Film reviews: Watch people in the woods getting out of their tree
Three Miles North of Molkom
Cert 15A
CURIOUS about making contact with your inner-tree hugger? Chakras in need of a shakedown? If the answer to either of these questions borders on the affirmative or you've just got a fascination with humanity's capacity for kookiness then this highly promising debut by directors Robert Cannan and Corinna Villari-McFarlane is bound to be of interest.
The title refers to the remote location in northern Sweden where, annually, about a thousand new-age seekers gather to seek enlightenment as the primary goal. It goes by the name of No Mind festival and included in the array of activities offered are such esoteric pursuits as firewalking, sweat-lodges and Tantric sex workshops.
Attendees are divided into small random "sharing groups", with the documentary taking a fly-on-the-fir-tree approach to one such group's social interaction over the two-week course of the festival. Touchy-feely types abound: a Hawaiian hippie, a Finnish grandmother with psychological issues and a Swedish Viking-type who calls himself Siddhartha.
Into the mix comes Nick, an Aussie rugby coach and beacon of normality who arrived without reading the small print and finds himself in tree-hugger hell. Is Nick destined to be the man that exposes the sham in shamanism?
What starts out as a predictable exercise in hippie-baiting soon develops into something a good deal more interesting and the endearing honesty of the main players results in an experience likely to find favour with both true believers and sceptics alike.
PMcK
Three Miles North of Molkom opens on Friday
The Yellow Bittern -- The Life and Times of Liam Clancy
Cert 15A
I REMEMBER as a kid back in the Seventies having the opportunity to witness Liam Clancy, the subject of Alan Gilsenan's documentary The Yellow Bittern, in concert. Then, as now, the music wasn't my thing, but the performance was another matter. Bob Dylan has declared Clancy to be the best ballad singer of all time, and the sense that you were in the company of a gifted artist and entertainer was palpable. That same talent for holding an audience in the palm of his hand is seen to good effect in this accomplished documentary.
Divided into two sections, "boyhood" and "manhood," and featuring previously unseen archive footage and interviews, the documentary uses an extended interview with Clancy as the launch pad for an in-depth exploration of the highs and lows that punctuated this masterful troubadour's remarkable career.
And remarkable is not too strong a word to describe the success enjoyed by Liam and his brothers back in the Sixties. After emigrating from Tipperary to America, Liam, his elder brothers and Tommy Makem formed a folk band that was destined to catapult them all to superstardom. An appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show with its audience of 80m viewers is shown as the catalyst. The rest is folk music history: America was hooked on the men in the Aran sweaters.
As is to be expected from a man who chose Homer over hurling as a childhood pursuit, Clancy brings a lyrical sensibility to his reminiscences. The difficult relationship with a troubled Guggenheim heiress, the band going its separate ways along with financial woes and emotional breakdown are all considered in a mood of poignant and sage-like reflection. In short, a rewarding opportunity to get up close and personal with a bona fide national treasure.
PMcK
The Yellow Bittern is now showing
Whiteout
Cert 15A
Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is coming to the end of two years of none-too-taxing policework on the American science base in Antarctica.
She and her fatherly friend Doc Fury (Tom Skerritt) must be on the final plane out in three days, before the six-month Antarctic winter makes travel impossible. But wouldn't you know it, the South Pole's first murder happens just as the weather worsens and reduces the travel deadline to two days.
A geologist somehow thinks the phone won't do so Stetko needs to come to his isolated base. She does, one murder becomes two and an attempted murder, for there is an ice-pick-wielding nutter on the loose, a handsome UN guy (Gabriel Macht), a solid sidekick (Columbus Short), an old Soviet plane, lots of snow and some red herrings.
The warning bells started to tinkle when the opening credits pointed out that Antarctica was, like, really cold. They started to ring loudly when officer Stetko had to take a shower, at all, but mostly when the preparation for this shower involved a close-up of her be-knickered bum.
This is a daft film that uses a stunning location and some extreme weather to mask an abysmal script. Director Dominic Sena has had a patchy career but Kate Beckinsale is very close to becoming synonymous with bad movies.
AOC
Whiteout is now showing
- Padraic McKiernan, Aine O'Connor
