Encounters at the End of the World

Getting through the backlog is going to require more effort than I realised, especially if I keep watching new ones. So, to try and keep on top of the fresh ones here is Encounters at the End of the World.

I had a choice between two films courtesy of Love film. Encounters at the end of the world and Let the right one in. I've heard so many good things about let the right one in that I decided not to watch it because I was a bit tired and more importantly I thought my flatmates might appear two thirds of the way through and ruin the atmosphere.

Which doesn't say much about my expectations of Encounters at the End of the World. But I was right in the sense that it is sufficently episodic that an interruption halfway through wouldn't have changed much.

It's a great concept for a film. Herzog, that obsessive recorder of obsessives, has found his natural home. As one of those interviewed says, Antarctica is where those without anything holding them down drop to. Where those with a true wanderlust find themselves. There are people working there who have travelled between Peru and Ecuador in a sewage pipe (which was on the back of a lorry it turns out, which was a bit disappointing but still pretty good).

Herzog makes the not unreasonable guess that a place like this is going to be full of stories. That in the frontier like town some of humanity's most interesting specimans will be found. Having said that he doesn't seem that interested in them. He moans about the lack of charm in a settlement of prefabs and diggers. About a strictly run establishment where they have to do a two day survival course to be allowed out. There's one scene which shows the unlikely entertainment that occurs when this curious group let off steam but generally he can't wait to get out there. The settlement reeks of civilisation too much.

And he's right the truly magnificent parts of this film involve diving under the ice: The cosmic sounds of the seals, the extraordinary vista of a frozen ceiling to the sea and the descriptions and images of the creatures that live in the deep. There's an exhibition at the Natural History Museum which I'm desperate to see now before it ends. It's a truly magnificent world.

Add to that icebergs with so much water they could keep the River Jordan running for a 1000 years, 1 cell organisms which exhibit signs of intelligence, volcanoes which go straight down into the magma of the earth's core and penguins who run madly for the mountains far from the sea and their companions destined to drop down dead long before they get there, and you can see why he was desperate to get out there.

Given this I think he should have set it up more in two bits. First bit the humans who would think of coming to such a place. Second bit the place itself and why it endlessly fascinates those who have seen so much of the world already. It feels choppy, like he hasn't got a handle on what brings it together. Maybe there isn't anything. There is little that can connect it but without that it's possible to lose concentration even when you see all the things I've described. He's not helped by so many people who while theoretically fascinating are not actually engaging people- not surprising really, you don't travel to Antarctica to engage your easy charm.

I wish I'd seen it on the big screen and I long to see more images of the sea with the ice ceiling but I can't help feeling that somehow Herzog didn't know what to do with the extraordinary material he was sitting on.

The Illusionist

My goodness I've got a lot of films to write about. These are going to be short and snappy and proof positive about how I need to write these things nearer to the event for them to have meaning. But hey ho.

The Illusionist was a film that hadn't entered my consciousness. I'd seen an article about it which I thought was saying that it was on in Edinburgh at the moment. A minor mental note to look out for it but presuming it wasn't out and not that excited.

And then I found myself in the cinema, knackered, meeting a friend to watch The Secrets in their Eyes in a couple hours and it was about to start. I thought watch this now and enjoy it or try and stay awake through the heavier film and not got to sleep. It was a mistake. Not least because I failed to get the sleep I was aiming for. And that probably colours my view of a film that has much going through it.

It's by the Belleville guy and carries much of the charm and beauty of that. But while I don't remember Belleville very much anymore I remember thinking it had a decent pace. The Illusionist is stately. Which makes sense when you're dealing with loneliness. You can't be busy and notice that you're lonely. You can be aware of it and have it lurking, ready to strike when you stop, making your determined not to. But for an audience loneliness needs quiet but even more than that it needs slowness (I feel there's another word an articulate person would use but it's not coming). It needs an audience to have the space to reflect on what they're seeing. The question isn't 'what happens next', it's 'what is he feeling'. It's a hard trick. And I don't know it always pulls it off.

So the good, it's beautiful. All of it but especially Edinburgh. I've been to Edinburgh twice in my life but it was amazing how much the images evoked it (it also fitted in beautifully with One Day which I was reading at the time) and made me feel as if it was somewhere I really knew.

It's a great world. The end of vaudueville. The guy is an incredible illusionist. Just a genius. But he lacks panache, showmanship and he's just not interesting when there are heartthrob rock bands to get the girls throwing knickers at. And he's not alone. There are clowns and ventriloquists and acrobats. And they're all suffering. The acrobats survive a bit more. Partly because they're a team. But the clown and the ventriloquist are broken men.

As is the Illusionist but for a little while he has a companion. A hopelessly naive young girl who believes he actually is a magician. And expects shoes and coats to be magiced up for her. I get the idea that a lonely man would indulge this emotion to have someone in their life. And I get the idea of wanting to have a daughter to indulge. But nonetheless I could never quite take it. The girl isn't charmingly naive. She's not interested in the man treating her. And she's staggeringly materialistic. I can't take interest in someone who on discovering a magical father figure just want to find a nice dress so she can find a nice man. It feels like such a lack of both imagination and soul.

And because I can't like her, I can't really like it. But it sticks. It does. The bad tricks. The vistas. The essential toughness of a man who has so little going for him but keeps at it. Fail again. Fail better.

So don't go in expecting Belleville. Don't go in expecting to come out laughing and skipping. But there is beauty and humour in this and I have this feeling of finding myself at 50 watching again and it hitting a chord it can't quite on a lucky 20 something who doesn't feel alone that often. Well, not lonely at least. Or more accurately hasn't this week.