A Call to Spy

★★★
“Life during wartime”

There’s no denying the extraordinary bravery shown by female agents in Britain’s Special Operations Executive during World War 2. Largely operating in occupied France, they coordinated sabotage activities, ran communications and generally did everything their male counterparts did. The risks they ran were certainly no less, with about one in three not surviving. We’ve previously had a few articles about them, both fictional depictions such as Wish Me Luck, and more factually oriented accounts, like Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story. This occupies a middle ground. The characters are real: SOE agents Khan (Apte) and Virginia Hall (Thomas) – an American with, I kid you not, an artificial leg – and Vera Atkins, the woman who recruited and ran them. But it takes a dramatic rather than a documentarian approach. 

I think my knowledge going in probably slightly weakened my appreciation for the film. Knowing the stories of Khan and Hall, and their eventual fates, largely robbed this of much tension. However, there is still a good deal to enjoy. This may run 124 minutes, but it never drags, maintaining a solid pace throughout. Indeed, perhaps too solid; you could argue for a lack of escalation, the film having nothing identifiable as a climax. That doesn’t stop it from being consistently entertaining, anchored by a trio of good performances. Katic, sporting an impressive English accent, is perhaps the stand-out as Atkins. She has to deal not just with the chauvinism inherent in the era, but also having her loyalty questioned due to her background as a Romanian Jew. Anti-semitism at the time was not confined to the continent.

The bulk of the drama comes from the other two, and the contrast in personalities could not be more marked. Khan has the near-perpetual look of a deer caught in headlights, while Hall, in her cover as a journalist, possesses a calm assurance. However, they both prove to be equally good at buckling down and getting the job done, dodging danger and almost certain death, in the form of the Nazis, on an almost daily basis – something the film certainly puts over. Stylistically, in some ways it almost feels like a two-hour long montage; there are not many extended scenes to propel the narrative, with instead, sequences cutting together the two women’s lives in occupied France.

It’s still effective, and may have been needed to work around the need for some tampering with timelines. It’s not obvious that less than four months passed between Khan landing and being captured, while Hall spent more than fifteen months in action, before having to flee over the Pyrenees into Spain (not the easiest of treks, given her disability). These and other cinematic conceits are forgivable, and all told, this is respectable enough, and very respectful of its heroines. I tend to think though, that this may be a case where the facts are more impressive than any fiction could ever be,

Dir: Lydia Dean Pilcher
Star: Sarah Megan Thomas, Stana Katic, Radhika Apte, Linus Roache

Dangal

★★★½
“Wrestling with the truth.”

Mahavir Singh Phogat (Khan) is a former Indian national wrestling champion, who dearly wants to pass his skills on to a son, and make him an even more renowned sportsman. Fate, however, has different plans and deals him nothing but daughters as his children. After two of them, Geeta (Shaikh) and Babita (Malhotra) beat up a local kid who was taunting them, Mahavir takes it upon himself to coach the girls in wrestling – despite the doubts of many, including his wife and, not least, the daughters. Geeta, in particular, proves to have the talent necessary to become, first a local and then a national champion. However, success at international level proves elusive, and her father butts heads with national coach, Pramod Kadam (Kulkarni), over training methods. Geeta has to decide who to believe, as she faces her greatest challenge ever, representing the hopes of her nation at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi, in front of a partisan home crowd.

This is basically Sports Movie 1.0.1, with tons of training montages (a way of getting in those musical numbers required by Bollywood), and Geeta overcoming obstacle after obstacle on her way to winning the gold medal in dramatic, last-second fashion. That’s not really a spoiler, since this is based on a true story, Geeta having been the first Indian women to win a wrestling medal in international competition. However, that’s about the extent of the truth here. Rather than having to mount comeback wins in all her bouts, as depicted here, she actually outscored her opponents over the course of the contest by a 15-1 margin. When the facts and the drama are incompatible, the former must be disposed of, clearly. I’m also not quite so sure her father actually was locked in a closet by the Indian wrestling board during her gold medal bout…

Still, it’s impressive that this own the biggest worldwide box-office of any Indian movie ever, mostly due to it becoming an unexpected breakout hit in China. I can see why though, since it’s the kind of plucky underdog story which has almost universal appeal, and despite qualms about its accuracy (to put it mildly), director Tiwari does it justice. While you can certainly argue this is a well-worn path, it’s done with enough energy to make it seem fresh, and the performances are all very solid [additional credit to Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar, who play the younger versions of Geeta and Babita. Shaikh, in particular, really seems to get to grips (hohoho!) with the wrestling sequences, where she is shot in a way that’s clean, rather than hyper-edited.

The results prove reliably dramatic and do as good a job of selling events as they unfold – in addition to amateur wrestling as a spectator sport. If it’s as exciting as here, I’m in [this is, clearly, not to be confused with professional wrestling]. At a whopping 161 minutes in length, there may well have been room to trim some of the extraneous details, or even some of the bouts; we probably don’t need to see every minute of every round of every match in her journey towards the podium. However, I was never bored, and the moments that resonate across cultures more than make up for any slack.

Dir: Nitesh Tiwari
Star: Fatima Sana Shaikh, Aamir Khan, Sanya Malhotra, Girish Kulkarni 

Annie Oakley (film)

★★★
“Annie Gets Her Gun.”

While not exactly an accurate retelling of the life of noted sure-shot Annie Oakley, this is breezily entertaining. Indeed, you can make a case for this being one of the earliest “girls with guns” films to come out in the talking pictures era. There’s no denying Oakley (Stanwyck) qualifies here. The first time we see her, she’d delivering a load of game birds – all shot through the head to avoid damaging the flesh – to her wholesaler. When barnstorming sharpshooter Toby Walker (Foster) blows into town, Annie ends up in a match with him, which she ends up throwing, due in part to her crush on him. She still gets a job alongside Walker, in the Wild West show run by the renowned ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody (Olsen) and his partner, Jeff Hogarth (Douglas). But Annie and Toby’s relationship fractures after he accidentally shoots her in the hand, while concealing an injury affecting his sight.

This hits the ground running, and roughly the first third plays decades ahead of its time. Don’t forget, this was made only fifteen years after women were granted the right to vote across the entire United States. Its depiction of a strong, perfectly independent woman as personified by Stanwyck is great – there’s also Walker’s former “friend,” Vera Delmar (Perl Kelton). When sternly warned the saloon she’s about to enter is no place for a lady, she breezily replies, “Oh, I’m no lady.” I’m quite impressed this was able to get through, given the rigid imposition of the strict Hays Code, beginning the previous year, with its goal “that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated.”

Almost inevitably, it can’t maintain this pace. There’s too much footage of the Wild West Show, which seems to consist largely of people on horses milling around the arena. I guess people were easily satisfied in those days. Meanwhile, the romance between Oakley and Walker (an entirely artificial construction, with Walker never existing as an actual person), fails to be convincing. Somewhat more interesting is the portrayal of Chief Sitting Bull, the Native American warrior who also became part of Wild Bill’s show. While depicted largely for comic relief – witness the scene where he turns out the gas lights in his bedroom by shooting at them – he is played by a genuine Indian, Chief Thunder Bird, which is considerably more progressive than some movies. He is also instrumental in Annie and Toby’s reconciliation.

Stanwyck does an excellent job of depicting the heroine, portraying her as someone absolutely confident in her own talents. I’d like to have seen more development of her character: as is, the one we see delivering quail at the start of the film, is almost identical to the one we see making up with Toby in its final shot. Sadly, the subject didn’t live to see her life immortalized in film, having died nine years before this was released. I think she’d probably have been quite pleased with her depiction.

Dir: George Stevens
Star: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Melvyn Douglas, Moroni Olsen

Annie Oakley: the first girl with a gun?

“I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns, as naturally as they know how to handle babies.”

This article was largely inspired by the grainy,  less than thirty second film clip above. It shows Wild West heroine Annie Oakley in action, filmed by none other than Thomas Edison on November 1, 1894 in his ‘Black Maria’ facility, one of the earliest films made at the world’s first film production studio. It’s weird to watch something made by one icon of American culture, and featuring another. It feels like seeing a photograph of Robin Hood, taken by Leonardo da Vinci, and is a reminder that Annie Oakley was a real person, not a mythical creation of Hollywood or the dime novelists. While the title here may be hyperbolic – obviously, there were other women to have picked up firearms before her – she was likely the first to achieve worldwide fame through her skill with a gun. As such, she certainly deserves a place in the action heroine Hall of Fame.

Born Phoebe Ann Mosey in 1860, she seems to have had a pretty crappy childhood. Her father died when she was five, and Annie became a ward of Darke County, Ohio, in 1870. From there, she was fostered out to a family, who apparently treated her as little more than a slave. She ran away from them a couple of years later, eventually returning to live with her mother, who had remarried, at age 15. But by this point, she was already well-versed in guns, having been hunting with them since she was eight. Her skill with them gradually became known through the region, and led to the shooting match against Frank Butler which propelled her towards greater fame, and a career as a professional markswoman.

There’s some uncertainty about when this took place. Some sources say 1875, while others prefer 1881. The details seem fairly well-established. Frank Butler, part of a travelling show, visited Cincinnati, and laid a bet with a local hotel owner that he could beat any local shooter. The hotelier brought in Annie as his champion, and she won, when Butler missed his 25th shot. He may have lost the wager, but he didn’t come away empty-handed, as Butler married Annie in 1882. They began performing together, with Annie taking the stage name of Oakley, and three years later the married couple both became part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West production [it never included the word “show” in its title], which had begun touring America in 1883.

Performances typically opened with a parade of horse and riders from many nations, including the military and Indians. It proceeded through a series of re-enactments, such as of the Pony Express or an attack on a wagon train, and also included displays of skills related to life on the frontier, including trick riding, roping and marksmanship.  While Oakley was the best-known woman to take part in the shows, she wasn’t the only one. In 1886, another trick shooter, Lillian Smith, also joined Buffalo Bill while still a teenager, and by most accounts, there was a fractious relationship between the two, with them having markedly different personalities and styles. Another Western icon, Calamity Jane, began appearing as a storyteller in 1893. Records indicate that Buffalo Bill paid the women the same as their male equivalents, though Oakley earned more than anyone save Bill himself.

It was as part of his show that Oakley’s fame achieved its peak, and not just in the United States. She was part of the company which toured Europe on multiple occasions from 1887 on, performing for many of the fabled “crowned heads of Europe,” including Queen Victoria and King Umberto I of Italy. In 1890, she reportedly used Germany’s Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm II as an assistant for one of her stunts, shooting the end off a cigar he held, a trick she usually performed on her husband. Europe might have been rather different, if Annie’s skills had not been up to the task. For Kaiser Wilhem was one of the more aggressive leaders whose subsequent actions helped trigger World War I, making Oakley’s prowess very much one of the “what if” moments in the continent’s history.

Her other stunts, if perhaps slightly less risky to the target, were little if any less impressive. She could find her target while facing away from it, sighting her gun backwards over her shoulder, using a mirror (left), or even the blade of a knife. She could also hit the edge of a playing card at thirty paces, or dimes tossed in the air. Her partner could throw four glass balls up, while Annie wasn’t even holding her rifle. Before they landed, she could pick up the gun and shoot them down. But in 1901, she was injured in a train accident, which left her needing multiple operations on her spine. The after-effects forced her into retiring from Bill’s company, though she still performed, starring in a stage play written especially for her by Langdon McCormick, The Western Girl. In it, her character Nance Barry saves the hero and wins his heart. It couldn’t possibly be any other way.

Annie’s life was hardly less interesting after her time with Buffalo Bill. In 1904, she took on press magnate Randolph Hearst, after two of his Chicago newspapers published a story headlined, “Famous Woman Crack Shot Steals to Secure Cocaine.” Turns out, the criminal was actually a burlesque performer who used the stage name “Any Oakley”. Hearst refused to retract the story, so Oakley ended up suing no less than 55 newspapers for libel, over the next six years. She won all but one of the cases, though the legal fees involved meant she ended up losing money, as she redeemed her good name.

She was far ahead of her time on the topic of women in combat. In April 1898, with the Spanish-American war about to break out, she wrote to the then-President, William McKinley, as follows:

Dear Sir, I for one feel confident that your good judgment will carry America safely through without war. But in case of such an event I am ready to place a company of fifty lady sharpshooters at your disposal. Every one of them will be an American and as they will furnish their own Arms and Ammunition will be little if any expense to the government.

Her offer was, sadly, declined, despite the clearly positive economics. In terms of sharp-shooting, it would have been very interesting to see what Oakley might have done in a war situation. I like to think she might have surpassed sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s mark of 309 victims from World War II. Certainly, her skills didn’t desert Annie with age. At the age of 62, in a North Carolina shooting contest, she hit 100 clay targets in a row from a distance of 16 yards. As the photograph (right) shows, she was clearly still enjoying the sport well into her sunset year.

However, she died of pernicious anemia in 1926, at the age of 66. Her husband, Frank Butler passed away just 18 days later, with some reports saying he simply stopped eating after her death, apparently losing the will to live. But what Oakley represents lives on, not least in a host of books, movies and TV series in which she appeared, portrayed by actresses from Barbara Stanwyck to Geraldine Chaplin and Jamie Lee Curtis. The cultural fascination for her endures. In 2012, an auction of items owned by Oakley brought in over half a million dollars: a shotgun used on the 1887 European tour went for $143,400 and even her stetson hat reached $17,925.

Annie arguably stands as the first woman to make a career as a professional action heroine. Her legend will survive – and deservedly so.


 

Annie Oakley (film)

By Jim McLennan

★★★
“Annie Gets Her Gun.”

While not exactly an accurate retelling of the life of noted sure-shot Annie Oakley, this is breezily entertaining. Indeed, you can make a case for this being one of the earliest “girls with guns” films to come out in the talking pictures era. There’s no denying Oakley (Stanwyck) qualifies here. The first time we see her, she’d delivering a load of game birds – all shot through the head to avoid damaging the flesh – to her wholesaler. When barnstorming sharpshooter Toby Walker (Foster) blows into town, Annie ends up in a match with him, which she ends up throwing, due in part to her crush on him. She still gets a job alongside Walker, in the Wild West show run by the renowned ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody (Olsen) and his partner, Jeff Hogarth (Douglas). But Annie and Toby’s relationship fractures after he accidentally shoots her in the hand, while concealing an injury affecting his sight.

This hits the ground running, and roughly the first third plays decades ahead of its time. Don’t forget, this was made only fifteen years after women were granted the right to vote across the entire United States. Its depiction of a strong, perfectly independent woman as personified by Stanwyck is great – there’s also Walker’s former “friend,” Vera Delmar (Perl Kelton). When sternly warned the saloon she’s about to enter is no place for a lady, she breezily replies, “Oh, I’m no lady.” I’m quite impressed this was able to get through, given the rigid imposition of the strict Hays Code, beginning the previous year, with its goal “that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated.”

Almost inevitably, it can’t maintain this pace. There’s too much footage of the Wild West Show, which seems to consist largely of people on horses milling around the arena. I guess people were easily satisfied in those days. Meanwhile, the romance between Oakley and Walker (an entirely artificial construction, with Walker never existing as an actual person), fails to be convincing. Somewhat more interesting is the portrayal of Chief Sitting Bull, the Native American warrior who also became part of Wild Bill’s show. While depicted largely for comic relief – witness the scene where he turns out the gas lights in his bedroom by shooting at them – he is played by a genuine Indian, Chief Thunder Bird, which is considerably more progressive than some movies. He is also instrumental in Annie and Toby’s reconciliation.

Stanwyck does an excellent job of depicting the heroine, portraying her as someone absolutely confident in her own talents. I’d like to have seen more development of her character: as is, the one we see delivering quail at the start of the film, is almost identical to the one we see making up with Toby in its final shot. Sadly, the subject didn’t live to see her life immortalized in film, having died nine years before this was released. I think she’d probably have been quite pleased with her depiction.

Dir: George Stevens
Star: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Melvyn Douglas, Moroni Olsen

Annie Oakley of the Wild West, by Walter Havighurst

By Jim McLennan

★★
“An appetiser rather than a main course, that diverts from the topic far too often.”

Annie Oakley was one of the earliest “girls with guns”. In her role as a sharpshooter, performing with the likes of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, she travelled the globe, appearing in front of Presidents, Kings and Emperors. She shot a cigarette held by the future Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany (accuracy later deplored by American newspapers, after the nations went to war in 1917). At 90 feet, she could shoot a dime tossed in midair, or hit the edge of a playing card, then add five or six more holes as it fluttered to the ground. In seventeen years and 170,000 miles of travel, she only missed four shows, and even in her sixties, could still take down a hundred clay pigeons in a row.

So why is this book unsatisfactory? Largely because much of it isn’t actually about her. Originally written in 1954, Havighurst uses Oakley as a key to write about…well, everything else connected to her, and you’ll find half a dozen pages passing without any mention of its supposed subject. The author goes off the track with alarming frequency: Buffalo Bill, a.k.a. William Cody, is the main beneficiary, and someone unschooled in the topic will learn almost as much about him as Oakley. There are some effective moments, particularly when Havighurst depicting the loving relationship between Annie and her husband, Frank Butler, whom she met while outshooting him in Cincinnati. Married for over fifty years, they died less than three weeks apart. But such passages are few and far between; the actual Oakley-related content of the book is disappointing, though I’m now keen to track down a better work on the topic.

By: Walter Havighurst
Publisher: Castle Books [$8.98 from HalfPrice Books]

Annie Oakley (TV series)

By Jim McLennan

★★★
“One of the first TV action heroines; for 50 years old, better than you might expect.”

This TV series was Gene Autry’s idea; he wanted to give little girls a western star of their own, and created a show based on the character of Oakley, the most famous sharpshooter of all time. In his version, she lives in Diablo with her brother Tagg (Hawkins) and keeps the town safe along with deputy Lofty Craig (Johnson) – the sheriff, Annie’s uncle Luke, was somehow very rarely around… It ran for 81 episodes from January 1954 to February 1957; two DVDs, with five first season stories on each, have been released by Platinum –  you can get the box set of both for $5.99, which is a steal.

Given its age, it’s no surprise that this is certainly a little hokey, but is by no means unwatchable. The writers cram a lot into each 25-minute episode, and Oakley is a sharp-witted heroine, in most ways years ahead of the usual portrayal of women (though still afraid of mice!) – she’d probably be a better deputy than Lofty! It certainly helped that Davis, a mere 5’2″, was a skilled rider herself, and did most of her own stunts. However, this being a 50’s TV show, there are limits. Annie never kills anyone, preferring to shoot the gun from their hand, while fisticuffs are left to Lofty, though at least one ep (Annie and the Lily Maid) has an unexpected mini-catfight.

Perhaps the best episode on the DVDs is Justice Guns, where an ex-marshal with failing sight seeks revenge on the man who shot his brother. Annie has to try and solve the situation, and while you know she will survive, the lawman’s fate is much less certain as the four o’clock shootout approaches. In a series that is, even I will admit, often sugary and predictable, this has genuine tension, and that’s something which five decades haven’t changed one bit.

Star: Gail Davis, Brad Johnson, Jimmy Hawkins

 

The Legend of Tomiris

★★★
“Steppes up.”

Not quite the first film from Kazakhstan I’ve ever seen. That would be Diamond Cartel, though hard to think of a film more different from this sweeping historical epic. It tells the story of Tomiris (Tursyn), the princess of a tribe living on the Scythian plains to the East of the Caspian Sea, in the sixth century BC. She was orphaned as a young child, after her father was betrayed, and had to flee into exile. But she never forgot her origins, and as an adult, returned to claim her inheritance and take vengeance on the traitors. However a bigger threat loomed in the shape of Persian emperor Cyrus, who was casting envious eyes at the territory of Tomiris and the other tribes. After further treachery, she rallies the population under her banner, and prepares for an all or nothing battle against Cyrus’s numerically superior forces.

It looks very nice. The cinematography is excellent, and there’s no arguing that the landscapes in question are perfect for this kind of thing. Though it feels as if the film-makers fell in love with the scenery more than the characters. It seems that half the running time involves shots of characters moving from Place A to Place B, and considering the film is 156 minutes long, that’s a lot of galloping back and forth. There are even some (CGI, presumably) high-altitude aerial shots, which reduce the players to literal specks on the ground, and this is indicative of the approach being taken here.

I’d have rather seen a more personal portrait of Tomiris, and her relationships with husband Argun (Akhmetov) or best friend and fellow warrioress, Sardana (Lighg). For the movie is best at provoking emotions in the viewer, when the characters are experiencing them. Perhaps the best example is when word of Cyrus’s betrayal reached Tomiris; she knows the truth, yet suppresses herself and lets his ambassador dig his own grave with his lies. [Sidenote: as I waited for the inevitable “This is SPARTA!” moment, for a while, I was wondering why Cyrus looked and behaved so differently from his portrayal in 300. Turns out that was a different Persian emperor, Xerxes, from about fifty years later. Not that I’d take 300 exactly as gospel!] The intensity of her feelings internally is obvious, and more of this passion would have been welcome.

The version of history told here is mostly based on the writings of Herodotus. He may or may not be the most reliable source; as Chris pointed out, political spin was apparently being applied to events, even in those days. But his version is likely more entertaining than other accounts, in which Cyrus died in his sleep. While I’m sure events from 2,500+ years ago fall outside the statute of limitations for spoilers, let’s just say, that doesn’t quite happen here. Though I was a little disappointed in the “hands-off” approach, historical accuracy be damned; Tomiris largely sits back and watches her troops go into battle. The action scenes are well-staged though, and help enliven a film which does occasionally need a shot of adrenaline.

For I definitely found myself checking my watch, and it’s a case where this would be a better 100-minute movie than a 156-minute one. The finer details of negotiations between the tribes really didn’t add much; on the other hand, the “warrior woman” culture of the Massagetae feels almost glossed over. Though it’s being taken as routine, rather than depicted as some kind of aberration, was a pleasant surprise. Tursyn, appearing in her first film, manages to overcome her lack of screen experience well, and without her, this could potentially have ended up being little more than a lengthy promo video for Central Asian tourism. While definitely worth a watch – not least as a more down-to-earth contrast to Mulan – I wouldn’t say it was worth a rewatch.

Dir: Akan Satayev
Star: Almira Tursyn, Adil Akhmetov, Erkebulan Dairov, Aizhan Lighg
a.k.a. Tomiris

Warrior Queen of Jhansi

★★½
“Talks rather than walks.”

This version of the story of Rani Laxmibai, Queen of Jhansi, falls unfortunately between two stools. As a result, it seems likely to leave no-one satisfied, so its critical (3.5 on IMDb, 24% on Rotten Tomatoes) and commercial (less than $180K in North America) failure doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Western audiences were perhaps put off by the stereotypical portrayal of the colonialists – matters may not have been helped by a surprising, and I’d say quite harsh, R-rating. But, conversely, Indian audiences may well have been unimpressed by the Westernization of their beloved historical heroine. Most obviously – apart from the star being born in Manhattan – would be the hinted-at relationship between the Jhansi and good Briton, Major Robert Ellis (Lamb). This element seems to have been taken from Rani, a book by London-based author Jaishree Misra, whose publication triggered protests in her native land in 2008.

I can see both points. On multiple occasions, as the evil Brits of the East India Company did something else unpleasant, I leaned across to Chris to whisper, “I can only apologize.” Now, this would be tolerable in an adaptation aimed at a local audience e.g. Jhansi ki Rani. But if you’re aiming for an international audience, you need rather less of a sledgehammer approach. And while Ellis’s presence does balance things out a bit, this isn’t a story which needs any kind of romantic angle. Laxmibai is often considered as being India’s Joan of Arc; this feels a bit as if a movie decided to give Joan a boyfriend.

The rest of the film is not inaccurate, and hits the main points of her life. Her husband dies, the East India Company try to take over, and Laxmibai ends up being one leader of a rebellion against the British. Though here, the focus on her is diluted in a couple of ways. We have, as noted, the evil Brits seeking to dethrone her, led by Sir Hugh Rose (Everett). But there’s also a number of superfluous scenes, back at Balmoral Castle, in which Queen Victoria (Jodhi May) argues with Prime Minister Palmerston (Derek Jacobi). I’m guessing it’s trying to draw a parallel between the female rulers; beyond that, there really doesn’t seem much point to them.

I’d prefer to have seen more of Laxmibai becoming the warrior queen. She seems to spring, almost fully-formed, slicing and dicing the British forces, as they storm the fortified city of Jhansi. That, and a later scene where she wields a metal whip to great effect, are effective enough, and the production values are generally fine. But it’s altogether talky, on too many occasions preferring to tell the audience, instead of showing them. It fails to demonstrate quite why she was capable of becoming such a leader, with only occasional flashes showing the charisma, intelligence and diplomatic skills the real Laxmibai appears to have possessed. I appreciate the intent here; it’s a shame so much appears to have been lost in the execution.

Dir: Swati Bhise
Star: Devika Bhise, Ben Lamb, Rupert Everett, Nathaniel Parker

Lady General Hua Mu-lan

★½
“Cinematic morphine.”

I probably should have done a bit more research before adding this to the list of versions for review here. I saw a sixties movie made by Shaw Brothers with that title, and presumed there would be kung-fu. Boy, was I wrong. There’s about one significant scene, which pits Mulan (Po) and some of her new army colleagues against each other. And that’s it. Oh, there is a battle between Imperial and invading forces. This might have contained some action, but was so poorly photographed – mostly due to incredibly bad lighting – that it was impossible to tell. What there was, instead, was singing.

Lots of singing.

For this is as much an action movie, as Hamilton was a documentary about the Revolutionary War. Now, I’ve no problems with musicals per se. I’m just more Rodgers and Hammerstein than Stephen Sondheim: I like something I can whistle. This sounds more like notes being strung together at random, and when an apparently jaunty tune is accompanied by lyrics more befitting Scandinavian death metal (“They burn, they slaughter, they rape, they catch”) the effect is even more dissonant than the score.

If I’d looked up Wikipedia beforehand, I’d have seen this described this as a “Huangmei opera musical.” Huangmei opera, in case you didn’t know (and I certainly didn’t), is a bit like the better known Peking opera. Except, per Wikipedia, “The music is performed with a pitch that hits high and stays high for the duration of the song.” To my untrained Western ear, this meant the musical numbers basically sounded like our cats, demanding to be fed. I don’t like five minutes of that kind of thing (especially at 5:30 in the morning). I can now state confidently, I do not like it at feature length either.

This actually starts reasonably well. Initially, Mulan conspires with her cousin Hua Ming (Chu) and sister to carry out her plan. This ends after her alternate persona tries to spar with her father, though he ends up giving his blessing. Ming accompanies her into military service, and they rise through the ranks. Mulan begins to have feelings for her superior officer, General Li (Chin). He likes her too, impressed with her intelligence and courage… and this Mulan would be a fine match for his daughter. #awkward. Cue mournful singing, naturally.

But the lack of dramatic conflict is what really kills this, stone dead. Mulan’s parents are largely on board with her decision. The invaders are never established as a particular threat. And everyone is remarkably chill with discovering the person they’ve known for over a decade has been deceiving them on an everyday basis. The complete absence of tension explains the tag-line at the top. Obviously, I am not the target audience for Huangmei opera. That’s fine. However, I’ve enjoyed plenty of films for which I am not the target audience, and I suspect this fails to travel well, for a variety of reasons.

Dir: Feng Yueh
Star: Ivy Ling Po, Han Chin, Kam-Tong Chan, Mu Chu

Matchless Mulan

★★★
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

I suppose this could be claimed to be a “mockbuster”, not so different from the sound-alike films released by The Asylum, e.g. Snakes on a Train. There’s no doubt this was made to ride the coat-tails of its far larger and better advertised big sister. And it’s not alone, with at least two other Chinese films apparently in production, one animated and the other live-action. But it’s a Chinese telling of a Chinese story, and as such, could also be considered as cultural reappropriation. We can’t really complain about them taking their legends back from the House of Mouse.

Even in comparison to the tone of Disney’s live-action version, this plays as rather dark. There are throat-slittings, impalements and considerable quantities of arterial spray, certainly more brutal than the PG-13 violence in Mulan. However, Mulan (Xu) starts off as a bit of a pacifist. Her first encounter with the invading Rouran forces, comes when they’re out on patrol and suddenly stumble across the site of a massacre – it’s not unlike the similar scene in the animated version. When they come under attack by barbarian soldiers, she snaps off the head of her spear, so as to be able to engage them in non-lethal combat. Mulan later explains, “I came here to replace my father, not to take the lives of others. I don’t harm others and others don’t harm me.” Needless to say, this doesn’t quite sustain, and by the end, she’s impaling with the best of them.

Another difference is that two of her fellow villagers are assigned to the same post as Mulan – they know her secret, but respect it. This helps address one of the weaknesses in the live-action version, the lack of any real relationships for the heroine, because she’s forced to keep people at arm’s length. Instead, we get a real sense of her becoming part of a cohesive unit, such as her genuine distress when one of her brothers-in-arms is captured by the Rouran. That’s a contrast to the individual-first approach of Mulan, and there’s no magic to be found either, except for the wire fu used in the battle

Which actually brings me to my main complaint, the lack of interest the film has in these action sequences. While this is in line with the original story, which didn’t go into any great detail about her military exploits, it’s something we have come to expect. On occasion, things just kinda… drift off and fade to black, while the second half, which should build to a rousing finale, contains rather too much sitting about on the battlements of a lightly besieged fort, awaiting reinforcements. On the other hand, credit for not bothering to pussyfoot around the quagmire of politics. “The film is dedicated to the People’s Liberation Army of China”, boldly states the first end credit, clearly not giving a damn for Western (or Hong Kong) sensitivities on such topics. And that’s exactly how it should be.

Dir: Yi Lin
Star: Hu Xue Er, Wei Wei, Wu Jian Fei, Shang Tie Long

Mulan Joins The Army

★★★
“She’s in the army now…”

Y’know, considering this is now more than eighty years old, this was likely better than I expected. Chen makes for a solid and engaging heroine, right from the start, when she tricks the residents of a nearby village, who demand she hand over the proceeds of her hunting [I am hoping the dead bird which plummets to the ground with an arrow through it, less than three minutes in, was a stunt avian…]

Equally quickly, we begin to see wrinkles in the storyline, which might be unexpected if you have only seen the Disney versions. The first of these, is that Mulan’s deception here takes place with the agreement of her parents. She doesn’t sneak out with her father’s sword in the middle of the night, to take his place in the conscripted army of the Emperor. Her martial tendencies have been at least tacitly encouraged: according to Mom, it was her father who taught her the use of the bow and spear, since she was a little girl.

Mind you, with Mom saying things like, “Dying on the battlefield is much more glorious than dying at home,” no wonder Mulan comes up with the idea of being Dad’s stand-in. Her parents aren’t exactly happy about it, but they do understand the situation, and accept her decision.  This pro-military stance is something which runs through much of the film. Before leaving, Mulan says, “Father, I thank you for teaching your daughter how to fight. You are allowing me to fulfill my duty to the country, and my filial duty to you… You have granted your daughter her dearest ambition – to be of some use to her country.”

Given this came out during the Japanese occupation of China, the theme of “Let’s all unite and do our part to defeat the invaders” seems rather brave. Though oddly, when the film was released, it provoked riots in which copies of the film were burned, due to rumours the director had collaborated with the Japanese to get it made.

The second most obvious change is the time-frame. Mulan doesn’t just knock off the barbarians and return home in a month or two. No, she goes career, eventually rising to become marshal of the army, due to her bravery and smarts, as well as helping uncover a double-agent high up in army command. It’s twelve years before she is able to see her parents again, though she looks suspiciously similar to when she left. It likely helps she doesn’t have to rise through the ranks, being able to inherit her father’s position as his “son.”

While the action quotient is, unsurprisingly, fairly low, there’s a cool bit where she goes on reconnaissance, dressed as a woman – so, a woman disguised as a man, pretending to be a woman. Got it. She is caught by two barbarian guards, but bursts into song, distracting them long enough to stab them to death. That’s a first, I think. Though I could have done without the further musical interlude at the end, the romance between Mulan and her long-time friend Liu Yuandu (Xi) is never over-powering, and is more a sidelight than the main attraction.

Obviously, its age and origin have to be taken into account, and expecting modern-day production values would be silly. Yet, allowing for everything, I’ve been considerably less entertained by many more recent films. The whole thing is now on YouTube, with English subtitles, and should you be interested, is embedded below.

Dir: Bu Wancang
Star: Chen Yunshang (Nancy Chan), Mei Xi, Han Langen, Liu Jiqun

Sophie Blanchard: The first aeronautess

When I reviewed The Aeronauts earlier this year, I was disappointed to discover that its heroine, Amelia, didn’t exist, being a gender-swapped version of Henry Coxwell. But when I was looking into that, I discovered the existence of Sophie Blanchard, arguably an even more remarkable female pioneer in the world of early flight, who was an undeniable inspiration for the character of Amelia. It’s a shame film-makers opted to invent a made-up person, when Blanchard’s exploits are more than deserving of cinematic treatment.

She was born as Marie Madeleine-Sophie Armant in 1778, at a time when any kind of manned flight had yet to be achieved. But in the following decade, the Montgolfier brothers pioneering efforts helped trigger a continent-wide fascination with balloons and their occupants. Exhibitions and demonstrations proved wildly popular, drawing crowds in the tens of thousands, and setting off crazes for balloon-themed clothing, products and even hairstyles. One such balloonist was Jean-Pierre Blanchard, who had been taking to the air since just a few months after the Montgolfiers launched their debut flight. Among his exploits were the first flight to cross the English Channel and the first in the Americas, in front of President George Washington.

Blanchard had already been married, but abandoned his first wife and their four children for his aerial career. In 1804, he married Ms. Armant, who was not perhaps the kind of person you’d expect to become a daredevil. Her persona was described as being “so nervous that she startled at loud noises and was afraid to ride in horse-drawn carriages.” But she apparently had no such fear of taking her life in her hands. For that was a genuine risk in the early days, with the technology very much untested, and highly explosive hydrogen gas the favoured means of achieving the necessary life. In the event something went wrong, escape options were limited, with parachutes also in their infancy.

Sophie made her first ascent alongside her husband on December 27, 1804, and went solo on only her third flight, the following August in Toulouse. Other women had gone up in balloons before her, but she was the first to pilot her own craft, and become mistress of her own destiny. For Jean-Pierre, her presence alongside him proved helpful. He was not the best of businessmen and had run up considerable debts in the course of his work – this was not a cheap endeavour. The novelty of having a woman co-pilot proved good publicity, and helped draw crowds that were willing to pay for the experience.

For by this point, the novelty of merely seeing someone slowly ascend into the air had worn a bit thin. The Blanchards needed to jazz their spectacle up a bit to keep the crowds coming back. This included letting off fireworks from the balloon – a hazardous practice, given the inflammable nature of both the balloon and its gaseous contents – and tossing dogs out of the basket. Attached to those then recently-invented parachutes, I should add.

They toured Europe for several years, but tragedy struck during an exhibition at The Hague, in the Netherlands, on February 20th, 1808. It wasn’t directly a balloon accident, however. Jean-Pierre suffered a heart attack, and toppled out of the basket, from beside his wife. The resulting fall didn’t kill him immediately, and he lingered on for more than a year, before dying from his injuries in March 1809. Financially, this left Sophie responsible for his debts, and she had to keep flying, to pay off her late husband’s creditors.

Night flights and pyrotechnics were among her specialties and helped get her the attention of none other than the Emperor Napoleon. He had an “official balloonist”, André-Jacques Garnerin, but Garnerin fell out of favour after an ascent to mark Napoleon’s coronation went wrong and turned into an embarrassment to the Emperor. [Garnerin’s niece Élisa, was another pioneering aeronautess, and something of a rival to the subject of this piece]. Blanchard took over the position, and was reportedly named his Chief Air Minister of Ballooning. In that role, she looked into the possibility of invading England by balloon. Fortunately for the British, the prevailing winds across the Channel made the idea unfeasible.

Sophie proved just as popular after Napoleon was deposed, and she was wise enough to play both sides, remaining politically neutral. On the return of King Louis XVIII to the throne in May 1814, she marked his entrance to the French capital with a balloon ascent from the Pont Neuf as part of the celebrations. The new monarch was impressed enough with the spectacle to anoint Sophie the “Official Aeronaut of the Restoration”. By this point, her fame had spread throughout Europe and she travelled the continent, successfully paying off all the debts she had inherited from her husband.

These exhibitions were not without incident. She flew over the Alps, and some of her flights lasted as long as 14½ hours, reaching a height of over 12,000 feet. At that height, the environment was so cold, icicles formed on her face, and she was in danger of passing out due to a lack of oxygen. In 1817, she almost drowned when her selected landing-spot turned out to be a marsh, and she became caught up in her craft’s rigging after touchdown. Only the fortuitous arrival of assistance saved her from a watery grave. However, it was only a stay of execution, rather than a pardon.

Blanchard’s luck finally ran out on July 6, 1819, on her 59th recorded flight – an almost identical number to that completed by Jean-Pierre – at the Tivoli Gardens in Paris. Conditions were not ideal, with a strong wind blowing when she took off on a late-evening exhibition. The balloon had attached to it containers of “Bengal fire”, an early pyrotechnic, to enhance the spectacle. Sophie had trouble taking off, and while still on the way up, the balloon and its hydrogen contents caught fire. This was most likely due to contact with a tree knocking some of the Bengal fire out of its vessel, and onto the flammable fabric.

Some spectators initially mistook the conflagration as part of the show, until the craft began to descend rapidly, though its pilot tried to slow the descent by dropping ballast. Initially, this seemed to have worked, and the balloon came down on the roof of a nearby house at a survivable speed. However, Blanchard again was not able to make a clean exit. She was entangled in netting, and when the balloon then fell off the roof, it dragged the pilot with it, crashing to the street below. That secondary descent proved to be a fatal one for Sophie.

A collection was immediately taken up for her children, but on discovering there were none alive(!), the money raised was used to build a memorial (above, right) for her grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery, depicting a burning balloon, which seems a tad callous. Not that I imagine Sophie cared much. On her tombstone is carved “victime de son art et de son intrépidité”, which translates as, “Victim of her art and bravery.”

History has since largely forgotten Blanchard. There was an animated documentary in production about her, The Fantastic Flights of Sophie Blanchard, but there has been little news since the trailer (below) was released, despite a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2013. Otherwise, as The Aeronauts showed, she and the other early woman balloonists such as Élisa Garnerin and Élisabeth Thible, are little more than a historical curiosity. That seems a shame.