THE critic Pauline Kael was wise to call one of her early books after the words on an Italian film poster: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The bang part of things has certainly dominated recently, though too many current films forget that there are subtler things to do with violence than splay characters and the audience with bullets.
British cinema almost sank itself in the past ten years under an avalanche of cheap crime japes. But not all of them should be written off, not even Layer Cake (Universal) — infamously launched upon cinemas with confusing advertising, and now released to the home market. Coming so late in the UK’s crime cycle, it’s surprising that Matthew Vaughn, Guy Ritchie’s producer, could make as his directing debut a film relatively fresh and restrained. Daniel Craig cuts a compelling figure as the London drug dealer whose retirement plans come a cropper, as always happens in the movies.
There’s more bang bang in the humorous scam jamboree Criminal (Warner), with its superb lead, John C. Reilly, as the seasoned pro trying to land the perfect con with a rookie (Diego Luna). All good fun; but the Brazilian original Nine Queens, still available from Optimum Releasing, is even more inventive.
On now to kiss kiss. Time was when a film, even a British film, called My Summer of Love would dangle dewy bodies in soft-focus romps and burgle old hit parades for the soundtrack. Paul Pavlikovsky’s award-winning film (from Universal) features a little lesbian kissing, but there’s no nostalgia in this tale of two young women in a Yorkshire village, one rich, one rough, seeking escape from their lives.
The director’s earlier Last Resort revealed someone sensitive to ordinary lives,. The sensitivity’s still here, and the performances fascinate (Nathalie Press, Emily Blunt, Paddy Considine). But the wisp of a story needs beefing up — even for a shortish feature, there’s not quite enough to go around. Interviews with cast and director make up the extras.
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For a more satisfying kind of kiss kiss, seek out Tartan Video’s second set of films by Yasujiro Ozu, the master director of Tokyo Story. Burning passions are not Ozu’s style, but tenderness certainly hovers in the air in Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) and Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), the two films packaged here. At issue in the first film is the plight of an abandoned boy, documented with quiet humour; while the green tea is sparked by a story of love rekindled in middle-age. No unnecessary camera movements, no distorting violence or abject sentiment; simply ordinary life and the human heart, penetrated and transfigured.