Mubi Monday: Calm With Horses (2019)

Let's be completely honest from the start here, Calm With Horses is nothing that we haven't already seen done, and done well, in dozens of other dramas from the UK and Ireland. Thankfully, this has atmosphere and performances that make it very much worth your time.

Cosmo Jarvis plays Arm, an ex-boxer who now works as the muscle for a notorious local family. He's often alongside Dympna (Barry Keoghan), and the family appreciates that he will do whatever is asked of him. Until he becomes hesitant about dealing with Flannigan (Liam Carney), a man accused of a transgression that gives him a death sentence. Stuck between his employers and his own morality, Arm is also struggling to be a good father, and trying to accept that his ex-partner, Ursula (Niamh Algar), is ready to move away from the area to somewhere that could be much better for their young son.

While I have seen Jarvis in a number of different movies over the years, I have not singled him out for praise, although he was been consistently good, and great in Lady Macbeth. This is probably his best performance yet though, strong and ready for violence, but also aware of how much better life can be when people can be softer and peaceful with one another. Everyone else here is very good (Keoghan and Algar just as you'd expect, and Carney, David Wilmot, Ned Dennehy, and Anthony Welsh all perfect in their respective roles, whether they're acting scared, scary, or slightly oblivious to the violent world that is just one side-step away from them), but the film belongs to Jarvis.

This might be the first feature directed by Nick Rowland, but he helps himself enormously by trusting Joe Murtaugh to adapt Colin Barrett's short story, as well as assembling a cast of superb talent. Getting Jarvis in place was probably the most important part, a solid anchor point that everything else can be attached to, but everything is treated with due care and a faith in the material.

It may not be the most cinematic work, and there isn't anything I want to highlight, but everything is in service of the script and the acting in a way that is reassuring. Everyone behind the camera has done their job in a way that doesn't call attention to their valuable contributions, and that is sometimes a lot harder to do than it might seem.

Grim stuff, but not without a fleeting ray of sunshine breaking through the gathering clouds, Calm With Horses is a film I would happily recommend to anyone after something moving and powerful. There are one or two moments that come close to being too uncomfortable to sit through, but Murtaugh and Rowland know just how far to take things, and how to keep the central character riveting as he tries to hold in the anger that is constantly beating him up internally.

9/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Mubi Monday: Censor (2021)

There are a couple of things to bear in mind here, as my review for Censor unfolds. First, I never aim to be contrarian just for the sake of it. Second, something can still be original even as it brings to mind numerous other movies. Oh, and one more thing, this current nostalgic glow for the "video nasties" era is already overstaying its welcome, although I suspect I am in the minority with that viewpoint.

Censor is the story of Enid Baines (played by Niamh Algar), a woman working at the board of censors during the 1980s, the height of the moral panic over video content suddenly being available to most households. She struggles with every decision that she makes, battling against people who want their films uncensored, and also struggles with the weight of her sister's disappearance many years ago. During a time that sees her harangued by the public for some of her decisions, Enid views a film that contains an actress she suspects may actually be the key to unlocking exactly what happened to her sister. But maybe she is seeing what she wants to see, or maybe she is being affected by the material she watches every day at her work.

An admittedly fantastic feature debut from director Prano Bailey-Bond, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Anthony Fletcher, Censor manages to thread together a number of thought-provoking and unsettling scenes set against a background that will still feel fresh (sore?) to many horror movie fans. It's easy to romanticise that time - every horror fan of a certain age will have at least one tale of the time they were able to source a supply of fine "under the counter" nasties - but it's better to look back on it with the disdain and disgust it deserves. People were facing huge fines and jail time. Because of movies. And many of those movies are very easily available now, many of them uncut. The censors were enemies, viewing many adults with a horribly patronising attitude (covered by a sentiment of "won't someone please think of the children"), and maybe one or two stories could still be told with that focus. Censor doesn't want to do that.

What you have here is a mix of The Canal, Evil Ed, and Berberian Sound Studio. Those are good movies to want to emulate. Even Evil Ed. The aesthetics of the film feel spot on, and there are some nice touches that lend authenticity to an experience that feels admirably like a video cassette you've just put into a shiny new top-loader machine. What you don't have is a perfect and unique modern classic. Although nicely put together, and there are a number of impressive scenes throughout, Censor never really stretches itself any further than it needs to. Bailey-Bond does great work on the atmosphere throughout, but squanders the opportunity to present viewers with something smarter and fresher.

Algar is excellent in the lead role, very quiet and reserved until she starts to become more affected by everything going on in her mind. A number of other cast members do decent work, but none make a stronger impression than the excellent Michael Smiley, giving another of his enjoyably unsettling performances (a manner that is just too familiar, a smile that stays a bit too long). Clare Holman and Andrew Havill are excellent as concerned parents, and Felicity Montagu is very good in her small role, but Censor is more of a mood piece than an actor's showcase.

I really liked this, despite what you may think from reading what I have just written above. I didn't love it though, and I'm a bit surprised by just how much love it has been receiving recently. It's surprisingly straightforward and predictable, uses the VHS witch-hunt as little more than background noise to a plot that ultimately could be viewed as saying that the BBFC and others were correct to try to "ban this sick filth", and often feels more like an exercise in style than the more interesting, visceral, psychological horror that it could have been.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing. All links are HERE.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews