Rutger & The Wreck: A Chat with Ken Rowles

The late Dutch actor Rutger Hauer left behind a highly impressive CV, one which includes the likes of 80s classics Blade Runner and The Hitcher, along with four Dutch-language films directed by Paul Verhoeven: Katie Tippel, Turkish Delight, Spetters and Soldier of Orange.  In his later years, Hauer was more often than not seen in supporting roles, and during this century he appeared in several big-budget productions including Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins; towards the end of his life, he had a part in Jacques Audiard's outstanding The Sisters Brothers.  Back in the late 1980s, Hauer was due to star in a film called Torment, yet there's virtually nothing in the way of information regarding this title, despite it occurring during the height of the actor's popularity.  Although there are a few scant production details listed on the British Film Institute's website, Torment has always presented something of a mystery, so I'm pleased to have finally learned a bit more about it, courtesy of the man who was in place to direct the film.

Back in October, I spent a very pleasant couple of hours or so with filmmaker Ken Rowles, who has numerous credits dating back more than fifty years.  I actually met with Ken to ask him about his work on Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil, but our conversation also covered a number of Ken's other projects, both realised and unrealised, with Torment coming under the latter category.  In Ken's many years in the film industry, he's encountered and/or worked with the likes of Stanley Baker, Tony Curtis, Dick Emery, Simon Ward, Ken Russell, Peter Sykes, and Ian McShane, and his film with Rutger Hauer sounds like an intriguing project, one which will sadly never come to fruition.  Torment was to be written and produced by Christian Bel, who took on the same duties for the Anthony Quinn–Lauren Bacall love story A Star for Two, a project that was made after Torment failed to get off the ground.  A Star for Two is a remarkably difficult title to track down, although Bel has uploaded a promo reel for the film to YouTube; Bel, like yours truly, has a solitary feature film to his name on the IMDb, and it seems that he left the film industry following the 1991 release of A Star for Two, which was directed by Canadian Jimmy Kaufman.

Anyway, Ken informed me that Torment was to be a film centring on the Algerian War, or, more accurately, the aftermath of the conflict, as the lead character struggled with his memories of the war as he tried to live out his life in Paris, and this mental anguish is presumably what the film's title referred to.  As the director, Ken spent a lot of time in Paris as the film entered its pre-production phase, and he also flew out to Tunisia to look at potential locations.  But, despite all the groundwork, the film never made it into production; while Torment is by no means unusual in this regard, it does sound like a film that had real potential, and it would have been interesting to see Hauer at work in such a project.  The efforts Ken described served as a reminder of the huge amount of work that goes into each of the many films that never get made, and so often it's merely a simple matter of luck that determines if a film goes ahead or falls by the wayside.

I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Ken, and much more of our conversation (particularly the material regarding Jean-Luc Godard) should eventually surface as part of a writing project I'm currently working on.  Ken still makes films, and in recent years he has directed a documentary about the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery, an explosives-laden vessel that sits just 30 miles from London.  The Wreck is narrated by Ian McShane, and I've been lucky enough to see a workprint of the film; it provides a fascinating look at a remarkable situation: despite this ship and its deadly cargo remaining on a seabed close to densely populated land, the authorities apparently have little interest in tending to the issue.  You can view the film's promo reel below.

Darren Arnold

Images: DWDD [CC BY 3.0] / UniFrance

Endless (Scott Speer, 2020)

The Movie Partnership are releasing Endless, a high school love story with a sinister twist, to digital download platforms from today.  This follows an October theatrical release exclusively in Showcase Cinemas.

From the producer who brought you Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's box office smash hit A Star Is Born, Endless follows madly in love high school graduates Riley (Alexandra Shipp) and Chris (Nicholas Hamilton).  When the pair are separated by a tragic car accident, Riley blames herself for her boyfriend's death while Chris is stranded in limbo.  Miraculously, the two find a way to connect. 

In a love story that transcends life and death, both Riley and Chris are forced to learn the hardest lesson of all - letting go.  Endless also stars X-Men legend Famke Janssen and DeRon Horton, who stars in the groundbreaking Dear White People and Netflix's Burning Sands.

Endless will be available to watch on all major digital download platforms from today.  Stay in the loop with the film here on Instagram.

Source/images: Strike Media

Druk (Thomas Vinterberg, 2020)

Director Thomas Vinterberg's new film Druk (English: Another Round) is a production that received support from the Netherlands Film Fund, and it played at the London Film Festival just last month.  Vinterberg's previous film, Kursk, was a solid if unspectacular retelling of the tragic fate of the eponymous Russian vessel, but Druk sees the director on altogether more familiar ground, and this efffort feels much more organic than his serviceable submarine movie.  For this latest film, Vinterberg reunites with his Jagten star, the excellent and reliable Mads Mikkelsen, and the results are almost as impressive as the pair's previous joint venture.  Between these two collaborations, Vinterberg made a brace of English-language films (Kursk and Far from the Madding Crowd) with Belgian star Matthias Schoenaerts, an actor whose style is somewhat similar to Mikkelsen's; it is easy to see why the director has favoured these two performers in recent times. 

Mikkelsen's Martin is a high school teacher going through the motions in work and life, and both his family and pupils seem bored of a man who seems to have largely lost interest in the world.  Things change when Martin and three of his colleagues agree to test out the theory of Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud, who hypothesised that humans have a blood alcohol deficit of 0.05% and should look to redress this in order to function properly.  Naturally, putting this theory into practice takes a bit of trial and error, and the four participants take to keeping bottles and breathalysers stashed away in the workplace as they look to maintain the level prescribed by Skårderud.  After a few adjustments, Martin gets to a point that allows him to reconnect with both his wife and his students; life has certainly picked up for Martin and his friends, but how long before the constant drip-feeding of alcohol escalates into something more serious?

While Thomas Vinterberg will most likely always remain in the long shadow cast by his breakthrough feature Festen—a film that is now 25 years old—he more often than not makes interesting, accessible films, and Druk is definitely one of his better efforts.  The film is helped no end by a well-judged lead performance from Mads Mikkelsen and, good as his co-stars are, there's a sneaking suspicion that Druk would be greatly diminished without Mikkelsen's presence; his Martin is by no mean a dislikeable man, but is rather someone who's lost his way a little, and the actor channels an affable world-weariness that is always relatable.  Not unlike Mikkelsen's character in Jagten, Martin is basically a decent guy who finds himself in a hole he needs to dig his way out of, and while the situation in Druk isn't nearly as grave as that in Jagten, Martin still has his work cut out if he's to save his relationship with his wife and sons.

Druk contains some very convincing scenes of drunkenness and, just like recent documentary Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (which could quite easily partner Druk in a boozy double bill), it convincingly conveys the seductive, appealing nature of drinking, although Druk pans out as a cautionary tale as opposed to Bloody Nose's observational, non-judgmental take on barflies at play.  Druk can be fairly predictable at times, but it's an authentic piece of cinema, one that again confirms how reliable Thomas Vinterberg has become—although he would no doubt be aghast to be labelled as such.  It seems quite a coincidence that two of Vinteberg's very best films have starred Mads Mikkelsen, and with any luck the pair will collaborate again in the near future; of course, if it turns out that Mads is busy (as he may well be), perhaps his very able stand-in Matthias Schoenaerts will be available?

Darren Arnold

Images: image.net