Kim Ki-Duk Retrospective

“Why was this old world cursed with a creep like me?” asks the troubled lead of Kim Ki-Duk’s debut film Crocodile. The director arrived on the cusp of the Korean Wave but was far more interested in the depraved end of society than any of the country’s financial muscle. So as the nights grow darker what better time to delve into the director’s work. This month Kino Arsenal showcases a whopping 17 of the directors 19 features; from the aforementioned Crocodile- concerning the tender awakenings of a bridge dweller who picks the pockets of suicide victims on the riverbed- right up to last year’s Gold Lion winning Pieta, in which a cruel loan-shark deals with some troubling mommy issues; but fellow Venice darling 3 Iron- about a young drifter’s love affair with an abused housewife- might just be the pick of the bunch. 

Room 237

Wild rumours of underlying messages in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic The Shining have been doing the rounds for years. For Room 237 filmmaker Rodney Ascher brings together five major fanatics to shed some light on their theories. Greatly detailed throughout, the ramblings range from interesting points on layout and design- which perhaps seem reasonable enough given the director’s infamously meticulous nature- to some fairly way out conspiracies. A large grain of salt may be required but be you sceptic or converted, this a film about the director’s lingering aura. Not some crackpot’s unsolved mystery.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Following Twilight’s dominance at the box office it was only a matter of time before something new arrived to keep that demographic all hot and bothered. Adapted from the first book of another bestselling series, City of Bones follows a young woman named Clary (Lily Collins, daughter of Phil) as she juggles with revelations about  her past, pesky demons and  boy troubles while trying to unearth some sacred cup. Miserable stuff (unless you’re into that sort of thing) but hey, at least the werewolves are Irish.

Storm Surfers 3D

Two aging championship surfers spend the southern hemisphere’s winter months trekking out to big-wave hot spots off the Australian coast, using someone called a ‘surf forecaster’ – which is a real job apparently- to monitor oceanic swells and predict what region to hit. There’s some painfully staged basecamp stuff and a rather clumsy narrative but with Red Bull-who have become the Medici of this sort of ludicrous behaviour- .providing some serious equipment, whenever we look to the ocean, Storm Surfers offers plenty to get the heart racing. 
 

       On his 50th anniversary James Bond returns in Skyfall and, with the help of some new faces, breaths fresh life into the franchise.
       We find MI6 on shaky ground and having taken a bullet on duty in Istanbul, Bond (Daniel Craig on his 3rd outing) is far from full strength. What’s more a mysterious cyber terrorist by the name of Silva (Javier Bardem) is threatening to release the identities of a large number of undercover operatives working in the field. Bond must battle his ailing body but also obsoletion as he faces this new-age foe.
       In Silva we are treated to the best Bond villain in years, with Javier Bardem taking the current Bad-Guy trend of chaotic mega-anarchists and adding a sort of camp twist. Alongside Bardem the great Ralph Fiennes and relative newcomer Ben Whishaw (as Q) add plenty of class to the supporting roles but it's on the other side of the camera that the greatest progress has happened. Surely the most accomplished director to have taken on the job, Sam Mendes takes a shot at The Blockbuster and nails it. Borrowing Brad Bird's earnest humour and Christopher Nolan's keen eye for architecture he manages to deliver a Bond which feels both singular and timeless. It's all there; the Walter PPK; the DB9; The car chase through exploding fruit stalls; his strokes may seem broad but Mendes lashes them on with such a degree of skill it's hard to complain, and why would you, it's just too fun.
       The film can prove a tad overbearing at times as it basks in Britain's post Olympics euphoria and at 145 mins it's probably a touch too long, but by sniggering at recent over-complications and relishing in the old clichés, Sam Mendes has made a Bond which will delight the diehards and excite the rest of us in equal measures. 

Kim Ki-duk's Pieta

       Pieta is a visceral and captivating work which boasts plenty of depravity but also great warmth. Kang Do is a merciless loan shark whose method of balancing the books is to mutilate his borrowers and pick up the insurance cheques. It proves a solitary life for Kang Do but that all changes when Mi-Son, a woman claiming to be his mother, appears on the scene. Mi-Son exposes Kang Do to tenderness for perhaps the first time and, suddenly concerned with her protection, the young man gains a new purpose in life.

One World Festival: Jenny Perlin's The Perlin Papers

       This month the One World film festival returns to Berlin for its 9th instalment on these shores, screening 11 documentaries in Kino Arsenal and the new premises of the Czech centre. With human rights as its modus operandi the program will cover a wide range of subjects; from the reliable documentary cannon fodder of religion, sex and politics (Would You Have Sex With An Arab, 22 Nov, 19:30, Arsenal) to the somewhat more niche issue of ageing crypt squatters in the suburbs of Prague (Love on the Grave, 27 Nov 19:00, Czech centre). Chris Belloni’s Documentary Gay And Muslim explores, as the title might suggest, the lives of homosexual men living in Morocco’s strictly Muslim society; The obvious difficulties but also the strange paradoxes given the sheltered, male world of their upbringing (Nov 25, 20:00, Arsenal). Across 8 short films, Jenny Perlin’s The Perlin Papers blends video art, dialogue and imagery in an interesting meditation on the stacks of decaying files which once fuelled McCarthy’s communist witch hunts in the states (28 Nov, Arsenal). In globalisation doc Bitter Seeds, Micha X. Peleds attempts to contemplate the staggering suicide rates of India’s cotton farmers by focusing on the microcosm of a small farming town (26 Nov, 19:00, Arsenal). All films either English language or English subs.