THE SEVENTH VEIL

The Seventh Veil
d. Compton Bennett / UK / 1945 / 94 mins
Viewed at: A3.03 @ UEA (Norwich, UK)

Produced in the final months of the Second World War, Compton Bennett’s The Seventh Veil was Britain’s biggest box office success in 1945, and one of its biggest of all time. Six years earlier, just twenty days after British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had declared war on Germany, Austrian neurologist and psychoanalytical theorist Sigmund Freud died in London aged 83. So what is the connection between one of the most successful British films of the 1940s and the father of modern psychology? Well, The Seventh Veil not only has a plot which centres upon the psychoanalytic treatment of a former concert pianist, but the whole film is littered with the kind of subconscious symbolism that so intrigued the father of modern psychology.

THIRST / BAKJWI

Thirst [Bakjwi]
d. Park Chan-Wook / Korea / 2008 /
Viewed at: Rio Cinema (Dalston, UK)

Thirst is the latest effort from popular South Korean filmmaker (and fanboy fave) Park Chan-wook, he of JSA (2000) and the Vengeance Trilogy (2002-5).

Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho) is a monastic priest who, fed up with the pain and suffering surrounding him, signs up for an experimental treatment in Africa in an attempt to cure the deadly Emmanuel Virus. When the experiment goes horribly wrong, Sang-hyun faces certain death, but makes a rapid, miraculous recovery after receiving a blood transfusion.

TRASH HUMPERS

Trash Humpers
d. Harmony Korine / 2009 / USA / 78 mins
Viewed at: London Film Festival (Leicester Square Vue – Screen 9)

“Trash Humpers is a movie that’s maybe not even a movie. I sometimes say maybe it’s something else, it works on a different logic, its more closely related to something that’s like a found artefact or an old discarded VHS tape, something maybe that you could imagine being put in a zip-lock bag and it having a a little bit of blood on it and buried in some ditch somewhere.” – Harmony Korine.

As always, films which seem to be about ‘nothing in particular’ often elicit the most in-depth responses. Trash Humpers, the latest visual utterance from US-indie agitator Harmony Korine, is no exception. Bear with me folks, this is a long one…

FREAKS

Freaks
d. Tod Browning / 1932 / USA / 64 mins
Viewed on: TCM (UK)

Okay, I’m gonna go right ahead and admit it (and hope this doesn’t sound too condescending/offensive) but I’ve always had a strange obsession with people of a particularly short stature. It’s certainly not a case of ‘look at the funny little midget’ (although I’m sure it probably started that way when I was younger), nor is it some kinky foible. And I really don’t know how to explain it, I guess it might have something to do with scale, because I tend to like abnormally big things also. You know, mountains and such.

Anyway, although its not always necessarily done in good taste, cinema history has thrown up a string of films about dwarfs or with dwarfs as central characters. Now, I think most people who have seen it would agree that Tod Browning’s Freaks is a mighty fine film. It’s far from perfect, sure, but what is most surprising – particularly considering it was made over seventy years ago – is that it isn’t actually too hard on its assortment of strange characters. This isn’t the freakshow you might expect if you read the synopsis, but there are plenty of fairly nasty (albeit enjoyably un-PC) ‘midget-pics’ out there.

THE BOSS OF IT ALL [DIRECTØREN FOR DETE HELE]

Direktøren For Det Hele / The Boss of It All
d. Lars von Trier / 2006 / Denmark / 99 mins
Viewed at: Indie Movies Online

The last month or so of study has meant that I’ve slipped behind a little on this here endeavour, but expect a bit of a catch-up session while I’m on a break for the next few weeks. Without further ado, here’s my write-up on that strangest of beasts, a Lars von Trier comedy.