The Childhood of a Leader (15.)
Directed by Brady Corbet.
Starring Berenice Bejo, Liam Cunningham, Stacy Martin, Yolande Moreau, Tom Sweet and Robert Pattinson. 115 mins. Partly subtitled.
This is a film that will doubtless exert a magnetic appeal to the word “pretentious” in reviews but from its first moment I felt myself rising gleefully to the challenge of this dimly lit, po-faced drama and went with it happily to it euphoric and deliriously bleak finale. It's a kind geo-political version of The Omen, set in the aftermath of the First World War; an American family temporarily settled in France find themselves disturbed and distressed by the outrageous tantrums of their young son and the film mirrors the personality of it's leading figure – stern, unrelenting, demanding and full of its own importance, but backed up be a malevolent self- assurance.
The film is a directorial debut by American actor Corbet. On screen he been attracted to sombre, heavy roles (Simon Killer, Melancholia, Force Majeure) and there's no loosening up behind the camera. The film has a forbiddingly serious opening sequence, an overture, incorporating newsreel footage of the time, establishing the bleak situation in Europe in 1918, which the American's are determined to set right. One of its great assets is phenomenal original score by Scott Walker; and one of great assets of Walker's score is that it is actually music, rather than donkey bothering excesses of his more extreme works. That's not to say he's gone easy on us, but as the music pounded over the scenes of post war deprivation, I thought it must be by some major twentieth composer I was too ignorant to recognize.
The boy's father, played by Liam Cunningham, is part of President Wilson's team negotiating the peace that will lead to the Treaty of Versailles. As any history student knows, the terms of that treaty would provide a fertile breeding ground for fascism; the film's mystery though is wondering how this relates to this problem child. The contemporary parallels though are all too clear though
The seriousness may be a tad overdone but it is still a ferociously confident start. Corbet isn't shy about showing us all the clever directing tricks he knows, but if his style can be called tricky it shouldn't obscure the fact that it is all very effective. His instincts are good, and he seems to have a grip on where to put the camera. The film is largely a family drama set in a country house, but it is pumped with energy and movement. The set of the house is unerringly good, a strong presence that could overpower a weaker cast. Cunningham is nobody's idea of a career diplomat but he's an actor that is always going to give you something worthwhile and in a world where Game of Thrones actors seemed universally cursed to appear in bad films, a little miscasting is a price worth paying. Robert Pattinson, whose role is really little more than a cameo, has probably never been better. An actor who wants desperately to be taken serious in a film that takes itself turns out to be a perfect match.
Directed by Brady Corbet.
Starring Berenice Bejo, Liam Cunningham, Stacy Martin, Yolande Moreau, Tom Sweet and Robert Pattinson. 115 mins. Partly subtitled.
This is a film that will doubtless exert a magnetic appeal to the word “pretentious” in reviews but from its first moment I felt myself rising gleefully to the challenge of this dimly lit, po-faced drama and went with it happily to it euphoric and deliriously bleak finale. It's a kind geo-political version of The Omen, set in the aftermath of the First World War; an American family temporarily settled in France find themselves disturbed and distressed by the outrageous tantrums of their young son and the film mirrors the personality of it's leading figure – stern, unrelenting, demanding and full of its own importance, but backed up be a malevolent self- assurance.
The film is a directorial debut by American actor Corbet. On screen he been attracted to sombre, heavy roles (Simon Killer, Melancholia, Force Majeure) and there's no loosening up behind the camera. The film has a forbiddingly serious opening sequence, an overture, incorporating newsreel footage of the time, establishing the bleak situation in Europe in 1918, which the American's are determined to set right. One of its great assets is phenomenal original score by Scott Walker; and one of great assets of Walker's score is that it is actually music, rather than donkey bothering excesses of his more extreme works. That's not to say he's gone easy on us, but as the music pounded over the scenes of post war deprivation, I thought it must be by some major twentieth composer I was too ignorant to recognize.
The boy's father, played by Liam Cunningham, is part of President Wilson's team negotiating the peace that will lead to the Treaty of Versailles. As any history student knows, the terms of that treaty would provide a fertile breeding ground for fascism; the film's mystery though is wondering how this relates to this problem child. The contemporary parallels though are all too clear though
The seriousness may be a tad overdone but it is still a ferociously confident start. Corbet isn't shy about showing us all the clever directing tricks he knows, but if his style can be called tricky it shouldn't obscure the fact that it is all very effective. His instincts are good, and he seems to have a grip on where to put the camera. The film is largely a family drama set in a country house, but it is pumped with energy and movement. The set of the house is unerringly good, a strong presence that could overpower a weaker cast. Cunningham is nobody's idea of a career diplomat but he's an actor that is always going to give you something worthwhile and in a world where Game of Thrones actors seemed universally cursed to appear in bad films, a little miscasting is a price worth paying. Robert Pattinson, whose role is really little more than a cameo, has probably never been better. An actor who wants desperately to be taken serious in a film that takes itself turns out to be a perfect match.
