Hail (2011) Reviews

• An Intense Masterpiece

  history_beckons2012-08-21

  Hail is a film that sneaks up on you. The experience of viewing it is conversely pleasant and unnerving - it starts and ends as a love story between ex-con Danny and his partner Leanne, but somewhere in between it is an intense exploration of the criminal or psychotic mind. The characters of Leanne and Danny and those around them are so real that it's terrifying - in fact the film contains characters playing themselves in day-to-day situations that brings the practice of using real-life actors to a whole new level. Director Amiel Courtin-Wilson has spoken about his closeness to the main characters of the film, and this is evident and brings a reality to the film that is rare in cinema. At times the camera work is explorative and experimental, a bit like a Munch painting or something. At other times it feels like fly-on-the- wall documentary. The film is slowly paced which only makes it more intense as it builds to... well, what? You'll have to find out because to give away the ending of this film should be a crime. Rest assured, it will blow you away - from the moment Anthony appears at Leanne and Danny's apartment, Hail becomes a roller-coaster spiraling out of control and taking the audience with it. To put it simply, Hail is the most intense film that I have ever laid eyes on. It reminds me of Trash and the other Paul Morrissey films but with a documentary vibe. It is a window into an intense relationship between two incredible people, using a Greek tragedy or Shakespearian story to formulate it's viewing experience. It is not for the faint of heart. People have walked out and to be honest it's no surprise, but in the hardness of this film to watch lies its masterpiece. Congratulations must be given to all involved in this film. Let us hope that it is given the opportunity to be seen and appreciated as the Australian classic that it is.

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• The film's composition is disastrous. It lacks both rhythm and structure

  Likes_Ninjas902012-10-27

  Hail is an Australian docudrama, fictionalising the life of former criminal Daniel P. Jones, whose been cast as himself. The film starts with Jones leaving prison to be reunited with his partner Leanne (real life partner Leanne Letch). Despite his past, they are a happy couple, with enough friends to go out with and celebrate. But Danny is also troubled by having to find employment when he has limited preparation and continues to be judged on his scruffy appearance. Once Danny resorts to stealing and eventually drug taking, tragedy strikes, which sees his moral judgements spiral out of control. This leads to documentary filmmaker and director Amiel Courtin-Wilson's arching philosophical problem: are the poor choices one makes disruptive to the amount of love that we know exists inside of them? It's a powerful, unresolved question, encapsulated in a performance so transcendent of any conventional description or method of acting that it defies one's need to critique Jones on his ability to play his role. He engages us with a multifaceted version of himself: funny, romantic and gentle but also extremely brittle in the face of the unknown world that he thinks will offer little to someone with his past. But Hail is a great performance short of a movie, convincingly portrayed but amateurish and unsatisfying in every other respect. Director Courtin-Wilson makes the fatal error of crafting this story without a script, using scene breakdowns and non- professional actors instead. The film's composition is disastrous. It lacks both rhythm and structure. Some scenes are too short, disjointed and purposeless, while others are overlong, rambling and poorly photographed; a result of choosing to improvise dialogue but unwilling to call 'cut' either. The early scenes show some promise. Danny seeks employment in a garage, without a résumé, and you admire his unrehearsed bravery, wincing as he's verbally blowtorched by younger men. "You look like a criminal", one bloke tells him. However, true to the film's hopelessly fragmented approach, the employment thread is left unresolved and therefore weightless. Hail's second half is the most fictionalised and bloody of the two parts but also the more opaque and unconvincing. Excessive visual gimmicks and over-stylisation provide little closure or meaning, building to moments of ugly, sadistic violence that disperse any relatable socio-political issues. Are techniques like screen blurring and extreme close-ups of Danny's lips and facial hair supposed to represent our changing perspective of this man during his psychological transformation? The film shares an uneasy relationship with these formal devices. They visualise Danny with an almost inhuman perspective, but given Wilson and Danny are friends in real life, he's not prepared to demonise him entirely. Earlier, Danny mentions his partner is like a palindrome, something that is the same at the end as it is at the beginning, and the film ends unpersuasively with a dream-like image of Danny embracing Leanne. After his horrific actions, how do we appreciate that this man acted out of love and not madness and jealousy? Why should we still care? I still don't know.

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