Not Great Expectations

I did not see The Da Vinci Code on the big screen. The critics had unanimously concluded that burning in hell would be a more pleasant way to spend an evening. Furthermore, I made absolutely no effort to watch the film when it made its crossover to DVD. What I did not plan on though was my French housemate returning from France with a copy, proclaiming I should give it a try. Not to tarnish our friendship I placed the ‘Le Must En DVD’ labeled disc in my player, dimmed the lights and gave it my full attention. Was I pleasantly surprised? Well, no.

The famous philosopher Lucius Annaeus Senica had mused on the subject of expectation. He stated something along the lines of if one sets their own expectations (in all aspects of your daily life) low, one is more likely to feel happier as ones expectations are more frequently met or exceeded. I thought of this as the opening credits began to roll because my expectation was so incredibly low, the very act of light moving to sound should have been enough for me to proclaim it the most enjoyable film ever. Instead I realised Ron Howard had created something of an anti masterpiece. A film that no matter how bad the reviews or word of mouth is, you will still feel unfairly misinformed.
During the first thirty minutes you just feel embarrassed. Inter cut scenes where we meet the main cast. Firstly, Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks as a reprised Josh from BIG except for the ability to solve anagrams at great speeds and to give unbelievably simplistic lectures on symbolism. Then there is Audrey Tautou whose range is tested by the two expressions of concerned and slightly more concerned as the feisty, maybe-has-some-deep-secret, Sophie Neveu. Also Paul Bettany who is (when not talking Hebrew in to his mobile) frolicking about as an albino monk getting up to no good and flagellating himself in that so post Passion of the Christ way.
And so the story unfolds in much the same vain apart from the embarrassment turns to boredom. Laundon and Neveu are on the run trying to solve the murder they’re being wrongly accused for and maybe discovering the deepest secrets of religion along the way. Or something like that, a bit of blu-tac on my wall was getting some glances by this point.
During this journey we also meet the undeterred police captain, Bezu Fache, who gets the standard performance from Jean Reno, Sir Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing (who comes across as some drunken bond villain) and all the other stock characters that fill any run of the mill thriller. I really didn’t care towards the end; the twist became more sudden and pointless as our protagonists (without the aid of food or sleep) jog over the finish line.
Any avid filmgoer will not be surprised at the revelations revealed during the films closing scenes. I did, however, feel some kind of satisfaction as it all drew to a close; I have seen the worst film of modern times! But I’m with The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw with this one (and his cryptic penultimate paragraph in his review), ‘Wayne Rooney will be the next Pope long before I watch this film again’.

Ben New

Factotum.

On first impression this '05 adaptation of Bukowski's '75 novel is more successful than Tales of Ordinary Madness. It feels more authentically American; the earlier movie suffered from a consciously European art house sensibility (owing to its Italian production team) that not only jarred with domestic audiences at the time but still seems to do a disservice to Bukowski's mythology of the (American) self. Matt Dillon's Bukowski may have the benefit of seeming geographically in place (despite it being another foreign production with an American cast, only this time Norwegian) but is strangely out of his time. Factotum at first appears to be set present day, but one is soon desperately trying to guess the period by the age of the cars; the autmotive furniture in the film places it to now but so much of the Bukowski universe is at odds with contemporaneity, the constant cigarettes even in offices just seems anachronistic. This leads one to believe that this was either a conscious decision for budgetary reasons or some sort of statement is being made about the 'nowness' of Bukowski's writing. Certainly Bukowski's writing is more contemporary than perhaps almost all of the Beat generation writing, but he was never really a part of that crowd to begin with. No, this portait of the artist seems intentionally to wrench Bukowski's alter-ego from his time and place him in ours, for what purpose I am unsure, but the confusion also seems to bleed into the narrative; I for one was surprised by the inclusion of the scene where Chinaski visits his parents as I was working under the assumption that Dillon was playing the part as an age older than his own and this seemed to create yet more conflict in terms of chronology. Well, at least they did a better job than Barfly.

Alex B.