Oh, Julianne

Julianne Moore most recently adorned the screen in Tom Ford's A Single Man. She played a bitter alcoholic, raging at the loss of her husband and also at Colin Firth's single man, the one she believed had got away. She was great in it. She was only in a couple of scenes, but, as is her want, she owned them. 'Adorned' is the correct word; she was like this fabulous bauble. She glitters enough that her periphery position almost decentres the film.

Due to the strength of that performance, I decided to revisit some of her past work. And I came across 'Safe', a 1995 indie in which she plays an LA housewife who develops an allergy to modern life. It's directed by Todd Haynes, who she has since worked with in the widely-appreciated Far From Heaven.

Like much of Haynes' work, the film appears to be a head-slappingly broad approach to its material, and yet with his skill, is actually strangely oblique. The subjects: the sterile environment of a rich LA home, the rejection of certain Western twentieth century symbols of affluence (the home, the car, the air conditioning system and even the pest control) could be a little obvious, done to death and sterile themselves.

Yet, Hayes visual precision (it's the visual equivalent of Radiohead's disarming song 'Everything in its Right Place; a beautifully constructed, seemingly perfect veneer which hides an incredibly disturbing undertone) and the absolute stillness he creates, are completely disarming. This calm and controlled atmosphere is scary, and suggestive, stuff.

And Julianne Moore is no adornment here; the film drapes itself around her. And she looks stunning in it. It's an unusual role for her; she's not the strong, empowered woman of Magnolia or Hannibal, the intelligent but oppressed woman of Far From Heaven or The End of the Affair. Her character is completely unremarkable. Some may say she's a little slow. She's perhaps even, on a bad day, an empty vessel.

Yet there's no sneering or broad strokes from Julianne. She plays the role with conviction and compassionate. She let's the film do the talking, yet she is the film; she appears in nearly every scene.

All hail Julianne; her effortless grace triumphs again. In retrospect, calling her a bauble was a little unfair. She'll be the angel on top of my Christmas tree.

A Prophet

A Prophet is a messenger of God. In the film that shares the same name, the messenger is Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) and his God is Mafia kingpin Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup). Malik delivers the word of this god (or godfather) to the inmates of the prison he is incarcerated in, and, later, beyond. This word often expresses itself in violence or money.

A messenger is also someone who experiences visions. Here, Malik is visited by the ghost of a man he murders. Is it a vengeful vision, or a vision that will help him along the way? To add another twist, Malik also experiences visions of a deer. Later on it appears these visions were prefigurative; in the final third, there is a spectacular (and pivotal) road accident involving a stag.

It’s this melding of symbolism and allusion with staples of the prison and gangster dramas (drugs, mob hits and the odd predatory inmate in the showers) that make A Prophet a surprising, original and gripping piece of filmmaking.

It also helps that its directed by the masterful Jacques Audiard, who was behind 2005’s sleeper hit The Beat That My Heart Skipped (which made an instant pin-up of star Romain Duris). Perhaps this movie will do the same for its young star; indeed, Tahar Rahim delivers a performance easily equal to Duris’s. Although perhaps lacking the star charisma of Duris, Rahim makes up for it in sheer ability.

The actor is integral- and in fact rarely off screen- in this tale of attempting to define an identity in a place so adamant to suppress any traces of individuality. It’s hard to say what the most defining aspect of the film is; it’s two and a half hour length is so rich in plot, character and thematic detail to almost prove overwhelming. However, it gives the viewer a more than worthy excuse to go back and watch it again. And again. It seems to be the case that this film will quickly become regarded as a classic, and rightly so.

Airy fairy

Up in the Air is more Thank You for Smoking than Juno. Jason Reitman’s third directorial outing is light, amusing and perspicacious; but all done in an undemanding and tasteful way. Its commentary on business travel, life decisions and relationships is cute, but never profound, or particularly moving.

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) lives out of a suitcase, employed in a job which consists of terminating other people’s livelihoods. He doesn’t hate people; indeed, he meets his female equivalent, Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), and soon enters a casual relationship with her. However, he also meets young Ivy League graduate Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a 23 year old in a steady relationship, planning on a family and also planning on reshaping the company, and immediately dislikes her for her apparent precocity. Her suggestion of grounding the team and getting them to fire people remotely proves a winner with boss Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman). Gregory teams Ryan up with Nathalie, to give the girl the gift of first-hand experience, before implementing the plan for good.

The premise, indeed, is essentially a familiar one. It’s youth versus experience, in which each party learns something from the other. Perma-bachelor (and travel nerd) Clooney learns that there is more to life than his collection of loyalty cards (which, incidentally, form one of the most amusing scenes of the movie, in which he and Farmiga compare the contents of their respective wallets), although he has to get through several sanctimonious monologues from his 23 year old colleague and his sister’s wedding to get there. Simultaneously, Kendrick’s character learns of the nervous impatience of youth.

Many critics have criticised the movie’s final third, in which things tend to slop to the saccharine. What, I think, they were expecting was something a little more caustic and satirical. However, the signs are there from the beginning where this movie is going. Although Clooney’s realisations are somewhat clumsily handled by a script so quickly distracted by (some great) one liners and comic set pieces, it’s clearly a ‘journey’ movie, and in not just the sense it’s about planes. Surprisingly, it’s the downbeat ending which jars.

That said, it’s a diverting experience, and Clooney delivers a performance of surprising subtlety and versatility. He’s ably supported by Kendrick, and a sassy Vera Farmiga. It’s a shame its only veritable weight is more hand baggage than hold luggage.

Folked up

Since I threw that album by A Perfect Circle out the window, the idea of a supergroup formed out of intriguing artists worries me. For every good project (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young or something by Cream) there have been inoperable blights on the musical landscape (the Travelling Willburys or Emerson, Lake and Palmer). As a precaution, I asked for the Monsters of Folk album from Santa. That way, I wouldn’t waste my own money. And, also, feel less concerned as I made the CD into another coaster.

With a few exceptions, the result is actually a fairly safe album, and allthe better for it. Indeed, there are songs clearly belonging to a Bright Eyes record (the mid-paced sprawl of Ahead of the Curve and, earlier on, Temazcal) an M Ward record (the low-key, hushed torchlight folk of Slow Down Jo, and the wistful Magic Marker) and a slightly out-there My Morning Jacket effort (Losing Yo’ Head, which also sounds a bit like a Tom Petty track).

The exceptions are a little odd. In true maverick style, the opener, Dear God, throws a curve ball; it’s an Al Green-esque slice of funky soul. Elsewhere, Map of the World begins like a Bright Eyes song but turns into an escalating melodrama a la Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac.

Less surprisingly, the album is glued together with a considerable amount of slow country-tinged folk, especially in its first half. It’s clearly something the four guys share as common ground, as these tracks are distinctly more genre-oriented than any of their own material. It’s still engaging work, however.

It’s a solid album, and whilst there are far fewer fireworks than there might have been, there are both highlights and surprises. And, at fifteen tracks lasting fifty-five minutes, it does not outstay its welcome.

Dissecting the surgeon of misery

Until I got out of the cinema, I hated every minute of Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, the infamous Austrian filmmaker’s new feature, which concerns the troublesome population of a North German protestant village in the months leading up to WW1 . I found the film overbearing, heavy-handed and hostile. Yet, I was surprised how quickly its 144-minute length flew by. And how much I thought about the movie on the walk back from the cinema.

Perhaps these thoughts were born out of the film's rather melodramatic content. There is a lot of shock and awe punctuating the story, the plot is a veritable catalogue of suffering; there’s the torture of a disabled child, excessive cruelty to animals (and people), suicide, murder, arson and implied sexual abuse of children (some of it incestual). If taking the film on face value, it seems unfeasible that all this could happen in such a small village in such a short space of time. These scenes are invariably short and cut with harsh, jagged and unsentimental edits. Haneke’s technique leaves no room for breath or elegant segues into other scenes. Several of the juxtapositions this creates are truly shocking. The fact that a lot of this happens off-camera, and an especially effective use of implication through soundtrack, knowing glances and, indeed, editing is hard to stomach. It also doesn’t help that the film is devoid of any context, political or otherwise.

Only after the film did the themes click. Firstly, Haneke is looking at the Second World War from its very origins (the society which gave birth to these individuals). Secondly, he is asking questions of nature and nurture, which can be attached or separated from any political context. And also he is interested in the idea of evil begetting evil (again, something that may or may not have anything to do with the origins of WW2). He has fashioned a tale which develops these ideas and asks many questions relating to them all. Proceedings have to be extreme, and a little contrived, for this discussion to work. Haneke strips away all politics and focuses exclusively on the human angle. It’s a bold move.

It’s a film of complication and ambiguity. Although the viewer leaves the cinema on an elegiac note (the narrator telling us that the village’s inhabitants would never all be together in the same place again, to the sound of a choir singing), it is clearly not a rose-tinted view of an ‘innocent’ pre-war Germany. The implication in the film is that there is little innocence in this place, that even the children are not beyond suspicion concerning the heinous acts portrayed.

If I still had a complaint, I would say Haneke can be a little glib. Two reasons; his refusal to discuss politics makes this an incomplete argument (it’s like giving you the recipe to something, and failing to tell you how long and how hot to cook it) and, secondly, his detached vitriol invites harsh judgements at the role of the church, the misogyny of the depicted men and the dated education system which are all condemned rather than explained. These are subjects ripe for discussion and criticism, but he is quick to pour scorn and accuse, and slower to provide answers and understanding. It’s this artfully precise, but icily detached, approach which frustrates and alienates.

Could the events of The White Ribbon happen at any time, or just in this society, in these conditions? Haneke does everything but answer the question. Which is both the film's chief pleasure and its chief frustration.

Big is beautiful

Anish Kapoor, at the Royal Academy, is big. Firstly, because it’s the first retrospective the institution has put on for a current, living, artist. And, secondly, until they install a new Tardis-esque wing, the featured work is some of the largest scale stuff the academy will ever be likely to show.

Indeed, the exhibition opens with a massive steel-supported wooden structure, which looks like something out of a Jules Verne novel. It’s a vision of the future from an antiquarian perspective. Yet it’s also something far more ominous. The side facing the entrance is like a massive abyss. The depth tapers off as it progresses further back. It’s a sexual connotation on a big scale. By its very shape, it draws you in as much as it confronts.

It doesn’t matter which direction you, take; spectacle awaits in every room. One minute, you are in the company of a red and white serpentine sculptural scribble (which, again, towers above the spectator), the next minute you watch as a massive block of red wax crawls along a track, moving at an almost imperceptibly slow speed through several of the building’s rooms, and a little later you encounter a scattering of strange, concrete sculptures conceived by Kapoor, but executed by a computer (and displayed in incredibly close proximity, on industrial palettes). There is a room of mirrors. And, most spectacular of all, a canon which fires wax at a wall. It’s certainly ‘look at me’ art.

However, thankfully, it’s spectacle with a point. Kapoor, probably amongst other things, is interested in the interaction of his art with the environment it’s put in. The red block of wax leaves a smeared trail in the gallery, as it forces its way through archways. Bits fall of the tracks, and the block itself, and lay dropped, limp and lifeless around the piece. The wax fired from the canon builds up on the academy’s walls, ceilings and floors. The wax’s colour, akin to human viscera, makes a sharp contrast against the tasteful off-white walls.

It’s this interaction, the incredibly visual nature of this ever-changing exhibition, which has made this show as popular as it has been. It’s modern art for the people, stripped away from intellectualisation and inaccessible explanation. Yet, it’s completely without compromises. It’s outrageous, grandiose and unique yet incredibly evocative visually, emotionally and, probably, intellectually.

X Marks the Spot

The XX’s debut album is the soundtrack to a rainy day, but in a good way. It’s an understated, but disarmingly mellow, forty minutes of early 20-something indie-pop, in which most of the fun exists between the hand claps, the breathy vocals and the minor chords, in the unsung and the unplayed. Forget that nagging outstanding piece of DIY and lie on your bed with this on your stereo, and let the rain do the rest of the work.

Feel free to do a bit of shimmying, though. ‘Islands’ is a low-key butt shaker, which will allow you to move your hips without breaking into a sweat. ‘Heart Skipped a Beat’ is the sound of coming home (and coming down) from the best night of your life. It’s twinkly guitar, and male/female harmonies are slinky and sexy. Best of all is ‘Crystalised’, the epitome of quiet intensity. Its unassuming sound almost betrays its passive aggression and menace.

Once you’ve done your butt-shaking, fall into the ambient arms of ‘Fantasy’. It is surely the missing link between Pink Floyd and Massive Attack. It’s lilting guitars and sinister, yet seductive bassline, care not for genre or influence.

Its this song which sums up the album’s strength. Influences are felt strongly thoughout (it is a debut album, after all), however they are so mixed in origin, the overall impression is of something you haven’t heard before. All that can be discerned is that proceedings are thoroughly modern. It makes me break into synesthesia; it has a just-baked-bread freshness, and is every bit as delicious.