Where The Wild Things Are

Cert PG

PLAGUED by studio delays and branded "too scary" by precious parents, Where The Wild Things Are arrives with enough background fuss and large-scale expectation to ensure its place as one of this year's major releases.

Maurice Sendak's 1963 children's book tells of a brazen brat who imagines his way to an island of equally unruly monsters. The story's 10 sentences and rounded-off illustrations wooed millions of parents and no one really read anything too much into it. Jump forward 46 years and it's getting an edgy and modern revision by director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation), who expands the tale into a ragged, windswept allegory for the anxieties of youth, the absence of the father figure and parental disenchantment.

It's also fantastic fun. Max Records is at once visceral and vulnerable in the role of the under-stimulated Max, running amok in his wolf costume and terrorising his single mother (Catherine Keener).

When he flees home after a fight with mum, he finds himself sailing off to the land of the wild things; lumbering, child-like beasts from Jim Henson's Creature Workshop. These impulsive characters are soon vying for his attentions, but like with all parental figures, he can't live up to the monsters' expectations of him and a subtle foreboding begins to brew. In particular, Max's relationship with the friendly but fiery Carol (the ominous voice of James Gandolfini) is heart-warming, but filled with latent dread.

This emulsion of Muppet fluff and sharp parts makes WTWTA an engaging experience, one as rich in potent symbolism as it is in a sort of rough-and-tumble wonderment. The approach didn't go down well with Warners, but Jonze was adamant this was to be "a film about childhood rather than a children's film". In sticking to his guns, a universal chord has been struck.

HAW

Where The Wild Things Are is now showing

Johnny Mad Dog

Cert 16

IN an unnamed African country a gang of heavily armed teenage boys, led by 15-year-old Johnny Mad Dog (Christophe Minie), form a loose battalion in the rebel forces.

They arrive to terrorise a village, then on they march towards the capital, facing death and causing it, committing atrocities and facing risks with equal casualness. Meanwhile, Laokole (Daisy Victoria Vandy) is in the capital, living with her disabled father and younger brother, bracing herself for the rebels to arrive.

The film was made in Liberia and closely reflects its recent history, but by not tying it down too specifically, it could be the story of several other countries. Director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire revisits the theme of his documentary about kids in Colombia, for essentially Johnny Mad Dog is about child soldiers.

The narrative follows the assault on the capital, but also the process of abducting and brainwashing young boys, often less than 10 years old, dehumanising them, replacing family with pack, drink, drugs, sex, risk, power, voodoo and a sense of entitlement. Then putting them in a situation where there is no winning or losing, just life or death.

Many of the performers are former child soldiers who made the film partly as catharsis, and to counter allegations of exploitation there is a Johnny Mad Dog Foundation for their ongoing therapy. The film manages to strike a balance between documenting the horrors the boys commit while explaining how they have become like this without ever being apologist or taking from their victims.

The performances, particularly Minie's, are incredible. The hand-held camera style makes it all feel horribly real; the focus, however, is on the emotion of the moment rather than the gore. But although fiction, it's the worst kind of horror because so much of it is true. Films like this don't come along often, it's excellent but awful, the viewer ends up feeling helpless, but perhaps that's the point.

AO'C

Johnny Mad Dog is now showing

The Limits of Control

No Cert

A MAN (Isaach de Bankole) is given a mission and sets off for Spain where, over a series of largely silent encounters, he trades matchboxes and diamonds for clues on small pieces of paper which he subsequently washes down with two espressos in separate cups.

Sharp suited, sleepless and tai chi-ing, on his way the man meets Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, John Hurt, Gael Garcia Bernal and an always naked Paz de la Huerta.

If Jarmusch's last offering, Broken Flowers, was his most accessible, this, his 10th film, reverts back to obscurantism, though not in any way that works. I have a reasonably high threshold for what are, in some quarters, referred to as arty-farty films but really lost patience with this about 45 minutes in and lost the will to live after about an hour. The dry humour usually present in a Jarmusch production is largely missing, although perhaps I was just too keen for it to end to see any.

It was self-conscious, self-indulgent, affected and tedious, the symbolism was lumbering and the conclusion came too late, in several ways. Bankole is a charismatic lead and although visually impressive and beautifully shot by Christopher Doyle, either I'm missing something or this was really bad.

AO'C

The Limits of Control is now showing at the IFI and selected cinemas

- Aine O’Connor and Hilary A White

Sunday Independent