VOD Archives - Filmuforia

The Capote Tapes (2020) VoD

Dir: Ebs Burnough | With Dick Cavett, Kate Harrington, Lewis Lapham, Andre Leon Talley, Jay McInerney, Sally Quinn, Dotson Radar, John Richardson, Sadie Stein, Colm Toibin| US, Doc, 91′

“A society that is the sum of its vanity and greed is not a society at all: it’s a state of war” (Mark Twain), and this is the society of Truman – Lewis Lapham

Cinematic catnip for all voyeurs, this new documentary about Truman Capote plays out like a thrilling cocktail party.

A first film Ebs Burnough – who once served as social secretary to Michelle Obama – the broad-brush biopic chronicles Capote’s life and times with his novels forming the background to a glittering social scene that was his lifeblood, and in the end his downfall.

Burnough focuses on interviews conducted by George Plimpton, the most intimate and revealing coming from his ‘protege’ Kate Harrington (the daughter of his “manager” – and lover, as she later discovered), who later moved in with the Manhattan-based author describing him as “calm and nurturing”. He taught her the requisite social graces for operating in New York Society (“you can be a big deal in Boise, Idaho, but the only place that matters is New York”).

Harrington (a costumer designer on The Thomas Crown Affair) describes how the author rose early to write for three hours before embarking on gossip-fuelled rendezvous. There are pithy commentaries from literary luminaries Jay McInerney, Lewis Lapham and Dotson Radar and the late John Richardson (Picasso’s biographer), along with chat show host Dick Cavett (all looking smooth-faced and soigné) who wittily chart Truman’s progress from society darling and ‘court jester’ to social pariah whose writing eventually suffered from his inadvisable over-sharing of gossip, and substance abuse.

Many claim that his obsession with convicted killer Perry (In Cold Blood) was the source of his downfall, but Burnough persuades us that the grandes dames of NY eventually put the boot in to the diminutive blond writer with an extraordinary vocal delivery. In fact, Harrington describes his speech as so bizarre on first meeting him (as a teenager) that she was forced to run from the room for fear of laughing in his face. And the self-deprecating Truman was fully aware that he came across as “a freak”, proclaiming that people only laughed in his company out of sheer horror at his strange voice. It soon emerges that Truman thought little of the socialites in his midst, and harboured resentment over they way he was apparently treated as a “servant” (according to Lapham). These rumours partly led to the suicide of his mother Nina Faulk Capote (1905-54), despite the fact she herself had tried to terminate her prenancy (ref: Capote: A Biography/Gerald Clarke) eventually bringing him up in Monroeville, Alabama where Truman grew close to his childhood friend Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird).

But on a lighter note, this fizzing cocktail of a film is not meant to be the definitive Capote biopic but serves as an endlessly amusing tonic in these days of the ‘doom documentary’, adding frothy context to Truman’s literary works capturing the zeitgeist of the era in which they were penned.

The Capote Tapes is further enlivened by archive clips featuring Norman Mailer and Truman’s ‘best friend’ the socialite Barbara”Babe” Cushing Paley (whose husband William founded CBS Records) and there are quotes from his various novels, ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ (1948); ‘Breakfast in Tiffany’s’ (1958); his ‘non-fiction’ effort ‘In Cold Blood’ (1965) which gets the lion’s share of Burnough’s attention on the book front, which was considered pivotal to Truman’s emotional unravelling, along with the repercussions of published excerpts from the author’s unfinished work ‘Answered Prayers’ (published posthumously in 1987 in the US) which was substantially delayed by the infamous Black and White Ball of 1966 – more later – and also purportedly led to his downfall.

The film them flips back to detail the Truman’s assignment with the New Yorker hat would take him away from the rigours of keeping up with the ‘NY Joneses’ to spend six months in Kansas covering the murder case that would form the basis for his ‘non-fiction’ classic ‘In Cold Blood’. On the downside, it also led to his fascination with Perry making it difficult to maintain distance from his source material (an aspect that really jumps out in Douglas McGrath’s 2006 screen adaptation of the novel Infamous .

Burnough culminates his expose by fleshing out the events surrounding the divisive 1966 ball that Truman threw at the Plaza Hotel, publishing a list of those invited in the papers (so that no-one could pretend to have been invited that wasn’t). The gossip columns shared salacious secrets the socialites has shared with Truman – Babe Paley never spoke to him again, much to his chagrin. So the exclusive party that was in part intended to provide source material for a book backfired on its precipitating the end of his writing career, . Jay McInerney comments, quite harshly, that from then on Truman became more a ‘talk-show celebrity’ than a committed author, and was assigned to a life of ‘drugs and disco hopping’ rather than consorting with New York’s beau mode. A rather poignant film but certainly one of the most fascinating you’ll see this year. MT

The Capote Tapes will be available at www.altitude.film and on all digital platforms across the UK and Ireland from 29 January.

Pieces of a Woman (2020) VOD

Dir: Kornel Mundruczo | Drama, 127’

Nothing prepares us for sudden death. But the most confusing part of bereavement is how is it affects those around us, and particularly those nearest to us. And this unexpected behaviour is the crux of Kornel Mundruczo’s latest film. It looks at how the loss of a child affects a professional Bostonian woman called Martha (Vanessa Kirby/The Crown) and her stevedore partner, a recovering alcoholic who hails from Seattle (Shia Leboeuf).

The Hungarian director’s first outing in English is as deeply flawed as the title suggests, a tonal mishmash: moving in parts but totally incoherent in others. The euphoric early arthouse scenes – impressively shot in one 24 minute take – show the couple during the birth, and these intensely personal moments are graphic in detail. Almost too much so. But the baby dies shortly after she is born leaving the couple in disarray and arguments and recriminations follow. And as Boston descends into a freezing winter, amid wide panoramic shots of the Charles River, so Martha retreats into herself cutting Sean adrift in an icy silence.

Based on his own personal experiences this is clearly a cathartic film for the director writing with his real life partner Kata Weber. But the film soon drifts into a more glossy family drama where the grief-stricken Martha is persuaded by her controlling mother (Ellen Burstyn in formidable form) to seek compensation from the midwife. As Martha’s relationships deteriorate all round her so the storyline unravels with no real sense of direction. There is a fraught mother-daughter strand; an imploding relationship breakdown where class and racial conflicts enter the fray – Martha is a tough Jewish uptown girl, Sean is soft-hearted but given to brutal outbursts. Their attractions are also part of their downfall when things don’t go according to plan.

Sarah Snook, Martha’s distant cousin, is hired to fight their case as the lawyer taken on to prosecute midwife Eva. And Martha’s mother, a steely Holocaust survivor, offers invaluable advice to daughters everwhere: “you have to take a stand and tell your truth, otherwise you can never move on”. You might not like her but you’d certainly want her on your side: “and when you do move on, burn your bridges”, is another chestnut.

The actors all do their best to carry the film forward and Ellen Burstyn is the most impressive, Leboeuf stymied by an underwritten role. But the script is so focussed on Martha’s simmering resentment that the final reveal – in a coruscating court scene – bears no relation to what has gone before, leaving us unprepared and perplexed.

The unsuccessful shift from arthouse to Hollywood melodrama could be due to various big names jumping on board the project with their money and therefore demanding a schmaltzy Hollywood happy ending, Martin Scorsese has put his money behind the project as exec producer but Mundruczo’s departure from his arthouse style is a bewildering film, certainly watchable but vaguely unsatisfying. MT

NOW ON VOD RELEASE | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2020

Dear Comrades! (2020) **** VOD

Dir: Andrei Konchalovsky | Drama, Russia 120′

Veteran Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky uncovers a little known episode of the Nikita Krushchev era – the Novercherkassk Massacre of June 1962 – in this elegant and restrained black and white feature filmed on academy ratio.

A follow-up to his last Venice offering – Sin – an imagined drama about Michelangelo – this is a more down to earth film but its refined gracefulness pictures the seriousness of the incident with a lightness of touch and even a dash of sardonic humour.

Dear Comrades! plays out during three days and is viewed through the eyes of a working woman played often vehemently by the director’s wife and regular collaborator Julia Vysotskaya. Lyuda is divorced and living with her daughter and father in the Southern city where she is a committed Communist Party official who yearns for the days of Stalin, despite its abuses which would lead to millions of Russians losing their lives. We instantly connect with her from the opening scene where she is in a rush to leave her married lover’s bed, keen to get in the supermarket queue before the shelves are emptied – due to the political regime rather than Covid19 shortages.

A strike is later announced at a local factory where Lyuda’s wilful teenage daughter Sveta (Julia Burova) is a worker and desperate to join her co-workers as they mass for the protest. Lyuda is watching the crowd swell from the balcony of her spacious offices but when the workers surge forward and break into the building she and her colleagues are advised to leave through the basement. Soon thousands are joining in the protest and the following days sees a KGB sniper shoots indiscriminately into the crowd and many civilians are killed and injured as they scatter for cover. .

The balanced script uncovers some fascinating contradictions about the Soviet era: Konchalovsky and his co-writer Elena Kiseleva are keen to point out that the army are odds with the KGB and the forces end up taking the rap. The authorities crack down immediately ordering the main roads to be resurfaced with fresh tar macadam to hide the indelible bloodshed which has seeped into the cracks and dried in the searing sun. There is a rapid cover-up: locals are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements and sworn to secrecy upon pain of death. Meanwhile, Sveta has disappeared and Lyuda urges a KGB captain Viktor (Andrei Gusev) to help track her down.

In many ways Lyuda is a conflicted character not only for her political ideals but also for her personal ones: “Are you ashamed to share a bed with another woman’s husband?” complains her daughter when Lyuda complains about her daughter’s tarty habit of not wearing a bra. Lyuda supports a crack-down on the protesters but when Sveta upholds her own constitutional right to protest, Lyuda tells her she should be disciplined. And the following vignette involving her father (Sergei Erlish) is a telling one as he dresses up in his military uniform and dusts down a religious icon of the Virgin Mary while reminiscing over past state abuses.

After a dignified irritation in the early scenes Lyuda start to let her emotions out of the bag in the final act, her anxiety bubbling to the surface but also her nihilistic acceptance of life under a regime which she has both aided and abetted, and is now suffering under. The final reveal topples over into a romantic sentimentalism bordering on melodrama that sits awkwardly with her stiff upper-lipped persona of the early part of the film, but this human drama is richly rewarding snapshot of life in 1960s Russia that doesn’t appear to have moved under Putin nearly sixty years later, according to Andre Konchalovsky. MT

NOW ON CURZON VOD from 15 January | Venice Film Festival 2020 | SPECIAL JURY PRIZE 2020

Beginning (2020) MUBI

Dir: Dea Kulumbegashvili | Cast: Ia Sukhitashvili, Rati Oneli, Kakha Kintsurashvili, Saba Gogichaishvili | Drama, Georgia/France 125′

Dea Kulumbegashvili won the top prize at San Sebastian 2020 for her serenely self-assured yet sorrowful portrait of dispossession that ripples out into wider concerns for her native Georgia and the world in general.

Seen through the eyes of a disenchanted woman living in provincial Georgia this debut feature is a sensual and stunningly cinematic exploration of all that is wrong with society from religious intolerance to misogyny and the erosion of rural life pictured in the film’s devastating scorched earth finale.

On the crossroads between Europe and Asia, Georgia is an independent country and of the most ancient Christian nations dating back to the 4th century. The film opens in a small town in the Caucasus Mountains bordering on Azerbaijan where, as the wife of a Jehovah’s Witness leader, Jana (Sukhitashvili) must play a rather subservient role to her husband David (Oneli). This film opens during a chapel service which is firebombed by an explosion, causing the frightened congregation to flee into nearby countryside. The incandescent blaze glows on silently for a while afterwards igniting Yaha’s own inner turmoil that will smoulder through this slow-burn Tarkovskian drama, delicately touching on its thematic concerns in a way that nevertheless speaks volumes for the audience.

Light plays a vital role in Beginning. Playing out as a series of vivid tableaux vivants, the jewel-like frames are often glow with a viridescent pool of light, Arseni Khachaturan’s fixed camera scrutinises the main character in each frame who is often bathed in a shaft of light, or closely observed while the speaking character is out of sight. One sublime take sees Yana lying in a bed of autumn leaves, the ambient bird song slowly dying out as she is transformed into a bliss-like state. Captivating for some viewers (it lasts for around 7 minutes), it may however test other’s powers of endurance. What Dea achieves here is a meditative intimacy with her character. And as we are drawn more closely into Yana’s orbit, we feel a deep affinity with her state of mind; the affect is quite astonishing and deeply calming.

Yana emerges tolerant and forbearing, inspiring our sympathy despite her inner discontent; she is never angry or histrionic even when the children she is preparing for their first religious communion collapse in a fit of giggles. She exudes an almost saint-like endurance except when talking to her self-absorbed husband who professes his deep neediness of her despite his inattentiveness. Shutting down her feelings of futility, he responds patronisingly during a conversation early on in the film: “Let’s find you a job”. Yet as she toils away in the kitchen, Sukhitashvili’s Yana is a luminously compelling heroine, resembling a latter day Jeanne Dielman, a woman who carries on calmly amidst gruelling domestic trivia, a loving mother bewildered by the lurid sexual abuse meted out on her by a visiting police detective come to investigate the chapel fire.

There is one scene where David and Yana appear to be on the same page in their tender pillow talk although David’s chief concern is rebuilding the chapel so his career path is not derailed despite his wife’s calmly-voiced inertia, her own work as an actor having been on the back-burner since their son’s birth.

The film’s painterly views of nature evoke Dea’s appreciation of her homeland and concerns for a rural existence threatened by the future. In a scene towards the end of the film a uniformed hunter looks menacingly into the camera possibly hinting at Georgia’s ongoing tricky relationship with Russia. One more puzzling scene contrasts a violent rape attack (Yana and the detective?) with the wild beauty of its rocky riverside setting where two figures tussle violently at the extreme right of the frame where they are almost indistinguishable from the flow-strewn purple and white undergrowth.

A visit to her mother reinforces Yana’s feelings of subjugation and disempowerment as a woman. Recalling her own difficult marriage, her mother warns Yana not to mention the incident for fear of rocking the boat. Yana is clearly alone in the world with two males who depend on her but never consider her own emotional well-being.

Finally, on a drive home one night David discusses their future in small-town Georgia. A move to Tbilisi is on the cards but David sees it from his own perspective as the camera looks out onto a dark and rainy road ahead. Yana remains locked in silence, a receptacle for everyone’s needs but her own. MT

NOW ON MUBI | San Sebastian | WINNER OF THE GOLDEN SHELL AWARD 2020

Make-Up (2019) *** VOD

Dir.: Claire Oakley, Cast: Molly Windsor, Joseph Quinn, Stephanie Martin, Lisa Palfrey, Theo Barklem-Briggs; UK 2019, 86 min.

This shady seaside story of sexual discovery is the feature debut of British director Claire Oakley. Slathered in atmosphere it often feels like an extended short. In Cornwall the Autumn mists slowly descend on a run down caravan park, where eighteen-year old Ruth (Windsor) arrives to lighten things up for her boyfriend Tom (Quinn). But her growing doubts about their relationship are echoed in the September dankness setting the tone for a simmering switch in Ruth’s sexuality as she slowly develops feelings for her much older co-worker Jade (Martini), a wigmaker fond of the titular crimson red make-up.

In this visually inventive exploration of drifting sexuality, Oakley dabbles in a heady hotchpotch of genres hovering between horror and poetic realism, DoP Nick Cooke dressing it all up to look like something by Nicolas Roeg. But the underworked script relies on enigma and atmosphere to confer a deeper meaning in banal scenes where Oakley has little to express, apart from the usual coming-of-age conflict, mixed with a heavy-handed gender role reversal.

Newcomer Molly Windsor tries hard to add meaning to the cringe-worthy dialogue, but biting her nails like a little girl in distress seems to defeat the purportedly empowering theme of Make Up. Without giving away too many spoilers, we soon get where the plot is heading: via a ‘Wicker Man’ like beach scene, with Tom and best friend Kai (Barklem-Briggs) proudly flexing their masculinity and mastery of the Cornish language. A blatantly sentimental first ending which is then trumped by a second one, is a steal from Truffaut’s debut Les Quatre Cents Coups, with Ruth taking the Antoine Doinel part. Make Up is rather a hit-and-miss affair as far as drama goes, but its efforts to engage in the ongoing LGBTQ+ narrative are laudable and worthwhile, and the film’s poster designed by Andrew Bannister is brilliant. AS

IN CINEMAS AND EXCLUSIVELY ON CURZON HOME CINEMA | 31 JULY 2020

The Rifleman | Dveselu Putensis (2019) *** Digital and DVD

Dir.: Dzintars Dreibergs; Cast: Otto Brantevics, Taimonds Celms, Martin Vilsons, Greta Trusina; Latvia 2019, 104 min.

The Rifleman pays stark witness to the horrors and brutality of the First World War, as seen through the eyes of an innocent 17-year-old farm-boy turned soldier and the tragic fate of his family.

Written by Boris Frumin and based on the 1933/34 novel by Aleksanders Grins, which was forbidden in the USSR, its author shot down in 1941. This lushly mounted historical drama was, not surprisingly, a huge success at the box-office in Latvia, and an impressive first feature for Latvia’s Dzintars Dreibergs, who made his name as sports documentarian.

The Rifleman is an unashamedly male and patriotic affair, filmed as an eyewitness report from the POV of 17-tear-old Arthurs Vanags (Brantevics), it opens in 1914 giving full emotional throttle to the murder of the young man’s mother by German soldiers, who, for good measure also kill the family’s dog. Arthur’s father (Vilsons) has served in the Russian Imperial Army, and burns down the farmhouse and shoots the cattle, before enlisting with Arthurs and his brother Edgars (Celms) in Latvia’s first National Battalion, part of the Russian forces overrun by the Germans.

Wounded in a skirmish, Arthurs soon falls for Marta (Trusina), a nurse in the field hospital. But more tragedy follows when Arthurs is asked by Red Army commanders to shoot Latvian soldiers who have disobeyed their Russian officers. Returning home, Arthurs catches up with Marta who is now working as a farmhand in Latvia, before setting out to liberate his homeland from “Tsars, Red Army and the Germans who all want to repress Latvian independence.”

DoP Valdis Celmins does a great job with his grizzly images of foggy snowbound battles, the frozen bodies reduced to ghostly spectres. Lolita Ritmanis’ evocative score is in line with this heroic approach to war, providing the emotional underpinnings to this rousing feature (1917 it is not) depicting a grim episode in Latvian history. AS

In the Showcase Cinema circuit nationwide | Sunday 26th July

On Digital from 10th August | On DVD from 24th August

Temptation Harbour (1947) ****

Dir: Lance Comfort | Cast: Simone Simon, Robert Newton, William Hartnell, Margaret Barton | Noir Thriller | UK |

The story of Temptation Harbour is straightforward but morally complex. One night a railway signalman on the quay observes two men suspiciously embarking from a ship. Later he witnesses a fight between the men for possession of a suitcase. A man is deliberately pushed into the water and the killer runs off. The signalman retrieves the suitcase to discover it contains £5000 in banknotes. The police are not informed. He hides the case in his house. Conflicts concerning family trust, the appearance of a femme fatale and further violence ensue.

Lance Comfort’s Temptation Harbour (1947) is one of three film adaptations of Georges Simenon’s novel L’homme de Londres: Newhaven-Dieppe. The other two are Henri Decoin’s L’homme de Londres (1931), and Bela Tarr’s The Man from London (2007). The 30’s French version is moody but stolid (An earnest voice-over ‘guilty conscience’ and a chanson-singing prostitute almost sink the production.) The Tarr film is brooding and metaphysical. Brilliantly shot in black and white but mysteriously abstracting Simenon’s story: making it more a Bela Tarr experience than a noir-thriller. Only the British film, Temptation Harbour comes closest to Simenon’s fatalism where his icy sympathy is tempered by the sensitive direction of Lance Comfort. Whilst a sense of the French cinema of the 30s and 40s (Quai Des Brumes and La Bête humaine) aids the atmosphere.

Film noir is a highly influential force in cinema: depicting a treacherous world of darkness and pessimism where characters engage, or deliberately strain your sympathy. Not normally a world in which much compassion is shown to those who do wrong. The word “generosity” doesn’t come readily to mind for its heroes, villains or even victims. Yet the noirish-stained Temptation Harbour has a warmly rounded sympathy for its signalman protagonist Bert Mallinson (Robert Newton) and his involved people, daughter Betty Mallinson (Margaret Barton) side-show performer Camelia (Simone Simon) and “the man from London killer” Jim Brown (William Hartnell). The emphasis is placed on vulnerability, understandable corruption and stress: all are highlighted instead of noir’s usual amorality, obvious greed and sweet revenge.

The degree of tenderness that Lance Comfort brings to this dark melodrama is remarkable. Bert Mallinson, Betty Mallinson and Camelia are played out as subtle variations of innocence and experience. Bert is basically a decent man who holds onto the £5000 realising it would be impossible to earn so much in a lifetime of work. Betty is a kind daughter who (in her father’s eyes) does wrong by stealing some kidneys from the butcher’s she works at – a small misdemeanour, but enough for Bert to momentarily ‘flaw’ her character. Camelia is an unhappy orphan of the war, now trapped into playing the part of a ‘radio-active mermaid’ beauty in a tacky fairground act. She want to escape and tries to seduce Bert, with his suitcase of money, for this is her only means to return to a comfortable life in France. Even the killer Mr.Brown is treated with compassion once we learn the circumstances that led him to crime – a distressed Mrs.Brown (Joan Hopkins) is brought in for questioning by an ex-detective, Inspector Dupre (Marcel Dalio)

Temptation Harbour pays homage to both Jean Renoir and De Sica. Renoir for the film’s overall intense sympathy and De Sica for the lovely attention to detail and atmosphere that Comfort brings to the scene involving daughter Betty as she prepares her father’s breakfast. The camera accompanies her in a manner echoing the long sequence featuring the maid preparing for the day, in De-Sica’s Umberto D.

The film’s father/daughter relationship is handled with tender insight and affection. The rupture of this family bond emotionally breaks the recently widowed signalman, as much as his futile holding onto the money and a final act of self-defence. Robert Newton is excellent as the conflicted father. Margaret Barton (who began her film career as the tearoom waitress in Brief Encounter) gives a superb performance that is both heartfelt and poignant.

Bleak tale though it is, Temptation Harbour has humorous episodes. Irene Handl’s fake playing of the piano at the show and Simone Simon’s bored and detached delivery of her theatrical patter are beautifully comedic. It’s a perfectly cast film but not quite note perfect. There’s an extended voice-over by Robert Newton – the director ought to have trusted his actor to suggest character dilemma through looks. Yet this is a slight flaw in a moving and exciting film.

It seems that betrayal, error and the confused aspiration to a better life spill out from the family to encompass the needs of the other characters. It’s just after the Second World War and people are still poor and desire transformative social change. Lance Comfort and co-scriptwriter Rodney Ackland (author of the play Absolute Hell (1952) set in a club on the eve of the 1945 general election) plant this sub-text into their crime film. A better life, to remain decent people, avoid messes like the one Bert Mallinson has got himself into, and improve themselves, are their aspirations making up a redemptive goal – not in a religious sense – but for a deserved material well being. The urgent need to escape from an austere Britain of rationing and ‘making things do’ hangs over everyone.

“How by 1945, at the apparent birth of a new world, did the ‘activators’ – politicians, planners, public intellectuals, opinion-formers – really see the future? And how did their vision of what lay ahead compare with that of ‘ordinary people?’ The overlaps and mismatches between these two sets of expectations would be fundamental to the playing out of the next three or more decades.” Austerity Britain 1945-51 – David Kynaston

Temptation Harbour works as a social critique; film noir; domestic drama and crime movie. Visually stunning camerawork by Otto Heller creates much fine and appropriate shading of the foggy harbour and the house and hotel interiors. Mischa Poliansky’s music is very effective – particularly in the heart-rending final moments: Father locks up the house and says goodbye to his daughter, the music surges in and up with a Rachmaninov-like tone and power.

Temptation Harbour is rightly regarded as Lance Comfort’s best work and for me should be viewed alongside Cavalcanti’s They Made Me a Fugitive – also photographed by Otto Heller. It’s fascinating to compare the Fugitive spiv-corrupted London with the dangerous Folkestone of Temptation Harbour, as both were released in 1947. Fugitive has a demobilised RAF pilot Clem Morgan, played by Trevor Howard, drawn into a world of crime. Both Morgan and Mallinson seek justice either in the form of regained dignity (Fugitive) or deserved materialism (Harbour) and are impatient for the new world to deliver. Unfortunately Cavalcanti’s disillusioned ex-serviceman and Comfort’s corrupted signalman are left at the end with their fate uncertain (Only in The Man from London version of Simenon’s novel and L’homme de Londres is Mallinson sort of let off, by the police inspector, from his ‘crime’.)

The film has not been available until recently due to issues with the Simenon family estate, Temptation Harbour can now be viewed on the BFI online player for a small rental charge. I saw it this month at a one-off screening at the Southbank and their beautiful archive print, of what is probably a minor masterpiece, really ought to be released on blu-ray. Alan Price©2018

TEMPTATION HARBOUR IS AVAILABLE ON BFI PLAYER

The Ninth Cloud (2017) *

Dir.: Jane Spencer; Cast: Michael Madsen, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Megan Maczko, Elena Krausz, Sabina Akhmedova; Switzerland/UK 2014, 93′.

Sometimes films are kept on the shelf for a reason – The Ninth Cloud, a pretentious, verbose Nouvelle Vague rip-off set in Hackney, is a prime example. A male director would be rightly nailed to the cross for this febrile flop.

Three worlds collide when the dipsomaniac ‘damsel in distress’ Zena (Maczko) desperately tries and fails to channel Anna Karina in Band-à-Part (the big coat is a dead give-away). The flat she shares with pregnant Laura (Krausz) and over-sexed Helene (Akhmedova) is a viper’s nest, and no love is lost – later they are joined by a homeless woman.Zena is in love with Bob (Madsen), a pretend gay ‘artist’, who is actually married, but acts out meaningless scripts with his band of followers from the hostel in a derelict warehouse. The third set belongs to posh wannabes led by Jean-Hughes Anglade (La Reine Margot) who reside in a hotel and fight it out like a bunch of cowboys. As it turns out, Bob is a not gay, and a con-artist to boot, and the scheme to raise money for a boy who lost his leg in the Congolese war is not only in very bad taste, but, like the whole enterprise, gradually peters out.

Bob and Zena talk non-stop about Les Enfants du Paradise with Jean Vigo and Rainer Maria Rilke who both died of broken hearts – but are equally at home on more basic territory: Zena telling her flat mates, that a man told her to touch his penis – the scene is repeated in images for the hard of hearing.

Shooting on the feature should have started in 2008, but the death of its star Guillaume Depardieu (to whom the film is dedicated) in the same year, postponed it for three years, and a two-year post-production did not help either; these may be contributory factors, but do not excuse this train-wreck of a feature. AS

NOW AVAILABLE ON ITUNES

Sword of the Assassin (2012)

Dir.: Victor Vu; Cast: Huynh Dong, Van Trang, Mi Du, Kim Hien; Vietnam 2012, 100 min.

Victor Vu (Vengeful Heart) has created the first Vietnamese Wuxia (Martial Arts) film set at the time of the Le dynasty (1428-1788) in Vietnam. The hero Nguyen Vu (Dong) is the last of his family after Queen Thai Hau (Trang) has murdered the rest of his family, blaming them unjustly for the death of her husband. Vu is educated by a monk in the country side and introduced to martial arts. As a young man, he moves to the capital to seek revenge. There he meets the sisters Hoa Xuan (Du) and Hoa Ha (Hien), whose family has also suffered from the vicious Queen. Vu tries to help one of the Queen’s opponents at court to find the ‘Blood Letter’, a document written by a servant of the murdered King, whose contents would reveal the real culprits. But when Vu finds out, that his new ally only wants to become the new Emperor, he changes side and brings the revealing Letter to Thai Hau, asking her to mend her ways and stop further bloodshed.

SWORD OF THE ASSASSIN is beautiful to look at, particularly the lush landscape of Vietnam is a stunning backdrop to a narrative that is not particularly original, even though the pacifistic ending is touching. The fighting scenes are parricularly impressive, the protagonists flying through high above the ground like birds. A great watch for Wuxia fans, The Sword of the Assassin can’t compete with Ang Lee’s work, but makes a worthwhile attempt at bringing Vietnamese martial arts to the big screen. AS

OUT ON VOD FROM 15 FEBRUARY 2016

The Punk Syndrome (2012) | VOD Release |

Directors/Script:Jukka Karkkainen, J-P Passi

Cast: Pertti Kurikka, Kari Aalto, Sami Helle, Toni Valitalo

Finland 2012 85mins Music Doc

A truly one-off music documentary about unlikely Finnish Punk sensation, ‘Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day’; a band made up of two obsessive Down’s Syndrome sufferers and a mentally disabled lead singer with rage issues. You just couldn’t write it. No, you wouldn’t be allowed to write it. But then, isn’t punk all about throwing ‘PC’ out the window?

THE PUNK SYNDROME is an at once a joyful and poignant study following the band’s rise and their trials and tribulations, without the smooth PR one might normally bounce off when trying to document a band both at home and on tour. What thus follows is an extraordinarily candid insight, not only into the band, but also into what it is to live an institutionalised life on the margins of society and how blurred that line can indeed be with the rest of us.

The documentary has already played at Tampere, Visions Du Reel, Helsinki IFF- Love and Anarchy where it won Special Prize Visions Du Reel and Best Film/Films On Art Competition New Horizons IFF. What makes it work so well is unflinching access straight through to the humanity of the players; four men who recognise that their lives really aren’t that great, but who manage to negotiate their own selves and vent the vast majority of their frustrations through their music.

It is noticeable at some of the various gigs that the audiences start out thinking they’re perhaps going to witness the performing equivalent of a train wreck, but in the end are simply won over by the heart, brutal honesty, energy and pretty funny lyrics that come out of these four committed musicians, through some enthusiastically thrashed out titles such as ‘Speech Defect’, ‘ADHD’ and ‘Decision Makers Are Cheaters’.

As the guitarist and songwriter Pertti says, ‘This isn’t about honour, this is about punk’. THE PUNK SYNDROME has some brilliant laugh out loud moments, but one cannot also but be genuinely moved by the plight and frustrations of these guys who, despite the way their lives are stacked, remain resolute in raging against the machine. And I can promise you, you’ll never look at pedicurists in the same way again. Pure Gold. Ian Dury would be proud. AR

http://kovasikajuttu.fi/

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Max Kennedy and the American Dream (2011) VOD release

Dir.: Vikram Zutshi

Documentary with Max Kennedy; USA 2011, 59 min.

Max Kennedy is a ‘Minuteman’, part of a small group of white, middle-aged vigilantes, who’ve patrolled the USA/Mexican border since 2005, chasing illegal immigrants. They work in close contact with the official Boarder guards and are proud of the voluntary work they do for their country. They give themselves names like ‘Li’l Dog; or ‘Gadget’ and are friends with the ranchers on the American side of the border. Their motto is “Stop the cockroaches from coming over the wall”.

Max, who joined the Minuteman in 2007, comes from Brooklyn and proudly shows of a photo of himself as a hippie with a guitar. The interviewer is baffled, but Max opines that immigrant workers took his job and were responsible for the break up of his family. His wife had to have an abortion and that was the end of our marriage. “You know, they have to have control over their own bodies, these women”, he sniggers, showing that misogyny goes hand in glove with racism. Blaming the American public for his plight, he claims they are ‘gullible beyond belief’.

On the other side of fence, literally and figuratively, are the Mexican migrants, unrelenting in their pursuit of entering the United States. Sometimes there are shouting matches with loudhailers at the border: right wing politicians and Mexicans shout abuse at each other: one side wanting to keep their country white, the other one asking the Whites to go back to Europe, where they came from. In Mexico City, the film crew visits a “Rehabilitation centre for the Deported”. Some Mexicans have lived in the US for 30 years and are having to leave their families behind. Not surprisingly, they are hell bent on returning.

After 15 month of “service”, Max has enough and goes to Las Vegas, to work as a security guard. But an accident lands him in a wheelchair with a broken ankle. He is broke and returns to the Californian border with Mexico. “I am not a quitter”, he declares proud from his camper van, being back in service. The end credits show, that he is not a man of his word: since 2009 he has been living in California with his sister.

The greatest strength of the film is the Zutschi’s non-judgemental stance: the viewer does not really dislike Max, even though, we hear him make the most radical statements. Deep down he is not an evil person, but a drifter without a home – much like the migrants he persecutes. He can be witty at times, calling Las Vegas “A Disneyland for adults”. Sure, he kids himself, stating “that he has helped more Mexicans than he hurt”, but his actions are more the result of his utter helplessness. In a weapon shop, he behaves like a child in a toy shop, even though he has no money, he lets the sales assistant explain to him the all deadly merchandise – not really aware of the consequences the use of these weapons could have. He is a regressed child, dangerous on an infantile level, he has never grown out of.

The mostly handheld camera catches the emotions in close-ups, and shows the barbaric fences, which even manage to ruin the beaches. But like the tenor of the whole film, there is always enough distance in the images; to make us aware that there is no solution to this conflict. One cannot pick a side: this is a fundamental battle of two dispossessed groups. AS

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WATCH MAX KENNEDY ON AMAZON PRIME, FANDOR (US) OR JOURNEYMAN FILMS STREAMING VIDEO PORTAL (US) WWW.JOURNEYMAN.TV AND IS SOON TO COME TO iTUNES, NETFLIX.

Aroused (2013)

Director: Deborah Anderson

Cinematography: Christopher Gallo

With: Lisa Ann, Belladonna, Lexi Belle, Allie Haze, Ash Hollywood, Jesse Jane, Katsuni, Kayden Kross, Francesca Le, Brooklyn Lee, Asphyxia Noir, April O’Neil, Teagan Pressley, Misty Stone, Tanya Tate, Alexis Texas.

Documentary: 66 mins

“This is not a story about pornography. This is a story about women”. Deborah Anderson

‘Renowned celebrity photographer and multimedia artist’ Deborah Anderson’s debut doc about trying to find the ‘you’ behind the porn star’ is visually alluring and elegantly shot in black and white, like her coffee-table book of same name. Taking 16 of the world’s most successful adult film stars, Anderson talks to them about their real feelings behind the sexy role they play on screen.

Getting ready for the shoot, these gorgeous and savvy women are so desperate to download their experiences, at first this feels like a manic competitive story-sharing outing rather than a measured, reflective insight. To make matters worse, the guitar-strumming score is out of place and intrusive. Audiences need episodes of calm to absorb quietly and reflect on the narrative that’s unfolding. Here we are bombarded by the sheer pace of the narration, music and talking making it unreachable and difficult to engage with at first. Luckily things improve as the film gets underway and the nude modelling shoot is unveiled, as the girls drape themselves languorously on beds.

All from completely different backgrounds, what emerges predominantly is these women adore attention and are mostly rebellious or keen to seduce. They have drifted into the business without a really being aware of their end-game. That said, it’s an extremely lucrative career move and one that offers financial freedom. There’s no real psychological insight gained from their discussions, making this sad charade evocative of sympathy rather than a feeling of empowerment or self-realisation on their part. Rather like “Miss World” contenders, they speak but make no real impression – all we focus on is their pouting lips, blow-dried hair, plump derrieres and erect nipples. The images are ‘female friendly’ and provocative but not overtly sexual. If Anderson wanted to gain some real insight, why not talk to these women fully-clothed in the comfort of their own homes not sprawled naked in a boudoir setting? Well the reasons are clear: Disengenuously dressing this up as a worthy outing, when it really feels more like an attempt to pass off some soft porn images as a seriously-intentioned doc.

Intercut with wise quotations from the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Erica Jong and Joan of Arc, Anderson hopes to add gravitas to her premise. There is a really only one valid interview with a woman (she tellingly gets no headline) – it’s Fran Amidor, an agent who offers incisive comment and real insight into the ‘adult’ film industry: “Men want to jerk-off while looking at women of 18-25, not women who look like their wives, even if their wives are beautiful”. So, a film intended to serve women – but actually dressed-up for men.

AROUSED is a great idea but a missed opportunity to explore in depth an important subject. MT

AROUSED IN OUT ON VOD FROM 13TH DECEMBER 2013

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