DVD OF THE WEEK

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY *****
Dir: Julian Schnabel
Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Max Von Sydow

Many were surprised by a relatively unknown name amongst the categories for best Director at this year's Oscars. It was a nomination for former artist turned director Julian Schnabel and this extraordinary film about Frenchman Jean-Dominique Bauby.
Bauby, or Jean-Do as he is known by his friends in the film, was the editor of Elle magazine, before a stroke left him paralysed in all but one eye. In this condition he 'dictated” the book that the film is based on, with his speech therapist reading out the letters of the alphabet in turn, and Jean-Do blinking once to pick out each letter of each word.
If that sounds at once unbelievable and a terrible topic for a film then you will share my wonder at the result. That Schnabel has created something so lyrical, involving, and moving is a thing of wonder.
Picking up from Jean-Do first opening his eyes in the hospital, much of the film is shot from a first-person perspective, sometimes blurred and confining us in the same position as the patient. We slowly move with him through the first visits from friends and his growing relationship with his therapist (a brilliantly unaffected turn from Seigner) as they eventually embark upon the mammoth book project, opening up Jean-Do's previous life as he relives memories through the writing. It is an inspiring and heartbreaking story but one that is never sentimentalised and is often undercut by Jean-Do's own irreverent sense of humour.
I was blown away by this film. Given the tough-sounding subject matter it is hard to describe quite how open and approachable it is, beautifully poetic while delving with the most sensitive of touches into what it really means to live and be alive.

Doomsday (**) is the third film from Scottish director Neil Marshall. The first two were horror outings Dog Soldiers and The Descent. Here he draws on a much bigger canvas as the whole of Scotland is quarantined after a deadly virus. This virus and its affects rather echo 28 Weeks Later. Then a McGuffin is discovered and a team must be sent in. Just like Escape From New York. The mission goes horribly wrong, rather like in Aliens. Then, for no apparent reason, the film becomes Mad Max 2. Incredible. Reasonably entertaining but possibly the most derivatively silly film of the year.

The ways of Hollywood continue to baffle. Why would you make a sequel to a film that is 25 years old and that (I suspect) no one under 40 remembers? I still don't know the answer to that but War Games – The Dead Code (***), despite being kinda obvious and kinda silly, is actually kinda fun. Once again a rogue government computer has difficulty distinguishing between (in this case) terrorists and teenage hackers wanting to play the titular war games. Thus our duly cute young heroes find themselves on the run from every agency known to man while trying to stop the supercomputer from 'decontaminating” Philadelphia. No worse than current cinema release Eagle Eye.

George Clooney straps on his American football gear for Leatherheads (***), a charming and fairly laid back look at the days when the sport was just about to become professional. It's a shambling, likeable film but Clooney does have a tendency to mug inappropriately and the subject matter may lose those who think the sport in question is absurd and unintelligible (that would be most non-Americans).

WAZ (***) is a hard film to write about, simply because of the title. The 'A” in the middle isn't an 'A”, it's the similar-looking Greek letter Delta (a triangle). It's also a hard film for those who like their police procedurals clean and bright as this is bleak and grimly unpleasant. And intentionally so. Stellan Skarsgard is superb as a morally-compromised cop investigating grisly murders where people are forced to kill their loved ones. Similar in plot to Insomnia, this is ugly violent stuff and probably all the better for it.