Movies at Home: Saint Maud, All is True and Batman

 

Saint Maud is a psychological thriller more than a horror film. This is Rose Glass's first feature (see post for her latest Love Lies Bleeding) for the British writer/director. Cast as Maud is Morfydd Clark as the nurse taking care of Jennifer Ehle's ex-dancer Amanda. Maud is a really strange character who you would not want as your nurse. But Amanda, perhaps, needs some creepy conversation. Maud has only recently been converted to her religion and demonstrates all those characteristics of the newly found calling. Amanda treats her with a mixture of disdain and comfort. She is terminally ill and her diet mainly comprises of pills and alchohol. She gives Maud a book on William Blake by Morton D Paley, full of weird images. Somehow this film seems like a dance between the two main characters, except that Maud is becoming more and more weird. There are glimpses of her state that veer into horror, but it is only the ending that is gruesome. I liked the muted light of the house in Highgate, the interiors match the mood. But the few exterior scenes are filmed in Scarborough when Maud takes a break from her post. Including that one at the very end.

I was wondering why I didn't see All is True at the cinema. I found out why. Here is director Kenneth Branagh as a retired William Shakespeare, back home with his almost estranged family. Ben Elton's screenplay is OK. it's just the story about that is pretty boring and very downbeat. The fact that their son Hamnet was dead hovers in the background (although he does occasionally appear to Will), as does the fire that burnt down the Globe Theatre. William's unhappy marriage to Judy Dench's Anne Hathaway is replicated by daughter Susanna's. Lydia Wilson is superb. So at home, not all is sweetness and light. There are so many scenes in the dark with those muted candlelit interiors. Then who arrives but the Earl of Southampton played gloriously by Ian McKellen. But his scene with William could have taken not much more than a day to film. Again in the dark. All too predictable.

My post of the 7th February this year on Inside Cinema included this note about Tim Burton's Batman:

Much more interesting was Burton's Gotham. (There are) clips from the 1989 film Batman. The exterior crowd scenes look great, but it was the production design of director Tim Burton and Oscar winner Anton Furst (Full Metal Jacket) that was truly remarkable. Hugely expensive, these sets at Pinewood Studios would "unlikely ever to be repeated, matched or surpassed." The film is compared to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy that went for real locations, not that futuristic nightmare. 

I realised I had the DVD and watching it this week, I concentrated on all that expensive production design. The film starts at night and the whole architecture of Gotham City is there. Quite amazing. The interiors are equally good, it's just that a TV does not do them justice. If ever one movie needed a new cinema release, it's this one. Except ..... the story and screenplay struggle to match the background. I felt that Michael Keaton was a lightweight in the title role compared to Nicholson's Joker. Give me Nolan's trilogy anytime.