LFF 2011: Take Shelter, The Monk and Damsels In Distress

Take Shelter
Gripping, chilling, moving, and frequently astonishingly powerful: Take Shelter was the film that caught LFF-goers unawares. With hints of both early Spielberg and Shyamalan, this second film by writer/director Jeff Nichols has been gathering momentum all year since picking up two awards at Cannes.

In brief, the film’s hero, played with compelling conviction by Michael Shannon, is a simple family man in a nowheresville in the heartland of the US who suffers from visions of an apocalyptic storm.

The intensity of the storm and its impact increases with each night’s vision, and each morning the damage inflicted on him in the dream has a half-life in his waking world.

Inevitably the intensity of the visions, the disturbed sleep and his worry about his mother’s medical history now blossoming anew within his brain drive him into paranoia and madness.

Initially, his wife (played impeccably by actress of the year Jessica Chastain) and best friend are supportive, but soon his erratic behaviour puts those relationships in jeopardy.

Ultimately he has to make a choice to be consumed by his visions and lose everything or suffer medium-term sacrifices to ensure he can work his way back to a normal life.

Nicholls, with the help of some astonishing special effects work, great cinematography, and a stirring Clint Mansell-esque score, grasps the audience in his hands and takes you into the hero’s nightmare. The visions had me gripping my chair even as I jumped out of it, and in at least one case the vision was too much and I had to close my eyes rather than face the expected (but not delivered) outcome.

This is no frightfest though: Nichols cleverly ramps down the shocks once he’s got you in his grips – after the first few visions, your imagination takes over and you assume the worse, allowing the director to concentrate his focus on the hero’s psychological and emotional journey.

If there’s any justice, Nichols, Shannon and the film itself will be strewn with awards nominations that will allow this small film ($5m budget, says IMDb) to break out and to be seen by the huge audience it thoroughly deserves to enthral.

Miss it at your peril.
Score: 9/10

The Monk
Director Dominik Moll made his name with Harry, He’s Here To Help and Lemming, and now’s he’s back with this adaptation of key early Gothic horror story, The Monk.

It’s an atmospheric, occasionally chilling critique of the moral constrictions of Catholicism, with Vincent Cassel as the titular monk Ambrosio, who falls from the highest state of piety to being prey for the devil.

Cassel is utterly convincing as usual, but for the first time in his career plays a completely restricted character, with no freedom of expression, movement or emotion. Even as he falls from grace, Cassel’s monk can’t break free from his shackles.

However, this adaptation, while rigorous in its execution, seems to leave several threads hanging come its conclusion, while the score is a little too predictable.

Ultimately this is a European arthouse take on a Hammer horror.
Score: 6.5/10

Damsels In Distress
Well this was the surprise movie – and unfortunately for me it was a bit of a dud.

I was seriously disappointed by this, and my score reflects not the intentions or hard work of any of those involved in the production of the film, nor the decision of festival director Sandra Hebron to screen it; no, my score reflects the fact that I just didn’t ‘get’ it.

The only way to describe it is, in the words of Dunkini, the ‘anti-Heathers’. New girl starts at college, and is embraced by a clique of doo-gooding simpletons. Delivery of dialogue is intentionally flat, while the cast do their best to breathe life into characters that are deliberately drawn without it.

There are some funny moments, not least the anal sex gag, but other than that the film totally failed to engage me.
Score: 2/10