In the Name of the Father

A young borderline ne-er-do-well buck earns a living through controversial means (Daniel Day-Lewis as Gerry Conlon), his dependable father supportive yet stern (Pete Postlethwaite as Giuseppe Conlon), his animate fortunes fluid yet dour.

He heads to England leaving Belfast behind in search of something non-specific in particular, meeting an old friend on his brisk maiden voyage (John Lynch as Paul Hill), the two finding their way to a commune. 

Jealousies cloud their smooth integration and conflict erupts within the bower, however, firmly necessitating agile itinerancy boldly embraced with freewheeling concessions.

But on that very same eve a long peaceful pub is scurrilously attacked, the two friends in the reckless vicinity, the police searching for someone to blame.

They're soon callously rounded up and slowly beaten into sedate submission, and the cops take their interrogations to the next level, and arrest most of Gerry's close family.

Father and son wind up sharing a cell amongst hardened felons unaccustomed to innocence, young Gerry broken yet looking for friends, aged Giuseppe resigned to his despondent fate.

Years later a determined lawyer resolutely seeks veracious social justice (Emma Thompson as Gareth Peirce), as applied to the wrongfully convicted victims of the heinous crime.

The police know they've imprisoned the wrong people since the legitimate culprit freely confessed.

Yet they're unwilling to admit their mistake.

As the years pass by interminably.  

I think a lot of the time the police do a great job, in fact they've been quite helpful on occasion, wrongfully imprisoning people to appease the public is frustratingly distasteful to say the least however.

Moving forward with intent to convict even though it's probable the suspects are innocent, leads to widespread mistrust in law enforcement, and derivate righteous anarchy.

In the Name of the Father holds law enforcement to account while uplifting honest independent inquiries, as a father and son languish in sensational injustice, and many others face similar sentences.

It proceeds too quickly at times, for it covers a lengthy time period, barely scratching the surface of what could have been said in a prolonged reflective series.

But the moments it does choose to share are considerate and make for thought provoking jurisprudent theatre, poignant pastimes and just grace and dignity cultivating passionate aggrieved freespirits. 

Mind-boggling to wonder why anything like the events in this film came to pass?

They had the proof of their innocence.

Politics and law, a dangerous combination. 

Papillon

Entrenched plutocrats, none too pleased with having been fooled, frame a specialized romantic thief with most scandalous murder.

As lucrative sums casually discern culpability, a bright future slowly fades into unimaginative oblivion.

Banished from France and sent to live in an isolated penal colony, Henri 'Papillon' Charrière (Charlie Hunnam) sets his aggrieved broken heart on escaping.

Fellow less pugilistic prisoner Louis Dega (Rami Malek) provides financial backing in exchange for loyal security, having been rightfully convicted for counterfeiting, the proceeds of which he's partially brought along.

But careless plans, foolish declarations, inclement weather, and treacherous saviours incrementally spoil their impromptu soliloquies, extended time in solitary confinement awaiting, for as long as an excruciating non-negotiable 5 years.

Many spent in total darkness.

Yet Papillon will not forget his cherished homeland (or Québec perhaps [it doesn't come up {would it have been that hard to include a scene where he considers settling in Montréal?}]) nor curtail his efforts to one day return.

As stubborn and incorrigible as he is death-defying, he embraces the unknown with devout frenzied reverence.

If only a love of nature had been inculcated at a young age, the jungles of French Guiana no doubt would have overflowed with tropical sustenance.

But as things would have it, or rather as this somewhat bland account would present them, Papillon continues to trust the small closely-knit members of his colonialist enclave's upper echelons, rather than the bounty of the forbidden wild, only to see severe punishments increase as time lugubriously passes by.

Papillon's somewhat too light for such grave subject matter, too bare, too superficial.

I wanted to learn more about its fascinating characters and listen as they plotted while getting to know one another, but the film only develops one individual diminutively, and it's not even Papillon, the resultant blunt dialogues leaving little room to manoeuvre, even though for decades they must have had nothing but conversation to console themselves.

The crafty Rami Malek effortlessly steals every scene he's in, adding multifaceted flourishes throughout which prove his voice would extoll first rate animation.

But he's like the gold particles in a dull textbook slab of cinematic ore, brilliantly shining through before fading as it's lit up explicitly.

With possibly the least surreal dream sequence I've ever seen.

Hardened inmates innocently greeting one another like they're at Summer camp.

Hardly any time spent actually planning their escapes.

Even less considering the outside world.

Papillon's much more like a caterpillar, covering far too long a period without managing to produce much depth.

Lots of fighting though, nobility of spirit versus basic instinct and such, and even if they dependably relied on one another, it still seems as if they were simply chugging along.

Shizam.

Room

A different kind of malevolence, like a sick experiment a demented philosopher would subject his or her family to in order to study the isolated innocence of the nascent imagination.

Solitary semantics.

Ontological incarceration.

A mother and son locked away for years in a shed, never leaving, never seeing the outside world.

The child, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), having spent his entire life in the shed, imaginatively tries to make sense of existence, while his Ma (Brie Larson) attempts to define the outside world.

It's difficult for him to comprehend, and his creative energies, as applied to his confined explorations, idealize the passionate curiosity of youth, his desire to learn more stifled by a lack of resources.

Escape cunningly presents itself and the real world suddenly emerges, but emerging into a hyper-reactive media sensation contrasts monstrous plans with excessive exposure.

It's too much for his overwhelmed mom, as it would be for anyone, but familial strength steps up as required, to cuddle in consultation, and placate emotionally complex obsessions.

Tough film, Lenny Abrahamson's Room, juxtaposing different pressurized extremes and their belittling affects on a severely traumatized family.

Those are the tough questions you don't ask.

Jack's lack of knowledge saves him from the psychological torments disintegrating his mother, his attempts to simply be profound in their hesitant wonder, the compassionate easing the transition for both of them, trust contra control, revelations of an inchoate spirituality.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Justin Chadwick offers a selective charismatic altruistic account of Nelson Mandela's (Idris Elba) life in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Significant events from Mandela's heroic trials are qualitatively condensed then narratively harvested.

It unreels at a fast pace but Elba's calm committed confrontational resolve surreally subdues the passage of time, tantalizingly transforming 30 seconds into two-minutes-forty, proactively producing captivating capsules.

A good companion piece for 12 Years a Slave in terms of the differing approaches adopted to biographically elucidate, McQueen cultivating a shifting pyrodactic panorama, Chadwick proceeding more traditionally.

Chadwick doesn't shy away from presenting the difficulties associated with actively pursuing disenfranchised political agendas, and the toll Mandela's sublime idealism takes on his wives and children are dis/comfortingly displayed.

His first wife leaves him but his second never yields in her championing of his cause while he's imprisoned, suffering jail-time and countless indignities consequently.

Their breakup after he's released is perhaps the most unfortunate disengaging of amorous affections I've ever come across.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (Naomie Harris) kept the fire burning brightly throughout his 27 years in prison and seeing them part is tragic if not earth shattering.

But Mandela believed in a non-violent working solution and when provided with the opportunity to politically enact one, engaged.

Taking the resultant monumental fallout in stride.

Not a saint, perhaps, but definitely, a person of steel.

Mistaken Grace: Dogville Notes

In the end of Dogville, Grace has to decide whether she should either punish the inhabitants of the town where she has been hiding out for months, where the inhabitants have been torturing her, or refrain from acquiring retribution (her father is a powerful gangster/political type capable of achieving vengeance). While making her decision, she considers the generally harmless nature of her civil microcosm and points out that they likely didn't know any better and are generally harmless, and, consequently should not be punished. Her epiphany occurs when she places herself inside the village and asks herself whether or not she would have been able to forgive herself if she had engaged in any of the activities that her tormentors had engaged in, and finds herself unable to forgive herself. Consequently, the entire village is gunned down by her father's henchmen.

Problem: she places herself inside the village after growing up outside of the village; therefore her conclusion is based on an impossible conjecture gained from the application of a moral principle that may not have been present within her constitution had she been nurtured with the people of Dogville.