This is the question I have discussed with many people who have seen and loved Hugo, arising from the almost universal comment: “It’s great, but it’s not a kids’ film.”

Perhaps it comes from the need to justify loving such an imaginative and deep tale; or perhaps it says more about the quality of live action children films we have come to expect; or perhaps it is simply because this is not a film children would enjoy.

The plot concerns an orphan, Hugo (Asa Butterfield), trying to rebuild a broken mechanical man, a project he started with his now deceased father. To get the parts he needs, he steals from a shopkeeper at the train station where he lives. The shopkeeper (Ben Kingsley) catches him and takes away the book with the instructions on how to build the auto man again. However, with the help of the shopkeeper’s goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretx), they try and get the book back and rebuild the one link Hugo has to his father.

All of which, especially when written down, sounds very much like the plot to a fairly typical children’s film. Deceased parents; mysterious father figure; an unlikely friendship; and mystery a plenty.

What perhaps differentiates it from other kids’ films is the way it interweaves the history of cinema into its plot in the second and third acts. As such, Hugo would be as good an introduction as any to the films and techniques of cinema in the early twentieth century.

You see, what marks a good children’s film from a great children’s film is simply the way it captivates the imagination. When one thinks of the truly great children’s films that have withstood the test of time, one might mention Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Star Wars or E.T..

What all these films have in common is the way, whether an adult or a child, we get completely caught up in the world they have created. There is also a sense of the mysterious the film leaves us with when it ends. Where is Oz? Where does Mary Poppins come from? How did the Empire start? Where exactly is E.T.’s home and what is it like? It is these unanswered questions that allow us to stay within the world’s these films have created, they allow us to continue to explore them in our imaginations.

It is also what causes some films and characters to lose their allure. The Star Wars prequels don’t work as well as the originals precisely because everything is explained; monsters become less, rather than more, scary once we actually see them (Jaws, Cloverfield, etc.) Mystery and imagination go hand-in-hand and allow all of us, whether adult or child, to remain within the worlds of our favourite films.

Perhaps the appeal of Hugo lies in the classical appeal of cinema itself. The mysterious way reels of frames produce moving pictures; or the imagination so evident in the works of early cinema Scorsese shows us with such affection.

Hugo has all the depth and intellect of the great adult films, but ultimately it has the heart and imagination of all the best children’s films. Whatever ay you slice it, it’s simply one of the best films of 2011.

The film features Clark, not Monroe, as its central character. It tells the true life tale of how he met Monroe on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). Clark had his first job working as the third assistant director, a role which basically has him doing precisely what the director, Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) tells him to.

Fortunately for Clark, it soon becomes apparent that his role will involve doing his best to comfort and reassure the insecure Monroe, who is frequently turning up late to set, forgetting her lines, and thinks Olivier hates her. The more the two spend time together, the more Clark falls for Monroe. However, from the title alone, we know that however much Monroe may enjoy Clark’s company, their romance is to be short-lived.

Williams is perfectly suited to a role that requires her on one hand to be Monroe as we see her on screen, alluring, playful and impossible to take your eyes off, and on the other hand, the person who lacked confidence in herself, and still dealing with the emotional trauma of her childhood.

Williams conveys the sense that Monroe was as surprised by anyone by her own success, and completely unsure as to what her actual talent was. The central conflict of the film sees Olivier and Monroe look at each other with contempt and envy. As one character puts it: “Olivier is a great actor who wants to be a film star; and Monroe a great film star who wants to be an actor.”

There’s a sense in which the film is trying to move away from a more emotional story trying to get out. We all know how the life of Marilyn Monroe eventually ends, and it seems to me the decision of Clark to write a book about his experience decades later shows the weight the events of the film must have had on him.

Depite this, the film’s ending seems to see Clark’s character grow up and learn his lesson very quickly. One character remarking “you seem to be about a foot taller since I last saw you.” It’s as though My Week with Marilyn is trying to paint its tale as nothing more than a holiday fling with someone who happens to be Marilyn Monroe; rather than a film about a young man whose fling is with Marilyn Monroe, and how strange, exhilarating and painful that must have been.

For it seems, against all odds, that Clark was just as close, and yet just as far away as anyone else to finding out what lay between the on-screen persona and the off-screen paranoia. Then again, maybe we should dismiss this film, as we might Marilyn, as light, breezy and never to be taken too seriously.

Cancer. Not the easiest of topics to bring to the screen, and perhaps one the last topics you’d expect Seth Rogen to be involved with. Yet here he is, and you know what the film, like Seth Rogen’s character, is surprisingly funny, charming, heart-warming and genuine.

It focuses on Adam (Joseph Gordon Levitt) who finds out at the start of the film he’s got a rare form of cancer. The film follows his journey as he comes to terms with the fact, at the age of 27, he only has a 50% chance of surviving the disease.

There to help, and indeed hinder him, are his girlfriend of only a few months, Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard); his best friend and co-worker Jack (Seth Rogen); his inexperienced therapist (Anna Kendrick); and his mother (Angelica Huston).

Based on the experiences of Seth Rogen’s best friend, and writer of the film, Will Reiser, the film manages to convey the emotions of a young man facing his own mortality in what feels like a very real and true way.

From the moment Adam is told about his cancer, we immediately ‘get’ the shock this must be to someone of his age, as well as screaming inwardly for some humanity from the doctor who tells him the news, describing the rare form of cancer as ‘fascinating’ as oppose to tragic.

From there, we are taken every step of the way, as Adam has to see the pain in his mother’s eyes as he tells her the news; his first round of chemotherapy; and his attempts to try and forget about both the physical and emotional pain through a combination of drugs, alcohol and sex.

Not only is the emotional journey of the film’s protagonist handled well, but 50/50 also does a great job of showing the impact the disease has on the people who love him most. It wisely shies away from allowing all the characters to express precisely what they feel about the situation. Instead, they simply try and be there for Adam, rather than giving the kind of rousing speeches emotional movies like this can be tempted to rely upon.

Reiser seems to be saying that he didn’t need people to say or do anything for him while he was going through cancer treatment but merely be.

50/50 is one of the best surprises of a film to come out this year. It’s emotional without being too sappy, and life-affirming without being preachy. A cheesier film reviewer than I might end a review like this by saying “Chances of you enjoying 50/50? 100%.” But I’m not going to fall for that trap…

Perhaps I should not be surprised that it is to this sub-genre so many of my favourite horror films of the last ten years have come from. The Orphanage, The Others and The Ring all developing the kind of unsettling atmosphere only the best horror movies manage to reproduce.

The secret to all these films is allowing the scares to come from the unseen rather than the seen (“torture porn” movies take note). Perhaps it is a little like the teacher who to get control of an unruly class, does not shout manically, but rather stands quietly, forcing the pupils to pay attention to their stern, unblinking manner; the unheard, rather than the heard proving the most effective in this instance.

The Awakening follows a lot of these rules. In it, we follow Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall), the infamous ghost hunter who has no belief in anything supernatural. The opening scene of the film sees Cathcart uncovering the tricks of a conman claiming he can speak to the dead. It finishes with one of the woman whose been conned attacking Cathcart, such is this woman’s desperation to be tricked into believing she can have contact with her dead son.

This examination of grief is something that the film is primarily concerned with as we are asked to question whether a belief in ghosts is a necessary part of the mourning process or a distraction that prevents us from moving on?

After this introduction into Cathcart’s world, a stranger called Mallory (Dominic West) appears at her door. He is a teacher at a boarding school, and asks her to investigate what could possibly have literally scared one of his pupils to death.

The setting for the piece is shortly after the First World War, “never has there been a better time for ghosts,” Cathcart remarks in her book on ghost hunting. All the characters in the film, both adults and children, remain haunted by the loss of loved ones. For Cathcart it is the death of her lover; for Mallory, survivor’s guilt.

The beginning of the film sees Cathcart meticulously try and find out which of the pupils, or indeed the teachers, is responsible for what she believes to be a prank gone wrong. However, as she stays longer in the school she starts seeing things that could not possibly be there, and becoming more and more paranoid about her safety.

The first two thirds of the film remain this moody, atmospheric and mysterious. However, arguably the third act does a poor job of holding things together, with an arguably unnecessary twist distracting from all the genuine depth and troubles of the film’s protagonists.

Ultimately it is the strong themes of memory, guilt and longing that allow the film to rise above the finale’s slightly weak plotting. Like The Orphanage, it is a film which is probably just as strong on second viewing, since the work it puts into its characters cannot distract us from its attempts to ‘wow’ the audience with twists we’ve seen too many times before.

I was at the festival on Friday and Saturday, and managed to make it along to three of the feature films; the Young Filmmaker’s Award; and plenty of the installations that made up the Artist’s Trail.

Overall, it was a great experience, the staff organising the festival should be complimented for both their friendliness and enthusiasm for everything on display. The programme was very well thought out, and epitomised what a small festival like this should be like: a strong theme, great use of locations around the town, and a good variety of films for audiences to choose from.

I Am Nasrine

There are not very many films set in the North-East of England, so it was great to see one in which it features so prominently at a festival in the North-East.

Opening in Iran, I Am Nasrine follows a brother, Ali, and a sister, Nasrine, as they are forced to leave Iran to make a new life for themselves in England. Nasrine, who is just 16, enrols in a local school a strikes up a friendship with Nicole, a member of the traveling community. Encouraged by Nicole, Nasrine starts to enjoy all the freedoms being away from both Iran and her parents affords.

Meanwhile, Ali has to work two jobs just to get by. He finds it much more difficult to adjust to life in the UK, and shows little interest in anything other than his work. However, we soon realise Ali, like Nasrine, is longing to form a new identity for himself, if only he had the confidence to show people who he really was.

Giving a depiction of modern Britain very similar to other social realists like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, I Am Nasrine paints a portrait of the country which shows a great gulf in civil liberties between it and Iran, and yet the same kind of close-minded and ultimately cruel people that forced Nasrine and Ali to flee their home. Part of the message of the film seems to be that regardless of what a government says is right or wrong, people will still find ways to be suspicious of one another and inflict cruelty on one another.

Moomin and Midsummer Madness

I must confess to never having ‘got’ the Moomins growing up. Their world seemed strange and foreign, and I seemed to find it difficult to relate to their stories. However, the chance to see them on the big screen seemed like a the perfect opportunity to give them another chance.

Moomin and Midsummer Madness is a movie produced in 2008, and is a compilation of the relevant episodes from the stop-motion TV series made between 1977 and 1982.

In it we see Moomintroll and his family forced to leave their home after a volcano erupts and causes a huge flood to engulf their residence. Luckily a theatre floats by, and the family jumps aboard to discover the joys of producing their very own play.

I watched the film with a mixture of delight and suspicion. Delight at incredibly uncynical and innocent nature of the story, but suspicion as to whether it would appeal to the 21st century children of today.

In one of the opening scenes for example, the volcano causes the earth to split open and Moomintroll loses his toothbrush. He seems genuinely upset about this, as do all the characters around him, and the film goes to great lengths to make us understand what a tragedy this was. However, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the kids watching would value their dental hygiene as much as Moomintroll clearly does.

Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. On my way out I heard a girl, who appeared to be around four years old, still concerned about the toothbrush that had disappeared a good hour and a half earlier. “Where did it go?” she asked “Will they never get it back?” It would appear, regardless of the culture you grow up in, the best stories remain so generations on.

I left the theatre entranced and won over by the power of the Moomins, and hope I will get another chance to witness their charm and curiosity in the near future.

Chris Anderson Award for Best Young Filmmaker

On Saturday afternoon I sat in a theatre surrounded by dozens of faces soon to be projected on the big screen in front of me. The purpose was to celebrate young people’s efforts in creating their very own short films, and afterwards one was chosen to receive the Chris Anderson Award.

Two of the films stood out from the crowd. Driving Me Crazy, which expertly balanced comedy and horror, as the central character takes her driving test. The problem is she’s absolutely obsessed with her boyfriend, and can’t concentrate on her driving long enough to do anything her examiner asks.

What starts out as a fairly gentle comedy, then takes a darker twist, as we soon realise the boyfriend isn’t as enthused as his obsessive other half.

With a great performance from the lead, as she gradually changes from ditzy to psychotic, Driving Me Crazy was a very well structured, funny and gruesome tale, and rightly received a special mention from the jury.

The film which won the award was entitled Brian and Brian’s Amazing Eggventure, a stop motion animation by Mark Boston. It concerned two friends: Brian (a gorilla) and Brian (a duck) who are trying to prevent the world from being overrun by fried eggs.

Just as bizarre as it sounds, the best way to describe it is perhaps The Mighty Boosh for the Spongebob generation. Another good point of reference is the French stop motion film A Town Called Panic.

Young director, Boston, should be complimented for creating such a bizarre, bold and brilliant film with such a unique and uncompromising vision propelling it.

Hello! How are you?

Eastern European cinema is not known for its comedy, as anyone who’s seen Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days can testify to. However, coming straight from Romania is a Romantic Comedy which tries to change that stereotype; a Rom-Rom-Com if you will.

In a plot similar to The Pina Colada Song, or perhaps even You’ve Got Mail, a husband and wife are getting bored and frustrated by their marriage, and turn to online chat rooms to try and find another kindred spirit. Predictably, they meet one another, and fall in love all over again. The only problem is, they don’t know it’s their spouse on the other end, and both go to great lengths to make sure the other person does not find out about their online affair.

A subplot concerns their son who is exploring his own sexuality, and discovering he has a real knack for picking up women. At the start of the movie, he comes across as arrogant, and completely self-centred. However, he soon realises he wants more than sex, and so he too must explore what brings him satisfaction in a relationship, which in turn causes him to question what he really values in life.

This being an Eastern European film, there’s still plenty of room for misery. The predictable third act reveal makes for some unpredictable consequences. Things aren’t so easily resolved for the husband and wife as we might have hoped. The film often leaves the audience frustrated as we see the potential of a couple unwilling or perhaps unable to rekindle the obvious love and affection that bubbles underneath the surface.

The message of the film seems to be that love is there for people who want to find it, but it often leaves us exposed in ways we may not like.

The Artist’s Trail

A number of short, artistic, installations dotted around the town made up The Artist’s Trail. The highlight for me was a display entitled Maria. To view it, you had to walk through a dark tunnel and peer through some peep holes. As you did so, you saw a hologram of a woman clothed in white with her back to you slowly dancing. The location and way in which you had to view it gave the whole thing the feeling of some kind of bizarre high-class peepshow. An eerily beautiful exhibit.

Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival will return in September 2012 with extra funding and as a result a much bigger programme. You can keep up to date with them all year round via their twitter page.

This weekend (Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th September) sees the Berwick Film and Arts Festival descend upon Berwick-Upon-Tweed in the North of England. Thanks to the nice people organising the event, and East Coast trainline*, I’ll be covering the festival for this very blog. This year’s theme is Once upon a Time, with films and events exploring storytelling, folklore and fairy tale. Here’s some of the highlights you can look forward to:

Friday night sees the premiere of I Am Nasrine, a film set in North-East England. It concerns the struggle of a brother and sister forced to flee their home in Tehran and make a new life for themselves in the UK. The film will be followed by a Q&A with the director Tina Gharavi.

Saturday brings a whole host of events and films. There’s a chance for attendees to see the brilliant new film from Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) entitled Arriety, which is an animated Japanese reimagining of Mary Norton’s classic book The Borrowers.

In the evening, Hello! How Are You? puts a modern Romanian twist on Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”, as a married couple turn to internet dating only to find one another.

Finally, on Sunday the festival will close with Blue Bird, a silent film from 1918 all about two children who go in search of the blue bird of happiness. The film will be accompanied live by Carl Heslop on the organ.

Through out the festival, there will also be the chance to catch a large range of installations, projections and exhibitions as part of The Artist’s Trail. The trail is made up of seven different locations in Berwick, and all the pieces are based around this year’s fairy tale theme.

There are plenty more films and events happening at the festival, which you can find out about by visiting their website, or by reading my interview with the festival’s director, Melanie Iredale, for ReelScotland.

*My transport to the festival from Edinburgh to Berwick Upon Tweed was kindly provided by East Coast Trains: advance return fares, booked online, start from £10 Standard Class or £22.80 First Class: book via www.eastcoast.co.uk, call 08457 225225 or visit any staffed station.

Living together in the same house, it is difficult to tell how exactly what the relationship between the two lead characters is. As food gets delivered through a hatch to Vera, we wonder whether she is a prisoner, although the affection between Vera and Robert suggests otherwise.

It is not really until the beginning of the second act as we flashback to various times in both Vera’s and Robert’s lives that we begin to understand the complexities of their relationship and just how ground-breaking Robert’s work is.

Almodóvar skilfully combines Hitchcockian tension with a Cronenberg-esque love of body horror to bring a remarkable and uncomfortable film to our screens. As we slowly realise the true nature of the two characters we are watching, the truth is difficult to comprehend at first, and also masterfully revealed through the film’s excellent use of structure.

Other films would not have spent so long in the present to begin with as Almodóvar did. However, it is through this time of being fascinated yet clueless about the conversations and events before our eyes, that the events of the second and third acts really impact us as an audience.

Perhaps the only real criticism of the film is the fact it lacks universal appeal. I could hear the audible relief and disgust from some cinema goers as the film ended. Clearly they had never seen any early Cronenberg, or prepared themselves for the creepiness of the previous two hours. This is certainly not a film your grandmother will enjoy despite its deceptively stylish and unblemished opening minutes.

The Skin I Live In is a film its difficult to describe without giving too much away. However, its a film fans of body horror will love, and fans of tension, plot and intrigue will also love. Just make sure you’re not with an elderly relative when you go and see it.

I’m referring to films like E.T., Back to the Future, Flight of the Navigator, Home Alone, or Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

Maybe I’m just looking back on these times with rose tinted spectacles in saying, “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore”. However, if they do they’re certainly less part of the zeitgeist than those films were in my childhood. Perhaps kids nowadays are happy just watching the same child hero eight times, and see no need for any other?

Whatever the case there’s something very comforting and familiar about the latest film from J.J. Abrams, Super 8. Set in the eighties, it sees a group of ordinary kids at the centre of some extraordinary circumstances.

The circumstances start as the kids in question are making their own film on a Super 8 camera late one night, and witness a horrific and spectacular train crash. The military soon arrive to try and cover up whatever the train was carrying, and the kids start to investigate what exactly is gong on.

At the centre of the film is Joe (Joel Courtney), who lost his mother in an accident eight months previous. His father is the deputy, equally interested in what’s going on, but oblivious to his son’s role in all of this. Part of the emotional heart of the film sees Joe’s Dad (Kyle Chandler) entirely committed to the well-being of the town while failing to notice or respond to the emotional needs of his still grieving son.

The other main relationship in the film is between Joe and Alice (Elle Fanning), as she gets roped into acting in the boys’ film much to the delight of Joe. However, the blossoming romance is soon threatened by a rivalry between their two fathers. As well as the small matter of a series of mysterious attacks somehow linked to the train crash that threaten to literally tear their who town apart.

The combination of the innocence of its young characters and the nostalgia for a type of film very much associated with the era its set it in making for an incredibly joyous and thrilling adventure.

Of course, the addition of some very impressive 21st Century special effects are a welcome addition. The train crash in particular is a spectacular mix of terror and amazement.

Super 8 is a refreshing homage to a different and strangely distant era of films. As well as being a really entertaining watch, it also brought me back to the type of films that completely enthralled me as a child, and got be hooked on this form of storytelling; an addiction I’ve haven’t been able to give up since.

Tree of Life is a film which knows how to take its time. It cuts between Sean Penn in the present day, his memories of childhood in the 1950s, and the very origin of life itself millions of years ago. Whatever accusations you may throw at Tree of Life, lack of ambition is certainly not one of them.

The patchwork nature of the film, which is beautifully epitomised by the film’s poster, make for a strangely ‘inward’ viewing experience. What do I mean by this?

Many films, especially blockbusters like Transformers or Pirates of the Caribbean, throw so much at us in terms of plot, characters and twists we are given very little time to reflect on what we have just seen. This makes them much like a roller coaster experience, as we are thrown left, right, and upside down by the intended thrills of the film.

This makes watching the film a very ‘external’ or reactive viewing experience, in that we are constantly responding to the wealth events on the screen.

Tree of Life does precisely the opposite. When we are shown the beautiful images of volcanoes, stars or landscape, we can’t help but be reflective, as opposed to reactive. There is so little going on in terms of plot, characters and twists at these points, we must consider our own individual thoughts on the origin of life, the nature of suffering, and the impact of our past experiences and memories on our current being.

Of course the reflective nature of such a film may not be to everyone’s tastes. The cinema is often seen as a place of escapism, a place to be thrilled by another story, taken to a new world, a place to forget everything else that is happening. Tree of Life will not allow you to do that. Or at the very least it didn’t allow me to do that.

Instead it’s a film which invites you to confront your own memories, your own sufferings, your own philosophies on life, death, parenting, love and guilt. Whatever the opposite of escapism is, Tree of Life is it.

Aside from the images and music which make up much of the first half of the film, the second half does have a more traditional narrative form. It concerns the relationship between a father (Brad Pitt), and his sons.

Through this section of the film we see how complex and messy the nature of self can be. We see a father with the best of intentions for his sons, unable to communicate fully his love for them. We see a son who finally gets the freedom he craves when his father leaves on a business trip, and the guilt that comes from abusing that freedom.

Although Tree of Life is a film which lacks clarity and a firm direction, it is a film very purposeful in its decision to do so. It is a bold, uncompromising, intelligent film which demands repeat viewings, and a film which will be discussed and debated well after it has left the cinema.

Mark Davidson, Laura Croft, Steve O’Hara and Dave Wark review all the best films from this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival (15th – 26th June 2011)

As well as giving their opinion on how this year’s cash-strapped festival compared to previous years, they also give their own Pick of the Fest. Dave also starts singing; it made everybody feel all warm and bright.

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