The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
Dir: Liu Chia Liang
1978
*****
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is one of the finest kung fu movies ever made, the opening credits sequence alone is better than most martial arts films. All the great martial arts movies have one thing – a great relationship between the director and the leading actor and I don’t think you can beat the partnership of Liu Chia-liang and Gordon Liu (aka Liu Chia-Hui). Liu Chia-liang’s direction is utterly beautiful and Gordon Liu is by far the most hypnotic martial art expert in the genre. It was a turning point for both director and actor and is widely regarded as one of the greatest kung fu films of all time. The film follows a highly fictionalized version of San Te, a legendary Shaolin martial arts disciple who trained under the general Chi Shan. A young student named Liu Yude is drawn by his activist teacher into the local rebellion against the Manchu government. The government officials, headed by the brutal General Tien Ta, however, quickly discover and suppress the uprising, liquidating the school and killing the students' friends and family members. Yude decides to seek vengeance and liberation for the people, and heads for the Shaolin temple to learn kung fu. Wounded by Manchu henchmen during an escape, Yude reaches the temple and seeks sanctuary. Initially the monks reject him, since he is an outsider, but the chief abbot takes mercy on the young man and lets him stay. One year later, Yude - now known as San Te - begins his martial arts training in the temple's 35 chambers, in each of which the temple's novices are trained in one aspect of the kung fu fighting arts. San Te advances more rapidly than any previous student, reaching the rank of deputy overseer within the space of six years. Challenged by the monastery's Discipline Chief, who thinks him unfit for his role, San Te has several exhibition matches with him, only to be beaten each time. However, after inventing the three section staff, San Te finally prevails and gains the chief abbot's permission to become overseer of one of the chambers. When San Te professes that he wants to create a new chamber where he can train ordinary people in the basics of kung fu so they can defend themselves against their oppressors, the temple officially banishes him in a surreptitious way to allow him to carry out his mission. He returns to the outside world, namely to his hometown, and assists the people, gathering several young men who loyally follow him and become his first students. Before the political revolution he is inspiring reaches completion, he is forced into conflict with Tien Ta. A fierce duel ensues, where San Te is victorious. Eventually, he returns to the Shaolin temple, where he establishes the 36th chamber, a special martial arts class for laypeople to learn kung fu. What I love about it is the lack of montage. We see Liu Yude/San Te training over six year but we see him complete each task and chamber over time. We learn the lesson that each task teaches the pupil and we understand his development, rather than it just happening because he’s a chosen one or something. We only see ten of the chambers, which is a shame, but then if we saw all 35 chambers it would be a 20 hour long film – although I’d have no problem with that. It is also refreshing to see a kung-fu film without blood or much violence, indeed killing is against the rules of Buddisum and the monks would not partake in murder. This is authentic kung-fu of mind and spirit. The film is also a fascinating post colonial film. The story of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin refers to San Te who requested permission to teach Shaolin martial skills to Han Chinese from the Head Abbot of Shaolin to give them the tools needed to fight the occupying Manchus of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1910) who were seen as outsiders. Chinese today still generally hate the Qing and wish that dynasty never happened, as their corruption and shortsightedness in the 20th Century was perceived to have weakened the country leading to some regions being colonized by many foreign powers at the time. Hong Kong was a colony taken by the British after humiliating the Chinese in a resounding defeat in the Opium Wars. The fact that the Hong Kong film industry made films about rebellion should be understood within this context of Hong Kong as a British Colony. Master Lau is Cantonese (as was Wong Fei-hung), so has a particular closeness to the problematic colonial relationship with the occupying British. This background is essential to understanding the significance of the statement made by Master Lau in this film. It is not "just a simple revenge tale" but the revenge is the moral and ethical response for the brutal murder of his classmates, ethics teacher, and his family. In the first part of the film, Liu Yude is studying Confucian ethics. After all their friends and family are ruthlessly slaughtered for participating in a revolt against the occupying Qing (Manchu) forces, his friend laments that it was pointless to study ethics, as it was useless for them to save their loved ones and resist the Qings. "No," he replies, "ethics has taught us to be loyal (another Confucian term) to our loved ones, so we must get revenge. If either of us survive we MUST make it to Shaolin, learn martial arts, and get revenge!" This political message is what makes this film more than just an arbitrary action film. In the West, actioners typically don't embed violence in such a bitter context. Here, the violence holds deep meaning within the context of foreign invasion and occupation. Here it is seen as the ethical action, which is how San Te responds to his first victim of revenge (where he meets Hung Xiguan) when his victim demands, "You can't kill me you're a monk!" To which San Te replies, "Even Buddha punished evil!". Run Run Shaw had already received his CBE though and they don’t often take them away. It is probably the Shaw Brother’s greatest films and certainly my favorite as well as being, in my opinion, one the most important and influential. Indeed, all of the greatest martial art films of recent years have all got clear 36th Chamber of Shaolin DNA in them.

Funny Cow

Dir: Adrian Shergold

2018

****

Funny Cow is a great name for this film. It is the name given to a young female stand up comedian as she makes her way up the working men’s club scene in the 1970s and 1980s but it is also a subtle take on the Funny Girl/Funny Lady films that featured Barbara Streisand in a similar role but in a very different style. The working men’s clubs in the north of England in the 70s and 80s are famous for their misogynistic, racist and generally offensive acts – many who made the big time. Of course it wasn’t all questionable comedy, some of the funniest people came from that environment because if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere (if Frank Sinatra was British the song would be Bolton, Bolton instead of New York, New York). Working men's clubs were a bastion of the local community and a piece of important cultural history now lost in time. In order to hold your own against the tough crowds in the 70s/80s though you had to be on top of your game and of a certain temperament. Tony Pitts’ story is a fictional tale of a women with just that temperament. We follow Funny Cow from childhood to middle-age through flashback scenes. She first appears as she is being interviewed, probably some time in the mid 1990s. We see her using humour as a coping strategy as her father beats her and her alcoholic mother. Not everyone appreciates her sense of humour however and at it’s core the film explores her humour’s development as well as her life’s. It’s a fictional tale but it feels very real, like it is based on a real life comic we all know, it’s just that they’ve changed her name for the dramatization. Funny Cow rebels and finds her own way to disarm the abuse but she also can’t quite help herself from sabotaging her own life and relationships. As so many abused children do, she ends up marrying an abuser. She learns her craft from a washed out comic whose only advice is to give up before she’s even started. Being a woman in a man’s world she is faced with instant abuse but she learns how to deflect it, like she has been doing her whole life. The story delivers tragedy and comedy in equal measure and has an impressive authenticity about it. There is something quite gritty about it and it certainly the mainstream family-friendly Julie Walters film that many people might have though it was. Without wanting to take anything away from writer Tony Pitts or director Adrian Shergold, far from it, but it is somewhere between a Mike Leigh film and an Alan Bennett play. It boasts an array of brilliant actors including Paddy Considine, Stephen Graham, Alun Armstrong and Tony Pitts himself as well as comics John Bishop, Vic Reeves and Diane Morgan, and musicians Kevin Rowland and Corinne Bailey Rae. It also features my old mate Richard Hawley who also composed the film’s score and wrote the original music. However, the film is a success thanks to Maxine Peake’s performance as the title character. I wouldn’t say she carries the film on her shoulders but I don’t think the film would be half as good without her. I can’t think of anyone else who could have pulled it off as well as she did. The three eras featured looked as authentic as the real thing and I had to remind myself that this was a fictional story. The script is real and the sort of unfortunate humour that did exist back in the 70s/80s was rightly featured. I loved how Stephen Graham played her father as well as her grown up brother. I think what I liked best about the character of Funny Cow was that she never quite fit in. She soon became popular and successful but her humour was still odd and her personality more so. Tony Pitts could have only written half of her, the rest came from Maxine Peake. I thought the direction was rather beautiful too, at the beginning I thought that the story and character deserved a television series rather than a film but in retrospect I think the richness of the visuals look better in a feature length movie. I’ve heard people say that the character and story are far too British and from yesteryear that many young folk and those who are not from the UK would find it hard to follow but I couldn’t disagree more. This is a great example of working class life in the north of England and a reminder to our forging cousins that not everyone speaks the Queen’s English or sound like Dick Van Dyke in Marry Poppins. It’s a superb work of fiction that is so utterly authentic and convincing that it could be considered real. Indeed, I’m sure there are many Funny Cows out there that the world never discovered.

Poor Cow

Dir: Ken Loach

1967

****

After working with director Ken Loach in adapting her novel of short stories ‘Up the Junction’ in 1965, author Nell Dunn worked again with Loach in adapting her collection of interviews called ‘Talking to Women’ a few years later. The collection of interviews were collected together to form a fictional character called Joy in Dunn’s first novel Poor Cow. It was Ken Loach's first feature film, after a series of successful TV productions – Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home being the most famous. It wasn’t the sort of story you’d expect from someone in Dunn’s position being the daughter of Sir Philip Dunn and the maternal granddaughter of the 5th Earl of Rosslyn – the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. She was born in London and educated at a convent, which she left at the age of 14. Nell's father didn't believe that his daughters needed any qualifications, and as a result Nell has never passed an exam in her life. She only learnt to read at nine years old and "whenever my father saw my appalling spelling, he would laugh. But it wasn't an unkind laugh. In his laugh there was the message, 'You are a completely original person, and everything you do has your own mark on it.' He wanted us all to be unique," she says. She came from an upper-class background, a million miles away from the lives she would write about but in 1959 Dunn moved to Battersea and made friends there and worked, for a time, in a sweet factory. This world inspired much of what Dunn would later write and Ken Loach was the only director working at the time who could have adapted her work so authentically. The story is about 18-year-old Joy (played by Carol White). She begins her catalogue of bad choices by running away from home with Tom (John Bindon). They marry and have a son, Johnny. When Tom, a thief who mentally and physically abuses Joy, is jailed for four years after attempting a big robbery, she is left on her own with their son. After briefly sharing a room with her Aunt Emm (Queenie Watts), an aging prostitute, she moves in with Dave (Terence Stamp), one of Tom's former associates. Dave is tender and understanding in his treatment of Johnny and Joy, but the idyll is punctured when Dave gets 12 years for robbery. Intending to be faithful, Joy writes to him constantly, moves back with Aunt Emm, and initiates divorce proceedings against Tom. She takes a job as a barmaid, starts modelling for a seedy photographers' club and drifts into promiscuity. But when Tom is released, Joy agrees to go back to him for Johnny’s sake. One evening, after Tom has beaten her up, she runs out of their flat and returns to discover that Johnny is missing. After a frantic search, she finds him playing on a demolition site. Realising how much Johnny means to her, she accepts the need of compromise and stays with Tom, but she continues to dream of a distant future with Dave. Joy’s life and experiences are a collection of real life stories Dunn collected during her time working in Battersea and talking with the women in and around the sweet factory in which she worked. The actors themselves also gave the film the authenticity the story needed. Terence Stamp once commented that Ken Loach was inspired after meeting Carol White during Cathy Come Home. The story was by Dunn but Loach guided the film the way he believed it should be told. There wasn’t much of a script with Loach choosing instead to let the actors improvise. He would typically only use one take for each scene, telling each actor separately what he wanted them to do, which was usually the opposite to what he’d tell the other actor in the same scene. Having two cameras running at the same time was also key, somewhat confusing the actors but keeping them alert and adding an important level of spontaneity. Carol White was a troubled soul who also came from working-class roots. She was a hard working actor but many failed relationships (with actors such as  Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, Oliver Reed and Paul Burke) which hindered her career. She got into drugs and became an alcoholic, dying young. Her poor choices are eerily similar to that of Joy’s. John Bindon, who played her husband Tom, was also close to his character. Loach spotted him in a pub and started his acting career but the truth was Bindon had links the the London underground and wasn’t a very nice man. He famously dated Christine Keeler, the former Playboy "Bunny Girl" Serena Williams and Vicki Hodge who would later talk of her 12 year violent and abusive relationship with him. He had sex with Princess Margret too, she denied it but the photos taken proving it have long been the stuff of Royal scandal of years. He also got away with murder – literally. It has become a classic kitchen-sink melodrama and a slice of working-class history. The story works because it is never judgmental – we are all frustrated by Joy’s poor choices but so many people make the same, no one has ever not made a bad decision, it’s just that some are effected by them more than others. Joy is a victim of circumstance and a poor education and isn’t 100% to blame for her mistakes. It’s a classic that still divides audiences today.

Horrible Bosses 2

Dir: Sean Anders

2014

**

2011’s Horrible Bosses got a lot of hate but I liked it. However, it was what it was and should have been left well alone. It made money though, and when a film like this makes money then a sequil is unavoidable, and why not, it’s not art and everyone needs money, I totally would have made another if it was my film, even though sequels of this nature pretty much always suck. Now Horrible Bosses 2 doesn’t suck as much as most sequels of this nature do, but it does suck. The two new additions to the cast; Chris Pine and Christoph Waltz, both bring superb performances with Waltz giving a much better bad guy than he did in Spectre and Pine proving that he doesn’t always take himself seriously but overall they are let down by a familiar story. They didn’t learn anything from the Hangover films and even though the original had a unique story, I feel they could have come up with something a little more original. Years after the events of the first film, is appears that Nick, Dale and Kurt (Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis) have moved on with their work lives after they have decided to start their own business, tiring of working for ungrateful bosses. Their idea is a car-wash-inspired shower head called the "Shower Buddy". They have trouble finding investors until they are approached by Bert Hanson (Waltz) and his son Rex (Pine). Bert admires their commitment to manufacturing the product themselves, while Rex prefers to outsource to China, and agrees to invest if they can make 100,000 units. Taking out a business loan, the three rent a warehouse, hire employees, and manage to produce their output. However, Bert backs out of their deal at the last minute, claiming that he never signed an agreement, and he plans to take their inventory in foreclosure and sell them himself re-naming them the ‘Shower pal’, while leaving the three in $500,000 debt with their outstanding loan. Seeking financial advice, Nick, Dale, and Kurt visit Nick's old boss, Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), who is in prison after murdering Kurt's boss Bobby Pellit in the previous film. He tells them the three friends have no feasible legal options to recover their losses. The three then resolve to kidnap Rex and hold him for ransom. They seek the help of "Motherfuckah" Jones (Jamie Fox), who says the best way to kidnap someone who knows them is to keep the victim unconscious for the duration of the kidnapping. The three create a ransom note asking for $500,000 and go to the office of Dale's old boss, Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston), to steal a tank of nitrous oxide. While there, Kurt and Dale are almost caught by Julia's sex addiction group meeting; after the group leaves, Nick has sex with Julia, providing the distraction that allows Dale and Kurt to escape the building. The trio then go to Rex's house, but while they hide in the closet, Dale accidentally turns on the tank and they pass out. When they wake up in the morning, they find Rex gone. When they arrive back at the warehouse, they find Rex tied up in the trunk of their car. Rex gets out and reveals he found them hiding in his closet, but decided to stage his own kidnapping with them due to his strained relationship with his dad and numerous personal debts. Rex sent the ransom note to his dad and increased the ransom to $5 million. The three are uncertain of Rex's plan, but Rex threatens to go to the police if they back out. They call Bert to inform him of Rex's kidnapping, threatening to kill Rex if Bert calls the cops. However, the police, led by Detective Hatcher, subsequently arrive at their warehouse to question Nick, Dale, and Kurt due to their involvement with Bert. When the police leave, Rex breaks down, knowing Bert cares more about his money than his son. Now sympathetic to Rex, the trio agrees to work with him in the fake kidnapping, and all four devise a plan to outsmart the police and take the ransom money, utilizing untraceable phones, a basement garage to block out any tracking signal, and Kurt disguising himself as Bert. While the plan is in motion, Nick, Dale, and Kurt find that Kurt left Bert his own phone instead of the untraceable one. They nevertheless call Bert on Kurt's phone to give him the instructions. Before they leave, Julia arrives at their hotel room and demands to sleep with Dale or else she will report them for breaking into her office. Dale's wife Stacy, whom Dale has three daughters with, arrives and believing Dale is cheating on her with Julia, storms off. Dale angrily locks Julia in the bathroom so the three can leave. In the basement garage, Nick, Dale, and Kurt wearing homemade masks tell Bert to give them the $5 million, and the cell phone. However, Bert is killed by Rex, who reveals that, after seeing that his father did not care about him, he decided to kill Bert and frame Nick, Dale, and Kurt in order to inherit the family business. Rex forces Kurt to switch pants as Rex's pants have Bert's blood on them. As the trio are about to be cornered by the police, Jones arrives, as he anticipated that the three would be betrayed and killed and was seeking to claim the ransom money for himself. He attempts to help them get back to the warehouse where Rex is supposed to be tied up, with the police chasing them before Rex does so they can prove their innocence. When they get back to the warehouse, Jones escapes with the money and the police arrive to find Rex tied up. Before the police arrest Nick, Dale, and Kurt, Kurt's phone rings in Rex's pocket, and the police recognize the ringtone as the same phone that was left to Bert by the kidnappers. Rex tries to claim the phone is his, but when Hatcher asks why Rex did not bother to call the police if he had a phone, Rex takes Hatcher hostage. Dale attempts to attack Rex, but Rex shoots him, which distracts Rex long enough for Hatcher to subdue and arrest him. A few days later, Dale wakes up in the hospital to find out the three did get in trouble, but because Dale helped save Hatcher's life, the police dropped the charges. He also finds out Julia helped make amends with Stacy, although she hints at having had sex with him during his coma and promises to have sex with his wife as well. In the aftermath, their business goes into foreclosure but is subsequently purchased by Harken in prison, who allows the three of them to stay employed. In many respects this could lead to an original story for the next film but I doubt it’ll happen, now that Kevin Spacey has been blacklisted by Hollywood. It’s not all bad but it is definitely time to put this series to bed, the humour is a little grubby and a little sad now, best to quit while they're not quite ahead.

Horrible Bosses

Dir: Seth Gordon

2011

***

Horrible Bosses puts the comedy before the story and is all the better for it, although it hasn’t dated well in retrospect. I liked it because it doesn’t get too silly, the comedy lies in the great performances and the subtle script but the format has been bettered many times over since, so a good 2011 film has now become something of a forgotten comedy. The story involves three friends. Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) and Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) despise their bosses. Nick works at a financial firm for the sadistic David Harken (Kevin Spacey), who implies the possibility of a promotion for Nick for months, only to award it to himself. Dale is a dental assistant being sexually harassed by his boss, Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston) who continually threatens to tell his fiancée Stacy that he had sex with her unless he actually has sex with her. Nick and Dale's accountant friend Kurt Buckman enjoys working for Jack Pellitt at a chemical company, but after Jack unexpectedly dies of a heart attack, the company is taken over by Jack's cocaine-addicted son Bobby (Colin Farrell), whose apathy and incompetence threaten the future of the company. At night, over drinks, Kurt jokingly suggests that their lives would be happier if their bosses were no longer around. Initially hesitant, they eventually agree to kill their employers. It’s Strangers on a Train without the train and between friends, rather than strangers. In search of a hitman, the trio meet Dean "Muthafuckah" Jones (Jamie Foxx), an ex-con who agrees to be their "murder consultant". Jones suggests that Dale, Kurt and Nick kill each other's bosses to hide their motive while making the deaths look like accidents. The three first reconnoiter Bobby's house and steal Bobby's phone. They next go to Harken's house, where Kurt and Nick go inside while Dale waits in the car. Harken returns home and confronts Dale for littering, but then has an allergy attack from some peanut butter. Dale saves Harken by stabbing him with an EpiPen. Nick and Kurt think Dale is stabbing Harken to death and flee, with Kurt accidentally dropping Bobby's phone in Harken's bedroom. The next night, Kurt watches Julia's home, but she seduces and has sex with him. Nick and Dale reluctantly wait outside Bobby's and Harken's houses, respectively, to commit the murders, despite neither of them wanting to. Harken discovers Bobby's cellphone in his bedroom and uses it to find his address, suspecting his wife Rhonda is having an affair. He drives over and kills Bobby, with Nick as a secret witness. Nick flees at high speed, setting off a traffic camera as he does. The trio meet to discuss their reservations about continuing with their plan. They are questioned by the police, who believe the camera footage makes them suspects in Bobby's murder. Lacking evidence, the police are forced to let the trio go free. The trio consult with Jones again, but learn that he never actually killed anyone, having been imprisoned for bootlegging a film. Jones suggests that they get Harken to confess and secretly tape it. The three accidentally crash Harken's surprise birthday party, where Nick and Dale get Harken to confess to the murder before realizing that Kurt, who has the audio recorder, is elsewhere having sex with Rhonda. Harken threatens to kill all three for attempting to blackmail him. They flee by car, but Harken gives chase and repeatedly rams their vehicle. Believing they have committed a crime, the car's navigation-system operator remotely disables Kurt's car, allowing Harken to catch and hold them at gunpoint. Harken shoots himself in the leg as he boasts about his plan to frame them for murdering Bobby and attempting to kill him to get rid of the witness. The police arrest Nick, Dale and Kurt, but the navigation-system operator, Gregory, reveals that it is his company's policy to record all conversations for quality assurance. Gregory plays the tape that has Harken confessing he murdered Pellitt. Harken is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, while the friends get their charges waived. Nick is promoted to president of the company under a sadistic CEO, Kurt retains his job under a new boss, and Dale, with the help of Jones, blackmails Julia into ending her harassment. The film became famous for casting Jennifer Aniston in a role that was far from her previous work but for me it was Charlie Day’s performance that won. Colin Farrell and Kevin Spacey went for it and I thought their comedy turns were great and I will always have time for Jason Bateman but I’m not a huge fan of Jason Sudeikis’ if I’m being honest. The film has received a lot of hate over the years and while it isn’t anything special, I did enjoy it and was pleasantly entertained throughout. It is nowhere near as great as director Seth Gordon’s brilliant documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters but it’s a hell of a lot better than his dire seasonal film Four Christmases.

Three Identical Strangers

Dir: Tim Wardle

2018

****

Just a couple of weeks before watching Tim Wardle’s fascinating documentary, I was thinking about odd occurrences in 1980s movies. One such occurrence that I couldn’t explain was the scene where Madonna walks past three grinning triplets in 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan. The case of Edward Galland, David Kellman and Robert Shafran wasn’t big news in the UK as it was in America, so it seemed like one of those ‘only in the 80s’ oddities. So I was already thrilled that a little mystery had been solved but the rest of the story blew my mind. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought this to be an experimental mockumentary collaboration written by Chris Carter (X-Files) and Stephen King. Edward Galland, David Kellman and Robert Shafran lived separate lives after all three were adopted at birth. One lived with an affluent family, one was middle class and the other was very much working class. Two of them met by chance when a mutual acquaintance mistook them for each other and after a local newspaper wrote about the event, the third brother came forward. There was a lot of celebration and the three brothers became a media sensation overnight, appearing on talks shows, on the radio and even in film. The three brothers ended up going into business with each other opening up a nightclub that became famous for their enthusiastic hands-on hosting style. They became regulars at Studio 54 and mixed with the bold and the beautiful during the early 80s. They had the time of their lives. It was only later that they decided to seek the truth as to why they were separated and who their biological parents were. The media were also intrigued with the story. This led them to the Jewish Board of Guardians who oversaw the adoption. An early family meeting seemed to go well, the board apologised for the mix up but didn’t accept liability, not that anyone was after compensation, the boys and their adopted families just wanted answers. When one of the parents went back to fetch an umbrella they had left behind, they overheard the board members celebrating the fact that they ‘just dodged a bullet’. Something wasn’t right. Over the years the truth slowly leaked out and it was more shocking than anyone could have imagined. The boys actually had a fourth brother and they weren’t the only ones. In the late 1950s, Doctor Viola Bernard of Louise Wise Services, a prominent New York City Jewish adoption agency in the 1960s, created a policy to separate identical twins for adoption, with the intent that early mothering would be less burdened and divided and the child’s developing individuality would be facilitated. In 1961, psychiatrist Peter B. Neubauer, then director of the Jewish Board of Guardians's Child Development Center, began a multi-year nature versus nurture twin study to observe how the separated siblings would fare in different environments. This involved at least five sets of identical twins and one set of triplets deliberately separated and placed into adoptive families by Louise Wise Services under Doctor Viola Bernard's policies. As a condition of the adoption, the parents agreed to in-person visits of up to four times a year by the study's research team, where the children would be observed, questioned, tested and/or filmed, without knowing the true nature of the study. The parents of the adopted children were also not informed by Louise Wise Services that they were part of a twin or triplet set, and one biological mother to a set of twins separated by Bernard and studied by Neubauer reported that Louise Wise Services did not inform her that her children would be separated. At least three of the separated siblings apparently committed suicide, with families and commentators drawing ethical comparisons today with the notorious twin experiments by the same Nazi regime that Neubauer himself had escaped. Dr. Neubauer's study was never completed, and in 1978, the Jewish Board of Guardians merged with Jewish Family Services to form the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services. The study records are currently in the custody of Yale University under seal until October 25, 2065, and cannot be released to the public without authorization from The Jewish Board, while Louse Wise Services' adoption records are held by Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children. In 2011, two identical twins who reunited as adults, Doug Rausch and Howard Burack, sent a letter to The Jewish Board requesting to see their records. The Jewish Board initially denied that Rausch and Burack had been part of the study, until the brothers were able to produce archived notes from one of Dr. Neubauer's former research assistants proving that they were indeed part of the study. The Jewish Board says Dr. Neubauer's study records are sealed to the public until 2065 to protect the privacy of those studied, and to this date all study subjects who have requested their personal records have received them. It’s shocking how they have still got away with it and many twins have come forward since. In 1995 Edward took his own life and the other two brothers have struggled with what they’ve learned about themselves. Several people involved with the study were interviewed, they hide somewhat behind their minor roles but when speaking about the study they become enthusiastic and seem oblivious to the unethical nature of what they’ve been part of. It’s a fascinating and shocking documentary that is hard to believe is real. Apart from sharing the story though, this film is vital in exposing such an atrocity and will hopefully put pressure on the authorities to hold a formal investigation and release the study to the families involved.

Goya's Ghosts

Dir: Miloš Forman

2006

****

While 2006’s Goya’s Ghosts will never be regarded as Miloš Forman’s greatest work, his last film is still just as visually stunning as his previous masterpieces. The story, which is a work of fiction based on the people he painted during the times of the Spanish Inquisition and the subsequent Peninsular War following France’s revolution, will not please everyone and I have to say I usually hate mixing history and fiction, but I was compelled by the characters and their actions. Whether it is a true representation of Goya I do not know, but I did enjoy Stellan Skarsgård’s portrayal of him. However, it is Javier Bardem who steals the show. In 1792, Spain reels amid the turmoil and upheaval of the French Revolution. Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgård) is a renowned painter, who, among others, does portraits for the royal family as the Official Court Painter to the King and Queen. The Spanish Inquisition is disturbed by part of Goya's work. Brother Lorenzo Casamares (Javier Bardem), who has hired Goya to paint his portrait, defends him, saying that his works are not evil, they just show evil. He recommends the Church step up the fight against anti-Catholic practices, and is put in charge of intensifying the Inquisition. When posing in Goya's studio, Lorenzo asks Goya about a young model he uses, Inés (Natalie Portman), daughter of a rich merchant, Tomás Bilbatúa (José Luis Gómez). One evening Inés is spotted by Inquisition spies (trained by Lorenzo) declining a dish of pork in a tavern. The Holy Office of the Inquisition summons Inés and arrests her on a charge of "judaizing" (spreading Jewish rituals), for refusing to eat pork. She is stripped naked and tortured by strappado (referred to as "put to The Question"), confesses, and is imprisoned. The Inquisition's archives had already revealed that one of her father's ancestors had converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1624 upon arrival in Spain from Amsterdam, something that no one but Tomás knew about. Bilbatúa begs Goya for help, who in turn asks Lorenzo to find out about Inés's situation. Lorenzo visits Inés in prison telling her that he is going to help her and will pass a message to her family if she wishes. He offers to pray with Inés, but is clearly struggling with his desire to rape her as, still naked, she prays with him at his request. Later at a dinner in Bilbatúa's home, where he and Goya are guests, Lorenzo defends "The Question". He argues that if the accused is really innocent, God will give him or her the strength to deny guilt, so a person who confesses must therefore be guilty. Bilbatúa does not agree, he argues that people will confess to anything under torture, and Goya agrees. To prove this Bilbatúa draws up a statement which says that Lorenzo confesses to being a monkey, and, with the help of his sons, prevents Lorenzo from leaving unless he agrees to sign it. Goya pleads for Lorenzo without success, and is escorted away and pushed out of the home. Bilbatúa, his sons and servants torture Lorenzo with a makeshift strappado, causing him to break down and sign. Bilbatúa promises to destroy the document after Inés is released. He gives Lorenzo a large amount of gold for the Church, hoping it will persuade the Holy Office to consider leniency. Lorenzo pleads for Inés, but the Inquisitor General Father Gregorio, while accepting the money, refuses, since Inés has confessed. Lorenzo again visits Inés in prison and, offering to pray with her, instead rapes her. Bilbatúa brings the document to the king, Charles IV (Randy Quaid) who is highly amused at seeing it, and promises to assist Inés. Lorenzo is now an embarrassment to the Spanish Church and flees when they come to arrest him. His portrait is confiscated and is set on fire in public, to burn him in effigy. Fifteen years pass, and Goya is at the height of his creativity, but has grown deaf. The French army under Napoleon invades Spain, abolishes the Inquisition and sets its prisoners free. Lorenzo had fled to France, where he was introduced to the ideas of the French Revolution and became a fanatical adherent of them. He is now Napoleon's chief special prosecutor against his former Spanish colleagues in the Inquisition. A French court presides over the show trial, conviction and sentencing to death of the Inquisitor General. Inés has been left to languish in the dungeons until now; she had given birth to a daughter in prison, who was taken away from her immediately after birth. Upon visiting her old home and finding her family killed, Inés turns to Goya for help in finding her child. Lorenzo is the father, which is embarrassing for him, and he sends Inés, whose sanity has suffered in prison, to an insane asylum. Lorenzo questions the condemned Inquisitor General, who tells him that a child born in the prison would have been placed in an orphanage. Lorenzo locates it, and he learns from the nuns who run it that his daughter, named Alicia, had run away several years before. In Garden Park, Goya finds a prostitute named Alicia (also played by Natalie Portman) who looks identical to Inés. He goes to Lorenzo asking for Inés in order to reunite her with her daughter. Lorenzo takes the initiative and secretly goes to see Alicia, offering to pay for her passage to America if she will leave Spain. She refuses, declaring him insane. In the meantime, Goya travels to the asylum where Inés has been kept. He pays the director a bribe to release her, and then tries to bring Inés to see Alicia in a tavern where prostitutes gather. Unfortunately, as Goya tries to persuade Alicia to see her mother, a group of soldiers, under orders from Lorenzo, burst into the tavern and forcibly arrest all the prostitutes. Goya discovers Lorenzo's intention to sell the women off to America where they will be treated as slaves. Inés, waiting outside to meet Alicia, wanders into the tavern and finds a baby left there when its mother was seized in the raid. In her delusion Inés thinks the baby is her own lost daughter; she is delighted and wanders off with the child. The British invade Spain from Portugal, defeating the French troops with the help of the Spanish population. The wagons in which the prostitutes are being transported are abandoned by the French cavalry guarding them when the British attack, with Alicia catching the eye of a British officer. Lorenzo is arrested as he is fleeing. The Spanish reinstate the Inquisition, which now tries and sentences Lorenzo to death, the Inquisitor General condemning him in much the same words as Lorenzo used at his trial. They urge Lorenzo to repent, even at the site of his execution, to which he is led in the auto da fe wearing a sanbenito with painted flames indicating he is sentenced to die. On the scaffold, Lorenzo spots his daughter Alicia, on the arm of the British officer, scoffing at him. He also notices Goya sitting at a distance sketching the entire ordeal. Inés is also present in the crowd and calls to Lorenzo enthusiastically to show him the baby she believes is their daughter. Refusing to repent, despite pleas from his former colleagues the monks, Lorenzo is garrotted. The film ends with a cart taking Lorenzo's body away, escorted by Inés still carrying the child, with Goya following closely behind her calling for her. She glances back with a smile, but continues to accompany the body as she kisses its hand. The film features many scenes and characters found in Goya’s paintings, such as The Third of May 1808, Las mujeres dan valor, Charles IV of Spain and His Family, The Garroted Man and Yard with Lunatics among many. Brother Lorenzo seems to have been inspired by the career of Juan Antonio Llorente who defected to France, as it were, and who was painted by Goya. Lorenzo Casamares is one of the best written and performed villains in recent cinema and Bardem stole every scene he was in. I enjoyed Skarsgård’s performance and thought Portman was also very good in both her roles. José Luis Gómez’s performance during the ‘monkey contract’ scene was glorious and Michael Lonsdale was frighteningly convincing as Father Gregorio. It’s a strange mix of fact and fiction that maybe only those who love and are familiar with Goya’s work might appreciate. However, if you love a good villain, this is definitely a film you will enjoy. I do think it should have been filmed in the native tongue but when asked why a film about such a quintessentially Spanish artist was made in English, Milos Forman replied "I don't speak Spanish." And you can’t really argue with that.