Garth Davis
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Connections, in both directions
After seeing the torture porn of The Passion of the Christ, the brief crucifixion sequence here feels like nothing more than a concession – it has to be included within the story, even if it’s oddly one of the least intellectually stimulating events to occur.
From Pierre Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to Saint Matthew and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ , to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ , biblical stories have inspired generations of filmmakers across the decades, with each director adding his own aesthetics and sensitivity to a story known by millions across the globe.
We’ve had gory Jesus (Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ), randy Jesus (Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ), even satirical Jesus (Terry Jones’s Life of Brian).
The violence is kept to a minimum and anyone fearing the graphic nature of The Passion of the Christ should rest assured that tenderness is this Mary Magdalene's defining quality.
The first half of the film feels like the best adaptation of Oliver Twist since David Lean.
His direction is nevertheless stellar and somewhat elevates the formulaic material, aided by one of today’s great cinematographers, Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty, Foxcatcher, Killing Them Softly), who uses the stunning exterior locations to his advantage.
Davis and cinematographer Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty, Foxcatcher) somehow imbue Saroo’s world — even the slums of Calcutta — with a delicate, magical quality that in no way sterilises the reality of the drama.
Greig Fraser's cinematography in Lion is the best of is career so far, even exceeding his exceptional work in Zero Dark Thirty and Foxcatcher.
Technically, the movie is a marvel with gorgeous cinematography by Greig Fraser (“Zero Dark Thirty,” “Foxcatcher”) and an aching score by Dustin O’Halloran and Haushka, who are also up for a Golden Globe.
De inmediato se percibe el destacado sello visual que el director Garth Davis ( Top of the Lake , serie) y el cinefotógrafo Greig Fraser ( Foxcatcher , 2014) retoman del mundo de la publicidad.
We’ve had gory Jesus (Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ), randy Jesus (Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ), even satirical Jesus (Terry Jones’s Life of Brian).
Saroo doesn’t have much to work with (he doesn’t know his mother’s name or the name of his village), but you know how such things work in the movies—bits of memory come flooding back and he pieces together enough information to go on a journey, the conclusion of which should have had the audience in tears, but instead had me thinking of The Incredible Journey , and not in a good way.
The staging of certain sequences, namely the repeated sight of immense crowds flocking to Jesus, leaves the frame overwhelmed with riotous bodies in a manner that recalls the spiralling insanity of Darren Aronofsky’s recent biblical parable, mother!.
However, the screenplay (credited to the director and Luke Davies, the Oscar-nominated “Lion” screenwriter who wrote a novel based on his own addiction, “Candy”) injects some structural trickery to evoke the challenges David faces in reckoning his warm relationship to his son during his childhood to the troubled creature now grappling to survive.
That history has been adapted by Lion screenwriter Luke Davies from the combined memoirs of father-and-son David and Nic Sheff, the father (Carell) being a print journalist and his then-18-year-old son (Chalamet) a crystal-methhead.
But van Groeningen and co-writer Luke Davies (“Lion”) fall prey to the same story patterns as so many addiction stories, which are as hard to escape, it seems, as the grip of addiction itself.
From a script standpoint, Groeningen co-writes with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Luke Davies (“Lion”), hammering out a nonlinear structure that fractures the narrative between past and present, juxtaposing the teenage addict with earlier scenes as an innocent young boy.
Felix Van Groeningen, a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nominee for The Broken Circle Breakdown collaborated with Luke Davies, a fellow Oscar nominee as the screenwriter of Lion , to blend David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction and Nic Sheff’s Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines into this single film.
Directed by Belgian Felix Van Groeningen, who co-wrote the screenplay with Australian Luke Davies ( Candy ; Lion ), the film has some poignant moments where the family rises above the crisis, but the piece is very long and overwhelmingly glum.
Shot by veteran cinematographer Greig Fraser (“Zero Dark Thirty”), “Lion” moves from a claustrophobic train car to crowded streets and dark tunnels as it builds a sense of desperation around young Saroo’s conundrum.
Shot by Zero Dark Thirty cinematographer, Greig Fraser, there’s composition and beauty in every single frame captured, with Davis managing to build just enough angst and desperation which accompany Saroo’s desperate search for his brother and a way back home.
His direction is nevertheless stellar and somewhat elevates the formulaic material, aided by one of today’s great cinematographers, Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty, Foxcatcher, Killing Them Softly), who uses the stunning exterior locations to his advantage.
Cinematographer Greig Fraser (Let Me In, Zero Dark Thirty) is at his best in the first half of the film, shooting low from Saroo’s perspective and creating a terrifying, crowded world that still allows for brief glimpses of humanity that foreshadow the light at the end.
Young Saroo is played by the charismatic child actor Sunny Pawar, and his plight is rendered in harrowingly visceral images by director Davis and Zero Dark Thirty’s great cinematographer Greig Fraser.
The first half of the picture, without much dialogue, makes great use of the sensitive visual skills of Director Garth Davis (this is his first feature but he already wowed us with episodes of Top of the Lake) and the great cinematography Grieg Fraser (who is bizarrely still waiting for Oscar attention despite extraordinary lensing on films like Zero Dark Thirty, and Bright Star).
His particular strain of authenticity recalls Quvenzhane Wallis’ fearless debut in Beasts of the Southern Wild.
In that sense, Lion may be this year’s Whale Rider , where your own sniffling will be masked by that of those around you.
The first half of the picture, without much dialogue, makes great use of the sensitive visual skills of Director Garth Davis (this is his first feature but he already wowed us with episodes of Top of the Lake) and the great cinematography Grieg Fraser (who is bizarrely still waiting for Oscar attention despite extraordinary lensing on films like Zero Dark Thirty, and Bright Star).
Like that gut-wrenching sequence in Interstellar in which Matthew McConaughey’s astronaut must learn everything that’s happened to his family over the last 23 years in about two minutes, Saroo learns all that’s happened to his own family in the past two decades during a brief encounter in the street—and not all of the news is good.
Cinematographer Greig Fraser (Let Me In, Zero Dark Thirty) is at his best in the first half of the film, shooting low from Saroo’s perspective and creating a terrifying, crowded world that still allows for brief glimpses of humanity that foreshadow the light at the end.
Lucidly adapted by Australian playwright/screenwriter, Luke Davies (Candy, Life), from the autobiography, A Long Way Home, by Saroo Brierley, Lion powerfully shows that being given a happy, comfortable new life doesn’t necessarily extinguish the memories of your previous, seemingly far less enriching, one.
Also deserving praise is writer Luke Davies (Candy, Life) who adapted Saroo Brierley’s autobiographical novel in creating the screenplay.
With only the leanest wisp of a plot to guide him, screenwriter Luke Davies expands Saroo’s ordeal into a full-blown hero’s journey — like “Life of Pi,” with a flesh-and-blood “lion” in place of a CG tiger.
His direction is nevertheless stellar and somewhat elevates the formulaic material, aided by one of today’s great cinematographers, Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty, Foxcatcher, Killing Them Softly), who uses the stunning exterior locations to his advantage.