tieman64
This is a review of "The Miracle", "The Brave One" and "Mona Lisa", three films by director Neil Jordan.Released in 1991, "The Miracle" stars Niall Byrne as Jimmy, a teenager living in coastal Ireland. Jimmy spends his days wandering about town, inventing fantastical personal histories for the various strangers who catch his eye.Jimmy's fantasies spiral out of control when he meets Renee (Beverly D'Angelo), a stylish older woman. Jimmy stalks Renee, visits her at the theatre houses at which she works, and becomes increasingly infatuated with her; he's in love. These desires quickly become perverse, untenable and then collapse, the film eventually revealing that Renee is in fact Jimmy's mother.The majority of Jordan's films clash fairy tales and fantasies with a "reality" that is squalid, criminal and perverse. Rather than clear cut demarcations between "fantasy" and "reality", however, Jordan finds the fairy tale conventions lurking within crime narratives, and finds the crime conventions lurking within familiar fairy tale narratives. Elsewhere his characters are often unable to be together thanks to national, sexual or biological differences which make romance impossible. Filled with fantasy objects who are revealed to be different genders, species (vampires, werewolves, mermaids etc), incestuous relatives, homosexuals or transsexuals, Jordan's objects of affection are almost always off limits.For most of its running time, "The Miracle" is beautifully unhurried. Low-key, atmospheric and filled with interesting sea-side locales, the film unfolds like a noirish dream, complete with stalking sequences evocative of Alfred Hitchcock's "Veritgo". Unfortunately the film's relaxed approach eventually gives way to much uninteresting Oedipal melodrama.Similar to "The Miracle" is Jordan's "Mona Lisa". Released in 1986, the film stars Bob Hoskins as George, an ex-convict who is hired to ferry a call girl, Simone (Cathy Tyson), around London. Though they initially feud, George quickly becomes infatuated with Simone, and begins to see himself as her guardian angel, her white knight, her lover. Simone nurses these fantasies, but eventually reveals that she is in fact not attracted to George; she's homosexual."Jordan's use of the fairy tale is not a correction or parody of their supposedly outdated values," writer and professor Carole Zucker once wrote, "rather, he investigates what it means to listen to fairy tales, what it means to trust narrative and what it means to follow their paths. His films often show the messy results of fairy tales, the awkward ways in which we interact with our shared store of narratives and the complex interrelation of past and future that make fairy tales such vivid material for impassioned pastiche." We see this in "Mona Lisa", as George imposes upon Simone a fairy tale that she shares, allows and secretly wishes to make real. Together the duo warp London – a perverse hell-hole filled with shadowy spaces, monsters, prostitutes and violence – turning it into their own magical fantasy-land, complete with modern chariots, damsels, white-knights and noble quests. Simone eventually abandons this charade, leaving George disillusioned.Perhaps because she is bisexual, and fond of Jordan's past explorations of sexuality, actress Jodie Foster approached Jordan with a script in the mid 2000s. This would evolve into "The Brave One", a 2007 work-for-hire which Jordan struggled to make his own.Set in New York City, "The Brave One" stars Foster as Erica. In love with her city, Erica spends her days fawning over New York's past, admiring its spaces, recording the city's sounds and praising it on her live radio show. This idyll is shattered when Erica's lover is violently murdered, a murder which is give racial/political connotations given the victim's ethnicity and given the films nods to the infamous 9/11 terror attacks. Jaded, disillusioned and seeking to resurrect her fantasy, Erica buys a gun and becomes a vigilante; she begins taking the law into her own hands.Vigilatees and angelic defenders are common in Jordan's filmography (see his debut, "Angel"). In "The Bave One", however, Erica is herself defended by the police detective (Terrence Howard) tasked with taking her down. The duo thus rekindle Jordan's obsession with impossible love, the criminal and the cop locked in unholy passion.Fittingly, "The Miracle", "The Brave One" and "Mona Lisa" all contain major characters who are writers and so tireless fantasists. In "Mona Lisa", George's best friend is a crime fiction writer. In "The Bave One", Erica herself strings words lovingly together, and in "The Miracle", two aspiring writers spend their days constructing wild tales. For Jordan, human beings are rarely more than heart-broken delusion machines.8/10 - Worth one viewing.
Mr-Fusion
What kicks off MONA LISA is the unlikely relationship between ex-con chauffeur (Bob Hoskins) and high-end call girl (Cathy Tyson). The two couldn't be more at odds, but there's an incremental softening, with Hoskins slowly becoming taken with her sophistication. But the film's terrific noir story finds our small-time crook plunging himself into the murky waters of the London underworld as he tries to unravel a mystery. And in true hard-boiled fashion, he's had enough of being jerked around as events turn ever more downbeat. There's a glimmer of hope in the closing moments of MONA LISA that happens just when you think things can't get any bleaker. It's not at all what one would expect, but for once, there's finally a note that's upbeat.Wonderful movie; engrossing while it plays, and hard to shake when it's done. The story is luridly captivating even when the seedy scenery isn't. And there's a nice break for a music video (Genesis' In Too Deep) that lays on the mood in the grand Miami Vice tradition. And the performances from Hoskins, Tyson and Michael Caine (who commands the screen during his scenes) are remarkable. But it's Hoskins who makes this movie his own as a character who's usually clueless, with an innocence masked by gritty toughness. We share his heartbreak when he's denied that which keeps him going, and the film's emotional center is embodied by him. He really does an amazing job here. 8/10
Rockwell_Cronenberg
Going into this, I was expecting an alright film with a strong performance by Bob Hoskins. Boy, was I so very wrong. Hoskins himself more than exceeded my expectations, but the real surprise was how powerful the film itself was. Like a lot of my favorite films, the premise is simple; George (Hoskins) is fresh out of prison and gets a job as a driver for Simone (Cathy Tyson), a high-class call girl. It's an easy setup for a crime thriller, when George inevitably takes a fancy to Simone and will do anything she asks, but it's what they do beyond that which takes the film to another level. As a crime thriller, it works brilliantly. I wish Neil Jordan would operate more in this genre, because with this and the phenomenal Crying Game, which came out six years later, he has proved twice over his massive capability for making crime thrillers that are unique and wickedly intense.As George is driven down this dark path into the new underworld, a place darker and more twisted than it was when he went away, Jordan paces everything with a slow burn that gets downright diabolical in it's final act. Michael Caine shows up as the sinister crime boss and he practically tears through the screen with his malice, along with a solid supporting turn by The Wire's Clarke Peters. There's an elevator scene near the end that just about made me sweat it was so intense and unexpected. Hoskins portrays George as an intimidating man with a rage inside of him, but when he's on screen with Caine he looks like a chubby boy being picked on at the playground.The relationship between George and Simone is built in a refreshingly honest way, played with genuine sincerity by Hoskins and Tyson, and all of this leads to a practically flawless crime thriller. However that's not where the film stops, as there is so much more going on beneath the surface. One could take it all at face value and still manage to be amazed, I know I sure would have been, but I found that the themes resonated far deeper than that. It's unspoken, but I feel that the change of the world is really displayed in focus here by Jordan and in particular by Hoskins' portrayal of George. He came out of prison expecting to get right back into the crime game, but the world has changed and grown far too menacing for someone as simple and good-natured as him. George has a mean streak to him and is capable of great violence when necessary, but at his heart he is a man who believes in the old ways.He went down for another man and when he comes out of prison he buys that man a rabbit to let him know that he's back. It's not done as a message of anything sinister, but as a kind gesture, to buy a "fluffy rabbit with long floppy ears". Just take notice at how the tone of the film has shifted by the time the rabbit comes back at the end and we've come full circle, and you can feel how the weight of this theme pours through the picture. Another subtle way they display it all is through how George dresses himself. When he first gets money for a new wardrobe, he buys tacky and unsuitable clothing, making a fool of himself but he finds it hilarious. As he takes his job more seriously, he buys a finer wardrobe and the people that serve these wicked men take notice and respect him more as a result; they treat him as if he's anyone else. It's when George begins to revolt back against this changed world that he once again goes back to his more flamboyant clothing and embraces the good man that he always was.There's so much going on in Hoskins' performance that isn't laid out for the audience, but he makes it impossible not to see. That whole theme of coming out of prison to a much different and more frightening world is heartbreakingly portrayed through his expressions, he carries the whole thing almost on his own. The "guy falling for a prostitute" routine has been done dozens of times in cinema over the years, but there's an added weight to it here when Hoskins portrays the haunting loneliness of this character and how desperate he is just to have a companion. He's fresh out of prison in a world that doesn't want him anymore and all he wants is someone to treat him like he matters. This all comes through in the remarkably complex and detailed performance from Hoskins, which commands this rich film all the way through. As a crime thriller it's aces, but if you pay enough attention it is so much more.
