Recommendation of the Week (08/05) Double Threat Edition: Insidious and Hanna

There are weeks when I count myself truly lucky to be a fully fledged film geek. I saw two films in cinemas this week and both I consider to be among the best of 2011 so far. Though I have slowly gone off Thor since I reviewed it, with these two I feel that we will be talking about them for quite a while and they didn’t feel quite as disposable as Marvel’s first movie of the summer, entertaining as it was.

Insidious: A great thing happened during my viewing of Insidious this past bank holiday Monday, In a half full cinema not one person laughed during the film. When I see a trailer now for a horror film I am thinking two things, 1. Is it populist (i.e a Scream sequel) and 2. Is it something I haven’t seen before. In relation to James Wan’s Insidious the answers are 1. Yes it was a big hit stateside and 2. I have seen this kind of thing before but not done nearly as effectively as here. If we are talking about popular horror movies that pack out cinemas at weekends then in most cases the audience ruin them for the film fan. I used to hear that laughter during horror films was a psychological reaction and to an extent that is true, but when its some asshole purposely pronouncing every ‘H’ and ‘A’ in his tirade of laughter during a film like The Grudge then I think you have to draw the line. It was with trepidation then that I went into Insidious and my heart sank when a group of teenagers started to rowdily pile into the auditorium. Then the film started with an eerie scene that set the tone perfectly and the score by Joseph Bishara swelled and rose to the point where it made you uncomfortable, everyone was stunned into a silence that lasted throughout the movie.

The film begins with Josh and Renai Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) having just moved into their new home with two young boys and a newborn baby. They start hearing noises and their son Dalton one day investigates something in the loft. He falls down and ends up in a coma, Doctors are baffled and cannot see a medical reason for his condition. Then things get really weird. Renai hears angry voices coming through the baby monitor, ghostly faces appear at windows and there are strange shadows and complaints from the other son that Dalton is walking around at night. The family decide to move out convinced the house is haunted. Sadly things only get worse and the disturbances follow the family and intensify. Pushed to their wits end they are forced to call in the experts who reveal that Dalton is on some kind of astral plane beyond normal consciousness and something is after his very soul.

What Insidious reminded me of most was the BBC Halloween special ‘Ghostwatch’. Broadcast in 1992 to a volley of complaints from people who thought it was real, Ghostwatch had the habit of whirling the camera around quickly and then catching a glimpse of something in a corner or by a window which would really freak you out. Very few directors working today really understand how to direct an effective scary scene. Most of the time the camera is moved in such a way that you can tell where the monster is about to pop up from even before the cameraman does, look out for a lot of space at one end of the aspect ratio; thats your first clue. Its why David Lynch is one of the best horror film directors that really doesn't make horror films. Lynch knows how to use a room and lighting and shadow to create an atmosphere. He then holds the camera on his lead performers for long takes up until just before the point of boredom and then the shock occurs. James Wan essentially does the same thing here, he follows Rose Byrne around the house in one scene for a long time adding in tiny little unsettling details before a big shock. The scene in question also occurs in the daytime as well making things more scary as by that point all bets are off. Wan adopts a similar technique for the climax but adds a dash of disturbing surrealism for good measure. Another bravura sequence has Barbara Hershey as Josh’s grandmother recounting a dream she had which is really creepy in itself but is then followed up by a terrific scare where I nearly broke my girlfriends fingers.

There have been some complaints that Insidious becomes clichéd and formulaic in the final act when compared to the first two thirds. Whilst it does become a bit too much like Poltergeist when the ghost hunters turn up there are still many scares left and to me at least, I found it a little bit of a relief from all the tension. This film made me jump possibly more than any film I have ever seen in the cinema and harkens back to a simpler time before ironic slasher movies and torture porn and for that we should all be thankful.

Insidious is already a word of mouth hit and definitive proof that after the original Saw and Dead Silence, James Wan has the goods. As horror fans we have to put up with a lot of guff and films like Insidious make it all worth it.

Hanna: There should be more movies like Hanna and I say this from a screenwriter point of view as well as a film fan. This is a film that could have been the most formulaic and basic of blockbusters had it gone through the endless filmmaking by committee process that studios use to make your typical blockbuster movie. All the elements are there, you have your hot teen starlet, your high concept and a script that once attracted talent such as Danny Boyle and Alfonso Cuaron. Lucky for us and further proof that it still is possible to make surprising films, Hanna is probably pretty close to what was on the page. Its a film that consistently surprises you, you think you can see where it is going to go but then it turns left when normal Hollywood procedure is for this type of film to go right.

Hanna (Saorise Ronan) lives with her father Erik (Eric Bana) in the snowbound wilderness of Scandinavia. Hanna is 16 years old and from an early age has been taught to hunt and kill to survive. As well as being deadly with a knife and bow, She is fluent in many different languages and knows an awful lot of facts that she can quote as if reading from an encyclopedia. Hanna has been given this life with the specific purpose of killing Marisa Weigler (Cate Blanchett) a CIA operative with a connection to Erik’s past. One day Erik is convinced that Hanna is ready and provides her with a transponder to turn on so that Marisa will be led to her. Hanna turns on the device and she and Erik agree to meet in Berlin at a later date. Thus begins Hanna’s journey of self discovery and exposure to the outside world and all the typical things we take for granted whilst growing up.

To say anymore about the film’s plot is to really do a disservice to the new viewer as the screenplay drip feeds you information and plot twists as it goes along. The story plays out with elements of The Bourne Identity, Leon and Grimm fairy tales to create something really unique. Its great seeing the odd little flourishes that they work in there. For example when Cate Blanchett’s character goes to see some deadly assassins in Germany, they are not what you expect and are actually three fairly out of shape and weird looking people watching some kind of hermaphrodite stripper act on stage. The lead assassin is played by a blonde and mincing Tom Hollander from In the Loop, not exactly the frame of reference for an imposing figure. A further example is the scene when it appears that Hanna is about to get that first kiss and it does not turn out the way expected. Its little things like this that put this above your typical spy shenanigans and give the film an air of freshness and originality.

So thats enough about the plot, what about the performances. Hanna is anchored by a trio of strong roles for great performers. Saorise Ronan is going to have a long career, this could well be her greatest role to date. Hanna is otherworldly and dangerous but also has the audiences sympathies right from the beginning. There is so much said without words in Ronan’s pale blue eyes and on her pale features. Through the middle point of the film, Hanna hooks up with a British family travelling through Morocco and there is a great sense of joy in these scenes as Hanna discovers the normal life of the teenage girl and bonding with people.  Ronan and Eric Bana share this great scene towards the end of the movie which erupts in violence when it should have been a touching moment but its true to the characters who have only ever known violence in their lives. Eric Bana is kind of underrated at this point I think, as now Hollywood has stopped trying to make him a leading man and instead he is doing great supporting work. He is incredible in this movie, pulling of a flawless accent and getting one of the films best scenes in an all-in–one-take fight scene in a subway which is brutal and breathtaking. Cate Blanchett is a really hissable villain in this and though its never quite clear what her motivations are, they give her some neat little character moments that give you no doubt that she is a bad person.

Joe Wright, a director not previously known for this kind of thing, has made a truly wonderful film here. He whirls the camera around in adrenaline pumping fashion and uses slow motion only when it adds to a scene, none of it feels like style for the sake of it. Wright must be one of the most versatile directors working today, going from the dramatic likes of Atonement and The Soloist to an offbeat action movie like this with absolute ease like he has been doing it for years. Although he may get ruined by the system, I would love to see what he could pull off with a massive budget if given the chance. The chemical brothers score for this movie is fantastic, it kicks in at all the right moments to either get the adrenaline pumping or pull at the heart strings and never feels intrusive. It was a brave decision to get them to score this but one that definitely pays off.

Hanna is a great film, full of warmth as well as thrills. If you are in the mood for something off the well beaten path then give it a shot. It is my favorite film of 2011 thus far.

by Chris Holt

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