Light House Film Club

Director: Bent Hamer

Cert: 12a (Norwegian with subtitles)

Time: 1hr 30mins

Quite what Norwegian’s use for inspiration is unclear but if this surreal and beautifully crafted film offers any answers it is probable that it may well fall within the bounds of what are commonly termed “illegal substances”.

Odd Horton is a 67 year old train driver who has plied the same route for so long that he could do the journey in his sleep. His life is wrapped in the comfort blanket of routine but, as retirement following a forty year career beckons, he must embark on the process of assimilation to an existence without work.

So begins a series of bizarre yet touching encounters all of which suggest more than we are seeing at face value. His Alzheimer’s riven mother, the landlady who has cared for him over the years, the owner of a tobacco and pipe store and a chance meeting with a deluded foreign diplomat.  All show Odd to be a man very different from his working persona proving that, behind the façade, there is more to folk than meets the eye.  Any film that can achieve that, whilst making you smile, is worth the entrance fee.

Rating: 3/5

Patrons: 9

CA

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Cert: 15

Time: 1 hr 20 mins

Based on the short story “Choir Train”, by Jon Raymond, this is typical art house fair. It focuses on Wendy Carroll, en route to Alaska, where she hopes to find lucrative employment in a canning factory and with that the beginnings of a new life with her dog Lucy. But when her car breaks down in Oregon, the thin fabric of her financial circumstance comes apart. Caught shoplifting she gets separated from her dog and subsequently loses all contact with her.  The remainder of the story follows her efforts to find her whilst facing up to the fact that her car is a dud and she doesn’t have the funds to repair it.

The basic story is sparse and little if anything happens. Yet it still successfully portrays issues surrounding generosity and compassion and in so doing reveals the limits and depths of the help people can offer in times of difficulty. Michelle Williams is also superb as the forlorn Wendy but we know so little about her that one feels slightly cheated when things end rather abruptly. Perhaps that’s the point.

Rating 3/5

Patrons:  8

CA

Director: Clint Eastwood

Cert: 15

Time: 1 hr 56 mins

Rumour has is that this might, at 78 years of age, be Clint’s last major acting role. Even if it isn’t if still feels like an elegy - to American ideals, to a way of life and an iconic career.

The narrative follows Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) a racist veteran of the Korean War stranded in his old Detroit neighbourhood, where jobs and white neighbours have moved out and the oriental Hmongs, have moved in.  At times acidly funny it helps that the film becomes a story of a bigots redemption; as gangs threaten the lives of his immediate neighbours Kowalski comes to their aid and the grumbling hard man softens.

Eventually one reaches a point where the story is trying to have its cake and eat it; on the one hand a pious fable of a racist learning the error of his ways on the other a revenge fantasy in the mould of Death Wish. Thankfully Eastwood is too subtle a director to allow either strand to triumph with an unexpected and thought provoking denouement.

Rating: 3/5

Patrons:  25

CA

Director: Bryan Singer

Cert: 12a

Time: 2 hrs

The “July 20 Plot” on Hitler’s life is one of the most heroic but least known episodes in WWII. Severely wounded in combat, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) returns from Africa to join the German Resistance and help to create Operation Valkyrie, the complex plan to allow a shadow government to replace Hitler’s once the Fuhrer is dead. But fate and circumstance conspire to thrust Stauffenberg from bit player to a central role in the plot. Not only must he lead the coup and seize control of the government… he must kill Hitler himself.

Those of a sniffy nature have ridiculed this film for its melange of Hollywood accents and I suppose it might have been better had not Cruise spoken American, Kenneth Brannah et al English and others a strained form of English with a German accent.  But that is to be churlish for by concentrating on the narrative you cannot help but be drawn into a tense and historically accurate thriller that keeps one enthralled from beginning to end. In so doing you gain an insight into what by any standard must rank as one of the most audacious plans ever hatched during WWII.  Stauffenberg and his team came within a hair’s breadth of success, a remarkable feat given how heavily the cards were stacked against them.

This is a powerful film and makes one think how finite is the difference between success and failure, life or death.

Rating: 3/5

Patrons:  22

CA

Cert: 15

Time: 1 hr 44 mins

It is 1964 at St Nicholas Catholic School in the Bronx and charismatic Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is trying to change the school’s strict and repressive customs, which are fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) a dour and intimidating headmistress.  It is a time of political change as the school accepts its first black student, Donald Miller. But Sister Aloysius becomes suspicious that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald and tries to unearth the truth.  

The ensuing battle of wits is both tense and absorbing as is the method by which the film changes the way one feels about these two characters. This is entirely down to Streep and Hoffman who are both tremendous in their respective roles, ably supported by Amy Adams, a young teacher caught up in the midst of their struggle.

Regrettably the final scene dilutes the power of much that has preceded it, leaving this particular viewer feeling somewhat cheated.   Which is a shame because for the most part this is an excellent and enthralling film.    

Rating: 3/5

Patrons:  60

CA