Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs
HIGH-RISE (StudioCanal) J G Ballard’s 1975 novel is a surreal allegory about society collapsing and class warfare in an exclusive and isolated luxury 40 story tower block, a retreat from the real word with every modern convenience: supermarket, gym, swimming pool. The story is set in the Thatcher era. The floor you are designated depends on your status in society. Anarchy reigns and the lobby and corridors are soon full of dead bodies and rubbish bags. The novel was always said to be un-filmable. And so it proves. The film, directed by Ben Wheatley, is a big disappointment. The main problem is that much of it is totally incoherent. Jeremy Irons plays the building’s architect who has egalitarian designs but lives in penthouse luxury. There’s a huge roof garden big enough for a horse to exercise. Tom Hiddleston is the lead and cast as a physiologist who enjoys dissecting brains. He lives on the 27th floor and appears naked – all too briefly for his many fans.
AROUND CHINA WITH A MOVIE CAMER
A (BFI). A journey from Beijing to Shanghai, from 1900 to 1948, in pre-communist revolutionary China, is covered by rare footage. The travelogues, newsreels and home movies by professional and amateur photographers are a useful record of cityscapes and landscapes and people. The documentary would benefit from a commentary. The images on their own, however interesting, are not enough.
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