Cold Souls

Bring me the screenplay of Charlie Kaufman.

There is a current trend in Hollywood for ‘Kaufman-esque’ type films; that being screenplays based on strange fictionalized ‘facts’ that deal with metaphysical matters in a quirky manner – Kaufman having provided us with Adaption, Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, all of which blur the lines between physical reality and mental surreality. Stranger Than Fiction recently found itself being tagged as such, and now along comes the much-lauded Cold Souls – another “ ‘Kaufman-esque’ ” film.

Cold Souls posits a world in which it is possible for a person to have their soul extracted and replaced with another one. The company providing this service stores anonymous souls for those wishing to relieve themselves of the burden of their own. One such soul punter is Paul Giamatti, who, in true Kaufmann style, plays himself, an actor currently starring in a theatrical production of Checkov’s Uncle Vanya. Giamatti, struggling with the role and going through a difficult period in his life, decides to give the soul swap a try, which of course goes horribly wrong.

Giamatti’s soul gets mixed up in a soul trafficking enterprise and, as a result, finds its way to Russia, where it has been transplanted into the body of a Russian soap actress. Giamatti sets off in pursuit.

Now, obviously this film has been influenced by Kaufman’s work; but to what extent does influence become crafty inventive plagiarism? Cold Souls makes a magpie of Barthes as she steals Kaufman’s silver spoon. Unfortunately, with Cold Souls, she makes a wooden spoon of it. Whereas Kaufman’s ontological output plays clever games wielding the dice of existential angst and absurdist humour, Cold Souls lacks a sense of itself and fails to deal with its initial intriguing premise.

The writer/director Sophie Barthes has re-fashioned a quirky film that sounds more interesting than it actually is. It comes across like the result of a dinner-party conversation fuelled by wine and ‘what if…’ conversations, after philosophy 101 evening classes. The film could have been much better had the resulting plot been abandoned and the original idea fleshed out and exploited more. Metaphysics is ripe for humour! Cue Woody Allen joke…

On the plus side – at least Barthes has made a film that gets a mainstream cinema release which extends beyond the usual dumbed-down, teenage-marketed manure that fill our screens. And of course, it’s always fun to watch Paul Giamatti – he has a couple of scenes that allow his manic glazed look to get some laughs. But the novelty of the premise that lies behind the film rapidly runs out of steam before the movie even reaches halfway. Not as clever or as funny as it thinks it is, Cold Souls is more damp squib.

Still though, better than two-thirds of the repugnant dross showing at the omniplex.

Couples Retreat

Sometimes cinema throws up works that are obviously a product of Satan’s workshop and stand as proof of his devilish means of killing us softly with his film. Couples Retreat is one such soul-destroying piece of vomited tripe.

Billed as a comedy; the only joke is the fact that this film was ever made in the first place. Written and produced by that bloated dunderheaded hog, Vince Vaughan, the film reunites him with his Swingers oafish half-witted sidekick, whose turgid chest looks as if it cannot contain his smugness. The plot is nothing more than an excuse for everyone involved to have a holiday in Bora Bora based as it is on 4 couples having a holiday in Bora Bora. Once there, they must immerse themselves in couple-bonding activities in an effort to save their marriages. What is supposed to ensue is hilarity; but instead the film throws up scene after scene of root canal guff.

The ridiculous premise of the film feels its need to be justified by the opening 20 minutes that seems to go out of its way to introduce the audience to a set of characters. The script is devoid of any semblance of wit or imagination and would appear to be the result of Vaughan repeatedly smashing his forehead against a keyboard. Here is proof against that argument that a room full of chimpanzees with typewriters could write Shakespeare – Couples Retreat is the end product.

Sitting through this mind-numbing collection of cobbled-together slop of malignant idiots on holiday could only be made better if suffering from a severe case of flaming haemorrhoids, the pain of which made it impossible to take in anything on screen.

Couples Retreat is a shameful exercise in megalomania and should be avoided at all costs. Everyone involved should have their foreheads tattooed with ‘I’m Sorry’. With films like this; ever feel like you’ve been had? Audiences Retreat.

The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy

At the height of their success, in the early ’60s, The Clancy brothers and Tommy Makem were being watched by 50 million TV viewers in the US, were outselling the Beatles, playing for JFK and had, in Liam Clancy, ‘the best ballad singer I’d ever met’ - according to Bob Dylan. Alan Gilsenan’s The Yellow Bittern is a well-structured documentary that captures the essence of Clancy describing, as he says himself in his own biography, ‘the countless nights on countless stages through forty years of acting, singing, and general foolishness.’

Much of the material here is Liam retracing that 2002 biography, Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour. Nevertheless, it is a great chance to hear Clancy himself telling these stories breaking out into poetry and song along the way. The memories are further brought to life through the use of some excellent archive footage; taking in along the way all the pain and pleasures of his public and personal life and the fascinating journey it took.

The DVD comes with an extras disk that includes interviews, Liam at home with friends and additional performances.

Tony Manero

A man in his fifties is obsessed with Tony Manero – John Travolta’s strutting, extended-arm disco shuffler from Saturday Night Fever. He enters a TV contest in the hope to be the best Tony Manero impersonator and win a blender for his efforts. Sounds a laugh-a-minute romp. Well it isn’t. Because this particular mimic is a psychopathic killer, whose acts of violence and impotent attempts at seducing his girlfriend’s daughter are set against the backdrop of Pinochet’s reign of terror in Chile. And he defecates on other people’s clothes – of course.

Directed by Pablo Larrain, the film focuses on a few days in the life of Raúl Peralta (an understated yet ferocious performance from Alfredo Castro, who had a hand in the screenplay along with Larrain and fellow writer, Mateo Ibibarren). Raúl heads a dance troupe in his local cantina performing laboured sequences from Saturday Night Fever – the Riverdance of the late seventies. For Raúl though, it’s much more than the dance. Sitting alone in his local cinema day after day, he repeats lines from his beloved film. In essence, Raúl’s obsession drives his psychopathic need to escape his everyday life and take on the new heroic identity that Travolta’s Manero seems to provide. All the trappings of Manero’s world are sought by Raúl – to such an extent that not only does he don that suit, but also builds his own dancefloor based on the one Travolta struts across. In order to achieve this, Raúl resorts to horrific acts of violence to get what he wants.

Here we have the ‘killer on the dancefloor’ incarnate. Certain scenes are uncomfortable to watch and others produce nervous laughter and groans – when Raúl finds out his local cinema that has been showing Saturday Night Fever for so long has replaced it with Grease, it doesn’t take him long to bludgeon the cinema attendant who sold him his ticket. There are obvious links between Raúl’s actions and those of the dictatorial regime in place at that time in Chile; but this is woven subtly into the plot rather than stitched on for effect.

Tony Manero won the top prize at the 26th annual Torino Film Festival in 2008, as well as the FIPRESCI prize (the international federation of film critics) for best film, and Alfredo Castro was awarded best actor. The film was also Chile’s submission to the 81st Academy® Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. There are no lessons learnt here. No character arcs. No redemption. No happy ending. This shouldn’t deter people from seeing it though. Whoever does, will be rewarded by experiencing one of the better films to hit the screens this year.