HOME |  CULT MOVIES | COMPETITIONS | ADVERTISE |  CONTACT US |  ABOUT US
 
 
 
Newest Reviews
American Fiction
Poor Things
Thunderclap
Zeiram
Legend of the Bat
Party Line
Night Fright
Pacha, Le
Kimi
Assemble Insert
Venus Tear Diamond, The
Promare
Beauty's Evil Roses, The
Free Guy
Huck and Tom's Mississippi Adventure
Rejuvenator, The
Who Fears the Devil?
Guignolo, Le
Batman, The
Land of Many Perfumes
Cat vs. Rat
Tom & Jerry: The Movie
Naked Violence
Joyeuses Pacques
Strangeness, The
How I Became a Superhero
Golden Nun
Incident at Phantom Hill
Winterhawk
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Maigret Sets a Trap
B.N.A.
Hell's Wind Staff, The
Topo Gigio and the Missile War
Battant, Le
Penguin Highway
Cazadore de Demonios
Snatchers
Imperial Swordsman
Foxtrap
   
 
Newest Articles
3 From Arrow Player: Sweet Sugar, Girls Nite Out and Manhattan Baby
Little Cat Feat: Stephen King's Cat's Eye on 4K UHD
La Violence: Dobermann at 25
Serious Comedy: The Wrong Arm of the Law on Blu-ray
DC Showcase: Constantine - The House of Mystery and More on Blu-ray
Monster Fun: Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror on Blu-ray
State of the 70s: Play for Today Volume 3 on Blu-ray
The Movie Damned: Cursed Films II on Shudder
The Dead of Night: In Cold Blood on Blu-ray
Suave and Sophisticated: The Persuaders! Take 50 on Blu-ray
Your Rules are Really Beginning to Annoy Me: Escape from L.A. on 4K UHD
A Woman's Viewfinder: The Camera is Ours on DVD
Chaplin's Silent Pursuit: Modern Times on Blu-ray
The Ecstasy of Cosmic Boredom: Dark Star on Arrow
A Frosty Reception: South and The Great White Silence on Blu-ray
You'll Never Guess Which is Sammo: Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon on Blu-ray
Two Christopher Miles Shorts: The Six-Sided Triangle/Rhythm 'n' Greens on Blu-ray
Not So Permissive: The Lovers! on Blu-ray
Uncomfortable Truths: Three Shorts by Andrea Arnold on MUBI
The Call of Nostalgia: Ghostbusters Afterlife on Blu-ray
Moon Night - Space 1999: Super Space Theater on Blu-ray
Super Sammo: Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son on Blu-ray
Sex vs Violence: In the Realm of the Senses on Blu-ray
What's So Funny About Brit Horror? Vampira and Bloodbath at the House of Death on Arrow
Keeping the Beatles Alive: Get Back
   
 
  Judy & Punch Puppetry Of The Heinous
Year: 2019
Director: Mirrah Foulkes
Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Damon Herriman, Benedict Hardie, Jacek Koman, Amy Christian, Tom Budge, Karuna Stamell, Virginia Gay, Eddie Baroo, Terry Norris, Don Bridges, Lucy Velik, Gillian Jones, Paul Ireland, Daisy Axon, Michael M. Foster, Ben Knight, Sue Hill
Genre: Horror, Comedy, DramaBuy from Amazon
Rating:  7 (from 1 vote)
Review: Judy (Mia Wasikowska) and Punch (Damon Herriman) are two puppeteers in the seventeenth century who are experts at their craft, but it is a dual effort and without one, the act would not work out. However, Punch is very keen to better his standing and hopes they will attract the attention of talent scouts and take them to the big city, though he has to be careful he does not take a tipple at all, since that can adversely affect both his temperament and his skill. They live in a house at the outskirts of the town of Seaside (which is not near the sea) with their elderly servants and their baby, but perhaps Judy puts too much trust in her husband not to mess everything up completely...

The Punch and Judy story, as an act, runs heavily on tradition, as every performance is more or less the same, staged by a variety of "professors", but unchanging since the inception of the entertainment. However, the violence inherent in the narrative came in for some squeamishness the further time went on, as the lead character Mr Punch was wont to not only beat up everyone he came into contact with, but that included his wife and baby, cue "Is this the sort of thing we should be showing our children?" thinkpieces and ruminations. With this film, writer and director Mirrah Foulkes, an actress making her feature debut at the helm, had two methods to approach this.

She could either present it as a savage criticism of the whole concept of using domestic abuse, among other things, as fun, or she could dig deeper and get to the heart of the matter, that Mr Punch's behaviour was not demonstrated to be laudable in the puppet show, and he was actually the villain, or at best a mischievous antihero whose crimes were rightly punished. In effect, Foulkes adopted both of those stances, for there was nothing admirable about her Punch as depicted here, but she repositioned it as a tale of a woman seeking recompense for a terrible incident inflicted upon her by her spouse. With that in mind, you could feel certain areas of the audience bristling.

Yet it succeeded very well, not least because Foulkes had a very good eye for a captivating image that rendered this somewhere nearer a fairy tale, along with its repercussions to telling such ancient stories centuries later when arguably the world had moved on, or at least it should have. That fable quality was possibly the strongest suit in a film with a powerful, but not strident, message, and offered resonance to what could have been a facile and reductive reading of what after all was not taken seriously even by the kids who watched such puppet shows. The crimes Punch commits here, when acted out by real people, lent an air of the grotesque to the proceedings that would not have been present with glove puppets, which was let's face it a man with his arms up hitting himself on the hands for a few minutes.

This stuck close to the tradition in that Punch abuses the baby, though not through malice, he's simply an idiot - the dog and the sausages aid him in his downfall, as in the puppetry. What he does to Judy when she asks, not unreasonably, what has happened to their child when it goes missing is more on the evil scale of activity and leads her to be buried in a shallow grave, left for dead. But there was more to this even than that, as the witch hunters, always seeking to bolster their social respectability off the backs of the unfortunate souls they victimise and scapegoat, include most of the community, whipped up into a bloodthirsty frenzy by supposed moral leaders who are nothing of the kind. How this ties in with Punch and Judy should by all rights have been awkward, yet though the film probably ran a shade too long, its purpose was to make you think, and in that it achieved its goals. Not perfect, but a very strong showing, and instructive to contrast with Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's nineties comic book Mr Punch. Music by François Tétaz.
Reviewer: Graeme Clark

 

This review has been viewed 1846 time(s).

As a member you could Rate this film

 
Review Comments (0)


Untitled 1

Login
  Username:
 
  Password:
 
   
 
Forgotten your details? Enter email address in Username box and click Reminder. Your details will be emailed to you.
   

Latest Poll
Which star probably has psychic powers?
Laurence Fishburne
Nicolas Cage
Anya Taylor-Joy
Patrick Stewart
Sissy Spacek
Michelle Yeoh
Aubrey Plaza
Tom Cruise
Beatrice Dalle
Michael Ironside
   
 
   

Recent Visitors
Mary Sibley
Enoch Sneed
Darren Jones
Mark Le Surf-hall
  Louise Hackett
Andrew Pragasam
Graeme Clark
  Desbris M
   

 

Last Updated: