Fran; Hitler’s Children; No Country for Old Men
If you can keep your eyes open (or press the record button) there are some fine cinematic offerings on free to air this week.
Monday night into Tuesday morning will provide an eye-opening experience for the insomniac and veteran channel surfer alike. First up is writer-director Glenda Hambly’s Perth-set 1985 drama Fran (Monday, 12.30am, ABC), starring Noni Hazlehurst as a well-meaning but irresponsible single mother of three who can neither get her act together to deal with her children nor make a new relationship she craves work properly. Hazlehurst won the AFI Best Actress award for her fearless performance, and the film seems to be aired rarely.
After the commercials comes director Edward Dmytryk’s 1943 war drama Hitler’s Children (Monday, 2.05am, ABC), which follows a trio of friends in pre-World War II Germany whose bonds are tested when the conflict is upon them. Despite the lurid title — or, perhaps, because of it, given the film’s date — the movie became one of the most financially lucrative ever produced by RKO Radio Pictures. The film certainly pulls no punches, and benefits from a solid leading performance by Bonita Granville, fresh off her series of features as teenage detective Nancy Drew but near the end of her box office dependability.
Still awake? Also from RKO and made a few years after the end of the war, the 1949 Make Mine Laughs (Monday, ABC, 3.30am) stitches together a number of songs, vaudeville bits and short subjects from the studio’s archive to create a pleasing, if inevitably creaky, collection of period talent from an art form long gone. Interestingly, the film was withdrawn from distribution after a number of the performers pointed out they had been neither consulted about nor paid for the use of their clips. So this one’s kind of rare.
How many Hectors can one world hold is the central question behind Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo’s mend-bending 2007 time travel drama Timecrimes (Saturday, 2.50am, SBS). When our hero is sent back 90 minutes in time after stumbling across a hidden laboratory, he’s got to sort out what’s real and what’s an hour and a half ago. Genre fiends are advised to either stay up or timeshift for Timecrimes.
One of the most effective — and malevolent — strategies employed by sibling filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen when constructing their bizarre moral universes is the fine line between spoof and seriousness. Fargo’s opening credits say the film is based on a true story but it really isn’t, and there are any number of Coen protagonists who are immoral and/or dislikable. It is refreshing, then, to see in their Oscar-winning 2007 drama No Country for Old Men (Monday, 9.30pm, One) respect the spirit and mood of Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Tommy Lee Jones is very good as the weary small-town sheriff, and Javier Bardem’s cold-blooded hitman is nothing short of terrifying.
No Country for Old Men (MA15+) 4.5 stars
Monday, 9.30pm, One
Timecrimes (M) 4 stars
Saturday, 2.50am, SBS
Fran (M) 3.5 stars
Monday, 12.30am, ABC
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