Review Category: Movie

From the start, Lords of Chaos is not the hard hitting doc-style account of events that befell the Norwegian Black Metal scene, and Jonas Åkerlund’s opening that this is ‘based on truth, lies and what actually happened’, sets the tongue-in-cheek tone that is the film’s magic, which confirms it as a unique and precious encapsulation of an even more absurd story, and one that will prove infamous, having audience members thus far fainting and one seizure during its screenings.

Set in an Americanised Oslo and Bergen in the 1980s/early ‘90s, it tells the story of the infamous founders of Norwegian Black Metal – the band Mayhem, with our unreliable narrator Øystein/‘Euronymous’ (Culkin), who plays his leader in ‘terror incarnate’ with a playful vitality that’s soft around the edges, the sweet offset (despite being the ‘leader’, he is all talk) to Kristian ‘Varg/The Count’ (Cohen) and cold stoned sociopath ‘Faust’ (Skarsgård), followed by the film’s almost angelic presence-Pelle/‘Dead’ (Kilmer), whose real-life suicide caused the chain reaction that would lead to… well, a film like this being made.

That Norwegian Black Metal seemingly originated not from a group of threatening blood-drinking Satanists, but a group of comfortably middle-class teenage boys that have their rent paid for their parents even when ostensibly living out their great ‘rock and roll dream’ of drugs, booze, and nihilism is played for laughs, and it’s comedic tone doesn’t let up, despite featuring slasher scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in a Fulci or Argento giallo, and featuring a Sigur Rós soundtrack that adds an emotional depth.

Despite this, the distance works to give the film a disjointed feel, the tone always on top of and outside of its subject matter, ready every second with a joke at its expense. The early 1990s black metal scene is in opposition to what Øystein mocks as the Swedish ‘life metal’ that was popular at the time – a true celebration of chaos, death, and destruction, in juxtaposition with the reality. Cushy lives working at the record store that his parents have funded, eating kebabs all day and faux-posturing in medieval garb at night.

The sudden veer towards a horrific hate crime is one that is inserted into the film almost as casually as how the real-life band and members of the ‘black circle’ appear to have reacted at the time, but what Lords of Chaos is about – like another Culkin vehicle (albeit for Rory’s brother) Party Monster – is the tried and tested story of rags to riches to downfall we love so much, one of rivalries and the struggle for power and how this struggle sours friendships.

Straddling black comedy and horror, Lords of Chaos proves that the best -and most horrific-films of the genre are ones that make you bubble over with tears and fear and laughter in one giant contradiction.

LORDS OF CHAOS / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: JONAS ÅKERLUND / SCREENPLAY: DENNIS MAGNUSSON, JONAS ÅKERLUND / STARRING: RORY CULKIN, EMORY COHEN, JACK KILMER, VALTER SKARSGÅRD, SKY FERREIRA / RELEASE DATE: MARCH 29TH

Expected Rating: 4 out of 10

As a cinephile, Sam (Garfield) should know better from watching enough Hitchcock films than to follow a beautiful ice cold blonde down into a rabbit hole mystery.

Like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo (he even has the binoculars), he’s trapped in a life he wants to escape (here, too much privilege, beauty, parties, and no work), albeit mentally not physically, and his escape is by watching. Sam is an entitled masculine jerk hiding underneath a good guy façade; one who effortlessly glides into parties, with women eager to do his bidding or help him out, and he responds eagerly with violence in the majority of situations without so much as an aggravation.

His voyeurism – here normalised as just what men do, whilst women exist to be looked at – leads him to Sarah (Keough) who is both parts Veronica Lake emerging from the shadows and Laura Palmer, a beautiful mysterious female with a frozen smile to hide the horrors being done to her. Sam’s sexual obsession to find the newly disappeared Sarah leads him on an odyssey through LA – here as its own character that can’t escape its past, but doesn’t want to. Young hipsters venerate their Hollywood idols but turn the ghosts of its past into nothing more sacred than tombs to desecrate at movie openings and party sites. LA’s past is like a corpse not yet grown cold- and it’s this imagery, of crypts of the cultural past, and the present as one big stasis to be buried under, haunts the film throughout. Partying is only a means to an end.

Another Sam, Sam Shepherd wrote that LA is not a place but a mythos, an idea, one insecure about its own lack of identity and history, one where people are floaters on the periphery (a notion that Sam will ironically echo when talking about the city’s homeless problem). A place where people come to ‘make it’ but wind up becoming nothing more than a flat image on a TV screen or a name on a tombstone.

The problem with all of the stylised beauty and pastiche of Mike Gioulakis’ cinematography is that it amplifies the retro viewpoint that these films had, particularly when dealing with female characters. Women here are puzzles to be solved or femme fatales deceptively clad in white to be wary of (also the owl woman, who is never fully realised or explained), two-dimensional characters that exist in the back pages of newspapers or the cover of playboy. The boundaries between existing for male pleasure and paying the price for it by suffering – albeit beautifully – are blurred.

Manson – another dark spot on LA’s history – is also brought to life through Sam’s lead into the obvious – women brainwashed into obeying cultish leaders, and the link between cult follower and sex worker is casually drawn with a flippant nod.

All the same, in stark contrast to his work in It Follows, where men and women alike were punished for sex, here women have no autonomy, nor seem to want to, and men are painted as victims; gawkers that are barked at (literally and metaphorically) and deemed to be wary of, but also the makers of culture, in one bizarre twist that features Jeremy Bobb as a songwriter claiming credit from everything for Nirvana to the Backstreet Boys.

The references aren’t enough to change a story that is as old as time, one of a man escaping himself through the cause of a doomed woman, only to find she isn’t doomed at all. Mitchell’s take on the Technicolor noir is crowded with cinematic and literary references, from Golden Age and Classical Hollywood, to superhero comic books, to subliminal messages in advertising, and it’s a twisty-turvy tale that’s both exhausting and maddening, only redeemed when the film dares to self reflexively mock Sam and his self-important quest.

UNDER THE SILVER LAKE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: DAVID ROBERT MITCHELL / STARRING: ANDREW GARFIELD, WENDY VANDEN HEUVEL, RILEY KEOUGH / RELEASE DATE: MARCH 15TH

Expected Rating: 9 out of 10

Whether you followed his music career, the surreal hijinks of his big-headed alter ego or never even heard of Chris Sievey, this documentary is a mesmerising look into the often self-destructive mind of an artistic genius.

When Sievey died in 2010, there was an unprecedented outpouring of grief. It seems there were so many people touched by the lunacy of his character Frank Sidebottom that they instantly donated to give him a decent funeral, and then later to erect a statue to his creation in his honorary home of Timperley, just outside of Manchester. This extended to the production of this documentary, a crowdfunded labour of love for filmmaker Steve Sullivan, who had worked with Frank on a short film covering his Magical Timperley Tour. It was a mammoth undertaking; Sullivan took possession of dozens of boxes that contained everything Sievey had kept over the years. It turns out that he was a massive hoarder, but Sullivan has managed – with the help of Chris’ family, friends, and fans – to piece together a semblance of a life story.

We’re introduced to Sievey as a young man, his mind full of imagination and always striving to create and be something more than a regular 9-to-5 worker. The progression from wannabe pop star with his band The Freshies (who should have been massive with their catchy ditties) to perpetual man-child Frank Sidebottom is covered thanks to Chris’ obsessive use of video; whether it was Super 8 cine film or early mammoth-sized camcorders, he documented his band, family, and random thoughts perfectly. Watching this footage now gives us a much clearer insight into the man than any pseudo-intellectual retrospective put together by people who never came into contact with him. Instead, his story is told through those who knew him. There’s no pontificating about deep meanings in his work (although there is a secret code that Chris inserted into his posters for Frank that provides a Da Vinci-type mystery to his story), just a no holds barred revelation of his ups and downs.

There were many downs. No punches are pulled when it comes to Sievey’s flaws, his recklessness with money and later dependence on drink and dalliance with drugs is almost as sad as the fact that despite unquestionable talent, he never quite made it as big as he deserved to be. Sure, Frank was a well-known face (or at least head) on TV – particularly children’s shows – but there’s a feeling that, like many people when they reach a certain level of success, he was trapped by his most famous creation.

Sullivan’s film is a rollercoaster of emotions for fans of Sievey; it’s hard not to see his end as a cruel tragedy, but there is enough joy in his work on show in the documentary to offset the ultimate sadness. While it doesn’t touch on everything he did – the film would be ten times the length if it did and Sullivan had to edit down a nine-hour first cut to a more seat-friendly 100 minutes or so – we get a real sense of Sievey’s anarchic life and how much his art – in whatever form it took – meant to him.

Like all the best documentaries, however, you could watch with no prior knowledge and still be completely captivated. If you have a passing recollection of Sievey’s creation – or only knew of him from the Hollywood version portrayed by Michael Fassbender, then this will open your eyes to what he put himself through to make people laugh, and it will also reveal the genius that was behind those big blue eyes. It will also show you there was much more to Chris than a papier-mâché head. Being Frank is certainly not bobbins, and should be on everyone’s must-see list.

BEING FRANK: THE CHRIS SIEVEY STORY / DIRECTOR: STEVE SULLIVAN / STARRING: CHRIS SIEVEY, MARK RADCLIFFE, RICK SARKO, BARRY SPENCER / RELEASE DATE: MARCH 29TH

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

In the 26th Century, Dr Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) discovers the intact head of a cyborg in the scrapheap of Iron City, a slum that exits below Zalem, the floating city. After repairing the cyborg and giving her a new body, our hero Alita (Rosa Salazar) is born and must discover who she really is and where she comes from. Throughout her journey, she comes face to face with a batch of hunter-warriors, the devastatingly powerful Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley), and love interest Hugo (Keean Johnson) in her attempt to reclaim her identity.

Based on the original 1990’s manga by Yukito Kishiro, directed by Robert Rodriguez and co-written and produced by film legend James Cameron, Alita: Battle Angel is a sci-fi blockbuster treat. It has long been fact that western adaptations of eastern material (more specifically Japanese manga) have never quite hit the mark; from the casting debacle of 2017’s Ghost in the Shell to the letdown of Netflix’s Death Note that same year, so you won’t be surprised by people’s trepidation going into Battle Angel, but it must be said that this is easily the most faithful manga adaptation to date – and that may be down to the fact that it’s been twenty years in the making. Cameron first acquired the rights to the film in 1999 and had penned a script before shifting focus to creating Avatar. Since then, the film had been in limbo until Rodriguez signed on to direct, and we are so thankful that time, care and attention to detail were spent creating this visual delight.

With advancements in CGI technology and motion capture, it was possible to create a true version of Alita, although it’s not just the CGI that makes this character. That falls to Rosa Salazar who, even though her entire face is CG, gives an incredible portrayal that is one the of the most human performances we have ever seen. As the audience, we are welcomed into this post-apocalyptic world in a similar vein to the way Alita does – confused and innocent, not knowing who she is or where she came from. That is one of the main reasons why this film works – a story like this hits a lot of the same beats that we have seen before (which for some is a major downside), but Battle Angel adds a very human story to a cyborg that a lot of people can relate to.

While Rosa is the true star of the show, her supporting cast are strong as well. Christoph Waltz as Dr. Ido oozes a powerful parental performance, and his scenes with Alita allow us to slow down between the high adrenaline action to remind us where the heart of the story lies – in their relationship. He feels an instant connection to Alita and, after his troubled past, doesn’t want her to make the mistakes that he has made. Newcomer Keean Johnson as Hugo does a great job of being not only the love interest for Alita but also a gateway for her to truly understand what it is to be human.

The film is a beautiful assault on your eyes as the CGI teams at WETA Digital, DNEG and Framestore have shown exactly why Cameron was right to hold off for this long (we understand that some of that delay was not entirely him). Back when the first trailer dropped, audiences who were not familiar with the source material were instantly put off by Alita’s eyes, but, in order to be as close to the original manga, this had to be the case. The final product is absolutely breathtaking. Her facial expressions are so lifelike that you instantly forget that it’s not real. Furthermore, her foes and allies (especially Grewishka and Ed Skrien’s angsty hunter warrior Zapan) are masterfully crafted and loyal to their paper counterparts.

The only downside to the film as a whole lies in the fact that a lot of the story beats are very familiar and, in some cases, have been done better elsewhere. The romance angle and the way that the film ends with a solid climax coupled with obvious sequel bait may be a turn off for some. But truthfully, there is plenty of content to thoroughly enjoy – the mindblowing effects, heart pounding action set pieces and core narrative are more than enough to satisfy mass audiences in this blockbuster gift. The real reason for a sequel bait ending is, for those in the know, because there is so much more of this world that we can explore due to the expansive source material. From the rest of Alita’s main journey to her spin-off story The Mars Chronicles, we can be sure to revisit the Iron City in the near future as long as the film does well commercially.

Alita: Battle Angel is a true blockbuster film that proves that time, patience and care when adapting an original source material does absolute wonders. Salazar’s version of Alita is one of the most human stories and performances in recent memory and holds the film together when it almost loses it legs towards the final act. Treat yourself to this visually stunning tale in IMAX.

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: ROBERT RODRIGUEZ / SCREENPLAY: JAMES CAMERON, LAETA KALOGRIDIS / STARRING: ROSA SALAZAR, CHRISTOPH WALTZ, JENNIFER CONNELLY, KEEAN JOHNSON / RELEASE DATE: 6TH FEBRUARY (UK), 14TH FEBRUARY (USA)