Posts tagged Adelaide Film Reviews
RAW; Cairo Time Film Review – 2K
Aug 19th
Reviewed By Lucy Campbell
When American pulp fiction journalist Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) travels to Cairo to meet her UN jetbug husband Mark (virtually-no-screen-time Tom McCamus) she ends up stranded in the city with Mark’s friend and local, Tareq (Alexander Siddig). Of course, Juliette and Tareq grow close through a mutual loneliness and embark on an emotional affair. And all in all, it’s a terribly dull film that plods along with lingering gazes, conversations and scenery, and garners the rather dubious title of the dullest opening ten minutes in film.
Patricia Clarkson’s notorious monotone and ‘subtle gazes of love’ (that in the real world would make you think she was either a couple of bob short of a dollar or taking the mickey) make the film feel like it is literally in slow motion, and Juliette and Tareq’s love affair has no spark, no tension, little humour and is ultimately unsatisfying. Neither the main characters have any charm that sets them apart from a cliche: the lonely Westerner meets handsome Easterner in a series of long conversations resulting in wan gazes into the middle distance.
The few themes that ‘Cairo Time’ attempts to explore are sketches to say the least, which seems odd considering there’s little storyline to dominate screentime, and issues such as the contrast of Eastern and Western cultures, poverty, loneliness, isolation and the transition between the old Cairo and the new, are splashed about at the shallow end of the paddling pool: revealing little, explaining none.
Somehow, even the cinematography, beautiful though it is, struggles to illuminate anything other than a travel documentary, and leaves you feeling hollow. For writer/director Rubba Nadda, ‘Cairo Time’ a disappointing offering that fails to enchant beyond a postcard.
Kryztoff Rating 2K
RAW: Film – Me And Orson Welles – 4K
Jul 29th
When as a 17 year old, Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) gets a call up to be in a new 1937 Mercury Theatre production of Julius Caesar he immediately happens upon the massive ego and figure of Orson Welles (Christian McKay) and his crew of actors, stage hands and producers. In the course of the hectic shambles that precedes opening night, Richard gets infatuated with Sonja (Claire Danes) and observes at close range the actor’s world of ego (sometimes fragile), bluff, the lure of the next thing and its brutal impermanence.
To be sure, the ‘Me’ in the title is the star and Welles is relegated to just one of the next lead performers. Whether this is a design flaw will be a matter of taste. Danes is dazzling and immensely charismatic, being flirty but not exploitive. McKay wonderfully channels Orson’s bravado, brilliances and brittleness and Zoe Kazan as Greta, Richard’s off stage friend, is the model of youthful enthusiasm laced with self doubt and an endearing personality. As for Efron, it is rare for a teenage heart throb to develop into a genuine actor but Efron is one such novelty – he is a real actor and will be a star for audiences of all ages for years to come.
This is the third ‘play within a play’ this year (after NINE and I, Don Giovanni) and probably the best. The production is excellent all round. Richard Linklater’s direction is tight, shot in a brown sepia and Holly Gent Palmo’s screenplay (based on a Robert Kaplow novel) is a feature with dialogue that cuts to the essence of the personalities without stereotyping – Welles for all his bravado has his moments of self doubts, genius and cowardice, Richard and Greta have their youthful excesses without marking them juvenile. And who can go wrong with the music of era resonating throughout.
A failure as a biopic of Welles but a simple joy as entertainment.
Kryztoff Rating 4K