Variety is the name of the game this week. Car racing enthusiasts and Paul Newman fans will lap up the documentary Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman on Thursday evening. If you’re looking for a truly unique film to immerse yourself in, you can’t go past Matteo Garrone’s exquisite Tale of Tales on Saturday, and if you’re fond of over the top Hammer horrors, then Sunday evening’s Stonehearst Asylum is for you.
Tale of Tales premieres Saturday 17th September, 8.30pm
Inspired by 17th-century Italian fairy tales, filmmaker Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah, Reality) takes us on a luscious, violent, sensual and stylistic dreamlike journey in his first English language film Tale of Tales. Bizarre stories and beautiful settings collide with dark humour and understated performances; this is an odd but strangely compelling film.
The film follows three royals who live in different parts of the same imaginary realm. Queen of Longtrellis (Salma Hayek) sacrifices her husband and eats the heart of a sea monster in order to become pregnant. King of Highhills (Toby Jones) pays more attention to a flea than his own daughter and finds himself alone and bereft when she is married off to a caveman. King of Strongcliff’s (Vincent Cassel) libido gets the better of him as he seduces a local girl only to discover he has been tricked and she is instead an old hag.
These aren’t the kind of fairytales you share with your kids, and anyway, the very specific pacing of the film would probably bore them. However, thanks to the exquisite costumes, music, casting and imaginative art direction, there is plenty for adults to immerse themselves in, as well as a few worthy life lessons to embrace.
Stonehearst Asylum premieres Sunday 18th September, 8.30pm
A fabulous cast gets to swing between sanity and madness in this loose adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether. A gothic romantic horror film in the vein of the British Hammer horror films, the film kicks off with the arrival of an earnest young doctor Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) from Oxford at the eerie and remote Stonehearst Asylum. On his arrival he’s greeted by superintendent Dr. Lamb (Ben Kingsley) who agrees to teach Newgate everything he knows about treating the insane, and Newgate immediately falls for one of the patients, the charming and accomplished Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale).
However, not all is as it seems at Stonehearst Asylum, and from here on in, it’s up to the viewer to unravel the mystery. Who is the monster in this story? The insane or those treating them?
The film also stars David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, and Michael Caine, and is directed by Brad Anderson (The Machinist) who has a knack of pulling together impressive A-list casts. Michael Caine was one of the last names to come on board the project, but he was enticed by the idea of working with Ben Kingsley again – the two hadn’t worked together since the 80’s Without A Clue. Anderson is no stranger to psychological thrillers, and if you look at his body of work, there’s a running theme throughout his film that asks the question, ‘what is madness’? In his first period drama, he attempts to answer it with high-class melodrama.
Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman premieres Thursday 15th September, 8.30pm
Most people think of Paul Newman as a critically acclaimed, Oscar-winning actor, and he is, but his real passion, according to friends and family interviewed in this documentary, was motorcar racing. Paul Newman discovered a love of racing when he was preparing to star in the film Winning. He started driving at an age when many drivers would retire, and went on to become not only a successful driver, but also a team owner. Robert Redford, Jay Leno and Robert Wagner along with racing car legends, fondly recall stories of Newman’s obsession with cars as they shed light on his 35-year driving career.