REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty

Dir.: Julia Leigh

With: Emily Browning, Rachael Blake

I was quite surprised to learn that this psycho-erotic drama was written and directed by a woman. As far as I am aware, previous films that dealt with similar topics were directed by men like Luis Buñuel and Stanley Kubrick. I thought that a woman’s touch would mean that ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was going to be an interesting exploration of sexual politics. Instead, what you get is a highly stylised work, which attempts to offer a fresh perspective on the psychology behind sexual perversion.

The child-like Emily Browning plays Lucy, a young university student who is struggling to make ends meet. She has several extremely dull part-time jobs and flatmates from hell. It is insinuated that she occasionally dabbles in prostitution. Her financial situation changes when she joins an exclusive escort service for wealthy elderly gentlemen with various interests, from bondage to necrophilia. Some of the scenes look like titillating Agent Provocateur photoshoots and it is certain that the film ends up glamourising fetishism. It offers an unforgiving look at the aged male body, especially when contrasted to Emily Browning's firm and smooth derriere. Also, she looked so young (could hardly walk in heels!) that I felt like a bit of a pedophile even watching her.

Lucy’s own history is unclear, she seems to have come from a troubled family, she does not have many friends and is generally isolated from society. At first she finds her new job rather absurd, however she slowly becomes obsessed with finding out what exactly goes on in this gentlemen’s club. Whilst I completely appreciate the difficulty of the emotional and physical stripping done by Ms Browning here, I cannot help but speculate about what made her think this was going to be a good role to try on. I felt that the character is underdeveloped and is almost impossible to relate to.

‘Sleeping Beauty’ is both disturbing and tiresome to watch. The lack of a soundtrack means that much of the film is in complete silence. There are a number of very graphic scenes that are designed to shock but the main message of the film is indistinct. It does poke fun at the older, more powerful men for using young women for personal retribution; however, the plot development fails to satisfy. The protagonist remains shrouded in mystery and her detachment from the real world makes it hard to take it all seriously. The film leaves you with an aftertaste from all the creepiness in it but fails to really shake things up. When you compare 'Sleeping Beauty' to Buñuel's 'Belle de Jour', the latter is a by far more enticing and memorable work even with less flesh on display.

REVIEW: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Dir.: Tomas Alfredson

With: Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth

I finally managed to go and watch it! Probably about a month after its release date – but better late than never, right?

There was always a lot of pressure on ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ – it is based on the famous novel by John le Carré, then there is the highly acclaimed BBC series with Alec Guinness in the title role and, of course, there is the all-star cast. If you look carefully, almost every single person in the film has recently appeared in something. It was actually rather distracting because instead of concentrating on the plot I was often trying to remember where I’d seen a particular actor or actress.

I’m aware that many people have complained that the plot was too complex to follow. I must heartily disagree. If you memorised the names of the main characters and paid attention to Smiley’s glasses (they told you whether a scene was a flashback or not), it really was not all that hard. In fact, it was most refreshing to watch such an intelligent thriller with a realistic and believable plot instead of having testosterone-fuelled oafs like Bond and Bourne run around trying to save the world. I say it was realistic because ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ managed to re-create the grim world of the 1970s secret service populated by bureaucratic men with synthetic shirts and receding hairlines. London appears as a run-down backdrop for an intricate chess game between the top echelons of MI6 and a mysterious Soviet puppeteer Karla.

Gary Oldman will surely get an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Smiley – a retired agent called back to uncover a Soviet mole. His performance is very subtle, here is a man who presumably had seen a lot in his life, including personal betrayal. He is tired and stiff in the neck, yet he retains his fierce intelligence and humanity. His right-hand man is Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), he is young and still has the integrity that the top officers seem to have lost in their years in service. To stray away from the topic slightly – Benedict Cumberbatch will provide the voice for Smaug in Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit’ – and what a damn fine voice he has! The rest of the cast did their job well too. The ending was not too much of a surprise if you kept your eyes peeled but then I think this story is more about Smiley's investigation rather than the denouement.

This film is an interesting study of the nature of secrets and the reasons behind hiding something in the shadows of one’s consciousness, be it romantic or professional. The agents all lead a double life to some extent – they either cheat on their wives or girlfriends, are closeted homosexuals or lie to their best friends and colleagues. My only criticism is that the movie was rather self-indulgent at times and certain scenes could have been a bit more dynamic, but then I guess, this was a way of showing the suffocating world of the Cold War-era intelligence and its apparatchiks on both sides of the Iron Curtain.