bthere: Inflight Magazine Brussels Airlines

INSESSION

A round-up of the top films and tunes heading your way this month

Time out with John Curran

John Curran is the director of the sumptuous romantic epic The Painted Veil. Starring Ed Norton and Naomi Watts, it’s a tale of love and betrayal set against the backdrop of a cholera epidemic in 1920s China. We pinned him down for this exclusive chat

What was your first impression of China?
I didn’t have the luxury of going there as a tourist so all my impressions were put through a prism: “How difficult is it going to be to film? How easy is it going to be? What do I need? What don’t they have?” I started to see China as a film set. Really I just remember thinking: ‘Wow, there’s a lot of people here!’

What was the most challenging aspect of shooting there?
We needed to find somewhere that was remote enough that it wasn’t tainted by development, but not so remote that we couldn’t get to it.

Once you’d found that remote location in Guangxi province, how radical was the change in lifestyle compared to what you’re used to?
When we first found the village it was pretty basic by any standards. But by the time we got down there we were already like a tightly bound family. Being there lifted everyone’s spirits; it was so beautiful and we were finally out of these stuffy studios. It had a really profound effect on everybody’s mood. It was the opposite of what I’d anticipated.

Do you have a favourite city in Europe that you’ve lived or filmed in?
I’d have to say Paris. Every time I’ve lived in Paris I’ve stayed in a different area, but wherever you are, in the few neighbourhoods around where you’re staying you can get whatever you want.

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Curse of the Golden Flower
Director Zhang Yimou
Starring Gong Li, Chow Yun Fat

Welcome to 10th-century China, where the only thing stacked higher than the corpses is the bodice-busting cleavage of Empress Phoenix. Her husband is trying to kill her; she, in turn, is conducting an affair with her stepson, who dreams of running away with a peasant girl. Meanwhile grand schemes are afoot to engineer a coup.

Zhang Yimou (a former cinematographer and director of House of Flying Daggers) knows a thing or two about eye-candy, and Curse of the Golden Flower is an orgy of sun-blinding splendour. In fact, the visual opulence is so lavish, it eventually overwhelms the film’s narrative texture.

Its sheer scale and non-stop magnificence can be exhausting, and the more the characters suffer Shakespearean tragedies, the more unreal they seem. Still, Curse of the Golden Flower is well worth it for the dazzling visuals alone – just make sure you remember to take your shades.

Half Nelson
Director Ryan Fleck
Starring Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps

We’ve seen this before, haven’t we? A crusading teacher heads to an inner-city high school where the spectre of drugs and violence casts a shadow over plucky-but-streetwise kids.

Only Half Nelson isn’t that film, and it announces this in the most dramatic possible way when 13-year-old Drey walks in on her teacher, Mr Dunne, surrounded by the evidence of his addiction to some serious narcotics.

That’s the point at which Half Nelson takes the first exit off the Hollywood freeway and enters a twisting underworld of skin-prickling moral uncertainty. Drey and Dunne become friends, but how healthy is their relationship? Director Ryan Fleck offers no easy answers – in one scene cutting between Dunne making love to a fellow teacher while Drey experiments with make-up in a mirror.

It’s brilliant stuff, anchored by a pair of phenomenal performances from Gosling and Epps.

It’s one of the most unpatronising films about drugs that you’ll ever see.

The music column

Kings of Leon: Because of the Times
Nobody does dirty rock ’n’ roll quite like the Kings of Leon. Now the whisky-voiced preacher’s sons are back with Because of the Times, a defiantly ambitious record. Tracks like ‘On Call’ and ‘The Runner’ introduce a new, production-friendly Kings, while ‘McFearless’ shows they still pack the same punch. Because of the Times is as Southern as a trailer park, and as gloriously trashy.

Avril Lavigne: The Best Damn Thing
From perky punk princess to soulful starlet – it’s been quite a ride for Avril Lavigne. The Best Damn Thing marks a return to the upbeat kid-rock that made her name, but it also benefits from the musical maturity that she’s picked up along the way. It’s packed with snap, crackle and pop hits like the fizzing title track, and is refreshingly free from the over-seriousness that dogged her early reputation.