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Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts

Campaigners take legal action over EU biomass review

LONDON | Thu Jan 31, 2013 6:40am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Environmental campaigners ClientEarth and BirdLife International are taking legal action against the European Commission over its failure to publish a review of greenhouse gas emissions from biomass.

The groups have filed an application to the General Court in Luxembourg for the Commission to give access to the study, which could confirm doubts that biomass used for heat and power is free of emissions, ClientEarth told Reuters on Thursday.

The Commission's review was initially expected to be finalized by September last year.

Marlene Holzner, spokeswoman for the EU energy commissioner, said the Commission's Joint Research Centre was still working on the document on the carbon accounting of biomass.

"The Commission is closely monitoring the scientific debate (..) around the accounting of carbon benefits of biomass. This topic is being analyzed in the context of the ongoing Commission analysis on biomass sustainability, to be finalized in the first half of this year," she added.

Environmentalists have been urging the European Union for some time to agree sustainability criteria to ensure only the right kind of biomass is used in energy generation.

ClientEarth said it has repeatedly asked for access to the review but each time has met with delays from the Commission.

"We believe there is no legitimate reason for the Commission to withhold the document, so we would expect that the Commission will not be able to justify refusal and thus decide to provide access to the document," said Giuseppe Nastasi, biomass legal expert at ClientEarth.

"We believe this document will be crucial for an informed public debate on the sustainability of bioenergy, in particular as policy makers discuss the reform of the much-contested biofuel and biomass policies," he added.

To meet a 2020 goal to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent compared with 1990 levels and increase the share of renewable energy in the mix to 20 percent, also by the end of the decade, EU nations are increasingly depending on biomass which is made from wood pellets, forest residues and other kinds of waste,

European demand for wood pellets to produce electricity is estimated to rise more than three-fold by 2020 as governments offer subsidies for greener energy sources.

So far, biomass has been assumed to be carbon-neutral on the grounds that any emissions generated when it is burnt for heat or power are offset instantly by the regrowth of more biomass.

However, many experts now doubt this.

A report by the Institute for European Environment Policy last year said EU carbon reduction efforts would fall short of target because they rely on the false assumption that biomass used for heat and power is emission-free.

The institute said there could be a time lag, potentially lasting for decades, between harvesting a tree and growing enough new forestry biomass to compensate.

Rulings made by the General Court can, within two months, be subject to an appeal limited to the points of law to the European Court of Justice.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)


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Hotel Hell: TV Review

Hotel Hell The Cambridge Hotel Staff with Ramsey - H 2012

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay brings his trademark fury and perfectionism to subpar American hotels and inns, with satisfying results.

Executive Producers:

Ben Adler, Patricia Llewellyn, Gordon Ramsay, Adeline Ramage Rooney

Airdate:

8 p.m. Monday, August 13 (Fox)

The high-profile restaurateur Gordon Ramsay has returned to the helm for his fourth series on Fox. The intense Brit's familiar face has become a prolific brand for the network, and Fox's impulse to install him in a new scene -- hotels, inns and B&Bs -- was a good one. Ramsay is a stern bringer of hope to unsightly environments, the horrors of which Hotel Hell relishes in uncovering. Although Ramsay can be coarse and prone to fits of anger, he is always fair in his assessment and restructuring of unfortunate establishments.

The two-part pilot is slated to run on consecutive nights, and it showcases a crackerjack story right out of the box. The beleaguered Juniper Hill Inn in Windsor, Vt., seems poised for disaster, despite Ramsay and his guest experts attempting to right it. The series hits all right notes of drama -- untold horrors, an evil villain (but can he be redeemed?), a hardworking and put-upon staff -- all under the roof of a mansion on a hill that is rife with snobbery in what is otherwise a working-class community.

STORY: Why Gordon Ramsay's 'Hell's Kitchen' Is Still Hot After All These Years

The aforementioned villain is, like the pilot itself, twofold: the responsibilities are shared by Juniper Hill's co-owners Robert Dean II (who says on camera in an early montage, "we don't want people without money") and his humorless business partner boyfriend Ari Nikki. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that Dean and Nikki are -- because of their pretensions and reckless spending -- people without money. As Ramsey puts it aptly from the start regarding Dean, "What a muppet."

Dean and Nikki's frivolous expenditures and complete incompetence regarding inn keeping (they buy antique items but don't pay their staff) is extremely frustrating to watch, and viewers will want to cheer when Ramsay intervenes. The inn hemorrhages cash every year as it sits nearly empty, serving no lunch yet boasting three-course subpar dinners at outrageous prices. Despite owning the sprawling and gorgeous building, the owners live outside in an expensive RV ("it's actually a motor coach ... that's the more 'upscale' version," Dean says) and keep a trio of potbelly pigs indoors in one of their many storage areas. The storage areas that house their immense collection of antiques are particularly cringe-worthy. "This is like a special edition of Hoarders!" Ramsay exclaims, which is exactly what's so great about it.

PHOTOS: THR's 2012 Reality Power List

Of course, the issue with the owners is never so much structural as psychological. As such, Ramsay is alternately a screaming coach, a disappointed father, an irritated guest and an understanding confessor to Dean, who has to go through a breakdown before Ramsay is able to get through to him the dire circumstances of his business. It's emotional and cathartic television, especially seeing the completely abused staff begin to smile and hope, for the first time, that change might be real. As executive chef Giulian Jones said of Ramsay's trademark style, "He had to rip some people down and bring them up again, but it was necessary." Jones speaks from experience, as he too was subjected to Ramsay's sharply critical eye and furious tirades.

Ramsay naturally creates drama wherever he goes, and despite a few forced scenarios, the fly-on-the-wall editing smoothly and engagingly creates narratives amid the chaos. The fun stuff is uncovering the abominations of mismanagement and hearing Ramsay's expletive-ridden comments about them, but there's always a redemptive arc as well. Although there are many who might quickly wish for Dean -- or any of the featured incompetents of the series -- to be sent down the burning elevators in the opening credits, there are few among us who don't appreciate a good comeback story. It's satisfying, and makes one ready to dive into whatever fresh hell Ramsay is up to tackle next.


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Bullet for Adolf: Theater Review

The characters, if unfortunately not the audience, gets high in this strained farce co-written and directed by Woody Harrelson.

Woody Harrelson, Frankie Hyman

Woody Harrelson

Actor Woody Harrelson spent the summer of 1983 working at a construction site in Houston, where he became fast friends with an African-American co-worker, Frankie Hyman. Nearly three decades later both men have collaborated on Bullet for Adolf, a comic play recalling those days. Unfortunately, their nostalgia is not likely to be shared by audiences.

Just in case you’re unsure when the play is supposed to take place, Harrelson, who also directed, assaults you with visual and aural snippets from the period. Vintage pop songs that were on the charts that year are played at ear-splitting levels, and scene changes are accompanied by film montages featuring Ronald Reagan, Clint Eastwood, Sally Ride and other iconic figures of the time. Prominently featured in the set design are posters from two of that year’s hit films, Rocky III and Flashdance.

While it’s nice that the playwrights have fond memories of their youth, there’s more to crafting a farce than simply having eccentric characters yelling often profane, racially charged one-liners at each other. Oh, there’s a semblance of a plot, which involves the disappearance of a vintage German Luger that was supposedly used in an assassination attempt on Hitler. But other than providing the provocative title, the shaggy dog mystery adds little to the shambling proceedings.

The comedy mainly centers on the friendship between the affable, pot-smoking Zach (Brandon Coffey), a character clearly inspired by the young Woody, and Frankie (Tyler Jacob Rollinson), newly arrived from New York City. The pair immediately hit it off, with Zach inviting Frankie to move in with him and his roommate Clint (David Coomber). Much of the humor revolves around the fact that the fey Clint, who prances around in tighty-whities and listens to Judy Garland records, is in fact straight.

The two men’s romantic interests are Batina (Shannon Garland), the daughter of their stern German boss, Jurgen (Nick Wyman), and Jackie (Shamika Cotton), an advertising agency human resources manager who Frankie hits on during a failed job interview. Other characters figuring in the action are Dago-Czech (Lee Osorio), whose nickname reflects his ethnic heritage but not his would-be hilarious identification with black culture, and Shareeta (Marsha Stephanie Blake), Jackie’s sassy, tough-talking friend.

For a seemingly interminable, bloated 2-½ hours, this one-dimensional motley crew trades insults and often deliberately offensive gags that riff on, among other subjects, the Holocaust and pedophilia. Some of the rude one-liners are admittedly funny, and the mainly youthful cast delivers them with evident relish. But the relentless jokiness, as well as the utter absence of anything resembling a coherent plot, quickly proves wearisome. There’s a lot of pot smoking going on among the characters — another aspect reflecting one of Harrelson’s well-known interests -- but since the marijuana isn’t real the audience is unfortunately prevented from experiencing the sort of contact high that might have resulted in at least a few giggles.

Presented by Children at Play
Written by: Woody Harrelson and Frankie Hyman
Cast: Marsha Stephanie Blake, Brandon Coffey, David Coomber, Shamika Cotton, Shannon Garland, Lee Osorio, Tyler Jacob Rollinson, Nick Wyman
Director: Woody Harrelson
Scenic designer: Dane Laffrey
Costume designer: Kristy Leigh Hall
Lighting designer: Jen Schriever
Sound designer: Brett Jarvis
Projection designer: Imaginary Media


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Animal Practice: TV Review

Animal Practice' Cast

"House," with animals.

10:38 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 12 (NBC, following Olympics coverage)

8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26 (NBC)

There has been a perception of late that NBC is shifting to broader comedies, has no love left for the edgy weirdness of Community or Parks and Recreation and all of a sudden will start throwing pies and spraying seltzer down our collective pants.

Animal Practice, which gets a sneak peak Aug. 12 as part of NBC’s Olympics coverage, might not be the show to counteract that perception.

PHOTOS: NBC's 2012-13 Season: 'Go On,' 'Revolution' and 'The New Normal'

The strong cast includes Justin Kirk (Weeds), Tyler Labine and … a monkey (Crystal, the capuchin seen in The Hangover Part II and on Community). The use of multiple animals in, well, practically anything can really spook people. Animals as primary stars pretty much indicates exaggerated scenarios and broad-based humor -- and there’s plenty of that in Animal Practice. You can’t dress up a monkey as a doctor and have him jump around causing mayhem while pretending you’re tapping into the cerebral edge of the comedy spectrum.

The pilot struggles as it tries to set up the story of Dr. George Coleman (Kirk), who runs Crane Animal Hospital like it’s a singles bar. His ex-girlfriend, Dorothy Crane (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), reappears in George’s life because the hospital has brought her in to run the facility more professionally and thus annoy him in the process. You know, like House with animals.

PHOTOS: Broadcast TV's Returning Shows for 2012-13

Like a lot of pilots, Animal Practice is messy, and if you don’t like the monkey, well, you’re probably not coming back. Then again, you don’t really know what can happen in another four or five episodes (which might be asking a lot in a crowded television universe). But if you squint a little and hope for less of Crystal riding on a toy ambulance with a siren, maybe the actors, and the material, can start to stand out.

Email: Tim.Goodman@THR.com


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We Women Warriors (Tejiendo Sabiduría): Film Review

We Women Warriors Tejiendo Sabiduría - H 2012

Of 102 native groups living in Colombia, officials say a third face extinction in the face of continued combat.

Friday, August 10

Nicole Karsin

Offering a pacifist definition of "warrior" in a land where the threat of violence defines everything, Nicole Karsin's We Women Warriors observes women in three corners of Colombia to show the extent of problems faced by indigenous communities there. Well conceived and unmanipulative, it will play well with auds attuned to its social-justice themes.

Karsin introduces us to three of the country's 102 official aboriginal groups, dozens of which face extinction simply for living on rural lands Columbia's assorted armed groups seek to control. The country's army, revolutionaries, and paramilitary groups (established to protect wealthy interests) are used to viewing anyone who isn't with them as against them, and the male populations in these communities have been devastated by attacks that made little attempt to spare neutral civilians.

In each of these three villages Karsin finds a woman who has stepped into a leadership role, whether doing so was a family tradition, as it is for Doris Puchana, or was a choice made by outside forces -- as with Ludis Rodriguez, a widow thrown in jail for a year after being falsely labeled a rebel.

The women lead in different ways, from pursuing the United Nations' attention to organizing a weaving collective. Flor Ilva Trochez, the first female governor in her tribe's 300-year history, gets the most dramatic moment here: After insisting the army end its occupation of her small town when soldiers kill an 11 year-old boy, she and other residents mobilize 15,000 people to peacefully evict them, calmly dismantling barracks sandbag by sandbag as rifle-wielding men watch in astonishment.

Though Karsin has no shortage of tragedies and outrages to recount, the film avoids sensationalism. Its articulate heroines have problems in common, but are just different enough in situation and personality to convey the breadth of difficulties faced in a nation that has been at war with itself for almost half a century.

Production Companies: Ida, Todos Los Pueblos Productions
Director-Producer: Nicole Karsin
Directors of photography: Diego Barajas, Daniel Valencia
Music: Jesus Quinones, Richard Cordoba
Editors: Cristina Malavenda, Gabriel Baudet
No rating/ rating, 82 minutes


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It Is No Dream: The Life of Theodor Herzl: Film Review

It Is No Dream: The Life of Theodor Herzl Still - H 2012

Well-crafted doc offers a scholarly account of the birth of Herzl's Zionist movement

Friday, Aug. 10 (Moriah Films)

Richard Trank

Finely crafted and balancing sympathy for its subject with obvious scholarship, Richard Trank and Marvin Hier's It Is No Dream: The Life of Theodor Herzl introduces viewers to one of the most important figures in modern Jewish history. Though handsome, the doc's theatrical appeal is limited to those with a deep interest in Zionism; on home-vid, it will have a broader and long-lived historical value.

The portrait begins with present-day footage of vandalized synagogues and Neo-Nazi marches, over which a solemn voice declares that attacks on Jews "become daily more numerous." Only at the passage's end do we learn these words are not a fearful reminder of anti-Semitism's 21st Century persistence -- they were penned by Theodor Herzl in 1895, long before most people could imagine anything like a Holocaust.

Herzl, an assimilated Jew, didn't identify with his heritage until well into adulthood when, working as a journalist, he began to witness disturbing anti-Jew sentiment surrounding such events as the Dreyfus affair. The filmmakers offer a short but useful introduction to the ways hatred was brewing at the time, leading viewers to wonder why more people weren't as concerned as Herzl became.

For Herzl, protecting Jews (be they religious or not) soon became a passion, coloring his work as a reporter and playwright. In pondering solutions to "The Jewish Question," he seemingly ruled little out: At one point, he considered trying to arrange a mass conversion of European Jewry or challenging leading anti-Semites to duels. Speaking of a possible "apocalypse" in terms modern viewers will find prophetic, he eventually decided the only answer was a single nation where Jews could live without persecution.

Trank and Hier follow Herzl's remarkable campaign for a state of Israel -- in which he courted millionaires and heads of state, convened the first Zionist Congress, and seemingly worked himself into an early grave -- using an impressive array of historical documents and photos. Narrator Ben Kingsley delivers the sometimes drily scholarly account without allowing it to become soporific, getting an assist from Christoph Waltz, who supplies Herzl's voice. All production values, from the presentation of vintage photos to present-day film of historical locales, are top-notch.

Production Company: Moriah Films
Director-Screenwriter: Richard Trank
Producers: Marvin Hier, Richard Trank
Director of photography: Jeffrey Victor
Music: Lee Holdridge
Editor: Nimrod Erez
No rating, 96 minutes


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Museum Hours: Film Review

Museum Hours Film Still - H 2012

Arty brief encounters in contemporary Vienna.

Locarno Film Festival

Mary Margaret O’Hara, Bobby Sommer, Ela Piplits

Jem Cohen

LOCARNO -- Wintry Vienna provides the picturesque backdrop for this engrossing U.S.-Austrian co-production, a lightly experimental fusion of drama and documentary that has just premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. The writer-director Jem Cohen has built his career largely outside the commercial mainstream, though his work has been shown in the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney. Museum Hours is an unorthodox hybrid beast, but still the 50-year-old New Yorker’s most conventional dramatic feature to date. Full of charm, intelligence and dry humour, it deserves to find a discerning theatrical audience beyond Cohen’s usual festival-circuit following.
The cult Canadian singer and occasional actor Mary Margaret O’Hara gives an engagingly natural performance as Anne, a first-time visitor to the Austrian capital, where her distant cousin lies in a coma. There she meets urbane art museum guard Johann, played by non-professional actor Bobby Sommer, who kindly offers his services as a local guide and translator. The two form an easy non-sexual bond, walking and talking their way across the city like a middle-aged version of the couple in Richard Linklater’s Viennese rom-com Before Sunrise.
Cutting unobtrusively between 16mm and digital, Cohen interweaves this fragmentary plot with close-up studies of paintings from one of Vienna’s main art galleries, plus footage he gleaned while walking the city’s streets, random snapshots of minor characters and discursive musings on the social context of art. The focus is fuzzy and the pace leisurely, but deliberately so, as the director’s high-minded intentions slowly become clear.
One of the inspirational seeds of the film was the work of the 16th century Dutch painter Pieter Breughel, which figures prominently throughout the film. Breughel’s egalitarian approach to painting, giving background figures equal prominence with nominal headline stars, is discussed at length in a slightly stilted lecture scene. Cohen clearly admires this proto-modernist attitude to plot and character, adopting it himself in Museum Hours, with its diffuse and elliptical narrative.
Cohen has worked on promo videos, concert films and live collaborations with musicians including REM, Patti Smith, Fugazi and the late Vic Chesnutt. He cites punk rock as a career-shaping influence, which shows even in contemplative culture-vulture works like Museum Hours. Indeed, Smith and Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto have producer credits, and the film is dedicated to Chesnutt. O’Hara is a singer too, of course, and her character breaks into song in several scenes. Sommer is also a musician and former rock promoter who now works for the Viennale film festival, where Cohen has been a regular guest for many years.
Museum Hours demands patience and engagement from viewers, and Cohen could comfortably cut 20 minutes without lessening its intellectual or aesthetic impact. But the film’s more arid and arty touches are offset by an appealing thread of understated humour, including deadpan musings on heavy metal and the lazy leftist notion of “late capitalism."
At the heart of the film is an absorbing argument that dusty old artworks have plenty to tell us about contemporary life -- especially about money, politics, power, social class and sex. Cohen makes this point in a brief but inspired fantasy sequence, filling the art gallery with naked customers. Later, he reiterates the message by framing modern Viennese street scenes as animated paintings that Johan then deconstructs in the language of art criticism. Cerebral stuff, but all delivered with warmth, wit and quiet confidence.
Venue: Locarno Film Festival
Production companies: Little Magnet Films, Gravity Hill Films, KGP GmbH
Cast: Mary Margaret O’Hara, Bobby Sommer, Ela Piplits
Director: Jem Cohen
Producers: Paolo Calamitra, Gabriele Kranzelbinder, Jem Cohen, Patti Smith, Guy Picciotto
Cinematography: Jem Cohen, Peter Roehsler
Editor: Jem Cohen, Mark Vives
Sales companies: Little Magnet Films
Rating TBC, 107 minutes


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Jism 2: Film Review

Jism 2 Film Still - P 2012

Raunchy thriller is one of the worst Hindi films of the year.

Aug. 3

Sunny Leone, Arunoday Singh, Randeep Hooda, Arif Zakaria

Pooja Bhatt

The week that Jism 2 opened in India, mobs burned an effigy of director Pooja Bhatt, protesting the salacious content of the film (whose title means "body" in Hindi and rhymes with "kiss 'em"). It would be understandable if a similar mob of disgruntled movie critics is planning to do the same.

By turns wooden, hysterically overemotional and laugh-out-loud bad, Jism 2 will always be remembered as the film that launched Indo-Canadian porn star Sunny Leone in Bollywood. Beyond that, the film is a forgettable thriller with risible dialogue, an outlandish premise and a sex quotient that won’t shock anyone with a cable TV subscription.

STORY: Porn Star Sunny Leone Debuts in Bollywood

Bhatt and her father, flamboyant producer Mahesh Bhatt, are claiming that this movie boldly breaks through India’s stodgy old Victorian morals, but all of the film’s impact has been felt on the streets outside theaters rather than at the box office: Despite making headlines around the world for a promise of racy content and its accompanying controversies, Jism 2 hasn’t been able to recover from a sharp drop at the Indian box office after its strong opening.

Among the diaspora audience in the United States, Jism 2 hasn’t made an impact at all. This might be because overseas Indians know they can find far better and more titillating material elsewhere, but it could also be because its distributor has had to limit its release to Indian American theaters since no mainstream chain would touch it with a 10-foot pole.

The story is a predictable potboiler about top-secret Indian government agent Ayaan (Arunoday Singh), who hires Izna, a porn actress, as a honey trap to trick a wanted terrorist who is also her ex-boyfriend, Kabir (Randeep Hooda), into giving up a computer file containing the names of his accomplices. It’s a formula: kiss, kiss, bang, bang, oil massage, death scene and a few songs -- including one featuring the terrorist playing an anguished cello solo.

STORY: Sherlyn Chopra Becomes First Indian to Pose for Playboy

Pooja Bhatt’s directorial skills may be debatable, but the woman knows how to cast a movie. Hooda, first discovered by Mira Nair and cast as an Australian hottie visiting India in Monsoon Wedding, smolders to the best of his ability in the role of a violent criminal whose only vulnerability is his love for Izna. Singh also turns in a smart, capable performance as the heroic agent who also ends up falling in love with the brunette beauty, though both actors are limited by a messy script.

Obviously, Leone is the selling point of the entire exercise. Sporting a wardrobe that can best be described as Frederick’s of Bollywood (tight animal print pants and macramé tops, cleavage-bearing mini-dresses and six-inch heels), Leone does her best to convince the viewer that men are willing to die for the chance of a night in her arms.

The kerfuffle over Jism 2’s movie posters (banned in Mumbai) and the effigy burning proves that Mahesh Bhatt and his team have mastered the art of PR. Now, if his decades-old production house could only put as much energy into cranking out a watchable movie, they might be on to something.

Cast: Sunny Leone, Arunoday Singh, Randeep Hooda, Arif Zakaria
Director: Pooja Bhatt
Screenwriters: Mahesh Bhatt, Shagufta Rafique
Producers: Pooja Bhatt, Dino Morea
Editor: Devendra Murdeshwar
Music: Arko Pravo Mukherjee, Mithoon, Rushk & Abdul Bassith Saeed
Not rated, 129 minutes


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Leviathan: Locarno Review

Leviathan - H 2012

Beauty and horror on the high seas

Venue

Locarno Film Festival screening, August 8

Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor

LOCARNO - Shot on board a fishing vessel off the New England coast, this experimental documentary has so far proven to be the most stylistically bold and visually striking world premiere at this year’s Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. A wordless montage of footage filmed on small digital cameras from every dark corner of the boat, Leviathan is an immersive examination of a highly mechanized industrial process, the men who work at it and the thousands of poor fish who cross their path. A symphony of murky, grainy, jittery images and clanking, whirring, droning sounds, this is an abstract audio-visual experience as much as it is an observational film.

Based at Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, the Anglo-French directing duo of Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel specialize in work that straddles the borders between visual art, documentary and anthropology. Some of their previous films are now part of the permanent collections in New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the British Museum in London. Although probably too esoteric for a full big-screen release, this US/UK/France co-production will undoubtedly screen at festivals, in art galleries and on highbrow TV channels.

Despite the lack of dialogue or editorial voice, there are flashes of literary intelligence and dark humor at work in Leviathan. The film’s Biblical title invokes both the best-known work of English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, while the minimal credits include the full Latin names of all the fish harvested on screen. They are also written in a gothic font that suggests heavy metal albums and horror movies.

From its isolated nocturnal setting to it blood-splattered scenes of mass seafood slaughter, there is certainly something hellish about Leviathan, whose murky hand-held aesthetic initially feels like the set-up for a mock-documentary monster movie in the spirit of The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield. It would not seem too surprising if some mythic maritime beast like Jaws or Cthulhu lurched out of these inky depths and sucked the crew down to a watery grave.

Some of the deadpan observational sequences in Leviathan become overlong and repetitive, and the deliberate lack of context or commentary feels frustrating at times. But this seemingly random process also throws up some arrestingly powerful imagery, including macabre close-up shots of discarded fish heads waltzing across a wet floor as the boat pitches and rolls, and a squadron of seagulls swooping over a mini-camera as it bobs in and out of the ocean.

With their inspired use of cutting-edge camera technology to explore one of the oldest trades in human history, Castaing-Taylor and Paravel have made a highly original film of uncompromising, other-worldly beauty. Leviathan demands to be seen, even if it means you never eat seafood again.

Venue: Locarno Film Festival screening, August 8

Production companies: Arrête Ton Cinema, Harbor Picture Company
Directors: Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Producers: Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Cinematography: Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Editors: Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Sales company: Arrête Ton Cinema
Rating TBC, 87 minutes


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