Kirschblüten - Hanami (Doris Dörrie, 2008)

Cherry Blossoms taps into the popular vein of the Western exoticisation of Japan, old and new, both perceived as equally alien. The film is not a critique of this tendency, however: director Dörrie is as much prey to this fixation as, say,  Sofia Coppola with Lost in Translation, except without the self-defensively ironic stance. And to cap the fixation, the first half is an unacknowledged retread of Ozu's Tokyo Story: an elderly couple from the boondocks go for a last trip to visit all their estranged children in the big city and bemusedly find themselves slighted as inconveniences by their self-absorbed offspring, only accommodated by those who are not their blood relatives. Ok, the theme can be seen as universal, but it really is a carbon copy, more than Claire Denis's transposition of Ozu's Late Spring in 35 Rhums. 
The second half does strike out on its own as Elmar Wepper, as the staid patriarch blooming too late in life, seeks resolution in Japan. But, a couple of fine character readings notwithstanding, it remains too flat to really involve, a fact not helped by the choice to opt for drab video throughout when some of the key images cried out for a wider range of tones.

5/10

My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007)

A wholly idiosyncratic piece from a director who can only be described as leftfield, My Winnipeg is in equal parts a documentary of the history of Maddin's home town, a dramatised account of his childhood, a prose poem musing on his love-hate relationship with the city, and an expressionist fantasy revolving around the quirkier elements of the city's denizens.
It's largely shot in a Soviet heroic style, but this is also punctuated by shadow puppet animation, newsreel footage and collages of arresting surrealist images. This could all be unbearably pretentious, but Maddin's voice-over narrative makes it gel into something more emotive than a mere documentary, and more grounded than most auteurial musings of this ilk.

7/10

The Damned United (Tom Hooper, 2009)

Now this is how a biopic should be done. There's no requirement for the viewer to be remotely interested in 1970s football, which is only glimpsed in flashes in the background. Brian Clough, a brittle egocentric genius in his field, was compelling enough viewing in his real-life interviews and here, in a slice of his life where he rose to become one of the seminal figures of British culture, a combination of Hooper's direction, witty and poignant in turn, and Michael Sheen's mercurial depiction of the arriviste Northerner makes for a whole that far exceeds the remit of just documenting a celebrity's life. It's fundamentally about ambition and the relationships between men.
Granted, some dramatic liberties are taken with factual detail, but it's truthful where it counts: it gets to the heart of an era, of the issue of class, and of the man himself. Packed with bittersweet period detail and ably assisted by a fine cast, including Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent and Colm Meaney, The Damned United should serve as a template of focus and economy for anyone contemplating tackling the biopic genre.

8/10

Walk the Line (James Mangold, 2005)

Musicians' biopics are more vulnerable, by the nature of their highly subjective selling point, than those of politicians or even sports stars, to summary dismissal by segments of the audience who are left cold by the protagonist's supposed appeal. A comparable problem faces the biopicist of any type of artist, of course - how can Pollock, say, engage anyone who doesn't subscribe to the notion that a man splashing paint randomly can be considered a genius worthy of self-torment? And American '50s country music is hardly something that stakes claim to universal appeal outside the linedancing rhinestone Mid-West.
Still, Johnny Cash as a subject should be a figure who transcends these limitations. 'Tortured' should give genre cross-over potential, especially when put across by the perpetually excellent Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role. But it's dull, and overlong to boot. For two-and-a-half hours Mangold's film, constrained by the need to plod dutifully through 25+ years of Cash's life, just alternates between lumpy stage performances and episodes of Cash fucking himself up. Just buy an album and read a biography, if you're that interested.

5/10

Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)

I'm sure many would have stepped up to the soapbox to decry that a man as prolific with his writing as Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) was, being chained by Hollywood fail-safes, being denied his Fellini moment and, finally granted directorial power, would create something of true wonder.
Sadly this is not it: as much as you want Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of this generation's superlative screen actors, to stumble upon a hidden meaning, all we see is him stumble through disjointed leaps in his life as he attempts to create the ultimate theatre piece which will be his whole life in New York with actors for all the people he's ever been with and the whole city recreated as a set. Kaufman comes out and says: 'This is my life as a self-involved writer; witness the emptiness', and yes, we witness the emptiness. It's not that there's no content; he still depicts real concerns, but boo hoo. The artist's pain is too introspective to ever equal real pain: it remains a symbol, that's all.

5/10