Keeping Mum

2005 - Dir: Niall Johnson

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 25th April, 2009
Adapted seamlessly from its original American setting by writer/director Niall Johnson (novelist Richard Russo penned the initial script), Keeping Mum manages to be both reassuringly familiar and surprisingly fresh. "Waking Ned" meets "Kind Hearts and Coronets". Apart from the witty script, the secret to its success lies in its offbeat casting. Scott Thomas loosens her stiff upper lip and clearly relishes playing Gloria Goodfellow, a wife and mother who's thinking about playing around with a sleazy golf instructor (Patrick Swayze) and abandoning her inert husband Walter (Rowan Atkinson), the vicar of Little Wallop (don't worry, nothing else is quite so twee). If she's the main draw, there's also a comedy masterclass to behold from Maggie Smith. The redoubtable screen veteran combines the sweetness of a doting grandmother with looks that kill and hilariously bloodthirsty solutions to everyday problems such as school bullies and yappy dogs. Mainstream British comedies are notoriously difficult to get right - too often they're simply poor copies of Hollywood pap - which is why Keeping Mum really is something to shout about.
"There is a British tradition of darkness in comedy which we haven’t seen for some time and in many ways the pleasantness and the appealing nature of the characters when it turns out that they are concealing dark secrets, is in many ways even more shocking. What drew me to the script was that it had a great tone to it. It was very gentle and definitely comic; but comedy with a much greater subtlety than I am normally associated with. Walter is a very three-dimensional character, and the script has just got a lovely, slightly dark tone to it." Rowan Atkinson

The Purple Rose of Cairo

1985 - Dir: Woody Allen
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 25th April, 2009
A delightful tale centred on how cinema can change lives, if only when the lights are down, Woody Allen combines romance with intelligence to great comic effect. Cranking out just about a film a year, Woody Allen is easy to take for granted, especially recently, as quantity seems to be winning the battle over quality. He could be said to have entered an extended bad patch with a flurry of mediocre work, ranging from horrid miscalculation ("Small Time Crooks," "Hollywood Ending") to sub-average romantic comedy ("Anything Else"). It's easy to overlook his great films - and "The Purple Rose of Cairo" is the most overlooked of his great films. Of the 33 features Allen has directed, it's one of the few in which he didn't appear, and the one he calls his favourite. At 84 minutes, it's short but nearly every one of those minutes is blissful. So sit back, relax and imagine how you’d feel if you favourite movie star stepped down from the screen and asked you to run away with him/her* (*delete as appropriate).

Volver

(Coming Back)

2006 - Dir: Pedro Almodóvar

Shown at FeckenOdeon 2 on 17th April, 2009

“Volver” catches director Pedro Almodóvar and star Penélope Cruz at the peak of their respective powers, in service of a layered, thought-provoking film. This melodrama is set in a Spain tourists rarely see - a Spain where the daily soap is just as important as “Corrie” is in certain parts of Doncaster. While there’s a leisurely middle section in modern-day Madrid, the heart and soul of the story takes place in a small, windy town in La Mancha that seems stuck in a time warp. It’s an ordinary, everyday world where the abnormal happens to normal people... and how they cope with ghosts, murder, illness and incest. What is most unexpected about "Volver" is that it's not really about murder or the afterlife, but simply incorporates those awkward developments into the problems of daily living. The characters approach their dilemmas not with metaphysics but with common sense. A dead woman turns up as a ghost and is immediately absorbed into her family's ongoing problems: So what took her so long?

Penélope Cruz won Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes by the ton for this performance and it’s fascinating to see an established Hollywood star working in her native language. As it did with Sophia Loren in the 1950s, Hollywood has tried to force Cruz into a series of show-biz categories, when she is obviously most at home playing a woman like the ones she knew, grew up with and could have become - and, yes, her bum is padded in this film!

Director Almodóvar has electrified Spanish cinema over the past twenty years. From early beginnings, when he subsidised his film making by selling bric-a-brac in Barcelona’s flea markets, his film have been stylish and attention grabbing. He came to international prominence in the late 1980s with the hard hitting “Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and “Tie me up, Tie me down”. His films are colourful and sensitive and often feature strong women - apparently his mother was a strong woman. Asked about the plethora of shots featuring Ms Cruz’s cleavage in “Volver”, Almodóvar nodded happily and said "Yes, I am a gay man, but I love breasts."

The “ghost” is played by veteran actress Carmen Maura. She’s a long standing Almodovar favourite who headed an art gallery and performed in night-clubs before starting her acting career. She’s the great-grand-niece of the Spanish Prime Minister (pre-Franco), Antonio Maura and won the "Goya Award" (the Spanish equivalent of the Oscar) in 1989, 1991, 2001 and 2007.