Tag: teenage

Hunter, Warrior, Commander by Andrew Maclure

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

This may be a first, in that the heroine here is non-human – contrary to what you (and, indeed, I!) might expect from the cover. I think I may have covered various crypto-humans before, such as vampires or elves. But this is likely the first entirely alien species. I began to suspect on page 1, when I read that Sah Lee “sank her pin-sharp teeth through the thick fur of the calf’s throat, and tasted the sweet metallic tang of its young blood.” This is clearly not your average twelve-year-old. And so it proves. The story really kicks under way two years later, when Sah Lee leaves her rural village on the planet of Aarn to attend school in the city of Aa Ellet.

She is out of town on a class trip, when demons descend from the sky, causing massive death and destruction. Of course, they’re actually an alien tribe known as “outcasts”, who specialize in this kind of thing. But Sah Lee being a pre-first contact civilization, demons it is. Eventually, the rest of the galaxy, led by the super-advanced group known as “the People”, come to the rescue, but by that point, the planet is uninhabitable and most of the Aarnth dead. Sah Lee is taken aboard a ship, and vows to take revenge on the outcasts by any means necessary, which involves joining one of the galactic armies. But there will be a period of sharp adjustment from the pastoral life she had on Aarn, to being an interstellar soldier. Not drinking out of the toilet will be a start.

It’s not quite clear what Sah Lee is. Mammalian, to be sure – and that’s significant, since one of the features of the universe depicted here is that it is peopled not just by mammals, but reptilians, avians and even insectoid species, generally (but not universally) getting along. Thank heavens for universal translators. Anyway, something cat-like is probably my best guess, though quite how… furry she is, is never established. It doesn’t matter much though: her story is what’s important. And this is at its best in the relatively early stages: seeing an alien invasion from the side of the natives, then following Sah Lee as she has to adjust to a radically new and unimaginably different life. It makes me wonder what first contact will be like for Earth, when it finally happens. Potentially not good.

It’s rather less effective one she settles in, becoming fairly standard space opera. Through a special relationship with the People, Sah Lee has a cutting-edge AI and tech which does make her a bit super-powered. She breezes through every situation, even getting harshly disciplined after breaking military protocol (albeit for good reason). I’m also very unsure of the timeframe here. By the end, she’s basically in charge of her own army, and I’m guessing she is no longer a teenager. Not least because the galaxy as a whole has more or less conquered disease, meaning that violent death is about the only thing preventing near-immortality, with one character being over 172,000 years old. But again, it’s just not clear.

It is, at least, a self-contained story, rather than being volume one of a saga. The book reaches its end at an appropriate and generally satisfying point, which could go on, yet doesn’t have to. I’d have been very interested at the half-way point, when this was offering a different and original perspective on a super-advanced society – looking at it from the bottom up. Now Sah Lee is no longer in that position, she has become considerably less appealing.

Author: Andrew Maclure
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, as an e-book only.

Prospect

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★★½
“Get the little things right, but…”

Coming in on a wave of hype, e.g. “The Best Indie Science Fiction Movie Since Moon“, I guess I should have listened – because I didn’t think Moon was all that great either. Here, there’s a great job done of creating a universe, and even the two lead characters are interesting enough. It’s just an abject failure to fill the world with a decent story. Still: that world… It’s a grubbily lived-in and analog future version of space, controlled with retro-styled switches, and where the beauty of the cosmos is largely glimpsed through undersized, dirty spaceship windows.

Resident in it are teenage girl Cee (Thatcher) and her father (Duplass), barely scratching a living by mining resources out of alien creatures on the surface of a planet with a toxic atmosphere. Fortune beckons, however, because he has got word of a mother-lode which will set them up for life. Unhappily, their attempt to reach it is derailed by an encounter with Ezra (Pascal) and his partner, two other prospectors of dubious morality. One thing leads to another, and Cee suddenly finds that her survival is dependent on forging an extremely uneasy alliance with Ezra.

There’s definitely the feeling that this is intended to be a space Western, with a lot of the characters seeming like they come off the range, wearing space-helmets instead of Stetsons. The weapons wielded, though hi-tech rail-guns, operate more like a Winchester Model 1873, and there’s additionally a sense of lawlessness, with the planet being a wild frontier. If you want justice – as Cee certainly does – she will have to administer it herself, because no-one else is going to do so. True Grit feels like an influence there. On occasion, the scope suddenly broadens out too, with a wide, magnificent landscape – only one with an F-sized planet hanging low in the sky.

This is all quite lovely. The problem is a incredibly underwhelming script, not helped by dialogue which often seems to border on gibberish. For example, “We have three cycles for the job before we have to catch the slingback.” What happens if you don’t catch the slingback? Is that a very bad thing? And is three cycles a lot? Hours? Days? Weeks? We never know, because Cee’s watch tells the time in some bizarre foreign language. The same obtuseness goes for much of the plot: too often, we’re never clear who’s doing what and to whom, or for what purpose. Perhaps the original short film fared better on this front?

Certainly, it feels as if Cee gives up her quest for revenge here rather too easily. Though she still has a somewhat interesting character arc. Forced to come out from under the protection of her father, and fending for herself, especially given the hostile environment, is no piece of cake. Focusing on that aspect, rather than the vaguely-defined efforts to reach the buried treasure and/or get safely off the planet’s surface, might have proved more effective.

Dir: Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell
Star: Sophie Thatcher, Pedro Pascal, Jay Duplass

The Archer

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★★
“An arrowing experience.”

Lauren Pierce (Noble) is an expert archer, leading her high-school team. However, after she rescues a friend from sexual harassment, she finds herself on the wrong side of justice, and is sent to “Paradise Trails”, an incongruously-named juvenile detention facility, where harsh discipline and indefinitely extended sentences are the order of the day. And wouldn’t you know it, the place is run by a former Olympic archer – Bob Patrice (Sage) and his creepy son, Michael (Terry). It’s not long before Lauren is plotting an unofficial departure, along with new friend Becky (Mason), who knows the truth about what’s going on behind the scenes. When they get evidence proving it during their exit, they become the hunted as Bob and Michael will go to any lengths to stop the truth from getting out.

Opening with a claim about being “inspired by true events,” apparently that means the “kids for cash” scandal from Pennsylvania. While there’s nothing wrong with that as inspiration, it’s probably a mistake for the makers, apparently to want to make a serious statement, while adopting the tropes of the juvenile delinquent and women in prison genres. Brutal wardens; sadistic guards; lesbian subtexts… This all makes it kinda tough to take seriously, whatever statement they’re trying to make. And even that’s kinda muddied, beyond “sending kids to jail for bribes is bad.” Not much to argue with there. Probably more questionable, is the way every man here is an utter bastard. It gets kinda tiresome.

The main problem, however, is simply taking too long to get anywhere. The final 20 minutes or so, have Lauren and Becky trying to get through the wilderness around the facility, with Bob and Michael in pursuit. It’s well-crafted and tense, even if it builds to the inevitable final, bow-powered confrontation between Lauren and Bob, which you can see coming from a long way off. Unfortunately… it’s the final 20 minutes. The first hour are a real slog to get through, particularly the chunk after Lauren’s arrival at Paradise Trails. The script doesn’t have any real idea about where it needs to go or what it wants to do, once the basic concepts are established. As a result, it and the characters simply rotate gently in the wind, as interest evaporates gently.

There’s not even any real logic in the concept. Lauren is supposedly a “straight A’s” student with no previous record. Could have fooled me, going by the hyper-aggressive way she beats up on her pal’s boyfriend. That shows experience in the kicking of ass. Been nice if her ability to defend herself had come into play in the facility a bit more. Except, acknowledging women’s ability to be violent might have gone against the narrative apparently being peddled here. In that light, even the heroine’s use of a bow seems like some kind of liberal cop-out to avoid giving her the far more effective force multiplier of a fire-arm.

Dir: Valerie Weiss
Star: Bailey Noble, Bill Sage, Jeanine Mason, Michael Grant Terry

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

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★★★★½
“The wind rises.”

After the enormous critical, if not commercial, success of Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro, Miyazaki was commissioned to create a manga series for Animage magazine, with a potential film adaptation attached. Publication began in early 1982, but it would take a dozen years, albeit of intermittent publication, before that story was complete. When the series’s popularity among Animage readers was established, work began on the film adaptation, covering the early portion of the manga. Since this was before Miyazaki’s own Studio Ghibli was founded, an external company, Topcraft, were commissioned to create the animation. The budget was only $1 million, with a mere nine-month production schedule leading up to its release in March 1984.

It takes place on a post-apocalyptic world, a thousand years after the near-mythical “Seven Days of Fire”, pushed humanity to the edge of extinction. Since then, nature has taken over much of the planet, covering it in an expanding toxic jungle where the very air is poisonous in a few minutes. It is populated by equally lethal creatures, at the top being the “ohmu”, gigantic insectoids capable of destroying anything in its path. The human race is reduced to clinging on to the fringes, such as the small kingdom of the Valley of the Wind, in which a never-ending breeze keeps the toxins at bay. There, the king’s daughter, Nausicaä (Shimamoto), is one of the few brave enough to enter and explore the jungle, and has developed a mutually respectful relationship with its strange inhabitants.

The balance is destroyed when a plane from the kingdom of Tolmekia crashes. In its cargo is an enormous “God Warrior” – one of those which carried out the Seven Days of Fire – recently dug out from where it had been buried. Tolmekia and their rivals, Pejite, are wrestling for control of the warrior and the power it wields, and the crash drags the Valley of the Wind into their conflict. In particular, Princess Kushana of Tolmekia (Sakakibara) intends to use the warrior to destroy the jungle and restore mankind’s dominion over the planet. Nausicaä is ferociously opposed to this scheme, especially after discovering that the jungle is actually purifying the atmosphere and soil, absorbing the toxins from the apocalypse. She’ll do anything to stop Kushana, including being willing to sacrifice her own life if necessary.

There’s a lot going on here, as you can see. It’s somewhat understandable why, when initially shown in the West (one of the first examples of anime to receive a theatrical release), 22 minutes was cut out, in order to market it as a children’s film, retitled Warriors of the Wind. The problem is, like almost all of the director’s work, it is not a children’s film. This is not a uncommon mistake – presumably based on them having a child as the central characters, and because they’re animated, which still largely equates to Disney in many people’s minds. But they’re more about that age capturing an innocent and idealistic mentality. This is undeniably mature and thoughtful cinema. In just his second feature, and first original film, Nausicaä establishes several themes which would run through almost all of Miyazaki’s future work, in varying degrees: the joy of flight, concern for the environment, and a strong female presence.

Miyazaki’s father ran an airplane parts company in World War II, and even his film company, Studio Ghibli, was named after an Italian plane. Almost every one of his movies includes a flying sequence, and Nausicaä certainly has plenty of them, whether its the heroine skimming across the desert on her one-person glider, or gigantic warships looming, threateningly, in the sky. Despite the imperfect animation, a result of the limited resources, the sense of wonder and awe is undeniable. If you don’t want to take to the skies after seeing these scenes, you might want to check for a pulse. Similarly, there’s no denying Miyazaki is firmly on the side of nature, with his heroine believing all life to be sacred, and humanity deserving no special place above any other species. If mankind can’t live in harmony with the world, the movie suggests, it’s mankind which needs to change. Bending nature to our will is always going to backfire.

But it’s with the depiction of womankind that the film truly succeeds. In Nausicaä and Kushana, you have two fully-formed characters that are not just among the best in animated film, they could stand beside the protagonist and antagonist of most live-action movies. The latter, in particular, demonstrates Miyazaki’s skill at depicting those who would be flat-out villains in less nuanced films, instead being given motivation and depth. While you may not agree with Kushana resurrecting the God Warrior, you can understand what she is trying to accomplish. Her actions stem from a genuine belief that what she is doing is best for the future of mankind. She just has a military-industrial approach to that, in sharp contrast to the one emphasizing ecological science and harmony, preferred by Nausicaä. Interesting to note that, in the 2005 Disney English-language dub, Kushana was voiced by Uma Thurman.

The story here builds to a stellar climax, in which a massive herd of ohmu are lured into a stampede towards the valley, while simultaneously the God Warrior is unleashed by Kushana, to horrific effect. [The animation for the latter was done by a young Hideki Anno, who’d go on to become a master of the genre himself, best known for Neon Genesis Evangelion. In a 2006 Japanese poll, Evangelion was the only anime ranked ahead of Nausicaä as an all-time favourite] Our heroine puts herself in harm’s way in an effort to stop the carnage, and… Well, I won’t spoil it in detail; Miyazaki manages to pull off an ending which could easily have come off as contrived or ridiculous, and is instead emotionally satisfying. With even the Tolmekians forces humbled by nature, as environmental messages delivered by teenagers go, it’s certainly a great deal more effective than an angry Scandinavian shrieking “HOW DARE YOU!” at the audience.

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
Star (voice): Sumi Shimamoto, Gorō Naya, Yōji Matsuda, Yoshiko Sakakibara

Bloody Chainsaw Girl

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★★★
“Japan Chainsaw Mascara.”

A solid enough entry in the Jap-splat genre, this benefits mostly from a winning central performance from Uchida as the title character, Giko Nokomura. Her family are in the demolition business, which is at least a token gesture towards explaining the F-sized chainsaw she carries everywhere – initially in a guitar case! She’s a bit of a delinquent, harking back to the sukeban movies of the sixties like Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom, and with some resemblance to Meiko Kaji, in attitude more than anything. Despite her bad girl credentials, she does want to graduate (there’s a speech later on about how delinquents actually love their schools, and the identity it gives them), and on this summer day, is going back to the otherwise largely-deserted educational establishment, to re-take a missed test.

Of course, it’s never that simple, is it. For pitted against her is her nemesis, Nero Aoi (Yamachi), plus the army of cyborg students created by this wannabe mad scientist. She started off by kidnapping and working on pets, but now has a lethal array of “enhanced” humans at her disposal, such as “Whole-Body Bomber” and former cheerleader Sayuri Bakutani (Sato). Nero is intent on taking her revenge on Giko, following a perceived slight which the latter has long forgotten. Even before she has arrived at school for the exam, Giko is under attack by the first three of these, including a girl with a rocket-launcher embedded in… a most unusual part of her body. Let’s just say, reloading is fun.

Based on the manga series Chimamire Sukeban Chainsaw, by Rei Mikamoto, it has the fast-and-loose sensibility you’d expect, with things taking place for little or no reason other than the maker thought it’d be entertaining. Sometimes they are correct, other times… not so much. There seem to be flashbacks every three minutes, explaining how everyone got to where they are, and it alternates between scenes that go on beyond their merit or purpose, and ones which feel too short. The low-budget is often palpable, falling well short of being able to deliver what is asked of it, and the blood is more digital than physical.

Despite these flaws, I was entertained, though obviously, those of delicate sensibilities should stay well away. Uchida has an appropriate range of expressions for the situations in which Giko finds herself – “deadpan astonishment” is probably the main one which gets used. There’s a dry sense of humour in concepts like the school having a Ninja Club, such as them still deferring obsequiously to the jocks). When Giko meets the president of Shop Club, who is also about its only un-cyborged member, her chainsaw gets some power-ups (“Extending Chainsaw”), though it still proves no match for Nero’s “Chainsaw of the Dead”. Actually, how you react to that sentence will likely determine whether or not you’ll enjoy this. Personally, if a little short of the best entries in this strange little genre, I still found plenty here to appreciate.

Dir: Hiroki Yamaguchi
Star: Rio Uchida, Mari Yamachi, Seira Sato, Yuki Tamaki

The Witch Files

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★★★
“The Breakfast Coven.”

If John Hughes directed a film about witchcraft, it’d probably end up like this. For you have five stereotypical high-school girls in detention: Brooke the rich bitch (Ziolkoski); Greta the jock (Adrienne Rose-White); M.J. the timid mouse (Robinson); Jules the goth (Flatmo); and Claire the nerd (Taylor), who isn’t actually in detention, just doing a report on it for the school TV channel. [90% of the film is the ‘found footage’ she shoots of subsequent events, a conceit for which I usually don’t have much time… and here is no different, occasionally requiring pretzel-like contrivance.] Jules mysteriously triggers the fire-alarm to get them all out early. After she reveals this no big thing was part of her witchy skills, the other four enthusiastically agree to take part in a ceremony binding them together, into a coven.

At first, it’s remarkably easy: they basically just chant whatever they want, and it shows up. Life becomes a bowl of free designer clothes and undeserved ‘A’ grades. But, inevitably, there’s a price to pay, and the young women start to find that minor physical ailments are accelerating at a highly disturbing rate. [This is nicely tied into the historical portrayal of witches as wizened crones, explained as a result of the magical energy expended] While some of the girls want to stop their dabbling in occult practices, others have become addicted to their new-found powers and refuse to stop. Given the previous binding, this is a problem. Additionally, the town’s past offers a long association with witchcraft, and a recurring pattern of strange events, taking place every seventeen years. As in almost every American high-school horror film since Carrie, this builds to a showdown at a school party.

This over-familiarity is likely the main problem, with both characters and story-line coming over decidedly as nothing you haven’t seen before. Even if you never watched Charmed or The Craft (or Swedish take on the same, The Circle), the tropes in question will be entirely recognizable, and the film offers few if any surprises. Credit is due to the actresses, however, who take their two-dimensional characters and do a good job of bringing them to life. This keeps the film rolling along, when on occasion it threatens to stall out completely. Ziolkoski probably does best, helping the audience understand the allure of mystical power, though the entire ensemble gel together nicely.

In the end though, there isn’t sufficient here to set it apart from those which have gone before. It doesn’t help that the magical battles in the final third are well beyond the capacity of the budget to depict. The optical/digital effects unfortunately mostly feel like they were copy-pasted in from an eighties Full Moon Features project. There is one nice bit of vehicular mayhem, though even there, Final Destination did it better. If you haven’t ever seen a film about teenage girls and witchcraft, you could certainly do a lot worse. But there can’t be many of you out there.

Dir: Kyle Rankin
Star: Britt Flatmo, Holly Taylor, Alice Ziolkoski, Tara Robinson

The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion

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★★★
“Lucy  in disguise…”

The first in an intended trilogy, this stands on its own reasonably well, balancing between tying up the loose ends and leaving the future uncertain. The heroine is Ja-Yoon (Kim), who begins by escaping from a shadowy, quasi-governmental facility as a raw eight-year-old, despite being hunted by the woman in charge, Dr. Baek (Jo) and her minions. She is found by husband and wife farmers, and they adopt Ja-Yoon, who has no apparent memory of her early life as their own. Ten years later, with Mom suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the farm struggling financially, Ja-Yoon enters a nationwide singing contest. However, the resulting attention brings her firmly back on the radar of Dr. Baek and Nobleman (Choi), the other survivor from that night a decade ago. The not-so-good doctor won’t let Ja-Yoon escape this time.

After a messy opening, which establishes Dr. Baek as someone specializing in giving no damns at all, this certainly takes its time to get going. For most of the first hour and a half, it’s mostly Ja-Yoon and perky best friend Myung-hee (Go) interacting and progressing through the competition. Though when you hear her… ah, let’s just say “startling” and leave it at that, rendition of Danny Boy, you’ll wonder if perhaps she was selected as the Korean version of William Hung. Meanwhile, the villains are hovering nearby in ways which appear so obvious and suspicious, they would be rejected as painfully unsubtle by Auric Goldfinger.

Eventually, even they realize a more direct approach is needed, i.e. Nobleman storming the farmhouse and threatening everyone Ja-Yoon cares about if she refuses to co-operate. This proves successful, and she meekly goes off to see Dr Baek at her new facility. But as the title and the cover both suggest, Ja-Yoon might be quite comfortable, coming to terms with her inner superwoman. The final 30 minutes show her to be not so meek after all. The movie certainly makes up for lost time, with a slew of well-choreographed mayhem, as our heroine goes all Lucy on the asses of everyone within reach, now she’s using more than 10% of her brain. Or maybe all Hanna? For, in many ways, this is a cross between them, with the pseudo-scientific approach of the former, and the “innocent who strikes back” of the latter.

At more than two hours in length, it would probably have benefited from being about half an hour shorter. The entire “talent show” angle could have been covered just as effectively in about five minutes. And if the bad guys has been more direct, instead of opting for lurking and dropping ominous hints, that would have been a major time-saver as well. However, the twist near the end is handled effectively, and the resulting carnage is brutal and effective. I was left with more than slight interest in the next entry. It will hopefully provide more in the action department, and less in the way of poorly-executed exposition.

Dir: Park Hoon-jung
Star: Kim Da-mi, Jo Min-su, Choi Woo-shik, Go Min-si
a.k.a. Manyeo

Counterfeiting in Suburbia

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★★½
“Fake it till you make it.”

High-schoolers Reilly (Albuquerque) and Erica (Wallace) have discovered a way to literally print money, forging hundred-dollar bills. They then use these to buy high-end fashion, and sell these ill-gotten gains on to their schoolmates for genuine cash. The more cautious Reilly wants to stop, but realizes she can do good by helping Karen (Butler), her aunt and guardian, who is in financial trouble. So when Erica is insistent they expand, Reilly goes along with it, and they use the school’s art-class resources to up their game, laundering the fake money through foreign exchange stores. However, this criminal empire comes under threat, after art teacher Tim Sylvester (MacCaull) discovers what they’re up to. Because by chance, he owes a large sum of money to some nasty people, and starts a relationship with Erica, to make sure she’ll keep working for his benefit.  Worse still, the Secret Service have been alerted to the flood of funny money, so are also investigating.

I have… questions. What made R+E get into counterfeiting to begin with? For when the film starts, they’re already printing out the Benjamins on their home printer. And where do you get the special paper? While there have been cases of people using inkjet printers for this purpose, it seems these involved wiping $5 bills, then reprinting them with higher denominations. [Googling to find this out has probably got me on a watch-list…] And while the film makes the point, especially in high-end stores, that most purchases using credit-cards means assistants are less familiar with spotting fake bills, this surely doesn’t apply to currency exchanges? As a credible piece of scripting, this ends up skipping most of the necessary check-boxes, and I doubt it’s based as much on a true story as claimed.

It’s not entirely without merit though. The underlying idea – teenagers gradually getting out of their depth, and not realizing it until they are too far in – is a decent one. The contrast between the two leads is effective as well: Erica is perpetually touting them as being like Thelma and Louise, and is unfazed when Reilly points out how that ends. There’s also a contrast in motives between the girls – though you wonder a bit why they’re friends, given their divergent natures. Reilly is entirely selfless, and is using her illicit income for what she perceives as “good” [though never quite considers the negative implications of her acts]. Erica, on the other hand, is apparently doing it for the thrill or the LOLs, and you’re never sure quite what this loose cannon might do.

By coincidence, this was watched the same weekend as Body of Sin, and the two films are similar. Both focus on two young women of disparate characters, whose decision to team up and go over the border of legality has severe consequences. Both also have severe problems in the script department. Body was perhaps better technically, but this gets the edge – simply for the sheer uselessness of the only sympathetic male character, which may arguably be more feminist than anything the women do. While some way short of great, it just about passes muster, if you’re in an undemanding Netflix mood.

Dir: Jason Bourque
Star: Larissa Albuquerque, Kayla Wallace, Sarah Butler, Matthew MacCaull

Into the Dark, by J.A. Sutherland

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

Alexis Carew is a third-generation settler on the planet Dalthus, and the ward of her grandfather, her parents having been killed in an accident. But her future is murky, for Dalthusian law prohibits women from inheriting property, such as her family’s estates. With the alternative being a marriage Alexis really doesn’t want, the 15-year-old girl instead signs up to become a midshipman in Her Majesty’s Navy (or, at least, the space version thereof), on the interstellar sloop Merlin. However, this is largely just exchanging one set of problems for another, whether winning the respect of her colleagues, fending off the too admiring ones, or adapting to the harsh life of outer space – and, stranger still, the “darkspace” which facilitates interstellar travel. And then there are the pirates…

This isn’t the first SF/sailing combination to feature a female protagonist, apparently being quite similar to David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. The first volume of that is still sitting in my “to read” list, so while I can’t directly compare them, Werner has you covered for a review of Weber’s book. They definitely seem to have a mutual inspiration in C.S. Forester’s Hornblower series, with a futuristic spin. Here, I’m not certain quite how well it works: some of the sailing elements definitely seem forced, even with the hand-waving nature of “darkspace”. For it basically behaves in whatever way is necessary for the plot to be jammed into Sutherland’s nautical peghole.

That’s probably the main weakness: it’s one especially apparent in the early going, when Alexis first goes into space, until my brain seemed to get used to it. On the plus side, she does make for an admirable heroine, one who uses her wits more than her fists. As such, the action quotient is fairly low; there’s a steep learning curve here, for both Alexis and the reader, as we all learn the mechanics of how things work in this strange universe. When that is finally out of the way, the energy ramps up: in particular, when a ship captured by the Merlin, is being taken back to port with Alexis at the helm, when the captured crew mutiny and retake the vessel.

This sequence likely the action highlight of this first volume, the rest being mostly long-distance space battles. Though with war breaking out right at the end, it’s likely things escalate further in subsequent volumes. Although the supporting characters are nicely drawn, I could perhaps have done with more of an antagonist.  The nearest this book has to offer never meets Alexis directly – his son being the closest she comes. Again, I suspect this angle may be further developed down the road. There’s enough promise shown here to keep the door open to continuing the series. But I should probably read On Basilisk Station first, as I suspect one series of pseudo-aquatic sci-fi is probably enough!

Author: J.A. Sutherland
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Alexis Carew series.

The Breadwinner

  By

★★★
“Burka-to-back.”

Around the turn of the millennium, Parvana (Chaudry) is an 11-year-old girl living in Kabul, Afghanistan – then under the strict religious rule of the Taliban, in the aftermath of the Russian retreat. Her father is arrested and taken off to prison, leaving his wife and children without a male guardian. Which is kinda important, because under Taliban law, women are not allowed out in public unaccompanied. With no other option, Parvana cuts her hair and dresses as a boy in order to be able to get supplies for her family. Teaming up with another boy-who-isn’t, Shauzia (Bhatia), they find work. Parvana starts saving for the bribes necessary to see, and hopefully win the release of, her father; Shauzia is saving up for her long-held dream of seeing the ocean. Of course, it’s never that easy, especially post-9/11, when the country is invaded by America and its allies.

A well-drawn exercise in paradox, it’s interesting to see liberal Hollywood attempt to juggle two of its favoured topics: feminism and Islam. Though in the end, this more or less says “Screw it,” and comes down firmly on the side of the former. For if you didn’t hate Islam before this film… you probably will by the time it’s over. Technically of course, the villain here is fundamentalism, in the malevolent shape of the Taliban; yet, this is the only kind of religion depicted in the movie. It’s not even clear if Parvana and her family are Muslim; they certainly don’t go to a mosque, and their existence seems entirely secular. On that basis, I’m quite surprised the film hasn’t been called out for Islamophobia, but I guess those gatekeepers were probably too busy nodding approvingly at the message of feminist liberation.

Moving on from tdubious socio-political messages which I can take or leave, as an animated feature, I liked this rather better. It intertwines Parvana’s efforts, both to contact her father and simply survive, with her telling the folk-tale of The Elephant King – making its hero her brother, who was previously killed by a land-mine left over from the Soviet occupation. The two threads use different yet complementary styles of animation to separate the “real” world from Parvana’s story, and it’s an effective way of depicting them. Parvana, too, makes for a solid heroine: brave and loyal to her family, while being too innocent and young to know the awkward questions she isn’t supposed to ask e.g WHY women aren’t allowed to go out unaccompanied.

Twomey was co-director of Oscar winner The Book of Kells, and it’s nice to see some animation that isn’t intent on being 3D and photo-realistic, so much as serving the story and the characters. It is sometimes a little hard to put aside the obvious intent as social propaganda, but I’ve never been one who felt you had to agree entirely with a film’s politics, in order to admire its artistic qualities. The latter are decent enough here to make for a worthwhile, if slightly too earnest, viewing experience.

Dir: Nora Twomey
Star (voice): Saara Chaudry, Soma Bhatia, Noorin Gulamgau, Kawa Ada