Nothing is What it Seems.

Film: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Year: 2011
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Written by: Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, based on the book 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' by John le Carré.
Starring: Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, David Dencik, Simon McBurney.
Running time: 127 min.

In my English class at the moment we're doing a film study on The Shawshank Redemption. As much as I love the movie, the analysing of all the shots, lighting, sound blah blah blah is driving me nuts (it is interesting, but seeing the opening scene seven times is not my idea of fun). As I sat down to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy around three hours after I left my English class, I still had the whispers about camera techniques and the like bouncing around my head. And while I was watching Tomas Alfredson's first English film, I couldn't help but notice that he turned everything that I had been told in my English class upside down. The thing with The Shawshank Redemption is that the symbolism is always right in your face, directing everyone's line of thought in the exact same direction. Tinker Tailor is nothing like that. This is the spy world, remember, so nothing is ever what it seems. Tomas Alfredson realises that, and makes it in the most subtle - yet detailed - way that he possibly could. This is a film that would be hard to teach at schools.

"Life is only on Earth. And not for long."

Film: Melancholia
Writer/Director: Lars von Trier

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Stellan Skarsgård, Brady Corbet, Udo Kier.
Running time: 136 min


You can love him. You can loathe him. In fact, there are probably a lot more people against Lars von Trier nowadays after his Nazi gaffe at a press conference in Cannes earlier this year. Cannes booted him out, but luckily they didn't boot his film, Melancholia, out of the competition, and Kirsten Dunst ended up winning Best Actress. Lars, a Danish director with the word 'fuck' proudly tattooed on the fingers on his right hand, is not known for making pleasant films and doesn't shy away from much on screen (let's just take the genital mutilation in Antichrist as an example here...) Melancholia, however, may be one of the most tame films that he has done in a while, and apparently his first to have an unhappy ending. Still, while I don't really respect von Trier as a person, he sure knows how to make a good film.