12-06-2018, 02:34 PM
Age of Consent (1969)
Michael Powell's final feature film about a successful yet jaded Australian artist (James Mason) who retreats to a shack on the Great Barrier Reef, hoping to find his inspiration again. A young Helen Mirren plays a wild, determined but innocent local diving girl who becomes his muse. Various vulgar people intrude and threaten to spoil the moment they are trying to capture. The film is totally working when it's the artist lost in the act of creation and the girl running around with a carefree joy but too often it diverts into broad/farcical comedy. It feels like Powell is trying to say something profound about art/life but never quite manages to say it clearly enough, or decides on a consistent tone. Definitely not up to the standard of Powell's earlier work but worth a watch for the glimpses of romantic genius... and for the glimpses of Helen Mirren in the nip
.
The newly released Indicator blu-ray has two cuts of the film, with two different scores. I went for the Director-approved, longer and uncensored Australian release version. The disc also includes Powell & Pressburger's final collaboration:
The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972)
A short film for a children's film series made by Director/Writer/Producer team Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell. Whimsical and charming, child eye-level stuff, both feeling like a Roald Dahl type story and like it was shot by the same person who conceived the psychedelic boat-tunnel sequence from 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'. A boy (our main character John) and all other people and objects in a geographical circle all suddenly turn yellow for no explicable reason (even the boy's blood has turned bright yellow). Then he goes off on adventures with an Electricity-Alien who lives in his TV set, played by the old Knight geezer from the end of 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'. A pleasantly humorus way to spend 55-minutes.
The Mercy (2017)
A retelling of the true-story of amateur sailor and inventor Donald Crowhurst's ill-fated attempt at the 1968 one-man, non-stop, round-the-world boat-race. The dramatic tension is unbearable in the first half watching the lovable face of Colin Firth (as Crowhurst) slowly crumple and drain of colour as he understands he is going to die but must sail off anyway. Once he is alone on the water, the film felt less confident about what to do with the story.
I first became familiar with the Crowhurst story through a 2007 song by the band iLiKETRAiNS:
Michael Powell's final feature film about a successful yet jaded Australian artist (James Mason) who retreats to a shack on the Great Barrier Reef, hoping to find his inspiration again. A young Helen Mirren plays a wild, determined but innocent local diving girl who becomes his muse. Various vulgar people intrude and threaten to spoil the moment they are trying to capture. The film is totally working when it's the artist lost in the act of creation and the girl running around with a carefree joy but too often it diverts into broad/farcical comedy. It feels like Powell is trying to say something profound about art/life but never quite manages to say it clearly enough, or decides on a consistent tone. Definitely not up to the standard of Powell's earlier work but worth a watch for the glimpses of romantic genius... and for the glimpses of Helen Mirren in the nip
.The newly released Indicator blu-ray has two cuts of the film, with two different scores. I went for the Director-approved, longer and uncensored Australian release version. The disc also includes Powell & Pressburger's final collaboration:
The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972)
A short film for a children's film series made by Director/Writer/Producer team Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell. Whimsical and charming, child eye-level stuff, both feeling like a Roald Dahl type story and like it was shot by the same person who conceived the psychedelic boat-tunnel sequence from 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'. A boy (our main character John) and all other people and objects in a geographical circle all suddenly turn yellow for no explicable reason (even the boy's blood has turned bright yellow). Then he goes off on adventures with an Electricity-Alien who lives in his TV set, played by the old Knight geezer from the end of 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'. A pleasantly humorus way to spend 55-minutes.
The Mercy (2017)
A retelling of the true-story of amateur sailor and inventor Donald Crowhurst's ill-fated attempt at the 1968 one-man, non-stop, round-the-world boat-race. The dramatic tension is unbearable in the first half watching the lovable face of Colin Firth (as Crowhurst) slowly crumple and drain of colour as he understands he is going to die but must sail off anyway. Once he is alone on the water, the film felt less confident about what to do with the story.
I first became familiar with the Crowhurst story through a 2007 song by the band iLiKETRAiNS:
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