Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

The Fountainhead (1949)

Dir: King Vidor | Gary Cooper, Raymond Massey Patricia Neal | US Drama 114’

If Donald Trump read books ‘The Fountainhead’ would be on his bedside table.

Although King Vidor would have preferred Bogart, Ayn Rand approved of the casting of Gary Cooper as übermensch Howard Roark in this adaptation of what Raymond Durgnat described as her “rightist critique of where American capitalism went wrong” based on Frank Lloyd Wright; but being such a monstrous egotist she was predictably dissatisfied with the result. But Vidor’s version is that rare beast, a movie that improves upon the original; its architectural theme well visualised in Edward Carrere’s vast open-plan sets recalling the office in ‘The Crowd’.

The book does however deserves credit for the most wonderful putdown when proponent of “the Gospel of Mediocrity”, architectural critic Ellsworth M. Toohey, hungrily challenges Roark to tell him to his face exactly what he thinks of him; to which he abstractedly replies “But I don’t think of you.”

An interesting companion piece to the Oscar nominated Golden Globe winner The Brutalist (2025) @RichardChatten

Designing Woman (1957)

Dir: Vincente Minellli | Cast: Lauren Bacall, Gregory Peck | US Comedy 118’

Despite the use throughout of interior monologues, in the year of ’12 Angry Men’ the screenplay incredibly won an Oscar for this glossy fifties attempt at a screwball comedy complete with Runyonesqe gangsters.

In the lead Gregory Peck woefully lacks the light touch, although the film is aided by Minnelli’s customary dramatic use of colour. But the presence of Lauren Bacall in the role originally intended for Grace Kelly – although considering her athletic build Katherine Hepburn might be a more apt comparison – is a more than adequate substitute.

However the funniest cast members are probably Dolores Gray and Mickey Shaughnessy as a brassy showgirl and a punch-drunk fighter who sleeps with his eyes open. @RichardChatten 

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025)

Dir: Michael Morris | Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Hugh Grant, Renee Zellweger | Comedy UK US France 2025

How things have changed since middle-aged widow Jeanne Dielman strutted her stuff in 1970s Brussels. Life couldn’t be more different for her modern day counterpart Bridget Jones, in this latest edition of the saga, laughingly entitled Mad About the Boy“. And is certainly full of laughs in a tongue in cheek way

Bridget lost her partner Mark Darcy four years ago, on a humanitarian mission in the Sudan. But life seems upbeat and fun for the single mother to nine-year-old Billy and four-year-old Mabel, and their godfather Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant in fabulous form).

In leafy Hampstead, Bridget’s back on the dating scene, in a lackadaisical way, with a variety of apps. Something dear Jeanne never dreamed of back in dreary old Quai de Commerce, fifty years ago. ‘Toy boys’ weren’t even invented back in the day, instead Jeanne resorted to earning a few bob from a tawdry selection of paid male visitors. Bridget, meanwhile, is foot-loose and fancy-free enjoying a much freer love life, and with a much younger man in tow, Roxster McDuff. She’s also enjoying a dalliance with her son’s science teacher, Scott Wallaker.

But is she more of a feminist figure than Jeanne? That’s for you to decide. Certainly, times have changed and attitudes to women, dating and marriage are looser and far more liberated. And Jeanne was a much more buttoned-down character.

Bridget, now 51, has a thicker skin and more laid back view of life. A philosophical ‘girl about town’, she has an upbeat take in this fun and frothy romcom. Any angst she may feel is still there, but with much lighter attitude to getting the dinner ready. Nowadays, rather like the flirty 1930s  ‘Anything Goes’. Even frozen peas! @MeredthTaylor

IN UK AND FRENCH CINEMAS 13 FEBRUARY 2025

 

Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)

Dir: John Schlesinger | UK Comedy

The joker in the pack of John Schlesinger’s filmography, for whom this legendary financial disaster marked a strange venture into territory better suited to Robert Altman, depicting a collection of crazies and misfits converging upon a single location to create a virtual convention of Americans at their most crass and absurd.

The town is named Ticlaw, and the mayor/preacher Kirby T. Calo also operates a hotel and tiny wildlife safari park. The town’s major draw is a water-skiing elephant named Bubbles.

When the state highway commission builds a freeway adjacent to the town, Calo slips an official $10,000 to assure an off-ramp. The ramp does not come, so the townsfolk literally paint the town pink to attract visitors.

You don’t see an elephant on water skis every and the pleasures afforded by vast sums of money being squandered in bright colour are never to be sneezed at.

Kudos to Jessica Tandy who displayed a hitherto unsuspected talent for dead pan comedy as a socially acceptable alcoholic deeply in denial. @RichardChatten

It Happened Here (1964)

Dir: Kevin Brownlow | UK sci/fi

This work of youthful promise by Kevin Brownlow later became legendary for the duration of its production. Since it depicts an alternate reality, technically – like Robert Harris’ ‘Fatherland’ – it probably qualifies as science fiction; although it’s proximity to the Second World War ensures that London was then pitted with bomb sites and people wearing accurate clothes, which helps provide verisimilitude. All the other period details are also by default equally accurate, so much of it resembles a wartime public information film, with the clothes the people are wearing evoking the era of coupons and sullen acquiescence, @RichardChatten

NOW ON YOUTUBE and BFI PLAYER

Cottontail (2025)

Dir/Wri: Patrick Dickinson | Cast:: Lily Franky, Ryo Nishikido, Tae Kimura, Rin Takanashi |  UK/Japan. 2022. 94′

Japanese domestic dramas are often described as tender and this is the case for the aptly entitled Cottontail which would have benefited from a bit more astringency in telling its worthwhile story of family loss and grieving.

Patrick Dickinson’s humanistic reconciliation drama, based on his semi-autobiographical short Usagi-San (2013), opens in Tokyo where a Kenzaburo (veteran actor Lily Franky) is mourning the recent death of his wife Akiko.

Akiko, a fan of Beatrix Potter’s tales (hence the film’s title), expressed a wish to have her ashes scattered on Lake Windermere in tribute to a memorable childhood holiday there during the 1960s. So Kenzaburo and his son Toshi, his wife and daughter, duly set off on a journey to England where, united by grief, and in the company of strangers, their tricky relationship will be tested to the limit.

Kenzaburo, a bit of a loner, somehow manages to leave the rest of the family in London whence he makes his way north where, on the pretext of losing his way, he stays with farmer John (Ciaran Hinds), a recent widower, and his sympathetic daughter Mary (Aoife Hinds) who, touched by the foreigner’s diffidence and disorientation, offers to drive the meek and mild Kenzaburo up to the Lake District. Liberated from his family, Kenzaburo forms a warm bond with his new friends.

The story unfolds mostly from Kenzaburo’s perspective, and he certainly gives the most nuanced performance as he tries to unburden himself and explain away the family’s past when he finally catches up with his son, Dickinson making use of flashbacks. Although words ‘don’t come easily’ to a man unused to expressing his feelings verbally there’s a gentle delicacy to this father despite his repressed nature. Toshi is driven to tears but Kenzaburo remains reserved, rather as if something is buried in the past and still needs to surface.

The gentle beauty of the English countryside and rural setting triumph above the gracefully told but rather unremarkable storyline, and cinematographer Mark Wolf certainly makes this an attractive film to watch despite its leisurely pacing that possibly sees Dickinson influenced by the style of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu in Late Spring and Tokyo Story. @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS FROM 14 FEBRUARY 2025

 

 

Children of the Revolution (1996)

Dir: Peter Duncan | Cast: Judy Davis, Sam Neill, Richard Roxburgh | Drama Australia

A film depicting Stalin is the last thing you would expect to emerge from Down Under, but if you get over the shock of the simple fact of it’s existence, see it!

Judy Davis is as usual excellent as a life-long communist haunted by the guilt of having been inadvertently responsible for the death of her idol during a single night of passion in the Kremlin.

The tryst leads to the birth of a son whose the image of his father who rises in the Australian trade union movement, which results in him crossing the path of Rachel Griffiths as a mounted policewoman in a black leather uniform who he deliberately provokes into putting him in handcuffs. @RichardChatten

 

The Good Sister (2025) Berlinale 2025

Dir: Sarah Miro Fischer | Drama, Germany, Spain | 2025 | 97 min | drama | German

A simply told but morally complex and compulsive slow-burner about trust and family relationships put to the test when a brother is challenged.

Rose is very close to her older brother Sam. Almost too close in their mother’s opinion. The three of them form a tight nuclear family with two siblings getting on like a house on fire expressing their feelings physically rather than verbally. Rise moves into Sam’s cramped apartment when she finds herself homeless after an argument with her partner.

One night Sam brings home a girl who later accuses him of rape and Rose naturally jumps to defend her brother, truthfully relating the events from her point of view although she is uncertain of what actually happened.

The film edges forward tentatively, relying on the actors’ gestures and eye contact rather than dialogue to tell its story and in this way first time filmmaker Moro Fischer keeps us glued to the screen, with a stunning central performance from Marie Bloching in the title role.  @MeredithTaylor 

BERLINALE 2025 | PANORAMA

Under Capricorn (1949)

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock | Drama

Hitchcock has often been accused of lack of ambition in his choice of subjects; but more correctly was simply lacking the tenacity to defend his failures, despite them frequently being of greater interest than his successes.

Which brings us to ‘Under Capricorn’.

With a plot that in places resembles both ‘Rebecca’ and ‘Gaslight’ and with a cast that includes a number of Hitchcock veterans, it was clearly a film Hitchcock cared deeply about and a remarkable technical feat. But was a critical and commercial disaster which Hitchcock just wanted to put behind him and move on.

But it remains his most underrated film and continues to deserve reappraisal. @RichardChatten

Jane Austen Wrecked my Life (2024)

Dir/Wri: Laura Piani. France. 2024. 94mins | Camille Rutherford, Pablo Pauly, Charlie Anson, Annabelle Lengronne

An odd little film that looks like it’s been made for TV the 1980s and with characters to match the slightly retro feel. If Inspector Barnaby or Morse suddenly appeared on set they wouldn’t be out of place yet there’s a certain charm to this literary romcom with its engaging cast of Camille Rutherford and Charlie Anson whose onscreen characters are both old-fashioned in style yet vaguely avant-garde in their ideology.

Laura Piani’s first feature is purportedly set in the English countryside with the while cliffs of Hampshire very much in evidence. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is actually mostly filmed in France where Rutherford’s Agathe says goodbye to her job in a secondhand bookshop and her close friend and colleague Felix (Pauly) after announcing a desire to explore a creative writing residency.

So Agathe arrives in England on the cross channel ferry and is promptly collected by the tweedy Oliver (Anson) in an awkward encounter that culminates in his old sports car breaking down forcing the strange bedfellows to spend an uncomfortable night together in the New Forest. Onwards to the bucolic rose-strewn manor, home of the  ‘Jane Austen Residency’ where the diffident writer is met by the warm smile of Liz Crowther speaking perfect French and announcing herself as the chatelaine of said writing salon.

Camille Rutherford rises to the occasion in an assortment of baggy jeans and old jumpers. Oliver tries to look assured, proudly announcing his literary credentials, as the actual ‘great-great-great-great-nephew’ of Jane Austen. The two then retire to adjoining bedrooms, with Agathe bursting into Oliver’s boudoir, mistaking it to be her ensuite bathroom. Hilariously, she’s stripped naked for a shower.

Clearly a disillusioned romantic, Agathe never imagines that Oliver could be secretly holding a candle for her (under his twill trousers). At this point not clear whether Pauly and her are an item or not. But the ‘ingenus’ in the shape of Agathe and Oliver, continue to give each other a wide berth like bashful teenagers, Agathe looking mostly gauche around the place, and Oliver with a permanent frown to cover up his growing romantic fascination with the French girl. Piani’s direction is certainly offbeat, but the experienced cast manage to hold it all together despite the wobbly tonal shifts from comedy, to slapstick to buttoned-up romantic drama.

Oliver finally comes into his own, after a tentative start, when Felix shows up to test the romantic waters. Although Agathe doesn’t foster a burning desire for either of them, indeed she freely admits to not having had sex for two years. So Austen’s romantic compulsion – indeed prerequisite – to choose a suitable beau rather falls by the roadside as a plot point, given the lack of financial necessity to tie the knot in this day and age.

That all said, this is a rather enjoyable romp largely because of Rutherford and Anson, who have absolutely no onscreen chemistry whatsoever, and that provides the ultimate comedy element. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE | TIFF 2024

Orenda (2025) IFFR (2025)

Dir: Pirko Hankaasalo | Finland – Drama – 2025

After making a series of documentaries Pirko Hankaasalo’s mini masterpiece Concrete Night was selected to represent Finland at the 87th Academy Awards. Now the director and cinematographer is back, over a decade later, with a female character study Orenda, a soulful but sublime seaside story centering on two suffering souls.

Nora, an accomplished opera singer whose life has come to an abrupt standstill after her husband suicide, arrives on a remote lighthouse island to fulfil his burial wishes. There she meets Natalia, a priest who spiritual life is in crisis.

After a difficult start the two women gradually come to terms with each other through their mutual turmoil and trauma to create a delicate but intense bond of trust and understanding. Their complex relationship has links to the past: it seems they are connected through a young boy.

The film delves deeply into their past as they attempt to understand the future and find a way forward in this quietly devastating portrait of loss and all kinds of love. @MeredithTaylor

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2025 | BIG SCREEN

Gaslight (1944)

Dir: George Cukor | Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotton, Angela Lansbury | US Drama 116’

Since the term ‘Galighting’ continues to be applied to the activities of politicians it needs no explanation despite that method of lighting hasn’t been used for over a hundred years. Here the expression applies to the psychological bullying applied to a married woman by her overbearing husband with the intention of driving her to a mental breakdown.

Although this lavish Hollywood remake pales by comparison with the original British version of Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play directed by Thorold Dickinson (whose output was small but select), with Ingrid Bergman despite winning an Academy Award really far too robust for the persecuted wife and Charles Boyer lacking the sheer cold-hearted malice of Anton Walbrook; although Angela Lansbury makes a striking debut as Boyer’s bit on the side. @RichardChatten

Berlinale Film Festival (2025)

Berlin is once again ready to roll out the red carpet for this year’s 75th International Film Festival.

Nineteen films will compete for the coveted Golden and Silver Bears under the creative direction of Tricia Tuttle. Among the hopefuls is one first feature and one documentary. Twenty six countries are represented. seventeen films are world premieres.

Main Competition

ARI – Léonor Serraille | France/Belgium

Andranic Manet, Pascal Rénéric, Théo Delezenne, Ryad Ferrad, Eva Lallier Juan

Andranic Manet is Ari, a young teacher who leaves his job and family home. Lost and alone, he reconnects with old friends, triggering a journey of self-discovery.

Blue Moon – Richard Linklater | USA Ireland

Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott star in this musical drama that looks at the turbulent times of legendary musical duo Rodgers and Hart. The film’s focus is the evening of March 31, 1943, when legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart is forced to confront his shattered self-confidence in Sardi’s bar as his former collaborator Richard Rodgers celebrates the opening night of his ground-breaking hit musical “Oklahoma!”.

La Cache – Lionel Baier | Switzerland / Luxembourg / France 2025

Michel Blanc gives his final performance alongside Dominique Reymond, William Lebghil, Aurélien Gabrielli and Liliane Rovère in this eccentric family portrait set during the May 1968 protests in Paris. A nine-year-old boy stays with his grandparents and uncles while his parents protest. When an illustrious guest seeks refuge in the apartment, the family’s dynamics change.

Dreams – Michel Franco | Mexico 2025

Believing his lover will support him, a young Mexican ballet dancer crosses the border to pursue his dreams in San Francisco. But as ambition and love clash with harsh realities, he must face the true nature of their relationship. Jessica Chastain, Isaac Hernández, Rupert Friend, Marshall Bell star in this follow-up to Memory

Drømmer (Dreams (Sex Love)) – Dag Johan Haugerud | Norway 2024

Johanne’s intimate writings about her crush on her teacher ignite both tension and self-reflection within her family, as her mother and grandmother confront their own unfulfilled dreams and desires. Ella Øverbye, Selome Emnetu, Ane Dahl Torp, Anne Marit Jacobsen

Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani (What Does that Nature Say to You) – Hong Sangsoo | South Korea 2025

Cast: Ha Seongguk, Kwon Haehyo, Cho Yunhee, Kang Soyi, Park Miso

Hong Sangsoo’s has made over forty films. His latest, a drole comedy centres on a poet who spends an amusing day with his girlfriend and her family, fueled by conversation, food and libations.

Hot Milk – Rebecca Lenkiewicz | UK 2025

An English film with a starry cast is finally in the main competiton at this year’s Berlinale. Hot Milk, a first feature for Rebecca Lenkiewic. Emma Mackey and Fiona Shaw play and mother and daughter on holiday in scorching Spain where they are overcome by a mesmerising healer (Vicky Krieps). Vincent Perez stars as a mysterious stranger

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You | Mary Bronstein |  USA 2024 

With her life crashing down around her, Lynda (Rose Byrne) attempts to navigate her child’s mysterious illness, her absent husband, a missing person, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist.

Kontinental ’25 – Radu Jude | Romania 2025

Orsolya is a bailiff in Cluj, the main city in Transylvania. One day she has to evict a homeless man from a cellar, an action with tragic consequences that triggers a moral crisis which Orsolya must weather as best she can.

El mensaje (The Message | Die Nachricht) | Ivan Fund | Arg/Spain

In the Argentinian countryside, a child’s special gift gives her opportunistic guardians the idea of offering consultations with an animal medium in order to earn a living.

Mother’s Baby – Austria / Switzerland / Germany 2025

Claes Bang stars in this family drama about a woman failing to bond with her new born child

Reflet dans un diamant mort (Reflection in a Dead Diamond) | Belgium/Lux/Italy/France 2025

The wacky duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani are back eight years after their last feature Let the Corpses Tan. This one stars Fabio Testi, Yannick Renier, Koen De Bouw, Maria de Medeiros. Set on the French Riviera, once again it follows a 70-year-old ex-spy living in a luxury hotel on the Côte d’Azur who sets off in search of a mysterious woman in the room next door. He is soon confronted by the demons and darlings of a lurid past in which moviemaking, memories and madness collide.

Sheng xi zhi di (Living the Land) | Huo Meng | China, 2025 

With both parents working far away, ten-year-old Chuang is being raised by extended family in his home village, where thousands of years of rural tradition collide with the socio-economic changes of China in the early 1990s.

Strichka chasu (Timestamp) – Kateryna Gornostai | Ukraine 2025 

Despite the war, school life continues in Ukraine, with pupils and teachers striving to continue learning even under constant threat. This  documentary pieces together the everyday lives of teachers and students from different corners of Ukraine.

La Tour de Glace (The Ice Tower) – Lucile Hadžihalilović | France/Germany

I last saw Lucile Hadžihalilović soaking up the sun during last year’s Cairo Film Festival. Her films are an acquired taste but always intriguing and visually stunning. This one stars her partner Gaspar Noe, Marion Cotillard, Clara Pacini, August Diehl and Gaspar Noé

“Colder than ice, her kiss pierces the heart … The 1970s. Jeanne, a young runaway, falls under the spell of Cristina, the enigmatic star of The Snow Queen, a film which is being shot in the studio where Jeanne has taken refuge”

O último azul (The Blue Trail) – Gabriel Mascaro | Brazil/Mexico/Chile/Neth | 2025

In the near future, the elderly must relocate to remote retirement colonies so that the younger generations can go about their work undisturbed. The 77-year-old Tereza refuses and instead embarks on a life-changing journey through the Amazon.

Was Marielle weiß (What Marielle Knows) – Frédéric Hambalek | Germany 2025

Julia and Tobias discover that their daughter Marielle has suddenly developed telepathic abilities and can see and hear everything they do. This leads to situations ranging from the awkward to the absurd as uncomfortable truths are revealed.

Girls on the Wire – Vivian Qu | China 2025

Tian Tian, the single mother of a five-year-old daughter, kills a drug dealer and is then pursued for vengeance. The only person she can turn to for help is her female cousin, Fang Di. Qu’a previous feature was Angels Wear White 

Yunan – Ameer Fakher Eldin |

with Georges Khabbaz, Hanna Schygulla, Ali Suliman, Sibel Kekilli, Tom Wlaschiha

On a remote island, Munir seeks solitude to contemplate a final act, only to find unexpected solace in the quiet presence of Valeska

BERLINALE 13-23 FEBRUARY 2025

Swept Away (1974)

Wri/Dir: Lina Wertmüller | Cast: Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Riccardo Salvino, Aldo Puglisi | Italy, drama 120’

In her 1974 cult classic satire Italian director Lina Wertmuller pictures the World the same today as it was back then. Nothing much has changed between men and women, rich or poor.

A hedonistic couple shoot the breeze and top up their tans on a yacht in the Mediterranean. Mariangela Melato’s Raffaella is a feisty blonde jet-setter with her distinctive Northern accent and clearly captivated by her sultry working class companion Gennarino (Giannini) who hails from deep South.  The two of them lock horns in a deliciously flirty conversation which treads lightly over their provocative political polarisation, the glorious sun-soaked location providing the backcloth for a weighty exchange of views contrasting with the idyllic ambience. But there is an the erotic twist to their torrid tete a tete as they sail into deeper waters. A wonderful voyage that is both intellectually challenging and visually stimulating. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN A 4K RESTORATION | OPENS January 31 in New York City

The Entertainer (1960) | Tribute to Joan Plowright

Dir: Tony Richardson | Cast: Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, Brenda de Banzie | Uk Drama

Joan Plowright (1929-2025) had many fine hours on the stage and screen but one particularly tender role sees her playing Laurence Olivier’s daughter in this tragicomedy

The Entertainer had Laurence Olivier in the title role, reprising his stage role from the Royal Court, co-written by John Osborne from his own play.

There is nothing heroic about Olivier’s Archie Rice: he is a bankrupt womaniser, exploiting his long suffering wife Phoebe (de Banzie) and using Tina Lapford (Field) – who came second in the Miss Britain contest – and her wealthy family to prolong his stage career.

Not even the death of his son in the Suez conflict can deter him from his vain pursuit of a long dead career. Using his father – who dies on stage – for his own advantage, Archie sinks deeper and deeper. There is a poignant scene with his film daughter Jean (Plowright), whom he asks: “What would think, if I married a woman your age?” and Jean answers exasperated “Oh. Daddy”.

After his divorce from Vivien Leigh, Olivier would marry Plowright and she would continue a glittering career well into her seventies. Shot partly at Margate, this is a bleak portrait of show business, shot in brilliant black and white by the great Oswald Morris (Moby Dick, A Farewell to Arms).

JOAN PLOWRIGHT 1929-2025

My French Film Festival 2025

 

For 2025, MyFrenchFilmFestival brings you an eclectic selection to make you laugh, cry, and think. The programme aims to reflect the wealth and diversity of French-language cinema. To help navigate your way through this comprehensive selection and to pique your curiosity, films are grouped by theme.

 

A Family Affair

A social drama, a comedy, and a genre film that question contemporary family dynamics touching on themes of love, adversity, and resilience.

No Love Lost by Erwan Le Duc (above)

Blood Ties by Hakim Atoui

All to Play For by Delphine Deloget

Business as Usual

Whether set in a classroom, behind the scenes on a film shoot, a construction site, or a job search, these four films examine our relationship to work.

Alarms by Nicolas Panay

The Apprentices by Pierre Salvadori

Making of by Cédric Kahn (above)

A Real Job by Thomas Lilti

 

Kaleidoscopic Identities

Four striking stories to explore the themes of transformation and the search for self-knowledge.

Alexx196 & The Pink Sand Beach by Loïc Hobi

GiGi by Cynthia Calvi

Nube by Christian Arredondo Narváez & Diego Alonso Sánchez de la Barquera Estrada

Along Came Love by Katell Quillévéré (above)

 

Look Around, What Do You See?

Three unique poetic visions from filmmakers turning their camera towards the interactions between creation and art, nature and culture.

The Dreamer by Anaïs Tellenne (above)

Montsouris Park by Guil Sela

The Mysterious Adventures of Claude Conseil by Marie-Lola Terver & Paul Jousselin

 

Silent No More

A documentary, a thriller, and a short film that break the silence and invite us to reflect upon sexist and sexual violence and harassment.

Changing Rooms by Violette Gitton

The Man with a Thousand Faces by Sonia Kronlund

Through the Night by Delphine Girard – in association with Wallonie Bruxelles Images (above)

 

Working Class Heroes

An investigation on Mars, a stay in the mountains, and a board game that turns sour: discover three hard-hitting stories that fan the flames of class war.

Sweet Tooth by Joséphine Darcy Hopkins

Winter by Jean-Benoit Ugeux – in association with Wallonie Bruxelles Images

Mars Express by Jérémie Perin (above)

 

Discover the Festival Trailer!

How to participate?

No matter where you are in the world, you have one month to discover the 10 French-language feature films and 10 French-language short films in this year’s programme on the MyFrenchFilmFestival.com platform, with subtitles in 8 languages: Arabic, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish.

On MyFrenchFilmFestival.com, short films can be viewed free of charge around the world.

Feature films – except for the film Making of – are available free of charge in the following regions: Latin America (Spanish-speaking), Africa, the Near and Middle East, Russia/CIS, South-East Asia, the Baltic states (except Latvia), and Ukraine. Where feature films are not available free of charge, festivalgoers can opt for a pay-per-view rate of €1.99 or an all-access passfor €7.99.

Please note that geoblocking may apply to certain films in certain regions.

For more information, go toMyFrenchFilmFestival.com.

 

 

Trap (2024)

Dir: N Night Shyamalan | Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue | US Thriller

This glossy but relatively straightforward serial killer film from M. Night Shyamalan opened only last year and already the pop concert that serves as the backdrop to the preliminaries already makes it feel like a period piece..

As if the sight of a stadium full of teenage girls waving their mobile phones around like candles wasn’t frightening enough there turns out toa serial killer on the loose, bearing the charming nickname ‘The Butcher’ whose plan by the authorities’ to lure him into a trap which naturally involves a highly visible visible police presence to make sure that they have the advantage of surprise

Shymalin is well known for his surprises and here the biggest is probably the presence of Hayley Mills as a senior FBI agent. @RichardChatten

NOW IN UK CINEMAS

82nd Golden Globes Awards 2024

(more…)

I’m Still Here (2024)

Dir: Walter Salles | Cast: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro, Valentina Herszage | Brazil 136’

Walter Salles once again mines his country’s rich history of tragic death and disappearance with this harrowing tale that harks back to early 1970s Brazil under military rule.

This is very much a story of human survival and collaboration. The focus is the Paivas, a liberal middle-class family of seven who are enjoying a happy existence in sunny Rio de Janeiro until rain clouds darken their carefree lives. The Paivas are childhood friends of the director and this tinges the fact-based drama with personal poignancy, based on the book by Rubens and Eunice’s son Marcelo.

The father, Rubens Paiva, is a former Labour Party politician who is now active in the underground opposition, organising safe houses and briefing foreign journalists. When the dictatorship turns the heat up a notch Rubens is taken away by the powers that be for questioning ‘for a few hours at most’.

The second half of the film loses its momentum inevitably due to a tortuous wait for news endured by Rubens’ abandoned family. But left to her own devices his wife really comes into her own, and Torres gives an impressive performance, and one that won her a Golden Globe, as the patient wife keeping the family together. And we really feel for them all at this tortured time as the family pulls together and fights for survival right up until the story’s end in 2014. @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS from end February 2025 | FERNANDA TORRES WON BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – drama, at the Golden Globes 2024

Triple Cross (1966)

Dir: Terence Young | Cast: Christopher Plummer, Rome Schneider, Yul Brunner | UK Thriller

Proudly declaring itself in the opening credits ‘Terence Young’s Triple Cross’, the first half is basically James Bond With Nazis, reuniting Gert Frobe from ‘Goldfinger’ and Claudine Auger from ‘Thunderball’ (with Anthony Dawson from ‘Dr No’, Francis de Wolff from ‘From Russia with Love’ and Edward Underdown from ‘Thunderball’ in smaller parts).

Christopher Plummer is the dashing star who certainly seems to be having more fun than in ‘The Sound of Music’, and the gun with a curved barrel for shooting round corners suggests someone’s tongue was initially in their cheek. But Young’s direction is lazily dependent on pans and zooms, it all goes on for far too long, and becomes increasingly plot-heavy as it grinds it’s way towards the two-hour mark. RichardChatten

NOW ON LONDON LIVE TV

Duel in the Sun (1946)

Dir: Various | Cast: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotton, Grégory Peck, Lionel Barrymore, Herbert Marshall | US Western 146’

For the reminder of his life the phenomenal success of ‘Gone With the Wind’ hung like a millstone around the neck of David O. Selznick, of which Duel in the Sun’ represented the most determined attempt to surpass.

This classic western sees a beautiful Pearl Chavez (Jones) torn between two brothers, one good and one bad in a notoriously extravagant production bedevilled by Selznick’s incorrigible back seat driving who got through more than one directors in the process after the first choice King Vidor walked off the film.

The result was hardly the masterpiece Selznick hoped, but it certainly isn’t dull, looks good in Technicolor, the distinguished casts acts well, and it boasts a memorable score by Dimitri Tiomkin. @RichardChatten

Nosferatu: Symphony of Horror (1922)

Dir: F W Murnau | 1922. Silent fantasy drama 93’

One of the earliest films by Murnau to show real promise – and with yet another version due out in the new year – ‘Nosferatu’ continues to capture the imagination; even creating its own mythology, including its simple survival due to film piracy in the face of legal action by Bram Stoker’s widow.

Opinions still differ as to whether the film is actually any good, with Carlos Clarens dismissing it as “crude, unsubtle, and illogical”; but Max Schreck’s ghoulish appearance – like Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West authentically the stuff of nightmares – continues to bring out the best in commentators, with David Pirie describing Schreck transforming “The well-groomed demonic vampire of Stoker…into a skeletal, contorted monster who shuffles with senile purpose purpose in and out of frame. He resembles an animated corpse far more tellingly than the whole parade of Hollywood zombies who were to succeed him”; which has even given rise to the preposterous rumour that Schreck was a genuine vampire, as depicted in the film ‘Shadow of the Vampire’. @RichardChatten

Oh, Canada (2024)

Wri/Dir: Paul Schrader | Cast: Richard Gere, Michael Imperioli, Jacob Elordi. Uma Thurman | US 91′

As Richard Gere moves into the autumn of his life he joins seasoned pro Paul Schrader for another collaboration in this mellow reflection on the life and death of a fictional documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife (Gere).

Gere and American filmmaker Paul Schrader both have a varied selection of hits and near misses under their belts, a highpoint for Schrader was writing Taxi Driver and directing First Reformed. Here in  this film-within-a-film he adapts Russell Bank’s novel ‘Foregone’ (his second Bank effort after his 1997 Neo-noir outing Affliction).

Against the wishes of his wife (Thurman) Fife’s former pupils get together to film some revealing ups and downs of his creative career in films and film-making that is slowly winding down. The film unfolds in flashbacks largely visiting a productive period in the 1960s when Fife (played by Jacob Elordi) has moved to Canada purportedly to avoid conscription to the Vietnam war (along with 60,000 others who avoided the draft). These episodes seem like they are skimming the surface rather than getting down and dirty with the truth, if truth was ever possible, even back then. But there again, memories are often, by their very nature, unreliable so Schrader could be forgiven for the narrative’s rather patchy feel.

Oh Canada is a brave effort to capture an era, and Gere gives a suitably wistful, often curmudgeonly, turn in the lead. You might find the whole thing a bit too morbid or even bland. It certainly fails to make much of an impact. Sadly one of Schrader’s less successful outings. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN UK CINEMAS

La Cérémonie (1995)

Dir: Claude Chabrol | Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Bonaire | France, Thriller 90’

You’d have to have led a charmed life to have seen a significant amount of the films of Claude Chabrol; a director capable of a quite extraordinary fecundity.

More remarkable even that the sheer quantity of the output he sustained throughout his long career was his constant ability to surprise you, since you never knew whether his next film would be a mere potboiler or another classic.

Firmly belonging in the latter category he managed late in the day with this adaptation of Ruth Rendell’s tale of murder among the bourgeoisie to produce a film as good as any he’d made during his heyday a quarter of a century earlier. @RichardChatten

Sarah Bernhardt, la Divine (2024)

Dir: Gillaume Nicloux | Cast: Sandrine Kiberlain, Laurent Lafitte, Amira Casar, Pauline Etienne, Artur Mazet | France, Biopic 108′

For a 21st century English person it’s difficult to appreciate the magnitude of Sarah Bernhardt’s celebrity a hundred years ago.

Bernhardt (1844-1923) was simply the greatest actress that the French stage had ever known. And Sandrine Kiberlain certainly does her justice in this exuberant biopic from Guillaume Nicloux whose focus is her final decades. It certainly captures her spirit, her voracious appetite for sex, and the unique place she held in society, one that gave her the title ‘la divine’, but also ‘un monstre scare’ thanks to Jean Cocteau.

But we learn little here about Bernhardt’s glittering career on the stage, which once gave her twenty seven curtain calls. Yet, according to records, Bernhardt wasn’t just an actress she was a legend, worshipped by all and sundry as a goddess, as perhaps the first real European star of the stage at a time when Ethel Barrymore was being hailed as the ‘First Lady of American theatre’.

La Divine opens in Paris 1896. And Sarah Bernhardt, aged 52, is at the height of her glory. A pioneer of feminism, she is effervescent, larger than life and completely unconventional. In keeping with her fame, she holds sway in a lavish and palatial apartment where her pet animals have free rein amongst the overstocked settees, books and ornaments, in sumptuous sets designed by Olivier Radot. A stream of friends come and go at all the hours of the day and night, and Sarah seems oblivious to anyone but herself, elegantly dressed in a series of frothy white cotton blouses, or elaborate gowns embellished with gold and ornaments like those in a Klimt painting.

A ‘tour de force’ she gushes endlessly with gleeful laughter or histrionic outbursts. When her long term lover Lucien Guitry (a cold-faced Lafitte) threatens to leave her for a younger woman she cannily leaves a neckless in his bed, then ignores his reasoning, begging him not to go in an embarrassing showdown surrounded by ‘le tout Paris’.

Even on her sickbed she is a force to be reckoned with, only mildly tempered by philosophy and experience. But unlike Anglelina Jolie’s Maria Callas you don’t warm to this diva, even when she is forced to have a leg amputated. What comes across, unsurprisingly, is her extreme self-centredness, and arch self-belief.

The film is decent but unmemorable, with nothing special in terms of structure or look. A typical biopic that flits between three episodes: 1915, 1896 and 1886. There are brief mentions of Emile Zola, Sigmund Freud etc but only in the context of Bernhardt herself. Even the massively famous Sasha Guitry pales into insignificance in a wan turn from Arthur Mazet. No one really stands out. And Nicloux and his co-writer Nathalie Leuthreau fail to enlighten us beyond delivering a standard portrait of a ‘typical star personality’. A biopic that fails to reveal the real person behind the persona. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE

The Universal Theory (2024)

Dir: Timm Kröger | Cast: Jan Bülow, Olivia Ross, Hanns Zischler & Gottfried Breitfuss | Germany Fantasy Thriller 118′

Timm’s Kröger’s seductive but rather arcane neo-noir envelops us in intrigue and sublime black and white images in the Swiss mountains where a German post graduate student is attending a physics conference in the early 1960s. Inveigled into a string of mysterious medics he falls for a charismatic pianist called Karin and witnesses a series of grisly murders. A lofty Hitchcockian and Mahleresque score heightens the tension, goading the complex plot forward – something to do with Cold War conspiracies and radioactivity – and leading us to expect more than is actually delivered. Best known for shooting The Trouble with Being Born, Kroger’s latest foray into directing, and scriptwriting alongside Roderick Warich, is certainly ambitious. The Universal Theory is a bewildering film to fathom out, but one that looks and sounds absolutely terrific.Certainly worth a watch. Let me know if you work it all out @MeredithTaylor

IN UK & IRISH CINEMAS FROM FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER

 

 

A Complete Unknown (2024)

Dir: James Mangold | US Musical Drama 2024

“Well, I wake up every morning/Fold my hands and pray for rain/I’ve got a headful of ideas/That are driving me insane” – ‘Maggie’s Farm’, 1965

Bob Dylan has often said that in the early phase of his career, he didn’t so much write songs as pull them out of the air; it seemed to him that they were already somewhere out there, fully formed, waiting to be found, and all he had to do was write them down.

It sounds a bit fantastical, but maybe that’s how an artist with an indisputable vocation feels when they’re in the grip of the first fine careless rapture. James Mangold’s excellent and engrossing film focuses on this period of Dylan’s life, giving us a compelling portrait of the artist when his creativity was at its most volcanic.

Some might object that the movie doesn’t explain how, exactly, you get to hitch this kind of ride in the first place, but you’d probably have to position your camera right inside the artist’s psyche to have any hope of doing that, and Dylan’s own ‘out of the air’ theory suggests that, even if it you could, maybe not all that much of significance would be revealed.

Timothée Chalamet convincingly embodies the restless turnover of personas which accompanied this early outpouring – every bit as headlong and chameleonic as that of Bowie, but less obviously theatrical. Impassive and vigilant, Chalamet’s Dylan seems to be soaking up everything while giving out very little: except, of course, in the form of the songs.

Cryptic as he appears, the film succeeds in giving us the sense that a lot of contradictory ideas are churning in Dylan’s mind at any given time, with no strong urge to resolve them. Just as he wants to maintain his relationship with Sylvie Russo, the bright spark of a girlfriend who helped awaken his political awareness, he craves a connection with Joan Baez, the glamorous princess of the folk movement.

Then, almost as soon as he’s forged an alliance with her, he wants to blast his way out by steering his music in directions which – again, paradoxically – are simultaneously more populist and far more esoteric than anyone else, especially in the folk scene, imagined possible. At the same time, he genuinely doesn’t see any real difference between blues, folk, R ‘n’ B, rock ‘n’ roll, country, symbolist poetry, and anything else that grabs him. It’s all self-expression, right?

The film thrives on these tensions as it builds towards the notorious 1965 Newport festival when Dylan’s unveiling of his electric music supposedly sent many die-hard folkies into terminal conniptions. While relishing the disruptive effect of his new style on some audience members, though, some part of him seems genuinely and hurt and baffled by the vengeful uproar they aroused to this day.

Dylan has said that when he arrived in New York, he wasn’t planning to become a folk singer. The scene he dropped into, while impeccably high-minded and historically important in a host of ways, also had its smothering and didactic side. White people weren’t supposed to sing the blues. People who drew their repertoire from life on the land shouldn’t sing whaling songs. Etc.

The folk movement was always on the look-out for ‘authentic voices’ to convey its social and political ideas to a wider public. As the movement’s de facto torch-bearer, Pete Seeger provided much of its drive and energy. Often unfairly dismissed as a gormless old fuddy-duddy, Edward Norton’s performance restores Seeger’s dignity, intelligence and benign energy. This was an admirably ethical man. But he felt that the primary function of art was to serve social and political goals. He could see the potential of the charismatic, hugely talented Dylan. And he wanted to mould him.

The young minstrel chafed against expectations he saw as staid and ossified. Which makes sense. When you’ve written “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” once, you may not feel like writing it over and over again, no matter how much Pete Seeger wants you to. Particularly if your muse is drawing you in ever wilder and more demanding directions.

The film ends as it begins, with the artist travelling alone to meet some as-yet unmapped future. Time has revealed Dylan’s political affiliations as inchoate and non-denominational, with songs like “Joey” and “Hurricane” suggesting that he was always more interested in weaving outsider myths than probing too deeply into the realities behind them.
This movie is obviously a labour of love in which everyone concerned is performing at peak levels. Along with committed performances, it renders set-pieces like street scenes in early 60s Greenwich Village and concerts at Carnegie Hall and in open countryside in thrillingly believable and visceral ways. It’s not easy to play recognisable people with high public profiles, but Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash more than justify their places alongside Chalamet, with Elle Fanning as a touching and feisty Sylvie Russo.

After a brief, brilliant, early blaze, a lot of poets quickly wink out of existence. Chatterton died at 17, Keats at 25. Rimbaud, one of Dylan’s key influences in his transition to more abstract and personal material, stopped writing at 19. Dylan Thomas, also clearly important to the young Robert Zimmerman in a variety of ways, managed to stumble on into his late 30s.

Many have said that even if Dylan had been killed in the famous motorbike crash of 1966, when he was 25 (which the timeline of A Complete Unknown doesn’t quite reach), he’d already created a body of work of towering cultural significance. But, at 83, Dylan continues to perform and record, his career now edging towards an astonishing 65 years.

Possibly the mixture of hard-bitten, cynical opportunist and sensitive, idealistic romantic – along with a good few other things – goes some way towards explaining this longevity. And, quite possibly, Dylan is just as surprised about it as everyone else. Ian Long

IN UK CINEMAS FROM 17 January 2025

September 5th (2024)

Dir: Tim Fehlbaum | Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch, Zinedine Soualem, Georgina Rich, Corey Johnson | US Thriller 94’

September 5 takes us back to a time when news events were broadcast exclusively on official news channels in the pre-digital age. It recalls how a dedicated team at ABC Sports covered live footage of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attacks when eleven Israelis were killed due to lax security.

In his impressive third feature German director Tim Fehlbaum captures all tension and nail-biting dread of that fated day on 5th September when accuracy and professionalism were paramount in getting the facts first, but crucially correct. Involving a plethora of technical equipment and a great deal of nouse these news-gatherers overcame considerable hurdles to deliver up to the minute on air coverage as it unfolded.

Peter Sarsgaard is at his best as the terrier-like head of the news team Roone Arledge. The film also stars a fractious Ben Chaplin (Marvin Bader); and Leonie Benesch as Marianne Gebhardt, a local German translator. John Magaro plays team newbie Geoff Mason who turned up for an ordinary day’s work that turned into something quite extraordinary.

All this plunged Germany back into humiliation at the time when the country was still coming to terms with the public shame of the Second World War when many thousands of Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. And Marvin was himself the son of a victim. A really riveting watch that feels timely despite it happening more than fifty years ago. @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS FROM JANUARY 2025

 

I Know Where I’m Going

Dir: Michael Powell | Cast: Wendy Hillier, Roger Livesey, Pamela Brown. Uk Drama 90’

If ‘Black Narcissus’ conclusively demonstrated Michael Powell’s skills as a director by recreating India at Pinewood, ‘I Know Where I’m Going’ anticipated it by managing to take Roger Livesey to the Outer Hebrides without him ever leaving England.

Although apparently dissimilar the opposing temperaments of Powell & Pressburger dovetailed beautifully as exemplified by this film combining Powell’s Celtic bravado with Pressburger’s Austro-Hungarian romanticism.

After looking askance at Powell’s recent kinky shenanigans in ‘A Canterbury Tale’ the critics on this occasion positively turned over and purred, James Agee grudgingly declaring it free of their liabilities “inordinate ambition, bumptiousness, and a general unevenness of judgment”. @RichardChatten 

Saint-Ex (2024)

Wri/Dir: Pablo Agüero | Cast: Louis Garrel, Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Sergej Onopko, Yseult, Blanche Redouloux | France Drama 98’

The French writer and poet Antoine de Saint-Exupery has always held a special place in the French collective imagination with his wartime death shrouded in mystery. Rather like the English artist Eric Ravillious, who lost his life off the coast of Iceland, the Petit Prince writer also disappeared at sea when his plane vanished during a reconnaissance mission over Corsica in July 1944 ,

Here, in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the writer’s loss, the Argentine director Pablo Aguero puts a poetic spin in a reverie that recalls the time during the 1930s when Saint Ex and his childhood friend Guillaumet (Cassel) were pioneering aviators risking their lives in the line of duty to deliver mail between Europe and South America on Aéropostale, a vital service and one of the many that saw men putting their country first. Faithful to Saint-Ex himself this airborne drama evokes the same spirit and fantasy elements of his work enhancing the poignancy of a tender story of friendship and sacrifice, inspired by Saint-Exupery’s 1939 novel Terre des Hommes .

Guillaumet, whose dedicated wife Noelle is delicately brought to life by Diane Kruger when Saint-Ex attempts to rescue his colleague who also went missing, during a postal delivery. Saint-Ex is transformed from a the boyish dreamer who crafted Le Petit Prince into a Gallic hero worthy of his place in French history.

Rather than opting for a straightforward biopic about Saint-Ex and his life, Aguero brings magic realism into a whimsical tale of courage, endeavour and captivating beauty enhanced by Claire Mathon’s sumptuous images of cloud formations, sunsets and misty seascapes over Patagonia and the Andes mountains. @MeredithTaylor

 

Lee (2024)

Dir: Ellen Kuras | US Biopic 117′

Best known for her staggering images of the Second World War Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller (1907-77), aka Lady Penrose, was an American photographer and photojournalist who started life as a fashion model in the New York of the 1920s before becoming a war correspondent for Vogue magazine.

One of the most memorable images, taken by her wartime collaborator David E Sherman, a Jewish-American photojournalist, pictures the nude Miller in Hitler’s empty flat in Munich, nonchalantly lounging in the bath, her boots, caked in mud from a visit to Dachau, resting symbolically on the edge. Winslet, who plays Lee with her signature conviction and gusto, is the best thing about a rather underwhelming affair that skips between episodes of this enterprising woman’s life as a creative force who transformed her talents from modelling to photography and art finishing up as a celebrity chef.

The focus for debut feature director Ellen Kuras is Miller’s time as war correspondent for British Vogue during the 1940s’. The film sets the scene in 1930s Paris where the young Miller is fancy free before meeting her husband Anthony Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard) and moving to London where the dark clouds of war are looming. Desperate for a role, she gets one from Vogue editor Audrey Withers. (another nuanced turn from Andrea Riseborough) and we experience the full clout of her talent from then onwards.

Enriched by some of Miller’s iconic photos with witty titles: ‘You Will Not Lunch in Charlotte Street Today’ depicting a smoke-filled street where a sign pinned to a tree reads simply: ‘Unexploded bomb’ the film showcases Miller’s talent and unique female gaze that produced images that captured ‘a thousand words’ at a time where female combat photographers were banned. The director, an Oscar-nominated cinematographer, here acknowledges not only the power of the image but also Lee’s undeniable contribution as a woman.

The film touches on key protagonists such as David E Sherman (Andy Samberg), and the tragic Solange d’Ayen (Marion Cotillard), Miller’s girlfriend in Paris, without really fleshing them out in the context of her life. Her husband Anthony Penrose barely gets a look-in. And why not cast an English actor to portray an edgy English lord when there are hundreds of them who would have been more convincing in the role? While not perhaps the definitive biopic on Miler, Ellen Kuras, an Oscar nominated cinematographer in her own right, certainly recognises her valuable contribution. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON SKY

 

From Roger Moore with Love (2024)

Dir: Jack Cocker | UK Doc 90

Who was your favourite Bond?. If the answer is Roger Moore (1927-2017) then this new BBC-commissioned documentary offers fascinating insight into the real man behind the legend.

Directed by Jack Cocker, the film traces back to Sir Roger Moore’s modest early life in South London revealing how his innate charm charisma, along with his acting skills, would make him an international star and a much loved household name in a career that spanned over thirty years.

After training at RADA in 1945 Moore made his professional debut in Perfect Strangers alongside Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr. After a stint as a knitwear model in the early 1950s, Moore headed Stateside to take on television roles until he signed with MGM in 1954 with a string of support performance allowing him to rub shoulders with the likes of Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas. The 1958 TV series Ivanhoe, shot in England, was a great success, but the role of Simon Templar in The Saint from 1962-69 would mark his transition to international stardom with an idiosyncratic raised eyebrow becoming his hallmark. He then played alongside Tony Curtis in The Persuaders! until James Bond took over in the Seventies and early1980s. His final role was in Janos Edelenyi’s 2016 drama The Carer alongside Emilia Fox and Brian Cox.

From Roger Moore with Love is enlivened by Moore’s own diaries, family photographs and ample footage from his early childhood right through to his final interviews on TV chat show ‘Parkinson’ shortly before his death at 89. The film describes his early marriage to South African dancer Doorn van Steyn, his turbulent life with famous singer, Dorothy Squires, and how he eventually become a family man with Italian actress Luisa Mattioli and their children Geoffrey, Deborah and Christian, who talk about happy times with their parents’ A list celebrities and friends. Moore finally married heiress Kristina Tholstrup and served as a goodwill ambassador at UNICEF for 27 years. Talking heads include his close friends Joan Collins, Pierce Brosnan, Nanette Newman, Christopher Walken. Jane Seymour who were clearly very fond of him.

So Roger Moore was naturally suave and genial but he also emerges as polite, considerate and possessing the same tongue in cheek humour as Cary Grant, never taking himself too seriously, but never losing sight of the right opportunity to progress his career. One contributor recalls having so much fun on set when Moore was involved they had to build in more time, even when the set caught fire during The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977. @MeredithTaylor

FROM ROGER MOORE WITH LOVE – in UK cinemas 13 DECEMBER

Savanna and the Mountain (2024) Laceno d’Oro Film Festival 2024

Dir: Paulo Carneiro | Portugal Doc 74’

In the ‘wonderful kingdom’ of Covas do Barroso, a peaceful Northern Portuguese mountain village, life was sweet until something started spooking the horses according to this pastoral parable premiering at Cannes 2024.

And horses aren’t stupid. In fact they’re the first notice the subtle changes that the villagers decide to investigate way up in the mountains above their homes. This is a film about the power of the people. Their determination to stand up and activating against un-democratic change, especially when it challenges their environment and their threatens their way of life.

Eco Documentarian Paulo Carneiro is well known on the festival circuit for his similarly themed short Water to Tabato in 2014 and his first feature-length documentary in 2018, Bostofrio où le ciel rejoint la Terre. The Portuguese director Portuguese filmmaker was back in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight sidebar with a hybrid doc re-enactment filmed on a shoestring budget – and none the worse for it – that sees local villagers getting together to stop a government incentive aimed at extracting lithium via their contractor Savannah Mines.

The locals stage colourful demonstrations marching with uniforms, mock swords and banners bearing the sloganA mafio do litio” (The lithium mafia). They even kidnap a suspected mineworker and put him in a barrel – just for fun. Throughout the country environmentalists and opposition parties echo their sentiments and the government takes note, at least for a while. But that’s not the end of the villagers’ fight against the mining company. And it’s still raging on today. A generous, darkly funny film that nonetheless has serious undertones. @MeredithTaylor

WON A SPECIAL MENTION AT THIS YEAR’s LACENO D’ORO FILM FESTIVAL, AVELLINO 2024

 

Maria (2024)

Dir: Pablo Larrain | Cast: Angelina Jolie, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Valeria Golino, Haluk Bilginer, Stephen Ashfield, Valeria Golino, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Vincent Macaigne, Lydia Koniordou, Angelina Papadopoulou | 2 hours 3 minutes

Pablo Larrrain has captured the essence of female icons Princess Diana and Jacky Onassis. Now her rival Maria Callas comes under the spotlight in this wistful portrait of lost love and longing. Maria is about a diva not at the height of her powers but at her swansong, four years after her final performance, she misses music and fills the aching gap with medication while planning to sing again, against the advice of herr doctor (Vincent Macaigne). Like a swan gliding through water Maria is a graceful elegant drama full of swooning arias and tearful reflections on what was, and could have been  played with supreme finesse by Angelina Jolie with just a hint of a Greek accent. 

With his vintage lens Ed Lachmann evokes the soft mauve tinged lustre of this twilight era for the Greek goddess of opera who inhabits a palatial Paris apartment in 1977. The mournful tragedy tells of failed marriage, miscarriage and doomed romance. But there’s an autumnal warmth emanating from Maria’s glacial persona that makes her appealing. One gets the impression she would be amusing company with her acerbic grasp of reality and witty one-liners. She garners respect with her high standards, professionality and fear of losing dignity. We feel for her as a woman who has risen to the top of her and now only sees an emotional abyss with only her pet poodles, her housekeeper and butler for company. Alba Ruhrwacher and Pierfrranceso Favino are perfectly cast as the adoring dedicated domestic duo, tirelessly moving Maria’s piano around to suit her whims, and confiscating her carefully hidden tablets squirrelled away in pockets and handbags. 

The days pass languorously with Maria giving interviews to a French journalist Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and practicing her ‘return to form’ with a respectful pianist (Stephen Ashfield). There are magnificent musical forays with Maria in her full splendour. Black and white flashbacks reflect on her unhappy childhood with a grasping mother (Lydia Koniordou) and her brief love affair with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), who arrogantly ousted her husband. Onassis seems to have been her soulmate, although they never married, that role went to Jackie. 

This is a production enhanced by its costumes and set designs from Massimo Cantini Parrini and Guy Hendrix Dyas respectively. With her mannequin figure Jolie showcases a selection of exquisite gowns and Seventies fashions as she saunters slowly through the French capital . In a soigne corner cafe she sips espresso on the terrace in full view of le tout Paris: “I come to restaurants to be adored” she informs the waiter. @MeredithTaylor

ON RELEASE FROM 10 January 2025

American Star (2024)

Dir: Gonzalo Lopez Gallego | Spain 107’ 2024

A stylishly slick but formulaic film sees Ian Mcshane (now 81) booted and suited in Fuerteventura as a soulful professional hitman called Wilson.

The canary island provides a suitably inhospitable widescreen backcloth for this curio that feels less and less like a thriller the more it plays out as a drama with some dark humour and a gently lilting score from Remate.

Wilson, a gravelly voiced tattooed war veteran, is there to do away with ‘the target’ who is not at home when he turns up at his swanky modernist villa to kill him. Instead a young French woman is swimming in the pool. So Wilson roams aimlessly about the moon-scaped island and ends up playing pool in a nearby bar and quaffing vintage whiskey served to him by said French girl (Nora Arnezeder) Gloria, who apparently works there and offers him lunch with her mother a wonderfully drole Fanny Ardant, who is no fool when she meets the suave silver fox. 

Softening elements arrive in the shape of Wilson’s gauche and shaggy-haired sidekick Ryan (Adam Nagaitis) who turns up from Lancashire offering to help, instantly lowering the tone along with an irritating little boy called Max (Oscar Coleman) who hangs around the hotel. The American Star of the title turns out to be a vast and rusting shipwreck that provides a scary interlude when it starts creaking ominously in the waves.

The film showcases McShane’s talents as an affable and intuitive killer who knows how to charm the birds and the boys but can still be brutal when necessary. For once he gets a leading role and carries it off with style in director Gonzalo López-Gallego’s visually appealing offbeat thriller. @MeredithTaylor

 

Gangster No. 1 (2000)

Dir: Paul McGuigan | UK Thriller 103′

A sweary bit of brutal British gangster violence offers a stylish depiction of the Kray Brothers’ era, elevated to a cult classic by a watchable cast of Paul Bettany, Malcolm McDowell, Saffron Burrows and David Thewlis.

Writing credits go to Sexy Beast team Louis Ellis and David Scinto whose original screenplay is adapted by Johnny Ferguson as a betrayal and revenge story following Bettany’s rookie gangster through the Sixties early Seventies when he morphs into social misfit McDowell, never quite vanquishing his boss Freddie Mays (Thewlis) whose spunky onscreen lover Burrows kicks ass as Karen. @MeredithTaylor

Vertigo Releasing is planning to release the title across digital platforms on 13 December 2024.

 

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Dir: Nicolas Ray | Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood | US Drama

‘Rebel Without a Cause’ started life as a modest black & white exploitation item about disaffected youth, but allied to Nicholas Ray’s flair for colour and penchant for melodramatics – heightened by Leonard Rosenman’s dissonant score – ultimately emerged in widescreen & colour as an ambitious vehicle for an emerging star.

It’s been observed that the youngsters display more careworn than their parents and they certainly seem to derive little satisfaction from a life of cheap thrills and mindless violence; which is why it’s a cathartic moment when James Dean finally has to take the conciliatory role with Plato at the film’s conclusion.@RichardChatten

NOW ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS

Rumours (2024)

Dir: Guy Maddin, Evan & Galen Johnson | Canada 118′

Cult Canadian director Guy Maddin is an auteur in his own right with an eclectic stash of avant-garde films under his belt and a loyal fanbase. Recently he joined forces with Evan and Galen Johnson and here joins them for a curious pulp horror outing worth seeing only for its stellar cast.

It all starts off rather straighforwardly in a lakeside gazebo in the grounds of a German castle at a G7 conference hosted by Kate Blanchett’s spritely president Helga Ortmann. She is joined by Denis Menochet (for France); Charles Dance (bizarrely for the US) a pigtailed and horny Roy Dupuis (Canada) who proceeds with his offbeat powers of seduction; Nikki Amuka-Bird (for the UK) Italy’s Rolando Ravello and Takehiro Kira (Japan). The motley crew start work on a crisis paper until proceedings take a deep dive into Dr Strangelove territory.

During their arrival Ortmann has proudly showed the heads of state the recently discovered remains of a prehistoric body perfectly preserved in a nearby peat bog. And this atavistic relic gives rise to a strange turn of events that doesn’t quite live up to expectations. But never mind about that, the cast makes this a worthwhile, if overlong, watch with some witty exchanges debating the world as it grinds to a holt ecological, socially and spiritually @MeredithTaylor

Rumours – In UK cinemas 6th December from 6th December 2024

 

 

 

Nocturnes (2024)

Dirs: Anirban Dutta, Anupama Srinivasan | Doc, India. 81’

The world of moths is probed in this peaceful and poetic new documentary set in the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas on the border of Bhutan and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh where their life spins on the phases of the moon. 

For just ten days leading up the new moon these mysterious nocturnal creatures whizz frenetically in all directions drinking the nectar of flowers. All this activity is to generate heat.

Filmmakers Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan try to identify the moths as thry settle on a bluish softly glowing light screen during the hours of darkness. What emerges is a hazy tableau buzzing with life of different shapes and sizes.

Meanwhile back in the lab the ecologists must try and make sense of why so many moths species use the nighttime to engage in their vital life process. What they do know is that for the last 300 million years the hardy creatures have held our planet together. There are so many different species,, around 160,000 compared to 17,500 types of butterflies. Sadly they are often considered poor relations of their butterfly cousins. Yet adorned with silvery wings and striking colours they have a distinct allure of their own and follow the moon guided by its phases as they go about their nighttime forays for food.

Lulled by a gossamer often eerie score of ambient – sounds of the forest that vibrates with all kinds of life from birds to elephants, this is very much a sensory film and you may drift off into a pleasant reverie.

In the soothing nocturnal soundscape, Manis a quantitative ecologist, leads a mission to take stock and catalogue every type of Himalayan moth in order to better understand the impact of so-called climate change. With her assistant Bicki, who belongs to the indigenous Bugun community, she has decided to focus on the hawkmoth. With digital cameras the two start to photograph the moths as they are drawn into the light. There’s a strange allure to the Death’s-head hawkmoth, so called because its upper thorax resembles a skull. 

A beguiling film that once again showcases the stunning biodiversity of the natural world celebrated by two pioneering ecological filmmakers. @MeredithTaylor

NOCTURES won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award at SUNDANCE 2024

Nosferatu (2024)

Dir: Robert Eggers | US Horror 133′

The name ‘Robert Eggers’ used to have critics gagging with anticipation. His early offerings The Witch and The Lighthouse were well received , even The Northman had a certain gritty appeal, but once again this indie filmmaker may have sold his soul to the devil with a pale also-ran remake of Murnau’s 1922 original, and Werner Herzog’s 1979 outing based on Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.

Remember how Tomas Alfredon’s Let the Right One In was killed stone dead by the US remake Let Me In.? Sadly the same is true here. A star-strewn cast of Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson and Willem Dafoe fails to set the night on fire and does nothing to lighten the load of this torpid period potboiler that splutters its way towards the finishing line growing shriller and more gory by the moment, and further sapping our enjoyment with a running time of over two painful hours.

True to the Gothic genre, the focus here is the sexual allure of the vampire, but although Corrin does a good job of moaning, Skarsgard’s Count Orlok just looks too ludicrous to seduce even the most susceptible victim so encumbered is he with the over wrought costume and make-up. Looking more like Freddy Kreuger while struggling, unsuccessfully, to pull off Gary Oldman’s eerie vocal delivery that won him best actor in Dracula (1992). All this stifles the supernatural mystery and sheer terror engendered by Kinski and Max Schreck.

Called simply Nosferatu this is at best an ertsatz piece of horror that sucks elements from previous outings offering an over-laboured  melodrama that starts off promisingly with Jarin Blaschke’s visual wizardry and shadow-play and an evocative original score from Robin Carolan, but soon sinks under the sheer weight of it own bloodlust.

Eggers’ version fails to add anything of its own except for lashings of gore and sensationalism: the 2024 update lacks both the subtle resonance and beauty of Werner Herzog’s visionary Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) or the sheer terror of Murnau’s 1922 ethereal shocker A Symphony of Horror. It may well excite avid horror fans or those new to the ‘Nosferatu’ stable, but Eggers over eggs the omelette with his lurid  treatment: a more subtle approach would have delivered another welcome addition to the canon. @Meredith Taylor

IN CINEMAS FROM THE 1ST JANUARY 2025

 

JFK (1991)

Dir: Oliver Stone | Cast: Oliver Stone, Kevin Costner, Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon | US Drama 183’

Not to be trusted as history – John Frankenheimer’s TV movie ‘Path to War’ is much fairer to LBJ – but amply compensating for the childish bombast of most of Oliver Stone’s oeuvre, ‘JFK’ deservedly won Academy Awards for photography and editing.

A lot of dirty linen has since come out about Kennedy, while Jim Garrison is simplistically portrayed as played by Kevin Costner as a bespectacled, pipe-smoking everyman, while feminists may take issue with Sissy Spacek’s thankless role as Garrisons’s whiny wife. The greatest casting coup has to be Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald – the principal villain naturally being a Brit – with Donald Sutherland coming close.

New Orleans is very well used as a location, but paradoxically the meticulous attention to period detail creates a false sartorial impression since the action manages to continue into the late sixties without any of the men growing shaggier. @RichardChatten

NOW ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS

The Brutalist (2024)

Dir/Wri: Brady Corbet | Cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pierce, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Joe Alwyn | US Biopic Drama 235′

Brady Corbet’s exhilerating epic imagines the life of a penniless Hungarian architect who arrives in America having fled the Nazi concentration comps where he was forcibly separated from his wife, due to red tape.

Recalling and reinforcing his tour de force in The Pianist Adrian Brody is once again magnificent, in the lead role of László Tóth, a enigmatic character whose creative energy and initiative shapes the foundations of post-war America as he revives his once illustrious career in this engrossing piece of filmmaking. The film is so exciting because it confirms that Cinema as a form of artistic expression is still alive and kicking thanks to Brady Corbet who won Best Director at Venice.

The title could refer to Brutalism as a style of architecture that showcases the bare beauty of the building materials, such as marble, over the decorative design, as seen during the Belle Epoque. Or it could refer to the rich client that Toth meets when he arrives in New York emerging from the depths of the immigrant ship that brought him from worn torn Europe. Guy Pierce is Harrison Lee Van Buren, a wealthy but quixotic industrialist who recognises and envies Toth’s brilliance and vision that shows up his own innate lack of style and sensitivity. This unleashes dark forces within the American that project as contempt. he continually undermines Toth’s efforts to deliver the project while, at the time applauding and encouraging his artistic talents and exquisite attention to detail. A metaphor for America’s gradual decline into mediocrity.

Tóth is at first welcomed and given board and lodging by his cousin Attila (Nivola) who has converted to Catholicism, and offers him a job in his Philadelphia furniture store. But Toth allure and magnetism stirs up unsettling feelings in Attila’s American Catholic wife who suggests sexual impropriety with her inlaw and this forces the architect back onto the streets where he meets Gordon (de Bankolé) who becomes his only male friend. Toth emerges as an imperfect hero with temper and his reliance on opioid drugs as a result injury during him time in Dachau makes him all the more human

Van Buren and his family are deeply antisemitic and embody the same fear and deep-seated envy that had given rise to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and was now seeping into Wasp America and whipping up an unsettling xenophobic in its cosy community whose cultural mediocracy resented anything new or different such as European culture and finesse.

Despite his vast wealth Van Buren exerts his authority over Toth by employing a project manager to cost-cut and knit-pick on the massive project to design a vast community centre in the town in memory of his late mother. This undermines Toth’s artistic control of the scheme and causes angry confrontations between the parties with tragic results.

The Brutalist is a thrilling and confident adventure that lives up to its three and a half hours running time filling the screen with its dynamic storyline and artistic flair, yet there is also a mysterious quality at play that makes it all the more enthralling, along with a daring and discordant score.

Brody’s Toth embodies the creative personality that is by turns vulnerable and confident, and his indomitable wife Erzsébet (Jones), a gifted writer, is equally endowed on the creative front as the two soul mates drive each other forward with their deep and enduring love anchored by mutual suffering. Their orphaned niece Zsófia (Cassidy) is denigrated in a plot involving a sexual encounter with Harry (Alwyn), Van Buren’s conniving son.

Corbet and his co-writer Mona Fastvold seem to be basing their narrative on a real story but the fact that it is all entirely fictional adds another dimension capturing the imagination as we cast our minds back through the possible sources for his extraordinary creative inspiration.

Entirely shot in VistaVision by Lol Crawley, The Brutalist swept the board at this year’s Golden Globes Awards winning the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Drama with Brady Corbet taking home the Best Director, Motion Picture award,  and Adrien Brody winning Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – drama award. The feature been nominated for 10 Academy Awards.

@MeredithTaylor

THE BRUTALIST is in UK Cinemas from 24 January 2025 |

Becoming Hitchcock – The Legacy of Blackmail (2024)

Dir: Laurent Bouzereau | Doc 72′ 2024

A new documentary exploring the Hitchcock’s debut career in England during the 1920s and 1930s is directed by Laurent Bouzereau and narrated by American radio host and film critic Elvis Mitchell.

As the title suggests the first part of this dense doc is dedicated to his first British talkie Blackmail (1929) highlighting the English director’s predominant style as a visual filmmaker whose talents and enjoyment lay in setting up the scene and crafting the interplay between light and shadow. For Hitchcock image was king and drove the narrative forward with the dialogue coming second. By his own admission he found writing a task.  

Blackmail, starring Andy Ondra as a woman who kills in self defence, was first released in 1929 as a talkie with although the first part is largely silent with minimal dialogue, the silent version following, 

Hitchcock always made an appearance in his own films suggesting he possibly wanted to be an actor, but this was far from the case. So he always staged these vignettes early on in the narrative so as not to draw the viewer’s attention away from the film as a whole.  

Becoming Hitchcock moves steadily through its paces with a focus on lead actors and main themes: of violence, intrigue, blackmail and, of course, love, with the thriller being a particularly English passion. Hitchcock was also a master of psychology and his villains were invariably charming and often smiling as they inveigled their victims.

So the spoken word was of lesser consideration for Hitchcock. But for Bouzereau the opposite is true. The film’s narration is verbose and dominating. The radio celebrity talks continuously throughout the film as if reading from a prepared script, with plentiful images and black and white sketches added almost as an embellishment, and clearly emphasising Mitchell’s talent for broadcasting. Becoming Hitchcock would perhaps work better as a radio broadcast. The criticism here is the lack of time given over for quiet reflection, let alone digestion, in a spare running time of 72 minutes.

A shame, also, that Bouzereau chose an American rather than an English voice to narrate this quintessentially English story, given that the Leytonstone-born Hitchcock spent a good fifteen formative year’s crafting his career in Blighty before moving across the pond in 1939 and taking US citizenship in1955. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON BLURAY FROM 13 DECEMBER 2024

Queer (2024)

Dir: Luca Guadagnino | Cast: Daniel Craig, Daan de Wit, Jason Schwartzman, Drew Starkey, Henrique Zaga | US Drama 135′

Luca Guadagnino’s Queer is a study of a defeated American man living in exile in 1950’s Mexico, unsure of himself and in need of human love and contact. His fragile state will lead him into a relationship with a younger man.

Based on the semi-autobiographical life of William S Burroughs, the novella ‘Queer’ was troubled after the success of his 1951 debut ‘Junkie 1951’ as Burroughs battled withdrawal symptoms from heroin addiction linked to his resurgent libido. ‘Queer’ would be shelved and dismissed by its author until after the success of ‘Naked Lunch’ in 1959. Rewritten from discarded fragments and published in 1985, the financial success of Queer would support the writer until his death in 1997.

Given the troubled nature of the book, Guadagnino and scriptwriter collaborator Justin Kuritzkes have bravely tackled source material although problems have not entirely escaped the filmmakers.

Guadagnino is at his most effective drawing sensitive performances from actors involving focused material. Arguably his best film so far is Challengers (2024) with its focus on doomed relationships resulting from wrong decisions at the heart of a three-way relationship.

Queer establishes a vivid first half in the sensuous stylised recreation of a seedy Mexican City inhabited by a coterie of restless, rootless characters with visible on-screen references to both Cocteau’s Orphee and Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano as another study of a doomed man struggling with addiction.

The second half of Queer moves to Ecuador in South America where the American continues to not only search for his inner self-worth but also the drug Yage with powers to bring enlightenment. These were sparse references in Burrough’s writing which are fleshed out by Guadagnino as a mish-mash of frenzied hallucinations involving a witchcraft doctor in a jungle where the queer relationship with his lover starts to collapse. The film begins to resemble The Spiral Road (1962) in which Rock Hudson and Burl Ives sweat it out with black magic and hallucinations on an Indonesian jungle-based 1961 studio set.

Guadagnino confirms his skill with sensitive character relationships and uniformly fine acting from an ensemble cast including Drew Starkey as the male lover, Jason Schwartzman reviving his career as an ageing camp man, and a startling cameo by Lesley Manville. It is however the central performance of Daniel Craig that holds Queer together and brings the disjointed meandering structure of the film together.

Playing William Lee, a washed-up exiled American forced to live for legal problems in downtown Mexican City, he wastes away his time frequenting sleazy bars with coded 1950s gay networks. Craig is fearless as he continues to shake off his James Bond persona with a sensitive edgy performance, much as Sean Connery took on with films like The Hill and The Offence.

As in the novel, Queer never finally resolved the central characters’ troubled battles with desire and obsession. It is Craig who provides the film with a beautiful final coda focusing on the face of a defeated lost soul, accepting the inevitability of death which equals the haunting final close-up of Julie Christie as a junkie adrift in Robert Altman’s 1971 McCabe and Mrs Miller. These two final closeups make for beautiful, sublime connections. Peter Herbert

QUEER premiered at Venice Film Festival and screened during the London Film Festival 2024

 

One to One: John and Yoko (2024)

Dir: Kevin McDonald and Sam Rice-Edwards | UK Doc 90′

Kevin McDonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ One to One: John & Yoko is an assemblage of archival film and aural recordings, exploring the life and times of John Lennon and Yoko Ono who after the breakup of The Beatles in 1969 left an affluent lifestyle in rural England with preference for the edgy life style offered by New Yok of the early 1970s.

There are many telling details including how Ono felt about the way she was viewed by The Beatles, the background behind benefit concerts including support for child victims of the Willowbrook Scandal and comparisons with the exile and return of Charlie Chaplin to USA happening alongside Lennon’s own fight with immigration authorities. Both Lennon and Ono were fascinated by the growth of Television as an early form of social media which they saw as replacing the traditional family routine of sitting around a fireplace as the centre of family life.

Difficult relationships with activists like Jerry Rubens, which ended after differences involving the use of force became problematic, are covered along with both Lennon and Ono settling into more conventional family life with the arrival of a son that would culminate in tragedy. The death of Lennon is fleetingly referred to by the filmmakers.

Documentary assemblage is not the film’s only function as One to One develops in its second half as a visual essay and a chronicle of times past, reflecting the present. The life of Lennon and Ono in America was a key cultural element of the times which involved a highly contentious war in Vietnam, movements about race and gender and the rise of students with acts of protest. This was reflected by a rich tapestry of music which Lennon and Ono added to with songs like Give Peace A Chance and Imagine.

One to One contains vivid contemporary footage linked to the election of 1972 which provided the Republican Richard Nixon with a landslide victory against the Democrats which he would lose two years later after the disgrace of Watergate. Parallels with today and 2024 America are felt as the film progresses into a thought-provoking visual essay and chronicle of our times, raising questions as to how much has changed between 1972 and 2024. With music as a force to not only imagine but also give peace a chance, it could be argued that this was much more organic and easier in 1972 than in 2024. Peter Herbert

ONE TO ONE premiered at Venice and London Film Festivals 2024 | Coming to UK Cinemas in 2025

Peter Herbert 

 

 

London Film Festival 2024 | Peter Herbert looks back

Peter Herbert found the LONDON FILM FESTIVAL in rude health in its 68th year with an impressive offering of 252 films in a rich slice of contemporary cinema alongside a smaller but effective archival strand. It would be impossible to see all of these films over 15 days but Peter managed 12 films mostly without UK distribution including a couple of exceptional films which were all worthy of screening.

Various strands and themes became apparent as the days rolled. One is the fascination to divide films into chapters both orderly and disorderly which in some cases works though not always.

Another observation is the growing power of documentary archival film assemblage and how this is moving into new forms of film essay cinema for some of the worlds key filmmakers. Here are Peter’s views and comment on twelve films viewed over twelve days.

Radu Jude and co-writer/director Christian Ferencz-Flat’s Eight Postcards From Utopia (below) was made over a period of seven years using film clips compiled from advertisements as a commentary on Romania’s transition from communism into capitalist democracy with entry into the European Union in 2007.

Steve McQueen’s Blitz opens with powerful emotional scenes of mother love set against the carnage of the bombing of London during the blitz of WW2. The ‘blitz’ of London and other parts of England by Nazi Germany killed over forty three thousand people and damaged two million houses during a short but intense blitz during 1940/1941 – although for McQueen this is background so as to foreground personal stories of characters impacted by the upheaval of war.

Alain Guiradie’s Misericordia (main pic) is a perfect new companion piece to Stranger by the Lake from 2013. The earlier film is arguably one of gay cinemas seminal films that turned a lake with forest woodland into a gay Garden of Eden/stroke evil. Created with a rigorous visual sound scape, the earlier film moved from dawn into night over a single day as a range of characters experience all of the life forces of love, life, sex and death. Guiradie returns to aspects of the earlier film with Misericordia which opens with a man travelling by car from the city into a remote rural French village. He has come to express condolences for his well-liked, respected former boss who the film intimates was also his long term secret lover. Warmly welcomed by the dead man’s widow who may or may not have known of the relationship, he is viewed with growing suspicion by the dead man’s son and disturbs members of the local community including local cops and an ageing priest with secrets who ventures into the forest collecting mushrooms but gets more than bargained for. The forest becomes for Guiradie another garden of beauty and doom filmed with his characteristic natural sound, lighting and no music bar the sounds of nature. The film mixes drama and comedy with razor sharp precision, unravelling sacred and profane twists to relationships with a few additional red herrings. After a series of over complicated films that preceded and followed Stranger By the Lake, Guiradie is back in control.

Grand Tour (below) which won for the Portuguese’s filmmaker Miguel Gomes the Best Director award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and has been reviewed on Filmuforia . These are additional notes prior to its world-wide release in the new year. Grand Tour offers consummate filmmaking which will take viewers on a journey into new places and far away states of mind.

Gomes was inspired by two passages from W Somerset Maughan’s 1930 travel writing The Gentleman in the Parlour and the film book ends its tale of an obsessive passion of one for another which will never be reciprocated with an approach that is beguiling and disturbing. Acknowledging F W Murnau’s Tabu (1931), Gomes uses the delirious quality of quasi monochrome, tinged with real or subdued colour to create his vision built mainly on studio sets alongside location filming. Another source of inspiration is Josef Von Sternberg and in particular the crazy amour fou between Dietrich and Cooper on a studio conceived vision of Morocco (1930).

Coincidentally Japanese director Kohei Igarashi ‘s Super Happy Forever was made concurrently and shares similar structure, themes and musical references. The two films will make for interesting crossover viewing.

Roshan Sethi’s A Nice Indian Boy is a feelgood film edited into chapters with titles including love, music and family, for no obvious reason as it unfold its story about two gay men Naveen (Karan Soni) and Jay (Jonathan Groff) as they hesitantly but gradually fall in love.

Kevin McDonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’s One to One: John and Yoko is an assemblage of archival film and aural recordings, exploring the life and times of John Lennon and Yoko Ono who after the breakup of The Beatles in 1969 left an affluent lifestyle in rural England with preference for the edgy life style offered by New Yok of the early 1970s.

Sergei Loznitsa’s The Invasion is one of the outstanding films of the festival. The director, born in Russia and raised in Ukraine is a documentary/fiction filmmaker who since 1996 has built up a recognisable collection of twenty one documentaries and four fiction films.

Yasuzo Masumura’s Manji (1964) was screened in the reduced but vital archive section of this year’s festival and received a masterly well informed, passionate introduction from Robin Baker, the BFI head of Cultural Partnerships, and Miki Zeze from Japanese distribution company Kadokawa who plan to restore and release other films from the fifty plus films made by Masumura (1924-1986).

The 42-minute Leos Carax featurette It’s Not Me (below) uses chapters to structure a self-portrait of the director’s thoughts as a freewheeling stream of conscious cut up of images and sound. This doesn’t exactly bring coherence to its visual story board concept although the film, inspired by the cut-up sound and image style of late Godard and Histoire du Cinema in particular, emerges a sparkling spinning disco ball of a film. Clips include Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter and a very beautiful sequence from Murnau’s Sunrise also uses extensive still archival photographs to explore and comment on ideas and themes relating to the massive gap and change that bridge creativity during the transition of the 20th and 21st centuries.

After the films screening at the ICA, the 64-year-old Carax discussed how he feels that it is now up to and the right of new artists to explore where creativity is heading particularly in the current state of challenging world-wide change and upheaval.

Along with scenes capturing how the camera eye captures movement, extracted from copious clips from his films including The Night Is Young, Bad Blood (1986) and Les Amants du Pont Neuf (1991), there are also sequences that gaze at the beauty of youth with the life experience of actors who were once younger (Juliette Binoche and actor Denis Lavant ) and whom we see age in clips from films before our very eyes.

The film is not afraid to tackle the darker sides of the creative personality with at least one contentious reference to Roman Polanski and his early years marked by the holocaust, with a link to his later notoriety that damaged his late career. There is little time to stop and question Carax and some of his reasoning during his hellzapoppin of free-flowing thoughts but at the heart of the film he remains a positive force.

After the final credits there is a treat in the form of an ode to joy involving the beautiful puppet from Annette and the music of Bowie singing Modern Love. A modern film indeed.

Luca Guadagnino’s Queer is a study of a defeated American man, living in exile in 1950s Mexico, unsure of himself and in need of human love and contact which which will draw him into a relationship with a younger man.

Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio opens with a family fast asleep while a new day dawns on the remote hillsides of the Trentino-Alto Adigo region of northern Italy. The family awakens to the daily routine of a village community including a father as head of family who prepares to open a classroom while shepherds tend to animals. There is little to suggest these are the last years of WW2 although there are ominous sounds of warfare in the distance. The tone changes with the arrival of a soldier who has deserted the army and will stir up the awakening feelings of a young woman bringing heartache and trauma to family and herself as well as to a wider range of village and city communities.

Truong Minh Quy’s Viet and Nam closed the festival – as much as Eight Postcards from Utopia opened it – with bold challenging conceptual filmmaking. These are contemporary films confronting the sometimes-tortured psyche of respective nations with filmmakers looking for answers from past histories while opening up the possibilities of the future. Viet and Nam is a dark but strangely illuminating film that fuses written and spoken poetry with sensitive visual imagery. Peter Herbert 

BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL OCTOBER 2024

 

The Invasion (2024)

Dir: Sergei Loznitsa | Doc 2024 145′

Sergei Loznitsa’s The Invasion is one of the outstanding films of the festival. The director, born in Russia and raised in Ukraine, is a documentary/fiction filmmaker who since 1996 has built up a recognisable collection of 21 documentaries and 4 fiction films.

The Invasion opens with a mass for the dead and divides into chapters filmed during recurring four seasons linked to cycles of life including a wedding, funeral, communal baptism ceremonies, children at school, rifle training, abandoned dogs turned feral, recovery from wounds as well as the delivery of food.

The film is created out of 25/30 commissioned documentary short films supervised by Loznitsa between March 2022 through to early 2024. All the sequences employ Loznitsa’s characteristic natural soundscapes with neither music or narration and all filmed mid shot and long distant wide screen camera viewpoint without closeups.

These are not ordinary times though, as all the films are of people living everyday life during the Russian invasion of Ukraine that started on 24/2/22. Unlike other current documentaries made on the battleground or directly filmed inside war zones, this is more about an invasion felt, heard but not shown directly as if for the Ukrainian’s people this is an enemy which dare not speak its name.

Harrowing scenes of real time footage of severely wounded bodies being cared for by nurses and doctors showing  neither blame nor anger become silent, quiet testaments to the power of others to heal and repair. In one of the most powerful sequences, books are bound with rope, transported into trucks and wait in a queue to be thrown onto conveyor belts.

Titles sporadically appear on the screen: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekov as they move alongside titles of  philosophy, science and religious books. All will be destroyed and the viewer left to decipher the value and meaning of how what we love and learn from can also be systematically erased when countries suffer during warfare. At one point an elderly man muses that after 32 years of independence, life in Ukraine still feels like 1942.

Loznitsa is a filmmaker with archival knowledge of his country. With The Invasion he has created a moving requiem of resilience and resistance with febrile cross over links between sensitive fictional stories about people (A Gentle Creature and Donbass) and harrowing archival documents including the record of genocide massacre in Bab Yar Context  2021. He is a filmmaker who may well be unable to rest until life in Ukraine returns to normal.

Peter Herbert

THE INVASION won the In Spirit of Freedom award at Cannes 2024 and premiered at London Film Festivals 2024 | coming to UK cinemas in 2025 

 

Hard Truths (2024)

Dir: Mike Leigh | Cast: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, David Webber, Jonathan Livingstone, Tuwaine Barrett, Michele Austin | UK Drama 97’

Not an easy film to watch but certainly true to its title. Mike Leigh’s latest brings together all the negative elements of urban life today for a black family. Lacking the gentle humour and endearing characters of Life is Sweet or Secret and Lies, Hard Truths pictures the coal face of middle-age misery for hard working mum Pansy (an obdurate Marianne Jean Baptiste) whose only joy is her spotless North London home and comfy settee. An oafish out-of-work son Moses (Barrett) lounges around upstairs, and a loveless marriage to decent manual worker Curtley (Webber) offers little respite from her days of endless depression where everything gets on her nerves and communication only leads to ugly confrontation, even with her easygoing sister Chantal (Austin). Pansy needs to find some joy or salvation in her life, but somehow she can’t. Brilliant characterisation and performances all round but not many laughs in this plangent portrait of despair. @MeredithTaylor

HARD TRUTHS IS NOMINATED FOR THE GOLDEN GLOBES and BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS 2024

 

Heretic (2024)

DirWri: Bryan Woods, Scott Beck | Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Hugh Grant, Chloe East | US Thriller

Hugh Grant turns to talents to psychological horror as the bad guy in this warped and unnerving three hander.  

Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East play two young Mormon missionaries who arrive at his spooky house in a remote rural backwater. Mr Reed (Grant) is charm personified. Inviting the girls in for blueberry pie he oozes brisk appeal as an erudite married man Reed claiming his wife is baking in the kitchen: Mrs Reed never appears. 

We all know how psychopaths gain the confidence of their victims from films about Ted Bundy, John Christie and Dennis Nilsen. But Reed has a different agenda that grows more sinister and disarming as the creepy feature directed by A Quiet Place’s Scott Beck and his regular co-writer Bryan Woods unfolds with increasingly chilling consequences accompanied by a pithy script and an iconic score that screams cognitive dissonance .

With a patronising rictus on his face Reed calls the Mormons’ bluff with reverse psychology and academic bluster, mansplaining the various religious persuasions and encouraging an intelligent debate which he manipulates with patronising ease. Turns out his views are quite radical. Reed is laid back, glib and plausible, but the girls are out of their depth, paralysed with fear as Heretic gradually descends into the realms of horror with plenty of gore, girly jump cuts and possibly even AI or this could be just an Act of God. @MeredithTaylor 

NOW IN UK cinemas |NOMINATED FOR A GOLDEN GLOBE 2024 

Never Look Away (2024)

Dir: Lucy Lawless | With Christiane Amanpour, Margaret Moth | US Doc 85′

A swashbuckling CNN combat camerawoman and trailblazing female icon; the unbelievable, yet entirely true, story of award-winning journalist, Margaret Moth, is brought to vivid light by acclaimed actress and activist, Lucy Lawless, in her directorial debut.

An inspirational and unflinching biography, which includes both testimonials from the people who knew and worked with Moth, and dramatic footage from the war zones she covered, Never Look Away delves into the life and work of an incredible woman, a true pioneer known for her tireless work to capture catastrophic events and atrocities on film, no matter the risk.

After her first assignment to cover the riots that followed Gandhi’s assassination in India, she would go on to travel to the heart of the most dangerous conflicts in the world including the Persian Gulf War, the Bosnian War and the 2006 Lebanon War. However, underneath her fearless persona, candid interviews with colleagues and family reveal a self-destructive and emotionally fraught woman who would struggle when anything got in the way of her appetite for adrenaline and efforts to document the worst of humanity.

Never Look Away is in UK cinemas from 22 November 2024

UK Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s0rPcU_OiA

Bread and Roses (2024)

Dir: Sahra Mani, US 2023 90′

Breaking news from Afghanistan: the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has decreed that women’s voices are now considered awrah, a term connoting nakedness or ‘that which must be covered.’

Female voices may no longer be heard in public: particularly by other women, who must refrain not only from singing songs, but even from reciting the Quran in the presence of females. “When an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear,” the Minister, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, declared. “And how could they be allowed to sing if they are not even permitted to hear each other’s voices while praying?”

In some areas of the Western press this immemorial edict, only now unearthed by the diligent scholarship of the Taliban (whose name, after all, translates as “students, or seekers of knowledge”), is being called “bizarre” and “absurd”. But it’s perfectly rational from the Taliban’s perspective. For the twenty years in which they were out of office, they had to watch as a generation of Afghan women benefited from a reasonable measure of education and freedom, and aspired to an entirely new range of goals.

The new declaration of awrah is very obviously calculated to mute this group and prevent them from spreading their knowledge to younger cohorts (one suspects that speaking, rather than singing, is the real issue here). A curtain must be drawn across their experience, and the possibility of different forms of life and thought expunged from the record.

Bread and Roses focuses on three women whom the Taliban would very much like to silence. They are representatives of those whose condition improved before the American military pulled out in 2021 (a decision made during the Trump administration, but enacted by Joe Biden) and who are now fighting against the shameless war of revenge being waged by the Taliban against half the country’s population.

Indomitable but kindly activist Taranom Seyedi is forced to leave the country and eke out life in a meagrely appointed safe house in Pakistan: cold, penniless, lacking proper washing facilities, and surrounded by hostile wild animals. “We are the future presidents of our country,” she reminds the women with whom she shares the house. One day this may come true, but right now it seems a far-off dream.

The gentle and reserved Sharifa Movahidzadeh previously worked as a government employee, but is now reduced to the boring pursuit of sewing garments to pass the time and staring out across the cityscape of Kabul from the roof of her family house, where she is mostly confined.

The term “bright spark” could have been specifically coined for the intensely likeable Zahra Mohammadi, who makes wearing colourful clothing and perfume part of her rebellion. Despite coming from a conservative background, she qualified as a dentist and started her own practice, but now the Taliban has closed down all female-run enterprises. Zahra begins to organise activists on her former premises; she is arrested and sees women she knows tortured so badly that they are virtually unrecognisable.

The courage and dignity of all three women is outstanding, but it begs the question – why should anyone be obliged to lead lives that require such massive reserves of fortitude? Why can’t they simply… live, like the rest of us?

The film shows women protesting against the closing of schools, and water cannons and tear gas being used against them. it shows armed Taliban fighters brutalising defenceless demonstrators, and threatening to kill a woman who has been arrested for continuing to speak. If the moral imbecility of all this isn’t enough, a few simple statistics illustrate the insanity of the regime on a merely practical level.

Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in Asia, with 4.5 children being born on average to every Afghan woman. The current population (around 35 million) is estimated to reach 47 million by 2025, and 76 million by 2050.
The country’s Gross Domestic Product declined by more than a quarter in 2021 and 2022, and there’s no sign of any significant recovery on the horizon.
Meanwhile the rate of participation in the labour force among males is 69.1%.
Among females, it’s 4.8%.

But it would be wrong to think that disaster is inevitable, or even that the Taliban are the natural rulers of Afghanistan: a highly complex nation riven with tribal and ethnic divisions. Their first period of control lasted just five years, and one can only hope that their second will not only be shorter, but also their last. Bread and Roses is an important document, and it should be seen.
@_i_a_n_l_o_n_g_

In selected UK cinemas | Apple+ TV | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL | GOLDEN EYE 2023

A Real Pain (2024)

Wri/Dir: Jesse Eisenberg | US Comedy 90′

Jesse Eisenberg) and Kieran Culkin are the ultimate odd couple in this autobiographical buddy comedy road movie .

Benji and David are cousins meeting again after years apart. They were once close buddies and have decided to join a tour group and go in search of their beloved grandmother’s former home in Poland. David, in particular, wants to get to grips with his family history and explore how his own emotional issues rank compared to those who suffered during holocaust.

But tensions soon surface as the two revisit their childhood in this hilarious and insightful and self-assured second feature, written by Eisenberg who deftly combines comedy and pathos and directs a solid cast featuring Will Sharpe and Jennifer Grey .

Benji (Culkin) is brash and emotionally open but totally lacking in self-awareness while his banner ad-salesman cousin is a thoughtful and sensitive, missing his wife and little daughter and confessing to a touch of homesickness. It’s a dynamic that offers both humour and awkwardness. We tend to root for David as the most respectful of the two, although Benji’s blind-sightedness provides cringeworthy elements yet points to a deep sadness in his life as a kid who never seems to grow up, but would never admit to it. He’s an unstable character who thrives in momentary relationships but manages to hit off with Jennifer Grey’s divorced mothe.

Clearly this group trip is fraught with memories of a tragic past   treading on delicate ground involving visits to concentration camps and ghettos. Although A Real Pain is a film that explores our collective past as a universal family. All this cries out for decorum and sensitivity that the blundering Benji seems to lack in spades, although the men clearly love each other deeply, and this comes out particularly for David. Will Sharpe, as the group leader, tries desperately to iron over the interpersonal cracks with platitudes in this cleverly calibrated threesome.

At one points Benji rails at the seemingly hypocritical fact of them all travelling First Class in a train that, back in the grim past, could have carried their ancestors to their terrible graves. But he also suggests that his fellow trippers leave a commemorative stone on appropriate gravestones, in line with tradition. This idea does not go down well with the new owner of their grandmother’s former home who considers it a possible tripping hazard for the old woman who now lives there.

Eisenberg really fleshes out the rest of the tour group here, including a Rwandan refugee (Kurt Egyiawan) who has converted to Judaism and a recent divorcee (Grey) who bonds with Benji’s offbeat take on life, although the final scene is a telling reflection on his state of limbo “Anyone could be a friend”. @MeredithTaylor

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD for BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Kieran Culkin) in a Comedy or Drama | SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL WALDO SALT SCREENWRITING AWARD | SCREENING DURING VIENNALE FILM FESTIVAL 2024 

Francis Lederer Season: Maman Colibri (1929)

This November and December the Austrian Cultural Forum celebrates the long and colourful life of Francis Lederer (1899-2000).

Austria’s answer to Maurice Chevalier, Lederer’s international career spanned the silent era and continued well into the 1970s. A selection of four films will be screened to reflect his best known performances, including Maman Collibri 

THE AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM | LONDON SW7 | 21 NOVEMBER 2024

Bird (2024)

Dir/Wri: Andrea Arnold. UK/France. Drama, 119 mins

A lyrical spadeful of social soil soaked in the English countryside and served up with a dash of magical realism is the best way to describe this latest feature from Andrea Arnold.

Set in her native Kent on the fringes of Gravesend on the Thames estuary Bird makes multiple visual references to its avian-themed title but also features butterflies, bees, horses, foxes and dogs along with a cast of British actors, a German, Franz Rogowski, being the standout. He plays the titular hero Bird, a charismatic wayfarer who will soon come to represent everything decent and honourable in this squalid corner of broken Britain where living off the State has become an acceptable social norm.

Arnold’s Cow, a devastating documentary portrait of a dairy farming in the 21st century, came to Cannes Film Festival several years ago but went home empty-handed. Bird stands to gain more leverage due to its international stars Rogowski, and Barry Keoghan who plays Bug, a selfish, tattooed layabout who fathered a kid (Hunter) at fourteen, and is now set to be a granddad and an accidental father to his savvy young daughter Bailey (Nykiya Adams in a stunning debut).

Apart from the animals, Bird is a chaotically poetic film full of music, dancing and fighting (courtesy of its male contingent). Coldplay, Fontaines D.C. and Sophie Ellis-Bextor all feature in a rambling storyline that centres on twelve-year-old Bailey who lives in a dingy seaside flat with Bug and her slightly older brother Hunter (Jason Edward Buda) who is also heading for teenage fatherhood. None appear to do a day’s work or have anything approaching a job. Bug’s plan is to harness the slime of his recently purchased Colorado River toad which exudes a pricey hallucinogen he can flog on the black market.

So Bailey is forced to make her own life until she befriends Bird after falling asleep in a field full of daisies beside the M2 – and these scenes are particularly gorgeous to look at; Arnold knows how to ‘smell the roses’ cinematically-speaking and Bird is a film that takes itself slowly along the byroads, alighting on nature in all its summery beauty as well as the dregsville domestic interiors, not to mention bodily functions. Is Bird for real? – at one point Bailey gives him a Chinese burn just to check, but he’s the nearest thing to a decent bloke she’s ever come across and so begins their subtle love affair.

Arnold’s 2009 feature Fish Tank embarked on a similar scenic journey for its lost heroine but this time the English filmmaker heads in an unexpectedly new and inspired direction, and this really makes the film special although thematically we’re on traditional territory. The handheld camera may leave you in a daze but that’s all part of the slightly unreal life these drifters lead. @MeredithTaylor

NOW AVAILABLE ON MUBI from Friday

The Problem with People (2024)

Dir: Chris Cottam | Cast: Colm Meaney, Paul Reiser, Lucianne McEvoy, Jane Levy, Dés Keogh | Comedy drama 102′

The film starts so reassuringly in the Emerald Isle with its stereotypical green landscapes stretching out to a lakeside in county Wicklow, all set to the lilting sound of the fiddle. What follows is a scrappy saga that gradually loses steam in championing that ’special relationship’, Americans fondly seeing Ireland as some sort of idyllic fatherland. Apart from a few minor gags, there’s none of the caustic wit of Martin McDonagh here. The Problem with People is directed by German-born Chris Cottam. Wally Marzano-Lenevich co-writes with Paul Reiser who also stars.

Back in the distant past two Irish cousins fell out and one moved to Brooklyn never to return. On his deathbed the Irish descendent’s fondest wish is to reunite the family, once and for all. So it falls on his son Ciáran (Meaney) to invite his New York-based cousin Barry (Reiser) to patch things up, although the two have never met. Warmly greeted by the locals on his arrival, Barry sees the benefits of Ciáran’s bucolic existence. But the bonhomie is short-lived. When the father dies his Will incudes Barry in half of the estate, creating a rift that spreads throughout the village.

Subplots involve Barry’s gay daughter (Levy) who soon joins the party and forms a bond with Ciaran’s ex-wife (McEvoy. The characters are given a contemporary twist but the plotlines are largely implausible with clunky dialogue lacking authenticity. With its strong cast, The Problem with People works best as a riff on family relationships, grief and remembrance with arguably greater appeal for US audiences than those on this side of the Atlantic. @MeredithTaylor

ON RELEASE IN CINEMAS IN UK AND IRELAND.

Stolen Hours (1963)

Dir: Daniel Petrie | Cast: Susan Howard, Michael Craig, Diane Baker, Edward Judd | UK Drama 97’

That rarest thing, a remake that improves upon the original.

Prefaced by an elegant title sequence by Maurice Binder to the accompaniment of Mort Lindsay’s melancholy score, the treatment throughout is much more subtle than it was in ‘Dark Victory’

Susan Hayward is a more robust presence as the heroine, and at the ending isn’t required to compete with the music as Bette Davis had had to with Max Steiner.

Being made in Britain probably contributed to it being more understated, where shot in sumptuous colour it makes good use of Cornish locations and gains added poignancy from the fact that Hayward herself also later died in eerily similar circumstances. @RichardChatten

NOW ON TAKING PICTURES TV

Juror #2 (2024)

Dir: Clint Eastwood | Wri: Jonathan Abrams | Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch, Chris Messina, Kiefer Sutherland, J.K. Simmons, Gabriel Basso, Cedric Yarbrough, Leslie Bibb, Francesca Eastwood, Amy Aquino, Adrienne C. Moore | US 113’

The truth can be a dangerous thing as Nicholas Hoult finds out in Clint Eastwood’s chewy courtroom drama. Informative and complex rather than nail-biting Juror #2 is an absorbing film with its intelligent look at the US justice system in all its anomalies and unpredictable uncertainties.

In Savannah, Georgia Hoult is Justin Kemp, a squeaky clean family man and recovering alcoholic who finds himself called up for jury service in a high-profile murder trial that brings to light a chilling realisation: the poor guy was actually there at the scene of the crime. His wife Allison (Deutch) is about to give birth to their first child after a previous miscarriage, adding further anxiety to an already stressful state of affairs.

The man in the dock, James Sythe (Basso), was out drinking with his girlfriend (Eastwood’s daughter, Kendall Carter) on the night of the crime. He’s been charged with her subsequent death by Faith Killebrew (Colette), a confident county prosecutor, who is also campaigning to be the new district attorney.

So while Sythe’s life hangs in the balance, Justin is paralysed by a moral dilemma as it dawns on him that the ‘deer’ he hit that night was actually the victim. Should he come clean, or stay quiet and protect his own family – that’s the predicament.

Juror #2 is not just about a murder trial, it’s about a man’s sense of justice and moral probity. It explores the growing guilt and suspicious behaviour that comes into play as his character plunges further and further into a state of emotional turmoil. Hoult is rather good as the culpable party – he starts to blush and shake as he reaches out to his solicitor friend Larry Lasker (Sutherland) for insight and support. Clint and his writer Jonathan Abrams ask us all “what would you do in the circumstances”?

Sixty years after Clint was bewitching us in A Fistful of Dollars (1964) his versatile career as actor, director, producer and composer continues to flourish. About time one of the big festivals gave him a tribute. @MeredithTaylor

ON RELEASE FROM 1 NOVEMBER 2024 |

 

Hot Fuzz (2007)

Dir: Edgar Wright | Cast: Simon Pegg, Cate Blanchett, Bill Bailey, Martin Freeman , Bill Nighy, Bill Cornish, Billy Whitelaw, Timothy Dalton, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine | Uk Comedy 121’

‘Hot Fuzz’ belongs to that select group of movies that on its original appearance received a lukewarm critical response, but by the time it reached television had already deservedly achieved cult status.

When it first hit cinemas critics sniffily compared this gleeful spoof of everything from the Avengers episode ‘Murdersville’ to ‘The Wicker Man’ unfavourably with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s previous collaboration, ‘Shaun of the Dead’, but it sounded fun so I went to see it anyway and was certainly not disappointed.

Particular thought has gone into the casting, with Cate Blanchett’s unbilled cameo being particularly memorable. @RichardChatten

NOW ON DIGITAL RELEASE

Misericord (2024) Valladolid Film Festival 2024

Dir/Wri: Alain Guiraudie | Cast: Félix Kysyl, Jean-Baptiste Durand, Catherine Frot, Jacques Develay, David Ayala | France, Thriller 102′

All over France the village bakery is becoming a thing of the past. Many places don’t even have a local bar anymore and Alain Guiraudie mourns the demise of rural life in his latest, a comic thriller, exploring repressed sexual desire and the power of the Catholic Church in a leafy French backwater.

Guiraudie’s sinister 2013 debut Stranger by the Lake, follows a familiar theme of the outsider coming to town and disrupting the status quo. But this time with a delicious twist.

It all begins with a funeral in a remote village in Aveyron, near Toulouse. The family come together to revisit past and present. The deceased, Jean-Pierre, ran the local bakery but his troubled son Vincent (Durand) is in no state to take over and his widow Martine (Frot) is in disarray. But she soon cheers up when Jeremie (Kysyl) arrrives to pay his respects. He used to work in the bakery as a teenager but has long left the village. Vincent is not keen to see him, and is irritated when his mother welcomes Jeremie back into the fold, inviting him to stay.

There’s a whiff of Claude Chabrol to this dark little dramady that sees the tight knit locals flitting between each other’s households, their apparent friendliness couching a savage air of mistrust. And while keeping their motives and backstories hidden, Guiradie keeps the tension taught through the fleeting expressions that flicker across the faces of Martine, her son Vincent, their friend Walter (Ayala), local vicar Father Grisolles (Develay), and particularly Jeremie who is the most expressive of the lot.

Clearly things have gone on in that close community, although outwardly they all appear to be straight; Martine and her husband Jean-Pierrre, Jeremie purportedly with a girlfriend back in Toulouse. But when Jeremie runs into Vincent in the woods, their rough horseplay seems to have suggestive undertones, and soon ends in tragedy whereupon Jeremie is forced to cover his tracks. He then bumps into Father Grisolles, picking mushrooms, who seems a bit too keen to offer Jeremie a lift. Jeremie makes a swift exit then swings by to catch up with his old friend Walter. After a few beers, he strips off and propositions him, Walter chasing him away with a rifle. The two later fluff over the episode, on the grounds of being drunk.

So all these interactions are ambiguous but somehow suggestive of a fluid sexuality at play. Félix Kysyl is particularly good at being all things to everyone in his role as Jeremie. For the local gendarmes, he is the number one suspect in Vincent’s disappearance, and yet his implicated guilt always appears to be the elephant in the room during questioning, his presence seems to unearth unwanted elements of guilt and remorse that have lain buried in this small community for many years.

Although they all trust in the eminence grise, Father Grisolles, we soon begin to realise that he is a subversive force, but not necessarily a force for evil as we soon discover in the film’s gripping third act where Jeremie will find salvation where he least expects it in the moody and muted autumn tints of this suspenseful and slyly amusing thriller. @MeredithTaylor

Misericordia’ wins top prize; Spain’s indie success; MISERICORD In UK arthouse cinemas from December

 

 

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers (2024)

Dir: David Bickerstaff | Prod: Phil Grabsky | UK Art Doc

Exhibition On Screen is a series of documentary portraits of painters and their iconic works. It goes behind the scenes at major galleries and museums – this time London’s National Gallery – offering detailed insight from experts and curators and dramatised scenes that bring the artists to life.

David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky already highlighted the Vincent Van Gogh’s letters with his brother Theo,(1853-90) in the 2015 documentary Van Gogh A New Way of Seeing. This time they once again bring the letters to bear with a lyrical look at works from the artist’s most vibrant, less sensational, period when he discovered the power of colour and sunlight during a two-year sejour in the South of France.

Through forty seven paintings and fourteen drawings, the focus here is Van Gogh’s imagination as a visual poet rather than the tragedy of his personal life. The theme of lovers dominates in the opening room with  his portrait of  “the lover”, lieutenant Paul Milliet, the Zouave regiment soldier who Van Gogh saw as a ladies’ man. The artist was clearly aware of his seductive powers: “Milliet’s lucky, he has all the Arlésiennes he wants, but there you are, he can’t paint them, and if he was a painter he wouldn’t have any.”

La Berceuse 1889

This image is paired with that of the “the poet” – his Belgian artist friend Eugène Boch (Musée d’Orsay, Paris) whom he considered a more sensitive soul, framing him against an azure background of stars. In the middle of these two works is a picture of two embracing lovers strolling through a shady park, in fact the public park opposite the famous yellow house Van Gogh rented in Arles and shared, at one point, with Gauguin during 1888-9 when he painted ‘The Yellow House’, and ‘The Bedroom’.

During this time he also depicted his short spells in the local asylum just outside Saint-Remy-de-Provence. These stays, when he stopped working altogether, enabled Van Gogh to recuperate and recalibrate his emotional state before getting back to work with renewed vigour. Far from the troubled madman he is so often depicted as, this exhibition and film lays bare the artist as a sensitive and deeply poetic soul uniquely able to convey the beauty of his surroundings on canvas.

Central to the exhibition is the spectacular ‘Starry Night over the Rhone’ (main picture) and Self-Portrait further illustrating his successful time in Arles.

With valuable contributions from art specialists and curators: Christopher Riopelle, Lachlan Goodie, The Times’ critic Rachel Campbell Johnson and others, the film also offers a detailed look at detailed marks and brushwork from a selection of rarely seen paintings from private collections all over the world. ‘The Poet’s Garden’, ‘The Trinquetaille Bridge’ and ‘The Public Garden, Arles’.

Poets and Lovers shows how Gogh had started to build his work into a series that could work together. An example of this is the so-called ‘triptych’, with two of the Sunflowers surrounding ‘Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle’ (La Berceuse) from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The National Gallery owns the ‘Sunflowers’ on a yellow background, which is displayed with one of Van Gogh’s two versions on a blue background, this one on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. All the three paintings are displayed on one wall.

Ironic, then, to think that Van Gogh was unable to sell his work during his lifetime, relying on the financial support of his brother Theo, when Nowadays his paintings go under the hammer for eye-watering amounts of money, even running into the millions.

Enriched with dramatised sequences this is a spectacular film to watch and keeping re-visiting about Van Gogh’s hopeful and productive time in the South of France. @MeredithTaylor

ON RELEASE FROM 6 NOVEMBER 2024

 

The Outrun (2024)

Dir: Nora Fingschiedt | cast: Saoirse Ronan, Saskia Reeves, Stephen Dilane,

Saoirse Ronan is the star of this dour character drama set in the Orkney Islands where she plays a struggling alcoholic in a dysfunctional family.

Some people have terrible lives and really suffer to keep on the right path but why do we lionise those who resort to drugs and drink to keep going when there are so many who manage to triumph through sheer grit and determination in the face of tragedy and strife.

Saved by some the ethereal landscapes and some watchable performances from Ronan, Saskia Reeves, and Stephen Diane (as her parents) you nevertheless come away wondering why this overhyped, plotless and un-involving film with its  jump cuts to dismal London and gorgeous nature shots needed to go on for two whole hours. The seals are the highpoint of a sad but otherwise rather average portrait of addiction based on a memoir by Amy Liptrot. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN CINEMAS THROUGHOUT EUROPE

 

 

 

The Opera! (2024) Rome Film Festival 2024

Dirs: Davide Livermore, Paolo Gap Cucco | Cast: Valentino Buzza, Mariam Battistelli, Vincent Cassel, Fanny Ardant, Caterina Murino, Rossi De Palma, Angela Finocchiaro | Italy 106′

Fans of opera will adore this cinematic hybrid opera imagination of Orpheus et Eurydice. The film is inspired by the Greek tragedy with music originally created by the bohemian composer Gluck. A high-profile cast fused the world of film and opera: Vincent Cassel, Caterina Murino, Fannie Ardant, Rossy de Palma and award-winning Italian soprano Mariam Battistelli.

This new creation from stage director Davide Livermore and creative director Paolo Gep Cucco, also contains instantly recognisable arias from Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Mozart, Vivaldi, Band with pop classics such as Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power Of Love thrown in for new audiences.

Premiering at this year’s Rome Film Festival the film really dazzles as a piece of entertainment, even if you’re not keen on opera. Cucco created the recent production of Aida, the first opera in the world exclusively made up of video scenes, that played at the Sydney Opera House.

This film was shot in Prodea Led Studios in Turin and is one of the first on-set virtual production. LED panels are used as a backdrop for a set on which video or computer-generated imagery can be displayed. It’s a new departure for filmed entertainment and certainly works well for this kind of production offering audiences the chance to experience the colour, vibrancy and musical clout of opera without the exorbitant prices.

The Opera! Is also one of the acclaimed fashion house collaborations. Dolce&Gabbana created the costumes: Fanny ardent looks resplendent in a white suit, with a black moon glowing against a burnished copper background. Other fashion collaborations include Bad Lurhmann’s Romeo and Juliette: the Montegues were kitted out in Prada and the Capulets in D&G for the respective houses. Almodovar’s recent Strange Way of Life was costumed by Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. Not forgetting, of course, Giorgio Armani’s slick suits in Paul Schrader’s 1980 classic American Gigolo. @MeredithTaylor

THE OPERA! World premiered at the recent ROME FILM FESTIVAL 2024

 

 

The Land Where Winds Stood Still (2023)

Dir: Ardak Amirkulov | Kazakhstan Drama 98′

ThIs haunting and atmospherically shot arthouse drama imagines the steppes of Kazakhstan during the deadly Soviet regime of collectivisation when it was claimed that no one would be hungry or poor during the Soviet famine of the 1920-30s.

Approximately one third of the Kazakh population purportedly perished, according to sources. The era is stunningly brought to life by Ardak Amirkulov in sultry black and white images that focus on the poetic and pitiful suffering of the people rather than resorting to sensationalism or melodrama.

The focus is Jupar, a starving herder woman, who embarks on a journey to find the place of her birth in the Land of Still Winds. With her two young children she is forced to scavenge for food in the bleak landscape. She comes across a dead horse and preserves a joint in salt to provide food for her two children as they travel through a barren wasteland.  Vultures circle above them preying on the moribund bodies of people and animals.

Along the way she meets Baimukhan, a Soviet employee hated by everyone in the village. He has fallen into a ditch and Jupar helps him out, although we are not entirely sure why she shows him mercy.

Beautifully composed shots linger over a landscape where sickness prevails. Jupar is just one one of the victims of this cruel regime that has robbed the people of their farms, harvest and cattle promising an equality that never happened, instead they are reduced to poverty, and pitted against one another, the weak often poisoned and eaten by the strong who offered them contaminated crops. In one scene an old woman shares some millet with Jupar and her boys. But when they are sick they realise this was merely plan to kill them to satisfy her own hunger.

Just one of the setbacks in a gruelling journey where Jupar is forced to struggle against the forces of evil in the shape of wolves, birds of prey and the Red Army, all emblematic of the suffering Kazakhs faced during this harsh period of Soviet history. @MeredithTaylor

CRITICS’ PICK WINNER TALLINN BLACK NIGHTS 2023

 

 

 

 

The Circus (1928)

Dir: Charlie Chaplin | Cast: Merna Kennedy, Al Ernest Garcia  | US 72’

It was probably inevitable that Chaplin would eventually set a film in a circus and the film that resulted was a typically painstaking job but since has remained one of his least known although it compares well with his earlier work.

It begins with a song sung by Chaplin himself but fortunately the score that follows doesn’t deliver the sentimentally that threatens and a couple of sequences makes good use of a xylophone.

Although we only fleetingly see the pugnacious little runt of earlier days when he imagines he’s kicking his boss up the backside the emphasis is largely on slapstick with Charlie making good use of a hall of mirrors and early doing a memorable impression of a mechanical clown. @RichardChatten

Emmanuelle (2024) San Sebastián Film Festival 2024

Dir: Audrey Diwan | Cast: Noemie Merlant, Will Sharpe, Naomi Watts, James Campbell Bower, Chacha Huang, Anthony Wong | Erotic thriller 94′

Emmanuelle is an evocative exploration of female desire set in plush surroundings with captivating performances from Noemie Merlant, Will Sharpe ad Emily Watts.

On an empty plane a woman imagines being in the ‘mile-high’ club with a dark stranger. French actor Noemie Merlant is Emmanuelle and this is the first of her erotic fantasias in the Orient.

In HongKong, ensconced in the sensuous elegance of a swish skyscraper (actually the St Regis Hotel) her mission as a shark – or quality control agent of a leading hotel group – is twofold: to rate the hotel’s facilities with coded colours, and to find a way of ousting the impressive Guest Relations manager Margot Parson who is deemed ‘too expensive’ in her job of analysing the establishment’s regular FITs (frequent international travellers) and responding to their individual needs. Emmanuelle’s first task will be easy, the second not so: Naomi Watts is superb in the role of Parson, a consummate professional who’s cannily aware of her potential demise. She’s just one of the authentic characters who inhabit this rather sinuous, erotic thriller; easy on the eye with its glamorous ambiance devised by award-winning designer Katia Wyszkop (The Beast), impressive camerawork from DoP Laurent Tangy, and a rhythmic soundtrack from Evgueni and Sacha Galperine.

The film’s writers Rebecca Zlotowski and Audrey Dirwan (who also directs) were inspired by Emmanuelle Arsan’s 1967 best seller which formed the basis of an uneven series of films starring Sylvia Kristel. Full of cliches and maxims the spare script perfectly fits the campy ambiance, so don’t expect deep social commentary: this is ’90’s style soft-core sortie into female imagination, an erotic take on Anita Brookner’s ‘Hotel du Lac’ – or even Fatal Attraction, but here the women are in control. Certainly knocks Fifty Shades of Grey into a cocked hat. If Emmanuelle were trans it would certainly ramp up the critical acclaim.

Noemi Merlant plays the eponymous siren as a curiously stiff, snide and disapproving businesswoman, but not without sex appeal, in her starchy colonial style outfits and silky negligee. After a languorous bath in her suite over-looking the bay, a stiff-one in the bar leads to un-involving sex with a couple she meets there. Another strand, involving an escort called Zelda (Huang) posing as a literature student, doesn’t quite come off (although strangely these are the film’s most sexually explicit scenes (for men) with the women touching themselves up etc (just off camera).

Merlant soon mellows when a mysterious Asian stranger catches her eye. She noticed him on the plane and was intrigued by his indifference: And there’s nothing that irks a woman more than a dishy professional man who fails to submit to her enticing body language, albeit subtle, as in this case. Will Sharpe’s Kei Shinohara is just the man for the job, and Emmanuelle’s imagination smoulders.

According to security (Anthony Wong) the ‘ocean’ engineer always books suite 2701 but never sleeps there, coming and going at will, often disappearing. Mysterious. Effortless. Emmanuelle is drawn under his spell (even drinking his bathwater, and sleeping in his bed alone). This is a layered look at how a woman can become sexually obsessed by the thought of a remote, seemingly unobtainable man, who also claims to have lost his desire. This acts as a red rag to Emmanuelle’s ecstasy. She’s actually enjoying herself in the process and nothing has happened between them. But a slow, tantalising seduction has begun, in her mind, at least. But what about him? Is this reverse psychology? Shinohara’s enigmatic charms and casual insouciance are key to his exotic allure, along with the subtle come-on he offers her, a gold lighter with an inscription, leading her on a febrile escapade through the steamy gambling dens and mahjong salons of HongKong to pin him down, and getting tremendous pleasure in doing so. He is the trigger but her pleasure is self-actualised.

The final scene is a steamy tour de force. You’ll either smile or throw up your hands in disbelief but this latest incarnation may even become a cult classic along with the 1974 original. @MeredithTaylor

PREMIERE AT SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL | NOW IN CINEMAS IN FRANCE/BELGIUM before a NETFLIX release

 

Viennale Film Festival 2024

The Viennale is Austria’s most important international film event, as well as one of the oldest and best-known festivals in the German-speaking world. Every October, the Viennale takes place in beautiful cinemas in Vienna’s historic centre, providing the festival with an international orientation and a distinctive urban flair.

The Viennale will open on October 17 with Leos Carax’ latest film, a documentary entitled C’EST PAS MOI (IT’S NOT ME) that premiered at this Cannes Film Festival.

Festival creative director Eva Sangiorgi describes it as ‘an unconventional, essayistic and very personal film by Leos Carax that combines autobiography, film history and contemporary history in just 42 minutes. The director reflects on his medium, his role models such as Vertov, Chaplin and Godard, and creates a lively mix of cinematic influences. A multi-layered reflection on love, beauty and cinema”.

The Festival will conclude with Mati Diop’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner Dahomey, a poetic documentary about the return of plundered royal treasures and their return to Benin from a Paris museum.

VIENNALE FILM FESTIVAL 17-29 OCTOBER 2024

Megalopolis (2024)

Dir: Francis Ford Coppola | US Drama 120′

This ambitious undertaking, forty years in the making, should have been called ‘Magaflopolis’. Ok it’s easy to criticise, but a veteran director such as Ford Coppola has a duty to his audience: not to confuse them, or bore them rigid for over two hours – but that’s exactly what he does in this over-inflated piece of filmmaking that masquerades as an inspired satire.

Megalopolis is pretentious and posturing and ultimately vacuous. Discombobulating images continuously flash before our eyes along with a talented cast of Hollywood’s best. But there wasn’t a scene or a performance I enjoyed as the actors all seem caught up in the grandiosity of it all in displaying the worst traits of each sex. The women were grasping and bitchy. The men arrogant and ego-driven, in fact, Jon Voight was the only one with a shred of vulnerability and a cheeky grin of playfulness as canny banker Hamilton Crassus III with Aubrey Plaza hamming it up as his lover Wow Platinum. Meanwhile Shia LaBeouf is cast as Hamilton’s curious and corrupt trans-looking grandson Clodio Pulcher.

Coppola aims high, as he should do, but the film feels like an flashback to the 1980s; all gilded, burnished and blundering like a fancy-dress school play of Shakespeare with a sci-fi makeover that somehow looks old-fashioned in the scheme of contemporary special effects: the actors poncing around and quoting their literary lines in the hope this will give some integrity to what is really a confounding mess.

Adam Driver is the main character: he plays Cesar Catilina, a Nobel prize-winning ‘starchitect’ who is still recovering from the death of his wife, who he purportedly murdered: The jury is still out on this ambiguous plot line. Apparently he has invented a substance called Megalon which makes the building process more flexible. He intends to re-design and re-build parts of the city in a utopian scheme. Also tenuous is his mysterious control over time and space (?). Aubrey Plaza is fabulously vociferous as his long-term blond lover all done up in leopard skin with roots as dark as Kunta Kinte (she’s a busy woman romantically – it seems – as she also has a clinch with Clodio not to mention Crassus). But then Cesar falls for Julia the bland daughter of Cicero (Esposito) the city’s mayor (and his arch rival) who is all about noble things like decent pay, sanitation, new schools and hospitals. Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) is all about ‘creating a home’ and these various factions come into conflict with each other: the creative, forward-thinking and the social-minded face of urban existence.

There are some inspiring elements: Driver and Emmanuel riding a sort of watch face that floats over Manhattan. I seem to have forgotten the others. But the idea that America is still great gradually fades with hollow laughter. Brazen, brash and bloated this is a step too far; but that may just be the step you’re willing to take. @MeredithTaylor

NOW OUT IN THE UK and Ireland from 27 September 2024

Timestalker (2024)

Wri/Dir: Alice Lowe | Cast: Alice Lowe, Jacob Anderson, Nick Frost, Tanya Reynolds, Aneurin Barnard | UK Drama 90′

A love-affair pursued throughout the ages via a succession of incarnations would be a great basis for a sci-fi/fantasy romance. But an infatuated, somewhat annoying woman pursuing a baffled and apathetic man over the centuries offers a tragicomic scenario – which could, in theory, yield a decent mix of humour and pathos.
However, Timestalker ultimately looks better on paper than it comes off in execution.

Early sequences give us Agnes (played by Alice Lowe, who also wrote and directed the film) as a seventeenth-century Scottish villager smitten by Aneurin Barnard’s masked cultist, an eighteenth century English aristocrat in love with a highwayman played by the same actor, and a nineteenth century schoolteacher who… well, maybe it’s best to draw a veil over what happens to her.

These sequences are built from scenes so short that they feel more like TV sketches than elements of a feature film, and while Lowe’s poker-faced comic style can be effective, she doesn’t have the actorly chops to pull off a range of period characterisations, even ones which are too truncated to be much more than gestures towards portrayals.

The film only hits its stride when Agnes finds herself in the 1980s. The pace slows, the characters get a bit more fleshed-out, and Lowe seems more at home with the vein of comic targets offered by the era: aerobics dance classes, New Romantic music, risible fashions and hairdos, female bedrooms decorated with Pierrots, etc.

In this time-period her fixation takes the form of Alex, a Bolan-esque, Adam Ant-ish pop star who speaks with a high-pitched estuary accent and whose music is an amusingly accurate parody of 80s synth-pop. When Agnes confronts him in his dressing-room she’s wearing a convincing ‘dandy highwayman’ outfit, made all the more hilarious by the fact that in the 80s, people actually did go out to gigs and nightclubs dressed like this.

As they talk, Alex off-handedly suggests that Agnes isn’t really a time-traveller, but a psychotic fan lost in a fantasy world. Which raises the question: were her previous ‘incarnations’ just make-believe, and have we somehow been unwittingly inhabiting her fantasies? It’s an interesting, slightly head-swirling moment, but it doesn’t get fully developed.

All the ‘Alex’ characters seem to lack any awareness of, or interest in Agnes, which makes her intense attraction to him feel ludicrous – but also difficult to warm to, with the result that the film never really catches fire. It’s a shame, because the idea has potential and Lowe is supported by a talented cast including Nick Frost as an appalling, bison-like husband and Tanya Reynolds as a willowy friend and ally.

There are things to enjoy in Timestalker, but it doesn’t fully deliver in terms of humour, it isn’t at all moving, and the time travel element isn’t thought through cleverly enough. Perhaps Lowe’s go-to mode of comic bathos doesn’t really suit the material, or maybe her talent has just been overstretched by the effort to write, direct and perform the starring role. If so, she’d be better served by delegating at least one of these functions in future productions. @IanLong

Ian Long is a writer, screenwriting teacher and story consultant at www.ianlong.org

IN UK and IRISH CINEMAS from 11 October 2024

Seven Films to watch at BFI London Film Festival 2024

The 68th BFI London Film Festival runs from between October 9 and October 20 in London and other major UK cities.

 

Over 12 days from October 9 to October 20 London’s iconic cinemas, including the BFI’s own South Bank cinemas, the Prince Charles Cinema, the ICA, Curzon Soho and Mayfair and Vue West End expect to see award contenders along with a selection of this year’s premieres from the international festival circuit.

This year’s festival will open with BLITZ an Second World War drama starring Saoirse Ronan and Stephen Graham  – along with newcomer Elliot Heffernan as a 12-year-old boy who goes missing amid the Nazi bombing campaign on London.

Also screening:

ENDURANCE (2024) UK/US

The actual voices of British Polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew come alive in thanks to AI techniques in this new documentary charting their remarkable journey to Antarctica in 1914

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (2024) Australia 

Oscar-winning director Adam Elliot’s tale of separated twins in 1970s Australia is a funny and poignant stop-motion story seen from a woman’s perspective and suffused with all the anguish of modern life. This tender tale of loss and alienation it soon branches out into a relatable stop meditation with appeal for all ages.

MY EVERYTHING (2024) France, Anne-Sophie Bailly

Laure Calamy is the star of this amusing family drama that centres on a mother and her disabled son. Their uplifting relationship and two terrific central performances makes this a positive pleasure despite the tricky issues involved.

MALDORDOR (2024) Belgium

In his second film of the season thriller supremo Fabrice du Welz (Adoration, Alleluia, Calvaire) gets together with regulars: Laurent Lucas and Beatrice Dalle in a gritty thriller that explores an episode of institutional dysfunction and police corruption so parlous some claimed they were ‘ashamed to be Belgian’.

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT India

Unfolding in two parts and shifting deftly from realism to reverie this Cannes-awarded first feature from Payal Kapadia is about two women caught in impossible love stories in modern day Mumbai.

THE BRUTALIST (2024) US (main photo)

Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones shine in Brady Corbet’s wartime epic that tells the story of the American Dream through the lives of visionary architect Laszlo Toth and his wife Erzsebet.

MANJI (1964) Japan

Directed by the Japanese auteur Yasuzo Masumura and based on the novel ‘Quicksand’ by Juinichiro Taniziki this stylishly sensual ‘folie a deux’ sees a married woman (Kyoko Kishida from Woman of the Dunes and a ruthless young girl (Ayako Wake) engaged in a doomed love affair. Remade many times but never living up to the original).

BFI LONDON FLIM FESTIVAL 2024

 

 

 

 

 

Midas Man (2024)

Dir: Joe Stephenson | Cast: Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Ed Speleers, Eddie Izzard, Jay Leno, Eddie Marsan, Emily Watson | UK Drama 112′

When Beatles manager Brian Epstein died in August 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love, the band went into meltdown. “We collapsed,” John Lennon recalled. “I knew that we were in trouble then. I didn’t really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared.”

Epstein’s unwavering belief drove the Beatles to fame. He moulded their early image and helped them negotiate the initial phases of their monumental success. Then he was gone, leaving the stricken band to limp on, demoralised and disintegrating, for three more years.

Was his early death an avoidable accident? Were his demons poised to drag him to hell, no matter how grand his achievements? Or was he collateral damage of the Beatles’ meteoric rise? It isn’t entirely clear whether Midas Man has an answer to this, although it seems to err towards the second option.

But this leaves out the psychic maelstrom of the Sixties. No one could have foreseen how the decade would unfold, and nothing could have prepared a man, whose business experience lay in running the music department of his family’s department store, to deal with these pressures. Who’d have thought a Liverpool rock ‘n’ roll group would have the power to rewire global culture – seemingly almost overnight? Certainly not Epstein, not even when he was sitting in the offices of HMV, Pye and Philips, trying to impress the special qualities of his boys on sceptical record company executives.

The Sixties are far away now, and its events seem fixed and immutable. So it’s easy to forget the wild flux of the time, and how rapidly things were moving. Not everyone could keep up: certainly not Billy J. Kramer, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and some of Epstein’s other charges. But the Fab Four rode the wave with astonishing élan, graduating from cheerful teen anthems like ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ to the avant-garde mash-up of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ in three short years.

Epstein had instituted the matching suits, the unison bowing, and the haircuts which, though long by the standards of the day, always looked combed and clean. All this gave the Beatles’ early presentation a showbiz neatness, but more importantly it fed a public sense of ‘the group’ as shared identity, a unified collective aligned towards some common goal. Within a couple of years, though, these early trappings looked fussy and old-fashioned. History had rolled on.

Jacob Fortune-Lloyd’s Epstein is tall, rangy, chiselled, and tormented. Organised and decisive in his business dealings, he’s shown as passive and masochistic in an emotional life mostly comprised of joyless fumblings with strangers in dark, sordid places. While pursuing the al fresco gay sex which leaves him vulnerable to assault and robbery, Epstein yearns for the settled joys of home and family: an irreconcilable combination which can surely end only in tears.

And there’s worse in store. In New York, Epstein meets struggling actor John ‘Tex’ Ellington, who seems to offer some prospect of meaningful connection. Tex arrives in London, moves into Epstein’s grandiose hotel suite – and disappears with a briefcase containing £20,000. The chaos of Epstein’s personal life has finally erupted into the disciplined world of his career; the cycle of shame and humiliation is complete. Unsurprisingly, he has a breakdown. It’s inferred that his energies are henceforward increasingly sublimated into his work, although the film doesn’t delve into the rumoured sexual dimensions of Epstein’s dealings with the band.

But the question remains – how to get the terminal velocity of the Sixties on screen? Midas Man covers a time of great experiment in film – the Pop Art deconstruction of Jean-Luc Godard, the kinetic energy of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ – but it stays mostly within the cinematic conventions of the standard biopic. When it moves into more inventive territory, we see what might have been.

In the sequences recounting the band’s U.S. and international tours, the screen is divided into three sections. The middle segment has Epstein walking towards the camera but never getting any closer, all the while accepting pills and drinks from unseen hands. Collaged photos limn a whirl of impressions. The effect is bold, graphic, dreamlike, and a clever encapsulation of the risky hamster wheel Epstein is walking. The film comes alive in these moments.

Like Back to Black a few months ago, Midas Man sets out to celebrate its protagonist’s life, and like the earlier film it spares us Epstein’s sad, possibly self-inflicted end. Instead, it concludes with the studio recording of ‘All You Need is Love’, broadcast to 25 countries and over 400 million people two months before Epstein’s death. This is presented as a personal apotheosis, although it was a technical achievement (the first-ever live global TV link) rather than an emotional milestone.

After this, the circumstances of Epstein’s death are conveyed in a brief onscreen text. But I think it was a mistake to cut the narrative at this point. If we’d been given a sense of the grief and confusion following Epstein’s death we might have truly felt his loss, and perhaps grasped how genuinely precious the Midas Man had become. @IanLong

IN UK AND IRISH CINEMAS FROM 14 OCTOBER

PRIME VIDEO from 30 OCTOBER 2024

Endurance (2024)

Dirs: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Natalie Hewit | UK-USA 2024. Doc, 100min

The actual voices of British Polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew come alive in thanks to AI techniques in this new documentary charting their remarkable journey to Antarctica in 1914.

The Endurance, his boat, would sink without trace but the crew diaries and original expedition footage and photos kept by team member Frank Hurley survive to tell the tragic tale for the first time ever,  restored by the BFI National Archive,

Interweaving past and present in a tense step by step expose, a team of current day explorers reveal how the ship was located over a century later in the Spring of 2022, some 3000m beneath the icy depths of the treacherous Weddell Sea. It was intact.

Crucially Shackleton’s indomitable spirit, perseverance and courage was key to the survival of his 27-strong crew after the Endurance went down after being locked in solid pack-ice. Shackleton had continuously boosted the morale of his men and their trusty pack of dogs for an entire year.

The Endurance22 expedition team, onboard the South African icebreaker S.A. Agulhas II, made use of state of the art search technology to find the Endurance led by their Dr John Shears, expedition subsea manager Nico Vincent, director of exploration Mensun Bound and historian and broadcaster Dan Snow (son of ‘swingometer’ supremo John Snow).

Keeping alive the memory of Sir Ernest Shackleton the documentary serves as both a gripping slice of history and a tribute to all those who risk their lives in courageous endeavour. @MeredithTaylor

SCREENING DURING THE BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2024

My Favourite Cake (2024)

Dirs: Maryam Moghaddam, Behtash Sanaeeha | Iran, Drama 97’

The current success of a new Iranian film My Favourite Cake in the UK press is remarkable. This achievement comes at the same time that we are viewing news bulletins containing images of increasingly repressive morality laws curtailing the rights of women, videos of Iranian women wearing veils and singing so as to be heard but not seen, as well as news of the house arrest of the filmmakers of this remarkable film that follows their award-winning Ballad of a White Cow.

The film was first screened at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival where it garnered worldwide distribution after winning the FIPRESCI and the Ecumenical Jury prize. The fate of the filmmakers is not yet known with charges against them involving scenes of women without veils and the drinking of wine, which is forbidden. The message behind the universal themes of the film however feels even more potent now.

My Favourite Cake is essentially a two hander between Mahin, played by Lily Farhadpour, and Faramarz, played by Esmail Mehrab, which explores feelings of love and affection that grow between two people who meet and engineer a clandestine night together. This may in other hands seem a straightforward and simple form of romcom but there is a subtle and very real difference as the drama happens within a framework of laws governing the lives of Iranian women.

The film opens on a quiet new day and ends with the dawn of another new day when nothing will be the same for Lily. She is a war widow who lost her husband years ago, has a grown-up family who live abroad and whom we hear on the phone but never see. The film includes a meal for a group of her enlightened women friends who all meet from time to time to discuss life, remember days of youth and poke gentle fun at the conventions of contemporary Iranian life. The film views Lily as a woman possibly constrained by the concerns of a wider family, and the daily pressure of life that includes nosy intolerant women in the apartment block where she lives. Framarz has spent a life time diligently working hard as a taxi driver. He was once married, never had children and is divorced. The two meet on an evening together with the knowledge that Iranian law forbids women to meet men without the presence of male members of family and as well as intimate relationships between men and women outside of marriage.

Directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha are a married couple who have created a sensitive and beautiful film that echoes the mood and tempo that Rainer Werner Fassbinder bought to Fear Eats the Soul in 1972. Links with the earlier German film about a relationship between an older woman and a younger Arab man are remarkable with both films exploring how personal freedoms and sexual desire are challenged and thwarted by the pressure of social and political convention. They also contain gentle naturalistic performances and use initial cross cuts between two people merging into a single frame as both rediscover feelings and a sense of belonging through the power of love. The use of a car as an enclosed private space in which people grow and change is effective, as are references to mirrors and the use of lighting along with scenes involving a television screen which is how Lily escapes into the romantic world of golden age cinema. Fassbinder included a coterie of women around his central character commenting on life and in My Favourite Cake a group of taxi drivers are observed talking about the meaningless nature of war and how better life was before the revolution of 1979. An image of a Viagra package is one of many tiny telling instances of detail that build up the fabric of the film.

Final scenes contain an element of framing involving melodrama which has always been part of the power of cinema to engage an audience and the poignant heart-breaking conclusion of My Favourite Cake reflects this, as well as evoking the film that inspired Fear Eats the Soul. This is All that Heaven Allows, a 1955 American film by Douglas Sirk, about the relationship between a widow and a young man which is all but ruined by problems of class, convention and repression which are ideas present in this latest film. Sirk commented that he intended the title of his film to be a metaphor for what little heaven allows and how stingy this can be. My Favourite Cake takes this provocative concept a stage further by offering two people a mere slice of a beautiful blossom orange cake that may never actually be tasted or eaten. 


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Cobra Woman (1944)

Dir: Robert Siodmak | Cast: Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Edgar Barrier, Sabu | Fantasy thriller 71’

Bette Davis once denied posterity the chance to savour the young Bette in Technicolor since for her it was the script that counted and if a script was any good it didn’t need the ‘gimmick’ of Technicolor so colour was her salad days usually synonymous with lousy writing.

‘Cobra Woman’ certainly provides yet a further demonstration of how awash Hollywood was with talent during the forties in Universal’s ability to squander a classy German director and the miracle that was Technicolor – photographed and designed by the same team that only the year before had collected an Academy Award for photography and art direction – on such a load of ripe hokum with a leading lady the limits of whose ability was photographing well in Technicolor.

But when you see Miss Montez perform her dance of death you’ll find that’s quite enough, thank you. @RichardChatten

The Rules of the Game (1939)

Dir: Jean Renoir | Cast: Nora Gregor, Gaston Modot, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Roland Toutain | France, Drama 110’

Some of the recent choices in critics polls for the greatest films of all time have been getting pretty idiosyncratic of late but my own nomination for the top spot remains ‘La Regle du Jeu‘, which plainly served as the template for Robert Altman’s ‘Gosford Park’ which in turn became ‘Downtown Abbey’. (Although the resemblance to ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ may be just a coincidence).

Set like many films in a huge country house but unusually depicting it as a fully functioning entity it remains a film of overwhelming humanity staged with a vibrancy that should make it compulsory viewing for all aspiring filmmakers. @RichardChatten

Bigger than Life (1956)

Dir: Nicolas Ray | Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, James Mason | US Drama 97’

One of several bold choices made by James Mason that undeservingly died at the box office, resulting in his relegation to supporting roles. It’s always the the measure of an actor that he’s prepared to be unlikable and Mason manages to be absolutely terrifying in the throes of (SPOILER COMING:) drug addiction (his line, delivered deadpan to Walter Matthau that “God was wrong” has to the definitive expression of megalomania).

It comes as a surprise to see this intimate drama made in colour and ‘scope, but the huge close-up of Mason smugly drawing on a cigarette after scandalising a PTA meeting by declaring that “childhood is a disease and our job is to cure it”provides conclusive proof that close ups WERE possible in widescreen, while director Nicholas Ray makes several vivid use of colour as when in an early scene the screen is filled with yellow cabs, and at the climax when Mason brandishes a bible with red edges that makes it resemble a hot coal. @RichardChatten

ON BFI PLAYER

The Apprentice (2024)

Dir: Ali Abassi | Script: Gabriel Sherman | Cast: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Ben Sullivan, Mark Rendall, Joe Pingue, Jim Monaco, Bruce | Biopic Drama, 120′

As Donald Trump storms back to the Presidency for a second term of office the words: “You’re either a killer or a loser” still ring true. This is the advice a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) gets from his acerbic mentor Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) in this polarising political biopic written by journalist Gabriel Sherman and directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abassi (Border) and Holy Spider (who is now perhaps best known for his involvement in The Last Of Us). The film now has an @Oscar nomination under its belt.

Cohn, the lawyer responsible for putting the Rosenbergs on the electric chair and a key figure in the McCarthy witch hunts, offers up three key bits of business advice during The Apprentice – an entertaining romp that zips briskly through its two hours running time sketching out Trump’s early career as an eager apprentice trained under the high-flying lawyer, and eventually trumping him in a tale of machiavellian morals, ethics and business acumen.

There are elements of poetic licence at play here: in other words Sherman plays slightly fast and loose with the facts in fleshing out Trump’s backstory. The result is a fairly even-handed feature that on the one hand sees the US former president as cold-eyed and devious, but on the other opines that these are the very tools of the trade for those wanting to get on in big business – or politics, for that matter. Crucially it also highlights the recent concept of the truth being a construct open to individual perception.

The focus narrows in on Trump from a broad brush opening outlining the corruption of the Nixon years and the inherent dishonesty that is now rife in all circles of power, not least in America. It contrasts the ‘losers’ (those on welfare) with the killers, the ‘unscrupulous’ hard-working income generators during the Reagan presidency that led to the phenomenon of ‘corporate greed’.

The Apprentice sees Trump starting out during the 1970s working for his property magnate father, Fred Trump (Martin Donovan). Dressed in a suit Donald is tasked with doing the rounds to collect rents. One disgruntled tenant throws a pan of boiling water in his face, another swears at him. The family business comes then under fire from a civil rights action alleging discrimination against Black tenants. Cohn wins the case, as his lawyer, with Trump senior claiming: “How can I be racist when I have a Black driver?”

But Donald is determined to make it alone and sets his sights on transforming the downtrodden area around Grand Central Station where he vows to make a success in a project of urban regeneration involving the dilapidated Commodore Hotel, bringing jobs, European tourists and a facelift for Manhattan.

Family wise we also meet Donald’s kindly mother Mary Anne (Catherine McNally), and his brother Freddy (Charlie Carrick) a failed pilot with emotional problems: Fred admits to having been tough on his boys. But Donald is hellbent on success and soon bonds with Cohn after a chance meeting at a fancy Manhattan nightclub frequented by the top flight business community. Working together they soon go from strength to strength in a business alliance with Trump styling himself in the same vein as Cohn with his fast-talking intransigence. His transformation into fully fledged killer who lives by his own standards happens almost overnight and feels a little too fast even given the film’s ample running time. But Stan grasps Trump’s essence charting his character’s transformation from reasonable business man to self-seeking  hardliner.

Trump soon becomes a man who takes his own advice often rubbing Cohn up the wrong way, while at the same time chosing to turn a blind eye to his ‘strange way of life’ and hedonistic habits. Trump’s puritan background sees him gradually distancing himself from the lawyer who berates him for his lack of financial probity. Their relationship eventually sours during the AIDS crisis, although Trump offers an olive branch in the finale.

The marriage to Ivana Zelnickova, against Cohn’s advice, is handled deftly and with some humour. Trump follows Ivana to Aspen to clinch their romance then falls flat on the ice after claiming to be a good skier. The Czech model is a little two sweet and sympathetic despite her purported savvy business sense, but Trump soon tires of her, claiming to find their home life ‘more like coming home to a business partner than a wife’. A shocking episode sees him beating Ivana, but whether this has a factual basis, despite his widely reported misogyny, is uncertain. Stan’s Trump may be polarise public opining in coming across as too likeable but this is surely the essence of a maverick who can charm as well as chastise and here he gives a compelling performance.

With a killer score of hits that just reeks of the ’70s and ’80 and a scuzzy retro texture this is a compulsive portrait of an indomitable man whose rise to power is all-encompassing and more relevant now than it was back in the day.  Trump is a determined statesman who stands by his word in promising peace, prosperity to America and said goodbye to ‘woke’. If only other nations could have a similar leader @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS ACROSS UK & IRELAND from 18 October 2024 

The Sleeping Tiger (1954)

Dir: Joseph Losey | Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Alexis Smith, Alexander Knox | Drama 89’

Even today Victor Hanbury is still regularly described just as a mere pseudonym for the blacklisted American director Joseph Losey with the themes in ‘The Sleeping Tiger’ usually attributed to Losey.

Hanbury though had been very much a real person whose career went back to the thirties and dealt with similar subjects in films he had recently produced like ‘Death Comes to School’ and ‘Glad Tidings’.

Alexander Knox in the first of several roles for Losey plays a typically obtuse Hanbury male completely oblivious to the passion welling within his wife – played by Alexei Smith who Losey when she first arrived took her to Speakers Corner where she was staggered to hear people openly saying things that would get them lynched or arrested back home – for bad boy Dirk Bogarde. @RichardChatten

NOW ON TALKING PICTURES

Millions Like Us (1943)

Dir: Sidney Gillian, Frank Launder | UK War Drama

A good-humoured exhortation to women of Britain that working in a headscarf and factory overalls was just as important to winning the war as serving in uniform, whose expressive use of Beethoven on the soundtrack once more demonstrated the British capacity for magnanimity even in time of war.

Gilliatt & Launder’s first venture into direction proved the only occasion on which they actually stood side by side on the set to give instructions; a practice that proved unwieldy so they subsequently took it in turns in all their later films (Launder, for example directed the St Trinian’s films).

Several of those involved were already well established with Launder & Gilliat at Gainsborough – including the cameraman, producer & editor of ‘Oh! Mr Porter’ – with the supporting cast including Gainsborough veterans Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as Charters & Caldecott in uniform and Moore Marriott as Patricia Roc’s father who joins the Home Guard. @RichardChatten

TALKING PICTURES UK

Paul and Paulette take a Bath (2024) Venice Film Festival

Dir/Wri: Jethro Massey | Cast: Marie Benati, Jérémie Galiana | UK 

In a summery Paris boy meets girl. She is a french lesbian who occasionally dates men. He is a straightforward American photographer, and their names, Paul and Paulette, give this stylishly offbeat-foodie themed romcom from debut filmmaker Jethro Murray its generic title, playing in this year’s Venice Film Festival Critics’ Week.

History tells us that in 1941/2 the United States intended to make France a ‘vassal’ state and almost succeeded with ‘Amgot’, De Gaulle objected. Despite all that the nation has taken up American spellings and US voiceovers in many transport systems. Deciding to re-enact the guillotining of Marie Antoinette Paul severs Paulette’s hair. Phone numbers are exchanged.

Inviting him to the soigné apartment borrowed from a friend she tries to seduce Paul by spinning a yarn about France’s first celebrity murderer in the Malle Sanglante affair. And so begins their relationship. Roaming around the French capital they do fun things together like imagining foodie treats and what a variety of iconic characters might taste like – from Ghenghis Khan to Hitler and even Kim Jong Un. They even ‘discover the pubic hair’ of Elvis Presley, Paulette’s teenage idol. They mull over the complexities of love and living together: “If things go sideways you shouldn’t go back”.

But Paulette’s flirty loucheness fails to impress the uncomplicated American Paul: “You’re always putting on a show it must be exhausting”. In other words she’s a pretentious drag.

Smitten despite all this Paul hires a VW Beetle and persuades Paulette to join him on an ad-hoc adventure. She agrees, reluctantly, but must visit her parents Charlotte and Gilles, an ex rugby player who murdered a child. When the young couple arrive we discover a dysfunctional household. And the young couple start to question their own motives in this vague ‘nouvelle vague’ romcom that winds its scenic way through Paris, Alsace and Munich.

There is a whiff of the Sixties in the snoozy score and the mid-century furniture in the apartment the couple stay in on their romantic interlude. This is a confident debut that has its moments but doesn’t really stand out in the genre despite game performances from Galiana and Benati. @MeredithTaylor 

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | CRITICS’ WEEK 2024

Vermiglio (2024)

 

Dir: Maura Delpero | Cast: Tommaso Ragno, Roberta Rovelli, Martina Scrinzi, Giuseppe De Domenico | Italy Drama 119′

In a snowy mountain village high in the Italian Alps, largely untouched by the hostilities, a family gathers for breakfast. It’s 1944 and the Second World War is coming to an end, but for this family the trauma is only just beginning. By a stroke of fate a refugee soldier will bring tragedy of a different kind just as Europe finds peace.

Premiering in the main competition at the 81st Venice Film festival Vermiglio is an endearing classically styled drama unfolding in four chapters. A Sicilian soldier, Pietro (De Domenico), is hailed as a hero and the girls are excited, particularly Lucia (Scrinzi) who is drawn to this chance of romance in this isolated mountain setting.

Soon the two are in love but their relationship will change the village forever as deep-seated misogyny resurfaces both here in the far North of the country, and in Pietro’s Sicilian village where a secret slowly emerges. A beautiful film full of nostalgia and solid performances, Vermiglio is a stunningly visual

film with loads of commercial appeal but nevertheless feels rather formulaic in picturing women trapped in traditional roles and forced to accept the strictures and errors of their menfolk. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN UK CINEMAS | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | GRAND JURY PRIZE

Shepherds (2024) Toronto Film Festival 2024

Dir: Sophie Deraspe | Cast: Félix-Antoine Duval, Solène Rigot | France, Canada Drama 114′

A Canadian fetches up in Arles needing to rethink his life in this rustic game-changer from Sophie Deraspe one of the leading figures in new Canadian cinema.

From the get-go the locals advise Mathyas (Duval) against being a shepherd in rural Arles – it’s a gruelling way of life, and Deraspe doesn’t try to glamourise it in a ‘back to nature way’. But being a shepherd is an occupation much needed in this friendly part of Provence, and an obvious choice for a young man who loves nature and is looking for a new start (Mathyas actually wrote the book on which the film is based). 

Strangely enough a work permit is the sticking point for Mathyas, a Quebecois from Montreal. Everyone who’s tried knows how amazingly difficult it is for an outsider to get a visa in France – you have to apply in your country of origin – contacts or no contacts. But let’s suspend our disbelief for the sake of this cinematic and confident drama.

Farming is a rude and rustic awakening for the naive former ad exec: And the sheep are the least of his problems. After a run-in with his boss, and several other locals, female company arrives for Mathayas in the shape of Elise who, in exchange for a roof over her head, offers to cook, a task she finds challenging the main diet being sheep lungs.

After a lucky break the two start afresh and manage to make ago of things. Good to know that no animals were harmed in the film’s production. @MeredithTayor

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | SEPTEMBER 2024

The Fall of Berlin (1950)

Mikheil Chiaurelli | War drama 167’

At the conclusion of ‘The Fall of Berlin’ (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) the Soviet leader’s plane lands in Berlin (an extremely unlikely occurrence since Stalin – portrayed by Mikhail Gelovani as a genial, pipe-smoking old cove in a gleaming white uniform – was afraid of flying) and a woman promptly rushes up to him, puts her arms around him and gives him a hug; when in reality she wouldn’t have got five feet before being clubbed to the ground. Which gives you a pretty good idea that this film should to be taken with a considerable pinch of salt.

Not long before Goebbels, after screening his recently completed Napoleonic epic ‘Kolberg’ to his bemused staff famously declared that a hundred years from now another fine colour film would be made commemorating the terrible times Germany was then going through. The Doctor’s prediction was answered far more swiftly than he could possibly have imagined since only four years later he featured as a limping caricature in the Soviet Union’s seventieth birthday present to their Dear Leader, resplendent in captured Agfacolor and with a score by Shostakovich (who later said that the assignment saved his bacon since at a critical moment he was engaged upon valuable work for the state) and by the look it probably consumed most of the Soviet Union’s GDP for 1949. @RichardChatten

NOW ON AMAZON

 

Apollo 13: Survival (2024)

Dir: Peter Middleton | Doc 96′

You may think you know the story of Apollo 13 but this filmic documentary offers further insight into the crisis that unfolded on April 13th 1970, when a catastrophic explosion rocked the Apollo 13 spacecraft, stranding three astronauts halfway to the moon.

Within a few hours, the primary oxygen and power supply failed, setting the stage for one of the great survival stories in human history. The following days involved a tense rescue mission as the world watched with bated breath.

Apollo 13: Survival plunders the archives and adds never-before-seen film materials and archival interviews with the crew, their families and the team at Ground Control in addition to covering much the same ground as Ron Howard’s 1995 feature starring Tom Hanks.

Here Middleton adds the voice of the astronaut Jim Lovell recorded right after an electrical fault shorted the power on their craft on its way to the moon. Nasa scientists were forced to devise a plan to circuit the moon while making best use of the dwindling oxygen supplies in bringing those famous men back to earth. Catnip for space travel fans. @MeredithTaylor

APOLLO 13: SURVIVAL launches on Netflix on 5th September

 

 

The Third Man (1949) 75th Anniversary

Dir: Carol Reed | Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, Ernst Deutsch | UK, Thriller 104′

The Third Man starring Joseph Cotton, Trevor Howard and Orson Welles is now considered pure cinema gold. This iconic cult classic, shot partly on location in postwar Vienna and partly in Shepperton Studios, captures a very short moment in time yet has stayed with us and is now celebrating its 75th Anniversary immaculately restored by Studiocanal.

Harry Lime’s speech about the cuckoo clock always seemed to me just sophistry and his remark about people being just dots to him reveals that he’s a sociopath for all of his charm; which necessitated him (SPOILER COMING:) killing the film’s most likeable character to justify his comeuppance (a moment that always comes as a shock to me no matter how many times I see it).

Although it seems starkly realistic, The Third Man is a triumph of artifice, since Welles is only in the film for about ten minutes (he wasn’t actually in Vienna for much longer, which is why you so seldom see his breath in closeups). The sewers in Vienna don’t actually provide the unbroken passage throughout the city the film so vividly suggests and the famous final shot in the cemetery wasn’t shot by Oscar-winning cameraman Robert Krasker, but an uncredited Hans Schneeburger (who did get a credit a few years later for his second unit work on Carol Reed’s The Man Between).

The opening narration by the way (only heard in the British version) is by director Reed himself (who’s fingers are seen coming through the grill at the climax). And two of my favourite moments belong to Bernard Lee: his admiration for the craftsmanship that went into Valli’s forged documents and his reassurance when reading through her love letters, “That’s all right miss, we’re used to it. Like doctors”. @RichardChatten

At a talk on in celebration of the restored film second unit script supervisor Angela Allen, now in her 90s, recalls that Orson remained elusive throughout the shoot, rushing around Europe in a bid to raise money for his other projects, and although he had a certain charisma he kept himself to himself, unlike Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli and Trevor Howard who were popular and professional. She also recalls how, when presented with Wiener schnitzel in one Viennese restaurant, some of the crew claimed: “we’re not gonna eat fish done up as meat”. @MeredithTaylor

NOW CELEBRATING its 75th Anniversary THE THIRD MAN is back in cinemas on 6 September and on 4K this Autumn

Battlefield (2024) Venice Film Festival 2024

Dir: Gianni Amelio | Cast: Alessandro Borghi, Gabriel Montesi, Federica Rosellini, Giovanni Scotti, Vince Vivenzio, Alberto Cracco, Luca Lazzareschi, Maria Grazia Plos, Rita Bosello | Italy 104’

1918 and Italy’s wounded are winding their weary way back from the First World War across a wintry November landscape in this lavishly styled and sombre tragedy from seasoned director Gianni Amelio (Thé Patient’s Room) competing for the Golden Lion. 

Strange things are happening both on and off the battlefield. In the local hospital an order goes out to treat all patients including those who have deserted. Giulio (Borghi), the compassionate but rather academic ward doctor, takes special care of a badly injured: an 18-year-old farm worker, a mustard gas victim and one cheerful soldier desperate to get back to the Front. Others are not so lucky: one man is now deaf, another will lose a leg.

Amid this well of suffering Giulio re-kindles a relationship with a friend from student days, a nurse (Rossellini) who believes some soldiers are avoiding a return to battle with self-mutilation, a crime punishable by firing squad. Giulio becomes obsessed with these self-harmers. Meanwhile, on the front, a mysterious infection is felling the troops and is gradually spreading to civilians.

Battlefield is also the story of two medics caught in the cross fire: one from a privileged background, the other, a less fortunate woman struggling for credibility despite her intelligence and talent. A solid premise then and a film that explores an un-chartered episode in the Great War with a solid script and committed performances, but one that will struggle to win a prize given this year’s spectacular main competition entries. @MeredithTaylor 

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | GOLDEN LION COMPETITION.

 

We were Strangers (1949)

Dir: John Huston | Cast: Jennifer Jones John Garfield, Pedro Armendariz, Gilbert Roland | US political thriller

It’s well known that John Huston played an acting role as ‘White Suit’ in ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’, but most people are unaware that shortly afterwards he also briefly appeared in an unbilled bit as a bank clerk in ‘We Were Strangers’ since so few have seen it.

One of the subjects frequently favoured by Huston was the activities of a North American abroad finding himself a fish out of water (a role in which he memorably cast Humphrey Bogart) combined in ‘We Were Strangers’ with the usual depiction of Latin America as riven with revolutions.

Later dismissed by Huston as “pretty frail material”, while attacked by the ‘Hollywood Reporter’ as “a shameful handbook of Marxian dialectic…and the heaviest dish of Red theory ever served to audiences outside the Soviet Union”. Despite Russell Metty’s usual exemplary photography the fundamental artificiality of the piece shows in the regular use of process work and casting John Garfield and Jennifer Jones – good as they both are – as a Cuban and a Mexican; although mitigated by the presence in supporting roles of authentic Latinos like Pedro Armendariz, Ramon Novarro and Gilbert Roland.
@RichardChatten

TALKING PICTURES TV | 2024

Mandoob | Night Courier (2023)

Dir: Ali Kalthami | KSL | Comedy thriller |

Ali Kalthami’s debut feature Is a taut and caustically comedic thriller set in Riyadh where a decent but down on his luck local guy comes a cropper.

Mohammed Aldokhi is robust and darkly humorous as the saturnine central character Fahad who is burning the candle at both ends in difficult circumstances. Bored – and frankly bad – at his day job in a call centre, nighttime sees Fahad grafting as a mandoob (courier) to earn money for his ageing father’s medical treatment.

Everyone knows that Saudi is an alcohol free zone but when Fahad is inevitably fired he makes the mistake of stealing booze from an illegal dealer with the hope of trading it on for cash. And so begins his descent into a world of crime in a country of zero tolerance on all levels – unless you’re Arab Royalty or in the Diplomatic service.

For the favoured set Saudi is a glitzy place framed by skyscrapers, swish cafes, snazzy hotels, magnificent shopping malls and vibrant nightlife. All this is showcased in DoP Ahmed Tahoun’s dazzling cinematography in an impressive debut to his promising career in film,

ON RELEASE 30 AUGUST 2024 IN UK AND IRELAND

Black Orchid (1953)

Dir: Charles Saunders | Cast: Ronald Howard, Olga Edwardes | Jack Bentley | UK Drama 58’

This is the sort of film that should be obligatory viewing for students of the narrative construction in the cinema for the sheer fascination of the single-mindedness with which the narrative is pared to the bone with not a solitary digression allowed to interfere with its determined pursuit of its goal of achieving its remit to deliver a dramatic conclusion.

In particular, it manages to include a gay character since the only possible motivation of the killer could come from the vengeful desire to satisfy the thwarted longings of one in the pangs of the love that then dared not speak its name. @RichardChatten

Widow Clicquot (2024)

Dir: Thomas Napper | Cast: Haley Bennett, Tom Sturridge, Sam Riley and Ben Miles.

Raise a glass to this English language biopic about a resolutely French wine and its female vintner in the male-dominated wine industry of the 19th century.

Family politics and female empowerment are at the heart of Thomas Napper’s lavishly styled biopic that sheds light on the storied champagne dynasty of Veuve Clicquot. For father-in-law Philippe (Ben Miles) it’s strictly business but for his emotionally unstable son sensitivity and craftsmanship are key: Francois (Tom Sturridge) sings to the grapes while in the distance Napoleon Bonaparte is suffering a crushing defeat. The film brings to mind Gilles Legrand’s 2011 outing You Will Be My Son where Niels Arestrup heads up a prestigious vineyard in St Emilion with his son. But this time the key figure is a woman. 

Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot could never be described as bubbly but she certainly takes control of the budding wine business the couple had steered forward, after Francois’ sudden death. Amid turbulent political change and financial crisis Barbe-Nicole fights off competition from competitors Moet revolutionising the world of champagne with an ingenious trade link with broker Louis Bohne (Sam Riley), taking the iconic brand and its special vintage ‘comet’ to fizzing heights as one of the world’s first successful businesswomen.

Haley Bennett is a modest but serious presence in the lead role of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot. Navigating the stormy waters of her husband’s laudanum addiction Bennett resolutely powers forward but never really sets the night on fire as the determined female figurehead. So although Widow Clicquot is a rather sombre in its direction and storytelling Barbe-Nicole’s love affair with Francois is certainly convincing exuding a simmering chemistry as they romp in candlelit flashbacks between the sheets in a lightly sparkling affair. @MeredithTaylor

In UK cinemas from 23 August | Released in cinemas on Friday 30th August

The Count of Monte Cristo (2024)

Dirs/Wri: Matthieu Delaporte, Alexandre De La Patellière | Cast: Pierre Niney, Anaïs Demoustier, Bastien Bouillon, Laurent Lafitte, Patrick Mille, Anamaria Vartolomei, Vassili Schneider, Julien De Saint-Jean, Pierfrancesco Favino | France. 2024. 178mins

The Napoleonic era is seen in a different light from Ridley Scott’s recent epic in this swashbuckling sortie into French history from 19th literary darling Alexandre Dumas based on his storied hero The Count of Monte Cristo.

In 1812 Napoleon’s fleet is embattled in churning seas when a dashing young sailor gets his kit off to save a young woman from drowning. It’s an act that will bring him promotion to captain of the fleet and to ask the hand of his sweetheart. He is Edmund Dantes (Pierre Niney), she is Mercedes (Demoustier). And what a lovely couple they make. Edmund shyly sexy and Mercedes quivering with nubile bliss. But there’s a niggle in the woodpile in the shape of a jealous rival – in fact several – determined to thwart him at every turn. And no sooner than the lovers’ lips are dry from their post nuptial kiss than Edmund is seized on a charge of treason and imprisoned on the forbidding Chateau d’If in an island off the Marseille coast.

This epic adventure written by Delaporte and De La Patelliere is a tale rife with revenge and intrigue in a complex plot bursting with romance, sword play and fabulous settings. And it’s Niney’s most ambitious role to date. There are several baddies to contend with, Fernand de Morcef (Bouillon) who fancies Mercedes, scheming prosecutor Gerard de Villefort (Lafitte) who imprisons him without trial, and the curiously named Danglars (Mille) whom Edmonde replaced as captain. But of course Dantes is the focus as we soon find out why in his intriguing character evolvement from earnest young salt to hard-bitten hero.

After fourteen years of incarceration in his dank dungeon Edmund miraculously tools through a gap in the stone walls and comes face to face with a distant relative of the Monte Cristo in the shape of fellow prisoner (Abbe) Pier Francesco Favino. A close bond of trust forms in these challenging circumstances and Abbe divulges the location of his family treasure before tragedy strikes on the eve of a tension-fuelled escapade to uncover the secret of the hidden booty. But on returning home Edmund discovers that his love is now married to his ‘best friend’ and that his father has died of a broken heart.

Zipping through its three hour running time this tale of derring-do then transports us to a lavish palace where our hero has slipped into a more mysterious guise as the soi disant Comte de Monte Cristo, a raffish, tee totaller seeking justice but killing only in his defence, and supported by sidekicks, Andréa (Julien De Saint-Jean) and the enigmatic Haydée (Anamaria Vartolomei), who both have axes to grind with Edmund’s enemies. Residing in an opulent palace showcasing his newly acquired fortune Edmund sets out to exact retribution, and we root for him until the end, in this classically styled adventure drama with solid gold production values and  sweepingly romantic score. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK from 30 August 2024

Invention (2024) Pardo for Best Performance | Locarno International Film Festival 2024

Dir: Courtney Stephens, Callie Hernandez | Writers: Callie Hernandez, Courtney Stephens | Cast: Callie Hernandez, Sahm McGlynn, Lucy Kaminsky, Tony Torn, James N. Kienitz Wilkins | US Drama

Of all the ways to lose a person death is the kindest“

On a tight budget Carrie picks out a black plastic box for the body of her conspiracy-minded father in the aftermath to his death. The only thing he leaves her – the patent for an experimental healing device, and a pile of debts. A fascinating premise turns into a sensitive psychological drama from US filmmakers Stephens and Hernandez, who also plays the main role.

Carrie then embarks on a series of meetings with her father’s collaborators in an attempt to discover more about her legacy and her dad’s life. Through these offbeat encounters she gradually builds up a picture of the man she hardly knew, and she also discovers some bizarre conspiracy theories.

Featuring archives from Callie Hernandez’s late father, this oddball and darkly comic film explores the process of mourning for a madcap parent. Oddly, the filmmaking itself becomes a part of the process with its electronic organ score and some visual flourishes adding to the bizarre ambiance.

There are some inventive ideas here and the filmmakers adopt an episodic approach to the narrative that plays out with a series of wacky character sketches and imaginative concepts. Occasionally the camera cuts to a bleached out sequence that feels like a flashback but is ultimately confusing in the scheme of things. There are also clips of filmed footage featuring other outlandish gadgets and inventions and these give this watchable and memorable film its tongue in cheek humour. The directors also point out the following which I found relevant and insightful: “Invention also serves as a portrait of America in its late period, a country in which widespread disappointment infuses the culture with hopeful fictions and toxic nostalgia”. @MeredithTaylor 

LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | Pardo for Best Performance | Callie Hernandez | CINEASTI DEL PRESENTE

Ozi: Voice of the Forest (2024)

Dir: Tim Harper | With the voices of: Amandla Stenberg, Dean-Charles Chapman, Donald Sutherland, Laura Dern | Animation 97’

Ozi is an adorable orphan orangutan who is separated from her family during a manmade fire and uses her special influencer skills to save her forest and home from deforestation.

It’s a measure of the increasingly high profile that animated features are enjoying that the late Donald Sutherland lent to this film his vocal talents to the role of a crocodile called ‘Smiley’ (rather aptly since Sutherland’s menacing smile had long been a characteristic of his)

Ozi himself is a cute little tyke, with a mop of bright red hair, big brown eyes, secure in her cuteness for her father to plead vainly “Don’t do the eyes!”, blessed with a worldly wit and able to operate an ipad.

Human rapaciousness inevitably gets short shrift; humanity’s Humanity’s saving grave coming in the form of two friendly forest rangers. @RichardChatten

IN UK AND IRISH CINEMAS FROM 16 August 2024

you can watch the trailer HERE.

Mexico 1986 (2024) Locarno International Film Festival 2024

Dir: Cesar Diaz | Cast: Berenice Bejo, Fermin Martinez, Leonardo Ortisgris, Julieta Egurrola, Matheo Labbe | Drama 89’

Another fascinating slice of history from Latin America in the Seventies that unfolds in Guatemala, 1976. A terrified woman runs along the street with a baby boy. She is Maria, a Guatemalan rebel activist fighting against the corrupt military dictatorship. Now desperate to save her life amid death threats she must flee to Mexico, leaving her son behind.

Ten years later, when he comes to live with her, she is forced to choose between her duties as a mother and continuing her revolutionary activism. Berenice Bejo gives her all in this passionate portrait of divided loyalties from La fremis-trained director Cesar Diaz of Amores Perros and Our Mothers fame. @MeredithTaylor

LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | CONCORSO INTERNATIONALE 2024

Someone at the Door (1950)

Dir: Francis Searle | Cast:· Michael Medwin. Ronnie Martin · Garry Marsh. Kapel · Yvonne Owen. Sally Martin · Hugh Latimer | UK Comedy drama 1950

A young Michael Medwin overacts like crazy in a rare leading role in this second adaptation of a play first filmed as a thirties quota quickie; an impression reinforced by the presence of Garry Marsh and Danny Green as the heavies.

The whimsical nature of this early production by Hammer veteran Anthony Hinds is established from the outset as the cast cheerfully breach the fourth wall turning and smiling at the camera (although the scene where Marsh menacingly bears down on the bound heroine wielding a lighted cigar would have seemed like strong meat even in Hammer’s later horror thrillers).

The acoustics of the country house already a familiar feature of Exclusive productions and the actors’ breath in the exteriors adds substance along with Walter Harvey’s atmospheric high contrast photography. @RichardChatten

NOW ON TALKING PICTURES

The Trouble with Jessica (2023)

Dir: Matt Winn | UK, Comedy satire, 90′

The Trouble with Jessica is of those spiky satires that hangs on a series of conundrums, the characters tossing the ball from one to the other as they scope how each thorny dilemma with ultimately affect them.

It all takes place in the leafy literati village of Hampstead, North London, where Sarah (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tidy) have invited a coterie of close friends for a pre-sale last supper in their flashy double-fronted mansion. The dish of the day, a cherry clafoutis (a type of French pudding), features as the star turn, and may be the reason the film won the Audience Award and Special Jury Prize at last year’s Dinard British Film Festival.

Shirley Henderson is terrific as the hard-as-nails hostess Sarah, her husband Tom is an architect. The plot turns on their desperate need to the family house or face financial ruin. Rufus Sewell is a hot shot barrister. Much to Sarah’s annoyance, his wife Beth (Olivia Williams) has brought along her friend Jessica (Indira Varma) who seems to have dated all the men and still carries for them, flirting outrageously. Suddenly, after a seemingly trivial spat, Jessica goes into the garden and hangs herself. What happens next will have you on tenterhooks although the outcome is authentic and satisfying.

Written by Matt Winn and James Handel The Trouble is witty and fun and full of insider gags that may prove less amusing for those unfamiliar with the territory. Let’s say it’s an adult affair for heterosexual highflyers. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE

 

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Dir: Shawn Levy, Writers: Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells, Shawn Levy | Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Matthew Macfadyen | US Actioner 127′

The screen’s nerdiest superhero returns in tandem with Wolverine in a tale that probably owes as much to Shawn Levy’s earlier comedies as to Marvel comics.

The humour’s perversely juvenile considering – although it includes references both visual and verbal to other movies and the film business in general to tickle the tummy of the cinema-savvy – since the bad language, sex talk and eye-watering violence means it carries a 15 certificate.

As usual the characters devote more energy to fighting amongst themselves than evil-doers, and when they eventually do it’s almost as an afterthought.

Predictably it’s overlong and garrulous with several false endings; as our hero ruefully admits in one of the last of his frequent breaches of the fourth wall. @RichardChatten

NOW IN UK CINEMAS

All at Sea (1957)

Dir: Charles Frend | UK Comedy

The last and least of his Ealing comedies – dismissed by Alec Guinness as “the wretched, boring ‘Barnacle Bill’ – which I never wanted to do but only did out of friendship to Charley Friend” – ‘Barnacle Bill’ features playing yet another authority figure whose boundless self-confidence is completely unspoiled by failure and whose hubris involves sleeping in a hammock.

Recalling the depiction of the D’Ascoigne family in ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’ with Guinness’s ancestors played by Guinness; while lacking the subtlety of the classic Ealing comedies of yesteryear with a galumphing score by John Addison it ended the studio’s history with a whimper rather than a bang but affords the agreeable sight of Guinness shaking a leg with a young Jackie Collins in slacks and a ponytail. @RichardChatten

NOW ON TALKING PICTURES TV

A King in New York (1957)

Wri/Dir: Charles Chaplin | US Drama

Once Chaplin finally began to talk onscreen it swiftly became apparent how fond he was of the sound of his own voice, and from that point on he never stopped – even reciting a soliloquy from Hamlet’ at one point – in ‘A King in New York’; while in support his boy Michael proves a regular chip off the old block, to whom he passes the mantle “the little fellow”.

Historically important as Chaplin’s final lead, ‘A King in New York’ proved like most of Chaplin’s later work a film whose lack of availability for several years maintained the notion that it was something special, although later reappraisal sadly proved otherwise; while Chaplin’s critique of American crassness and vulgar materialism proved heavy-handed, with it’s depiction of the HUAC as naive and simplistic as his portrayal of Hitler in ‘The Great Dictator’.

Dawn Addams’ dark gamine looks make her a classic Chaplin ingenue, Oliver Johnston, who plays his ambassador, obviously met with Chaplin’s approval since he was later invited back for ‘A Countess from Hong Kong’; while the fact that the film was made in Britain is indicated by the large number of expatriate Americans, along with Sid James in the days when he was an honorary one. @RichardChatten

All the King’s Men (1949)

Dir: Robert Rossen | Cast: Mercedes McCambridge, Joanne Dru, John Ireland, Broderick Crawford | US Noir

John Carpenter’s Escape from New York has always seemed deeply flawed by the central implausibility that a man who looked like Donald Pleasance could have been elected President in the first place.

A fundamental shortcoming that has long afflicted Presidential politics in the United States is the stress perennially placed upon ‘charisma’ which perversely encourages style over substance, encouraging demagogues and going a long way towards explaining why two of the most grotesque chancers to have occupied the presidency since the turn of the current century had little more to offer than that overrated virtue.

Actual newsreel footage of the original Huey Long attests to his great vibrance and charisma, while the current pretender to the White House more strongly resembles the venal bully Willie Stark than Long himself.

Another major similarity between the final scene of All the King’s Men (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) based on what originally happened in Baton Rouge in 1935 and Saturday’s events in Pennsylvania was the sheer lack of finesse that characterised the response of the security details on both occasions. @RichardChatten

Citizen Saint (2023) Svaneti Film Festival 2024

Dir: Tinatin Kajrishvili | Georgia, Drama 2023

Is hope always a good a thing, or is it just a concept there to serve our own selfish needs? This is the question Tinatin Kajrishvili explores in her latest feature.

In a remote Georgian mining town, a saint’s stone statue mounted on a crucifix presides over the surrounding countryside and serves as a fatherly figure to those who come in tribute and also ask for help and protection

Citizen Saint – screening at this year’s Svaneti International Film Festival – reflects on the way Christian symbols of all kinds provide a comforting focus to believers all over the world.

According to local folklore the saint was crucified before turning to stone three days later. But when the man on the cross mysteriously disappears during restoration work a silent stranger (George Babluani) sporting stigmata and seemingly possessing mystic powers appears in the village causing the locals to assume this is the reincarnation of the statue. Some even reflect on the many secrets they have shared with him. 

Miracles soon start to happen: the stranger finds a path through the caved-in tunnel where one of the villagers, a modest man called Berdo, once lost his son in a mining accident. Up to now he has only communed with his son’s ghost but now he can connect with him. The mine becomes a place of pilgrimage with believers coming from near and far in search of hope and healing including Mari, a woman whose husband was injured in the same incident. But the focus is always on the pilgrims’ own needs and expectations rather than the saintly man himself.

The Carpathian mountains surrounding the Svaneti International Film Festival provide an evocative backcloth for viewing this intriguing parable, a third feature for Kajrishvili who crafts an imaginative story about our ability to use representational icons to our own ends. Agile camerawork by Bulgarian DoP Krum Rodriquez is one of the triumphs of this resonant feature capturing the widescreen splendour of the craggy peaks, valleys and caves in pristine monochrome with fabulous use of light and shadow. Tako Zhordania‘s score adds to this surreal ambiance, combining ancient instruments, including the two-stringed erhu, and an Orthodox choir. @MeredithTaylor

NOW SCREENING AT SVANETI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Black Dog (2024)

Dir: Huan Gan | China 103’

This noirish black comedy is the lusciously lensed latest offering from Hu Guan and his longtime collaborator Rui Ge and stars awarded filmmaker Zia Zhangke alongside celebrated actor Eddie Peng who is strangely compelling in the main role.

It all starts with an accident in the remote steppe of north west China where a Clint Eastwood style drifter called Lang (Peng) comes home only to uncover the ghosts of his past. But this is no ordinary odyssey. 

After escaping unscathed from an accident in the bus the skinny ex-prisoner fetches up in his hometown to discover the place is under threat from a rabid black dog. After joining the local dog patrol tasked with eliminating strays the two bond eventually and this is their unusual story.

Immaculately shot on the widescreen and brimming with thematic richness: civic and family duty; animal welfare, urban degeneration and so on this is a real treat with its sly humour, Pink Floyd score, visual acuity and an off beat script that takes its time and goes to unexpected places in telling an imaginative and moving story about a man and his best friend  @MeredithTaylor

BLACK DOG will have its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (August 15-21, 2024), where it has been selected to screen Out of Competition.

Sleep (2024)

Dir/Wri: Jason Yu | Fantasy Thriller, South Korea 95’

Sleep is the debut feature title of South Korean writer director Jason Yu and specifically references classic 1970s paranoia films such as The Exorcist and The Driller Killer. But the deeper resonance may be the ground breaking Ira Levin/Roman Polanski novel/film Rosemary’s Baby (1968).

Sleep is divided into three chapters and explores the relationship of a married couple for whom pregnancy and impending birth starts to engulf the wife with doubt about the intentions of her husband. This will test how much he deeply cares for her and the unborn child. While the husband starts to behave ominously during the night, scratching his skin raw while asleep as well as sleep walking, the wife has to think outside of the box with more and more desperate ways to protect both her husband and unborn child.

During the second of three chapters the wife begins to adapt the apartment they live in with padlocks, lights at night, hand gloves, bedding straps and rails over windows. A medium will visit and offers exorcism, the wife’s mother provides unhelpful advice, food becomes an issue and a charming pet dog will become an unwelcome target for the couple. As strange behaviour increases during the hours of sleep, the film speculates on the nature of marriage and is aided here by accomplished sympathetic performances from Jung Yu-Mi and Lee Sun-Kyum as the couple.

Director Yu carefully uses architectural spaces to reveal inner states of mind which will also include a bath and a car doubling up as spaces to sleep in. As the wife fights to save the marriage, with the mantra “together we can overcome anything” visible on a wall, she talks to her husband about sharing life together providing a warm, loving, romantic touch to the film’s darkening paranoia.

Unlike Rosemary’s Baby, not everything in Sleep is clear about what is causing the states of paranoia. If not related to specific references to satanic malevolence, what are the other forces and factors at play here? In the final chapter, the film shifts focus towards the wife. Her loyalty and love within boundaries of familial relationships will also be tested.

The film has been described by Bong Joon Ho (the director of Parasite as an accomplished debut which it certainly is. As Yu learnt his craft working on films including Okja, an apt title for the film could have been Parasomnia which resonates with the theme of disturbed patterns of sleep. Peter Herbert

PETER HERBERT is CURATOR MANAGER at THE ARTS PROJECT

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Kneecap (2024)

Wri/Dir: Rich Peppiatt | 105’

Kneecap begins with a montage of newsreel explosions, as a laconic and contradictory voiceover tells us that all films about Belfast start in the same way, but this one won’t. It’s clear from the off that this is one movie which will to use all means, fair or foul, to have its effect on the audience.

The film tells the story of the real-life rap group of the title, a trio from working-class West Belfast who play themselves in a drama which probably takes some liberties with the actuality but brims over with mischief, energy and inventiveness while making telling points about the Troubles and their repercussions down the generations.

In the 1990s, IRA man Arlo illicitly christens his son Móglaí Bap at a sacred Catholic rock in a wood outside Belfast. When British Army helicopters scope out the spot, Arlo becomes a marked man. He fakes his own death and goes into hiding, leaving his son in the care of a mother who promptly zonesout and retires to her sofa.

Bap and his friend Mo Chara grow up as self-confessed ‘low-life scum’. In theory the directionless duo are drug dealers,but their consumption levels are such that little is left for their customers. One of their few redeeming features is an enthusiasm for the Irish language, Gaeilge – or its slangy and idiosyncratic West Belfast variant.

A turning-point in their story comes when Mo is pulled in by police on suspicion of dealing. When he refuses to communicate in English, music teacher and Gaeilge evangelist J.J. Ó Dochartaigh is brought to the station to translate. Quickly falling into complicity with the suspicious youth, J.J. palms an as-yet-unnoticed blotter of acid and uses his position as intermediary to report the impenetrable curses Mo hurls at the peelers as a sober and watertight case. J.J. strikes up a friendship with the boys and encourages them to continue rapping in Gaeilge – in his view, “the light that guides us towards our freedom”.

Donning a woollen tricolour balaclava to hide his identity, J.J.steps in as producer, organiser and third member under the pseudonym “DJ Próvaí”. He also reverts to his youth as an enthusiastic drug-taker, which doesn’t sit so well with his girlfriend Caitlin.

Ó Dochartaigh does a good job in a role which requires a little more complexity than those of Mo and Bap, although they acquit themselves perfectly well. Conversely, Michael Fassbender’s brief incursions into the film as the mostly-absent Arlo bring a quasi-supernatural gravitas somewhat at odds with the generally harum-scarum tone.

Kneecap feels a bit like a hallucinatory take on the methods of French New Wave as the fourth wall is broken, the image paused and fast-forwarded, and striking visual effects and plasticine models mimic the drug states experienced by the band. Despite the cartoonishness and undercurrent of humour, though, the film gives us a sense of what it’s like to grown up in a violent and psychologically damaging place. Even if Mo and Bap see PTSD only as a useful pretext to claim prescription drugs, they probably are suffering from it. The music in the film demonstrates that Belfast Irish is a good fit for the rhythms of hip-hop, and we hear material steadily developing into its fiery and impressive current form as we watch the boys graduate from performing to a handful of elderly and indifferent drinkers in a small green box of a pub to striding large stages with grandstanding aplomb.

It’s always clear which side of the political fence the film is on, but Kneecap doesn’t try to hide the thuggery, gangsterism and chauvinism that infects the Irish Republican cause (as it does almost every other nationalist movement).These things are apparent in the name of the band and film’s joint title, of whose darker meaning we are left in no doubt by the story’s otherwise upbeat end. @IanLong

IN UK CINEMAS FROM 23 August 2024

Eno (2024)

Dir: Gary Hustwit | UK/US Music Biopic, 90’

Not many people could have been Eno. Quite possibly, he was the only one qualified for the job.

Consider his early life in 1950s rural Suffolk, whose rivers, flatlands and vistas attuned him to landscape, and perhaps gave the best of his music its curiously wistful, pastoral quality (many of his most affecting songs sound like sea shanties). Nothing too surprising there, maybe.

But there was a futuristic side to this bucolic backwater. The area was temporary home to a rolling contingent of U.S. airmen, many of them Black, so local juke-boxes throbbed with the futuristic sounds of cutting-edge R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, country and doo-wop, much of it too outré for radio play.

Eno (and it’s good to see the exotic mononym back in place after fifty years of eclipse by the more prosaic Brian) was enthralled by the enigmatic ‘mystery music’ that permeated his environment. Much of his subsequent career has been a series of strategies (a favourite Eno word) to recreate the exciting, baffling, galvanising effects it had on him.

Eno drew all the time. He sang in choirs and loved hymns. His grandfather had a barnful of player pianos, hurdy gurdies and other exotic instruments which in retrospect seem like early versions of the synthesizers whose sounds would define his grandson’s career (the joint arrival of Eno and synths was serendipitous; unable to play an instrument, he found himself performing on one which was so novel that no one knewwhether or not it was being played ‘correctly’).

Eno went to art school. His dandy tendencies blossomed, but he was a serious student, accumulating ideas that he would develop for decades to come (his output may be varied, but at root Eno is nothing if not consistent). One of the most important of these was the ‘systems’ approach to art.

Here, the artist’s main creative task is not to make artworks in the time-honoured, hands-on way. It’s to devise rules, or apparatuses, which will generate them. A somewhat detached and cerebral attitude which he’d bring – with hugely successful results – to the visceral, expressionistic arena of rock music.

Yes, Eno was positioned to benefit from a unique set of cultural confluences. But we care about him because he had the imagination and intelligence to integrate them and put them to use. He loves passion and strangeness, but he achieves them in an idiosyncratically rigorous way.

All this brings us to ‘Eno’ the film, and its Unique Selling Point. From time to time as we watch, skeins of computer code skitter down the screen. This isn’t some facile Matrix-lite trope, but a peep behind the wizard’s curtain: the tumbling digits are the actual workings of a specially-devised ‘generative engine’ which is selecting, in real time, the next piece of footage we’re going to watch.

Mirroring its protagonist’s preoccupations, director Gary Hustwit has made a ‘systems-based’ film about Eno’s artistic life. While its first and last scenes are always the same, the rest is different every time it’s screened.

Having said that, all ENO’s major career beats – early fame in Roxy Music, work with David Bowie, Talking Heads and U2, discovery of African music, return to the visual arts with videos and light-based pieces, etc – were covered in the iteration I saw.

So it seems that the material isn’t totally randomised (perhaps a pointless exercise) but batched into subject areas, from each of which the engine chooses a representative sample for each screening. There probably won’t be versions of ‘Eno’ which refuse to admit that its subject ever went to art school, joined Roxy Music or dallied with David Bowie, just as there won’t be renderings which harp endlessly on one or two of these things.

It’s a worthy experiment, and Eno is the perfect topic for a generative documentary. But will it work for other subjects? Despite the collage-like construction method, the film flowed well (the editing process was understandably laborious, sincethe ending of every piece of footage needed to be juxtaposablewith the beginning of all the others). The visible computer coding gives the film a modernist feel, like a Pompidou Centre-style building where exposed water pipes and heating ducts become design features. But I can imagine that future generative films will want to do without the cascading incursions.

Although ‘my version’ of the film gave a general overview of Eno’s career, the generative engine could presumably be primed to select material from batches of interest to specific audiences – say, environmentalists, cyberneticists, or music producers. This could be a useful way for filmmakers to dealwith the increasing volumes of material which mass around any given topic. Rather than making a series of films, they cannow just morph one movie to target its viewers.

Eno is a very good talker, often seeming to discover new thoughts as he articulates them. Some ideas that emerged in my version were: the need to create a persona to perform a song, why we should show less respect to Marcel Duchamp’s urinal, fears and remedies about the human impact on the environment, and why repetitive music shows you how your brain works.

But the film has a mildly impersonal feel. Despite Eno’s engaging qualities – he’s funny, affable, self-deprecating – it tells us little of him beyond his work. Recent footage shows him mostly alone as he potters about his home, studio and garden, and doesn’t divulge who else is in his life (a partner, children, family, friends – although I did see a cat). And there’s no sense how the Eno enterprise, presumably now quite sizeable, is organised.

At one point, Eno discusses the principles he uses to choose whether to go with a potential new project. These include “money,” “glory,” “physical exercise,” and “how long it would take.” “Sex” isn’t mentioned, but there was a time when no interview with Eno was complete without extended,often florid and perverse reflections on the subject. If the generative engine is persuaded to linger over these batches, some versions of ‘Eno’ could be particularly intriguing. @IanLong

UK RELEASE: 12 JULY 2024
PICTUREHOUSE CINEMAS
 | Soundtrack released on streaming, CD/vinyl on July 12 on Universal Music Recordings.
https://brianeno.lnk.to/EnoOST12

 

Kensuke’s Kingdom (2024)

Dir: Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry | With the voices of Cillian Murphy, Raffy Kassidy, Sally Hawkins, Ken Watanabe | Anime 85’

Adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s classic book Kensuke’s Kingdom suggests a Japanese manga but the young hero is plainly European, the title referring to an old Japanese hermit (who we learn in a flashback was a former sailor shipwrecked soon after Nagasaki) who takes Michael under his wing after he learns the hard way the danger of disobedience when he gets shipwrecked.

The island is no tropical paradise since we see a Komodo Dragon gobble up a mud hopper in one gulp, while Michael gets bitten by ants and stung by enormous jelly fish.

Michael soon bonds with the local Orang Utangs, an idyll cut short by dive bombing sea gulls (in keeping with their current bad press) and three hunters in big boots, carrying guns and a big cage. Tougher kids will love this. @RichardChatten

KENSUKE’S KINGDOM | IN UK AND IRISH CINEMAS FROM 2 AUGUST 2024

Pierce (2024) Karlovy Vary Film festival 2024

Dir: NELICIA LOW | Cast: LIU HSIU-FU, TSAO YU-NING, DING NING, LIN TSU-HENG

Nelicia Low melds competitive sport with a sinister sibling centred thriller in her feature debut Pierce screening in World Premiere at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

In Taipei the film follows Zijie a young fencer longing to re-build bridges with his beloved older brother when Zihan mysteriously returns after seven years in juvenile prison for killing an opponent during a fencing match. Their mother Ai Ling has suffered social embarrassment from Han’s conviction and is also recovering from the loss of her husband to cancer. A professional singer in a nightclub she has found love with a  widower Zhuang (Lin Tsu-Heng).

Meanwhile behind back her sons grow closer, training together as the elder help the younger to up his game with Zijie improving by leaps and bounds getting selected to compete at the upcoming National Championships. Although their mother is furious with Zihan for hood winking her, Zijie tries to see the best in his brother until Zihan’s hostile past is triggered after an argument, leaving Zijie to fnally question whether his beloved sibling might be a violent sociopath after all.

Pierce brings to mind the recent Berlinale title Brief History of a Family and the cut and thrust of the elegantly performed fencing interludes provides a dynamic contrast to the seething psychological thrill of the family interactions when Han pulls rank physically and emotionally over his younger brother with the added dimension of enigma provided by the covert expressions behind the masks primped by the often discordant score.

Low exerts a confident control over her cast and narrative to deliver a really gripping first feature in this impressive start to her big screen career. @MeredithTaylor

KARLOVY VARY FILM FESTIVAL | BEST DIRECTOR AWARD – NELICIA LOW

Mr Majestyk (1974)

Dir: Richard Fleischer | Cast: Charles Bronson, Linda Crystal | US Drama 103’

Behind this exotic title and given its provenance in a story by Elmore Leonard it comes as an agreeably pleasant surprise, being a surprisingly funny comedy; not a quality one naturally associates with either its star or its director, while the part of a poor but honest melon farmer isn’t exactly typecasting either.

Unlike your common or garden thriller this one’s played for laughs and that goes for the late Al Letierri whose regulation mean-faced thug gets a little carried away in his pursuit of Mr Bronson to the extent (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) of unleashing a real mean bunch of heavies to turn their artillery on a great big pile of Bronson’s melons. @RichardChatten

Heart of the Oak (2023)

Dirs: Laurent Charbonnier and Michel Seydoux | France, Docudrama 81′

I once read that an oak tree provides a home for over 500 creatures. So living opposite a mature one for over twenty years I was fascinated to discover my neighbours. And this exquisite French doc follows life through the seasons in an oak tree that first sprouted in the Loire Valley in 1821.

Heart of the Oak plays out like a thriller with differently timed sequences so it isn’t strictly a documentary. There are moments of high tension in a film that isn’t preachy but peaceably silent apart from occasional bursts from Dean Martin’s tune-book. Gradually Laurent Charbonnier and Michel Seydoux set the scene in the vast branches of this ancient habitat showing how the tree’s root systems communicate to provide for an entire community of animals that each play their part in creating a seamless ecological environment: there are predators but nature’s helpers too, and as the titles roll at the end, there are some Latin names to conjure with, and their French and English common names. Immaculate aerial and close-up photography, using the latest audiovisual technologies (including 360-degree virtual cameras, machinery and special effects), and cutting edge innovations allowed the team to approach the microscopic worlds and glide through this miraculous bosky expose to offer an intimate understanding of the daily interactions between wood mice, jays, acorn weevils, goshawks woodpeckers, barn owns and red squirrels and many more. Truly a miraculous insight into the workings of our natural world. @MeredithTayor

Heart Of An Oak will be in UK Cinemas from 12th July and on Digital Download from 12th August

Suspended Time (2024)

Dir/Wri: Olivier Assayas | Cast: Vincent Macaigne, Micha Lescot, Nine D’Urso, Nora Hamzawi, Maud Wyler, Dominique Reymond, Magdalena Lafont | France, drama 105′

In this uneventful little drama Olivier Assayas takes us back to a time most remember with a sigh and a sinking heart: the first pandemic lockdown.

Suspended Time certainly captures the sentiment, but let’s hope it’s the last of this rash of Covid-set films with nothing to say: a time some found reassuring, others restrictive. Endless days in the sunny Spring of 2020 when details loomed large, such as cleaning everything to within an inch of its life, as the world was thrown into forced navel-gazing and anxiety.

Assayas has assembled a watchable cast led by Vincent Macaigne as Paul, a laid back journalist enjoying the slightly angst-ridden months in his family’s bijou mansion deep in the Chevreuse Valley, not far from Paris, a backcloth Paul amply fleshes out in reflective monologues that take us back to a happy childhood.

Ensconced with his broadcaster brother Etienne (Lescot), Paul realises the two have nothing now in common. Joining is his slightly neurotic girlfriend Morgane (d’Urso), and Etienne’s other half Carole (Hamzawi) who are both sketchily drawn in a mildly amusing comedy of manners.

Suspended Time certainly looks very pretty thanks to the reappearance of Eric Gautier as the director’s longtime DoP, the two last worked together on Personal Shopper and that’s perhaps Assayas’ most interesting film of late, if you don’t count the TV series Irma Vep. Sadly Assayas fails to strike any emotional chords between his key players in a drama that’s pleasant enough but instantly forgettable. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE | BERLINALE 2024 PREMIERE

Kill (2024)

Wri/Dir: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat | Cast: Lakshya, Tanya Maniktala and Raghav Juyal | India Thriller

Considering the extreme length of current commercial cinema, it comes a pleasant surprise to find a Bollywood movie that clocks in at a slim 105 minutes; probably due to the absence of songs, although it would be fun to see the makers try to stage an Indian dance routine aboard a speeding train.

Kill starts off fairly quietly but the introduction of a bunch of inbred malcontents, who spend plenty of time kicking dogs before learning the hard way that you don’t mess with an off-duty commando.

There follows 57 varieties of stabbings, gouging, shootings and stranglings amid copious quantities of bloodshed. The audience responded to all this with laughter, groans and applause with equal measure. Great fun if you like that sort of thing. @RichardChatten

Kill is in cinemas July 5 from Lionsgate UK

Clive Owen Tribute | Karlovy Vary Festival 2024

ACTOR CLIVE OWEN TO RECEIVE KVIFF PRESIDENT’S AWARD

British actor Clive Owen, recipient of a Golden Globe, a BAFTA award, and a nomination for an Oscar, will be a special guest of this year’s festival. At the closing ceremony of the 58th KVIFF, Owen will be presented the KVIFF President’s Award.

On the occasion of Clive Owen receiving the KVIFF President’s Award, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will show the award-winning Closer, which was released twenty years ago following on from his role in Mike Hodges Croupier.

KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 28 JUNE – 6 JULY 2024

The Wild Robot (2024) Annecy Animation Festival 2024

THE WILD ROBOT and its DreamWorks team were greeted by a hyper enthusiastic crowd at this year’s Annecy Animation Festival as first clips of Universal’s long-awaited release, due to arrive in cinemas this Autumn, finally hit the big screen.

Inspired by Titus Wong and Studio Ghibli and based on Peter Brown’s 2016 bestseller The Wild Robot is directed by Oscar-nominated Chris Sanders and brought to life by DreamWorks’ 54 animators and 10 artists as a powerful story about the discovery of self, a thrilling examination of the bridge between technology and nature and a moving exploration of what it means to be alive and connected to all living things.

The main focus is kindness and empathy as a tool for survival in a Bambi-style parable. Refreshingly, there are no real villains or cultural associations just a bunch of feral forest animals with tender and relatable emotional beats that will appeal to all audiences.

The DreamWorks creative team with Margie Cohn (President) and The Wild Robot’s director Chris Sanders (both far right)

Joined by a lively cast of Bill Nighy and Pedro Pascal, Lupita Nyong’o voices ‘Rozzum 7134’, a robot that’s clueless and vulnerable when she blows off course and lands on a remote island totally unprepared for what comes next.

The film also features the voice talents of Emmy winning pop-culture icon Mark Hamill (Star Wars franchise, Matt Berry (The SpongeBob Movie franchise) and Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction).

The Wild Robot combines a timeless quality with a message of hope when ‘Roz’ is forced into a motherly role of guiding a fledging gosling in its first days of life.

Blending 2D and 3D images the DreamWorks design-team have created a unique aesthetic with painterly handcrafted images and with an original score by Chris Bowers. @MeredithTaylor

THE WILD ROBOT in UK cinemas from 18 October 2024 

 

Croupier (1998)

Dir: Mike Hodges | Cast: Clive Owen, Alex Kingston | UK Thriller 94′

Mike Hodges died last year at the age of ninety, and this and ‘Get Carter’ are the two to remember him by (No, I haven’t forgotten ‘Flash Gordon’). Over a quarter of a century after the former, the latter marked a triumphant return from the doldrums and anybody familiar with the original James Bond novels will agree our hero Clive Owen (described by Ann Billson as “possessor of one the most interesting, funereal faces in films”) resembles 007 to a ‘t’.

Presumably Owen just wasn’t interested, but his role in ‘Croupier’ alongside Alex Kingston, will always provide a tantalising reminder of what could have been. He plays Jack Manfred an aspiring writer who is hired as a croupier where he realises that his as life in the casino would make a great novel.

Paul Mayersberg does such a lovely job on the screenplay I can almost forgive him for making such a pig’s ear of ‘Captive’ (obviously he was more suited to writing than directing his own material). @RichardChatten

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Eternal You | AI Meets the Afterlife (2024)

Dir: Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck | US Doc 87′

Artificial Intelligence via ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead, according to a disturbing new US documentary that delves into the pros and cons of this alarming new technology.

When a loved ones dies being able to contact them is a comforting thought for the bereaved especially in this day and age when death is taboo and people feel increasingly isolated or lonely. Joshua, one of the film’s contributors, has been doing just that with his late fiancée. He filled in a questionnaire with a few facts and next thing he was having an exchange with Jessica via  ‘Project December’. It felt spookily real. 

The ‘Afterlife Contact’ industry is clearly worth millions but it also raises  moral and ethical concerns. Instead of the natural process of grieving, which we all have to go through, surely Joshua is just ‘holding on’ rather than ‘moving on’.

The market in the US is already awash with AI startups that aim to sell computer packages promising immortality. But government bodies and even some AI engineers are increasingly concerned about this industry of turning the dead into a business. There are real fears that it is out of control and messing with people’s lives. AI systems have developed ‘thanobots’ that work by taking a person’s digital footprint, analysing it and then replicating the personality, or even – more freakily – creating avatars that enable the living to interact with the dead using genuine exchanges that have previously occurred. “I wanted to have the last conversation I never had with him,” explains a grieving contributor. And this is understandable in cases where loved ones have not had a chance to say goodbye. One of the most sinister incidences is the case of a South Korean woman called Ji-Sung, who agreed to appear in a televised experiment to meet her dead daughter in virtual reality, right down to gloves that let her “touch” her. But where does this bogus interaction lead to?. Chatting to an avatar masquerading as a loved one is surely a hiding to nowhere.

For the younger generation, who are emotionally more detached from dead members of their family (such as grandparents) AI could provide a way of finding out about and even learning from their elders. But some people have managed to come to terms with death. One contributor preferred to remember her dead husband just as he was rather than knowing ‘whether he’s in Heaven or even in Hell’.

Eternal You certainly offers food for thought in a measured documentary that offers some visually striking images. The most moving encounters are those between the living. Perhaps we should learn to remember our loved ones as they really were, rather than messing with nature. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK and IRISH CINEMAS FROM 28 JUNE 2024

 

 

Flow (2024) Jury Award – Annecy Film Festival 2024

Dir: Gints Zilbalodis | Latvian Animation, 84′

Flow a relatable drama from Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis (Away), centres on a cat that survives a destructive deluge on a boat and is forced, against its solitary nature, to collaborate with a collection of other animals in order to survive in a new world. The film, premiering at this year’s Cannes Festival, won the jury award and audience prize at Annecy Animation Festival, voted for by Annecy attendees. @MeredithTaylor

ANNECY ANIMATION FESTIVAL 2024 | BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC, JURY AWARD, AUDIENCE AWARD 2024

Wilding (2023)

Dir: David Allen | UK Doc 75′

Pigs can swim!

The English countryside is one of the most depleted in the world in terms of wildlife; a quarter of our beloved mammals now face extinction in a dying landscape. But there is good news, according to this uplifting new eco documentary from David Allen. His stunning film shows that given the right conditions nature can heal itself. And Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell have proved this with their regenerative rewilding project in Southern England. Allen bases his film on Isabella’s 2018 book ‘Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm’

Wilding documents a transformation that started fifteen years ago in Knepp, a crenellated country estate 19th castle in Horsham, deepest Sussex. When the young farming couple took over Knepp the surrounding farmland was drenched in chemicals and the oaks were dying. A fizzing underground chemical circuit board had destroyed the vital microrrhizal network that allows plants – and particularly native oak trees – to thrive and enrich the ground with organic life to grow nutritious crops and re-create a landscape that been missing since the advent of intensive agriculture after the Second World War. Despite their best farming efforts, Charlie and Isabella knew a new approach was needed.

In 2002 ‘Countryside Stewardship’ funding allowed the couple to roll out a an avant garden conservation project where nature ‘takes over’. They took the  advice of Dutch ecologist and pioneer Dr Frans Vera and it was revealing: a natural landscape is not devoid of animals, but actually driven by herds of ancient wild stock that hold back the trees and assist in rebalancing the environment. So gradually the ancient animals were introduced to Knepp; but would they survive and breed?.

The task ahead was going to be fraught with difficult because the Knepp’s radical approach was weighted by so much public negativity. Intensive farming methods are hard-wired into the national psyche. To their dismay, the couple’s presentation was greeted with horror and anger by local farmers: “how are we going to feed the population without intensive farming?”. Many others felt the ‘privileged’ couple threatened to destroy the nature of the British landscape – as we know it – even allowed ragwort to prosper. ‘Creeping thistle’ is the enemy of farmers and is strictly controlled with pesticides – but more on that later.

With government support, the project eventually got under-way, and ancient breeds of wild native animals were allowed to run free and roam: Tamworth pigs, Exmoor ponies, red deer and longhorn cattle. Farm animals get fed but this new stock was going to have to fend for themselves. Surprisingly the beasts not only survived, but thrived. Freed from the restrictive practices of intensive farming, the animals reverted to their original natures, pigs even swam and dived for food. In fact, the Tamworth pigs seem to be the smartest, we watch as the sow nourishes herself with nettles for iron after giving birth to her first litter in the Spring.

Gradually wildlife returned to the land and it became a haven for near extinct and dwindling species: Turtle doves, nightingales and field mice numbers were boosting. Today, Knepp has the highest density of songbirds in Britain. And it’s the large grazing animals that provide the space needed to foster a habitat for thousands of native species. Beavers have since arrived to control the wetlands – since being granted a government licence – so no more floods that can cause havoc each year.

Eleven million butterflies headed to Britain in 2009 and those landing on the Knepp estate fed off the creeping thistle and devoured it. The following year no creeping thistle came back to the land. Charlie analysed the soil and cowpats and made the discovery that bugs that had been wiped out when the land was turned over to intensive farming had since returned. Now 19 different species of earthworms enrich the soil and provide the rich nutrients that eventually ends up in our food. Sixteen years into the project, Isabella  introduced a pair of storks into Knepp – and the birds bred and provided stork chicks, for the first time in 600 hundred years.

But the question still stands. How can this small project restore Britain’s natural ecosystem and provide nutritious food for the growing population? Well that’s the subject for another film but the findings are positive. We can save the world if we really want to, thanks to Isabella and Charlie’s brave experiment. @MeredithTaylor

NOW OUT IN CINEMAS

 

Serious Charge (1959)

Dir: Terence Young. Cast: Anthony Quayle, Andrew Ray, Sarah Churchill | UK Drama 91’

If you’re too young to remember Doris Day before she was a virgin you’re probably not old enough to remember Cliff Richard when he was a sneering Teddy Boy in a leather jacket in this further contradiction of the received wisdom that an ‘introducing’ credit means the kiss of death to any aspiring actor, since in ‘Serious Charge’ that dubious distinction belongs to our Cliff when he was modelling himself on Elvis Presley before he saw the light and brought Jesus into his life.

Made in the days when erring vicars where popular tabloid fodder, the scenes with the grown-ups are what gives the films its weight, particularly those involving Sarah Churchill, who movingly demonstrates the destructive passions a middle-aged woman is capable of.@RichardChatten

NOW ON TALKING PICTURES

The Substance (2024)

Dir: Coralie Fargeat | Cast: Demi Moore, Margot Qualley, Denis Quaid  | Sci-fi Thriller

The Substance is a loud, lewd, violent sci-fi shocker about the horrors of ageing for women. French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat’s flashy follow-up to her vicious vengeance thriller (Vengeance) follows Demi Moore’s fading fitness fanatic, Elizabeth Sparkle, a one-time LA TV aerobics star, fall by the wayside when her younger version Sue (Margot Qualley) takes over. Their reptilian boss-man Harvey (Denis Quaid) announces his intention to give Liz the push, and she overhears the damning conversation in a garish red public loo just like the one in The Shining.

Sue has firmer buttocks, peachier skin, and sparklier eyes. But when Elizabeth discovers ‘The Substance’, an injectable youth-giving elixir, warning bells ring. And very loudly at that. Expect plenty of squelching body horror, gore, 80’s style spandex and Alien style images. A sad, but inevitable, indictment on modern Hollywood. @MeredithTaylor.

Coralie Fargeat won best screenplay at #Cannes2024 for ‘The Substance | Demi Moore won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy (2024)

 

 

Mayerling (1969)

Dir: Terence Young  | Drama

Terence Young was riding high on his reputation as the original director of James Bond when he was entrusted to make an opulent new version of the tragic love story of Prince Rudolf and Marie Vetsera that ended in tears at Mayerling in 1889.

Despite a distinguished supporting class headed by James Mason as Franz Joseph and Ava Gardener as the Emperor Elizabeth, an expensive production and Khachaturian on the soundtrack to give it a veneer of class, as a whole it’s all rather tinny and lifeless. Omar Shariff isn’t really mad enough to be convincing as Rudolf and even with the addiction of spectacles Catherine Deneuve is too robust to be so easily persuaded to cooperate in Rudolf’s (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) mad scheme. @RichardChatten

NOW ON PRIME

 

 

Army of Shadows (1969)

Dir: Jean-Paul Melville | Cast: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret | France, Action drama 145’

With the D-Landings currently commemorating their 80th anniversary here’s a film that reflects on the behind the scenes heroism of the French Resistance with a sombre sense of grandeur.

L’Armée des Ombres (Army of Shadows), adapted by Jean-Pierre Melville, a veteran of both the Resistance and the Free French Army, from Joseph Kessel’s 1943 novel, was released in 1969, ushering in a spate of Occupation-centred films that adopted a more critical approach: The Sorrow and the Pity and Lacombe Lucien come to mind.

Melville celebrates these underground heroes with a sense of gangster-like pride familiar in Un Flic, Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge. The men lived by a code of honour tempered with ruthlessness, yet watching this week’s BBC coverage compiled from the accounts recorded during real live interviews with the survivors in the immediate aftermath to the Siege of Normandy (that started on the 6th June 1944 and ended on 30 August) the allied soldiers talk of real vicious savagery from both sides on the battlefield. Soldiers were lynched and decapitated, their body parts removed and even stuffed in their mouths such was the fervour to bring the six-year conflict to a final close in ‘Operation Overlord’. This is the ugly side of war at the coalface but Melville’s focus is on escape, capture and subterfuge and this is particularly well illustrated by the scenes featuring Lino Ventura and Paul Meurisse when they embark on a secret 1943 expedition to England by submarine. The two have time to see Gone with the Wind in London, and Meurisse, whose character is based on Jean Moulin, even gets a medal from de Gaulle. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON DVD and DIGITAL in a 4k restoration on Vintage World Cinema courtesy of STUDIOCANAL

Only Two Can Play (1962)

Dir: Sydney Gilliatt | Cast: Peter Sellers, Mai Zetterling, David Attenborough, John Le Mesurier | UK drama

Kingsley Amis only agreed to allow Launder & Gilliatt to film his novel on condition that if Bryan Forbes’ adaptation took too many liberties he had the right to have his name taken off the credits; evidently he was satisfied with the results since his name is prominently displayed for all to see.

Peter Sellers strongly disliked making this film and was convinced it would be a flop, which probably accounts for his subdued performance which the film is all the better for.

The basic situation is eternal, but a couple of topical references (newspapers & posters precisely locate the action in April-May 1961) include the inevitable reference to Lady Chatterley and Sellers’ young daughter’s imaginary friend’s concern about The Bomb. The supporting cast inevitably includes Kenneth Griffith and Meredith Edwards, while there’s a ingenious cameo from John Le Mesurier and a memorable turn from Richard Attenborough as a bearded literary pseud who declares that he’s been “toying with the idea of translating Kafka into Welsh”. @RichardChatten

NOW ON LONDON LIVE

Arcadian (2024)

Dir: Benjamin Brewer | Cast: Nicolas Cage, Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins, Sadie Soverall | US Horror 92’

Uninvolving post-apocalyptic thriller that sees Nicolas Cage as Paul, a harried dad living with teenage sons in a remote wilderness where they come under attack from unknown forces.

Paul claims responsibility for this odd lifestyle although no explanation is given as to why. One night their cabin sustains a furious onslaught and in the morning a battered door bears testament to the attack with massive claw marks that seem to point towards a mysterious Alien-style monster in much need of a manicure.

The twin boys are continuously at loggerheads so scripter Mike Nilon decides to soften the feature with a romantic twist for Thomas (Jenkins) who soon starts a tentative relationship with Sadie Soverall’s local girl. But this never really catches fire in a convoluted horror thriller that is not gripping enough to keep us engaged for even 90 minutes.

For fans of Cage’s comedic brand of disaster-struck hero caught in a melodramatic meltdown this will go down a treat, and he certainly carries the film with a slightly more believable role than in The Surfer. That all said the off-the-rails plot and over preponderance of scares in the semi-darkness and macho grunting makes Arcadian eventually feel rather tedious. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK CINEMAS FROM 14 JUNE

 

Annecy Animation Festival 2024

Annecy International Animation Film Festival is a global event dedicated to animation. This year, from 9-15 June, the biggest names in the sector gather together on the French lakeside town of Annecy (Haute Savoie) to celebrate the creative and diverse animation styles and techniques.

Main Competition Line-up

INTO THE WONDERWOODS | France/Luxembourg

10-year-old Angelo dreams of being an adventurer and explorer. Until one day, in the car with his family on their way to visit his beloved Granny, who is very ill, he is suddenly forced to show the extent of his bravery: he is left behind by mistake at the motorway services. Angelo decides to take a shortcut through the forest to reach his Granny’s house. He finds himself in a mysterious land inhabited by strange beings threatened by an enemy even worse than the local ogre.

FLOW | France/Latvia

A cat wakes up in a world covered in water, where the entire human race seems to have disappeared. He seeks refuge on a boat with a group of other animals. But getting along with them proves to be an even greater challenge than overcoming his fear of water! Everyone will need to learn to overcome their differences and adapt to this new world they find themselves in.

GHOST CAT ANZU | Japan/France

11-year-old Karin is abandoned by her father at her grandfather’s house, the monk of a small town in the Japanese countryside. Her grandfather asks Anzu, his jovial, helpful, although rather capricious, ghost-cat to look after her. The clash of their strong characters causes sparks, at least at the beginning.

THE COLOURS WITHIN | Japan

Synesthete Totsuko can see others as colors. Honour student Kimi has dropped out of school but still pretends to attend for her grandmother’s sake. They reunite and decide to form a band with Rui, who dreams of composing on analog synthesizers but whose mother expects him to become a doctor. Together, they find freedom, joy, and love.

THE MOST PRECIOUS OF CARGOES | France/Belgium

TOTTO CHAN: The Little Girl at the Window | Japan

At little Totto-Chan’s Tomoe School during the Second World War, she learns what racism and intolerance are, and discovers the grim reality of war.

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL | Australia

In 1970s Australia, Grace’s life is troubled by misfortune and loss. After their mother dies during pregnancy, she and her twin brother, Gilbert, are raised by their paraplegic-alcoholic former juggler father, Percy. Despite a life filled with love, tragedy strikes anew when Percy passes away in his sleep. The siblings are forcibly separated and thrust into separate homes.

ROCK BOTTOM | Spain/Poland

Through Robert Wyatt’s music, this animated musical plunges you into Bob and Alif’s passionate love story. They are two young artists immersed in the creative whirlwind of early 70s hippie culture.

SAUVAGES | Switzerland, France, Belgium

In Borneo, near the tropical forest, Kéria rescues a baby orangutang in the palm oil plantation where her father works. Kéria’s cousin Selaï comes to live with them seeking refuge from the conflict between his indigenous tribe and the logging companies. Kéria, Selaï and the little orangutang, now named Oshi, will have to fight against their forest’s destruction.

THE BOAT IN THE GARDEN | Luxembourg/France

In the early 1950s, on the banks of the River Marne, François, a young 11-year-old boy, is intrigued to discover that his parents are building a boat in their little garden, a replica of the famous sailor Joshua Slocum’s sailboat. As the years go by, in post-war France, François drifts from adolescence to adulthood. While the boat is being built, and with a tender and poetic look at his mother and father, the young boy embarks on his own adventure, one that will take him down his own passionate route of the sea and drawing.

THE IMAGINARY | Japan

Rudger is a boy no one can see, imagined by Amanda to share her thrilling make-believe adventures. But when Rudger, suddenly alone, arrives at The Town of Imaginaries, where forgotten Imaginaries live and find work, he faces a mysterious threat.

THE STORM | China

Torrential rain leads you into a colorful world of traditional Chinese ink art. A century-old sunken ship emerges, mysterious theater troupes come to life again. With countless masks worn by people and a world filled with intricate changes, what kind of bizarre story is unfolding?

ANNECY FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | MAIN COMPETITION | FEATURES

 

 

 

Four Little Adults (2024)

Dir: Selma Vilhunen | Drama, Finland

Four Little Adults looks at different ways of loving for a polyamorous couple (including a vicar!), from Oscar winning Finnish director Selma Vilhunen.

Polyamory has certainly been around for centuries but only recently has it become ‘mainstream’ as a socially accepted way of exploring the different ways people choose to live out the way they feel and desire.

Selma Vilhunen vaunts the concept cinematically in her upbeat and positive comedy drama that presents her characters as down to earth everyday people we can all relate to. And this is the crucial element in this amusing social satire that certainly offers provocative food for thought and some entertaining performances all round. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN UK AND IRISH CINEMAS | ROTTERDAM PREMIERE 2024

 

 

Supernova (2024)

Dirs: Yossi Bloch, Duki Dror | With: Shoval Roberman, Tomer Weiner, Racheli Nahmias, Michal Ohana, Noam Cohen, Gali Amar, Amit Amar, Ilan Regev, Hananya Benjamin | Israel doc 2024, 52′

A new documentary from Israeli filmmakers Yossi Block and Duke Dror brings to life that fateful Autumn day when Hamas reportedly attacked more than 20 Israeli towns and kibbutzim killing 1200 people in one day.

On the morning of Saturday, October 7th, 2023, thousands of young Israelis were dancing in the desert at a major international trance-music festival. Euphoria then devastation. Suddenly dozens of terrorists on motorcycles drove into the crowd while militants on hang gliders cut the sky. The terrorists surrounded them, blocking the roads, ambushing escaping cars, grabbing hostages, and leading them violently and triumphantly into Gaza.

This film provides a retrospective of 24 hours at the Nova festival in Re’im through the lens of young individuals who endured the horror. The initial filming began 48 hours after the catastrophic incident, during which the filmmakers documented eight partygoers. The narrative unfolds chronologically, weaving together their first-hand accounts to construct a record of the events.

Interviewed to camera, the kids describe their initial excitement of breaking free from their daily lives to enjoy the outdoor music festival. A cautious comment comes from one of the girls who questions why the location, at the Re’im Junction, is so near to the border with Gaza.

But the festival is now in full swing and fireworks seem to fall from the sky. Or wait a moment. They’re missiles, dozens of them. Calm turns to mild panic when the guards tell the festival-goers to leave the area due to a missile attack.

Director Duki Dror deftly combines the survivors’ own phone footage and face to face interviews with Hamas recorded footage to show how the ground-based units fire missiles that rain down on Israeli territory. A shout goes out ‘God is Great’ and Hamas soldiers make their way into the crowd.

By now day has dawned. But 4000 people trying to leave the festival site at once is no joke.  And those who finally get on the road are ambushed by Hamas soldiers who open fire on them indiscriminately (according to Hamas filmed footage). In scenes like something out of the D-Day landings Israeli teenagers are seen running like hell across the open fields while they are fired upon by Hamas soldiers. Some run towards a prefab hut where they take cover and tend to the wounded. Others hide wherever they can. But someone tells them to run if they want to save their lives.

Some of the teenagers found their way to a shelter but Hamas soldiers pelted the metal shack with grenades killing and maiming many of those inside. One young man tells how he slid under a dead body to avoid death. Another grabbed a severed leg and put it over him describing an overwhelming smell of blood, faeces and gunpowder.

At one point a shout goes out from a Hamas soldier: “she’s a war slave, throw her in the back” (of a truck). He grabs a young man by his hair. All around are bodies and burnt out cars.

One dad, Ilan Regev, follows his kids’ phone footage and decides to grab his gun and head south in his truck. He watches as his kids Maya 21, and 18 year old Itay, are captured. Luckily they were eventually released after over seven weeks in captivity. Others who escaped the mayhem speak of their feelings of guilt and are haunted by images of blood and limb-less bodies. They are the lucky ones. This devastating massacre shocked the world with its extremely graphically violent images. @MeredithTaylor

SUPERNOVA IS AVAILABLE ON VOD

 

Made in England: the Films of Powell & Pressburger

Dir: David Hinton | UK Doc 122′

A leisurely look at the filmography of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, forever to be known as The Archers. Made In England which premiered at this year’s Berlinale and is directed by David Hinton (longtime director of numerous episodes of The South Bank Show). The documentary has a trump card that raises it above ‘run of the mill’ linear telling of their dual careers in that it is guided and contextualised by long time supporter Martin Scorsese.

To say that Scorsese narrates the film is to do it and him a disservice; he starts with a tale he has told many times before and that is his own cinematic origin story, from discovering the adventure fantasy that Michael Powell co-directed in 1940: The Thief Of Bagdad. Scorsese, although he watched it on a tiny B&W television, remembered the name of the director and his formal experimental mise en scene that he wanted to see more of. Made in England is very much in the vein of Scorsese’s two documentaries that focus and US and Italian cinema.

People think having the internet and access to unlimited information makes them more informed and engaged with the world, but the opposite of that is true, and we sometimes forget how it was in the pre-internet era. I discovered Powell and Pressburger through the prism of Emeric Pressburger which is unusual. I read an essay he wrote for the Faber annual film journal Projections entitled: The Early Life of a Screenwriter, which sent me on a mission to discover the films this man had written.

After relating his discovery of Powell & Pressburger Scorsese – in immense detail – takes the audience on a journey through the ups and downs (mainly ups) of their career, which encompasses WWII, the creation of their partnership as The Archers and adventures through the UK and US studio system, and the eventual split of the partnership, with Michael Powell’s career being destroyed after the release of Peeping Tom.

Scorsese numerous times talks about their representation of love which they told through a visual language that can only be described as ‘pure cinema’; the juxtaposition of Colour; light; music and movement. One thinks of what Jean Luc Godard said about Nicholas Ray, but which can also stand in for Powell & Pressburger: “There was theater (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rossellini), dance (Eisenstein), music (Renoir). Henceforth, there is cinema. And the cinema is (Nicholas Ray.) Powell and Pressburger”.

Their cinema gives a Kierkegaardian dizziness of freedom, it shows the impulses but also the limitations of love. It is a cinema that stops the written in its tracks and deals a death blow to its descendent: the imaginary. This is its virtue: to switch off, to put a stop to make believe. Their universe is a hermetically sealed one that is disgusted by the rigour of humanity, and they continue to remind us that what interests them is the rigour of angels and romanticism, rather than the logic of chess masters

What we are left with, of course, is that the films are now thankfully readily available, and many of the iconic ones have recently had a cinematic release. One of the images that will endure is the feeling of safety and excitement when one comes across the legendary logo of The Archers, that beautiful technicolour comfortable indent. ©DavidMault @D_W_Mault

IN UK & IRISH CINEMAS FROM 10 MAY 2024

 

 

Auction (2023)

Dir/Wri: Pascal Bonitzer | France Drama 91’

Olivier Gourmet, Lea Drucker and Alex Lutz are the stars of this rather good arthouse thriller – written and directed by ex Cahiers du Cinema critic Pascal Bonitzer – in fact his tenth film – about the heady world of art auctioneering.

A deliciously caustic opening scene sets the tone for an intriguing affair set amid the beau monde of Mulhouse, New York and Paris where Andre (Alex Lutz) is an upscale auctioneer at ‘Scottie’s’ and has just landed a commission for a painting he believes to be a fake. Andre is at loggerheads with his trainee Aurore (Chevillotte) who ends up providing the missing link to the narrative, with an intriguing backstory.

Andre and his colleague and ex-wife Albertina (Drucker) decide to visit the long-lost painting that’s now hanging in the ordinary home of a shift worker Martin Keller in Mulhouse. It turns out to be the real work by Austrian expressionist painter Egon Schiele that was seized by the Nazis in 1939 and discarded as part of the Nazi purge of degenerate art. An Austrian Jew called Wahlburg had bought it in 1918 but had to escape Austria leaving it behind. Andre sees the unexpected find as an opportunity for promotion, and moves in quickly when Keller expresses no interest in it at all.

Andre and Albertina join forces with a provincial lawyer (Hamzawi) to track down the Wahlberg family in the shape of Bob Wahlberg who is one of nine heirs to the painting and a particularly generous man. He wants Martin to benefit from the canvas worth millions and be considered the tenth heir. Wahlberg is happy to sell it for 8 million. But Andre smells a rat and doesn’t want it to go for a song, as he considers the market for Schiele particularly strong. And that’s where Aurore comes in.

Auction is another juicy tongue in cheek satire with a hint of tension, and it looks really good too in Pierre Million’s camera with natural performances especially from Lutz and Drucker who dazzle with their stylish chemistry. The only bum note – a cheeky lesbian twist which feels contrived and serves no real purpose. @MeredithTaylor 

NOW IN FRENCH CINEMAS

Freres – Brothers (2024)

Dir: Olivier Casas | Cast: Yvan Attal, Matthieu Kassovitz | France, Drama

Oliver Casas makes a well-intentioned tribute to all the child survivors who lost parents in the aftermath to the Second World War with his sophomore feature Freres – a noble idea but sadly that’s all it is.

Based on a true story Freres is a worthy piece of filmmaking whose only plus point is a central casting of Matthieu Kassovitz and Yvan Attal as adult brothers (their young selves – aged 5-8 – are played by a dusky duo of Enzo Bonnet and Victor Escoude-Oury).

We’re supposed to be moved by the men’s plight as children in a torpid narrative arc (cobbled together by three writers) that sets off in their childhood. But not even this veteran French couple can jazz up a buddy movie that relies heavily on the sweeping landscapes of France and a dramatic score droning away in the background during endless elliptical stretches where neither men speak (and you can’t help thinking of Terrence Mallick) but look into the distance with pained or poignant expressions for the best part of two hours.

In early scenes we see their kid counterparts living in a cabin in the woods after being mysteriously abandoned by their mother in 1948. They represent the many “lost children” left behind by the war. Pat feels somehow responsible for Michel and this devastating experience creates an everlasting bond between the two as they survive for nearly seven years in a hostile environment where testing events shape their future in the name of brotherly love. Kassovitz’s character Patrick, a doctor, tells Yvan Attal’s younger counterpart Michel, an architect “If you want to live, I have to go away. And so he does – at the age of 43. Why exactly, and do we even care?

Freres flips backwards and forward in time until one day, after marrying and raising two adult kids, Michel gets a call from Quebec to say Pat has gone awol from his family home. So he drops everything to investigate. Once again, reunited with Michel, he goes back to the cabin in the woods this time to play chess and reveal a little bit more of the past, but nothing really tangible quantifies Pat’s need to depart this world. And the suspense in waiting for a plausible reason is almost unbearable (pause for laughs) in this glossily filmed epic filmed on the wide screen and in vignettish close-ups by Magali Silvestre de Sacy. If you want to see some really worthwhile films on this subject I would recommend the following: Germany Year Zero (1948) Au Revoir les enfants (1987) or Rene Clement’s magical wartime fable Forbidden Games (1952) @MeredithTaylor

 

Red Herring (2023)

Dir: Kit Vincent | UK Doc 94′

Childhood seemed like an endless journey of discovery for filmmaker Kit Vincent until he was diagnosed with cancer and given four to eight years to live at the tender age of 24.

Terrible news, so much so that his father collapsed with a heart attack – quite literally. And in his debut feature Red Herring it rapidly becomes clear that Kit’s devastating condition affects his close family just as much as himself. And so the film takes over, their daily lives together becoming the main focus – rather than the concer.

But not everyone is as keen as Kit in being part of the film and not least his girlfriend Isobel, the two will embark on fertility treatment and she naturally wants these conversations to remain private, unlike kit whose way of coping is to share everything including his seizures and key parts of his treatment. Kit’s father Lawrence, a professor and former college principal, is certainly a strong character and draws on his recent conversion to the Jewish faith for guidance, and this leads to some fascinating philosophical chats with his son. Kit’s mother, a healthcare worker, finds a way of dealing with the personal rather than professional trauma by immersing herself in raising a brood of chickens.

Conversations with his family often bring up difficult episodes in Kit’s childhood and provide a beneficial therapy for dealing with the past. In this way they all thrash out their feelings and these scenes give Red Herring a positive often moving spin in contrast to the darker moments. Well-paced at 94 minutes, the director never loses sight of the film’s cinematic quality.

Kit is adamant about not wanting to make a depressing film about impending death and he certainly succeeds. Red Herring is first and foremost about a family fronting up to an uncertain future and the transformative dynamics that come into play as each member reacts to changing circumstances in their own personal way.  And for that it’s a watchable and uplifting triumph. @MeredithTaylor

RED HERRING IS IN SELECT UK CINEMAS AND ON DEMAND FROM 3 MAY 2024

 

 

 

That they may face the rising sun (2023)

Dir: Pat Collins | Cast: Barry Ward, Anna Bederke, Ruth McCabe, Lalor Roddy, Sean McGinley | Ireland, Drama 111’

Pat Collins’ leisurely lyrical tale of rural Ireland forty years ago is  beautifully captured on the wide screen and in rather stagey domestic interior scenes were the local characters shoot the breeze and sometimes touch on more philosophical themes in the style of the Ambridge residents of the popular BBC series The Archers.

Based on internationally acclaimed Irish author John McGahern’s award-winning novel of the same name, the story centres on middle aged creative couple Joe, a writer, and his East European painter wife Kate respectively played by Barry Ward and Anna Bederke with a dash of bohemian charisma. Others include Lalor Roddy’s Patrick who pops in to supply the village gossip – but nothing too controversial to rock the tranquil tenor of this bucolic backwater. 

This is a gentle pastoral affair that could have been directed by the late Terence Davies, and whose main attraction is the day to day lives of Irish country folk as they go about their business and the glorious vistas of the Emerald Isle in the changing seasons luminously photographed by Richard Kendrick all accompanied by a plangent occasional score. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK AND IRISH CINEMAS FROM 26 April 2024

The Black Pirates (1954) and Massacre (1956)

Dir: Allen H Miner | Cast: Anthony Dexter, Martha Roth, Lon Chaney Jr, Robert Clarke | US Action Drama 74’

As others have observed the budget for this 18th Century yarn about buried treasure didn’t even run to a ship so the pirates of the title arrive by rowboat; what visual grandeur it possessed instead supplied by the El Salvador locations elegantly and vividly shot in Ansco Color by cinematographer Gilbert Warrenton (a process that highlighted the worldly charms of a young lady by the name of Marta Roth as a worldly serving wench whose red lipstick matches her dress and proves pretty sharp with a broken bottle).

The pirates themselves certainly are a mean and ugly bunch (aided by the presence of a leering Alfonso Bedoya), while in a film shot closer to home the scenes of bloodshed and flogging would surely have encountered greater problems with the Breen Office.

Massacre (1956)

Dir: Louis King | Cast: Martha King, Dane Clark, James Craig, Miguel Torruco | US Western 76’

Having visited El Salvador to make ‘The Black Pirates’ producer Robert Lippert’s later depiction of criminal activity moved inland (once again employing Gilbert Warrenton’s fluid Ansco Color location photography to compensate for lack of more substantial production values) to Mexico where he once again availed himself of the talents of Mexican actress Martha Roth, who unlike the glossy serving wench she played in ‘The Black Pirates’ this time superficially appears at first glance a more robust young lady, and gets to show herself quite a horsewoman; while for the cognoscenti the presence of Luis Bunuel’s Man Friday Jaime Fernandez is worth noting.

The film also marks a considerable departure from the wholesome Technicolor family entertainment usually associated with director Louis King; the cynical tone of his final film firmly established from the outset by the opening sequence depicting a funeral cortège which turns out to be carrying illicit rifles. @RichardChatten

AVAILABLE ON PRIME VIDÉO

The Ghost Train (1941)

Dir: Walter Forde | Writers: Arnold Ridley, J.O.C. Orton Val Guest | Cast: Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Kathleen Harrison | UK Comedy

Gainsborough Studios long seemed to have held a predilection for trains since they were responsible for the original silent version of Arnold Ridley’s classic play, along with Oh! Mr Porter and The Lady Vanishes (which also featured Linden Travers); while director Walter Forde’s background in comic shorts and his classic 1932 drama Rome Express made him just the man to undertake this third version as a vehicle for the egregious Arthur Askey.

Oh! Mr Porter also concerned a local legend concerning a stretch of haunted rail line (and shares a baleful Herbert Lomas with ‘Ask a Policeman’), but the plot has been brought up to date by making the baddies Nazi fifth columnists rather than IRA gun runners, with such topical references as jokes about food coupons and ration books and when Askey challenges a parrot to say ‘Heil Hitler!’ @RichardChatten

NOW ON YOUTUBE

The Man with a Thousand Faces (2024)

Dir: Sonia Kronlund | France Doc, 90′

So who is the man of a thousand faces? He introduces himself as Daniel, Alexandre or Ricardo and apparently comes from Brazil or Argentina. Sometimes he’s a surgeon, others an engineer. The women he meets and moves in with are disarmed by his looks, charisma and accomplishments. They fall in love, one even falls pregnant. Meanwhile the fantasist flits around the world juggling these various relationships, always an excuse in hand for his absence.

Documentarian and screenwriter Sonia Kronlund (The Prince of Nothingwood) is fascinated by the story and decides to investigate with the help of a private detective. We meet the women involved. They are intelligent, grounded and articulate. No histrionic outbursts just calm refections of incredulity as they gradually dissect and come to terms with their nemesis. Can they ever be the same again?. When your lover says his father has been killed in a car crash, is it churlish to reply: Really? This is the vestigial damage they are left to work through in their future relationships. Falling in love demands a certain innocence, a vulnerability. Can that ever be regained?

Kronlund knows the territory. What emerges is another tale of self-reinvention, rather like in The Prince of Nothingwood. The French filmmaker herself admits to having been duped by unsatisfactory past relationships so there’s an empathy of kindred spirits and a deep satisfaction at work here as she constructs her extraordinarily subtle expose of a pathological liar. A man unable to be straight with others – let alone himself.

Adopting a classic three act structure Kronlund gradually works her way towards the finale as she peels back the layers of this arch psychological scandal, checking her facts with a lawyer who is able to demonstrate that the man’s entire existence is based on the dissemination of images of lives which are not his – a face can be slotted into an online uniform or guise that bears no resemblance to reality. Finally we see the real ‘Ricardo’ ‘hoisted by his own petard’ in this clever piece of investigative filmmaking. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS

Beyond the Raging Sea (2024)

Dir: Marco Orsini | Doc With Omar Nour and Omar Samra, Made in conjunction with the UN Refugee Agency | 80′

Billed as a heroic tale of rescue Marco Orsini‘s documentary Beyond the Raging Sea attempts to jump on board the current wave of sympathy for the refugee boats in chronicling how two inexperienced mariners embarked on a cross Atlantic voyage in a rowing boat – admittedly a top of range piece of kit – but what was the point of this foolhardy act of ‘derring do’?

Told in a flood of talking heads – mainly by the guys themselves – Egyptians  Omar Nour and Omar Samra – we hear how in 2017 they decided to take part in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge – a sort of seabound equivalent of the Paris-Dakar race – but in rowing boats, across the Atlantic from La Gomera in the Canaries to Antigua; a 3,000-nautical-mile, 40-day undertaking.

The going was rough and the guys soon found themselves in difficulty when their vessel capsized in ferocious seas – and there’s a great deal of jaw-dropping thrashing about in the wet that gives the film a certain dramatic heft, although the fact they lived to tell the tale slightly takes away the tension. It seems the feckless duo did it out of solidarity with the refugees whose testimonies then feature in a 10-minute tacked-on coda. @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS FROM 19 APRIL 2024

 

Sidonie au Japon (2023)

Dir/Wri: Elise Girard | Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Tsuyoshi Ihara, August Diehl | France, Drama 97′

“Writing’s all that’s left when you have nothing”

Isabelle Huppert and Tsuyoshi Ihara make an absolute dream casting in this tender tale of love, a third feature for French director and co-writer Elise Girard.

Sidonie au Japon is a wistful contemplative look at loneliness, loss and longing amidst tranquil Oriental landscapes brimming with blossoms where Huppert’s writer Sidonie has come to promote her reprinted first novel ‘L’ombre Portée’ (The Shadow Cast) inspired by her own life.

On arrival at Osaka airport the distinct foreignness of Japan and its social contrasts disarms the widowed French woman sending her dazed and confused into a state of reverie and reflection. The subtle absurdity of this culture shock also lends a delicious dash of dark humour to what is ostensibly a sober tale of mourning and transformation for Sidonie and her enigmatic Japanese publisher Kenzo Mizoguchi (Ihara), who is still married, but unhappily so. The couple embark on a series of interviews and book signings, Kenzo escorting Sidonie on an illuminating architectural tour of Kyoto with the same transcendent energy as Kogonada’s 2017 travelogue Columbus.

Japan is very much a character here: a land of haunting stillness where  everything seems hushed and deferential in contrast to Europe and the West. This ambience has an increasingly profound effect on the jaded writer enveloping her slowly in the past where she reconnects with the spirit of her dead husband (Diehl) who is revealed in luminous sequences where the two reminisce and comfort one another. These are not ghostly scenes but ones where his entity offers uplifting enlightenment bringing about a gentle but cathartic shift in her state of being as she becomes romantically drawn to Kenzo who she had initially found overbearing, particularly his habit of insisting on carrying her handbag. Their courtship is tentative and driven forward by subtle body language rather than words: “in Japan we don’t talk about those things we just do them”, says Kenzo to the disconcerted Sidonie.

Elise Girard has clearly been inspired by the lighter-hearted ghosts from David Lean’s Blithe Spirit (1945) or Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) rather than the more doom-laden presence in David Lowery’s A Ghost Story (2017) with her characterisation of August Diehl’s Antoine and he gives a charismatic performance as the sun-kissed ghost in his hand-tailored suit and brogues. But the focus here is on the living and the interplay between Sidonie and Kenzo: a couple who somehow find each against the odds. Beautifully shot by Celine Bozon the closing scene is particularly amusing in referencing the apposite maxim ‘speech is silver, but silence is golden’. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN CINEMAS IN FRANCE, BELGIUM

 

 

 

 

 

Mother Vera (2024) Bfi London Film Festival 2024

Dirs: Cécile Embleton & Alys Tomlinson | UK, 2024, 91′

An ascetic life of prayer and devotion is not for everyone. But Mother Vera (birth name Olga) has chosen the path and shares her turbulent past and uncertain future in this sepia-tinted monochrome meditation that follows the ex-druggie nun through her first year in a monastery that starts in a snowbound Belarusian forest and culminates in sun-baked flatlands of the French Camargue.

After contracting HIV from her partner Oleg, Olga’s life of parties and secular pleasures came to an end and was replaced by daily prayer, devotion and animal husbandry in the remote monastery. We first meet Mother Vera prone on the stone floor of the religious establishment where she will live a life of asceticism, shoeing horses, bell ringing.

Wearing a black headdress and floor length robes, 

The monastery is also home to ex convicts – in the eyes of the Lord Christians both saints and sinners are all equal – and the nuns seem to exert a certain power over the men, who regard them with respect, the fact that ‘good and evil’ coexist in the world and in each of us – is transformative, one tempering the other, and providing the film with its spiritual message that good can conquer bad and this is acutely felt during the Easter celebrations when incense is burnt to purify the air and welcome the rebirth of spring.

Vera then goes back to her family in the wooded countryside  – two brothers and a mother along with a bevy of farm animals. Two donkeys and a sheep and later some horses and she has a particular affinity with horses – one amazing scene sees her riding through a snowy landscape on a white horse. They provide the healing that Vera needs along with close love of her mother as they go through the anxiety of her drug addition. And she repents our her sins in leading others into threat world. Love perseveres

Revealed through spellbinding visual language echoing the rigid discipline of monastic life, we enter the enclosed, shadowy spaces of a convent outside Minsk. Sound and silence submerge us in the rhythm of the community. After twenty years of monastic service and faced with a life-changing decision, Vera must confront her troubled past to find the freedom she desires.

NOW AT BFI LONDON FESTIVAL | VISIONS DU REEL |  NYON SWITZERLAND 

Back to Black (2024)

Dir: Sam Taylor-Johnson | Cast: Marisa Abela, Eddie Marsan, Jack O’Connell, Lesley Manville, Bronson Webb, Harley Bird, Juliet Cowan | UK Musical Biopic 122′

Star biopics stand or fall on the quality of their central performance. We generally resent the idea that anyone could step into the shoes of a beloved artiste, particularly one who is no longer here. “No one can be David Bowie,” we scoff, writing off films like “Stardust” before we’ve even seen them. It takes a lot to convince us otherwise.

So it should be said straight off that Marisa Abela’s performance as Amy Winehouse in Back to Black is astonishingly, blindingly good. She’s got the look, she’s got the strut, the attitude, the toughness, the vulnerability. But what about the voice? No one sings like Amy, right? Does Abela mime, or does she try to sing and, inevitably, blow it spectacularly?

Well, actually neither. Abela does her own singing, and she has the Amy voice down. The electric current that plugs you directly into the singer’s nervous system, the riveting delivery that won’t let your attention stray one iota from the woman at the microphone.

It doesn’t feel so much like impersonation as wholesale possession (although it’s clearly the result of great craft and technique), and I frequently forgot that I wasn’t watching the real Winehouse. But what does it say about Amy’s raw authenticity that it can be recreated so completely by another gifted performer? Maybe this irony is one reason for the aggrieved noises from some uber-fans. Maybe it’s possible to pay tribute all too well.

We probably shouldn’t go to Back to Black for a deep understanding of the motives and inner life of its protagonist. After all, we watched the unravelling in real time, on TV, splashed across tabloids, in concert, so we should have a few working theories. Amy had a stellar talent, and a rage for music’s capacity to express extreme emotions. Maybe she began to create drama in her life which she could mine for songs. Maybe she developed a taste for ever-darker material. And maybe the feedback loop span out of control and she was consumed by drama that couldn’t be controlled or reconciled.

The film shows us Amy’s family (surely too loving to be blamed for her demons?), her agents and managers (but no sighting of Mark Ronson), and Blake Fielder-Civil, the great love of her life, played with lithe physicality by Jack O’Connell. Blake starts the film as a strutting jack-the-lad, diminishes into a venal, battered toy-boy husband, and ends it struggling out of drug dependency, mumbling his prison psychiatrist’s script about toxic co-dependent relationships as he makes his final break with Amy. “You should be stronger than me,” goes the refrain of one of the early songs. But Blake obviously wasn’t.

“I’m an anachronism”, she tells him at one point, and despite the film’s stated aim to rescue and celebrate Amy – just as she wanted to restore jazz to its rightful place in pop culture – it seems to agree with the sentiment. The mercurial singer is framed in a rapidly receding world of cobbled streets, Victorian railway arches, pubs where you can still smoke, and pop performers who refuse to be moulded by their handlers.

Back to Black will stand as a monument to Amy’s London. Golders Green Crematorium, Primrose Hill, Camden Town pubs The Dublin Castle and The Good Mixer, the London Zoo and Soho Square and other landmarks make appearances, all captured in fine, muted colours. The score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is similarly subdued, mostly ominous drones and strings playing figures in low registers, wisely avoiding any clash with the Winehouse style.

An image of a caged canary is lingered on a few times too often – yes, we get it – but Amy teetering on crazily high pink shoes at her Glastonbury performance (itself a memorable set-piece) sums up her reckless abandon as well as anything here: flirting shamelessly with the audience, over-sharing about her private life, staying upright through sheer stubborn will and a little help from the roadies, and singing as if her life depended on it – which it probably did.

The world didn’t know it needed a torch singer with punk attitude until Amy Winehouse came along, but she thought differently. And it certainly missed her after she’d gone. @IanLong

IN UK and IRISH CINEMAS from 12 April 2024 

Ripley (2024) Netflix

Dir/Wri: Steven Zaillian | Cast: Andrew Scott, Dakota Fanning, Johnny Flynn, Eliot Sumner, Maurizio Lombardi | US Drama series on Netflix

Tom Ripley, the raffish cad who steals through Patricia Highsmith’s psycho-thriller page-turners, gets a striking monochrome makeover in this stylish Netflix series – based on her first novel in the series The Talented Mr Ripley – and directed by Steven Zaillian who blazes a new trail for the 1960s grifter starring Andrew Scott – who is both vulnerable and venal.

Andrew Scott‘s Tom Ripley is not the suave, likeable rogue from the Texan writer’s creation ‘Deep Water’ or ‘The Cry of the Owl’. Here in this new series for Netflix he’s seen as a seedy swindler, uncomfortable with his life in a sordid bedsit in New York’s Bowery district, and certainly less self-assured than John Malkovich’s American trickster, who famously garrotted his travelling companion in Liliana Cavani’s suberb 2002 thriller Ripley’s Game. Incidentally Malkovich gets a role here as Reeves Minot.

Ripley. Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley in episode of Ripley. Cr. Stefano Cristiano Montesi/Netflix © 2023

Scott is nevertheless immaculate in his re-imagination of the antihero. A glassy-eyed, high-performing psychopath desperate to rise to the occasion when Kenneth Lonergan’s brilliant Herbert Greenleaf, a shipping magnate, proffers an all-expenses-paid opportunity of a lifetime: a trip to Naples in its ‘dolce vita’ heyday to track down his son, Dickie (Flynn) a trust fund dilettante who has fled to southern Italy and re-styled himself as a playwright and painter (‘along the lines of Picasso’) with his laconic girlfriend Marge (Dakota Fanning makes a spectacular return).

But don’t expect a sun-drenched Italy basking in insouciance and graced with Alan Delon’s louche lounge lizard in Rene Clement’s Purple Noon (1960) – the light here is hard-edged as it stares down on jagged black & white echoing stairwells, stormy coves and chiaroscuro courtyards. Behind Ripley’s dark sunglasses lurks a calculating conman so out of his depth in Dickie’s milieu and so insecure of himself he could hit out, like Caravaggio, at any minute (the artist’s ‘Seven Acts of Mercy’ hangs in the local church). And Ripley even misjudges the soigne mood with Dickie – when he finally finds him at the top of a thousand steps in palatial splendour – by foolishly inviting a sinister stranger to drinks, bearing an ‘offer he can’t refuse’. Dickie couldn’t care less about money – these two are social worlds apart. But Dickie rubs Ripley up the wrong way too and they both part company under sullen skies.

Cinematic and compelling this is a watchable series both narrative wise and in artistic terms, Zaillian wrote and directed all eight episodes and it certainly makes for a worthwhile adaptation with its flinty humour and suggestive performances from Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning – Eliot Sumner striking the only slightly bum note as Freddie Miles. Miss Highsmith would be proud to know her creation is having another outing courtesy of this impressive series. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON NETFLIX

Black Flies (2023)

Dir: Jean-Stephane Sauvaire | Cast: Tye Sheridan, Sean Penn, Mark Tyson | US Thriller 120′

Black Flies feels very much like a film you might have seen before: baby-faced paramedic rookie (Sheridan) comes up against the coalface of reality joining Sean Penn and his New York trauma team in Jean-Stephane Sauvaire”s blood-drenched docudrama of life on the streets. Meanwhile Mike Tyson is the bossman making sure they sticks to the rules.

Tye Sheridan makes it all watchable working alongside his antithesis – a less convincing Sean Penn – as a hardened medic whose integrity gradually bleeds out in the cliched finale (set to Wagner’s ‘Rheingold’), Sheridan becoming the knight in shining armour. We follow the two through their ‘casualty caseload’ of drug dealers, addicts and sex workers and we don’t care about any of them. But that’s the point. A decent thriller with a predictable outcome A pale rider alongside Martin Scorsese’s Bringing out the Dead. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK CINEMAS FROM 19 APRIL 2024

 

Chocolat (1988)

Dir/Wri: Claire Denis | Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Isaac De Bankole, Giulia Boschi, Francois Cluzet, Jean-Claude Adelin | France, Drama 105′

In her intimately observed feature debut Claire Denis draws on her own experience of growing up in the twilight years of French authority in 1950s Africa exploring the social dynamics between the past and the present for men and women, black and white in pre and post colonial Africa

Isabelle Huppert is a young woman who returns to a remote outpost in West Africa where her formative years were spent in the company of Protee her family’s black ‘houseboy’ a powerful presence of dignity and intelligence played by Isaac De Bankole. The overall effect is one of resonating tranquility as we become enraptured by the daily exchanges between France and Protee as the story flows from to present that culminates in a luminous finale – that was then and this is now and we should not try to compare the two or apologise for history. @MeredithTaylor

ON 4K RESTORATION BFI BLU-RAY & DIGITAL from 29 APRIL 2024

The Good Teacher | Pas de vagues (2023)

Dir: Teddy Lussi-Modeste | Cast: Francois Civil, Toscane Duquesne, Shain Boumedine | France, Drama 97′

Films about the challenges of being a teacher in the 21st century should have their own sub-genre; in 2012 The Hunt set the trend and got an Oscar nomination for and in the same year Francois Ozen comedy mystery In the House, won the Golden Seashell at San Sebastián. School of Babel addressed the issue of immigrant integration in 2013. The stresses strains of working of coping with complaints are dealt with variously in A Proper Job (2023) The Teachers’ Lounge (2023) and About Dry Grasses (2023). And finallyThe Holdovers (2023) adds a welcome twist of comedy to a fraught scenario . This latest tale is from French director Teddy Lussi-Modeste based on his own experience.

Francois Civil, best known for his swashbuckling antics as D’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers series, is once again impressive as Julien Keller, a teacher who is put through the mill when a teenage girl in his class accuses him of sexual abuse, totally out of the blue. Soon the allegations spread until the entire school is thrown into turmoil, with Julien fighting to clear his name, and safeguard his own sanity.

Calm and reasonable, Julien appears to be the ideal teacher. Early scenes see him taking trouble to help struggling pupils in his class and generally keeping discipline without appearing draconian – not easy in a chaotic multi-racial co-ed in a Paris banlieu where Julien soon faces mounting pressures from Leslie’s disordered brother, and fellow students who pitch in with individual views on a situation that exposes wider issues both at school and at home.

Lussi-Modeste and Audrey Diwan (Happening) avoid cliche in a layered approach to a narrative that could easily have opted for simplistic solutions. The Good Teacher shows how an isolated event can quickly escalate and get out of control in today’s ‘culture of blame’. @MeredithTaylor

THE GOOD TEACHER is on release in France and Belgium.

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Dir: Mel Gibson | Cast: Jim Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci. | Drama 127’

Lives of the founder of Christianity had been a cinematic mainstay since the Passion Play of Oberammergau was first filmed in 1897; while during the century that followed many eminent filmmakers had expressed the desire to tackle the subject. But nobody could have dreamt that a version would be directed by Mel Gibson – whose metamorphosis from the personable young actor in films by Peter Weir to a standard bearer for the Right had been deeply dispiriting to contemplate – and displays a morbid fascination with the violence of his death rather any interest in his ideas (the sheer length of time it takes the Messiah to survive in the face of sustained torture and flagellation doubtless stemming from Gibson’s desire simply to prolong the bloodshed rather than to the indomitably of his spirt).

The version depicts Jesus of Nazareth’s final hours on the days of his crucifixion in Jerusalem based on a screenplay by the American writer Benedict Fitzgerald who is also credited as ‘translator’ on the Coen brother’s comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

The status of Pasolini’s ‘Gospel According to St Matthew’ as the definitive cinematic life of Christ continues to remain unassailable; but it was certainly a canny move by Gibson to employ subtitled dialogue in Aramaic, since lines like “It’ll never catch on” when Christ demonstrates his new invention called “a table” (he’s a carpenter, geddit?) would otherwise have had audiences in fits. @RichardChatten

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

Dir: Cameron Cairnes/Colin Cairnes | Cast: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss | US Comedy Horror

Johnny Carson rival Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) hosts a syndicated talk show ‘Night Owls’ that has long been a trusted companion to insomniacs around the country. However, ratings for the show have plummeted since the tragic death of Jack’s beloved wife. Desperate to turn his fortunes around, on October 31st, 1977, Jack plans a Halloween special like no other. Unaware he is about to unleash evil into living rooms across America.

The Cairnes write and direct this entertaining and witty possession horror comedy with Dastmalchian holding it all together in a dynamite tour-de-force as Johnny Carson.

NOW in UK Cinemas

Priest of Love (1981)

Dir: Christopher Miles | Casr: Ian McKellen. Janet Suzman. Mabel: Ava Gardner. Tony: Jorge Rivero. Dorothy: Penelope Keith. Christopher Miles directed.

Ten years after filming D. H. Lawrence’s ‘The Virgin and the Gypsy’ director Christopher Miles rolled up his sleeves and got stuck into the final years of the author himself in this pretty if garrulous combination of travelogue and period drama.

As the great man himself a relatively young Ian MacKellan resembles and occasionally sounds like a ginger Wilfrid Lawson. The supporting cast includes the inevitable John Gielgud as inquisitor-in-chief Herbert G. Muskett, while the women in his life comprise the unlikely triumvirate of Ava Gardner, Janet Suzman and Penelope Keith. @RichardChatten

NOW ON NETFLIX

There’s Still Tomorrow (2023)

Dir: Paola Cortellesi | Cast: Paola Cortellesi, Valerio Mastandrea, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Emanuela Fanelli | Italy 118mins

A downtrodden Roman housewife turns her life around in this 1940s tale of female empowerment from first time director Paola Cortellesi who also stars in her multi-award-winning first feature.

In Neo-realist black and white Cortellesi plays a modern day Anna Magnani in a stylish domestic melodrama with a relevant political message that sees Delia (Cortellesi) living in Rome just as Italy is getting back on its feet after the Second World War. American GIs are still patrolling the streets but the winds of change are blowing through the open air markets where the long-suffering wife and mother does her daily shopping often queuing for ages to feed and care for her boorish father-in-law, three children and controlling macho husband Ivano (Valerio Mastrandrea) – who greets her with a slap in the face when she wishes him ‘good morning’ in the opening scene.

Delia tiptoes around her family always being the martyr by putting them first and ignoring her own needs while life is passing her by due to the patriarchal society of the day where women appear to carry the weight of domestic responsibilities and have no agency. Cortellesi puts this all down to the Fascist regime. And the future looks more or less the same for the next generation in the shape of Marcella, her teenage daughter ((Romana Maggiora Vergano), who is not destined for a career but a good marriage: her middle-class boyfriend Giulio (Francesco Centorame) could fit the bill. Meanwhile Delia is thankful for small mercies such as sharing a bar of American chocolate with her old flame Nino (Vinicio Marchioni) – the two of them smile to reveal stained teeth, reflecting the film’s dark slick of humour and addressing the poor state of the Italian postwar health service. Delia knows that change can only come if she puts her mind to it.

This is a stylish if slightly uneven crowd-pleaser which will go down well particularly with female audiences, and the cleverly contrived finale shows Cortellesi to be a filmmaker with panache and a rare talent for storytelling. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE/BELGIUM | IN UK/IRELAND 26 APRIL 2024

The Green Deal | La Promesse Verte (2024)

Dir/Wri: Edouard Bergeon | Cast: Alexandra Lamy, Felix Moati, Sofian Khammes, Julie Chen, Antoine Bertrand, Adam Fitzgerald | France, Eco- thriller 120′

A French student travels to Indonesia to complete his thesis on the palm oil industry but finds himself on death row accused of drug trafficking in this scenic but schematic geopolitical thriller from Edouard Bergeon.

Best known for his TV fare and award-winning 2019 drama In the Name of the Land Bergeon may have had the seventies cult classic Midnight Express in mind when he set out to conflate themes of ecology, drug trafficking and parental perseverance in his latest look at our threatened environment. The Green Deal is certainly a worthy attempt to address another threat to the planet in the shape of deforestation. But the result is too conventional and not exciting enough to grab our interest for two whole hours. And while the vast jungles of Indonesia certainly look impressive in Eric Dumont’s sweeping cinematography what we get narrative-wise is a worthy painting-by-numbers procedural that fails to generate emotion or surprise.

An impressive opening sequence sees eco warrior Landreau voyaging along the vast river to the heart of Java. Here, he meets up with locals, an inspiring NGO Nila Jawad (Chen) and doctor Paul Lepage (Bertrand). But after filming compromising footage of palm oil farmers Landreau falls foul of the system and ends up being thrown into prison falsely accused of that ‘old chestnut’ drug trafficking which is always wheeled out as an excuse when corruption needs to be covered up by the authorities.

Meanwhile back in France Landreau’s mother Carole galvanises government and big business into action in a bid to save her son, and the planet. From then on the focus turns to the thorny legal and political machinations involved in the palm oil industry exposing the French government’s complicity in this damaging threat to the environment and our health. Despite some interesting plot twists and turns the outcome is predicable.

Bergeon’s message is certainly heartfelt and worthwhile in addressing the issues concerned and raising the profile of this damaging industry that is ripping up and destroying vast tracts of Indonesia’s threatened ecosystems. But the story itself is lacklustre and we feel strangely uninspired by the plight of Landreau (Félix Moati) and his desperate mother Carole (Alexandra Lamy) despite her commendable efforts to drill down on the culprits – big business in cahoots with the Indonesian and (surprisingly) French government whose ministers merely shrug their shoulders in dismay.

The Green Deal works best as an expose of palm oil which is linked to the petrochemical industry and is now found in almost every manmade foodstuff linked to an increased risk of heart disease and other chronic health conditions. Beyond the danger the commodity poses to mankind, deforestation has destroyed a critical habitat for many endanger species – including rhinos, elephants and tigers. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE & BELGIUM

 

Once More with Ealing!

 

1949 saw the release of a trio of classic British comedies that really cemented Ealing’s place in history as this country’s finest film studios: Passport to Pimlico, Kind Hearts and Coronets and Whiskey Galore!

75 years later, these films offer a window into the hilarious nature of British eccentricity and ingenuity, and one that shows a healthy disdain for authority coupled with a not inconsiderable dose of anarchy. Today in the world of woke these features seem as fresh, innovative and, above all, as amusing as ever.

To celebrate its 75th Anniversary Ealing’s most endearing crime caper The Lavender Hill Mob (out 29 March) gets an up-to-date restoration and a nationwide re-release. Cinemas will be offering a selection of Ealing classics, both comedy and drama, under the banner ONCE MORE WITH EALING!

Other classics to revisit include Ealing stalwart Alec Guinness and his gang of thieves undone by Katie Johnson and her parrots in gloriously restored 4k Technicolor The Ladykillers along with ground-breaking and provocative dramas such as Pool Of London and It Always Rains on Sunday the archetypal portmanteau horror championed by everyone from John Landis to Kenneth Branagh, Dead of Night, and that man Guinness again, facing off against big business as they try to quash his miracle invention in The Man in the White Suit.

Also joining these bigger Ealing names are some lesser-known gems: Jean Simmons is blackmailed by her no-good husband back from the dead in Cage of Gold, Tommy Trinder impresses in a rare dramatic role in Ealing’s wartime ode to the Auxiliary Fire Service and their vital work during the Blitz in The Bells Go Down, and Lease of Life, written by Eric Ambler and starring Robert Donat as a Vicar who delivers an impromptu sermon that sets tongues wagging in Ealing’s only treatise on religion.

EALING DARK and LIGHT | STUDIOCANAL VINTAGE CLASSICS COLLECTION APRIL 2024

Une Famille (2024)

Dir/Wri: Christine Angot | Doc, France 2024 82’

An alarming expose of family disfunction is at the heart of this unsettling ‘cri de coeur’ from award-winning French writer Christine Angot who bases her documentary debut, set in Strasbourg, on her 1999 novel L’Inceste.

Angot, 59, strikes a gamine figure in her stylish black jeans and white boots but her delicate features hide a lifetime of trauma. We meet her in leafy suburb of Strasbourg where her father, who died a few years ago, first started abusing her when she was only 13. His wife and children still live there. Angot knocks on the door and barges her way into their stylish family home confronting her father’s wife and insisting her cameraman joins for moral support in what turns out to be a challenging confrontation that will expose the raw feelings Christine still harbours as she demands to know what this middle class woman thinks about her deceased husband’s covert history of long term sexual abuse. Now a mother of teenager herself, Christine is clearly emotionally damaged and still haunted by what her father did back then and its legacy that marks her own family. A brave and fascinating reportage.

The French novelist, playwright and journalist was born Chateauroux. Her first novel “Vu du Ciel” was published in 1990. She rose to prominence in 1999 with “L’Inceste”. This was followed by titles including “Les Désaxés” and “Une part du Cœur”, both of which were awarded the Prix France Culture. Her most recently published work “Le Voyage dans l’Est” won the 2021 Medici Prize. She was made an Officer of Arts and Letters in 2013 and has been a member of the Goncourt Academy since 2023.

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE | BERLINALE PREMIERE and winner of Tagesspiegel Readers’ Jury Award 2024.

 

Civil War (2024)

Dir/Wri: Alex Garland | Cast: Nick Offerman, Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Jesse Plemons, Jefferson White, Cailee Spaeny | US Drama 109′

Civil War provides UK filmmaker Alex Garland with an expanded American canvas on which to explore themes and ideas of his four earlier, more intimate, British films. This new UK/USA co-production follows the journey of a quartet of media journalists racing against time in a 4-wheel vehicle as they travel from New York through Pennsylvania onto Washington DC to record a make-or-break address to the nation by a beleaguered President of the USA. The journey itself is no joy ride as the American landscape has been ripped apart by warring communities that has paralysed the White House at the heart of American politics.

In one chilling sequence, the journalists remind a menacing ginger henchman with red glasses (played by Jesse Plemons) that ‘Were Americans, ok?’ to which they get the reply ‘What kind of American are you?’. In another scene, Kirsten Dunst, as a world-weary war photographer journalist (named after Lee Miller the WW2 war photographer), has become the reluctant mentor for a young woman (Cailee Spaeny) who is hungry for experience without comprehending how bloody and awful is the reality of war. The older war photographer mentions she has covered the horrors of war thinking that this would be a warning to others not do so again, although she knows now that this is not the case.

In another of the most tender and telling scenes in the film, the photographer agonises over the decision to delete or retain what may be a beautiful image but also one which may exploit the death of a man she has befriended. It is in scenes like this that Garland raises moral dilemmas between what the human eye can see and the camera lens records that is at the heart of photography and the subject of Haskell Wexler’s 1968 film Medium Cool. The film also suggests the spectre of Susan Sontag’s devastating essay Regarding the Pain of Others (2003). It is within the skill of Garland’s writing that themes questioning politics, media and society can be found beneath the surface of a film fundamentally built on images linked to a physically fast flowing narrative.

Garland is added by a production team from earlier films and Rob Hardy’s use of a new small light camera (DJI Ronin 4d) is able to keep the action stable when viewed on both IMAX and smaller screens. Fast-moving action sequences benefit from off-screen input of an experienced ex-Navy Seal adding authenticity to the film’s vivid sense of physical movement with Glenn Fremantle’s soundtrack combining lush chords of stereophonic music with soundscapes. The performances are skilful and reveal the director’s sensitive understanding of women in largely maledefined environments. Kirsten Dunst brings depth to the role of the mature photographer/journalist just as much Garland centred earlier films around female characters with the sensitive performances of Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina, Natalie Portman in Annihilation, Sonoya Mizuno in Deus and Jessie Buckley in possibly his most personal and misunderstood film Men.

Civil War also fits very well alongside outsider filmmakers who have observed America at a not so cool distance and is comparable with American films made by Europeans such as Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda. The film that Civil War most echoes may well be the Italian director Antonioni and his daring and ground breaking critique of America in Zabriskie Point from 1969. Civil War contains similar cinema-verité images of protest between civilians /students and military police/guards suggesting that nothing much has changed since the revolution of 1968. The UK-based filmmaker also captures images of the decay of former glories of communities crystallised by beautiful images of a damaged circus clown model, neglected rural landscapes and characters who are framed or towered over by the glass and concrete of American architecture.

Just as Antonioni questioned the breakdown of society and consumerism in 1968 there is also rich and potent post COVID/ Capitol Hill riot material here for Garland in 2024 with both films involving a journey heading towards apocalyptic finales. Civil War tackles the meltdown and threat to order by the divisive behaviour of people that is accelerated by politicians and speculates on the current fear that America is drifting towards a kind of anocracy, existing somewhere between democracy and autocracy. If Garland’s earlier films derived from intimate, dystopian and out-of-body time zone experiences his latest could be viewed as the nightmare of what becomes of paradise as envisaged by the youthful ‘trippy hippy’ but now older protagonists of Garland’s breakthrough 1996 novel The Beach.

Civil War may have rough edges linked in places to the ambitious script, although it remains a remarkable contemporary outing revealing a sensitive director with the ability to harness vivid images of death and violence from acts of warfare. @PeterHerbert

https://www.peterherbert.online

https://theartsproject1.wixsite.com/theartsproject

CIVIL WAR on release from 12 April 2024 | PREMIER IMAX London on 19/3/24 with an introduction from Alex Garland

The Door in the Wall (1956)

Glenn H. Alvey Jr | | Sci-fi Drama

The cinema has employed the split screen almost since the dawn of the medium, and like devices such as irises became regarded as moribund with the introduction of sound, becoming trendy again with the nouvelle vague.

Based on a story by H. G. Wells, visual antecedents to ‘The Door in the War’ are contained in the portmanteau film ‘Dead of Night’ – which also used Wells as a source – and the Technicolor scenes depicting the garden in the otherwise monochrome ‘The Secret Garden’; while Ingmar Bergman was soon to recreate the effect in ‘Wild Strawberries’ to illustrate the longing to renter the past, and a similar mood later infused the 1960 ‘Twilight Zone’ episode ‘A Stop at Willoughby’.

As for the Independent Frame itself, it grows on you as it progresses, with the use of colour on the whole quite retrained – as in the subtle verdigris hue employed to highlight the titular door – but it heightens the impact of the exotic birds, the diaphanous green of the lady in the garden and by default the black & white photographs in a family album; and as in 3D the overall distraction is amply compensated for by the visual impact of the moments when it really comes off.

The film also recalls Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ in the laconic way the changes in the framing is achieved. @RichardChatten

NOW ON YOUTUBE

Way of a Gaucho (1952)

Dir: Jacques Tourneur | Rory Calhoun, Gene Tierney | Western Drama 97’

Jacques Tourneur arrived in Argentina to make this late addition to Hollywood’s good neighbour policy a bit too early to avail himself of CinemaScope – which would have been well suited to the vast horizontal expanse of the Argentine pampas, seen to good effect thanks to Tourneur’s elegant use of lateral tracks – while the bright red of the soldiers’ caps displays the dramatic potential of Technicolor.

Rory Calhoun – in gaucho pants that would nowadays contravene numerous health & safety regulations – and Gene Tierney in a veil aren’t obvious casting as Latinos, but Richard Boone as usual gives good value as a cavalry officer whose robust view of discipline finds expression in staking people to the ground; while its not every film in which you get to see Everett Sloane as a singing gaucho. Based on a novel by Herbert Childs, Alfred Newman as usual contributes a noisy but appropriate score. @RichardChatten

I Could Never Go Vegan (2024)

Dir: Thomas Pickering | With: Thomas Pickering, George Monbiot, Sophia Ellis, Melanie Joy, Gemma Newman, Alan Desmond, Minik Patel, Paul Youd | UK Doc 97’

There are so many reasons to go vegan according to a plausible new documentary that takes us jauntily through the long list of why eating animal protein is no longer viable according to first time feature filmmaker Thomas Pickering – who has never eaten meat.

Born in the 1980’s and raised vegetarian, before switching to a vegan diet, Tom is convinced that his way of eating it the right way for animals, his own health, and the planet. In his vehement attempts at proselytism he comes up against some reasonable claims: “vegan food is expensive”, “how d’you get your protein” and “climate change doesn’t exist” are just a few.

So Tom sets out on a quest to investigate whether veganism is justified by talking to athletes, doctors, scientists, psychologists, farmers and even chefs. He talks to a game 84-year-old taking part in his sixth ultra-marathon, and visits a factory farm where the practices are appalling to say the least in footage that is painful to watch and these scenes are to be applauded in raising animal welfare issues. Worth mentioning here is also diseases contracted from animal sources such as campobylactor  and E Coli.

Whether you are convinced or not – and there’s something extremely irritating about Pickering’s bumptious way of putting across his point of view – most of us agree that there are highly plausible reasons to choose a varied diet and that occasionally eating animal protein with its rich range of vitamins is healthy despite objecting on humane grounds to animal welfare and slaughter methods, particularly with regards to halal practices – a topic Pickering sadly fails to explore – or even mention.

Directed, edited and written by Thomas and his brother James, with support from Heather Mills (ahhh!) Peter Egan and Alicia Silverstone, I Could Never Go Vegan is decently made and researched. But when somebody bangs on about their opinion for over an hour, without any counter-argument I want to run for the hills in the opposite direction, fast. But many will find this revealing and persuasive, I’m sure. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK and IRISH CINEMAS from 19 April 2024

 

Phantom Parrot (2024)

Dir: Kate Stonehill | UK Doc

Digital surveillance is all part of being in the internet age and we go along with it while not being entirely at ease at being spied upon against our will. It’s just one of the downsides of modern life. We share the info, others use it to their own advantage.

Kate Stonehill’s documentary explores a far more sinister form of surveillance. It focuses on our mobile ‘phone use via a new state programme nicknamed “Phantom Parrot” that allows the government to plot our whereabouts at any given moment through our active handheld devices. With the nation’s increased exposure to nefarious elements at UK ports (sea, air or rail) the police have been given enhanced search powers under the 2000 Terrorism Act, and this allows them to crack down on suspects, at will, demanding PIN codes and passwords across all their devices and the further power to confine them to three months in prison, if deemed appropriate.

In 2016, Muhammad Rabbani, a director of Cage, an organisation that campaigns on behalf of Muslims held under war-on-terror laws, came under police suspicion under Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act when he travelled back to the UK from Qatar. And he was not the only one stopped. Much the same as your luggage  being randomly rifflled through when airport security staff get bored, it’s a similar situation. And nobody likes it but that’s the deal. For some unknown reason Rabbani was subject to a random check at border control and when he refused to comply with police protocol he found himself in court and threatened with prison.

Stonehill became fascinated with his case and decided to make this film with a view to ‘making the invisible world visible’. Luckily for Rabbani, Gareth Pearce, a human-rights lawyer came to his rescue. I, for one, am  glad the police are patrolling our borders. That’s what they’re paid and trained to do and we rely on them to keep us safe. @MeredithTaylor

Phantom Parrot is in UK cinemas from 15 March

 

 

 

 

 

E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea (2024)

Director: Beatrice Minger | Co-directed by Christoph Schaub | Written by Beatrice Minger in collaboration with Christoph Schaub | With: Natalie Radmall-Quirke, Alex Moustache, Charles Morillon | Switzerland 2024 | French& English w/ EN subtl., 89′.

Eileen Gray was a creative genius and the first woman to conquer the territory of architecture at a time when men controlled it all. This new film reflects on Gray’s impressive career and her avant garde house on the Cote d’Azur and will appeal to cineastes and lovers of art and design alike.

Unfolding as a stylish hybrid documentary E.1027 is a filmic journey into the emotional world of Eileen Gray, who was born into a large family in County Wexford, Ireland before before moving to London where her career languished in the shadow of her male colleagues in the world of architecture at a time when the profession was dominated by men.

In the 1920s women architects found themselves confined to designing interiors but Gray broke the mould by moving to France where she courted the art scene before moving south where she found a plot of land on the water’s edge in Roquebrune – Cap Martin and fulfilled her dream of having a modernist house on the Riviera.  A self-confessed bi-sexual she lived with her younger lover, the editor-in-chief of the journal ‘Architecture Vivante’ Jean Badovici. The two crossed paths with fellow architect Le Corbusier and his wife Yvonne but Corbusier comes off the worse for wear in Swiss filmmaker Beatrice Minger’s take of events. He is seen an arrogant rather self-regarding character who muscles into Gray’s world by decorating her house with his own murals.

Eileen Grey – the house at Roquebrune – Cap St Martin

Minger’s film takes us into Gray’s inner circle, a tightly knit coterie of designers that included Fernand Lager, Corbusier and his wife Yvonne. Early on Gray counteracts Corbusier’s theory that a house is ‘a machine for living’  considering it more spiritual than that: ‘A place you surrender to, that swallows you. A place you belong to”.

Gray and Jean Badovici discovered the Roquebrune-Cap-Martin location that sits on the Côte d’Azur between Monaco and Menton. Due to its rocky, cliff-hanging location, wheelbarrows has to be used to transport materials on site. Gray named the house: E for Eileen 10 for John Badovici but left the place two years later: “I like doing things but I don’t like possessing them”. Eileen had already bought another plot of land inland and even more remote location and she left her house to ‘Bado’.

The film then broadens its focus onto Badovici and Corbusier’s relationship, with the French architect claiming Gray’s scheme for the house was copied from his own pen design. He built his own wooden Cabanon alongside a little bistro near to E.1027. But the Second World War put an end to the rivalry when Nazis occupied the Roquebrune house riddling the walls with bullets.

In the title role Natalie Radmall-Quirke smokes her way  throughout this intimate portrait of the artist who appears both victim of her emotions and driving  force behind her lover Bado – in one scene a graceful dance is testament to their feelings for each other. After leaving the house Gray was forced to contend with Corbusier’s arrogance, although he valiantly tried to find a buyer for the Roquebrune house which eventually to a Swiss art Marie Louise Shelbert who misguidedly thought he had designed it. No one came to Bado’s funeral.

Family money and her strong work ethic clearly allowed Gray to remain financially independent all through her life although there is never any mention of commissions outside her own designs although – many of her schemes never left the drawing board until later recognition saw her furniture sell for astronomical prices although  her famous house had a less illustrious ending. In a final interview Gray emerges as an appealingly decent woman without a shred of ego.

E.1027 also brings to life conflicting undercurrents in the Parisian art scene of the 1930s. A fascinating finale allows us to meet Eileen Gray in a brief interview. She comes across as modest and appealingly lacking in any ego. @MeredithTaylor .

E1027 – Murals by Corbusier

 

EILEEN GRAY AND THE HOUSE BY THE SEA which will celebrate its world premiere at CPH:DOX 2024 (March 13-24, 2024) in Copenhagen as part of the INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION programme.

 

Immaculate (2024)

Dir: Michael Mohan | Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Alvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco, Benedetta Porcaroli | US Horro 89’

Cecilia, a young American woman, travels to an Italian convent to pledge her life to Jesus (“what a waste!” an official sighs ruefully as he processes her through customs), joining a cadre of young nuns dedicated to helping their sick and demented elder sisters through the last phases of their journey to ‘the Lord’. Cecilia completes her vows and is welcomed into the community as its latest bride of Christ. All seems well.

Well, almost all. Sexuality is surprisingly prominent in daily life: elegantly-cut robes flatter lithe figures; one nun suggests that another’s sour demeanour is the result of “her vibrator’s batteries running down”; and, oddest of all, the building has its own well-equipped gynaecological clinic, complete with a dedicated doctor. As more warning signs accumulate, our misgivings about the convent are more than confirmed (a violent prelude has already clued us up on the extreme risks of trying to leave it).

Immaculate is the passion project of its star, Sydney Sweeney, emphasised by the prominence of her name above the film’s title. Noted for her eye-catching appearance in the video for the Rolling Stones single ‘Angry’, the actress first found fame with TV series ‘The White Lotus’ and ‘Euphoria’.

Sweeney isn’t the first actress to use the clout that comes with success to back a dark and challenging project. For instance, Olivia de Havilland was the motive force behind The Heiress (1949): selecting and securing the property, talking William Wyler into directing it, and playing a lead part at odds with her usual serene glamour.

Similarly, the narrative of Immaculate calls for Sweeney to portray a gamut of strong emotions. Cecilia begins the film cowed by the convent’s gravitas and opulence, albeit armed with a quiet, steely faith which will eventually put the institution to the test. She ends it in shrieking, blood-drenched agony, facing a poignantly fateful decision.

Immaculate is a stylish, well-made and intelligently written horror with high production values. Its vision of a malign and conspiratorial Catholicism is not new, but it manages to cast a spell (undermined at times by frequent jump-scares, heavy-handedly underlined by non-diegetic soundtrack explosions) as it builds towards a visceral climax.

The latter part of the film feels a little rushed and truncated, and some elements are under-developed: neither Cecilia’s formative near-death experience nor the existence of a sub-order of sinister, red-masked nuns are fully explored, and I’d have liked more character development for the two nuns (one supportive of Cecilia, the other stonily opposed) who gravitate to her.

But this is Sweeney’s show. The third act sees Cecilia facing her fate almost alone in the once-teeming building as she hurtles towards a starkly memorable denouement. Unlike the cold revenge enjoyed by de Havilland in The Heiress, retribution in Immaculate is served piping hot, and Sweeney throws herself into the finale with such crazed gusto that most will feel sated by her maniacal power. @IanLong @_i_a_n_l_o_n_g_

Ian Long is a writer and story consultant who teaches various aspects of screenwriting in his Deep Narrative Design workshops. ‘Stargazer’, a psychological drama feature co-written with director Christian Neuman will be released later this year, and Ian is currently developing ‘Malediction’, a supernatural feature set in southern Italy.

IMMACULATE is in UK cinemas from Friday 22 March 2024

Pepe (2024)

Dir: Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias | 122′

Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias’ Pepe which unspools in the Berlinale Competition and has been described by artistic director Carlo Chatrian as its  least “classifiable” entry, which is high praise indeed when you look at the distinctive films that surround it in this year’s competition. Following on from this luminous film Cocote, which won the Signs Of Life Award at the 2017 Locarno film festival.

Very much a hybrid text that encompasses humanism, epic, essay and mythic folk tale; all told through the prism of a hippopotamus the humans call ‘Pepe’ and is adrift from the clutches of his owner: Pablo Escobar. We have been here before, of course, with numerous documentaries that have looked at the Columbian drug lord and his menagerie of wild animals that lived on his armed compound. This is a very different beast from those spurious basic works.

A voice that claims to belong to a hippopotamus. The Latin word hippopotamus is derived from the Ancient Greek hippopótamos, from híppos ‘horse’ and potamós‘river’, together meaning ‘horse of the river’. Sometimes what is represented is not supposed to be taken as what it appears; the horse of the river is here to do some heavy lifting. In what some would call zoomorphism, what we are looking at is the climate crisis, the migrant crisis, imperialism, post colonialism and of the destruction of late capitalism and its toll on the global South.

The voice is droll and of the kind that has seen too much, but is comes post death following it’s escape and journey down the Magdalena River where he will come to a brutal end that is the narrative that fits many that are othered by a populace terrified of what they cannot understand. Pepe remains in death the quintessential romantic, condemned to the corporeal.

The film enjoys itself and takes its time, it glides through many philosophical concepts within a hermetically sealed universe. The journey through the Magdelena seems like an exercise through South American literature particularly ‘The Apprentice Tourist’ by the queer mixed-race “pope” of Brazilian modernism: Mário de Andrade, even though he focused on the Amazon, but the reference makes poetic sense if not empirical sense.

At various points the film wanders off from the kinesis of the river and partakes in various human life, from beauty pageants and the emotional violence of destructive relationships that very obliquely connect to our eponymous hero. But far from a dying and deadened milieu, the Magdalena and its environs  is in fact brimming with life. This is emphasised with a dominant binary and linear ontology around life and death. The living and the dead are not fixed in a binary but bound together in an intimate, dynamic, circling dance. Decay and regeneration are two sides of the same coin.

The long, widening rivers of South America are very much horizontal and rhizomatic. As per Caribbean writer Edouard Glissant rhizomatic identity is unlike a root which grows vertically from one place, it grows horizontally, stretching out to meet other roots.

As the oral testament continues one thinks of the acclaimed Canadian author LM Montgomery who said, “Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it”. To speak is to make sense of our reality but it also shows the impulses and the limitations of existence.

It is so invigorating to see a young filmmaker who has ambition to spare: Where a lot of his contemporaries settle for shooting rabbits, he is only interested in hunting big game and the Socratic questions that come with that territory. One can only be excited for the journey where he’ll journey to next. @d_w_mault

IN CINEMAS from 10 January 2025 | SILVER BEAR – BEST DIRECTOR | BERLINALE 2024

The Persian Version (2023)

Dir/Wri: Maryam Keshavarz, Producers: Anne Carey, Ben Howe, Luca Borghese, Peter Block, Corey Nelson) | US Drama

Vibrant energy and a dash of humour powers Maryam Keshavaraz’  crowdpleaser forward. The Persian Version sees a large Iranian-American family gathering for the patriarch’s heart transplant. The dramatic twist is a family secret that catapults the estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past that flips backwards and forwards between the United States and Iran as the two discover more kinship than they first imagined.

Enlivened by exuberant dance routines to a vintage American and Iranian pop score, the highlight of the show is vivacious newcomer Layla Mohammadi whose over-the-top personality is tempered by her ‘mean mummy’ parent Shireen (Niousha Noor). Occasionally erring on the tediously overtalky this is a spirited and earnest attempt to address cross-cultural identity and bring together past and present in a ‘healing’ way. @MeredithTaylor

ON RELEASE FROM 22 MARCH 2024

The Golden Thread (2022) Bergamo Film Meeting

Dir: Nishtha Jain | Doc 90′

The Jute industry has been the mainstay of millions of Bengalis for hundreds of years but is now in a state of decline putting their livelihoods in jeopardy.

In artfully composed shots Nishtha Jain’s documentary exposé examines the relationship between factory and labour in an industry which has come under pressure due to the switchover to plastics. The Golden Thread transports us from the peaceful riversides of West Bengal, where the green canes of jute grow in abundance, to the two largest jute factories in the Indian region around Kolkata where the plant is woven into material. 

The Golden Thread could easily be set in the 18th century but this is modern day West Bengal. The camera follows hot on the heels of workers arriving by bike at the vast Naihati Jute Mills where the dried jute is being stored in bundles before it reaches the massive weaving looms. The frenzied din of spinning soon takes over and then cuts back to the peace and tranquility of a muddy riverside where a man in a large straw hat is cutting down green canes in preparation for drying. 

Although the heyday is over for the jute industry, Naihati is proud to announce “we manufacture environment friendly jute… which includes food grade jute products (hydrocarbon free) and geo-textiles”. State aid has kept this sustainable alternative to plastic going but the future looks bleak despite the eco potential of jute.

The challenge to survive continues for many Bengali labourers who still rely on the factory to support themselves and their families despite poor working conditions. Accidents and jammed machines are a frequent occurrence. Grievances, hopes and fears are aired and compete with the din of the whirring spinning machines. The workers’ plight is taken up by the unions who are fighting to raise pay to a minimum wage requirement of £200 a month and improve conditions in general. It’s a familiar story of quality over production that connects to a global narrative of struggling traditional industries and communities all over the world. @MeredithTaylor

SCREENING DURING BERGAMO FILM MEETING | 9 – 16 March 2024

Pendulum (1969)

Dir: George Schaefer | cast: George Peppard, Jean Seberg, Richard Kiley | US Noir Thriller 106′

A glossy, extremely well-acted film that marks the point of contact between two contrasting career arcs: George Peppard had already reached its apex in pictures, and he was soon to find his niche as unorthodox TV lawmen for which this served as something of a dry run with his pursuing a baby-faced killer who anticipates Scorpio in Dirty Harry.

For Jean Seberg it marked a brief return to Hollywood after several years in European exile – still sporting her distinctive gamine haircut – as Peppard’s wife (an actor she actively disliked which made their chilly scenes depicting a marriage gone sour all the more plausible).

Directed by TV veteran George Schafer much it resembles a movie made for TV, but both the themes tackled – with the then shocking sight of people dying with their eyes open – and the use of Washington as a backdrop lend it a certain distinction. @RichardChatten

NOW ON YOUTUBE

Close your Eyes (2023)

Dir/Wri: Victor Erice | Spain, Drama 169′

Close you Eyes screened to rapt audiences at Cannes last year. It marked the Basque director’s triumphant return to the screen after an absence of thirty odd years when his Dream of Light (1992) had followed on from El Sur (1983) and his acclaimed debut The Spirit of the beehive (1973). His fourth features unites him with Ana Torrent who was only 6 when she made her screen debut in The Spirit.  

Close your Eyes is a slow-burning drama that reflects discursively on memory and disillusionment through a story set in the 1990s. An actor called Julio Arenas (José Coronado) has disappeared from the set after filming the opening and closing scenes that bookend a film called The Farewell Gaze. The director Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo) has subsequently abandoned the project and repaired to beachside Andalusia where he has kept himself amused with his writing until an opportunity to be interviewed for a programme about Julio’s mysterious disappearance sends his mind flooding back to the past as his friendship and working relationship with the actor resurface.

Erice uses Miguel’s experience as a way to delve into the theme of loss, identity and the mystical power of cinema and its interplay with the past and present offering both fantasy and illusion. Although Miguel has tried to obliterate certain painful memories of his past, the man he thought he was is recalled through the prism of the present. So the search for his lost friend offers an opportunity to shine light into the darker recesses of his subconscious that fills in some gaps and culminates in a startling finale. Erice explores the men’s work as artists in a subtle and layered piece of filmmaking that serves as a valedictory and highly intelligent reflection on the world of cinema. @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS FROM 12 APRIL 2024

Elaha (2023)

Dir/Wri: Milena Aboyan Co-Wri: Constantin Hatz | Cast: Bayan Layla
Derya Durmaz, Nazmi Kirik, Armin Wahedi, Derya Dilber, Cansu Dogan, Beritan Balci, Slavko Popadić, Hadnet Tesfai, Homa Faghiri, Rebér Ibrahims | Drama 110′

Being a woman in a Kurdish community is all about secrecy and subterfuge according to this impressive feature debut from Armenian born writer/director Milena Aboyan who shows the ongoing societal pressure for Kurdish women and girls in modern-day Germany. Men – and particularly mothers – hold sway in this ‘multicultural’ environment where ironically the women seem to be the ones enforcing age-old traditions.

Elaha, 22, is dreading her forthcoming marriage to her overbearing Kurdish boyfriend because she will have to prove she is a virgin – and she is not. Although the film explores Elaha’s options to re-instate her ‘innocence’ what it really deals with is the tremendous pressure of conforming to traditional ideals in a tight-knit, often hypocritical, set-up.

Naturally we empathise with Elaha who is thoughtfully played by newcomer Bayan Layla. But she is by no means a straightforward character who is playing her fiancé off against her ex-boyfriend to whom she feels considerable attraction, for obvious reasons. She desperately wants to conform to her family’s wishes and doesn’t want to bring shame on her mother and father but on the other hand she feels the freedom her ex boyfriend accords her is far more appealing. The overriding impression we get in the scenes with her fiancé – who is stuck in a ‘Madonna Whore’ complex – is one of fear and oppression: not the basis for a happy relationship, let alone marriage. By the same token, Elaha does not want to be ostracised from Kurdish society or lose the love and support of those she holds dear.

Aboyan and her co-writer Constantin Hatz deal sensitively with the issues involved introducing contrasting characters, in the shape of Elaha’s teacher and counsellor, who call into question these old-fashioned values. Elaha finds their opinions persuasive, although they fly in the face of her family’s traditional stance. Her teacher points out the seemingly ludicrous situation Elaha finds herself in but Aboyan never paints her mother and father as unlikeable; they are simply victims of an outmoded way of life in the context of modern day Germany. This is a visually appealing and engaging film that raises some important questions about family and society as a whole and women’s role within it. @MeredithTaylor

Elaha will also preview on International Women’s Day (8th March) at the BFI Southbank, as part of their Woman with a Movie Camera strand | In cinemas UK & Ireland on Friday 26th April 2024

 

Frida (2023)

Dir: Carla Gutiérrez | Doc 87′

This latest foray into the life of the artist Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon (1907-54) follows Ali Ray‘s chronicle of the painter’s life seen through the prism of Mexican history.

Frida, based on her own previously unseen diaries and letters, is a much more intimate and visceral view told in her own words (voiced by Fernanda Echevarría del Rivero).

In troubled life full of pain and tragedy, Kahlo managed to triumph through sheer adversity and her own brand of bloody-mindedness.“Was the virgin Mary really a virgin?” she asked a priest during mass. Clearly she was en route to be a success as a paintet when she started channelling her florid fears and morbid moods onto canvas after a life-changing contretemps with a tram left her bedridden at only 18.

In keeping with its subject matter this is an artful documentary that unfolds in colour and black and white. In an inspired touch director Carla Gutiérrez has decided to animate some of Kahlo’s work so the ‘Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair’ comes alive. This seems in keeping with Kahlo’s avant-garde and subversive take on things, along with her unusual marital arrangements with her long term much older husband and lover Diego Rivera which ended in divorce and then re-marriage based on a bizarre set of conditions including Kahlo’s refusal to ever sleep with him again (they had both been unfaithful, she with Leon Trotsky – no less).

So Gutiérrez offers up a refreshingly lyrical new take on the artist that lives to her reputation as complex, vulnerable but fearless to the last. @MeredithTaylor

Frida is in UK cinemas on 8 March and on Prime Video on 14 March.

 

 

 

All Shall be Well (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir/Wri: Ray Yeung | Drama 93′

All Shall Be Well opens as if all is very well during a sequence in which a diverse range of family generations are observed sitting around a table laughing, chatting and eating from copious bowls of food. There is nothing here out of the ordinary in a sequence that evokes familiar Asian family gatherings seen in many films linking traditions of Asian filmmaking, including the great family-focused films of Yasujiro Ozu.

The film swiftly shifts tone after we have been introduced to the two older women, Angie and Pat, who are clearly longtime partners, creating a successful business partnership and lovingly referred to by the family as Aunties. Angie (played by Para Au) is seen talking in a carefree way to Pat (played by Lin-Lin Li) who is in another room when Angie becomes aware of an ominous silence. Director and screenwriter Ray Yeung delivers the first of a series of audacious edits with a cut-away to a funeral sequence. We then observe, in a series of sequences, how shattered and distraught Angie feels about the loss of her soul mate.

Hong Kong based filmmaker Ray Yeung has made previous films on subjects including male relationships linked to the fashion industry in Front Cover (2015) and Twilight Kiss (2019) which looks at the problems of an older couple of gay men. All Shall Be Well takes Leung a stage further with his delicate, more unsettling than it looks, new film. It is a masterly study of complex family relationships and less than forgiving and harsh laws in countries like Hong Kong with links to China that are not progressive with LGBT rights. The film explores how family connections can be unsettling when order and inheritance involving wealth and property surface with the rights of couples in LGBT relationships literally less than clear or white-washed out of legal frameworks.

Apart from remarkable ensemble performances in particular from Patra Au at the centre of the film there is impressive camerawork by Ming kai Leung which gently moves the camera along with the movement of characters or frames sequences with close-ups as the drama unfolds. Yeung centres a key element around the spiritual healing powers of water that anchor a clash between Pat and her brother-in-law.

The film’s denouement is one of the finest in recent cinema. A revelation provides the otherwise unanswered mystery which has bothered and troubled Angie as she calmly but resolutely refuses to accept the fate handed to her by family rights and laws that enshrine injustice. When Angie discovers the real truth about her partner the film ends on a triumphant note of calm acceptance as to how love can transcend whatever blows that life brings. A powerful thought-provoking ending brings resolve and resolution to Yeung’s film and it is not surprising that All Shall Be Well walked off with the coveted LGBT Teddy Award against considerable competition at this year’s 74th Berlin Film Festival.

A film to watch out for when it is released which is likely to find a true worldwide following along the lines of recent enlightening LGBT themed films including The Blue Caftan.

TEDDY WINNER | BEST FEATURE FILM | BERLINALE 2024

PETER HERBERT
CURATOR MANAGER
THE ARTS  PROJECT
https://www.peterherbert.online

https://theartsproject1.wixsite.com/theartsproject

 

Baltimore (2023)

Dir: Joe Lawlor, Christine Malloy | UK drama 98’

Imogen Poots is the only reason to see this faded foray into the past that seems topical merely because of the current outburst of anti-capitalist rage being expressed throughout the Western World.

In Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s character drama she plays Rose Dugdale, an aimless girl with nothing else to do but rail against a system that saw her growing up in a rural mansion in Baltimore — a village in County Cork, Ireland — where her torpid existence soon sees her drawn to the limelight – in this case the contrasting excitement of stealing her own family’s clutch of paintings, in league with the IRA.

Flashbacks show her kicking against the system from an early age in sympathising with a fox during a hunt and a Black woman in a family artwork. The heist soon gives Rose a focus and some lead in her pencil transforming her from a ‘nothing’ to a ‘something’ in her own eyes – a rebel with a cause.

Rose’s mild-mannered parents (Carrie Crowley and Simon Coury) are mystified at this transformation from ordinary teenager to political activist and dismayed when she and her boyfriend (Patrick Martins) steal from them at a fundraiser for the IRA and so its goes on as Poots steals the show with a nuanced portrait of futility and misguidedness.

With its drab visual aesthetic and lifeless characters Baltimore is a dreary trudge through Dugdale’s life and times – which eventually amounted to nothing but caused suffering to many – but for Poots’ performance it is tolerable. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK CINEMAS FROM 1 MARCH 2024

Black Tea (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir: Abderrahmane Sissako | Drama 96′

Black Tea, Abderrahmane Sissako’s first narrative feature in a decade, feels like one of those amateurish student films assembled from a series of ideas (jotted down by Sissako and his co-writer Kessen Fatoumata Tall) that doesn’t quite come together. Formally known as The Perfumed Hill it plays out like an episode from a TV soap in scenes shot and then cobbled together without any regard for tonal integrity or even dramatic content.

Is it a female empowerment story: clearly no, judging by the storyline and absurd final reveal. The whole thing relies on the flimsy chemistry between the two unlikely central characters, who nevertheless make for a stunning duo, in the shape of Chang Han as a Chinese tea trader called Cai and Nina Melo, his latest apprentice Aya, who hails from The Ivory Coast.

In a bizarre opening scene Aya says a resounding ‘no’ to her ‘husband to be’ in one of those mass registry office weddings back in her homeland. Suddenly, and inexplicably, she finds herself in Guangzhou, China speaking fluent Mandarin and brushing up on the delicate art of tea-tasting at a shop owned by Cai who is unhappily married to Ying (Wu Ke-Xi). The two have a teenage son, Li-Ben (Michael Chang) and Cai also has a girl called Eva from a previous relationship.

When the scene shifts to the Guangzhou, Aya is already ensconced in the business, judging by her glorified position as assistant to Cai. When not working she spends the day prancing around in the local shopkeeping community. There are other African immigrants (who all speak fluent Mandarin) and who indulge in trite exchanges, touch up her hairdo and smile reverentially as her as if she’s a member of royalty. It soon emerges she has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire relationship-wise as Cai is clearly not really available. He even asks her to sit alone in his bedroom while he entertains his entire family to dinner, including a rather traditional old grandfather who makes racist comments. There’s a suggestion of a lesbian frisson with Ying and Aya, but it stays in Ying’s fantasy world. And that’s just about it.

The film clearly takes its name from Nina Simone’s eponymous song, and is beautiful to look at with DP Aymerick Pilarski’s vibrant visuals capturing colourful hillside villages and tea plantations. There are some original elements here, but the lack of a meaningful narrative arc and no real drama to speak of makes this a vacuous follow-up to the director’s stunning third feature Timbuktu (2014). @MeredithTaylor

IN COMPEITITON | BERLINALE 2024

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Sleeping with a Tiger (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir/Wri: Anja Salomonowitz | Austria, 2024 106′

A new docudrama raises the profile of Austrian avant-garde painter Maria Lassnig (1919-2014) considered one of the most important artists of the 20th/early 21st century.

Radical in its approach, Lassnig’s “body awareness paintings” focused on her own life as a woman. It celebrates the female body not from the traditional male gaze of beauty, but from the female experience of  being a sexual and biological force, exploring gender conflicts, pain, and even the fear of cancer. Lassnig had a special way of dealing with colour she termed “colour vision”. Unlike the often tortured images of her fellow Austrian expressionist Egon Shiele, Lassnig’s impressionistic art is on the whole rather easy on the eye with a gorgeous pastel allure despite the trauma it often depicts, highlighted with the use of red.

Modern artists are invariably depicted as tormented: van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Edvard Munch. Lassnig was no different according to Austrian filmmaker Anja Salomonowitz who comes to Berlinale’s Forum sidebar with her fourth film, a decade after her debut Spanien (2012). This is an impressionistic take rather than a straightforward biopic. So, although it unfolds in chronological form, interweaving acted scenes and documentary, Birgit Minichmayr (The White Rabbit) plays the central role throughout the artist’s life from a young woman until the age of 94. Lassnig emerges as a prickly, intractable but intuitive character who often feels at odds with the art world but stands by her art to the very end. Throughout Salomonowitz attempts to probe Lassnig’s core being and is keen to stress her mental state and her struggle in the male-dominated art world, which culminates in critical acclaim, the artist often seemingly rejecting her success.

From childhood, Lassnig is seen in conflict with her mother, and this troubled maternal relationship bleeds into Lassnig’s future in Vienna when she is drawn, via the capital’s Art Academy, into the local post-war art scene. Morose and strong-willed, her own body and biological state becomes a focus for her work making it highly original. Intuitively, she judges the value of her painting long before the art world makes its verdict.

Later, as an accomplished artist with her own exhibition, she is seen complaining about the hanging of her paintings (‘they are too low’)- an art in itself – and demands a rehanging, threatening to withdraw her work. The gallery assistant, claims this is the best way of to sell the paintings. But Lassnig remains faithful to her vision.

Anja Salomonowitz’s homage to the artist certainly ‘fleshes out’ the “body awareness” of Lassnig’s art but I can’t help wondering whether the film would have worked better as a straightforward documentary. Visiting Vienna for last year’s Viennale Film Festival I was captivated by Lassnig’s paintings but I left this film feeling unsettled (although not surprised) by Salomonowitz’s take on the woman herself, and her cinematic interpretation of a brave and pioneering artist whose real life was sadly tortured. Sometimes art is better left to speak for itself @MeredithTaylor

BERLINALE FORUM 2024 | 15 -25 February 2024

A Taste for Women (1964)

Dir: Jean Leon | Cast: Sophie Daumier, Guy Bedos, Grégoire Aslan | Drama 100’

The title suggests a saucy Parisian sex comedy but the knowledge that Roman Polanski collaborated on the screenplay immediately puts us on notice to expect something far darker; and since Sacha Vierny had recently made ‘Last Year at Marienbad’ look so sumptuous his ugly black & white photography for this film was presumably by design.

Guy Bedos looks understandably bewildered as he’s assailed from all sides by assorted ghouls, gangsters and members of a weird cannabalistic sect employing machine guns, blow pipes and samurai swords. Edwige Feuillere brings her usual dignity and grace to the proceedings (although even she reveals a more perverse side savouring a sadomasochistic cabaret); while Ward Swingle’s score is sometimes stridently awful but is just as likely to work beautifully. @RichardChatten

NOW ON YOUTUBE

Arcadia (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir: Yorgos Zois | Cast: Vangelis Mourikis, Angeliki Papoulia, Eleną Topalidou | Greece/Bulgaria/USA, 99′

One of the first changes to the Berlnale that artistic director Carlo Chatrian made when he unveiled his first edition of the festival in 2019 was a new section entitled Encounters which was very much in the vein of the programming choices at his previous job: the head of Locarno. It is in Encounters that Arcadia premieres during the 2024 edition of the Berlinale.

Arcadia is the sophomore title from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Zois whose debut Interruption premiered at Venice in 2015. Following on from that film he is continuing to look at existence through the prism of the heritage of Greek myth and Odyssian Circular journey of love, loss, sex and death.

Formally more experimental and with a tone harbouring discombobulation that feels akin to slowly sinking through quicksand, it brings to mind Churchill’s maxim of the Soviet Union: “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

We open on an educated middle class couple driving through the Greek countryside in the evening and discover they are married doctors, and that the husband Yannis (Vangelis Mourikis) is en route to identify a woman’s body in the aftermath to a car crash. His wife Katerina (Angeliki Papoulia), is along for the ride – it seems.

After doing their duty at the hospital they head to a holiday home to sleep. At this point when Yannis falls asleep the film starts to slowly uncover its true self. Katerina can’t sleep and discovers a youth in one of the bedrooms in a sequence that cryptically tries to explain the couple’s reality and why they can’t take their shoes off (which becomes a motif with a delightful payoff at the close). From here we are surrounded by the essence of sex in all its disguises. Sex, in fact, will become both an aid to memory, remembering and the subject of which most people tell lies.

The youth, acting like Beatrice guiding Dante through the forest in canto 2 of ‘The Inferno’, takes Katerina to the Arcadia: a bar come garage full of naked Rubenesque bodies fucking à la Carlos Reygadas. It becomes clear we are in some sort of limbo for the dead, or what in Greek myth was the in-between state called the ‘Fields of Asphodel’ before the journey to either Elysium/Heaven or Tartarus/Hell. The denizens of Arcadia have nothing to do but strive to remember, fuck, sing and drink.

When in a place of unreality, whether that be dream space or somewhere metaphysical, there is the danger of becoming nothing more than a series of non-sequiturs. But to seek explanation in a film like this defeats the object of what it is and how it exists and creates its world. There is of course a temporal vacuum that shows how a film is joined to reality: it reaches all the way out to it, but delimits the thinkable and thereby the unthinkable.

Through Katerina’s journey we encounter guilt, dead children, relationships destroyed by selfishness and carnal greed/erotic vagrancy. She is the one that needs to be released by the living: Yannis. As Emily Dickinson put it: Parting is all we know of heaven/And all we need of hell. We are then left with the perpetual contemplation of an elusive being that teaches us the art of loving the intangible. @d_w_mault

ENCOUNTERS 2024 | BERLINALE 2024 | 15 – 25 FEBRUARY 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Great Yawn (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir: Aliyar Rasti | Cast: Mohammad Aghebati, Amirhossein Hosseini, Saber Abar, Mahin Sadri, Mehrdad Ziaie Iran 2024 Farsi, Subtitles: English 93′ Colour World premiere | Debut film | Debut film

The motto “It’s always better to journey than to arrive” is possibly the best way to describe this engaging debut feature from Iranian filmmaker Aliyar Rasti who has made it into the Berlinale Encounters sidebar after critical acclaim with his award-winning short In Between.

Dark and deadpan humour is one of the main attractions of his offbeat road movie that sees two unlikely blokes thrown together on a difficult mission in the style of Martin Brest’s Midnight Run (1988). Although the outcome may leave some viewers perplexed, the darkly deadpan humour and gripping storyline with its valid human insight carries a low-key political message of the kind the Iranians do well. And this makes The Great Yawn compelling from the start. Visually too it’s a winner with an extraordinary, atmospheric sense of place captured creatively in Soroush Alizadeh’s inventive camerawork. Quite why this isn’t in the main competition line-up is as much of a mystery as the film itself. Perhaps the selection committee were as challenged as I was with the finale. 

After dreaming of a cave full of gold coins, Beitollah, a religious man, (Aghebati) sets up a series interviews to recruit a paid companion – preferably a loner with no religious scruples – to collect the ‘forbidden’ treasure from the cave, and so claim his half of the booty. Shoja (Hosseini), an un-prepossessing bearded type who claims ‘not to believe in anything’, is selected for the job. Absolutely skint, an amusing sequence sees him begging for a toothbrush, no one obliges.

So the two set off the next day as planned, Shoja with absolutely nothing but the clothes he stands in. The odyssey – that mirrors life and all its challenges – will take them to the farthest corners and central deserts of Iran on a arduous journey where they will sometimes come to understand one another, sometimes not, in their search for the right cave (aka ‘the universal truth’). They are continually dogged by a poor young boy on a motorbike who calls himself ‘the bastard’ but doesn’t understand how he got the name.

Shoja puts his absolute faith in Beitollah, who aids and abets him all the way in their joint mission. To get a bit of money they stay with a farmer and work in her paddy field. She tries to persuade Shoja to stay (everyone has left to work in the city), but he declines, committed to the task at hand. After various encounters they come across a Caravanserai where they stay the night. The inn’s owner decides to follow them on their search for ‘the great yawn’ aka Jacob’s cave, purportedly the location of their ‘holy grail’. Will they find the meaning of life – that’s for you to decide. Rasta’s film is all about trust, truth and human faith. It’s also highly enjoyable. @MeredithTaylor 

SPECIAL JURY AWARD EX AEQUO | ENCOUNTERS 2024 | BERLINALE 15-25 FEBRUARY 2024

 

 

Afterwar (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir: Birgitte Stærmose | with Gëzim Kelmendi, Xhevahire Abdullahu, Shpresim Azemi, Besnik Hyseni, Luan Jaha Denmark / Kosovo / Sweden / Finland 2024 Albanian, Subtitles: English 85′ Colour World premiere | Documentary form

This feature debut from Birgitte Stærmose takes us back to Bosnia for a raw reverie of an Eastern European conflict that still reverberates in the memories of those affected back in 1999. Fifteen years in the making and created in a close artistic collaboration with the cast who stare directly at the camera their faces still childlike, even though adulthood has now hardened them. They share bitter experiences of selling ‘phone cards and cigarettes in a struggle that still goes on decades later.

Pristina, war-torn Kosovo, is a grim city emerging slowly out of the festering fog of its slushy snowbound setting. In the dingy dawn of another day, car headlights glow, a red-eyed testament to the poverty and squalor that still dogs the capital. The documentary alternates between social realism, staged performance and an existential meditation on the long-term repercussions of war. Snapshots of shattered lives show that war may be over but a different war has now begun: that of survival. @MeredithTaylor

PANORAMA | BERLINALE 2024 | 15 – 25 FEBRUARY 2024

 

My New Friends (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir: André Téchiné | with Isabelle Huppert, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Hafsia Herzi, Romane Meunier
| France 2024 | French, Subtitles: English | 85′ | Colour | World premiere

Andre Techine was last in Berlnale with L’adieu à la nuit was screened out of competition in 2019. At that time gay sexual-awakening stories were still quite thin on the ground and his film, co-written Regis de Martin-Donos and Celine Sciamma, felt fresh and innovative.

His latest, screening in Berlinale’s Panorama sidebar, although decent  rather unremarkable as it goes over old ground although the subject matter – political activism – is still big thing in France (think ‘Gilets Jaunes’ etc). This politically-charged drama is carried by Isabelle Huppert, as Lucie, a widowed forensics detective who finds herself on the horns of a moral and ethical dilemma when a new family moves in next door.

The dramatic backdrop of the Eastern Pyrenees is once again the setting for a lowkey, human story that shows how political leanings weigh more heavily than ever before on our day-to-day relationships, threatening to disrupt even the closest of friendships. And this personal strife lies at the heart of the film.

This time around the veteran director is with his regular co-writer de Martin-Donos in a story that unfolds in the small village of Saint-Genis-des-Fontaines, near Perpignan, where Lucie’s growing friendship with the woman next door (Hafsia Herzi) is put under pressure when it emerges her troubled husband Yann (Pérez Biscayart) has a hefty criminal record in police anti-activism with an ongoing involvement in violent ant-capitalist demonstrations in Toulouse and Montpellier. Naturally Lucie finds herself at odds with Yann exposing potential divided loyalties with his wife.

Huppert once again channels all the angst of a rather lonely soul who is forced to be even-handed towards her neighbours while at the same time standing by her private beliefs and professional credentials. Political activism is now becoming more widespread all over Europe and this makes the film thematically relevant despite its rather underwhelming presentation. @MeredithTaylor

PANORAMA AUDIENCE AWARD COMPETITION  | BERLINALE 2024

 

 

Cu li Never Cries (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir: Pham Ngoc Lan | Cast: Minh Châu, Hà Phương, Xuân An, Hoàng Hà, Cao Sang Vietnam / Singapore / France / Philippines / Norway 2024 Vietnamese, Subtitles: English

This lyrical black & white drama from Vietnam explores the nation’s past and present from the intergenerational perspective of a young woman and her widowed aunt who has just returned home after living in Germany. In her luggage Auntie Cu li carries a Pygmy Slow Loris, an indigenous primate from the Vietnamese rainforest, inherited from her dead husband. One strangely touching scene sees Cu Li dancing in a bar with a waiter and the Pygmy loris, the tiny animal seems to embody the essence of this proud nation, fiercely defending itself while remaining graceful to the end. 

Cu Li’s young niece, who lives with her, is preparing for her wedding. The two argue bitterly about the usual intergenerational conflicts. Meanwhile her kids and the monkey look on, a picture of guileless vulnerability. Another contrast between the strength and vulnerability of an oriental nation that has born the brunt of many conflicts. 

“The present keeps bringing us back to the past” opines Cu li.  She quotes the 1960s communist president Ho Chi Min (1945-69) known as ‘uncle’ who said of the Black River (that runs from China to North Western Vietnam): “We must transform the water from foe into ally – our final purpose is to tame the river”. At this point Cu li is pictured scattering her husband’s ashes into the raging waters.

While the young couple anxiously ponders their uncertain future together (Cu Li’s niece is already pregnant with another child), Cu li invites the waiter to be her partner at the wedding, offering him money. The waiter is concerned about being seen as her toy boy, and the Pygmy Loris once again appears to echo all this anxiety – a tiny but potent little animal capable of killing with the toxin that spurts from its elbows when in danger, while outwardly exuding grace and innocence.

A brief running time plays to the film’s advantage along with a simple soundscape of exotic birdsong and imaginative outdoor locations captured in DoP magical monochrome camerawork. In his enchanting feature debut Pham Ngoc Lan expresses the hopes, fears and regrets of his homeland in an often surreal, understated and tender gem. @MeredithTaylor

PANORAMA COMPETITION | BERLINALE 2024

Every You Every Me (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir: Michael Fetter Nathansky | Cast: Aenne Schwarz, Carlo Ljubek, Youness Aabbaz, Sara Fazilat, Naila Schuberth | Germany / Spain 2024 | German, Subtitles: English | 108′ | Colour | World premiere

An industrial coal mining zone of Cologne provides a heavy-duty backcloth to this thematically ambitious, atmospheric slice of social realism from German filmmaker Michael Fetter Nathansky who follows the gradual implosion of a relationship through the eyes of a woman called Nadine (Schwarz).

Relationship breakdown is a heart-sinking subject but it also makes for quizzical viewing in Alle die Du Bist that sees Nadine’s partner in different guises. The opening scenes, set in some sort of institution, are confusing at first as Nadine’s partner is revealed as a bull, a small child (played by Schrein); and an adolescent (Aabbaz)?. It subsequently emerges that Paul embodies all these identities by turns, – at least in Nadine’s gaze – and we gradually learn to accommodate this unique idea. The single mother has left her home in Brandenburg at the age of 24 and met the mercurial Paul while working in an open-cast mining installation. A proud father, he is also undoubtedly a man of many faces whose male charisma has clearly set her heart on fire.

But life moves on and Nadine falls on harder times largely due to structural changes in the industry. Nathansky’s idea of casting several actors to embody one character is a brave and fanciful one, and certainly pays tribute to one woman’s efforts to make do and mend and reinvigorate her long-term emotional relationship. At the same time Nathansky’s follow up to his director debut You Tell Me (2019) requires a large leap of faith on the part of the audience. Committed performances all round.  @MeredithTaylor

BERLINALE FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | PANORAMA AUDIENCE COMPETITION | 15 – 25 FEBRUARY 2024

 

Eureka (2023)

Dir: Lisandro Alonso | Cast: Chiara Mastroianni, Viggo Mortensen, Rafi Pitts, Viilbjork Malling Agger | Fantasy drama, Argentina147′

Viggo Mortensen and Chiara Mastroianni star in this striking  that sees a man in search of his daughter journeying into the unknown.

Everyone loves a good story but storytelling is not like it used to be in the Golden Era of Hollywood and or European arthouse traditions. That said, Argentinian auteur Lisandro Alonso always manages to intoxicate us with his mesmerising fantasy drama such as Jauja that seem to hark back to a strange and exotic past celebrating the weird and wonderful. Eureka opens as a striking classically styled western.

More an art-installation than a straightforward narrative film Eureka is an off-beat, slow-burning addition to his oeuvre that starts off in gleaming back and white. Mortensen fetches up in a silent backwater in the Old West – no hint of Sergio Leone – but his gunslinging skills are a match for Clint Eastwood when told by a local innkeeper to ‘f*** off’.

Shifting to the present, in full colour, the focus is then a Native American police officer who is working through a gruelling casebook of local petty criminal offences. This sequence morphs in turn to a surreal scenario as the officer drinks a potion that transforms into a bird that flies back to the Brazilian jungle where another bizarre occurrence unfolds. Alonso quails aware from form or narrative in a seductive sensory concoction that beguiles and mesmerises, possibly getting its name from the place where gold was first discovered. A transformative experience on the big screen. Give it a go. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK CINEMAS FROM 16 FEBRUARY 2024

Sex (2024) Berlinale 2024

Dir/Wri: Dag Johan Haugerud | Comedy Drama, Norway 125′

“Once a thing is known, it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten”. Anita Brookner, Look at Me

Compelling, absurd and offbeat this chilled-out Norwegian dark comedy reveals the complex dynamics of human desire in a simple parable that centres on the lives of two happily married chimney-sweeps, who just happen to be dyslexic.

Best known for his award-winning 2019 drama Barn – Dag Johan Haugerud’s latest – the first film in a trilogy to be followed by Dreams and Love – unfolds in a summery suburb of Oslo where the two heterosexual men are casually chatting over their canteen lunch. Their conversation is banal enough at first but what is soon revealed in this casual tete a tete between Feier (Jan Gunnar Roise) and Avdelingsleder (Thorbjorn Harr) will have far-reaching implications on their family relationships.

Feier admits to having had casual sex with a male stranger but Avdelingsleder’s response is revealing in its insight into modern attitudes in Norway: “Admitting you’ve had sex with a man is easier than admitting you’re Christian”.

Avdelingsleder – who reads Hannah Arendt in bed – then describes a dream where he is a woman who has sex with David Bowie. This leaves him confused and questioning how much his personality is shaped by how he appears to others. His wife (Brigitte Larsen) later points out: “homosexuality is not just an identity it’s an activity“.

Predictably, Feir’s wife (Siri Forberg) is not impressed when her partner shares his one-off sexual encounter, and his revelation will reverberate the fallout intruding into their daily lives. She wants a full and frank discussion about what exactly happened and this opens up a thorny debate between the two about physical and emotional experiences and how we all define marriage, relationships and coupledom in general. These conversations are surprisingly affecting and go to show just how fuzzy the borders are in desire and sexual attraction in a film that probes and challenges pre-conceived views on sexuality and gender roles, both for the characters and us, the audience.

Writer/Director Dag Johan Haugerud offers up an upbeat and enjoyable look at how as humans we pride ourselves on our unique ability to love and communicate verbally, although our enhanced brains also make our structured lives more complex: at the end of the day we are basically all animals, albeit human ones, but once we start to analyse our feelings that’s where our lives become complicated forcing open that universal ‘can of worms’ about infidelity and the purported differences between the male and female brains in a debate that ripples out into religious and moral norms in modern Norway.

Although the pace slackens as the film unfolds Sex is an upbeat and often moving affair that comes to a satisfying conclusion despite the couples’ differences and recriminations. At the end of day this is a candid film full of hope that offers a relaxed and positive view of coupledom: “Think of love as a choice. I’ve chosen you and you’ve chosen me”. @MeredithTaylor

BERLINALE | ENCOUNTERS – BEST FIRST FEATURE AWARD 2024

Matt and Mara (2024)

Dir: Kazik Radwanski | Cast: Deragh Campbell, Matt Johnson, Mounir Al Shami, Emma Healey, Avery Layman | Canada, Drama 80′

Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson star as college friends reconnecting in this captivating Canadian comedy drama from Kazik Radwanski exploring the enduring power of attraction.

Mara, a creative writing professor, has a baby girl with her guitarist husband but their marriage is in trouble when she unexpectedly bumps into Matt on her university campus. The two immediately spark off each other with their literary talents that ignite past memories: Matt, now a published author, is charismatic and likeable and the two soon become close again but their undeniable chemistry is challenged by the pre-existing status quo and the ties that already bind Mara to her current partner and child. The film show how easy it is for desire to build in a vacuum until the pressures of real life intervene.

Matt and Mara unites Radwanski with his Campbell who also starred in his 2019 feature Anne at 13,000 ft in this amusingly light and refreshing snapshot of modern relationships showing how the past can come back to bite us in unexpected ways.

NOW IN CINEMAS | BERLINALE ENCOUNTERS COMPETITION 2024

Paramount on Parade (1930)

Dir: Dorothy Arzner, Otto Brower, Edmund Goulding || Cast: Jean Arthur, Clara Bow, Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Maurice Chevalier | US Musical 102’

Paramount on Parade displays little of the imagination of Universal’s The King of Jazz and certainly lacks the star quality of Metro’s The Show of Shows and is amateurishly staged as if on a proscenium and played to the camera throughout; but the masters of ceremonies Jack Oakie and Skeets Gallagher sauntering through the proceedings cheerfully breeching the fourth wall seem to be having as much fun as the audience.

The sets are pretty basic with the idiosyncratic exception of the tinted spoof murder mystery and the various Technicolor sequences which ironically lack a soundtrack (although perhaps that’s a blessing in the case of Harry Green as a Jewish matador). Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper are rather wasted – particularly as the points when they get to sing are both now silent – and you have to look hard to spot Frederic March.

With the fleeting exception of Kay Francis in Technicolor as Carmen Maurice Chevalier is easily seen to the best effect (in sequences evidently the work of Ernst Lubitsch), especially performing an Apache Dance with Evelyn Brent; but Mitzi Green, Nancy Carroll and Clara Bow also get to make their mark.

Apart from the scenes with Chevalier it’s hard to know who actually directed what, but the presence of Ludwig Berger – addressed as ‘Dr. Berger’ – in the Technicolor episode The Gallows Song identifies him as the man responsible for the colour composition that so impressed Alexander Korda that he later invited him to work for him at Denham on The Thief of Baghdad. @RichardChatten

Rei (2024) IFFR 2024

Dir/scr: Toshihiko Tanaka. Japan, drama 189′

Rei is a kanji character that can represent a variety of meanings. The genderless name is therefore a really good title for this complex but rather overlong (at over three hours) feature debut from Toshihiko Tanaka which won the Tiger prize at this year’s 53rd Rotterdam Film Festival.

Rei is about Matsushita Hikari, a self-contained thirty-something woman whose comparatively uncomplicated life in the corporate world contrasts with the trials and tribulations of her friends in a series of interconnecting dramas that highlight – albeit reductively – Japanese attitudes towards disability and, in particular, those with special needs and heightened sensibility. On a deeper level Tanaka also explores human connectedness along the lines of that well-worn phrase: “No man is an island”: It’s only through knowing each other that we really come to understand ourselves.

We first meet Hikari (Takara Suzuki) and her deaf landscape photographer friend Masato (played by Tanaka himself) in the wintery countryside surrounding Tokyo. Hikari’s life lacks a certain excitement and she seeks this out in creative scenarios. Hikari is also drawn to an actor called Mitsuru (Keita Katsumata) who she meets through her love of theatre and through a flyer where she has discovered Masato’s work. Finding his artistry compelling she asks him to take her portrait in the snowy setting. Another friend of hers Asami (Maeko Oyama) has a three-year-old daughter with special needs. Asami is dealing with the additional pressures of a husband who is having an affair with a nurse (who also cared for Masato’s mother).

Hikari is fascinated by Masato and the two share exchanges on SMS and email to get over the communication barrier. Asami is so impressed by Masato’s portraits of Hikari she commissions him to photograph her own family and these extraordinary pictures capture something that words can never do about the state of her relationship with her husband. But despite his unique and arcane talents Masato is sadly seen as a flawed character due to his hearing issues in this dense narrative in a drama that marks Toshihiko Tanaka out as a rising star in the film firmament. @MeredithTaylor

ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | TIGER PRIZE 2024

 

Le Bonheur est pour Demain (2024)

Dir: Brigitte Sy | Cast: Damien Bonnard, Laetitia Casta, Beatrice Dalle | France, Drama 97′

Another example of how good actors don’t make a decent film is this  limp effort to infuse a dreary sink estate drama with romance – French style. 

A warmed-up version of Henri Fabiano’s 1961 classic it stars Damien Bonnard and Laëtitia Casta who certainly create a moody head of steam as the doomed lovers Claude and Sophie at the film’s core. Both losers, he soon ends up in prison leaving her, an abused single mum, with another bun in the oven. Quelle surprise!

There are artful touches in Daniel Bevan’s production design and Frederic Serve has fun with his lenses but the narrative – which may have been shocking back in the day – is now as tired as a Sixties council block, and not even veteran actress Beatrice Dalle, as Claude’s gutsy mother, can tart it up to be anything memorable.@MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM

All of Us Strangers (2023)

Dir: Andrew Haigh | Cast: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell | UK Drama 105′

Andrew Haigh’s new film All of Us Strangers may well be this British director’s most personal and accomplished film so far. Based on a Japanese novel The Discarnates by Taichi Yamada (1934-2023) which has been filmed in 1988 by Nobuhiko Obayashi (1938 -2020) the adaptations reveal how a remarkable literary source material can provide two fertile parallel viewpoints.

The Haigh adaptation is focused on Adam, a script writer, played by Andrew Scott, suffering from not only writers’ block but the crushing weight of a lonely unhappy life as a gay man. What has caused this is gradually revealed through subconscious thoughts about the loss of his parents. These are sublimely visualised by Haigh as Adam tentatively embarks on what is his first adult real-life relationship with Harry, another lonely gay man.

Haigh reveals care and sensitivity with actors, bringing out the best in Paul Mescal (as Harry) and Jaime Bell and Claire Foy (as parents) while the core of the film rests on a remarkable central performance by Andrew Scott. He plays a loner and is in tune with Haigh’s theatrical sense of interior mise en scene that sensitively uses framing of space to capture Adam’s viewpoint. Credit here is due to the tight flawless framing of Jaimie Ramsay’s beautifully lit and textured camerawork along with the original linked-in music and sound of Emilie Levenaise-Farrouch.

Scott and Mescal are completely at ease with each other and this is deeply felt in a sequence where the two men stroke each other’s naked thigh and knees which is erotic without being any more explicit. Likewise, the way Haigh surrounds and closely follows Scott during an eventful night in a night club, as his head swims to the sound of The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, reveals a filmmaker drawing from personal experience. The handling of a mother’s suppressed homophobia and the hint of gay cruising when first encountering his father are remarkable scenes capturing nuanced undercurrents. There is only one bedtime sequence involving the parents and son that feels uneasy.

Profound connections involving the providence of love and the need for redemption are at the heart of the film, separating time zones with the idea that there is a time to love, but also a time to die. The Obayashi drama has sensitive family relationship sequences involving a man and his deceased parents and a moody relationship with a female neighbour, although the film changes course by introducing a supernatural element involving zombie horrors feeding off a life force. This is finely tuned into Japanese culture and might explain why Obayashi’s version of The Discarnates is less well known in the west. The Haigh adaptation is more romantic and there is an uncanny feeling of spirituality also found in the work of Frank Borzage, another great romantic. Haigh appears to reflect that for his two damaged men it is only through love and adversity that souls are made great

All of Us Strangers builds on Haigh’s previous films Greek Pete, Lean on Pete, Looking, 45 Years and The North Water with a similar feeling for the interior spaces of homes, rooms, a ranch and the confined space of a boat stranded in ice. London at night in All of Us Strangers feels both alienating and melancholy, with the magical lights of cranes and high-rise buildings on the horizon becoming confined and darkened spaces for Haigh’s s lost souls. The daytime scenes when Adam wanders through the suburbia of his youth in search of his deceased parents have different film grain and light aiding the director’s ability to use space to explore complex emotional relationships.

The film’s final sequence brings to a full circle how ownership of our past can be grasped, although this ethereal finale has drawn criticism and may well be divisive. The audaciousness of both the finale and the fluid anti-realist thread flowing through the film suggests a gentle reminder of the daring of Powell and Pressburger as there are Matters Of Life and Death to be discovered at the heart of All of Us Strangers.

This is a triumphantly beautiful film that after more than one viewing suggests British film culture may have the heir apparent to the late great lamented Terence Davies. Haigh has the earlier filmmaker’s interest and ability with providing literary adaptations and resonance drawn from personal experience. We may well be witnessing a new chapter in the growth of gay related British cinema to be rightly proud of. Peter Herbert

PETER HERBERT is curator manager at THE ARTS PROJECT

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS

 

 

Get Your Man (1927)

Dir: Dorothy Arzner | US Drama 63’

Interesting to compare this rather demure affair with the one pictured nearly a hundred years later in HOW TO HAVE SEX (2023).

Far from being a manual advising young ladies how to succeed with the opposite sex as the title suggests, this early directorial outing for Dorothy Arzner – the only woman director during Hollywood’s Golden Age – whose assignment to the project led Clara Bow to take umbrage as her presence on the set meant one less man around – subscribed to the then prevalent twenties convention of a racy title but a plot of ultimately high propriety, ending (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) as it does with the two young leads retiring to separate rooms rather than spending the night together.

Typically for a film by Ms Arzner the men are all gormless and pliable, while the observation that “My uncle’s eighty, and he’s still a public menace to private secretaries” shows that she had their measure a full ninety years before the Harvey Weinstein scandal lifted the lid on workplace sexual harassment. @RichardChatten

Now on YouTube

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (2024)

Wri/Dir: Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich | US Doc 74′

The French West Indies’ island of Martinique really comes alive in this evocative portrait of Suzanne Césaire (1915-66) with its sultry soundtrack from Sabine McCalla.

Writer, teacher, devotee of Afro-Surrealism and leading proponent of the Négritude movement, Césaire was also a mother of six who considered writing to be of utmost importance in her life. Typically she never promoted herself as such, and consequently seems to have slipped through the cracks of history.

American filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich has alighted on her subject in this immersive new documentary that includes a treasure trove of interviews with Césaire’s living children and family.

The Ballad is a bid to explore the writer’s career and legacy as it drifts elegantly through the past and present in an episodic and often enigmatic reverie based on the truth, and brought to life by the award-winning actor Zita Hanrot, herself a new mother, as she prepares to flesh out the character of Césaire .

Sadly – as is often the case – more is known of Suzanne’s husband Aimé, a political figure. But nonetheless Hunt-Ehlich succeeds in raising the profile of this astonishing anti-colonial activist who blazed a trail for feminism during the early part of the twentieth century. An enlightening and worthwhile documentary feature debut in this year’s Tiger Competition at Rotterdam International Film Festival. @MeredithTaylor

BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL | ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | TIGER COMPETITION 2024

 

How to Have Sex (2023)

Dir/Wri: Molly Manning Walker | Cast: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Lara Peake, Enva Lewis, Samuel Bottomley, Shaun Thomas, Finlay Vane Last, Guy Lewis | UK Drama 91′

What sounds like a cinematic instruction manual soon turns out to be predictable revelation about how little has changed since we were all teenagers. Giggling, dancing, getting drunk (and even throwing up) is still par for the course for the kids in Molly Manning Walker’s dynamic feature debut set on a Butlin’s-style holiday camp in the sun-drenched Greek island of Crete.

The London-born writer-director, who cut her own teeth as a cinematographer of Charlotte Regan’s film Scrapper, shows there is still the same vulnerability and uncertainty in this story about girls grasping the nettle of supreme social confidence while everything around them is still weird and unpredictable.

Tara, Skye and Em You are the teen trio at the heart of How to Have Sex. Don’t expect to see anything naughty as Nicolas Canniccioni’s rolling camera drifts more over faces and tender expressions than actual nude bodies, although these girls are certainly attractive with their bronzed limbs and complexions in the bloom of youth. Tara (a brilliant McKenna-Bruce) does form a bond with a guy called Badger (Shaun Thomas) and then she gets close to Paddy (Bottomley), but theirs is a muddled encounter that leads to disillusion rather than jubilation leaving her off kilter and bemused by that thing called love. And the same goes for her relationship with Skye (Lara Peake), Manning Walker makes the sage observation that while girls can be best buddies they can also be bitter rivals.

Tara’s needling desire to put her first sexual experience to bed drives the drama forward as she negotiates the subtle art of flirting and seducing on the day-glo dance floor, to a thrumming soundscape. Script-wise, Manning Walker opts for an intuitive aperçu of adolescent life rather than anything gripping but this acutely observed and poignant generational expose really nails the innocence, cockiness and sheer abandon of youth. @MeredithTaylor

MUBI BLU-RAY and DVD release on 12 February 2024

Argylle (2024)

Dir: Matthew Vaughn | UK Thriller 139′

Pirandello meets Philip K. Dick in this disarming piece of escapism that starts out seeming to be an ultra-glossy piece of escapist hokum but swiftly changes tack when it transfers its attention to charmingly buxom Bryce Dallas Howard as an author caught up a plot so outlandish you keep wondering if the Vaughn and his scripter Jason Fuchs are going to make it all a dream to bring it to a resolution.

The film is full of surprises (such the identity of the actor briefly seen playing her boss which early on drew from the audience the first of many doubtless intentional laughs). Vaughn displays the style and aptitude for pacing already amply evident in Layer Cake, Kingman: The Secret Service, Rocketman and Kick-Ass and creates vivid colour effects all the more effective for being sparingly employed.

Sam Rockwell makes a personable hero, but the most memorable cast member is probably Vaughan’s own cat; a strange-looking moggy seemingly unfazed by the bizarre events going on around him. @RichardChatten

IN CINEMAS IN FRANCE and the UK

Pet Shop Boys Dreamworld (2023)

David Barnard | Musical Concert film 120′

Who’d have thought a couple of English lads from Tyneside would make it to multi-millionaire status. Not only coining it, but also giving pleasure to their international fanbase for the past four decades.

David Barnard’s concert film sets the summery scene in  Copenhagen’s Royal arena last July where a jubilant Danish crowd  cheer the opening number In Suburbia kicking off the Pet Shop Boys’ latest musical extravaganza.

Enveloped in white trenches and black polos ‘The Boys’ – aka Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe – soon emerge from behind their silver sci-fi masks beaming on the audience against a background of monochrome moving images – Tennant – now 69 – on vocals and Lowe on keyboards rol seamlessly through a series of singable classics – each one memorable and unique: The Streets have No Name, I love you, you pay the Rent  Why Don’t We Try. A backing band joins them for I Could Leave You. Rocking a white fez and tuxedo Tennent turns up the tempo for a bilingual single That’s the Way Life is.

Things get more jovial when Tennant shares a personal memory about a trip to the Caribbean with his long term partner Lowe. This segues into Domino Dancing, Monkey Business, New York City Boy and the tortuously poignant Jealousy.

Another change of tone and a saturnine makeover ushers in the ironically titled Love Comes Quickly, Neil moving stealthily across a moody mood-board of scarlet, indigo and vermilion.

The tone morphs again with Lowe, mysterious in a baseball cap and shades, finally takes to the vocals with his flattened-out North Eastern vowels for Maybe I didn’t Treat You. Tennant, suave in silver, steps forward for a solo sparkler Dreamland with female backing transforming the syncopated vibes into Heartbeat. How Am I gonna Get through This, Go West and It’s A Sin making the most of the rhythm.

Barnard – best known for his concert films featuring Gorillaz, Nick Cave and Eric Clapton, adds an artful touch with some impressive aerial photography, ushering in the ultimate showpiece with my personal fave West End Girls suitably sung by Tennent in a dark grey suit amid street lamps.

A finale of We Were Never Being Boring brings this heady trip down memory lane to a jubilant showdown as Tennant and Lowe continue to give delight to millions. Guaranteed to light up your January Pet Shop Boys Dreamworld is a real shot in the arm for those Winter blues. @MeredithTaylor

PET SHOP BOYS DREAMWORLD: THE GREATEST HITS LIVE AT THE ROYAL ARENA COPENHAGEN is showing in cinemas worldwide on Wednesday, January 31 & Sunday, February 4, 2024 only
SYNOPSIS:

The Green Cockatoo (1937)

Dir: William Cameron Menzies | Cast: John Mills, Rene Ray, Robert Newton, Charles Oliver | UK Crime Drama 70′

Although John Mills is technically the star, The Green Cockatoo is principally told through the big blue eyes of Miss Rene Ray as a country mouse who gets a crash course in what “a vile and wicked city London is”; while, as directed by visionary production designer William Cameron Menzies, it anticipates the feel of a forties film noir (complete with a score by Miklos Rozsa).

Old movies often provide incidental details of interest to later social historians: in this case that the phrase “a bit of a goer” was in use back in the 1930s. The film further charmingly shows its age by depicting John Mills as a song & dance man – first seen singing in a night club before briefly launching into an incredible swivel-hipped tap dance. We’re expected to believe he and Robert Newton are brothers (presumably only their mother could tell them apart) further showing just how long it was made when Mills describes him as “a good kid”. @RichardChatten

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

https://youtu.be/PtdPzBBnDMo?si=DfB3vx8kaSix46kN

Bolero (2024) IFFR 2024

Dir: Anne Fontaine | France, Biopic drama, 122′

Anne Fontaine’s ravishing musical biopic of Joseph Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) opens with various modern musical versions of the legendary French composer’s 1928 masterpiece – the Bolero – from China, India, Africa and Mexico that have kept his spirit alive for modern audiences and whose composition is at the heart of the drama.

Ralph Personnaz plays the leading role of Ravel, an accomplished pianist in his own right, who is pictured being turned down for a place at the Paris conservatory after a dizzying display of his keyboard talents at audition.

Feted as one of France’s most loved composers, Fontaine chronicles Ravel’s life and loves in the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s with this sumptuous romantic drama that gathers together a talented cast: Jeanne Balibar, Vincent Perez, and Emmanuelle Devos, and benefits from the lavish musical interludes as Ravel takes to the piano during his touring concerts: Like Rachmaninov, amongst others, he earned his living from playing as well as composing.

The first of these transports us to Boston and New York where he convenes with the turn of the century ‘beau monde’ and indulges his penchant for gloves (asking a local prostitute simply to put them on gracefully, rather than indulge his sexual fantasies in a more palpable way). The past fuses with his present in a dreamy reverie of flashbacks that flesh out his talents and skills and cement his reputation as one of the greatest French composers of the 20th century along with his contemporary Debussy, all set against a highly creative period in French history that aligned him with the Impressionists and famous writers and poets such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Cocteau amongst others.

Here in the US he also cements his friendship with the unhappily married Misia Sert (Doria Tillier) one of three female influences in the film: the other being the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein (Jeanne Balibar), who inspired the Bolero, and his fellow pianist and friend Marguerite Long (Emmanuelle Devos). An elegant and informative biopic from Fontaine who delighted us with Coco before Chanel in 2009. @MeredithTaylor

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | 25 JANUARY – 3 FEBRUARY 2024

 

 

Un coup de dès | Breaking Point (2023)

Dir: Yvan Attal | Cast: Guillaume Cannet, Yvan Attal, Victor Belmondo, Maiwenn, Alma Jodorowsky, Marie-France Crozes | France, Thriller 85′

This thrilling little romantic melodrama set in Brazil, Paris and the Cote d’Azur sees two Frenchmen committed to lifelong friendship after one saves the other’s life.

Guillaume Cannet is Vincent an intrepid businessman who steps into the brink when his chum Mathieu, falls victim to a break-in at the home he shares with Juliette (Crozes) in a chic part of Paris.

Happily married to Delphine (Maiwenn) Vincent loves playing the field and Mathieu (who real life partner is Charlotte Gainsburg) is only too ready to cover for him given his past loyalty until he too falls prey to the charms of Elsa (Jodorowsky), one of Vincent’s lovers. Dark clouds soon gather over their gilded lifestyle when Elsa is found dead in a perfect storm of coincidences.

Yvan Attal, who writes, directs and stars as Mathieu, certainly knows how to create atmosphere and tension with all the classic noirish elements at his disposal including a clever plot, a solid French cast and a sweeping romantic score that spells danger. Attal has a rare gift of exuding sexiness, decency and stability, so we’re on his side all the way through.

Soigne and elegantly styled, Un coup de dès is the perfect B film to curl up with, and even better on the big screen with its lavish imagery and gorgeous settings. Wish there were more of these sophisticated yet effective modern thrillers aimed at middle-aged people who still fall in love and probably shop at Waitrose (French equivalent E.Leclerc). @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE

Padre Pio (2023)

Dir/Wri: Abel Ferrara | Cast: Shia LeBeouf | Asia Argento, Marco Leonardi | Drama, 104′

Abel Ferrara’s latest is a morose and brooding affair that sees the veteran director absorbed in contemplation on religion and socialism and channelling his angst through the figure of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968) a Capuchin friar and mystic who was venerated in 2002, and is played here by Shia LaBoeuf.

Pio was clearly not a happy man and the bearded and be-chausabled LaBeouf conveys this spiritual turbulence in various sequences that play out alongside the main narrative set in a small coastal town in Apulia in 1918 where soldiers are limping home from the First World War (Italy had joined Allied forces in 1915 after initially declaring neutrality).

There is much moaning and gnashing of teeth as the villagers commiserate over the death of their loved ones. Ferrara and his co-writer Maurizio Braucci reflect on the exploitation of farm workers by a glib local landowner, running for office in the elections, as the men return to their gruelling agricultural work on his land.

But change is afoot in Italy, and the socialists prevail amid threats and violence from local right-wingers. Meanwhile the stigmatised Pio is seen in vignette swearing at a young female confessor. Asia Argento gets a cameo role as ‘a man’ seeking a strange request. It’s an odd view of the Church – rather than the usual consoling, supportive religious presence, Pio is seen as an abusive figure, basking in guilt and shame, largely because he had apparently previously forged links with the fascists. So another strange and intractable film then from the accomplished director of Bad Lieutenant and Driller Killer whose Berlinale title Siberia was panned by the critics. Ferrara clearly has an axe to grind and he continues to wield it in his own artful way. @MeredithTaylor

ON DIGITAL courtesy of Dazzler Media in UK and Ireland FROM 26 JANUARY 2024 | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL PREMIERE 2023

 

 

 

Head South (2024) IFFR 2024

Dir: Jonathan Ogilvie | Cast: Ed Oxenbould, Marton Csokas Roxie Mohebbi | New Zealand, Drama 98′ 2024

The Rotterdam Film Festival is traditionally a place where discoveries are made from unexpected places and this year’s opening film Head South is no exception. It manages to bypass what some have called a fool’s errand, that is ‘the opening film curse’. It does this with a meandering ode to post punk in a provincial town filled with beautiful losers with excess energy who search for belonging inside the cocoon of a lived experience.

New Zealand writer/director Jonathan Ogilvie certainly knows of what he speaks, before cinema he directed numerous music videos for legendary New Zealand record label Flying Nun, combined with that he has mined his teenage years for a cathartic and very strange gem.

Angus (Ed Oxenbould)is a teenager who it can be said is having ‘a moment’, his mother has left the family home for two weeks to ‘discover’ herself and he and his laconic father are left to have lonely dinners and some time together. His two friends are annoyed after he sells them oregano in place of marijuana, and to break his enforced solitude he receives a package from his brother who is studying in London.

Alongside a pithy postcard is a copy of Public Image’s single Public Image. Alas the vinyl is warped so heads to local record store: Middle Earth Records (No, really) where the droll proprietor Fraser reigns supreme and is the font of all musical knowledge. This is the point in a classic bildungsroman where the journey can be said to truly begin. In a matter of time he has been dared to start a band, only he is adrift, emotionally, spiritually and most importantly empirically.

At this point Ogilvie does a classic bait and switch. When we were expecting a classical quirky teenage wasters on the ‘l am in search of sex, drugs and rock n roll’ theme we start to see that the director is working on a completely different register that cleverly leaves small visual clues (a cinematic clip of Lawrence Oates often quoted line: ‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’) to what will become tragic and life changing.

What tends to happen a lot of time in films of this ilk is the filmmakers relying on tired and trusted tropes that verge on cliche, here though Ogilvie subverts these ideas, whether it is the longed for older woman against the obvious potential partner that the protagonist can’t see, or the first gig triumph and the deconstruction of the myth of the aspired to be cool kids. In fact it goes further in its attempt to destroy the idea of coolness being something to grasp, it instead points out it is in fact a false economy.

The film succeeds in many ways, it has a beautiful desperation that hangs around the characters and its recreation of the late 70s is perfect. It looks like the 70s, whether in the set decoration, the film stock or the sense of boredom in a small town with nothing to do (especially on a Sunday). It feels like the 70s and it probably smells like the 70s too! @d_w_mault

ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | 25 January – 3 February 2024 |

Stella. A Life. (2024)

Dir: Killian Riedhof | Cast: Paula Beer, Bekim Latifi, Damian Hardung, Joel Basman | Germany Drama 121′

This horrifying wartime tragedy kicks off in good spirits. In a Berlin nightclub to dazzling strains of Benny Goodman’s ‘Sing Sing Sing’ the harried main character Stella is an aspiring jazz singer only just facing up to the unspeakable terrors of her hometown under Nazi rule.

The daytime sees her slaving away in a garment factory where the Jewish workers are one day rounded up and shot. But Stella, based on the real life of Stella Goldschlag, is determined not to end her life in Auschwitz. In fact, so determined, that she would go on to betray her fellow Jews, some of them close friends, to the Gestapo, just to salvage her own dreams.  

Looking wan and washed out for her gruelling role, Paula Beer turns in another dynamite performance as a highly suggestible woman on the brink whose life is turned upside down when she refuses to submit to the constraints of being a Jew in Nazi Germany just when her musical career is starting to take off.

Hounded, questioned and subjected to continuous scrutiny, Stella and her parents are forced into hiding where she realises the only way to survive is to play a double game. But that will have consequences for the brittle blue-eyed anti-heroine – who is both victim and perpetrator – as she tries desperately to juggle her life with various powerful protagonists in a bid to avoid deportation to Auschwitz. Sadly her story turns into a nightmarish maelstrom of torture, duplicity – and ultimately guilt.

With its febrile tone and intense pacing Stella. A Life conjures up the palpable fear and very real trauma Nazi Germany instils in its Jewish population in 1944 and shows how ordinary people are capable of evil, in certain circumstances. Some of the set pieces are truly harrowing. particularly a scene where Stella is picked up by her hair, and brutally kicked in the head during an interrogation. Riedhof certainly knows how to create atmosphere but his script suffers from an under-developed storyline, and Stella’s descent into evil is never convincingly realised in a thriller that gradually gives way to sensationalism with a series of traumatic interludes, rather than a cohesive narrative.

Stella. A Life is an effective exploration of the horrors of war and the devastating emotional and physical effects on the victims in their desperate will to survive – until guilt rears its ugly head. @MeredithTaylor 

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE | ZURICH FILM FESTIVAL WORLD PREMIERE 2023

Shoshana (2023)

Dir/Wri: MIchael Winterbottom | Cast: Irina Starshenbaum, Harry Melling, Douglas Booth, Gal Mizrav, Ian Hart, Aury Alby, Ofer Seker, Liudmyla Vasylieva | Wris: Michael Winterbottom, Laurence Coriat, Paul Viragh | 119 mins

Prolific English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom goes into thriller mode for his latest outing, 15 years years in the making, and set amidst the political movers and shakers in the run-up to Israel’s founding as a state. Palestine is still under the colonial rule of the British and this provided a favourable climate for Jews escaping from the Nazi clutches of Hitler.  

Inspired by real invents, the focus is journalist Shoshana Borochov (a feisty Irina Starshenbaum) the daughter of a Russian Socialist Zionist who held sway back in the day. Shoshana is a member of a paramilitary Zionist force and has inherited her father’s spirit as she deftly navigates the social milieu of the great and the good while working for a Hebrew-language paper, She also gives us a historical context in voiceover.

Naturally this influx of Jews gives rise to tensions amongst the existing Arab community. There are two Zionist organisations in particular – the Haganah, the paramilitary Zionist force to which Shoshana belongs, and the Irgun, a hard-core Zionist organisation focused on flushing out Arabs from the territory.

Soshana soon falls for English police officer Tom Wilkin (Douglas Booth), who is working alongside his colleague Geoffrey Morton (Melling) to capture the leader of the Irgun, Avraham Stern (Aury Alby), in order to shut it down. Morton also shares a frisson with Shoshana. Tel Aviv is a modern city complete with its new (at the time) Bauhaus buildings (although filming took place in southern Italy). Anyone who knows Tel Aviv will also appreciate what a closely-knit society it is with its social and business connections. And so Stern and Shoshana soon finds themselves connected through their many contacts.

This is an elegantly kitted-out political thriller with plenty of action between the sheets. There’s nothing like a man in a uniform – or a woman – in a uniform and silk negligee. Shoshana is also testament to the fact that nothing has really changed in the Middle East or in Europe for that matter (apart from the ‘elephant in the room’ that is Brexit). An enjoyable classically style romp that explores the way extremism and violence can force a wedge between people, forcing them to choose sides. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK CINEMAS FROM FRIDAY

Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer (2022)

Wri/Dir: Thomas von Steinaecker | With: Werner Herzog, Chloe Zhao, Joshua Oppenheimer, Patti Smith, Robert Pattinson, Carl Weathers, Wim Wenders, Christian Bale, Nicole Kidman | Volker Schlondorff | Klaus Kinski, Lotte Eisner | Doc Germany 102′:

Sometimes a question has to be asked that brings to mind what Bernard MacLaverty called the ‘elephant in the room.’ That is – who is a documentary like this for?

If you know Werner Herzog as a writer/director you will most likely find this film a slight trifle that only skims the surface of one of the most mythologised filmmakers, who is still with us. If, on the other hand, you know Herzog from his appearances on animated series and roles in such examples of America’s Movie Industrial Complex like The Mandalorian or Jack Reacher (as fun as they are) then this documentary will be an introduction to what Socrates meant when he claimed ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ in the sense that, in the last fifteen years, Herzog has turned from an unique filmmaker who gave us visions of the imagined to a Pop Culture behemoth that at times touches on self parody; most definitely examined and lived in.

Radical Dreamer follows the 81-year-young filmmaker in LA and on a pilgrimage to the family home where he grew up. With a short running time the origin story is merely glimpsed as we focus on the stories that it seems everyone knows: the walk across Europe to save the life of Lotte Eisner (which Herzog detailed in his book Of Walking In Ice) and the lunacy of Klaus Kinski (which is better detailed in Herzog’s own 1999 documentary My Best Fiend).

One of the usual choices the director Thomas von Steinaecker makes is the selection of talking heads, half with German speakers and half with Anglo-Saxons. It is perhaps no surprise that the English speakers don’t really impart anything of interest and some of the choices are damn right bizarre, Carl Weathers, for example, who shared a scene with Herzog in The Mandalorian and the filmmaker Chloé Zhao. The German speakers have far more insight, and for that we could have stayed with them longer. They include Wim Wenders; two of Herzog’s brothers; his first wife and Volker Schlöndorff.

I think we need to look at this film as a primer, a ‘greatest hits’ package; if you will. It is certainly part of a media blitz that includes the release of his autobiography, a retrospective at the BFI Southbank and the re-issue at the cinema of some of his great films from the 70s. I do feel though that the films Herzog made in the 70s had a sense of mystery, and that he too seems an enigma: half holy fool and half the foremost example of his acclaimed ecstatic truth concept.

Back in the 70s, making those ethnographic hybrids (are they fiction, documentary or myth?) was a much younger man’s game and eventually, like all great artists, Herzog pivoted away from them and reimagined himself as a documentarian. His fiction films go to places that are undiscovered until he returns in documentary form to explore his claim that nature is uncaring and a devil’s fortress. @D_W_Mault

WERNER HERZOG: RADICAL DREAMER is in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 19 January and on BFI Player and Blu-ray on 19 February. BFI Southbank’s retrospective season, JOURNEYS INTO THE UNKNOWN – FILMS BY WERNER HERZOG, runs throughout January.

The New Look (2024) Apple TV+

Dir: Todd A Kessler | Cast Juliette Binoche, Ben Mendelssohn, John Malkovich | Drama series 2024

A slick new series on Apple sashays back to fashionable post war Paris emerging from German occupation and in need of a fashion boost

In an all star International cast Juliette Binoche is the biggest surprise. She is English speaking Coco Chanel alongside Ben Mendelssohn as Christian Dior. John Malkovich is Lelong Balmain

Bristling with intrigue the series cleverly combines wartime thriller elements with a more lightweight look at the birth of haute couture in a shocking story of how fashion icon Christian Dior and his contemporaries including Coco Chanel, Pierre Balmain, and Cristobal Balenciaga navigated the horrors of World War II and launched modern fashion.

The New Look is filmed exclusively in Paris by Todd A Kessler and will make its global debut on Apple TV+ with the first three episodes onWednesday 14th February 2024, followed by new episodes weekly

On Apple TV+, followed by one episode every Wednesday through April 2024

 

Steppenwolf (2024) IFFR 2024

Dir: Adilkhan Yerzhanov | | Kazakhstan/Russia,102′

A hyper violent civil war rages across an apocalyptic landscape where gender conventions prevail in classic Western style: the men are the killers. One traumatised woman seeks to preserve life, that of her child, predictably kidnapped by organ traffickers (a ‘nice’ modern twist).

After his exquisite 2018 feature The Gentle Indifference of Life and 2022 thriller Assault, Yerzhanov returns to a vast wilderness for another Steppe legend love story: that of a mother for her child. The intrepid Tamara is determined to sacrifice her own life and safety to safeguard that of her son. In this endeavour hires an investigator, a reformed ex-convict who goes by the name of Steppenwolf and bears a canny resemblance to the mythological character, literally the ‘wolf of the Steppes’. Complete with shaggy hair, clear blue eyes and a swaggering gait he’s not a man to be underestmated as his victims soon discover to their chagrin.

Threatening and pacifying his female companion by turns, Steppenwolf is certainly menacing but also faintly ridiculous. Committed to these endless brutal murders, tersely executed with an axe or rotary cutting device, Steppenwolf goes about his business while Tamara remains meek and submissive, reduced to a mumbling, monosyllabic communication. At one point she seems to have died, lips turning purplish, but no, this woman is the heroine of the piece, an indomitable martyr empowered to withstand endless pain and emotional suffering to achieve her aims. Stylish and formally striking, the hostile landscape mirrors the film’s bloody violence – but a little more dark humour would have been welcome. Hard-going for the faint of heart. @MeredithTaylor

PREMIERING AT ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 31  JANUARY 2024

 

The Worst Man in London (2024) IFFR 2024

Dir: Rodrigo Areias | Cast: Albano Jeronimo, Edward Ashley, Victoria Guerra, Edgar Morais, Carmen Chaplin | Portugal, Drama 122′

Charles Augustus Howell, the main character in this suggestive slow-burn drama from Portuguese director from Rodrigo Areias, was certainly a mercurial character: for some he distilled the vibrant qualities of the pre-Raphaelite era, others found him a rather a machiavellian rogue, suspecting him of blackmail and even forgery.

This is not a film about art as such, but an intriguing look at 19th century high society through a group of Victorian creatives whose aim was to see the world in a more realistic and natural light, inspired by the Italian painters of the 14th and 15th century. And while they look very Victorian through our modern day gaze, behind their often inscrutable personas, Arieas and his writer paint them as arcane, subversive and mired in intrigue in their tightly-knit, incestuous coteries, preferring to focus their attention on the allure of renaissance Italy with vibrant colours that romanticised the era, rather than on the harsh realities of industrial revolution, that was gearing up in London at the time.

Pacing-wise and with its leisurely, episodic structure The Worst Man in London recalls Eugene Green’s The Portuguese Nun. We meet the characters as if introduced to them at a cocktail party, in a series of charming vignettes and graceful set pieces, the drama glows like a jewel-box in Jorge Quintela’s imaginative camerawork.

The international cast includes Carmen Chaplin who is particularly good as Lady Posselthwaite. Edward Ashley plays Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Victoria Guerra, Lizzie Siddal and Christian Vadim (son of Catherine Deneuve) La Rothiere.

Howell, born in Portugal, was not just Ruskin and Rosetti’s agent, he also served as a model for Dante Gabriel Rossetti although he seems to have been air-brushed out of history largely due to his purported skulduggery and is brought back to life as the focus of this sumptuous period piece that unfolds as a lush and finely detailed society chronicle of the day, with Howell working his way through the ranks acquiring works and establishing relationships with the great and good. One of his celebrated coups is to persuade Rossetti to dig up and sell the works of poetry buried with his wife Lizzie Siddal. Albano Jeronimo is certainly convincing in the main role of Howell, with his elegant stature and saturnine looks. @MeredithTaylor

IFFR | WORLD PREMIERE Monday 29 January 2024

https://youtu.be/n9Ce8SucC7s?feature=shared

My French Film Festival 2024

Now in its 14th year, MyFrenchFilmFestival shines a spotlight on a new generation of French-language filmmakers and gives audiences around the world the chance to share their love of French cinema

 

JANE B. FOR AGNÈS V. (1987) directed by Agnès Varda 

In this kaleidoscopic film made of various fragments of fictions, over various seasons, Jane Birkin plays various roles, including her own, with humour. 

Watch Here 

  

JUNKYARD DOG (2023) directed by Jean-Baptiste Durand 

Childhood friends Dog and Mirales’ relationship is upended when Elsa arrives in their small village in the South of France, but as romance blossoms for Dog, jealousy eats away at Mirales. 

Watch Here 

 

POLARIS (2022) directed by Ainara Vera 

Two sisters, one an expert sailor navigating the Arctic, are compelled to overcome fate and join forces; their journey guided by the polar star. 

Watch Here 

MY SOLE DESIRE (2022) directed by Lucie Borleteau 

Have you ever been to a strip club? But you’ve already wanted to – at least once – you didn’t dare, that’s all. This film tells the story of someone who dared. 

Watch Here 

 

NO DOGS OR ITALIANS ALLOWED (2022) directed by Alain Ughetto 

Alain Ughetto’s stop-motion animation tells the autobiographical story of his family’s exile from Northern Italy at the start of the 20th century. 

Watch Here 

 

SPARE KEYS (2022) directed by Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan 

Sophie, 15, jumps at the chance to get the spare keys to her wealthy friend Jade’s house. A poetic, funny, and memorable first feature. 

Watch Here 

 

STAMPEDE (2022) directed by Joelle Desjardins Paquette 

When 9-year-old Lily is taken by her father on a surprise road trip to a truck-racing rodeo in far west of Canada, she soon realises she’s on a bigger adventure than she first thought. 

Watch Here 

 

SUPER DRUNK (2023) directed by Bastien Milheau 

While rummaging through her father’s wine cellar for bottles, Janus and Sam discover a strange machine. 

Watch Here 

 

THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE (2023) directed by Patric Chiha 

From 1979 to 2004 – from disco to techno – a man and woman frequent a huge nightclub in anticipation of a mysterious event. 

Watch Here 

 

THE GREEN PERFUME (2022) directed by Nicolas Pariser 

An actor finds himself embroiled in a shadowy conspiracy in Nicolas Pariser’s stunning combination of espionage, theatre, and the graphic novel. 

Watch Here 

MY FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL | ON BFI PLAYER | January 19th – February 19th 2024

Reinas (2024) Sundance Film Festival 2024

Wri/Dir: Klaudia Reynicke-Candeloro | Chile, Drama 104’

It’s summertime 1992 in crisis-ridden Chile and actor turned cab driver Carlos Molina is really fed up. His clients don’t share his love of film and even his daughters fail to recognise him when he turns up at his ex-wife’s house to deliver a birthday present to his eldest daughter Lucia

America beckons and Elena and teenagers Lucia and Aurora are off to pastures new. But a dispondent farewell with their estranged dad only adds to the girls’ feelings of regret and instability at their upcoming departure especially as Aurora (Luana Vega) not as keen on leaving Lima as her rather morose mother for reasons that soon become apparent.

This is a well-paced and endearing coming of age domestic drama from Chile’s Klaudia Reynicke-Candeloro and one which refreshingly puts the focus on a father-daughter relationship with Gonzalo Molina particularly likeable as a down-on-his-luck dad trying to put a brave face on his challenging life and catch up on some quality time with his kids who are not as naive as he thinks. The titular ‘reinas’ have cottoned on to his efforts have them believe he is a ‘secret agent’. His youngest Lucia is asking him probing questions about his work, and Aurora already has a boyfriend Rony and is hiding a burning secret.

But Carlos’ relationship with ex Elena and her mother (veteran Chilean actor Susi Sanchez) is strained and he feels reticent to sign the girls’ release form – both parents must give their consent for their children to leave Chile and this quandary provides the film with its dramatic twist. Impressive visuals and retro production design add to the film’s allure. @MeredithTaylor

Grand Jury Prize | World Cinema Dramatic SUNDANCE 2024

World premiere 22 January 2024

The Disappearance of Shere Hite (2023)

Dir: Nicole Newnham | With: Dakota Johnson, Shere Hite | US Doc 118′

What is in a name? Or more to the point, what is in the named title of a work of documentation. The acclaimed documentary about the academic Shere Hite comes after acclaim at numerous film festivals including Sundance where it premiered over a year ago. The Disappearance of Shere Hite is a misnomer; another example of American Exceptionalism that declares one doesn’t exist if one escapes from the hermetic puritanism that holds sway in the laughable declared “Land Of The Free”.

Documentaries of this sort exist in a state of pedagogy for the unaware, at times this can be limiting but here documentarian Nicole Newnham (director of the transgressive documentary Crip Camp) uses several devices to create a narrative that impresses and creates the possibility of a series of ‘what ifs’ and ‘could bes’, these include Dakota Johnson reading from Hite’s dairies and writings and, more movingly, a collection of oral histories comprised of the letters she received from women who had filled out her questionnaire: this became her groundbreaking and incendiary ‘The Hite Report’, which was published in 1976.

The film glides through the chronology of her life in a nonlinear fashion which adds to the sense of mystery if you approach the film without much prior knowledge of Shere Hite. She was at Grad School where she discovered the first feminist women’s groups that were starting to spring to life in New York. Paying her way through school as a model, the variety of modelling that many in the industry look down their noses at: adverts for white goods and Robert McGinnis’ famous James Bond illustrations including on the shoulder of Sean Connery for Diamonds Are Forever.

It was Socrates who claimed that “Beauty is a short lived tyranny”. Right from the start of her modelling career Hite discovered the self-evident truth in that aphorism, and started to look for an ‘out’ before the industry would crush her like so many women before her. The final straw appears to be when she was cast in an advert for Olivetti, with the tagline: “The typewriter is so smart she doesn’t have to be.” From there she started writing questionnaires to hand out to women in the hope they would fill them in and post them back to her. She felt this was more likely to get a honest response than phone or in person interviews.

When the book was released it was an instant publishing phenomenon and she was invited to do lots of media appearances. This is a time we can now look back at and see the beginning of the Culture Wars that have continued in furiosity, and where we find now ourselves adrift from an empirical reality. As so many intelligent women have discovered, holding truth to power – especially 1970s patriarchy – means you will be attacked and demeaned in numerous ways. Her detractors cast doubt on her Scientific methods and flagged-up photographs she had posed for in ‘Playboy’ while a student.

The attacks only intensified when Shere started working on a male version of ‘The Hite Report’. This provided another opportunity for male critics and academics to refuse to believe the men questioned in the report, particularly in regards to their personal feelings and claims that toxic masculinity had affected relationships with their fathers, at home, and in workplace. It has taken decades for certain men to break through these negative attitudes. Robert Gottlieb (who died recently and was featured in the documentary made by his daughter, Turn Every Page) was one of the book’s only male supporters at the time. He claimed to have been devastated by the opinions shared that those men who took part.

In the end Shere Hite did what so many US Iconoclasts are forced to do, go into exile to avoid facing public humiliation or defamation. Her escape led to a second life in England and Germany. She died after a long illness in 2020. At that point the original Hite Report was the 30th best-selling book of all time. Ironically, most contemporary American feminists are unaware who she was and how important she was, standing alongside the legendary Sexologists: Alfred Kinsey and Masters & Johnson. @D_W_Mault

IN CINEMAS FROM 12 JANUARY 2024

Bonnard: Pierre et Marthe (2023)

Dir: Martin Provost | Cast: Cécile de France, Vincent Macaigne, Stacy Martin, Anouk Grinberg, André Marcon France. 2023. 122 mins.

Seduction follows a chance meeting in the street between impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard and Marthe Boursin (aka de Meligny) who becomes his model, muse and lover in 1893 Paris.

The coup de coeur and subsequent romantic relationship is sumptuously depicted in this lyrical latest outing from Breton writer/director Martin Provost and stars Vincent Macaigne and Cecile de France as the central couple whose turbulent mutual devotion endured until their deaths in the 1940s as Bonnard’s career flourished and Marthe became a noted artist of the day.

Captivated by her beauty Bonnard immediately puts brush to canvas painting the stunned Marthe in the nude. These avant-garde canvasses would go on to cause much chuntering in the salons. But Bonnard flatly refused to make Marthe a mother thinking it too bourgeois for his artistic lifestyle. Instead he encouraged her to paint.

The couple set up home in a rambling country villa on the banks of the Seine where Marthe swims everyday until her doctor prescribes hot baths for her asthma. Close friends Monet (Andre Marcon) and Vuillard (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) visit frequently. There’s a great deal of nude frolicking, the agile camera chasing after the passionate characters who live a life of artistic abandon in the sumptuous rural setting where summer never seems to cease in Guillaume Schiffman’s gorgeous camerawork. An incessant violin score is occasionally overbearing.

Despite her poor health, not helped by Bonnard’s infidelity with various women (played gamely by Stacy Martin as the unstable Renee Monchaty) and Anouk Grinberg as Misia Sert, his hard-edged and condescending patron), Marthe emerges the stronger more fleshed-out chactacter of the two, her fébrile intensity contrasting with Bonnard’s phlegmatic reticence to be drawn into any kind of debate that takes him away from his easel. By his own admission he apparently lacked the courage of his convictions: a creative with feet of clay.

As you might expect from the subject matter the film often ramps up the melodrama but Provost manages the tonal shifts with style in one of the most enjoyable films of his career so far. A dab hand at portraying maverick women, his 2008 film about an edgy artist Seraphine was lauded at the Césars, and Violette (2013) takes on the complex character of Simone de Beauvoir (Sandrine Kiberlain) seen through the eyes of her close friend and mentee Violette Leduc (Emmanuelle Devon).

Provost somehow avoids the trap of making this biopic preachy: de France and Macaigne play a credible couple whose deep love for each other feels real despite his philandering during which he maintains a low profile while everyone affected is in complete disarray. Captivating and compulsive this is a two-hour biopic worth watching. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2023

Hana-Bi | Fireworks (1997)

Dir: Takeshi Kitano | Cast: Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osugi, Susumu Terajima, Tetsu Watanabe | Japan 98′

There’s a serene stillness that takes all the horror away from the unexpected outbursts of brutal violence that are almost funny – quite apart from the deadpan humour that Takeshi Kitano fully intended in his thoughtful thriller. This makes Fireworks extremely enjoyable as we watch him play an ex-cop whose marriage slowly gets back on its feet after his wife (Kayoko Kishimoto) comes out of hospital. Hana-Bi means fireworks but the words individually mean ‘flowers’ and ‘fire’

Fireworks is an extremely likeable film. Kitano directs and also stars without a shred of sentimentality, just business as usual as he tends to his wife and dispatches the odd criminal who gets in his way in an artfully composed arthouse thriller. His character’s minimal dialogue and terse exchanges also make this a joy to watch for those who hate scrolling through dialogue in an unfamiliar language. Clocking in a just over a hour and a half it also leaves you wanting more rather than less – often the case with lengthy Japanese and South Korean fare.

Inspector Nishi (Kitano) may be a dab hand with a flick knife – which he makes liberal use of – but his sense of honour is second to none. And he feels deeply responsible when his colleague Horibe (Ren Osugi) stands in for him getting life-changing injuries after attempting to arrest a criminal.  Nishi encourages him to paint to fill the lonely hours when his wife subsequently leaves him. There’s an amusing vignette with Tetsu Watanabe as a scrap metal dealer.

The paintings are infact Kitano’s own work but provide a delicate leitmotif to the crime caper that went on to win the Golden Lion at Venice in 1997. The finale will leave you with much food for thought. @MeredithTaylor

AVAILABLE ON MUBI and PRIME VIDEO channels

Panic in Year Zero (1962)

Dir: Ray Milland Cast: Ray Milland, Jean Hagen, Mary Mitchel, Frank Avalon US thriller

A remarkably unflattering depiction of the ruthlessness that Americans prided themselves on being capable of during the Cold War (described by Denis Gifford as “Ray Milland’s illustrated handbook on What to Do When the Bomb Falls”) which makes ‘The Turner Diaries’ look like a Fabian Society publication.

In this tale of survival against the odds, a family leaves Los Angeles for a camping trip in the nick of time before a bomb destroys the city. Ray Milland, inspired by a short story from Ward Moore and directing a script from John Morton and Jay Simms, vouchsafes the inconvenient truth that, in the event of an attack by The Enemy, the first people patriotic Americans would turn the guns they’ve been hoarding so lovingly on would be other Americans – and ammunition would be of greater value than money.

The film one again proves the ‘holocaust theory’ in saluting an average working stiff who when his back’s to the wall gets his way by showing a total disregard for no one but himself and his wife and kids, which earns the final admiring tribute of a pair of state troopers as “five more good ones”. @RichardChatten.

NOW ON AMAZON

Nuovo Olimpo (2023) Netflix

Dir: Ferzan Ozpetek | Cast: Luisa Ranieri, Greta Scarano, Damiano Gavino, Aurora Giovinazzo, Andrea Di Luigi, Alvise Rigo | Italy, drama, 113’

Nuovo Olimpo is the 9th feature film during three decades for the Italian/Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek. The film has been quietly slipped into the Netflix schedules and the surprise is that it brings the director full circle to his striking debut Haman. Largely set in a Turkish steam house which becomes a place for two men to secretly meet, this 1999 film is remembered for its gentle and profound feeling for humanity and the coded mysterious ways we navigate questions relating to family, relationships and gender.

There is a strong hint the true story that inspired Nuovo Olimpo provides Ozpetek with what may be his most personal film since Haman. Many of the preceding films including Fati Ignoranti! (2022), Cuore Sacro (2005) and Mine Viganti (2010) are generally romantic generic family dramas possibly aimed more at the local rather than world film market. Nuovo Olimpo may seem slight and unassuming. Looked at more closely, it reveals a confident director with an understanding of how astute and careful narrative, sensitive performances and skilful layered editing can result in a nuanced film more effortlessly complex than first appears.

The story itself is of an eternal nature in which two young bisexual men meet but are unable to build the attraction into a complete gay relationship. Enea (Damiano Gavino) is a film crew set worker and Pietro (Andrea di Luigi) a trainee medical student who first lock eyes on each other in an opening sequence that is a homage to Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes’ Gloria. This is one of Ozpetek’s many love letters to the cinema with Nuovo Olimpo both the title of the film and the name of the cinema in the film that will be a space which becomes as safe to meet for the men much as the steam room does in Hamam.

The film has four acts, set in 1988,1998 and 2015 and begins in 1978 with a chance follow-up encounter between two men in a classic arthouse repertory cinema that will be familiar to those who remember The Biograph Cinema in London’s Victoria. Ozpetek captures details of cruising in a cinema to make this comparable to sequences in Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy, Clements This Angry Age and Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye Dragon Inn. The cinema is presided over by a matronly box office fag hag woman with an astute knowledge of her male customers and Ozpetek includes clips on the cinema screen from Renato Castellani’s Nella Citta l’Inferno (1959) aka And We The Wild Women, with Magnani and Masina exuding fiery Italian passions while men in the audience cruise in auditoriums and toilets.

Ozpetek adds into the romantic tragic narrative hints of the cinema’s own ‘amour fou’ with subtle references to McCarey’s An Affair to Remember, Almodóvar’s Talk to Her and Sirk’s Magnificent Obsession. The film may also contain a fleeting reference to Ophul’s Letter from an Unknown Women with a street map containing the words: “so time and space won’t get in the way” which becomes a form of letter that returns to the men over the decades. One of the film’s most moving sequences involves the wife of one of the men who provides her husband with the key to follow his heart, much as Ang Lee centres on the women in Brokeback Mountain as the real creators of the destiny of men unable to realise a love unspoken in.

Ozpetek is aided by the delicate movement of beautiful wide screen camerawork by Gian Filippo Corticelli, both lush and restrained music, uniformly good acting including relaxed and very natural explicit nudity and sex scenes, while the cast undergo ageing over three decades.

Ultimately it is with his choice of theme that Ozpetek makes Nuovo Olimpo most satisfying. He explores how love can both envelope as well as separate, create doubt and distance between what is real as well as imagined. As if impossible loves live on longer, the film contains an exquisite sequence in which the two men are separated in space but united in time as they watch Nella Citta l’Inferno on Television screens as a reminder of time lost, but not forgotten.

The final sequence is masterly and may well be one of the most beautiful in recent cinema. As the two men face each other in an empty street and make a decision that changes both lives, Ozpetek   contemplates that if stinginess is all that heaven allows, there is also the choice to live on in the dream of an impossible love. The sequence concludes with an unbroken camera movement combining reality and a moment in time that was never to be. The film anticipates that there may be much more to come from this remarkable filmmaker. @PeterHerbert

Peter Herbert is Curator Manager at The Arts Project, 215 Weedington Road! London NW5 4PQ

https://youtu.be/NatMTfOZsl8?si=pGqSptdDGCL2nsJ9

The Coughing Horror (1924)

Dir: Fred Paul | Cast: H Agar Lyons, Fred Paul, Humberston Wright, Fred Morgan | Silent Horror 31′

I first became aware of this intriguing title as a teenager when I came across it in the chapter on British silent horror films in Denis Gifford’s ‘A Pictorial History of Horror Movies’.

Now nearly a hundred years old, it seems a good time to review The Coughing Horror, which made its first appearance in August 1924 as an episode in the series ‘Further Mysteries of Dr. Fu Manchu’.

It sees Nayland Smith coming up against the “Coughing Horror”, Dr Fu-Manchu’s servant, when commissioned by the British Government to investigate a series of murders,

The ordinary settings and lack of style – with nighttime exteriors obviously shot in daylight – give the film an almost documentary feel in our contemporary gaze. Nayland Smith takes it all rather in his stride and, in the long tradition of white actors playing Chinamen, little attempt has been made to make the doctor appear authentically oriental apart from his satanic eyebrows and affecting a kimono, while presiding over a rum collection of roughnecks including a hunchbacked dwarf.

Horror-wise, I can safely say that in half a century of watching weird films, I have never seen such a bizarre sight as what Gifford described as a “hirsute henchman” and the film itself terms “A monstrous Cynocephalyte, Half Man……Half Ape”.

At the film’s conclusion (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) the good doctor simply makes off in a cab. Doubtless the world shall hear from him again. @RichardChatten

NOW AVAILABLE TO WATCH FREE IN THE UK ON BFiPLAYER.

 

Scala!!! (2024)

Dirs: Ali Catterall, Jane Giles | UK Doc with Barry Adamson, John Akomfrah, Rick Baker, Ralph Brown, Paul Burston, Adam Buxton, Caroline Catz | 96′

Cinemas are edenic places, some would describe them as palaces which to be fair they were at some point in the 20th century. But between that time of art deco grandeur and the mostly soulless multiplexes and faux art houses that blight our horizons something else existed. Something magical. 

Of all the places, the Scala is the most storied in the UK and we now have a myth-making introduction for all those that missed out. There should be a warning for those cinephiles currently hiding out in cinemas across the UK, this is what was taken from you. 

The danger with a documentary like Scala!!! is that it must skirt the chasm of describing experiences that have passed and will never be repeated and the cynical idea of nostalgia as false consciousness… Happily I can report that it never falls into that trap.

When we look and listen to the numerous talking heads, from filmmakers: John Waters, Mary Harron, Caroline Catz and John Akomfrah; musicians: Jah Wobble, Barry Adamson, Douglas Hart and Thurston Moore; critics: Kim Newman and Alan Jones, we can perhaps understand what François Truffaut meant when he claimed that ‘film lovers are sick, sick people’.

The sense of the outsider reigns supreme here, as an existential answer to an unanswered question that searches for finding a like-minded peer group. When this happens hubs are important, and the Scala was one of these. Located for the longest time in Kings Cross a good decade before it became the homogeneous gentrified experience that it now is. Difficult to explain what urban areas in the UK were like in the 80s. King Cross could be described as the relative to New York’s Time Square of legendary grindhouses before that was Disneyfied by Rudy Giuliani.

Alongside everything else that the 80s gave us we had to deal with rampant homophobia, the Scala was a safe space before the term started to have various connotations. It was very definitely a ‘Queer” space, queer in the sense that celebrates transgression in the form of visible difference from normie culture.

It has been a long process for Scala!!! to come to light, a crowd funded budget, a book and a yearly national film festival, but through it all the directors Jane Giles (former programmer at the Scala and author of the book) and Ali Catterall (film critic and author) have kept the faith and battled to bring into existence a wonderful documentary that has been acclaimed at various film festivals and will now be going on a nationwide tour to cinemas across perfidious Albion.

What we are left to ponder, after luxuriating in the text, is where we are now that everything has become homogeneous and nondescript. It is true that grubby cinemas of faded glamour very rarely exist anymore, but what have we sacrificed for the boutique cinemas and multiplexes? Comfort, security, safety and a lack of cinema cats. I certainly know where I would rather experience the 7th art. It is yet another example of the mainstream swallowing everything like an out-of-control whale. Outside of London the notion of the Rep cinema simply doesn’t exist, which is a form of cultural vandalism. One thinks of one of the defining lines in John le Carré’s ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, when Bill Hayden says, ‘it has all become so ugly.’ @DWMault

In UK and Irish cinemas from 5 January 2024. Scala!!! will be available digitally on BFI Player and released on BFI Blu-ray on 22 January 2024 | A season of the Scala’s greatest hits, Scala: Sex, drugs and rock and roll cinema, runs at BFI Southbank throughout January with selected films on BFI Player.

https://youtu.be/Oc85T_TGuxE?si=4xAO9hcFhPtyQhA1

Night Swim (2023)

Dir: Bryce McGuire | Cast: Kerry Condon, Wyatt Russell, Amelie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Jodi Long | US Horror 98′

An awarding-wing short film is sometimes worthy of the feature treatment, especially when the producers Jason Blum and James Wan were responsible for the Halloween series, M3GAN and Malignant.

Not the case in this horror outing directed by Bryce McGuire who puts endless jumps scares ahead of an emotionally affecting storyline when an average American family move into a spacious home in Minnesota that boasts, in estate agents’ parlance, a luxury swimming pool.

Unfortunately the wily agent (Nancy Lenehan) has omitted to mention a series of tragedies at the property – one involving the disappearance of a young girl called Rebecca – hence the attractive price.

An opening sequence warns us that something nasty other than dead leaves is lurking in the murky depths, and that things are not going to go swimmingly for Kerry Condon and her husband Wyatt Russell. He is Ray Waller, a baseball pro diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She is Eve, a stay-at-home mother of teenagers Izzy (Amelie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren).

And sure enough, the kids are soon frightened by a series of poolside scares largely involving a ghoul who surfaces as the waters mysteriously muddy. Strangely, Ray’s illness seems to improve, but there’s no explanation as to why. And all these events are too repetitive and drawn out, there not being enough material to really make a substantial impact to engage us for the 98 minute running time. Don’t bother to come in, the water’s not lovely. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS

The Big Country (1958)

Dir: William Wyler | Cast: Charles Bickford, Charlton Heston, Jean Simmons, Burl Ives | US Western

Having earned his spurs as a director of ‘B’ westerns during the silent era, William Wyler strode back into town thirty years later to supercharge the genre with the help of Technicolor and Technicolor to embellish the petty squabbling that passed for a plot in ‘The Big Country’.

A New England sea captain in the 1880s arrives at his fiancée’s sprawling Texas ranch, where he becomes embroiled in a feud between two families over a valuable patch of land.

Wyler’s co.producer Gregory Peck created something of an anomaly being about as vertical an actor as you could possibly find, which probably necessitated the frequent use of longshots in the staging.

Charles Bickford and Charlton Heston bring considerable authority to relatively small supporting roles; while after the scenery the most impressive feature is probably Chuck Connors’ teeth, his provenance as Burl Ives’ proving rather hard to swallow, but his interest in the radiant Jean Simmons being only too plausible. @RichardChatten

Mr Sardonicus (1961)

Dir: William Castle | Cast: Oscar Homolka, Ronald Lewis, Audrey Dalton | US Horror 90’

William Castle usually located his films in a very contemporary America but this time he transferred his activities to a mythical nineteenth century European country called Gorslava.

The template this time was the Hammer horrors and Roger Corman’s adaptations of Poe, with a nod towards ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, “The Man Who Laughs’ and ‘Eyes Without a Face’.

It’s full of the usual staircases, torture chambers, dungeons and graveyards but despite a much larger budget Castle was still far too stingy for colour. For fans of old movies there’s the presence of Vladimir Sokoloff as Sardonicus’s father and Oscar Homolka as a wall-eyed retainer with a penchant for leeches.

Without divulging the famous trick ending, Castle probably also pinched that too, since it bears a suspicious resemblance to the finale of ‘Casanova’s Big Night’. @MeredithTaylor

Dream Scenario (2023)

Wri/Dir: Kristoffer Borgli | Cast: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Lily Bird, Jessica Clement, Dylan Baker, Michael Cera | US Psychological Horror 101′

A million miles away from his crazed roles of the recent past such as Renfield and Mandy Nicolas Cage is terrific here as an introverted professor caught up in a celebrity scandal set in Ottawa, of all places.

Written and directed by Norwegian Kristopher Brogli Dream Scenario is more of a nightmare really and not for the feint-hearted. Some may leave the cinema with a feeling of overwhelming sadness and even despair at the situation Cage finds himself in as Paul Mathews, a mild-mannered – even boring – family man.

From his humdrum existence in a leafy suburbs of some provincial university, Paul, a bearded and bedraggled biology professor married with two girls, becomes an over-night sensation – in the worst possible way – when the otherwise unremarkable man – who probably wears crocs on his days off – enters the dream lives of random individuals as their ‘bete noire’.

Desperate to gain recognition with his academic work on animal camouflage, Paul sadly only finds notoriety when his students report strange dreams where he appears, first as an innocent bystander, then as an ardent lover, and finally as belligerent presence intent on wreaking havoc in their collective subconscious. Soon, his colleagues and even ex girlfriends start to surface claiming to have been affected by these bizarre nocturnal occurrences.

With his ordinary man Borgli’s horrific surrealist fantasy leads us through a ghastly real experience of modern day America embroiled in fame, celebrity, cancel culture and even AI. This is undoubtedly Cage’s best performance in years and we really feel for Paul as he desperately tries to justify his position as a decent, hard-working human being just trying to make his way through life when he is catapulted into being both the hero and then antihero of the piece. Brilliant idea that’s a little overwrought in the final stretch. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE

The Edge of the Blade (2023)

Dir: Vincent Perez | Cast: Vincent Perez, Doria Tillier, Damien Bonnard, Guillaume Galiléenne, Roschdy Zem | France, Historical drama 101′.

Vincent Perez has chosen a bold theme for his capable fourth feature, a historical drama set in 1887 about the honour of duelling. The Edge of the Blade is interesting more than gripping with its horseback sabre fighting, use of epees, firearms and other 19th century weapons.

Duelling was banned in France although armed duels still took place as a way of solving disputes and to preserve the honour of those seeking prompt justice in the higher echelons of society. The practise continued in France until the Second World War.

Best known for roles in Cyrano de Bergerac and Le Bossu, Perez also stars here as the agile but utterly charmless one dimensional antihero of the piece, Louis Berchere, who seems hellbent on dying in the name of honour – and to be honest perhaps that’s better than ending up in a care home. A ferocious combatant in the battle to preserve his honour we see him demanding a duel to the death in the film’s early part. 

Despite the masculine nature of the subject the Swiss actor turned director manages to weave in a timely side-plot about a real life suffragette style feminist called Marie-Rose Astie de Valsayre (Doris Tillier) whose left hook causes some serious damage not least to the honour of the solid French cast of Damien Bonnard, Guillaume Galiléenne – and Roschdy Zem, a swashbuckling instructor at a fencing school, who she later seduces although there’s no bodice-ripping to speak of here.

Perez and his co-writer (and wife) Karine Silla have certainly done their research; the rolling titles at the end of the film explain that Marie-Rose was a significant figure during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and is remembered for her campaign to get women the vote, and attempting to overturn legislation prohibiting women from wearing trousers.  

The men all brush up against Marie-Rose’s brazen assertiveness – it was unknown at that time for women to be other than feminine and pliant. In a surprising twist, she challenges Bonnard to a duel but he manages to delay proceedings claiming her rig-out is unsuitable, whereupon the police are seen arriving on the brow of a nearby hill.

Mostly unfolding in interior scenes there are several impressive outdoor duel sequences – one in the woods and another in an open barn in remote fields. And while there’s no real dramatic arc or complexity in the characters, Perez and his DoP Lucie Badinaud manage the fighting set pieces with verve, and the finale is spectacular both for the duellists and the horses involved. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE and BELGIUM | AUDIENCE AWARD KARLOVY VARY 2023

 

Winter Break | The Holdovers (2023)

Dir: Alexander Payne | Cast: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph | US Comedy 133′

Paul Giamatti is the reason to watch this bittersweet comedy satire from Alexander Payne – his best since Nebraska in 2013. This time written by David Hemingson the film is already set to be a critics’ favourite for its witty acerbic observations of school life, along the lines of the Dead Poets Society back in 1989.

Giamatti is Paul, a disenchanted history professor in a private boarding school in 1970s snowbound New England where he is one of three characters forced to stay over for the holidays with nowhere else to go.

The boys are a privileged and self-entitled lot but Paul digs his heals in academically and discipline-wise in a darkly humorous drama that morphs into the ultimate buddy movie about a man who makes a sacrifice for the good of another. Hemingson’s pithy script is strewn with Latin and Greek truisms and mottos and Paul is constantly quoting them with a twinkle in his eye (“it’s the left one you have to look at”): the most appropriate here is from Cicero “Non obis solum” which apparently means: “not for ourselves alone are we born”.

Paul Giamatti | Best Male Actor in a Musical/Comedy 81st Golden Globes | Credit: Virisa Yong

Giamatti is at his best when playing these kind of philosophical roles: a disappointed disciplinarian determined to make the best of things while maintaining his strict code of conduct. And we feel for him in his attempts to remain in control and at a distance while fully aware of the potential glumness of the situation for Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a bright but awkward teenager whose mother has last-minute romantic plans for the Christmas break that don’t involve her son. Making up the motley threesome in the echoing boarding school corridors is bereaved cafeteria manager Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who son has recently been killed in Vietnam.

Paul – who suffers various ailments – wants nothing more than to be left alone to enjoy his break buried mystery novels and nice things to eat. Instead he is forced to contend with a complex emotional triangle which will play out in fraught but surprising ways: Not unlike the average Christmas for most families then.

Payne imbues this all with a bittersweet understanding of the issues involved. Mary is sensitively played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, as she bitterly reflects on her son’s death, but always with warmth and never overdoing the sentimentality. All three interact convincingly without a shred of self-pity or rancour given the situation they find themselves in, and the warmth that Giamatti gradually brings to bear on his ‘odd couple’ dynamic with his pupil Angus – who has his own tragic secret – is well-judged and subtle. Sessa manages to be cynical and vulnerable in his thoughtful feature debut. The best thing about Winter Break is that Payne never opts for trite solutions or one-dimensional characters with Paul, Angus or Mary.

With its far-reaching themes Winter Break (aka The Holdovers) is possibly the most apposite Christmas film of this season with its simple Christian message. It’s a film that works for any season, for that matter, with its wry humour and melancholy nostalgia – and not too much tinsel to make it watchable well into the New Year. @MeredithTaylor

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN ANY MOTION PICTURE | DA’VINE JOY RANDOLPH | BEST PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL/COMEDY PAUL GIAMATTI | 81st GOLDEN GLOBES 2024

BEST MALE ACTOR IN A MUSICAL/COMEDY 81st GOLDEN GLOBES – PAUL GIAMATTI

Don’t Bother to Knock (1952)

Dir: Roy Ward Baker | Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Anne Bancroft, Richard Widmark, Donna Corcoran | UK Drama

Based on a novel by Charlotte Armstrong called ‘Mischief’. If you were ever curious to see Marilyn Monroe as Blanche DuBois this stark Fox quickie cheaply entirely shot in the studio – which few people have even heard of, let alone seen – gives some idea of what her interpretation would have been like.

Ironically she’d only recently supported Bette Davis in All About Eve, who herself later starred in what director Roy Baker called “the one about the baby-sitter who just happens to be a psychopath”. Richard Widmark however jumped at the then rare opportunity to play a character who wasn’t a giggling psychopath, while it’s also notable as Anne Bancroft’s film debut. Already constantly late and unable to hit her cues; being Elisha Cook Jr.’s neice was probably already an inauspicious start in life. And like her last completed film, The Misfits, Don’t Bother to Knock is highly uncomfortable to watch since Monroe’s precarious mental state playing a girl just out of an institution is only too evident from the end result.@RichardChatten

NOW ON AMAZON

 

Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got (1985)

Dir/Wri: Brigitte Berman | Canada | 1985 | 115m | English

An Oscar-winning music documentary about the mercurial clarinetist Artie Shaw returns to the screen after many years in a pristine new restoration.

Shaw (1920-2004) was no ordinary musician: his restless intellectual curiosity and uncompromising nature took him from postwar poverty to stardom in Hollywood where he would tirelessly reinvent himself as a pioneering saxophonist and bandleader, flouting the colour barrier of the time by hiring African Americans like Billie Holiday, Hot Lips Page and Roy Eldridge to play alongside him. Shunning celebrity in the 1940s Shaw would go on to write four bestsellers. His charisma and matinee idol good looks saw him marrying eight times, his wives included Lana Turner, Ava Garner and Evelyn Keyes. He even dated Rita Hayworth.

In Brigitte Berman’s Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got (1985) we join Artie in the privacy of his own home as he talks us through his five-decade career, enlivened by interviews and a treasure trove of photos and archival film footage. Berman refuses to try anything tricksy or complicated with her storyline,  adopting a straightforward chronological structure – and this is one of the plus points of this engrossing Oscar-winning documentary.

She sets the scene with a brief prologue. Artie Shaw (1910-2004) was born Arthur Arshawsky on the Lower East Side, to immigrant parents. An only child, he was teased for being Jewish when his family later moved to Connecticut. Retreating into books and music he taught himself the clarinet, practising eight hours a day, to escape his loneliness: “I just wanted to get up there on the stage in the bright lights with those pretty girls…and get out of where I was living”.

After ‘expelling himself’ from school to focus on music he soon found work as a jobbing clarinetist and saxophonist and headed to New York which was the capital of jazz in 1929. There the best work was to be found on the radio stations and Shaw was well paid. By the end the of the 1930s he would be earning USD 60k a week. From time to time during his career he became disenchanted by the music scene, taking time out to reflect on his second love, writing. In one of these ‘sabatacle’ breaks he bought a farm in Bucks County and hoping to spend the rest of his life there coming to the conclusion eventually that his recalcitrant personality and inability to compromise was better suited to writing than show business which required constant collaboration.

All that said, Shaw would go on to become one of the most popular stars of the 1930s and 40s Swing era – and a friendly rival to “King of Swing” Benny Goodman with his own compositions like “Nightmare”. His big break came in 1938 with a recording of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine”. After that he never looked back as a leading light on the big-band circuit.

But it wasn’t always plain sailing – heading for the West Coast in 1939 to support soldiers during the war effort he fell ill with leukaemia, but was soon back on his feet after a ground-breaking treatment. Here his fame often got in the way of his solidarity with the others in his desire to entertain troops, and be assisted in his efforts to do so. When asked on one occasion: “Who do think you are?” He answered: I know who I am: but who do YOU think I am?”

Tiring of fame during the ‘jitterbug’ era when he literally walked offstage after being hit by a dancer’s heel during a stint as the house bandleader at New York’s Pennsylvania Hotel. The public was offended when Shaw angrily branded the jitterbugger as ‘morons’, for not taking music more seriously. Undeterred, he refused to come back, but of course he would return.

Although he never professed to be an actor, Shaw appeared alongside Fred Astaire and Paulette Goddard in H C Potter’s 1940 outing Second Chorus that sees Artie taking on two competitive college students (Burgess Meredith and Fred Astaire) after hiring their band manager Ellen Miller (Godard). The pair then compete to win Ellen’s heart. 

Berman is an award-winning Canadian film director best known for her 1981 documentary debut BIX: Ain’t none of them play like him yet, which focused on another jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke. Berman shows how Shaw’s restlessness and intellectual curiosity drove him forward to explore his creativity and collaborate with a number of well known stars of the time including vocalist Mel Tormé, drummer Buddy Rich – who give interviews – and actress/ex-wife Evelyn Keyes (Gone With The Wind), whose other ex-husbands included director John Huston. @MeredithTaylor

A tribute to my father Gordon Taylor who was inspired to learn the clarinet by Artie Shaw | Screening at Film Forum from Friday, January 5 to Thursday, January 11 – the New York premiere of a new 4K restoration, supervised by the director.

Häxan (1922)

Dir/Wri: Benjamin Christensen | Doc, Silent, Denmark 97′

An amusing horror curio made in Denmark in 1922 that aims, in an episodic style, to tell the story of witchcraft through the ages. In conclusion director Benjamin Christensen attributes the black arts to female hysteria, as diagnosed by Freud. Some may find the lewd nude sequences a sinister representation of the occult others merely view them as the slightly crude behaviour of a bygone era. But the evocative score in some versions certainly adds to the film’s creepy allure along with the sonorous narration provided by Willian S Burroughs delivered in an offbeat style that somehow dumbs down the film’s more outlandish pretensions. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON JANUS FILMS AND YouTube or Amazon.

Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)

Dir: John Paddy Corsairs | Cast: Jean Kent, Albert Lieven, Derrick De Marney, Paul Dupuis | UK Crime drama 95′

A reminder of the days when travelling by rail actually seemed incredibly glamorous especially on the Orient Express that provides the exotic setting for this 1948 thriller that sees spies pursuing a stolen diary.

Director John Paddy Carstairs is no Walter Forde but this serviceable remake of Forde’s 1932 film based on Clifford Grey’s story looks good through the lens of cameraman Jack Hildyard.

Albert Lieven is likewise no Conrad Veidt but looks good in black tie. On the distaff side Rona Anderson receives an introducing credit while Jean Kent shows poise as his partner in crime. The only member of the original cast is Finlay Currie who originally played an American but is now an irascible Englishman; while Bonar Colleano and Michael Balfour supply the real thing. @RichardChatten

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE

The Three Musketeers: Milady (2023)

Dir: Martin Bourboulon | France, Adventure drama 115′

The second part of this spectacular sortie with our four French Musketeers opens in 1627 and this time puts Milady at the centre of the swashbuckling, bodice-ripping epic originally penned by Alexandre Dumas.

Once again Martin Bourboulon directs a script by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière. There is a brief catch-up with Part I in the opening scenes and the emphasis here is on mood and manoeuvres rather than an involving and memorable storyline – not helped by the break between films. Refer to the novel if you want a more involving experience, although the our hot heroes certainly make for this enjoyable to watch.

Eva Green is mistressful as Milady de Winter, a fictional character who features in the later part of Alexandre Dumas’ original novel. But there’s nothing timid about this tumultuous temptress who is the hired assassin of Cardinal Richelieu. In the first part we saw her throw herself from a clifftop but she survived to tell the tale and is not going to give up without a fight in seducing the sultry and tousled hair D’Artagnan – and who could blame her – but he is desperate to defend a pouty paramour of his own in the shape of Constance Bonacieux (Lyna Khoudri).

Once again England is the enemy and Milady is plotting to engage France in a complex war aimed at ridding the country of King Louis XIII (Louis Garrel really looks the part with his wig and moustache). This is cloak and dagger stuff and involves plenty of sword fights with D’Artagnan (François Civil), Athos (Vincent Cassel), Porthos (Pio Marmaï) and Aramis (Romain Duris complete with eyeliner) all pulling out all the stops. There is a surprise in store for Athos who has his own romantic issues to tackle but he’s keeping his powder dry in this eventful capitulation to Part I.

Eva Green makes for a mysterious Milady. Smirking and smouldering seductively she joins a long list of actresses who have played the character on screen. Most notable are Barbara La Marr alongside Douglas Fairbanks in Fred Niblo’s 1921 production. Lana Turner vyed with Gene Kelly in George Sidney’s 1948 drama; Faye Dunaway had two goes at the role in the early seventies with a starry cast of Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch and Christopher Lee. French actress Emmanuelle Beart featured in a TV mini series in 2005, and Mila Jovovitch played her in Paul W S Anderson’s  2011 epic which was not deemed as success. @MeredithTaylor

From 15 December in French K and Irish cinemas.

The Portrait (2023)

Dir: Simon Ross | Cast: Natalia Córdova-Buckley, Ryan Kwanten, Virginia Madsen, Mark-Paul Gosselaar | US Thriller 

There’s an unnerving power behind Simon Ross’s feature debut – a Dorian Gray style psychodrama involving a damaged man and his wife who seems to be suffering from a syndrome called pathological grief. The Portrait is shrouded in secrets and unreliable memories but the characters feel cliched and bogus and never really make us care enough to uncover the truth. And that’s possibly the point: It appears that reality is a moveable feast in this saturnine mood piece, written and produced by David Griffiths (of Collateral Damage fame). 

After Alex (Ryan Kwanten) suffers life-changing injuries in a devastating accident his capable wife Sofia (Natalia Córdova-Buckley) becomes full time carer to her vicious catatonic husband. In the attic of their palatial Californian villa she uncovers a disarming painting, purportedly a self-portrait, of Alex’s great-grandfather Calvin – a dead ringer for her objectionable hubby. The sinister painting certainly spooks Sofia out and comes alive in nifty jumps scares. Maybe Sofia is just imagining all this – or is buried guilt surfacing from her subconscious?.

Two morose blond women then enter the fray attempting to flesh out the family backstory. They are Basic Instinct style lovers Esther and Mags (Virginia Madsen), a distant cousin of Alex. Virginia Madsen is a good actress but Mags is not her finest hour. And this is where The Portrait starts to feel less plausible and more flimsy as is edges into the realms of kitsch fantasy. 

With her impenetrable screen magnetism (and back muscles Mike Tyson would be proud of) Sofia holds it all together against the odds. But our credibility of her doting acceptance of the violent catatonic beast she has to put up with is stretched to breaking point, and that’s probably why she reaches out to the troubled gardener Brookes (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), a strong silent type who is also harbouring a weird secret under his overalls. The two have a brief liaison after Sofia invites him into the house for emotional support: “I’ve got vodka”. 

As a sinister soundtrack weighs down on us we gradually realise that Sofia is also hiding a secret that explains Alex’s attitude, and why his love and gentleness for his wife has somehow morphed into brutality. This enigma gives the film a driving force and an undeniable allure, powering it forward to a fierce finale. The Portrait is an interesting study in the timely  ‘war of narratives’. @MeredithTaylor

The Portrait is available on digital platforms from 11 December.

 

Along Came Love (2022)

Director: Katell Quillévéré | Cast: Anaïs Demoustier, Vincent Lacoste, Hélios Karyo, Morgan Bailey, Josse Capet, Paul Beaurepaire, Margot Ringard Oldra | France, Drama 125′

Katell Quillévére, best known for her heart-rending 2013 drama Heal the Living, really knows how to bring beauty and intense emotion to the screen without shying away from difficult themes. The opening titles of her latest film Along Came Love (Le Temps d’aimer) show archive footage of the public humiliation of French women or ‘collabos’ who engaged with German soldiers during the Second World War. Rather like the ‘tarring and feathering’ carried out by the IRA on women suspected of involvement with British forces during the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland these reflect  the unspeakable face of misogyny. What follows, by contrast, is a poignant and ravishingly depicted love story starring Anaïs Demoustier and Vincent Lacoste and set in Brittany in 1947. Despite its unevenness in chronicling four decades of their life, Along Came Love will win your heart.

Demoustier is Madeleine, a collabo whose young son Daniel (Hélios Karyo) is the result of a brief affair with a German soldier. Disgraced and desperate to escape the past she is working as a waitress in a seaside restaurant where she meets François (Vincent Lacoste) a wealthy intellectual, bashful in his beret and dapper navy suit. Madeleine is decked out in Breton national costume with a starched white headdress that certainly adds to her allure. Love is in the air and Francois orders two glasses of champagne, one he offers to her.

The director and her co-writer Gilles Taurand don’t quite manage to keep us convinced of their fraught story during the film’s two hour running time. There are certainly bursts of intensity to the fractious wartime marriage but also times where melodrama takes over and leaves us confused: intellectually and sexually, the two appear to misfire – Francois is an old school academic, Madeleine a somewhat lightweight character given to a flirtatiousness that seems inconsistent with the couple’s supposed romantic bliss which sends them down the aisle and then to his spacious apartment in Paris.

Life in the capital is often turbulent and this conflict plays out during the time the couple have fled Paris and are living in Châteauroux during the 1950s, where they run a bar frequented by American GI’s from a nearby military base. Here they meet and become involved in a ‘menage a trois’ with a Black soldier named Jimmy (Morgan Bailey) who fires up their sexual fantasies with his lusty corpulence. But the affair between them feels gauche and unconvincing. In contrast Madeleine’s relationship with her son (played as a young man by Paul Beaurepaire) seems much more authentic. All in all, Demoustier and Lacoste manage to carry the film through these awkward moments and into the 1960s and 1970s where her stylish rigouts accurately reflect the times as the story builds to its devastating conclusion.

During his studies François had apparently had an illicit affair with a male student who comes back to haunt him in a dramatic turns of events involving arson and the authorities. Nobody wants to be in trouble with the French police but soon the inevitable occurs and Francois is taken away.

All this feels less authentic than Madeleine’s more reasonable backstory, based, apparently, on the life of Quillévéré’s own grandmother. With its echoes of Douglas Sirk’s 1958 outing A Time to Love and a Time to Die this arthouse melodrama from the Ivorian director is certainly a welcome addition but not one of her best. @MeredithTaylor

Perfect Days (2023)

Dir: Wim Wenders | Cast: Koji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano, Yumi Aso | Drama 123′

Wim Wenders’ latest cinematic sortie celebrates the simple pleasures in life seen through the day to day existence of a lavatory attendant in Tokyo, where these facilities are a genuine art form kept immaculately clean by this elegant janitor.

Perfect Days has the same gentle rhythms and sympathetic quirkiness as Paris Texas but this time the main character is at peace with his modest lifestyle. Late middle age finds Hirayama satisfied with the status quo and able to embrace change when it makes a welcome appearance, and not disappointed when it goes away again. Recognise this person in yourself? Then Perfect Days is your film.

Koji Yakusho is a joy to behold and his captivating presence (as Hirayama) radiates throughout the film drawing us into a delightful fable where life just bobs along contentedly in a state of grace often called ‘flow’. Hirayama finds his happiness in music, books, food and photography.

Wim Wenders has long been fascinated by cities: and Tokyo has frequently come under his radar: his stylish1980s documentary Notebook On Cities And Clothes also ponders creative potential. And here the focus of his protagonist’s days is the lavatory: form and function. And Tokyo’s water closets are the most inventively designed, and arguably the most pristine known to mankind, largely thanks to Hirayama and the locals whose sense of awareness and civilisation is second to none, public ablutions-wise.

More a philosophical meditation than a drama Perfect Days is nonetheless mesmerising. It brings the veteran German director’s technique and lightness of touch together with a vital ingredient that makes him one of film’s geniuses. Effortless and minimalism, this is a magical concoction, a meaning-of-life feature that gets to the very heart of human existence with its sheer simplicity. It could also bore the pants off mainstream audiences with its ‘nothing-really-happens’ banality.

A typical day for Hirayama sees him waking at dawn in his spartan apartment where he shaves and sips tea before slipping into his ‘Tokyo Toilets’ overalls for the drive to work. Despite a menial job he cuts a dapper figure in his blue cotton jumpsuit and seems cheerful in his endeavour: to keep the capital’s lavatories spotless. A goofy young colleague Takashi (Tokio Emoto) frets and moans about his love life and lack of money, but that ship has long sailed for Hirayama, these issues no longer concern him.

Music is his companion and we enjoy a score of iconic ’60s tunes, most significantly Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Days’, which gives the film its title, along with Van Morrison and The Rolling Stones. Lunch and dinner are enjoyed with his regular bartenders, and here Wenders conjures up a culinary essence of contemporary Tokyo. Hirayama also enjoys photography; trees are of particular interest, and he takes cuttings from root stock potting the perfect little shoots, complete with soil, with the help of a paper container kept conveniently in his wallet. After a wash in the communal baths he beds down on his futon where he reads to the light of Tokyo’s neon illuminations. His dream-life is delicately etched in black and white montages evoking the Japanese concept of ‘komorebi’ and created by the director’s wife Donata Wenders.

Alone but not lonely and totally at ease with himself, Hirayama barely utters a word throughout but engages volubly when the need arises, as with Mama (Sayuri Ishikawa), a middle-aged woman who runs a noodle bar he often visits. His niece Niko (Arisa Nakano) makes a brief appearance, providing a welcome female presence in Hirayama’s life and fleshing out a backstory that speaks volumes. He looks on with a philosophical, knowing shrug of the shoulders when her mother arrives.

Tokyo is very much a character here beautifully captured by Franz Lustig’s perfect camerawork. The final sequence of Hirayama’s facial expressions as he drives through the night provides a charismatic valediction to a memorable but slender snapshot of a satisfying life. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE

East of Elephant Rock (1978)

Dir/Wri: Don Boyd John Hurt, Christopher Cazenove, Judy Bowker, Jeremy Kemp, Anton Rogers | UK Drama

Don Boyd produced some of the most ambitious but foolhardy British films of the seventies and eighties. Leonard Maltin gave this typically eccentric attempt by him at direction shot in Sri Lanka (in which he displays a bizarre penchant for slow zooms and fisheye lenses) a ‘BOMB’ rating; but it can be enjoyed in a similar spirit to a ‘Ripping Yarns’ parody of ‘The Letter’ (naturally set in a rubber plantation) full of sybaritic Brits like gruff zenophobe Jeremy Kemp, clipped Christopher Casenove as a fellow called Proudfoot and an ethereal Judi Bowker who inflames the passion of a youthful John Hurt.

The biggest surprise is the music credit for Peter Skellern, although surprise turns to horror when he actually contributes a couple of songs. @RichardChatten

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE

Wonka (2023)

Dir: Paul King | Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant, Paterson Joseph, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Matt Lucas, Jim Carter | Musical 112’

Wonka is a charming sugar-coated candy-coloured confection fizzing with fun that reminds us that Christmastide should be a time of goodwill and joie de vivre rather than stress and family contretemps. Charming and hummable it may be but Wonka is an instantly forgettable Christmas crowdpleaser that will blow away with the tinsel once the Christmas decs are back in their boxes.

Timothee Chalamet at the 81st Golden Globes | photo credit Benny Askinas

 

Graced by a delightful cast: Timothee Chalemet is the standout with his androgynous charm and delicatesse in a surreal turn as the legendary Willy Wonka of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who, according to its creator Roald Dahl, purportedly invented the best chocolate. Of course we all know that’s Cadbury’s – but no one likes to admit it.

Johnny Depp was a big hit in Tim Burton’s adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005, after Mel Stuart delivered the first cinematic sensation with Gene Wilder in the main role in 1971. But rather than opting for another version of Dahl’s 1964 classic book, Warner Bros offers up a prequel original story taking us back to Wonka’s genesis with themes of class warfare and the glass ceiling.

Wonka‘s focus is that dreams can come true and offers inspiration for today’s young entrepreneurs. It goes behind the original story to picture a youngster from modest means whose dreams, ideas and determination will make him an international superstar – aided by his best friend Noodle (Calah Lane). Every bit a story of modern times, it sees Wonka come up against the establishment of chocolatiers whose delicious fare is reserved for the rich.

Nathan Crowley’s set design is magical and Joby Talbot, the composer behind the catchy title music for the BBC’s League of Gentleman, has created a memorable original score. Listen with your eyes shut and there’s nothing captivating about Simon Farnaby and Paul King’s script, despite expectations. So just enjoy the fabulous camerawork and the entertaining cast who bring it all to life despite the messy storyline: Olivia Colman (as Mrs Scrubbit), Hugh Grant (as Oompa Loompa), Rowan Atkinson (as Father Julius) and Peterson Joseph (as Arthur Slugworth) . Wonka is certainly eye-catching but if you’re looking for a more amusing Christmas movie this yuletide, I’d go for Your Christmas or Mine 2. @MeredithTaylor

FROM 8 DECEMBER 2023

Sexy Beast (2000)

Dir: Jonathan Glazer | Cast: Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Amanda Redman, James Fox, Ian MacShane  | UK Thriller 89’

The story of professional crook called back for one last job is one of the perennial themes of the gangster film. A long way from the terseness and glamour of the classics of the thirties, the opening scene with the boulder rolling into the swimming pool establishes from the get-go that the events depicted in ‘Sexy Beast’ are as much a dream as a nightmare.

Unlike the fast-talking sharply-dressed Hollywood prototype, Ray Winstone’s gangster is an uncouth oaf who discovers the hard way he has more to fear from his associates – represented by bullet-headed troll Ben Kingsley – than the long arm of the law.

A startlingly brunette Amanda Redman makes an all-too-rare appearance on the big screen; while ‘Performance’ and ‘Villain’ are evoked by the presence of James Fox and a very saturnine Ian MacShane.

Along with Get Carter and Long Good Friday, Jonathan Glazer’s feature debut, written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto, represents the best in British crime thrillers. But unlike Mike Hodges and John MacKenzie, who have sadly now left us, Glazer’s star is still in the ascendent. @RichardChatten

ON PRIME VIDEO

The Red Shoes (1948)

Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Cast: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann | Musical Drama 135′

A huge event both at the box office and in the development of Technicolour (all the better to showcase Moira Shearer’s ravishing red hair), but –  like the impresario himself – played by Anton Walbrook elegant but sorely lacking the soul of Powell & Pressburger’s earlier productions.

There’s long been a school of thought that Pressburger was the brain behind the two, but he should also take the blame for the pretension that increasingly overwhelmed their films, while Powell’s skill at organising the various elements and his smooth use of trick photography, like Busby Berkeley, creates a sumptuous experience which supposedly takes place in the world of theatre but is truly a work of cinema @RichardChatten

ON RE-RELEASE AT THE BFI LONDON SOUTHBANK | GARDEN CINEMA WI | LUMIERE CINEMAS SW7

Anselm (2023)

Dir.: Wim Wenders; Documentary with Anslem Kiefer, Daniel Kiefer, Anton Wenders; Germany 2023, 93 min.

To call Wim Wenders’ portrait of German artist Anselm Kiefer a documentary would be selling the work of both artists short. Anselm is a potted history of post war Germany, rooted in the society where both men were born, in 1945. Neither of them escaped unhurt even though Kiefer, a more confrontational character than Wenders, took the brunt of criticism.

But “Das Rauschen der Zeit” is first and foremost a chronicle of a country still not ready to face its racist past. Their output is shrouded in enigma and ambivalence. There is always confusion and reverie: Wenders’ American set films and Kiefer’s French based creations are flights of imagination. But the shadow of the Third Reich looms large, and cannot be negotiated with art or gestures.

Anselm Kiefer, represented as a young man by Daniel Kiefer and as a school boy by Anton Wenders, gained prominence in 1971 as Joseph Beuys’ master student in Dusseldorf. This was followed by a scandal in Venice, at the Biennale in 1980, when Kiefer was accused of being a neo-Nazi, with him insisting he just wanted to refer to the victims of the Holocaust, wearing his father’s Wehrmacht’s Uniform and greeting the public with the Nazi salute. In 2022 Kiefer would make a triumphant return to the city.

But by now his work output was colossal – both in yield and form: He created topographic landscapes in an old brick factory in Germany, and landscapes in the South of France. And he continues to this day with mega installations in his new studio in Croissy near Paris. There are architectural constructions, numerous pavilions, underground crypts and a gigantic, roofed amphitheatre. Everything is larger than life, and Kiefer is still at it, in a big way, always moving forward to the next project. Flame throwers are his favourite “weapons” of art, giant lift constructions lead him to the top of the world. Literally.

Then we return to the beginning with Paul Celan (1920 – 1970), holocaust survivor, poet and translator, who drowned himself in the Seine. The author Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1976) a member of the circle of artists striving for a new beginning, not another cover-up. She died in an “accidental” fire in her own bed. But they were outnumbered by the ex-Nazi supporters who went into “inner exile” while still supporting the regime, like the philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), who never apologised or even tried to explain. There is a moving snapshot of Celan trying to meet Heidegger – but like Richard Strauss, leader of the NSDAP “ReichsmusikKammer” (Musicians had to be Aryans to take part), Heidegger could not even be bothered to say sorry, keeping his international reputation intact.

There is brilliance on both sides of the camera, thanks to DoP Franz Lustig, and it is a credit to both artists to return to the failed new beginning, because the huge majority of Germans preferred to feel sorry for themselves and were busy with collective denial. Wenders and Kiefer are still attempting to evade the past. But try as they may, it still outruns them. @AndreSimonoveisz

IN CINEMAS FROM 8 DECEMBER 2023

Freud’s Last Session (2023)

Dir/Wri: Matthew Brown | Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Goode | US Drama

Sigmund Freud and C S Lewis debate the existence of God in this provocative imagined drama starring Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode, and based on a play by Mark St Germain that became a hit off Broadway.

When Hopkins played the English theologian and writer in Shadowlands he reduced audiences to tears with his earnest attempt to court Debra Winger’s dying writer Joy Gresham. In Matt Brown’s two-hander Matthew Goode is the star turn as a more . dapper and indulgent C S Lewis with Hopkins, his sparring partner, spiky and reticent in his final years as the legendary shrink.

Matthew Brown and Mark St Germain decide to spice things up by incorporating flash back episodes of Lewis’ life in the trenches but this detail often derails the already engaging exchange of informed views, detracting from the film’s natural dramatic thrust.

Sometimes linear narratives work best, and that is arguably the case here. On the other hand, the writers’ decision to probe Freud’s backstory with his daughter Anna adds an informative touch to an intelligent foray into the young woman’s Electra complex: Interestingly the theory belonged to his Swiss colleague Carl Jung and not her dad. @MeredithTaylor

In UK CINEMAS from June 14, 2024

Lost in the Night (2023)

Dir: Amat Escalante | Cast: Juan Daniel Garcia, Ester Expósito, Barbara Mori, Fernando Bonilla, Hero Medina, Vicky Araico | Thriller 120′

The rich and the poor have a Mexican standoff in this Neo western – and no prizes for guessing who wins the day. Amat Escalante first arrived on the scene with his shocking feature debut Heli. Lost in the Night is a muddled murder mystery that looks spectacular but leaves us in the dark for most its running time. A pervasive sense of uneasiness gradually gains momentum in the final stages but some questions are left unanswered in a quietly savage tale of revenge that simmers in Adrian Durazo’s widescreen landscapes of the craggy Guanajuato setting.

Juan Daniel Garcia is Emiliano, the hero of the piece. This morose Mexican macho is motivated by a keen sense of justice. He is a serious man with a mission: to shed light on the fate of his pioneering mother (Araico) who disappeared after campaigning against the sale of the local mine to foreign investors and the contingent job losses. And he soon tracks down his suspect, an effete conceptual artist called Rigoberto (Bonilla), who hangs out in this stark backwater, postering around a curious concrete lakeside villa with his steely wife Carmen (Barbara Mori) and her influencer daughter Mónica (Ester Expósito), whose speciality is fake suicide videos. The local police, headed by Jero Medina, are not fit for purpose so Emiliano makes his own investigations by offering to work undercover as the family caretaker.

Emiliano represents solid values, Rigoberto all that is spurious in this world: his most famous work conceptualises dead Mexican bodies. But Escalante’s narrative often gets bogged down in these modernising themes derailing the story from its central focus and stretching the film rather too thinly over its two hour running time. Emiliano’s female equivalent Jasmin (Mafer Osio) is a traditional Mexican ‘madonna’ who offers him tenderness but never really gets a look in. Monica throws herself at him, turned on by his strong silent earnestness. At one point he dives in and rescues her from the lake after one of her more petulant displays of narcissism. So an interesting addition to the Escalante archive but not one of his most memorable. MT

NOW IN UK Cinemas

https://youtu.be/S38sRUvJjYs

 

Sweet Sue (2023)

Dir/Wri: Leo Leigh | Cast: Maggie O’Neill, Tony Pitts, Harry Trevaldwyn, Anthony Adjekum, Anna Calder-Marshall, James Dryden | UK Comedy Drama 99′

After a shaky start with Loony in the Woods and his short documentary Fact of Fiction: The Life and Times of a Ping Pong Hustler, Leo Leigh, Alison Steadman and Mike Leigh, finally finds his feet with this confident comedy drama.

Sweet Sue makes for an amusing feature debut capturing the sardonic resentment of a bereaved English family with the same signature brand of snarky deadpan humour of his parents.

Of course Sue, a sparky Maggie O’Neill, is anything but sweet: and we soon realise why, but that’s all part of the irony. The film opens with another dating disappointment for Sue, a fifty-something singleton, whose has just been stood up in the local pub. Meanwhile, in the now familiar setting of a care home her younger brother, Pete, is in the final stages of an undignified death, comforted by his wife, (Hannah Walters) who clearly resents Sue’s continued lack of input in the matter. The two of them bicker bedside while Pete gobs uncontrollably into a tissue. The next scene sees his funeral cortege pulling out of a driveway with a ghastly floral tribute of pastel chrysanthemums bearing the name ‘Pete’ adorning the hearse. The petty bickering flares up later in the pub – this ‘close family’ is clearly far from close, Sue’s mum chunters away under her breath, and Pete’s widow once again bemoans Sue’s lack of support. Breaking away from the morose duo Sue strikes up a conversion at the bar with a tight-lipped, leather-clad biker who introduces himself as Ron. The two promptly leave, Sue preparing to ride pillion with her potential paramour, Pete’s widow objecting loudly as the two make off

The story proceeds along similar lines as we get to know them all better, Sue is assertively bubbly while Ron remains locked in his monosyllabic old-school masculinity. Anthony, his rather narcissistic son, is a thoroughly modern character, and Trevaldwyn certainly plays up his personality traits to perfection. Ron, by his very nature, remains the most enigmatic character here, and we are left wondering whether Sue will make a go of things this time: there’s clearly a sexual frisson despite their chalk and cheese differences. Sweet Sue maybe not be groundbreaking narrative wise but it certainly has a ring of truth for those familiar with the dysfunctional family territory. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK AND IRISH CINEMAS from 22 December 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Napoleon (2023)

Dir: Ridley Scott | Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Rupert Everett, Paul Rees, Ben Miles, Ludivine Sagnier, Edouard Philipponnat | UK Drama 158′

Napoleon is a rather gloomy epic that mourns its French hero in misty landscapes, robust parliamentary debates, bloody battle scenes and sorrowful domestic settings where a doomed love story plays out amid gilded trophies and treasures.

Ridley Scott creates a sprawling two and a half hour feature that is more impressive than involving although Phoenix is compelling throughout as a flawed hero and likeable rogue, despite his American delivery: a soulful and mercurial figure whose private life never quite attains the glorious success of his strategic prowess as French military leader and emperor in various campaigns. Most notable is the Siege of Toulon, where he captures the port city from the English in the film’s opening stages, to his most significant triumph at the battle of Austerlitz with its atmospheric widescreen images of soldiers and horses plunging silently into the depths of a frozen lake where their blood mingles evocatively with the icy water. Scott lists Napoleon’s less admirable achievement in the film’s final title sequence that makes for grim reading with its tragic loss of life running into thousands; and this is probably one of the reasons why French critics have condemned the film.

Josephine, an imperious Vanessa Kirby, has managed to reinvent herself as Napoleon’s witty new wife. But despite her considerable talents as a patron of the arts and their torrid sex life and genuine love for each other, Napoleon choses to divorce her in favour of his country because, Josephine, six years older than him and in her second marriage, is unable to provide him with an heir. She is banished to the murky palace of Malmaison, Rueil, where she dies of diphtheria, Napoleon arriving too late to say a final farewell. The emperor, in turn, is deemed a threat to the security of Europe, and ends his days in the remote outpost of Saint Helena after a crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, having previously returned from Elba.

Ambitious and informative, David Scarpa’s well-paced script straddles three decades, from the final stages of the French Revolution in 1793 until Napoleon’s death in May 1821. The guillotining of Marie Antoinette makes for a captivating opening sequence. We watch her being clamped onto the base of the guillotine before the blade is unleashed from its moorings slicing cleanly through her neck, the executioner dangling her bleeding head by the hair as the baying crowd roars.

Next comes Robespierre’s fate in parliament bringing an end to the Reign of Terror. This political instability offers Napoleon the ideal opportunity to surge up as a masterful strategist and architect of the Republic, crowning himself Emperor in 1804. At continuous loggerheads with England he tries to forge a pact with Prussia and Austria, which proves unsuccessful, and leads to heavy losses in Russia. Abdicating, he then heads for the Island of Elba, returning to France where he suffers a debilitating defeat against the Duke of Wellington’s army in alliance with Prussian Forces at Waterloo. And here Rupert Everett shines as a drole, rather foppish caricature of English aristocracy.

Stanley Kubrick would be proud of the film’s immaculate battle set pieces particularly at Waterloo, and there are some enjoyable support performances from Paul Rhys at Talleyrand, Edouard Philipponnat as Tsar Alexander, who is seen to enjoy a brief dalliance with Josephine, John Hollingworth as Marshal Ney and Richard McCabe as Lord Whitworth. But Napoleon belongs to its star Joaquin Phoenix who exudes strength and humanity despite his human flaws. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN CINEMAS

 

The Peasants (2023)

Dirs/scr: DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman. Poland/Serbia/Lithuania |  114′

Poland’s Academy Award 2024 hopeful is another animated portrait from directing duo DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman who won an Oscar nomination for their painterly drama about Vincent Van Gogh Loving Vincent.

Based on novel from Nobel prize winner Wladyslaw Reymont this is a tale of love and revenge set in a 19th century Polish village of peasant farmers. The narrative reworks themes of male dominance in that are still relevant today, a century later: women, especially good-looking ones, are expected to submit to the subconscious will of men, and are punished, psychologically or materially, if they refuse to toe the line.

The focus here is beautiful young Jagna (Kamila Urzedowska) who refuses to conform to traditional village life and finds herself increasingly at odds with women who are envious of her power and beauty, and men who are desperate to bed her. Jagna tolerates a loveless marriage to a controlling much older husband Boryna (Miroslaw Baka) by having an affair with his estranged married son Antek (Robert Gulaczyk) and escaping into a creative world of her own, representated by bird motifs.

Capturing the seasons of the year in a pre-revolutionary Poland, the directors combine pencil sketches, expressionist brush work and photographic realism, blending oil paintings from Polish 19th artists: Michal Gorstkin-Wywiorski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc and Jozef Chelmonski over live-action footage of actors to create another fluid animated drama that feels contemporary while rooted firmly in the past. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK CINEMAS from 8 December from Vertigo Releasing | The Peasants is Poland’s Academy submission 2024

Castaway (1986)

Dir: Nicolas Roeg | Cast: Oliver Reed, Amanda Donohoe, Georgina Hale, Frances Barber | UK drama 117’

The most striking scenes in ‘Castaway’ are the first twenty minutes depicting a drab eighties London. What follows is a pale shadow of ‘Michael Powell’s Age of Consent, which was set in Australia; although Powell’s earlier film doesn’t boast a pair of nuns in the comely form of Georgina Hale and Frances Barber (looking far tastier fully-clothed than Amanda Donohoe in the all-together).

Miss Donohoe is supposed to be a lover of old movies (she’s seen watching Peter Finch on the telly), which makes it rather surprising that she doesn’t turn tail and flee the moment she sees that her prospective companion is Olly Reed (who progressively looks more and more like a ginger Jabba the Hutt as the film develops), whose idea of a smooth come-on is “A screw and a cold beer is at the moment the summit of my ambition!”; so its hardly surprising they make such an argumentative pair (especially as she gets more turned on when he talks about food rather than sex).

Naturally as shot by Nicolas Roeg it all looks very impressive but their constant squabbling rapidly gets very monotonous. @RichardChatten 

The Taste of Things (2023)

Dir Anh Hung Tran | cast: Juliette Binoche, Benoit Magimel, Pierre Gagnaire | Drama | France, 135′

One time lovers Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel re-unite for a sumptuous feast of the senses that sees gastronomy as a conduit for a long lasting celebration. The French Vietnamese filmmaker first came to Cannes twenty years ago with his ravishing feature debut Scent of Green Papaya that won the Camera d’Or.

The Taste of Things, his seventh feature, adapted from Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel The Life And Passion of Dodin-Bouffant is set in France in the late 19th century, the film follows the life of Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) as a renownd chef living with his personal cook and lover Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). Eugénie and Dodin share a long history of gastronomy and love. While emotions remain restrained, their culinary discoveries are lavish and exquisite. The only sadness for Dodin is that Eugénie refuses to marry him. So, the food lover decides to do something he has never done before: cook for her.

This delicious romantic drama also serves as a discursive entrée into French culinary history as post prandial conversion drifts into the domaine of gastronomic greats Marie-Antoine Carême and Georges Auguste Escoffier both respected as ‘king of chefs and chef of kings’ of French haute cuisine. And their dishes are sensuously prepared by Binoche and her assistants: a mouth-watering vol au vent  – you can almost taste the cream oozing out of it – followed by tenderly poached quails and an omelette Norvégienne otherwise known more prosaically as Baked Alaska and, of course wines accompany these dishes.

We first meet Eugenie (Binoche) in her kitchen garden on a blissful summer’s morning chosing a fresh lettuce for a mouth-watering meal of lavish proportions. Dodin (Magimel) and his guests will savour at their leisure later on at lunch. Every dish is a work of art created from a basis of fresh local ingredients in season. But the film also symbolises a wider appreciation of the simple pleasures in life we often take for granted such as the intense anticipation of a tempting  dinner or the satisfying sensuality of long-lasting desire.

Eugenie luxuriates in the quiet pleasure of cooking and enjoying time spent with Dodin over the twenty years of their life together. Their epicurean partnership has gradually led to the bedroom where occasionally the two indulge in the realm of the senses that extends beyond the purely culinary.

But Dodin wants to formalise the arrangement with marriage. And is also concerned for Eugenie’s well-being and her failing health. Slowly he takes over in the kitchen preparing the food as an act of affection and appreciation he feels for her in their relationship of mutual respect and dedication. And the act of successful courtship, like the preparation of a luscious dish, requires patience and meticulous timing, a heavy-handed approach may ruin the chemistry, but he must keep the pot simmering in this delicate dance of love that is typically French. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL Winner Best Director | France’s Academy Award Entry 2024 | IN COMPETITION 2023

 

Bandido (1956)

Dir: Richard Fleischer | Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ursula Thiess, Gilbert Roland, Zachary Scott | US Action Drama 92’

In his memoirs director Richard Fleischer gave a harrowing account of the horrors of filming in Mexico beset with insect stings and upset stomachs. The film itself takes its lead from leading actor Robert Mitchum by being much more light-hearted than Fleischer’s account would have lead you to expect.

In its rollicking picture of Mexico as a place in which lead is constantly flying (none of it naturally hitting our Bob) it rather recalls the Harold Lloyd comedy ‘Why Worry?’; a piece of advice that Mitchum obviously took to heart.

Apart from Mitchum himself the most interesting member of the cast is probably veteran Mexican heavy Miguel Inclain, who was deeply touching in ‘Salon Mexico’ and briefly appears late in the film as a priest. @RichardChatten

May December (2023)

Dir: Todd Haynes | Cast: Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, Chris Tenzis, Charles Melton | US Drama 117′

May December could well be one of the masterworks about the way paedophilia impacts on relationships and family life. It is the confident latest film from Todd Haynes who began as a key figure of the 1990’s New Queer Canadian Cinema with films such as Poison, The Karen Carpenter Story, Safe and Velvet Goldmine. Working with a talented cast and crew, actor Julianne Moore and producer Christine Vachon showcase the power of a mature director in full command of his filmmaking craft.

The film is not an easy watch for those who find difficult subjects uncomfortable in an entertainment context although there is a duty for fearless artists to interrogate challenging subject matter. May December certainly does this and provides a deeply moving and affecting study of the secrets, lies and deceptions that exist even within close relationships.

The title is a play on the seasons of the year reflecting the romantic relationship between two people of different ages, and linking spring – that comes with youth – through to the eventual winter of old age. This connection with the seasons echoes Alexander Singer’s criminally undervalued 1961 film A Cold Wind in August about the relationship between an ageing stripper and a much younger man; as well as Catherine Breillet’s latest feature Last Summer (2023) that sees a married woman toy with her young stepson without serious emotional intentions.

There is a difference here. Once Haynes lifts the lid off the various themes nothing will be the same again for his wide range of players and characters. The plot is straightforward and based in reality, echoing the true 1990s story of 36-year-old Mary Kay Letourneau who left her husband and family after being convicted and jailed due to her relationship with a 13-year-old boy. On release from prison, she married the young man and formed a new family and a cosy, respectable and conventional middle-class life.

At this point in the narrative Haynes introduces melodrama. The mother (Moore) commissions an indie film that will tell her story and, hopefully, reveal honest truths about what had happened years previously. The film begins with a visit from Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) the actor chosen to play Julianne Moore’s dysfunctional character Gracie, in an attempt to understand everyone involved in this extended family life. The coming together of the first family and the children from the second marriage, during a graduation ceremony weekend, is beautifully handled with sly humour while revealing a feature of complex resonances.

The film offers a powerhouse challenge for Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman as the women involved, and recalls the work of George Cukor,  another gay filmmaker at ease working with female actors and handling themes involving women. Julianne Moore has the more grounded role as the mother/wife, enabling her to invest her character with more backstory involving childhood abuse trauma that in later life could have manifested in an arrested state of childhood as the source of her original transgressive relationship with the 13-year-old boy. Haynes heightens this with her, now adult, younger husband who is beginning to realise he has missed out on a full experience of life, and revealing that May/December relationships can bring problems later on involving missed and lost opportunities.

Natalie Portman may have the more difficult but also revealing role as Elizabeth. She has a less defined past suggestive of being mildly lonely and only moderately successful. This is all left open but heightens the contrast between both characters: Elizabeth appears to be shadowing Gracie with a form of imitation that reveals how a mix of identity issues and role-playing can be very dangerous. One sequence is particularly revealing and offers a  masterclass in skilful technique and razor-edge emotional precision: The two women face each other, seemingly stripped bare of their respective personas.

Another aspect of the film’s power involves Haynes’ well-documented understanding of the 1950s Hollywood cinema of Douglas Sirk. The visual style is mostly melancholy with muted greys and browns and none of Sirk’s expressionistic colour lighting, although there is a similar sense of framing and space involving settings and characters. Also relevant here are Sirk’s themes involving theatrical illusion, patriarchal values and forbidden love – which threaten familiar and social conventions – in a ‘let’s pretend we are all nice’ middle-class setting bringing to mind All that Heaven Allows (1955).

There are many other intriguing and poignant scenes that are best left for viewers to experience. If you are wondering why the beautiful score by Marcelo Zarvos includes sonorous chords of music in a French style, this is because the music incorporates Michel Legrand’s score for Joseph Losey’s film The Go Between. The reference may be intentional as May December is another insight into the myriad ways a child’s life can provide complex links into adult lives. @PeterHerbert

NOVEMBER 17 in cinemas and on SKY CINEMA DEC 8

PETER HERBERT is Curator Manager at THE ARTS PROJECT

Twice upon a Time (1953) Powell + Pressburger Season

Dir: Emeric Pressburger | Cast: Hugh Williams, Elizabeth Allan, Jack Hawkins, Yolande Larthe | Drama 85′

After filming wrapped in 1953 Emeric Pressburger never wanted to think about Twice Upon A Time again, so onerous was the task of making it. The same fate had befallen such cinematic Cinderellas as Hitchcock’s Waltzes from Vienna and Bergman’s It Can’t Happen Here.

Based on the novel by Erich Kastner – originally filmed in 1950 and remade by Disney eight years later as The Parent Trap – it’s a far more succinct drama that avoids the initial enmity that wasted so much time in the later film.

Michael Powell never bothered to watch Twice Upon a Time, Pressburger never mentioned it again, and it was not included in the National Film Theatre’s Powell & Pressburger retrospective of 1978. Kevin Macdonald (in his 1994 biography) declared that “Today no print of Twice Upon a Time is available” and there isn’t a single review on the IMDb. This means that the  screening at BFI Southbank on 6th November 2023 was the first in seventy years.

As for the film itself it comes as a charming surprise: Beautifully shot on location by Christopher Challis with characteristically whimsical narration by Jack Hawkins who also stars as Dr Mathews. @RichardChattten

BFI’S POWELL + PRESSBURGER SEASON | NOVEMBER 2023

Seaside Special (2022)

Dir: Jens Meurer | Germany Doc

A warm and well-balanced view of Brexit Britain is expressed by the people of Cromer, Norfolk in this delightful documentary made by a German, no less!

Famous for its seafood, especially crabs – and wonderful sandy beaches Cromer is also home to a summer end-of-the-pier show that runs for three months – to packed audiences – twice a day! And this gives Jens Meurer – whose in-laws are English – the perfect setting for a sunny expose of the most divisive political and social event in our recent island history. Meurer offers a very human story seen by the people, and for the people. Politicians or local councillors are thankfully nowhere to be seen.

Shot on 16mm and intended for big screen viewing in a collective atmosphere Seaside Special turns out to be nostalgic and surprisingly entertaining in showing English life at its best through a variety of idiosyncratic Brits who are putting their best foot forward to make both the show (and Brexit) a success in spite of their conflicting views: ‘Hoping for the best but planning for the worst’, as Boris Johnson famously once said.

It may be modest in its provincial setting but the summer variety show is no amateur dramatic affair; it certainly punches above its weight and the quality acts look and feel really professional. And what also makes this and the show so endearing is the human angle. Real people with honest, unpredictable and often refreshing views imaginatively captured in Meurer’s lens. @MeredithTaylor

Seaside Special is in UK and Irish cinemas on 10 November 2023

Fingernails (2023)

Dir; Christos Nikou | Cast: Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, James Allen White | Drama

Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed are the stars of this ponderous futuristic drama from Greek director Christos Nikou who tries to nail down that ephemeral thing called love.

Chemistry-wise Anna (Buckley) and Amir (Ahmed) hit the jackpot with 100% when taking a test to prove their viability as a love match. There’s only one problem – Buckley already has a positive score with her long term partner Ryan (James Allen White), although their relationship has now lost its spark.

Fingernails is certainly intriguing premise-wise but suffers the same airless inertia that dogged Nikou’s first feature Apples – although that film swept the board on the international film festival circuit with its inventive and whimsical look at amnesia.

Nikou, who co-wrote the screenplay, at least succeeds in demonstrating that AI and computer testing are not infallible and that human chemistry and its wonders still rest in the ether. And that’s the positive takeaway, along with two more enjoyable performances from Buckley and Ahmed. @MeredithTaylor

In select cinemas, and streaming globally on Apple TV+, from November 3rd

Macbeth (1948)

Dir: Orson Welles | Cast: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O’Herlihy, Roddy McDowall | US Drama 107′

Unlike Orson Welles’s later unorthodox adaptations of Shakespeare shot in far flung locations abroad ‘Macbeth’ was dashed off in Hollywood in 23 days on a budget of less than $900,000 the unapologetically commercial outfit Republic (whose logo it comes as quite a shock to see at the conclusion).

The end result was murky even by Welles’s standards, full of incongruously varied accents (as you would expect from a cast that includes both Dan O’Herlihy and Roddy McDowall), not least Welles’s own. (Poor Jeanette Nolan’s Lady Macbeth has taken a lot of flack over the years, but personally I think she’s pretty effective.)

Jacques Ibert’s score is quite impressive, and appropriately manages to include bagpipes. Welles plainly knew his Eisenstein and while the sets looks if they were left over from an episode of ‘Star Trek’ John Russell lights them for maximum effect’; and in Welles himself – still quite light on his feet in those days – it of course possesses a truly formidable protagonist.@RichardChatten

 

Fanny: the other Mendelssohn (2023)

Wri/Dir: Sheila Hayman | Doc 97′

Raising the profile of yet another uncelebrated musical genius, a new documentary unveils the little known story of Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847). This could have been just another worthy study of female endeavour but BAFTA-winning filmmaker Sheila Hayman brings her great-great-great-grandmother Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel to life in an absorbing biopic that delves into the archives and crafts a juicy tale of celebrity, sibling rivalry, and hitherto undiscovered treasure.

Fanny Mendlessohn was born in Hamburg, Germany where she always took a backseat to her more famous younger brother Felix. Despite the male-dominated classical music scene of the era she still managed to compose 450 works in a life that was cut short at 42. Fanny’s masterpiece ‘The Easter Sonata’, is performed by Decca-winning pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason who enlightens us with her own challenges in the field of classical music: and it seems little has changed since the 19th century.

This lively documentary is set on location in Berlin, New York, London, Oxford and Buckingham Palace, Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn follows in the tracks of other creative female pioneers of the 19th Century: The Bronte sisters, George Sand and Berthe Morisot. All very modern women – who just happened to live several hundred years ago.@MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS

The Royal Hotel (2023)

Dir: Kitty Green | Cast: Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Herbert Nordrum, Dylan River | Australia, Drama 91

Set in the rugged wilderness of the Australian outback The Royal Hotel provides a twisty new turn on a genre of cinema involving forms of exorcism. This handsome-looking thriller moves on from earlier male-dominated features in the OZ exploitation genre that are generally laced with misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia, such as Ted Kotcheff’s masterly 1971 outing Wake In Fright.

There are similar themes to be found here as two young Canadian women on an Overseas Experience in Australia start to run low on funds and secure work in a remote drinking hole hotel, having travelled to the outback to replace a couple of English girls. Both find themselves having to confront a hostile environment.

Unlike the earlier films in the genre the two women and a range of other female characters, including an indigenous aborigine, are seen to find ways of elbowing out the worst traits of male behaviour. One of the men is played by Hugo Weaving in a standout performance well beyond his Priscilla Queen of the Desert days.

The film opens in a booming underground disco with a tracking shot following a young woman who has unsuccessfully chatted up a male bartender. As she leaves this pulsating darkened room the camera follows her into the bright quiet daylight of Sydney harbour. It all feels like a curious premonition that she will also become a bartender and experience both welcome and unwelcome male attention.

Melbourne-based film director Kitty Green follows up her previous film The Assistant with many beautiful visual touches. These include the contrast of an empty swimming pool with deck chairs and a sequence of jumping into outdoor water streams that serve to refresh the claustrophobia that dry arid landscapes induce in her characters. There are striking edits involving doors that open up possibilities but also shut out the unexpected. The natural beauty of a snake contrasts with what will happen to the contents of a bottled-up glass jar.

Apparently the film is based on a documentary about the real life experiences of two Canadian backpackers travelling in the Australian outback. Although the director’s observation of the women is possibly too understated or underplayed by Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick, The Royal Hotel is more likely to be viewed as a film of measured gradual chills.

The last sequence is clearly indebted to Tony Williams’ 1982 film Next Of Kin which was co-scripted by Michael Heath and voted by Tarantino as his choice for the best OZ exploitation chiller. The film earlier involved a woman battling interior demons in a gothic house and may have had more off-the-kilter chills and zany humour, but Green draws from her film a similar sense of brooding menace.

As its female protagonists look to find a way to escape from an inferno of impending hell, The Royal Hotel also employs a striking use of fire during the finale. This is a very clear homage to the earlier film while providing within the narrative a more contemporary female focused angle.@PeterHerbert

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS

A Taste of Anatolia | Turkish Film Festival 2023

Turkish cinema comes to England this November courtesy of TASTE OF ANATOLIA – the only film festival in the UK dedicated to cinema of Turkey.

Celebrating its 5th edition, the full programme is available online on the film platform Balik Arts Tv and at live ‘in person’ screenings at the Rio Cinema, London, Old Divinity School, St John’s College, Cambridge University, North London Community House in London, Refugee Workers Cultural Association in London, University of East Anglia in Norwich and Aylesbury Youth Action in Buckinghamshire, the festival stretching to four towns for the first time.

Expect to see the latest releases from the festival circuit including Black Night (2022) and Snow and the Bear (2022) that premiered at the prestigious Golden Orange Festival in Antalya on Turkey’s Mediterranean riviera.

A TASTE OF ANATOLIA

Klimt & The Kiss (2023)

Dir: Ali Ray | UK Doc

“To every age its art, to every art its freedom” Vienna Secession.

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) is one of the most recognised paintings in the world and its reproduction posters adorn student bedroom walls from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

Yet this new documentary urges us to look beyond Klimt’s often decorative style at the extraordinary motivations of the celebrated Austro-Hungarian genius whose sensual Art Nouveau creations blend ancient myths with modern eclecticism, and are more valuable today than ever before fetching top prices at international auctions. Klimt’s final painting Lady with a Fan (1918) was sold in June 2023 for £85.3 million, the highest price artwork ever sold at auction in Europe, (according to BBC News).

Klimt was one of the pioneers the ‘Jugendstil’ movement known in Vienna as the ‘secessionists’ who joined a pan-European trend of breaking away and rejecting the old school along with the British Arts and Crafts and Impressionism movements in France.

Gustav Klimt’s 19th century Vienna was a time of conflicted sexuality: in society women were corseted and buttoned up but Klimt’s louche feminine depictions are bursting with a feral sensuality that conveys women’s true nature focusing on love, desire and the cycle of life from birth to death. In his private life, Klimt clearly loved and appreciated women and often slept with his models who hung around his studio, often naked, waiting for a chance to be depicted in his iconic images, reflecting an era that was deeply misogynist.

Meanwhile his elegant portraits of wealthy society hostesses such as Adele Bloch-Bauer and Sonia Knips provided the bread and butter for his lush artistic endeavours that include prints, murals and objets d’art, often elaborated with gold leaf, silver, gilt stucco and mother of pearl. There were also symbolist paintings: Judith and the Head of Holofernes, Pallas Athene, nymphs, water serpents and mermaids. His work also included landscapes and murals such as the famous Beethoven Frieze that adorns Vienna’s Secession Building.

Women also featured heavily in his private life. The artist lived with his mother and sisters and although he never married, his long term partner, the Austrian fashion couturier and businesswoman Emilie Louise Floge, whom he also painted in 1902, shared his artistic vision and dressed in her own loosely-designed feminine creations.

Klimt developed an ornate often dreamlike style and made use of different mediums to express human truths rooted in nature, flowers and the surreal, but his sketching technique was also superb and rivals that of Picasso in its simple yet sensual marks. The impact of grief, madness, love and death on the female body provided a rich source material and formed the basis of his avantgarde work.

Filmmaker Ali Ray makes liberal use of interviews with specialists and art curators to flesh out her latest biopic for Exhibition on Film that follows on from her previous documentaries on Frida Kahlo and Mary Cassatt, the American impressionist painter (2023).

ON RELEASE IN UK CINEMAS from 30 OCTOBER 2023

Saltburn (2023)

Dir/Wri: Emerald Fennell | Cast: Barry Keoghan, Rosamund Pike, Jacob Elordi, Richard E. Grant, Archie Madekwe | UK Thriller 122′

Emerald Fennell follows her Oscar-winner Promising Young Woman with a wicked tale that spins on two English maxims: ‘Never Complain, Never Explain’ and ‘To Thine Own Self be True’.

Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick (Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of Felix Catton (Elordi), who invites him to Saltburn, his family’s Oxfordshire estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.

Once again Fennell clearly knows the territory and Saltburn is an amusingly accurate account of life for an Oxford university ‘fresher’ (first termer) seen though the eyes of Oliver who is on a (state-funded) ‘full grant’. Gifted, gauche and perceptive he may be, but the star turn here is the privileged Felix who brings a refreshingly charismatic angle to the party. Felix is not only dashingly handsome, he is also empathetic and kind, extending the hand of friendship to Felix in the light of his father’s sudden death. Not so the rest of the Catton family who are the epitome of what English upper class eccentrics are supposed to be: arrogant, supercilious and hilarious. Urbaine and feigning ennui they lounge around in their magnificent pile in the country where Sir James (Grant) and self-confessed bisexual Lady Elspeth (Pike) hold sway (“I was a lesbian for a while but it was all too wet. Men are so lovely and dry”).

Richard E Grant and Rosamund Pike take to the milieu like ducks to water, along with Paul Rhys’ tight-lipped butler Duncan. The token black bohemian guest Farleigh (Madekwe) provides eclectic grist to the mix but Carey Mulligan, the star of Promising Young Woman, only makes a guest appearance as Pamela. Anthony Willis gives this all a funky twist with his original score and there’s a subversive scene where Oliver secretly watches Felix tossing himself off in the bath, ushering in his gay credentials which are never fully explored. Is he yet to come out or just a voyeur?.  

So Keoghan has a difficult, unlikable role that doesn’t convince as the middle class misfit who comes to stay fostering malign intent and latent bisexual undertones. He certainly manages a briefly sinister moment as a belligerent bisexual with feet of clay but when it turns out that Oliver is not what he seems, the proverbial shit hits the fan.

Fennell is certainly ‘a talent to amuse’, in the words of the great Noel Coward, but her plot resolution goes haywire in the final stages with a misjudged finale that feels unconvincingly shoed-in. Dreamily captured by Linus Sandgren’s inventive camerawork this cleverly observed satire is certainly worth seeing for its superb performances. MT

AMAZON MGM from 17 November 2023

The Killer (2023)

Dir: David Fincher | Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard | US Thriller 118′

David Fincher is back with another noir crime thriller that sees a philosophising hitman reflect on the meticulous precision and emotional detachment required for his day to day existence. But life is what happens when we’re making plans – as the saying goes – and this ‘gun for hire’ is quietly going round the bend.

Fresh from its world premiere at Venice Film Festival, The Killer, adapted from the French graphic novel by Alexis ‘Matz’ Nolent, stars Michael Fassbender as the hired assassin whose diurnal activities are voiced over by drole observations (“weakness is vulnerability”, “avoid empathy”) making this all the more intelligent and captivating, even when it descends into brutal violence. Even these scenes are sleekly choreographed in Fincher’s crisp direction and Andrew Kevin Walker’s lean script.

In the rooftops of Paris the unnamed killer is staking his target out, Day of the Jackal style. But too much time spent in preparation can often impact on performance. And this is one of the twists in a tale that sees the hitman running to keep still, as we soon discover: The Killer is an intellectual performance rather than a plot-driven one.

Sadly, a woman – his girlfriend (Monique Ganderton) – gets in the way of his day job after a home invasion goes wrong, and this blows our hero off course leading him on a peripatetic journey to the Caribbean, New York, Chicago, Florida and New Orleans Caribbean to unpick the mess. A gripping and highly enjoyable foray that keeps us on our toes with plenty of eye candy, thanks to DoP of the moment Erik Messerschmidt. MT

OUT TODAY IN CINEMAS | 10 November on NETFLIX

The Old Oak (2023)

Dir: Ken Loach | Wri: Paul Laverty | Cast: Dave Turner, Ebla Mari, Claire Rodgerson, Trevor Fox, Chris McGlade, Jordan Louis, Chrissie Robinson | UK Drama 117′

A far cry from his early hits Kes and Poor Cow, The Old Oak is another disingenuous sob story from Ken Loach and his pal Paul Laverty who joins him, on script duties, in eschewing a traditional narrative and rolling out the cliched pros and cons when a group of Syrian refugees are plonked into a village in County Durham. 

Naturally the locals aren’t best pleased when the busload arrives in the former mining town. Ressources are already stretched as it is and things can only get worse (which is presumably why most of the disgruntled locals voted Brexit).

That all said, Brits and Syrians gradually settle down into a modus vivendi as they get to know one another and realise everyone’s the same at the end of the day and just wants a simple life.

But what plays out is far from simplistic, and Laverty makes pleasing use of the vernacular with some seasoned old chestnuts peppered with expletives aplenty in telling the tale. And to be fair on old Ken, his latest is far and away a better film than his 2016 agitprop I, Daniel Blake. much loved and lorded by our friends abroad. This at least feels real and genuine with well-formed characters, and there’s a lovely scene set in Durham Cathedral. 

Robbie Ryan’s careful camerawork, a few laugh-out-loud gags and some naturalistic performances from a cast of newcomers – especially the two leads: Dave Turner and Ebla Mari, make The Old Oak unexpectedly moving and amusing despite the mawkish, over- protracted ending. Not a patch on Kes or Poor Cow though. MT

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK and FRANCE

Animal Farm (1954)

Dir: Joy Bachelor, John Halas | Animation 72’’

Animal Farm suffered a fate similar to Gulliver’s Travels‘ fifteen years earlier in reaching the screen as a Technicolor treat for kiddies in a fashion that would surely have shocked their creators.

Poor George Orwell went his grave being patted on the back by Tories congratulating him for his demolition of socialism in ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’ despite it being obvious to anyone with half a brain that the subject of his ire was Stalinism rather than socialism.

Viewed purely as a film it succeeds extremely well with its attractive and fluid photography and, until the final couple of minutes, is remarkably faithful to the original with capitalism getting pretty short shrift in the portrayal of the hateful Mr Jones and his cronies. @RichardChatten

 

Abschied (1930) Powell + Pressburger Season at the Bfi

Dir: Robert Siodmak | Cast: Brigitte Horney, Aribert Mog, Emilie Unda | Drama

Made in Neubabelsberg Studios in Berlin in just ten days on a budget of DM80,000, Abschied (Farewell) gained Emeric Pressburger his first screen credit during his brief sojourn in Weimar Germany before settling in Britain in 1936.

The action never leaves the shabby boarding house presided over by Emilia Unda, who some viewers might recall as the headmistress in Madchen in Uniform. Unlike Robert Siodmak’s previous outing of outdoor Neue Sachlicheit (Menschen am Sontag (1929) this anticipates the later garrulous romantic realism of Pressburger’s own Miracle in Soho minus the baroque touches one came to associate with those of his longtime collaborator Michael Powell. @RichardChatten

POWELL + PRESSBURGER SEASON AT THE BFI AUTUMN 2023

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Dir: Martin Scorsese | Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemmons, John Lithgow | US Drama 200’

Martin Scorsese’s 26th film is a love story, a crime thriller and an epic of cultural significance. Because it’s essentially about immigrants –  the white man taking over the natives in their own country evoked by film’s lyrical title – Killers of the Flower Moon is also bound to be universal and newsworthy in its appeal. But Scorsese also makes his first Western smoulderingly beautiful with each frame a glowing masterpiece capturing the ravishing splendour of the Oklahoma countryside during the prohibition years of the 1920s when most of the western world was caught up in the first world war.

Best female actor in a motion picture – drama – 81st Golden Globes @Benny Askinas

Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are masterful as the two villains of the piece with Jesse Plemmons offering integrity as the calm and straightforward man of the Law. DiCaprio acts his socks off but newcomer Lily Gladstone steals the show as the Native American woman he falls for and marries, mostly for love but also because his uncle (De Niro) is keen to ensure her fortune passes into the family, a common practice that spread through the region like wildfire, attracting all kinds of negative elements to this peaceful community and giving the film its spiritual element so loved by Scorsese: the serpent in the  Garden of Eden 

Three and a half hours steal by engrossingly as Scorsese and his co-writer Roth craft a treacherous tale of subplots and intrigue fleshing out each character to build a rich cinematic tapestry of the times but, in contrast to his New York fare, the violence here is nuanced and restrained but the film really needs to be seen on the big screen. If this true epic doesn’t win an Oscar I’ll eat my Stetson. MT

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – LILY GLADSTONE | 81st GOLDEN GLOBES 2024

 

Jules (2023)

Dir: Marc Turtletaub | Cast: Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris, Jade Quon and Jane Curtin | US 87′

Best described as a soft sci-fi dramady Jules follows a modest man living out his days in small town Pennsylvania. Marc Turtletaub combines topical and traditional themes in his darkly amusing tongue in cheek third feature starring Ben Kingsley.

Plagued by a daughter convinced he has dementia and a couple of deeply irritating neighbours (Harris and Curtin), Milton (Kingsley) keeps himself sane by attending local council meetings where his memory loss soon becomes cause for mildly amusing alarm.

But when a spaceship lands in the back garden, crushing his prized azaleas, a whole new world opens up and Milton finds out he is no longer living alone but with a gentle soul whom he names Jules.

Jules is a breath of fresh air, extra-terrestrial-wise. Mute and kindly, he provides comfort and a listening ear in this appealing and inventive caper that sees the three neighbours find meaning and connection later in life – thanks to an unlikely stranger. MT

JULES won the Audience Award at Sonoma International Film Festival | In cinemas 23 December 2023

 

Made in Prague Festival 2023

The Made in Prague Festival, one of the oldest national festivals in Britain, showcases the rich tapestry of arts, cinema, music, and culture – in the broadest sense – bringing cult classics and the latest Czech releases to the UK.

The festival this year celebrates its 27th edition with a gala opening and private view of Ultra Super-Natural by Barbora Šlapetová and Lukáš Rittstein, an unique testimony to the fusion of various cultures and civilizations that span the globe.

The backbone of the festival will be Czech film screenings featuring many British premieres. Highlights include Il Boemo, a biopic about the little known composer Josef Mysliveček, starring Vojtěch Dyk, who will join for a Q&A

A second Gala Special will present fresh from this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Restore Point, a sci-fi neo-noir thriller about the future of humanity. The screening at IMAX of this Hollywood-style production will be joined by female lead Andrea Mohylová along with the director and producer.

The Festival will conclude with the Gala pre-release screening of One Life, a biographical drama about British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton, starring among others Anthony Hopkins, capturing his efforts to save Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia.

Other films to look out for:

NIGHTSIREN

+ Q&A WITH DIRECTOR TEREZA NVOTOVÁ
Saturday 11 November, 5.30 pm / The Gate

A harrowing, yet beautiful take on patriarchy and internalised misogyny awarded by Golden Leopard at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival.

THE CRUCIFIED | Ukrizovana Dir: Boris Orlicky (1921) 

Sunday 19 November, 3.30 pm / JW3

Filmed in 1921, this classic silent Czech film offers a fascinating, if troubling, representation of Jews and antisemitism in 19th Century Europe.

VICTIM | Obet | Dir: Michal Blasko (2022)

Monday 27 November 2023 / Genesis

A universal tale about two-class societies, repressed xenophobia and racism, as well as broken hopes and dreams. The Slovak Republic’s national submission for 2023 Academy Awards. More info

ARVÉD | Dir: Vojtech Masek (2022) 

Tuesday 28 November, 6.45 pm / Czech Centre at the Czech Embassy Cinema

A fascinating insight into the life and mind of Jiří Arvéd Smíchovský, a charismatic hermeticist and occultist, who in his quest for knowledge became first a Nazi collaborator, than informer and witness in communist showtrials.

MADE IN PRAGUE FESTIVAL 2023 | 14-24 NOVEMBER 2023

Blind Date (1959)

Dir: Joseph Losey | Cast: Hardy Krüger, Stanley Baker, Micheline Presle and directed by Joseph Losey.

Joseph Losey and fellow blacklistee Ben Barzman joined Stanley Baker for the first time in this stylish if talky crime film.

The scenes between Hardy Kruger and Micheline Presle as Jaqueline Cousteau who plays Losey’s habitual glacial continental actress – greeting Kruger with the come-on line “I always wondered what Holland exported apart from tulips, now I know!” – have an erotic tension Losey never achieved again; while Baker’s friction with his superiors continues his perennial obsession with Britain’s class system which came to full fruition in ‘The Servant’.

Availing himself of Britain’s best technicians Losey as usual avails himself of a classy British cameraman in the form of Christopher Challis and a snazzy jazz score. @RichardChatten

Beyond Utopia (2023)

Dir/Wri: Madeleine Gavin | US Doc 115′

This electrifying new documentary about North Korea focuses on those trying to escape the brutal regime, and won this year’s Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival. 

Filmmaker Madeleine Gavin shows how South Korean pastor Kim Seungeun has dedicated much of his life to assisting the perilous flight of many from North Korea and onwards to safety through China, often with the help of fixers. And we witness frenzied footage of one family’s courageous escape through the voyeuristic camerawork of Taylor Krauss and Lisa Rinzler.

North Korea is certainly a weird and wicked totalitarian regime that represses its citizens with torture, a spartan lifestyle and the bizarre practice of forcing them to commit their personal solid waste to government centres to be used as fertiliser.

Beyond Utopia is not an easy film to watch but it’s certainly worthwhile. Crucially, these are real situations involving real people who risk the indignities of capture, torture and even execution if they are caught defecting. And that mere fact alone certainly concentrates the tension.

Fortunately there is a positive outcome for one family but Beyond Utopia often feels terrifyingly intense as it flips between fraught interviews with those concerned, and actual footage of their flight and the aftermath. The lucky escapees soon reflect on how wrong they were to believe that North Korea could ever be a paradise. MT

BEYOND UTOPIA is out in UK cinemas 24 October 2023

 

Pulp (1972)

Dir: Mike Hodges | Cast: Michael Caine · Mickey King ; Mickey Rooney · Preston Gilbert • Lionel Stander · Ben Dinuccio ; Lizabeth Scott | UK Drama

Having used the north of England as an incongruous setting for a tale of gangland violence in ‘Get Carter’, Mike Hodges and Michael Caine – who has announced his retirement at the age of 90 – journeyed to Malta for this disarmingly inconsequential shaggy dog story with echoes of the Montessi scandal.

The film abounds in cute visual conceits like the ubiquitous election posters of Frank Cippolata, a police lineup of hitmen dressed as priests; while Caine is at his most laconic passing judgements like “two crossed coffins on the Michelin guide” on a small town.

Along the way he encounters various eccentrics, including Dennis Price in a wide-brimmed hat that earns him the nickname “the Mad Hatter”, Lionel Stander (who actually tells his driver to “take him for a ride”), Mickey Rooney as an abrasive gangster star who boats of being “killed in eighty movies” (I wonder what happened to that portrait of him in his heyday on the wall of his mansion) and most surprising of all – one for the teenagers – Miss Lizabeth Scott. @RichardChatten

Snow Leopard (2023)

Dir/scr. Pema Tseden. China. 2023. 109mins

The snow leopard is a protected animal in its native Tibet but it represents different things to the local people in this wild region. 

Pema Tseden, the pioneering founder of Tibetan cinema who died in May at the age of 53, rose to the international stage with his 2019 feature Balloon. With a unique cinematic vision Tseden shows how some Tibetans see this legendary leopard as a vicious threat, others a mythical being.

The sharp contrasts between tradition and the present day come to life in a striking story that centres on a family disagreement in the frosty wastelands where the rare beast roams as an increasingly endangered species.

Sheepherder Jinpa and his father are caught in a bitter conflict. Jinpa wants to kill a leopard that has run riot through his sheep enclosure killing nine of his frightened herd, but his father (Losang Choepel) feels this sacred animal should to be set free. 

All this is recorded by a film crew who arrives from Qinghai province in northwest China keen on collecting newsworthy local stories. Lead reporter Dradul (Genden Phuntsok) has been tipped off by the herder’s brother, Nyima (Tseten Tashi), a monk, and the TV journalist is delighted when the situation takes on a ludicrous angle as the conflict deepens and this gives the film a touch of dry humour.

The enraged Jinpa will only back down if he gets compensation from the government. But this entails the endorsement of a government inspector who will have to travel all the way from the administrative capital days away.

So crew and family hunker down in the cosy yurt for a raucous night of high altitude hospitality. When the inspector finally arrives the conflict takes on a kafkaesque quality that often crackles with caustic comedy.  Spectacular landscapes and mesmerising naturalistic performances, particularly from the leopard itself, make this particularly worth watching. MT.

NOW IN UK CINEMAS on 22 NOVENBER

 

 

Doctor Jekyll (2023)

Dir: Joe Stephenson | Cast: Eddie Izzard, Scott Chambers, Lindsay Duncan, Robyn Cara | UK Horror 90′

Following on from last week’s The Exorcist: Believer comes yet another version of a classic that bears no relation to any of its predecessors; although at least Doctor Jekyll retains its original author’s name in the credits.

This modern interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, Doctor Jekyll centres on one Dr. Nina Jekyll, a recluse who finds friendship with her newly hired help, Rob, played by emerging actor Scott Chambers. They must work together to prevent Hyde from destroying her life. 

As the titular Nina Jekyll Eddie Izzard never looks like other than Eddie Izzard in drag (and serves to remind one of what a fine female impersonator Dick Emery was). What little narrative the horror outing has falls on the charmingly slender shoulders of Scott Chambers. But as a whole there’s far too much talk – punctuated by the frequent use of sledgehammer music cues – and it actually gets wordier as it gets gorier.

According to the publicity blurb, the release of Doctor Jekyll heralds a new era for Hammer, founded in 1934 and now owned by British theatre producer John Gore. As well as significant investment, Gore’s new vision for the company, fuelled by a lifelong love of all things Hammer, will lead to a string of new films bearing the iconic Hammer name, and Doctor Jekyll is, apparently, only the beginning. @RichardChatten

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyPUuM4COMU

Victoria the Great (1937)

Dir: Herbert Wilcox | Cast: Anna Neagle, Anton Walbrook, H B Warner, Walter Rilla | Uk Drama 1937

Dufaycolor sold a lot of film in 1937 with the attraction of filming the Coronation in colour. In ‘Victoria the Great’ Herbert Wilcox was able to lavish Technicolor on recreating Victoria’s diamond jubilee forty years earlier.

Anthony Collins’ score is often inclined to be rather twee, but Wilcox directs with a lighter touch than usual although historical figures are throughout unsubtly addressed by name – such as ‘Lord Melbourne’, ‘Sir Robert’ and ‘Lord Palmerston – as a very obvious means of identifying them.

The film makes no secret of the German roots of the Royal Family (to the extent that Wilcox got a letter from the Kaiser himself congratulating him on the portrayal of her grandmother).

Anna Neagle invests the young Victoria with spunk, but it’s greatest distinction is probably bringing Anton Walbrook to British films, although as David Shipman later dryly observed Walbrook’s performance as Albert “suggested that Albert married beneath him”.) @RichardChatten

Bernadette (2023)

Dir/Wri: Lea Domenach | Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Denis Podalydes, Sara Girardeau | France Comedy drama 90′

Behind every great man there’s an even greater woman. And Catherine Deneuve gives a laconic comedy turn in this political biopic based on Bernadette Chirac (1933-) and the final years of popular French president Jacques Chirac, who held two terms of office from the mid nineties until 2007.

Bernadette (1933-) is clearly not a woman to be trifled with and Deneuve fits the role perfectly as the deceptively savvy second fiddle to her successful spouse (played by Michel Vuillermoz).

Feeling sidelined at the Elysee Palace when her daughter (Sara Girardeau) lands a plumb job, this indomitable sixty something showstopper steps out of the sidelines and reinvents herself as a media personality playing the press – and her husband with sparky savoir faire to become a political icon in her own right.

In the semi-fictionalised drama director Lea Domenach shares script duties with Clemence Dargent. A star-studded cast is bolstered by a drole and deadpan Denis Podalydes as the First Lady’s right hand man. Lovers of Deneuve will lap up this snappy satire with its retro costumes and settings in Reims, Epernay and the Palais of Versailles itself. MT

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE and BELGIUM

 

 

The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

Dir: David Gordon Green | Cast: Leslie Odom, Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett, Olivia O’Neill and Ellen Burstyn | US Horror 111′

Exactly 50 years ago this autumn, the most terrifying horror film in history landed on screens, shocking audiences around the world. Sadly The Exorcist: Believer is not a patch on the original just an attempt to attract a ‘younger audience’ by garnering traction from William Friedkin’s far superior outing.

In this often ludicrous ‘sequel’ Angela (Lidya Jewett) plays the girl, and the single parent is Victor (Leslie Odom Jr), a photographer who refuses to allow his daughter to play with her friend Katherine (O’Neill) during downtime. And he’s not stupid, because after school the two girls secretly sneak off to the nearby woods to stage a seance in the hope of contacting Angela’s late mother. Days later they reappear having no memory of their ill-judged escapade.

David Gordon Green certainly succeeds visually, character and mood wise: his horror film is subtly sinister and supernatural in its autumn settings and all goes well until midday through when the project nosedives: it’s as if Gordon Green has taken leave of his own senses possessed by the producers to churn out yet another franchise.

Victor decides to track down the only person he knows with any experience of the previous affair, and – back for another turn – it’s Ellen Burstyn, as splendid as she was in the 1973 original. Thence the film loses its way and its new plot lines in a melodramatic maelstrom of jump scares, speeches and sentimentality. The master Friedkin will be turning in his grave.

OUT IN UK CINEMAS FROM 6 OCTOBER 2023

 

 

The Goldman Case (2023)

Dir: Cédric Kahn | Cast: Arieh Worthalter, Arthur Harari, Stéphan Guérin-Tillié, Nicolas Briançon, Aurélien Chaussade | France, Drama 118’

Courtroom dramas have always been popular on the big screen and the latest crop has provided solid entertainment and done well award-wise on the festival circuit. Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, won the Palme D’or at Cannes’, and Alice Diop’s Saint Omer, garnered the main prize at Venice last summer, with Santiago Mitre’s Argentina 1985 scooping the FIPRESCI prize.

Based on real events, Cédric Kahn’s The Goldman Case is a caustic affair redolent of the politically charged 1970s (the time of the Red Brigades and Badder-Meinhof group) and bristling with the anger and self-righteousness of its central character, the militant leftwing radical Pierre Goldman accused of murder and robbery.

As we are constantly reminded in these legal battles, the truth is irrelevant, the outcome always depends on the clever application of the law and the jury’s verdict. But as the trial gets underway, it soon emerges that this man has been falsely accused, and vehemently denies both the murder of two pharmacists and four counts of robbery. The plot turns on whether the all important jury with find him guilty as charged, or innocent.

Kahn, who wrote the script with Nathalie Hertzberg, sets the scene well, opening with a meeting in the offices of the defendant’s lawyer, Maître Kiejman (Arthur Harari). From then on we are closeted in the claustrophobic confines of the courtroom for the pithy procedural, all and sundry sweating it out in their closely tailored woollen suits as the fiery rhetoric flies backwards and forwards. And no one is more belligerent than the defendant himself – Worthalter is screen dynamite, remaining a figure of outright indignation to the very last as the falsely accused Goldman. The resentment he exudes is palpable, but whether you can stand the heat for two hours in this smouldering battle of wits inspired by his prison penned autobiography, ‘Obscure Memories of a Polish Jew Born in France’, is arguable.

Patrick Ghiringhelli does his best to make it all cinematic but this is rather a dry drama that serves to showcase the antisemitism and racism of the era, not least on the part of the police, and will certainly go down well with left wing intellectuals. It does seem extraordinary than a man could be accused and stand trial in such a high profile way without substantial proof of guilt, or indeed, any tangible witnesses. An off-duty policeman (Jeanson) – who purportedly saw the defendant at the scene of the crime – is wheeled into the witness box, and a friend of Goldman’s (Tshibangu) claims he was coerced by the police into giving evidence. Polish actor Jerzy Radziwilowicz (from Man of Marble) plays Goldman’s father, a war veteran who bolsters his son’s case from the outset, inculcating him with a strong sense of self belief from childhood that eventually led to a stint as a guerrilla in Venezuela. A strong cast also includes Nicolas Briancon as the judge Maitre Garaud. MT

The Goldman Case is released in UK & Irish cinemas 23rd August 2024 

 

D.O.A. (1949)

Dir: Rudolph Mate. | Cast: Edmond O’Brian, Pamela Britton, Luther Adler, Beverly Garland | US Drama 83’

With a title like that I think I’m safe in discussing this film’s plot without issuing a spoiler alert since most viewers are already well appraised of the plot in advance. A man, Frank Bigelow, has told he’s been poisoned and has only a few days to live, so he tries to find out who killed him and why. 

At the outset of Kind Hearts and Coronets Denis Price laconically observes “when a man is to be hanged in the morning it concentrates his mind wonderfully”. Edmond O’Brien undergoes a similar transformation since the knowledge he only has hours to live has completely removed the fear of death which enables him to ride roughshod through a collection of ghouls; a situation bookended by the opening when he strides into a police station to report a murder and when the sergeant asks who, replies “I was!” and in a later flashback a scientist informs him “You’ve been murdered!” (only in a noir would you you hear a line like that!).

What makes the cinema such a rich experience is that it exists in a permanent present, so even though O’Brien dies at the end he remains marvellously alive each time the film is repeated. @RichardChatten 

STREAMING ON PLEX TV

Club Zero (2023)

Wri/Dir: Jessica Hausner | Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Sam Hoare, Camilla Rutherford, Elsa Zylberstein | UK

Jessica Hausner is back with another cold-eyed psychological drama that unfolds in an elite school where a teacher forms a sinister bond with a group of students.

A dereliction of parental duty is behind the faddish behaviour of so many kids today. Or so Jessica Hausner would have us believe in her primary-coloured feature that also highlights eating disorders through the online ‘pro-ana movement’, climate change and self control.

Mia Wasikowska heads the eclectic cast of singularly unlikeable characters as Miss Novak a nutritionist specialising in ‘zero eating’ in a modernist school billed as one of the best in Austria. The parents are rich and mostly neglectful of their kids who channel this latent disappointment and lack of real guidance by voicing a series of contemporary convictions which sound entirely laudable in the opening scenes: their love of sport, their need to impact less on to the environment. No one actually mentions a desire to be slim. Gradually Miss Novak indoctrinates her students into a cult of disfunctional eating, promoting the miraculous health and environmental benefits.

Hausner and her regular screenwriting partner Geraldine Bajard certainly make some really valid points but the stark, non-naturalistic interiors and characters are so intractable, performed by a cast of inexperienced newcomers, we do not care a jot for any of them as they fade into pasty-faced insignificance, and this, along with an irritating percussive soundscape and the relentlessly unforgiving depiction of Gen Z, makes for an arduous watch.

The exception here is school principal Sidse Babett Knudsen who lights up every scene with her amusing charisma, as Ms Dorset. Fellow auteur Ulrich Seidl is behind the production team but the film has none of his dry wit or deadpan appeal. Instead we are forced to endure a scene involving a teenage girl (Ksenia Devriendt) who eats her own vomit, echoing the ‘yuk’ factor of Ruben Ostlund’s Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness. Bodily functions are a natural part of life but sound effects would have been far more effective. Sometimes what we don’t see is far more powerfu than what we do. MT

NOW IN UK CINEMAS from 6 DECEMBER 2024

8 of the Best Musical Biopics

Amy (2015) Rent/Buy

Best known for Senna, his acclaimed 2010 on about late Formula One driver, Asif Kapadia garnered an Oscar for this bittersweet biopic introducing the Southgate-born jazz singer as a “North London Jewish girl with a lot of attitude”, who loved to write poetry and lyrics. Unearthing a treasure trove of photos, home movie footage and demos shared from over 100 interviews from those closest to her, he shows Winehouse as a witty, down to earth and “gobby” girl with a rich and velvety voice, who never wanted to be famous but whose inadvertent stardom let to her tragic death, aged 27.

Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road (2021) – Apple TV/Prime Video

Do we need another Brian Wilson documentary? I Just Wasn’t made for These Times and Love & Mercy have already told his story, but the billion or so the super-fans will always ask for more. And The Beach Boys were America’s answer to The Beatles, back in the day, they epitomised an era and their harmonies are almost as divine – so yes, we do!.

Director Brent Wilson (no relation), veteran of music docs like Streetlight Harmonies, has tried the linear angle, confronting the images of the ‘Beach Boy’ founder with today’s survivor of schizoid-affective and bi-polar disorders, who enjoys being on tour again, even though the hallucinatory voices still haunt him – and have done for the last 60 years – when he is performing, in spite of all the medication available.

‘Rolling Stone’ editor Jason Fine, a close friend of Wilson, drives the megastar composer/singer round his favourite haunts, sadly only getting monosyllabic answers to his leading questions. Brian is very much in the shell he has created to survive. And there is more that enough pain for anybody to deal with, let alone a highly-strung artist.

Music-wise there is extensive time devoted to the iconic “Pet Sounds” and SMiLE, that came into being in the mid-1960s and finished thirty years later. There are few revelations, the bitter chapter of Brian’s relationship with fellow Beach Boy Mike Love is nearly brushed out of the picture. Only once the mask of self-defence slips, when Brian tells Jason “I have not talked to a real friend in three years.”

Miles Davis : Birth of the Cool (2019) Netflix/Apple TV

Documentarian Stanley Nelson tells it all in the usual talking heads style – Frances Taylor, Greg Tate, Carlos Santana, Herbie Hancock and his final manager Mark Rothbaum all appear and a straightforward narrative structure enlivened by many photos and clips from the archives. The film luxuriates in its musical interludes which are enjoyable and plentiful making this possibly the definitive biopic of one of the most inventive jazz musicians of the 20th century. Stanley Nelson’s expansive documentary takes an entertaining breeze through the musical career of Miles Davis eclipsing Don Cheadle’s movie 2015 drama Miles Ahead

“All I ever wanted to do was communicate through music”. The iconic jazz trumpeter and composer developed smooth romantic vibes and invented a cool, sophisticated masculinity that came to be known as the ‘Miles Davis Mystique’. For over five decades Miles developed various jazz styles from bebop, cool jazz and jazz fusion working with Prestige, Columbia, and Warner Brothers despite a rocky personal life that was full of love but fraught by ill health and emotional instability.

Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2017)

As fabulous now as when she was in 1979 when I first experienced her at a concert in Italy’s famous Covo di Nord Est – Grace Jones still rocks. Now at 75 her voice has mellowed, wavering occasionally, but her glamour and star power are just as potent and her aura and outrageous antics as just spectacular, if not more.

After an overture of Slave to the Rhythm where Grace performs in purple regalia and a golden sunburst mask, Fiennes cuts to an autograph session with fans fawning: “I’ve been waiting to see you for 25 years” – Grace responds “so has my mother”. Suddenly we are following her through Jamaica airport for an exuberant reunion with her mother (who looks like Aretha Franklin), son Paolo and niece Chantel, and as night falls, the camera pictures a sultry moonlight gig in the torridly tropical island, drenched in lush emerald forests.

Fiennes’ punctuates the gutsy real time footage shot in her kitchen, car and dressing room – with Grace’s mesmerising Dublin stage show, but both are beguiling and cinematic. Fiennes’ shirks the traditional documentary format – there are no photos or archive footage, making Bloodlight And Bami fresh, feisty and intriguing for longtime fans who have never really experienced the woman ‘behind the scenes’. It’s also longer than most docs at nearly 2 hours. In concert footage, Grace mesmerises with performances of Pull Up To The Bumper and more personal tracks including Williams’ Blood, This Is and Hurricane. She is s force of nature, and certainly a force to be reckoned with. MT

Stop Making Sense (David Byrne and Talking Heads (1985 re-released in 2023) AppleTV/Prime Video

Maybe not the latest look at but certainly the most iconic, this is a musical biopic in the best sense of the word. In Hollywood December 1983, French director Jonathan Demme films three concerts from Scottish maverick music maker David Byrne, rolling them out without explanation or talking heads – although Talking Heads are very much part of the scene. The bands speaks for itself and we get the best seats – on stage, up close and personal and from the back of the auditorium, even loitering in the wings. Demme’s film is an energising experience made at the climax of what would be the band’s final major tour. The show starts with the beat-driven Pyscho Killer and works its way through a classic repertoire with hits such as, Take Me to the Water to This Must be the Place that scored Paolo Sorrentino’s film of the same name in 2011 and of course, Once in a Lifetime. Byrne gradually relaxes from taut jutting-faced uncertainty to a more smiling and febrile intensity, a style icon in white plimsolls and oversized concrete-coloured suits. Hypnotic to look at, his moves are as funky, smooth and syncopated as Bing Crosby or even Elvis without the sexual magnetism: Byrne is a performer more artfully ambivalent in his erotic appeal, but none the less legendary. And he feels very much at home on his own or surrounded by his family of Talking Heads. A nostalgic, diverting, happy film. MT

Rachmaninov:The Harvest of Sorrow (1998) Rent/Buy

Tony Palmer’s extensive documentary about one of the world’s most loved composers (1873-1943) is a vibrant memoire, enlivened by musical interludes and ample archive footage of his life and times in Russia, Sweden and the United States where he finally died in 1943, unable to return to his beloved homeland: “a ghost wandering forever in the world”.

Playing out as a long autobiographical letter to his daughters Tatiana and Irina, voiced by Gielgud in slightly sardonic but wistful tone, the film covers the composer’s life until his final months in New York. But it starts at a low point, with the Rachmaninoff family leaving Russia in 1917, escaping from the Bolshevik devastation of Petrograd (soon to be Leningrad) set for musical adventures in Stockholm, and thence to America. Desperate about leaving his homeland, the composer also felt at a low ebb creatively: “Nowadays I am never satisfied with myself, I am burdened with a harvest of sorrow: I almost never feel that what I do is successful”.

Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023) Netflix

Rock legend Little Richard comes alive in this new biopic from Lisa Cortes. It sees the musical icon trying to come to terms with his complex personality and explores the lack of public recognition during his lifetime. John Waters, Mick Jagger and Tom Jones – among others – help to shed light on a life so full of promise, but blighted by social reality. Sometimes verging on the hagiographic, Cortes manages a wealth of information with aplomb, a more non-linear approach might have been an alternative.

Richard Wayne Penniman (1932-2020) was born in Macon (GA) in the deep South of he USA. Black, queer and disabled he was most certainly abused in childhood. But his deep religious faith eventually led to him renouncing his gayness: “God wanted Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”.

The man who would create “Tutti Frutti”, ”Long Tall Sally”. “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Rip it Up” single-handedly invented Rock’N’ Roll – but the glory and the awards went to Elvis and Pat Boone: No wonder, he felt cheated. He was the architect of an art form and a social identity that became progressively clearer only later in his life.

ENNIO (2021) Prime Video

Ennio Morricone was one of cinema’s best loved and most prolific composers. Giuseppe Tornatore captures his complex romantic spirit in this warmly nostalgic tribute that also celebrates their own working relationship that started with Cinema Paradiso (1988) and continued for many years. In his lifetime Morricone scored over 500 movies, one year alone completing 18 films.

The biopic straddles film and musicology enriched by a treasure trove of excerpts and the stars that brought them to life praising Morricone’s charisma and single mindedness and describing their own experiences with a man whose modesty contrasted with his prodigious talent to amuse. The final half hour does feel repetitive with its endless clips of concert performances which add nothing to the party, and almost fly in the face of the composer’s lowkey sense of style. MT

 

 

 

 

 

The Killers (1964) BFI

Dir: Don Siegel | Cast: Angie Dickerson, Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, Clu Galager | US Thriller 93’

The credits of the second version of Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 short story – in which the target is only fleetingly seen – actually reads ‘Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers’.

Don Siegel’s version actually achieves the extraordinary achievement of improving on Robert Siodmak’s 1946 classic and focuses on the two hit men rather than their mark.

Originally made for TV but deemed too violent, the  film finally made a star of Lee Marvin after a decade playing ugly heavies (Siegel begins the film with Marvin beating up a blind woman to save time establishing from the outset just what he was capable of).

The film contains the screen swan song of Ronald Reagan, a move Reagan bitterly regretted since it was the only time he played a villain; but he’s really rather good (witness his final close up at the film’s conclusion).” @RichardChatten

NOW AT BFI SOUTHBANK LONDON

LaRoy (2023)

Dir/Wri: Shane Atkinson | Cast: John Magaro, Steve Zahn, Dylan Baker, Galadriel Stineman, Matthew Del Negro, Brad Leland, Bob Clendenin, Megan Stevenson, Darcy Shean | US Comedy thriller, 110′

LaRoy is a quietly triumphant Coen-esque comedy thriller centring on a case of mistaken identity in small-town Texas. 

John Magaro plays Ray, a biddable good-looking guy living out a humdrum existence in the Texas town of LaRoy where he would do anything to make his beauty queen wife Stacy-Lynn happy. But his thoughts turn to suicide on discovering she is cheating on him with his brother Junior (Matthew Del Negro), who helps him run the family hardware business.

A chance meeting with Skip (Steve Zahn) makes Ray reconsider his options. Skip, a dangerous fantasist, takes himself far too seriously and has a random recall of reality. Posing as a private eye he acts and dresses ‘more like Howdy Doody’. But the well-meaning Ray falls in with Skip’s plan to investigate a series of small time crooks in the hope that he can raise money for Stacy-Lyn’s dream of owning a beauty salon.

Together the two men vaguely foster unrealised dreams of validating their empty lives and even making themselves local heroes. And this leads to a doomed partnership in crime with their awkward social interactions giving the film its most drole moments, after Ray is mistaken for a hit-man.

A series of showcase support characters are well-formed and believable: Dylan Baker is the sinister standout, the real hit-man Harry (and he’s not ‘here to help’); Galadriel Stineman is Angie, Skip’s feisty ex; Adam Leland (from Friday Night Lights) is a misogynist used-car salesman called LeDoux but his wife Midge (Darcy Sheen) gets the best line: in fact women certainly have the upper hand in this Texas town. 

So an understated gem of a debut from Shane Atkinson, the deadpan humour is subtle and incidental but vital to the film’s success, with memorable lines and characters that feel real and resonate long after the tragic ending. You may want to see it again for this reason, I certainly did, and will. There are certainly echoes of the Coen brothers, but Atkinson has forged his own path and seems like a filmmaker who has set out on a worthwhile journey. Let’s hope we see more of him. MT

LaRoy, Texas will be available on Digital Download from 12th April https://www.vertigoreleasing.com 

 

 

 

 

 

King and Country (1964)

In 1963 Joseph Losey’s huge success with The Servant gave him carte blanche with his next project.

Since the following year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the First World War – an occasion celebrated by a landmark TV series of interviews with survivors – Losey took the opportunity to interrogate his perennial fascination with the British class system which resulted in one of the most raw and powerful anti-war films since ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’.

To that end he enlisted Dirk Bogarde to represent the officers and Tom Courtney the common man who plays a sacrificial lamb akin to those in Kubrick’s Paths of Glory.

 During World War I, Courtenay is Hamp, a young soldier who deserts his post, attempting to escape the relentless guns and mud and walk home. Captain Hargreaves (Bogarde), an aristocratic British Army lawyer, must defend Hamp before the army tribunal, for whom the crime of desertion carries the threat of execution. Initially, Hargreaves approaches Hamp’s case with disdain; however, upon learning that Hamp volunteered for duty on a dare, that he is the sole survivor of his unit and that his wife has been unfaithful in his absence, his efforts on Hamp’s behalf become more impassioned and earnest. In the face of cold army bureaucracy, Hargreaves’s arguments fall on deaf ears as Hamp becomes a victim of morale-boosting on the eve of the troop’s deployment into an impending bloody battle.

Even by Losey’s standards King and Country is a relentless and harrowing experience. It proved to be his final black & white film and lost its entire tiny production costs. Losey career never completely recovered and in retrospect it can now be seen as the beginning of his decline. @RichardChatten

KING AND COUNTRY on Blu-Ray or DVD now.

La Petite (2023)

Dir: Guillaume Nicloux | Cast: Fabrice Luchini, Ann Corsini, Maria Taquine | France/Belgium drama 97’| 

The medieval city of Ghent and the Belgian coastline make a handsome setting for this otherwise fraught family drama from Guillaume Nicloux (The Nun).

Based on Fanny Chesnel’s novel The Crib it stars Fabrice Lucchini as a lonely and fractious furniture restorer called Joseph whose estranged son and partner are killed in a car accident, making the old boy even more morose.

Joseph then discovers that the couple were expecting a child from a surrogate mother, so a moral responsibility rests on his shoulders, as the grandfather, to track down and befriend the surrogate, a fearsome Flemish virago called Rita Vandewaele. (Maria Taquine)

Being anti-social and uncomfortable out of his comfort zone, this is a difficult task for Joseph and the awkwardness of the situation gives rise to some mawkish humour that falls rather flat as Luchini tries his best to build a rapport with another unlikeable character. Ann Corsini is underused as the only ray of sunshine – apart from the baby – in this rather bland affair that leaves us as cold as its subject-matter. MT

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM

Visions (2023)

Dir: Yann Gozlan, Diane Kruger, Mathieu Kassovitz, Marta Nieto | France, Erotic Thriller 120′

Mediterranean seascapes, modernist villas and a mysterious ménage à trois with a mile-high club pilot. A Perfect Man director Yann Gozlan delivers it all in this glossy erotic thriller that echoes Basic Instinct without its juicy plotline. Visions is fun until it gets stuck on the runway, with Philippe Rombi’s classy score a dead ringer for Jerry Goldsmith’s iconic BI original.

Diane Kruger is perfectly cast as glacial airline pilot Estelle. Living the dream with her medic lover Guillaume (Kassovitz) in their Bandol beachside villa; she drives a Porsche, he a black BMW motorcycle. The opening scene pictures her powering her way through the waves on a morning swim in Côte d’Azur waters: but there’s a sting in the tail to this idyll: a smack of deadly jellyfish hovers nearby setting a sinister tone for this unsettling study in sexual obsession and paranoia.

Estelle’s meticulous routine soon goes awry thanks to the reappearance of former flame Ana (Marta Nieto). The two set eyes on each other in an airport lounge and the rest is history. But their lesbian lust is threatened by someone peering through the keyhole, and it looks suspiciously like Guillaume in his snazzy helmet, or maybe it’s the stray dog that roams around the beach.

When Ana goes missing Estelle’s imagination works overtime imagining her with another lover, as baleful glances and salacious stares are shared with the putative paramour, a gallery-owner called Johana (Amira Casar). Estelle is reduced to a nervous wreck: She must kick her benzo habit and return to those microbiome-friendly smoothies and stick to the original plan – a baby with the long-suffering Guillaume (a criminally underused Kassovitz). 

Coasting on its captivating camerawork and atmosphere this is a moody, erotic thriller to be enjoyed on the big screen. But no amount of visual wizardry can make up for a vehicle that cannot seem to land. Gozlan, collaborating with various other writers, has certainly hammed up on his knowledge of piloting, and that give us something to chew on in a portrait of obsession that goes badly wrong. MT

NOW ON RELEASE IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM.

A Journey in Spring (2023) San Sebastián Film Festival 2023

Dirs: Ping-Wen Wang, Tzu-Hui Peng | Taiwan, Drama, 90′ 

Lovers of slow-burning Asian Arthouse cinema in the masters Jia Zhangke, Tsai Ming-liang or Kim Ki-Duk will warm to this drole and dystopian look at a marriage in decline and its aftermath.

A languorous opening sequence by a waterfall gives way to a bustling street scene that shows, without the need for words, that Khim-Hok and his wife Tua are no longer happy together. And who can I blame a bickering middle-aged couple forced into close proximity enduring the dregs of winter in a rain-soaked rural backwater, dreary despite its magnificent temples and lively food market.

Small domestic altercations in the couple’s cramped living conditions collide with serene moments in the lush Taiwanese countryside when Khim-Hok remembers their promising past and his estranged son’s happy wedding, seen in flashback, as he waits endlessly for a bus. Back at home matters come to a head after an incident with a jar of plums, and the following day when Tua quietly passes away he decides to relegate her body to the chest freezer.

But their son and his partner suddenly appear on the scene, unannounced, after years of absence. Khim-hok clearly has some explaining to do and this clarity focuses his mind and brings the past flooding back into the present leading him on a cathartic and often poignant journey of reflection and self-discovery.

Seasoned filmmakers Ping-Wen Wang and Tzu-Hui Peng direct this assured and resplendent Taiwanese tale that unfolds in evocative tableaux giving minor moments of everyday life a resonance without resorting to fanfare or fussy dialogue. Journey into Spring is a watchable joy – particularly for an international audience outside Taiwan – with its minimal dialogue. The sleek script speaks volumes leaving nothing spare in a muted and memorable 21st century parable. MT

SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2023 | GOLDEN SHELL 2023

Hit Man (2023)

Dir. Richard Linklater. US.Comedy 2023. 113mins

Gary Johnson seems like just another dorky divorcee with his cats and Honda civic. But life is turned upside down when he takes on a “fake assassin’ job for the New Orleans Police Department, in Richard Linklater’s latest, a noir comedy, premiering at Venice.

Hit Man, a crowd-pleasing comedy to kick off the summer, is a real feel-good affair co-written by Linklater and Glen Powell who stars as the unlikely undercover cop who also lectures in philosophy at the city’s university. And despite geeky outside appearances Gary pulls off both roles convincingly in a confident comedy turn that sees him in different disguises and personas – from Russian gangster to Redneck – a far cry from the open-toed sandals and baggy jeans of his geeky prof role.

Gary poses as a jobbing gun for hire, snagging his victims with false assurances, these putative perps are then pounced on by a posse of police and dealt with by the strong arm of the law. That is until Gary falls for one unhappy wife called Madison (Adria Arjona) – and it seems the feeling is mutual – the two sharing a simmering chemistry, Gary rising to occasion in ways he never thought possible.

Madison wants rid of her husband, so Gary invents an alter ego in the shape of Ron so the two can get down and dirty without being “unprofessional”. Soon they’re scheming like Stanwyck and MacMurray, and Gary is soon out of his depth. Let’s remember Madison is contemplating murder while Gary is just a decent guy stroking his pussies! Luckily his colleagues are there to support him but will they come to the rescue before Gary finds himself in deep water?

The clever script and whip-smart dialogue ensures Hit Man never descends into farce or camp territor, Sandra Adair editing with deft aplomb. A welcome and enjoyable edition to the Linklater archive. MT

NOW IN UK & IRISH CINEMAS- VENICE FILM FESTIVAL PREMIERE 2023

San Sebastián Film Festival | Competition selection 2023

The San Sebastian Film Festival is Spain’s only A-list event running from 22 September until 30th in the North West Spanish town on the shores of the Atlantic, and often known by its Basque name of Donostia. This year celebrating its 71st edition, a selection of Spanish titles and international fare competes for the Golden Shell Award in venues such as the Kursaal and the Victoria Eugenia theatre. This year’s edition, honouring Victor Erice, and headed by Claire Denis as president of the Golden Shell jury, kicks off withThe Boy and The Heron and closes with James Marsh’s Dance First starring Gabriel Byrne.

THE BOY AND THE HERON – Hayao Miyazaki

A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki. Out of competition

DANCE FIRST – James Marsh

Literary genius Samuel Beckett lived a life of many parts: Parisian bon vivant, WWII Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband, recluse. But despite all the adulation that came his, way he was a man acutely aware of his own failings. Titled after Beckett’s famous ethos “Dance first, think later,” the film is a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon. Out of Competition

Competition films

ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT – Raven Jackson

A lyrical decades spanning exploration across a woman’s life in Mississippi, this feature debut from award-winning poet, photographer and filmmaker Raven Jackson is a haunting and richly layered ode to the generations of people that hail from the region.

A JOURNEY IN SPRING – Tzu-Hui Peng, Ping-Wen Wang

An old man with a limp, Khim-Hok, has depended on his wife over the years. They live in an old house on the urban fringe of Taipei. After his wife suddenly passes away, the man puts her into an old freezer and carries on as normal. But his long lost son and partner suddenly appears leaving Kim-Hok to face his demons.

SULTANA’S DREAM – Isabel Herguera

Taking her inspiration from a feminist sci-fi short story written in Bengal in 1905, Ines sets out on a voyage of discovery around India in search of Ladyland, the Utopian land of women.

EX-HUSBANDS – Noah Pritzker

Peter’s parents divorced after 65 years, his wife left him after 35, and his sons, Nick and Mickey, are off leading their own lives. When Peter flies to Tulum, crashing Nick’s bachelor party hosted by Mickey, he realizes he’s not the only one in crisis.

FINGERNAILS – Christos Nikos

Anna and Ryan have found true love. It’s been proven by a controversial new technology. There’s just one problem: Anna still isn’t sure. Then she takes a position at a love testing institute, and meets Amir.

GREAT ABSENCE – Key Chika-Ura 

Anna and Ryan have found true love. It’s been proven by a controversial new technology. There’s just one problem: Anna still isn’t sure. Then she takes a position at a love testing institute, and meets Amir.

KALAK – Isabella Eklof 

Jan is on the run from himself after being sexually abused by his father. Living in Greenland with his little family, he yearns to be a part of the open, collectivist culture and become a Kalak, a “dirty Greenlander”.

RED ISLAND – Robin Campillo

L’île rouge / Red Island is set in Madagascar in the early 1970s, on one of the last air bases of the French army, where military families live the last throes of colonialism. Influenced by his reading of the intrepid comic book heroine Fantômette, ten-year-old Thomas sweeps with a curious glance what surrounds him, while the world gradually opens up to a different reality.

THE PRACTICE – Martin Rejtman

Gustavo and Vanessa separate and have to redraft their projects together. Both are yoga teachers. Gustavo is Argentinian, Vanessa is Chilean. The trip to India is cancelled. Vanessa keeps the apartment and leaves the studio they shared, making Gustavo homeless. As a result of the accumulated stress, Gustavo injures his knee and replaces yoga: first with quadriceps exercises and then with the gym. But gradually he gets his life back on track and starts practising again.​

THE GREAT TEMPTATION – Xavier Legrand

Ellias Barnès, 30, is the newly-announced artistic director of a famous Parisian fashion house. But as expectations are high, he starts experiencing chest pain. Out of the blue he is called back to Montreal to organise his estranged father’s funeral and discovers that he may have inherited much worse than his father’s weak heart.

THE SUCCESSOR – Xavier LeGrand

Ellias Barnès, 30, is the newly-announced artistic director of a famous Parisian fashion house. But as expectations are high, he starts experiencing chest pain. Out of the blue he is called back to Montreal to organise his estranged father’s funeral and discovers that he may have inherited much worse than his father’s weak heart.

MMXX – Christi Pui

Oana Pfifer, a young therapist, gradually slips into the net of the questionnaire she submits to her patient. Mihai, Oana’s brother, worrying about his birthday, is stuck in a story far bigger than he can handle. Septimiu, Oana’s husband, concerned about his health, vaguely listens to a strange story his colleague was caught up in a while ago. Narcis Patranescu, an organized crime detective, deals with an unsettling dark story while interrogating a young woman at a funeral.

THE RYE HORN – Jaione Camborda

Illa de Arousa, 1971. Maria is a woman who earns a living harvesting shellfish. She is also known on the island for helping other women in childbirth with special dedication and care. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee and sets out on a dangerous journey that will make her fight for her survival. Seeking her freedom, Maria decides to cross the border by one of the smugglers’ routes between Galicia and Portugal.

PUAN – Benjamin Naishtat, Maria Alche

Illa de Arousa, 1971. Maria is a woman who earns a living harvesting shellfish. She is also known on the island for helping other women in childbirth with special dedication and care. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee and sets out on a dangerous journey that will make her fight for her survival. Seeking her freedom, Maria decides to cross the border by one of the smugglers’ routes between Galicia and Portugal.

THE ROYAL HOTEL – Kitty Green

Illa de Arousa, 1971. Maria is a woman who earns a living harvesting shellfish. She is also known on the island for helping other women in childbirth with special dedication and care. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee and sets out on a dangerous journey that will make her fight for her survival. Seeking her freedom, Maria decides to cross the border by one of the smugglers’ routes between Galicia and Portugal.

UN AMOR – Isabel Coixet

Having escaped from her stressful life in the city, 30-year-old Nat holes up in the small village of La Escapa, in deepest rural Spain. In a rundown country house, with a crochety stray dog, the young girl will try to put her life back on track. Having dealt with her landlord’s hostility and the mistrust of the village locals, Nat finds herself accepting a disturbing sexual proposal made by her neighbour Andreas. This strange and confusing encounter will give rise to an all-consuming and obsessive passion that will completely engulf Nat and make her question the kind of woman she thinks she is.

A SILENCE – JOACHIM LAFOSSE

Astrid is the wife of an acclaimed lawyer. Silenced for 25 years, her family balance suddenly collapses when her children initiate their search for justice.

Special Screenings 

THEY SHOT THE PIANO PLAYER – Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal

A music journalist from New York sets out on a frantic investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Brazilian pianist Tenorio Jr, regular accompanist of Vinicius de Moraes, among others. This animated thriller moving to the beat of jazz and bossa nova portrays the days immediately before the Latin American continent was enshrouded by totalitarian regimes.

A PROPER JOB – Thomas Lilti

It’s a new school year. Benjamin is a PhD student without a grant. Given his lack of future prospects, he accepts a position as a contract teacher in a Parisian middle school. Without training or experience, he soon realises just how tough the teaching profession can be in an education system crippled by a chronic lack of resources. With the support and commitment of the other teachers, and a bit of luck, he will reconsider his vocation.

SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 2023

The Killer is Loose (1956)

Dir: Bud Boetticher | Cast: Joseph Cotton, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey | US noir thriller

After a decade spent making programmers Bud Boetticher was on the verge of finding his vocation as a director of westerns.

The series of oaters Boetticher made with Randolph Scott on which his reputation rests were bookended by two very twentieth century crime dramas shot in black & white by veteran Lucien Ballard.

It’s ironic that Wendell Corey’s grievance at his wife’s death makes him the villain, since that’s often what motivates Scott. The title’s a bit of a misnomer as Corey is far from your usual psychopath and remains inscrutable to the end.

The subject would have been right up Andrew Stone’s street but displays far more ruthlessness and has a higher casualty rate (there’s a particular nasty moment with a hoe).

I was rather disappointed that far more screen time was devoted to Joseph Cotten than Corey but the conclusion proved satisfyingly tense, @RichardChatten

Carlos (2023)

Dir: Rudy Valdez | US biopic with Carlos Santana | 87′

This is a comprehensive and personal chronicle recounted by the Mexican born guitarist Carlos Santana, now 76, who rose to fame in the late 1960s where he pioneered a fusion of rock&roll and American jazz with his eponymous band.

Directed by Rudy Valdez and featuring Carlos himself – interweaved with archive footage, family photos and films of the band performing – we hear how he grew up in 1950s Tijuana Mexico, where his parents were his main influence – and not always in a positive light – along with Tito Puentes, Little Richard and B B King. His father Jose was a violin player in a classic Mariachi band, a national instrumental style that involved the players dressed in matching outfits, led by a conductor. Close to his mother, Carlos states, in a rather cheesy note, how buying her a home with a refrigerator meant much more to him than personal fame.

Carlos’ first recorded performance was in 1966 when the family had moved to San Francisco where he would cross paths with producer Bill Graham who began booking the band as a support act to the likes of The Who.

For diehard fans of Santana’s iconic style, the film misses a trick in its focus on family details as recorded in his 2014 memoir, “The Universal Tone,” more than his fabulous career as lead of the world famous band. The thrust here is on his early struggles which involved sexual abuse, addition and racism, and his fight for success and recognition through spirituality.

The band toured internationally, and I was lucky enough to see them at a gig at university on their rise to fame with the 1999 ‘Supernatural’ Album, and they made for a spectacular live act and are equally powerful in the recording studio.

But Carlos ultimately attributed his success to Columbia’s Clive Davis, who is now a senior at Sony Music Entertainment, the production company behind this documentary. There is a distinct lack of commentary from friends and collaborators making this seem rather a one-sided and even self-congratulatory affair despite some enjoyable musical interludes that stand testament to the band’s iconic status and worthy of its international fan base. MT

CARLOS: THE SANTANA JOURNEY GLOBAL PREMIERE | IN SELECT UK Cinemas ON SEPTEMBER 23 & 27. 

Typist Artist Pirate King (2023)

Dir.: Carol Morley; Cast: Monica Dolan, Kelly McDonald, Gina McKee; UK 2023. 108 min.

Carol Morley is best known for her debut Dream of a Life, a docudrama about a woman who suffered a lonely death in North London. The British filmmaker is now on rescue mission for UK artist Audrey Amiss (1933-2013) whose posthumous output was made over to the Welcome Trust.

Morley unearths of prodigious output that included 47 books. A passport states that the bearer is the titular ‘Typist, Artist, Pirate King’. Indeed, Amiss was born in Sunderland in the early 1933s before drifting down south where she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia that put paid to her studies at London’s Royal Academy. What followed was a life of “revolving doors”, in and out of institutions.

Morley has decided to stage this as a garrulous road movie Amiss (Dolan) literally trapping her psychiatric nurse Sandra (Macdonald) in a trip from South London to Sunderland- claiming the north east as her spiritual home. The reason for the trip is an exhibition of her paintings in Sunderland – which feels much stuck in a time-warp. But Audrey enjoys the ride via car and bus much more than her long-suffering companion (“Sandra Panza”). Aubrey is shrill and aggressive, harping on about the past and those, now long gone,  who have either done her harm or abetted her against countless enemies. She finally admits her fall in a ravine was due to poor eyesight, rather than the fault of her sister Dorothy (McKee), as she had claimed all along.

Monica Dolan gives a feisty, over-the-top performance as Amiss, but it somehow works against the film’s cause: the rehabilitation of an artist who called out the advent of the UK’s consumer society, and media domination. Morley frames her protagonist as a martyr, but also an unpalatable one, largely due to the farcical comedy treatment which not only mocks Amiss but also, sadly, her affliction. Thus she emerges very much more as a pirate than a creative worthy of her cause.

Imaginatively shot by French DoP Agnes Godard, Typist triumphs despite Morley’s direction and script. Somewhere along the road, this talented filmmaker loses the reins, leaving Amiss as her worst enemy rather than a figure to be celebrated. A forthcoming biography should shed more light on the life of this worthwhile British artist. AS

IN CINEMAS FROM 27 OCTOBER 2023

A Proper Job | Un métier Sérieux (2023) | San Sebastian Film Festival 2023

Dir/Wri: Thomas Lilti | Cast: Vincent Lacoste, Francois Cluzet, Louise Bourgoin, Adele Exarchopoulos, Mustapha Abourachid | France Comedy Drama 101′

Real life pals Adèle Exarchopoulos and Vincent Lacoste star in this amusing schoolroom drama – they were last seen giggling together on the Red Carpet at Cannes for the premiere of Elemental. 

A Proper Job is the latest from French writer/director Thomas Lilti whose sobering sophomore feature Hippocrates saw Lacoste as a junior doctor thrown into the deep end at the Hospital Rothschild in Paris. This time he’s Benjamin Barrois, a junior tutor with no experience – and it shows – trying to finance his PhD at a Normandy secondary school with few resources. And his first day teaching rowdy adolescents certainly gets off to a bad start when a more senior colleague mistakes him for an intern, in front of the class. This doesn’t help his cause.

True to say that many otherwise decent kids can be monsters in the classroom and that’s certainly the case here. Benjamin lurches from crisis to crisis as Lilti demonstrates in semi-documentary style the many pitfalls of being a schoolteacher nowadays. And we’ve already seen these situations in films like The Hunt (2012), Mr Backmann and His Class (2021) and most recently in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses (2023).

So when one of his pupils, an unruly kid with a troubled home-life, refuses to respect the simple code of class conduct Benjamin has a problem on his hands, then the boy files a complaint with the school head (Abourachid) that leads to a disciplinary process.

Lacoste is such a versatile actor you can’t help liking his portrayal of Benjamin: he can be serious but there’s always a cheeky glint in his eye. And when he joins a surfing break in Biarritz with other members of the staff there are moments of high tension and the camaraderie between the colleagues is really put to the test. They support each other unfailingly when the chips are down.

Lilti fleshes out the backstories of the other teachers: Pierre (Cluzet) is having marital difficulties, and single parent Meriem (Exarchopoulos) is struggling to teach her own kid while juggling her career. Another teacher Sandrine (Bourgoin) is pushed to the limit in a livid classroom confrontation.

Lilti never looks for simple solutions in his well-paced script, and the finale is spectacular. A really good cast and a sympathetic treatment of the issues involved make this another convincing feature from a much deserving director who has so far received 14 nominations but never won a prize. Let’s hope he will soon. MT

IN CINEMAS IN FRANCE | SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2023

Calvaire (2004)

Dir: Fabrice du Welz | Belgium, Thriller 88′

Calvaire kicks off Fabrice du Welz’s ‘Ardennes’ Trilogy, a series of tortured psychological thrillers with a religious ring to them (Alleluia, Adoration) set in the remote forested region of Belgium known as Wallonia. There are clear echoes of Philippe Haim’s Barracuda 1997 and Roman Polanski’s Cul de Sac (1966) to this potent possession piece that sees a stranger veering off the beaten track to find himself in trouble.

Although Belgian, Calvaire forms part of the New French Extremity Movement, a series of intensely sensorial and violently exploitative psychodramas that featured rape, mental torture and graphic sex. Notable protagonists of the sub-genre are Philippe Grandrieux, Catherine Breillat, Gaspar Noe, Lars von Trier, and Bruno Dumont. Here Du Welz and his co-writer from Alleluia craft another warped cult classic for the archives.

A travelling troubadour (Laurent Lucas) finds himself at the mercy of some bizarrre Bruegelesque characters when his van breaks down on a rainy night on the way home from a gig. After enduring an eerie encounter with a whimpering wayfarer called Boris (Jean-Luc Couchard) who appears to have lost his dog Bella, a cosy fireside welcome from inkeeper M. Bartel (Jackie Berroyer) seems like a reprieve, but soon turns into a nightmare when his perverse host, who warns him not to go near the village, has other ideas about making his guest feel at home, although this does rather outstay its welcome despite a modest running time. MT

CALVAIRE on digital platforms from 19 September 2023

A Haunting in Venice (2023)

Dir: Kenneth Branagh | UK Fantasy thriller 100′

Venice, All Hallows Eve 1947, and the privations of the war are still haunting the lugubrious rain-soaked city in this morose horror-tinged thriller from Kenneth Branagh. Adapted from the Agatha Christie treasure trove: ‘Hallowe’en Party’, from 1969, this latest outing follows on from Death in the Nile. In a bid to attract a younger generation, rather than the usual ‘Archers’ demographic, the ghosts are all children. 

The po-faced Belgian sleuth (Branagh himself) has been dragged out of self-imposed retirement by an American crime writer friend Ariadne Oliver, a sparky Tina Fey who considerably lightens the mood). She wants him to come with her to a halloween seance at a penumbral palazzo haunted by dead children. The idea is to rumble a ‘fake’ physic (Michelle Yeoh) hired by the chatelaine Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) to shed light on the mysterious drowning of her daughter Alicia (Rowan Robinson). True to form, Poirot has no truck with things spiritual until his scepticism is piqued when things turn nasty. Could evil forces really be at work in this sinister setting with its Tourneuresque shadow-play? Or is this merely a bid to disguise skulduggery.

The underused cast of suspects make their excuses: Rowena’s ex fiancé Maxime (Kyle Allen), the housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin); Dr Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) and his little son Leopold (a superb Jude Hill); a Hungarian couple (Ali Khan, Desdemona Holland). Even Piorot’s bodyguard (Richard Scammarcio) is questioned.

A Haunting is certainly a bit of fun to start with, and there are some witty one-liners largely from Tina Fey. DoP Haris Zambarloukos makes it all look spectacular, but no amount of jump scares, echoing voices, screeching parrots  – or even a projectile vomiting skeleton – can save the narrative torpor that eventually sets in as this latest outing sinks slowly into the lagoon. MT

NOW IN CINEMAS

Alphaville (1965) Prime video

Dir: Jean-Luc Godard | Cast: Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina | France drama 99’

In 1924 a quantum leap occurred in speculation about the future when Fritz Lang saw the Manhattan skyline at night and realised it had already arrived. Jean-Luc Godard took that idea still further by using contemporary Paris as the setting for ‘Alphaville’, the result probably being the only film by Godard to be quoted by both Monty Python and Benny Hill.

Although set in the future ‘Alphaville’ is now a film to be watched with a powerful sense of nostalgia and is a profoundly melancholy experience since we now know that Godard was on the cusp of a precipitous decline into mediocrity.

Near the conclusion of ‘Vivre sa Vie’ Anna Karina was shown writing a letter anticipating a job in a film starring Eddie Constantine. Did Godard suspect that such a film would see fruition in less that three years in the form of ‘Alphaville’? @RichardChatten

NOW ON ORIME VIDEO

Fremont (2023)

Dir: Babak Jalali | Cast: Anaita Wali Zara, Jeremy Allen White, Gregg Tarkington, Siddique Ahmed | US Drama 91′

An Afghan translator from war-torn Kabul reinvents herself as a fortune cookie writer in this succinct but memorable immigration story directed and written by award-winning filmmaker Babak Jalali and his co-writer Carolina Cavalli (Amanda) and starring Anaita Wali Zara in a stunning screen debut.

Unfolding in glowing monochrome tableaux like a neorealist drama of the 1940s this ravishing arthouse feature, lensed by Laura Valladao, takes place in present day Fremont, a suburb of San Francisco.

Simply told yet complex, captivating and thematically rich Jalali draws us into the everyday life of world-weary Donya, a young woman who finds the petty trivialities of western society completely out of sync with her fraught past in Afghanistan.

Jalali uses a clever narrative device – an impromptu consultation with psychiatrist, Dr Anthony (Turkington) – to flesh out Donya’s backstory. She went to him requesting sleeping tablets but ends up revealing how, working as a translator for the army, she financed her passage to America, and how she would have happily gone anywhere to escape her past. And so these amusing sessions get underway providing the connective tissue for Donya’s days at the handmade fortune cookie company where she endures a humdrum existence until Daniel (Robert Mitchum/ Dustin Hoffmann lookalike Jeremy Allen White) pops into the equation, and sparks fly.

Jalali exposes San Francisco’s lively immigrant population in amusing vignettes: A Chinese co-worker takes advantage of Donya selling her expensive coffee when the office machine breaks down, a Chinese lute player entertains us briefly with his soulful vibes, and various diners read aloud their fortune cookie massages giving the film context and textural richness. Fremont benefits from its sleek running time; there is nothing spare or redundant in this quirky gem. MT

IN CINEMAS FROM 15 SEPTEMBER 2023

Bill Douglas – My Best Friend (2023)

Dir: Jack Archer | UK Doc 78′

Bill Douglas (1934-91) was one of Scotland’s greatest filmmakers. And no one knew him better than his companion and collaborator Peter Jewell who captures the essence of an auteur in the mould of Chris Marker or even Terence Davies in this affectionate portrait.

Directed and written by Jack Archer, Bill Dougles – My Best Friend is a documentary about a distinctive creative talent and a lifelong platonic relationship. Jewell serves as the narrator and the affable on-screen presence reminiscing over Douglas’ long career, and their life together. It was a friendship that could almost be described as love, although Jewell never actually declares it as such. And although girlfriends intervened over the years they never prized the two men apart.

Douglas was born in 1934 in the run-down mining village of Newcraighall, Scotland, where he lived with his grandmother having been abandoned by his father. Peter Jewell came on the scene in the early 1950s and the two struck up a lively friendship – Douglas always immaculately turned out in contrast to the scruffy middle class Peter, but they bonded over their love of film, a medium that allowed Douglas to escape his traumatic childhood. Soon Bill had moved in with the Jewell family in their large house in Barnstable, on the Jurassic Coast, at a time where there were still German prisoners of war stationed there, waiting to be repatriated.

The two men then gradually drifted to London, ample black and white footage showing the war-torn city of the era. Renting a small place in Soho they remained oblivious to the fleshpots so engrossed were they in making home movies which they claimed ‘were all rubbish’. It was a friendly creative neighbourhood and this is how their filmmaking started. Fever was a first film, a drama with its allusion to mental illness at a time of much social unrest, and a prescient fear of a nuclear Holocaust. Globe and Striptease were other short films the two cut their teeth on. Come Dancing followed in 1971. Rather like Terence Davies, Bill also made a trilogy about his tragic life entitled, My Childhood (1972). It was a film that showcased the poverty of his growing up, and went on to win the Best Debut film at Venice Film Festival. 

The number three would continue to feature prominently in the Douglas oeuvre, and locks were also a ‘thing’: Bill was obsessed by locks and entrances. Determined to control every aspect of the filmmaking process, Douglas gradually emerges a Chekovian figure who knew each of his scripts word by word, line by line. A favourite drama of the era was Michel Audy’s film La  Maree, that invoked a knife as a symbol of sexual fear, and the two of them watched it over and over again. For Douglas filmmaking was a constant attempt to understand his life, and montage became more and more important enabling him to visualise his feelings and ideas because he found verbal expression difficult. 

Bill Douglas was certainly a “filmmakers’ filmmaker”, and  an inspiration for many who follow in his wake including Lenny Abrahamson and Lynne Ramsay who share their thoughts to the camera. But Douglas was criminally overlooked commercially.

Director Jack Archer deliberately chose to put Peter at the centre of his film due to his influence on Douglas. Today Bill remains a huge part of his life even thirty years after his death. As Peter himself says, “Art is the only immortality”. MT

PREMIERED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2023

 

 

Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed (2023)

Dir.: Stephen Kijak; Documentary; With Joe Carberry, Tim Turner, Les Garlington; UK 2023, 104 min.

US director Stephen Kijak (We are X) delves into the complex life and times of Rock Hudson (1925-1985), one of Hollywood’s most enigmatic legends, in a documentary largely seen through the eyes of his friends and collaborators.

There are too many contradictions to really call this factual but it stands as a valiant attempt to distill the essence of a charismatic screen idol into 104 minutes. A mini series could have been another way of telling his fascinating story.

Kijak first tackles Hudson’s relationship with his agent Henry Eilson, the man who made (and perhaps helped to destroy) the leading man’s career. His intervention, making Hudson marry Wilson’s secretary Phyllis Gates, misfired as a publicity coup and harmed both Gates and Hudson in the long term.

But binding the Hollywood star of the 1950s to the modern version proves a less successful task for Kijak and Hudson. Even after the Stonewell riots in 1969, Hudson remains in the closet while leading a successful life as a heterosexual star in his three features with Doris Day (Pillow Talk 1959, Lover Come Back 1961 and Send Me No Flowers (1964).

Hudson made the perfect male role model during the 1950s. His casting in Giant (56) was clearly a rebuke for the”lack of male ego” and featured his enemy James Dean. The titular Douglas Sirk title All That Heaven Allows (1955) falls into the same category – but the 1960s saw Hudson miscast in all the macho features such as Tobruk and Ice station Zebra. But Hudson soon tired on the big screen as his star rose on the TV. One of his last contributions was a guest role in the popular series Dynasty.

Kijak ends on a rather solemn note, “Hudson saved nobody, because they all died”. This morose comment reflects the epoch of the Reagan administration that ordered cut-backs in Aids support, research and individual help. In his final interview, Hudson is stoical and prepared to meet his maker: “I am not afraid of anything”.

Rock Hudson, who was forced to be a heterosexual male seducer of the 1950s, despite his true nature, never felt at home during this era. But his life long friendships with co-stars Doris Day and Elizabeth Taylor bear testament to his enduring connection with the female sex. Kijak may have failed structurally in this engaging expose, but the rich archive of first-hand accounts fleshing out the actor’s life in the shadows more than makes up for it, and leaves us awestruck: Hudson was a great loss on a personal and professional level. AS

ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED will be available on Digital platforms on 23 October 2023.

 

Oh…Rosalinda (1955)

Drs: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | UK Drama 101’

Anton Walbrook and Dennis Price had both done distinguished work for Powell & Pressburger, but they sure took a bath on this one; although connoisseurs of the bizarre will relish seeing a musical with John Schlesinger and Arthur Mullard as Russian chorus boys (not to mention a delectable young Jill Ireland and the sinuous Ludmilla Tcherina in the title role).

The Archers’ first film in CinemaScope was this operatic version of ‘The Third Man’ which probably reflected the input of Pressburger more than it did Powell, although fanciful details like Walbrook’s opening breach of the third wall in the fashion of the Master of the Ceremonies in ‘Le Ronde’, the black & white newsreel and the scene where Price returns from a bender seeing double show the Powell touch.

A troubled production flawed by serious undercasting that resulted in Mel Ferrer, Anthony Quayle and Michael Redgrave playing roles originally intended for Bing Crosby, Orson Welles and Maurice Chevalier it promptly crashed and burned both critically and commercially and failed to even get a release in the States; but when over thirty years later Powell was finally persuaded by Martin Scorsese to watch it agin he actually rather enjoyed it. @RicharfChatten

The Black Pirate (1926) BFI London Film Festival 2023

Dir: Albert Parker | Douglas Fairbanks, Billie Dove, Tempe Pigott, Donald Crisp | US Action drama 88′

The Technicolor Corporation’s most ambitious undertaking to date was the only production made in what was officially known as ‘Technicolor Process #2”.

Fairbanks Sr had considered making a pirate film as early as 1923, a project he envisaged all along as the perfect subject to be tackled in colour; he’d been favourably impressed with the results Technicolor had so far achieved so he thought he would give the process a shot.

It certainly raised Technicolor’s profile, and the results (as the archive screening coming up at the London Film Festival attests) on it’s own terms survives as a most satisfying entertainment with memorable stunts (the most famous being a slide by Fairbanks down the sails of a ship and vivid uses of colour; but the victory proved Pyrrhic since making the film proved a big enough challenge, and the real headache began when they tried to repeat the effect in mass-produced prints.

So it was back to the drawing board for Technicolor while Fairbanks never tried the process again. @RichardChatten

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2023 | 4 -15 OCTOBER 2023

Priscilla (2023) Coppa Volpi | Venice Film Festival 2023

Dir/Wri: Sofia Coppola | US Drama 110′

Picturing the early days of Elvis Presley’s career from the perspective of Priscilla, his first love, wife and mother of Lisa-Marie, Sofia Coppola plumps for a tender teenage imagining doused in pervasive melancholy. And Priscilla may not go down well with Elvis fans.

Priscilla Presley, née Beaulieu, is 14 when she falls for the 24-year-old nascent hip-swivler, who emerges a manipulative, narcissist given to angry outbursts. Coppola also portrays him as a bed-dodger, prone to spiritual fads and introspective navel-gazing, and clearly only in love with himself.

Jacob Elordi really captures this morose side of Elvis, and certainly looks the part with his rangy physicality and matinee idol sultriness. He also conveys an emotional hollowness in the singer that eventually renders him a gothic vampire-like character. With his controlling ways and sinister subterfuge, he appears to groom her, but not as a sexual Svengali, contrary to appearances. What he wants is a trophy wife to stay in the background while he enjoys the romantic attentions of his film co-stars Ann-Margret and Nancy Sinatra.

The young Elvis clings to the cutesy, doll-like, reassuring figure of Priscilla as a mother substitute. They are both Texans far from home (he is stationed in Germany doing military service, she the daughter of an army commander), and Elvis desperately misses his ‘mom’. But this is a first love affair that never matures into adulthood, and Priscilla remains physically and emotionally unfulfilled. Despite Elvis’s simmering sexuality he fails to meet her seemingly modest needs in the bedroom. And this is the film’s enlightening secret. The film is endorsed by Presley herself and adapted from her book ‘Elvis and Me’ which she co-wrote with Sandra Harmon.

The emphasis here is also Priscilla’s strict upbringing, as a schoolgirl still studying for her ‘A’ levels. Elvis invites her to Memphis where she disappears into his mansion to live out a lonely existence despite an initial welcome from his grandma ‘Dodger’. His father Vernon is a mean old man, and Elvis spends most of his time with the boys, a set of male acolytes known as the “Memphis Mafia”.

Spaeny is perfectly cast in the role of Priscilla exuding a soft sensuous charm, she is vulnerable yet canny until her joy is eventually smothered. Priscilla is a romantic drama founded on its hazy romantic atmosphere, but the adult Priscilla is never really fleshed out, the second half sadly fragments as Priscilla gradually drifts away, dissatisfied and disillusioned, which is a pity because this is a gorgeously crafted love story sumptuously detailing a young girl’s heartthrob in early sixties America. And, growing up in that era, to me it all feels so real. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL | COPPA VOLPI – BEST ACTRESS | GOLDEN LION COMPETITION 2023

 

The Killer (2023) Venice Film Festival 2023

Dir: David Fincher | Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard | US Thriller 118′

David Fincher is back with another noir crime thriller that sees a philosophising hitman reflect on the meticulous precision and emotional detachment required for his day to day existence. But life is what happens when we’re making plans – as the saying goes – and  this ‘gun for hire’ is slowly going round the bend.

Premiering in competition at Venice Film Festival, The Killer, adapted from the French graphic novel by Alexis ‘Matz’ Nolent, stars Michael Fassbender as the hired assassin whose diurnal activities are voiced over by drole observations (“weakness is vulnerability”, “avoid empathy”) making this all the more intelligent and captivating, even when it descends into brutal violence. Even these scenes are sleekly choreographed in Fincher’s crisp direction and Andrew Kevin Walker’s lean script.

In the rooftops of Paris the unnamed killer is staking his target out, Day of the Jackal style. But too much time spent in preparation can often impact on performance. And this is one of the twists in a tale that sees the hitman running to keep still, as we soon discover: The Killer is an intellectual performance rather than a plot-driven one.

Sadly a woman, his girlfriend (Monique Ganderton), gets in the way of his day job after a home invasion goes wrong, And this blows him off a course leading him on a peripatetic journey to the Caribbean, New York, Chicago, Florida and New Orleans Caribbean and to unpick the mess. A gripping and highly enjoyable foray that keeps us on our toes with plenty of eye candy thanks to DoP of the moment Erik Messerschmidt. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2023 | IN COMPETITION 2023

 

Ferrari (2023)

Dir: Michael Mann | Cast: Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley, Penelope Cruz, Jack O’Connell, Sarah Gadon | US Action drama 127′

Motor-racing is a dangerous business. And this slick production from Michael Mann highlights the dangers, not just for the drivers but also the general public, paying tribute to the citizens of Guidizzolo where ten spectators were mown down in a crash that also killed Spanish Ferrari driver Alfonso de Portago, and brought to a close the Mille Milia competition. The film opens with the loss of his favourite driver in a time trial, when playboy de Portago (Gabriel Leone) stepped into the breach. But his star is a doomed one.

Ferrari is not the first feature about motor-racing but it’s certainly one of the most glossy and expensive-looking. The thrill of the track was brought to life in Le Mans 66 (2019) with the focus on the famous partnership between Ford and Ferrari and their respective drivers; Mosley: It’s Complicated looked at the lawyer’s efforts to improve safety in the sport, and Darryl Goodrich’s 2017 documentary Ferrari: Race to Immortality honours the daredevil 1950s Ferrari team-mates Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn. And Collins also makes an appearance here played by Jack O’Connell.

But the spotlight here is firmly on the life of Enzo Ferrari and his entrepreneurial spirit during the perilous early days of Formula One in the Summer of 1957. Adam Driver certainly looks the part in his elegant hand-made suits and dark glasses, and is very much the driving force of this enjoyable action drama. Penelope Cruz gives a shouty, one-note performance as his embittered wife and business partner Laura. The death of their only son has destroyed the marriage and Ferrari has taken up with Linda (Woodley) the mother of his heir. Whether the boy will inherit the Ferrari name and keep the brand alive is one of the film’s main preoccupations. And the frumpy Laura is determined to put a spanner in the works with her permanent frown and maudlin disposition.

The cars often take a back seat to the family drama but there’s plenty of fun and fireworks on the track to keep fans entertained: Enzo is keen to keep speed and quality in pole position where his cars are concerned. Sadly, a great deal of backstory, including de Portago’s love story with Linda Christian (Gadon) – who famously gave him the “kiss of death’ before his final race – is glossed over to cut the running time down to just over two hours, and this in some way affects the film’s emotional ballast. We don’t really feel for any of these people, least of all Laura in her justifiable grief.

Mann incorporates plenty of original footage, early clips cleverly manipulated to show Driver at the wheel. And although some of his dialogue is decidedly creaky not so Erik Messerschmidt’s magnificent set pieces which capture the races on impressive wide screen sequences. This is solid entertainment adapted for the screen by Troy Kennedy Martin and based on the book ‘Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, The Races, The Machine’. MT

IN UK CINEMAS from 26 DECEMBER | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2023 |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Promised Land (2023)

Dir: Nicolaj Arcel | Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Amanda Collin, Simon Bennebjerg, Melina Hagberg, Kristine Kujath Thorp, Gustav Lindh, Søren Malling, Morten Hee Andersen, Magnus Krepper, Thomas W. Gabrielsson, Laura Bilgrau Eskild-Jensen

Bastarden or The Promised Land is a handsome if doom-laden frontier drama that transports us back to 18th century Jutland, Denmark. Mads Mikkelsen is Ludvig Kahlen, a dogged but decorated military man who has risen through the ranks and now wishes to dignify his existence by transforming the ragged heathland into a lucrative farming concern, garnering the respect of the King, who owns it, and hopefully a title into the bargain.

A gruelling endeavour this farming caper may be, and many have failed before him, including the King, but if anyone can succeed it’s Mikkelsen’s Kahlen, a hard-headed, indomitable stoic with a soulful glint in his eye.

Directed by Arcel Nicolaj Arcel and co-written by Oscar-winning Anders Thomas-Jensen we are also in safe hands story-wise with a script based on Ide Jessen’s 2020 historical work The Captain and Ann Barbara.

Barstarden bristles with rock solid themes of class, race, exploitation and misogyny, and there’s even a menage-a-trois, or even ‘a-quattre’ to lighten things up. All in the best possible taste: This is hardly bodice-ripping territory given the grim nature of the Northern climes.

And Mikkelsen is a mesmerising presence with his graceful economy of movement and tight-lipped charisma. Here, he is Denmark’s answer to Clint Eastward. And he also cuts an admirable figure at court in Copenhagen, asking to be granted a spit of land so he can transform the terrain, financed with his soldier’s pension, into a worthwhile concern. And he gets the go-ahead.

But 18th century Jutland is a barren hostile territory fraught with bandits and gypsies. And Kahlen only has a meagre set-up at his disposal: a tent, a pistol, a horse and a pick – to start work with. His chosen crop is potatoes. A hardy choice but not immune to frost damage. And there’s another drawback: A violent and villainous enemy in the shape of judge and wealthy landowner Frederik De Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg), who claims ownership of this area of the King’s land, and has sought to enoble himself by insisting on adding the “De”, even when others don’t, and this provides the film with a flinty vein of humour.

An invitation to dinner chez “De” Schinkel unfortunately ends in tears when the two disagree over the ownership of the land. But the soldier’s unflinching stance against the caddish would-be aristocrat wins the heart of De Schinkel’s intended, who is also his cousin, the pulchritudinous but penniless Edel (Kristine Kujath Thorp), whose father is forcing her into a loveless marriage of convenience.

And so the battle of wills begins with De Schinkel disrupting Kahlen’s efforts to cultivate the land. A local parson then offers Kahlen the support of two runaway servants who have escaped De Schinkel’s household due to his violent temperament. Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen) and Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin) agree to work for free, along with some local outlaws and an orphaned Roma girl called Anmai Mus (Melina Hagberg), a ‘darkling’ whom the Danes consider bad luck.

Bastarden soon develops into a rich character drama as the battle of wills plays. And Kahlen fights on doggedly despite the many challenges and amid much physical duress, violence and torture all round. DoP Rasmus Videbaek showcases the magnificent countryside of Northern Denmark and the splendour of its architectural heritage (actually the shooting takes place in Germany and Czechia!). Bastarden is a gripping Nordic Western that once again proves that true love is often stronger than the ultimate desire to succeed. MT

IN UK CINEMAS from 2 FEBRUARY 2024 | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL premiere

El Conde (2023) Best Screenplay | Venice Film Festival 2023

Dir: Pablo Larraín | Cast: Alfredo Castro, Jaime Vadell, Antonia Zegers, Paula Luchsinger, Amparo Noguera, Gloria Munchmeyer | Chile, 115′

A vampire, all suited, booted and cloaked, flies over the rooftops of Santiago in Pablo Larrrain’s thrilling latest drama that has us believe  that the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is Margaret Thatcher’s firstborn (weird as he was born before herr). It’s an outlandish idea, one many of many, in this surreal doom-laden satire that reflects, with a baleful glare, on international fascism (wokeism et al) in the 20th century.

But although Larrain his co-writer Guillermo Calderon get rather bogged down in their phantasmagorical version of Chile’s modern political history El Conde is a witty and highly inventive feast for the eyes and certainly worthy of its slot in the competition line-up at Venice Film Festival‘s 80th celebration.

Macabre, gothic and hilarious by turns – you certainly won’t go home disappointed – but the visual side far out-trumps (!) the political version of events, its lugubrious black and white set pieces are some of the most alluring and inspired committed to celluloid in recent years. An El Conde is certainly unlike anything the director has done before.

Pinochet is forced to endure a miserable existence, past his retirement in 1990 and subsequent demise in 2006, as the undead dictator grimming it out in a chilly cattle-shearing outpost in the freezing South of the country (reminiscent of Theo Court’s White on White). Here he will face his own family demons, the main concern being the financing of his brood of layabout adult offspring, dealing with his ghastly wife (Gloria Münchmeyer) who is having an affair with  his butler (the brilliant Alfredo Castro), a White Russian who will oversee the investigation into where Pinchochet has hidden his millions. For this purpose he has (bizarrely) hired a nun (Paula Luchsinger) who wears white robes, when not doing accounts in her bedroom, and in these scenes she’s a dead ringer for Maria Falconetti in Dreyer’s 1928 drama La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.

But before all this Larrain briskly takes us through the dictator’s previous existence as blood-thirsty rebel ‘Pinoche’ during the French Revolution. Valiantly in allegiance to Marie Antoinette, he takes her head with him as a trophy after her execution (guillotines feature heavily throughout). He then glides Dracula-like southwards towards Chile where he signs up to the ranks in the 1973 coup. After faking his own death, the 250 year-old continues to drift around over the Chilean capital – and these airborne sequences are the most exciting  in the film. Too old to hunt for blood, his daily diet then consists of human heart ‘smoothies’ which he whisks up in the trusty blender.

El Conde is a fascinating foray then, and mostly narrated in English by the aforementioned Iron Maiden ‘Madame Pinochet’ who certainly gets it in the neck, above all the other vampiric political leaders, supposedly just for being a woman ‘Twas ever thus!. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL | BEST SCREENPLAY | GOLDEN LION 2023 | COMING TO NETFLIX ON 15 SEPTEMBER

 

 

 

Passages (2023)

Dir.: Ira Sachs; Cast: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adele Exarchopoulos, Erwan Kepoa Fale; France/Germany 2023, 91 min.

A  menage-a-trois goes wrong in a big way in this cruel love story from award-winning filmmaker Ira Sachs (Love is Strange).

In Paris two Germans and a Brit finds themselves in a Douglas Sirk style melodrama with feint echoes of Eric Rohmer. Sachs puts his personal slant on the many faces of sexuality in an absorbing and often upsetting gender war.

Lovers Tomas (Rogowski) and Martin (Whishaw) have a longstanding relationship although the aggressive and manipulative Tomas, a film director, has the upper hand with Martin reluctantly putting up with the endless humiliation just to keep it all running smoothly.

We first meet Tomas on set, as unpleasant and immature upstart. But after the film’s wrap party, Tomas takes a shine to Agathe (Exarchopoulos), a primary school teacher who drops her own boyfriend like a stone, as does Tomas, moving in with Adele shortly afterwards. This is not the first time Tomas has played the field with a woman, and pretty soon the cracks appear – and when Agathe falls pregnant her parents’ arrival only makes matters worse.

The switcheroo continues with Martin now in a relationship with writer Ahmad (Fale). But this is by now means the end because Tomas wants to show his omnipotence, and is still powerfully drawn to the dependable Martin, and soon the tables change again.

Tomas is a savage, and not a noble one. His hunger for emotional support, a real neediness born out of insecurity, collides with his brash manner and outlandish lies. He is not lovable at all, but his animalistic sex drive makes both Adele and Martin believe they are his chosen one. Sachs is very open in showing the couples’ intercourse, to the point of being graphic to the extreme. But all this has a place in a bitter struggle for love, with both Adele and Martin mistaking lust for the latter. For Tomas everything has to be an exciting thrill ride, no questions asked. He is a vicious child, a sociopath in the making, a time bomb ready to implode, and Rogowski is the actor to play him with his passionate intensity.

DoP Josee Deshaies has fun with her camerawork, keeping the wild sex and bitter tantrums under control: her images are never voyeuristic, she always finds a way back to show the humanity in facial expressions. Her portrait of Paris, the city of love, is sober: an ideal  backcloth for a modern love story, even though it never feels like one. Sachs, the observer, delivers this minimalist feature with as much love as possible, taking sides only at the very end. AS

ON RELEASE IN CINEMAS FROM 1 SEPTEMBER 2023

Yurt (2023) Venice Film Festival 2023

Wri/Dir: Nehir Tuna | Doğa Karakaş, Can Bartu Arslan, Ozan Çelik, Tansu Biçer, Didem Ellialtı, Orhan Güner, Işıltı Su Alyanak | Turkey, Drama 116′

In the 1990s the social divide between religious and secular Turks is creating tensions in this artful feature debut from Nehir Tuna .

It centres on fourteen-year-old Ahmet a truculent teenager from a privileged background who finds himself holed up in a repressive Islamic institution at the behest of his recently-converted father keen to instil traditional Turkish values in his rather spoilt son.

But the atmosphere in the hostel is decidedly hostile. Ahmet’s smart clothes and urbane manners set him apart from the less fortunate pupils he is forced to mix with in the dormitory and one of them reacts by spitting at the young scholar who is far from happy with his new home.

Meeting Hakan, a street-smart kid who knows how to work the Yurt system, is the turning point for Ahmet and together the two get a sense of empowerment and confidence and they start to stand up to the draconian masculine environment of the dormitory amid scenes of quite brutal violence. Tuna gives a real sense of the spiritual but also oppressive religious strictures that shape the boys’ education. But once the two have found their sense of freedom colour floods into the picture in some appealing pastoral settings beside a lake. Together the two of them start to imagine the kind of world they want to live in.

Yurt could be any coming of age buddy movie, but what sets it apart is Florent Hery’s stylish camerawork in glowing black and white and a well-chosen occasional score of classical and folkloric songs. Tuna’s confident direction elevates this to a more resonant and memorable arthouse drama that champions a free-spirited modern Turkey, a world away from the past. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2023 |  HORIZONS & QUEER LION COMP

Hesitation Wound (2023) Venice Film Festival | Horizons 2023

Dir: Selman Nacar | Tulin Ozen, Ogulcan Arman Uslu, Gülçin Kultur Sahin, Vedat Erincin,Erdem Senocak | Turkey, Drama 84′

There’s nothing like a courtroom drama to keep you on the edge of your seat and there have been some really gripping legal-themed dramas of late: St Omer, Red Rooms, and Anatomy of a Fall  this. This one, from Turkish director Salman Nacar, is more moody than tense in depicting the everyday life of a young female defence barrister in Istanbul.

The director Selman Nacar won multiple awards for his feature debut Between Two Dawns, and his latest runs along similar lines: a morality tale that centres on a professional woman forced to make an impossible choice: Canan (Tulin Ozen) finds herself in a no-win situation, personally and professionally, caught between looking after her dying mother and forging ahead with her career. No wonder she’s a chain-smoker with ulcer trouble.

In the snowbound capital the camera pans in on the dour hospital confines where Canan is at odds with her sister Hopi on whether to offer her mother’s organs up for donation. Both women are pushed to the limit from all sides. Their mother, although still alive, is lying in a vegetative state on a ventilator. And it only needs one person to sign the consent form, but Canan’s sister, herself a mother, can’t put pen to paper.

Back in her offices, Canan watches out of the window as her client Musa arrives in a police van, ready to stand trial for killing his boss. She berates him for not shaving off his heavy beard, but also puts his jittery mind at rest. Musa is in the dock charged with voluntary premeditated murder. It’s a thorny case built around his threats to kill the owner of the garment factory. But Canan mounts a spirited defence, with a few tricks up her sleeve. And the murder was never witnessed.  

Cemal – a vital witness in the trial – must be there to provide an alibi for Musa’s defence. But he’s disappeared. And when Canan tracks him down he refuses to comply for complex reasons. 

So two peoples lives hang in the balance. And Canan stands between them. Then other evidence starts to emerge. Apparently the victim was having an affair with Muse’s mother and started to make threats. 

Although the ending feels rather underwhelming after such a strong build up this snapshot of modern Turkey makes for compulsive and intelligent viewing with its plausible characters, convincing performances and memorable widescreen camerawork. MT

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL | HORIZONS 2023

Manga D’Terra (2023) Locarno Film Festival 2023

Wri/Dir: Basil da Cunha | Cast: Lucinda Brito, Nunha Gomes, Evandro Pereira | Swiss/Portuguese | Musical drama 96′

Portuguese Swiss director Basil da Cunha is back in the streets of his beloved Reboleira this time celebrating the women of this home close-knit Creole community in a lyrical musical courtesy of Eliana Rosa, Henrique Silva and Luis Firmino) who flesh out this spirited portrait of a place often down on its luck but oozing with heart and soul.

A follow-up to his award-winning second feature The End of the World, O Fim do Mundo that screened at the 2019 edition of Locarno, Manga d’Terra centres on Rosa (Eliana Rosa), 20, who has returned to the Portuguese capital from her native Cape Verde leaving her kids with her mother.

But after Cape Verde, life in the Lisbon suburb is no picnic in the park. Street violence and male aggression now make her life a daily struggle. And when she loses her job in a small restaurant (run by Nunha Gomes) reality bites for the single mother who only has her female friends for support and her strong singing voice as a way of grafting to survive. MT

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2023 | GOLDEN LEOPARD COMPETITION

 

 

 

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

Directors Irving Pichel, Ernest B Schoedsack US Horror | Cast: Fay Wray, Joel McCrea, Leslie Banks

Based on: “The Most Dangerous Game”; 1924 story in Collier’s; by Richard Connell

Talking Pictures’ screening was prefaced with the usual disclaimer about outdated dialogue and offensive racial stereotypes, but the British should take umbrage at seeing yet again an English accent and a vocabulary equated with evil (although Count Zaroff actually describes his kinfolk as “we Cossacks”, and he has a henchman called Ivan who provides the film’s scariest moment when he smiles in greeting).

The visceral contents of Zaroff’s trophy room were cut from postCode reissues while he lascivious designs on comely brunette Fay Wray (“Kill then love. When you have known that you have known ecstasy” he gloats) is another sure sign that the film hails from the preCode era. @RichardChatten

Animal (2023) Locarno Film Festival 2023

Dir: Sofia Exarchou | Greece, Drama 116′

Greek director Sofia Exarchou’s second film takes place in a family hotel in an unknown Greek Island where dancer Kalia ((Dimitra Vlagopoulou)) is doing her best to inject some fun in the rather joyless atmosphere in her capacity as an “animateur” choreographing stage shows to enthuse holiday-makers.

Looking after a young family and satisfying her partner is an exhausting business but Kalia always switches on the charm and an electric smile for the tourists and encourages her new recruits to do the same to cover versions of ‘Yes Sir I can Bougie’ and other soulless hits. But when Eva (Flomaria Papadaki) arrives Kalia sees a reflection of her younger self in the young girl’s enthusiasm and willingness to shine in a gruelling diurnal activity that feels like hard work, the muscular stresses and strains reflected in Monika Lenczewska’s close-up camerawork.

Exarchou takes a documentary approach to reflect the sheer physical grind of Kalia’s daily existence but there is dark humour too in a similar vein to Ulrich Seidl’s seaside satire Rimini .Although the Austrian filmmaker goes further down the route of lampooning his hero.

The need to be upbeat and bubbly is no mean feat when dealing with a public that is often sluggish: they’ve come on holiday for a relaxing break but also want some fun while getting fit and healthy before they return to their home environment. But Kalia too needs to get away from the forced bonhomie of her paid employment and needs to have a break of her own. And that’s when the going gets challenging in this perceptive look behind the scenes of the holiday entertainment industry. MT

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL | GOLDEN LEOPARD COMPETITION.

 

 

Explanation for Everything (2023) Viennale Film Festival 2023

Dir: Gabor Reisz | Cast: Gáspár Adonyi-Walsh, István Znamenák, András Rusznák, Rebeka Hatházi, Eliza Sodró, Lilla Kizlinger & Krisztina Urbanovits | Hungary, Drama

The tensions of Hungary’s polarised society come unexpectedly to the surface when a student’s exam results become the focus of a national scandal, in this slow burn sophomore feature from Hungarian filmmaker Gabor Reisz (For Some Inexplicable Reason). 

In a summery Budapest cramming for his final exams is the last thing on Abel’s mind having fallen for his studious school friend Janka who only has eyes for their happily married history teacher Jacob.

Playing in this year’s Horizons sidebar at Venice Film Festival’s 80th edition Explanation for Everything certainly takes its time in establishing the heady milieu of end of term nerves and fraught family life in the build up to the annual summer holidays. But the thrust here is the flight between tradition and the modern world in a film that contrasts the staunch, nationalistic devotion to duty, expressed by Abel’s conservative father, and Jacob’s liberal-minded take on the future with its woke overtones. Gabor Reisz creates another thematically rich and worthwhile modern classic. MT 

VIENNALE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 19-30 OCTOBER 2023 | HORIZONS | BEST FILM – HORIZONS 2023 VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2023

Paris Memories (2023)

Dir: Alice Winocour | Cast: Virginie Efira, Benoit Magimel, Gregoire Colin, Maya Sansa | France, Drama 105′

Belgian actor Virginia Efira is the star of this survival drama that thoughtfully explores the aftermath of a terrorist attack on a Paris bistro.

Belgian filmmaker Alice Winocour has already touched on the affects of trauma on the human condition, particularly for women, in her previous features Augustine, Disorder and Mustang. Paris Memories is possibly the most relatable so far in its exploration of life-changing events. The threat of terrorism surrounds us all every day.

Russian translator and journalist Mia (Efira) sees her life ripped apart while enjoying a glass of wine in a busy cafe when a terrorist strikes. Haunted by the tragedy, Mia bonds with the other survivors and soon forms a romantic attachment to Thomas (Magimel) who was badly injured in the attack, although ultimately their relationship doesn’t quite ring true. Mia also makes it her business to track down a man who helped her to safety and here the storyline widens into the scuzzy demimonde of disenfranchised workers and illegal migration.

Winocour calmly unpacks the emotional toll of the attack of Mia’s private life as she retreats from her partner Vincent (Colin) leading him to suspect an affair. But this is by no means just about Mia and touches on the broader effects of the incident and the fallout it has on everyone affected, and not always in a negative way. Paris Memories is a tribute to those lost in Bataclan in November 2015, the Louvre Museum attack in 2017, and the Charlie Head incident in 2020. A deeply affecting drama that looks for a positive message of hope.

ON RELEASE FROM 4 AUGUST 2023

Kokomo City (2023)

Dir: D Smith | US Doc 73′

If your idea of entertainment is watching a series of Black trans sex workers loudly lamenting their life, then Kokomo City is for you. More  impressive than anything though is the hyper-stylised way D Smith captures his subject. The glossy black and white images splash onto the screen at refreshingly odd angles: It all feels rather like flicking through a slick fashion magazine – maybe a trans version of Men’s Vogue or even that French erotic title NewLook (now out of publication).

Here we are in Atlanta and these women are seriously disgruntled behind their Barbie-style rigouts and fluttering black false eye lashes. Gesticulating at the camera with super sharp white painted talons and jutting chins, they offer advice about how to avoid that 5’clock shadow. But most of all they harp on about the trials and tribulations of satisfying the males that come to them for satisfaction – and how they do it better than cisgender females. There’s a raw, competitive edge to their narratives. And sometimes we feel for them. But after thirty minutes or so enough is enough. And while they rightly point out that no man wants to listen to women’s problems at the end of the day – that’s what is mostly dished up in this unique, cinematic and occasionally insightful kaleidoscope of American trans views. MT

KOKOMO CITY – IN UK & IRISH CINEMAS 4 AUGUST 2023

 

Lars Von Trier Season

The films of one of world cinema’s most renowned and daring provocateurs, Lars von Trier, will be making a comeback to the big screen this summer with a new retrospective entitled Enduring Provocations 

The retrospective looks back on von Trier’s controversial career, having courted ardent fans and enemies in equal measure during his nearly four decades as a director.

Known for his restless technical innovation and rebellious approach to the genre, von Trier has confronted the taboo subjects of the day and the eternal existential problems of the human condition with the same thorny, troubled intelligence and puckish humour.

Enduring Provocations revisits some of the director’s most incendiary works on the big screen headlined by remastered versions of Breaking the Waves, Idiots and Melancholia. The season asks whether his cinema of narcissism and self-abasement still has the power to get under our skin. Is it the on-screen violence that is hard to stomach, or those troubling questions his films ask about human suffering, morality and the disorders of society?

The retrospective will launch on the 4th of August with the newly remastered Breaking the Waves. The power of faith, love and friendship lies at the heart of this devastating drama from Danish wild-child Breaking the Waves won the 1996 Grand Jury Price in Cannes and created two stars: Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson in her raw screen debut that saw her nominated for an Oscar. Watson would never again reach these heady heights in a performance, and this was arguably Von Trier’s heartrending masterpiece, although he would go on to become the agent provocateur per excellence with a string of outrageous hits has never since reduced audiences to such a collective blithering emotional wreck.

In seven chapters and an epilogue, von Trier sets out to prove faith is stronger than any dogma. Set in the early 1970s Emily Watson is Beth McNeill (Watson) is a naïve and emotionally vulnerable young woman living in a devout Calvinist village where the residents cower in fear of being excommunicated by a coral of draconian religious ministers. Beth soon falls foul of them, marrying an ‘outsider’ in the shape of Jan Nyman (Skarsgard), an oil platform worker. Intoxicated by sexual passion she swears undying love for Jan and vows to keep him alive whatever the consequences when an accident on the rig renders him paralysed and bedridden.

Beth believes that God (whom she prays to out loud in the church) has punished her for asking Jan to return early from a contract on the rigs. Disturbed by a brain injury, Jan demands that Beth stimulate his libido by having sex with other men and recounting the details to give him hope of recovery. Beth blindly follows Jan’s wishes, sinking to the depths of sexual depravity by prostituting herself with locals and strangers, jeopardising her own well-being by visiting the occupants of a trawler (headed by a sadistic Udo Kier) declined custom by even the local prostitutes . Her blind faith in the power of divine healing is in conflict with conventional medical advice, and Beth soon turns against her stalwart friend Dorothy (the wonderful Katrin Cartlidge who won Best Supporting Actress) and Doctor Richardson (a memorable Adrian Rawlings).

Breaking is very much Jeanne D’ Arc in reverse: Virtue is replaced by sex as a way to redemption. And like for Jeanne, there is only one way for Beth: all or nothing. It is perhaps von Trier’s greatest achievement to not lose the audience at this point.

Back in 1996, there were long and heated discussions after the Cannes Palme d’Or ceremony (as in the decision to award this year’s Palme d’Or to Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall instead of the radical Zone of Interest from Jonathan Glazer). Breaking the Waves is a more daring feature than Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies (1996), with Leigh’s hyper-realistic stage approach running into difficulties. Apart from the fantastic performances and gut punch of von Trier’s mise en scene, Robbie Mueller’s handheld camera alone makes the film a winner in this tragic celebration of life and the wonderment of human love, carnal and otherwise.

ENDURING PROVOCATIONS | CURZON | AUGUST 4TH 2023

 

Brighton Rock (1948)

Dir: John Boulting | Cast: Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell, Harcourt Williams

You know you’re in Greeneland when Harcourt Williams appears as a down-at-heel lawyer who quotes ‘Macbeth’.

Directing duo The Boultings were fast ascending in critical status when they turned their attention to Greene’s novel and their facility with locations is demonstrated from the outset by the first twenty minutes following Alan Whitely as the il-fated Kolley Kibber through the streets of Brighton.

Despite the disclaimer blaming the activities of Pinky and his gang on the thirties it perfectly captures the shabby feel of the postwar austerity era, complete with Nigel Stock in a zoot suit and a spivvy moustache.

The ending caused controversary at the time but it seemed me a pretty neat trick because although it concentrates on Carol Marsh’s rapturous smile somebody would have promptly (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) given that record player a good swift kick.

One final thought: was it just by coincidence that Pinky’s previous victim was called Fred Kite? @RichardChatten

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

Barbie (2023) Cinematic and Box Office Achievement | 81st Golden Globes 2024

Dir: Greta Gerwig | US Fantasy drama | 116′

Before an explosion of psychedelic plastic heralds the long-awaited advent of Barbie we are transported back to a prehistoric playground where Helen Mirren describes a ludic past when little girls played ‘mummy’ with their pliable baby dolls. Then Mattel entrepreneur Ruth Handler came along and decided to up the game. She gave her own daughter something more adult-like to play with – the result was Barbie.

Margot Robbie, all toned limbs and blonde, hair plays this glamour toy like the real thing. In her candy-coloured kingdom “Artificial Barbie” enjoys a sexless teenage dream of girlie get-togethers where wimpish, whingeing himbos only exist to serve to serve their female counterparts. We start to wonder how long we can put up with this prissy pastel charade. Then along comes the storyline.

Artificial Barbie encounters ‘an issue’ and has to visit the ‘real world’ where women are still being diminished by the male of the species. And, unsurprisingly, she immediately suffers an existential crisis.

In her fourth feature, Greta Gerwig shares script honours with consort Noah Baumbach. crossing into the 145 M$ super league. Co-produced by the Barbie franchise m-holders Mattel, the feature suffers a toxic overload with its multiple subplots: the gender war between Barbie (Robbie) and Ken (Gosling) is just an excuse for a tiff in the trenches of old and new feminism. The boy brigade, led by Ken (a perfectly cast Gosling), is rather less imaginative in the tussle to regain control not only of old-fashioned Barbie-land but also of reality (in this case the Hollywood suburb of Santa Monica). Gerwig/Baumbach create endless quotes to exploit their subject matter, starting with Kubrick’s 2001 styled set where sullen little girls throw their toys out of the pram, rejecting dreams and motherhood at the same time.

Barbie Team | 81st Golden Globes | photo credit Benny Askinas

Barbie is a resentful feature even when indulging in self-critique: Artificial Barbie complains about “Sexualised Capitalism” and her lack of beauty, the Helen Mirren cuts in with “Margret Robbie is the wrong actress to cast”. Well, Robbie might not be a miniature doll, but she is certainly not a push-over when it comes to Ken and his low level aggressiveness which often looks over-mannered.

But as long as Barbie channels its Busby Berkeley spectacle of song and dance routines all is well. Somewhere after the 90 minute mark Gerwig remembers she is supposed to be staging an epic masterpiece, and things go down downhill. “Irresponsible thoughts of death” and “Proustian flashbacks” have nothing to do with ‘gen Barbie Doll’, past or present.

Virtue-signalling demands the hiring of America Ferrera and Issa Rae, a Latino mother/daughter duo, who help Barbie to save and conquer the real world. Will Ferrell is brilliant as the dancing/singing/running CEO of Mattel, reprising his sublime nasty role in Elf.

But whatever Gerwig/Baumbach had in mind the profit will go to franchise holders Mattel and Ruth Handler ((cuttingly described as “a five foot Jewish woman with a double mastectomy and tax issues”) who have once again reinvented their brand. Barbie will go on living in the minds of those who – like me – just thought of her as a ‘fun doll to dress up in different outfits’: and even gave her an androgynous crop (her hair never grew back!.) The film is original, high-performing but soulless. MT

CINEMATIC and BOX OFFICE ACHIEVEMENT | 81st GOLDEN GLOBES 2024

 

 

 

 

Oppenheimer (2023) Academy Award Best Picture | Best Motion Picture: 81st Golden Globes

Dir/Wri: Christopher Nolan | Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Jason Clarke | 180′

A haunting vision of the future hangs over this fraught epic about the man who invented the iconic bomb that ended World War II.

English director Christopher Nolan frames his feature through a stimulating Washington based court investigation as Oppenheimer’s florid life and times flash back urgently forward to a needling score – from Cambridge to Leiden and then California and finally Los Alamos in New Mexico – providing thrilling social and political insight into the final stages of the Second World War. 

Christopher Nolan wins #GoldenGlobe Best Director 2023 photo credit: Virisa Young

Cillian Murphy is screen dynamite as Robert Oppenheimer, a Jewish scientist from New York, who was seen as a hero to many but later vilified as a threat to his country for questioning America’s arms race bravado with his learned opinions in those turbulent times. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert Oppenheimer, Murphy leads a cast who each pull their weight in this mighty masterpiece that mesmerises for over three hours, the final segment is the most riveting and allows the stern but softly spoken Murphy to expose the soulful side of this conflicted but brilliant man.

Hoyte van Hotel’s coruscating cinematography is impeccable in vivid colour and pristine black and white, the 15/70mm print showcasing Nolan’s most impressive film to date. 

Oppenheimer serves both as a densely-plotted character study and a simmering slice of history that also delves into the brutal tactics of the McCarthy era, but never at the expense of some dry humour and a wise perceptive overview from Tom Conti’s ageing Albert Einstein as the father of scientific breakthroughs. Meanwhile in the Los Alamos labs a selection of top flight theoreticians cut through the science by simply dropping marbles into jars to illustrate the difference between uranium and plutonium as fusion bomb components.

Performance-wise Downey is outstanding as Strauss, a major player in the Atomic Energy Commission and a monstrous ego; Matt Damon is masterful as Major Leslie Groves, in charge of security at the Manhattan Project; Emily Blunt (a steely Kitty) and Florence Pugh (a sensuous Tetlock) play the feisty women in Oppenheimer’s life and Jason Clarke’s Roger Robb (Special council to the AEC) could put any cross-examiner in the shade. Gary Oldman gets a surprisingly powerful cameo as President Truman “people will remember who dropped the bomb, not who built it”.

Academy Award Best Picture | Best Actor Cillian Murphy, Best Supporting Actor Robert J Downey, Best Director Christopher Nolan Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing | Best Motion Picture – Drama | Best Director – Christopher Nolan | Best Original Score – Motion Picture | Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture – Robert Downey Jr. | 81st Golden Globes 2024 

Essential Truths of the Lake (2023) Locarno Film Festival 2023

Dir.: Lav Diaz; Cast: John Lloyd Cruz, Shaima Magdayao, Hazel Orencio, Agot Isidra, Bart Guingona, Susan Africa, Reyhan Abcede; Philippines, Portugal, France, Singapore, Italy, Switzerland, UK 2023, 215 min.

Police inspector Hermes Papauran (Cruz), one of the country’s foremost investigators, is again the focus of this latest epos from Philippine auteur Lav Diaz. Essential Truths of the Lake serves as a prequel to his 2022 outing When the Waves are Gone that saw him haunted by a dark past and ready to meet his maker in a quest for the truth.

Investigating a murder case from 2005, in the last days of the bloody regime of President Duarte in 2020, Hermes is a troubled and rather destructive character who suffers occasional bouts of psoriasis and contingent physical afflictions brought on by his negative take on life.

On the banks of the titular Taal Lake, an atmospheric setting, Hermes is having a meeting with his female superior The Colonel about re-open the cold case of Esmeralda Stuart (Magdayao), a mythical beauty queen/cabaret star, who disappeared without trace in 2005. The Colonel agrees to re-open the investigation but warns Hermes about his family obligations in the face of the potentially perilous mission: “They want you back” states The Colonel, making clear that she is in control of proceedings.

Hermes interrogates the drug lord Jack Barquero (Guingona), one of the main suspects in the Stewart case, who then has him followed by his son Nick and three of his henchmen but a nearby volcano erupts, the ash destroying more clues in the case. We then return aesthetically and contents-wise to the Diaz matrix of old, and The Colonel sacks Hermes from the case, making him the prey rather than the pursuer. Meanwhile the beleaguered detective befriends Melchora (Africa) and loses a potential collaborator in his search for the truth; an old man dies of a sudden and suspicious heart attack. A cake seller – who might, or might not be connected to the original murder – is then killed by Melchora’s dog after trying to steal some of her papers, and the self-destructive Hermes is once again in the wilderness. Then Diaz comes up with a brilliant solution.

In contrast to his previous outings Diaz opts for a nuanced contemporary arthouse style, particularly in the cabaret scenes. Gone (at least for the time being) are the wild landscapes and isolated fighters that categorised his earlier works. Here we are merely spectators rather than protagonists drawn under the Diaz spell. At just 215 minutes The Lake is two films in one, the conventional opening giving way to a compelling detective thriller.

But Hermes no ordinary policeman, he soon emerges as the lonely fugitive in a self-inflicted exile, the Stuart case serving merely as a red herring in this existentialist landscape. The lake becomes a labyrinth and the detective is gradually swallowed up in a timeless vacuum created by Co-Dop Larry Manda. Diaz again captures the loneliness of his hero, circling the lake and finding nothing but volcano ashes. Hermes is clearly in need of help, and here we are invited to experience the savage jungle of his anguish – detective story or not – in this shortish feature (by Diaz standards!).

Lengthwise, there’s good news for diehard Diaz fans desperate to disappear into his lengthy epics: a twelve hour feature is now in the pipeline. AS

LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2023

 

Family Portrait (2023) Locarno Film Festival 2023

Dir/Wri: Lucy Kerr | US Drama

In these unusual times of fake news and false memories, can a photo still be trusted to reflect the truth in capturing a moment in time? This is the question writer director Lucy Kerr ponders in her slim but intriguing feature debut premiering in the Filmmakers of the Present strand at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival

A relaxed day in the countryside unfolds as an extended family finds themselves gathered together at the start of Covid. The idea to capture the moment in a family portrait gets relaid to the back burner when a mother goes missing  and her daughter decides to investigate. 

Driven forward by a busy ambient soundscape the bosky opening scene soon gives way to the spacious wooden clad interiors of the Shaker dwelling where a salad lunch is being prepared. The conversation returns to the proposed photo but then a sudden death in the family gives rise to more endless speculation and the portrait is once again forgotten.

Is this family really as contented as they would have us believe. A needling score seems to indicate otherwise as the film moves into more unsettling territory as time and space become one big enigma turning the family portrait into a solemn rite of passage. MT

LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2023

Jour de Fête (1949)

Dir: Jacques Tati | France Comedy

Although the films of Jacques Tati continue to enjoy great esteem and obviously inspired Benny Hill and The Two Ronnies, I must confess to something of a blind spot, admiring the meticulous care that goes into staging his sight gags but not actually finding them terribly funny. (His use of sound is also good, witness the scenes with the wasp.)

Two things in particular set Tati apart from other great screen comics: firstly his great height, since a lot of the humour comes from the contrast of his huge frame straddling his tiny bike.

The other is conceiving his films in colour years ahead of it’s time. In a spirit of national fervour Tati daringly tried to make ‘Jour de Fete’ in a native process; sadly the process promptly went bust and the film had to be released in monochrome (a format which continues be attributed to it in reference books and is how was shown on Talking Pictures) although even then he added details in colour throughout the film on a later reissue. Only after Tati was long death was the colour version restored and the film can finally be seen as it’s creator envisaged it thanks to the miracle of the DVD.

The Oscar (1966) Tribute to Tony Bennett

Dir: Russell Rouse | Cast Stephen Boyd, Tony Bennett, Elke Sommer, Eleanor Parker, Ernest Borgnine | US Drama

On paper this film sounds like the camp classic plenty of reviewers have already described it as; but it outstays it’s welcome, feels like a TV production (although it might have worked better in black & white) and even it’s dialogue worthy of Edward D. Wood Jr. is desperately short on the genuine wit that might have forestalled some of the flack it’s taken over the years.

The surprises start with the mouth-watering title sequence: beginning with the incredible array of guest stars listed, and proceeds through the revelation that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences actually gave special permission for Oscar statuettes to be used in this freak, to the screenplay credit for Harlan Ellison. (It’s based on a novel by Richard Sale, who I’d love to know exactly who he was settling scores with, while plenty of the gems from the dialogue could have been published separately as a book in their own right.) But we never once see Frank Fane on a film set; and it could just as easily be about a politician or a businessmen, and the dialogue does rather labour what a skunk he is.

Many of the supporting performances are as good as you would expect from the excellent cast of character actors, some of them rather strangely cast in often very minor roles, some of which make more sense when you realise how many of them are former Oscar winners themselves (Ed Begley, Ernest Borgnine, Walter Brennan – who won three! -, Broderick Crawford and James Dunn), while Edith Head was actually nominated for her work on this. Milton Berle gives an excellent straight performance, and among the femmes Jill St.John, Eleanor Parker, Edie Adams and the girl in the green dress shaking her chassis in the opening shot of the Tijuana party sequence all make the most of the little screen time they get.

Aside from James Dunn (an Academy Award winner for ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ whose drinking wrecked his career), the most poignant piece of casting is Peter Lawford, who in 1962 had been brutally cast out of the Rat Pat by Frank Sinatra after Old Blue Eyes suffered a snub by Lawford’s brother-in-law JFK. Sinatra never spoke to him again; which makes this film’s final scene even more sardonically ironic than it already seems. (One of the film’s ‘fictitious’ nominees, Richard Burton, nominated for a Paramount Production called ‘Grapes in Winter’, later suffered a similar disappointment in reality at the 1978 Academy Awards when the Oscar for Best Actor went to “Richard… Dreyfus”.

TONY BENNETT (1926-2023)

Beat the Devil (1953)

Dir: John Huston | Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre | US Adventure Drama 89′

This light-hearted rehash of The Maltese Falcon crossed with the Road films was one of two outings (along with The Night of the Iguana) John Huston later thought he should have made in colour.

It affords the not inconsiderable pleasure of seeing a high-powered star and an important director having a little lark (it’s a good ten years in advance of the sort of thing made by the nouvelle vague).

Robert Morley plays the Fat Man, Peter Lorre returns from the earlier film looking very eccentric with his hair bleached white, Jennifer Jones is an absolute revelation as an habitual liar (Bogart just shrugs and says “let’s just say she relies upon her imagination rather that her memory”) while veteran jobbing actor Ivor Barnard has the role of his career as a vicious killer Bogart derisively nicknames ‘The Galloping Major’.

STREAMING ON PLEX and BFI online was

Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis (2023)

Dir.: Anton Corbijn; Documentary with Aubrey Powell, Noel Gallagher, Roger Waters, Nick Mason; UK 2022, 101 min.

Cambridge in the early 1960s: four young men set out to make history: Syd Barnett and Roger Waters would found “Pink Floyd”, meanwhile Storm Thorgeson and Aubrey Powell were re-inventing the art of record cover design with Hipgnosis’; an English design duo who created memorable cult classic album sleeves. The images would sear into our collective unconscious as a visual record of the times. Hipgnosis would go on to devise iconic covers for the likes of T. Rex, Black Sabbath, Wishbone Ash, the Alan Parsons Project, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Yes,  AC/D and many more.

First time full-length documentary filmmaker Anton Corbijn has adapted Trish D Chetty’s script chronicling the often wild and chaotic relationship between Storm Thorgeson (nomen est omen) and Aubrey Powell (*1946), the latter contributing much of the film’s material, since “Stormzy” died in 2013. Noel Gallagher, David Gilmour, Jimmy Page, Roger Waters and Nick Mason give their testimony of a ground-breaking relationship.

Back in the day the HQ of “Hipgnosis” in Denmark Street (WC2) had no loo facilities – everyone used the sink, and nobody thought much of it. Then a water pipe burst in the Greek Bookshop on the ground floor below and valuable antiques were severely damaged – luckily Storm and Aubrey had insurance cover. These were just some examples of a time when art got away with blue murder.

Hipgnosis’ first cover work was for “Pink Floyd’s” 1968 album “A Saucerful of Secrets”. From then on the band would headline the Hipgnosis catalogue – together with “Led Zeppelin” . Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” soon followed in 1970, that famous cover with “the Cow”, that resisted any attempt to be replaced by its given title. Pink Floyd’s 1973 outing “Dark Side of the Moon”, with the famous triangle glowing in a dark SF world, was so far the most ambitious attempt to elevate cover design into an artform in its own right – but it often succeeded in doing much more. Pink Floyd’s “Wish you were Here” (1975) took things a step further, avant-garde, even for those days: Few knew the stuntman risked his life in being set on fire – most people thought it was just a collage.

Hipgnosis’ 1973 cover for Led Zeppelin’s “Houses of the Holy” – featuring naked children climbing on Ulster’s Giant Causeway – would never have got past the censors today. On a more playful note “Look Here (‘10cc’ 1980), pictured a lightly tranquiliised sheep on a psychiatrist’s couch – (under strict medical conditions!).

And talking of our furry friends, Pink Floyd’s “Animals” album cover (1977) featured a pink plastic pig floating over Battersea Power Station. Roger Waters considers pigs to be at the top of the social pecking order, and -in fitting tribute – the porker later broke free and ended up drifting over countryside meadows.

Perhaps much more frightening was Peter Gabriel’s cover for “Scratch” (1978), which showed the artist itching himself out of his cover cage, foreshadowing horror films to come.

When asked about Storm, all interviewed were unanimous “but he was a genius”, although Thorgeson was invariably a procrastinator – always in a bad mood and uncompromising. In 1983 things came to an end even though Peter Christopherson, also from Cambridge, had joined the duo. “Stormzy” never cared much about money, and soon the group turned their talents to producing music videos, Storm thought he was “a Hollywood director with all the money in the world to spend”. But the bank had other ideas after Powell had left. The two didn’t speak to each other for twelve years, much in the same vein as Syd Barnett and his Pink Floyd band members.

DoPs Martyn Breekhulzen and Stuart Luck give life to this tour-de-force of images. And for once, the music takes a back seat. Opening a new Vinyl and reading the lyrics printed inside the cover was a ritual for us back then. Corbijn’s overdose of nostalgia will go down a storm with fans of that magical era. Enlightening, passionate and rather sad. AS

IN CINEMAS FROM 14 JULY 2023

And Then Come the Nightjars (2023)

Dir: Paul Robinson | Cast: David Fielder, Nigel Hastings | UK Drama 80′

Farm animals are having a tough time at the moment and especially dairy cows, blamed for raising the levels of methane and killing random walkers straying onto their territory when all they want to do is moo and chew in peace. But this is nothing compared to twenty years ago when the bovine population was decimated by foot and mouth disease and millions of livestock were systematically and often brutally slaughtered to control the outbreak.

This film version of Bea Roberts’ award-winning play takes place on a south Devon farm during that fateful epizootic of 2001. And although the narrative is rather slim, the summery English countryside sees the story soar above its stage origins in a colourful and genuinely moving look at male friendship with the original cast of Nigel Hastings and David Fielder terrific as the unlikely couple thrown together in crisis.

The last episode of foot and mouth disease occurred over twenty years ago but those TV images of livestock being incinerated in vast fires all over the countryside are still haunting with the farming community bearing the brunt of the crisis, psychologically and in their pockets.

Seasoned farmer Michael (Fielder) really brings all this home to us as a recent widower who had become fiercely attached to his small herd of dairy cows, naming them after members of the royal family. And we really feel for him and his animals with the demise of dairy farming threatening to be a frightening possibility: “there have cows on this farm for over 200 years and now there’s nothing” he complains bitterly.

Vet and close friend Jeffrey (Hastings) offers to help with the government enforced slaughter, ensuring humane methods, but Micheal is inconsolable and furious at this intrusion into his personal property, threatening to blow the men from the ministry away with a two-barrelled shot gun in scenes that are both pitiful and tragic (we see the flames, but not the cows in John Craine’s clever cinematography). Jeffrey’s life is not without its marital complications bringing these two lonely men closer in the absence of women. And Then Comes the Nightjars serves both as a touching tribute to that terrible time and to male friendship.

25 & 26 August | Chichester Film Festival | IN CINEMAS FROM 1 SEPTEMBER 2023  

https://youtu.be/AO1gRxZqx9Y

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Dir: Christopher McQuarrie | Cast: Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Vanessa Kirby, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss | US Actioner 163′

If you dreaded the phrase ‘to be continued’ at the end of an episode of the ‘X Files’, the words ‘Part One’ on the seventh and newest instalment of the Mission Impossible franchise may have an ominous ring but this only adds to the anticipation in this latest outing. And you certainly get your money’s worth on this peripatetic romp through Europe in search of a jewelled key to open who knows what: Tom Cruise (at 61 – occasionally raddled but reassuringly on form) pits his wits against a venal antihero Gabriel (Esai Morales), and scenery to die for – not to mention the spectacular stunts (Rebecca Ferguson performed her own after months of training).

The latest adventure sees Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his IMF team embarking on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new entity that could signal the end of the world should it fall into the wrong hands. At the same time dark forces from Ethan’s past threaten to close in unleashing this deadly race around the globe. In the face of this mysterious, omnipotent enemy Ethan is forced to accept that nothing is more important than his mission, not even the lives of those he cares for most (yes there’s romance too!).

And this latest Mission certainly delivers the goods, there are plenty of laughs (most of them I hope intentional, courtesy of Simon Pegg), the enormous budget is well-used with spectacular set pieces and an ingenious script from McQuarrie and his co-writer Erik Jendresen (based on the Bruce Geller TV series). There two terrific scenes employing Venice as a back drop, there’s an incredible climax involving a locomotive plunging off a bridge, and amidst all that testosterone boasts a fearsome foursome of femmes fatales. @Richard Chatten

Afire (2023)

Dir.: Christian Petzold; Cast: Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs, Paula Beer. Matthias Brandt; Germany 2023, 103 min.

German writer/director Christian Petzold (*1960) won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival 2023 in for Afire, his tenth feature film. This award is well earned: Petzold can be called the chronicler of recent German history, illuminating past and not so present transgressions. Hot on the heels of Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog he is the only German director regularly featuring at international festivals. His minimalist style always cuts to the chase with a lean but substantial body of film.

Petzold’s first feature Innere Sicherheite/The State I’m In (2000) set the standard for what would follow: Petzold tells the story of a teenager whose desperate need for freedom jeopardises the security of her terrorist parents who have so far successfully avoided capture. In the 2001 he began what was to be an enduring collaboration with Nina Hoss and continued with FIPRESCI prize winner Wolfsburg (2003) and this continued with Yella (2007) and Jerichow (2008). In Barbara (2012) Petzold investigates Germany’s immediate 1945 past, and Transit (2018), an adaption of the Anna Seeghers’ novel of the same name, featuring the life of German immigrants during the first years of the Nazi regime, saw him replacing Hoss with Paul Baer who won the Best Actor prize in Berlin for Undine (2020).

Afire is the second part of a trilogy about the artist in society in Germany. Set in an imagined time span after the fall of the wall in the advent of the computer age, this is a feature nonetheless dominated by human emotions with a dose of dark humour .

On the way to a summer getaway on the Baltic Coast friends Leon (Schubert) and Felix (Uibel) are waylaid when their car breaks down. Then Felix’s mother, the owner, has also promised Nadja (Beer), a post graduate student, one of the rooms. Nadja has a boyfriend, coastguard Devid (Trebs), and Felix and Leon have to listen to the couple’s lovemaking. This is quickly reversed, with Nadja and Leon having to listen to Devid and Felix getting it on.

Leon, meanwhile has just finished writing a second-rate novel and is behaving like a stroppy teenager, secretly in love with Nadja. Leon’s editor Helmut (Brandt) turns up and tempers flare, with catastrophic results.

All this fits into Petzold’s general overview of German men who still seem better at living than dying. Helmut discusses the director’s pet theme with Heinrich Heine’s poem “The Asra”.

DoP Hans Fromm puts a documentary spin on his images, catching the protagonists like fish in a deadly net. Schubert simmers quietly but effectively as the spoilt child would be author, and Beer does her best with a tricky role. But true to Heine himself, Petzold stays the course, and no one’s prepared for what’s in store.

Afire might not be Petzold’s greatest achievement, but he once again proves to be head and shoulders above his German peers. This is another sad tract on Germany’s guilt complex – played out by a new generation of males. AS

IN CINEMAS and ON CURZON HOME CINEMA from 25 AUGUST 2023

The Damned Don’t Cry (2023)

Dir.: Fyzal Boulifa; Cast: Aicha Tebbae, Abdullah El Hajjouji, Antoine Reinartz; France/Belgium/Morocco 2022, 110 min.

A mother and son embark on an eventful odyssey across Morocco in this daring and strikingly beautiful sophomore feature from award-winning British-Moroccan writer/director Fyzal Boulifa (Lynn + Lucy).

Fatima-Zahra (Tebbae) is a 43-year-old widow and extremely alluring, although rather naive: dressing provocatively she tries to seduce a much younger man in a secluded spot near Tangier beach and is robbed off her jewellery. Her relationship with her 16-year-old son Selim (Hajjouji) swings between over-protectiveness and harsh criticism: the two are interdependent and neither of them has really grown up.

From a squalid studio accommodation in town the odd couple hitchhike a lift to relatives in the country. But they are not welcome in the midst of preparations for a wedding. We also learn that Fatima has a few skeletons in the cupboard: ostracised by local society after being raped in her twenties –  Selim was the offspring – she was forced into sex work to support her son.

Selim is eager to get back to Tangier and break free from his mother’s influence. Abdoul, a shady character, offers him a job on a building site, but really lines him up for sex with Sebastien (Reinartz), a wealthy Frenchman. The two hit it off to Salim’s surprise, and he quite takes to Sebastien who later apologises to him. The Frenchman then employs Selim on a regular basis, and Fatima tells her son she is working for a well-known brand in the fashion industry – in reality she is working for a minimum wage in a sweatshop.

Fatima meets a bus driver who wants to take her on as his second wife, his existing spouse suffering from mental problems. But Selim sabotages the planned marriage, telling the husband-to be the truth about his mother. When Sebastien’s partner from Paris arrives, Selim reacts with extreme jealousy and channelling his anger into criminal behaviour that will inadvertently separate him from his mother for the first time.

DoP Caroline Champetier follows the mother and son across the Moroccan landscape and the imposing urban backdrop of Tangier: her handheld shots scope out narrow alleys, and sordid domestic interiors that contrast with Fatima’s imaginative embellishment of reality. Tebbae and Hajjouji are brilliant as the destructive couple, driving each other further and further into the quicksand of social deprivation. A tight script helps, and Boulifa uses all his running time to push the narrative forward. An award-winning first film is always a difficult act to follow but this talented filmmaker triumphs with an even more impressive second feature. AS

IN CINEMAS AND ON CURZON HOME CINEMA | 7 JULY 2023

 

Red Rooms (2023)

Dir: Pascal Plante | Cast: Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Lucas, Maxwell McCabe Lokos | Thriller Canada

Canadian writer director Pascal Plante offers a cold-eyed look at the dangers of hybristophilia in this striking arthouse thriller that shares the same airless chill as the work of fellow Canadian David Cronenberg, but somehow lacks the maestro’s resonance.

Sexual obsession with criminal offenders is a growing phenomenon particularly amongst women. From Ted Bundy to Charles Manson, serial killers have always had their female acolytes and here Plante focusses on the psychological rather than the physical in a hard-egded character study cum courtroom drama.

In a wintery Montreal aloof photographic model Kelly-Anne (Gariépy) surfs the internet’s illicit ‘red rooms’ and has become strangely fascinated by brutal child murderer Ludovic Chevalier (Lokos) whose grisly crimes are detailed in an informative opening scene by the prosecution barrister (a brilliant Natalie Tannous). The quiet almost unassuming murderer exudes a strange air of vulnerability, locked in his courtroom cage. In contrast Kelly-Anne is distant and detached in all her dealings and remains an impenetrable character throughout, apparently unmoved by the desperate pleas for help from one of the mother’s affected when the gruesome photos of the murders are revealed.

Kelly is gradually drawn under Chevalier’s spell attending every single court hearing in the hope of attracting his attention, even sleeping overnight outside the courtrooms despite the freezing weather. Here she meets a homeless drifter (Babin) and offers her board and lodging. The two form an unlikely bond as the enigmatic storyline drifts between reality and fantasy in a bracing psychodrama that explores female friendship, media manipulation, and probes the hitherto undiscovered recesses of the human mind and its capacity for both evil and benevolence. MT

NOW IN UK CINEMAS FROM 6 SEPTEMER 2024 | KARLOVY VARY 2023 | CRYSTAL GLOBE COMPETITION.

 

 

The Bohemian (2022)

Dir: Petr Vaclav. Czechia/Italy/Slovakia. 2022. 140 mins | Cast: Vojtěch Dyk, Barbara Ronchi, Elena Radonicich, Lana Vlady

Baroque music is at the core of this sweepingly romantic classically styled costume drama that reimagines the life and loves of a little known Czech composer who even tutored Mozart in 18th century Italy. 

Il Boemo, the Czech entry for the Academy Awards, makes fabulous use of the magical allure of its sumptuous Italian settings to tell a tale of doomed love affairs and the determination to overcome disappointment and succeed in the highly competitive arena of classical music. But behind this gilded cage lurks a squalid world of decadence and debauchery and Czech writer director Petr Vaclav reveals both sides of the palcoscenico in a drama smouldering with illicit sexual intrigue but bolstered by a bold story and prodigious musical interludes.     

The film opens in 1781 as Josef Myslivecek (b,1737) is on his death bed, poverty stricken and ravaged by syphilis, his deformity hidden by a Venetian mask. Years earlier, in 1765, he has arrived in Venice from a native Prague to seek his fortune as a musician and composer. But romance soon intervenes as Josef makes his way amongst the ‘beau monde’ and the urbane musician finds himself drawn into a love triangle with his young pupil, a well-born cellist who loses her virginity to him with disastrous consequences, and an aristocratic woman (Radonicich) whose libidinous charms capture Josef’s imagination as his reputation blossoms in all directions, and not just musically.

An exciting opportunity then takes Josef to Naples where his operas, written but hitherto unperformed, get a welcome airing. Here, as opera maestro, he enjoys a brief affair with real life diva Caterina Gabrielli (Barbara Ronchi) who agrees to sing in his debut opera but then loses her cool in a tense first night showdown in front of the fish-obsessed King of Naples (Ciccariello) who has a few unexpected habits up his sleeve. Invitations to lead illustrious orchestras soon flow including one sojourn that sees him fall for a married pianist in an affair that will prove his undoing.

Moving peripatetically around Europe, Josef finds himself back in Prague in 1768 meeting the child prodigy Mozart and instructing the precocious pianist in the rudiments of music with some new compositions which the boy picks up and embellishes like a pro in the film’s most amusing scene.

Tall, elegant and extremely graceful, Czech actor Vojtěch Dyko makes for a convincing maestro and he gives a sympathetic performance in the title role, although his pop star credentials often feel larger than life in the context of the film’s theme of struggling artist desperate for success. The divas are refreshingly idiosyncratic, and it works to the film’s advantage that Vaclav has cast delicately beguiling actors voiced by real opera singers including the famous Simona Saturova (La Gabrielli). 

Sadly, Josef falls victim to his carnal desires that often take precedence to his musical career, and this lack of perseverance and single-minded commitment is ultimately the key to his lack of endurance. Il Boemo is visually sumptuous glowing in candlelit interiors and lush landscapes, Vaclav does not stint on the music side of things with some rousing operatic episodes courtesy of contemporary Czech conductor and harpsichordist Vaclav Luks who has revived interest in his fellow countryman. This makes Il Boemo all the more enjoyable adding ballast and authenticity to the tragic story of a talented composer who somehow fell by the wayside in the chronicles of musical history. MT

AVAILABLE NATIONWIDE ON DIGITAL
Tuesday, July 30

 

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Asteroid City (2023)

Dir: Wes Anderson. Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, Jeff Goldblum | US Comedy drama

Wes Anderson has a dedicated following but even diehard fans were put off by his 2021 film The French Dispatch, with its over-talky, complicated structure. In contrast Asteroid City is so exuberant, nostalgic and lovely to look at the sheer dynamism is sure to endear it to even Anderson sceptics although some complained, at the Cannes press screening, it lacked an ‘involving storyline’. This is a movie that is constantly on the move with Anderson’s regular A-list cast and candy-coloured eye-popping visuals that just make you gawp in amazement for two hours in a film about a play within a TV show .

Once again the narrative unfolds through multiple framing devices with Bryan Cranston introducing the show in a black and white opening scene where we meet Conrad Earp. (Norton) He is the playwright of the 1950s story we are about to watch which then bursts on the screen in a dazzling blast of technicolour transporting us to the mythical desert location of Asteroid City famous for its massive meteor crater and observatory for stargazers eager to see the Milky Way. It’s also a military testing ground for atomic weapons, pioneered by the serene scientist Tilda Swinton. There is a textbook style alien (Jeff Goldblum) whose appearance causes Jeffrey Wright’s army commander to launch an investigation. But Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe get left on the sidelines in nondescript cameos.

But the film’s focus is Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), a melancholy, pipe-smoking photographer and recent widower who arrives with his children, and his wife’s ashes, in a retro shooting-break that promptly blows a gasket. Butch mechanic Matt Dillon scratches his head unable to mend the vehicle so Augie asks his father in law Stanley (Tom Hanks) for help, meanwhile falling for Scarlett Johansson’s luminescent but lonely Hollywood star Midge, in scenes that plays out like a psychedelic version of Psycho. The nostalgia comes from the music – Rupert Friend is the crooning cowboy – the all round aesthetic and the upbeat gaiety that recalls a time when America was great and led the way in all things cutting edge, including scientific breakthroughs and space travel, but still had decency and family values at its heart. MT

NOW ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE

Forever and a Day (1943)

Dirs: Victor Saville, Herbert Wilcox, Cedric Hardwick, Edmund Goulding | UK Drama

A chronicle by RKO of Britain at war from the days of Napoleon to the nights of the Blitz, this super-patriotic compendium production was made at the behest of Sir Cedric Hardwicke to raise funds for his compatriots in the depths of the war who described it as a “patriotic piece to which a multiple of people gave their talents”, Forever and a Day corralled an extraordinary array of expatriate Brits, some long established in Hollywood, ranging from Sir C. Aubrey Smith to Victor McLaglen as a doorkeeper named Archibald and others like Anna Neagle and Jesse Matthews who were just passing through.

Not exactly an entertainment but of definite curiosity value; with a tone that darkens considerably in the scenes with Claude Rains. @RichardChatten

ON TALKING PICTURES TV

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Dir: James Mangold | Cast: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller Bridge, Karen Allen, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones | US Action drama 154’

Admirers of Indiana Jones won’t be disappointed while those who don’t care won’t be surprised at the film franchise’s latest and probably final instalment. Jez Butterworth’s script sees the veteran archaeologist racing against time to retrieve said ‘dial of destiny’ that can purportedly change the course of history.

Harrison Ford turned 79 during production but wears it very well and much better than Karen Allen and Jonathan Rhys-Davies (whose appearance drew loud applause at tonight’s screening at Leicester Square) and the fact that he’s a wrinkled old codger (visibly rattled when his lecture on archeology is upstaged by the moonshot) makes the stunts all the more impressive; while Phoebe Waller-Bridge looks feisty in jodhpurs astride a motor-byke. She’s a modern heroine with retro appeal.

The conclusion when it finally comes would been quite satisfying if hadn’t taken such a long to get there. @RichardChatten

NOW IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE

Carmen (2023)

Dir: Benjamin Millepied | Cast: Paul Mescal, Rossy de Palma, Melissa Barrera | Musical Drama 116′

Spectacular to watch with its neon-enfused aesthetic, Benjamin Milllepied’s reimagining of Prosper Merimee’s Andalusian-set romance gets a Mexican makeover, but suffers an emotional bypass in the process. 

The enigmatic and strangely un-involving storyline poses more questions than it answers – to those uninitiated with the original – and the gutsy musical interludes scored by breakout composer Nicholas Britell (Succession) feel disconnected from the plot but provide much needed entertainment to carry us through the two hour running time. 

Paul Mescal is the star turn and, as ever, a magnetic presence as Aidan, tearing up a treat with his macho vulnerability but seemingly in a different film from the one starring his titular lover (Melissa Barrera) and Rossi de Palma’s Masilda. The opening sequence is one of the strongest and sees Carmen’s fiesty flamenco dancer mother gunned down by a drug gangster while strutting her stuff on a wooden platform in the dazzling deserts of Chihuahua (actually it’s New South Wales). The film returns to this tragedy in repeated flashbacks. Barrera is stunning as Carmen but can’t sing to save her life.   

After the shooting Carmen sets fire to her family home and escapes across the border to Texas where she meets ex-marine Mescal who finds himself working with the baddies to pick up illegal migrants. After a brush-up with one of the other patrolman Aidan goes on the run taking the reluctant Carmen with him. And apart from the intoxicating settings he’s the only reason to watch this. MT

NOW NATIONWIDE IN THE UK AND FRANCE

Twilight Women (1952)

Dir: Gordon Parry | Cast: Freda Jackson, Rene Ray, Lois Maxwell, Laurence Harvey | UK Crime Drama 89’

Unmarried nightclub singer, Vivanne Bruce, is suddenly along when her lover, Jerry Nolan, is arrested for murder. Searching for a place to live she eventually finds a room in a boarding-house run by the ruthless “Nellie” Alistair, who has an ulterior motive for offering unmarried mothers bed and board.

Britain’s first ‘X’ feature was this unrelenting slice of life with photography and production design that makes it resemble a silent German kammerspiele in which the unwed mothers of the title are first introduced in a series of close ups that resemble a series of mugshots.

The men are hardly seen (where was Maxwell Reed on the day they shot it?) with the egregious exception of Laurence Harvey, first seen as a crooner (obviously dubbed) in a nightclub.

Freda Jackson reprises her baby-farmer from No Room at the Inn, again answering to the appellation ‘Mrs’ although we never actually see her husband. @RichardChatten

NOW ON PRIME VIDEO

Rather (2023) Tribeca Film Festival 2023

Dir: Frank Marshall | US Doc 96′

A new documentary offers a straightforward snapshot of Texan journalist, news anchor and commentator Dan Rather (1931-) who became a revered household name with his spirited and engaging presence on American TV networks during the turbulent years of the 1960s and beyond.

Daniel Irvin Rather has covered virtually every major event in the world for the past 60 years but is also known for ushering in the era of fake news that led to his downfall at the respected CBS network. Rather is also credited at being the first journalist to announce the news of John F Kennedy’s death in 1963 by running with the rumour, ‘based on his instincts’ before it was fully confirmed.

Amongst many other achievements Rather stood out with his impactful style of reporting that bridged the gap between what was really happening on the ground during the Vietnam war, and the sentiment presented back home. The film outlines his fall from grace for airing documents, during a CBS broadcast in the run up to the 2004 presidential election, suggesting that George W Bush had a sketchy military record during the 1970s. The issue is still mired in controversy to this day.

Coming across as a serious man of integrity as he faces the camera as an engaging raconteur, at 91, without guile or glibness, the film pictures him from all perspectives: dutiful son, dogged marine recruit, devoted husband, deeply religious Texan. And this rounded impression is echoed by his daughter Robin who offers her admiration for a loving father who also was deeply committed to his cause. Talking heads-wise we also hear from Susan Zirinsky, his longtime colleague at CBS News, who sees him from a career angle, and not always in glowing terms.

Brimming with spectacular archive footage, news bulletins and interviews, the film darts around chronologically charting a career that began on Texas radio and graduated to TV News slots, where Rather made a name for himself covering Hurricane Carla, the Civil Rights Movement, the J F Kennedy Assassination, Watergate and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wars in Vietnam, the Gulf and Afghanistan saw him on the battlefield dodging the bullets, and sending serial postcards back home to his family with the simple, repetitive message: “War is Hell”. At CBS and on 60 Minutes he was a revered anchor and is now prolific on Twitter appealing to a younger generation with his recalcitrant outbursts and on his own website News and Guts.

“Can you still make a difference as a journalist” Rather said at the Texas-based Moody College of Communication in 2009. “Yes, if you don’t quit”. This is a clear-eyed, informative film that refuses to dig the dirt on Dan. That’s for another documentary. MT

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL | NEW YORK 7-18 JUNE 2023

 

 

Hondo (1953) Bfi Film on Film 2023

Dir: John Farrow | Cast: John Wayne, Geraldine Page, Ward Bond, Michael Pate, James Arness | US 83′

Despite the obligatory shots of arrows heading straight for the camera climaxing in a rousing encirclement by injuns, Hondo, based on Louis L’Amour’s best-seller, is more a character study than a straight western and stands up perfectly well played flat.

John Wayne plays army dispatch rider Hondo Lane who finds his true place in the world when he comes across a woman and her son living in a remote homestead amongst warring Apaches.

Katherine Hepburn was reputedly intended for the role eventually played by Geraldine Page (who gets an introducing credit) reputedly selected for her homely looks, so as not to outshine Duke Wayne.

Wayne doesn’t actually get to tell her she’s beautiful when she’s mad but she frequently curls her lip in the face of his swaggering machismo. @RichardChatten

BFI Film on Film Festival (8-11 June) is the UK’s first film festival dedicated to screening works solely on celluloid with films showing on rare Nitrate, 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, dual-strip 3D and Super 8.

Barbie Nation: An Unauthorised Tour (1998)

Dir: Susan Stern | US Doc, 1998

Tall, lithe and perfectly formed with a swish of long blonde hair: the Barbie doll was the pinnacle of perfection for young girls in the 1960s. Hours were spent dressing her up in a variety of outfits with shoes that never stayed on, tiny handbags and even gloves. Barbie was a fully formed adult of 19, and later even had a boyfriend called Ken.

Susan Stern’s brief but informative documentary Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour dives deep into the story of this iconic plaything that was sexy and yet resolutely asexual in an era where women were still content to be mothers and wives. Back in the early 1960s there was never a mention of Barbie working or having career aspirations beyond being a secretary or a nurse.

Ruth Handler was an ordinary Denver wife and mother when she spotted a gap in the market that would make her one of the richest enterpreneurs of the 20th century. Her little daughter played with dolls made out of paper and Ruth, ran a small furniture business called Mattel with her husband Elliot, and his partner Matt Matson (Matt+El).

In a brilliant marketing stroke, the entrepreneurial Jewish housewife then had the idea to extend their range of furniture and picture frames to include dollhouses, and then came across the German’ Bild Lill Doll’, created by Reinhard Beuthein years earlier. The doll was based on a gold-digging comic strip sex symbol but Handler refashioned the mannequin transforming it into Barbie in 1959.

Barbie was the first adult doll on the market in the 1950s. In archive footage, Handler explains her reasons for creating an adult doll that could help girls deal with the physical changes as they went through puberty. The adult doll had breasts (but no nipples!) and was not popular with parents, but the went down a storm with their kids after Mattel devised a clever TV marketing campaign. Girls had great fun dressing the Barbie dolls, and buying different outfits each week with their pocket money. Back in the day, I remember the sheer excitement of discovering, while staying with my cousin, that Brierley’s in Peterborough were selling Barbie outfits at discount prices. We bought the whole range. Even nowadays two Barbies are sold every second somewhere in the world.

The film then explores Barbie’s evolvement as the doll was produced in a variety of different guises: there was a black Barbie, named Christie that could say: “Hello I’m Christie, let’s go shopping with Barbie” – simple words perpetuating the safe but stock idea that Sixties women were pliant emptied-headed females happy to stay in the background. Nowadays things have become more avantgarde: there is even a blood-soaked ‘Carrie Barbie’ and a ‘Frida Kahlo’ wheel-chair user. The Barbie ‘Fashionistas line’ is now available in seven skin tones, 22 eye colours and 24 hairstyles.

Naturally Barbie couldn’t stay ‘innocent’ forever. A more sinister undertone comes from two women who gave their dolls a dominatrix spin with appropriate leather accoutrements. Stern interweaves her doc with footage from original Barbie ads; a Philadelphia TV news story with the startling headline, “Is deep frying a Barbie part of a Satanic ritual?”. And this negative aspect is echoed in Handler’s own life: She was later convicted of false accounting that saw her and Elliot forced out of running the business they had started. Breast cancer followed but her indomitable entrepreneurial sprit survived when she came up with a new business called Nearly Me, the first to produce customised breast prostheses on the general market. There’s no keeping a good woman down!. MT

25th ANNIVERSARY DIRECTOR’S CUT | Available on demand from 27 June 2023

Des Mains en Or | Healing Hands (2023)

Dir: Isabelle Mergault | Cast: Lambert Wilson, Josiane Balasko, Sylvie Testud | France Comedy 91′

Lambert Wilson is the star of this light-hearted comedy drama that sees his austere arrogance melt in the face of straightforward kindness as a distinguished writer with a bad back. Wilson plays almost the same character as in his recent film Simple Things. This time he is Pierre, a debonnair  professional living in a Belle Epoque mansion in the enchanting coastal region of Calvados where he is surrounded by the trappings of success, but somehow isn’t feeling it. Clearly something is missing in his life.

An invitation to join the Academy Francaise is flattering, but chronic back pain leaves him unable to cope with the stress of this high profile existence, and the fear of not being able to meet his commitments only makes matters worse. And then along comes earth mother Martha (Balasko) with her healing hands. Whether you buy into their formulaic romance is the key to the film’s success. If not the luscious Normandy landscapes provide the eye candy in this mildly amusing crowd-pleaser. MT

NOW OUT IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM

The Red Island | L’île Rouge (2023)

Dir/Wri: Robin Campillo | Cast: Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Quim Gutierrez, Charlie Vauselle | France, Drama 115′

Robin Campillo follows his frenetic activist film 120bpm with this mystical, evocative childhood recollection of growing up on the Island of Madagascar during in one of the last French military bases of the French empire. The story is seen through the eyes of his character Thomas (Vauselle) whose caped comic book hero Fantomette adds an air of surreality to this dreamy island reverie with his nighttime sorties transforming the place into a secret world of exotic and illicit liaisons.

Life in the former French protectorate of Madagascar seems like any other colonial existence for the French people living there and awaiting repatriation in 1971. For Thomas this East African outpost, where he lives with his mother, father and two brothers in a simple bungalow, is an adventure playground full of wild and exciting possibilities courtesy of his caped adventurer Fantomette.

With its sense of adventure underpinned by reality this often feels like a Tintin adventure, but the cartoon character Fantomette – created in 1961 by the French graphic artist Georges Chaulet – is the whimsical Batman-like shadow. With a black mask and red-lined cape he provides the film with a layer of fun and intrigue in ingenious animation sequences that perfectly express Thomas’ boyhood imagination and lend a mischievous air of danger, a counterpoint to the everyday life on the military base where the spirit of native insurrection is still reverberating outside the walls of the encampment.

These daily demonstrations exulting in liberation inject an air of harsh reality into the ordered but rather hedonistic vibe of expat life. In the daily round of barbecues, swimming in the sea and boozy lunches Thomas’ parents Colette (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) and Roberto (Quim Gutierrez) are fully-rounded characters enjoying a vibrant sexual chemistry their sensuality always threatening to incandesce into an explosive episode that only adds to their allure.

Campillo records all this in the three strand narrative, but always retains his sense of boyhood wonder and playfulness through the amusing vignettes featuring the masked adventurer. Colette, a warm and tender mother, runs him up a cape and mask on her sewing machine, and once lights are out, the night becomes a thrilling time to explore. The island and its wildlife, vegetation and ordinary buildings, like the church, are transformed into a strange paradise in the light of the moon. After dark, Thomas’ imagination is set free as he discovers the mysterious goings on in a world beyond everything he has known before, transported by his guise as a boyish Fantomette. MT

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK cinemas | CURZON

Daliland (2022)

Dir: Mary Harron | Wri: John C Walsh | Cast: Sir Ben Kingsley, Christopher Briney, Barbara Sukowa, Suki Waterhouse, Rupert Graves, Andreja Pejic, and Ezra Miller | Canada Drama 97′

Ben Kingsley is sensational as Salvador Dalí, pictured in his later years in this enjoyable classically-styled biopic from Canadian filmmaker Mary Harron and her writer John C Walsh.

Set in New York and Spain in 1974, the thrust is not so much the artist’s work but his fascinating obsession with his wife and muse Gala (Sukowa) whom he describes as: “the secret within my secret”. Seen through the inexperienced eyes of the bland and pasty-faced James (Briney), the focus then shifts to this young assistant keen to make his name in the art world, who is helping the eccentric and mercurial Dalí prepare for a big gallery show, although his credentials for the post are never explained. Ultimately, the naive James feels disillusioned by the experience – but we wouldn’t expect anything else; such is the ephemeral nature of artistic genius.

The legendary surrealist often takes a backseat in favour of this far less intriguing cypher who somehow finds himself on the receiving end of all the female attention – even from Gala – who is styled as a sexually voracious virago whose profligate nature puts her marriage under strain, although the quixotic Dali remains in denial of her faults til the end.

Kingsley is perfect for the role with his dark, exotic features (he would also make a great Louis XIV). Not unexpectedly, his Dali comes across as mercurial, quaintly timid and vulnerable, but always dignified, a rather curious classical stringed score accompanying his painting interludes rather than something more avant-garde and zany. But Marcel Zyskind certainly captures the strange and whimsical quality of the artist’s nature with his deft camerawork and some magical lighting effects in a nighttime sequence on the beach in Cadaques, Catalonia.  

Dali’s other acolytes in this engaging shag-fest include Ginesta, a sinuous Suki Waterhouse, Amanda Lear (Pejic) and Rupert Graves’ Captain Moore, a financier and the voice of reason who frets over the Dalis’ extravagant lifestyle. MT

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Dir: PeterWeir | Cast: Rachel Roberts, Anne-Louise Lambert, Helen Morse, Vivean Gray, Kirsty Child, Tony Llewellyn Jones | Fantasy Drama, Australia 115’

The last time I saw this adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel – a film that triumphantly realises Hitchcock’s oft-expressed desire (a desire that also informed Claude Chabrol’s ‘Le Boucher’) to locate a spine-chilling mystery against a rural backdrop in brilliant sunlight – I found the experience so unnerving that when it was over it took a major effort simply to venture out into the dark to put the bins out.

Cliff Green bases his script on a novel by Joan Lindsay that sees a group of Australian schoolgirls vanish mysteriously during an idyllic summer picnic, haunting and frustrating the people left behind. That the sole girl to return is unable to explain exactly what happened during the time of her absence is characteristic of the film’s ambiguity which strongly implies that somehow the supernatural were involved without spelling it out.

When the film came out a reporter noticed that in 1900 Valentine’s Day fell on a Wednesday not a Saturday and the tragedy wasn’t in any of the papers at the time. So he asked Joan Lindsay if it actually happened and only then did she reveal that the novel was entirely fictitious. @RichardChatten

NOW ON BLURAY COURTESY OF SECOND SIGHT FILMS

Daughter of Darkness (1948)

Dir: Lance Comfort | UK Horror

Ironically – considering her best remembered film role was as the Virgin Mary in ‘King of Kings’ – Siobhan McKenna made her film debut in Victor Hanbury’s answer to ‘Nightmare Alley’, as a wide-eyed Colleen reviled by the women of the village as the Devil incarnate and lusted after by the men; which seems a little harsh as she wears a crucifix and on several occasions seeks sanctuary in a church.

Her first victim is Maxwell Reed as Battlin’ Dan, a gypsy pugilist with eyebrows like Vampira whose looks Miss McKenna soon improves by scarring his cheek.

This heady brew is done proud by Lance Comfort enhanced some lovely use of night-for-night by Stanley Pavey, taking in along the way a conflagration in a barn and a fearsome finale in a churchyard. @RichardChatten

AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE

Kidnapped (2023)

Dir: Marco Bellocchio | Cast: Enea Sala, Leonardo Maltese, Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi | Italy, Drama 125′

Now in his eighties, Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio is still knocking them out and shows no intention of slowing down: he has just completed a script for the upcoming film The Life Apart. His latest outing, a classically styled melodrama, tells the little known story of the kidnapping of a Jewish boy seized from his family home in Bologna and taken to live in the Vatican in 1858. This story exposes another ugly episode of the history of the Catholic Church, this time concerning coercive conversion.

Kidnapped is a hardcore arthouse affair full of impassioned speeches, religious symbolism and magnificent set pieces with vehement style of 16th or 17th century European art in the style of Caravaggio or Valasquez, ramped up by a thundering score from Esterno Notte composer Fabio Massimo. Cast-wise it boasts a tour de force from Italian actor Paolo Pierobon as a malevolent Pope Pius IX who orders a series of forced religious conversions as his power diminishes in the wake of the newly-founded Kingdom of Italy in a climate of vicious antisemitism.

Apart from the Pope, a series of rather cardboard characters are there to serve the narrative in a film whose primary focus is the outright humiliation of a Jewish family whose little boy, 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara (played by Enea Sala, then Leonardo Maltese), is seen living happily with his wealthy parents Solomone “Momola” Mortara (Fausto Russo Alesi) and Marianna (Barbara Ronchi).

One night Edgardo is taken away from his family’s palatial home on the premise of his having been secretly baptised by the family maid. The only way for the couple to get their child back is to convert to Catholicism, which is naturally a non-starter to their own religious beliefs.

Inspired by a Daniele Scalise’s book ‘Il Caso Mortara’, Bellocchio and his co-writer Susanna Nicchiarelli chronicle Edgardo’s turbulent time in the Vatican where he undergoes intense religious instruction along with other Jewish boys. Meanwhile, back in Bologna, Momola works with the international press to raise the profile of his son’s plight through a vigorous campaign demonising the pontiff. Despite best efforts on their part, the boy reaches adulthood as an indentured servant to the church and somehow develops a year erotic zeal for Pius. In one scene his adulation causes him to knock the pontiff down and leads to him being forced to draw three signs of the cross with his tongue on the floor, as a punishment. Another sees Edgardo freeing a statue of Christ, who then comes down from the cross and walks calmly away.

Fire and brimstone and much ringing of hands follows with Ronchi channelling a typical Jewish mother – and you feel for her and her cute offspring. Rapito certainly reflects a blood-soaked era which culminated in the Papal States – and Pius himself – been eventually vanquished by the Italian army in 1870. Needless to say the Catholic Church fails to redeem itself in the film’s ending, and still has a lot to answer for even to this day, in this brutal portrait of tyranny and religious bigotry. MT

IN UK CINEMAS and on CURZON HOME CINEMA FROM 26 APRIL 2024

A Night in Casablanca (1946)

Dir: Archie Mayo | with Groucho, Harpo, Chico Marx, Charles Drake, Lois Collier | uS Comedy 85’

Although nothing else in A Night in Casablanca begins to measure up to the opening gag with Harpo holding up the building, it remains the last truly vintage film the Marx Brothers ever made; and became something of a cause celebre when Jack Warner protested at the use of ‘Casablanca’ in the title. (It even has Dan Seymour from the original.)

It follows the familiar pattern, right down to the usual bland male lead (this time it’s the turn of Charles Drake). The boys must have got a lot of satisfaction to get laughs at the expense of Nazis, especially Sig Ruman who declares that “it will sooth me to see someone in pain”, while the level of the humour can guessed from the amount of time the film devotes to him losing his toupee.@RichardChatten

NOW ON MUBI

Blackbird Blackbird BlackBerry (2023)

Dir: Elene Naveriani | Drama: Georgia, Germany, Switzerland 110’

Elene Naveriani is an unique filmmaker with a distinctive visual style. Her third feature, the enigmatically titled Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, is a simple but thematically rich love story that continues in the same vein as her impressive second feature Wet Sand (2021) and luxuriates in the same artful framing and vibrant allure captured by DoP Agnesh Pakozdi.

Once again the plot centres on a close-knit community in rural Tbilisi, where the striking central character Etero, 48, nearly loses her life slipping off the side of a ravine while picking blackberries in the opening scene. Etero, who runs the village store, stands her ground when it comes to dealing with the bitchy village sisterhood, unlike the others she is happily unhitched and content with her sole status, a feminist without being aware of the fact. Appreciated but always mocked by the other women, she a warm and likeable person with considerable agency. Content to spent her life alone until she experiences the transformative affects of an impromptu sexual encounter which will change the course of her life forever in the film’s uplifting reveal.

Based on Tamta Melashvili’s feminist novel of the same name. Naveriani relentlessly portrays the more delicate nuances of rural life, and challenges Georgia’s heteronormative patriarchal structure in a narrative that stridently puts her position forward through Etero’s austere but appealing personality. She is prepared to welcome life’s vagaries, while also believing in her ability to forge a life alone even when she meets the somewhat sheepish Murman (Temiko Chinchinadze), who is seemingly unavailable. Eka Chavleisihvili gives a memorable tour de force as the modest, quietly philosophical force of nature; an inspiring woman who somehow attracts positivity through her staunch acceptance of life, preparing for the worst but always open to serendipity. MT

In UK cinemas on 3rd May 2024 | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL | DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT 2023

Only the River Flows (2023)

Dir: Wei Shujun | Yilong Zhu, Chloe Maayan, Tianlai Hou, Tong Lin Kai | China Drama 102′

Beijing born filmmaker Wei Shujun returns to Cannes three years after his award-winning Striding into the Wind (2020).

You could be forgiven for thinking Only The River Flows was actually made during the 1990s such is the vintage look of the celluloid and its grainy quality, shot by Chengma Zhiyuan (Fires on the Plain). The feature premiered at Cannes Un Certain Regard sidebar but is set thirty years ago in rural China where a chief of police Ma The (Yilong Zhu) is investigating a series of murders that lead to an early arrest. The victims are a kindly widow, a poet and a rather sweet little boy. But the detective starts to question this decision due the increasingly unusual behaviour of the locals in this riverside backwater.

Written and directed by Shujun Wei, the feature certainly pays homage to the noir detective stories of  the 1950s but what makes it more interesting is its portrayal of China before the economic boom at a time where most ordinary people were still quietly getting on with their humdrum lives in relative obscurity. And Ma The is a case in point. Under the cosh of his superiors, he is forced to suffer in silence and endure grim headquarters in a disused cinema. Home life is not much better, infact he lives in a rather squallid hovel with his wife Bai Jie (Chloe Maayan) who has recently become pregnant with a child who may have a borderline genetic disorder.

Based on a book by Hua Yu, it pictures the police as rather cartoonish characters who would rather be doing anything (such a playing pingpong) than tracking down criminals, and there’s dark humour at play here in the script co-written with Chuniei Kang.

The chief suspect is laughingly known as ‘the madman’ but the investigation also throws up some rather squallid little goings on which add texture and context to the thrust of the narrative – the hunt for the serial killer – in this rather scuzzy little corner of China. MT

ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS will be released in UK and Irish cinemas 16th August 2024.

 

 

 

The Other (1972)

Dir: Robert Mulligan | US Fantasy drama

Fifteen years after Tom Tryon had played the title monster in I Married a Monster from Outer Space, although the ordeal it depicted must have paled by comparison with the subsequent experience of working for Otto Preminger. He returned to films in style as executive producer on his own adaptation of his best-selling novel.

Having just created a splash with ‘Summer of ’42’ director Robert Mulligan returns to the summer of 1935 – a date driven home by an appearance of the National Review Association logo and when John Ritter is seen reading a newspaper headlining the trial of the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby – for this Hitchcockian exercise in psychological horror shot in brilliant colour by veteran cameraman Robert Surtees (there’s an eye-watering scene depicting a kid falling on to a pitchfork) which imbues Connecticut with the same inscrutable beauty as Grant Wood and Andrew Wyeth.

Just as Mulligan’s earlier study of childhood during the thirties in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ had enlisted the services as narrator of Kim Stanley (a stage actress rarely seen in films), so ‘The Other’ provides an extremely rare screen record of legendary Broadway star and acting coach Uta Hagen. @RichardChatten

Reality (2023)

Dir: Tina Satter | Cast  Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, Marchant Davies | US Drama 83′

A whistleblowing psychological drama that traps us for most of its running time within the confines of a small room and other drab locations to tell the true story of Reality Winner, an American NSA contractor who in 2017 divulged confidential top secret intelligence that revealed her country’s knowledge of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections.

Satter’s impressive feature debut is based on her own stage play ‘Is This a Room’ and revolves around an interrogation between two male FBI agents and Reality, an ambitious and highly intelligent linguist multi-linguist, sensitively played Sydney Sweeney. The dialogue is actually taken from the FBI’s transcripts of what was actually said, and demonstrates just how persuasive the men become in gradually breaking down a suspect until they achieve their aims.

It all starts in 2017 when Reality (Sweeney) is doorstepped at her home by FBI agents Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Taylor (Marchant Davis), who present a search warrant and then start a menacing interrogation. Reality readily engages with their line of questioning as her house is searched and her telephone confiscated until it gradually emerges that she is a suspect in the disclosure of highly sensitive information. At times stranger than fiction, Reality is an absorbing film that blends political thriller with fantasy drama with striking lighting effects and sound design. Sydney Sweeney is certainly a force to be reckoned with in the title role. MT

NOW IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE from 2 June 2023 | BERLINALE PANORAMA 2023

 

The Leather Boys (1964)

Dir: Sidney Furie | Cast: Rita Tushingham, Colin Campbell | Drama

‘The Leather Boys’ can still raise eyebrows for it’s pioneering depiction of a nice young lad who finds that he prefers the company of Dudley Sutton to his shrewish little wife played by Rita Tushingham..

Well before he hit the big time with ‘The Ipcress File’ Sydney J. Furie, the new boy from Canada, had already demonstrated himself a director of bewildering versatility with his work ranging from ‘X’-rated shockers like this to Cliff Richard musicals.

In the former category ‘The Leather Boys’ attracted particular notoriety when as a casualty of the industry crisis of 1963-64 it took over a year to obtain a circuit release, which earned it a place on Terence Kelly’s list of ‘martyred’ films on page 35 of his book ‘A Competitive Cinema’. All in all a perfect candidate for Talking Pictures. @RichardChatten

ALSO ON BFI PLAYER

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power (2022)

Dir.: Nina Menkes; Documentary with Laura Mulvay, Julie Dash, Joey Soloway, Catherine Hardwicke, Rosanna Arquette; USA 2022, 107 min.

It is no an accident that British film critic Laura Mulvay leads an all-female cast of academics and filmmakers in this new documentary. Brainwashed takes a long cold look at the different ways women and men are treated, both on the screen and by the film industry. Naturally, their male counterparts were invited to contribute but declined. It proves inconclusively that patriarchy has no gender, and that Mulvay’s theory of the ‘Male Gaze’ is very much alive even in the most high-brow fare.

Accordingly, we are forced to take our most admired films and throw them under the bus of sexism: from Last Year at Marienbad to Vertigo, Raging Bull and Le Mepris. Even cult classics such as Blade Runner and Metropolis get the red card.

In the full frontal assault few get away unscathed. Hollywood’s early women directors Ida Lupino and Dorothy Azner are just as guilty as their contemporary counterparts, despite representing just eight percent of the filmmaking community, they have all somehow committed the ‘male gaze’ faux pas’. Even “Palme d’Or” winner Julia Ducournau, only the second female to win the award, takes the rap – for Titane, in which a young woman has sex with a car.

But what exactly is the “male gaze” and what does it consist of? It starts with the definition of the Subject/Object relationship, followed by the specific framing of female and male characters, executed in the camera movement and the lighting: Easy to see how this happens if female filmmakers and camera operators are in the minority. Women often appear naked in films whereas their male counterparts rarely so. The effect is subliminal. Yes, of course, we are all inured and conditioned to it, it’s par for the course – but how often do we actually object?

In the golden era of the studio film women’s faces were captured in 2D sheen, making them look dewy and perfect, whilst men were shot in craggy 3D, implying they had other qualities. Women were reduced to the one-dimensional stereotype of beautiful inertness. As an interesting observation: have you ever watched Raging Bull and noticed that Cathy Moriarty’s image at the swimming pool is detached from the male speakers?

Finally, let’s move on to Mandingo, a trash product directed by Richard Fleischer in 1975. The female plantation owner (Susan George) forces the black slave to have sex with her (otherwise she would accuse him of rape and he would die). His pectoral muscles are very visible, and in all other ways the table is turned too: the male body is, for once, waiting to be conquered by the powerful female.

Brainwashed is rigorous and bracing in its approach, stringent in its execution; and an eyeopener for all who thought they knew the full extent of the phenomenon known as ‘the Male Gaze’. AS

BFI Blu-ray, BFI Player Subscription, iTunes and Amazon Prime release on 17 July 2023

 

 

Book Club: the next Chapter (2023)

Dir.: Bill Holderman; Cast: Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Don Johnson, Andy Garcia, Greg T. Nelson; USA 2023, 107 min.

Bill Holderman thought he was on to a good thing when Book Club, his feature debut, hit the big screen back in 2018. This follow-up is not as funny or well-written but takes up where he left off, and with the same team of Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and their love interests Don Johnson, Andy Garcia and Greg T. Nelson. Their star power carries Book Club: the next Chapter from cover to cover.

First time around “50 Shades of Grey” was the book up for discussion. This time around “The Alchemist” provides the reading matter. But rather than reading the focus is on a trip to Italy for a last ‘hurrah’ before Vivian (Fonda) settles down with Arthur (Johnson). What could be more romantic than an Italian wedding? Well, what starts as a joyride in Rome soon turns into a catalogue of disasters.

On the plus side, Book Club: the next Chapter looks ravishing, DoP Andrew Dunn pulling all the stops out with his camerawork and plenty of frothy dialogue. But something is lacking: a spark to set it all on fire. Fonda is regal; Steenburgen mischievous; Candice Bergen sarcastic and self-deprecating and Diane Keaton hoping for a better version of Woody Allen to spar with. But the script lets these ladies down badly. Which is a shame, because so much talent deserves something brave and daring. Certainly not this orderly retreat behind bland in-jokes and telegraphed plot changes. So not much of a page-turner, just a reliable comedy blighted by the fate of all sequels. . AS

ON RELEASE FROM 12 MAY 2023

Silent Dust (1949)

Dir: Lance Comfort | UK Drama

Based on the play by both himself and his father Roland, Michael Pertwee already displays the caustic take on human nature that would characterise his later work for Mario Zampi.

During the titles, as the unmistakable strains of Georges Auric swells up, top billing goes to Sally Gray, but the film really belongs to Stephen Murray who gives a towering performance as the patriarch dismayed to discover that his son (a perfectly cast Nigel Patrick) far from being the dead hero he was mourning was actually a very much alive bouncer.

Another little gem from the still unsung Lance Comfort. Two clever scenes are one depicting a lying flashback and a subjective sequence (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) in which he visualises a scar-faced intruder with the scar – which being blind – is on the man’s wrong cheek. @RichardChatten

Tiger Stripes (2022)

Dir.: Amanda Nell Eu; Cast: Zafreen Zairiza, Deena Ezrai, Piqa, Shaheisy Sam, Jun Lojong | Drama, 95 min.

Amanda Nell Eu goes far beyond the bounds of horror with her astonishing debut feature. She wa the first woman filmmaker from Malaysia to make it into Cannes Film Festival main completion for the 75th Edition. Shooting was originally planned for 2018 but had to be postponed due to the pandemic.

Set a strictly religious Muslim School for Girls in rural Malaysia, this is a story of liberation via magic. Tiger Stripes unfolds in the playful, slightly ironic style of Jacques Rivette’s early films such as La Bande a Quatre. Her aim here is not scare the audience but make them fully appreciate her heroine’s struggle for liberation.

Zaffan (Zairizal) is twelve years old and puberty is a taboo subject in her strict Muslim household. Any discussion about bodily changes is strictly out of bounds: “you are dirty now” is all she tells her daughter.  Zaffan’s friends are even more aggressive, led by the goody-two-shoes Farah (Ezrai), who isolates Zaffan from her girl friends and “shops” her to the school authorities. After the class teacher has a nervous breakdown dealing with Zaffan, who is now considered an evil spirit, an exorcist tries to liberate the girl from the demon (whilst plying his fare on a mobile) but he is also left defeated. Will Zaffan really be liberated after escaping to the jungle with her new identity?

Told tongue-in-cheek style, Tiger Stripes contrasts our modern technology-driven world with the traditional Muslim dogma that deprives girls of their freedom and identity: they may have their mobile ‘phones, but their status as second class citizen will prevail. Instead of being proud of their bodies, they are told be ashamed of being ‘Deuxieme Sex’. There is only one way out: magic realism.

DoP Jimmy Gimferrer creates an atmosphere of permanent threat: particularly at night during a school outing in the woods when strange noises keep the girls awake. The creatures of the night, which might help to liberate Zaffan in the end, are not so much present, but are everywhere. Two worlds collide. And Zaffan’s parents and the school authorities are very much afraid of the magic world: they have never left the world of their childhood, and religion is just a way of convenience.

A roller-coaster of a film, Tiger Stripes makes his point: Girls just want to dance and have fun. With a firework of ideas, EU burns down the real walls of imprisonment with a magical firework display. Brilliant. AS

NOW IN SELECTED UK CINEMAS

Jeanne du Barry (2023)

Dir/Wri: Maiwenn | Cast: Maiwenn, Johnny Depp, Melvil Poupaud, Pierre Richard, Pascal Gregory, Benjamin Lavernhe, Marianne Basler | France, Drama 117′

French actor and filmmaker Maiwenn clearly had Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece Barry Lyndon (1975) in mind when she came up with idea of making a film about the six-year love affair between the widower King Louis XV (1710-74) and his mistress Jeanne du Barry, who would dance him to his grave. Seven years in the making, the film is based on a script by the director and her co-writers Teddy Lussi-Modeste and Nicolas Livecchi who create an overlong potboiler that aspires to be more momentous than it actually is, and with little dramatic heft to carry us through the narrative torpor.

In real life Jeanne Becu, Comtesse du Barry, was a cultured patron and aesthete who counted Voltaire amongst her coterie. But Maiwenn skips over historical fact imagining her heroine, who she also plays, as a woman who started life as an orphan and used her looks and low cunning to scamper up the social ladder to the Royal throne, entrancing the King who had only recently lost his Polish Queen Marie Leszczynska and his previous mistress Madame de Pompadour.

John Alcott won the Best Cinematography Oscar for Barry Lyndon and this version in elegantly shot in the same flickering candlelight style by Laurent Dailland who also captures the magnificent landscapes surrounding Versailles, the film marks Maiwenn’s 35 mm debut and aims for the same delicate atmosphere as Barry Lyndon but achieves none of the depth or finesse of Kubrick’s epic, some set ideas seemingly copied directly from the original.

Slim of plot but busting with bodice-heaving interludes Jeanne du Barry is a raunchy romp that harks back to an era where it was unthinkable for a commoner to become chatelaine of the magnificent palace of Versailles where she would slip into the King’s bed, via a marriage with Melvil Poupaud’s Comte du Barry, and craftily negotiate malign influences in the corridors of power.

Sadly we see no real evidence of du Barry’s clever strategies, or her artistic prowess, Maiwenn instead playing her as a simpering coquettish ‘cat that got the cream’ in a series of face-offs with the King’s cartoonish offspring and his valet, a suave Benjamin Lavernhe.

Maiwenn makes for a rather salacious, hard-edged heroine, unpopular with her female counterparts but capable of turning on the charm with her male entourage. Depp is masterful in his limited screen appearance gracing the set with his usual charismatic allure but even Johnny can’t save t