Official Secrets (3½ Stars)

"The truth is always the first casualty of war".

I immediately liked the film's tag line, which is super-imposed on the film poster. It wasn't until I sat down to write this review that I questioned whether it's a true statement. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It varies from case to case, so I would definitely strike the word "always". A lie might be told to justify a war. That was possibly the case in the Iraq War of 2003, when it was claimed that the Iraqi regime was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. I say possibly, because it's impossible for me to decide after all these years whether it was a lie or a mistake.

It's more often the case that lies are told after a war has ended. It's said that after a war history is written by the winners. If the other side had won, the history books would tell a different story. My favourite example is the statement that World War Two was started by Germany invading Poland. That's something that people in England, America and most other western countries repeat without thinking, but it's only one way of interpreting the facts. It could also be claimed that Germany didn't invade Poland at all; German troops entered German territories that were being occupied by Poland. If Germany had won the war, the "invasion of Poland" would have been called the "liberation of West Prussia and Posen".

Those are interesting topics worth discussing some other time in greater detail. For now, let's stick to the film. It deals with the true story of Katharine Gun, an employee of GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in 2003. She intercepted a message from America to the British government asking for the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council to be put under surveillance to find a means of persuading them to vote in favour of a war against Iraq. The suggestion that diplomats should be blackmailed shocked Katharine so much that she leaked the memo to a friend who was an anti-war activist. The memo found its way to the British newspaper, The Observer.

An investigation was made to find the whistleblower responsible for the leak. At first Katharine denied it was her, but she eventually confessed in order to protect her colleagues who were the main suspects.

This is a fascinating story told with documentary precision. If anything, it's too close to being a documentary. The opening scenes show the actual footage of interviews with politicians like George Bush and Tony Blair. This slows the film down, and it needs at least half an hour to get moving. For me it only became interesting when it focused on the personal drama in Katharine's life. Keira Knightley plays the role perfectly, displaying the emotions of her character while attempting to keep them under control. It's a subtle but very effective performance.

The most shocking part of the film is the way the detectives talk to her about her legal rights. Katharine is allowed to speak to a lawyer, but as an employee of GCHQ she had signed an agreement to adhere to the Official Secrets Act by not talking about her work to anyone. This meant that if she discussed her work with her lawyer, including any details of the case against her, there would be additional charges against her. That makes a mockery of the whole British legal system.

The Aftermath (3½ Stars)

This is a historical drama that takes place in Germany five months after the end of World War Two.

Colonel Lewis Morgan has been posted to Hamburg to help rebuild the devestated city. The place is in a mess. As he says, England dropped more bombs on Hamburg in one weekend than Germany dropped on London in the whole war. I'm not sure whether he says that with pride or with shame. He's joined by his wife Rachael.She is full of bitterness against the Germans. Their 11-year-old son was killed by a German bomb in 1942.

The British army has requisitioned a luxurious villa on the outskirts of the city that belongs to a rich architect, Stefan Lubert. His wife was killed at the end of the war, and he now lives with his teenage daughter Heike. They're expected to leave the home, but Lewis takes pity on them and says they can live upstairs. This shocks Rachael, because she doesn't want to live under the same roof as Germans. The enmity is shared by Heike, who finds it disgusting that representatives of the enemy are living in her home.

As time goes by Rachael begins to feel sympathy for the Luberts. Then she falls in love with Stefan. Heike, on the other hand, still hates the British.

This is a difficult film about a difficult time. There is a lot of racism involved. Rachael hates all Germans, and Heike hates all British. It's obvious to any reasonable thinking person that not all Germans or all British can be bad. However, I have sympathy for someone in Rachael's position. In the aftermath of the war she blamed all Germans for the death of her child. It's wrong, but it's understandable. It's something that requires therapy.

On another level, the racism was institutionalised by the denazification policy of the allied occupation forces. The official policy was that everyone was guilty of being a Nazi unless proven innocent. For instance, Stefan Lubert had to be denazified before being allowed to work as an architect again. He was accused of building houses for Nazi officers, to which he replied that he built houses for everyone. He was asked why he was a member of the Nazi Party, and when he said that he had never been a member of the Party they refused to believe him, because he couldn't prove he had never been a member. It's ridiculous beyond words. Even if he had been a member, so what? For many careers, such as judges and lawyers, Nazi Party membership was a requirement. In the film the British harass anyone who says he isn't a Nazi, and from what I've read the Americans were even worse.

I enjoy the film, though I can't sympathise with Rachael Morgan, who leaps from one extreme to the other. She should have kept a clear head.

The film doesn't seem to be very successful in Stuttgart. The five members of the Stuttgart Film Group were the only people watching the film tonight. It's lucky that we went.

The Hole (2001 film) (4 Stars)

Some films stick in my mind vividly after I watch them. For instance, "The Hole". When I picked it up to watch it again I was sure I'd watched it two or three months ago, but I checked my blog and found it was 16 months ago. I can remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday.

This is a gripping psychological horror story. Four rich kids from an expensive private school spend three days in a World War Two bomb shelter. Two boys, two girls. Two weeks later Liz, one of the girls, walks back to the school, exhausted and in a bad physical state, covered in dirt and her clothes torn. The other three children are found dead in the bunker. A police psychiatrist interviews her and she explains what happened. The story doesn't make sense. A week is missing. Liz is obviously traumatised and has forgotten what happened. The only solution is to take her back to the bunker in an attempt to jog her memory.

One of the reasons that I remember this film so clearly is the performance of Keira Knightley as Liz's best friend Frankie. She isn't one of my favourite actresses, but in this film I have to stare at her in amazement. In this role she's one of the sexiest young women I've ever seen.

What makes a woman sexy to me? Is it her legs or her breasts? Ask me again. Is it her eyes or her hair colour? No. There might be some physical attributes that I like more than others, but it isn't a woman's outward appearance that excites me. So, is it a woman's intelligence? You're getting closer, but that's still not the right answer.

What thrills me about a woman is self-confidence. I like a woman who's determined and fearless. I like a woman who has her eyes on her goal and doesn't consider failure an option. Whether it's sport or business or anything else, I find a woman who is confident in her abilities extremely sexy.

Confidence is  something that Keira Knightley shows as Frankie, Liz's best friend, in "The Hole". She wants to talk to her friend Jeff, who's in the shower room after playing sport; in a school like this I assume it was Rugby. She could have waited outside the boys' locker room for him to get dressed. Instead of that she walks in, not being put off when she's surrounded by naked boys. She doesn't stop to ask questions like "What if they attack me?" She's the Alpha student in the school, and the boys are the Betas. Her self-confidence scares them. They scatter in all directions when they see her, grabbing their towels to cover themselves. She isn't embarrassed by them, they're embarrassed by her. When she finally confronts Jeff none of the other boys are in sight. They're hiding.

That's sexy.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead men tell no tales (3½ Stars)

In my opinion this film can be written off as an unnecessary sequel. The original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, made from 2003 to 2007, was perfect in itself. It had a story to tell, there was a beginning, a middle and an end, and when you walked out of the cinema at the end of the third film you were satisfied that you knew it all. Only if you stayed to the very end, of course. It was the after-credits scene in "At World's End" that rounded off the story. Nowadays there are many films that have after-credits scenes, but the Pirates of the Caribbean films were the first to have after-credits scenes that were essential to the plot. For instance, the second film makes no sense if you haven't seen the after-credits scene of the first film.

"On stranger tides", the fourth film in the series, was touted as the first film in a new trilogy. Despite its big success at the box office it was beset with problems. The critics hated it. Its special effects made it the most expensive film ever made, a record which it still holds. The viewing public criticised the absence of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.

"Dead men tell no tales" shares the same jumble of real world naval battles and supernatural elements that we know from the previous instalments. If anything, this film keeps the real world to a minimum and concentrates on the supernatural. The new character Carina Smyth is in the centre. She alone knows the secret of map that no man can read, a map that leads to the Trident of Poseidon. This is a legendary artefact that can allegedly break every curse on the sea, including the one that befell Will Turner in the third instalment.

The fifth film rounds off the story once more. We don't need a sixth film, but we'll get one anyway.

I need to watch the first three films again. Last week I finally unpacked all my DVDs, which had been in boxes since I moved to Germany ten months ago. Now I have no excuse not to watch and re-watch my favourite films.

Say when (3½ Stars)

Is it disrespectful to pinch Buddha's nipples? I think not. Buddha is a man, and men enjoy having their nipples pinched by pretty women. Jesus enjoyed it, Mohammed enjoyed it, and I definitely enjoy it.

Keira Knightley can pinch my nipples.

Chloe Grace Moretz can pinch my nipples.

Kaitlyn Dever can pinch my nipples.

Gretchen Mol can pinch my nipples.

In fact, I can't think of any woman, young or old, that I wouldn't allow to pinch my nipples. If you're female and you're reading this, I'm inviting you to pinch my nipples next time we meet. Don't ask me, just do it. That way I'll know you read my blog. If I squeal you'll know you did it right.

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Collateral Beauty (4½ Stars)

Here we go again. It's another one of those films. I mean the films that prove that the critics have lost touch with the public. This is a wonderful film, deeply moving in its romantic moments. It's a box office success. The public loves it. I love it. But the critics hate it. I shan't even bother trying to explain to you what they don't like about it. I'll just say that they're wrong.

The film is about Howard Inlet, the founder of a highly successful New York trading company. He has three business partners, but it's his genius and his charisma that carry the company. His life changes when his six year old daughter dies. His marriage breaks up. He becomes depressive and unable to work any more. After two years his partners lose their patience and want to have him declared mentally incapable of running the company. They find out that he's written letters to Love, Time and Death, complaining about what they've done to him. The partners hire three actors from a small theatre company to pretend to be these entities. They also hire a private detective to film him when he meets and argues with these three people, in the hope of making him seem unbalanced.

I shan't say anything else about the plot. You can already imagine that as soon as Howard is convinced that they're who they're pretending to be they have a profound effect on him. Unexpectedly, the three actors also connect with the three partners, helping them deal with their respective problems.

For years I've never liked Will Smith as an actor. That's beginning to change. He's no longer typecast as the brash kid from the ghetto. As he's getting older he's playing more serious roles, like this one. The film features several of my favourite actors, but Will Smith stands above them.

I repeat once more. This is a wonderful film, so don't let anything the critics say put you off watching it.

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The Hole (2001 film) (4 Stars)

This is a British horror film from 2001, not to be confused with other films made with the same name. It's known for being the first major role for Keira Knightley, when she was still 15. There's also a controversy surrounding the film, which I'll deal with later.

I've known about this film for some time. It's been on my maybe-watch list for years, but today I just happened to see a copy of the film lying in a bargain bin for less than a Euro, so I grabbed it while I could.

The film begins with news reports that four missing teenagers have been found. One is alive, the other three are dead. A police psychiatrist interviews the survivor, Liz, to find out what happened. She explains that she had a crush on Mike, a boy in school, but she couldn't get him to notice her. She asked her best friend Martin to arrange some way of putting them together. Martin had the keys to a nearby nuclear fallout shelter. He offered to let them into the shelter with two other teenagers, Jeff and Frankie, where they could party in isolation for a few days. He said that he would lock them in for three days, then return to let them out. If teenage hormones didn't run wild in such an enclosed area when would they?

The trouble was that Martin didn't come back. The four teenagers ran out of food and water. When the hatch to the shelter was finally opened by an anonymous stranger only Liz was still alive.

The psychiatrist doubts that this story is true. She thinks that Liz is traumatised and unable to remember the truth. The interviews continue and the true story slowly emerges.

This is a chilling story. The film structure is experimental, but not unique. The Chinese film "Hero" also presented several false stories before telling the viewer the truth. I don't think this is an effective form of story-telling. In the case of "Hero" I initially disliked the film when I saw it in the cinema, but I grew to like it more after repeated viewing. I have mixed feelings about "The Hole". What's the point of spending half the film showing a false story, something that never happened? Nevertheless, I intend to watch it again soon.

Now to the controversy. The teenagers in the film are presumably sixth formers, which is 16 to 18 in the English school system, but Keira Knightley was still 15. There's a brief scene in the film in which she appears topless. It's interesting to see that celebrity web sites that publish nude screenshots of actresses claim that she was either 16 or 18, depending on which side of the Atlantic they're based, but none admit that she was 15. It's easy to prove they're wrong. Keira was born on March 26th 1985, and the film was released on April 20th 2001. It's obvious that the film couldn't have been filmed less than a month before its release; in fact, judging by the outdoor scenes, the acting was probably filmed in autumn 2000.

There's another matter that I didn't know about before watching the film. In one scene Frankie, Keira Knightley's character, walks into the boys' changing room in school, to talk to her boyfriend Jeff. It's a beautiful scene. She marches through to the showers, surrounded by mostly naked boys, with a majestic grin on her face. The boys all scatter, terrified of her. I love films that show a woman in control. But one unnamed boy stands out. Literally. When Keira passes him he's half erect. She carries on walking and he disappears behind her, but when she moves to the side we can see him in the background staring at her, fully erect. This adds to the realism of the scene, but I'm surprised that it was left in the film. I feel tempted to provide screenshots, since I haven't been able to find any online, but this isn't a pornographic blog, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Or better still, watch the film and you'll see it for yourself.

Everest (4 Stars)

This film tells the story of the multiple expeditions to reach the top of Mount Everest in 1996. In the first few minutes we're told about the problems. In the past the mountain had been scaled by very few elite, highly skilled climbers. Now Everest had become commercialised. Different companies were offering tours to the top of Everest for people who may have been fit, by normal standards, but certainly weren't the elite climbers who should have been attempting such a dangerous ascent. At a price of $65,000 per customer it was good business.

The film focuses on the leaders of two tours, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, who decide to pool their efforts and lead their teams together, despite their different styles. Rob is a hand-holder, whereas Scott demands that his customers do as much as they can themselves, otherwise they don't deserve to be on Everest. We briefly see other teams at the beginning of the film. Rob especially is shocked by the crowds at Everest's Base Camp and predicts that they will be getting in one another's way.

Five people died trying to get back down from the peak. Five people shown in the film, that is. On the same day another three people died in another team not shown in the film. Was it worth it? Was it worth taking commercial tours to the top of the most dangerous mountain on Earth? It could be asked whether it's worth climbing Everest at all, but there will always be adventurers who put their lives at risk to achieve extraordinary feats.

The film is spectacular. The actors themselves tend to fade into the background. The film's real star is the mountain itself. Some scenes were shot on location, at Everest's Base Camp (5335 metres) and Camp 2 (6400 metres). Those are presumably the highest locations on the mountain accessible to normal people. The higher scenes were filmed in Pinewood Studios, England. The end result is breathtaking. This is also one of the few films I've seen in recent years that profits from 3D.

Despite the big publicity that the 1996 "Mount Everest Disaster" received, it's been pointed out, somewhat cynically, that it was a good year. Only 3% of the climbers who ascended higher than Base Camp died, compared with the previous yearly average of 3.3%. Was eight deaths in a single day exceptional? Not at all. For instance, on April 18th 2014, while the film was being made, 16 sherpa guides setting up equipment for the climbing season were killed in an avalanche. This never made the news. They were only poor local people, not rich westerners.

The Imitation Game (5 Stars)

A film doesn't need action and a fast pace to be truly great. If you don't believe me, watch "The Imitation Game". To be honest, I didn't intend to go to see it. It's the true story of Alan Turing, the man who cracked the code of the German Enigma machine during World War Two. It hardly sounded like a thrilling adventure. But then I read reports that it's one of the top contenders to win next year's Best Film prize at the Academy Awards, so I thought I should check it out. Within the first ten minutes of the film I understood what the fuss was about. It's probably the best new film I've seen this year.

Since it's a true story about a famous person, I don't have to worry too much about spoilers, but I'll still limit myself to a brief plot outline. In the Second World War Germany used a machine to code the messages they sent to their fleets by morse code. The machine was called Enigma. One of the machines was stolen and smuggled to the England in 1939, but having the machine alone didn't help. The Enigma machine had settings which were changed every day at midnight, with 159,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible permutations. While other cryptologists tried to solve the encryption algorithms by hand, Alan Turing had the revolutionary idea to build a machine to crack the code. This machine can justifiably be considered to be the first computer. The text at the end of the film calls it a "Turing Machine", but this is actually a mistake. Alan Turing called his machine Christopher, named after his best friend when he was 16.

It took two years for the machine to crack the code, but there was a second level of difficulty. Nobody, not even Alan's boss, was allowed to know that he had been successful. The decrypted messages were sent to the British Secret Service, MI6, who then decided which messages should be ignored and which should be passed on to the military, claiming that the information had been leaked from other sources. The problem was that if the British acted upon all messages they encrypted the Germans would have known the Enigma code was cracked and they would have stopped using the machine.

At the end of the war Alan Turing was Britain's greatest unknown hero. His machine and all his notes were destroyed. He was forbidden to speak about what he had done during the war. He remained unknown, apart from academic publications, until 1951, when he was arrested after it was discovered he was a homosexual. Given a choice between imprisonment and chemical castration, he chose the latter. Two years later he committed suicide. It was a sad end for a great man.

After the film I had the chance to discuss the former treatment of homosexuals in England with some of my friends from the film club. Homosexuality remained a crime in England until 1967. One of my friends said that laws shouldn't be arbitrary, they should be governed by morality. Homosexuality obviously isn't immoral, so it shouldn't be illegal. I think his statement was wrong, in several ways. First of all, morality isn't an absolute. To my friend it seems obvious that homosexuality isn't immoral, but there are millions of others, even in England, who would disagree. Morals are strongly influenced by the religious community in which one grows up. If I follow a religion whose holy book says that homosexuality is evil, I shall develop a natural aversion to homosexuality and consider it immoral. Even indirectly this is the case. Even if I'm not religious, but I grow up in a place where homosexuals are made fun of, I'll have a feeling that it's wrong, which could go as far as thinking it's immoral.

Apart from this, laws aren't always a always a matter of right and wrong, they can be arbitrary. There can be other reasons to create laws. An example is taxation. It is required by law for various taxes to be paid to the government. Not paying these taxes is illegal and will lead to imprisonment or other forms of punishment. Does that mean that paying taxes is moral, and that not paying taxes is immoral? That would be a very strange application of morality. Law and morality may overlap, but they aren't identical, and it shouldn't be attempted to make them identical, even if we could agree on what's moral and what isn't.

Whether homosexuality is right or wrong is a more complex question than people on either side of the argument are willing to see. What I mean is, one camp says that it's obviously wrong, while the other camp says that it's obviously okay. The very fact that two groups should have such different views should make everyone clear that there's more to the question than they realise. Unfortunately, any attempt at dialogue is blocked by bigotry on both sides. The anti-gay camp says, "Our religion forbids it, so it's wrong, and we refuse to compromise". The pro-gay camp says, "Homosexuality doesn't hurt anyone, so it's okay, and we refuse to compromise". Both sides need to abandon their prejudices and listen to one another.

Say when (3½ Stars)

If anything, I would call this film an anti-coming-of-age comedy. Keira Knightley plays the lead role as Megan, a 29-year-old woman whose life has frozen since she left school. She has the same friends. She has the same boyfriend. She still lives with her parents. Despite having a Masters degree in counselling, she works for her father, standing in the street holding up a sign advertising his tax consultancy business. She looks on in horror as her friends marry and have babies, but she's safe in her teenage bubble, until the worst possible thing happens: her boyfriend proposes to her.

Megan accepts the proposal, grudgingly, but she can't accept the consequences. She drives into the nearest city (Seattle), not knowing where she's going. She just wants to escape. At a gas station she meets a group of children waiting for someone to buy them alcohol, which she does gladly, remembering that it's what she did at their age. She makes friends with 16-year-old Annika, played by Chloe Grace Moretz. Not wanting to return home, she asks Annika if she can stay with her. She can't stay hidden for long. Annika's father, a divorced divorce lawyer -- is there a joke in there somewhere? -- is at first suspicious when he finds an older woman sleeping on the floor in his daughter's room, but he grows to like Megan, and as is to be expected in films like these, a romance develops.

The two leading actresses put on terrific performances. Chloe Grace Moretz is one of my favourite actresses, but Keira Knightley isn't eclipsed by her. If anything, Keira has the more difficult role, because she has to play a troubled teenager.

This is a story that I can relate to. Despite being a few years older than Megan, I still feel like a teenager. If it were up to me I would still hang out with teenagers, but I'm aware that the older I get the creepier it would seem. People could misconstrue my attempts to cling to my youth. I've often heard it said that "Age is just a number", but unfortunately it isn't true. A person's age dictates the way he's expected to act. Luckily I can't be forced to think like an adult. I am Dancer, and I shall be forever 16.

Incidentally, this film is called "Laggies" in the USA. What does that mean? No idea. On the other hand, the title "Say when" doesn't really mean anything either. I don't like it when a film's name is changed, but if they really must do it they should at least make it something better.

Seeking a friend for the end of the world (4½ Stars)

"Seeking a friend" (please forgive me for shortening the title) was recommended to me by a friend as a must-watch film. I'd already read mixed reviews, but this was a friend who's recommended films to me before, so I trust her advice.

The film is a beautiful genre mix. It's an apocalyptic romantic comedy road movie. The premise of the film is simple: if you know that the world will end in three weeks, how will you spend your last days? Civilisation breaks down. Apart from a few idealists, people stop working. Public transport, including air travel, ceases. Mail is no longer delivered. Some people turn to sex and drugs for their last days on Earth. Others kill themselves. There is rioting and looting in the cities.

Dodge (Steve Carrell) and Penny (Keira Knightley) have lived in apartments in the same building in New York for three years, but never spoken to one another. They both have plans. Dodge wants to meet his high school sweetheart again, who he hasn't seen for over 20 years. Penny wants to find someone with a plane to take her to England to see her parents. Since they only have one car between them they decide to help each other. On their way across America they encounter tales of desperation and hope. And they fall in love with one another.

Steve Carrell is an actor that I have somehow "missed". Even though he's been in a lot of films, I've only ever seen him before in "Bruce Almighty". I know Keira Knightley better, but somehow I've never enjoyed her as an actress. She isn't a bad actress, far from it, but there's something missing; I don't feel a thrill when she walks into a scene. That certain something is missing. In this film it's different. Maybe it's the way Steve and Keira bounce off one another. They're a perfect couple.

The film tells a similar story to "Melancholia", but it's more moving. In my review of "Melancholia" I wrote that "it's not really possible to say if the film is good or bad".  I can't say that about "Seeking a friend". This is a first class film that many people would enjoy, if they gave it a try. It failed at the box office, but I think that was because people didn't know what to expect. A science fiction film? A comedy? It doesn't fit tidily into any neat description.