Reviews

The Hour of Living is not a film for everyone - I think that's fair to say. But I think it's a film worth seeing.

In the interests of full disclosure, I've been an admirer of director Sebastian Michael's other work in theatre and performance since I saw him on the Edinburgh Fringe in 1997. And I'm one of the people who gave a little bit of money to the crowd fund that funded the film.

Even so, I was genuinely apprehensive about watching The Hour of Living because I was worried that the film would, you know, suck. Or be amateurish. Or so arty that I couldn't stand it. Because, frankly, all of the above would be awkward.

I needn't have worried. I genuinely enjoyed The Hour of Living with the proviso that it's a film that's not for everyone. Something that you might detect in the other review here on IMDb.

What I love about The Hour of Living is it's both theatre and a film. Scenes play out languidly with characters talking at length (I'll get back to that in a moment), often as two-handed scenes. It's more at home in a play and not remotely visual. But what The Hour of Living does is take that theatrical scene and play it out in scenes that are visually gorgeous. The Swiss alps have rarely been rendered so beautifully on film. Every pixel of digital video whether looking at a mountainous vista or Sebastian Michael's own craggy face in close-up or food being prepared is gorgeously composed and shot. The result is unnervingly counter-intuitive for film: It's non-visual but visual at the same time. In essence, you have pretty things to distract you from the fact people are, yes, talking for a long time.

But what are they talking about? For me the subtlety of how that question is explored is really quite beautiful. At it's core, The Hour of Living is about two people mapping out the height and breadth of something that's been absent from their lives-- for one a father, for the other an object of love. Neither know how to define that absence. They explore it in many ways-- through anger, through sadness, through silence-- but in the end they're drawn to that absence like a tongue to a missing tooth. And so they talk until such talk peters out and then they eat or walk and talk some more.

It is, I suppose "adramatic", if such a term could be said. It doesn't build to easy resolution but rather just decides when it's ready to resolve. That is really not to everyone's taste. But I adore it.

The reason it works for me is the performances by Sam Fordham and Sebastian Michael. They're understated but disarmingly honest. There's a beautiful scene when (no spoilers) Michael's character tries to explain the nature of depression and it's not showy or histrionic, it's just unbelievably matter of fact. And I have to say I was terribly moved by that precisely because it was so matter of fact. Fordham has the harder job of being young and impatient and trying to define the world on his terms and, sometimes, succeeding at it in the way only the young can. Fordham is beautifully playful as Theo. Flirtatious but un-self- conscious about it. He's an actor to watch out for.

And there's this ensemble of quirky characters surrounding the film's central quest that add a lot of laughs before it shifts into its quieter second half. I loved Charlotte Heinmann as Gabrielle, who stole the first 20 minutes or so and probably committed petty larceny on several other films while I wasn't looking.

The Hour of Living is not for everyone. It's not even the sort of film I would probably seek out. But I was happy I watched it. It's experimental to be sure-- the editing is fashioned more like a series of fugues-- but it's also genuinely trying to do something different with the medium of film and when it succeeds it is quietly, achingly, beautiful.

Here's a nifty little exercise: watch Dr. No (the first Bond film) and Never Say Never Again (the last Bond film, however unofficial, to star Sean Connery) back-to-back. You might find yourself more kindly predisposed toward the latter film. I know I was.

Never Say Never Again is like a Bond film in a parallel universe where Sean Connery kept on playing Bond and the series was more a direct continuation of a template founded on Dr. No and not subsequent Bond films. It cuts out all the 'traditions' and bloated expectations that arose out of subsequent films (particularly Goldfinger, Thunderball and The Spy Who Loved Me) and goes back to telling an action-packed potboiler featuring a spy named James Bond.

Which makes it easy to see why many Bond fans hate Never Say Never Again so-- they've been cut out of the will. It's the traditions and ritualistic elements that have kept so many fans coming back to see Bond films, waiting for the almost liturgical invocation of the pre-credits stunt, the Maurice Binder-founded opening titles, the first improbable chase sequence, the really exotic locales, the John Barry (or John Barry-esque) score, etc etc. But ultimately, do Bond films *need* any of these things to be a Bond film? Dr. No says, ahem, no. (About the only thing Dr. No has is the gun barrel opening, and even then it's not used in the way we're accustomed) And Never Say Never says, ahem, never.

Like the original Bond film, the emphasis in Never Say Never Again the emphasis is on colourful characters, some low key chases, some good acting turns (particularly with the more villainous characters). And taken on its own merits it works just fine. It's not brilliant, but it's not particularly dire either. It's a decent action film that's well acted-- that's no bad thing, really.

The film does have its fair share of flaws. Edward Fox's M is completely intolerable-- I know they wanted to do something different to the authoritarian Bernard Lee-style M, but this prissy know-nothing is a blithering idiot who makes me cringe everytime he's on screen. The pacing, well, meanders is putting it charitably. It was a horrible idea to update a Bondian casino scene with playing a video game. The climax is unbelievably bland. And Rowan Atkinson...what were they thinking?

The real weak link in the film, and about the only place where the Dr. No connection breaks down is in Sean Connery: Connery is acting back in '62. Here, Connery is playing himself more or less. There's no sophistication, no suave-ness, just Connery's usual rugged action hero. And yet, in spite of phoning in the role, Connery is a lot of fun as Bond, and plays a lot of the comedy stuff that Roger Moore would have driven you nuts with (and probably did in Octopussy) totally straight, making it eminently watchable.

But there is so much to like in this movie: casting Felix Leiter as an African-American is a brilliant idea, years ahead of its time. Klaus Maria Brandauer is superb as Largo, playing the character as a psychopath without going totally over the top. And Barbara Carrera is an absolute delight from start to finish. The final confrontation between her and Bond is a lot of fun. Kim Basinger is wasted, but that's life as a Bond Girl. I liked a lot of the offhand comedy (unlike others, I thought the bomb under the bed scene was a lot of fun).

Curiously the film seemingly tries to fit itself within the Broccoli film continuity-- Fox's M is a new replacement (at the time, M had only just been recast in Octopussy after Bernard Lee's death some years earlier-- the role was still vacant at the time they were making Never Say Never Again); Alec McGowan's Q (another nice bit of recasting, making him working class) is someone from Q branch, who is named "Algernon" (as opposed to the Brocolli film Q, who is Major Geoffrey Boothroyd). If you wanted to, you could make this story "fit" within the canon (and Bond does look like he's close to retirement by For Your Eyes Only...)

I don't harbour any illusions that this is a particularly great Bond film, but I think on its own merits it's quite entertaining. And it's a traditional Bond film-- it's just that the tradition is set from the first Bond film, and not the whole series.