Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (UK, 1980)
Directed by Steve Roberts
Starring Trevor Howard, Patrick McGee, Sheila Reid, Denise Coffey

In my review of Westworld, I argued that novelists who become filmmakers often lack the visual creativity to balance out the verbal richness of a given work. While certainly true of Michael Crichton's debut, this can also be applied to literary adaptations in general; the often-prolific use of voiceover and frequency of long speeches belie an unhelpfully literal approach to adaptation.Sir Henry at Rawlinson End proves the same can be true for spoken word albums. Vivian Stanshall's 1978 LP, culled from his stints on Radio 1 covering for John Peel, remains an irresistible slice of whimsical absurdity with wordplay which is utterly to die for. But in the hands of first-time director Steve Roberts, most of the charm and quality of Stanshall's work is eroded or withered away, resulting in a crushing disappointment.Sir Henry at Rawlinson End has been called everything from "the cinematic equivalent of cheese before bedtime" (The Big Issue) to "the missing link between Monty Python and Withnail & I" (Time Out). Set in and around the fictional English country manor of Rawlinson End, it follows a day in the life of Sir Henry Rawlinson (Trevor Howard), Great Aunt Florie (Sheila Reid) and various other eccentrics who inhabit or visit the estate. The film version extends the plot of the album, adding both the activities of a morose priest Slodden (Patrick Magee) and Sir Henry's attempts to exorcise the ghost of his brother, accidentally killed during a drunken fishing trip.The best way to understand the film is found in the words of Peter Sellers. When interviewed in 1972 just before a one-off Goon Show to mark 50 years of the BBC, he made the comparison between The Goons and Monty Python in terms of visual imagination on the part of the audience. Watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, you had a starting point for what the various characters could look like: in Sellers' words, "John Cleese always looks like John Cleese". Listening to the Goons, on the other hand, you had to create pictures of what the various characters looked like without much visual assistance, even from Spike Milligan's own drawings.

The great joy of Sir Henry as a record was Stanshall's skill with voices, accents and verbal acrobatics. Every sinew of the storyline was crammed full with wit and wordplay, with Stanshall's metaphors and imagery being up there with the best bits of Under Milk Wood. Dylan Thomas would have smiled favourably on corkers such as this: "A pale sun poked impudent marmalade fingers through the grizzled lattice glass, and sent the shadows scurrying, like convent girls menaced by a tramp."Like Under Milk Wood, the story of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is secondary to the characters inhabiting it, whose every tic and foible is captured in superb detail by the rich language. With Thomas, it is the grotesquery of Mr. and Mrs. Pew, the melancholy of Polly Garter or the grief of the blind sea captain. With Stanshall, it is the absurdity and sheer lunacy of English aristocrats, from Sir Henry's simpleton son Hubert, "in his mid-40s, and still unusual", to walking encyclopaedia Reg Smeeton, who obsesses over the fact that there is no proper name for the back of the knees.

As delightfully hilarious as all of this sounds, it was always going to be difficult to capture the innate anarchy of Stanshall's unique mind. The very effect of adding a visual dimension takes away from the imagination of the record, offering a standardised version of events which, much like the Tele-Goons, will inevitably fall short of one's expectations. One could blame this on the director's inexperience or lack of talent: Roberts would later carve a niche for himself penning TV series based on successful Disney films. But Stanshall's close involvement, both at a script level and in a supporting role, leads one to conclude that it was simply a bad idea for anyone to attempt it.In adapting the album for the big screen, there has been a certain amount of plot-shuffling - understandable enough, and just about excusable considering the consistent quality of the material. But some of the best bits of the album are inexplicably missing. At only 73 minutes long, it is unlikely that they were cut for time, and more unlikely still that they were lost for lack of making sense. Most tragic is the omission of Sir Henry's monologue about Professor Molebottom, who in his mind "put the bounce in the bouncing bomb".The new additions to the story are poorly integrated, giving the distinct impression that the film would have been fine without them. Patrick Magee is a burning screen presence, as evidenced by his work with Stanley Kubrick in A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. But for all his charisma his character seems curiously pointless; his priest plots and glowers on the side-lines, but nothing ever comes of him being there. Harry Fowler's winkle-pickered Cockney is an obvious bum note, a pale imitation of Walker from Dad's Army. And the ghost exorcism plot is badly handled, arriving with some hokey special effects and being palmed off pretty quickly.

There have been a number of strange British cult films which have passed muster in spite of their shambolic narratives. Think of Richard Lester's The Bed-Sitting Room, co-written by Spike Milligan, or The Magic Christian starring Peter Sellers. But what saw these films through their short running times and perplexing turns of plot was a constant feeling that they were about something, even if they weren't going anywhere.Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, on the other hand, feels totally and indulgently aimless. It feels like the cast and crew were given a big house to play around in for a week - they shot everything they could, making it up as they went along and then tried to stitch it all together in the editing room. While the album may not have finished in an entirely satisfying way, it at least had the common decency to quiet while it was ahead. This hangs around for at least 20 minutes too long, ending with someone bungee-jumping off the battlements for no good reason.In amongst its disastrous execution, there are individual moments in the film which at the very least make it memorable. There is some pleasure in seeing Trevor Howard sending himself up so mercilessly; one can almost picture this is what his character in Battle of Britain might have become had he been given a peerage. He gets a number of pretty juicy lines which showcase his insanity - the best being, "I never met a man I didn't mutilate" - and his prisoner-of-war camp banter is quite fun.

Some of the visual decisions are also notable. Where The Bed-Sitting Room found Lester manipulating colour like his contemporary Nicolas Roeg, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is shot entirely in sepia monochrome, reinforcing its amateurish, parochial feel. If one was feeling generous, one could call this a descendent of the early surrealist films, taking its place in the canon as a late-blooming English take on Luis Bunuel.In the end, however, there is precious little about Sir Henry at Rawlinson End that makes one feel anything like as charitable. It is a crushing disappointment for fans of the spoken word album, whose bizarrely annoying tone leaves no way in either for fans of English whimsy or for the casual viewer. The pockets of familiar bliss or tongue-twisting delight are padded out by incoherence, indulgence and irritation. In short, it proves that audience imagination is key to making these kinds of stories work, and that as a result, some things are best left unseen.

Rating:
Verdict: A crushing disappointment

The Skin I Live In (Spain, 2011)
Directed by Pedro Almodovar
Starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet

I first saw the trailer for Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle, while waiting patiently for Sarah's Key to start. The trailer was immensely creepy, and my immediate reaction was the exclamation: "Blimey! He's turned into Georges Franju!". It was through such a reaction that I was compelled to return the following week, to catch one of the most intriguing films of the year.If Black Swan was Darren Aronofsky's version of Suspiria, The Skin I Live In is Pedro Almodovar's take on Georges Franju's horror classic Eyes Without A Face. He takes the premise, plot and iconic imagery of what is still one of the scariest horror movies ever made, throws in his trademark blend of melodrama, gender politics and soap opera, and then cranks everything up to eleven. The result, like Black Swan, is frequently ridiculous, but also strange, engrossing and intensely memorable.Although precious little of his career has been based in or concerned with horror, Almodovar knows the genre well enough to pay knowing tribute to several iconic entries in the canon. The references to Eyes Without A Face are clear both in the film and in its publicity, especially in the white face mask which our heroine wears for most of the film. The plot loosely follows the same arc, although instead of stealing other people's faces, the obsessive mad scientist irrevocably alters a criminal's identity and gender as payback for what happened to his wife and daughter.Antonio Banderas' character looks back to the cinematic tradition of mad scientists, beginning of course with Rotwang from Metropolis. But his closest equivalent is Vincent Price in The Abominable Dr. Phibes, a campy, schlocky B-movie in which Price plays a zombie scientist who recreates the Biblical plagues of Egypt to avenge the death of his wife. Finally the surgical sequences, which are particularly graphic, recall the famous eye-slice sequence in Un Chien Andalou, whose surrealist sensibility mirrors Almodovar's interest in the supernatural.Mark Kermode remarked that one unique aspect of cinema is its ability to make acts of painstaking construction inherently seductive. In other words, watching someone assembling a gun or performing an operation on screen has an engrossing quality, so that we are drawn in even knowing that what we are seeing is, on one level, totally repulsive. If the surgical scenes in The Skin I Live In are anything to go by, Kermode was right on the money. There is something inherently sinister about surgical equipment on screen, but even as we recoil at what may (or may not) be happening, Almodovar's camera is coaxing us to lean in for a closer look.The Skin I Live In has a number of deeply uncomfortable scenes which in the hands of a lesser filmmaker would cause the whole project to collapse. The scenes of Vicente being hosed down and kept prisoner in the cellar are very close to the aesthetic of so-called torture porn. But even in its most tortuous moments the film never tips over into the territory of Captivity, i.e. condoning or encouraging any sadism on our part.A similar issue could be taken with the amount of nudity in the film, and particularly with the way in which it is presented. In one lengthy scene, Robert Ledgard (Banderas) begins to cover 'Vera' in the new skin which he has been cultivating. We see Vera's exposed breasts and genitalia in close up over a long take, while Robert guides the new material over her body with tweezers. As before, it's uncomfortable, but Almodovar holds his nerve and prevents the scene from becoming gratuitous through very careful editing.Like all the best horror films, The Skin I Live In is not gruesome or graphic for its own sake. It's very rare to get a horror film about gender politics, let alone one whose approach is so nuanced and intelligent. Where previous efforts like Teeth eventually abandoned or distorted their feminist credentials, this film puts its audience through the mill if it has t, in order to keep its sense of conviction.The film explores the notion of gender identity, and to what extent one's gender is defined by one's physical appearance. When Robert captures Vicente, wanting revenge for the rape of his daughter, the easy thing to do would be to castrate him, in the manner of Hard Candy or Teeth. Instead, Robert's retribution is more twisted, giving Vicente a vagina so that he has to experience some degree of womanhood for the rest of his life.After his daughter's death, brought on by a Repulsion-like fear of men, Robert takes his guinea pig a little further. What started as an act of retribution steadily transmutes into something a great deal more twisted, as Vicente is shaped into a near-perfect copy of Robert's wife, who is isolated from the outside world and used by Robert for sexual pleasure. In these scenes Robert truly emerges as a monster, who has forsaken the life-saving benefits of his research to satisfy his urges and atone for his mistakes.The film's exploration of gender identity is concentrated in the behaviour of 'Vera'. For most of the film we believe convincingly that she is wholly a woman - even before the massive twist, we don't have any reason to doubt that she identifies as such. Once we know what has been done to 'her', we come to believe that one's identity is indeed determined by physical factors. But as with Eyes Without A Face, the final rebellion turns all of this on its head, with 'Vera' revealing what or who she truly is in the gripping final scene.Like most of Almodovar's work, The Skin I Live In combines this twisted and sinister storyline with laugh-out-loud, awkward humour. The jokes frequently come at the expense of the characters involved, particularly 'Vera'. In one scene, Robert brings out a box of dildos of increasing size, and lays them out on the table while instructing his most prized possession about how and when to use each one. The camera then cuts to the line of dildos, with Vera looking startled behind her mask in the background.The Skin I Live In is at heart a melodrama: it has a relatively simple story (albeit one with a cracker of a twist), which relies on the memorability of the characters to give the story depth and credibility. Almodovar's characterisation is complex but very overt, and the manner in which he introduces characters tells us pretty much all we need to know. When we first meet Antonio Banderas, he is giving a lecture in which the lights cast deep shadows under his eyes: before he has even said a word, we know he is up to no good.Because The Skin I Live In is so deeply rooted in melodrama, it does require a lot of patience both to buy into the various twists and to put up with the more histrionic sections of the plot. Flashing back to events six years prior to the beginning works very well, but if you find yourself getting incredulous over the central plot device, you'll struggle to put up with the man dressed as a tiger. As with Black Swan, there is a sense of the ridiculous in all of this, but as long as we are in the zone with the characters, that sense should not override our enjoyment.The Skin I Live In is one of the most intriguing and engrossing films of 2011. It is a little too long, and we do have to hold our nerve in the more ridiculous moments. But with enough patience the substance and chills of Almodovar come surging through. Antonio Banderas gives his best performance in quite some time, and Elena Anaya is a great match, having previously shone in the underrated Savage Grace. It's a twisted, creepy and tantalising work, which in its finest moments gives Black Swan a run for its money.

Rating:
Verdict: The Spanish Black Swan

Eraserhead (USA, 1977)
Directed by David Lynch
Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Judith Anne Roberts, Laurel Near

Just it's hard to imagine cinema without Steven Spielberg or Stanley Kubrick, so a world without David Lynch seems as absurd and as nightmarish as one of his films. The man who is arguably America's greatest living filmmaker has so completely re-written the rulebook for surrealist filmmaking, that even non-fans like Roger Ebert would admit that the world would be a duller place without him.If you want proof of this sea-change which Lynch has caused in cinema, you need look no further than his debut feature Eraserhead, a dark and fascinating fable about marriage, heaven and industry which set the midnight movie circuit alight in the late-1970s. Marrying Alan Splet's masterful sound design to a series of horrifically beautiful and strange images, Lynch creates a viewing experience which is nothing short of mesmerising.Part of the mystique of Eraserhead lies in the fact that relatively little is known about it even after 34 years. Lynch is famous for refusing to reveal what his films mean, but the production history is as mysterious as the finished product. There are no making-of documentaries, and even Lynch's own interviews focus on the pre-production rather than the actual filming.

Eraserhead was filmed intermittently over six years beginning in 1970, when Lynch received a grant from the American Film Institute to film a 21-page script about adultery. What began as a long short morphed over these six years into a four-hour rough cut which Lynch subsequently pared down to 90 minutes. During this time Lynch experienced a spiritual epiphany, beginning his involvement in transcendental meditation which he continues to this day.Lynch's photography, both past and present, has often revolved around disused factories or industrial landscapes which have fallen into disrepair. Eraserhead mirrors this fascination, depicting a vision of post-industrial society which makes the workers' city in Metropolis look like the Costa del Sol. Every building seems to be either a relic of a bygone age or coming apart at the seams; where there are plants or trees, they are black and completely bare. Alan Splet's amazing soundtrack howls and wails, as if the Earth itself were groaning under the weight of Man's work, from all His once-great achievements now rendered obsolete by age and progress.By creating such a dark and desolate landscape, Lynch makes us feel isolated and alien to our surroundings: we are the living and the breathing in a world comprised entirely of death and decay. This feeling of alienation and malaise spills over into the characters, with Henry's father-in-law remarking that the whole world has become a "hell-hole". Their conversations are filled with the awkward silences that would become characteristic of Lynch's work, while the black-and-white visuals give the impression that this world is slipping into the next, like the characters in Samuel Beckett's Endgame who are patiently waiting for death.Like Alien two year later, Eraserhead's central story revolves around the male fear of pregnancy and the Freudian connotations of offspring. Some commentators have speculated that the entire film is an allegory for Lynch's anxiety about the birth of his daughter Jennifer - none moreso, incidentally, than Jennifer Lynch herself. Regardless of whether that is true or to what extent, this theme is writ large throughout Eraserhead, and manifests itself in a number of sinister ways.When Henry first discovers that he is a father, he reacts not with delight but with fear - fear not of the parents' reaction, or for his girlfriend, but of what monster he may have created. The film begins with the spectral apparition of a child emanating from Jack Nance's mouth, as if this creature was spawned from the darkest depths of his unconscious. The baby is the id to Henry's ego, its bizarre and impossible constructions being at odds with his straightforward demeanour and limited range of expression. Along these lines, Henry's attack on the child is the ego (or super-ego) defeating the animalistic id, albeit with serious and unforeseen consequences.Over the course of the film both Henry and his girlfriend are tormented by their child. It lies screaming incessantly at night, to the point where the girlfriend packs her things and goes home, leaving the baby entirely in his care. From then on the baby becomes more menacing and vindictive towards Henry: first it screams to prevent him leaving the flat, and then it laughs at him when it seems the girl who lives across the hall no longer cares for him.With this development Eraserhead becomes a film not just about fear but about responsibility, in which the child is the physicalisation of Henry's conscience. Although Henry is hardly the philandering type, he does entertain fantasies of other women, where the brunette across the hall or the strange blonde who lives in the radiator. There are almost hints of Pinocchio in the father-son relationship, with the almost unreal baby keeping the real-life father on the straight and narrow. But unlike Pinocchio, there is no friendship between them, and ultimately the puppet permanently rebels against his conscience.In his 2006 book Catching the Big Fish, Lynch called Eraserhead his "most spiritual movie", and claimed that the whole project came together after he read a certain (unnamed) part of The Bible. There are huge Biblical overtones in Eraserhead, and most of them are from the more unpleasant parts of the Old Testament. Not only does the baby represent the sins of the father being visited on the sons (Exodus 34:7), but the man in the moon moving all the levers could be God setting all of this in motion.Alternatively, the man in the moon and the woman in the radiator may have nothing to do with God at all. They might be projections of Henry's subconscious, being respectively a scapegoat and a possible source of redemption. The man resembles the baby in all his rashes and peculiar spots, hinting at the concept of Man creating a jealous, negative God as a projection of his own cold heart.When the lady is dancing, she tramples on copies of the apparitions from the beginning, suggesting to Henry that he must overcome this evil to gain both her love and his salvation. The final scene, where she embraces Henry and the screen fades to white, could indicate that he has gone to heaven - where, as the song says, everything is fine. There are clear through-lines to Mulholland Drive in her resemblance to Marilyn Monroe (whom Betty/ Diane also resembles) and in the use of a theatrical performance within the world of a film.All of these interpretations are valid, and there is nothing in the content of Eraserhead which can be explained for certain. What is for certain is the terrifying nature of the special effects used to bring this baby to life. Various rumours surround this unique special effect, the most common being that it is a pickled calf foetus, animated from within. Whatever it is, its twisted shape and harrowing cries burn deep into our subconscious and genuinely freak us out. We jump when we see it break out in spots, and its death throes are nothing short of nerve-shredding.Eraserhead is a dark and twisted masterpiece which remains one of the most extraordinary debut features in all of cinema. Lynch's direction is immaculate, creating a unique cinematic vision which is not only frightening but deeply visceral and dripping with substances. It is a high point of surrealist cinema that would have made Salvador Dali proud, and may even be the best such work since Un Chien Andalou. In any case, it is essential viewing for everyone with even an iota of interest in film.

Rating:
Verdict: Lynch's first of many masterpieces