The Box

I finally got round to seeing The Box the other day, at the Odeon Mezzanine in Leicester Square, where the screens are approximately the size of a sock drawer. If I’d waited a couple of months longer I could have rented it and watched it in my own sock drawer, but it’s nice to get out every now and again isn’t it?

So you know when you get up, eat breakfast, go to work, do the same old routine that you do day in, day out, but then at lunchtime everyone explodes and the office launches itself to a distant galaxy and the photocopier becomes the supreme being? Well that’s what The Box is like. It starts off as an unassuming 1970s-set drama, and trundles along like that for about 20 minutes, then it gets a little bit weird, then with very little warning it goes so absolutely crazy mental bonkers that you could give it a job at the RAC, stick it on BBC News and call it Crackers Patel.

Now I quite like it when a film pulls the rug from under your feet like that, and my interest levels peaked when I realised I was going to see something I most certainly wasn’t expecting. I won’t tell you what it is but if you look hard enough I'm sure you could find out.
THE GUY WHO GAVE THEM THE BOX IS BEING CONTROLLED BY MARTIANS! YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING DID YOU?
However I also quite like my weirdness to make some vague kind of sense, and for events to connect with each other in a way my tiny brain can follow, which is a) why I can’t be doing with David Lynch and b) why I ended up not liking The Box.

Director Richard Kelly cooked up a devilishly delicious dinner with Donnie Darko, but shat in the custard with Southland Tales. Now, with The Box, he’s filled the apple pie with pencils, and that’s just stupid. Marks for originality I suppose, and I look forward to the next serving, but I’ll be taking a packet of biscuits with me just in case.

In retrospect that was an ill-advised extended metaphor, but I’ve written it now and I can’t just delete it can I?



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London Film Festival: Ajami

The problem with the London Film Festival is that there are always going to be some proper stinkers. I don’t know what the BFI’s criteria are when they book some of these films; maybe there has to be a certain number of incomprehensible, overlong snoozefests to fulfil some quota otherwise they won’t get enough funding to employ overexcited copywriters to hype all the Festival’s films into oblivion.

The other day I saw Ajami, an Israeli film about something or other. Gangs, possibly. Drugs, too. Yes, there were definitely some drugs in there. And some shooting. There were some people, although I’m not sure who they were. In fact there were two characters who were so similar that I thought they were the same person until the last ten minutes when they suddenly appeared in the same scene. I looked around to see if anyone else was surprised by this but they had all died of boredom.

I followed it OK for the first 15 minutes, but when a whole new story thread started with entirely new characters I was lost and never found my way back. After 45 minutes I started to think I might have the faintest whiff of a clue what was happening, but by the hour mark my old friend Fidget had turned up and that was it. Game over for Ajami.

(If you require an explanation of the Fidget Factor, you don’t read The Incredible Suit often enough. See this post)

***STOP PRESS***

The Incredible Suit has just learned that Ajami has won The London Film Festival’s Sutherland Trophy, “for the most original and imaginative first feature at this year's festival”. So congratulations Ajami, you can pop that on the mantelpiece next to The Incredible Suit’s Southland Tales Trophy, awarded to the dullest, most impenetrable film at this year’s festival.

***STOP PRESS AGAIN***

In further ludicrosity, A Prophet, which The Incredible Suit roundly slapped about yesterday, has won The London Film Festival’s Star Of London award for Best Film, which “celebrates creative, original, imaginative, intelligent and distinctive filmmaking in the Festival”. So congratulations A Prophet, you can pop that on the mantelpiece next to The Incredible Suit’s There Will Be Blood Trophy, which celebrates overlong, tedious, overrated tosh with an excessively high Fidget Factor. Hooray!

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