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| Richard Attenborough as John Christie |
10 Rillington Place (1971) Richard Fleischer
Netflix 111 mins
SCR - Ludovic Kennedy, Clive Exton DP - Denys N. Coop ED - Ernest Walter
CAST - Richard Attenborough, John Hurt, Edward Woodward, Judy Geeson, Pat Heywood
Based on the true story of John Christie, infamous mass murderer in London In the 40`s and 50`s, this is a chilling film, and a potent argument against capital punishment. Richard Attenborough portrays Christie, who murdered at least 7 women and likely one female infant between 1943 and 1953, as a purely malevolent creation, unencumbered by conscience, and smarter than his victims. The film is tense and creepy throughout, thanks to Attenborough's performance and the director's patient touch. This monster could be any of us, and the film gets this right. True horror for me comes from observing characters who could be our next door neighbours behaving in atrocious, evil ways, not the torture porn stuff that is currently in vogue. This film should haunt you when it is over, without having had to beat you over the head with reminders of how scary or disgusting it is. Next time you feel like putting on any of the Saw films (of which I did like the first one, by the way), or one of the legion of Saw rip-offs, try this one instead.
****
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| Cris Lankenau and Trieste Kelly Dunn |
Cold Weather (2010) Aaron Katz
Netflix 96 mins
SCR - Aaron Katz DP - Andrew Reed ED - Aaron Katz
CAST - Cris Lankenau, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Raul Castillo, Robyn Rikoon
A small, quiet minor gem from director Aaron Katz, lumped into the mumblecore genre of American indie cinema. I don't know much about that, but I do know I really liked this ambling, low key character study. Doug has quit school in Chicago and moved back home to Portland to live with his sister. A bit aimless, he takes a job in an ice factory, where one of the key relationships in the film is established. It occurs to me thinking back on it that one of the reasons I enjoyed this film so much was the relationships in Doug's life all are important. Nothing seems tossed in here, no characters wasted. The most important is that between doug and his sister Gail (played by the very lovely Trieste Kelly Dunn, whom I need to see more of), who obviously loves Doug and seems to understand him better than his parents do (though the parents, to be fair, are only in one establishing scene early in the film, and must be presented as one dimensional in the service of brevity I suppose). Observe the way she handles things in the scene where Doug shows up at her office and convinces her to skip out to go whale watching with him, or when Doug decides that buying a pipe (like the one his hero Sherlock Holmes smokes) might help him to think better. She indulges him, not out of exasperation, but love, and it works because Doug is not an asshole, just a bit of a lost soul, and she knows this better than we do. The other relationship, with his co-worker Carlos (Raul Castillo), is nicely developed and fleshed out, and avoids cliche. There is a small mystery in the film which shakes Doug out of his ennui (he studied forensic science in college and loves reading Sherlock Holmes stories), and involves the 4 principle characters, which lifts the film out of any sort of narrow categorization, and allows for change in the lives of these people without resorting to cheap plot turns and stupid, tacked on details. This worked for me as both character study and small m mystery, and I can recommend it easily if you`re looking on Netflix for something under the radar. Oh and did I mention Trieste Kelly Dunn? I guess I did.
****
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