Based on a script by Jacques Tati, the film manages to capture the elegantly awkward clowning of Tati without falling into pastiche or parody. This heritage is nicely acknowledged by a ‘cameo’ of Tati’s Mon Oncle, the main character stumbling into a screening in, this being Edinburgh, the Cameo.

The Illusionist doesn’t have the anarchic energy of Chomet’s previous feature, Belleville Rendez-Vous, and the nature of the story is such that the film has a downbeat ending that comes across as somewhat unresolved. But Chomet’s knack for comic minutiae of character and his obvious affection for Edinburgh (as confirmed by his introduction of the film), make The Illusionist a charming experience and a perfect opener for the festival.

(This is the first time I’ve managed to get tickets for the opening night film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (not the red carpet screening, obviously, the screening for us little people afterwards). Not that it makes any difference to the film, but it gives me a certain nerdy satisfaction.)

Whereas the real Ma Barker was peripheral to the exploits of her sons, the film places her at the very heart of the gang, a devoted mother to her variously psychopathic, drug-addicted and borderline incestuous sons. It’s a strange, extreme film, both funny and shocking, with an amazing central performance from Shelley Winters as Ma Barker. It also features a very young Robert De Niro, twitchy as the drug-addicted Lloyd Barker (Corman has more cinematic connections than Kevin Bacon).

(The film really was dedicated to the mothers of America, both in the publicity and the film itself, with the titles rolling over this 1934 US stamp.)

Corman, there to introduce the film, told the story of how he’d originally wanted to cast Orson Welles as Capone, and the studio had gently dissuaded him, saying Welles was impossible to work with. Robards was originally cast as Capone’s rival Bugs Moran – that role went instead to Ralph Meeker.

There’s a wonderful selection of thuggish faces in the movie, up to and including Jack Nicholson in a one-line part (chosen by Nicholson, according to Corman, over a larger role because the shooting schedule meant he’d get paid for longer). George Segal, high up the cast list but in a relatively small role, appears to be in an entirely different movie – possibly a prototype of The Sting.

There’s a splendid voiceover detailling the lives and eventual deaths of the main characters, delivered in stentorian, moralising style with a sly undercurrent.

Meadows and his producer have made one film like this; Corman, as director and later as producer to others, has made hundreds.

Meadows and Mark Herbert (I googled him) gave an entertaining double interview at the EIFF, a mixture of anecdotes about their past experiences in the film industry, and why this prompted them to change track and return to lo-to-no budget filmmaking. The resultant film was Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee, screening at the festival, although I’ve not caught up with it. Their experiences are salutory, warning against the perils of the filmmaking by committee that accompanies bigger budgets. It’s a sentiment that was echoed by Roger Corman, whose few involvements with big studio productions encouraged him to return to the low budget filmmaking that allowed him the control he wanted.

Meadows and Herbert also highlighted the strange snobbery in the British film industry, which doesn’t like to think of itself as an industry, and is very snooty about the kind of independent financing that keeps American indies afloat. Meadows was roundly condemned for taking Eurostar’s money to make Somers Town – he was only slightly defensive here, and said that he had an airtight contract that let him get away with murder, instead of being at the whim of producers and conventional film financiers. This attitude is tied into the way government funding continues to dominate the film industry, whether the Film Council or Scottish Screen, despite being as insular as the traditional nepotism of film studios.

Particularly interesting was the pair’s admission that they don’t quite know how to go on from here: having produced a film in this way, and brought it to the festival to some acclaim, they don’t want to just sell it on to a traditional distributor, and are trying to think of new ways to get the film to an audience. They threw a few ideas out (like setting up village fetes – real lo-fi word of mouth), and admitted that they’re still working on what to do. It would have been interesting to go into it more (they had an understandable apprehension about the possibilities and problems of the Internet: how do you monetise it?), but it didn’t really go further than that.

The kind of low budget independent filmmaking and distribution that Roger Corman thrived on is no longer possible – there are no grindhouses and drive-ins left, and even allegedly independent cinemas like the Filmhouse and the GFT are tied into distribution deals. I admit, I don’t know how it works, but the Filmhouse has Michael Mann’s Public Enemies on the cover of next month’s programme, and that isn’t independent, struggling-to-find-an-audience cinema by any criteria, and I’d be willing to bet that the GFT is also screening it. I’m also willing to bet that, however loyal their audience, they’re loosing a lot of people like me, who have Cineworld Unlimited cards (or other deals) won’t go to other cinemas unless the films aren’t showing at the multiplex. (I’m digressing – it pisses me off that the GFT isn’t smarter about its programming, even though I know I’m lazy about chasing up films that aren’t on at the Cineworld)

The Roger Corman interview (conducted by geek hero Kim Newman) was a whirlwind tour of Corman’s prolific career, with some nice anecdotes and so forth. It was good to hear his opinion that low budget filmmaking is all about planning, after hearing about Meadows somewhat haphazard approach – I feel that independent filmmakers need to strike a balance.

The Meadows interview raises more questions about the film industry in Britain. One gets the impression that for Meadows, it was a cathartic experience, sweeping out his experiences of working within the bigger budgets, and as much about the process as the end result, but it may be that it lights a fire under people’s asses, which is no bad thing.

Goodbye, How are You?

Curious, but not entirely sucessfull. A pseudo-documentary, built around a series of satirical aphorisms (“satirical truths” as the director put it) by Serbian writers. The aphorisms form the basis of a false narrative, delivered deadpan over a variety of strange (sometimes amusing, sometimes merely odd, sometimes apropos, sometimes random) film/video clips. The problem is that in this Internet age, we are all over-exposed to the weird of the world, and it ends up merely seeming like a slightly more sarcastic version of Boing Boing, or a Youtube without the “WTF, thats so obviously faek” comments.

Screened with a quietly devestating shorter documentary in stark black & white, Why I don’t speak Serbian (in Serbian), a series of talking heads about why the Albanian population of Kosovo has comprehensively rejected the use of the Serbian language.

Members of the Funeral

Have I mentioned how much I love Korean film? This is no exception, a strange little drama about three members of a family, all connected in different ways to a boy who may or may not have commited suicide. It’s darkly funny, but also engrossing and unexpected.

(Here I come across the problem of mixing writing with reviewing – writing says adverbs bad, reviewing needs more than one way to call something a black comedy. Particularly when every single film I’ve seen so far has involved death in some form or other, even if it’s just dead rabbits.)

It’s a darker film, content-wise, than the earlier adaptations, closer in tone to the original story, about the wicked aristocracy living in debauchery, thinking themselves safe behind castle walls as plague sweeps the countryside. Vincent Price (natch), this time as the Satan-worshipping Prince Prospero, is far more menacing, softly persuasive as he attempts to corrupt an innocent country girl, and roundly dismissive of the nobles who seek his protection.

Annoyingly, can’t find any good stills via Google images – will try to track down later…

There’s a slightly stylised structure to the story, framed by the recurring appearance of future Taggart actor Alex Norton in a series of roles around pre-cinematic visual entertainment – lantern shows, shadow puppets, etc. But – partly because I’m a geek and I love that sort of thing – it never feels like it’s being too clever

Great ensemble cast (inc. Imelda Staunton as the wife of George Loveless, and Keith Allen when he was still charismatic and intense, instead of a complete ham) and some truly random cameos (inc. Barbara Windsor, adding a distinctly Carry On air to her scenes, but also Vanessa Redgrave and Edward Fox in the latter half of the film.)

It’s clearly a heartfelt political film, which could be problematic even if you agree with the sentiment – the politics are very explicitly stated. Coupled with the slightly stylised storytelling (particularly in the later scenes in Australia, where the characters are in different places and the story becomes disjointed), the film could collapse under it’s own weight. But it’s so confident in itself that you get used to the eccentricities, and it’s grounded in the strong ensemble performances.

Not that it bears much relation to Poe’s poem. There’s a raven, obviously, and a woman called Lenore, and that’s about it. Instead, it’s a wonderfully daft story about feuding sorcerers, with the three stars (and supporting cast) overacting their socks off and, one hopes, having a ball.

Another wildly inaccurate poster:

Nevermore!

I was worried, going in, that Moon would fall into the irritating pseudo-philosophical traps that ‘serious’ science fiction films are susceptible to – the impenetrable ending of 2001, or the wibbly nonsense at the end of the otherwise great Sunshine. It doesn’t – it has shades of that at first, but twists it the other way, and ends up with a really solid science fiction conceit.

The film is built around Sam Rockwell, who is fantastic as a lunar miner coming to the end of his three-year contract when [spoilery stuff] starts to happen. He’s funny and human, and maintains our sympathy with hardly any supporting cast – the bulk of the film is him alone. It’s great casting – it’s the sort of role that someone like Tom Cruise might claim and then screw up with overacting, because what actor doesn’t want all the screentime to himself? There is support from the obligatory robot, voiced by Kevin Spacey and featuring a limited range of smiley faces to indicate suitable moods. (The film neatly subverts expectations about said robot by [more spoilery stuff]) But seriously, would you program your robot to sound like Kevin Spacey? I’d choose, like, Roger Livesey or someone – nothing bad ever sounded like that…

I can’t think of anything original to say about the technical side of the film – it’s well made, looks good, etc – actually it’s got something of the aesthetic that I want for my main sci-fi script – sci-fi without being either overly sleek or overly gloomy. I was hoping to avoid mentioning that Moon‘s (first-time feature) director Duncan Jones is David Bowie’s son, but apparently there’s a law against that. Hey, at least I didn’t put it in the title, and I gave him his own name, too. It’s a shame, really, because it’s a great film, and the guy deserves to be seen on his own terms.

(Moon is, heh, stellar.) (Sorry.)

Elkland

A darkly comic drama about a man returning home after his father’s death. Very funny, very Swedish (so I’m stereotyping, but it’s Bergmanesque, if you squint), very short (barely an hour), and quite touching. Also, there’s an elk called Holger.

(Screened with a fairly arbitrarily chosen short film, Roma, that would have worked better alongside Sin Nombre. Doesn’t change my opinion of short films, but there are some lovely sequences of the workings of a soap and detergent factory.)

McLaren Animation 1

A decent selection, the bulk of which seemed to be from the National Film and Television School. Highlights include Yellow Belly End (rotoscoped in a minimalist style, featuring people in animal costumes throwing themself off a cliff, and the canary who records each one in a little notebook – a page for dogs, a page for cats, several pages for lemmings…) and Goodbye Mr Pink (a mix of live action and large-scale stop-motion, with a girl coming to terms with the death of her rabbit and her brother attempting an autopsy).

I also liked Photograph Of Jesus, which animates the odder enquiries made to an image archive with cut-out photographs, including the aforementioned Hitler at the 1948 London Olympics. It’s a little reminiscent of some of the enquiries I’ve fielded at work…

Quite liked Today Only: liked the style, but it kind of lost me at the naked fairies (not because they were naked, just that it was a random moment too far)