Ben Wheatley
103 connections found
View:
Connections, in both directions
Rapturous and surreal are scenes like an inky invasion of the swimming pool and a slo-mo party brawl, which play like mind-spinning trips out of A Clockwork Orange or Under The Skin.
The Seventies was a golden age for British pulp fiction (Wheatley would also have the nerve for James Herbert’s The Rats), with “the old ultra-violence” of Kubrick ’s A Clockwork Orange, like Ballard , part of a climate of gleeful, often grubby extremity.
The American poster even dares make a cocky nod to the key art for Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange.”
It’s all there on screen, stranded halfway between “ Dredd ” with all the action cut out and “A Clockwork Orange” without the incisively dark sense of humor.
There are inevitable echoes of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange here, plus overt nods to more obscure British cult movies including Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment.
Jump and Wheatley chose to locate the action of "High-Rise" in 1975, so their film is a retro-futurist nightmare, full of massive sideburns and shirt collars, as well as orgies and ennui freely inspired by the works of Lindsay Anderson ("O Lucky Man!"), Stanley Kubrick ("A Clockwork Orange") and Nicolas Roeg ("The Man Who Fell to Earth").
The story here is something like "Badlands" set in the Midlands, as a repressed, awkward woman who lives with her domineering mother embarks on a caravan trip with her new boyfriend.
"Sightseers" is part travelogue and part killing spree, and Tina and Chris rightfully take their place with other murderous couples on the run, from Annie and Barton in "Gun Crazy" (1950) to Kit and Holly in " Badlands " (1973) to Mickey and Mallory in " Natural Born Killers " (1994).
From They Live By Night and Gun Crazy to Bonnie & Clyde and Badlands to Natural Born Killers and Thelma & Louise, the doomed-couple road movie has a longstanding tradition in cinema.
Basically, think Natural Born Killers, Badlands, and Bonnie and Clyde, only rather than the perpetrators being lovers-on-the-run, robbers fighting the system, or just pure psychopaths killing for the hell of it, Tina and Chris are instead just average schlubs, only killing because it makes their holiday that much more convenient.
While its offbeat quirkiness and plethora of specific cultural and geographical references make it likely to play best to UK audiences, with careful handling this raucously enjoyable hybrid of two very different 1970s classics - Terence Malick's ever-influential Badlands and Mike Leigh's teleplay Nuts In May - might also spawn a cult international following as a surefire midnight-movie option for festivals, and on DVD/VOD.
The deliciously dark Englishness of the film – Nuts In May meets Badlands comes pretty close to summing it up – and the sheer oddness of its lead characters will naturally make Sightseers something of an acquired taste, but it is filmed with such visual panache and sense of humour that cult status should be guaranteed.
Producer Jeremy Thomas did Crash, another Ballard adaptation.
Ballard's writing is strong stuff and can result in potent movies (like Spielberg's Empire of the Sun or Cronenberg's Crash), but Wheatley seems to have become lost in this High-Rise.
A notorious triptych of novels from the ’70s already yielded one controversial, if dry, screen outing in 1996 with David Cronenberg’s Crash.
Ballard’s books — including his notorious exercise in vehicular erotica, “Crash,” another unfilmable story that was filmed rather well — were unusually attentive to the physical and psychological effects of a character’s environment, and Wheatley’s film similarly encourages a systemic, kaleidoscopic view of the action.
The cheeky dialogue and relentless violence leans heavily on the influences of Sam Peckinpah and “Reservoir Dogs,” although in this case the comic mayhem of the protracted battle amounts to little more than a lengthy gimmick.
Suggesting a feature-length adaptation of Reservoir Dogs‘s finale, Free Fire is like so many mid-‘90s Tarantino knockoffs, all self-consciously witty dialogue meant to paper over gratuitous violence with a veneer of nonchalance and a gimmicky setup.
Indeed, this battle royale-with-cheese shares a strikingly similar tone and setting to Reservoir Dogs.
Comparisons to Reservoir Dogs are probably inevitable given the warehouse setting, copious firearms and endlessly quotable script, but this is a sleeker and more violent film (though perhaps less sadistic).
A virtuoso feat of indiscriminate gunplay from director Ben Wheatley — who is, without a doubt, the most exciting thing to hit British genre cinema since Guy Ritchie, minus the latter’s eagerness to sell out — this almost cartoonishly over-the-top action movie crosses the irreverent cheekiness of Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” with the ruthless spirit of 1970s B-movies, in which audiences hoped for a few minutes of what “Free Fire” sustains for the better part of 90 minutes.
This is low-brow Reservoir Dogs, extreme genre action meant to energize you with an insane cast of characters hell-bent on killing each other on principle.
"Sightseers" is part travelogue and part killing spree, and Tina and Chris rightfully take their place with other murderous couples on the run, from Annie and Barton in "Gun Crazy" (1950) to Kit and Holly in " Badlands " (1973) to Mickey and Mallory in " Natural Born Killers " (1994).
From They Live By Night and Gun Crazy to Bonnie & Clyde and Badlands to Natural Born Killers and Thelma & Louise, the doomed-couple road movie has a longstanding tradition in cinema.
It’s not necessarily going to be a movie for everyone, but if you appreciate the gonzo-esque qualities of films like Natural Born Killers and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Sightseers has exactly what you’re looking for.
Basically, think Natural Born Killers, Badlands, and Bonnie and Clyde, only rather than the perpetrators being lovers-on-the-run, robbers fighting the system, or just pure psychopaths killing for the hell of it, Tina and Chris are instead just average schlubs, only killing because it makes their holiday that much more convenient.
Expert modulation of disparate tones within the same scene ensures that while this is yet another road-movie about a murderously amorous couple - a tradition that includes Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers, Tony Scott's Natural Born Killers and even Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde - Wheatley and company's new variation has a wit, brio and panache entirely its own.
Despite their murderous ways, Chris and Tina are always presented with real affection (as are their holiday plans) and their oddball romance (very Natural Born Killers with a low-key British suburban twist) tender as they face the ‘trials’ of their relationship.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Directed by Daniel Myrick
influenced In the Earth (2021), Kill List (2011)
Plot Themes Visuals
It’s easy to see how “In the Earth” might be compared to the 1999 horror film “The Blair Witch Project,” because both movies are mainly about people possibly being trapped in the woods while an evil spirit might be on the loose.
You’ll be reminded of previous genre entries like The Blair Witch Project and Wolf Creek during the first half, and probably flabbergasted during the increasingly opaque second half—a strobing montage of menacing imagery and ideas about nature’s dominion over our lives.
But after its evocative introduction, In the Earth ends up in comfortable, disappointingly underdeveloped territory for the director, incorporating some of Kill List ’s folk-horror undercurrents and A Field in England ’s psychedelia while borrowing freely from The Blair Witch Project .
Digital camera technology has improved exponentially since "The Blair Witch Project," so Wheatley and cinematographer Nick Gillespie are able to create images that are both eerie and strangely beautiful.
In fits, that identity is compelling, hypnotic, and terrifying, The Blair Witch Project by way of Annihilation .
This is where writer-director Ben Wheatley injects “The Silence of the Lambs” and “The Blair Witch Project” into his existing “Annihilation” narrative, though his being extra here reads more like a desperate attempt to distract from the movie’s low budget than a stroke of genius.
“Don’t Look Now” director Nicolas Roeg nearly made it his follow-up to David Bowie vehicle “The Man Who Fell To Earth; “Sexy Beast” producer Jeremy Thomas struggled to get it made ever after.
Jump and Wheatley chose to locate the action of "High-Rise" in 1975, so their film is a retro-futurist nightmare, full of massive sideburns and shirt collars, as well as orgies and ennui freely inspired by the works of Lindsay Anderson ("O Lucky Man!"), Stanley Kubrick ("A Clockwork Orange") and Nicolas Roeg ("The Man Who Fell to Earth").
It's Bonnie and Clyde by way of EastEnders and The League of Gentlemen.
Basically, think Natural Born Killers, Badlands, and Bonnie and Clyde, only rather than the perpetrators being lovers-on-the-run, robbers fighting the system, or just pure psychopaths killing for the hell of it, Tina and Chris are instead just average schlubs, only killing because it makes their holiday that much more convenient.
Expert modulation of disparate tones within the same scene ensures that while this is yet another road-movie about a murderously amorous couple - a tradition that includes Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers, Tony Scott's Natural Born Killers and even Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde - Wheatley and company's new variation has a wit, brio and panache entirely its own.
The central character of both book and film is Dr Robert Laing, an obvious reference to RD Laing, the radical psychiatrist whose 1967 book, The Politics of Experience, ruffled quite a few feathers at the time and who, incidentally, inspired Ken Loachs superb film Family Life (1972).
Midsommar (2019)
Directed by Ari Aster
influenced by Kill List (2011), A Field in England (2013)
Themes
Bajo el manto del folk horror , con igual importancia, se incluyen cintas más ancladas a la brujería como The Witches (1966), Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), The VVitch (2015) o Hagazussa (2017), y las películas más apegadas a la idea de ritos ancestrales como The Ritual (2017), las dos joyas de Ben Wheatley, Kill List (2011) y A Field in England (2013), o la reciente Apostle (2018) de Gareth Evans.
For me though, I’d place the meaner leaner 1973 Wicker Man, Ben Wheatley’s Kill List and maybe even Gareth Evans’ Apostle from last year higher.
It all felt too pompously overblown and lazily obvious to me, Aster channeling films like Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man , Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (just to name three) as he attempts to bring his character-driven plunge into pagan ritual to life.
As with Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (another movie Aster has clearly absorbed), the relationship here to The Wicker Man is both superficial—Hippies!
There is a whiff of Von Trier’s “Antichrist” to this movie’s gender politics, and there are also strong echoes of Alex Garland’s “Annihilation,” Ben Wheatley’s “Kill List” and especially Robin Hardy’s 1973 pagan-cult classic, “The Wicker Man.”
Bajo el manto del folk horror , con igual importancia, se incluyen cintas más ancladas a la brujería como The Witches (1966), Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), The VVitch (2015) o Hagazussa (2017), y las películas más apegadas a la idea de ritos ancestrales como The Ritual (2017), las dos joyas de Ben Wheatley, Kill List (2011) y A Field in England (2013), o la reciente Apostle (2018) de Gareth Evans.
Jump and Wheatley chose to locate the action of "High-Rise" in 1975, so their film is a retro-futurist nightmare, full of massive sideburns and shirt collars, as well as orgies and ennui freely inspired by the works of Lindsay Anderson ("O Lucky Man!"), Stanley Kubrick ("A Clockwork Orange") and Nicolas Roeg ("The Man Who Fell to Earth").
The Brutalist architecture and cold sterility of the building suggests Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, and the polished futurism and stiffly remote characters are reminiscent of François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451.
The Brutalist architecture and cold sterility of the building suggests Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, and the polished futurism and stiffly remote characters are reminiscent of François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451.
While the party scenes have elements of Studio 54, the fight scenes are more reminiscent of something from William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
But the high-rise-as-allegory bit has been done in David Cronenberg’s Shivers and George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead.
Cronenberg found very real and contemporary Ballardian landscapes in his native Canada—not only the view of the traffic-choked 401-404 interchange in Crash but also the “Starliner Towers” on Nun’s Island near Montreal which feature in his apartment-tower-gone-mad classic Shivers, released the same year that Ballard’s High-Rise appeared.
This is part a funnier cousin to David Cronenberg’s sex zombies great “Shivers,” part the darkest British comedy imaginable.
As other critics have observed, Cronenberg’s early horror film “Shivers” (released in the United States as “They Came From Within”), about the spread of a sexual parasite through a Toronto housing project, feels like an unofficial adaptation of “High-Rise.”
The stunningly bleak, utterly arresting and eerily rendered black and white photography recalls the monochromatic unease of David Lynch’s Eraserhead, a film which relies mainly on its bizarre, often profoundly horrifying symbolism to power you through the experience.
High-Rise recalls the simplistic social symbolism of Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer—it’s Class Warfare 101.
It’s like Snowpiercer (real estate stands in for a post apocalyptic train), with Jeremy Irons’ all-powerful Mr.
Lo mejor está todavía por venir pues los personajes de Jump/Wheatley/Ballard son bizarros por ser familiares, desde el arquitecto hasta la estrella pop, desde el ama de casa oprimida hasta el exitoso hombre que nos guía por este laberinto de elevadores que multiplican rostros que se parecen siempre a los de alguien más -y piensen aquí en la frivolidad turbia de American Psycho (EUA, 2000)- y son ellos quienes a pesar de la debacle anunciada (Snowpiercer se asoma más de una vez, aunque sin la potencia estética de Wheatley) deciden quedarse en el edificio, en el sistema y reproducirlo aunque nada pueda soportarlo.
It’s simplistic to label “High-Rise,” Ben Wheatley’s retro-futuristic tale of class warfare, a vertical “Snowpiercer.”
Watching High-Rise, I was reminded of the many other, better films that have tackled class anxiety in a similar setting: George Romero’s Land of the Dead , Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie , Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer and (at the top of this particular class) Fritz Lang’s Metropolis .
Hace un par de años, el público fue sorprendido por la adaptación a cines del cómic Le Transperceneige que, en las manos de Joon-ho Bong (The Host, Mother) se convirtió en la alegórica El Expreso del Miedo (Snowpiercer).
If this is beginning to sound a little like Metropolis (Laing, Lang, get it?)
Piensen ahora y quizá de manera acertada en ese mismo futuro ya pasado que con genialidad y fineza dibujó Fritz Lang para la referencia obligada a El rascacielos, Metrópolis (Alemania, 1927), una ciudad-templo-pirámide social en la que los ricos habitan en los pisos superiores y la clase trabajadora ocupa los sótanos y los cimientos de este modelo de civilización.
Watching High-Rise, I was reminded of the many other, better films that have tackled class anxiety in a similar setting: George Romero’s Land of the Dead , Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie , Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer and (at the top of this particular class) Fritz Lang’s Metropolis .
Anybody who saw Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” knows where this idea is going, and they are not disappointed.
The novel concerns the descent into anarchy by the residents of a 40-story high-rise tower block that is something like a freestanding city, with the calm center of this storm the unflappable Robert Laing (the suggestion of the architectonics-minded director of 1927 caste-struggle classic Metropolis, Fritz Lang, is not entirely accidental), a teacher at a local medical school, played in the film with an aura of impervious detachment by Tom Hiddleston.
It is tempting but wrong to read High-Rise as a crude architectural allegory for the British class system, in the tradition of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, with aristocrats in the upper floors and workers down below.
But even beyond that, Wheatley is delving into themes found in Tarkovsky’s Stalker and Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf .
In the Earth sees Wheatley aping Andrei Tarkovsky by taking liberally from Stalker , but it also sees him aping himself by rehashing A Field in England much more predictably.
Its nastiest sight gags — a dead man’s head comfortably buried inside a smashed television set, a swimming pool filled with fresh corpses, an Alsatian leg twirling lovingly over a patio fire — recall the show “The League of Gentlemen,” which was both pitch black yukfest and demented horror.