Dune (1984) Glory in Failure

“A beginning is a very delicate time.” Princess Irulan.

It is not casually that David Lynch refers to his 1984 film Dune, adapted from the novel by Frank Herbet, as the only real ‘failure’ of his career. Whatever you may think of the film it is, as all films are, a work of art and art rarely lends itself to binary metrics like ‘pass’ or ‘fail’. Certainly, commercial art can be financial failure, which Dune was; grossing only $30 million against a budget of $40 million. But this is David Lynch we’re talking about and while many of the surrealist’s films have been commercial successes that’s never been the focus of his artistic intent. Indeed, Lynch’s work, more than that of most directors, is so open to interpretation that it feels impossible to label any one of them a failure. Lynch’s work defies traditional concepts of success; is the story to be coherent, is its meaning interpretable, even simply understanding the raw emotions it provokes are warranted? The answers these questions are often wildly divided in the wake of each new film by the director. Yet from Blue Velvet to Wild at Heart to even Fire Walk With Me they all find their audience eventually.

So why is Dune, having since achieved the Lynchian Cult Status, still scorned by its director? Why are the likes of Lost Highway and Wild at Heart misunderstood masterpieces while some versions of Dune have had Lynch’s name removed entirely at his behest? It’s a mess certainly; the story is badly mangled, the effects are laughably cheap, the performances boarder on melodramatic and its portrayal of the villains veer uncomfortably towards homophobic. Yet at the same time it’s utterly unlike any other science fiction film produced at the time. The film remains true to Frank Herbert’s vision and consistently displays the fact that the source material is patient zero for an entire generation of Sci-Fi. So why does Lynch consider still it a failure? The answer lies in the decisions made far behind the scenes of the film. The actions which led to Lynch’s hiring, which gave the film the unique aesthetic that earns it much-deserved praise today. However, those same decisions resulted in the films production and release in being such a messy affair. To understand why these decisions were made we have to understand exactly what producers Dino and Rafaella Di Laurentiis were trying to accomplish. In short, we have to go right back to the beginning, long before the year 10191; to a newly published author in his thirties, witnessing an empire hold back a tide of sand.

Frank Herbert began researching ‘Dune’ in 1959 after a trip to the sand dunes near Florence, Oregon. A vast expanse of desert stretching for miles into the distance with some dunes towering five-hundred feet into the sky. This was where the United States Department of Agriculture were attempting to control the tides of sand by introducing new species of grass. The article that Herbert was assigned to write on the project would never be completed, but the idea of the state attempting to tame such an indomitable natural phenomenon became the impetus for ‘Dune’. A sprawling science fiction epic about an Empire, dominated by feudal houses and a capitalist guild. The fuel of this empire would be the Spice Melange; a mysterious substance found only on the desert planet Arrakis, a substance capable of powering starships, of expanding human consciousness and mutating those addicted to it into strange, psychic creatures. Our protagonist in this epic is Paul Atreides; a prince of a noble house who is exiled on Arrakis. There he finds shelter with the natives, the Fremen, and leads them in an uprising against those who betrayed House Atreides. Ending their control of the Spice.

                Herbert drew on a wide range of subjects beyond ecology to craft the rich world of ‘Dune’. The novel is set during the reign of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV and his quasi-feudal power structure. The decline of this empire, blamed largely on the excesses of the Emperor and his loyal servant Baron Harkonnen, closely resembles that of Ancient Rome. However, at every level of authority in the series are the Bene Gesserit; a secretive, matriarchal order with the goal of directing humanity onto what they believe to be the ‘enlightened path’.  In the Bene Gesserit, right down to the name, Herbert draws comparisons to the religious order of the Catholic Church known as the ‘Jesuits’. Frank Herbert was himself raised as a Catholic, largely by his Jesuit mother and ten Jesuit Aunts. Herbert rejected his family’s attempts to force Catholicism onto him much in the same way that Paul rejects the Bene Gesserit in favour of the Fremen spirituality, with its influences in Zen Buddhism While the simplistic nature worship of the Fremen people is viewed as benevolent, Herbert unmistakably paints the Bene Gesserits with shades of Catholic colonialism. Breeding acolytes across the known universe, supplanting the native populations of its many worlds, including Arrakis. Their overarching goal is to give birth to the Kwisatz Haderach (a Hebrew term meaning ‘the one in many places at once’), a male Bene Gesserit and messianic figure. To achieve this the order has been selectively cultivating key genes among the bloodlines of the great houses across countless generations.  Paul Atreides, is the realisation of this dream; born a generation early by the Lady Jessica, Duke Leto’s Bene Gesserit concubine.

                In contrast to the Bene Gesserit, the Fremen culture is a hybrid of eastern religions; Zen Buddhism and Sunni Islam. Herbert drew from contemporary Islam by referring to their crusade against the Harkonnens as a ‘jihad’. This coupled with the Spice Melange serving as an allegory for oil solidifies the Fremen’s role as analogous to the Mujahedeen; the Muslim Warriors forced to defend Afghanistan against Western powers seeking to claim their oil. Their reverence for the Spice is based on its ability to expand their minds and grant them power; reminiscent of the Zen philosophy of enhancing oneself through mindfulness and mediation.

                In ‘Dune’ then we have a mainstream film, produced in the West which is highly critical of Western policies of colonialization, religious indoctrination and rampant consumption of precious natural resources. All while favouring a decidedly Eastern religion analogous to a people who were, at the time, Soviet allies. And that’s before you get to the scale of the story; spanning the known universe and its esoteric science fiction elements. That’s already a messy prospect for any studio, regardless of the calibre of the source material. Yet that is the baggage that Dino Di Laurentiis was taking on when he secured the rights to the novel in 1976. He purchased the option from Jean-Paul Gibon who had been famously struggling to get an adaptation of the book made with Alejandro Jodorosky. Detailed in the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune; the Chilean filmmaker planned an ambitious, mind-expanding adaptation with huge gothic fortresses designed by H.R. Giger, single takes which would cover the entirety of the known universe and a cast including David Carradine, Salvador Dali, Orson Wells and Mick Jagger. After months of planning and fundraising the project collapsed, with no studio willing to trust the highly experimental Jodorowsky. Had it been made it would have likely been a more coherent version than Lynch’s highly compromised effort. However, it would have also likely been much, much longer, with Jodorowsky suggesting runtimes of up to 14 hours. With long sections dedicated to exploring the influence of spice on the universe and drug trip-inspired visual montages.

                What we got instead was a David Lynch’s highly compromised version. A film that tried to cram the entirety of Frank Herbert’s dense drama into a conventional white saviour narrative. All within a runtime of little over two hours at Universal studios’ behest. This was 1984 remember; Star Wars had made its debut seven years earlier and studios were still playing catch-up, trying to find their science fiction epic to break box office records. But while the novel displays many traits that would clearly influence Star Wars creator George Lucas, Dune was never Star Wars. It was never traditional heroic narrative with its morality in black and white. It didn’t have the same influences that Star Wars in its pastiche of pulp science fiction serials, samurai films or World War Two allegory. But rather it was a complex epic about the political machinations of a galactic empire covering themes of ecology, spirituality, resource scarcity and human conciseness. Topped with controversial allegories for contemporary political powers and religions.

It should come as no surprise then that an early rough cut of the film ran over four hours. Universal Studios all but marched Lynch and Di Laurentiis into the editing booth to dramatically reduce the film’s runtime. Entire subplots from the book such as Gurney’s Halleck’s suspicion of Jessica, Thufur Hawat’s captivity with the Harkonnen’s or Paul’s son with the Fremen Chani, were removed entirely. Virginia Madsen’s role as the Princess Irulan, who in the novel is key to Paul’s coup against the Emperor, was reduced to that of a glorified extra. In an attempt to keep the plot coherent new scenes were shot entirely that condensed several pages of plot into a few lines of dialogue. Most of the cast, even minor players, provide a voice over narration and an introduction by Madsen was hastily shot. This monologue was intended to establish the structure of Dune’s universe and the nature of the Spice Melange. In reality, it did little to ease audience’s understanding of the film, though it is possible that this was the inspiration to the ‘Log Lady’ intros that featured on some DVD versions of Twin Peaks. Which comes as some small consolation.

                It’s not hard to see how these changes impacted on the film’s overall quality. While the voice-overs work to spoon-feed the dense plot to the audience we are still being introduced to esoteric terms like ‘Sardaukar’, ‘Gom Jabbar’ and ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ at a frightening pace. With little explanation as to their meaning, unless the cinema was kind enough to include a glossary (which some did). The story opens with a meeting between the Emperor of the Universe and a representative of the Space Guild, depicted as a gigantic mutant within a stasis vat. Yet we never establish who these characters are or why they are important to the plot.  Moreover, the voice-overs are generally dedicated to communicating the emotional states of their respective characters. Shifts in perspective and character that would be far more satisfying to see visually, through the performance of the actors or a subtle score. Whole chapters of exposition and world-building are reduced to a handful of scenes. Resulting in one unintentionally amusing instance of Dr Keynes explaining how the Fremen stillsuits recycle urinate and faeces to Duke Leto, while he’s still retaking the Harkonnen stronghold.

This is how Dune is able to cover all of the essential plot points of the novel; yet at the same time feel somewhat insubstantial. Information comes at us in far too great a rush for an audience to absorb. ‘Dune’ the novel takes place over the course of over two years and takes the time to (no pun intended) space out it’s plot. Allowing us to understand the Duke’s acclimatisation to Arrakis, the planning of House Harkonnen’s attack and Paul’s indoctrination into the ways of the Fremen people. His drinking of the Water of Life is several pages of Paul’s understanding of the universe expanding before our eyes. Represented in the film by a few dissolves of water droplets as Kyle Maclachlan’s zealous voice-over plays while the actor repeatedly throws his head back to expose his 20^th century fillings. The film feels like it is missing time to breathe, to let these moments sink in, to make Arrakis feel like a real world, rather than a few sections of the Mexican desert.

This raises the question then of; if Dune is such a mess, why do I and many others still love it? While I’ll freely admit to being a devotee of Lynch, this is not simply affection by association. That said I would argue that Lynch is enough of a surrealist to bring the surreal aspects of Frank Herbet’s vision to life. Take the production design for example. Lynch’s work often equates industrial environments with corruption; think Spencer’s apartment in Eraserhead or the dockyard in Blue Velvet. And none of Lynch’s locations rank as more corrupt than the Harkonnen homeworld of Geidi Prime. A grimy, steamy factory planet, with a greenish tint sicklier than a Borg Cube. The Emperor’s chamber resembles the Baroque architecture of the Russian Empire. The Guild Navigators are both alien and remote, often confined within stasis tanks or armor of thick black. An on-point representation of the inhumane nature of capitalism. Here Lynch succeeds in creating a world that is utterly alien to our own and yet, reminiscent of the worst eras in our history. The peoples and factions of Dune are human, but not as we know them.

Speaking of humans, I’ve mentioned the stolid performances before however this is less of an outright negative as one might think. Yes, it completely removes the audience’s ability to engage with the characters however it does remain true to the story. As Paul Atreides, Kyle Maclachlan is every bit Duke in waiting; with an air of regal nobility with youthful exuberance. His entire performance captures the energy of Paul, but also a capability that will come to serve him as the leader of the Fremen. His arrogance is charming because we see that it is matched by ability. While the portrayal of the Baron Harkonnen is off-putting; his queerness made explicit by Lynch and the pustules on his face reminiscent of AIDs victims. Still, it is undeniable that Kenneth McMillan brings a strong sense of hostility and excess to the role. To say nothing of esteemed character actors including; Max Von Sydow, Brad Dourif and of course Patrick Stewart. All of whom are doing the best with the material they have been given. Even Virginia Madsen performs well as the ethereal Princess Iluran, even if she barely registers as a character beyond her capacity as narrator. In fact Madsen’s role could be seen as a microcosm of the film’s problem as a whole. Everyone was in such a rush to make sure that the story came across clearly enough that that no one ever gave thought to how to engage, amuse or even entertain the audience. Just as the film’s pace never offers us a reprieve to absorb the story, the character are never given a moment that isn’t rigidly serving the story.

Finally, there is the film’s score, produced by the rock band Toto, with contributions from Brian Eno. Aesthetically speaking this is possibly the most appreciable aspect of the film without any negative drawback to it. Chiming into our ears at the tail end of Madsen’s narration, at her mere mention of the planet ‘Dune’. The long, booming brass instruments serving as a portent for what awaits the Atreides on Arrakis. Immediately introducing it as a place of death. As we pull out the brass fades into softer, more heightened tones, giving us a sense of the infinite wonder that the ‘Dune’ universe holds. The score returns when Paul first mounts one of the great sandworms of Arrakis, this time transitioning into full-blown electric guitar. As though finally understanding its roots in the same pulpy science fiction works that inspired Flash Gordon. One might wonder if Dune would have been better received on release had this campy, energetic tone been present throughout the film.

 Dune is a failure, yes. However, it’s the kind of failure you only get with an indomitable drive to realise a singular vision. Dune was born out of an attempt to realise Frank Herbert’s vision and to make, as Madsen later claimed; “Star Wars for grown-ups’. In essence a trilogy of films that would have the worldwide appeal of Lucas’s franchise but with the maturity and melodrama of De Laurentiis’s more prestigious pictures such as Serpico, Ragtime and Three Days of the Condor. Unfortunately, it was too late that anyone realised that those two identities were utterly incompatible. Yes, ‘Dune’ inspired a generation of epic science fiction, widely seen as the genre’s equivalent to ‘Lord of the Rings’. Its influences can be seen in everything from not only Star Wars but also films such as Alien and Contact, the novels of Robert Jordan, Warhammer 40k and the band Iron Maiden. However, all of these are, for the most parts, works with niche audiences. For all its merits Dune was never going to attract the size of audiences drawn to mainstream sensations, nor the critical acclaim bestowed on prestige cinema.     

 You have to sympathise with Lynch and his own admission that he was ‘selling out on Dune’ in allowing De Laurentiis and Universal to have final cut. However, it’s clear from both the finished product and subsequent accounts that the studio was never trying to take Lynch’s film away from him. Rather they were trying to hammer out something, anything, of a releasable standard from a project that was a mess from the offing. Perhaps simply trying to fit the entirely of ‘Dune’ into one film was always destined to fail. We’ll find out in late 2020 when Denis Villenueve’s take on the project is released. Then again, Villenueve has proven himself capable of making the kind of critically acclaimed science fiction that Dune once aspired to be. Maybe, just maybe, Dune 2020 can learn from its predecessor’s mistake and the influence of Frank Herbet’s novel can roll ever on, like the moving sands of Oregon.

Silence: The Resilience of Faith

Often tests of human resilience are tests we put on ourselves. We ask ourselves: ‘Do I have the energy to undertake this?’ ‘Do I have the ability to accomplish this?’ ‘Can I endure the resistance I face?’ and even sometimes ‘Is this act the right thing?’. However here is nothing more disheartening to our resilience than futility. The sense that you are doing everything right and still you are failing. That is the test that Father Sebastião Rodrigues faces in Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film Silence and that it proves to be his breaking point speaks volumes about the relationship between Catholicism and suffering.

Based on the novel by Shusaku Endo, Silence follows two 17^th-Centruy Jesuit priests Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver). The two receive word that their mentor, Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson), the man who first took their confession, has committed apostasy. He has performed Fumi-E, a practice by which suspected Christians are made to trample on the image of Christ. Reverend James Martin, who consulted on the film, wrote about the significance of the act in the Jesuit magazine America.

“A Jesuit’s entire life is centered on Jesus, whom he knows through the Gospels, through the sacraments, through his ministry and through his prayer, especially through his experience of the Spiritual Exercises, a series of extended meditations on the life of Christ…Expecting the Jesuits simply to throw that relationship aside—to apostatize—is wholly unrealistic.”

Indeed, the notion seems unrealistic to Rodrigues and Garupe, who are convinced that this news is merely a Japanese slander. To resolve this, they volunteer for a mission to Japan, to seek out the ‘Hidden Christians’ driven underground. They are to hide amongst them and provide spiritual guidance in secret and to seek the truth of Father Ferreira. It is a journey which tests the resilience of both Rodrigues’s faith and sheer will. He travels to a strange and foreign country, with no knowledge of its culture or language, a country where he will be put to death if he is discovered. He sees men tortured for the faith that he shares. He sees people he believed faithful spit and stomp on the image of Christ. He sees those that refuse given long and agonising deaths; crucified at sea, drowned or beheaded.

Like many who witness such horrors Rodrigues does begin to question his faith. At the beginning of the film we see his relationship with Christ transcend the missional into personal. When he prays, he sees the image of Christ before him; depicted by Scorsese using The Veil of Saint Veronica by 16^th Century artist El Greco. Yet in this foreign country which has rejected Christ, Rodrigues finds God to be silent. God has seemingly turned his back on those who suffer most for him. In spite the horrors he witnesses and the apparent absence of God in the face of them, Rodrigues’s faith remains resilient. When captured he vows to not abandon Christ, remaining convinced that the doctrine of Christianity is immutable:

“…we believe we brought you the truth, and the truth is universal…If a doctrine weren’t as true in Japan as it is in Portugal, we couldn’t call it the truth.”

Rodrigues’s conviction remains resilient not only in Christ but in the value of Christianity. It is not only his faith but the true faith. As earnest as Rodrigues’s intentions may be, he remains a Westerner who believes that his religion is the only religion. I mention this lest anyone feel that Scorsese is in any way portraying Rodrigues determination in an admirable light. Critics have, understandably, read Silence as a white saviour narrative. One in which we are asked to sympathise with the virginal Western priest who suffers horribly in his quest to enlighten a savage land. In this scene Scorsese exposes the arrogance of both Rodrigues and the Catholic Church. As a Catholic himself the director proves himself a sharp critic of its history.

It should come as no surprise that physical pain and threat of death do not convince Rodrigues to apostatise. From its very inception Catholicism has proved an inherently masochistic religion, founded in the name of a Saviour who suffered an agonising death for the redemption of man. Catholic saints Sabastian and Ignatius claimed to rejoice in suffering, believing it to be trials from God. Many of them participated in the mortification of the flesh through fasting and flagellation, a practise that was adopted by Lutherans and other Christian sects. Self-flagellation continued to be practised right through until the 1960s, allegedly by figures as recent as Pope John Paul II. But to the Christian there is no form of bodily sacrifice greater than martyrdom. To die for one’s belief is the ultimate demonstration of faith. In Christianity, those killed for spreading the Gospel are venerated and elevated to Sainthood.

During the time in which Silence is set Japan found itself with no shortage of Christian Martyrs. Since the arrival of Francis Xavier in 1549 the gospel of Christianity had spread slowly, but strongly. The presence of Jesuit priests was tolerated, possibly because of their ability to liaise between Japanese fuedel lords (known as daimyo) and Portuguese traders. By the time Toyotomi Hideyoshi assumed power in 1585 there were estimated to have been 130,000 converts in Japan including several daimyō. It made Japan easily the largest Christian community outside of Europe. Unfortunately, Hideyoshi viewed Christianity as a symbol of European colonisation and outlawed its practise, beginning with the execution of twenty-six Christians in 1597. These were the first martyrs in Japan and in 1862 Pope Pius IX canonized the missionaries and converts, formally recognising them as Saints.

 Throughout Silence Rodrigues romanticizes the notion of martyring himself to an almost psychotic degree. He views his journey into Japan as a mission from God and casts himself as its messianic figure. Likening himself to Christ and other persecuted Christians. On their arrival Garupe remarks on their decision to take the fallen Christian Kichijiro (Yōsuke Kubozuka) as their guide. “We ‘ve trusted that man with our lives.” He says with scepticism, to which Rodrigues replies; “Jesus trusted even worse.” When leading mass under the cover of night he likens himself to the earliest Christians, practising in catacombs under persecution from the Roman Empire. While on the run he stumbles, sick and exhausted, onto a pool and sees the face of Christ in his reflection. His messiah complex at its most blatant. So, when he finally is captured Rodrigues shows no fear of death. In fact he outright dares the Japanese to execute him so that his blood may be the seed of Christianity in Japan.

He is not killed though because Inquisitor Inoue knows the danger of a Christian Martyr. According to University of San Francisco Professor Antoni Ucerler; “[The Japanese] realized that the Christians were emboldened by this example of people dying for their faith…What would really break the Christian community?’ they thought. ‘Well, if we could get not only the Christians but also the Jesuits to renounce their own faith, then that would really demoralize the Christians.” That became their approach.” So, Inoue sets about getting Rodrigues to renounce, first by reasoning with him, bringing the highest figures of authority before Rodrigues to patiently explain that Christianity is of no use to Japan and that its continued existence presents a danger to Japanese society. In private he tries to civilly explain the connection between Christianity and the Christian nations which would try to destroy Japan. The, when the time for civility is over Inoue saps at Rodrigues’s will.

 Rodrigues is taken to the beach where his fellow Jesuit Garupe is marched to sea with a flock of apostatised Christians. Even though they have recanted they are taken out to the water and drowned, and Rodrigues is forced to watch as Garupe dies, desperately trying to save them. He sees people die, not for their faith but for the priest that led them. In Garupe he loses the closest allay he has had in this strange land and sees the consequences of refusing to apostatize. The weight of it drives Rodrigues mad and so when he is at his lowest moment Inoue takes him to see Ferreira.

Little is known of the real Cristóvão Ferreira, only that he was a Portuguese Catholic Priest who travelled to Japan in around 1609. He ministered in the country for over twenty years, under the watchful eye of the Tokugawa Shogunate which inherited much of Hideyoshi’s suspicions about Christianity. In 1633 Ferreira was captured and forced to endure five hours of Tsurushi or ‘The Pit’. A practise in which Christians are suspended upside-down in a five-foot deep hole, with an incision in their neck to allow the blood to drain slowly. It results in a long and painful death and after five hours Ferreira apostatised. He subsequently took a Japanese name and wife and wrote several books on natural law before his death.

 In Silence this fictional version of Ferreira is broken, but not by the torment he endures. Rather it is the realisation that the torment, the pain and labour was pointless.  The Japanese who ‘converted’ never fully understood the doctrine he preached. The language barrier caused them to distort the image of the Christian god into one that suited their culture. When Francis Xavier first landed in Japan, he used the term ‘Deus’, the Latin word for God to refer to Jesus Christ. The Japanese mistook this for ‘Dainichi’, their word for the Great Sun Buddha. While the Japanese believed Christianity to be a form of Sun worship, similar to their own Xavier in turn believe Dainichi to be a creator god analogous to Christ. While Xavier would discover his error and aggressively preach Deus as the word of God the Japanese distortion of Christianity had already begun. The depth of that distortion was enough to convince this Ferreira that the Japanese converts were not true Christians. 

“The Japanese cannot think of an existence beyond the realm of nature. For them nothing transcends the human. They can’t conceive of our idea of the Christian God.’

Silence is not subtle about Japan’s form of Christianity only being a distortion. When Rodrigues and Garupe first arrive in Japan they find the hidden Christians believing themselves guided by ‘Jiisima’, an obvious mistranslation of ‘Jesus’. When they baptise a Japanese infant, the parents believe that they will immediately enter paradise, not realising that it is the Christian afterlife, rather than part of the physical realm. A conversation between Rodrigues and his Interpreter (Asano Tadanobu) highlights this cultural divide. The Japanese worship the Buddha, a thing that they believe men can become. In the West they worship Christ, an aspect of God which descended to become a man. The film comes down to the point that this cultural divide is, for the most part, too great for East and West to cross. So, with the thought of innocent people suffering and dying, not for God but for his own stubbornness, Rodrigues apostatises.

You may then ask if his faith was resilient in the end. As mentioned, for one who has dedicated their life to Christ, it would be unthinkable to commit Fumi-E, to trample. But Rodrigues only tramples when he finally hears God’s voice granting him permission. The remainder of the film shows him living in captivity in Japan, forced to take a Japanese wife, to apostatise regularly and write vows of renunciation. He is said to never acknowledge the Christian God, by word of symbol, even until his dying day. Yet when his body is cremated, we see Rodrigues clutching a tiny wooden cross, a handmade gift from one of his Japanese disciples.

The question then is why does Rodrigues remain faithful, even when continuing his faith is a futile act? The Japanese can never truly be converted and attempting to maintain even their parody of Christianity brings swift punishment, as we see enacted on Kichijiro late in the film. This is because Rodrigues’s faith is no longer for the Japanese. In contrast to his egotistical defiance seen earlier his Christianity is something exclusively for him to take guidance from. He is not baptising infants or offering confession to sinners. He is not spreading a Western doctrine in a culture that has no interest or understanding of it. His faith is a personal one and in that form it can remain resilient to the end.

Battle of the Sexes

Battle of the Sexes plays out like 2/3rds of a great movie paired with 1/3rd of Steve Carrel's SNL skits. The plot revolves around Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, a 29-year-old tennis champion who becomes fed up with being offered paltry prize money roughly a tenth of what her male peers earn. Teaming up with editor Gladys Heldman, King establishes her own women-only tournament. Aiming to raise the profile of women's athletics and make the tennis more accessible to the general public King works tirelessly, at great risk to her career. Only becoming distracted when a flirtation with hairdresser Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) awakens previously unknown feelings in her.

Meanwhile Carrell's Bobby Riggs is...doing other stuff. Namely getting kicked out by his wife after his gambling addiction ticks her off too many times. Seeing opportunity in King's noble cause, Bobby challenges her to an exhibition match to, in essence, prove men's tennis as superior. He treats the entire thing like a sideshow act; training in goofy costumes, posing nude and making attention-grabbing remarks.

Carrell gives it his best. As the Faris's previous film Little Miss Sunshine proved, the former SNL-star is a deft hand at balancing comedy with drama. In Riggs we see a man trying relentlessly to embody the hustler persona he's built for himself, forever struggling to conceal his deep melancholy. It's good stuff, it's just so much less interesting than King's storyline. Which is a shame because they're given roughly the same amount of screen time. As if there's some sort of parity between Riggs' huckster antics and King's cause. Instead the obviously richer, more emotive storyline is undercut in service of cheap jokes. Yes, all evidence suggests that this is accurate of Bobby Riggs' character but is it necessary?

The real story of Battle of the Sexes is one of the systemic sexism within professional tennis, the casual disregard for female players held by the male establishment. From the ease at which Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman) offers meager tournament payouts for women champions to the condescension of real-life sports journalist Howard Coswell draping his arm around co-commentator Rosie Casals during a live broadcast. These are the meat and potatoes of the film while Riggs' antics are clearly the dessert. Having the two so drastically separated though does a disservice to such an otherwise rich story.

A Star is Born

A Star is Born is a classic story of a young ingenue and a veteran star who fall madly in love with each other. However, as the relationship leads the ingenue to greater and greater heights the veteran finds (and it is always a 'his') his career starting to diminish which only exacerbates his addiction and self-destructive behavior. While the 1937 original has inspired countless imitations it's also had three official remakes with the last two trading in Hollywood for the music industry. This version sees Bradley Cooper in the Kris Khristofferson role from 1976, in addition to also writing and directing the film. His ingenue comes in the form of Ally, an aspiring singer with a natural talent for song-writing, here played by Lady Gaga.

Previous adaptations have generally split the focus between its male and female leads either evenly or in favour of the leading lady. However here Cooper's drug-addled country rock star Jackson Maine takes centre stage, occupying the majority of screen time and serving as the audience POV. It's an interesting choice from a storytelling perspective though it's not helped by the fact that Jackson is such a thoroughly unlikable character. A typical hard-drinking, drug abusing rock star who stumbles through every interaction yet also feels the need to dominate every scene. That becomes a problem when it comes to Ally's career, if not their entire relationship.

What at first begins as a mutual appreciation of talent and personality quickly becomes a need for Jackson to elevate Ally, regardless of her feelings on the matter. While it's sweet in intent Jackson's method's boarder on obsessive. Having his assistant relentlessly stalk Ally until she agrees to attend his show whereby he pressures her to perform an unrehearsed duet in front of a ravenous crowd. Because this is a movie this obviously goes down a treat rather than the traumatic humiliation it has the potential to be. But if A Star is Born expects us to embrace a little cinematic magic then it's at painful odds with the first hours, grounded realistic tone. Even if that first hour is the most earnest believable and entertaining section of the film overall.

That it takes a full hour to just complete the first act should give some indication of the films structural problems. While the 1976 version has it's faults it at least spends considerable time showing Esther and John building a life with each other. Cooper's version though is in such a rush to run through it's story beats that everything about his and Ally's relationship post-first act feels hollow and empty. From Ally making his rural house feel like a home entirely off-screen to the casual decision to make Jack play backing guitar because suddenly he's a has-bean. None of it feels real or affecting or meaningful and by the end you're just waiting for the wrap-up.

Cooper's A Star is Born is a solid directorial debut but even as it's well aware of it's own legacy it's a shockingly mediocre version of a twelve note song that been playing on repeat for almost a century. With the sole distinction of perhaps having the best songs of any of its predecessors.

Suspira

Well, call me the outlier on this one. Maybe it's bias, maybe it's just having not seen the original (yes, I know bad cinephile) but Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria is the real deal. A remake that doesn't try to imitate the 1977 giallo classic by Dario Argento but instead retell it's story with a fundamentally different style and tone. It's an approach which gives the film an intensity of it's own, undiminished by comparisons to its predecessors.

Guadagino both retains and leans into the original setting of 1977 Germany where former Mennonite Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) joins the Markos Dance Academy, a school specializing in interpretive dance and led by Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton). When she arrive though Susie finds the school distraught at the disappearance of student Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz), last seen visiting her psychiatrist Dr Klemperer (also played by Swinton under the psudonym Lutz Ebersdorf). As Susie rises through the ranks of Markos's dancers she finds herself closer and closer to the truth that drove Patricia away. Blanc and the other teachers at the school are witches and intend her Susie to be the subject of their approaching sabbath.

The relocation to Berlin, rich with its Bahaus-style architecture, compliments Guadagnino's heavily bleached colour scheme. Devoid of primary colours the film takes on an atmosphere of brutality that sharply punctuates scenes of injury and body horror. Meanwhile the chaos of living in a city literally divided by the Cold War reflects Guadagnino's magical realist approach to the atmosphere at the Markos Academy. The witchcraft at play is mysterious and violent but also understated, used in a purely practical, even mundane capacity. The witches themselves are slyly knowing figures but ones riddled by insecurity, frivolity and ego. Even the momentous act of appointing a leader is handled with the kind of simplistic routine one applies to writing a cleaning rota.

Into this mundanity comes Swinton's Blanc, one of the few characters to adopt a genuinely ethereal air. Swinton's weighty prescence gives the character a commanding air that stays with her even as she grows progressively more vulnerable. The counterweight to her performance is Susie, the innocent ingenue unaware of the power within her that only grows as the film proceeds. It's the kind of role that, after three Fifty Shades films, Dakota Johnson excels in. Imbuing Susie with a sense of uncanny awareness to her initial waifishness. It gives her a compelling screen presence that suitability masks the fact that her character is little more than a cipher for much of the film. A subject of the plot rather than a participant in.

Supporting turns are delivered by Moretz and Mia Goth (last seen playing much the same role in A Cure for Wellness). Goth's permanently wet pout gives a vulnerable edge to what is primarily an expeditionary role. Moretz on the other hand is delivering a much more tensile performance as Patricia. Filled with a manic energy and paranoia that her flimsy German accent does nothing to diminish. Indeed Patricia's ambiguous identity only reinforces her unstable and traumatised persona.

Guadagino makes a questionable choice in opening the film with Patricia raving about the school. As if to add a hint of psychological ambiguity to a story concerned with very real psychological threats. It feels shoehorned in to allow the inclusion of Dr Klemperer who's story and themes gel little with the main plot of the film. While it's a heartfelt performance and it allows the characters to articulate the plot it's hard to ignore the fact that Klemperer could have been lifted from the film entirely with little consequence.

Then again the qualities of Suspira have little to do with plot and more to do with atmosphere and performance. In that sense Guadagnino has delivered a thoroughly atmospheric experience. Filled with tension, intrigue, pain and horror Suspiria is a worthy successor to it's namesake and one of the best films of 2018. An experience like no other.

Salsa Shark's Back Slate: Enter the Dragon

One of the chief concerns of any film critic is always; Have I seen the essentials? Not just the classics or the tiresome '1000 Films to See Before You Die' but any film considered formative to the medium. With a keen enough mind,  pretty much any film has the potential to widen our understanding of cinema. And while film is a relatively young medium it's one that has produced more work that is possible for any individual to see (in fact due to poor preservation there are some films that are simply not possible for anyone to see). So inevitably we all have our blind-spots, our films to put on the back slate to get around to some time. I've accrued more than my fair share over the years; essential films taking up space on the DVD shelf or the Netflix queue. So from time to time I'm going to recount my experiences crossing these off the list in whatever way I happen to (though preferably on the cinema screen).

With the anniversary of Bruce Lee's death coming up Watershed hosted a screening off Enter The Dragon, complete with introduction from Timon Singh. It's a film that's been on my hit-list for some time but circumstances have just got in the way. Arguably the seminal film of the late Bruce Lee's career Enter the Dragon has permeated the pop culture, even if only for Lee's involvement.

With the benefit of hindsight it's easy to see what a boost Lee's presence is to the film's legacy. Taken on it's own it's a fairly schlocky example of Kung fu-sploitation films that popped up during the 70s and 80s. It wastes time splitting the focus between multiple protagonists, none of whom possess Lee's charisma. The story is surprisingly bloated for what should be a simple martial arts tournament, layering multiple threads around not only Lee's character but also the supporting cast made-up primarily of Jim Kelly and John Saxon. Unfortunately the script never finds anything substantive for it's antagonist Han, leaving him with the one-note characterisation of a mere drug baron with a little Asian flair.

But then this is less a film about character and story and more about style and action and on that front the film 100% delivers. Lee is always a compelling screen presence and here his sense of calm as he approaches each new fight leaves you with a sense of confidence Even during the dialogue driven scenes he manages to invest pathos and even a little humour into the exchange. So much so that when it comes for him to throw down it feels like a shared victory as he takes out waves upon waves of bad guys.

The film's style definitely borrows more from the blaxsploitation genre than anything native to Chinese cinema. With Lalo Schifrin's score rich with elements of funk combined with Eastern string instruments. It's feels like the birth of its genre which speaks to much of the impact of Enter the Dragon. In the ends this is a film that is beloved as an artifact in the history of cinema. Not only as the Bruce Lee film but also the film that introduced the world to a rough, contemporary new version of martial arts film. One that aimed to break convention and define action cinema for decades to come.

The Tale

The Tale is that rare film that captures its subject matter so effectively that it entirely justifies putting a trigger warning up front. So for the benefit of those who may be sensitive to the subject this film does cover topic of grooming and child sexual abuse. While that might put some off I think it's important to note that it may be the best attempt to cover such material in a long time. In no small part due to the role of the film-maker behind it.

Said film-maker is Jennifer Fox, primarily a documentarian, who a few years ago underwent a reexamination of her childhood after her mother discovered a story she had written as a teenager. The story chronicled a summer she spent at riding camp under the keen tutelage of the glamorous and towering Mrs G. It would soon be revealed to Jennifer that Mrs G was engaged in an affair with Bill, the camp's riding instructor, an affair that they would bring the then thirteen-year-old into.

While much of the film is about romanticizing the past the film, sensibly, never tries to match the rose-tinted view Jennifer previously held towards her abusers. The Tale pulls no punches in the the grim kind of pressure placed on a young girl and the ugliness of her abuse. Event the scenes of Bill's attempts at 'courtship' are tainted with a strong sense of tension as you wait for the penny to drop. It's made clear from the start that Jennifer has tried to romanticize this, viewing Mrs G as a beautiful giant of a woman appropriately played by the 6ft 2in Elizabeth Debicki.

In effect Jennifer has rewritten this incident as an exciting, coming-of-age experience and only now, with the perspective of time can she see the abuse for what it really was. The creeping doubt that slowly consumes Laura Dern's performance as Jennifer is a subtle but powerful thing to watch. So much of her character is admirable; accomplished film-maker, respected educator, self-confident independent woman. And yet we are left to wonder how much of that came from this horrifying period in her life. After confronting both the event and her abusers we find Jennifer left, not broken, but certainly empty.

At it's core The Tale is a film about the unreliability of memory. About how our distorted view of the then influences our now. But does that mean the person we are now is any less real for being based on a falsehood? The answer is no. The forcibly mature 13-year-old Jennifer who sees herself as the hero of her tale is no less real than the shaken forty-something today.

It's the kind of perspective that could only come from having a director so close to the events of the film. Fox takes ownership of what happened even if she cannot bring her abusers to justice. All she can do is tell her story and she has done so powerfully.