L’idea di gente catapultata suo malgrado in un’epoca futura viene riciclata da decine di rivisitazioni sul tema, e probabilmente Vincent Ward avrà ben pensato di prendere le distanze tanto dalle leggerezze de ‘I Visitatori’ di Jean Marie Poiré, quanto dagli umori fiabeschi de ‘I Banditi Del Tempo’ di Terry Gilliam; ciò nonostante, questo non gli vieta di inspessire il racconto sul versante adulto, enfatizzando – anche troppo – la vena mistico/commovente e senza disdegnare i suoi personali numi tutelari – Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman. Cinquecentoquaranta anni dividono il suo film a metà. Da una parte: la morte nera, che imprime desolazione e terrore nel mondo bicolore, sassoso e simbolista della Cumbria. I girovaghi dell’epoca vagano per terre vuote non troppo dissimili a raminghi dell’Eriador, raggranellando notizie di un ombra che si avvicina, e la peste, in quell’ecosistema buio e timorato, si cura con la superstizione, la consegna della croce, il pellegrinaggio: più che altro, negli intenti di Ward, null’altro che un pretesto per condurre Griffin, veggente e salvatore, nella Sydney del 1988 e sbattere in faccia ad un nugolo di quegli uomini il futuro della loro specie. Dall’altra parte: la zona industriale unta e rumorosa, con i draghi d’acciaio che emergono dal mare, gli insetti meccanici giganti che raggranellano spazzatura in un lato e i suoi abitanti che indossano soffici tessuti a quadrettoni. La metropoli oceanica materializza il paradiso, da quanto è luminosa. Il confronto benevolo e pericoloso con quel mondo a lustrini nella notte finirà con il rimbecillire alcuni tra i membri della compagnia, travagliando la missione. Ward viene ricordato spesso per aver girato ‘L’Ultimo Samurai’ e per aver avuto le mani in pasta con ‘Alien 3′, ma raramente si cita in giudizio quando si parla dei suoi esordi, ai tempi in cui si trastullava nell’insolito, con i vari ‘Vigil’ o questo ‘Navigator’. Questo – una standing ovation a Cannes e il plauso di nientepopodimenoche Werner Herzog – è il suo cinema fantastico, di quello che precorre tempi in cui la comunità quantistica non fa altro che dissertare sui wormhole e che sembra rappresentarne una chiave simbolico-visuale molto poco scientifica. Il suo, di wormhole, è una rete di cunicoli terrosi per nulla quadrimensionale, in pratica il modello che immaginerebbe l’uomo medievale a sentirne parlare da un fisico del novecento; attraversa lo spazio-tempo passando per il centro della Terra, attingendo un po’ da Jules Verne e un po’ da Hyeronimous Bosch, ma con l’occhio e la sensibilità da quattordicesimo secolo. Ovviamente, non stiamo parlando del coevo classico Disney di bimbi a bordo di astronavi giganti.

This is the End (again): the New Apocalyptic Sublime

Kevan Manwaring

The destruction of Vulcan? No, The Great Day of his Wrath, by John Martin, c. 1853

From the scenes of planetary cataclysm in the latest Star Trek revamp to the Coppola’s napalm-reeking Apocalypse Now, Hollywood has revelled in the aesthetic of beautiful destruction. And with the long-delayed released of Cormac Mccarthy’s wrist-slitter The Road finally hitting the screens later this year, the latest in a string of post 9/11 gloomfests, Doomsday never seems more popular. The media whips up fear about the New Bad: another pandemic to push ink. Yet concerns about plagues and famines, about geopolitical and religious tensions are nothing new. A spin-off of the Romantic art movement became known as the Apocalyptic Sublime, and in the dramatic paintings of Biblical catastrophe by John Martin we see precursors of today’s big screen Armageddons. Put on your Kilgore shades and don your darkest clothes as we wander through cinema’s gallery of the end of the world.

JJ Abrams 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise dwells lovingly on intergalactic carnage – notably the ‘controversial’ destruction of Spock’s home planet Vulcan, although a planet named after a Roman god of fire was perhaps doomed, like the unlucky member of the away team in the red shirt: you just know they’re going to get it. But the apocalyptic aesthetic the special FX maestros were conjuring up on the big screen with state of the art technology – the planet’s surface breaking up in cataclysmic upheaval – is in fact nothing new.

The Apocalyptic Sublime, a sub-genre of the Romantic art movement academic Morton D Palely defined in his eponymous book (Yale 1986) emerged out of the Romantic Movement, directly as a result of political and religious tensions and scare-mongering that took place throughout the period stretching from the French Revolution of 1789 to the Communist Manifesto of 1848. Between these paradigm-shift poles, when old certainties were being challenged, art began to mirror both the zeitgeist of Terror and the ever-deepening wonder of the universe.

The sense of the sublime (the “exalted”, the “awe-inspiring”) was increasingly used to bridge the gap between the limited human faculties of understanding and the unimaginable infinity of the physical universe’ [Introducing Romanticism, p19]

Man was being overwhelmed by the infinite complexity of nature. Poets like John Keats decided to accept the limit of human consciousness, in what he called negative capability, but to scientists of the day, such fathomless enquiry gave them night terrors. The light of reason only served to illuminate the extent of the endless darkness. Sir Humphrey Davy, scientist, expressed this frustration:

Though we can perceive, develop, and even produce by means of our instruments of experiment, an almost infinite variety of minute phaenomena,yet we are incapable of determining general laws by which they are governed; and in attempting to define them, we are lost in obscure though sublime imaginings concerning unknown agencies.

‘Obscure though sublime imaginings concerning unknown agencies…’ This seems to sum up much of the art of the Apocalyptic Sublime – from the painting of the 18^th Century to the cinema of the Twenty First. A sense that not only are ‘there more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in most people’s philosophies’, but forces, vast and inconceivable, could sweep us away at any moment. Since the invention of the A-Bomb this has been a reality. The events of September 11^th 2001 presented the world with a living image of the Lightning-struck Tower from the tarot. Nothing was certain, nothing was sacred, nowhere was safe.

Romantic artists, notably John Martin (1789-1854), captured dramatic scenes of the end of the world in his large paintings. Romantic writers also dwelled on this e.g. Mary Shelley’s lesser known sci-fi novel, The Last Man (1826). This trope, the last man on earth, offers cinematic opportunities for eerily abandoned urban centres. There is something both chilling and sublimely beautiful about such empty vistas – after fears of baby boom-fuelled fears of over-population, the image of a post-Malthusian world is strangely comforting. Richard Matheson’s 1954 sci-fi novel I Am Legend was first made into The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price; then The Omega Man with gun-toting, Charlton Heston in 1971, before being remade in the big budget Will Smith vehicle in 2007, which created, at huge expense, the memorable image of the ‘concrete jungle’ of New York reclaimed by nature – escaped gazelles and lions gambolling gamely along the overgrown avenues, pursued by man the predator, who himself has become ‘food’ to CGI-zombies.

Scenes of urban devastation in films, (eg Saving Private Ryan; The Pianist) echo the Romantic penchant for ruins. Painters loved them. Poets loitered around in them. They symbolised something about the impermanence of life, the folly of man’s vaulting ambition. This was captured most memorably by Shelley in his poem ‘Ozymandias’, inspired by the temples dedicated to Ramses II he had beheld: ‘I met a traveller from an antique land/Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,/Half sunk, a shattered visage lies…’ This foregrounding of scale, to emphasise insignificance – life on an ungovernable scale – is captured also in the nightmarish city-scapes of Piranesi, whose hellish visions of dungeon-like metropolises were brought to life on the silver screen in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927); Things to Come (1936), and on to Blade Runner, Brazil, Minority Report, etc. Gormenghastian edifices which baffle the human inside an endless maze. Films with giant starships (2001: a space odyssey; Alien; Event Horizon; Sunshine) offer the same aesthetic in space. The human animal trapped within an artificial world. In an increasingly urbanised and over-populated world, this became increasingly the reality for many.

The 1970s saw a whole swathe of gloomy Sci-Fi movies mirroring contemporary concerns about over-population, pollution, congestion, etc: Soylent Green, Silent Running, The Cars that Ate Paris, Mad Max, THX1138. The world had ‘gone wrong’ somehow. Environmental issues were starting to drip-feed into popular culture, although it would be a decade or more before such concerns were seen as more than the fears of a few green Lefties and the chronic fantasies of sci-fi writers.

Ridley Scott’s first film The Duelists (1977) captured memorably the stark aesthetic of Europe rendered by the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Scott’s later films, especially Blade Runner (1982) brought the Apocalyptic Sublime into the cyberpunk era. The opening shot of the tech-noir classic, of a smog-darkened Los Angeles, illuminated by spouts of infernal flame seemed chilling when first it was seen on the big screen, yet a decade later similar images of burning oil wells were being beamed back from the first Gulf War.

Flame seems to be a common image of apocalypse, perhaps not surprising after two millennia of hellfire and brimstone. What preachers brought to life by the power of the spoken word, churches and abbeys did through imagery. Aesthetically, cinema – with its moving stained glass, rows of seats and hushed reverence – provides the modern experience of the medieval cathedral and the nearest many of us get to a collective religious experience. The effect can be terrifying and awe-inspiring. Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1978) itself a reimagining of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, cited as being the first modern novel of the Twentieth Century, began the main narrative of the film in a plume of napalm to the lugubrious incantations of Jim Morrison.

The apocalyptic warnings of the 1950s, a culture having atomic kittens, seem to have come true, but in a way unforeseen by Beatnik Cassandras. The classic British doom-movie, Val Guest’s intensely atmospheric 1961 film, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, appears, in hindsight, to be the most on the money, and was eerily echoed in real newspaper headlines when both the Stern Report came out (‘The Day That Changed the Climate’, The Independent, 31 October 2006) and then the IPCC report (‘Final Warning’, front page of The Independent, 3 February 2007):  life mirroring art mirroring life – because the film is set and filmed in actual Fleet Street offices… In it, the Earth is jolted eleven degrees off-kilter by Russian and American nuclear testing – ‘Cold War’ brinkmanship ironically causing the planet to heat up. Now we are told the world is only six degrees away from devastation – and the thermometer is rising.

Max Ernst, Europe After the Rain, 1940-1942

‘Europe After The Rain’ by Max Ernst  (1942)

Flood is equally likely to bring about apocalypse. Richard Jeffries, prescient Victorian post-apocalyptic parable, After London, or Wild England (1885) depicts a future primitive scenario of a flooded England reduced to a feudal Mediaeval state, where animals have turned feral and roam the overgrown landscape. Later artists continued this tradition into the Twentieth Century; such as Max Ernst’s Europe After the Rains, which Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow (2004) emulated, albeit in a far from subtle way…The poster of that old fashioned ‘disaster’ movie, masquerading as an eco-fable, was of an inundated Statue of Liberty. Ever since the classic ending of the original adaptation of Monkey Planet, The Planet of the Apes (Schaffner 1968) with spaceman/caveman Charlton Heston striking the sand in despair at the Ozymandian Statue of Liberty, half-buried in the sand, has this icon of American been used as a visual metaphor for ‘democracy’ (read Western Civilisation/humanity) under siege, as in the post-humous Kubrick project AI (Spielberg 2001). Here, it was preserved in the ice. In Cloverfield, the whole head was blasted across the screens, landing in front of a shell-shocked twenty-somethings. In the adaptation of The Road, it is a beached oil tanker, like a great white whale, which provides a stark short-hand for apocalypse, the Moby Dick of Peak Oil which man, Ahab-like has hunted down to the bitter end, at the cost of everything he holds dear. His doom, it seems, is to be tied to it as it goes under. In this vision of a burnt America, (the cause of the catastrophe is not elucidated in the book – as though Mccarthy is saying ‘take your pick’), ‘The fragility of everything is revealed at last.’

The late, great, master doomster JG Ballard used his own childhood experiences in the decaying splendour of the Post-colonial Far East to shape his dystopian vision of the future in his quartet of environmental disaster novels, The Wind from Nowhere (1961); The Drowned World (1962); The Drought (1965); The Crystal World (1966). His later novels explored a similar aesthetic of entropy and ennui. So far, only his memoirs, Empire of the Sun and his ‘auto-erotica’ cult novel Crash have been translated significantly onto the big screen – by Spielberg and Cronenberg respectively. It would be good to see a version of The Drowned World, but perhaps life has overtaken art.

In another instance of art mirroring life, it has just been announced that Will Smith will star in a dramatisation of the notorious 2007 Flood of New Orleans, which scandalised America, playing real-life Katrina hero John Keller. Spike Lee has already chartered this in sober indignation in his documentary on the event, When the Levees Broke (2006), which used news-reel footage and interviews with witnesses.

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin 1852

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin 1852

Donnie Darko’s (Kelly 2001) quirky Eighties-esque rites-of-passage worked far better than the OTT over-hyped Blair Witch on cocaine, Cloverfield (Reeves 2008). And let’s mercifully forget the uber-expensive flop of Southland Tales (Kelly 2006) – a ‘difficult second album’ scenario for the Darko director, written in $200 million. The studio have decided to go back to their original cash cow, with a sequel, S. Darko (Fisher 2009).

One could argue that these mega-budget movies, and the industry that supports them, is actually contributing to the eco-apocalypse. One of the reasons Daniel Day Lewis was reputedly said tohave given for declining the role of Aragorn in Peter Jackon’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy is because of the environmental impact of such cinematic behemoth. He instead chose to deconstruct the environmental agenda in the low-budget Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) directed by his partner, Rebeca Miller Arthur Miller’s daughter. And in There Will be Blood (2007) based on Sinclair Lewis’ 1920s novel Oil!, he played the oil magnate turned monster, Daniel Plainview. Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic film provided visuals of a burning oil well, echoing the burning of the oil fields in the first Gulf War, which in itself seemed to be referencing Blade Runner…The second in Godfrey Reggio’s art-house Qatsi trilogy Powaqqatsi (1988), from the Hopi, ‘parasitic way of life’, dwelled hypnotically in such scenes.

Of course with the charnel pyres of Foot and Mouth, floods, and the traumatic events of 9/11 played at the time continuously across the world, we had a very real example of the Apocalyptic Sublime – so much so, that for a while Hollywood went (even) softer than usual, (Chicago winning Best Picture in early 2003). Since then it has learnt to cash in on the doom and gloom zeitgeist with films like Right At Your Door (Gorak 2006).

Plagues, pandemics, zombie-inducing viruses, are always good cinematic standbys. In The Andromeda Strain (Wise 1971) a group of scientists investigate a deadly new alien virus before it can spread. This now seems a cosily sedate affair compared to the hyper-kinetic offerings by Boyle and Garland who, in 28 Days Later (2002) cranked up the gore to 11, imagining a Great Britain decimated by a ‘rage virus’, and left to fester and fend for itself. The sequel, 28 Weeks Later (Fresnadillo 2007) shows the Isle of Dogs being carpet-bombed by US occupying forces, alerted to Code Red, in a nod and wink to Coppola’s vision of hell and the very real footage of the Gulf Wars.

Ever since Fat Boy dropped on Hiroshima, the mushroom-cloud of the A-Bomb has become to symbolise a very real apocalypse. A-Bomb beasts became stock-in-trade of low-grade drive-in schlock of the 50s and 60s. Japanese movies especially revelled in noisy battles between garish mutants, men in suits and dodgy models duking it out above mini-cities, Godzilla looming largest of all.  Yet from the 80s onwards, the reality of the Cold War started to appear on the screen in a more ‘realistic’ way. James Cameron, in Terminator 2: Judgement Day featured a famous ‘nuke’ scene emulated in endless substandard films, all starring Nicolas Cage it seems: Next, etc and in Zac Snyder’s Watchmen movie this year.

The Road (2009) starring Viggo Mortensen (dir: John Hillcoat) The Proposition director’s take on Cormac McCarthy’s uber-bleak novel of the same name is still awaiting release – now scheduled for Jan 2010 – was postponed so as not to dampen the feel-good factor in Obama’s America – but also eerily mirrored by the devastating Queensland fires in Australia earlier this year.

Roland Emmerich continues his super-sized assault on planet Earth with his next uber-doom fest 2012, inspired by the Mayan Prophecy – the new source of apocalyptic fever (think Y2K with astronomy…). Yet Emmerich’s big screen armageddons, however spectacular, are ultimately unsatisfying – full of sturm-und-drang, signifying nothing.

The end of the world has always been big business. Expect a whole swathe of Mayan apocalypse movies. Mel Gibson has already got in on the act with his kinetic Apocalypto (2006). Even dear old Auntie has shown her black stockings – with the so-so ‘re-imagining’ of Terry Nation’s Survivors and with another remake of John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids ‘heavy plant crossing’ its way onto the small screen in 2010.

Earlier this year, unlucky cinema audiences endured the ill-judged remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (Derrickson 2008). It seems Hollywood is caught in its own event horizon, remaking its own remakes, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

It seems the Apocalyptic Sublime is in danger of becoming Apocalyptic Ridiculous. Maybe The League of Gentleman’s big screen disaster, Apocalypse, was closer to the truth. The world won’t end with a bang, it seems, but with a snigger.

But sometimes, the effect can be deadly serious.

The harrowing near-future Britain of Children of Men (Cuarón 2006), based upon PD James novel, depicting a bleak world of mass infertility, ends with a Viagric dose of Christian imagery. Escaping dystopia, refugee camp UK, the black Madonna and child await salvation, Biblically adrift in a small boat, thanks to the sacrifice of the cynical protagonist played by Clive Owen, Theo, an unlikely, but believable reluctant Messiah figure, who dies to save the gurgling bundle that is the future of humanity. Their leap of faith pays off, as the Human Project boat, the Tomorrow, appears out of the Cloud of Unknowing. This device, the sudden unexpected ‘happy ending’, Catholic writer JRR Tolkien termed the Eucatastrophe.

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings – notably The Return of the King (Jackson 2004), with its la grande morte climactic plot orgasm at Mount Doom – brought the Apocalyptic Sublime back to the big screen and took it to another level. Here the true poetry and pathos of the apocalypse was finally realised. ‘I am glad to be with you here, Sam, here at the end of all things,’ Frodo says as lava oozes around them. But the eagles come to save the day, plucking the diminutive heroes to safety. The darkest of circumstances are redeemed by an act of grace – which in Tolkien’s Catholic imagination, is Divine.

This is illustrated in Vincent Ward’s visionary posthumous fantasy, What Dreams May Come (1998) (Academy Award winner for Best Special FX). The Robin Williams character has to descend, Orpheus-like, into the lowest part of hell to win back his late wife, who has been consigned there after committing suicide. When it seems all hope is lost, the eucatastrophe occurs, and as the Annabella Sciorra character declares: ‘Sometimes … when you lose, you win.’

Visions of the afterlife – of heaven and hell, paradise and purgatory – have provided movie-makers with inspiration and challenges for decades. There has been early visions of the works of Dante, Milton, the Bible… Although seldom has the technology and vision of those involved been able to do justice to the worlds conjured up by pen and paint, with a handful of exceptions. The sublime staircase sequence in What Dreams May Come was alluding to the famous ‘stairway to heaven’ scene in A Matter of Life and Death (Powell, Pressburger, 1946). In an earlier film, The Navigator: a medieval odyssey (1988), Ward had medieval pilgrims from Northumbria stumble upon an Antipodean Celestial City in the 20^th Century, Auckland, NZ. The black comedy In Bruges (McDonagh 2008) despite its down-to-earth tone and bloody violence, ends with a sublime recreation of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. It is hard to depict heaven without it seeming anaemic or unintentional comic. No doubt Peter Jackson’s version of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones (released December 2009) will take up the challenge with his usual directorial aplomb.

It seems the Apocalyptic Sublime is not going away. In modern cinema it is there to remind us of the frailty of civilisation, the wonder of the world, the folly of humanity … or to sell popcorn.

In Wise’s original, and infinitely superior sci-fi parable The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), the ‘good alien’, Klaatu’s warns humanity:  “Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration…the decision is yours.”

Whether these cinematic visions of doom inspire us to act, change our ways or just change channels, the choice is ours.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) observed that:

When danger and pain press too nearly, they are incapable of any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be and they are delightful, as we every day experience.

Heath and Boreham conclude: ‘Obscurity, vastness and irregularity, whether in mountainous landscapes, Gothic architecture, “romantic” literature or the new structures of industrialisation, gave the individual a “sublime” sense of his own limited capacity, hence his own mortality, and at the same time a vicarious frisson of delight in observing the source of danger from a safe distance.’

From the safe distance of the cinema auditorium modern audiences will (for the foreseeable future at least) continue to watch the end of the world for years to come.

Selected References

Palely, Morton D, The Apocalyptic Sublime, (Yale 1986)

Heath & Boreham, Introducing Romanticism, Icon 2002

Mike Traceur (Justin Bruening) is tracked down by his ex-girlfriend Sarah Graiman (Deanna Russo), after her father, Dr. Charles Graiman (Bruce Davison), is kidnapped. Mike and Sarah rescue her father and Mike discovers that his father is Michael Knight. Mike decides to stick with Sarah and Dr. Graiman and together with KITT, an artificially intelligent Ford Shelby GT500KR, they fight crime. Also partnered with this trio is Carrie Rivai (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) and Alex Torres (Yancey Arias), FBI consultants and Billy Morgan (Paul Campbell) and Zoe Chae (Smith Cho) providing technical support.

Backdoor Pilot: Knight Rider
I don’t ask about the reason why NBC pulled this up. They failed with Bionic Woman and they surely failed with this one. But not at first sight.
The car looks great, Val Kilmer as KITT’s voice does a great job, Justin Bruening not so great, Deanna Russo way too hot to be on a NBC series, Sydney Tamiia Poitier was boring, just like Bruce Davison. The plot wasn’t great, because there was no plot, the action was good, the scenes with KITT in car chases or himself in action was good enough to amuse me. The special effects were okay. But the good thing about the TV movie is, it continues the story of Knight Rider and just doesn’t remake the whole story. So we actually see David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight in a cameo role, which gives nice background about our male protagonist. But forget about the logic, like: How did the bad guys arrive at the casino so fast and why did Graiman survive the car crash at the end, while the others die?
Just, shut down your brain and this is really fun to watch. 8/10

Episode 01: A Knight in Shining Armor
Okay… what was that? An intro, which ran almost half of the episode; a plot I didn’t understand (what package? What data? What code?), a lot of plot holes and KITT in a subway tunnel? Hello, WTF? What is this with all the transforming? Half of those were totally unnecessary – just to show, how “good” the special effects are. And they are not really good. You can see crystal clear, that the show is produced in the studios. And how long is the tunnel in the Knight Industries building? Remember when KITT wanted to crash the wall – it took almost one minute for him to drive a tunnel, 100 meters long, in high speed… Oh, I was pleased so see some background story, at least one good thing. I remember giving the episode 7 points in the past somewhere. Now I have to subtract it. I give it 3/10. For the fun the episode clearly has in some moments.

Episode 02: Journey to the End of the Knight
Starting with this episode you can forget this show. It is not going to be good, the stories will always be awful. So, here are the same problems the last episode had: Who is the real villain? What is this with all the transforming? It is like The Fast And The Furious, mixed with Transformers. The transform into attack mode during the first race… total unnecessary for the plot, just to show how “awesome” the effects are. The transform into a Pickup? Total unnecessary for the plot, just to show how “awesome” the effects are. The transform in midair to hide the cover from the kid sitting in the car and watching KITT using his turbo boost? Why did it take almost one minute to talk about that the kid can’t see KITT like this and transform – while Mike and KITT are IN THE AIR JUMPING OVER THE CAR. That was trash at its finest hour. But Deanna Russo saved the episode – she looked hot with the bikini. And some of the dialogs were fun, so I give it 3/10.

Episode 03: Knight of the Iguana
Put your hands on your head, because you will see, how KITT is diving. This was the scene, after it I knew it couldn’t get better. The terrorist of the episode arc was completely bullshit and the finale terrible in all ways: The missile needs approximately five seconds to impact and KITT needs, what felt like ten minutes to react about that? And what was with the effects shortly after? How bad was that? And I saw the green screen on KITT’s hood… please, dear producers… learn from it.
This episode was bad on so many levels, and just Smith Cho (she is so damn cool) saves it a bit. Only she is the reason to watch it, and for her I give the episode 3/10.

Episode 04: A Hard Day’s Knight
The timeline of this episode is crap. Mike has three hours until he dies and in that time he drives to the SSC, delivers an item, has a car chase with a hot girl (she dies afterwards), drives back to the SSC, drives to a convention, kills a guy, has to deal with his escape, drives further, is rescued by Sarah (how fast did she get to Mike?), after his heart stopped beating, follows the main enemy of this episode and goes unconscious before he gets rescued by KITT. Ehm, that is more bad than the real time in 24.
So, KITT has a complete chemical lab in the glove box or why is he regenerating an antidote? And what the hell was Sarah wearing when she rescued Mike? The neckline was great, but the top just looked stupid and silly. But the episode had a few good moments, however the series is just stupidly written. 4/10

Episode 05: Knight of the Hunter
So, what is the thread of this episode? And why is this episode so damn boring? And why gave Mike KITT the order to transform while they are driving THROUGH A MINEFIELD? Some more questions? Why are Mike and Sarah discussing about jumping into the river for, like, hundred minutes when they are man behind him and the girl on his side? Didn’t the man with the guns say that they wanted to look for them in the next two hours? Why didn’t they do it? Oh, and why didn’t explode any mines while the army truck was following KITT through the mine field?
This series is like Tru Calling (watching it parallel) – the authors can’t write any logic into their stories. 2/10

Episode 06: Knight of the Living Dead
This was actually the best episode so far – by a mile. A good story (a killer on the loose), a lot of thrill (because of some real time), KITT using contractions (does that have to mean anything, except KITT learning to speak better than Star Trek’s Data?), and some dumb story arcs (the audio tracking device, what a bullshit). But they brought KARR into the story. Finally an arc for future episodes, it is like Christmas. Okay, the conclusion is very shitty and when I remember the last episode before the reboot, than something isn’t right about the main enemy in this one, but… Let’s be honest, this was really the best episode. 7/10

Episode 07: I Wanna Rock and Roll All Knight
What for a boring episode. The story was crap, the thrill was not there, the action was lame. But it is interesting that KITT can access any kind of satellites and that Mike can see in some moving cars with the help of the satellites. And it is interesting that there is a traffic camera in the middle of a road… That was just stupid screen writing. This whole episode was stupid, even the funny moments between Billy (Paul Campbell) and Zoe. Please, why is it so difficult to put on a believable and good story without the dumb sequences? 2,5/10

Episode 08: Knight of the Zodiac
An average episode with a boring episode arc. And why Las Vegas again? Was NBC looking for a new “Las Vegas” TV show, after they canceled it? Knight Rider was in Las Vegas in the Backdoor Pilot, I don’t need authors who have no ideas. And why was Billy brought as a second under cover agent alongside Mike? He didn’t do anything except flirting with a hot woman and playing Black Jack – total waste of time. And Graiman’s “relationship” with a guest character… For what? 5/10

Episode 09: Knight Fever
Haha, what a crappy story – a nano virus, oh come on. And why does KITT see everything, but nothing about a virus in his circuits. And how was KITT’s secondary decontamination cleared when there is clearly the virus in the tunnel? By the way: How was it possible to SEE the nano virus? A ton full of horrible plot holes, one’s worse than the other. Well, at least the virus effects were alright, you can’t say that to the explosion of the house. 3/10

Episode 10: Don’t Stop the Knight
Well, that is one of a speedy episode. In the story from the first second on (good), enough action (good), some effects (bad, except the car explosion at the beginning) and a cliffhanger (a miracle). Interesting fact: This episode is the first of three parts of the reboot. So, Carrie (who was never seen anyway) gets blown up at the end of the episode, so she can probably die in the next one. The side plot with Graiman and his robot is funny, but maybe the authors should have concentrated more on the action part.
By the way: KITT has HAZMAT in the trunk and Carrie needs ten, fifteen minutes to get from the SSC to Mike to help him, very interesting *rolleyes*. And what is about the new intro? This episode is already part of the reboot and the intro will change again in two and three episodes. Well, the episode had some good parts. 6/10

Episode 11: Day Turns Into Knight
Ehm, yeah… That is the conclusion of the last episode? Stevens (Rick Hoffman) just wanted revenge? What a crappy story. Well, at least the reboot goes its way, Carrie didn’t die, but is out of the series (I remember from the backdoor pilot she was a lesbian – this was more character she had in the last eleven episodes). At least Graiman died during an explosion in the plane (what explosion? How did the explosion occur? The scene came so suddenly, it seems it was simply written into the screenplay: “Graiman flies in plane. He dies. The end.”)
The first part was much better, this was crap again. 3,5/10

Episode 12: Knight to the King’s Pawn
What a terrible episode. The last part of the reboot sucked all the time, everything was bad. The back story of Mike’s past: So, he was the original driver of KARR and that is explained alongside for like one minute? Very original. The fight against KARR was not even short, it had many terrible special effects (and why is Mike talking while KITT rotates in the air and landing on his feet again? *rolleyes*). The breaking and entering into the SSC, holy moly, how bad is that? KITT putting all his data into the internet, oh my god, what a stupid idea to bring KITT back. The return of KARR… well, that was a bad idea from the beginning.
Well, at least the whole reboot thing is over now and the series can start from the beginning (again). Clearly, you can forget all of the 12 previous episodes, because the authors didn’t take anything into the reboot. 2/10

Episode 13: Exit Light, Enter Knight
The first rebooted episode and it is actually a good one. The story is a typical bank heist one with some plot holes, Mike and KITT there by coincidence to help and a lot of action. So, nothing about FLAG, just simple coincidence, so an episode between the reboot and the rebooted episodes. And why do I see Michael Cudlitz everywhere now? He is like Rosemarie DeWitt (I saw her everywhere, too, after I began with Standoff) and both of them played in the same series once… that’s funny.
The authors spend too much time on the little twists (the mother and his husband; the cell text thing and the chase through the tunnels), but all in all, this one was an improvement, when you see the last episodes. Maybe the reboot was the right choice, though it came very too late. 7/10

Episode 14: Fight Knight
A boring episode with a boring case, boring characters (yeah, I know, no sign of characters in the whole series), average jokes and so on. The fight bar reminded me of the bar from 1×02 and the fights were choreographed good enough to not look bad. Just one thing: Why did the girl hop in the cage to fight for revenge? Nobody is so stupid to do that (well, except in the world of Knight Rider, in there everybody is stupid).
Well, boring episode, but, again, not bad enough to hate it – the rebooted episodes definitely look better. 4,5/10

Episode 15: Fly By Knight
A solid episode with another uninteresting case of the week. It seems like the authors can’t really escape from the dumb stories and plot holes, even though the reboot saved the series a bit. But it just don’t get better, it hangs now in the air with some potential, only completely unused.
The kid was too smart for me, he seemed not to have any fear (illogical) and always knew what he is doing (well, he must be very clever for a 10 year old – I don’t buy it). And why was the hot and sexy DEA agent so hot to bring Mike behind bars when he is actually helping them? But who knows, maybe we will see her again in one of the last two episodes, because I believe she was prepared for some sort of recurring character. 5/10

Episode 16: Knight and the City
Well, another boring episode, at least with a more interesting story, but with lots of another plot holes. For example: Why was Eddie (Vincent Ward) putting on the fires? And why is Alona Tal so effing hot? Well, she saved the episode a bit; seeing her is always good for a TV show. She was it, what made the episode interesting, because the rest was just plain boring and uninteresting. By the way: KITT can now put out fires – let’s put that on the list. Now KITT has to show us only that he can fly *rolleyes*.
Yeah, nothing more to say. 4/10

Episode 17: I Love the Knight Life
I have to say, that I am thankful the series is over now. No more episodes, no more seasons, this was the very last episode. And this one was not even very special, just another uninteresting story with plot holes here and there. The story was boring and lost itself while in the middle of the episode – the authors brought us a virus, which makes the “infected” to a real living Hulk??!??!? I was laughing… such a stupid story.
I don’t know what to say, boring episode, ball sucking story – as usual. Finally it is over for good. 3/10

Season average is 4,19. I am thankful for the series not being picked up for another season. But I can finally start now with the original series. I have the first season of the 80s classic in my waiting list and it is time to start watching it.

In Spring One Plants Alone documental realizado a los veintiún años por el director neocelandés Vicent Ward en 1978 y aclamado internacionalmente, es un íntimo y desgarrador retrato de una mujer maori de 80 años de la iwi de los Tuhoe que cuidaba a Niki, su hijo esquizofrénico en los remotas montañas de Urewera. A Ward no le pasaron desapercibidos las lamentos y oraciones de aquella anciana que cuidaba con devoción a su hijo adulto enfermo y después de treinta años Rain of the Children nos desvela el misterio de Puhi que fue escogida por el profeta maori Rua Kenana para que se esposase con su hijo. Tuvo tuvo catorce hijos de los cuales, todos menos uno, murieron o le fueron arrebatados de sus manos. Puhi sobrevivió a la redada policial que tuvo lugar en 1916 en la comunidad de Maunga Pohatu. Rain of the Children está protagonizada por Miriana Rangi, Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison, Taungaroa Emile, Waihoroi Shortland y Toby Moreh ; quizás, de todos estos actores los más conocidos para el público europeo  sean   Rena Owen de la iwi  Ngati Hine y Temuera Morrison de los Te Arawa, protagonistas de Once We Were Warriors (1994). Morrison  trabajo con Ward en River Queen Entrevistando a historiadores y ancianos de las comunidades maori de la región que aún hoy recuerdan a Puhi, incorporando fragmentos de In Spring One Plants Alone y material audiovisual de archivo y una  dramática recreación cinematográfica de aquellos tiempos, Ward  nos brinda un largometraje documental  de belleza lírica extraordinaria.  Vincent Ward escribió y dirigió  en 2005 River Queen, película seleccionada en el año 2006 por el Toronto Film Festival, Ha dirigido Vigil (1984), The Navigator (1988) y Map of the Human Heart (1998) las primeras películas de un director de Nueva zelanda seleccionadas por el Cannes Film Festival.

Yesterday was New Zealands national day … Waitangi Day … 6th Feburary and I spent a couple of hours watching a great NZ award winning movie  Rain of the Children

Vincent Ward weaves drama with documentary to unravel the extraordinary story of Puhi, the Tuhoe woman who welcomed the young filmmaker into her home in 1978. Ward made the observational film In Spring One Plants Alone about Puhi’s day-to-day life in the remote Urewera Ranges. By then almost 80, she was obsessively caring for her schizophrenic adult son Niki, whose violent fits terrified her. In this new cinema feature Ward sets out to unravel the mystery that has haunted him for 30 years: Who was Puhi?

And why was she so obsessed with this last remaining son?

See the NZ film commision pages and find out more about this movie and other NZ films

I N   S P A C E   N O   O N E   C A N   H E A R   Y O U   S C R E A M

Sigourney Weaver, now almost sixty years old, first played the iconic character Lt. Ellen Ripley at the age of thirty back in 1979. She went on to star in “Aliens” in 1986, “Aliens 3″ in 1991 and “Alien: Resurrection” in 1997.

She has been quoted on a number of occasions saying she would consider reprising her role as Ripley in another instalment in the “Alien” franchise:

“I would definitely do another if I had a director like Ridley Scott and we had a good idea,” she says of the classic sci-fi movies. “Ridley is enthusiastic about it.” - 05-07-2008

Well once again, Sigourney speaks up about her alien ambition: MTV reports

Sigourney Weaver And Ridley Scott
To Team Up For Alien-Less ‘Alien’ Sequel?

There has been a neverending stream of speculation about the future of the “Alien” franchise probably since the very moment “Alien Resurrection” crashed and burned with most fans. Could James Cameron or Ridley Scott be weighing a return to the franchise or would we be cursed with more Predator crossovers? These are the questions that can try a man’s soul.

But wait, there is hope! When I chatted with Sigourney Weaver the other day [check out her take on the “Ghostbusters” sequel here], the actress definitely seemed to still have plans for her iconic alter-ego. “There’s definitely uncharted territory for Ripley,” she promised.

However Weaver wondered if the alien itself can and should factor into another film after the exposure its gotten in two “AVP” films. She asked aloud “whether there’s unchartered territory for a creature who’s become somewhat debased by this computer generated thing. I haven’t seen ["Alien Vs. Predator"] but I just think if you overexpose the creature, that’s a mistake.”

Weaver confirmed that she and Scott have discussed re-teaming for a fifth film, “Both of us feel a kind of commitment to that woman. He’s as much responsible for who she is as I am.” Then as she opined on the way the alien creature had been ruined in the recent films, Weaver’s comments got especially interesting.

“We’d have to go back to the drawing board on [the alien],” she said. “Ridley said that right away when we first talked about [a fifth film].”

And finally, the quote that’s gotten me mighty curious, “What we’re interested in is taking the character of Ripley and seeing what other science fiction story we can tell about someone who has lived several lives.”

I didn’t really process what Weaver was saying at the time I suppose but it sounds to me like we might be less looking at “Alien 5″ and more of “Chronicles of Ripley.” Are Scott and Weaver thinking about an altogether different type of sci-fi adventure for the character? Color me intrigued.

Are you?

Are You F’ing Kidding? You’re Damn Right I Am!

Un film étrange, une femme fascinante, une histoire surprenante et le parcours d’une tribu Maori. Rain of the children, film néo-zélandais de Vincent Ward, s’écoute en se laissant emporter par le côté mystérieux avec lequel le cinéaste décide de raconter l’histoire de Puhi, cette femme qui le fascine, mère de la tribu Tuhoe. En 1978, alors qu’il avait 21 ans, il film cette femme et son fils, Niki, un adulte schizophréne, totalement dépendant d’elle et parfois, violent. Il retourne sur ses traces, en 2008. En remontant le parcours tourmenté de sa vie de son premier enfant au dernier, Vincent Ward retrace l’histoire de cette tribu Maori dont le poids des malédictions a forgé le destin. Des historiens, des extraits de ce premier film, Spring One Plants Alone et la reconstitution de moments-clés, avec des acteurs, nous aide à retracer les morceaux du puzzle. Le cinéaste présente l’histoire lentement, presque à la façon d’un conte où la réalité frappe.

Festiwal Era Nowe Horyzonty to moc niezapomnianych wrażeń, nagromadzenie wspaniałych filmów, których często Polak nie będzie w stanie już nigdy zobaczyć w swoim kraju. Spośród tego ogromu celuloidowych historii wybrałem dziesięć. Dla mnie najbardziej wzruszających, najważniejszych, zrealizowanych najbardziej profesjonalnie. Kluczowe pozycje zajmują na tej liście filmy dokumentalne lub formalnie oscylujące wokół poetyki dokumentu. Jest to rezultatem nie tylko mojej słabości do tej formy wypowiedzi, ale pewnym znakiem czasów, w których konwencja dokumentalistyczna bezpardonowo wdziera się do obszaru niegdyś zakazanego – do kina fabularnego. Jako jeden z pierwszych w Polsce trend ten opisywał znakomity krytyk Jerzy Płażewski. Ja przyznaję mu rację i podpisuję się pod jego diagnozą wszystkimi kończynami. A jak wygląda Top 10 ENH 2008? Przeczytajcie…

10. “River queen” Vincent Ward – nowozelandzki mistrz operowania obrazem, którego dzieła fascynują swoją plastyką, nie mógł zostać pominięty w tym przekrojowym zestawieniu. W obsadzie epickiej opowieści o walkach Maorysów z Brytyjczykami znalazły się hollywoodzkie gwiazdy: Samantha Morton, Kiefer Sutherland. Trzeba przyznać, że aktorsko film prezentuje się bez zarzutu. Ward tworzy kino rozbuchane wizualnie, poprzetykane klasyczną symboliką. “River queen” ogląda się niezwykle przyjemnie, a obrazy pozostają na długo w pamięci.

9. “Cztery noce z Anną” Jerzego Skolimowski. “Cztery noce…” to brawurowy powrót świetnego reżysera (“Walkower”) i scenarzysty (“Nóż w wodzie”). Po siedemnastu latach malowania obrazów Skolimowski zrealizował kameralną psychodramę, w której nieustannie igra z widzem, żongluje konwencjami, a przy tym fantastycznie prowadzi odtwórców głównych ról. Teatralny aktor Artur Steranko i, grająca przez większość filmu leżąc na łóżku, Kinga Preis, tworzą prawdziwe perełki, z wielkimi nadziejami na wyróżnienia podczas zbliżającego się gdyńskiego święta polskiej kinematografii.

8. “Boski” Paolo Sorrentino. To jeden z tych filmów, których być może nie będzie dane obejrzeć w Polsce przy innej okazji. Wielka szkoda, gdyż portret wielokrotnego premiera włoskiego Giulio Andreottiego nalezy do pozycji udanych. Całość jest może trochę nieco zbyt mało przejrzysta dla osób, nie poruszających się swobodnie w arkanach włoskiej polityki, ale “Boski” broni się świetnie wykroeowaną postacią protagonisty i sporą liczbą zapadających w pamięć scen, że wspomnę np. fragment, w którym członkowie rządu na imprezie witają się z Andreottim w stylu jawnie nawiązującym do “Ojca chrzestnego”. Urzeka ponadto ścieżka dźwiękowa.

7. “0_1_0″ Piotr Łazarkiewicz. Pożegnalny – jak się okazało – film Łazarkiewicza to pierwszy polski film skutecznie opowiadający o pokoleniu dwudziestopięcio- i trzydziestolatków. Nie pozbawiony wad, takich jak nadmierna teatralność poszczególnych epizodów, ale przejmujący i docierający do odbiorcy. Energetyczny i nieprzewidywalny wątek eksperymentatorki seksualnej i męskiej prostytutki fascynuje swym tempem, dynamiką, a także zaskakująco trafną diagnozę stanu ducha współczesnych jednostek. Jeszcze pełna emocji krytyka udziału w wyścigu szczurów, świata fałszu, sztuczności, udawanych przyjaźni, ale nade wszystko Łazarkiewicz pokazuje nam rzeczywistość, w której zatopieni w mnogości odgrywanych ról, zatraciliśmy zdolność do autentycznego przeżywania, co powoduje powszechną samotność. “0_1_0″ stanowi protest.

6. “Heima” Dean DeBlois. Islandczycy z Sigur Ros często porównywani są do Beatlesów. Niewątpliwie, udaje im się tworzyć muzykę niepowtarzalną, wymyślać coś nowego i autorskiego w totalnie odtwórczym XXI wieku. Niepowtarzalnym przeżyciem jest też dokument o ich niecodziennej trasie po ojczyźnie (“heimie”). Zagrali za darmo, nierzadko bez zapowiedzi w kompletnie nieprzystosowanych do tego miejscach. Koncerty zgromadziły tłumy. DeBlois pokazuje nam supergrupę jako pasjonatów muzyki, którzy poświęcają się dla fanów. Czyni to tak sugestywnie, że na margines spychamy pytania o związki trasy z zapewnianiem sobie dobrego PR-u.

5. “Bezpański pies”. Renato Ciasca, Beto Brant. Podstawą dla fabuły była debiutancka powieść uznawanego przez brazylijską krytykę literacką za jeden z największych talentów młodego pokolenia Daniela Galery. Ale całość jest bardzo filmowa – wszystko, co najistotniejsze dla opowieści rozgrywa się w obrazach, sugestywnych spojrzeniach. Historia miłości modelki i absolwenta wydziału literatury daleka jest od banalności podobnych filmów. Broni się sprawną narracją i – przede wszystkim – otwartym zakończeniem, który pozwala każdemu widzowi dopisać własny ciąg dalszy. Różny w zależności od zapatrywań.

4. “Obca ziemia” Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas. Klasyczny i powszechnie doceniany film, który zapoczątkował tzw. retomadę, czyli odrodzenie kina brazylijskiego i stanowił preludium do wspaniałej kariery Waltera Sallesa (“Dworzec nadziei”; “Dark water – fatum”). “Obca ziemia” wyróżnia się poetyckim nastrojem całości, wielokrotnie spotęgowanym w finale. Duszna atmosfera filmowej Portugalii przenika odbiorcę na wskroś i jakoś dziwnie niepokoi. To kawał uniwersalnego kina, czytelnego pod każdą szerokością geograficzną.

3.”Trzech kumpli”. Anna Ferens, Ewa Stankiewicz. Dokument zrealizowany dla TVN-u, ale na bardzo wysokim, w pełni profesjonalnym poziomie. Najmocniej wbija się w pamięć postać Lesława Maleszki, niegdyś zaprzyjaźnionego z Bronisławem Wildsteinem i tragicznie zamordowanym Stanisławem Pyjasem. Jak się okazało wraz z ujawnianiem esbeckich teczek dziennikarz “Gazety Wyborczej” był TW Służby Bezpieczeństwa i donosił, w dużej mierze na swoich przyjaciół i znajomych. Obecne zachowanie Maleszki, kompletnie przeciwległe skrusze, przeraża i bulwersuje jednocześnie. Dokument dwóch początkujących reżyserek jest naprawdę wstrząsającym przeżyciem.

2.“Budda runął ze wstydu” Hana Makhmalbaf. Szczerze przyznam, że moje podejście do kina irańskiego cechowała spora rezerwa. Na film przedstawicielki reżyserskiego klanu Makhmalbafów zostałem niemal wypchnięty. Z całego serca dziękuję sprawcy mojego wyjścia w ostatnim dniu na “Buddę…”. Obraz dziewiętnastoletniej w momencie realizacji Hany zaskakuje dojrzałością i wnikliwością obserwacji. Ale najmocniejszym atutem bez wątpienia pozostaje autentyzm całości – na ekranie pojawiają się naturszczycy, w dodatku małoletni, których reżyserka umiejętnie prowadzi. Afganistan, w którym mała dziewczynka chce, tak jak jej sąsiad uczyć się alfabetu, a chłopcy bawią się w wojnę ze Stanami Zjednoczonymi, wstrząsa.

1.“Spotkania na krańcach świata” Werner Herzog. Jednak zdecydowanie najlepsze wrażenie zrobił na mnie najnowszy esej dokumentalny Wernera Herzoga. Reżyser pokazuje w nim grupę naukowców, pracujących na Antarktydzie.  Z jego obserwacji wyłania się portret ludzi uciekających przed cywilizacją, niesłychanych freaków – jak Herzog wynajduje podobnych bohaterów?! Poprzedni dokument niemieckiego twórcy (“Grizzly man”) podejmował temat relacji człowieka z naturą. Tutaj reżyser powraca do tej tematyki, ale tym razem jest dowcipny i ironiczny, co przydaje “Spotkaniom” dodatkowych wartości.

Lech Moliński

A rua agitada aí da foto fica na bela cidade de Wroclaw, importante ponto cultural da Europa Central, conhecida como a Veneza Polonesa. Composta por 12 ilhas, unidas por 117 pontes, o lugar foi pela oitava vez, o palco para um dos mais bacanas festivais de cinema independente do mundo. O Era New Horizons, terminou no último dia 27. E durante os 11 dias de programação, exibiu 460 filmes, 650 projeções e 30 filmes de uma mostra especial brasileira. Isso sem falar nas retrospectivas de Theo Angelopoulos, Terence Davies, Federico Fellini.

O filme vencedor na opinião do público foi Rain of the Children, de Vincent Ward. Confira o trailer.

Un fim di Vincent Ward, ispirato a un romanzo di Richard Matheson

Forse non rimarrà negli annali della storia del cinema, ma è una storia d’amore bellissima, a tratti straziante, versione moderna del mito di Orfeo ed Euridice. Lui, morto in un incidente d’auto, scende dal Paradiso fino all’Inferno per strappare al nulla l’anima della moglie, suicidatasi dopo la morte dei figli e del marito stesso. Con Robin Williams e Annabella Sciorra.

For some directors you abandon judgement. Maybe it’s a movie that seduced you, maybe it’s an interview they gave once, maybe it’s just down to contrariness on your part, but you fall in love and –as a critic – you’re cooked. It’s like that with Vincent Ward, for me. Ever since I heard him describe the “wooden planet” where he intended to set Alien 3, he had me. Ward has that auteur’s combination of bloody-minded guilelessness and eyes fixed on a far horizon. His “wooden planet” offers a perfect metaphor for his approach; it’s almost impossible to visualise (let alone understand) and yet… a wooden planet…. Even as you dismiss the idea, it sticks. Ward’s new movie, River Queen, is a disaster on many fronts, but I’d defend it, and him, to my last breath.

The setting is New Zealand in the mid-19th century. Britain is busy expanding it’s Empire and the Maori tribes of New Zealand are busy trying to resist. Caught up in the midst of this struggle are Samantha Morton (playing Irish), Kiefer Sutherland (playing Oirish) and Cliff Curtis (playing Maori). Morton has a son from a love affair with a Maori tribesman. She calls her son Boy because this is a Vincent Ward movie. At age five, Boy is kidnapped by his paternal grandfather. Morton searches for him for many years, almost surrendering to his loss. But on the eve of a great battle between the Maoris and the British, Cliff Curtis asks Morton to come “up river” – into the Maori heartlands. Only there – he tells her – will she and Boy be reunited.

There are troubled productions and there are Troubled productions and then there’s River Queen. Whoo boy. Short of bubonic plague breaking out on set, everything possible went wrong with this production. It’s star, Samantha Morton, fell sick. It’s director was fired. It’s budget was squandered. It was all Vincent Ward’s fault, of course. I’m not so starry-eyed that I don’t see the man has failings. Tales from the set have him wandering off into the forest, shooting days’ worth of leaves – leaving his stars unattended. He had spent the better part of his production budget after two weeks – so it goes – with nothing to show for it but lovingly-photographed foliage. And so he was replaced by his cinematographer and the movie became, in Morton’s words, “a film without a director”.

How can this turn out well? Well, it didn’t – to be blunt. River Queen has such an excess of voice-over that it’s a wonder when a scene doesn’t need explanation. The movie has a patchwork quality (as you might expect) and performances vary from very good (Morton) to hide-behind-a-beard bad (Sutherland). The story doesn’t make much sense and Samantha Morton’s motivation is sound as kitty litter – and yet… River Queen is worth watching. It’s worth it because of those few bits of Vincent Ward that are still in it: a shot of Morton lying in a Maori canoe at night, her face like a candle; or the scene where Kiefer Sutherland has died and a yellow bird perched on his chest becomes (for us) his soul.

I met Samantha Morton at the Edinburgh Film Festival last year, and I asked her about this movie. She didn’t know if it would be released. Morton, in person, is prickly but lovable. She destroyed her interviewer in Edinburgh, so if you meet her, my advice is: don’t say she plays “difficult women”. River Queen could have been something big for Morton, so it’s a pity it didn’t get a theatrical release. Her character allows her to show a maternal side that’s natural to her and her face, as ever, is beautiful because it can’t conceal. She has no co-star, really. Cliff Curtis chops his finger off, and we still don’t know who he is. Kiefer Sutherland puts on an Irish accent that’s so abominable you wonder if it’s for a bet. But Morton is incapable of poor acting. Plus she looks great in a tunic.

There are those who want movies to be good and those who don’t care about good, only that there is life in movies. I might criticise a movie for poor storytelling, or for bad acting, or a lousey script, but I’m prepared to ignore all that if a movie – even once – catches the beauty of life. There are a dozen shots, in my opinion, that save River Queen. Whether it’s the bird on Kiefer Sutherland’s chest, or the scene where Morton gets a Maori tattoo. There’s just enough left of Ward’s vision, just enough weight to Morton’s performance, that despite the voice-over track and the scenes shot for nothing and happy ending that makes no sense…You will see something in this movie. Like Ward’s “wooden planet”, it’s a poetic mistake.