I watched this today because it’s one of those movies I can watch any time but it was midway that I realised maybe I’d subconsciously chosen it for another reason. It connects to a lot of the movies I’ve watched recently and the feelings I’ve had watching them – from Enchanted to Penelope to Riding in Cars with Boys the other day, I even found similarities to Once here this time around. I’d never watched the introduction on the DVD of this movie before, and in it, Geoff Andrew says some things about the ending that my gut instinct disagreed with a lot, dismissing the romance at the start as meaningless teenage meanderings and such, as if the romance between Guy and Geneviève was never meant to bloom nor could have possibly bloomed, even if he’d returned to her in time. I took as much issue with that idea as I have recently with this idea that innocence lost can never be regained, etc, that I won’t go into yet again.

But as the movie went on, I did find myself looking at it in a different way from before – dare I say it, with some aging mature wisdom on my side. There are a lot of questions I’ve had over this movie in the past, like for example why I continue to love it so much when so many of the characters do things that I would never usually find acceptable. Everybody in the movie is in some way “after something” that they never ask for directly and honestly – both Guy and Geneviève in some way give up waiting for their love, the less said about Geneviève’s mother the better, Madeleine never declares her obvious love for Guy, and Roland Cassard, though perhaps the most admirable character in the movie, is always presented as a bit of a slimeball who looks down on the others – here to the rescue, yes, but through little real effort on his part. I think in the end it’s this full package of flawed characters illustrating perhaps precisely how “people things” tend to transpire whether we like them or not. Even Geneviève’s mother has a lot of pearls of wisdom, though delivered a little harshly (not to mention shrilly lol) at times.

But in the end, any amount of babble like this becomes fairly moot once you’re faced with the movie itself. From the opening title onwards – that rain falling as though from the camera itself on the people of Cherbourg, as though we the audience are already crying on the movie – this movie is simply pure magic that I could bawl through from beginning to end. The music is sublime, the colours are eye-popping, and the characters are, as I hopefully illustrated above, surprisingly complicated given the context. It has the most conflicted but beautiful ending I’ve ever seen, and I still react to it today as I did over 10 years ago when I first saw it: my stomach almost physically churns and tightens, I’m overjoyed but crushed, tears fall down my face over a wretchedly human smile on my lips. This movie isn’t beautiful … it’s beauty. If this review reads like a mess than it’s just an illustration of how the movie affects me, lol, and probably an explanation of why there hasn’t previously been a review of it here despite it being one of my all-time faves.

“We can’t afford a zombie! We’re barely keeping up with funeral payments!”

Anyone for Shaun of the Dead meets Monster House? I looked forward to seeing this from the moment I heard about it (which, given it came out in 2006, was a little late I guess) ... a kind of post-zombie movie set in the Fifties, just when you thought nothing new could be done with the genre. Zombies have been domesticated in a manner similar to the way we see them at the end of Shaun, and poor suburban mom Carrie-Ann Moss is hysterically ashamed at being the only family in the street without one to do the gardening etc.

Considering the number of children in it and the bright colour scheme, it’s actually surprisingly gory in places – I expected something a lot more family friendly but of course wasn’t disappointed by this surprise It’s nothing spectacular but it’s certainly unpredictable and fun. It would make a great double bill with any Fifties metaphor for a world rotting beneath its glossy sheen, but I’m inclined to think a more perfect companion would be last year’s Blood Car.

LOL additional – shows how much I’d given up even looking for this movie in the right places – it is now available on DVD, so apologies for bitching about the rights owners … I still got it cheaper from eBay, that’s what counts lol

Finally got hold of a nice digital copy of this – so stupid of me ditching all my VHS including this all those years ago assuming it’d be easy to find again; I don’t think it’s been on TV yet this millennium, grr, and the eBay auctions have been equally sparse, never coming close to as low a price I finally got it for this week.

This is an even more beautiful movie than I remember – you know exactly how dedicated the film makers are when you see the year – 1952 – coupled with the credit “advice on the tuition of the deaf” on the opening scroll. It’s by far the smartest “old” movie I’ve ever seen, so ahead of its time it even beat the first dramatic adaptation of Helen Keller’s story by 5 years. Just watch the sublimely subtle way the headmistress of the school gestures at Jack Dawkins’ Searle to look at her when he’s speaking during a meeting, and her growing frustration at the others who don’t. It leaves you better than any movie I’ve seen with this heightened awareness of what people with disabilities have to put up with – like, even during the movie I watched after this, I was looking at peoples’ lips and realising how often it’s really impossible to follow what someone is saying without the sounds they’re making. There’s this fantastic visual motif in the movie of people with their backs turned on people – every time you see it it carries some significance, right from the first use of it with the overwhelmingly touching reveal about the headmistress.

But all this intelligence and consideration doesn’t mean the movie isn’t full of heart too. Another visual motif is that of the camera simply tracking in on Mandy’s face, often coupled by the sound fading out, that face often streaming with tears; her confusion is profoundly communicated to us in this way. The movie is so good overall that I’d completely forgotten how adorable Mandy Miller was here, let alone the performance she gives which is so beautiful and real I still find myself checking up online whether she actually was deaf (she wasn’t – you might know her better as the voice singing “Nelly the Elephant” hehe :)) Those frowning, curious eyes staring silently over the wall at the other kids playing, it’s just one of the most moving images I’ve ever seen.

There’s the sharp, almost brassy humour of the best friend of Mandy’s mother, too – again remembering this is the early Fifties (note the solicitor’s scene: “Striking a woman is always a mistake – heaven knows they often ask for it but the courts take a dim view,” lol) – fearlessly putting Searle in his place, “I’ve already told her you’ve got no manners so you’ve no need to demonstrate it, now get on with it and show her around!” lol. In this frank talk and the whole issue of the broken family rearing its head towards the end of the movie, again the movie is just years ahead of anything else I’ve seen from the time.

The acting ensemble is all-round perfect. It’s easy to focus on the child’s performance in a movie like this, but Mandy Miller’s is really just the center of a whirlwind of talent on display here. If the end credits aren’t a little obscured by your tears, you should probably get your ducts checked I’ve seen a ton of the better known Ealing productions but this one remains by far the best in my opinion. Anyone involved with children – parents, teachers, whatever – could really learn a lot from this movie, the deaf thing doesn’t even come into it, if you’ve a child in your life you owe it to yourself and them to seek this one out, and anyone with the power practically has a duty to make it widely available again.

I hate to say it, ‘cos this movie’s so vaginal it’s stifling (you can practically smell the perfume in some scenes) and I’m sure someone out there will decide my response is thus because I haven’t got one – but though it’s beautifully photographed (the very first shot got me very excited; it was either that or Michael Cunningham’s name in the credits) and scored, this is like The Notebook with all semblance of a story plain sucked out.

The most notable thing about it is the casting – Meryl Streep’s own daughter Mamie Gummer as her younger self passes at least half an hour for the audience wondering, is that nose plastic, is the whole thing some new kind of CG … or does she really look like her mum?? lol. And though not so visually startling, the casting of Natasha Richardson as Vanessa Redgrave’s daughter is a nice touch too. In the context of such an empty 2 hours, though, it resembles too much nothing but a gimmick. One of the posters kinda says it all – the cast names dwarf the movie’s title and even mask the beautiful backdrop art. Definitely see The Notebook instead. After this and Away From Her, I might have to dig it out again myself. This one’s only saving grace is that it is, I’ll admit, nice to find another movie that’s so much slower and quieter than much that’s been released this year. That alone, though – though many will try to convince you otherwise, not to mention all the men’s men who’ll try to like it to get some sex – is not enough to make a movie worth watching.