by Emlyn Roberts-Harry)
There’s more to comic books than tights and capes, you know.
To many people, comic books are all about superheroes. Even though the medium has only itself to blame for pigeonholing itself so badly, it’s still a pity that there’s so much other great stuff out there that goes largely unnoticed. The explosion of big Hollywood blockbusters based on comics in the last decade has only compounded the problem, since the vast majority of them – and the ones which make by far the most money – are about superheroes.
According to Box Office Mojo, the top five highest grossing comic adaptations are The Avengers, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3, and Spider-Man. Excellent films, all of them, but the lack of variety is a pity. Hopefully this list will help more people realise there’s more to comic books than burly men in costumes punching each other.
5. Persepolis
Based on Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, Persepolis is a story that will likely be refreshingly mundane to those whose experiences of comics are limited to characters like the Avengers. Gorgeously animated in a black and white visual style, similar to the graphic novel, it tells the story of an Iranian girl growing up among the terrors of the revolution. A damning indictment of the repressive Iranian political regime, with a dissident protagonist who is forced to leave the country to escape reprisal, it’s a film that’ll stick with you far longer than the explosions and bombast of your average superhero flick.
4. A History of Violence
David Cronenberg’s haunting thriller (loosely) based on the graphic novel by John ‘creator of Judge Dredd’ Wagner still earned a thoroughly deserved nomination. While not exactly a bomb, grossing $60 million on a $32 million budget, it’s still under-seen and not regarded highly enough. Viggo Mortensen delivers some of the best acting of his career as Tom Stall, a diner owner who is forced to kill two robbers in self-defence. His shocking proficiency at violence immediately raises questions, and the news of this ‘local hero’ brings Ed Harris’s gangster to town, claiming that Tom is actually Joey Cusack, formerly involved with organised crime. It’s a great exploration of how a seemingly happy family can be torn apart by lies and deceit, and it’s worth seeing for Mortensen alone, effectively playing two roles at once.
3. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
This, on the other hand, is one of the more famous box office duds in recent memory, failing to make back its $60 million budget, even if it has since become something of a cult classic on DVD. As much a video game movie as a comic book movie, it has a wonderfully witty, funny script based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels, and has some of the smartest, most inventive action and visuals of any comic adaptation. We can thank director Edgar Wright for much of its success, whose visual panache is even more evident here than in his Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy.
Wright’s directorial style is so distinctive it almost feels like a character in itself, and it’s impossible to imagine the film without his smash-cuts and tooling-up montages. What makes Scott Pilgrim truly memorable, though, is that it’s actually a deeply affecting story about the need to grow up and recognise that the world doesn’t revolve around you. Scott begins the film as a real jerk: narcissistic, egocentric and totally unaware of the effect his actions have on others, and by the end he’s actually a halfway decent human being. Even if he had to die before he could get to that point, it’s still a valuable lesson.
2. Oldboy
To many people, comic books are all about superheroes. Even though the medium has only itself to blame for pigeonholing itself so badly, it’s still a pity that there’s so much other great stuff out there that goes largely unnoticed. The explosion of big Hollywood blockbusters based on comics in the last decade has only compounded the problem, since the vast majority of them – and the ones which make by far the most money – are about superheroes.
According to Box Office Mojo, the top five highest grossing comic adaptations are The Avengers, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3, and Spider-Man. Excellent films, all of them, but the lack of variety is a pity. Hopefully this list will help more people realise there’s more to comic books than burly men in costumes punching each other.
1. Blue is the Warmest Colour
We’ve discussed this one previously at some length, but it really can’t be said enough just how brilliant Blue is the Warmest Colour is. It made history by being the first comic book adaptation (it’s based on Julie Maroh’s graphic novel) to win the Palme d’Or, and while it was never going to be a big box office hit – it’s in subtitled French, is three hours long, and features very explicit sex scenes – it’s one of the most important films of 2013 because of what it represents. While it’s unlikely to be generally considered a ‘comic book movie’, it’s still a big step forward for comic book adaptations being taken seriously as works of art.
The plot could hardly be simpler. Main character Adele meets a blue-haired girl called Emma, they fall in love, they break up. But the simplicity of the plot belies the emotional complexity going on here, with two extraordinary performances from the leads showing us every emotion that these two young lovers experience. Their early days are full of lust, passion and joy, but the second half of the film, recounting how they fall apart, is achingly, devastatingly sad. It’s a love story for the ages, and a towering achievement of cinema. It shows, better than any other comic book adaptation, how much depth and feeling there can be in these films, and how comics can depict the mundane reality of love and loss every bit as well as they can show superheroes teaming up to defeat an alien invasion.
No comments:
Post a Comment