For a few people to be immortal, many must die.” In this future world, physical time stands still at twenty-five, and these mortals inherit a bright green, digital clock on their left arm loaded with one year’s worth of time. (This explains why Timberlake’s mother, Olivia Wilde, looks like she is his age.) Thereafter, they must earn enough time to keep them alive or they will “time out” and die. The people in Dayton, through economic pressure from New Greenwich never have enough time, but the upper classes have more than enough. Everything is paid for in minutes, hours, and days. Enter Cillian Murphy, the gum-chewing Timekeeper, Raymond Leon, with slicked back hair, a scar on his cheek, and a shiny, black, stormtrooper-like trench coat, in hot pursuit of Timberlake because of some allegedly stolen time. Also involved are Vincent Kartheiser (a dead ringer for Elon Musk), the fabulously wealthy father of Amanda Seyfried, and economic time manipulator. Seyfried’s performance is an unsettling combination of femme fatale and Valley Girl. Timberlake and Seyfried team up after they exchange significant glances, and he introduces her to adventure and romance à la Bonnie and Clyde. They become time robbers, and spend a lot of time running away from Murphy, whose elegant performance is the best thing in the movie — “I don’t concern myself with justice; I keep time.” There is a lot of running in this movie — Olivia runs, Justin runs, Cillian runs, and Amanda runs (in very high heels) — but it is always a race against time. Filmed in Los Angeles, cinematographer Roger Deakins captures a different life with otherworldly sets, empty streets, armored cars, and Brutalist architecture.
Red Lights, 2012. Directed by Rodrigo Cortes. (Available on Prime.) The movie starts out interestingly enough with Sigourney Weaver as a brisk, authoritative scientist determined to expose the frauds which inhabit the paranormal world. Along with her physicist accomplice, Cillian Murphy, they proceed to expose the charlatans and tricksters which litter this world in which a blind Robert DeNiro is the premier example of psychic duplicity and skill. Unfortunately, after this promising start, the movie dissolves into an histrionic mess with a bloody fist fight in a men’s lavatory and many unexplained crashes and bangs and bending of spoons . The reveal at the end just seems tacked on to explain all of the previously unexplained events and falls flat. Sally Owen as Weaver’s intern and Murphy’s love interest, and Joely Richardson as DeNiro’s agent have supporting roles.
Broken, 2012. Directed by Rufus Norris, a British theater and opera director. Screenplay by Mark O’Rowe. (Available on Prime.) The book by Daniel Clay is loosely based on To Kill a Mockingbird, but transplanted to an English setting. This is the story of a brave, smart young girl, Skunk (Eloise Laurence), who was born with Type 1 diabetes. Her mother runs off with an accountant from Birmingham leaving her, her barrister father, Archie (Tim Roth), and older brother behind in what has to be most dismal cul-de-sac in England. It harbors a feral, profane gaggle of three sisters, their bully of a father, Mr. Oswald (Rory Kinnear), and a family whose grown son, Rick (Robert Emms), almost drowned in childhood and suffered some brain damage as a result. Rick is falsely accused of rape by one of the sisters, and a series of events take place that involve all three families in a consequential way. Cillian Murphy is Mike, Skunk’s teacher and the non-committal boyfriend of her family’s nanny. Skunk has a crush on Mike, but also meets a young boy who shares her enthusiasm for exploring gritty, old junkyards, and she becomes his “girlfriend” after a solemn peck on the lips. There are several sub-plots and some unnecessary diversions, but the tragic consequence of Mr. Oswald’s brutal actions come as a shock. Laurence is a natural performer and shines in her role; Roth, Kinnear, Emms, and Murphy are superb as well. At the end of the movie, my last, most irreverent thought was that I would be calling up a realtor tout de suite to get the hell out of the cul-de-sac.
Aloft, 2014. Directed by Claudia Llosa. (Available on Prime.) This Spanish/Canadian/French production is unsettling and challenging, and a very touching story about faith. Jennifer Connelly is Nana, a mother with two young children living in the wilds of Manitoba, who seeks out a healer to cure her youngest sick child. The healer, known as The Architect (William Shimell) builds complicated twig structures into which he takes his patients on a lottery system. He determines that Nana also has a healing gift, and she starts training with him. Through a series of tragic events, one son dies, and the other, Ivan (Cillian Murphy), lives. Nana is unable to bear the pain and leaves Ivan with his grandfather to pursue her healing destiny. There are two different time lines which weave in and out — one with Nana and her young children and the other with Ivan as an adult — although the incomplete script leaves the viewer without some necessary information. Ivan, his wife (Oona Chaplin), and their child live in a remote, snowy area of northern Canada. He has become a world renowned falconer, and a journalist, Jania Ressemore (Melanie Laurent), comes to interview Ivan about his falcons. He is at first rude and adversarial, but when he learns she is also going to see his mother, he goes with her into Nunavut near the Arctic Circle where they grow closer, and he discovers that she is ill. It is an arduous trek and the photography is stunning — still, glacial landscapes and cracking ice lakes. They finally meet with his mother who doesn’t recognize him until he asks her the central question: why would a mother abandon her child? The answer and the ending are oblique and inconclusive; there is no judgment and there are no answers.
Transcendence, 2014. Directed by Wally Pfister. (Available on Prime.) Known for his long involvement with Christopher Nolan’s movies as cinematographer, Pfister’s first directorial attempt is effective, if not entirely successful. A top scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, Johnny Depp, is seriously wounded by a poisoned bullet in an attempt by cyber terrorist, Kate Mara and her group, to destroy several research labs. Before Depp dies, his wife, Rebecca Hall, and friend, Paul Bettany, both brilliant scientists, upload his consciousness to the internet. Depp’s persona becomes increasingly megalomaniacal as he directs Hall’s efforts to transform a town in the desert where he can oversee her and the townspeople. Initially Depp’s character said: “we’re not going to fight them; we’re going to transcend them,” but his evolution into a godlike influence and vision alarm others previously in agreement with him. Morgan Freeman, another scientist, Cillian Murphy, an FBI agent, Bettany, and eventually Hall realize the error of their ways, and the firestorm at the end is not unexpected. PRODUCER NOTE: Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas, his wife, are executive producers.
In the Heart of the Sea, 2015. Directed by Ron Howard. (Available on Prime.) Adapted from Nathaniel Philbrick’s 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction winner, this movie purports to show Herman Melville’s inspiration for Moby Dick. Melville (Ben Whishaw), is on Nantucket Island in 1850 to aggressively demand an accounting of the story of the Essex, a whaling vessel which sank in 1820, from the only surviving crew member (Brendan Gleeson). The story plays out with Chris Hemsworth as the brawny, capable First Mate to an arrogant, young, and inexperienced captain, Benjamin Walker, who has the position because his father owns the shipping company. Cillian Murphy is the calm Second Mate, Hemsworth’s old and trusted friend. They’re on a voyage to bring back whale oil and naturally they run into storms, doldrums, and not enough whale colonies to allow them to return home. On they venture until they are 2000 miles west of South America and finally run into the fabled, enormous white whale. Destruction ensues, and there is a long segment where they drift in small boats without enough food and water. Initially, the story is about the conflict between the captain and the first mate, but then becomes a story of obsession and survival. I thought the photography was spectacular, and the story interesting. PRODUCER NOTE: The credits reveal that our very own Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, was one of six executive producers on this movie.
Anthropoid, 2016. Directed by Sean Ellis (also the co-writer and cinematographer). (Available on Prime.) Given the title, I thought I was in for a sci-fi movie, but it is instead a fascinating and true story about the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. Anthropoid was the code name for the operation to assassinate Heydrich, known as the Butcher of Prague, German head of security, and person most responsible for the extermination of the Jews in Europe. This version of a true story and event stays very close to the truth, as the director researched all of the stories and people involved, filmed in Prague, and used careful recreations of the Orthodox Cathedral where the calamitous ending takes place. In 1938, the UK, France, and Italy ceded the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, to the Germans in a measure of appeasement that became known as the infamous Munich Pact. The Czech government-in exile, in collaboration with the British, and with the aid of Czech resistance fighters, sent seven parachutists into Czechoslovakia. Cillian Murphy plays the Slovak Warrant Officer, Jozef Gabcik, and Jamie Dornan is the Czech soldier, Jan Kubis, who were assigned to carry out the assassination, with the aid of Prague families and others in the resistance, and the other five parachutists. Charlotte Le Bon and Anna Geislerová are their girlfriends, and Toby Jones is the head of the Prague resistance. Murphy and Dornan are excellent in their roles — Murphy’s steely resolve sharply contrasts with Dornan’s conflicting emotions and wavering courage. The script is taut, suspenseful, and well written, although there are several extremely violent scenes that are hard to watch. The assassination attempt takes place on May 27, 1942, and is not at first apparently successful. As the parachutists take refuge in a church crypt, there is massive German retaliation with several villages decimated and burned to the ground. After the Germans offer a large reward, the parachutists are betrayed. The ensuing gun battle in the church is filmed like a spectacular and eery dream, a ballet of violence. The movie concludes with the statement that the seven parachutists held the church for six hours, an astonishing feat since they were assailed on all fronts and against far superior numbers. In retaliation, 5,000 Czech men, women, and children were murdered by the SS. Winston Churchill declared the Munich Pact nullified, and Czechoslovakia became an ally. The overarching question remains: was the assassination worth it given the number of Czech lives lost? AWARDS NOTE: Murphy won Best Actor, Dornan won Best Supporting Actor, with wins for Best Film, and Best Screenplay at the 2017 Czech Lions Awards, and there were multiple other nominations.
The Party, 2017. Directed and written by Sally Potter. (Available on Prime.) The movie opens and closes with Kristin Scott Thomas, in a doorway, pointing a gun at someone and at the audience. The next scene reveals a grizzled, almost comatose, sad sack of a man, Spall, sitting in a chair listening to Bo Diddley’s “I’m A Man.” A dark, theatrical comedy shot in black and white, it is set in Thomas’s house as she prepares dinner for her friends — Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, and Timothy Spall. Thomas is a newly appointed British cabinet minister whose husband, Spall, throws a bombshell into the dinner preparations, and sets the stage for a lot of political, urbane, and sophisticated dialogue. The eccentric collection of mean-spirited, coke snorting, emotional, and self-absorbed guests move around the house, the kitchen, and the bathroom revealing secrets and uttering barbed commentary, moving the plot forward to its surprising conclusion.
Free Fire, 2017. Directed by Ben Wheatley. (Available on Prime.) One and a half hours of solid gunfire and double crossing partners in a dank warehouse with the annoying strains of John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” and Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Run Through the Jungle” cutting through the bloody mayhem is like a Dantean circle of hell and torture, not to mention gratuitous violence. I had my finger on the remote “off” button twenty times at least, but stayed the course for some reason. Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, Enzo Cilenti, Sam Riley, and others all share in the blame for this nasty piece of work. MUSIC NOTE: The music reminded me of a long ago 4th of July weekend spent with four friends and then husband in San Felipe, Baja California, in a VW van. We were parked next to some locals whose only tapes were “Run Through the Jungle” and Tom Jones’ “Delilah” which they played almost non-stop all weekend, as well as constantly setting off fireworks to the despair of our dog and everyone else. Throw in running out of gas in a small motor boat in the ocean surrounded by sharks (one of the friends in the boat was a recently returned vet from Vietnam with a touch of ptsd who decided to kill as many sharks as he could, resulting in a sea of blood attracting even more sharks), hiking miles in 95 degree heat into a camp to get a shower (and then the water shut off mid wash with everyone covered in soap), and drinking too many margaritas with too little food, a bad sunburn, and sweaty, humid weather, to hear “Run Through the Jungle” again brought back some distinctly awful memories.
The Delinquent Season, 2018. Directed and written by Mark O’Rowe. (Available on Prime.) O’Rowe is a playwright and screen writer, and this movie is directed as a series of minimalistic vignettes. After my first viewing, the movie began to grow on me, and I watched it again and now think of it as a quiet masterpiece. Set in Dublin, two ordinary, middle-class couples deal with every day problems — babysitters, working late, getting the kids off to school, picking them up, preparing meals, the diminishing of excitement and interest, and the boredom of routine. They are freakishly normal until several consequential events take place. Cillian Murphy is married to Eva Birthistle; she is a real estate agent, he is a stay-at-home writer, bored and a bit worn down. It is not until he meets his wife’s friend, Catherine Walker and her husband, Andrew Scott, that the frisson of lust and deception make their appearance. Murphy combines a certain weakness with a sense of wonder at his occasional daring. His state of ennui and inertia are overwhelmed by the articulate and forward Walker, his curiosity is engaged, and they start an affair. There are more twists to the plot, and no one behaves well, but each character is developed in an empathetic and nonjudgmental way. They are not admirable, but have universal traits which anyone can recognize. There are several striking scenes which illustrate the quiet impact of this movie. One evening, Murphy is reading and his wife is working on a computer. Murphy hears a faint pop song in the background which reminds him of a long ago dance with an older girl he had a crush on. The simple story, the memories called forth, and the couple’s easy and familiar banter are persuasive and effective. When Murphy and his wife go to a play on a “date night,” a scene in the play is mimicked in a later hospital scene involving Scott. The movie’s opening scene is repeated near the end with more revelations. The final scene is unexpected and emphasizes the main point — that life is haphazard and people are just trying to connect and communicate. The movie celebrates and humanizes the ordinary pleasures, deceptions, and failures of life, and the actors are superb in their roles. MUSIC NOTE: The final scene evokes Murphy’s long ago dance/pop song memory with the evocative Ed Sheeran/ Ryan McMullan/Antony Genn song, “In This Room” (which for some reason has never been released).
Anna, 2019. Directed by Luc Besson. (Available on Netflix and Prime.) Besson, known as the originator of the cinéma du look movement in the 80s known for its intense visual style, and for the many films throughout his career, is now also known because of rape and other sexual harassment charges brought by nine women in 2018. The movie begins in 1985 with a group of American agents rounded up by the KGB, and the training of a KGB female killer. The movie flashes back and forth — five years later, three years earlier, three years later, six months earlier — which keeps you on your mathematical toes. Sasha Luss is the dishy killer, Helen Mirren is her dour, ruthless KBG boss and handler, Cilllian Murphy is the steely but flirtatious American agent head who falls for Luss, and Luke Evans is the KBG agent who also falls for Luss (and looks like Antonio Banderas). This is a fast moving, violent, entertaining, and visually dramatic action-packed thriller. Filmed in Moscow, Milan, Guadeloupe, and Belgrade, these places provide an international backdrop for countless killings.
____________________________________________________________________________
NUNO LOPES
Portuguese actor, born in 1978.
Recently, I’ve taken an interest in the Portuguese actor, Nuno Lopes, whom I first noticed as the striking bad boy in the ridiculous but entertaining White Lines Netflix series set in Ibiza, replete with a good dose of criminality, raves, orgies, drugs, and cavorting in swimming pools. In this role he conveys a sense of inner decency to what would normally be an unsympathetic character — a criminal and nightclub bouncer. His magnetic presence is always on display, particularly in the lusty scenes with Laura Haddock
Lopes is well known in Portugal and Europe and has a busy acting career, but his first US exposure was in White Lines, where he has now gained a substantial following due to his obvious charms. I was curious about his other acting efforts, and have seen a few of his movies, Lines of Wellington, the grim St. George, With the Wind, and An Easy Girl. Lopes won the Portuguese Golden Globe for his role in the 2005 film, Alice, which also won awards at Cannes, Berlin, and other festivals, and was submitted to the 2007 Academy Awards for best foreign film. It is not obtainable in the U.S., however, although I continue to look for it.
Lines of Wellington, 2012. Directed by Ruiz and Sarmiento. (Available on Prime.) The brilliant Chilean director, Raul Ruiz, died before finishing this movie; his wife, director Valeria Sarmiento, completed the effort. Set during the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal (the Peninsular Wars) and the 1810 battle of Bucaco, this is not a typical war movie, but rather a series of inter-connected stories which show the devastating effects of the war in Portugal for the English, and particularly for the Portuguese soldiers, farmers, and townspeople. The opening scene is dramatic as it shows slaughtered French soldiers lying in the field at Bucaco, with the last soldier shot and falling backward into the frame and into the audience. Then the scavengers come to take the soldiers’ boots and other valuables. Wellington, not yet a Duke and known as a brilliant defensive tactician, built defensive lines and barricades to protect Lisbon, and lured French forces into devastating defeats despite their overwhelming numbers again and again. John Malkovitch plays Wellington as a preening, snobbish, disengaged general, who seems to spend more time berating his portrait painter (Vincent Perez) than in studying tactics, only occasionally lifting a telescope to view the enemy, and wondering if the dish, Beef Wellington, is a suitably named compliment to his greatness. Marshall Massena, the French General, knew nothing of the fortifications Wellington had been building for a year a half. Moving from Coimbra, Pombal, Sintra to Lisbon (a route I once took myself), the plot moves ahead with side forays into other lives and stories which are uplifting, sad, and occasionally humorous. Nuno Lopes is a solid, kind-hearted sergeant who falls for a recently widowed English woman and narrates much of the story in Portuguese. Jemima West, Victoria Guerra, and Soraia Chaves appear, as well as Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, and Michael Piccoli who have a brief but wonderfully acted dinner scene with the bored and rude Massena (Melvil Poupaud). (The French love to honor their war heroes, and there is a Boulevard Massena in the 13th arrondissement in Paris.) A man looking for his lost wife, a mistreated and mute boy, an elegant, older, and determined woman, Marisa Paredes, in an affecting and indelible role as a strong woman driven mad by her abuse, a band of crazed monks-turned-killers, and all of the tent followers, merchants, and refugees who trail after an army are described in epic form. The beautiful cinematography and elegant and lyrical music contribute to the somber feel of this dazzling and fascinating movie. AWARDS: The movie opened at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, and was in the San Sebastian Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. It was selected but not nominated for Best Foreign Film for the Academy Awards.
St. George, 2016. Directed by Marco Martins (who also directed Alice). (Available on Prime.) This takes place during the 2011 EU bailout when Portugal, after Ireland and Greece, was given 78 billion euros in emergency funds. It was a time of budget cuts and economic re-structuring which resulted in high unemployment and debt. The organizations charged with recovering the massive debt were frequently corrupt and criminal. Nuno Lopes is an unemployed boxer who is trying to keep his family together; his devotion to his son and his separated wife, Mariana Nunes is evident. He gets a soul-destroying job with an unscrupulous collection agency and proceeds to struggle with the reality and immorality of his work. The movie is too long and repetitive, and the photography so dark that one frequently can’t see faces, but Nunes, inarticulate and silent much of the time, conveys a great deal of emotion through his body language and facial expressions. AWARDS: The movie opened at the Venice Film Festival, and was selected but not nominated for Best Foreign Film for the Academy Awards.
With the Wind, 2018. Directed by Bettina Oberli. (Available on Prime.) A self-absorbed, back to-the-land enthusiast, Pierre Deladonchamps, and his wife, Melanie Thierry, a lovely, repressed, and hard working partner, operate an isolated, organic farm in the Swiss Jura mountains, a farm that has been in her family for years. Her sister, Audrey Cavelius, is a vet whose advice and opinions Pierre dismisses because his narrow view of the organic world conflicts with her realistic approach to farm management. A teenage girl from the Chernobyl region is also at the farm, spending time in the fresh air to recuperate. She and Thierry develop a bond, are able to communicate, and become friends. Thierry meets the irresistible wind turbine installation engineer, Nuno Lopes, a dramatic counterpart to her dull and domineering husband, and they not very surprisingly start an affair. Lopes is kind, realistic, and open minded. Her husband is humorless, impractical, and self-righteous. Who can blame her?
An Easy Girl (Une Fille Facile), 2019. Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski. (Available on Netflix.) Released in the U.S. with French subtitles, Netflix released their unfortunately dubbed version a short time ago. The most lurid aspect of the movie is the real life notoriety of the actor, Zahia Dehar. Dehar became a tabloid personality— involved in a sex scandal with two French soccer stars when she was an underage seventeen year old sex worker. The soccer stars were acquitted; their defense was that Dehar told them she was eighteen at the time. She has now gone on in true capitalist fashion to TV appearances, modeling gigs, and her own line of designer lingerie. Anyway, back to the story. The movie is told from the perspective of sixteen year old Mina Farid who chronicles the effect of Dehar’s seduction by Nunes. Farid does a nice job with her role; she is believable as an unsure, questioning, and ultimately responsible person. Dehar is Farid’s twenty-two year old cousin who has come to visit for the summer. She schools Farid in the joys of womanhood — wearing transparent skirts over a thong, going bare breasted at the beach, showing her how to put on cat eye makeup, telling her to always eat something before going out to dinner with a man so that she doesn’t eat too much and fail to pay proper attention to him, never carrying money on your person because the man should pay, and other valuable tips. Enter the wealthy, good-looking, guitar playing, chanson singing Brazilian investor and art collector, Nino Lopes, on his yacht with his employee/art consultant/facilitator, Benoit Magimel, and a large yacht staff and crew. I thought I was back in the world of White Lines again with Lopes dropping in from Ibiza to Cannes. There is a lot of exploitation, deceit, and insipid dialogue in the movie, and despite the weighty import of the Pascal quote at the beginning of the movie: “The most important thing in life is choosing a profession. Chance holds the key,” this movie grinds along in predictable fashion. The movie attempts to make statements about power and wealth, fleeting beauty, the objectification of women, and the obligations of work. Is this a story about an opportunistic young woman using her body as a way to extract favors from a wealthy man, or is it about an opportunistic, older, more sophisticated man taking advantage of a less experienced young woman. Does that matter? Or is this an attempt to capitalize on the notoriety of the female lead? Or must we consider it art, and the movie is therefore not exploitative?
____________________________________________________________________________
Having now spent a certain amount of theatrical time with Richard Gere, Cillian Murphy, and Nuno Lopes, it’s interesting that these three very different actors manifest such a different yet impressive presence, and elicit different reactions. Their one shared trait is their ability to completely inhabit their roles. I have amply described Gere in my first three posts, but his impact, I think, lies in his sinuous, smart, and mercurial physical presence. His ability to channel ruthless predators, self-absorbed loners, the mentally ill, and even mere mortals, but always with a certain vulnerability, is a great gift. And, of course, he has a twenty-five year advantage in terms of his body of work.
To vacate firmly held opinions is liberating. The therapeutic value of watching a superb actor perform in movies I would never willingly have watched before Covid-19 — sci-fi, horror, zombies, coming-of-age — is exhilarating. This is why I ended up watching 31 movies instead of four in Murphy’s case. Murphy appears to be attracted to smaller, less commercial projects because they take his interest, rather than for financial gain. You have to admire his inclination to involve himself in frequently provocative, thoughtful, not-for-popular-consumption movies, although he has been in some big-budget movies. He has significant stage experience and continues to appear in theater productions today. He is endlessly charismatic — a chameleon — and can play many different roles. His face dominates as it is effortlessly mobile and elusive, effective in repose as his eyes and mouth express worlds of emotion. His enigmatic presence, his slender physique, and his youthful face are well suited to the wide variety of roles he chooses. In interviews, he is articulate and thoughtful, modest and genuine, with a good sense of humor; he is refreshingly unaffected. When asked about his eclectic choice of roles, he opined that dramatically speaking “happy people aren’t interesting,” hence his challenging, not-to everyone’s-taste selections. He added: “I’m not interested in a good man’s life — I’m interested in contradiction.” His latest movie, A Quiet Place Part II, was due to be released March 20, but has been delayed because of the virus.
A word about the Irish Film Board: Originally set up as the state agency for the Republic of Ireland’s film and television industry in1980, it closed in 1987 and then re-opened in 1993. Renamed Screen Ireland in 2018, its mission is to produce, co-produce, and help distribute Irish movies. There is an impressive list of excellent movies the Board has funded. Some of them are reviewed above — Disco Pigs, Intermission, Breakfast on Pluto, and The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
The fact that the Portuguese film industry is not well developed or funded has everything to do with Lopes’s lack of opportunity within Portugal. Unlike Spain, Portugal has never had a state run film agency or private support, and not much public interest either; after the 2011 bailout, things got even worse. Directors, cinematographers, and actors must leave in order to succeed, and it appears that Lopes is doing this. Also a DJ, Lopes has extensive theater and TV experience, and has appeared in 15 movies, many of them unobtainable in the U.S. He has a sensitive, brooding, pent-up, weighty presence, and I will be interested to see what choices he makes in the future.
Most artists are performers. This is their job — to describe a moment of truth — and they take satisfaction in doing their job well. Most artists also have alternative lives, revolving around family and friends, hobbies, travel, and other consuming diversions — they volunteer with animals, social service, or political groups, learn a new language, take up the piano, play in a rock band, go back to school. Like most people, even after some success, these artists must ask themselves: Is this all there is? How do we continue to make our lives fulfilling? Let us hope that these actors don’t change direction and run off to work on an archaeological dig, join a commune, or become ski instructors. Actors bring to life certain personalities and scenarios we may not be familiar with and make it part of our experience, or they re-interpret familiar life experiences adding a fresh condition to our understanding. In so doing, they continue to provide us with inspiration and a sense of wonder at their accomplishment.