Rupert Everett has made no secret of his appreciation for the British playwright Oscar Wilde having played him in various film and stage adaptations with The Happy Prince being the latest. His debut as director and writer draws comparisons with the theatre outing The Judas Kiss where the focus is Wilde’s controversial relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas – better known as Bosie – a crime that led to several years in a hard larbour camp for which the writer received a posthumous pardon last year.
Taking its title from Wilde’s fairy tale parable about the friendship between a statue and a swallow finding the Kingdom of Heaven after sacrificing their worldly treasures – Wilde is pictured in the opening scene reading this bedtime story to his children in flashback, and at the end, to his protégées, a pair of French urchins (Benjamin Voisin and Matteo Salamone).
In between Everett avoids a straightforward narrative opting for an impressionistic hagiographic hotpotch of visually alluring vignettes that follow Everett’s Wilde as the self-indulgent raconteur of his own decadent final years as a raddled Victorian roué in exile roaming the flesh pots of France and Italy on a flight of fancy, courtesy of a generous allowance from his estranged and undeservedly berated wife Constance (Emily Watson). During this interlude, Wilde emerges as a bloated narcissistic lush mourning his unfinished love affair with the rather fey Bosie (Colin Morgan), while dallying with the more reasonable Robbie Ross, his literary agent. He eventually reunites with Bosie in scenes that suggest their affair is fired as much by lust as by mutual understanding. Everett makes the decision to flip from French to English accentuating the rather pretentious tone of the piece and detracting from the moments of coruscating wit that pepper Wilde’s caustic repartee.
Although the result is an ethereal feast for the eyes this is a film far too floaty and dramatically unsubstantial to sustain the attention for its 103 minutes, despite some sterling underpinnings from Everett himself, Colin Firth as Wilde’s old habitué Reggie Turner and a thoughtful but underwritten Emily Watson. MT
IN CINEMAS FROM 18 June 2018 | Berlinale 2018 review
Dir.: James Erskine; Documentary with John Curry, Heinz Wirz, Christa Fassi, Robin Cousins; UK 2017, 88’.
James Erskine’s documentary of the life of British ice-skater John Curry (1949-1994) is told as a classical Greek tragedy – which in many was it really was. Over one thousand letters by Currie and many witnesses tell a story of sporting triumph and a lonely private life leading to premature death due to complications of HIV and Aids.
Born in Birmingham, John suffered from an abusive father who forbade him ballet lessons, and continuously told him “something is wrong with you”. Luckily, John was allowed to take ice skating lessons, since this counted as a sporting activity. John’s father committed suicide when his son was fifteen. Soon John’s talent required him to leave Great Britain, to train in the USA with Carlo and Christa Fassi, a wealthy patron sponsoring his move. The British Ice-skating authorities ware not very helpful, they reminded Curry “not to skate so graceful”. Whilst male ice skating had for a long time been a mixture of running fast and jumping high, Curry innovated the sport by incorporating ballet moves in his free skate programme, a fore-runner of the Torvil/Dean partnership. In 1976 Curry won the European and World Championship and the highlight of his career, the Olympic Gold Medal in Innsbruck. He outed himself as gay shortly afterwards, and retired from the sport, to found his own Skating Company, performing in a West End Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall in 1984. World renown choreographers like Kenneth McMillan were instrumental in Curry’s success. “Scheherazade” (1980), was a great success, but “MoonSkate”, performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1984, was certainly the artistic highpoint of his latter career. Financially, not everything worked out, and Curry also became known to be a difficult director of his shows, particularly with female members of the cast. In 1987 he contracted HIV, and four years later Aids. Before living the final years of his life with his mother, his swansong on ice was a all male show of “The Blue Danube” to the music of Johann Strauss II.
Whilst his professional peers from the amateur days speak highly of Curry, such as Christa Fassi (“He was never a problem, we became friends”) and Robin Cousins (“He revolutionised the sport”). The ice-skater Heinz Wirz, who had an relationship early on with Currie, but stayed a friend and pen partner for the rest of the latters life, tells of Curry’s loneliness. It seems, that he wanted the perfect relationship, like the perfect skating troupe – and neither materialised. He also showed signs of bi-polar, certainly related to his deeply unhappy childhood. Erskine too often oversteps the borders of objectivity and delivers an hagiographic approach, which sits uneasily with the audience, since Curry was certainly not only the victim of others, but was unable to come to terms with the human fragilities of others, expecting always perfection on all levels. THE ICE KING is a moving document of the man who changed ice-skating for the better, and whose Ice Shows were a spectacular delight.AS
Dir.: Daniel Fitzsimmons; Cast: Rupert Graves, Ellie Kendrick, Leanne Best. Joe Macaulay; UK 2016, 88 min.
Daniel Fitzsimmons’ low budget, minimalist Sci-Fi debut is not so much a futuristic undertaking, more a here-and-now psychological drama better suited to the stage than the big screen.
Cane (Graves) and Eva (Kendrick) are travelling in a hexagonal space ship to an unknown planet, tasked with killing off the local civilisation with a larva-like virus, stored in their craft. Cane and Eva have a strong telepathic relationship with their respective partners back on Earth, and when Cane’s wife Awan (Best) dies together with four of their unborn children, Cane is gripped by grief, losing all interest in the mission. Meanwhile Eva’s husband (Macaulay) communicates intensely with his wife, keeping an eye on the erratic Cane, more or less suggesting that Eva should terminate him. After a failed suicide attempt, Cane removes the inplant in his neck, freeing himself from his Earth-based controlling authority “The Hive”. After landing on the planet – there are no prizes for guessing which one – Eva kills a female of the species, but starts to become unfocused in her eradication task. She has to make a decision between the orders of the Hive, and her newly found consciousness.
Set nearly all the time in the cramped spaceship, NATIVE is overly verbose whilst also tying to be enigmatic, telegraphing the few twists available. Graves and Kendrick do their best to breathe life into the proceedings, but cannot deal with the limpness of it all: too much time is taken up with Eva gyrating like a lap dancer, and Cane walking around endlessly, like a stroppy teenager. DoPs Nick Gillespie and Billy J. Jackson introduce some magical effects with light and forms, but they can’t hide an overriding visual emptiness. NATIVE is a well-meaning nonentity. AS
Dir: Jose Padiha | Writer: Gregory Burke | Cast: Rosamund Pike, Daniel Bruhl, Eddie Marsan | Thriller | 107′
7 Days in Entebbe (July 1976) felt more like 2 weeks in this hard slog of a thriller that cruises rather than soars, never mustering any real suspense. Despite some terrific performances from its stellar cast – and particularly Eddie Marsan for the best Hebrew accent this site of the Mediterranean – the direction is sluggish with most of the film’s running time spent on debate between hijackers and planning on part of bewigged and besuited politicians. Daniel Bruhl is bland as the ideological head of the German Revolutionary Cells that was purportedly one of the nation’s most dangerous leftist terrorists groups. Rosamund Pike does her best with a rather frosty role as his accomplice. Most of the time she looks frightened to death.
Any hostage tragedy offers rich dramatic potential, yet this feels like a detached procedural that fails to excite or entertain. There’s a terrific turn from Nonso Anozie as bumptiously sinister dictator Idi Amin. And the vaguely related dance routine that headlines the start and finale of the film is a welcome idea that gives a kick up the backside to this otherwise lacklustre affair. MT
Dir: Wes Anderson | Jason Schwartzman | With: Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton | Comedy Animation | US
Twenty years into the future in an isle in the Japanese archipelago five dogs are relegated to the scrap heap quite literally – a landfill site is no place for man’s best friend. In this richly rendered riotously rhythmic animation, Wes Anderson’s social satire says: man may be master of the Universe but behind every good man is his dog. And every dog here certainly has its day.
ISLE OF DOGS is undeniably a Wes Anderson masterpiece, the finely groomed stop-motion animation chockfull of current day themes such as fake news and Asian ‘flu. The canines are canny and convincing each with its own cute character; in an entirely fitting celebration for the Chinese Year of the Dog. Scenes of sushi preparation, human kidney transplant and Dog flu serum injection are delightfully impressive, all set to Alexandre Desplat’s tick-tocking score.
With its screenplay by Anderson co-scripting with Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartman and Kunuchi Nomura, ISLE OF DOGS’ densely complex narrative beguiles and bamboozles, imagining a day when a dose of Dog Flu dispatches our furry friends to fend for themselves offshore, whereupon the mayor’s 12 year-old adopted son Atari, flies in to retrieve his beloved white guard-dog, Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber). Delicate artwork raises a paw to Japanese masters Hagusai and Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki’s glowing Anime.
Naturally, dogs are pack animals led here by Edward Norton as Rex, with the runty Duke voiced by Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban is King; Bill Murray, Boss – and Scarlett Johansson the flirty blonde show-bitch Nutmeg. Tilda Swinton plays the TV-watching, Oracle with Harvey Keitel as Gondo. Brian Cranston’s Chief bings up the rear as the black stray who won’t obey. Meanwhile, Greta Gerwig plays a perky student protester, decrying the powers that be on the Japanese mainland.
There is never a dull moment in this often barking mad delight, all bristling with whip-smart wit and deadpan humour that Wes does so well. MT
BERLINALE FESTIVAL 15-25 February 2018 | SILVER BEAR | BEST DIRECTOR
Dir: Clio Barnard | Cast: Ruth Wilson, Sean Bean, Mark Stanley | Drama | UK | 104′
Ruth Wilson and the magnificent Yorkshire Dales are the stars of this resonating realist drama that revisits Barnard’s regular territory of childhood abuse and resilience within a male-dominated Yorkshire farming family. These are explored from the point of view of Wilson’s Alice, a feisty and enterprising young woman who is cowed by memories of her turbulent childhood once she returns home after 15 years as a sheep-sheerer abroad. In flashback it emerges that her father (Bean) regularly raped Alice as a young girl (played by young actress Esme Creed-Miles), but has since died after a long illness. Her brother Joe (Stanley) has let their tenant farm run to rack and ruin with his hard-drinking ways and psychotic outbursts symptomatic of his emotional and business inadequacies. Joe blames his shortcoming on Alice’s decision to seek a life away from her tragic past, but when Alice reveals her intention to apply for the sole tenancy of the farm and return the place to commercial viability, Joe is incensed and the place becomes a battleground.
This is a haunting portrait of female disempowerment showing how a strong and vivacious woman can be reduced to a fearful child through her memories of the past. The pain and sorrow is reflected on Wilson’s face and echoed in the stormy shifting skies and moody landscapes of North Yorkshire. Over this unhappy family set-up, commercial vultures circle in the shape of the agent seeking to repossess the farm, and a developer with an offer to buy that Jo finds difficult to refuse. Barnard’s fluid visual style reflects this ever-changing landscape of turmoil that signals doom with every passing cloud. Barnard creates a fabulous sense of place in the rolling countryside of North Yorkshire where the English flora and fauna, such as a pair of nesting barn owls, play their part, without sentimentalising their significance in the daily life of this farming commuity. MT
Dir.: Greta Gerwig; Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothy Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Odeya Rush; USA 2017, 94 min.
LADY BIRD is a mischievous turn of the century tale of teenage angst and suburban boredom carried with aplomb by a brilliant Saoirse Ronan as young woman beset by a rigid mother and a repressive Catholic childhood.
Gerwig kicks off her semi-autobiographical debut as a writer and director with the quote “anybody who talks about Californian hedonism has never spent Christmas in Sacramento”. Christine McPherson (Ronan) has renamed herself Lady Bird, and lets this be known at home and at school, verbally and in writing. Sacramento is an uninspiring place, particularly if you, like Lady Bird, live on the wrong side of the track. The family is struggling, with mother Marion (Metcalf) often working double-shifts as a nurse – and father Larry (Letts) is a victim of the recession. After finding out that her first boyfriend Danny (Hedges) is gay, Lady Bird makes use of an invitation to his grandmother’s splendid mansion to change her image: not only does she dump her best friend Julie (Feldstein) for the glamorous but superficial Jenna (Rush), she also pretends that she lives in said Gran’s upmarket abode. Obviously, this lie cannot last long, but when all is revealed, Lady Bird has lost her virginity to the politically aware Kyle (Chalamet), who turns out to be a nasty snob and womaniser. Lady Bird’s main target of scorn is her mother, who is desperately trying to hold the family together and just wants her daughter to study close to home. Meanwhile Lady Bird has set her sight on an East Coast university. With Larry backing his daughter’s follies de grandeur, the college search becomes the focal point of confrontation between the two women.
The scenes in the catholic school are often hilarious: a priest is directing a school play of Shakespeare’s The Tempest – but he is the American Football coach, and his directions on the blackboard look very much like the playbook for his usual students. On the TV the McPherson’s watch the first knockings of the Iraq war, but it makes no impression on them: just another war far away from home. Trapped in the1950s, Gerwig’s Californian capital seems to take pride in a provincial anti-intellectualism, and Lady Bird fights it in vain. Religion is still the overriding cultural influence; but materialism is king. Marion’s love for her daughter is expressed in monetary terms rather than emotional values.
Despite a rather soppy ending, Lady Bird impresses with a heroine who is anything but perfect. DoP Sam Levy (Frances Ha) uses sugary colours to highlight the infantile banality of the settings; Ronan’s towering performance leads an outstanding ensemble cast. Gerwig proves undeniably that California has places that can easily compete with the Mid West for American traditionalism. AS
Dir: Guillermo del Toro | USA / 119’ | cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer
Last year’s Golden Lion for Best Film went to Guillermo del Toro for this utterly empty second-hand spectacle THE SHAPE OF WATER in a year where the jury and the programme largely lacked imagination (apart from Susanna Nicchiarelli’s NICO, 1988, who won the Orizzonti Award for her stunning biopic of the final years of the renowned model and musician Christa Pfaffen, played by a feisty Trine Dyrholm).
Del Toro’s very thin narrative of a mute woman falling in love with an amphibious creature, used by the CIA at the height of the Cold War, around 1962, is a total rip-off: it uses the main protagonists of Rachel Ingall’s 1986 novel MRS. CALIBAN, the creature itself is a replica of the titular CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (Jack Arnold, 1954), and the story is a compilation of countless cold war spy movies of the Eisenhower era, when the Red menace was infiltrating the USA. Clearly no money was spared on design and images, but del Toro’s feature might not have won without the help of Annette Bening, Hollywood actress and – first female – jury president.
In a US government laboratory, two workers (Sally Hawkins and Oscar winner Octavia Spencer) uncover an horrendous secret experiment that the lonely and single Elisa (Hawkins) finds strangely alluring. It involves an amphibious creature (played by Doug Jones) who is infiltrated into the installation and comes under threat by the agent in charge (Michael Shannon), who intends to do away with the beast once it serves its purpose. But Elisa falls strangely in love with the sea creature and puts her own life in danger in her bid to ensure its survival, aided and abetted by her colleague Zelda (Octavia Spencer); her neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins), and kindly scientist (Michael Stuhlbarg in his second strong role of 2017).
Serving as a subtle social critique, there’s a great deal to enjoy in this fluid fantasy film enriched by Alexandre Desplat’s majestic score, but it is by no means the jewel in del Toro’s crown that includes gems such as Cronos (1993), The Devil’s Backbone (2001), Hellboy (04) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), for which he received an Oscar nomination for screenwriting. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 16 FEBRUARY 2018 | VENICE 2017 REVIEW
Dir: James Marsh | Writer: Scott Z Burns | Cast: Colin Firth, Rachel Weisz, David Thewliss, Ken Stott, Mark Gatiss, Finn Elliot | Drama | 101′
James Marsh captures the tragic Englishness of this sad Sixties maritime mystery about a decent man who loses his way.
Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz are utterly convincing as the loving couple at the heart of this watchable biopic about the doomed attempt of amateur yachtsman Donald Crowhurst to compete in the notorious 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. Crowhurst’s story is an evergreen portrait of British sporting failure. Spurred on by middle-class ambition, and the desire to make something of his happy but humdrum existence, the competent sailer gets caught up in the headlights of potential fame, and fails – spectacularly. And somehow, only the English themselves can appreciate this also ran tragedy.
The Crowhurst story has spawned various theatrical and literary adaptations, and even a chamber opera: The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst. Eric Colvin plays him in Simon Rumley’s upcoming low budget indie thriller Crowhurst which purportedly features the actual vessel that set sail in the endeavour.
Without mining the stormy depths of the tale’s dramatic potential, The Mercy is a poignantly becalmed but strangely gripping family drama with its mystery hanging over us rather like that of the Bermuda Triangle, taking us back down memory lane to the quaint old days of the late 1960s where in the pleasant seaside town of Teignmouth, Devon. the Crowhursts are a respectable family with Donald desperately seeking to shore up his ailing business and educate his kids. Striking a rather bum note in the opening scene, Marsh then guides us through calm waters where Donald attends the annual London Boat Show attempting to sell a special kind of navigation device that nobody’s having. So he decides to turn his sailing hobby into a money-making exercise – the jackpot for the winner being £5,000 – around £70K in today’s money) raising finance via entrepreneur Stanley Best ( a reliable Ken Stott). It’s an enterprising idea but Crowhurst foolhardily agrees to include his house in the if he fails to complete the race.
Firth is brilliantly cast as Crowhurst – blending just the right amount of pathos and self-belief in his portrait of an unsatisfactory businessman of a rather nervous disposition who can’t take pressure and lacks personal conviction (possibly due to his mother dressing him as a much wanted girl until the age of 17). His marriage is clearly happy and Rachel Weisz plays his wife as a typically supportive English rose, stalwart in her affections and a brilliant mum but rather passive and naive in a commercial sense, as most women were in the those days.
Nagged by doubt, but spurred on by the media circus and a PR man called Rodney Hallworth – a strangely comic turn from David Thewlis – there are clearly technical drawbacks with his boat which looks unsuitable even to cross a puddle let alone the Atlantic – but after ominous delays he finally sets out at the end of October. Follies de grandeur then subside as he encounters his own demons and slowly starts to fall apart off the coast of South America, realising there is no way back or forward in the bathetic denouement, which Marsh leaves suitably vague. We leave overwhelmed with that familiar feeling of sadness mingled with resignation both for Crowhurst and for British sportsmanship, and sympathetic for his wife, not a great role Weisz but one she plays with thoughtful grace. MT
Dir.: Emmanuel Gras; Documentary with Kabwita Kasongo, Lydie Kasongo; France 2017, 96’.
MAKALA confirms Emmanuel Gras (Bovines) as a major talen who “looks for expressiveness, not realism” and achieves just that in this visually stunning Cannes Critics’ week winning film that seamlessly blends documentary and feature.
Kabwita Kasongo (28) is married to Lydie, and they live with two of their kids in the village of Walemba in the Katanga province of the democratic Republic of the Congo. An elder daughter is with Lydie’s sister in the town of Kolwezi, fifty km from Walemba. In Swahili, Makala means charcoal, which Kabwita crafts from cutting and slowly burning a massive tree. Finally, he sets off with an overloaded bicycle, his prize possession, to sell the charcoal in Kolwezi. The three day journey is torturous and dangerous, particularly at night when lorries barrel by, often pushing Kabwita’s bike over, making him lose some of his precious cargo. The dream of owning his own home is far away as the15 sheets of metal required for a roof, would cost more than ten times the amount he gets for his charcoal.
Gras “developed a principle from fiction, of an beginning and an end”. And Kabwita is very much a noir-hero, his profit, and with it, his future, more and more reduced by circumstances beyond his control. In common with American Noirs directed by Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy/The Big Combo), the main protagonist is literally pushed to the margins of screen – contrary to the classic Hollywood films, where the accessible object is positioned front and centre in full view. Like a Lewis’ character, Kabwita teeters on the edge, in danger of falling out of the frame, threatened by the menacing lorries, which look more like robots out of sci-fi feature. Furthermore, Gras creates an aura of mystery (as in Lewis’ films), some parts of the frame are partly concealed, leaving us to join the main protagonist’s struggle to keep up with the ever- shifting sands of the action.
Gaspar Claus’ eerie violin score echoes the distressing mood of intensifying hopelessness. Gras has pioneers a style of his own: richly imaginative in its portrait of poverty and powerlessness. AS
Andrei Zvyagintsev’s follow-up to Leviathan sees a divorcing couple forced to cooperate in the search for their missing son.
LOVELESS is scripted by Oleg Negin who also wrote The Banishment, Leviathan and Elena and once again there is common ground in the alienation and emotional emptiness of the characters. With Loveless Zvyagintsev would have us believe that the Grim Reaper has finally visited Russia and stolen its human soul and spirit. What remains is a collection of spiteful, self-seeking, sociopathic types whose only pleasure is shopping, social media and mindless sex: the result of a culture that forces them into loveless marriages to procreate and conform.
In Moscow a young couple have already been through a bitter divorce but are still sharing a home. Their young son Alexsei sobs silently in his bedroom in one of the most moving scenes in this otherwise sensually barren affair. Meanwhile his parents, who never wanted him, bicker about how best to sell the family flat. Boris (Alexei Rozin) is a tubby, pasty-faced office worker whose new girlfriend, an aquisitive blond, is needy and close to her conniving mother. His soon-to-be-ex-wife Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) is hostile towards her son and husband. A beautician, she is now dating a rich but hard-edged businessman twice her age with a pristine appartment in an upmarket part of town.
There is nothing to recommend any of them: physically and spiritually they represent the worse form of life. There is a feeling that this reptilian sub-species is alive and kicking – not just in Moscow – but in much of the civilised world.
When Alexsei disappears during his parents’ separate date nights, the film becomes a police procedural of utter desperation.
Moscow looks like a frozen forest filled with creatures from another planet: these s0-called parents are merely psychopaths and narcissists going through their vacuous routine, their only despair is for themselves rather than the loss of their son. This is a bitterly depressing film but visually impressive and inventively framed. If you’re looking for two hours of penetrating desperation and frightening emptiness LOVELESS will do the trick – and it’s now on BFI media. Be warned. MT
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
Sarita Khurana and Smriti Mundhra’s moving debut documentary takes an analytical but sympathetic look at arranged marriages in India, where the 21st century collides with centuries old rituals and morals. The continuing plight of women sits uncomfortably aside its burgeoning economy and scientific advances.
Shot over four years, the interlocking narrative follows the lives of three young women from different backgrounds and intellectual capabilities whose future is entirely determined by marriage. There is Dipti, a homely and kind-hearted girl approaching thirty, whose whole life has been about finding a man. Her ample figure and swarthy looks do not fit the modern trend for slim, pale-skinned Indian girls. She has tried traditional dating sites and matchmakers for years and it seems the lack of a ‘life partner’ rules her every waking hour as she languishes in despair with her despondent parents. Interviews are arranged where parents lay down their requirements, but the kids still have the last word. Dipti’s desperation ends with a miracle. But we are left wondering if such blind faith in one person can be a good thing.
Ritu is aloof and ambitious. Living in Mumbai with an MBA and a career in financial services. She has an independent, Western lifestyle – but her mother Seema, who is a professional matchmaker, puts pressure on her daughter to marry emphasising the importance of a good husband: ‘You won’t amount to much concentrating on your job”. Seema is well aware of the double standard in the marriage industry: girls have to be “fair-skinned, slim, soft-spoken and beautiful, whilst men must have a large income and an important family to back them up. Ritu’s goal has never been to get married but she finally gives in. Luckily for Ritu, her chosen husband Aditya, who is also working in the finance industry, shares her view on marriage: “In my next life I want to be born in Europe, so I can marry post forty”. After their splendid and very costly marriage, the couple both pursue their careers in Dubai, commuting together to work.
Meanwhile, Amrita has an MBA in business studies but a rather naive view of life. Living in Delhi she is happy to go along with her parents’ arrangement for a marriage to Keshav, a young man set to inherit the family business – “because their horoscopes match”. The couple settle down at the family compound 400 miles from Delhi, where Amrita becomes chief-cook and sari-wearing housekeeper, contrary to her expectations of working in the business alongside him. plans to work together. Her husband’s decisions are final – in the end the disillusioned Amrita comes off worst of the three. “My world revolves around him. You lose your identity, when you marry, and that is one thing I never wanted to do. 80% of people, who come to my home, do not know my name. They are just recognising me as Keshav’s wife”.
A Suitable Girl is informative and enlightening, making us feels for these young women and building an informative portrait of middle class India which sees the large metropolises of Delhi and Mumbai as the most popular cities, and Calcutta and Chennai the least favoured, in modern terms. What emerges is a traditional continent still caught in the Dark Ages from a social viewpoint – where parents still rule the roost and decide the future of their daughters – often with the help of astrologers and face-readers. AS
Dir/Writer: Árpád Sopsits | Thriller | Hungary | 118′
For his third feature, director Árpád Sopsits (Videoblues, Abandoned) transports us back to post revolutionary Hungary in this taut and vividly atmospheric historical thriller based on the serial killings of six young women that took place between 1957-67 in the town of Martfű in the South East. The sinister mood of corruption and social unease bleeds into the murder investigation tainting proceedings and forcing local detective Katona (Zsolt Trill) to convict their initial suspect who continued to abused by fellow inmates in prison, while the murders continued.
The tone is cautious and unsettling as gradually events unfold in the industrial town where we first meet unappealing factory-worker Réti (Gabor Jaszberenyi) waiting for his girlfriend, who is later found murdered – but we’re constantly kept unsure of his culpability as he serves his life sentence, remanded from the death penalty, due to his previously clean record. The investigation procedural is complex and fraught with controversy, not least because the head of the inquiry, the rather unsavoury Bóta (Zsolt Anger) is unconvinced they’ve picked the right man, and also fancies Reti’s sister Rita (Szofia Szamosi). Meanwhile factory worker Bognar (Hadjuk Karoly) has been up to no good abusing his wife and attacking other women he meets along the way. His lascivious enjoyment of his victims makes for unsettlingly convincing viewing in Gabor Szabo’s stunning camerawork and lighting, but Sopsits focuses more on evocative sound effects – screams and deep breathing – than vision, keeping us in the dark, quite literally. When Katona’s sidekick Szirmai (Peter Barnai) enters the investigation, scenes of torture and depravity feed into the general atmosphere of corruption, mistrust and unease surrounding the anti-communist uprising of 1956 and there’s much to be admired in Rita Devenyi’s sleek set design. Although overlong, STRANGLED certainly creates an evocative sense of the joyless and sinister era in this small-town microcosm that echoes a wider political landscape. MT
NOW AVAILABLE. COURTESY OF EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA | 5 FEBRUARY 2018
Dir.: Saul Dibb | Cast: Sam Claflin, Paul Bettany, Asa Butterfield, Toby Jones | UK | 107′
Saul Dibb (Suite Francaise) make great use of Simon Reade’s taut script to depict this gloomy WWI chronicle, set in a dugout at Aisne Northern France over a four-day period in March 1918.
Based on Vernon Bartlett’s novel and the seminal 1930 play by RC Sheriff, JOURNEY’S END is unrelentingly harrowing. And rather than creating a worthy and alienating throwback to the era, Dibb succeeds in connecting us to the present with well-formed and convincing characterisations of real people who we can relate to, an and feel for, rather than relics from another point in time. Powerfully projecting the narrative beyond the confines of its cramped surroundings, he also makes the threat of the impending air strikes ever-present and audible as a force just over the parapet where the men make their final tragic sortie, he also creates a love interest for Captain Stanhope in the shape of Raleigh’s sister who is captured in a pleasant vignette in her country drawing room, adding welcome contrast to the despondency in the dugout. Sam Claflin plays Stanhope, slowly losing his mind in a haze of whisky. But to everyone else he is a hero. The unit is held together by his second-in-command, Osborne (Bettany), a former schoolteacher, who is gentle and understanding, but somehow longs for his own death. Fresh from the training academy, Lieutenant Raleigh (Butterfield) pleads with his uncle, a general, to secure him a posting in Stanhope’s battalion. He admires Stanhope, who was an older pupil at his school, but nothing prepares him for what is to come. The German offensive keeps the tension as tight as the mens’ measly rations, and when Raleigh and Osborne are sent out with a handful of soldiers they manage to capture a German who will be cross-examined to confirm the exact date of the planned attack. This bloody undertaking is only the curtain-raiser for the mass slaughter that was to occur during the German bombardment. There are terrific performances, among them Toby Jones as the cook, trying to please everybody so he can stay out of the line of fire. DoP Laurie Rose (High Rise) captures the tortuous trenches where the men wait for their death. There have been many war films over the past century commemorating the mass slaughter with ultra-realism and picturing those horrifying days. But this is a grim record that really brings home the realisation that none of us is ever ‘entitled’ to peace or to happiness: We don’t have a right to anything. Remembrance is necessary, and every single record of the two World Wars offers another opportunity for us to recall the bitter events that finally united Europe. And how important that union still is. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 2 FEBRUARY 2018
Dir: Alexander Payne | Wri: Jim Taylor | USA / 135’ | cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig
Matt Damon headlines a cast that includes Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz, and Laura Dern in Alexander Payne’s unconvincing sci-fi social satire about a man who chooses to shrink himself (literally) to simplify his life.
Shot in Toronto the magnificent Norwegian fjords, Downsizing provides a startlingly speculative and outlandish Sci-fi adventure that sounds intriguing on the drawing board but throws up issues that are unattractive and downright unpalatable in practiceAs the film opens, Damon’s amiable character Paul Safranek is hit with a brainwave – downsizing not only his family home – but also himself – will cut costs as his placidly mediocre lifestyle with wife Audrey (Wiig) rapidly becomes increasingly difficult to sustain, let alone finance. Payne widens to premise to include themes of human consumption and depletion of the Earth’s precious reserves with one radical and idiotic solution – miniaturisation, the idea being that a small tin of baked beans can suddenly feed the entire family for a whole week (living in a shoebox in their previous garden). Welcome to the grotesque future of Downsizing, where a wet-wipe will suddenly become an environmental hazard of even greater proportions. Once Paul is reinvented as a midget, there’s something unpleasantly grotesque and indelicate about the whole idea of giant rosebuds and diamonds as big as your head. The phrase “small and perfectly-formed” also loses appeal especially in the pastel world of Paul Safranek. There’s nothing glorious or admirable about his insipid existence as a phone salesman in the new “Leisureland”, where even he takes offence at a customer who says: “Don’t get short with me”. Meanwhile, his rather uncouth neighbours (Christophe Waltz and Udo Kier) feel too far-fetched and glib to make this new existence appealing; a better word would be ‘sad’. There could be some really appealing aspects to Payne’s thoughtful projection, but somehow he and co-writer Jim Taylor settle for a mediocre, mealy-mouthed and small-minded drama rather than a bitingly witty microcosmic satire, along the lines of previous features Sideways, About Schmidt and Nebraska. And given that most of us are already tired of the relentlessly onward march of digital technology and the dehumanisation of our daily lives, the idea that this could be taken further simply has no future in the real world. Thanks Mr Payne, but no thanks. MT
Dir: Chang-Yong Moon. Co-directed by Jeon Jin | 95’ | 2017 | KOREA
After a boy is discovered to be the reincarnation of a centuries-old Tibetan monk, his godfather takes him on an epic and often arduous spiritual pilgrimage through treacherous and magnificent natural landscapes from Ladakh in India discover his Tibetan Monastery in this upbeat and sumptuously filmic Berlinale Generation Kplus winner.
Chang-Yung Moon’s debut doc – eight year’s in the making – is all about profound faith and unconditional love, but not in a worthy, intense way. Infact, this gently amusing and poignant buddie movie shows how a little boy called Padma Angdu gradually rises to his vocation and has great fun in the process with his friends and loving godfather in the remote and snowy mountains region of northern India and Tibet.
Rosy-faced Padma has a lot of spiritual responsibility on his shoulders – in the same way as a Jewish boy studies for his Barmitzvah or a Christian kid prepares for his Confirmation – Padma must study the holy scriptures in preparation for a formal ceremony from the young age of 6 until he becomes a “Rinpoche’ in his teens when he will rise in rank above his godfather Urgyan Richzan. Sometimes the pressure is too much for Padma and he is driven to tears but Richzan offers calm guidance and support as well as occasionally teasing him.
Moon serves as his own DoP but the striking aerial shots of mountainsides were actually achieved with the use of drones. There are also intensely personal moments where we see Padma at prayer and instruction in the brightly coloured interiors of his rustic mountain dwelling. Moon gives us access to the private world of the monks in this enjoyable and enlightening documentary portrait that maintains its allure and serenity while bringing us much closer to an understanding of what it is to be a spiritual ‘precious one’ or ‘Lama’ in Tibetan Buddhism. MT
ON RELEASE FROM 22 JANUARY 2018 | BERTHA DOCHOUSE | CURZON BLOOMSBURY
Dir: MARTIN MCDONAGH | United Kingdom / 110’ | cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage
In Martin McDonagh’s latest pithy social satire a frustrated and grieving mother antagonises her local police force calling to attention the lack of progress in the search for her daughter’s killer.
Confrontation is the name of the game in this unforgiving black comedy set in the Southern United States. Conflict is rife, incendiary arguments erupt, nearly everyone resorts to violence, be it for political or personal reasons. Grudging forgiveness sometimes follows, but not necessarily as a matter of course. Frances McDormand paints the heroine Mildred as an unlovable tyrant, in the smalltime, small-mindedtown of Ebbing. A divorcee, she has lost her teenage daughter, who was raped and left to die almost on her doorstep. After a month, the terminally ill sheriff (Harrelson) has not come up with any suspects and the trail has gone cold, so Mildred pushes her own agenda forward, renting three billboards with a strong message accusing the sheriff of incompetence. This is not a particularly sensitive move but it’s an effective one, sending the townsfolk into quiet meltdown against the mother of three. Meanwhile, the much-liked Willoughby is dying of cancer. But Mildred’s vendetta knows no bounds and she finally takes her complaint further, leaving DC Dixon (a strong comedy turn by Rockwell) with terrible injuries. Strangely enough, Dixon seems to learn his lesson and channels his energy into re-opening the case. Dixon and Mildred begin a friendship, but not on the lines the late sheriff would be approve of.
McDormand is brazenly brilliant as the hard-bitten Mildred who conveniently forgets that she argued with her daughter on that fateful last evening, jokingly wishing that she would be raped for not following her advice. Race, gender, anger and forgiveness are the are all in the mix in this toxic town where casual violence is par for the course. The narrative is anger-driven rather than goal-oriented, and the fun is very much in the process rather than the solution: this is no whodunnit. THREE BILLBOARDS is very dark, shot through with brutal stabs of humour: DoP Ben Davis catches the mood with his stark, widescreen images. This is Trump country, and the Confederate Flag rules. God help America. AS
Martin McDonagh was born in London to Irish parents. He is a renowned playwright and filmmaker, and won an Academy Award for his debut short, Six Shooter (06). He subsequently directed In Bruges (08) and Seven Psychopaths (12), which played at the Festival and received the Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (17) is his latest feature.
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 12 JANUARY 2018
Dir: Shirley Abrahams, Amit Madheshiya | Doc | 96′
Indians all over the sub-continent have always been united by their love of film. From Bollywood to the arthouse cinema of Tollywood (home of Telugu and Bengal), India has one of the world’s richest and most prolific film industries giving pleasure to young and old, rich and poor alike. THE CINEMA TRAVELLERS is the story of three men and their passion to keep film alive by bringing it to their fellow countrymen, wherever they may be.
Five years in the making, this joyfully touching documentary takes filmmakers Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya on the road with two mobile cinemas that journey across rural India with the men behind the endeavour of offering their films to communities who share their love of the movies. Times have changed since the trio first put the show on the road but it is a show that must go on despite the challenges.
None of them has become rich – most of the time plying their trade to the poorest of the remote communities is a struggle for survival; a labour of love that brings deep satisfaction rather than financial gain, but they make ends meets. We meet the amiable 70-year old projector specialist whose 40 years in the repair business have seen the gradual rise of digital film, and as the future bids farewell to past, his cranky projector is finally put to rest, his rain-damaged stock of magical moving images reduced to a blur. Then there is the cinema manager with a young family clamouring for cash back home, to put food on the table. Both are driven by a desire to work in the industry they love and this authentic cinema verité portrait records their genuine zest, sometimes tempered by moments of sadness at the passing of the old days, but without ever resorting to sentimentality.
In the end, the team are excited by the future of digital projection as they unveil their brand new projector, one comments:”I’m as happy as a man on his wedding day”. There’s a gentleness and philosophy in all these men, and this subtle and atmospheric arthouse gem blends the poignancy of the past with the thrill of the future of film. In India the love of film feels on a par with Britain’s obsession with football. MT
THE CINEMA TRAVELLERS | Bertha Dochouse, The Curzon Bloomsbury at the Brunswick, London WC1N 1AW FROM 26 JANUARY 2018
Dir.: George Nolfi; Cast: Yu Xia, Philip Ng, Billy Magnussen, Jingjing Qu, Jiu Xing; China/Canada/USA 2016, 95′.
A disappointing outing for director George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau), featuring a young Bruce Lee and his legendary fight with Shaolin master Wong Jack Man in San Francisco in 1964. Writers Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele are certainly no Philip K. Dick, the novelist of The Adjustment Bureau, and Nolfi seemingly appears only as good as the material he is presented with.
Recut from the version which ran at TIFF 2016, Birth features Steve (Magnussen), a young student of Bruce Lee (Ng)who soon leaves his training with Lee to join Master Wong Jack Man (Yu), who has fetched up in San Francisco after injuring a fellow competitor by delivering a forbidden kick. Wong wants to ‘cleanse his soul’ and become pure again, but is not particularly humble, and soon attacks Lee for his fighting style. The two thrash it out, with Wong sparing Lee’s life. Meanwhile, Steve has fallen for the waitress Xiulan (Jingjing), who is in thrall to a female crime boss (Jiu) who is threatening to put her into prostitution, if she doesn’t cut her ties with the young trainee. Lee and Wong cooperate, to set her free. And whilst the future Kung Fu King changes his fighting style to something less spectacular, Wong returns to his monastery. BIRTH has the feeling of an old-fashioned Hollywood gangster movie, underpinned by the backdrop of an idealised 1970s San Francisco. The “narrative” is as slight as the snake-hipped fighters, and everything is held together by the fighting numbers. For committed Lee/Kung Fu fans only. AS
ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM FEBRUARY 23, 2018
Dir.: Richard Linklater; Cast: Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne, Bryan Cranston, J. Quinton Johnson, Yul Vazquez; USA | 124′
It’s difficult to believe that LAST FLAG FLYING was directed and co-written by the filmmaker of Boyhood, Richard Linklater. Based on the 2004 novel by Darryl Ponicsan, who also wrote Last Detail (1970), later filmed by Hal Ashby, This is a tired road movie which vehemently contradicts its opening message in the sentimental closing stages. ‘Doc’ Shephard (Carell) is looking for his Vietnam buddies Richard Mueller (Fishburne), now a Reverend, and Sal Neaton (Cranston), an alcohol dependent bar owner. Shephard wants their support in burying his own son, who has been killed in Iraq, where he was on a tour with the Marines. Doc, who was a paramedic, actually tried to talk his son out of his decision. So the trio set out to bury Doc’s son in Arlington, bickering among themselves and the government, old and new, who send the soldiers into one mess after another. Meeting Washington (Johnson), a fellow soldier of Shephard junior, it then transpires that the young man was killed whilst buying Coca Cola for his buddies (it was actually Washington’s turn) – not the heroic death the army suggested. But slowly, despite being put off by a robotic Colonel (Vazquez), the Vietnam veterans get into the swing of things, and in the end come to an agreement that the young soldier’s death was heroic after all, ”because we are an okay country, even if the government sends young people out to die in foreign countries”. Very much inferior to Ashby’s Last Detail, of which it is supposed to be a sequel, LAST FLAG FLYING is much too wordy, the characters are one-dimensional, and the trip with the coffin across the country feels somehow awkward. A very unfunny road movie, with a dubious final message. AS
SCREENING AT ARTHOUSES NATIONWIDE | 17 JANUARY 2018
Dir.: Jaume Collet-Serra; Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern; USA 2018, 104 min.
In his fourth collaboration with Spanish born schlock-specialist Collet-Serra, Liam Neeson, now officially a senior citizen, is still winning every fight to defeat macho males young enough to be his grand children, in a thriller that barely breaks sweat.
Meanwhile COMMUTER‘S writers Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi and Ryan Engle have clearly binged on classic Hitchcock features to come up with an outlandish premise that suspends reality non-stop. Insurance agent and ex-NYPD cop Michael McCauley (Neeson) is fired from his job five years short of retirement.
Commuting back to his home in Long Island, Michael gets an offer he can’t refuse – or his family will be held to ransom – from the enigmatic Joanna (Farmiga). She will give him $100 000 to identify and place a GPS tracker on a passenger who is not a regular commuter, but who has the McGuffin – a computer drive. After trousering an initial payment of $25 000, hidden in a ‘restroom’, Michael gets cold feet, and wants out. But Joanna is omnipotent, reaching Michael on every ‘phone he uses to call for assistance, and there’s worse: three people Michael had asked for help are killed by Joanna’s unseen forces. Which begs the question, why does she need Michael at all? As the pace quickens, Michael’s past, in shape of his NPYD partner Alex Murphy (Wilson) and his ex-boss Capt. Hawthorne (Neill) muddy the waters even more. But all will be revealed when the baddies finally catch up with Michael and the rest of his commuters, who are an uninspiring bunch of carbon copies. But there’s no time for details that might actually make us think or feel for this motley crew of suspects (Latina nurse etc). And just as we’ve dropped off, the pyro-technical rail-crash finale then jolts us back to our senses, desperately trying to remember where we parked the car. AS
Dir: Niles Atallah | Biopic Drama | Chile/France | 91′
California-born, Chile-based Niles Atallah’s King (Rey) is a surreal imagined drama with roots in the largely forgotten history of Patagonia and based on the life of the French country lawyer Orélie-Antoine de Tounens (1825-1878), who travelled in 1860 to a remote part of southern Chile, where Mapuche Indians were in fierce battle for survival with Chilean military forces keen on expansion.
Mapuche folklore told them to expect a white visitor who would help them to unite their native Indian population in the region into the new Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia, and so agreed to make him the hereditary monarch of this realm that is typically accepted as part of Chile and Argentina. The story of how far he got in realising his dreams is shrouded in mystery, but Atallah is not so much interested in facts, but in the mindset of the man who wanted to be King.
Told in five chapters and an epilogue, we first meet de Tounens (Lisboa) riding on horseback through the Patagonian wilderness, holding in his hand a self-made flag: the self-declared King is on the way to meet Mapuche chief Manil, to discuss the foundation of the kingdom. But Manil has died, and his son Quilipan, is not willing to meet Tounens, because he is a white man (winka) and the Gods would be angry if he stayed. Tounens is accompanied by the scout Rosales (Riveros), who soon betrays him to the Chilean authorities. Imprisoned, Tounens is put on trial; in the courtroom, everyone is wearing a mask. Tounens is accused of plotting the overthrow of the Chilean government with the help of France, supported by his fellow countrymen Lachaise and Desfontaines, who are “ministers’ in his cabinet. Threatened with the death penalty, Tounens is finally deported to France.
Atallah asks the question: why would a rather ordinary man from the Dordogne want to become the monarch of a wild region of South America? During his research, Atallah discovered how Tounens had promised the government in Paris a new colony, called “New France”, three times the size of the motherland, and full of mineral wealth. Yet to the director this is only part of the story, because nobody recorded the tale from the Mapuche’s perspective. Even today, along with the other indigenous inhabitants, the Mapuche don’t feel like being part of Chile or Argentina; they are discriminated against, and live in fear of the authorities.
Atallah has created the fictional aspect of history re-told in his own way: in 2011 he buried the film stock of 35mm, 16 mm and Super Eight in his garden in order to see for himself what history does to film. Furthermore, he used stop-motion and puppetry in the deliriously feverish passages of his feature; on top, images are scratched and disfigured to give the feature the historic quality he was aiming for. Somehow reminiscent of the work of Guy Maddin, along with Eraserhead, Aguirre and Zama, Rey is inventively creative: a nightmare vision of history with a protagonist who created his own apocalypse. AS
PRINCE ANTOINE IV, the latest heir and pretender to the throne of Araucania and Patagonia died on December 16, 2017 aged 75.
Dir.: Greg Barker; Documentary with Barack Obama, John Kerry, Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes, Susan E. Rice; USA 2017, 89 min.
There are no surprises in this fascinating but vanilla portrait that echoes the restraint and diplomacy of Obama’s term of office.
Director/writer Greg Barker (The Thread) follows the foreign policy team during the final year of the Obama administration. What emerges is predictable but certainly worth a watch. Obama, along with John Kerry (Secretary of State), Ben Rhodes (Foreign Policy speechwriter and Adviser), Samantha Power (US Ambassador to the UN) and Susan E. Rice (National Security Adviser) work well as a team during the low-key administration, in stark contrast to what will follow when Trump takes over the reins.
The most interesting member of the team is Irish born Samantha Power, every step the idealistic academic, wearing her heart on the sleeve. She came to the Obama campaign in 2008 via the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard in 2008; the future president took note of the Pulitzer Prize Winner’s book, Genocide: A problem from Hell. In office, she engaged in the Boko Haram kidnapping, trying locally to negotiate. Juggling the care for her two young children with the demand of her position, she seems to be eternally patient. But she also was a fierce adversary of her Russian counterpart at the UN, whom she attacked for the invasion of the Ukraine, and the annexation of the Crimea. John Kerry is much more the classic diplomat, who can be sometimes be a little pompous. Having served in the Vietnam War, he is still “no pacifist”, and one has to believe him. Kerry has a rather ambivalent position on the Asian territories he helped to invade as a soldier. For example Laos, where the US dropped more bombs during a “dirty”, six year long war in the late ’60s and early ’70s, than the combined load dropped on Germany and Japan in WWII combined. But Kerry has also learned from recent history: when criticised about the lack of military intervention in Syria, he explained that any lasting settlement would have meant a long-term occupation of the country – something which has failed in Iran and Afghanistan.
Ben Rhodes emerges the most pragmatic of Obama’s advisers. He is foremost a journalist, and used to showing critical situations in a more positive light. Always trying to find a positive opening, he sometimes clashes with Power, who is more (self)critical. But Rhodes is also a good team player who does not let his side down. Susan E. Rice has been an Obama confidant since their time in local politics in Chicago. Heavily (and unjustly) attacked by Republicans for her role in the Libya disaster, which ended with the death of the US ambassador, she kept her cool with dignity. Her work on the change of the US Cuba politic cannot be underestimated. On the night of Trump’s triumph, the reaction was very different: Rhodes was so shattered, he could hardly speak and simply gasped for air. Obama, like a teacher, spoke about “history not being a linear development, but an up-and-down process”. Power was all resistance “Well, there is no going quietly into the good night”. How true that turned out to be. AS
Dir: Julien Temple | Owen Lewis; Drama-Documentary | Cast: Suggs, Perry Benson, Dean Munford; UK 2018, 96’.
Director Julien Temple (Absolute Beginners) creates a wild and anarchic bio-pic of Madness frontman Suggs, using the singer’s performance in a London music hall (these sequences are directed by Lewis) as a background for an energetic trip into Suggs’ past, mixed with satire and cartoons.
Graham McPherson, who was born in Hastings in 1961, grew up with his mother, after his father had to be institutionalised – due to drug abuse – when Graham was only three years old. He got his stage name from the encyclopaedia of Jazz Singer’s, the name at random. The encyclopaedia belonged to his mother, a chanteuse, who worked in London clubs around Soho, after having spent much of her son’s youth in a village in Wales. Young Graham went to a comprehensive school in Swiss Cottage, where he met Mike Barson, who would joined him in 1976 in the ska band North London Invaders, which later morphed into Madness. After splitting up in 1986, Madness re-grouped later, and are still active today, mostly known for hits like “It must be Love” and “Our House”.
After playing for a long time in small basement cellars of pubs in North London (such as the Hope & Anchor), Madness literally caused an earthquake in 1992, when 75 000 assembled in Finsbury Park to hear them play – the noise level reached Five on the Richter Scale. After 1994 Suggs recorded numerous single albums, having worked with Morrissey in 1989/90. Suggs married the singer Bettie Bright (who starred in Temple’s The Great h Swindle) in 1982, the couple nowd have their own kids. The former “Bürgerschreck” Suggs is today a Patron of Children in Need and supports Cancer Research with his performances.
Suggs is very self-deprecating on stage, making fun of himself, when remembering his excitement of starring with Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley in a film – before finding out that he had just one line in the script. His journey into his past was set off by the death of his beloved cat, on his 50th birthday. Travelling to Birmingham to find out more about his father, he had to admit that even a second marriage did not change the self-destructive course his father chose – he died young, his second wife only lasting another year. But Suggs himself seems to have the last laugh: when he travelled with Madness to Paris for a gig in August 2009, the band made a mess of their surroundings “even pinching the contents of the mini bar – which was free.” Oasis lead Liam Gallagher had travelled in First Class, and told the promoter, that they would not share a stage with Madness. After performing on a side stage, said promoter had to beg Madness to perform instead of Oasis – who had broken up after a violent re-concert confrontation between the Gallagher brothers Liam and Noel.
Pianist Dean Mumford and Pierry Benson as the erratic taxi-driver, chauffeuring Suggs around London, complete this mad-cap caper, with impressive images by DoP Steve Organ. And for those not mad on Madness, Suggs: My Life Story, takes us a very worthwhile journey into London’s social and musical history.
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 17 JANUARY 2018 NATIONWIDE
Dir: Lili Fini Zanuck | Writers: Stephen “Scooter” Weintraub, Larry Yelen | Music Biopic | 213′
Fans of Eric Clapton will certainly know the facts behind the ’god of guitar’s’ eventful life. In her flawed but emotionally penetrating rock-doc, Lili Fini Zanuck’s poignantly conveys the years of heartache behind this fated and fêted musician.
Lili Fini Zanuck and Eric Clapton are longterm friends and collaborators: He provided the score for her feature Rush, back in 1991. And despite the use of a meandering, counterintuitive narrative to tell his, often tragic, story with its ill-judged epilogue feeling more like a cheesy commercial for Clapton’s current project rather than a fitting finale, the study is mostly thorough in its breadth and depth, chronicling the life story of an Englishman who has suffered, been severely tested and has come up trumps.
Life in 12 Bars is an ironic title given Clapton’s years of alcoholism, so let’s hope this is refers to his mastery of the guitar, an instrument that was to be his muse, his whipping boy (we are shown how he uses it as anger therapy), and his saving grace throughout his life. The film opens with a fabulous account of Clapton’s early childhood, his artistic reveries and discovery, aged 9, that his mother had abandoned him: he was brought up by his grandmother Rose Clapp. We learn how Clapton turns his disappointment and rejection into developing his musical technique from his teens to his involvement in blues-based and psychedelic groups. The Yardbirds and The Cream years are covered in compelling depth, and Zanuck shows how Clapton did his bit for the blues, and was headhunted by Mayall who got him playing for the Bluesbreakers. He even moved into Mayall’s home with his family.
But Zanuck and her writers Weintraub and Yelen tend to gloss over certain aspects of his career – probably out of respect to friendship – and it’s Clapton himself who owns up to his behavioural shortcomings as an introvert who couldn’t relate to women but became obsessed by one of them, Patti Boyd, during her mariage to George Harrison.
So although the film goes into almost forensic detail on some aspects of the story, other years are befuddled – almost as if in an booze-fuelled haze – such as his career as a solo recording artist which gave rise to a several salient albums. Pattie Boyd merely serves the narrative as a flirtatious cypher who cannot make up her mind between him and George, while he is yearning for her love, howling at the moon for her to leave George, which she eventually does, but by then too much damage has been done for them to make a go of things. Talking faces are almost entirely absent to give context to this period of his life, particularly his closest friend, Ben Palmer.
Zanuck has a cinematic way of conjuring up the days lost to booze and drugs in Hurtwood, Clapton’s country house in the depths of Surrey. But his romantic affairs take on a rather hazy anecdotal feel, the story often flipping back and forth. And there’s a curious bit where Zanuck suddenly goes back to Clapton’s mother’s second rejection of him, arriving from Canada with her two latest children. And this comes towards the end of the story, father than at the beginning where it would have clearly better informed us of the emotional arc that coloured his career.
Clearly this fundamental rejection was going to lead to a lack of trust, and vulnerability issues that would go on to jeopardise any kind of lasting romantic attachment. But it’s these years that are so movingly conveyed by Zanuck, showing Clapton heartbroken over Boyd after dedicating Layla to her, and retreating into a ‘safe’ world blunted by drugs and alcohol.
There’s much to enjoy here in this freewheeling trip back to a rich and vibrant musical era. And it’s heart-warming to see how Clapton has finally managed to overcome his demons, albeit circuitously, despite a rather cheesy ending which actually has the strange effect of making the legend seem less interesting than he appeared to be at the beginning of his career. MT
Dir: Philippe Garrel | Cast: Eric Caravaca, Esther Garrel | 77min | Drama | French
Philippe Garrel is back With another family affair that brings to a close his trilogy that started with Jealousy. This grainy black and white Parisian story is as sweet and light as a mini croissant and just as innocuous, showing slim insight into the mind of a woman despite a collaboration of four writers, including the veteran Garrel himself. If you enjoy his work it’s watchable enough, but rather too slight and generic to have general appeal. Daughter Jeanne (his own daughter Esther) finds herself at home again with Papa (Caravaca), as her first love affair ends abruptly. But family life is interupted by her father’s young lover Ariane (Chevillotte) who is a philandering part-time porn model. The intimate domestic trio discuss love, fidelity and friendship but not to any degree of satisfaction or insight, and Arianne frequently becomes jealous when father and daughter spend the evening together. There is a candid intimacy to the dialogue but it all feels rather trite. Esther is a natural, as is Caravaca, but Chevillotte’s Arianne struggles to feel authentic and her story is largely hollow and implausible. Even with a running time of 77 minutes LOVER fails to be involving often feeling like an amateur college piece; well-crafted but rather will of the wisp. MT
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSES COURTESY OF MUBI | 19 JANUARY 2018
Hot on the heals of his 21st century social drama, The Measure of a Man, that won the Cannes Best Actor Award in 2015, the adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s first novel, is a painterly domestic tragedy set in 18th century Normandy that tackles similar social issues occuring 300 hundred years beforehand.
Intimate in scale (shot on Academy Ratio) and delicately appealing, A WOMAN’S LIFE follows Chemla’s bon chic bon genre heroine Jeanne from her teenage years until her mid forties, echoing the the kind of tortured tragedy familiar in all Maupassant’s work – in some ways he’s the French equivalent of Thomas Hardy in that his stories are firmly rooted in the landscape with a palpable feel for Gallic traditions. We first meet the heroine Jeanne (Judith Chemla) planting lettuces in the pottager of the Chateau she shares with her Baron father (Jean Pierre Darroussin) and Baroness mother (Yolande Moreau).
Brizé’s choice of the Academy ratio – used in silent film – embodies the closeted almost claustrophobic nature of Jeanne’s domestic environment full of love and laughter until she is introduced to her future husband, a flawed and improvished nobleman, Viscount Julien de Lamare (Swann Arland). Her life will never be the same again.
Working with his regular writer Florence Vignon, Brizé condenses the novel into an engrossing drama (just short of two hours) that quails away from the habitual mannered approach of classic period dramas to create a naturalistic and impressionist portrait that retains considerable dramatic heft, thanks to Anne Klotz’ suberb editing, while also being sensitive and delicately rendered in Antoine Heberle’s exquisite visuals that flip from vibrant summer days to the wretched, rain-soaked wintery ones that hint at doom and disaster from the beginning.
The film unravels in a succession of suggestive short scenes that sketch out episodes in the narrative leaving us to fill in the gaps with our own imagination and leave time for Jeanne to contemplate and process her thoughts and feelings. Married life with Julien is no bed of roses : when Jeanne finds her maid Rosalie’s bedroom empty in the night, a brief but melodramtic scene in the garden follows implying that Julien and Rosalie are up to no good. It soon emerges that Julien’s poor family traits are inbred.
True to the page, Brize reworks Maupassant’s mistrust of religion and the church in general: The consequences of Jeanne’s reliance on the family pastor (Francois-Xavier Ledoux) for moral guidance over her husband’s behaviour lead to more heartake involving her seemingly close friend and neighbour Georges de Fourville (Alain Beigel), whose wife, Gilberte (Clotilde Hesme) flirts with the cheating Julien.
The Baron, a strong but largely silent performance from Jean-Pierre Darroussin, is extremely vocal when it comes to his grandson (played by Finnegan Oldfield as a late teenager and beyond) who appears to have inherited his father’s profligacy and lack of integrity, but Jeanne turns a blind eye to these traits, investing her love in him and channeling all her hope for the future in his empty promises.
Judith Chemla (Camille Rewinds) gives a calm but resonating performance as Jeanne generating considerable empathy as she slowly absorbs years of sadness, loss and emotional turmoil to her considerable detriment as she reaches middle age. One again Stephane Brizé has made a powerful and immersive character drama, impeccably crafted and enormously moving. MT
Dir.: Fyodor Bondarchuk: Cast: Irina Starshenbaum, Alexander Petrov, Alexander Petrov, Rinal Mukhametov | Sci-fi | Russian Federation 2017, 117′.
Director Fyodor Bondarchuk, son of the late Sergei (Waterloo), has filmed a script by Andrey Zolotaryov and Oleg Malovichko about a Moscow teenager falling in love with a stranded alien as an outlandish extravaganza that completely relies on the brilliant widescreen images of Mikhail Khasaya for its entertainment value.
An alien spaceship is shot down in a suburb of Moscow and teenager Yulya (Starshenbaum), living in a high rise block with her father after the death of her mother, just gets away with her life, being surprised by the attack whilst in bed with her boyfriend Artyom (Petrov). Her father, high-ranking officer Lebeder (Menshikov), is put in charge of containing the space ship, and finding out the intentions of the aliens. Yulya falls in love with Hekon (Mukhametov), one of the alien survivors of the crash, who has saved her life. Meanwhile, Artyom and his group of teenage hoodlums chase the alien, whom Yulya is hiding. In a grand finale, Artyom, having stolen the impregnable shield of Hekon, chases the lovers until the bitter end.
ATTRACTIONwas a big hit in Russia, earning around a million Roubles at the box office. Undemanding, to say the least, it is just the same eye-candy Hollywood aims for, but is even more prudish than its equivalent US products, and also shares the laborious dialogues about the meaning of it all at the end – these are supposed to be relevant, but are as banal as everything gone before. The characters are one-dimensional, and there are no twists in the narrative, every move is well telegraphed. Even the glittering technology employed cannot hide the emptiness of this spectacle, which is strictly for the genre fans. AS
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 17 JANUARY 2018 | Reviewed at THE UK RUSSIAN FILM FESTIVAL | 19 NOVEMBER 26 NOVEMBER 2017
Dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev | Cast: Marie Bonnevie, Konstantin Lavronenko, Alexander Baluev | Russia | Drama | 118′
After critical acclaim with THE RETURN, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s second feature kicks off with a gritty opening sequence that gives the early impression of an edgy and sinuous thriller with a potential for brutal violence. Not so. What we actually get is an unsettling social drama based loosely on a story by William Saroyan entitled The Laughing Matter.
Dir: Ridley Scott | David Scarpa | Cast: Christopher Plummer, Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Timothy Hutton, Charley Shotwell, Andrew Buchan | US | Biopic Drama | 132′
“There’s a purity to things, that I’ve never found in a human being” says the billionaire oil magnate John Paul Getty as he drools over his art treasures in Ridley Scott’s rip-roaring rollercoaster of a thriller that deftly explores the psychology behind the super rich. Yes, they are “different from us, they have more money” and they don’t want to part with a penny. Or so we discover in this lush biopic crime drama that takes us through the events surround the scandal. Apart from mistrust, this cinematic parable also explores the nature of power and of fear – a fear of letting amassed wealth drain away to the next generation.
Getty senior famously refused to pay the ransom demand for the release of his favourite grandson – then only 16. The film opens on a sultry summer evening in Rome (1973), where John Paul Getty III is bundled into a van by Calabrian gangsters. The tough old tycoon suspects the boy of colluding with his mother in the scheme, but also resents the power struggle and wants to avoid setting a precedent for kidnappings everywhere.
Gorgeous to look at – like flipping through a Seventies copy of Vogue or Tatler – this is an intoxicatingly visual romp through events. It also pictures the life of the glitterati at play and under pressure in their plush playgrounds. Richly adapted by David Scarpa from John Pearson’a paperback Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J Paul Getty. The story still has resonance for many who remember the spate of Red Brigade kidnappings (1973 – 1978), when kids of rich Italian industrialists – and often their entire families – were forced into exile in Switzerland.
Extraordinary also that Christopher Plummer was a last minute shoe-in for the disgraced Kevin Spacey: he slips into his role with the consummate ease of a python slivering over a plump leather setttee. Glinting and salivating over his precious art collection – as his oil empire ratchets up another million – he fondles the telex tape as if it were made of satin. There’s a touch of poetic licence to the drugged-up way Getty Senior’s son John (Andrew Buchan) is portrayed – in one scene he is wheel-chaired and comatose, but this gives more importance to Michelle Williams’s role as the smoothly delightful Abigail, his petite but deadly plucky wife and mother of kidnapped Paul (Charlie Plummer in another thoughtful turn). Mark Wahlberg plays his standard role as Chase, Getty’s CIA-trained negotiator and bodyguard. There is also a vignette for Olivia Magnani the silky brunette from Paolo Sorrentino’s sophomore feature The Consequences of Love (2004), she plays the wife of arch mobster Mammoliti (Marco Leonardi). The only slightly bum note is the over-sensationalised Italian kidnap sequences where Roman Duris does his best a good guy/gangster Cinquanta with a French accent and the swagger of League of Gentleman’s ‘Pop’. But that’s a small criticism of this lush and supremely enjoyable way to start 2018 filmwise, smug in the knowledge that money isn’t everything – but it helps MT
Dir: Scott Cooper | Writer: Cast: Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Peter Mullan, Scott Shepherd Rory Cochrane, Jonathan Majors | Western | US | 133′
There’s a lot to be learnt from the legendary Western directors such as Sergio Leone, John Ford, Anthony Mann or Howard Hawks. Incendiary themes of ethnic cleansing and Colonialism are always ways handled with a touch of charisma or even dark humour that Scott Cooper’s philosophical but often laborious tale of how the West was won, has failed to register. And although Cooper adds a modern twist that sees the US Army acknowledging its racism and violence towards the frontier tribes, adding a modern twist of reconciliation between the age-old rivals: the white settlers and the Native Americans, HOSTILES is a film that completely lacks charm, although as sly slick of humour is almost perceptible in the final moments. The white characters are emotionally stoic and one-dimensional despite their generous screen time, whilst their Native American counterparts simply serve the narrative as silent underwritten cyphers. To his credit Big Chief exudes tremendous dignity by his presence alone. But has few lines.
HOSTILES is a stunningly mounted and often poetic widescreen frontier epic that thoughtfully explores the fraught tensions between white men and Native Americans, and remains reasonably engrossing throughout its slow-burning 132 minutes. There’s little subtlety to its depiction of the tribal types: Comanche are shown as brutish marauders whilst the Cheyennes appear to have hidden depths of spirituality, despite their bouts savagery. This is hard-edged stuff that opens with the Comanches burning down and looting a ranch belonging to a white family. The father is scalped, the three children shot dead while mother Rosalee Quaid (Pike) embarks on a sole journey for survival where she meets Christian Bale’s retiring Army caption Capt. Joseph Blocker who is tasked, against his will, with accompanying Chief Yellow Hawk and his family, and later a convicted felon across the arid wilderness to safety. Blocker is threatened with losing his pension, and has many reasons to hate the Chief for his barbaric acts towards white men. Few survive the ordeal and although Cooper’s premise attempts have the rivals bury the hatchet through comradeship during their travails, the transition from foe to friendship is unconvincingly portrayed: Pike’s character is one minute mourning her murdered kin, and only a few scenes later accepting an intimate olive branch provided by the Native American Haw.
HOSTILES is based on a ‘manucript’ penned by The Hunt for Red October writer Donald Stewart. And it feels progressive despite its later 19th century setting. One scene features a convivial dinner where Blocker sits through a bleeding Liberal speech delivered by the goodly wife (Robin Malcolm) of Peter Mullan’s Lt. Colonel Ross McCowan. And there’s quiet contemplation to be found in DoP Masanobu Takayanagi’s glowing landscapes and Max Richter’s lowkey atmospheric score that allow breathing space amidst the worthiness of it all. Rosamund Pike shows a woman’s capacity to thaw and adjust emotionally to her tragic circumstances but then Christian Bale’s crusty Captain offers her protection and potentially something more promising between the sheets once his buttoned up exterior feels the warmth of her appeal. Shame therefore that the Native Americans were so scalped of personalities here despite the initial promise of a progressive Western. MT
Dir.: Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov; Cast: Margita Gosheva, Stefan Denolyubov, Kitodar Todorov, Milko Lazarov, Ivan Savov); Bulgaria/Greece 2016, 101’
GLORY is a spare and rampantly funny satire on contemporary Bulgarian life – crowned with dynamite double twist denouement worthy of Frank Capra.
Groseva and Valchanov reunite with the cast and crew of their standout debut The Lesson. This time Margita Gosheva, is Head of PR Julia Staikova, for the Minister of Transport Kanchev, who has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. When honest railwayman Tzanko Petrov (Denolyubov) finds a Million Lev in a bag on a deserted railways line and hands the money in, Staikova is all poised for a PR stunt: Petrov will be awarded a medal by the grateful Minister Kanchev (Savov); the whole ceremony captured on TV. But Petrov desperately needs a makeover and Julia’s team sets to work on his stutter. Then Petrov reveals that his fellow workers steal diesel fuel to top up their meagre salaries -, and is prepared to name names. But Kanchev’s lack of diplomacy lets the side down and, to make matters worse, Julia re-styles Petrov with a cheap digital watch, replacing his family heirloom – a Russian ‘Slava’ – which then goes missing. The timepiece is of great sentimental value to Petrov – a metaphor for the traditional Bulgaria – and he won’t be fobbed off with a replacement – that seems to embody all that’s glib about the new. Sadly Julia’s PR stunt goes from bad to worse when a local reporter takes up Petrov’s case. The PR woman emerges a self-seeking, control freak and Gosheva plays her with ruthless inflexibility – giving no quarter to her husband, or gruelling IVF injection schedule. Petrov, on the other hand, hails from a long-gone Bulgaria where Communism and a rural existence are now out of fashion. He’s not after money (just the 85 Lev he had picked up before finding the money bag), but his watch, with an engraving from his father – his only tangible link to the past. Well- paced and punchy, Glory culminates in a well-staged off-camera finale that perfectly caps everything that has gone before in this impressive feature. DoP Krum Rodriquez avoids total realism, always finding new ways to conjure up the cataclysmic difference between the worlds Julia and Petrov inhabit. Finally, the end is a brilliant exercise in off-camera violence, closing this impressive feature. Groseva and Valchanov pull the whole thing off with consummate skill: Who says, that the second film is always the most difficult?
GLORY IS NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE VENUES | LOCARNO 2017 REVIEW.
Dir/Writer: Mike White | Cast: Ben Stiller, Austin Abrams, Jenna Fisher, Michael Sheen Luke Wilson | Comedy drama | US | 102′
This welcome addition to the intergenerational conflict genre sees Ben Stiller as a father fraught with past regrets and present doubts on a trips that threatens to sabotage the boy’s hopes for the future.
Although BRAD’S STATUS sounds like a maudlin affair, it turns out to be hilarious, insightful and upbeat. Written and directed by Mike White who also stars as one of Stiller’s old school friends – a gay man who has found the same success on screen as he has in real life – this could turn out to one of best comedies of 2018. Stiller plays Brad with a wealth of subtle mannerisms that succinctly convey the modern angst of his midlife crisis in what White terms as “whiteman’s first world problems”, but we all empathise with him in his constant social-media meltdown. Similar to Stiller’s recent role in Noah Baumbach’s Meyerowitz Stories – here he plays the father rather than the offspring, but he’s a man who is essentially happy with his middle class life as founder of a worthwhile nonprofit group who enjoys a stable marriage and a decent rapport with his talented teenager. But a touch of envy and ego creeps in when he ruminates over the perceived successes of his old friends. Brad feels deflated by their fame and financial status, but also at the feeling of being left out of an invitation to a recent reunion gathering, an omission that he puts down to the fact that: “it wasn’t friendship that bonded them, but a perceived level of success”, in a peer group where he feels the inferior member. All these anxieties are relayed in Brad’s stream of consciousness as the two make their way to Boston and Cambridge (Massachusetts). Son Troy is played thoughtfully by Austin Abrams.
Michael Sheen, Luke Wilson and Jemaine Clement also give flawless performances as his successful friends. The humour lies in the series of comedy scenarios showcasing their ‘perfect’ sex and money-filled lifestyles. In contrast Brad ‘sees himself soldiering with his sad little life. And there’s a hint of amusing narcissism too in the way he ‘blames’ wife Melanie (Jenna Fisher) for being too content with her life and not being demanding enough about their choices. The only criticism here is the over-grating score. BRAD’S STATUS is a heart-warming film because Brad is just such a convincing character and one who chimes with us all as we overthink and reflecting on our lives, often to our own detriment. This is cleverly brought to a head by an incident involving Troy’s newfound friend (Shazi Raja), who confronts Brad with his own self-pity and solipsism in an ego-crushing moment that he had hoped might lead to an opportunity for an oldest-swinger-in-town flirtation. The final scenes navel-gazing as the regrets of the past meet the hopes for the future. It’s amusing and highly relevant in capturing today’s mood of mindfulness As Melanie so rightly says: “Be present, I love you”. MT
Dir.: Marc J. Francis, Max Pugh; Documentary narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch; UK 2017, 94′
WALK WITH ME is a tad too lightweight and also overly uncritical of the centralised structure of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s process, but it certainly works as an appetiser for learning more about him and his life’s work in the field of meditation.
Directors/writers/DoPs Marc J. Francis (When China met Africa) and Max Pugh (The Road to Freedom Peak), who were also co-producers and co-editors, have created a loving, but fragmented portrait of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, who was born in Hue, Vietnam in 1926. He has established the ‘Order of Interbeing’ in the ‘United Buddhist Church’, teaching Mindfulness Training and ‘Fourteen Precepts’ originally in one monastery in the South West of France (Plum Village) and four in the United States, where Thich had been a regular participant on the lecture circuit before his debilitating stroke in 2014. Recently, centres in Paris, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia and Germany have been added.
Mindfulness has entered the mainstream dictionary of Western business consultants; who, with many other visitors from all walks of life, around 45000 yearly, are paying guests in these monasteries for a respite from their stressful life. Here the boarders live alongside female and male monks, who bound by celibacy, : if they disobey these ‘perpetrators’ have to repeat their last ‘development stage’ in this strongly hierarchical order. Having given up all worldly possessions, and committed to a vegetarian diet, the monks are reminded, every fifteen minutes by a bell or gong, to interrupt their activities so as “not to fall into the trap of running on auto-pilot”. Outreach work is encouraged, an episode in State Prison is particularly interesting. Every two years, monks are all allowed to visit their families. In a hilarious scene, the parents of one young monk show him a life plan he had drawn up as a young teenager, where every personal and professional achievement is shown in yearly stages, ending with a total success story at the age of forty.
It is almost impossible to film any concept like mindfulness. The directors often drift into Terrence Malick territory, when showing the commitment to nature. And the long shots of preparing food, or eating rice cakes with slow deliberation, are not enough to get the audience nearer to an understanding of this state of being. Perhaps, the key lies in Thich’s autobiography. When he was an ordained monk in his native Vietnam, he was also, since 1956, the editor of ‘Vietnamese Buddhism’. In this capacity he contributed to the political life in his country. After visiting the USA at the beginning of the 1960s, he returned to Vietnam in 1963, where he got active in the Peace Movement, making neither friends with the South or North Vietnam leaderships. Or the CIA for that matter, who sabotaged him being included in a more peace-minded government in South Vietnam. He returned to the USA, meeting Martin Luther King, who proposed him for the Nobel Peace Price. With the war in his homeland becoming more and more vicious, Thich moved to France in 1968, founding his first monastery near Paris. His teachings stem from being totally frustrated by the results of any political action he had undertaken. So, yes, WALK WITH ME is certainly worth a watch but not the ‘be all and end all’ of this worthwhile state of being or the Monk’s work. AS
Dir|Writer|Prod: Abel Gance | Music: Carl Davis, Carmine Coppola, Arthur Honegger | Silent | 330min
One of the highlights of silent film is the digitally restored version of Abel Gance’s cinematic triumph NAPOLÉON. This magnificent film is enhanced by Carl Davis’ rousing score and technical touches to reveal the original tinting that make it feel edgy and contemporary enough for modern audiences as it approaches it centenary.
It portrays the early life of the legendary French soldier who was go on to make his mark in world for centuries to come. In opening scenes Napoleon Bonaparte is seen playing with his school friends in the snow, already asserting his powers of leadership in an impressive performance by Vladimir Roudenko. Albert Dieudonnéthen plays the adult Napoleon as he forges ahead with a successful military campaign in Italy. Running at over 5.5 hours, this is an absorbing and thrilling experience blending melodrama with moving musical interludes and combining intimate domestic scenes with full scale widescreen historical recreations that offer insight into the French Revolution and Italian campaigns of 1796. MT
Digitally restored by Photoplay Productions and the BFI National Archive, with a newly-recorded score, composed and conducted by Carl Davis, Napoleon (1927) comes to UK cinemas, DVD/Blu-ray and BFI Player | Back this December 2017
After success with his Cannes Un Certain Regard winner White God (2013) Hungarian auteur Kornel Mundruczo mades it into the festival’s main competition last year with this flawed sci-fi thriller that sees a young immigrant shot down while illegally crossing the border into Hungary. Terrified and in shock, he finds his life has mysteriously been transformed by the gift of levitation.
Clearly the director has honed his craft since his previous arthouse winner with its strong amd imaginative narrative . JUPITER is visually more ambitious and technically brilliant but narratively a mess. The bewildering storyline starts off with a great premise – a Syrian refugee becomes an angel in one of Jupiter’s Moons where a cold ocean known as Europa spawns new forms of life. The metaphor is clear and cleverly thought out yet the film tries to be too many things, a political commentary and an action thriller: less would have been far more effective than more. After a blindingly intriguing opening scene, the shaky handheld camera continues in a tonally uniform almost continuous take that eventually feels exhausting, and hardly ever gives up, detracting from the enjoyment of the stunning set pieces.
Zsombor Jéger is the central character but not a sympathetic or particularly engaging one as Aryan, the Syrian refugee who is gunned down by László (György Cserhalmi), the nasty leader of a refugee camp in Budapest. Aryan survives his injuries and then discovers an uncanny ability to float, and from then on desperately tries to find his father with the help of a nefarious doctor, Stern (Merab Ninidze), who has been struck off for medical malpractice. Aryan is inveigled into a plan to defraud Stern’s rich patients into believing he has faith healing properties, but this is a tenuous ploy that again feels too gimmicky.
White God had a believable plot with engaging characters but Jupiter’s Moon, although a far more technically skilful film, feels hollow, glib and also frankly quite laborious despite the arresting visual wizardry of White God cinematographer Marcell Rév. Ninidze Stern’s Gabor is a quixotic and cunning rogue and far and away the most exciting character in an ensemble of cardboard cyphers. Along with the visual mastery there is an impressive atmospheric score that helps to ramp up the tension and also adds a certain gravitas. A shame then that the whole things feels so underwhelming and unwieldy as a story. Clearly the director is trying to up his game but needs to establish whether he wants to go for arthouse audiences or the mainstream crowd. White God was starting to build him a fanbase, but this seems like a step backwards. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 5 January 2018
Dir.: Sonia Kronlund; Documentary with Salim Shaheen; France/Germany 2017, 85 min.
In her first full length documentary feature, Sonia Kronlund captures the desperate atmosphere in Afghanistan where its most prolific filmmaker, Salim Shaheen struggles to create no-budget movies in this war torn country – 110 so far – and he’s still only in his fifties.
Best known for her work in French television, Kronlund has an in-depth knowledge of Afghanistan and is highly aware of the dangers in following Shaheen on his trip to the mountain region of Bamiyan,where he is going to shoot number 111 of his oeuvre: filming with take place in a safe area, they still need security guards.
Shaheen emerges a fiesty character and a film maniac: as a child he sneaked into the local cinema whence he was sent packing, and punished when he got home. He made his first short films in his mid teens. His brother lost his life in the Soviet invasion of 1980, and forced Shaheen to flee to Iran. Two years later, he joined the Afghan army and was lucky to survive, playing dead during an attack. A year after demobilisation, he married his first wife in 1984 and acquires a VHS camera, directing his first feature The Undefeated. With support from friends and family members in the cast and crew, Shaheen Films was born in 1892, as the Soviet Army was retreating. A decade late he opened a makeshift cinema in his basement. But the 1993 Civil War hampers his film projects: Whilst shooting Gardab, a rocket killed ten of his crew, the director had a narrow escape. With the Taliban is hot on his heels, he continues his filmmaking, but they still burn many of his features. Eventually fleeing to Pakistan, he made a living as an actor, but once again returns to his homeland in 2001, after the Taliban’s fall, undefeated and undefaticable – producing about ten films a year; slowing down to “only’ five features a year from 2009.
There is a role-play going on between Kronlund and Shaheen: he is the great male leader, she is the very frightened woman, asking for his macho protection. But there are limits even for Shaheen: Kronlund never gets to interview the director’s two wives, or his daughters: they are kept away from the camera. The film’s title is a quote by Shaheen: ‘not Hollywood, not Bollywood just Nothingwood’. And he really makes films out of nothing for a severely curtailed home market, because there are only four functional cinemas left in Kabul. Kronlund’s portrait of Shaheen runs parallel to the war, which has never left the country. Even when shooting in Bamiyan, they discover the Taliban has destroyed the Buddha relics. Shaheen has to be a emotionally resourceful, often masquerading as a clown for the benefits of authorities, flighting to survive and create in this sad, impoverished country. AS
Dir.: Daniel Rezende; Cast: Vladimir Brichta, Leandra Leal, Tania Muller, Caua Martins, Ana Lucia Torres; Brazil 2017, 113′.
First time director Daniel Rezende, well known for his editing on features like City of God, offers up a vivid, almost lurid, but essentially empty biopic of actor turned children’s entertainer Arlindo Barreto, known here as Augusto Mendes. Very much in the style of a Tele novela, BINGO (aka Bozo) is larger than life, almost a caricature of his own caricature. In early 1980s Buenos Aires, we first Augusto Mendes (Brichta) getting by as an actor in soft-porn movies and bit-player in Tele novelas. But he craves fame, in order to impress his mother Marta (Torres) and much neglected son Gabriel (Martins). Somehow he lands the role of the clown Bingo in a morning-show for children’s television. Against the will of director Lucia (Leal), a born again evangelical Christian, he spices up his part and becomes an over-night sensation. But drugs and alcohol take their toll, and he gets the sack after nearly losing his life in a drunken debacle . But every cloud has a silver lining, particularly where Bingo is concerned. This Brazilian crowd-pleasing Oscar hopeful (it didn’t make the final list) uses every cliché in the book to put its message across. Certainly BINGO has its merits as a pure spectacle – Lula Carvalho’s eye-catching visuals are ferociously lively and colourful, but Rezende’s simplistic approach to the narrative makes Mendes’ conversion to religious zealot rather unconvincing: underlining the trusted caveat: Beware of features claiming to be “based on a true story”. AS
Dir.: Pat Collins; Cast: Colm Seoighe, Michael O’Conthoala, Macdara O’Fatharta, Jaren Cerf, Kate Nick Chonaonaigh; ROI/Canada 2017, 98 min.
Pat Collins’ portrait of Irish Dean Nos singer Joe Heaney (Seosamh O hEanai) is an exercise in displacement. Elliptically, and often enigmatically, we follow Heaney from the village of Carna on the west Coast of Ireland, where he was born in 1919, to his exile in the United States and Canada – from the mid 1960s until his death in 1984.
Biopics often fall short of our expectations due to endless Talking Heads sharing their own thoughts, but here Collins relies on sound and image to get his subject across, at it works. Heaney is played by three different actors: Colm Seoghe as a boy – by far the most impressive of the trio; Michael O’Conthoala in his forties and Macdara O’Fathharta as the ageing Heaney in his sixties. Heaney lived for a long time in isolation in Carna, he was only “discovered” by the public at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, after which he emigrated to New York. Collins does away with a narrative structure; long shots and many close-up framing of faces are mixed with static shots of landscapes, giving the feature the feeling of a daydream. Sometimes Collins switches to plain naturalism: when an ethnomusicologist visits Heaney’s village, his father sings into an ancient recoding machine, Collins arranges the scene with four villagers in framing his father, the background is made up by a two door-shaped crevice. The camera wanders from back- to foreground, creating a composition, which is conceptual perfect – but creates a feeling of distance. The same can be said for the shots in New York -actually filmed in Montreal: Heaney in his porter uniform, lonely in his basement flat, meeting another Irish musician and the introduction of two females, Rosie (Cerf) and Maire (Chonanonaigh), whose identity remains in the dark – as do many aspects of this docudrama. The Irish folk songs, liberally sprayed throughout, are taken in long takes, performed without instrumental accompaniment, are also part of the overall structure, creating a historical, almost anthropological style.
Whilst Collins aesthetic braveness should be applauded on the one hand, Heaney remains an elusive figure: his feeling of displacement in North America is underwhelmingly documented. We never get any nearer to who Heaney was. He is sucked into the structure of a film whose aesthetics are taken much more seriously than the character it aims to portray. Overall, this leaves a hollow feeling, almost like an idyllic picture postcard from a bygone era. AS
Dir: Jennifer Peedom Narrator: Willem Dafoe | Doc | 74′ | Australia
Willem Dafoe narrates Sherpa director Jennifer Peedom’s dazzling documentary about a growing obsession with mountain climbing. And for those seeking a challenge in their otherwise safe lives, scaling great heights is clearly the answer. MOUNTAIN certainly proves a terrifying watch for those who prefer to admire nature’s peaks from ground level.
Dominated by an overbearing soundtrack, this is a magnificent and vertiginous spectacle. The camera sweeps and soars over the heighest heights of the world often leaving us gasping for breath while pondering the psychological states of those who only feel alive when they are dicing with death. While Renan Ozturk’s camerawork is extraordinarily death-defying, Defoe’s gravelly narration is as craggy as a granite rockface.
The film opens in stark black-and-white, accompanied by the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s thunderous tones, before picturing a lone free climber clinging to a cliff face, exhilarated by the view around him. Peedom describes a need to reconnect with nature that began roughly in the last century when war ceased to provide the derring-do missing in these climbers’ lives. Turning historical, the film points out how the desire to conquer and break new ground all started with Hillary and Tenzing. Whereas nowadays scaling Everest has become almost like queuing on the entrance to the M6 on a bank holiday – with a better view, and a more expensive initial outlay – climbing the mountain requires financial outlay equivalent to remortgaging the house. The losers are often the poor Sherpas who risk their lives because this is often their only way of earning a living.
Apart from mountaineering in snowy peaks, dry rocky peaks are also scaled in a film that crosses continents leaving no stone unturned in the extreme sports scenario: BASE jumping, daredevil mountain biking, wingsuiting (that resembles flying around clad in a giant bat suit). Some clever dick is also seen tight-roping across two peaks in Castle Valley, Utah. Eventually we start to tire of these feats and long for serene rolling hills and gentle valleys – even at 74 minutes the film overeaches its wow-factor. And the frequent vignettes of a Buddhist monk praying feel somehow misguided considering the many sherpas and climbers who have lost their lives rather than found nirvana.. Ultimately this is an awesome undertaking from Peedom who deserves to be congratulated although her film feels more of a personal feat rather than a piece of entertainment. MT
Documentarians Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Leviathan) are back with another impressionist take on human behaviour, which although highly imaginative often raises more questions than it answers.
Their last venture somniliques (2017) focused on sleepwalking, and now their camera explores the macabre phenomenon of cannibalism through the life of Issei Sagawa, who was convicted of eating his human victims and is now living a semi-reclusive life and hoping for remission.
The filmmakers actually manage to gain access to Sagawa for a series of palpably disturbing but brief interviews conducted in his home in Japan. It transpires he was deported from France in 1981 after serving a meagre two-year sentence for the murder of Dutch student Renée Hartevelt and since suffering a life-limiting stroke several years ago, he is confined to his home under the sole care of his sibling and rival – the two are clearly in conflict. And whilst the fate of his victims was gruesome, the ageing and infirm Sagawa is not exactly living the life of Laurie since being released from his jail term (which could have been more draconian in his native Japan). As with many killers, his crimes have attracted a certain notoriety and he continues to explore his fetish through creative expression in manga comics and porno film work. He also admits that his cannibalism cuts both ways: he expresses a desire to be eaten, and harmed.Although cannibalism is an extreme form of human behaviour, it is not as unusual or as eccentric as many assume. Some anthropologists even liken it to highly passionate sexual or spiritual desire: a wish to consume or even become one with another being, such as when Christians take in “the body of Christ” during the Communion service. So the expression: “you look good enough to eat”, has both a literal and a metaphorical significance.
Visually this is a sensual piece of filmmaking – in the most disturbing way possible. Intimate close-ups of bloated faces and distorted limbs float across the screen and the score is suggestive of sucking and licking, while explicit sexual activity actually takes place between – what we assume to be Sagawa – and an unnamed woman. The film is also enlivened by home movie footage of Sagawa and his family. The filmmakers keep their distance from the subject matter, never attempting to probe or offer any explanation. Their experimental approach is purely observational and it works. MT
NOW ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | UK Premiere Saturday 16 December Bertha Dochouse
Writer| Director: Jia Zhang-ke | Cast: Tao Zhao, Yi Zhang, Zijian Dong, Jing Dong Liang | 131′ Drama China
“Time will transform mountains and rivers, but our hearts will remain the same “
Jia Zhang-ke’s MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART is an beguiling and ambitious piece of filmmaking from a Chinese director whose previous dramas A Touch of Sin and Still Life have inventively captured the changing face of modern China.
Opening as a feisty arthouse love story in the director’s hometown of Fenyang, in the mining province of Shanxi, south of Beijing, the film gradually morphs into a creatively expansive essay film on the future of a wealthy Chinese family and the challenges it faces in adapting to life in a globalised society of Australia. The narrative unfolds in three parts that take place in 1999, 2014 and finally 2025.
The central character Tao is celebrating the dawn of a new century to the rhythms of an old one, in the ancient streets of Fenyang. China has embraced Western capitalism and fast-forwarded itself into a rapid expansion which will see its economy eventually crash and burn within two decades. The new Gods are technological rather than spiritual: cars, machines and mobile phones: and the alienating power of communicating without interacting is strengthening its soul-destroying grip on society.
The director’s wife and longtime collaborator Zhao Tao (Still Life) plays Tao, a simple carefree country girl, in love with Liang (Liang Jingdong) a coal-miner, but is soon tempted into arms of nouveau rich entrepreneur Jingsheng (Zhang Yi), who takes over the mine where Liang is working and steals his girlfriend in the process. In true ‘Posh and Becks’ style, they name their firstborn “Dollar” in celebration of their wealth in this upwardly mobile lifestyle (Yuan Renminbi would have turned out to be a better name, in hindsight). Eventually the threesome cross paths again in the second act in 2014 where Tao is visibly transformed into a sad and introspective woman who realises the error in her ways, and is reduced to a state of deep depression following her father’s death. Dollar eventually comes full circle into the present day state of economic meltdown as his life spins sadly out of control, alienated from family and country, and working as a Deliveroo-style courier.
Nelson Lik-wai Yu’s visuals illuminate and enliven this powerfully intelligent and prescient indie which, despite an ill-judged English language third act, and a slightly clunky opening, resonates with a superb central performance from Zhao Tao. MT
NOW ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS NATIONWIDE | 15 December 2017
Dir: Joshua Z Weinstein |Documentary | USA / Israel | Yiddish, English | 81 min · Colour
There’s a faint but unintentional whiff of Woody Allen to Joshua Weinstein’s sorrowful cinema verite portrait of a put-upon Hasidic Jew struggling to survive between the modern world and orthodoxy. This is also the first full length feature in Yiddish for 70 years.
According to the Talmud, the definition of happiness is: “a nice wife, a nice home and clean dishes” but Menashe’s Brooklyn home is an untidy flat where he lives with his young son Rieven after the death of his wife Leah. Chastised by the strictures of his ultra religious local community and particularly ‘The Ruv’, an Hasidic overlord, who demands he re-marry according to the Talmudic Laws, Menashe is desperate to keep his son who is his only consolation as he battles to hold down a job in the deli run by an equally unforgiving boss.
In this predominantly male feature, Weinstein paints womenfolk into a dark corner where their ‘kvetching’ (nagging) and overbearing nature is one of the downsides to life rather than a joy, but it’s very much a case of “you can’t live with them, but you can’t live without them” and this adds to Menashe’s rather miserable situation. Infact, the tubby but likeable chap cannot seem to do anything right either at home or work although he prays desperately to his memorial candle and pleads with his brother in law to let him bring up Rieven. But living with his son is not permitted unless he takes another wife, because “man cannot live alone”, according to the scriptures.
Far from downbeat, MENASHE is an enjoyable and fascinating insight into the Brooklyn Hasidic community and Weinstein adds cinematic texture with vivid street life, lively musical interludes of the men singing and dancing and sweeping views over the glittering skyline. Menashe plays himself and comes across as a rather bumbling but sincere and sensitive father who clearly loved his wife despite their early arranged marriage and discord largely arising from difficulties in conceiving their cherished son, and Menashe buys a tiny pet bird and regales Rieven with nature stories complete with sound effects, to give him a break from his uncle’s stern and rather insipid contribution.
The three-handed script is wise and full of local flavour and insight exploring the nature of fatherhood and religious observance, and a palpable tension builds during the preparations for Leah’s memorial service which Menashe hopes to hold at home, despite his brother in law’s objections on the grounds of its general unsuitability. A surprising denouement offers hope in this heart-warming and affecting snapshot of a niche community dovetailing into the contemporary world. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE VENUES 8 DECEMBER 2017
Seasoned manga director Takashi Miike seems to be live forever like his hero Manji played by Takuya Kimura in what is purported to be the Japanese director’s 100th film. How can any artist be original with this body of work behind him, Indeed, BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL lacks the inventive touches of his earlier work but it’s certainly enjoyable and as highly polished as Majii’s extensive weaponry. Adapted from Hiroaki Samura’s manga of the same name, it follows a Shogunate samurai warrior who is endowed with immortality due to the poisoned chalice delivered on him by a white-veiled Buddist nun in the opening scenes. This curse – or boon – depending on how you look at it, is delivered in the form of ‘sacred’ bloodworms scattered on his fatal wounds inflicted during a fight to avenge his sister’s death at the hands of the ruthless Itto-ryu, a school of fighters led by the weirdly tattooed Anotsu (Soto Fukushi). In this way he is rendered impervious to lethal wounds – which heal at the drop of a sword – severed limbs cleverly finding their back to his body. Initially this sounds just the ticket for a Shogun warrior, but as time goes by he gets sick and tired of the whole charade until he meets cute Rin (teen star Hana Sugisaki), a determined tomboy who iis also seeking revenge for her parents who were also slain by the Itto-ryu. This is flesh on the bloody bones of the saga, which limps on in a gore-fuelled second act which never really develops its existing immortal characters but just keeps on introducing us to other ghoulish weirdos including Sabato Kuroi (Kazuki Kitamura) and mysterious monk Eiku Shizuma (Ebizo Ichikawa) who appears to possess an antidote to the bloodworms in a series of subplots during its 140 minutes of blood-letting and limp-lopping tempered, with occasional stabs of humour amid the mass slaughter. All good clean fun. MT
Dir.: Masaaki Yuasa | Fantasy | Anime with the voices of: Shota Shimoda, Kanon Tani, Minako Kotobuki, Soma Saito; Japan 2017, 112 min.
Director Masaki Yuasa follows his brilliant The Night is Short, Walk on Girl with another eccentric outing featuring a teenage band and a mermaid. LU OVER THE WALL is a spontaneous combustion of music and waterworks that bursts into action in the seaside town of Hirashi Bay, where sullen teenager Kai (Shimoda) is stropping his way through life, resentful of his mother abandoning the family to work as a dancer in Tokyo. Kai fancies himself as a musician and has secretly been posting his efforts on the internet where he meets fellow musician Yuho (Kotobuki), who talks him into to joining her band with her lover Kunio (Saito). Their lively gigs in an abandoned amusement park awaken the musical mermaid Lu (Tani), whose exotic voice and fins that turn into feet when she dances, make her a winning addition to the band. Soon Lu even liberates the local stray dogs from their home, and they turn into amphibious creatures called ‘merdoggies’.
But the townspeople are suspicious of Lu and blame her for causing floods in the region. According to folklore, mermaids are reputed to steal the locals and change them into fish. But Lu’s father, a shark-like creature, comes to the rescue and Kai and Lu declare their love. But can a mermaid really live with a human, particularly when a jealous human like Yuho is around?
The only trouble with Lu is that Yuasa has trouble fitting all his ideas and characters into this inventive new take on a classic mermaid tale, given the meagre running time of just under two hours. There’s enough material here for many hours of enjoyment and the music and images are beautifully cohesive and delightfully entertaining. We really care about Lu and her friends as they frolic in their marine home. Lu is delicately innocent and misunderstood by the locals, in contrast to the more streetwise Kai and Yuho. But Lu is redeemed in the grand finale of this anime treat made fluid and gloriously flowing by its flash animation style. AS
NOW ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | 1st DECEMBER 2017
Dir: Bharat Nalluri | US-Ire-Can | Cast: Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, Morfydd Clark | Drama | 104′
The Man Who Invented Christmas is a brave attempt to explore the creative process that inspired Charles Dickens’ to pen A Christmas Carol, offering a behind the scenes look at one of England’s best known and most celebrated writers.
Enlivened by a sterling British cast led by a plausible and personable Dan Stevens as Dickens, Jonathan Pryce as his profligate father and Christopher Plummer as the curmudgeonly Scrooge, this is an atmospheric Christmas story that glows with quaint charm but is completely underwhelming as a dramatic narrative, laden down by wooden clichés that reduce the enduring appeal of the writer and his legendary novella.
In 1843 Dickens has suffered a set-back in his writing career and is casting around for creative ideas to finance his growing family and spendthrift father. In his darkest hour, tormented by his pregnant wife (Clark), beset by childhood fears and cherishing hopes for the future, he is visited by the prickly central character of his budding storyline about a mean old man who is disarmed and reborn by the true spirit of Christmas. Scrooge appears to him in supernatural form – as an embodiment of his past trauma – needling and nudging him into writing his novel, while the wolf is howling at the door.
Based on Les Standiford’s book of the same title, director Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day) does his very best to add another another glowing bauble to the cosy Dickensian Christmas cinema tree with this imagined drama that looks as spectacular as a glass decoration but feels just as hollow. Somehow, the more the film tries to portray Charles Dickens’ human fears and doubts and the methods behind his talent, the less authentic the author actually appears.Creative genius is an intangible and mysterious quality, and should remain just that. MT
Dir.: James Carver; Cast: Ashlie Walker, Ben Willens, Jeremy Swift, Sky Lourie, David Bark Jones; UK/Italy 2016, 89 min.
Hailed as the “first selfie movie” or “Hypereal”, director/co-writer James Carver’s debut is more than a gimmick – nor is it revolutionary or innovative.
Cut from a 69 hour shoot in London, Venice Beach, Geneva, Norway and Hastings, it features a cast making use of their mobiles – hacked CCTV camera images are then added to the mix along with hand held camera clips. What makes ♯Starvecrow stand out is not the blend of technology, but the dark content: behind the candidness and their lifestyle dominated by being tech-savvy 24/7, the teenage protagonists hide withering secrets.
Ben (Willens) is a control-freak, charming at first, but we soon learn that his obsession for filming everything with his mobile is a way to manipulate and repress Jess (Walker), who has just returned from rehab. Jess is pregnant, and Ben’s only comment is “get rid of it”. She needs freedom to reflect on her next step, which he is unwilling to give her. When Jess goes with a group of friends to a weekend party in a bungalow near some remote woods, we soon learn that the all these men are only too willing to abuse the girls. There are shades of Blair Witch in the silvan setting, and when the party is gate-crashed by a trio of masked men, things get surreal.
Bookended by a graphic birth scene, ♯Starvecrow tries to shock with its directness, and it succeeds – partly. But overall, the total lack of structure reduces the impact: too often the actors have to explain the goings on. The cast, being their own DoPs, somehow handle both roles more than adequately. In the end, it is the old-fashioned hide-and-seek story which saves the day – technology comes a distant second. But that will not deter countless imitators of trying their luck – alas, they should be warned: Carver succeeded to some degree in spite of his lack of cinematographic know-how, others will not be so lucky, because they will lack the quasi-novelty factor. AS
ON RELEASE FROM 24 NOVEMBER 2017 AT SELECTED CINEMAS
Shot on a shoestring budget over several years, this unconventional tragi-comedy compendium explores modern love for Londoners through a series of nine amorous encounters. Depressingly realistic and cringeworthy rather than funny or affecting, BRAKESstarts well but is unable to sustain our enthusiasm beyond the half-way mark due to a lack of laughs, questionable production values, tonal uneveness and the overly episodic nature of the narrative. Some of the vignettes are dismal and feel staged rather than authentic.
BRAKES is the directorial debut of English actress Mercedes Grower and is cast from a selection of Britain’s top comedy and dramatic acting talent who do their best in the circumstances: Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh) alongside Paul McGann (Withnail & I), Julia Davis (Nighty Night), Kerry Fox (Shallow Grave), Steve Oram (Sightseers), Roland Gift (The Fine Young Cannibals), Peter Wight (Babel, Atonement), Kate Hardie (Mona Lisa), Seb Cardinal (Cardinal Burns) to name but a few.
The film received a Special Jury Mention for the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2016 and has won audiences over at many festivals since, including LOCO London Comedy Film Festival and the inaugural ‘Cineramageddon’ event, curated by Julien Temple, at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. MT
BRAKES IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 24 NOVEMBER 2017
Belgium born Vaudeville artist Dominique Abel and his real-life wife Australian Fiona Gordon attempt to bring the world of the MusicHal back to life with moderate success in the quirky LOST IN PARIS. As in Rumba and Iceberg, music once again plays a major role as do Abel and Gordon, who co-write the script.
The film centres on Canadian librarian Fiona (Gordon) who lives in a snowbound kitsch village whence she hops on a plane to Paris to help her ageing mother in distress. Unfortunately, Aunt Martha, who is losing it a bit, is not at home when Fiona arrives so she decides to hit the town and enjoys herself, somehow landing up in the river Seine. She also manages to lose her luggage, which is later found by wayfarer Dom (Abel), who lives in a tent of the river’s edge. He helps himself to her money and even steals her jumper, which actually suits him. As you may have guessed, Dom and Fiona were fated to meet one other; forget about Aunt Martha, whose fake funeral they are attending, she’s actually very much alive and mischievous into the bargain.
Abel and Gordon’s films are very much an acquired taste, and not everyone learns to love their gags, which feature a very tall and slim Gordon, and a Ronnie Baker like Abel. But the main issue here is their scripting: there’s not enough interest to sustain the audience even for 90 minutes, because the episodic structure runs soon out of steam, leaving with long stretches of nothing between the gags. But the great, late Emmanuelle Riva is obviously enjoying herself, and for that alone (and a short appearance of veteran comic Pierre Richard on a park bench), LOST IN PARIS is worth watching.
Dir.: Nicholas Ray Writers: Andrew Solt and Nicholas Ray
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Graham, Frank Lovejoy, Martha Stewart; USA 1950, 94 min.
Based on the novel by Dorothy B.Hughes, and scripted by Andrew Solt with collaboration from director Nicholas Ray and producer Robert Lord, IN A LONELY PLACEwas the second time that Ray and Santana, the production company owned by Lord and Bogart, had worked together after Knock on any Door. Shot in the autumn of 1949 at Columbia Studios, with only three days location work in LA, IN A LONELY PLACE has become a true Film noir classic for various reasons not least because the marriage of Ray and the film’s leading actress, Gloria Grahame was on the rocks, rather like that of her relationship with leading man Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart).
Dixon Steele, a Hollywood scriptwriter, “whose last success was pre-war”, is an alcoholic, violent and ageing man. In a nightclub, his agent Mel Lippman tries to interest him in an adaptation of a novel. Steele is grumpy and bored, and asks the hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson (Stewart), to come home with him to read the final part of the novel for him while he relaxes at home. Next morning, Steele is visited by his friend and army buddy, Detective Sergeant Brub Nicolai (Lovejoy), who tells him, that Atkinson was murdered on her way home from Steele’s house, and her body thrown from the taxi. Meanwhile Steele has fallen in love with a neighbour Laurel Gray (Grahame), an aspiring actress. He wants to marry her, but after Gray experiences Steele’s violent temper she gets cold feet, only to make him keener with the famous lines: “I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me”. Steele, who has made remarks that tie him to the Atkinson murder, is in the end cleared by Nicolai, but Gray leaves him for good.
Shot by legendary DoP Burnett Guffey (Human Desire, Bonny & Clyde and Bogart’s last feature The Harder they Fall), IN A LONELY PLACE evokes the spirit of Scott Fitzgerald in that it is a film about angst and alienation in Hollywood. In the original ending, Steele kills Gray, and is arrested by Nicolai. Ray shot the new ending more or less in secret, being afraid that Columbia boss Harry Cohen would explode at the unhappy ending. But to be on the safe side, Ray directed both final sequences in three days in mid November. One critic wrote at the time of the premiere, that – “not unlike Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Nicholas Ray’s remarkable IN A LONELY PLACE represents the purest existentialist primers”. AS
NOW SHOWING AS PART OF THE BFI GLORIA GRAHAME RETROSPECTIVE | FROM 24 NOVEMBER 2017
Dir.: Chris Baugh; Cast: Nigel O’Neill, Susan Lynch, Jozef Pawlowski, Anna Prochniak, Stella McCusker, Stuart Graham; UK 2017, 95 min.
First time director/co-writer Chris Baugh has delivered a very bloody, moody and convoluted revenge thriller, saved by the widescreen photography of Ryan Kernaghan and a strong cast.
Farmer and part time motor mechanic Donal (O’Neill) lives with his mother Florence (McCusker) in Northern Ireland. After his mother is murdered brutally, her son goes out on a spiralling revenge hunt, digging deep into the IRA past of his family, and finding out about a sex-trafficking ring run by Frankie Pierce (Lynch) and her ‘consultant’ Trevor (Graham). Two of their henchman try to hang Donal, making it look like a suicide, but one of the assassins, Bartoz (Pawlowski), a Pole from Bydgoszcz, messes up with tragic results.
The secrets of the past, personal and political, uncovered by Donal, are more than enough for one feature, Baugh doesn’t need to overload the narrative with a sex-slaves sidebar, giving the piece more than a hint of misogyny: although to be fair, the female gang leader Pierce (Lynch) is far more deadly than her sidekick Trevor – whom she sacks in front of her little daughter in a rather hilarious scene – only Kaja (Prochniak), as the out and out victim, is shown any sympathy. If you don’t mind gratuitous violence Bad Day certainly cuts the mustard, and looks good into the bargain with its convincing ensemble cast. As an exercise in innovative brutality, Bad Day wins hands down – with more domestic appliances than you can shake a blender at, but it’s pretty bloody as thrillers go. AS
Dir. Ana Asensio | Spain/US. 2017 | 80′ | Thriller
Many aspects of this true life tale of an ‘illegal alien’ Spanish grifting to survive in New York could come across as a little far-fetched, but its creeping paranoia also perfectly captures the climate of our increasingly unpredictable modern world. Based on the experiences of the film’s writer, director and star, it went on to win the grand jury prize at 2017’s South by Southwest.
MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND is best described as an urban thriller. Asensio’s Luciana is a desperate young woman who finds herself inveigled into situations she might have questioned and not counternanced in her native country, which she has fled in tragic circumstances. The pared down approach of dialogue and aesthetic adds to the film’s menacing allure where a brooding tension builds slowly towards the stark finale. From the early scenes there is a palpable feeling of dread when a confused Luciana is confronted by a hostile doctor who she consults about her feelings of nausea. We all know about the draconian rules surrounded the provision of health care in the US and this only adds to the sense of alienation. Surviving through a series of menial jobs – dressed as a chicken to promote a restaurant, and as a nanny to spoilt brats – Luciana cannot even rely on her self-seeking colleague, Olga, support or sympathy. And when Olga comes up with an offer Luciana cannot refuse, this does not arouse her suspicions. It involves lucrative work at an evening venue. All shoe has to do is dress up. Alarm beels ring when it emerges that the work could be both dangerous and humiliating. Our fears are borne out as she descends into the basement of a dodgy Chinese restaurant. No bags or mobile telephones are allowed at the venue, where she is urged by a threatening female master of ceremonies to ‘look like she is at a party’, while Luciana joins a group of similarly black-dressed young women who are each given a number and told to join ‘the game’.
There are shades of Eyes Wide Shut and even Frankie & Lola to this unsettling thriller which often sacrifices substance for atmosphere, the final denouement falling short of our expectations. Asensio uses a Super 16 camera to shoot her film, eking out a meagre budget to great effect. Jeffrey Alan Jones’ score is as mean and as sinister as the storyline of a claustrophobic but effectively scary feature debut. MT
In a remote Icelandic fishing village the hostile terrain provides a chilly counterpoint to the sexual awakening of two young teenagers in this movingly thoughtful if overlong feature debut. The young cast of newcomers is really what makes HEARTSTONE such an affecting drama, rather than its meandering narrative. We feel for them in their unsettling changes, but this would have held more more dramatic weight with a tighter edit. This is a small criticism for an impressive start. Writer-director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson has really marshalled his material and created an impressive film that certainly shows great insight into the kids’ confused state of adolescence.
The story follows best friends Thor (Baldur Einarsson) and Kristjan (Blaer Hinriksson) are who are at a loose end in this remote outpost, and given to bouts of aggression, sadly directed at wildlife, but there is also a tenderness between the boys – and they are only boys – with Thor still really only a child. Despite the country setting, family life isn’t easy and Thor is constantly teased by his older sisters — Rakel (Jonina Thordis Karlsdottir) and the more creative Hafdis (Ran Ragnarsdottir), who has a penchant for Bjork. Their father has cleared off with a younger woman, leaving their mother (Nina Dogg Filippusdottir) unsettled emotionally as she casts around for another man. Kristjan’s father (Sveinn Olafur Gunnarsson) is rather butch and macho – clearly a homophobic and hard drinker. The boys have already tried their luck with girls: Beta (Dilja Valsdotttir), and her friend Hanna (Katla Njalsdottir). But their true colours slowly emerge (and I mean slowly) on a spiky camping trip – not least due to the undergrowth. There’s a memorably dramatic scene where Kristjan’s father takes the boys up a mountain side to search for gulls’ eggs but the pace slackens during the final scenes despite a certain poignance in the ending that makes this an impressive first feature. MT
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 17 NOVEMBER 2017 | VENICE 2016 REVIEW
Dir.: Shaul Schwarz, Christina Clusiau; Documentary; Uk/Namibia/South Africa/Zimbabwe/USA 2017, 108 min.
Directors and DoPs Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau (A Year in Space) showcase the inconvenient truth about big game hunting, partly against their own will, in this informative documentary. In filming the Big Game hunters, poachers, ecologists and breeders in action and listening to their comments, they have taken, in my opinion, a shameful stance in siding with the hunters, claiming their slaughtering is all part of ‘conservation’. But images do not lie: Trophy shows the barbarism of hunting, whatever PR comments the human predators make in their defence.
Schwarz and Clusiau (“we had to be open-minded, empathic and curious”) kick off with Philip Glass, a Texan who breeds sheep on his ranch in San Angelo. He is a “believer” and lifelong hunter who travels to Africa to kill the “big Five”: Buffalo, lion, leopard, elephant and rhino. To make sure, this spirit stays in the family and he teaches his son to hunt – something the filmmakers coyly describe as “a rite of passage”.
We then visit Las Vegas for the yearly meeting of The Safari Club International Convention (SCI) in Las Vegas, where around 25,000 people buy their hunting trips. SCI organises the trips, which cost on average between 25,000 and 100,000 USD. At the convention one can also buy guns, safari gear and trophy insurance, making it a one-stop shop for this racket which, according to the filmmakers, “started with a father-son-rite of passage relationship which is now part of a larger cycle.”
The case of John Hume, a South African rhino breeder who owns Buffalo Dream, Ranch, is a little more ambivalent. Hume has around 1500 rhino, whose horns he trims every two years, regularly subjecting the animals under anaesthetic. In 2009 the South African government ordered a rhino horn moratorium which resulted in a sharp rise in poaching. Hume won the case, and is now the proud owner of five tons of horns, which are worth million’s of Dollars and are now for sale in South Africa. Whilst Hume is hardly a philanthropist, he is less heinous than the poachers, who kill the rhinos brutally before selling the horns.
The entire weight of Glass’ bravado and bible-quoting (“Humans should have dominion over animals”), as well as his distain for “people who believe in evolution”, comes down on the filmmakers when they show an elephant crying pitifully for seemingly ages after be he has been shot by Glass. This scene alone contradicts everything Schwarz and Clusiau have to say about Glass and his like. Whilst Schwarz agrees with Clusiau “ I had a hard time with the elephant as well. I had a hard time with controlling what I think about Phil and what I think about people like him”. But in an interview Schwarz repudiates himself: “I don’t think Philip is a bad guy.” Then Schwarz goes on the defensive, stating “that even if Philip is an ass, does this completely kill the discussion how we should think about conservation? And does Philip hunting, because I, as a viewer don’t like him, disqualify his hunting as a form of conservation?” And Clusiau states in the same interview: “I agree with Shaul and don’t think Paul is a bad person. I appreciate that all the characters in the film, fully believe in what they are doing. I may not agree with their methods, but for me it’s more a question to if these methods help conserve”.
The myth about hunting as a form of conservation is best repudiated in Kenya, where the vicious ‘sport’ has been banned. Kenya has the most beautiful parks in Africa and tourism keeps their existence in economical terms, whereas South Africa has gone the opposite way: animals are just a commodity, ready to be sacrificed for private profit. Give Trophya watch and draw your own conclusions: do you have to be cruel to be kind?. AS
Dir.: Paul McGuigan; Cast: Annette Benning, Jamie Bell, Juliet Walters, Kenneth Cranham, Vanessa Redgrave; UK 2017, 105 min.
Redeemed by the brilliance of leads Annette Bening and Jamie Bell, this rather sentimental psycho-drama recalls Peter Turner’s memoirs about his relationship with Hollywood star Gloria Grahame (1923-1981). Opting for a tricky flashback narrative, director Paul McGuigan introduces the doomed lovers in late 1970s London where Grahame (Bening) is trying to re-establish her career on the London stage; while Turner (Bell) is ‘resting’ in Primrose Hill. Returning to the US, Grahame discovers that her low-level cancer has come back with a vengeance but she is very much in denial, and rejects chemotherapy for fear of losing her hair, and her acting career. She comes back to live with Turner in the home her shares with his parents (Julie Walters and Kenneth Graham), Ironically, he is playing the part of an doctor while Grahame is dying, but still hopes to play ‘Juliet’.
Gloria Grahame emerges as a complex character, obsessed with cosmetic surgery in a bid to achieve absolute beauty. Her relationships ended mostly tragically: the marriage to director Nicholas Ray (1948-1952) ended in divorce on account of her infidelity with his 13 year son Anthony, whom Grahame later married later in 1960 causing widespread scandal. But Turner was anything but straight: in the film he mentions his bi-sexuality en-passant, but script-writer Matt Greenhaigh decides not to follow this up. There is a telling scene in California, when Gloria’s mother Jeanne McDougall (Redgrave) reminds her daughter poignantly about her predilection for younger men. And there is no mention of how Grahame got to know the Turner family, in the first place.
Polish born DoP Urszula Pontikos uses soft colours, avoiding the usual kitchen sink grime in Liverpool. There are not many laughs, but when the couple pay 90 pennies for two pints, laughter erupted in the cinema. Overall, Bening and Bell play their hearts out, and really convince us of their amour-fou. Like a late Bruckner symphony, they carry their filmstars beyond the realm of everlasting torture and loss. AS
SCREENING DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 4-15 OCTOBER 2017
Writer/director Julian Rosefeldt (The Creation) transposes his installation of the same name to the big screen with this tour-de-force of ideas held together by Cate Blanchett, who appears in 13 different incarnations, breathing life into the tenets of Dadaism, Futurism and Suprematism and others whose credos enlightened the 20th century.
To say this is an odd film, is not an understatement. Apart from the lack of narrative, words and ideas dominate – despite Christoph Krauss’ images (mostly panorama shots from high above), which are stunning. When watching, it definitely helps to have some knowledge of art history and its movements, since the funny side of it all can only be appreciated with this background. MANIFESTO is, after all, a head-idea; an artificial construct which can be deciphered with pleasure – but some knowledge is simply a pre-condition.
It starts off with Blanchett playing a tramp, declaiming the Communist Manifest by Marx and Engels. Later, she changes into a bourgeois housewife, who lectures her family with a tract on the superiority of Pop Art. Husband and children are required by hee to fold their hands as in prayer, while they are waiting for mother to finish so they can start eating the turkey. Blanchett also plays a Primary school teacher, not only adamant that her kids learn about Jim Jarmush’ golden rules of filmmaking, but reminding them too, what JL Godard preached: “It is not where you take things from – it is where you take them to”. For good measure, the little ones also learn about the Von Trier/Vinterberg Dogma Manifesto: only handheld cameras, no artificial light. Blanchett also gives a staggering turn as a ballet master, directing a camp Busby Berkeley imitation of glitzy Martian girls dancing to a text about money distribution. And finally, there are two Cate’s at the same time at work in a TV studio: One is the anchor, who interviews the second Cate, who seems far away in the pouring rain, being interviewed on Conceptual Art, based on the text of Sol de Witt. When the interview is over, we discover that Cate II was in the studio next door, where the rain machine is switched off after the questioning finishes. MANIFESTOis certainly a great work offering endless subject for discussion – and musings are guaranteed for those who are in the know. For the rest, Blanchett’s performance is simply staggering. AS
Dir: Alain Gomis | France / Senegal / Belgium / Germany / Lebanon 2017 | Lingala | Drama | 123 min · Colour
Senegalese Auteur Alain Gomis is best remember for Today his striking portrait of a man’s final hours in Dakar. Félicité is another resonant snapshot of a proud and independent woman that gradually opens its focus from an individual to an entire society in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Félicité (Vero Tschanda) works as a singer in a bar in Kinshasa. Singing is her therapy but also the joy she brings her audiences who are seduced by the rhythm of her music and her powerful, melancholy melodies. When Félicité’s son has a terrible accident, she desperately tries to raise the money needed for his operation, heading off on a breakneck tour through the backstreets to the wealthier districts of the Congolese capital. Her friend Tabu offers to help Félicité but she is not keen on the idea due to his often erratic behavioir. Reluctantly, she accepts and Tabu turns out to be the saving of her son’s rehabilitation. has a hard time picking up his old life, but it is lady’s man Tabu of all people who manages to coax him out of his shell. Félicité’s seedy flat then becomes the setting for this well-crafted drama with its plucky central performance by Tschanda.
Dir.: Gary Sinyor; Cast: Jasmine Hyde, Richard Flood, Simon Cotton; UK, 108′
Director/writer Gary Sinyor, best known for his debut feature Leon the Pig Farmer (1992), fails to breathe life into a strong premise in his psychodrama exploring the aftermath of tragedy for a bereaved couple whose son drowns in their swimming pool. Married couple Gemma (Hyde) and Will (Flood) blame themselves, their grief manifesting in the usual psychosomatic ways, but when their friend Paul steps into help, inviting them to his B&B in the Lake District, he becomes more the problem rather than the solution in this skimpy, poorly-acted, attempt at slick arthouse horror. Gemma’s blurred vision and the forced happy ending will send you away with a sick headache rather than a feeling of satisfaction. MT.
Directors: Joel Coen | Script: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen | Cast: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedeya, M Emmet Waltsh | US | Thriller | 92′ US
The Coen brothers pull a clever mix of cinematic tricks from their box in this tightly-plotted neo-Noir focusing on four characters. With brilliant cinematography (Barry Sonnenfeld) and a darkly humorous, whip-sharp script, this neo-noir thriller keeps you on your toes til the end with more nasty surprises than an angry rattlesnake.
Very much a throwback to the Hitchcockian thrillers of the forties and fifties, the action here unfolds in a shady Texan backwater in the eighties and established the Coens as creative leaders of the American art house genre.
Supremely well-cast: Frances McDormand came on board as a newcomer in place of Holly Hunter, and subsequently went on to win an Oscar for her performance in the Coens’ Fargo. John Getz stars as her lover Ray, and baddie Dan Hedaya plays her jealous controlling husband Marty who hires veteran villain M Emmet Walsh as a private detective Loren Visser to kill them. Naturally, the plan backfires. The car scene where the two are discussing the contract killing is a masterpiece of facial expression.
Blood Simple. won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance the following year. The Coen’s had spent a year raising the development finance by going ‘door to door’ to financiers with a two-minute teaser trailer of the film they planned to make.
The latest restored ‘Director’s Cut’ is actually shorter by 3 minutes than the original 1985 version due to tighter editing, shortening some shots and removing others altogether. In addition, they HAVE resolved long-standing right issues with the music. MT
Dir.: Michael Almereyda; Cast: Lois Smith, John Hamm, Geena Davis, Tim Robbins; USA 2016, 99 min.
Director/co-writer Michael Almereyda (Experimenter) adapts Jordan Harrison’s play for the screen in an un-stagey triumph that interweaves Beckett, Sartre and Phil Dicks, exploring themes such as memory, family and death – the latter not only on a personal level, but concerning humanity as a whole: “Computers have all the time in the world”.
Eighty-five year old Marjorie (Smith) is suffering from the onset of Alzheimers and her loving family, daughter Tess (Davis) and her husband Jon (Robbins), have installed a simulated, personalised digital projection of her dead husband Walter (Hamm) in the futuristic house near the beach. Walter is in his prime, around forty, and received daily tuition by Tess and Jon about Marjorie’s life – the exception being the death of her son. Walter is also instructed to look after Marjorie’s health; he tries to make her eat and drink regularly. But basically, his function is to make Marjorie’s decline more palatable for her. They reminisce over the feel-good features of her youth, such us the crush on a high-ranging French tennis player. And Tess reminds her husband that the man in question was hardly French, just Canadian, and only an amateur player. But Jon shrugs this off: allowing Marjorie a great deal of slack, and flattery is only a minor sin. The longer the ‘interactions’ go on, the more one suspects that all participants are holograms – something author and director have clearly intended. Computers may have all the time in the world, but the human race is only too ready to be replaced by them. To start with, they have a much more precise recollection than the human race. What stands for memory, is just the recollection of the original incident, re-memorised and re-told so often that the original event assumes only a random connection to the present.
DoP Sean Williams uses the house in Long Island as a perfect background for this placcid chamber piece. Colours are subdued and the functional building is just the perfect bland showcase for the holograms. Late Schubert strings are the ideal score for this endgame, where everything is in the past; the waves of the ocean more pacifying and reliable than humans. It is good to see Geena Davis in a major role again, but Lois Smith is the centre of this Artificial Intelligent drama which plays out as a long good-bye. AS
Director, producer and star Kenneth Branagh has filmed Michael Green’s script of Agatha Christie’s 1930s murder mystery MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS with the tragic earnestness of a Dostoyevsky novel. He never allows himself any sort of playfulness or improvisation, and the veteran Hollywood cast fails to animate this re-make of Sidney Lumet’s 1974 version of the crime novel which is dead on arrival on the screen.
Even Lumet, a much more innovative director than Branagh, struggled with the transformation of the page to the screen: after all, we have 12 suspects and just one setting – even though Branagh manages to let the cast out into the snow for a few minutes, after the train derails during a storm: he even manages to botch that outing, but more of that later. Branagh’s collaborators on Cinderella and Thor PD Jim Clay and Haris Zambarloukas are here again – the DoP using his 65mm lens to great wide-screen effect, but Branagh’s direction is as stale as the cast whose performances are stuffy and lacklustre – for the most part.
Johnny Depp’s rake Ratchett is Dillinger warmed-up, Judi Dench’s Russian princess is stiff and detached; Penelope Cruz plays her Spanish missionary with the gloom of eternal repentance; Willem Dafoe’s detective has the poker face we’d expect from a sleuth and Michelle Pfeiffer feels almost on her last legs. But Olivia Coleman is the standout giving real verve to her Hildegard Schmidt. Sporting a ludicrous moustache, Branagh is joylessly pompous as Hercule Poirot. In a nod to the 21st century, Sean Connery’s army colonel has been replaced by Dr. Arbuthnot (Odem), who also happens to be black.
Agatha Christie based her novel loosely on the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, and the director has chosen black and white for the Armstrong family-related flash-backs, but then also used the same for selected scenes on the train, muddling the narrative even further. There are too many embarrassing moments, worst of all the grand finale in the snow: Poirot has decided to seat all twelve suspects on a bench at the entrance to the train tunnel, like naughty kids waiting for a school detention. Despite a massive budget, this stolid costume drama looks like an exhibit from some crusty museum featuring the mummified characters from Norman Bates’ motel. AS
Don’t be put off by the title of this stylish and highly entertaining film about the daredevil racing drivers of the 1950s. Anyone who appreciates a trip down memory lane – packed with original footage – will find this a great watch. Based on Chris Nixon’s ‘Mon Ami Mate’, a biography of British Ferrari drivers Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, whose derring-do and reckless ambition was aided and abetted by Enzo Ferrari and his iconic racing cars, who told his champions: “Win or die, you will be immortal”.
These were courageous men who weren’t afraid to lose their lives doing what they enjoyed best. And most of them did. But they weren’t the only ones to lose their lives. Many spectators also perished when cars left the track and careened into the crowd – such as during the 1955 Le Mans race – killing 83 people in an horrific fireball. Between 1950 and 1960, 39 drivers in motor-racing were killed behind the wheels of tin cars that made a mockery of today’s ‘health and safety’. But Enzo’s love was for his brand and his precious vehicles, and if anyone was killed he laconically asked the question: “And how is the car”
Watching Ferrari, you can’t help falling for the charm and suave charisma of these brave and likeable gentlemen heroes. And the camaraderie between them all feels genuine and heartfelt. Some were playboys but others fell in love on the circuit, such as Mike and Peter went to marry their sweethearts. Director Daryl Goodrich packs e extraordinary tension into a story packed with nostalgia for the good old days of sporting heroes who really deserved their celebrity reputations and were prepared to die for the sport of princes. MT
NOW ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM FRIDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2017
Dir: Joachim Trier | Writers: Eskil Vogt & Joachim Trier | Cast: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen | Norway | Horror | 118′ | Cinematography: Jakob Ihre | Music: Ola Fløttum
More than a character study of a sheltered, sexually repressed young woman with supernatural powers, THELMAis a graceful and provocative existential horror story that couldn’t be more different than Trier’s gentle love story debut – Oslo, August 31st. As clinical in tone as Evolution (2015) THELMA has with a much more down to earth feeling despite quirky moments of fantasy, it sets Trier out as an highly inventive filmmaker at the top of his game.
Eili Harboe plays the closeted Thelma, who moves to the sophistication of Oslo from her small-town existence and protective parents, played by Henrik Rafaelsen and Ellen Dorrit Petersen. At university, she strikes up a friendship with Anja (Kaya Wilkins), but it soon emerges that this is no ordinary relationship and one that goes against her morals as a devout Christian not to mention her own sexual preferences. One day a bird strikes the library window sending Thelma into seizures at her desk, as she gradually becomes aware of unusual ability accompanied by disturbing nightmares. There’s an unsettling undertone to proceedings heightened by Jacob Ihre’s hyper realist visuals and Ola Fløttum’s creepy orchestral score that often plays over the teasing interactions between Thelma and Anya hinting at the unfolding doom.
Harboe skilfully hovers between coquettishness and ingenuous behaviour in her friendship with Anya but with the absence of parental backstory we’re left guessing about their or even Thelma’s motivations for most of the time – which may or may not appeal to some viewers. It does seem that her father is an unduly controlling and undemonstrative. There’s an amazing scene at the Oslo Opera House where Thelma is forced to leave her seat due to sexual arousal at Anya caressing her hand – or simply that she overcome and confused emotionally due her devout beliefs or just generally lacking of emotional support. Trier keeps his characters at arms length throughout, leaving us guessing while he concentrates on atmosphere and tone in this stylish and disturbing drama. MT
THELMA IS ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM November 3 2017
Dir: Alexandre O Philippe | Cast: Alan Barnette, Justin Benson, Peter Bogdanovich, Jamie Lee Curtis, Amy E Duddleston, Jeannie Epper | Doc | US | 91′
The title of Alexandre O Philippe’s documentary refers to the technical way of shooting the shower scene in Hitchcock’s horror classic Psycho: 78 camera setups and 52 cuts. It was the most exacting and difficult scene to shoot during November 1959. Psycho also represented the first physical attack against a naked woman on film, and in the privacy and sanctity of her bathroom – and the first image of a flushing toilet. Psycho is now considered a watershed in film history, ushering in an era of fear and uncertainty after the calm and orderliness of postwar positivity.
Hitchcock claims that he made the film in black and white because the flushing away of the blood in the shower would have been too shocking, although the torn shower curtain idea had already been seen before in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923) . Peter Bogdanovich, who attended the very first press screening of Psycho in New York’s Times Square, makes the most salient point: “Women were top billing during the ’30s and ’20s and that gradually evaporated during the ’40s and ’50s when they slipped into second place, and that’s what the movie’s saying – it’s about killing off the woman”.
What follows is a dissection and debate – mostly by men – about the ground-breaking film, and its terrifying scene that seems to represent a culmination of all Hitchcock’s work up to this date, with the likes of American cinema luminaries such as Walter Murch, David Thomson, Eli Roth, Peter Bogdanovich and Bret Easton Ellis who all share their thoughts on the moments and motivations of Psycho. There is also comment on Gus Van Sant’s panned 1998 remake. A great deal of what is said is salient and apposite, but there’s also a large amount of pointless detail and waffle set to an ultimately annoying and redundant, violin score (nothing like Bernard Hermann’s masterpiece original) that thankfully fades out when we get to watch the scene clips,with commentary from Hitchcock himself, who puts the whole idea down to voyeurism; also claiming that Psycho was not serious and questioning why people found it so shocking. Those who enjoyed Hitchcock Truffaut (2015) will probably feel that most of the ground has already been covered in that superior documentary.
What the film does engage with – and that’s fascinating – is the role, positive and negative, of the mother figure in American Society since the 1950s, and how ultimately women have had the easy option of home-making and child-rearing, but also seducing and withholding (sexually) and therefore were due to be punished. And here Hitchcock admits, laughingly, that his mother scared him as a young boy and that’s putatively why he grew up to be sexually repressed with the need to punish womankind. This revelation could then have segued into a debate about the reportedly negative experiences had by Tippi Hedren, Grace Kelly or even Kim Novak while working for the director. So an exploration of Hitchcock’s suppressed sexuality that spawned the film could have been really intriguing but that’s clearly another documentary. 78/52 has weight and integrity and is certainly worth a watch. MT
Dir.: Satoshi Kon; With the voices of: Junko Iwao, Tica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Massaki Okura | Anime | Japan 1997, 81′.
Based on the novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi comes this psychological phantasy which can be seen as a fore-runner for today’s obsession with the cult of celebrity, onscreen violence and female repression. Japanese filmmaker Satoshi Kon (1963-2010) casts Junko Iwao as Mima Kirigoe, the leading member of a girl-band CHAM! who decides to become an actress in a TV crime series. After she plays a rape-victim, her manager Rumi (Matsumoto), who was once a pop singer herself, warns her of the potential psychological consequences. But Mima goes ahead, and is hunted down by Me-Mamia (Okura), a fan who has turned into a malicious stalker. Me-Memia tries to rape Mima, but she kills him in self-defence. His body cannot be found in the TV studio and Mima loses all sense of reality, unable to differentiate between reality and the plot of the TV murder series in which her character if forced to deal with imaginary figures invading her world. After the script-writer Todokoro (Tsuji) is murdered, Rumi suddenly turns against Mima, pretending to be her former self. The finale on the streets of Tokyo is a brilliant showdown.
The complete title of the novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosisis an acute description of the film’s narrative: Mima, insecure and always willing to please her male bosses, cannot take the pressure of acting as a victim, and soon loses her fragile self: she becomes more and more part of the TV play. This nightmarish scenario is shown in minute detail, and the realism is often hard to take. But Kon never loses his perspective in this striking and provocative debut: his character Mima is not just another helpless woman, but a young girl who has to mature enough to withstand the pressure of her place in a world of media dominated by men. Made for just 25 000$, Perfect Blue grossed over 112 million USD alone in the USA. AS
In cinemas 31st October from Anime Ltd and National Amusements
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. At almost 70, 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.
At at raucous and voluble family meal we get some backstory on the Jones and Williams troubled family backstory in a scene that culminates in a full-throated performance of Wicked and Williams’ Blood as Grace struts around amid strobes – sporting nothing but a black leotard and a massive clotted cream moonshaped crown – by Irish hatter Philip Treacy – Fiennes tribute captures the warmth and ebullience of Jamaica and Grace’s defiant irreverence.
Grace was once a Bond Girl – May Day – in A View To A Kill and also appeared in Conan The Destroyer, but here we witness the real Grace for the first time: The woman behind the act, and she’s as feisty and strangely vulnerable as you would imagine. Champagne flows throughout as Grace moves constantly, making angry phone calls and negotiating in French – she lived in Paris for many years with French photographer Jean Paul Goude who styled her legendary look and shtick. Opening an oyster with difficulty she snarls: “wish my pussy was still this tight”. 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.
La Vie en Rose is performed in a blossom pink setting – all softly sequinned and shimmery. Bloodlight And Bami – the film’s title is Jamaican for the recording studio lighting. She’s busy raising money for her next album, accompanied by her bass duo Sly and Robbie. Grace is no wallflower when it comes to things financial: she wants to be paid upfront for every concert, but will trawl through the old stalwarts just to raise money for her new work. You get the impression these old numbers bore her slightly, as she rants through Nipple to the Bottle, tottering gamely on amazingly amazonian legs. “Sometimes you have to be a high-flying bitch”.
Jones hasn’t forgotten the ghosts of the past: her abusive step-grandfather fuels the angry energy for her stage persona. Her parents lived away from Jamaica in New York during her childhood but she’s now closer to her mother and goes with her to church back home.
Pull up to the Bumper is vigorously vampish. Her lyrics – like her lips and bone structure – are strong and powerfully stand the test of time. Grace is vulnerable, scary and exotic – a feminine volcano that smoulders and could erupt at any time. Fiercely feline she purrs more like a jaguar than a pussycat. Her following is eclectic and all-encompassing: middle-aged men; sophisticated women and the gay crowd, all attracted to her burlesque bravado and musical power.
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
Dir.: Andy Serkis | Cast: Andrew Garfield, Clare Foy, Hugh Boneville, Tom Hollander, Diana Riggs; UK 2017, 117′
Andy Serkis has chosen a bio-pic of polio victim and disabled campaigner Robin Cavendish for his directorial debut. Written by William Nicholson (Shadowlands) and produced by Robin’s son Jonathan Cavendish, BREATHE is laced with a heavy dose of saccharine, from which Robin and his wife Diana emerge in a saintly glow.
After finishing his army career as a captain, Robin Cavendish (Garfield) goes to work in the tea-broking business in Africa. During a cricket match back in England, he meets his future wife Diana (Foy) and they return to Kenya, where in 1958, Robin suffers a polio attack leaving him paralysed from the neck down, unable to breathe or speak.
Against medical advice, Diana has her husband flown back to the UK, where he is put on respirator. Suicidal, not wanting to look at his newborn son, Robin wants his wife to end his life, but she is stubborn. Again defying doctors’ advice, she has Robin moved out of the hospital into the new family home in the country. Later, Oxford Don and inventor Teddy Hall (Bonneville) creates a special wheelchair for Robin. The couple visit Spain and France, and have countless parties at home, enlightened by Tom Hollander, who plays both of his Diana’s twin brothers. The couple also helps other patients, who are bedbound, founding charities with polio specialist Dr. G.T. Spencer and their own Refresh project, which allows patients and their families to have holidays. Robin Cavendish, who was given three month to live, died aged 64, a record for a polio victim.
This is a rousing film especially for those inflicted with the debilitating disease, but Jonathan Cavendish’s treatment lacks the objectivity really needed to do his parents justice in examining the wider issues involved. Nicholson’s script is a mixture of English stiff-upper-lip and ‘stay chipper whatever the circumstances’, skirting over the obvious difficulties the couple must have faced, for example, with sex. DoP Richard Richardson keeps the mood jolly with pastel colours and redundant panorama shots; whilst Nitin Sawhney’s score is of near-religious intensity. Garfield and Foy do their utmost but a less hagiographic approach would have certainly rendered a less cloying, more meaningful and realistic result. AS
BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL OPENS ON 4TH OCTOBER 2017 – 15 OCTOBER 2017
Directed by Luca Guadagnino and based on André Aciman’s 2007 novel of the same name, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME has similar stylishly languorous credentials to its forerunner, I Am Love, as it ravishingly unfurls.
In 1980s Cremona, where the summers are blindingly hot and torpid during the August holidays, one English family make their yearly vacation. Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) is the musically gifted and sexually naive teenage son of Jewish parents, an eminent Classics professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his wife, who are accustomed to a philanthropic gesture of inviting another Jewish student to stay at their villa to help with research. This year’s intern is Armie Hammer’s rather too sexy and urbane Oliver, who looks more like one of the Greek statues Elio is wont to study, than a budding historian. Elio is smitten in discrete ecstasy as he descends into emotional meltdown. Guadagnino conjures up the heady world of la Dolce Vita that mingles with the sexual undertow and uneasiness of Body Heat and the elegance of a James Ivory classic (he co-wrote the script). And it all looks stunning.
Elio and Oliver grow closer as the Ferragosto shutdown approaches, swimming, sunbathing and sampling the locale ‘by night’; Elio gawping at Hammer’s pecs – as we do too. In return, Hammer treats him with thinly-veiled disdain, coming and going at will and flirting outrageously while rocking a massive Star of David on his tanned and tousled chest. While he is every so slightly brash, the Perlmans are discretion itself, as Elio’s father gracefully points out. Elio doesn’t know where to put himself as his burgeoning sensuality is challenged by his ‘bon chic bon genre’ credentials, he teeters like a Tom cat on a hot tin roof, wanting to howl at the moon, bewitched and bewildered.
When he meets Esther Garell’s girl next door, he is flummoxed by her gamine charm and distracted by his burning desire for someone who is clearly not available, fluffing his own chance at enjoably losing his own virginity in the process. His father misjudges the sexual ambiance -or does he?- coming up with one of the best son/father soliloquies of recent years where he outlines emotional intelligence for his son’s benefit. This is something every teenager should hear. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is a thoroughly enjoyable, slow-burning romantic drama which should be savoured more than once. It has so much more to offer than its awkward title belies, and merits its generous running time. MT
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 27 OCTOBER 2017 | BERLINALE REVIEW 2017
Exorcism is still a fact of contemporary life particularly in Catholic countries such as Italy where every year more and more people claim that their illnesses are caused by demonic possession. Father Cataldo is a veteran priest, one of the most sought-after exorcists in Sicily. Every Tuesday, many believers follow his mass of liberation, searching for a cure for some adversity for which there does not seem to be a label or a remedy.
Italian documentarian Federica Di Giacomo won the Venice Horizons Award last year for this penetrating study of an ancient practice that has found its way into the contemporary world with as much conviction as it did in Medieval times. What emerges doesn’t provide answers but gives fascinating insight as Di Giacomo combines interviews and footage to show how, in some ways, exorcism is enjoying a boom especially in Sicily where this candid observational approach completely avoids sensationalism. MT
DELIVER US (Liberami) is in cinemas 27th October and on DVD 30th October#DELIVERUSFILM
Writer/Dir: S Craig Zahler | Cast: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Tom Guiry, Don Johnson, Udo Kier, Fred Melamed | Thriller | US | 132′
Vince Vaughn plays a lean, mean, decent human being in S. Craig Zahler’s terrific BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99. infact its almost impossible to believe the integrity of the lead character Bradley Thomas who is forced to do what a man’s gotta do when his pregnant wife is kidnapped and threatened with death and the mutilation of her baby, in this tightly scripted vicious crime thriller that puts all Thomas’ problems down to the Mexican drug trade he’s involved in. With lines like: “Don’t call me a foreigner, the last time I looked the flag wasn’t coloured red, white and burrito”, this is a free-spirited affair that grabs you by the lapels with its straight-talking narrative and some of the best bare-fisted fighting scenes ever committed to celluloid. In fact the only criticism of BRAWL is the slighted bloated running time of over two hours, hardly a crime thanks to the fruity cast who keep us entertained throughout, with some awkward laughs at the unmitigated violence of it all. Vaughn is terrific as the guy who tries to salvage his ailing marriage by financing his future running drugs for a local gangster, but ends up in jail for defending his accomplices in a pick-up that goes wrong.
Best known for his Western Horror Bone Tomahawk, S. Craig Zahler packs genre tropes into a endlessly moving action thriller that continuously erupts with shocking violence. Vaughn’s Thomas is a solid mensch of a man whose stoicism and emotional intelligence is trounced only by his courage and physical prowess. After being made redundant he pulverises his wife’s car into the driveway, rather than take his anger out of her, despite her confessing to an affair, which the two resolve in calm dialogue each admitting their faults. After being convicted and set to the ‘FRJ’ prison, Thomas resolves to tough it out with his wife’s support, but a sinister threat from the beautifully-besuited Udo Kier, sends Thomas into slowly unravelling meltdown. At this juncture, the film turns from a sober crime drama to something outlandishly deranged. There are memorable vignettes from suave prison warder Don Johnson, snippy guard, Fred Melamed and a seething Mustafa Shakir. The dialogue is witty and sardonic as the body count rises and the nightmare reaches its astonishing denouement, with our hero setting a new benchmark for the all time action hero and 21st century man. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 20 OCTOBER 2017
Dir. Armando Iannucci. Fr-UK-Bel | Comedy Drama | 106′
Armando Iannucci’s stylish Soviet satire plays out like a classic Mel Brooks comedy. This light-footed but abrasively cynical dramedy lays bare the grasping sculduggery of Stalinist Russia with a humour as bleak and bracingly vicious as the Gulags where nearly 10-20 million people lost their lives between 1929 and 1953. Our story kicks off in Moscow, where the cockney-tongued Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) collapses in his state rooms, having suffered a fatal stroke.
Best known for The Thick Of It, In The Loop and Veep, Iannucci again exposes the ugliness of power and politics in a film that echoes the global crisis of faith in our leaders. But what really bolsters this lavish production is seeing so many fabulous actors all doing their stuff in enjoyable comic turns. Amongst Stalin’s coterie of counsellors there is Michael Palin (Vyacheslav Molotov); Steve Buscemi (Nikita Khrushchev); Simon Russell Beale (Lavrentiy Beria) and even Paul Whitehouse (Anastas Mikoyan); not to mention Dermot Crowley (Kaganovich). The humour lies in their need to pretend to be unanimously respectful of Stalin’s death while, behind the scenes, a farce plays out with hilarious gags as they all jockey for position and copy with the petulant posturing from Rupert Friend and Andrea Riseborough as Vasily and Sventlana, Stalin’s kids.
Based on a graphic novel by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, THE DEATH OF STALIN also shows how ordinary people were casually abused and manipulated by the powerful elite – this is a fascinatingly caustic comedy plays up the pitfalls of a regime that replaced an equally unequal set-up of the Tsars, who at least had taste!. These characters are dead ugly and thoroughly unlikeable, swinging around the vast and vacuous corridors of power, exposing the same loathsome view of Russia that transpires in Andrei Zvyagintsev’s contemporary drama LOVELESS; clearly nothing has changed in the intervening years; the tone here is breezier, but just as back-biting.
Rupert Friend’s Vassily does sail a bit close to the wind in his silliness, but Jason Isaac steps in with comic astringency as Army Chief, Georgy Zhukov. On the whole these politicians are as frighteningly convincing as a species as Jeremy Corbyn or even Michael Gove. Steve Buscemi’s Khrushchev is a clever conniver who gradually gets his way through a process of stealth and self-pity. Witty and throughly entertaining. MT
Dir: Tomas Alfredson | Cast: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Val Kilmer, Chloë Sevigny, J.K. Simmons, Silvia Busuioc, Jamie Clayton | Horror Thriller | 119′
Tomas Alfredson’s first foray into thriller territory Let the Right One In was one of the most horrifying movies ever made and an instant cult classic. Sadly, The Snowman is horrifically bad. And not even star trio Michael Fassbender, Charlotte Gainsbourg or Toby Jones can do anything to save it.
Fans of ScandiNoir and the frosted pulpy fare of Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø will be the most disappointed by this screen adaptation of the seventh Harry Hole thriller, where a serial-killer’s calling card is a haunting snowman that appears near his crime scenes. For some reason Alfredson has chosen not one but three award-winning writers to fashion the sprawling fractured narrative – and it’s a real dog’s dinner. But they do keep one trick up their sleeve: the identity of the killer.
Fassbender plays the maverick dipsomaniac detective who looks miserable as sin and permanently on the verge of ‘flu for the duration. But before he limps onto the scene, a mother has gone missing in snowy Oslo, abducted in the dead of night and leaving her young daughter and nervous husband (James D’Arcy) in the dark, literally and metaphorically. According to the crime motivation backstory, a ‘mother’ serial killer is on the loose. A little boy has been orphaned when his distraught and suicidal mum drove her Volvo into a frozen lake. A series of gruesome jump cuts feature severed limbs bloodying the snow, we then cut to the starkly-lit Ikea clad interior of a child’s bedroom.
The framing is off kilter, not to mention the gaudy aesthetic and lighting. The sinister tropes of Let the Right One In have gone out, and instead of feeling tense, we feel appalled at the ludicrousness of it all. The female characters are either wearing grotesque wigs (Chloë Sevigny has one of the worst examples) or tarty clothing for no apparent reason: Rebecca Ferguson’s sidekick detective is forced to don thigh books, red lippy and black lace to seduce one of the suspects, Arve Støp (JK Simmons).
Guffaws broke out in the cinema when a bloated, lumbering Val Kilmer appears (as Ferguson’s father), his dubbing wildly out of sync. And Charlotte Gainsbourg (as Hole’s ex) plays a moaning minnie, one minute wittering down the phone about their son, the next, seducing him in a mini dress and bare (almost blue) legs. Meanwhile Toby Jones sports poorly-advised blond highlights and a curious goatee beard. The Snowman is a real ‘shocker’ and not in a good way. On the plus side, the aerial shots of Oslo, Bergen and the wintery landscapes are wonderfully atmospheric: so you do get a trip to Norway’s highlights for your money, it’s a shame about the rest. MT
Dir.: Lucas Belvaux; Cast: Emilie Dequenne, Andre Dussollier, Gillaume Gouix, Patrick Descamps, Catherine Jacob; France/Belgium 2017, 117 min
Belgium director/co-writer Lucas Belvaux has chronicled a local election campaign in the north of France, with similarities to the real world very much intended. Set in a unnamed town close to Henin-Beaumont in the Pas-de Calais region, where Marine Le Pen was elected as MP in June, after having been thoroughly defeated in the preceding presidential elections, Chez Nous is centred around a a-political community nurse, who is exploited by a far right Party called RNP.
Pauline Duhez (Dequenne) an over-worked community nurse, divorced with two little children, who has to watch, how her patients and most of the townsfolk are suffering from a permanent reduction of their living standard. Whilst her father Jacques (Descamps), is a fierce trade unionist, Pauline is susceptible towards populist right wingers, like Dr. Berthier (Dussollier), the local doctor, who looked after Pauline’s mother, who died of cancer. Berthier is a gentlemanlike neo-fascist, in the mould of Tixier-Vignancour, who was Minister in the Vichy regime, and collaborated with right-wing militias after the war. Berthier has now left military resistance behind, and helps the RNP (Renewed National Party) to gain power in a democratic way. This cannot be said for his erstwhile friend Stephane ‘Stanko’ (Gouix), who is still working for the military wing of the RNP. He was the first love of Pauline at college, and when he re-appears in her life, old feelings resurface. After Pauline agrees to be the RBN candidate for mayor of the town, Berthier warns ‘Stanko’ to leave Pauline alone: the party cannot afford a scandal, if it becomes public that Pauline has relationship with a para-military soldier. Whilst old friends warn Pauline off he engagement and candidature, ‘Stanko’ is ready to sacrifice his relationship with Pauline for the good of the party. But Pauline, who has doubts, confronts Berthier and stands down. She chooses a life with Stanko, who lies to her, that he is a changed man, who has left the armed struggle behind.
CHEZ NOUS is full of ironies: the daughter chooses the opposite end of politics from her father, her lover is really more dangerous than the Doctor, whom she rejects in the end, and the RNP has difficulties in getting rid of old fighters, who still use force. Pauline, politically naïve, is lost among the scheming politicians, particularly Agnes Dorelle (Jacob), the Party leader, who appeals to Pauline’s feminism. A late twist also helps to bring some loose ends together.
Most of the characters are based on figures of the crime novel Le Bloc (2011) written by co-author Jerome Leroy. This helps to keep the protagonists very earthy: in spite of the topic, politics are secondary; Belvaux concentrates on the motives and personalities of the participants. Some dry humour also helps, and Dequenne is particularly convincing. DoP Pierric Gantelmi d’Ille, who worked with Belvaux on Pas son Genre, captures the provincial atmosphere brilliantly, creating a feeling not unlike a Simenon novel. AS
SCREENING DURING BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 4-15 OCTOBER 2017
Dir: Sally Potter. Cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Patricia Clarkson, Timothy Spall, Cillian Murphy, Emily Mortimer, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones | UK | DRAMA | 71′
After the lush languor of Orlando comes the sleek satire of THE PARTY: Sally Potter has never done laughs before, but here there are some mean ones but nothing unsurprising. This middle class chamber piece is very much a British affair with a British cast – strangely, the most appealing characters are German and American. Shot in bare black-and-white it certainly strips bare the themes involved: Politics, Love, Sex and Money: but what else is there? Intellect, of course, and that is supplied in spades by Timothy Spall’s lounge hang-dog lizard Bill who is hosting a soirée for six close friends for his wife Kristin Scott Thomas’ Janet, who has just been appointed Shadow Health Minister. This is one of those ghastly evenings where everyone has ‘an announcement’ and no one appears to be particularly in a good mood, apart from Bruno Ganz’ soothing alternative therapist Gottfried who talks in cliches along with the other guests, each saying exactly what you would expect them to, representing a different aspect of the social spectrum. Ganz’ news is announced as their ‘last supper’ by his warm and waspish wife April (a brilliant Patricia Clarkson) as she slumps gracefully into a squashy settee. Very much queen of the back-handed compliment she is also the lynchpin who holds the party together, and by the end announces: “our marriage is not looking so bad, compared to this lot”. Everyone is focused on their own issues in that fashionably distraught way well-known to city-dwellers. The only cheesy smile comes from Janet, not least because of her news, but also because of a secret lover who keeps phoning and texting while she pops the vol-au-vents into the oven like some modern day Fanny Craddock. Tom (Cillian Murphy), is a melodramatic financial type who snorts coke in the loo and carries a gun (yeh Sally all city-types snort coke, and carry guns – if only you knew!). The whole affair is book-ended by Janet pointing a gun from her open front door in a ruse that feels bit too formulaic and trite, in the scheme of things. The problem with THE PARTYis an insistence on toeing the party line: everything is so predictable, and unoriginal. There’s even a lesbian couple played by Emily Mortimer and Cherry Jones, who are expecting triplets, and whose dominant versus submissive shtick is cringeworthy in the extreme. The finale showdown involves interweaving infidelities. THE PARTYis an amuse-bouche, and it certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome. And by the time you’re home you’ll be casting around for that bluray of Orlando. MT
RELEASES ON 13 OCTOBER 2017 NATIONWIDE | Berlinale review
Dir.: Marianna Palka; Cast: Marianna Palka, Jason Ritter, Jaime King, USA 2017, 93 min.
Writer and director Marianna Palka (Good Dick) also stars in her anarchic portrait of a woman pushed aside by her husband once too often. BITCH is a slim but taut and deftly-handled feminist parable – the sheer pace and untamed aggression making it gripping and watchable.
Jill (Palka) runs home and kids for her husband Bill (Ritter), who works for a city corporation and is hardly ever home. Spending most of his time in the office, he sexually exploits a dependent co-worker into the bargain. When she gets sacked in a widespread office cull, Bill puts in a good word for her, but is rebuffed by the boss and vents his frustration on his wife, undeservedly calling her a bitch. Something snaps in Jill and she turns into a vicious virago, making life hell for husband and four children, whom she has served efficiently for so long. Moving into the cellar of the family home, Jill starts growling and behaving like a violent dog. The family is obviously shocked, and Jill’s sister Beth (King) suggests a psychiatric home. But Bill is against the idea – what would the neighbours think?. But his absence from work costs him his job, and when his lover arrives, inquiring caringly about his wellbeing, Jill ‘smells’ her presence and goes berserk. Scots actress Palka is astonishly convincing in both animal and human form, and shows how ultimately behaviour, rather than negotiation, is sometimes the only way to bring change. DoP Armando Salas assists with a handheld camera, capturing the human dog during long runs through the neighbourhood. The jazz score by Morgan Z. Whirledge is just right for this explosive tale which should send alarm bells to all males of the human variety. MT
Dir.: Benjamin Barfoot | Cast: Danny Morgan, Michael Socha, Kelly Wenham, Georgia Groome | UK 2017 | 89′.
Benjamin Barfoot’s spoof Slasher movie is murdered by Danny Morgan’s dreadful script and a flimsy narrative that cannot survive even 90 minutes. The feature debut sees two spooky sisters Kitty (Wenham) and Lulu (Groome) corralled into helping Jim (Morgan) lose his virginity on the final night of his twenties. But unbeknown to Jim and his best best friend Alex (Socha), the sister’s have an ulterior motive for seeking out male virgins – it involves body parts, but not those that immediately spring to mind. To say that the material is raw, is an understatement. Only DoP Laura Bingham (also a newcomer), comes away with any credit. Overall, Double Dateends up with a lot of blood but very few laughs. AS
Dirs: Neasa Ní Chianáin/David Rane | Writer: Etienne Essery | With John/Amanda | Doc | Irish | 99′
In a Georgian mansion in rural Ireland maverick educators John and Amanda have devoted their married life to bringing out the best in their pupils, along with their foppish Head Master Dermot Dix. And if you had young children, you’d send them to the idyllic prep school at Headfort House near Kells in County Meath. In this entertainingly footloose documentary we spend a year with the kids and staff and their wonderful approach to learning.
The directors’ narrative is as unstructured as the couple’s teaching methods. John and Amanda are as tender towards their charges as they are to each other. But discipline is also firmly in place and respect is the watchword; and it flows both ways. John is the Latin Master but he also teaches the liberal arts, music and painting. English Mistress Amanda, is responsible for drama – and there is a lot of fun. John and Amanda are often seen sharing a fag as they chat through their day in their cottage on the grounds, giving each other tips and encouragement – clearly the pupils are also their ‘children’ and they know just how to bring out the best in them. But they are dedicated to their life’s work and have also to consider what would happen when they eventually retire: “What would we do all day, if we didn’t come here?”. When little Florrie, a troubled but talented kid, appears on the scene from London, she is a brilliant drummer in the school’s rock band but lacks discipline. John deftly handles her tears and tantrums without batting an eyelid and the children all call him ‘Sir’, as a mark of respect – without a shred of resentment, or ever questioning his authority, in public or in the cosy dorms.
At the end of term, there is success for two children with places at Eton and Harrow, and John gently mimics the posh accents the boys may encounter once installed. At the same time, young Ted’s dyslexia has improved in this caring environment and there are prizes – and hugs – all round. A tender and touching portrait of what a school should be. MT
Dir.: Denis Villeneuve; Cast: Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Robin Wright, Sylvia Hoeks, Jared Leto, Harrison Ford, Mackenzie Davis; USA 2017, 164 min.
Ridley Scott set his original Blade Runner in 2019; and since he was nearly there when shooting his new version, Denis Villeneuve had to catapult us another 30 years into the future where LA is a chaotic ruin with a permanent orange halo in the sky, and where snows fall regularly.
‘Climate change’ has taken its toll. But this is nothing. North of the metropolis, in San Diego, everything is literally just a dump populated by human scavengers. The Canadian director started his career with art-house cinema, and proves successfully that you can make a blockbuster costing 180 million dollars with the aesthetics and quality of an indie movie.
In this dystopian nightmare, a narrative emerges more or less from where Ridley Scott (who is an executive producer) left off. LAPD officer K (Gosling) – himself an android (Mark Nexus 9) – is hunting down the rebellious model Nexus 8 survivors, and we witness him successfully executing a contract. But the aftermath is much more important: K finds evidence that the distinction between humans and androids has been breached. Reporting to his superior, Lieutenant Joshi (Wright), he is told to forget the whole affair: all evidence is being destroyed. But K is himself a rebel and goes on researching. Niander Wallace (Leto), who more or less owns the country and the plant where the much more pliant Nexus 9 model is produced, is not amused, and sets his executioner Luv (Hoeks) on Joshi. K.
Luv is a killing machine who never moves a muscle in her angelic face. On his way back into the past, K first encounters a mind technician (Davis), whose identity will be of utmost importance. Finally there’s Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard, who has gone missing for thirty years, and now lives in the ruins of Las Vegas, gambling with himself and watching holograms of Elvis and Frank Sinatra.
Much more important than this wild goose chase – K still uses Ford’s battered mini-plane – is the relationship between K and Joi (de Armas), an inferior service android who serves K on every level. But Joi develops feelings for her master, and finally even sacrifices her life just to be with him. For me, the highpoint is the scene where K invites a hooker to the flat, and Joi wraps her holographic self around the woman, while they love together: all three of them longing for a human experience. When K finds the small wooden horse that has been a feature of his dreams, he’s not sure if this memory was implanted in the factory; ironically, Wallace the designer is calling the androids ‘angels’, wanting to develop them further, so they can reproduce.
The soullessness here is astonishing: the wooden horse is a sensation because nobody has seen a tree. Naked women ply their trade with building-sized holograms. K, like his namesake in Kafka’s castle – is lost in the power play, but still yearns to be a human. Considering the state of the species, he should have second thoughts.There’s a great deal to admire here, and Villeneuve’s subtle, sensitive direction makes us forget the substantial running time. Writers Hampton Fanchor (who scripted the 1982 version) and Michael Green keep the focus and take their time developing each character. The music by Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer supports the eerie atmosphere, and British DoP Roger Deakins creates a ghastly shadow world in bleached colours, creating an atmosphere of permanent darkness and fog. Gosling and de Armas are a couple from an inverted Sodom et Gomorra, by Proust. AS
NOW ON RE-RELEASE AT BFI MAX LONDON IN OCTOBER 2024
Dir: Sierra Pettengill, Pacho Velez | Doc | US | 74′
Pettengill and Velez’ entertaining documentary captures the pageantry, absurdity and mastery of the made-for-TV politics of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) entirely through White House footage and archive news reports. And although the directors brings nothing especially new to the party that covered the Reagan Administration from 1980-1988), with Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House, even the Reagan presidency needs to be re-evaluated.
Asked in 1980, why Ronald Reagan was elected president of the USA, a journalist friend of mine ventured his opinion: “The powers that are, wanted to give the job to somebody who read the cue-cards the best”. He was referring to Reagan’s acting career; though mostly spent in B-pictures, Reagan was a household name, and his portraits of the average, good-natured American (in the majority of his features), made him an ideal figure to identify with. Even if the truth about him – working as an informer for the FBI – would have been leaked, it would not have made any difference at the polls. Reagan himself was much more self-aware than one assumes. Asked by a TV interviewer if it helped to have been an actor before becoming president, he answered; “I don’t know how I would have done the job, if I had not been an actor.”
Yes, he had trouble spelling names, like the one of New Hampshire governor John Sununu, whose election he sponsored: the recorded interview had to be interrupted many a times, before Reagan got it right –but hey, George W. Bush could hardly string a complete sentence together. And even if Reagan’s appearance before the TV cameras with a saw in his hand, representing his fight for a meaner budget, was truly cringe-worthy, it seems more funny than malicious today. Anyhow, ‘staging the message’ was/is always part and parcel of the ‘White House Show’ – until Trump decided to break all the rules. The reason we have so much material on the Reagan years, is, that his administration recorded more events, than the five before combined.
Reagan was a cold-war warrior, and even after only one year in office, public opinion showed that the US population was more afraid of an all-out nuclear war with the USSR than 12 months before; further more, the majority of the US population thought that nuclear war with the USSR was inevitable. The president was in/famous for two of his statements: one was his support of the Strategic Defence Initiave (also known as ‘Star Wars’), the other one naming the USSR “as an evil empire”. But being the master communicator he was, Reagan turned from a falcon into a dove in his last years in the White House. Whilst president Gorbachev hired US PR agencies to help with his image (quite successfully, he gained the support of Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterand), Reagan had suffered a set back in the Iran affair in late ‘86: his prisoners for weapons deal cost him the support of his political base, and, for once, the great communicator had to retreat. In the end, Reagan even retracted his “evil empire” outburst: in the presence of Gorbachev he told reporters in Moscow “this quote belonged to another time, another era”.
The footage of Ronald and Nancy Reagan in Ronald McDonald costumes, entertaining a group of children, might be the funniest of this lively and often witty documentary, the overall perception is that, even if the Reagan presidency was “an MA in PR” compared with the present White House inhabitant, Ronald Reagan was a balanced human being. MT
OUT OF COMPETITION | LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW | 2-12 AUGUST 2017
Dir.: Simon Curtis | Cast:Domhnall Gleason, Margot Robbie, Will Tilson, Alex Lawther, Kelly MacDonald, Stephen Campbell Moore; UK 2017, 107′.
In trying to tackle the complex relationship between Winnie-the-Pooh author AA Milne (1882-1956) and his son Christopher Robin, Simon Curtis (Woman in Gold) finds the guilty party: the boy’s mother Daphne (Margot Robbie). Aided by scriptwriters Frank Cottrell Boyce and Simon Vaughn, Dorothy ‘Daphne’ de Selincourt becomes a garish parody of a woman without a heart; although contradictory evidence found in the adult writing of C R Milne is written out.
Bookended by the two World Wars, the story opens with AA Milne (Gleason) in the West End Theatre scene of 1920, where flashbulbs remind him of his traumatic time in the trenches. Having written for the stage and the magazine Punch, Milne declares “I’ve had enough of making people laugh, I want to make them see”. Daphne had given birth to their son Christopher Robin, named ‘Billy Moon’ by his parents. The couple soon gravitate from London to Hartfield East Sussex, where AA Milne was to write his two most famous books Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928), illustrated by the Punch cartoonist EH Shephard (Campbell Moore), who visited the Milnes often and had a close relationship with the author, sharing post traumatic stress disorder.
Daphne is shown as an endlessly neglectful mother, seeking out out the brights lights of London’s social scene while leaving CR in the hands of his nurse Olive ((MacDonald). When Olive is on leave, Milne senior shows off his parenting skills in strange ways: when he finds his son on the table with knife and fork in his hands, he reprimands him “if somebody falls through the ceiling, they would injure themselves, drawing blood” – making sure the audience gets the wartime analogy. After the Winnie-the-Pooh books achieve worldwide success, Daphne decides to get in on the act, making hay out of Milne’s success despite being previously being on the verge of leaving him – she even sells one of his private poems to a newspaper, and gives her son short shrift when he tearfully complains “all these stories are just lies” – she retorts “There is no blubbing in this house”. A sentimental reconciliation between CR, returning from the war, and his parents shows Daphne again at her best: never in film history have you witnesses a mother less delighted by the survival of her son.
The dinner party conversation at the Milne house would make PG Woodhouse proud: Dinner guest: “I was at the Somme”, “How was it?” “Bad show”. Obviously, this only goes to emphasis how the British stiff upper lip kept the sensitive male in check. Clearly Curtis intends this as an indictment of the upbringing Milne’s children’s books revered, but is it really worthwhile, or even desirable, to criticise the values of the past through today’s spectrum? AA Milne is shown trashing his son’s room with a cricket bat, demonstrating that, unlike mother, he really regrets the rotten childhood he had forced on him. Whilst the PD department gets all the credit, GOODBYE is just too sweet and torpid – apart from its misogynist ideology – to keep even the most ardent Pooh fanbase engaged. Years from now this film will be forgotten, the books and poems will live on. AS
Dir.: Masaaki Yuasa; Anime with the voices of Kana Hanazawa, Gen Hoshino, Hiroyuki Yoshino; Japan 2017, 93′
Masaaki Yuasa returns to the big screen with his first release in 13 years. Night is Short, Walk On Girl, based on the Manga by Tomohiko Morimi, is a variation on the One Night action Manga, itself the Oriental equivalent of Cornel Woolrich’s pulp novels featuring the doomed hero with just one night to prove his innocence and rescue his girl –while the clock ticks away. In this case, it’s the girl of the title, Ottome, meaning ‘girl with black hair’, who runs the show.
Set in Kyoto, Senpai (Hoshino), a shy senior college student from an upmarket background, is in love with teenager The Girl (Hanazawa) who keeps her feelings for him buttoned up. Senpai pursues her at every corner, but The Girl is much more streetwise than he is. After a mutual college friend’s wedding party, Senpai tries to find a seat near his paramour, but comes under attacked by a gang robbing him of his clothes, leaving Senpai deeply embarrassed and forced to beg strangers to lend him some underwear. The Girl, meanwhile, lucks out by winning a drinking contest with a God-like creature, Rihaku, thus liberating one of his debtors. As the night goes on, The Girl meets the ‘God of the old Books Market’ (Yoshino) along with Todo-son, an unhappy collector of erotic Japanese art, and a group of nihilists, who fall under her spell. A college theatre production turns into a out-out slapstick show, and, in the final section of this riotous night journey, The Girl fights tornados and icy hail, as the anime reaches its momentous finale
One word of warning: The title is completely misleading as The Girl never walks but rushes around madly, a tireless adventuress, seeking out excitement at every corner. Senpai is more contemplative and we learn a lot about the inner workings of his mind, where Ego and Id fight it out. There seems to be no ‘dramatic arc’ – this is a fairy tale told on speed. It would have been good to learn more about the innovative animation: for example, if people get drunk or act embarrassingly, their bodies are suffused by different shades of red, with Senpai being the main victim – but the subtitles don’t leave much time for admiration. The film’s characters are based on the drawings of the Manga by Yusuke Nakamura, and the director successfully marries this rather minimalist style with his overpoweringly fluid action scenes.
Some critics have accused Yuasa of celebrating Senpai as a stalker, but while he seems to be a bit of a control freak, he is very unsuccessful at it. Yuasa has stuck to the first sentence of the novel “This is not a story about me, it’s a story about her”. AS
OUT ON RELEASE FROM 3 OCTOBER IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE
Burmese auteur Midi Z shares own experience in this doomed love story about two illegal immigrants escaping prison and poverty in Myanmar (from his home town of Lashio) to seek a brighter future in Thailand.“The young Burmese, feeling imprisoned in their home country, and regard Thailand as a place where they could set themselves free and have a brighter future. Nonetheless, they have no idea that they are very likely to be imprisoned again, and this time in a bigger place. I’m fortunate, if I hadn’t come to Taiwan to study, I might have ended up like one of the character in the film”.
Z, who has directed documentary films before switching to features, shows his skills in catching the smallest details, not only on the coalface of the factory, but also in the relationship between the two main characters. Guo is stoic, but has a grasp of reality, whilst Lianqing is dreaming of a bright future – but relying on Guo to make it happen. Guo shows respect for Lianqing’s innocence and does not even kiss her. They live like brother and sister, with Guo hoping for more, without verbalising his feelings during their dangerous trip from the Myanmar border to Thailand. They have paid the people-traffickers, who take them over the Mekong river into the ‘promised land’ (the titular Mandalay is more symbolic than real), the journey often interrupted to bribe border control and policemen. Guo, whom fellow travellers call ‘simple Guo’, falls in love with Lianqing at first side, and lets her travel in the front of the vehicle, taking her place in the boot, even though he has paid a higher price. After they arrived in the suburbs of Bangkok, he tries to get her a job in a restaurant, but the young woman has set her sights higher: she wants to work in the city, selling clothes. But since Lianquing has no identity papers, she fails with her application, and starts working washing dishes. Arrested during a police raid, Guo has to bail her out. But love cannot save Lianqing from her burning ambition which also leads to her fate in this brilliantly-acted drama of illegal immigration and unfulfilled amour-fou. AS
Dir.: Martin Koolhoven; Cast: Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, Emily Jones, Carice van Houten; USA 2016, 148 min.
Dutch writer/director Martin Koolhoven brings a new chapter to the history of male-on-female violence depicted in film. That this all-out exploitation feature is sold as a feminist revenge story makes it even worse.
Set as a 19th century Western and told as an elliptical flashback story, BRIMSTONE is an ultra-violent, voyeuristic joy ride featuring a deranged Reverend (Pearce), who hunts down his daughter Liz (Fanning), to fulfil his God-given right to incest, quoting the biblical story of Lot and his daughters as an example. Having driven Liz’ mother Anna (Van Houten) to suicide, the Reverend then enjoys sex with his daughter who also happens to be his granddaughter. Liz has a long history of male-inflicted suffering in a brothel, where the film then features endless sequences that would look radical even on a common or garden porn site.
Koolhaven has a lot to answer for: why, for example, did he cast a six-year old girl and then give her the following dialogue: “Has your mother told you what a whore is?” Other scenes depict gratuitous violence directed towards women – did he really believe this is not exploitation at its worse? By all means hit at abuse to illustrate the point, but to over-expose it merely adds insult to injury. And to makes matters worse these scenes are almost wordless, the female characters having very little dialogue to express their feelings or concerns in defence of their treatment. Occasionally Koolhoven descends into self-parody in the scene where the Reverend tells his victims to be aware of men, describing them as “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. Filmed in panoramic shots by Dutch DoP Roger Stoffers, Brimstone breaks the records for disingenuous virtue-signalling AS
Manolo Blahnik. The name has become synonymous with luxury and given rise to the catchphrase “getting your Manolos on” to mean enjoying a night – or day – of fanciful pleasure, promising a romantic encounter, or even love. These elaborate “fuck-me” shoes are not for the faint-hearted – or structurally challenged – with invariably vertiginous heels and delicate designs. They are also beyond the reach of ordinary mortals making them even more desirable – the stuff of dreams for the average working girl or boy. In MANOLO: THE BOY WHO MADE SHOES FOR LIZARDS, director Michael Roberts delves into the life of their creator, a Canary Islander described as a “poet in couture” by fashion luminaries Anna Wintour and Isaac Mizrahi who wouldn’t be shod in anything shoddy. Maverick dreamer Manolo still fizzes with enthusiasm for his legendary footwear. Meanwhile, Roberts cobbles together a polished, foot-lose and narrative-free film scoping out the designer’s way of life, ideologies and relationships in a career that has spanned Sixties London, 1980s New York (immortalised in Sex in the City) and contemporary culture, capturing the essence of a dreamer who loves flowers, animals, Nature and freedom (don’t we all?). So Manolo embodies the poetry in all of us, and has made millions selling us our own dreams. Anyone interested in fashion will enjoy this fluffy, fun and fascinating film. MT
Dir.: Slavko Martinov; Documentary; New Zealand 2017, 88 min.
New Zealand born director/writer Slavko Martinov (Propaganda) has lovingly crafted a portrait of Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon Club, whose whole existence is under threat just – two years before their 150th anniversary. What starts as a Mockumentary, turns into a very humane observation about ordinary people and their obsession with feathered friends – and themselves. Pecking Order is a little gem: just short enough to keep our attention, making us smile at the serious competitors battling for glory – and ourselves.
It has to be said that the feathered friends in question – mostly chicken – really do live the life of Riley: they have their special diets such as fresh Hazelnuts, before a bath in the kitchen sink, and afterwards they are dolled up with the blow dryer and combs. That is, if they are seen as worthy material for the prizes given out at the National Show. Otherwise, it’s the dinner table or, for the younger ones, the ‘Chicken Heaven’.
The Club’s crisis could not have come at a worse time as the preparations for the National Show, held at Oamaru, should by now be in full swing. But since the veteran Doug Bain has taken up presidency of the club – albeit as a caretaker, – things are not Going according to plan: open rivalry has broken out, one side supporting Doug, the other wanting him to be replaced with Mark Lilley, a much younger man, who is supposed to take the club into the 21st century – with the internet and all that. This amusing narrative ricks over as we enjoy a chaming slice of New Zealand life which still seems stuck in the 1950s.
We also learn to take the ‘bible’ of the club seriously: The New Zealand Poultry Standard, a chuncky tome written by Ian Selby, who tells everyone at the club to study it carefully before going to National Show. One of the competitors is sixteen-year old Sarah Bunton, who admits freely, that she is obsessed with chicken.
Finally, just before the National Show opens, peace is restored. At the event in Oamuru, the final judgement is left to ‘neutral’ judges from Australia, who after long deliberations, give their verdict. One of the runners-up is surprisingly sanguine about the outcome: he has never married, and lives just for his hens and cockerels. “One day, they will find me on the ground between the cages”. AS
Dir: Byun Sung-hyun | Cast: Him Si-wan, Sul Kyung-gu | Crime Thriller | South Korea | 117′
Byun Sung-hyun’s The Merciless looks absolutely stunning as it opens on the waterfront where a man is celebrating his release from prison with his gangland mentor as a series of revelations about their ambitious past slowly unfurls in this dramatic and stylish thriller that often feels a bit too clever for its own good.
Jo Hyun-su (Yim Si-wan) is the young criminal and Han Jae-ho (Sul Kyung-gu) his aspirational father figure in this noirish South Korean exploration of like-minded friendship between felons. As long as you don’t thing too much it slips down as easily as a lychee cocktail.
Although this sounds like a contradiction in terms, the two have high hopes of rising to the top the criminal underworld. Hyun-su sons proves himself to the older Jae-ho (Sol Kyung-gu) by saving his life in a knife attack and this loyalty leads to them working together once they are back in the real world. But when push come to shove their motives are very different. Jae-ho is desperate for a chance to kill his boss, Chairman Ko (Lee Kyoung-young) who was behind the attempted prison hit. Meanwhile, Hyun-su is tasked with taking down a enterprise linked to the Russian mafia, in an operation led by the masterful Chief Cheon (Jeon Hye-jin) who is bent on putting Ko and his associates in the klink.
This is a colourful and tonally cohesive genre thriller which have echoes of Infernal Affairs. Visually it’s lushly and vibrant but narratively there are drawbacks. Performance-wise too there is much to enjoy and the rapport between the leads crackles with charismatic, especially in regard to Yim Si-wan (a Korean pop singer who also goes by the name of Siwan). And although the film is more style over content, it’s a good-looking piece of filmmaking that slightly outstays its welcome at nearly two hours. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | LONDON KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL 2017 | CANNES REVIEW
Exhibition on Screen offers us an unparalleled big screen entree into Her Royal Highness The Queen’s collection of paintings by the Venetian 17th Century artist Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto), which is spread between the Royal palaces, offering unique insight into treasures captured here by David Bickerstaff’s agile camera in glowing colours and pristine detail.
Canaletto & the Art of Venice also takes us to the heart of Venice to explore the origins of the artist’s work and features behind-the-scenes footage of The Queen’s Gallery exhibition and interviews with curators and art experts. Instead of a simple trawl through Canaletto’s output, the film offers insight into the artist’s central role in 18th century Venetian ‘vedute’ or landscape painting. Art Historian Charles Beddington gives a fascinating lesson in art history – avoiding worthiness with a twist of dead pan humour – and showing Canaletto’s particular penchant for painting dogs, so even the most disinclined viewer gets to understand how this genre developed in the early 18th century. Lucy Whittaker, a senior curator, offers her two-penny worth along with Rosemary Sweet, Curator of Urban History at Leicester University, and Rosie Rozzall, Curator of prints and drawings at the Palace.
We learn that Canaletto (1697-1768) was born into a middle class family in one of the city’s small squares where he grew up sketching the surrounding rooftops. The turning point of his life came when he travelled to Rome with his father, Bernardo Canal, a theatrical designer, and this saw the start of his work as a stage designer. Venetian painters were masters of colour and Canaletto was no different, soon striking out on his own as a view painter. But it was the English travellers, not the Italians, who admired his work and bought it home as a souvenir of the lagoon, a major stop on the Grand Tour.
Canaletto was also skilled in Capriccio painting – a sort of magic realism of the art world – where paintings were embellished with architectural fantasy, placing archaeological ruins and fictional elements into their compositions, from the Rialto Bridge to the Piazza San Marco, and the Palazzo Ducale to the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. His craftsmanship was meticulous and attentive and he often offered character studies focusing on Venice itself, always refusing to repeat himself. When Canaletto went to London between 1748 and 1755, Venice lost its main ‘vedute’ painter.
The Venetian artist’s financial acumen and keen business sense saw rise to a way of making more money from the existing works when, in the 18th Century, print-making came into vogue. Caneletto’s work could be attractively reproduced for those who could not afford his paintings. With his keen financial flair, he set up the Pasquale Press with English businessman Joseph Smith, so his works could be made into prints and delivered to London clients, for additional fees. Smith sold much of his collection to King George III and now Buckingham Palace houses the largest collection of Canaletto’s work, which was far more popular among English patrons that the Italians.
The remarkable group of over 200 paintings, drawings and prints on display offers unique insight into the artistry of Canaletto and his contemporaries, and the city he became a master at capturing. Bickerstaff also offers a sneak view of the interiors of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. CANALETTO is well-crafted and watchable for art lovers and travellers alike. MT
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 26 SEPTEMBER 2017 | THE EXHIBITION ON SCREEN series now shows in 55 countries worldwide, recently expanding into Columbia, Korea and Lebanon | Main image courtesy of Exhibition on Screen.
Director: David Lean |Script: Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson | Score: Maurice Jarre | Cast: Peter O’Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Jose Ferrer, Claude Rains, Jack Hawkins, Anthony Quayle, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Wolfit, Zia Mohyeddin | UK/USA 1962 227′ | Adventure Drama
Based upon the writings of T. E. Lawrence entitled Seven Pillars Of Wisdom, a diary never meant for open publication, but allowed by his estate after his death, the making of Lawrence Of Arabia is a drama of epic proportions spanning three decades and worthy of a film in itself.
Alexander Korda kicked it all off in the 30’s, wanting Leslie Howard and then Walter Hudd as lead, but this all collapsed when the British Governor of Palestine at the time forbade ‘any large gatherings of Arabs’. John Clements, Clifford Evans, Robert Donat, Laurence Olivier and even Cary Grant were also in the frame subsequently, as was Burgess Meredith in 1949 and then Alan Ladd. In 1952, Harry Cohn offered it to Powell and Pressburger, but they declined. Then, in 1955 Terrence Rattigan picked up the reins with Dirk Bogarde in mind and even got as far as location scouting in Iraq, only to have it all unravel as the King was assassinated and Iraq descended into revolution. When producer Sam Spiegel finally came aboard in 1959, he wanted Marlon Brando, but Brando backed out to go and do Mutiny On The Bounty…
Alec Guinness was great, but too old, even though he played Lawrence in Rattigan’s well-received 1960 play Ross. Then it was to be Albert Finney, who infact undertook extensive screen tests, but eventually also backed out, citing that he didn’t want to be a star; frightened of what it would do to him as a person. He also, it had to be said, hated signing multi-picture deals.
Peter O’Toole had meanwhile appeared as a mere cameo in an otherwise forgotten film called The Day They Robbed The Bank Of England, which Lean saw, and knowing instantly that he had his man, even when Peter Hall refused to release him from his RSC contract in Stratford and Producer Sam Spiegel also initially rejected him.
As film commenced in Jordan, the script was in disarray, the original writer Michael Wilson, who had done such a fine job on Bridge On The River Kwai left the project, after a year working on the script in a state of high dudgeon. Robert Bolt was drafted in, at first purely to write only dialogue, on the back of his hit play A Man For All Seasons. But at one point, as the cameras rolled in the desert, with the script still incomplete, Bolt was gaoled for a month for marching in a CND demonstration and had to be extricated from gaol -against his own wishes- by Spiegel in order to complete the script (he wasn’t allowed to write it in prison).
There are legion stories emanating from the two-year(!) shoot, in Jordan, Spain and Morocco; of new talents cutting their teeth, like Freddie Young working with the new Super-Panavision camera with 70mm colour stock. The industrial kit needed to hold the massive cameras being lugged out into the desert, against the heat, the wind the sand and the flies… but, after all this, what we are left with is an extraordinary coming together of some amazing talent, from the writing to the design, the music, the costumes and the performances.
So, what of the new 4k digital formatted release? Well, It’s magnificent. One of the greatest films ever made, so crisp, clear and sharp, it could have been shot yesterday. Lawrence was nominated for ten Academy Awards and went on to win seven, including 1962 Best Picture and Best Director. Inexplicably, Omar Sharif, Peter O’Toole and writer Robert Bolt all failed to score. With Kwai, five years earlier also winning seven Oscars, David Lean really was at the top of his game and knew he wanted to capitalize on it. His next outing was called Dr Zhivago.
Bearing in mind he had come up through editing, having cut over 20 feature films prior to taking the helm as a Director, Lean later wanted to lose 40-minutes from Lawrence, but also knew he wouldn’t know where from- lest he lose the magic in the trimming.
So. What is Lawrence of Arabia all about? Seriously? Well, it’s about an eccentric Englishman who goes out into the desert, turns native, goes mad and then comes back home. All 227 glorious minutes of it. Go and see it for goodness sake and stop asking damn’ fool questions.
Is it any good? Well, I’ll leave you with several published quotes from the time of the original release: John Coleman, writing in the New Statesman- “none of it is good enough. Setting to one side the obligatory, contemptible music, the film never decisively makes its mind up what its after…”
Penelope Gilliatt “Two And A Half Pillars Of Wisdom…. A thoughtful picture with an intensely serious central performance, but it doesn’t hold together in great excitement.” New Yorker Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice- “Dull, overlong and coldly impersonal… hatefully calculating and condescending” The bottom line is, we all still remember David Lean.
Dir.: German Kral; Drama-Documentary with Maria Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes; Argentina/Germany/Italy 2015 | 85′ |
Argentine born writer/director German Kral (Musica Cubana) who studied at the Film School in Munich under Wim Wenders (credited as one of the executive producers), has created a passionate and imaginative portrait of Argentina’s leading Tango dancers, Maria Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes, now both in their 80ies. But Our Last Tango is much more than history: it is gender warfare of the worst kind, with Maria’s and Juan Carlos’ life story easily as dramatic as their dancing career.
Born in the early1930ies, Maria and Juan Carlos came from a modest background, and met as teenagers in one of the Milongas, the dancing halls of Buenos Aires, “where the poor tried to forget their hard lives dancing at the weekend”.
Nieves and Copes devoted their lives to the Tango, but the Golden Age of the dance came to an abrupt end in the 50ies with the advent of rock. But Copes re-wrote the book: his choreography changed the Tango forever: his stage show gave the art not only a new lifespan in Argentina, but the couple introduced it to the world, even the USA, where Tango was as good as unknown. But whilst Maria just lived for Juan, the latter was more interested in her as a dance partner. They married in Las Vegas, but after their return to Argentina, Juan Carlos left her for a world tour. In his absence, Maria found a new partner, but when Copes returned, they lived and danced together again. But Copes became an alcoholic and philanderer. Without telling Maria, he married Myriam, and the couple had two daughters. Maria’s adoration of Copes turned into hatred. The couple went on dancing together, hardly speaking to each other, before Copes decided (under pressure from his wife) to break completely with Maria. She was over 60, when he told her, that their Japan tour would be their last engagement. Today he is dancing with his daughter Johana, who admits, that she was at first just a stand-in for Maria, whilst Nieves, after a long depression, also got her career going again.
Kral has introduced two couples, representing Nieves and Copes as youngsters and middle-aged dancers. They walk through Buenos Aires with her, visiting places of the past and sharing their reflections with Maria, who occupies the lion’s part of the docu-drama, whilst Copes contributes some rather arrogant and barbed comments: when confronted with his life style, which led to the break-up of their relationship, he is proud of himself: I had to do it, because I am a man”.
DoPs Joe Heim and Felix Monti have not only contributed to the magic of the dance scenes, their glorious panorama shots of the nightly Buenos Aires, with Maria wandering around the city, are a celebration of her resurrection. But the main memory of Our Last Tango is the dance itself: passionate and very, very sexy. AS
Nearly two decades after My 20th Century (1989), Hungarian auteur Ildikó Enyedi’s returns with an arthouse curio whose compellingly clinical visual aesthetic contrasts bolding with its central theme: love in a Budapest abattoir.
OF BODY AND SOUL is the latest in a string of slaughterhouse-set films: Maud Alpi’s Gorge, Coeur Ventre (2016) and Hassen Ferhani’s 2015 documentary Roundabout in My Head which portrayed the human element in an Algerian abattoir. But Enyedi’s animals are somehow more appealing than their human counterparts, although the striking similarities between man and beast are poetically crafted in this slow-burner with its sleek performances and economical dialogue.
The film opens in a forest where a doe and deer are seen nuzzling on the snowy lakeside. We are frequently reminded of the scene as the story unfolds. Enyedi then cuts to the abattoir where cows are silently led to slaughter peacefully unnaware of their fate and final moments which arrive with a clunk and a gush of blood on the tiled floor. Meanwhile, in the canteen it’s lunchtime for laconic finance director Endre (Géza Morcsányi) and he notices a newcomer to the queue in the shape of icy blond Maria (Alexandra Borbély), a quality control superviser.
The young woman sits silently in the sterile surroundings. Hers is a world of figures and data, and she has no emotional memory, due to a difficult past and a continuing need to return to her childhood therapist. Her much older boss Endre is avoidant but a great deal more forgiving in his approach to human connection. Tentatively, like the woodland animals, they begin a frosty friendship and discover they have the similar dreams at night. A robbery in the slaughterhouse means that Endre has to call in the services of a sultry shrink Klara (Réka Tenki) who gives each member of staff the psychological once-over but what she discovers is shrouded in enigma.
In the privacy of her room Maria is a disengaged porn watcher. She acts out her innermost thoughts with plastic toys still seems dissociated from her feelings, judging by her glacially vacant expressions. Enyedi maintains the film’s tension and cold intimacy of tone with a tinkling occasional score where graphic blood and bone images of the slaughterhouse are counterposed with the hyperrealism of Maria’s antiseptic home-life seen in tactile moments involving food and furry toys, and magic realist sequences in the snowbound forest, courtesy of Mate Herbai’s pristine soft and shallow focus visuals.
This story of two people attempting to discover the realm of the senses, at first apart and then together, threatens with its cold-eyed voyeurism, but the central characters remain too enigmatic to make the film a satisfying experience despite its stringent humour, striking aesthetic and impressive performances from the ensemble cast. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEW BERLINALE 9-19 FEBRUARY 2017 | GOLDEN BEAR WINNER
Dir.: Maysaloun Hamoud; Cast: Mouna Hawa, Sana Jammalieh,Shaden Kanboura, Mahmood Shalbi, Ahlam Canaan, Henry Andrawas; Palestine/Israel/France 2016, 102 min.
Maysaloun Hamoud’s portrait of three young, independent Arab women living in Tel Aviv captures the lifestyle of a new generation of Palestinian women, fighting prejudice from the Jewish majority and their own – religious fundamentalist, male dominated – families, regardless of their Muslims or Christian backgrounds.
Laila (Hawa), a successful lawyer; Salma (Jammalieh), a lesbian bartender; and DJ who shares a flat with computer science student Nour (Kanboura) who is the shy one of the trio, avoiding the party-orientated lifestyle of her flatmates. Nour is also the heroine of the story. sharing her life with fiancé Wissam (Andrawes) who works for a Palestine charity in a small town. Wissam takes the high moral ground when talking to Nour or her family, but cannot hide his own insecurity when he encounters Laila and Salma, calling them ‘whores’. He is adamant that Nour moves out of the shared place, finding her alternative accommodation. But Nour rejects this offer and also his wish to bring the wedding date forward. Confronted with female resistance, Wissam loses his cool and rapes his fiancée brutally.
Laila and Salma make sure that Wissam does not get away scott-free. Naturally the wedding is cancelled, but both women have their own, very different problems with their partners. Laila is courted by a Jewish lawyer, but she knows only to well that he is messing her around “still waiting to present a kosher bride for his religious parents”. When she meets Ziad (Shalabi), a liberal Palestinian, the scene seems set for romance. But soon Ziad starts controlling behaviour: So she gives him the boot.
Salma has fallen in love with Dr. Dunya (Canaan), but this all ends in tears with her father promising to incarcerate her, when he discovers her lesbian life. He is running for re-election as mayor: “I can do without people finding out that my daughter is a lesbian”. Salma escapes, but the break with her Christian family is final. Along with these trials and tribulations, the women have to fight off daily discrimination from Jewish citizens, some of them showing their distain for Arabs openly. “We do not bite”, says Laila to a shop assistant, who is not very happy, to serve her and Salma.
IN BETWEEN is a very honest film with its themes of drugs and alcohol, and charged sexual atmosphere – these women are no suffering wallflowers – they pay the price for going against their familes of all denominations. It is a radical new beginning for the region; a growing number of relationships are now developing between unobservant Jews and Palestinians: fighting the good fight against all shades of fundamentalism with love. So despite of some structural problems, IN BETWEEN is one of those films which really deserved to be made, and seen. AS
Janus Pederson’s drama of tennis rivals BORG/McENROE is actually far more exciting than the distant memory of their Wimbledon exchanges, if – like me – you’re more interested in their personalities than the game itself. And that’s because tennis is a game of wits and psychology, perhaps more that any other sport, and these are two highly fascinating men, brought to life here appealing by Shia LeBoeuf, as McEnroe, and striking lookalike, Sverir Gudnason as Borg.
Compariing their respective rise to fame through fandom of the 1970s in Sweden and Queens, New York with gently humorous nostalgia as they both master their explosive neuroses, BORG/McENROE then goes straight for the jugular with an all out gripping finale showcasing that last epic match in July 1980 that rocked the world. Ronnie Sandahl’s makes us see how two very different characters actually shared similar strengths of perseverance, dedication and self-belief.
With its pounding score, this is a well-paced and luminously cinematic and absorbing watch not least for its compelling performances from LeBoeuf whose volatile but vulnerable appeal is far more magnetic than the memory of the real mercurial McEnroe (you cannot be serious!), making us feel for him and his private demons. In stark contrast, Gudnason’s nuanced charisma is every bit as mesmerising as he slowly generates an onscreen allure, transforming the captivatingly feline Swede into a magical sports hero. That said, this Nordic production is much more fleshed out in regard to Borg than McEnroe, and there are times when we’d like to have had more New York backstory about the New Yorker with his over-bearing father wittily played by Ian Blackman (Hail,Caesar!). Three different actors play the young Borg, including the young, his own son Leo, who is the most persuasive. Stellan Skargard exerts a masterful influence as his coach and former player, Lennart Bergelin. And Tuva Novotny is his gentle, chain-smoking fiancé Mariana Simionescu. Vitas Gerulaitis as a combative Robert Emms. MT
Dir.: Claire Simon | Documentary | France 2016, 115′
The leading film school in the birthplace of the Seventh Art has always come under immense scrutiny: this has not changed since the prestigious IDHEC (Institute des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques), whose famous students include Alain Resnais, Louis Malle and Theo Angelopoulos, was re-constituted and renamed La Femis (Fondation Européenne Pour les Métiers de l’Image et du Son) around 1987. Today’s younger generation of filmmakers, who finished the four year course in the old Pathé studios in Montmartre are numerous: François Ozon, Claire Denis, Arnaud Desplechin, Céline Sciamma, Sophie Filliers and Rebecca Zlotowski are just a few of the La Femis’ successes.
The institution is unique in the sense that there are no lecturers: all courses are taught by active members of the film industry. And the over-subscribed entrance examinations (500 applicants competed for just six places of the directing classes), which are the subject of this documentary, are also conducted by these same professionals. Director/DoP Claire Simon (Gare du Nord) has taken time off her teaching duties at La Femis, to chronicle the hazardous process. The contest (the English title Graduation is misleading) starts with part one, when the hopeful students from virtually all walks of life, no qualifications are needed; start with a three hour written test. The panel of professionals fight hard, everyone has favourites, and often, the grades for an applicant (1-20) differ enormously, sometimes into double figures. Simon brings a touch of humour to the proceedings, showing two examiners talking about the wishful outcome of the tests which aim to be politically correct: eight women, seven men, one Asian, one black, one from North Africa and two from a modest background should be included in the selection. And they should come from all over France, not just Paris.
Stage two of the examination process consists of interviews and practical tests. Screen-writing candidates are given one sentence from which they have to develop a narrative. Afterwards they have to ‘defend’ their script in front of a panel of two. Future directors are given a script, a crew and a studio, and have to justify their work to a panel. At last, the lucky survivors are grilled by a ‘jury’ of six, for the final cut. The main issue arising from the selection process is always the same: how do you select talent?. Because opinions differ so much, discussions are often irrational. After the interview of a particular director’s course applicant, some members of the panel – among them the directors Laetitia Masson (A Vendre) and Olivier Du Castel (Theo & Hugo) – criticised the young male candidate for being uncommunicative and “weird”. Others defended him arguing that Dreyer and Cronenberg must have been certainly weird at the age of eighteen. It should be also mentioned that La Femis does not only run courses for the original filmmaking subjects like directing, set design etc,, but also for Continuity, Distribution and Cinema management.
LE CONCOURS is a fascinating portrait of judging the creative process: the arguments may not always be rational, but the result of the selection process justifies the often chaotic and contradictive proceedings. AS
Dir: Bertrand Tavernier | Doc | With Thierry Frémaux | France | 193′
Bertrand Tavernier’s love affair with film started with tragedy: as a child of the Liberation, in Lyon 1944, he was also a war child malnourished despite his middle class background. Tuberculosis was diagnosed and he was sent to convalesce in a St Gervais sanatorium where Sunday was dedicated to film. Thus began a life-long passion for film that permeates every frame of his three hour love letter to French cinema which every cineaste will devour with relish on the big screen, and rush to buy the bluray.
Tavernier, who also narrates in a chatty style, offers his unobtrusive but illuminating insights, adding value to the documentary, and is very much a part of the film history that unfolds, mostly from the 1930s,40s and 50s. Tavernier has made some memorable films and acted in others during his glittering career that began as an assistant to Jean-Pierre Melville and an press agent on Jean-Luc Godard; he also got to know many of the legends such as Jean Gabin, Jean Renoir, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Becker and Claude Chabrol, to name but a few. Chocful of anecdotes and observations, this is an ntertaining flip through original footage and archive interviews, enlivened by film clips and posters.
At the same time, Tavernier offers up a critical masterclass in acting and directing as he dissects individual films – and even scenes – giving his two pennyworth on those who he felt deserved better, such as Marcel Carne, of qualifying the technical decisions that Jean Renoir’s made in La Chienne (1931), for example, but also pointing out how Renoir’s charm and desire to be liked could led him to embroider the facts, with the best possible intentions. The only minor criticism is the failure to identify each interviewee, so concentration is vital in order to keep up to speed with Tavernier’s narration.
French historian Thierry Fremaux has contributed by providing ideas for the many clips, so the three hour running time whisks by engagingly. Tavernier also hints at a sequel. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2017
Dir/Writer: Rolando Colla | Cast: Bruno Todeschini, Alessia Barela, Marc Barbe, Linda Olsansky, Gianfelice Imparato | Drama |
A family wedding in Sicily unites two middle-aged Bohemians who arrive in a sleepy backwater to prepare for the festivities. This ravishingly langorous and deeply affecting Mediterranean arthouse escapade serves both as a love story and a celebration of Sicily and its people.
The Swiss director is best known for his rites of passage scamper Summer Games (2011) which did the rounds on the festival circuit recently. 7 DAYS explores a slow comfortable prelude to baggage-laden doomed love for its tousled twosome, played by Swiss Italian Bruno Todeschini/Delicacy) and Alessia Barela (Summer Games) who make for a convincing onscreen couple with their relaxed and deliciously sensual chemistry tempered by years of romantic disillusionment rather than the high-octane excitement of young lust.
Todeschini plays Ivan, a slightly dog-eared botanist who is instantly drawn to Alessia Barela’s Leventine looks as fashion seamstress Chiara, who is already committed with daughter of 17. Ivan’s brother Richard (Marc Barbe) is getting married and he has arrived early to organise the wedding festivities to Chiara’s best friend Francesca (Linda Olsansky). At first the ramshackle accommodation looks awful but gradually the two work together with the well-meaning locals and in things fall into to place – or not – their passion is fuelled by the pressure of preparing for the big day in the sweltering days and balmy nights in this wild seascape. We get to enjoy some local flora, fauna, history and traditional Sicilian culture, while the couple’s on/off romance sizzles often erupting in angry spats as they both get cold feet, despite the rising mercury. It’s an authentic rendering of late love where maturity and self-dependence are the enemies of the trust and laid back light-heartedness required for love to thrive, let alone develop into something workable and worthwhile and Crolla’s script offers some surprises along the way.
DoPs Lorenz Merz and Gabriel Lobos pull all out the stops in the magnificent locations making the best of the natural wilderness both above the waves and underwater, echoing the emotional rollercoaster of a sunny, often stormy, tale of late love. MT
Yesterday the 74. Mostra de Arte Cinematografica in Venice came to an end with a prize giving that symbolised the whole festival in many ways. The Golden Lion for best film went to Guillermo del Toro for his utterly empty second-hand spectacle THE SHAPE OF WATER. Anything really radical was mostly ignored not only by the juries, but in the programme in nearly all the sections. At least the Orizzonti Award was won by Susanna Nicchiarelli’s NICO, 1988, a stunning biopic of the final years of the renowned model and musician Christa Pfaffen, played by a feisty Trine Dyrholm.
Del Toro’s very thin narrative of a mute woman falling in love with an amphibious creature, used by the CIA in the Cold War of the 1950s, is a total rip-off: it uses the main protagonists of Rachel Ingall’s 1986 novel MRS. CALIBAN, the creature itself is a replica of the titular CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (Jack Arnold, 1954), and the story is a compilation of countless cold war spy movies of the Eisenhower era, when the Red menace was infiltrating the USA. Whilst no money was spared for design and images, del Toro’s feature might not have won without the help of Annette Bening, Hollywood actress and – first female – jury president. And talking of Jack Arnold (1912-1992), his INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957) was re-made by Alexander Payne in DOWNSIZING(Competition). The Hollywood veteran had also a hand in one of the Wonder Woman TV-series of 1977.
The rest of the awards were given to worthy contenders such as Samuel Maoz for his critical view of war torn Israel in the shape of FOXTROT (Grand Jury Prize), or simply politically correct features like SWEET COUNTRY by Warwick Thornton (Jury Prize) and Xavier Legrand with his JUSQU’A LA GARDE/CUSTODY (Best Director). Really dark portraits of the USA, like Paul Schrader’s FIRST REFORMED, were ignored, or got a minor nod for best screenplay like the brilliant THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri (THE INSULT) was equally treated, his main actor Kamel El Basha got the award for Best Actor, but the provocative feature about Palestinians living in Lebanon, went unrewarded.
The only feature worth the Venice journey was hidden in the Out of Competition section: Lucretia Martel’s ZAMA. Her story of a Spanish officer on duty in South America, who yearns for a return to his homeland but is repeatedly thwarted, is an intense study of a man losing his mind, identity and finally part of his body. This arthouse treasure is both utterly frightening and glorious to look at: Martel takes her time introducing the protagonists, before plunging head first into the demise of her hero. Why Zama was not part of the competition, is one of the many questions many asked of Venice director Alberto Barbera, but got a dusty answer in return.
Often one had to go to the Retrospective Classics, to find solace: Claude Chabrol’s rarely shown L’OEIL DU MALIN(with a very young Stephane Audran) was a discovery, Ozu’s THE FLAVOUR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICEwas towering, and Emmanuel Hamon’s L’UTOPIE DES IMAGES showed the destruction of Soviet cinema at the hands of Stalinist bureaucrats. The Lion’s share of these nineteen features and nine documentaries in the Retrospective Section offered more infinitely more satisfaction than stoically working your way through the anodyne contemporary offerings.
Ironically, the only other film that stands out besides ZAMA is Errol Morris six-part Netflix series WORMWOOD, a docu-drama about the murder of an US scientist by the CIA, who participated in the biological warfare of his nation in the Korean war, and wanted to blow the whistle. A number of quality films did feature in the Awards: Sara Forestier’s debut M (Giornate degli Autori) where a stuttering girl and her illiterate boyfriend help each other to overcome their difficulties; and Alireza Khatami’s OBLIVION VERSES (ORIZZONTI), a poetic feature about death and perception. But that is not enough to compensate for all the mediocre or downright awful features littering this 74th edition of the Mostra, the standout here being Darren Aronofsky’s MOTHER! another pale imitation – this time aping Rosemary’s Baby. We will hope for better things. AS
VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 30 AUGUST – 9 SEPTEMBER 2017
LEONE D’ORO – THE SHAPE OF WATER
LEONE D’ARGENTO – FOXTROT
BEST SCREENPLAY – THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
BEST ACTRESS – Charlotte Rampling, HANNAH
BEST ACTOR – Karmel El Basha, MEKTOUB, MY LOVE: CANTO UNO
BEST DIRECTOR – Xavier Legrand, CUSTODY
JURY PRIZE – SWEET COUNTRY
BEST EMERGING ACTOR – Charlie Plummer, LEAN ON PETE
Dir/Writer: Darron Aronofsky | Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson | 120′ | DRAMA
Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer star in Darren Aronofsky’s highly anticipated psychological thriller about a couple threatened by the arrival of uninvited guests. MOTHER! is best described as a melodrama that portrays the existential angst of a young woman as she tries to build a home and tend to the obsessively humourless needs her ego-driven writer/husband in their precious early days of their marriage. Beset by anxiety about getting pregnant and pleasing her partner (Javier Bardem) in bed, she runs herself into the ground pandering to his quirky demands which become increasingly unbearable when he invites a dying and neurotic man – and gradually – his extended family into their home who they rapidly outstay their welcome with their own demands in this nightmarish scenario.
This, in a nutshell, is the plot – which sounds bad enough – but the execution is even more inbearable for both Jennifer’s Lawrence’s character, simply called ‘the mother’, and the rest of us. MOTHER! spews out from Lawrence’s POV like a free-flowing torrent of endless sewerage effluent: we are forced to endure her partner/husband Javier Bardem’s petulant posturing, then those of his guest in the shape of Ed Harris’ surgeon, who spends his time smoking, vomiting and talking about his terminal illness, and is soon joined by his snippy wife Michelle Pfeiffer who adds to the mother’s general feelings of unease with her patronising comments and bitchy jibes. Soon more characters join the fray. DP Matthew Libatique’s camera is like a voyeur scanning proceedings from above, and prowling the rooms where bloody stains (putatively representing an aborted foetus) seem to seep from every crack and cranny, with repetitive views into the lavatory basin. Mother!Lacks the rich texture and arthouse credentials of Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby but it feels similar in tone, although more irritating than anxiety-provoking. Entertaining it is not, but it loosely does the job of conveying discomfort: thus achieving its goal of inducing general misery to Lawrence’s character and the audience. It’s a toxic and offensive film to watch, which will no doubt please the horror crowd. So do go and be irritated- you have been warned. MT
Darren Aronofsky was born in Brooklyn and studied live-action and animated film at Harvard. His feature films include Pi (98) and Noah (14), and the Festival selections Requiem for a Dream(00), The Fountain (06), The Wrestler (08), and Black Swan (10). mother! (17) is his latest film.
REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL | ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 SEPTEMBER 2017
Dir.: Jakob M. Erwa; Cast: Louis Hofman, Sabine Timoteo, Philine Stappenbeck, Svenja Jung, Jannick Schümann, Alexander Gersak, Nina Proll; Germany/Austria 2016, 114 min.
Writer/director Jakob M. Erwa bases his latest film on Andreas Steinhöfel’s Coming-of-Age novel of the same name, with a good ensemble cast. Erwa is Austrian but one of many of his fellow countrymen to use the German language primarily to make a statement (‘Thesenfilm’). Erwa adopts an overly didactic approach that rathe undermines his viewers’ intelligence, treating the cinema like a lecture theatre. On top, there is more than enough narrative material in the novel, which carefully shortened and structured, could have avoided the unnecessary running time of nearly two hours, filled often with repetitive panning shots of the woods.
Seventeen-year-old Phil (Hofman) lives with his twin sister Diane (Stappenbeck) and mother Glass (Timoteo) in a “Märchenhaus” or ‘fantasy cottage’ near the woods. All they know about heir father is that he was American and number three on the list of her mother’s lovers, his name black-balled. Glass is still rather promiscuous and why she’s chosen to take her children to Germany remains open. Sister Diane is very good and training dogs, and was once arrested for telling a dog to attach its owner. Phil’s girlfriend Katja (Jung) is the polar opposite of her brother: she is fun-loving, whilst Phil is a worrier. When a new boy, Nicholas (Schümann) joins their class, Phil falls in love with him. They have rather awkward sex in the shower and Phil is too cowardly to tell Katja about his new lover at first, pretty soon she joins in the ménage-a-trois. But when Phil surprises the two having sex, he withdraws, telling Nicholas “that he wants him for himself”. At the same time, Diane keeps visiting her boyfriend in a coma in hospital, after he was injured during a storm. Her guilt feelings are compounded by an old family secret, and Phil feels that he has not only lost Katja and Nicolas, but also his sister. His erratic mother is no help, and he has to make a choice.
Erwa’s overly didactic approach feels rather condescending: too much philosophical spoon-feeding is self-indulgent, and mistakenly sees the cinema as a place for a lecture, rather than entertainment. There is more than enough narrative material in the novel, which, carefully shortened and structured, could have shortened the overlong running time stuffed with over-repetitive panning shots of the woods. Long dissolves and embarrassing slow-motion sequences echo the worst excesses of the 70s. Finally, the language: teenagers all over the world do not express themselves like Phil: “A small sliver of cold got between us”. And adults don’t talk to teenagers in parables about life as “a house with many rooms, some empty: “You lock your fear in one of the empty rooms”. What may work as “Bildungsroman” – and there are certainly parallels to the “Young Werther” – is simply too clumsy and lacks conviction on the screen. A little less would have been much more – plus a heavy dose of what is called understatement, avoiding a non-stop parade of over-the-top dramatics. AS
Dir: Sarmad Masud | Suhaee Abro | Tayyab Ifzal, Eman Fatima | Drama | 93′ |
Sarmad Masud’s tense feature debut follows her earlier success with the Oscar and Bafta-nominated Two Dosas. Told from a female perspective, MY PURE LANDexplores the standoff between a group of women and their menfolk over title to a family home they occupy in the depths of rural Pakistan.
As the drama unfolds, during a night of sustained gunfire and violent outbursts around the house, the narrative flips back and forth to supply the background details of this real-life story. Masud deftly develops the characters in a film that feels at times like an Eastern-based ‘Western’ in character, beautifully captured on the wide screen and in close-up in the interiors of the traditional home and prison by Haider Zafar.
The male aggravation comes mainly in the shape of uncle Mehrban, who considers it his God-given right to fight for the property, and will do his utmost to exert his authority over the women. His gung-ho attitude is responsible for the death of Nazo’s father and her brother.
These women are no wallflowers – particularly young Nazo, played with graceful feistiness by Suhaee Abro – and slowly develop from timid souls to fearless feminist protectors of their domestic domain learning to use guns and subterfuge. MY PURE LAND is an strangely haunting arthouse piece and its glowering intent is tempered by an atmospheric occasional score and poetic touches – such a soaring flock of doves – that seem to reflect the transient nature of life and the spirit of the dead. This is a slim but luminously crafted indie that makes the best of its low budget with some convincing performances and a satisfying narrative arc. MT
MY PURE LAND is on GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 SEPTEMBER 2017
This sepia cine-film diary follows Vitaly Mansky through his youth, offering both a biographical and collective memoir of the times. Born in 1963 in Lvov, (Ukraine) to an aristocratic mother and a politically-active intellectual father, he has since directed over thirty films, achieving critical acclaim on the international stage. From early sixties footage of his parent’s ‘rock n roll’ party on the night of his conception to his early twenties, it offers a fascinating insight into life in Soviet Russia: a tightly-controlled environment where family happiness was considered the main attribute to aspire to in a society where marriage was ‘the done thing’ and couples were compensated with gifts from the State to encourage as many births as possible.
From early footage of Russian tanks rolling into Prague in 1967, to the 21st anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1970, and the first Soviet astronauts preparing to conquer Space; Mansky’s doc offers comprehensive insight into social and political life during the last knockings of Communism: and the two are inseparable. He describes the Soviet State as “frozen sputum on the upper lip, that cannot be removed without a soldering iron”.
Sport was a way to prove Communist strength over the intellectual rigour of Capitalism. But although times were hard and winters unbearable (fur coats were inherited), Mansky remembers people dancing in the streets on the many Soviet public holidays, and the long hot Summers in his mother’s dacha offered welcome contrast to freezing winters. There is even a macabre early memory of when he queued to buy a coffin on his beloved grandmother’s death. His mother and her (numerous) boyfriends remain the one constant in his early life: sex education, first love, endless partying; an eventful cruise on the Volga and his early experiences with filmmaking also feature heavily, crammed into this compulsive and meaty biopic that requires intensive concentration to assimilate an immersive digest of over 5000 hours of film material and 20,000 stills.Well worth it though! MT
In 1988 an eccentric millionaire purportedly buried a chest containing gold worth around $3 million somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, tempting a trail of fortune-seekers into the region but also spawning a new genre of guidebooks offering advice on how to embark on a treasure hunt, based on the original written by the man himself, one Forrest Fenn.
Tomas Leach’s rambling documentary sets out to explore the excitement surrounding the hidden bounty and inadvertently gets caught up in the intrigue generated by a man who had always dreamt of discovering treasure, but ironically survived the ‘fatal’ cancer scare that had made him bury the gold in the first place.
This is a documentary that perfectly exemplifies the phrase “thrill of the chase” where the journey is always more exciting than the destination. And predictably, many of those that feature here have come for the satisfaction of solving the puzzle rather than the hope of actually finding the spoils, One man claims he would be happy just to uncover the pot of gold and then rebury it again. Others claim that the hike to the Rockies has given their lives meaning or even helped them overcome trauma and life-changing ailments.
But it’s not all good. The lure of the gold has led to one loss of life, and several hunters have gone missing during their trek which has so far tempted 65,000 to the mountain range. THE LURE brings to mind several other treasure-seeking titles: Thomas Arslan’s drama GOLD (2013) sees a bunch of German come to no good in the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, and KOMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER (2014) throws up surprisingly dark comedy elements associated with a woman’s search for hidden loot.
Fenn meanwhile, having survived cancer is still getting off on the furore surrounding his mountain bounty hunt; teasing prospectors with cryptic answers to their desperate search for clues. Will he ever take the money back into his own possession or is he a closet philanthropist hoping for a worthy recipient of his stash? Despite the saggy narrative structure, THE LURE offers plenty of food for thought and some staggering landscapes courtesy of Leach’s camerawork. You may even decide to have a crack at that pot of gold yourselves. MT
Dir.: Dan Bush; Cast: Francesca Eastwood, Taryn Manning, Scott Haze, James Franco, Q’orianka Kilcher; USA 2017, 92 min.
It’s easy to see what Dan Bush had in mind with The Vault: melding the bank heist genre with some gruesome Zombie action looked a great idea. Unfortunately, he gives away the plot in the off-commentary at the very start. Instead of suspense and thrills we get what we expected; and in spite of a strong ensemble cast, the suspense – on which both genres rely – is minimal.
Sisters Leah (Eastwood) and Taryn (Manning) are helping their brother Michael (Haze) to pay back his enormous debts to some vicious gangsters, by staging a bank robbery. The concept of a bank robbery today seems quite antiquated, and we soon learn why: the siblings are totally irrational in their planning, their execution, and thei family dynamics. Vee is an out-and-out psychopath; Michael flips between guilt and violence – making Leah the sanest of the lot (which doesn’t say much). The trio’s reactions are the most promising aspects of this slack thriller. Bank employees Susan Cromwell (Kilcher) and Ed Maas (Franco) are drawn into the powerplay of the would-be robbers, who are soon contacted by police officers outside the building. A narrative along the lines of Dog Day Afternoon, would have worked better, instead Maas tells the trio about a huge underground vault with six million Dollars in the cellar of the bank. When it emerges that the notes from the pitiful score of 70 000 Dollars are banknotes from the early 80s when the bank was the victim of a bloody heist, we realise what will happen after Michael forces his way into the vault….
This is bland and conventional stuff to look at and by way of its storyline – in the resulting incongruence of the genre collision we lose any interest in the protagonists’ fate. AS
Dir: Juan Carlos Medina | Cast: Bill Nighy, Olivia Cooke, Eddie Marsan, Douglas Booth | Fantasy Horror \ UK | 104′
Compelling performances from Bill Nighy and Olivia Cooke fail to save this rather formulaic Ripper story with its florid Burlesque styling and a script as hammy and hackneyed as the Victorian vehicle of its name.
THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM is based on Peter Ackroyd’s inventive 1994 novel ‘Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem’ interweaving the factual story of death by poisoning with the fictional macabre murders that menaced the East End of London during the 1880s. Best known for his Spanish language feature Insensibles Juan Carlos Medina directs from a lewdly over-stuffed script by Jane Goldman that pictures a set of poorly underwritten but intriguing Victorian characters in this two-pronged murder mystery with a final twist that panders to today’s penchant for gender-switching. A saturnine Bill Nighy stars as Inspector John Kildare – back-footed by allegations of homosexuality – is brought in to investigate an intractable series of gruesome murders so brutal as to suggest some mythical figure – a Jewish folkloric Golem – is at work in the backstreets of Victorian London. Kildare starts to find similarities between these murders and the domestic poisoning of failed playwright John Cree (Sam Reid).
The film opens as Cree is discovered dead by his wife Elizabeth (Cooke), the former “Little Lizzie” of music hall fame, who is also a marital bed-dodger, who employs the services of her Spanish maid to perform her marital duties. Naturally the finger of fate points in her direction due to her practice of preparing a nightly sleeping draught for her husband. But Kildare falls prey to Mrs Cree’s charms buying into her sob-story of childhood suffering from which she rose to respectability dragging herself up by her bodice strings only to be dragged down again in the public perception as the film’s femme fatale. She regales Kildare with stories of having been taken under the wing of cross-dresser and a music hall maestro Dan Leno (Douglas Booth) who’s catchphrase is “Here we are again!”. Desperately trying to forge her own acting career by associating with Eddie Marsan’s salacious stage manager “Uncle” in fierce competition with Maria Valverde’s “Acrobatic Aveline” (Maria Valverde) from whose clutches she ‘won’ Mr Cree, she is played with skill and subtlety by Olivia Cooke in a difficult role.
Meanwhile everyone appears to be a suspect as Kildare’s ongoing investigations hurtle forward at breakneck speed – including Karl Marx (Henry Goodman) and the English novelist George Gissing (Morgan Watkins) all portrayed as sketchily as possible within the claustrophobic two hours – although there’s plenty of time for gore. Technically there is a great deal to enjoy in this closeted costume drama with its distinctly theatrical feel and lighting but it just feels predictable and a little bit like something we’ve all seen before. MT
Dir: Emer Reynolds | Doc | US | 121′ | With Nick Sagan, Edward Stone, Lawrence Krauss, John Cassani, Carolyn Porco, Frank Drake.
“We are attempting to survive our time, so we can live into yours” said President Jimmy Carter. With this quote begins Emer Reynolds ‘out of this world’ documentary that explores the endlessly evolving story of the NASA’s pioneering Voyager space mission that catapulted two unmanned spacecraft into the unknown in 1977.
In an opening segment that feels bitty in bombarding us with information about the project, what emerges from the onslaught are three salient facts. First is that the spaceships embarked on their journey during a once in a lifetime beneficial alignment of planet (taking place only every 176 years) after five years’ research. Secondly, that the Sun is the size of a tiny grain of sand placed on a 6ft wide table, that roughly represents the Universe. Finally, it takes decades to get out into the Solar System, and that is where the pair are travelling.
The various astronauts at NASA have loaded the mission vehicles with a ‘message in a bottle’ in the shape of an almost weightless golden photograph record (looking like a old style LP recording) that contains two hours worth of information including music, sounds and images aiming at representing the human race, to be picked by any forces beyond our planet.
This is all explained by a series of talking heads who continue to bamboozle us with chestnuts of information which sound fascinating but collectively really mean little to the uninitiated. We gradually find ourselves tuning out as our brains go into overload with the facts, figures and intermittently buzzing sound effects. Fewer commentators would have been more effective, and also some silence to allow us to step back, admire the images and contemplate the enormity of it all. It’s overwhelming. Much of the film features scientists talking about the process behind selecting the soundtrack for the voyage and pictures for the ‘voyager record’ and there is much discussion about the ideal images to represent us as humans. The naked photos were eventually dropped – are they politically correct in Space too?. The only phrase that really sticks out is “it turned out that Uranus wasn’t particularly photogenic” (hadn’t they heard of anal bleaching?). More significantly, the best statement is Sagan’s graceful one about our planet being a place where axiomatically: “everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives … on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Witticisms aside, THE FARTHEST feels rather alienating in both its form, delivery and subject matter which is a great shame because space travel and exploration are clearly highly relevant to the future of mankind. I realise I should be moved, yet I somehow found the whole thing vaguely underwhelming – interesting but terribly unmoving. MT
Dir: Shubhashish Bhutiani | Drama | 110′ | Cast: Lalit Behl, Adil Hussain, Navnindra Behl | India
In this appealing arthouse drama a 77 year-old grandfather Daya (Lalit Behl) dreams that his life is coming to an end and travels to the sacred site of Varanasi in order to prepare for his final days and achieve salvation according to his Hindu faith. His put-upon son Rajiv (Adil Hussain/Life of Pi) decides to accompany his needy father – more out of duty than desire – but the two gradually bond by the banks of the Ganges while the rest of us experience the inner workings of traditional Hindu life and the spirituality of this hallowed riverside location.
HOTEL SALVATION is the confident feature debut of Indian director Shubhashish Bhutiani who is best known in film circles for his Venice-awarded short Kush (2013). Working with a low budget and including gentle humour to avoid over-sentimentality the director highlights family tension throughout first between Daya and Rajiv and then between Rajiv and his own daughter Sunita (Palomi Ghosh) who is engaged to be married and keen to make her own way in life. Meanwhile, the stressed-out Rajiv is trying to run a business with his efforts being constantly undermined by the niggling demands of his father, who meanwhile is steadily befriending a wise woman of his own generation Vimla (Navnindra Behl). There is no controversy here as the intergenerational conflicts are gently smoothed over despite one frantic scene where the tempo is raised over Sunita’s love life, forcing Rajiv to get back home.
The HOTEL SALVATION in question refers to a rather ramshackle retreat in the heart of Varanasi where the elderly repair to review their lives and come to terms with their own mortality. It is a place of transformative tranquility where a sadhu presides over the daily prayer rituals which are never taken too seriously, as in a scene where the Daya on his last legs commands that the mourning musicians “sing in tune please”. Certainly an experience to relish HOTEL SALVATION is a treasure not to be missed. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 28 AUGUST 2017
Dir: Alex Barrett | Writer: Rahim Moledina | Doc | UK | 72′
LONDON SYMPHONY is a lyrical and poetic monochrome portrait of the capital, unfurling along the lines of Dziga Vertov’s 1929 triumph Man with a Movie Camera that pictured St Petersburg, the filmalso offers a contemporary twist on thepopular 1920s‘city symphony’ documentary genre or ‘Stummfilm’ that aimed to celebrate and offer insight into everyday urban life such as Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin,Symphony of a Great City(1927) whose 90th anniversary the release commemorates.
Divided in four ‘movements’ and set to James McWilliams’ specially composed score, the camera captures the frenetic tempo of a city ‘at work’ in the opening chapter: its train stations, water ways, boats and other transport moods are featured at length offering a rhythmic vigour to the narrative. Playful moments follow showcasing leisure pursuits – monopoly (indoors) and chess (outdoors). The second chapter is the most poetic as the camera ventures into the suburbs, rivers and waterways, where joggers and dogs enjoy the many parks, fields and woods. Pub life and cafe society is interrupted by a look at a busy Foodbank. Part three goes to the heart of spiritual London: synagogues, mosques and temples of all denominations are populated by active worshippers. Culture is expressed in the city’s plethora of museums and galleries, before it returns to work with a glimpse of office life and computer networks. The final chapter deals with transport systems in the metropolis, featuring the many bridges across the Thames. Buses and cyclists hurry homeward, before the rain starts: no London film can be complete without the occasional heavy downpour. London Symphony ends on a light-hearted note with a visit to the theatres and cinemas. Then we say goodnight with the hypnotic crisscrossing of overground tubes through the night.
In his second feature, Alex Barrett and his scripter Rahim Moledina have successfully captured the heart, soul and spirit of a very culturally and ethnically inclusive capital city – with its many seemingly contradictive moods – through the changing tempo that punctuates a vibrant place of work and play. Romance and office life may collide, but there is always room for uniqueness and solitude in a city that still has space for (nearly) everyone. A contemplative documentary about city life with floating, luminous images and a welcome addition to the genre.
LONDON SYMPHONY will be screened with a live orchestra at The Barbican Centre (3rd Sept), the Brutalist Alexandra & Ainsworth Housing Estate. (17th Sept) and the Shree Ganapathy Hindu Temple (October 28th).The music by James McWilliam – who is now in the process of composing for the forthcoming film Close staring Noomi Rapace – will be performed by the Covent Garden Sinfonia.
Dir: Cedric Klapisch | Cast: Pio Marmai, Ana Girardot, Francois Civil, Jean-Marc Roulot, Maria Valverde, Jean-Marie Winling | 113′ | France | Drama
Cedric Klapisch (Paris) offers a fresh and funky wine-themed family drama along similar lines to the more sedate Bordeaux-set You Will Be My Son (Gilles Legrand) and the Beaujolais-soaked Saint Amour with Gerard Depardieu.
This time we are in Burgundy in a domaine inherited by three siblings in the shape of Jean (Pio Marmai); Juliette (Ana Girardot) and Jeremie (Francois Civil) whose father (Eric Caravaca – seen in flashback) is on his way out. Once again inheritance, family and business are the main concerns in this light-hearted film which offers insight into the workings of the wine trade in the glorious French countryside and a cameo role for Klapisch in the final scenes.
Jean has recently returned from Australia where he runs a winery with his Spanish wife Alicia (Maria Valverde) and the film is narrated and viewed from his perspective. Up to now Juliette has been running the estate with her younger brother Jeremie and the experienced manager and winemaker Marcel (Jean-Marc Roulot. Juliette has a rather underwritten role beyond her wine-making side, but Jeremy has married into one of Burgundy’s most prominent wine families headed by his overbearing father-in-law Anselme (Jean-Marie Winling) who like Niels Arestrup’s patriarch in You Will be My Son, doesn’t think his son-in-law is really up to the job – and he’s not far wrong. Jean, the more confident and charismatic of the sons – has his own business worries back home and a roving eye into the bargain for one Lina (Karidja Toure/Girlhood), that seems to suggest all is not well with his marriage. Jeremie ‘s issues lie more with his in-laws and wife (Yamee Couture), and he also feels resentful that Jean had been out of touch since their mother died five years earlier.
With its lively soundtrack, fabulous scenery and convincing plotlines Klapisch serves up a really well made and reliable premier cru Classé here. And despite the trio’s trials and tribulations, the tone is always upbeat rather than maudlin. The narrative goes slightly off piste when it floats into the stormy waters of Jean’s relationship with Alicia, who turns up unexpectedly in the saggy third act. That said, Marmai really gives the drama its heart and soul, grabbing the glory in nearly every scene. The other two are more subtle, with Girardot’s Juliette struggling to convince her co-workers, and Civil’s Jeremie coming over as a little bit of a wuss. BACK TO BURGUNDY is an enjoyable and well-crafted film with its stunning scenery and vivacious score by Loik Dury and Christophe Minck giving a feeling of light-headed joie de vivre. MT
Dir.: Laurent Cantet | Cast: Nestor Jiminez, Isabel Santos, Jorge Perugorria | France 2014, 95′ | Spanish with subtitles
As if we didn’t need a negative view of old age in our youth-centric society, Laurent Cantet’s contemplative character piece offers another one. RETURN TO ITHACA is a bittersweet good-bye to the ideas of youth; a meditation on approaching old age embued by feelings of utter despair all seen through the intimate revelations of a group of long-standing friends. Set in a roof-garden in Cuba one balmy summer night, the camera tries to offer emotional distance from the maudlin musings of its protagonists, with a script as stringent as it is depressing. Odysseus could have hardly felt more negative than Amadeo. Cantet (The Class) one again evokes a masterful merger of the personal and the political.
Amadeo (Jiminez), a writer, returns to Cuba after 16 years exile in Spain. Four of his best friends give him a welcome-back on the roof tops overlooking Havanna. But soon Amadeo outlives his welcome: his friends blame him indirectly for their life at home. Rafa, a painter, who can’t paint any more, is particularly angry. Tania (Santos), an ophthalmologist now living in Miami, can’t live on her earnings and needs the support of her children. And Eddy (Perugorria) is a minor functionary of the ruling party, an opportunist, who might be convicted soon for fraud; though he has supported his friends with money and jobs. Another friend has lost his job as an engineer, and works for the black market. Not that Amadeo had a great time in Spain in his first years – but for his friends he has lived in paradise. Soon the mood softens, and their common political past is discussed. All of them were idealistic followers of the Castro regime, but one by one they lost their enthusiasm, and opposed their masters – apart from Eddy, who lived the good life as a party member, whilst supporting his friends in the “inner opposition” materially.
This reflective arthouse piece will naturally have more appeal to the older generations than their younger counterparts. The Cuban adults here are the parents of children who have either left the country, or are planning to get out; the two generations have nothing in common: the parents, who have seen the pre-communist Cuba, exploited by the USA, hanker after their lost ideals; whilst the kids just want out. They all have a common resentment against the regime, not understanding why Amadeo wants to return. AS
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 25 AUGUST 2017 | REVIEW FROM VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2014
If you’re missing Studio Ghibli, then Makoto Shinkai’s runaway anime ‘love story’ will certainly fit the bill, even though it doesn’t quite match up to the subtly magical humanist undertow achieved by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Hosoda. Billed as a Sci fi fantasy, this body-swapping romp is a sheer delight, even if the ending may leave you perplexed. It tells the story of a Tokyo schoolboy and girl who undergo weird out-of-body experiences just when a comet is passing over Japan. But when they try to meet up back in their own bodies, real romance turns into a bittersweet and often strangely humorous affair. YOUR NAME is strangely similar in its narrative to the recent Swedish film Girls Lost.
The comet element also vaguely echoes Japan’s 2011 tragedy when a tsunami and an earthquake wreaked havoc on the population. This is conveyed in a startlingly gorgeous opening sequence where earthbound missiles fall through the sky like incandescent fireworks. Fragments of the comet alight in the countryside where Mitsuha is living with her grandma, in a cottage beside a lake. But Mitsuha craves other bright lights: those of Tokyo, where Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is working as a waiter in the evenings after school. One day he wakes up in Mitsuha’s body, complete with breasts and other female attributes. Needless to say, Mitsuha is coping with Taki’s male bits and finding school quite a challenge, especially going to the loo. But her intuition works well when as Taki, she has a crush on a older girl. Several times they actually wake up, and eventually manage to fathom out what is going on with their bodies. It soon emerges that Mitsuha is actually three years ahead of Taki, living before the disaster that destroyed her town and many of neighbours.
Although Shinkai’s multiple plotlines start becoming rather confusing, largely due to memory loss that occurs when the two morph back into their own bodies, this is an impressive anime feature. And although some of the musical choices feel rather out of place with the dreamy status quo, this delightful and delicately rendered visual feast is appealing and entertaining to watch. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 18 November 2016 at VUE AND ODEON CINEMAS
Dir: Cary Murnion/Jonathan Milcot | Writer: Nick Damici | Cast: David Bautista, Brittany Snow, Chrisian Navarro, Arturo Castro | Drama | 93′ | US
BUSHWICK operates from the faintly outlandish idea that this Brooklyn suberb has been invaded by a faceless military coup forcing its denizens to defend themselves in order to survive. It never gets out of the shadow of this weak plot and questionable premise.
The action follows Lucy (Brittany Snow) and her medic turned janitor boyfriend (Dave Bautista) who have arrived back in her hometown to meet her parents. They emerge from the underground to discover that war has broken out and that a private militia is attempting to force the president to accept the secession of a number of Southern States. Don’t expect to be entertained by witty dialogue here. After a casual conversation in the opening scene the pair’s exchanges are reduced to “Oh my God”, “fuck” and “I feel really weird, like” and a range of other surprised expletives. Clearly, they had their earphones on for the previous weeks/months and failed to notice any political changes during their amorous wanderings. Didn’t Lucy’s parents warn them what to expect when they arrived in Brooklyn?
Directing from a script by Nick Damici, the filmmakers expect us to go along with this constantly unravelling scenario in a political thriller that’s about as tension-fuelled as a stroll in Prospect Park. Our heroes: Lucy, her boyfriend and her sister, seem to be incredibly emotional and stressed out by the ‘insurgency’ but there is really very little real fighting to be had in the streets of Bushwick apart from the odd punch-up and the hum of hovering aircraft, it’s also very dark.
Politically there seems to be some confusion as to who our heroes are fighting against; is it White Supremacy, Hasidic Jews or even Zombies shooting from a graveyard (in one scene) – which is at best ludicrous. This half-baked political narrative is not helped by predictable characters and lacklustre cinematography in street scenes that feel stagey rather than convincing for an action thriller. What could have been an opportunity to make a shrewd political and social statement just misfires radically from the outset. The ensemble cast are unremarkable, not even Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) can inject any real macho charisma here. MT.
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 25 AUGUST \ EST TVOD 28 AUGUST 2017
Dir: Oliver Laxe | Writer: Santiago Fillol | Drama | 96min | French and Arabia
In medieval Morocco, two nefarious tribesmen are tasked with accompanying a dying sheikh through the treacherous Atlas Mountains in Oliver Laxe’s eerily hypnotic arthouse drama.
Best described as a meditation on the strength of religious faith, this proves to be a gruelling journey – both physically and metaphorically – but it is resonant and ravishing to watch in its and spartan simplicity, and set to an atmospheric occasional score it has the striking otherworldly quality of Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) and Last Days in the Desert (2015).
The travellers Saïd (Saïd Aagli) and Ahmed (Ahmed Hammoud) are eventually aiming for the ancient city of Sijilmasa, which is the ancestral home of the sheikh and where he intends to be buried. But death does not wait and reaches him during his final journey on a bleak mountainside. The caravaneers, fearful of the mountain, refuse to continue transporting the corpse.
In a parallel narrative, set in the modern world, a couple of taxi drivers who are modern incarnations of Ahmed and Shakib, fight for the job of taking the sheikh to his final resting place in their rickety vehicles. Shakib is chosen. Once again, his assignment is clear: he has to help the accidental caravaneers to reach their destination.
As the caravan travels, so the mostly reluctant tribesmen diminish in number, as one is drowned in fast-flowing river, as the troup come under fire from bandits, French Spanish director Brings his experience of living in Morocco to bear in a thoughtful drama that sometimes feels elliptical and difficult to connect with for the uninitiated. But there is plenty to enjoy in Laxe’s magnificent visuals and the film connects loosely with Ben Rivers’ 2015 film The Sky Trembles and The Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers (2015), which featured Part of the shooting ofMIMOSAS.
The cast of newcomers provide convincing performances and only occasionally angry outbursts disturb the tranquility of this placid and relaxing drama enhanced by Mauro Herce’s resplendent cinematography. MT
REVIEWED AT CANNES | WINNER, THE CRITICS WEEK GRAND PRIZE 2016 |
An Istanbul retirement home is playfully haunted by the rich and colourful memories of its battle-scarred occupants in this impressive and gracefully composed debut from Shevaun Mizrahi.
Outside, high-rise construction takes Turkey into an acquisitive new chapter of its history. But in the faded splendour of their palazzo building, the old guard reminisce with humour, perseverance and poignancy, remembering a time when life was fraught with war and poverty but also held together by a sense of community and the simple pleasures of sex, family, music and the visual arts. Dressed up for another day alone with their memories, the cultured occupants of this care home – who range from late seventies to much older – are left to their own devices, keeping their minds sharp with crosswords in the privacy of their rooms. Others sits together in companionable silence, gazing wistfully into the camera or staring vacantly to the world outside. Mizrahi’s one-to-one encounters are mostly observational and her static camera patiently contemplates each individual without rushing on, even when clearly some are suffering from senility, or even early stage dementia, while others are bent over and crippled by age.
Selma, an Armenian woman in her late nineties. even nods off while chatting (Mizrahi stays off camera, and we don’t hear her voice). She tells how her mill-owning family were chased from their village during the Armenian genocide; the men killed with knives and the animals burnt. “1915 was a terrible time…we were forced to convert to Islam”. Having lost the opportunity to marry, she looked after a Turkish baby for two years, and cried when she left her, never having kids herself. She advises Mizrahi to get married and raise a family when she can but is clearly philosophical about the past: “life has been good to me”.
In another room a soulful photographer attempts to load his camera, repeating over and over again: “I can’t see”. We feel for him, as French music plays softly in the background. Shaved and dressed in a suit and tie, he won’t be going anywhere today but looks forward to his birthday, checking the date on his mobile phone, with a magnifying glass. “in 9 days time, they will bring a cake”. A photo on the wall shows him proudly posing with his camera, his glossy black hair slicked back, he looks like a 1950s matinée idol .
A couple of old boys chat in a stationary lift – which they can’t operate, or pretend they can’t. One says to the other, a heavy smoker: “I’m sick of your breath, take an eucalyptus sweet, or even two” The lift door eventually opens to let two women in. Another – rather dapper pianist – treats us to a classical flurry on the keyboards before gushing forth with some particularly florid memories with his girlfriend in the back of a car: Sexual desire – and the longing for physical touch doesn’t change with age and he is clearly concerned about his emotional future. Hoping there will another relationship in his life (he’s only 77), he swiftly proposes marriage to Mizrahi: “you’re 29, I don’t expect you to stop going out dancing with your friends”. In return, he offers his generous pension, as a dowry.
As dawn breaks, a woodpecker and some spirited birdsong ushers in another day, as residents wash and dress in hopeful preparation. But the swirling murmuration of the starlings also signals the change of season as another winter approaches, suitably recalling the words of Dylan Thomas: ‘Old age should burn and rave at close of day’. It certainly describes these spirited people, captured so charmingly here by Shevaun Mizrahi. MT
Dir: Patrick Hughes | Cast: Selma Hayek, Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L Jackson | US | Action Thriller
Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3) must have been on auto-pilot when he made this tonally awkward generic buddy thriller – a sweary throwback to the far superior Midnight Run (1988).
In place of Charles Grodin and Robert De Niro we get Samuel L. Jackson, with Ryan Reynolds playing his body guard, in an action thriller with plenty of action but very few thrills or indeed, laughs, for that matter: the romance is provided by Jackson’s feisty relationship with his pouty wife (Salma Hayek) who is serving time for stabbing someone to death with a bottle. And that’s just for openers.
The action opens as Reynolds and Jackson are off to Holland to give evidence against Gary Oldman’s curious former president of Belarus in The Hague. This incorporates a rather good chase scene through the streets of Amsterdam which brings out the best in Hughes’ directing skills, but the film somehow misjudges the mood musically with I Want to Know Where Love Is playing when the pair are later seen drinking together in a bar.
Ultimately, this is a film that takes itself far too seriously, unlike its predecessor that exuded a wry eye-winking warmth throughout, providing a perfect foil for the rather silly shenanigans of the action-thriller going on around it. As a result THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD is all action and no trousers in all the worse kind of ways, and despite Reynolds and Jackson doing the honours, it is largely unmemorable. MT
Dir: Amat Escalante | 100min | Fantasy drama | Mexico Denmark |
Amat Escalalnte follows his Cannes-awarded Heli with a community based sci-fi fantasy drama inspired by the machismo, homophobia and misogyny of his native Mexico.
THE UNTAMED is an obscure and unsettling piece that deftly manages its tonal shifts – from grim social realism to sinister fantasy – in a mysterious narrative slowly unfolds, taking its characters to unexpected places while leaving them firmly rooted in contemporary Guanajuato, weighed down by their reality of poverty, overcrowding and crime.
In the outskirts of a town a large crater has opened up filled with animals that appear to have been affected by an extraterrestrial force. One of these has morphed into a benign tentacled creature capable of giving ultimate sexual satisfaction to the women who visit its cabin in the woods. But the creature can also turn nasty, like a disgruntled male. In this way, THE UNTAMEDcould work as a metaphor for Mexican oppression and the dire social issues facing the country, or for any other Western country caught in the current climate of political and social uncertainty.
We first meet Veronica (Simone Bucio) a willowy waif in the throws of ecstacy, courtesy of our alien-like tentacled tempter in his darkened cabin. This is one of the most bewildering scenes of the film and is captured by the same cinematographer who worked on Nymphomaniac. In a further twist, the creature is being looked after by a weird couple who are purported to possess psychic powers.
Meanwhile, back in town, young mother of two Ale (Ruth Ramos) is being abused by her husband Angel (Jesus Meza), a brutish civil engineer in a sexual relationship with her brother Fabian (Eden Villavicencio), who works in the local hospital where Veronica turns up later with a strange wound on her torso. The two are clearly attracted to one another and decide to meet up later, where it emerges that Fabian is unhappy with Angel.
The trio’s situation grows all the more desperate due to the Sci-fi occurences in the nearby woods: nothing is clear, everything seems to be degenerating both ecologically and societally for the country and its people who are caught in the grip of circumstances beyond their control.Despite the underwritten characters, Escalante’s attempts to chanel Mexico’s serious social issues into this Sci-fi drama are convincing and exciting marking him out as one cinema’s most visionary contemporary filmmakers. MT
Dir.: Kenji Kamiyama; Anime; Voices of: Mitsuki Takahata, Shin’nosuke Mitsushima, Tomoya Maeno; Japan 2017, 110 min.
Director/writer Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell) continues his critique of Japanese society with NAPPING PRINCESS, an Anime featuring Kokone, a teenage schoolgirl who has to clean up not only the contemporary world, but also a parallel world of sorcerers and monsters. Kamiyama makes impressive use of the Isekai genre – where protagonists have a double life in another world – showing that modern society is not that much different from other eras.
Instead of studying hard for her university entrance examine, Kokone (Takahata), regularly oversleeps and often manages on to fall asleep during lessons. In her vivid dreams, she believes that she is Ancien, the unruly daughter of the King of Heartland, who rebels against her car-obsessed father: every citizen has to drive a brand new vehicle, the production line is active 24/7. Workers are punished for lateness, even though the traffic is near to standstill. When Colossos, a giant mechanical monster appears, the King orders the building of transformer-likes machines which are pedalled from the inside by workers. Ancien, helped by the pirate Peach, makes full use of her magic powers, but is hunted down by the King’s evil mandarin Watanabe, who wants to exile the sorceress for good. Meanwhile, in the ‘real’ world problems also mount up: just before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, her hipster father Kijita (Maeno), masquerading as a car mechanic, has finished the computer programme for pilotless cars, which will transport guest and athletes during the games. The programme had been started by Kokone’s mother, who had left her father, the CEO of a big car manufacturing company, who was then unwilling, to invest in pilotless cars. After the death of his wife, Kijita has completed the software program. The Watanabe-like Deputy CEO of Kokone’s grandfather’s company, now tries to usurp his boss, trying to lay his hands on the program. When Kokone realises, that Ancien is not herself, but her mother, she has another ally and can fight back successfully on both fronts, being also helped by her class mate Miori (Mitsushina).
Also known as Ancien and the Magic Tablet (much more appropriate than this rather silly title), Kamiyana connects the two worlds perfectly: the equivalent protagonists complementing each other’s characters to the full. But the main premise is that Kokone is a perfect role model: very much in love with technology, and adept and successful at using it, just like the male protagonists. She uses her emotional intelligence to deal with the opposite sex, who are unable to empathise. The only criticism of NAPPING PRINCESS is that the back-story is told over the rolling end-credits and not integrated into the main Anime.
ON RELEASE: 16th August 2017 A full list of sites can be found here:
Dir.: Jonathan Olshefski; Documentary; USA 2017, 105 min.
What started as a chance encounter – when Olshefski was teaching photography in North Philadelphia – has turned into a documentary about the Rainey family: black, broke but incredibly creative and resourceful. QUEST is not just another opportunity for a white outsider to wax lyrical about deprivation, but a project born out of common interests.
Chris Rainey runs a small home recording studio where budding neighbourhood talents are try to find a way into the professional rapper scene. Whilst the studio is a labour of love, Chris makes a living as a newspaper deliverer – combing art and survival in the same way as former construction worker Olshefski – in order to finance his art projects. The director “could relate to the juggle of the passion project and the day job”. Aware “of the long history of privileged filmmakers going into communities that are not their own”, he avoids marginalising North Philly and the Rainey family, but tells instead a story which is as much about their friendship as the town itself, which he hopes will benefit from QUEST.
‘Ma’ Christine’ Rainey is the pragmatist in the family, working in a badly paid Shelter job, she has learned to economise on all levels. Her arms were badly burned in an domestic accident but she remains stoical, whereas her husband Chris is the dreamer, running his studio with near religious faith. When the matriarch’s oldest son, twenty-one year old William, is diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour, Ma springs into action. William, whose first child has just been born, is despondent. He even gets a tattoo with a warning sign for chemical pollution, declaring himself a ‘dangerous zone’
. Olshefski workimg as his own DoP and sound designer, wanted to close the project after the re-election of Barack Obama, but a new misfortune struck the Rainey family: their teenage daughter Pearl (P.J.) was hit by a stray bullet and lost an eye. In one of the most harrowing moments of QUEST, Chris recalls his daughter’s first words after he rushed to her aid: “Daddy, I am sorry, I got shot”.
But QUEST is also a celebration of life: when Pearl comes home after a lengthy hospital stay, the street party to welcome her back is something to behold. The discussion between the couple about Pearl’s burgeoning homosexuality is surprisingly rational, Ma blaming her husband “for always obstructing me, when I wanted her to wear some more feminine clothes”. Nevertheless, Pearl would graduate, choosing her own way. When Chris is interrogated by white police officers the tension shows– even though Chis has always supported the police and attended demonstrations against gun violence in their neighbourhood, the friction between police and citizens is always simmering.
Without the frills or mannerism that often accompany this kind of self-styled cinema-verite project, QUEST is exactly what Olshefski planned it to be: “the only agenda is to provide the viewer the opportunity to connect to these incredible individuals and share the love I have for them. This is what I want the viewer to take away. These are people whose voices should be heard.” Olshefski thus avoids a political sermon and just makes do with what he found – which is more than enough. AS
Dir.: Tim Sutton; Cast: Anna Rosa Hopkins, Eddie Cacciola, Andres Vega, Marilyn Purvis, Aaron Purvis, Robert Jumper, Ciara Hampton; USA 2016, 85 min.
Director/writer Tim Sutton (Memphis) tries to decipher the Aurora cinema shooting, when James Holmes killed twelve members of the multiplex audience watching Dark Knight Rising in July 2012. His non-sensational, near-documentary style shows a detached approach, not focusing on the individual – perpetrator or victims – but on the malaise of American suburban life, centred around celebrity and gun culture.
It is no accident that Sutton chose Sarasota/Florida as a setting for his absorbing drama: many crime novels are set here (Ed McBain, Elmore Leonard and Sue Grafton, to name a few), and in 1974 TV-Anchor Christine Chubbuck committed suicide on Air in the town’s TV station. Loneliness and fragmentation dominates. Google Earth shots of the Sarasota show uniformity and a lack of any individuality: the town planner seemed to have worked with his Lego set. And the music of Maica Armata is so otherworldly, that we sometimes forget that Sutton deals with real people and not ‘Stepford-like’ replicates of both genders.
After a cut from the black screen, we see a young, blond woman (Hampton) sitting in a parking lot, stunned. The sirens of the ambulances signal distress, their blue and red lights mingle with the same colours of the ubiquitous national flag. This short look at the aftermath is followed by an array of would-be killers and victims: no clue is ever given to who is who. Anna Rosa Hopkins has show-biz aspirations, she poses for the moment fame, she will certainly never achieve. Her real life and her dreams are only connected by a media, who still tells everyone, that everything is possible in the land of the American Dream. Eddie Cacciola is a veteran, visiting meetings with other victims of PDTS symptoms. He is burned out, near catatonic. Marilyn Purvis sits with her teenage son Aaron (who likes to play with his snakes) in front of a TV, where we see for a moment James Holmes on the stand at his trial.
Somebody is interviewing Marilyn about something her son did – but we never learn what it was. Instead guilt clouds their scenes, and there is no empathy between them. Andres Vega, a skater, dyes his hair red – like Holmes did – but is otherwise just a lonely cypher like the rest. Finally, there is Robert Jumper, who takes out his frustration on his dogs. All the characters will meet (symbolically) at the Mall in the evening, before going to the cinema. In sparing us the graphic scenes, Sutton achieves a greater impact than any re-creation of the massacre might have done.
French DoP Helene Louvart (Pina) combines off-centre framing with long, wide-lensed panning shots, where the isolation of the characters becomes clear. In one scene, a man takes out his huge sub-machine gun, pointing it at a neighbour’s house, without its occupant taking any notice. The underlying threat of the DARK NIGHT is created by the fragmentation of all the participants: their individuality is eroded by their longing for a lifestyle they will never achieve. Therefore, one of them will be the shooter: killing humans is, after all, a short step away from target practice and video games. AS
Dir/Writer: Stanley Tucci Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub, James Faulkner, Sylvie Testud | UK | Drama | 90 min
The sculptor Alberto Giacometti was an eccentric, philandering neurotic and a crashingly self-centred bore. He was also a perfectionist, a sharp businessman and a fool for love. Or so Stanley Tucci would have us believe in his rather idolatrous but witty biopic drama that follows the Swiss Italian artist in his Paris atelier during the 1960s, where he worked with his tolerant brother Diego, also an artist.
In his second feature as both writer and director, Stanley Tucci deftly dovetails themes of creative insecurity and narcissism as he delves inside the intriguing subject of what is it to be an artist. Basing his script on James Lord’s biography ‘A Giacometti Portrait’, Tucci conjures up a chaotic genius who process involves constant over-painting directly on the canvas before finally getting the measure of his subject many hours if not weeks after the initial sitting.
In 1964. shortly before his death, Giacometti’s work was fetching record prices forcing him to squirrel away wads of banknotes in his shambolic studio amongst the many works in process. His wife Annette – who he calls a “petite bourgeoise” – is dismayed by his ongoing affair with his ditzy muse Caroline, not least because he lavishes money on his lover while being tight-fisted with his spouse.
One day, Giacometti asks New York art critic and writer James Lord to pose for him. Initially flattered, Lord has no idea of what he is letting himself in for as the portrait, scheduled to take a week, stretches on for much longer amid constant interruptions for restaurants breaks, setbacks and altercations with his wife and lover. Armie Hammer is perfect for the role of Lord: open-faced, cheerful and uncomplicated he plays the long-suffering Lord, with consummate ease.
Genius Giacometti’s method of working flies in the face of other famous portrait painters who are highly organised, fast-working and diligent, often juggling several projects at a time, beginning with pencil sketching and photographic impressions before finally putting paint to canvas. This depicts a man who was disorganised, scatty and unable to work to deadlines, despite his obvious talent.
With a tour de force performance from Geoffrey Rush in the lead role, and Clemence Poesie perfectly irritating as Caroline, this is a stylishly imagined and richly photographed drama that captures the romantic magic of Paris in its Sixties heyday, but is rather denigrates the memory of Giacometti. Worth watching if you can cut it some artistic slack. MT
ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 18 AUGUST 2017 | BERLINALE 2017 REVIEW
PATTI CAKE$ follows a common formula: a depressed and overweight girl has aspirations of making it in the music business with hopes kindled by the likes of X Factor. This is not New York City but the backwaters of New Jersey, where our heroine’s day job is in a bottom-feeders downtown bar.
With the buzz around celebritiy status, these kind of ‘talent discovery’ films are becoming predictably schematic: on one level they feed the dreams of the disenchanted, but in a world where everyone can become a star, the firmament gets rather overheated. And this is the case with PATTI CAKE$ which is sparky, well-made and cinematic, a bit saggy in the middle – you may doze off – but otherwise perfectly decent. The main character Patti, also known as Killer P, Dumbo and Patricia (newcomer Danielle MacDonald) is, as usual, bored with her humdrum existence at home with skanky mom Barb (Bridget Everett) and fag-smoking grandma (Cathy Moriarty) who is laid up in bed unable to pay her medical bills. So far, so convincing. Patti’s best mates with the local chemist Hareesh (Siddharth Dhananjay) who joins around with her when she comes in for grandma’s drugs, then joins her in a sudden outlandish ‘star-quest’ to the Big City.
But where is the evidence of Patricia’s musical talents, or grafting towards a career in that direction? Apart from noting down a few lines in a notebook, there is no backstory or history that makes us want to root for her as a budding star, or any great tunes – for that matter. Patti’s dream rapper is also a fictional star, rather than a real one, and a cypher into the bargain, adding further bum notes to this musical drama. Then we’re led to believe that her Black mate and ‘enabler’ Bob, aka the Antichrist, is some charismatic mystical charmer who ends up having little to say – let alone sing or play.
After a few setbacks, the action culminates in a showcase rap competition where her mother is grafted in to aid and abet proceedings with her trusty lung power, consoling the teary two in a crowd-pleasing finale. PATTI CAKE$works as light entertainment but certainly no standout, as we were led to believe by the Sundance hype earlier on this year. MT
Dir.: Jean-Pierre Melville; Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Monique Hennessy, Jean Desailly, Fabienne Dali, Michel Piccoli, Jacques De Leon, Rene Lefevre; France 1962, 108 min.
Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973) is known mostly for his stylish portraits of the Paris underworld, but he is also considered the ‘grandfather’ of the Nouvelle Vague; though his early friendship with Jean-Luc Godard (he had a role in A bout a souffle), ended in the late 1960s, when Godard started doing away with narratives. For Melville, a great lover of literature, this was sacrilege. LE DOULOS, based on a novel by Pierre Lesou, is an intricate work of continuous betrayal, very much like a Balzac or Flaubert classic.
The title is a French slang word for hat, but also informer, and the film opens with a brilliant long panning shot of Maurice (Reggiani), walking through an endless number of railway arches at night. Everything is desolate, including Gilbert’s dilapidated house. But we soon learn the reason for this atmosphere of doom and gloom: Maurice, just out of prison, is going to kill Gilbert for the murder of his wife. He also steals a lot of money and the jewellery from a recent heist, burying both under a lamppost nearby. A radical change of scenes follows, with Maurice planning a robbery in a wealthy Parisian suburb. He meets his friends Silien (Belmondo) in his chic but tasteless appartment where he lives with his girlfriend Therese (Hennessy). These two have something in common which will decide the fate of all concerned. The robbery goes wrong, when the police arrive on the scene, Maurice is wounded, his partner and a police detective dead. The gangsters here – like Melville himself – are very much in love with their American counterparts: drinking Bourbon in American style bars. While Silien is being interrogated by detectives led by Superintendent Clain (Desailly) in a magnificent continuous shot lasting nearly ten minutes, Therese’s body is found in car which has fallen into a steep ravine in a quarry. In a payback for the murder of Gilbert Silien kills Armand (De Leon), the lover of his ex-grill friend Fabienne (Dali), and his partner Nuttheccio (Piccoli). He also frames them for the murder when he deposits the money and the jewells in Armand’s safe. In the finale, a variation on a Cornel Woolrich theme of ‘race against time’, Maurice puts a contract on Silien’s head, before trying to stop the contract killer.
While Melville always insisted that all his films were really Westerns, LE DOULOSis typically French, starting with a glimpse of poetic realism when Maurice walks towards Gilbert’s house. What follows is very much Flaubert territory, with the protagonists trying to extricate themselves from the roles they have played all their lives, only to trap themselves in the schemes they set up. It really doesn’t matter who is on whose side, the execution of violence overrides all motives and intentions. Talking about violence, women are treated as second class citizens always at the beck and call of men, they are neglected at best. But whilst women, like in most Melville features, are marginal figures in the plot, men are romanticised to no end: they can only be victims or perpetrators.
DoP Nicholas Hayer, who worked for Melville on Two Men in Manhattan (1959), creates a black and white landscape of utter forlornness. Every room seems to be a trap: Maurice murdering ‘the fence’ in the shabby room with the victim’s own revolver, Therese left alone in her flat to be kidnapped and murdered, Silien in the police’ interrogation room, bargaining for his freedom, and finally in his own house, with the contract killer hiding behind a screen. As for Melville, there are shades of Le Samourai (1967) here, but his misogyny is much more striking in the earlier feature, spoiling it to a certain degree. AS
Dir.: Amanda Lipitz; Documentary; USA 2017, 83 min.
Amanda Lipitz’ feature documentary STEP is proof that finding the right style for your subject matter is the basis of successful filmmaking: fast-moving but with an eye for detail, this is a rollercoaster ride of intensity. It also helps that Lipitz, a native of Baltimore, was a founder member of Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (BLSfYW) whose class of 2009, entering its senior year, is the central focus of the film. Lipitz is not just a well-meaning outsider who presents the material before disappearing, but a fighter for the rights of one of the most disadvantaged minorities in the US: young black women.
STEP combines the two main goals of the first senior class of BLSfYW: to obtain college placements for all women students and to winning the Bowie State step competition. The documentary centres on the three leading girls of the step team, the “Lethal Ladies”, led by Blessin Giraldo. Blessin, hyperactive and a gifted dancer, puts all her frustrations into the dance routines – her home life is anything but ideal. Mother Geneva is suffering from depression and often unable to look after her family. When Blessin’s little brother discovers an empty ‘fridge again after school, his older sister admits she does not want this kind of life for herself. But Geneva, who has not even met one of her daughter’s teachers since 2009, always fails to live up to promises. Blessin is on the verge of dropping out, but principal Chevonne Hall and school counsellor Paul Dufat make sure that the target of 100% college placements for the class is realised. Cori Grainger is a straight A-student, whose mother has recently married an old friend; the merging of the two families brings new problems for Cori; who, in the end, successfully enters the prestigious Hopkins University. Finally there is Taylor Solomon, who has no problem achieving her grades, but is permanently embarrassed by mum Maisha, a correctional officer proud of her job and of telling all the parents about “her mission”. After the death of teenager Freddie Gray in police custody in 2015, which led to riots, Maisha’s profession makes her an outsider.
The dance routines under the watchful eye of coach Gari McIntyre and the appearance in the final of the competition – the “Lethal Ladies” all dressed as Cleopatra’ – dictate the tempo, even though more time is given to fleshing out the students’ background. DoP Casey Regan makes sure that the cinema vérité aesthetics are always adhered to; the music and the dancing reverberate all the time. Warm, funny and sad, the last word should go to Blessin: “We make music with our bodies. That’s some wicked stuff”. Indeed. AS
Dir.: Stephen Frears; Cast: Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave, Frances Barber, Julie Walters, Wallace Shawn; UK 1987, 105 min.
Portraying the relationship between playwright Joe Orton and his lover and erstwhile collaborator Kenneth Halliwell, director Stephen Frears relies on a brilliant script by Alan Bennett, based on the Orton biography of John Lahr. But it is not the brutal ending, in the summer of 1967, which shocks up most but the seamy atmosphere dominating London at the time, a far cry from the “swinging’ myth of the late Sixties: instead, Frears’ London is a sordid mixture of repression, provinciality and squalidness.
Joe Orton (Oldman), coming from a lower-middle class family in Leicester, met Kenneth Halliwell, six years his senior, when they were both studying at RADA in 1951. Halliwell had a cultured and sophisticated middle-class education, and Orton, whose highest achievements were in shorthand typing, had never met anyone quite like him before. During the course of their relationship, the tables were turned, and new power structure emerged; with Orton not only becoming a successful playwright, but also spreading his wings sexually, cottaging in the seedier parts of Islington, which at the time was still quite run-down.
For a decade, Orton and Halliwell had collaborated writing novels and plays (which are lost), but after both men were convicted to six months imprisonment, in 1962, for defacing highbrow literary works they stole from the local library (Halliwell decorated the walls of their bedsit with collages torn from the book’s pages), Joe developed a new creative energy, which set him apart from Halliwell. As Orton’s agent Peggy Ramsey (a playful Vanessa Redgrave) put it, “Halliwell became the first wife”, being discarded after the success of the ‘husband’.
Some scenes are set in Orton’s home in Leicester, where we meet his sister (and executor) Leonie (Barber) and mother Elsie (Walters in an early caricature). Again, it is surprising, that the ambience of Orton’s family home is not that much different that of the couple’s flat in Noel Street, Islington. And the meetings between Ramsey and John Lahr (Shawn), are more gossiping sessions than literary discourse. When Ramsey gains access to the flat after the murder/suicide, she steals Orton’s diary and Halliwell’s final note: “If you read this, all will be explained. P.S. Especially the latter part”. Even after the gruesome find, Ramsey acts with an egoistical meanness, which is symptomatic of many of the film’s characters.
Oldman is superb as the cocky Orton, who, after all the repression of provincial Leicester, is hell bent on enjoying himself in London. Not to demean Leicester, which has spawned many a talent: Richard and David Attenborough; Michael Kitchen; Graham Chapman; Bill Maynard; Kate O’Mara; Una Stubbs; Julian Barnes, Sue Townsend and Frears himself, to name a few). Whilst aware of Halliwell’s deteriorating mental health, Orton does not see the danger signs: whilst on holiday in Morocco, Halliwell violently destroys Orton’s typewriter. Orton, as narcissistic as Halliwell, seems to get younger during the narrative, whilst Halliwell succumbs to early mid-life depression. Molina’s terrific Halliwell cannot believe that life is slipping through his fingers: he is literally shrinking as a personality, whilst Orton grows into a public figure, even meeting Paul McCartney and writing a film script about the Beatles.
The ending is tragic, but somehow logical: Halliwell feels his life is being diminished by Orton – who is also demeaning his sexually, he cannot bear the reminder of his own failure – in contrast to Orton’s success – neither can be live with the fact that he killed his ‘other half’. Frears’ direction is absorbing, capturing the sadness of a tragic love story and well as the caustic humour the two enjoyed until things went wrong. AS
ON RELEASE COURTESY OF PARK CIRCUS FROM AUGUST 5 2017
Dir: David Leitch | Cast: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Til Schweiger, Eddie Marsan, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones | Action Thriller | 115′ | US
Charlize Theron tries to save MI6 while the Berlin Wall tumbles in David Leitch’s visually arresting contribution to the espionage genre that often takes itself too seriously trumping internecine intrigue with vitriolic violence. There’s one impressive scene but you’ll have to wait until the final moments to enjoy it so the first hour or so will feel in retrospect like treading water – albeit squally Neon-lit and stormy water.
As the heroine of the piece Lorraine Broughton, the blond (and occasionally brunette) – bruised and battered – bombshell possesses the requisite steely resolve to convince audiences of her integrity but is often forced to curb her characteristic verve – while displaying her unrivalled sex appeal in scenes where she’s not crossing keys or juggling fake passports in this action-packed affair from the director of stunt cult classic Fight Club (1999). ATOMIC BLOND is based on Antony Johnson’s comics and Theron stars alongside a sterling British cast of James McAvoy, as her sidekick; Toby Jones as her handler; and a rather underwritten Eddie Marsan as a Russian defector.
We first meet Theron’s MI6 agent freshly bruised in a bath of ice. She is in Berlin for a progress report with her local bosses (Jones and John Goodman) updating them on her work to flush out a confidential list of British spies operating on the Continent. From thence the plot withers in a thriller that can only be described as Besson (pre-Valerian) meets Bond. At the end of the day, ATOMIC BLONDis really just a vehicle for Charlize Theron in a rather sketchy narrative that relies on action and her saucy kit to drive its rather sketchy ‘plot’ forward, seducing you with stylistic technique so you won’t notice the rather slim storyline which is just a prelude so sit back and enjoy the ride to the fabulous finale. MT
LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL | 2-12 AUGUST 2017 | ON RELEAE NATIONWIDE 11 Aug
Dir. David Lowery; Cast: Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck; USA 2017, 87 min.
David Lowery is re-united with Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck of Ain’t Those Bodies Saints fame for this patchwork piece of paranormal fantasy that attempts a nostalgic revival of the time when ghost stories were free of today’s sensational stunts.
It opens with a Virginia Wolf quote “Whatever hours you wake, there was a door closing”, Mara and Affleck play an unnamed couple debating moving house: she is keen to get away from their semi-rural Texas backwater to somewhere less remote. But the sudden death of her songwriter husband, in a car accident, throws the proceedings into a long goodbye. After Mara has viewed the body in the hospital morgue, Affleck’s body suddenly rises from the gurney, and dressed in a white sheet with cut-outs for the eyes, leaves the hospital and observes her covertly from afar. The first signs of paranormal activity occur when she angers his ghoul by bringing another man back home. Later, when Mara has left the house to a Spanish family, the ghastly spirit makes plates fly and demolishes a table. From a neighbouring house, another ghost waves to Affleck, before the house falls into a state of disrepair and is torn down. We go through a future period when Affleck watches the urbanisation of the rural area, before the story turns back to the first settlers in the 19th century.
There are more questions than answers here, and whilst DoPGregory Crewdson creates an impressively spooky and atmospheric feel, shooting in an unusual format of 1.33:1, with round edges, like in old home movies, the overall impression is underwhelming. This ghost story is bewildering, rather than scary, and sometimes overstays its welcome with too many longuers in the froideur: a poor of version of Park Chan-wook masterpieces. AS
Dir.: Morgan Matthews; Drama/Documentary with Emily Bevan, Jenny Funnel; UK 2017, 109 min.
Morgan Matthews offers up a documentary portrait of Formula One Boss Frank Williams that focuses on his family dynamics – his motor racing takes a (welcome) backseat, giving the film broader appeal. Matthews who also works as co-DoP and executive producer, neatly describes the drama behind the scenes of this dazzling but dangerous sport which has made fortunes for a few despite costing many their lives.
The glamour of the racetrack aside, there is nothing remotely glamorous about the life of Sir Frank Williams (*1942), reduced to paraplegia since his crash in France in 1986. He started his Williams team in the Formula One circus in 1966, but for many years it was the saying went round: “if you want to ruin your career as a driver, join Williams”.
That’s all changed since Patrick Head joined the team as a co-owner in 1977, and led it as Chief Engineer for 27 years to its greatest triumphs, starting with the first Grand Prix win in 1979 at Silverstone. Between 1980 and 1997, seven drivers won the World Championship for Williams, and the team won nine Constructor Championships in the same period. Jackie Stewart and Nigel Mansell, among other drivers, pay tribute to their boss admitting openly to the self-centred, fanatical approach of the company’s founder.
Frank Williams met Virginia ‘Ginny’ Berry first in 1967. It might have been love at first sight, but Virginia’s wedding was already planned, and her family background prohibited a cancellation. Besides, Frank was ‘from the wrong side of the tracks’ – even as a Williams boss in the early decade, he conducted business from a phone box, and didn’t pay his phone bill. Virginia eventually married Frank in 1974 and it was partly with her money, that he built his company, which is now worth over a hundred million.
After his accident in the south of France (Frank, an enthusiastic runner, wanted to catch a plane for a fun run in London the next day), it was Virginia, who stepped in and helped him survive after the doctors in France (and later in London) had given up on him. In 1991 Virginia wrote an autobiography “A Different Kind of Life” with Pamela Cockerill, which has been dramatised with Emily Bevan playing Virginia and Jenny Funnel the interviewing writer.
All this told more or less from the perspective of the couple’s daughter Claire (*1976), who is now the Deputy Team Principal of Williams, having replaced her father on the board of the company as the family’s representative. This has put her oldest brother’s nose out of joint, pottering around in the company’s Heritage Museum, he comments: “Claire wouldn’t know that these rooms exist”. Claire’s view is that he can’t understand that “a girl, and not the oldest son, is in charge”. But progress to get through to her father (“he is only interested in today and tomorrow, never the past”), is limited. She asks him to read her mother’s book, but Frank declines, “I will read it properly before my death”. Claire reads some passages to him, she is crying, but Frank is unmoved, his eyes are cold.
Far from being a hagiography of Frank Williams or the motor sport, Matthew creates a chapter of British gender history: sad and illuminating at the same time. The last word should be with Claire “My mother would have been a great Deputy Team Principal”. There is a photo of Virginia Williams, who died of cancer in 2013, holding up a trophy while standing in for the still-recovering Frank, steering the team to victory. AS
Dir.: Martin Zandvliet; Cast: Roland Moller, Laura Bro, Mikkel Boe Folsgaard, Emil Buschow, Oscar Buschow, Louis Hofman; Denmark/Germany 2015, 100 min.
Denmark is one of the few countries emerging from WWII with a measure of credit: mainly for its resistance against Nazi Germany and particularly its defence of its Jewish population. But writer/director Martin Zandvliet (A Funny Man) has uncovered a post-war incidence which somehow tarnishes the unblemished humanistic record of this Scandinavian country.
Set on the Western Danish coast just after the end of the Second World War, LAND OF MINE tells the story of Sergeant Rasmussen (Moller) in charge of a group of German teenage soldiers commanded to clear the coast of about two million mines placed by the German who expected the Allies (wrongly) to land there. Sergeant Rasmussen fosters open hatred towards the Germans: he obviously has been witness to the atrocities of the Nazis in his country.
Near the barracks, Karin (Bro), a Danish woman lives with her little daughter and supports the sergeant’s hostile attitude towards the POWs. For some reason, the teenagers are not being fed and Rasmussen starts to steal provisions for them – initially to help them work more efficiently. But after the first casualties, Rasmussen becomes aware that these young conscripts are hardly the experienced Nazi soldiers and SS troopers whose murderous regime he had to live under during the war. Rasmussen relaxes his regime, even gives the young men a day off. But this all changes when his dog is blown up by a mine in a coastal district declared “clean” by the Germans. More teenagers are killed before they risk themselves to save the life of Karin’s daughter, who has veered off into an un-cleared section of the beach. When his superior Lt. Ebbe (Foolsgaard), a hardliner, wants Rasmussen to transport the four survivors to clear another district, the Sergeant – who had promised the boy that they could go home – has to make a decision.
LAND OF MINEis an essay on forgiveness: highly controversial, since the relatives of the victims of the Nazi-terror are still alive, together with some survivors of the concentration camps. But Zandvliet makes clear that these teenage conscripts had no choice – and whilst the higher echelons of the Nazi party and army fled before the liberation, these young soldiers were left behind. Over 2000 were made to pay the debt for their elders, in clearing the mines, more than half of them were injured or killed during the process. Moller’s Rasmussen is a fine character study: his emotional changes show a decent man who is still suffering from the trauma of the occupation, but is still willing to give his humanistic Ego a chance, even against his own military authorities. DOP Camilla Hjelm Knudsen, the wife of the director captures a desert-like landscape where some of the alienated and isolated teenagers would sometimes rather commit suicide than go on living. Never didactic, LAND OF MINEkeeps the audience engrossed with the gripping shifts of emotion for all parties concerned. AS
Dir: Basil Dearden | Writers: Janet Green & John McCormick | Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price, Nigel Stock, Peter McEnery, Donald Churchill, Anthony Nicholls, Hilton Edwards, Norman Bird, Derren Nesbitt, Alan MacNaughton, Noel Howlett, Charles Lloyd Pack, John Barrie, John Cairney, David Evans | UK / Drama / 100min
VICTIM was the second – and achieved by far the greatest impact – of a trio of topical “problem pictures” made by the team of producer Michael Relph and director Basil Dearden from screenplays by Janet Green. Sapphire (1959) had been about race relations, and Life for Ruth (1962) about religion. Of the three, VICTIM had had the most clearly defined purpose behind it, which was the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 criminalising homosexuality – described in the film as “The Blackmailer’s Charter” – as recommended by the Wolfenden report of 1957.
Janet Green (1908-1993) had read the report, and while the government of Harold Macmillan – for reasons made only too apparent by VICTIM itself – was dragging its heels, she, with her husband and co-writer John McCormick, anticipated Costa-Gavras’s Z (1969) in employing the conventions of a fast-moving, entertaining thriller to make a serious political film that packs a lot into a trim 100 minutes; embellished by handsome London locations and noirish interiors, by veteran cameraman Otto Heller (responsible for the visual impact of other classics like Peeping Tom and The Ipcress File).
It’s easy now to mock VICTIM for being dated, but politicians and other public figures today still dread the power without responsibility triumphantly wielded by our tabloid press. The role of the redtops in the fear and paranoia depicted in VICTIM is occasionally mentioned in passing; and just two years later the field day the Sunday papers had with the revelations that came out in court about the activities of our social betters during the trial of Stephen Ward vividly convey what Melville Farr could look forward to at the conclusion of VICTIM . On 9 November 1998 – over thirty years after decriminalisation – The Sun was still stoking the flames with its classic front page headline “Are we being run by a gay Mafia?”. In the United States VICTIM was refused a seal of approval by the Production Code Administration, and this remarkable passage in Time magazine that greeted its US release in February 1962 is worth quoting at length:
“What seems at first an attack on extortion seems at last a coyly sensational exploitation of homosexuality as a theme – and, what’s more offensive, an implicit approval of homosexuality as a practice. Almost all the deviates in the film are fine fellows – well dressed, well-spoken, sensitive, kind. The only one who acts like an invert turns out to be a detective. Everybody in the picture who disapproves of homosexuals proves to be an ass, a dolt or a sadist. Nowhere does the film suggest that homosexuality is a serious (but often curable) neurosis that attacks the biological basis of life itself.”
VICTIM was released bearing an ‘X’ certificate, and the era it depicts now seems as remote as the war years: a time when the police drove Bentleys and ‘phone boxes still had a button B. But anybody who considers the issues it raises moribund should remember that as I write there are about a dozen countries in the world today where homosexuality is punishable by death. One only needs look at the debate (and the language) the film continues to provoke in forums like YouTube to be reminded of how this issue still polarizes society, and that there are plenty of bigots still out there, irately convinced that they’re being muzzled by political correctness; “our crime”, as Lord Fullbrook puts it, “damned nearly parallel with robbery with violence”. While Eddy complains that “Henry paid rates and taxes…but they knew he couldn’t go out and call the cops”, it’s interesting to be reminded that one of the blackmailers accused the police of “Protecting perverts” even when homosexuality was illegal, and back in 1961 could firmly be of the opinion that “They’re everywhere, everywhere you turn! The police do nothing. Nothing!!”.
VICTIM goes out its way to avoid sensationalism, and it is precisely because it in every other respect so resembles a conventional black & white crime film of the period that one can still feel the shock audiences must have experienced in 1961 when Inspector Harris deceptively casually asks Farr “you knew of course that he was a homosexual?”, followed by the eye-watering statistic that at the time “as many as 90% of all blackmail cases have a homosexual origin”. If it seems too genteel for 21st Century tastes, the scene in which Derren Nesbitt wrecks Charles Lloyd Pack’s shop still provides a literally shattering reminder of the barely contained physical violence always ready to rear up from behind the prejudice now known as “hate crime”.
The casting of Dirk Bogarde makes the film what it is. Several other actors (including Jack Hawkins, James Mason and Stewart Granger) had understandably already turned down the role, but Bogarde accepted without hesitation; and on so many levels the film is inconceivable without him. (Anyone who thinks it was the first time he’d played a homosexual onscreen, however, plainly hasn’t seen the film he made immediately prior to it, The Singer Not the Song.) Almost as bold on Bogarde’s part was that in VICTIM he was for the first time playing his age – 40 – although this is more than compensated for by the fact that he never looked more debonair and distinguished than he does here. The entire cast obviously cared about their roles, right down to the smallest parts (as frequently happened in those days, veteran character actor John Boxer as the amiable policeman attempting to comfort Boy Barrett in his cell, and John Bennett – who in the opening episode of ‘Porridge’ was the prison doctor who asked Fletcher if he had ever been a practising homosexual – as “the bloke in the pinstripe”, make vivid impressions without being included in the cast list at the end). Although the blackmailers themselves are often described in accounts of the film as “a ring” or “a gang”, there in fact turn out to be only two of them; a pair of bloodcurdling ghouls worthy of the Addams family – the grinning, cheerfully amoral Derren Nesbitt and his vengeful associate piously convinced that “Someone’s got to make them pay for their filthy blasphemy.” As Inspector Harris (a superb performance by John Barrie) says to his stern Scottish sergeant (John Cairney), “I can see that you’re a true puritan, Bridie…there was a time when that was against the law, you know.” Richard Chatten
VICTIM IS NOW SHOWING IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE COURTESY OF PARK CIRCUS
Dir: Gareth Tunley, Tom Meeten, Geoff McGiven, Alice Lowe | Crime Drama | UK | 81min
Actor turned director Gareth Tunley’s stylish low budget indie sees a depressed Northern homicide detective (Tom Meeten) arrive in London to investigate a supernatural kind of crime – one where the victims were fatally shot but went on ‘living’. Clearly, he’s not well, but decides to go undercover as a ‘patient’ to investigate a suspect’s psychotherapist Dr Fisher (Niamh Cusack), who chats him through his inner life and probes his dreams.
Chris spends a great deal of his time bumbling around the streets of London to some atmospheric visuals and a suitably doom-laden score, clearly he’s not in a good place. “Is there anyone in your life you have feelings for” asks the lovely and sympathetic Cusack. As a typical middle-aged British male Chris admits to having a tentative thing going with an ex Manchester University friend called Kathleen: she’s actually with his mate, so this is just a smokescreen. But Dr Fisher probes further and Chris feels uncomfortable as the crime investigation fades into the background and he himself becomes the focus of the enigmatic narrative.
As fantasy and reality gradually become one, Chris strikes up an relationship with the suspect that leads to drinks. It turns out that Dr Fisher is transferring both of them to her boss Dr Morland, a rather voluble therapist who adopts a jovial and imventive approach to his treatment with the opening gambit: “Normal tea or some sort of gay tea” but Chris goes along with it despite his misgivings and the suspect’s warnings that Dr Morland is dangerous. THE GHOUL grows increasingly mysterious as Tunley’s clever narrative has us searching for clues in a mind-boggling psycho thriller with more tricks up its sleeve than we first imagine. MT
Dir.: Ben Young; Cast: Emma Booth, Stephen Curry, Asleigh Cummings, Susie Porter, Damian De Montemas; Australia 2016, 108. Min
Writer/director Ben Young’s debut feature, about a real life couple who murder young women, may be gruesome but it is never speculative or voyeuristic in focusing on the psychological interaction of the murderous pair, and how their clever final victim manages to evade them.
The thriller unfolds in Perth, South Australia in 1987 where David and Catherine Birnie raped and murdered four women. Birnie came from a violently dysfunctional background and first met Catherine during their school days.
The film opens to the drone of Dan Luscombe’s electronic score with Michael McDermott’s stealthy camera trailing the suburban avenues of Perth where scantily clad schoolgirls play netball. In this neighbourhood teenager Vicki Maloney (Cummings) suffers more than her fair share of existential angst, living with her recently separated parents Maggie (Porter) and Trevor (De Montemas). Trevor is a well-off surgeon still trying to coerce his disenchanted wife back into the marriage. Vicki rebels against her mother’s regime of discipline and curfew times, and one night escapes to a party. On a lonely street she is picked up by Evelyn White (Booth), and her husband John (Curry) in a car. We have seen the couple earlier as well as posters with photos of missing girls, displayed at the police station. The Whites take Vicki to their squalid bungalow where she is chained to a bed. This is all done in a nonchalant fashion leading us to believe that it’s all happened before. But we also get the feeling that Evelyn is – perhaps for the first time – jealous of the prey.
It soon becomes clear that John has a special hold over Evelyn: she has lost her two children from another marriage, and John drives this point home again and again. White is essentially weak, killing a dog in a rage of fury, and abusing his ‘wife’ physically – for even the smallest transgression. Evelyn is in sexual thrall to John, torturing and raping Vicki, all of it off-screen, in the hope that he will stay with her, because “she is special”. Evelyn cares little for the victim and is complicit in murders simply because she fears being alone – she does not enjoy the violence, but sees it as the only way of “keeping her man”.
This is a raw and sleazy story with convincing performances, particularly from Evelyn in her ambivalent role as John’s helpmate. Curry is a pathetic character, a glib psychotic prone to episodes of disproportionate brutality: he kills the couple’s dog for fouling the kitchen and uses psychological torture and rape to spike his sexual appetite. Young directs with mature assurance, never losing control of the narrative but keeping his distance. In spite of the gruesome topic, he is more interested in asking questions than staging a sensational case – and succeeds in the unspeakable. MT
Dir.: John Leonetti | Cast: Joey King, Ryan Philippe, Shannon Purser, Alice Lee, Mitchell Stuggart, Josephine Langford | US 2017 | 90min.
Director John Leonetti (Annabelle) directs Barbara Marshall’s clever script about teenage angst and crass materialism as a horror flick with depth. Unfortunately, the majority of the cast lets him down badly.
Claire (King), whose mother committed suicide when she was a child, is a very unhappy teenager at High School. She simply craves male attention and female admiration – but only her two friends June (Purser) and Gina (Lee) give her any support. After a catfight with blonde school-queen Darcie (Langford) in the school cafeteria, Claire’s Dad gives her a Chinese music box he found in the rubbish bin, which turns out to fulfil the seven wishes of its owner. Spontaneously, Claire wishes that Darcie will simply “rot away”.
Strangely, Darcie wakes up with very serious health problems – then Claire’s dog dies under mysterious circumstances. The pattern repeats itself Claire whose wish for a monster-inheritance and the love of Paul (Slaggart) come true, but people close to her die gruesome deaths. With one wish left, even Claire has twigged what is going on – but just a everything seems to go back to normal, a brilliant coup-de-grace is delivered.
WISH UPON shows the majority of teenagers to be self-obsessed big spenders. And Claire, like the majority of her peer-group, goes for nothing but looks in her choice of boy-friend: Paul is as empty-headed as possible. June and Gina are only too happy to go on a spending spree with Claire after her newly found wealth, and it seems more than odd that June should ask Claire “Why did you not wish for a cure of cancer?” – even though she has a point.
DoP Michael Galbraith (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) finds original angles on death by lift and kitchen equipment – to name a few – and Leonetti manages to find the right mixture of suspense and critique. But the cast lets the whole show down: swinging arms and rolling eyes are the main forms of expression, which is a pity because it takes away an underlying seriousness to what could have been a terrific mystery horror film. AS
Dir.: Bradford Thomason, Brett Whitcomb; Documentary with Suzanne Ciani; USA 2017, 74 min.
Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb (County Fair in Texas), share the roles of writer, producer, DoP to create this lively portrait of Suzanne Ciani, pianist, composer and electronic music innovator, who brought us New Age and influenced bands such as Roxy Music.
Encouraged by her mother to play the piano and compose, Suzanne Ciano got an MA in classical music at Wellesley College, Maryland in 1968 and found University of California, Berkeley, quite a culture shock after the sheltered years in the all-women college of Wellesley where “the appearance of a man in college grounds caused a tremor”. Berkeley was one of the main centres of the protest movement, and she was politicised; spurning a marriage proposal from a Harvard law-student when she feel in thrall to synthesiser designer and composer of electronic music, Don Buchal. He would go on to influence her chosen career as an electronic music composer, changing the face of advertising and the sounds we hear today.
For Ciani synthesisers are like living beings, you can manipulate and develop emotions from them allowing the creation of sounds. But at a certain point, she had to choose between the music business (where women were still crassly under-represented) and her life as an artist. “At a certain point I composed music for X-rated films”. A way out of this dilemma was the advertising industry, where she would revolutionise the sound effects for Coca Cola (the sound of drinking the beverage), and most ironical in hindsight – the famous “Bull in the china shop” ad for Merrill Lynch, which ends with the slogan “A brand apart”.
Ciani found she could create sound effects for everything from pinball machines to the ghostly computerised language in a GE dishwasher ad, “where the machine introduces itself like a human”. Ciani wanted “technology to be sensual”. But music was to follow and after record producers rejected her first album Seven Waves (1982) in the USA and Europe, she found success in Japan with her second album The Velocity of Love and New Age was born.
Ciani has by now recorded 21 sole albums, and five more with other artists, among them Roxy Music and Brian Ferry. Having avoided her ‘first love’ the piano, she returned to to it with Neverland (1988). During the 80s she suffered breast cancer, forcing her to take time out and move to a beach house in Bolinas in California, where she even found time for marriage, which lasted from 1994 to 2001. Having composed the music score for The incredible Shrinking Woman and two Mother Theresa documentaries, her versatility seems without borders, Suzanne Ciani is still travelling the country for exhibition concerts, explaining to young fans how it was to work with analogue material – a legend in her own time. AS
Dir.: James Ivory; Cast: Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham-Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, Samuel West, Nicola Duffett, Jemma Rgrave, Joseph Bennett, James Wilby, Prunella Scales, Adrian Ross Magenty, Susie Lindeman; UK/Japan/USA 1992, 140 min.
Based on E.M. Forster’s classic 1910 novel, HOWARDS END is a towering achievement considering the team that made the film – apart from the actors, of course – were not British. American James Ivory got together with Indian Ismail Marchant and asked Polish Ruth Prawer Jhabvala to write the script, which won her an Oscar. Together they evoke English sensibilities to make a film that feels more English than the current state of affairs, harking back to an era of values that have now more or less disappeared. It remains the most successful Forster screen adaptation, and for quite a modest budget.
HOWARDS ENDis the story of three families: the Wilcox clan, a wealthy industrialist family, the (German) Schlegels, progressive Bohemians in the Bloomsbury mould and the ever so humble middle class couple Leonard and Jackie Bast, forced together through necessity rather than love. Set just before the outbreak of the First World War, which would change Europe forever, the story explores the subtleties of the English class system: a delicately balanced affair so gracefully nuanced in Prawar Jhabvala’s intelligent scirpting.
The Schlegel family meet the Wilcox’s at a party where the youngest of the three siblings, Helen (Bonham-Carter) grows close to Paul Wilcox (Bennett), exchanging a midnight kiss. Since Paul, as the youngest brother “has no money of his own”, he is set to seek his fortune in Nigeria so the engagement has no future. Later Margaret Schlegel (Thompson), the oldest and most responsible of the siblings, bonds with Ruth Wilcox (Redgrave) over the value of spirituality and the dying Ruth leaves her family home, Howards End in Hertfordshire, to Margaret. Her husband and soon to be widower Henry (Hopkins), the unchallenged patriarch of the family, incandescent with discrete rage, burns his wife’s hand-written will, with the support of his daughter Evie (Redgrave) and trumped up son Charles (Wilby) and fiancée Dolly (Lindemann). Touched by the kindness of city clerk Leonard Bast (West), who lends Helen his umbrella to shelter from the rain, a socially awkward friendship develops between Bast and the Schlegels who make an ill-advised suggestion regarding his employment, that will later regret.
Margaret is in no doubt of her position as an ageing single woman and sensibly grows closer to Henry who falls back on her stalwart emotional support soon after Ruth’s demise. The two marry and at the wedding party of Charles and Dolly, Leonard Bast and his wife Jackie (Duffett) make their presence known, in no uncertain terms. An embarrassing truth then emerges that destabilises Henry and he threatens to call his wedding off. Meanwhile Helen, frustrated and left on the sidelines when her siblings move on, unwisely takes up the Bast’s cause, queering the pitch and crossing the fine line between social milieux as the final chapter of the saga enfolds.
Forster’s novel cleverly illustrates both strong and reckless leadership: Margaret takes responsibility for her sister Helen, who is always embroiling herself in emotional battles, which Margaret has to resolve. Her brother Tibby (Magenty), is a drip, but also a narcissistic student, plagued by the same self-importance indulgence as Helen. It falls to Margaret, to keep the capricious duo afloat. In contrast, Henry Wilcox is strong and pragmatic provided he has a female partner by his side. His children are, in very different ways, countermanded by his dominating authority, having had no chance to develop on their own strength of personality. When tragedy strikes and his position in the family is at risk, Henry tries to be conciliatory. Sitting tired and broken on the lawn, is metaphor and symbolic of the endgame: the slaughterhouse of the Great War. Finally, Leonard Bast is a man of principles, but has no means to realise them. From today’s perspective, Forster’s ending, that the meek should inherit the world – in this case Howards End – is rather wishfully optimistic. Yet in a clever way, this is what eventually happens. Emma Thompson’s brilliantly elegant performance as Margaret, cleverly negotiating her way through enemy lines to victory for all concerned, while maintaining a British stiff upper lip.
DoP Tony Pierce-Roberts (The Remains of the Day), conjures up lush and languid images of the countryside, and rather more detached and austere ones in the London scenes. The countryside is shown as a refuge for a dying era; the city a dark and rather Dickensian place of torment. Emma Thompson reigns supreme, whilst Hopkins is at his acid best. The doom-laden atmosphere prevails in the soft English summer settings, and Ivory makes sure that the emphasis is always on the second word of the title. MT
HOWARDS END IS BACK IN CINEMAS FROM 28 JULY 2017 | COURTESY OF THE BFI
Dir. Michael Showalter | Cast: Holly Hunter, Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan | US, 2016, 119 mins
A thoughtful and daringly witty script with some surprising twists and turns make this cross-cultural romantic drama, based on the true life of Pakistani Muslim comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his onscreen American girlfriend, a real pleasure. Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon co-wrote the script that successful sends up terrorism, religion and racism. The film is given a gutsy kick up the pants by Holly Hunter, superb as Emily’s mother, sparring with onscreen husband Ray Romano.
There’s a lot going on here aside from Emily’s parents’ spicy show and Kumail’s Pakistani family backstory that plays out very much like At Home with the Kumars. The film opens as Kumail is working Chicago’s comedy standup circuit with a group of convincing and funny collaborators. Naive but well-meaning, and very much a metrosexual man, Kumail drives Uber taxis in the daytime and endures regular dinners with ‘suitable’ girls who “just stop by” the family home, courtesy of his overbearing mother. MA student Emily (Kazan) enters the picture, blond and very American, and neither wants a relationship, despite hot sex on their first date. They continue to see each other, enjoying the chemistry and growing closer each day until Emily calls time on their affair realising that Kumail must marry a Muslim woman. Clearly this is not the end – despite verbal assurances to the contrary – but Emily’s sudden illness and hospitalisation forces Kumail to reconsider his future and his life. Enter Emily’s frank and forceful parents (Hunter and Romano) who at first reject him and then recognise his dedication to their rather spoilt daughter. Kumail feels warm and comfortable in this close and protective family, not dissimilar to his own.
Despite its indie credentials this is a slick and polished affair, believable and utterly engaging from start to finish with its rich vein of humour, strong performances and timely storyline. In short, it’s a winner. MT
Mick Rock is a maverick English photographer best known for his work and close friendships with David Bowie and Lou Reed in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Mr. Rock features very predominantly in Barnaby Clay’s entertaining but rather hagiographic portrait of a larger than life character with a gift for the gab and an eye for capturing what Rock himself describes as “the aura” of those he photographed – who were in Bowie’s own words just ‘ghosts’.
The title of Clay’s biopic plays not only on Rock’s name but also to his classical education and yoga training setting the tone for a stylish and cinematic doc that paints him as the tortured master of his own destiny, but fails to nail the root cause behind this insecurity. Many of those emblematic album covers from the Glam Rock era were created by Rock, whose mother remains a significant figure in his psyche (he mentions her many times, but never talks of his wife), and the impetus behind his place at Cambridge where he read French literature in the early ’70s. Rock peppers his conversation with arcane pronouncements (“the lysergic experience opened up my third eye”) and flippantly quotes from Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Not only does this give him a pretentious air, it also creates an impression of a man desperate to underpin his successful career as a celebrity photographer with proof of his solid intellect.
Rock certainly emerges as a formidable creative force, and one who didn’t want to remain on the sidelines – unlike Elliott Landy or Anton Corbijn (who later turned his skills to directing) – but very much wanted to be, and be seen as a mover and shaker in the inner sanctum of Rock Glam, hanging out and forging close relationships with the likes of Queen, Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry (due to her photogenic appeal he calls her “the Marilyn Monroe of music”). Although clearly Rock was not part of the musical creative process he was very much part of the artistic one with his iconic images, the original photos now languish in storage in his New York home providing a talking point and a rich source of fascination for us viewers.
For all his soul-searching, Rock’s story is the archtypical ‘Rock story”; obsessed with the music scene and the glamour surrounding it, he became addicted to the bright lights and buzz, professing to love cocaine so much that it led to him suffering a near-fatal heart attack at the age of 42, requiring quadruple bypass surgery for which Beatles manager Klein and several others picked up the hefty US medical bills. Clay captures this recurring scene on a soundstage while an actor spins round on a gurney in the operating theatre – it almost feels like Rock’s party piece by the end of the film. Mick Rock is clearly a bit of a primadonna, but a charming, and likeable one at that. The final scenes show him photographing contemporary acts like ‘TV on the Radio’ and ‘Father John Misty’. Clearly he’s found the path to greater personal serenity, and all that it brings. MT
Dir.: Fariborz Kamkari; Documentary with Carlo Di Palma, Woody Allen, Vittoria De Sica, Wim Wenders, Ken Loach; Italy 2017, 90 min.
Director of Photography Carlo Di Palma (1925-2004) was one of the most influential DoPs of the second half of the 20th century, and instrumental in the careers of Michelangelo Antonioni and Woody Allen. His story is told in this compelling documentary from Fariborz Kamkari and Adriana Chiesi-Di Palma, who married the photographer in the mid-1980s, and conducts the interviews with Woody Allen and Ken Loach about their time with Carlo, making the tribute feel all the more intimate and personal.
Di Palma spent his early days in Rome where his mother, a flower-seller, popped him on the tram when it rained, and the drivers would give him water and sugar to cheer him up. Opposite his primary school was a film studio where his brother worked as a focus operator and Carlo joined him, as a teenager, working on Visconti’s first feature Ossessione. His job was to get the film stock from an allied soldier – a certain Sven Nykist, and later he joined the crew on Rossellini’s Rome, Open City as the most junior of all the camera assistants”.
Apart from the talking heads: Allen, Loach, Bertolucci et al, WATER AND SUGAR is enriched with excerpts from Di Palma’s many films, starting with De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, where he worked as a camera operator and assistant, until he was finally promoted to DoP in Lauta Mancia in 1957, directed by Fabio de Agostini. His first success was It happened in ’43, a WWII drama, directed by Florestano Vancini. In 1964, he shot the first of three films for Michelangelo Antonioni: Red Desert with Monica Vitti; Blow Up (1966); Identification of a Woman (1982) would follow. The two first two features were very much known for their stunning colour photography. “Black and white is a transformation of reality. But in colour the reality became too realistic, so we, like painters, have to cut the colours, to try and let them not dominate the technique”. But it was for Di Carlo’s personal touch that he was unique and special. Ken Loach tells how Di Palma and his contemporary DoPs all started with monochrome, so using colour was very exciting, “and this excitement could be felt in the images”. When shooting Blow Up in the summer of 1965, the grass turned yellow and had to be repainted green every day. Di Palma remembers:“Everybody in England looked at us as if we were mad”. But for Wim Wenders, Blow Up was a seminal experience: “Blow Up showed me how important colours were, because he showed them in an innovative way. He dealt with the essence of taking a picture”.
Between 1973 and 1976 Carlo Di Palma directed three feature films: one of them, Theresa the Thief, starring Monica Vitti, run into difficulties because Di Palma and Vitti’s relationship was coming to an end. In 1981 Di Palma would photograph Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man for Bernardo Bertolucci. Interviewed about their relationship, Bertolucci amusingly recalls: “Vittorio Storaro is my wife, Carlo Di Palma is my lover. The only time I did not work with Storaro, was when I worked with Di Palma. So this work is like the memory of falling in love”.
When Woody Allen was shooting his first film Take the Money and Run, he had just seen Blow Up and desperately wanted Di Palma to shoot it, but he wasn’t available. Nearly ten years later, in 1986, Allen and Di Palma finally got together in a collaboration marked by its easy friendship and camaraderie – they lived their whole lives together: “We worked and then had lunch; worked more and then had dinner”. Their first film together was Hannah and her Sisters in a collaboration that would last until 1997 (Reconstructing Harry). Allen was exuberant after their cooperation: “Carlo lived up to all our expectations.” Di Palma was also happy in New York: “it is a city where I can live like in Rome. But Los Angeles and New York are totally different. I could never work in Hollywood. You only use a storyboard as a tool there – the only creativity in Hollywood happens on the drawing board”.
Di Palma “loved warm colours, like the paintings in Italy”. He went to the Sistine Chapel as a boy, and later filmed the restoration of the place. But he was foremost a poet who filmed like a painter, yet always subjugating himself to the director and the script, “because some directors shoot their own film, not the one which is scripted. But it will be always the same film, perhaps even extraordinary, but the photography will always be the same”. Nobody could ever say this about Carlo Di Palma’s work: this documentary is a remarkable portrait not only of his monumental output but also his genuine warmness as a human being that made all who worked with him even better. AS
NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 21 JULY 2017
City Of Ghostsis Raqqa, where a group of citizen journalists risked their lives to report the reality of their home town in thrall to ISIS which had seized power in 2014 during the vacuum left when the people rose up in the Arab Spring, particularly- in this case, against 40 years of control by Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad.
Heinemann’s documentary portrait follows similar lines to his award-winning Cartel Land (2015) which explored the troubled Mexican Border of the US. Meanwhile, back in Syria, these middle-class and well-funded young men: campaigner and self-confessed troublemaker Aziz; Hamoud; Hussam and Mohamed set up RBSS or Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently to report live events going on in a city where official journalists are banned, unlike in Aleppo and Mosul. Sadly, they are all now in exile, if they haven’t already lost their lives.
The film takes us through chronological events with photos, footage and phonecalls to paint a picture of horrific violence, disease – caused by hospital shutdowns and food shortages – and general mayhem as ISIS reduce the quiet and beloved hometown to disaster and poverty.
Heineman reveals the astonishing phenomenon of the ‘Caliphate Cubs’ – kids trained to kill in the name of ISIS – one alarming scene shows a tot ‘cutting the throat’ of a soft toy – and there is also disturbing footage of beheading and crucifixions, and worse still, ‘Hollywood-style’ sensationalised footage recorded by ISIS of slaughter and shootings staged in the city centre nearby desert settings.
Despite its modest running time, it feels churlish to admit that the documentary often drags when following the mens’ undercover activities in ‘safe houses’ in Turkey and Germany, and although their plight is clearly mortifying, there is a tendency to over-egg their emotional reactions behind the scenes. The group finds that the countries of self-imposed exile are not always as sympathetic to their cause as they had hoped, given the associated atrocities caused by ISIS in Germany and France.
Clearly RBSS are a laudable organisation and Aziz makes it clear in the final scene that while ISIS has currently been defeated, the situation is unlikely to change while the fundamentals remain the same, and the power that be fail to recognise that democracy and not despotism is the way forward in the Middle East. MT
Dir: Thomas Kruithof | Cast: Francois Cluzet, Denis Podalydes, Simon Abkarian, Alba Rohrwacher | Writers: Thomas Kruithof, Yann Gozlan | Thriller | 95min | French
You can’t help admiring Thomas Kruithof’s feature debut. It’s a rather stolid but quality conspiracy thriller starring Francois Cluzet (Intouchables) as a number-crunching former alcoholic who is forced into the shadowy underworld of political phone-tapping, desperate for work after his marriage breaks down. Kruithof is clearly nostalgia for the classic style of Sydney Pollack’s films of the 1970s. SCRIBE also has echoes of The Accountant.
Although thematically rather slim, this slick and stylish affair is watchable largely due to Cluzet’s quiet charisma and a reliably subtle turn from Alba Ruhrwacher who plays Sara, a vulnerable woman also struggling with post-addition. The two become romantically involved while Cluzet descends into a world of intrigue at the hands of his dodgy boss Clement (Podalydes), a man of mysterious motives who clearly has him by the short and curlies in this criminally charged environment.
Written by Kruithof and Yann Gozlan – who also collaborated on another enjoyable retro piece A Perfect Man – this is a noirish thriller that keeps its smouldering cards close to its chest while delivering intermittant bursts of tension, although the narrative is driven forward by unsettling atmosphere rather than plot twists. Stark Gordon Willis-style photography and Gregoire Auger’s terrifically suspensful score sizzles along in the background while Duval goes through his bewildering job often overhearing things he shouldn’t be privy to, such as details of a murder and suggestions of Middle Eastern political undercurrents. Clement’s purported sidekick (Simon Abkarian) drags him into the murky waters of a criminal twilight but Duval keeps on going despite warning signs that he should quit before the going gets dangerous. And eventually it does. SCRIBE is a sure-footed but safe debut. MT
SCRIBE is in cinemas and on demand from 21st July 2017
Dir/Writers: Jon Nguyen, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Rick Barnes | 90min | Doc
“Sometimes you have to make a big mess to get to where you want to be”
David Lynch tells the strange story of his unorthodox and fascinating life in this intimate documentary. Memories of an idyllic childhood in Montana and Idaho lead to a dark episode in Philadelphia and finally through to the present day where his time is spent painting and enjoying contentment of creative expression- ‘the art life’ – in his studio in the Hollywood hills. It’s an existence that contrasts with the unsettling quality of his films.
It emerges that Lynch drew compulsively as a child, and this film is all about his development as an artist that led to his successful career in filmmaking. Even if you don’t know his films, Lynch is a witty and engaging racconteur, recalling with often minute detail, the feelings and sensations that inform and shape his creative impulses.
Working again with the team behind his 2007 documentary Lynch, which was filmed during the making of Inland Empire, THE ART LIFE offers compelling insight into his past, fleshed out with photographs and personal footage which is cleverly edited by Olivia Neergaard-Holm.
Early life seemed quite ordinary for David, growing up in a sheltered rural bliss of Missoula, Montana and then Boise, Idaho with his ‘perfect’ parents. The eldest of three children, he enjoyed a close friendship with best friend Dickie Smith and his mother encouraged his pencil drawing talents by not providing a colouring book. Unsettling incidents involving Dickie’s father (which he can’t bring himself to recount) and a naked woman wandering around in the street, crying and bleeding from the mouth, were pivotal moments in Lynch’s adolescence which seem to spark a dark introspective quality that later found its way into his films, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive.
Moves to Spokane, Virginia and DC followed due to his father’s job as a research scientist. He described him as “his own man” who would “always meet him halfway”. But in his late teens David got in with the wrong crowd and fell short of his mother’s expectations. It was as if she had hoped for something special from David that he had not delivered. And from then on she was “disappointed” in him.
David clearly loved his parents but it was his friendship with Toby Keeler that led to his obsession with ‘the art life”. Toby’s father Bushnell was a professional painter and offered to let part of his studio to David for a small fee. From then on, David painted until well into the evening, and fell out with his father who wanted him home by 11pm. But when Keeler Snr telephoned his father to tell him that his son was actually working seriously on his painting, Lynch Snr acquiesced. From then on David’s free spirit soared.
Boston Museum school got the thumbs down because he refused to comply with the restrictive teaching methods there. David craved the freedom to express his creativity often if that meant sitting and listening to his radio until the battery ran flat. The film brings out a solitary stillness to him that indicates a deep inner life, yet he is by no means a loner. His first marriage to fellow art student Peggy Reavey led to Jennifer, the first of his four children. His toddler daughter from his fourth wife joins him in his California studio.
Like many people, David compartmentalised his life to reflect his varying interests and the friends who share these different parts of his existence and are never introduced to each other. But when he got a place at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, his creative talents flourished despite the grimness of the broken down part of Philadelphia that became his home. It was here that he made his first “paintings that moved, with sound”. often featuring Peggy his girlfriend and mother of daughter Jennifer. In 1972 during the making of Eraserhead, David describes receiving a grant to study filmmaking at AFI Conservatory as one of the happiest moments of his life. It gave him creative and financial freedom to explore his craft, and he continues to this day, working intensively at home. Long periods of contemplative silence are punctuated by Philip Nicolai Flindt’s dense percussive sound design and an atmospheric score by Jonatan Bengta. MT
Dir.: Reiner Holzemer; Documentary with Dries Van Noten; Belgium/Germany 2017, 90 min.
Reiner Holzemer is best known for his work as a cinematographer and here turns his camera on Belgian’s most celebrated fashion designer proving without a doubt, that Dries Van Noten is really a cerebral artist, as attested by fashion icon Iris Apple, one of many insiders who sing his praises.
Holzemer follows the designer for a whole year documenting the precise steps he takes to conceive his collections known for their rich fabrics, embroidery and prints exclusive to his designs. Van Noten (*1958), one of the group called ‘The Antwerp Six’, faced a problem at the outset of his career: “It was strange, that fashion should come from Belgium, the most unfashionable country possible. We wanted to change our names to something more French or Italian”, he remembers, but is glad in hindsight that he stuck with his Belgian identity. His parents both had fashion shops, but Van Noten thought it would be more interesting, to create instead of selling. After over thirty years in the business, entailing four Fashion Shows a year, Van Noten is still the enthusiast. The devil, as always, lies in the detail: “It is difficult to shock. What is important, how you do it.” He believes in neutral garments, so that the women who wear them “can adjust to them”, and was one of the first to use photo images (like Marilyn Monroe) for his creations. But he is also open to influences from Baroque, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in his styling. His colourful and outrageous ‘Bollywood’ collection was a standout success, whilst the rest of his competitors choose modest outfits, with grey and skin colours predominating. Madonna, at the height of her popularity, also endorsed his brand offering world fame.
Patrick Vangheluwe is Dries’ partner in life and business for the last 25 years. We watch them in the huge grounds of their villa outside Antwerp, where they pick flowers to decorate their rooms. Dries is seen re-adjusting the figurines on his desk, showing a certain pedantry. He confesses, that “on holidays, I make a timetable for every event – exact to the minute”. But their collaboration is successful, because “we live intensely, are maniacs for detail; but when we talk about ourselves, everybody tells only half of the story”.
Dries’ career has not always plain-sailing: the 2001 collection was a flop. “The models were not smiling any more. My business partner died, I could have sold. My output was too cold, romance was dead. And the public responded – they told me that they did not want this style – it did not sell”. But he is glad to have succeeded in turning the business around. He praises his co-workers, many of them are “like a family around me at work – I only need to say half a word, and they understand what I mean”. Ending on a high note, a fashion show at the Paris Opera Garnier, Van Noten can look back on 96 fashion shows “full of surprises; but I am a perfectionist, always seeing my mistakes. That makes me not the happiest of persons, but that’s the person I am”.
DRIESis well-structured, Holzemer always playing the role of the fly on the wall, observing, without putting his agenda first. And the filmmaker is lucky to have found a collaborator like Van Noten, who – obsessive about everything – is still open to the weirdest ideas, like copying ’60s San Francisco fashion with psychedelic post-Vietnam hippy outfits. AS
ON DVD and on demand on 17 July 2017 courtesy of Dogwoof.
Phyllida Lloyd’s rises to the challenge of filming The Donmar Warehouse’s all-female Julius Caesar production and she certainly pulls it off, allowing audiences everywhere to enjoy this audacious Shakespeare production. Not only only do we enjoy a ringside seat, but Lloyd ingeniously arms her cast with iPhones and adds her own inventive twists in the form of a drone that allows the action to be viewed from overhead, adding a touch of stealth and intrigue to the live event not only only making it feel as fierce and real as it did on the night, but dding value into the bargain – at half the price.
The film benefits from world class actors: Harriet Walter never shrinks from being gutsy in her performances and manages again here to evoke the butch manliness of Brutus,; Jade Anouka’s Mark Antony is restless and mercurial and Claire Dunne’s Octavius stands her ground in a powerful turn.
As the production reaches the final scenes, the camera draws us to the betrayal and deceit and Walter proves to be a fiery foil for Martina Laird’s Cassius, helped by the intimate stage lighting and the close proximity to their facial contortions reflecting exhilaration, anguish and the touching vulnerability of disappointment. Shakespeare fans and the arthouse crowd will certainly relish this inventive and cinematic version of the play. MT
OUT ON WEDNESDAY 12 JULY | FOR MORE INFORMATION FOLLOW THE LINK
Dir.: Matt Reeves; Cast: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Karen Konoval, Amiah Miller, Terry Notari, Steve Zahn; USA 2017, 140 min.
In trying to make a ‘serious’ blockbuster, director/co-writer Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) has certainly achieved his intellectual intention. But the running time of 140 minutes is simply not justified by a narrative which too often treads water plundering Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and a biblical symbolism that takes us back all the way to the 1951 epic Quo Vadis.
WARS’s production values are nevertheless stunning, particularly the CGI images of the beasts whose war for planet earth is faring badly, led by its chief Ape Caesar (Serkis). The US troops, under the command of ‘The Colonel’ (Harrelson), a psychotic sadist, are driving Caesar’s army and civilians into the woods: extinction is a distinct possibility. After soldiers have killed Caesar’s wife and eldest son, the leader is bleeding tears of revenge and goes to hunt The Colonel down aided by Maurice (Konoval); Rocket (Notari) and Bad Ape (Zahn). On their way to The Colonel’s camp in the mountains, where large numbers of Apes are imprisoned, the group picks up a young mute girl, who they call Nova – a nice reference to the Linda Harrison character of the same name in the original 1968 Planet of Apes. When they reach the camp, Caesar is captured immediately and interrogated by The Colonel. Caesar is informed that he had to shoot his own son, afflicted by an illness that robs humans of their higher cognitive functions and the ability to speak. The Colonel is using the Apes to build a wall to resist the imminent arrival of US forces – but a reason why is never given. By the time these troops arrive, Caesar slips effortlessly into the Moses role, whilst Nova and the young Apes frolic around.
To be frank, Reeves has chosen the wrong genre to show this politically correct internal battle between Caesar and The Colonel: whilst the Colonel is (like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now) unhinged, Caesar dreams that his former opponent Koba (Stalin’s nom-de-guerre in the underground) appears to him; thus helping him to forsake personal revenge in the end. And we do not need signs like “Ape-ocalypse Now” in the military compound, since Reeves references his pet film often enough – right up to the helicopter formation during the battle scenes.
DoP Michael Seresin (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and composer Michael Giaccino (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) add terrific entertainment value, but ultimately the film fails the litmus test: our interest starts to wane after only 90 minutes (in the most comfortable of seats) and we are still required to sit through another fifty. Yet again, it boils down to less is more. Reeves’ effort to marry showmanship with a philosophical debate on the virtues of pacifism is doomed because, like all anti- war movies, the opulent fighting scenes are the beating heart of this hollow and gruelling ‘epic’. AS
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 11 JULY 2017
Dir.: Shuko Murase; Animation; Voices of Yuichi Nakamura, Sanae Kobayashi, Takahiro Sakurai; USA/Japan 2017, 115 min.
This screen adaptation of Project Ito’s cult novel is a puzzling and often violent animation. Shuko Murase’s film is part Jason Bourne spy thriller and part video game with countless casualties, Murase questions not only government policies, but also how human memory works.
Set in 2022, after the Bosnian capital Sarajevo was victim of a nuclear attack, the US government creates a special force to deal with genocidal tyrants, whose wars are proliferating outside the ‘safe’ world of the fully industrialised nations. This squad is led by Clavis Shepherd (Nakamura), hunting John Paul (Sakurai), an enigmatic American, who is suspected to be the ringleader of the warlords.
In Prague, Shepherd meets Lucia (Kobayashi), Paul’s ex-girl friend. We learn, that he was with her, when his wife and children were killed in the Sarajevo attack. Later Paul explains: “he does not want to be grieving again”, and therefore will keep all terrorist attacks outside the territory of the major powers. Lucia shows Clavis Kafka’s grave, and explains that Paul was working at MIT, finding a language pattern of dictators, prone to suicide. As it turns out, Paul is still in Prague, and has Clavis drugged in a seedy nightclub, where no fingerprint scans exist, which are usually needed, even if one buys a pizza. Travis escapes Paul’s clutches, and hunts him down in Africa, with a crew which is “emotionally optimised” – meaning that they do not feel any pain or regret for their mass killings. The leading trio finally assembles for the statutory show-down.
Project Ito (Satoshi Ito) published Genocidal Organ in 2007, followed by Harmony (a novelisation of Metal Gear soldiers 4), before he died of cancer aged only thirty-four in 2009. His status in SF animation circles is unrivalled, and Murase had a monumental task of keeping Ito’s followers happy. Whilst he clearly succeeds with the fan group, it’s unclear if a wider audience will share this enthusiasm for a near two-hour bombardment of half baked philosophies and gruelling mass murder. Whilst the colours are often muted, the violence is very graphic. Somehow numbness soon sets in and what seems original at the beginning, is less and less exciting as the narrative unspools. All said and done, the two hour running time does nothing to make this attack of explosions and sound effects user friendly for a larger audience. AS
Dir.: Mark Pellington; Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Amanda Seyfried, Ann’Jewel Lee, Philip Baker-Hall, Anne Heche, Thomas Sadowski; USA 2017, 108 min.
Director Mark Pellington does his best to direct a formulaic script from debut writer Stuart Ross Falk – and more often than not succeeds with the help of Shirley MacLaine and a great ensemble cast.
MacLaine plays cantankerous octogenarian ex-advertising executive Harriet Lauler living out her days in a sumptuous villa where her gardener, cook and hairdresser are constantly fall short of her expectations – and replaced by Harriet herself. Her instinct to control everything goes even beyond the grave: she enlists Anne (Seyfried), the obituary writer of the local paper in the fictional city of Bristol, to write a piece singing her praises. Unfortunately, the checklist Harriet presents to Anne does not quiet work out: the matriarch is neither loved by her family (ex-hubby and daughter), nor admired by co-workers. And there is absolutely nobody whose life she has touched for the better.
Caustic as always, Harriet tries to remedy this by finding somebody from the target group of “minority or cripple”. But when she encounters Brenda (Lee) in a home for children at risk, the little black girl is very much a match for Harriet. Anne was abandoned by her mother when she was three, and has developed at developed a thick skin for dealing with the likes of Harriet, but she takes a leaf out of Brenda’s book, and develops a friendly but firm approach to counter Harriet’s obsessional control. This all seems convincing but Harriet’s long-suffering daughter Elizabeth (Heche) and her forgiving ex-husband Edward (Baker-Hill) are not fully sketched out and sometimes reality is suspended: Harriet not only finding a job as a morning DJ for the local radio-station, but also managing to set up Anne with the boss of the station (Sadowski, Seyfried’s real life husband). And when Anne’s clapped-out Volvo gives up the ghost after an – aborted – meeting with Elizabeth, Brenda ends up sleeping between the two women in a motel room, after a moonlight bath in the near-by lake.
Still, MacLaine’s performance compensates and carries the film through its pitfalls. The hopeful message about the interaction of three very different generations of North American females is told with great panache, even though at times a little over-didactic. MacLaine’s unsentimental approach and witty, self-depreciating humour makes sure that the soppy side of THE LAST WORD never wins out. AS
Dir: Jason Connery | Cast: Sam Neill, Peter Mullan, Jack Lowden | Drama | 111min | UK
Even if you feel that golf is ‘a good walk spoilt’ – as the saying goes, TOMMYS HONOUR is a surprisingly moving biopic about the game’s Scottish founding father and his champion son (both called Thomas Morris) who was the youngest player to win the Golf Open in 1868, aged just 17, and played here with cocky charm by Jack Lowden.
TOMMY’S HONOUR is the fifth feature of Jason Connery, the son of another famous Scottish legend and Bond, Sean. The film works both as a historical tribute to the popular sport and as a coming of age portrayal of rebellious youth versus experience that plays out through the feisty relationship between the quietly deferential old school caddie Peter Mullan – whose ginger beard is almost a character in itself – and his confident blue-eyed maverick son.
Fortunately, golf takes a back seat after the rather stolid male-dominated opening scenes, and just as we’re hoping for some intrigue it arrives in the shape of a flirtation between sparky Edinburgh waitress Meg, played by Ophelia Lovibond and young Tom, who eventually becomes his wife amid controversy about her dubious background. From then on, Tom’s rise to fame plays out against the glorious Highland settings of St Andrews, and seaside skyscapes of Musselborough, just outside Edinburgh. The most we get to see of the actual game is through the on-course confrontations between Morris and his rivals, as young Tom gets ‘a hole in one’ in all weathers.
TOMMY’S HONOUR succeeds largely for its cleverly paced tension as Lowden’s swaggering confidence is challenged by Mullan’s thoughtful dominance as a father whose mild-mannered influence quietly wanes. Together they bring flair to a film that otherwise might have been too clubby. MT
Dir: Martin Provost | France / Belgium 2017 | French | Drama | 117 min · Colour
Auteur Martin Provost is known for beautifully-crafted classically-styled dramas specialising in the intricate interplay between his female characters in Cesar-awarded Séraphine and Violette(who was a pupil of Simon de Beauvoir).
Catherine Frot and Catherine Deneuve are the stars of SAGE FEMME – a more personal project for Martin Provost and a tribute to the women who brought him into the world after a difficult birth. As well as referring to a midwife, a ‘sage femme’ is also taken to mean one who is well-behaved and wise: Frot’s Claire is such a woman: dedicated, kind and no-nonsense, she comes up against Catherine Deneuve’s self-centred, frivolous, bonne viveuse Béatrice who has always got her own way in life, and is also Claire’s stepmother, whose erratic nature resulted in her husband’s suicide.
This is meat and bread and familiar territory for sophisticated viewers who will savour the delicious friction between the two women that has a surprisingly favourable outcome for them both. THE MIDWIFEalso ventures into the less appealing genre of social realism in too many ‘too much information’ birth scenes: Provost would have been better focusing on the fluctuating dynamic between the witty and watchable Deneuve, Frot and her love interest, Olivier Gourmet’s gourmet truck driver. Béatrice initially emerges as a wealthy benefactor who has appeared on the scene to apologise to Claire for her behaviour back in the day, but it soon comes to light that the 70-something Béatrice has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and is on her last legs. And soon she is also homeless. And guess who picks up the pieces?
There is a serious message here: that bringing the next generation into the world deserves calm, personal care rather than hightec machinery but the fun lies in the story of the older generation and here Provost successfully mines the rich dramatic treasures of this ménage à trois with perceptive characterisations complimented by Gregoire Hertzel’s breezily romantic compositions and the lush local scenery of the Il-de-France in early summer. THE MIDWIFE is less formal than his previous work but equally affecting as intelligent arthouse goes, capturing the rich and sensual pleasures of traditional France MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT BERLINALE 9-19 FEBRUARY 2017 | IN COMPETITION (OUT OF COMPETITION
Dir: Terrence Malick | Cast: Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Bérénice Marlohe | Drama | US | 129 mins
More twirling and swirling from Terrence Malick in Song to Song, formerly known as Weightless, which feels somehow more appropriate, given the style of content of his ninth feature. The episodic, fractured narrative begins with an ominous statement from its central character Faye (Rooney Mara, living up to the name): “I went though a period. And sex had to be violent” this ushers in more gliding set pieces from a gilded Austin lifestyle – but it could also be LA – featuring property porn, rock concerts and eternity pools and suggest a menage a trois between her two lovers, the loose-limbed Ryan Gosling and a menacing Michael Fassbender, while her father admonishes her gravely: “do you trust this man”, “your mother and I would like to come and visit with you”. “I can’t watch the birds, ‘cos we watched them together”. “I had to find my way out, of you”. It’s all brilliant stuff for a Hallmark greetings card.
This enigmatic scenario continues for 120 tortuous minutes much in the same vein as the others in this hastily flung together twosome of love triangles: To The Wonder and Knight of Cups. There are are all pretty much of a muchness. There’s plenty of throwaway glances, fond kisses and slavish embraces “sometimes the truth isn’t the right thing to say” is one of the more oblique lines Mara has to utter as she carelessly flirts her way between her suitors; all troubled, disingenuous and coy. “Sometimes, I admire what a hypocrit I am”.
Fassbender and Gosling appear to be working together in the music business but somehow Fassbender appears to have the upper hand having offered the lythe singer-songwriter a contract, yet there’s a hint of double-crossing from Gosling’s perspective. The best scene is a neon lit dance-floor routine set to My Little Runaway, but it’s all too brief. There’s lots of hugging and the trio clearly share a palpable on-screen chemistry. Then there’s Gosling’s vague ex who sounds strikingly like Merrill Hemingway in Manhattan. And John Lydon and Iggy Pop who also appear with non-singing cameos.
Despite the urgent fondling, teasing and febrile groping no real sex actually takes place making the whole thing feel pent up and unsatisfied. Specially as Faye (not only wanted it violently) but appears to be hoping to clinch a record deal from Fassbender, who’s also her boss. Meanwhile he’s having a thing with blond saccharine waitress Nathalie Portman – again no sex occurs beyond the caresses – as she exhorts him to “do want you want with me”. Dangerous stuff, but not. Then she tearfully breaks down as the scene flips into an obsidian black obscurity that cleverly switches to snatches of a black and white classic movie. Bond Girl Bérénice Marlohe appears briefly just to say to Faye “you face is so beautiful in the shadows” before planting a lesbian kiss on her ubiquitous white midriff. Gosling then moves on to a dalliance with Kate Blanchett’s Amanda (“just take me somewhere”), completing the second of the two love triangles.
Emmanuel Lubezki has fun with his lenses, particularly on the widescreen and in intimate close-up – the whole film looks utterly amazing, as you would expect from him. Devotees who worship at the Malick altar will be smitten, while others look on in glazed tolerance, waiting for Iggy, or even Lydon, to perform. Somebody in the crowd says: “I can go on for hours with one chord. Just one chord, hammerin’,” and that just about sums it all up. MT
Dir.: Jon Sanders; Cast: Emma Garden, Bob Goody, Meret Becker, Anna Mottram; UK 2016, 98 min.
Jon Sanders (Back to the Garden) gets to grips with the meaning of love for a close-knit group of luvvies in this low-budget indie set deep in Cathar country, in the mountains of South West France.
Usin WH Auden’s quote “Will it come like a change in the weather…O tell me the truth about love” as a starting point ageing theatre director Dan (Goody), insecure about his feelings, invites a cast of three actresses to discuss their relationships with him: there is Jo (Garden), his real life wife; Lydia (Mottram) who is supposed to play his wife age forty-eight; and Kalle (Becker) who represents his wife age twenty-one, a year before they married.
Family members of Dan and Jo also play small parts, but the action centres around Dan and his three ‘wives’. When Jo wants the discussion to focus on marriage, it becomes clear that she is not amused by the proceedings. She is edgy, and cuts off after questions about birthday presents. Kalle is somehow written out during the process, whilst Lydia (Mottram, co-writer with the director) prefers to toy with the subject, like Dan’s puppet. When life and play-acting eventually converge, the exercise feels rather predictable.
Interactions between theatre and life are quiet common in feature films, most notable the great Jaques Rivette (Noli Me tangere, La Bande des Quatre) has excelled in this subject. But Sanders lacks discipline and structure to succeed, A Change is simply too tepid and spineless, and apart from the ending: its all rather too acquiescent, with everyone delivering their monologues. DoP David Scott, long time collaborator of Sanders, fits in with simple, but uninspiring images. Whilst Back to the Garden had some underlying tension to give it some dramatic heft, this project is still-born from the start because, apart from Dan and Jo, the other character have no axe to grind with each other. One can somehow imagine what Sanders had in mind, but the end result is bland and uninspiring. AS
Steve James’ documentary portrait from the mortgage fraud episode of 2009 is both moving and informative. It follows a Chinese family, who run a community bank, Abacus Federal Savings Bank in Manhattan, and whose life is turned upside down after an over-eager District Attorney accuses the founder and his daughters of mortgage fraud.
Thomas Sung was born in Shanghai in 1935 and emigrated to the USA, where he became a lawyer. He had four daughters with his wife Hwei Lin, three are lawyers like their father, another is a doctor. In December 2012, New York District attorney Cyrus Vance swooped on Abacus, accusing them of mortgage fraud on a grand scale. Considering the Abacus Bank was number 2651 in volume in the USA, this is rather surprising, even more so, when you consider that Abacus’ default rate on its mortgages was 0.3%. This was just four years after the banking crisis in the USA had caused losses of around 22$ trillion, after bad mortgages to the tune of five trillion$ had (nearly) caused the collapse of the whole banking system, had the government not bailed out the leading banks.
Until today, Abacus Federal Savings Bank is the only US banking institution to be charged for fraud in connection with Fannie Mae and the associated crisis. Sung had founded Abacus in 1984 as a community bank for the Chinese minority and Vance’s only ‘trump’ was his star witness of the prosecution, Abacus employee Ken Lu, who had been found out by Sung and his daughters of defrauding the company and had been sacked, before Vance had Sung and fifteen employers of the bank handcuffed, and let to the police vehicles in the glare of the TV camera lights. This was a breach of law in itself, since five of the handcuffed had already been released on bail. So began a five-year long ordeal for the Sung family, who were joined in their legal fight by Chanterelle Sung, who had worked before for the DA’s office in New York. The trial began in February 2015 and ended in June. Interviews with some jury members are particularly interesting, since the jury was split at the beginning of the fortnight long deliberations.
James shows the family not only during their discussions involved in their legal defence, but also follows the clan through the Chinese community; taking in some mouth-watering restaurant visits. Thomas Sung, whose favourite film is It’s a Wonderful Life, identifies very much with the James Stewart character. Even after the ordeal, he still believes in the American dream, of which the film is, in equal parts, a verification and repudiation. AS
Writer| Dir: Harry Mitchell | Cast: Harry Mitchell, Augustus Prew, Isabella Laughland, Jeff Rawle, Jack Cooper Simpson | 89min | UK | Comedy
Nonchalamtly dovetailing humour with pathos, Harry Mitchell’s low budget comedy is indie filmmaking at its best. With naturalistic performances thrown in for good measure, CHUBBY FUNNY follows the freewheeling but not always light-hearted days of two aspiring actor/flatmates in London’s Primrose Hill. Oscar – played by Mitchell, who also directs – has an easygoing girlfriend (Laughland), works for a charity where he takes regular abuse on his door to door fundraising grind, while doing ridiculous chocolate adverts on the side (his agent has classified him as ‘Chubby Funny’). Meanwhile, Charlie (Augustus Prew) pays their rent and has just landed his first real acting part, paving the way for jealousy and resentment to infiltrate their relationship. As the onesie-wearing Oscar, Mitchell is a comedy natural with his slapstick insouciance and witty take on life, and there’s convincing support from Laughland, Asim Choudary’s razor-sharp shopkeeper and David Bamber as his cynical former teacher. Despite its slim storyline – nothing really happens – but somehow it all slips down rather enjoyably. With its occasional classical score, this is perceptively written, well-crafted and amusing stuff. MT
Dir.: Hannes Holm; Cast: Rolf Lassgard, Bahar Pars, Ida Engvoll, Filip Berg, Chatarina Larsson, Börje Lundberg; Sweden 2015, 116 min.
Veteran director/writer Hannes Holm (Adam and Eve) offers up an thoughtful but contradictory portrait of old age. His central character is a bitter widower unable to adjust to life alone. His wife was clearly the guiding light in their lives, but further relationships seem fated in this well-meaning but ultimately crowd-pleasing drama that ends up trying our patience.
Adapted from Swedish bestseller by Fredrik Backman, the film starts off on a pleasingly droll note but long extended flashbacks take the pleasure and tension out of a storyline where the main-protagonist is either a curmudgeonly bastard, shouting at people and animals all day while his partner looks smiling radiant, or a beacon of tolerance – taking in a gay young man who has been disowned by this father. Somehow there are too many contradictions. Ove (like the director) is stuck in a Sweden of the 70s, when things were (outwardly) more simple, and he and his close friend Rune (Lundberg) could have fun competing which each with cars from Volvo and Saab.
The same messages are put forward in a much more convincing film The Happiest Day in the Life of Oli Mäki, that won last year’s Certain Regard Prize at Cannes. If you have a choice, this is the one to go for.
Director: Vincent Perez |Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Emma Thompson, Daniel Brühl, Mikael Persbrandt |Germany|France| UK
Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson make this rather plodding wartime drama watchable. They play the unhappy married couple at the centre of a piece of German wartime subversion in a flawed adaptation of Hans Fallada’s postwar novel set in Berlin.
This is Vincent Perez’ third film as a director. His ambitious but cinematically lacklustre piece explores how the tragic death of a child can turn an ordinary couple against the state with a petty crime involving the publication of anti-government slogans, printed on postcards and randomly left in public places. “Hitler’s war is the worker’s death”. Whereas nowadays this kind of detritus would be swept away into the trash (or recycling), Surprisingly in 1940 Berlin, due to the powerful grip that Nazism exerted on wartime Germany, most of the cards were actually handed into the authorities and the couple are arrested in a narrative that reflects on the moral and political intricacies of the postwar blame game.
Gleeson and Thompson have German accents – as does German born Daniel Brühl, who plays the most complex character in the film as Escherich, an ardent Nazi police inspector whose fierce doggedness is crushed after he falls foul of an SS officer during the investigation. Initially the whole thing feels forced and unconvincing despite the combined talents of Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson who do their best to deliver some really clunky lines and manage gradually to thaw their characters’ failing relationship through the conspiratorial brio of their joint endeavour, eventually breathing life into a bland but intriguing wartime drama that shines another spotlight on Nazi Germany. MT
Dir. Joel Hopkins. UK, 2017, 103 mins | Cast: Diane Keaton, Brendan Gleeson | US | Romcom | 104min
HAMPSTEAD is one of London’s oldest villages where ‘quaint’ boutiques (think Foxtons and Oxfam?) thrive a stone’s throw from Dickensian cottages and palatial mansions cushioned in the verdant lushness of the Heath. Joel Hopkins’ romcom follow-up to Last Chance Harvey (2008) is based on the true story of a modern day hermit (Harry Hallowes) who gained legal entitlement to his self-built hovel between Hampstead’s Kenwood House and The Ponds. But that’s where reality ends.
Hopkins’ fluffy film is full of middle-aged cyphers floating around in a fantasy world of the Seventies where they meet for coffee mornings and discuss worthy causes. But in the real place, this lot passed on decades ago to be replaced by the likes of Hugh Skinner’s fundraising nerd or smiling Romanians selling the Big Issue. Despite its champagne socialist credentials the village is now mostly home to wealthy Oligarchs, chic Chinese diplomats and suave Italian bankers, a place where blacked-out Range Rovers jossle with builders’ lorries narrowly – avoiding the double Bugaboo prams.
But back to the film, which has Diane Keaton’s awkward American widow spying Brendan Gleeson’s grizzly bohemian gent in his shack moments from her Heath-side home. Although the chemistry here is seriously lacking, Hopkins persuades us that the shabby chic Donald fancies Keaton as she scuttles around in her charity shop like a ditzy Victorian street urchin on speed. Lesley Manville is hilarious as her bossy neighbour Fiona, tasked with organising neighbourhood affairs. She is a character straight out of Country Casuals in Tewksbury or Harrogate – not Hampstead, I’m afraid.
The narrative torpor plods on as our twee ‘lovers’ fight for Donald’s right to stay in his home, keeping those nasty developers at bay. Meanwhile, Keaton’s financial woes are being sweatily massaged by Jason Watkins’ obsequious ginger accountant who would be more at home in a market town like Utoxeter than this savvy North London corner. The third ginger character here is Keaton’s son Philip (James Norton), who has no personality whatsoever despite being rather pleased with himself.
Poetic licence apart – and watching this is like sharing your home with a bunch of weird aliens – HAMPSTEAD could be forgiven if it were funny. But Robert Festinger’s script teeters from crass to cringeworthy, with no laughs to be had at all and a score that jars. The filmmakers have captured the rural idyll of the location: Parrokeets chirrup and roses bloom in the perpetual sunshine that beams, between cloudbursts, through the Oak tree’d lanes.
Will the ‘Notting Hill’ affect come to Hampstead as a result of this jaunty romcom? This American treatment will probably have the reverse effect on the village, sending potential buyers desperately in the other direction, amid cries let’s get out of this hellhole. MT
Dir: Andrew Kötting | Doc | UK | 60min | with Claurdia Barton, David Aylward, Anonymous Bosch, Jem Finer
Andrew Kötting is celebrated for his quintessentially English films that capture the idiosyncratic British humour and the beauty of the countryside. Gallivant explores the Sussex coastline in 1996, while Swandown took a trip from the coastal resort of Hastings upstream to Hackney on board a Swan-styled pedalo, and By Our Selves explores the Epping forest wanderings of a ‘mad’ poet John Clare (Toby Jones).
Edith Walks is intended as another light-hearted tribute to English King Harold Godwinson’s wife Edith Swanneck and is inspired by another walk – from Waltham Abbey in Essex via Battle Abbey to St Leonards-On-Sea, where the ‘queen’ took the remains of King Harold’s body to Waltham for burial near the High Altar after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, where he was defeated by William the Conquerer. She is seen cradling him in a statue at Grosvenor Gardens on the sea front in St Leonards.
Blending the banal and with the spectral, the dreamlike narrative opens with Edith lying on the grass bedecked in white robes and wearing regal jewellery and body markings appropriate for the era. The film The 108 mile journey, as the crow flies, allows the audience to reflect upon all things Edith. A conversation in Northampton between Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair and Edith Swan-Neck is also a key element to the unfolding ‘story’. With images shot using digital super 8 iphones and sound recorded using a specially constructed music box with a boom microphone the film unfolds chronologically but in a completely unpredictable way. The numerous encounters and impromptu performances en route are proof, as if needed, that the angels of happenstance were to looking down upon the troop, with Edith as their hallucination.
Eden Kötting’s short film Forgotten the Queen, a 10 minute and 66 second film made in collaboration with Andrew Kötting and Glenn Whiting with music by Jem Finer. Forgotten the Queen is a short animated film that digs into themes inspired by the life of Edith Swanneck. Eden’s drawings and collages are brought to life by Glenn Whiting and tossed into the time-line like flotsam from a demented passion. Meantime Edith’s eyes fix on the man-shadows overhead, resplendent in their didactic belief systems and stupid hats, which seem to have blighted women since the beginning of time. King Harold would not have approved because despite the fact that time itself can touch you like a feather, stupid men keep firing their bloody arrows.
ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 23 JUNE 2017 | EAST END FILM FESTIVAL JUNE-JULY 2017 | CURZON
Dir: Bavo Defurne | Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Kevin Azais | Drama | Belgium | 92min
Isabelle Huppert plays a chanteuse emerging from a long retirement in this slim but delightful musical romance from Belgium director Bavo Defurne.
Huppert holds our attention in a lightweight affair that conjures up the pleasure of this autumn/spring love story between Liliane a former Eurovision runner up and Jean (Kevin Azais) her 21-year old colleague at a pate factory where she gracefully manages to make her daily grind look satisfying, after a singing career that ended with the marriage and manager.
But Jean (Kevin Azais), who predictably still lives with his parents, has always held a candle for her and gently perseveres in in his romantic gestures, convincing her to sing at his boxing club knees-up. So convinced is he of her talents that he throws all his energy behind managing her come-back.
Defurne and his screenwriters craft an appealing show business drama with some poignant highs and lows as the Huppert and Azais manage a convincing chemistry – and we feel for them when Liliane’s old husband (Johan Leysen) makes a re-appearance on the scene. Perhaps Liliane was right to find another day job but Huppert’s perky rendition of Pink Martini’s Joli Garcon certainly deserves a toast.MT
Dir.: Harold Monfils | Doc | with Jason P Howe | New Zealand/Malaysia/ Netherlands/Canada | 87 min.
Harold Monfils’ unflinching portrait of war photographer Jason P Howe is hampered by the near total lack of information about his subject, and the ambiguity surrounding war photography as a profession.
We first meet Howe in Columbia in 2001 where he has a baptism of fire narrowly escaping a bus explosion while covering the conflict between FARC guerrillas and the paramilitary forces. His photos of the dead and dying were his first ‘coup’. Soon afterwards, he fell in love with the guerrilla fighter Marilyn, who turned out to be a paid assassin. Having scruples about continuing the relationship, Howe left. When he returned six month later, Marilyn had been killed for being an informer by the FARC – Howe somehow underplaying the fact that she had asked him earlier to return to help her.
Fellow photographers Hector Emmanuel and Roger Arnold make an astute observation: “Jason was high on romance, sex and adventures.” The two left, leaving Howe behind. In Baghdad we next meet Howe pondering the question of “how many different ways can you photograph the hole Saddam Hussein was hiding in”.
The 2006 war in Lebanon saw Howe getting angry with the growing number of new age photographers who where, in his opinion “rude and aggressive, producing war porn”. After that, he disappeared into Thailand for years living on sex, drugs and alcohol. The reason he returned to his job in 2011 was due to his brother serving in the British Army in Helmond Province, Afghanistan. During his stay, Howe photographed a soldier losing his legs after a land mine exploded. Howe later shot more photos of the soldier’s rehabilitation in hospital. His efforts were not welcomed by the MOD who tried to suppress the publication of the photo series by the Telegraph “because the MOD does not like to circulate photos about the reality of war, because nobody will want to sign up any more”. The MOD lost the battle, but got its revenge soon later when Howe was refused permission to go back to Afghanistan. Since 2014, Howe has lived in Andalusia with his dogs, trying to get over his PTDS – but still ready to go again “because I like to shake people out of their little bubble”.
The real Jason Howe remains an enigma backstory wise: we only find out he has a brother and was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness, which made him “not afraid of death”. But he comes over as a detached individual, walking around on battlegrounds smiling to himself after the conflict has died down. Renowned Vietnam War photographer Tim Page believes “that Howe found wars exciting”. Howe somehow sees emotions as expendable, admitting to “dealing with emotions again, after I had used alcohol, drugs and sex as crutches, facing my demons”. If there is one flaw in Monfils’ documentary it is his failure to probe the psyche of this very disturbed man. AS
Dir: Jonathan Teplitzky | Writer: Alex von Tunzelman | Cast: Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson, Richard Durden, Julain Wadham, John Slattery, James Purefoy, Danny Webb, Ella Purnell | Biopic Drama | UK | 98min
CHURCHILL is a commanding film of majestic images and thoughtful performances that seeks to imagine the man behind the legendary colossus and succeeds. This is a magnificent tribute to one of the greatest Britons of all time, Sir Winston Churchill.
Jonathan Teplitzky directs Alex von Tunzelmann’s sleek script that chronicles the tense twenty four hours before D-Day. Although the outcome is well known the tension is palpable in a moving biopic that honours the protagonists involved in an epic interlude of wartime strategy and political manoeuvring that concluded the Second World War.
Brian Cox plays Churchill as a consummate politician; a humanistic man of the people; a respectful husband and ultimately a towering hero in a performance that occasionally feels like a caricature of the cigar-chomping, whisky drinking bulldog of a man who, despite bouts of arrogance, is not too vain to stand corrected. The only gripe here is his way of referring to ‘the Narsies’. We were at war with the Germans and that’s a fact, so let’s not get all politically correct about it in retrospect. As his wife Clementine Miranda Richardson is gracefully immaculate: an imperious English Rose as sharp as cut-crystal, and as inscrutable as sterling silver, she is his anchor and his rudder at times of crisis, while remaining cool as a quintessential cucumber. John Slattery (Man Men) plays an impressively masterful Eisenhower and Julian Wadham exudes class and integrity as Field Marshall Montgomery although James Purefoy is a little too fey as King George VI.
The story opens in June 1944 as the Allied Forces stand on the brink: a massive army is secretly assembled on the South Coast ready to cross the Channel and re-claim France under German occupation. Churchill tries to resist the D-Day plan, mindful of the errors of the Great War, the slaughter of Passchendaele, the Somme and Gallipoli, and – although he would go on to live another 20 years – is exhausted and overweight. Luckily Clemmie intervenes and the rest, as they say, is history. The only slight criticism of the film lies in the inclusion of a slight subplot which not only feels redundant -there is enough here to keep us absorbed – but also feels rather like melodramatic contrivance. Epic in scale and convincing in narrative CHURCHILL is a possibly the most memorable Briitsh film of the year. MT
Writer|Dir: Mark Cousins | co-writer: Anita Oxburgh | Cast: Neneh Cherry | Musical Drama | 80min | UK
Best known for his 15-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Cousins describes his debut musical feature STOCKHOLM MY LOVE as a city symphony. It is also the acting debut of Neneh Cherry who appears in every frame as Alva, an architect interested in the way our environment effects us – Also known as psychogeography. Cousins has superimposed Alva’s tragic narrative onto her psychogeographic exploration of Sweden’s capital, giving this paean an elegaic and rather mournful feel until the sun eventually comes out and the colours brighten from wintery greys to limpid shades of blue and green, reflecting Alva’s more positive mood.
Neneh Cherry was born in Stockholm in the mid sixties, the daughter of a Swedish textile designer and a Sierra Leonean student who had come to study engineering. Drifting aimlessly through the pallid streets as Alva, memories of her trauma resurface as she tells her (absent) father about the fateful day her car hit and killed an old Swedish man called Gunnar whose dog had slipped its leash and ran into the main road. This terrible event colours her life: “killing you is killing me” she laments. Luckily the dog escaped and is re-imagined eating a ham sandwich on the tarmac.
Alva spends the first hour of the film emoting cathartically to her father as she recollects the sequence of events that lead to Gunnar’s death. And here we are reminded of the unsolved murder of Sweden’s social democrat premier Olof Palme who was gunned down outside a cinema in 1986. Walking down a road of simple two-story houses built in the western suburb of Vällingby (in the late 1940s) Alva explains that Olaf lived amongst the people, and this gives Cousins an opportunity to show where many of Stockholm’s immigrant community also thrive.
Compared to London’s streets these are sparsely populated. Attractive low rise buildings with large windows and balconies, often facing a green space, make some of our own council houses look grim in comparison – especially in the light of the grim events of June 2017. The sunless climate rather than the architecture is really to blame for making this place look miserable in Winter, especially for people who have come from much sunnier climes.
Sweden is known for its design excellence enriched by the finance from the Hanseatic League, and Stockholm is one of the few European capitals that avoided bombing during the 20th century’s wars. Contemporary buildings and those dating back to the 13th century associate well in their locations between Lake Malaren and the Baltic sea. Cousins tells how architects returned from abroad armed with ideas from the Islamic world and this is reflected in Ferdinand Boberg’s airy central mosque which has an Art Nouveau flavour and glass chandeliers dating back to its original shell built in 1903.
But what about Alva lifting her mood by wandering round Vallingby’s stunning shopping centre Kfem; the renovated historical brewery now housing Octapharma; Sweden’s very own Flat iron building at Central Station; the light-filled Waterfront conference halls; or the gleaming public swimming and sports facilities at Ericsdalbadet. All of these are fine examples of how public urban spaces can uplift and energise those who use them.
After a hour of Cherry’s ramblings, occasionally enlivened by a soundtrack of classical Swedish music by Franz Berwald, songs by ABBA’s Benny Andersson and five of Cherry’s own tunes, this soul-searching love letter feels somehow spartan and incomplete as a mood-reflecting exercise. STOCKHOLM MY LOVE is watchable but never really satisfies as a psychogeographic study nor as a musical drama. What it provides is a snapshot of a point in time in a road less travelled but as a symphony to the great Nordic town it feels somehow inadequate. There is much more to Stockholm than this bird’s eye view. MT
Dir: Bruce McDonald | Cast: Dylan Authors, Julia Sarah Stone, Molly Parker, Allan Hawco, Cathy Jones, Rhys Bevan-John, Vi Tang, Gary Levert, Stephen McHattie, Max Humphreys, Alex Purdy | Canada | Drama | 93min
Bruce McDonald’s fresh and tender indie is suffused with the foot-loose charm of the ’70s and a freewheeling score from . It follows a couple of young teenagers who take off across Nova Scotia to the coastal town of Sydney during one breezy Canadian summer.
This may not be Bruce McDonald’s most oustanding piece but it’s certainly an endearing one where Daniel MacIvor’s 1976 script captures the zeitgeist of a gentle era where teens were still innocent and squeaky clean but ripe for self-discovery. Kit (Dylan Authors) is fifteen and still seems unsure of his sexuality despite declaring himself openly “a fag” and “a weirdo” he clearly still has some issues to deal with. His grounded bestie Alice (Julia Sarah Stone) is also a budding girlfriend who has the upper hand emotionally speaking, along with his Andy Warhol like ‘spirit guide who appears from time to time, like a jester in a
The two rub along quite easily until it starts to dawn on that Kit is clearly gay. He’s an appealingly decent youngster who is kind but never sappy, offering Alice his hairdryer and looking genuinely crestfallen when she snogs a guy they meet on the beach.
When they eventually fetch up at Kit’s mother’s house the mood turns more serious as it emerges that clearly there are family issues at stake that explain why Kit is living with his father (an appealing macho Allan Hawco) and his strict but open-minded grandmother (Cathy Jones) rather than with his bipolar mother played Molly Parker in a reliably charming and volatile turn.
As the leads Authors Stone are brilliantly mismatched in their peachy-faced cuteness underpinned by a burgeoning realisation of their slightly dysfunctional families – Alice’s parents are separated, while it’s unsure what’s really going on with his. Although he’s unhappy living with his dad, the extent of his mother’s emotional issues indicate that his tricky adolescent state is probably still too fragile to cope with his mother and give her the support that she needs. WEIRDOS is a gently nostalgic coming of age drama that really conjures up the thrilling excitement and gut-churning bewilderment of adoleschence. MT
CANADA NOW FILM SERIES IS SHOWING AT CURZON CINEMAS beginning with a weekend programme from 15th to 18th June at the Curzon Soho. From Saturday July 1st 2017, in celebration of Canada Day, the films will begin a nation–wide tour of cinemas and become available to stream on Curzon Home Cinema.
Well-known stand-up comedians share their insights and experience in this occasionally amusing compendium. DYING LAUGHING is not a funny film but there are moments of humour in the British-produced documentary dedicated to Garry Shandling, a comedian who died last year.
You may not recognise all the 50 comics who take part in rolling snapshot interviews, but all convey the dreadful awkwardness and moments of embarrassment when no one laughs in a venue sucked dry of all positive vibes. The film conjures up the hit and miss nature of being a stand-up; the harrowing stage fright and elation of success. The overall tone is rather downbeat and introspective; the humour drole or dark rather than laugh out loud. Jamie Foxx talks of money cushioning the blow of a bad gig, and seasoned pro Jerry Seinfeld describes “a dead-silent room full of unhappy people”.
There’s no narrative as such, although clearly these guys are responding to a question we’re not aware of as viewers, but pick up the drift as the diatribes roll on. Sarah Silverman describes the loneliness of life on the road, and it’s clear that this is a vocation for the emotionally robust and thick-skinned. Not a choice but an unavoidable calling.
Eventually the agony and the ecstasy becomes routine as each one replaces the other in a string of personal reflections. A more condensed and better edited version would have made for a more impactful, and ultimately more entertaining watch. MT
Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong’s latest film is a magical mood piece that calmly explores the nature of memory through lives traumatised by the government’s military-led massacre of student demonstrators in 1976 Bangkok.
Her characters are so deeply affected by the past that their bid to re-discover themselves in the present often skews their recollections as they grapple to find the truth and explore the nature of identity in a world floundering in sensory overload and media intervention. Often silent and meditative, Suwichakornpong’s film makes judicious use of a recurring musical motif that punctuates the often bewildering narrative that unfolds in three settings.
The story opens as a group arrives to pray and meditate in a large room with panoramic views of the surrounding verdant landscapes. In monochrome flashback, armed soldiers hold sway over their prone captives in a brightly staged setting that could be a prison or a memory of the massacre. The scene that follows pictures a couple strolling calmly in a woodland setting, the hostilities still fresh in their minds as they calmly discuss political activism.
Meanwhile her alter ego filmmaker Ann (Vichit-Vadakan) is preparing to make a feature film of the University massacre that took place nearly forty years previously. In the same rural house she prepares to interview her character Taew (Rassami Paoluengton) about her experiences during the fateful onslaught. But Taew sharply criticises Ann’s approach as lacking gravitas surrounded, as she is, by the trappings of her serene life in contemporary Thailand.
Ann realises she is totally ill-equipped to-create the trauma and her mind starts to wander off into a reverie, and at this point the narrative becomes increasingly surreal with images of fast-growing vegetation marking the shift to another character Peter (Arak Amornsupasiri) a popstar and actor who is seen taking a flight to Bangkok where he settles down to read a film script in his modern condo. Then we are back to another glimpse of Ann (Inthira Charoenpura) and Taew (Penpak Sirikul) in more glamorous circumstances in the same country house, with the same film project.
The only character who connects these disparate scenes is Atchara Suwan’s unnamed worker, who variously plays a chambermaid, waitress, cleaner and monastery employee completing this surreal and enigmatic rumination. Suwichakornpong handles the ever-shifting form with consummate deftness while Ming Kai Leung’s camerawork moves seemlessly through the diverse sequences to capture the ethereal beauty of the verdant settings and swirling citiscapes. MT
After success with P’tit Quinquin, Bruno Dumont is back with comedy of a different kind, an absurdist often grotesque turn of the 20th century melodrama which combines moments of poetic realism and is certain to divide audiences with its quirky brand of charm.
On a swampy coastal stretch of Britany a rotund police inspector (Cyril Rigaux) is investigating a spate of ‘mysterious’ disappearances possibly connected to a carnivorous local fisherman and his family of four kids, the eldest of whom is the titular Ma Loute (Brandon Lavieville). The arrival of the Van Peteghem family from Tourcoing signals the start of the summer holidays as the mannered aristrocratic family gain their family seat – a strangely 1930s style cement contruction called The Tymphonium – amid cries of euphoria over every aspect of local nature and particularly the splendid views. They are soon joined by Andre’s cousin Aude (a gloriously over the top Juliette Binoche), her cross-dressing son Billie (Raph) and her cousin or possibly second cousin as they seem to be an interbred lot – apparently quite common amongst the ‘grand old families of Northern France’ – which would explain the weird paternity that later emerges in the final scenes.
This is a charismatic and inventive curio of a film which will either delight you with its quirky humour and performances or send you home underwhelmed. The humour is very French and the best part is undeniably Guillaume Deffontaines’ perfect lensing and the magnificent seascapes which echo and re-create the lush vibrancy of those of Manet, Monet and Cezanne. Costume-wise too this is a sumptuous affair with perfect attention to detail both in the domestic settings on the resplendent beaches making this a visual feast not to be missed. Performances too are really outstanding. Fabrice Luchini ponces about with a contorted limp; Juliette Binoche faints and swoons with delight and horror and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi is simply graceful and restrained with an expression of discrete ecstacy that often dissolves in tender tears. It would be a shame to spoil the entire plot which reveals itself with delicous coyness. Suffice to say, there’s no director like Dumont for creating such a fabulous stillness and sense of place in his glowing compositions of the Brittany scenery and his deftness for combining period touches with elegant framing and a sense of magic and delicate poetry even in the more mordid aspects of this inspired comedy drama. MT
Dir.: Marc Webb; Cast: Chris Evans, McKenna Grace, Jenny Slate, Lindsay Duncan, Octavia Spencer; USA 2017, 101 min.
Spiderman director Marc Webb and Captain America hero Chris Evans team up for a well-meaning but utterly predictable custody fight story, which is saved from mediocrity by McKenna Grace, as seven-year old Mary, breathing some life into the soppy and sometimes downright embarrassing project.
Boston philosophy lecturer Frank Adler (Evans) is guilt-ridden after the death of his sister, a mathematical genius who committed suicide due to pressure from their over-bearing mother Evelyn (Duncan). Frank feels partly for her death and decides to takes her six-month-old daughter Mary to Florida to raise her away from his mother’s influence. Seven years on, whilst Mary is impressing her school with her math prowess, the condescending Evelyn turns up and starts a custody battle, claiming that Frank is neglects his niece’s talents and, as a mere boat repairman, cannot give Mary the resources she deserves. Despite support from Mary’s teacher Bonnie (Slater) and a helpful neighbour Roberta (Spencer) Frank has to give in, and his fears come true: Mary is taken in by downright evil foster parents, who together with Evelyn, give Mary home schooling centred around developing her mathematical genius. When Frank learns that Fred, Mary’s eyed-cat, has been abandoned by the foster-parents to a home for stray animals and is in danger of being put down he dreams up a far-fetched plot to save Mary.
Everyone on board this project gives their professional best – with the exception of scriptwriter Tom Flynn, who comes up with some really cringeworthy moments, like Mary finding her teacher Bonnie half-naked in Frank’s apartment, after a drunken one-night stand. DoP Stuart Dryburgh (The Great Wall) doesn’t have a great deal to work with as the characters are one-dimensional in this rather torpid affair that aims to pull at our heart-strings but only succeeds in numbing our brain cells. Luckily, McKenna Grace is unperturbed by the adult mediocrity around her, proving that she is the only one deserving the film’s title. AS
Dir.: Claire Ferguson; Documentary; UK/Austria/Poland/USA 2016, 78 min.
Between 2003 and 2016, producer Llion Roberts travelled the world to interview survivors of the Shoah. In 2014 he collaborated with director Claire Ferguson (Concert for Bangladesh Revisited) on a collection of interviews for Destination Unknown, a living testimony of twelve survivors – five are no long with us, making this documentary even more salient.
Relying on the testimony of the witnesses alone, and archive films from before and after the war – as well as harrowing newsreels from the liberation of the camps – it becomes clear that the survivors faced their ‘Destination unknown’ twice: when arrested and transported in overcrowded cattle trains, they had no idea where there were heading. And after their liberation from the Camps, fresh anxiety over their future must have overwhelmed them again. It’s impossible to imagine more disparate entities in comparing the archive clips of ghetto life before 1939, with the inhuman conditions of the camps, and the secure middle-class environment in the USA, Canada, Israel or other countries, captured on 8mm films. These women and men have faced different universes in one lifetimes. Clearly, all survivors should have their harrowing life stories told, and while words mean so little from the safety of our own perspective, watching the film help to brings to life their courage and suffering.
Edward Mosberg, born 1926, regularly visits Concentration Camps, together with his wife Cecile, another survivor. Both lived in the Krakow ghetto, after which Cecile was imprisoned in the camps of Plaszow, Auschwitz-Birkenau (surviving two death-marches), Bergen-Belsen, Gelenau and Mauthausen, where she was liberated. Edward Mosberg survived the Plaszow, Mauthausen and Linz camps. In Mauthausen he had to carry heavy stones up stairs, if he’d have stopped or fallen, the Germans would have pushed him to his death over the cliffs, or shot him. He is the sole survivor of a family of 26; his mother was gassed in Auschwitz, his two sisters were shot – together with 7000 young women, their bodies thrown into the Baltic Sea by the Germans a day before Stutthof Concentration Camp was liberated. Edward and Cecile were married in Belgium in 1951 and emigrated to the USA shortly afterwards. They have three daughters.
Marsha Kreuzman was born in Krakow in 1923. In 1940, her family was transported to the Majdanek Camp, her mother was shot and killed. Marsha had promised her to look after her father and brother. After that, the Kreuzmans were moved to the Plaszow camp, and Marsha remembers “that it was the only camp without a crematorium. They had other ways to kill us.” In 1943 Kreuzman’s father was found in a ditch, and she had to watch, as he and other prisoners were lined up and shot. In May 1944, her brother did not pass the ‘selection’ and was sent to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Early in 1945, Marsha Kreuzman and other survivors were marched to Auschwitz, the march took five days and four night under brutal conditions. After Auschwitz, she survived another ‘death march’, this time to the Bergen-Belsen camp. Of the over 5000 inmates, who set out in Auschwitz, only 100 survived – Marsha was one of them. But her ordeal was not over: she was sent to the Camps of Flossenburg and finally Mauthausen, until she was liberated on May 5th 1945 by the US army: near death, she was weighing 34 kg.
Stanley Glogauer, who died in 2013, was taken from the ghetto to Auschwitz and separated from his mother and sisters. Later he learned from an uncle, that they had been murdered. When Stanley’s father broke a leg, he was sent to the infirmary, which was more or less the same as a death sentence. Stanley himself was very fit, and caught the attention of Dr. Josef Mengele. On Mengele’s order, his skull was opened with a chisel, without anaesthetic – to test if such operation were possible on the battlefield. Whilst he was still conscious, they sewed the skull up over the perforated skull and declared “the operation a success”. Asking the orderly, Bruno, to dispose of Stanley’s body, the “man of science and culture left, to listen to Wagner”. Bruno, a Czech, who was probably in the camp for being a homosexual, nursed Stanley back to health and helped to get him job, which made his eventual survival possible. Stanley had to ‘greet’ the newly arrived camp inmates, and take their possessions from them. He also told the mothers, to give their babies to the older women of the camp staff, since they would otherwise be killed immediately. Some mothers held on to their babies and died with them, others, chose a deadly lottery, leaving their children with Stanley and his fellow inmates, giving them a glimmer of hope.
The last word should go to Helena Sternlicht, one of the survivors of the famous Schindler list. “Everybody had a choice. Amon Göth [the commander of the Plaszow Camp, who was executed in 1946] chose to kill, Oskar Schindler chose to save lives”. Sternlicht is one of those survivors who continued to fight to keep the memory of the Shoah victims alive. Others did not want to “burden their families with their sadness, and kept quiet.” But none of them could ever sleep soundly at night and be sure of what would await them on the morrow. AS
Dir: Craig Johnson | Daniel Clowes | Cast: Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern | 94min | Comedy Drama
WILSON is probably the most cringeworthy film you’ll see this week. It stars Woody Harrelson as a dorkish bottom-feeder who should have been named ‘Scooter’ to complete the picture. Suddenly waking up to his single status mid-fifties, he tries a dramatic reverse thrust into his married past by contacting his delightful ex-wife.
Pippi is played by the ravishing Laura Dern who clearly couldn’t take him anywhere without him making major gaffs at every turn, forcing her to cut loose and have an abortion. Wilson has no redeeming features at all, nor is he remotely endearing or even amusing in the mould of, say, George (of George & Mildred fame) or even a Frank (from Some Mother’s do Have ‘Em). In short, he’s the smarmy plonker who tries to start up a clever conversation in the bus queue, assuming you share his views (which you don’t).
The nub of the story is that Pippi didn’t have an abortion at all, but put her daughter Claire (Isabella Amara) up for adoption, and who’s now a typical sharp-tongued teenager with oversize thighs and wealthy parents who ignore her. Suddenly Wilson goes from sad single to smug uber-Dad in one easy move. His conversation becomes littered with ghastly phrases like “as a parent” and he bores everyone rigid with his nuclear family-centric drivel.
Sadly, as it is quite sad, Claire rapidly distances herself from Wilson, as does Pippi – who’s desperately casting around for someone decent in a sea of dross. WILSON dredges the barrel for some shards of humour and comes up with a gem of a story that is actually quite true to real life. MT
Dir.: Cate Shortland; Cast: Teresa Palmer. Max Riemelt, Matthias Habich, Emma Bading; Australia 2017,116 min.
Even if you don’t always agree with Cate Shortland’s point of view – Lore was a case in point – she has a special style –as in this variation on John Fowles’ The Collector, filmed in 1965 by William Wyler.
Australian tourist Clare (Palmer) is somehow lost in Berlin, and when she meets handsome Andi (Riemelt), an English teacher, she abandons her journey to Dresden, and stays with him. The sex is satisfying, but Clare soon finds out that Andi wants to keep her for good, as his prisoner: her Sim-Card disappears, the windows of the flat in an otherwise empty apartment block don’t open, and the door is double-bolted.
Andi is a lonely person, his only real contact is his father Erich (Habich), a university lecturer, who, contrary to his son, has some positive feelings about living in the old GDR. Andi’s mother ‘defected’ to the West when he was a child, something he will never forget or forgive.
Clare oscillates between fighting (both are seriously injured) and trying to coax Andi to release her. After Erich dies, the two even spend a rather harmonious Christmas together in the dead man’s house. Andi adopts his father’s dog, and Clare is happy to have some company, when Andi is at work. But Andi’s true nature is soon revealed. A chance encounter with Franka (Bading) – one of Andi’s female students – who turns up on the doorstep, leads to a surprising, but well constructed, original conclusion.
The title refers to the claustrophobic atmosphere, which to this day, hangs over a united Berlin. Neither the neon-glitz of the western part of the city, nor the much less kempt part of the old east, lets us forget what happened here between 1933 and 1945. The fate of over 300 000 Berlin Jews, who were first excluded from public life and had to hide in their flats, before being deported from Grunewald Station to the extermination camps, still hangs over the city. And an involuntary wall the GDR rulers then erected, showed that Germans, whatever the ideology, are very good at creating a Huis-clos state of affairs.
When it becomes clear that Clare is not the first of Andi’s victims, she even allows him to use her more and more as a sexual object: he is more interested in taking photos of the helpless woman than having sex with her. He can only function if there is a woman substitute for the mother who abandoned him.
Palmer and Riemelt are convincing, both Erich and Franka seem to be only there to drive the plot forward. This is a shame, because we would have liked to learn more about Andi. The length of nearly two hours is also problematic: the tighter structure adopted by writer Shuan Grant in Melenie Joosten’s novel, would have kept the audience more engaged. DoP Germain McMicking’s images are most imaginative in the indoor scenes, the Berlin panorama is a little too idyllic. This is a provocative, but authentic production.
Writer|Dir: Roger Michell | Cast: Rachel Weisz, Sam Claflin, Holliday Grainger, Iain Glen, Pierfrancesco Favino, Simon Russell Beale, Vicki Pepperdine, Poppy Lee Friar, Katherine Pearce, Tim Barlow | 110min | Drama
Rachel Weisz plays the enigmatic heroine in this rather subdued adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic romance, with Sam Claflin as the naive country boy who falls under her power, completely misjudging the mood. The 1951 novel was first adapted for the big screen a year after its completion with Nunnally Johnson and Henry Koster brilliantly capturing the sinuous mystery, and giving a chilling sense of spiteful danger that this version fails to convey, despite its lavishly atmospheric mise-en-scene and an unsettling denouement for the impressive cast. Performance-wise, Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton were always going to be a hard act to follow but chemistry certainly smoulders between Claflin and Weisz’s Rachel, although she comes across as coldly reticent rather than alluringly mysterious, and by the end we are glad to be done with her.
In 1830s England, Sam Claflin is warm and exuberant as Philip Ashley, the fresh-faced orphan who “knows nothing of women”, growing up in his cousin Ambrose’s Cornish manor. Unsophisticated and puppyish, he is close to his godfather’s English rose of a daughter Louise (Holliday Grainger) but they lack the erotic charge to be more than friends. Philip idolises Ambrose (who he also plays) and compressed opening scenes show them enjoying outdoor pursuits, in shades of Schlesinger’s Far From The Madding Crowd. Come the winter, Ambrose heads for Italy for his health and finds love with his cousin Rachel, extolling their happiness and marriage in letters back home. But clouds soon gather over their idyll as a note of suspicion, then terror, enters his correspondence, and his “kindest companion” soon becomes “my torment”. And when Philip arrives in Florence to offer support, the mysterious Rainaldi is waiting to tell him that Ambrose is dead from a brain tumour, and Rachel is heading for Cornwall.
Devastated and angered, Philip hot foots it home on a mission of revenge. There, Rachel’s urbane grace disarms him, inviting him to tea, demurely dressed in black, eyelashes ‘a flutter. She is captivated by his strong resemblance to her dead husband, but after a tepid boudoir encounter, he clearly proves to be a pale imitation of the real man, both in and out of the bedroom. From then on Rachel turns to mind games rather than sexual ones, becoming the châtelaine and ordering refurbishments to the shabby decor. This is a household devoid of women so naturally Rachel goes down a treat, even the crusty old retainer Seecombe (Tim Barlow) fumbles more that usual over the tea things. There are open references to Rachel’s ‘unlimited appetite’ from her snivelling house guest Rainaldi, but the only appetite in evidence is her profligacy as a black hole appears in the family finances, and she comes across as simpering, inscrutable and histrionic when challenged, rather than bewitching or seductive. Philip enters a vortex of jealous obsession over Rainaldi (who is later revealed as gay) and rashly signs over his entire inheritance to the object of his desire in a wonderfully played cameo by Simon Russell Beale as his stickler of a lawyer (It’s my job, to stickle”) and rather a twee scene where his godfather (a dignified Iain Glen) plays the harpsichord, on the verge of tears.
Our trust lies in these erudite elders to save the day, but the recalcitrant Philip will have none of it, as the post-coital narrative gains melodramatic momentum driven forward by his stonking lust, Rachel’s ambiguity, and the legal twists and turns. Ambrose’ letters hinted at Rachel poisoning him and Philip discovers laburnum seeds amongst her possessions, while her specially brewed twig teas drive him, quite literally, to delirium, in scenes of woozy magic realism. During a bosky interlude in the bluebells, she again grimly tolerates Philip’s sexual advances, while later claiming to be a liberated female whose emancipation has somehow been challenged by his prescient announcement of their betrothal. It’s clear as the family crystal that Philip has been making advances, so why was she unable, despite her feminist pretensions, to signal her feelings of doubt – or distaste – before his clumsy announcement. Eventually we too become confused by their dalliance. She owns the house, so what is her game plan, if not marriage? She clearly doesn’t appreciate his lovemaking and yet continues to hang around the house titivating and forcing toxic tisanes on the reluctant household, and makes flirtatious sorties to see her Italian friend. Clearly the film’s feminist agenda has been lost in translation somewhere between the 19th and the 21st century. But still our heroine continues to exert a subtle suspense. A very timely film for today where certain women seem stuck in the dark ages while desperate to enjoy the privileges offered by the modern world. MT
Dir.: Joseph Cedar; Cast: Richard Gere, Michael Sheen, Lior Ashkenazi, Charlotte Gainsborough, Steve Buscemi, Josh Charles; USA 2016, 118 min.
Director/writer Joseph Cedar (Footnote) works hard to avoid the usual clichés in this fresh and amusing portrait of the eternal loser Norman Oppenheimer – full title Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer. But his latest feature suffers from too many narrative strands to keep the audience entertained for two hours.
Norman is played by Gere, in fine form, and sees himself as a financial fixer in the Jewish world of New York – unfortunately, he is just a man with a dodgy past and a string of failures in his current trials and tribulations. Nephew Philip Cohen (Sheen) tries his best to keep Norman’s feet on the ground, but he’s a man with his eye to the main chance – which is always just around the corner. Norman invents a dead wife and a daughter to gain the community’s sympathy, but on the up-side, he’s never mean-spirited. When he meets the Israeli politician Micha Eshel (Ashkenazi), he tries to impress him with his connections, and Eshel, who does not know how insignificant these business contacts are, gives Norman the lions-share of his time. In return, Norman blows his budget on a gift of designer shoes for Eshel, who is a man without scruples, becoming Prime Minister of Israel and going all-out for a peace mission with the Arab world. But he still remembers Norman’s kindness when visiting New York, and for once, Oppenheimer is the toast of the town. But soon Eshel gets into a bribery scandal, and to save his career, he has to sacrifice Norman.
There are fine character performances here: Steve Buscemi does Rabbi Blumenthal, who uses Norman’s new found popularity to involve him in a donation scheme to save the synagogue – but quickly drops him, when his connections with Eshel become a liability; Charlotte Gainsborough’s Alex Green, an Israeli agent, who tries to bring Eshel down with notes about connections drawn up by Norman – total fabrications, just to impress her. Arthur Taub is a coldblooded host, who literally throws Norman out after he gate-crashes his party.
Norman struggles against the tide of life, and he has our sympathy. DoP Yaron Scharf (who worked with Cedar on Footnote) crafts a harsh world with his brilliant camerawork. Gere is terrific, a big fish in his small world of sharks waiting to pounce. With some cuts and a little structuring this could have been a great film, but it is still worthwhile. AS
Just like the Old Dark Houses of the Gothic tradition, Gothic cinema is a haunted abode, plagued by the undead spectres of theatre and expressionism. Alex Barrett lights his torch and goes to investigate.
In 1931, Universal Studios kick-started classic horror cinema with the release of Dracula and Frankenstein, two of the most influential and iconic films of all time, derived from two equally important works of literature. Significantly, however, neither film came to the screen direct from the page, but were instead based upon pre-existing stage adaptations of the original texts. Indeed, it had been the success of Dracula on Broadway (and at the Little Theatre in London) which had encouraged Universal to make their film. Though officially credited to Tod Browning, the film is now widely considered to have been co-directed by its cinematographer, Karl Freund – a key figure in both 1930s horror, and what is now commonly referred to as ‘German Expressionism’.
Debates still rage as to what defines ‘Expressionism’, and as to which films can be truly considered ‘Expressionist’, but here it seems sufficient to characterise Expressionist films as works which seek to express their characters’ subjective inner turmoil in an objective outward fashion through the mise-en-scène. The movement (if one can call it such) spread across the arts, infecting not only cinema, but painting, sculpture, literature and – yes – theatre. Among the most important of those working in theatre was director Max Reinhardt, who drew upon Expressionism’s rejection of naturalism in his attempt to create an all-encompassing theatre (he was influenced by the theories of Richard Wagner). Perhaps most importantly, Reinhardt placed special emphasis on décor and pioneered the use of chiaroscuro lighting. He was also responsible for creating the Kammerspiele, a ‘chamber theatre’ for works featuring intimate psychological portraits. A distinction is often made between Kammerspiele and Expressionism (as Expressionists reject psychology and motivation), though the line becomes a little blurred when Kammerspielfilms seek to convey their protagonists’ subjective feelings objectively (and hence the on-going debates).
Whether one accepts the Expressionist tag or not, it’s true that many German films from this period emphasised mise-en-scène and focused on character psychology. What’s also true is that many of the key players from this era worked with Reinhardt before moving into cinema – including, for instance, F. W. Murnau, Ernst Lubitsch, William Dieterle, Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss and Paul Wegener. Wegener, a pioneering actor, writer and director, had begun making Gothic features as early as 1913, with his Edgar Allan Poe-inspired The Student of Prague. In 1915 he teamed up with writer (and former Reinhardt assistant) Henrik Galeen to make The Golem, the first in a trilogy of films Wegener made about the Jewish clay automaton. For the trilogy’s third part, The Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920), Wegener and Galeen teamed up with yet another former Reinhardt collaborator: Karl Freund. (Freund was cameraman on two of Reinhardt’s early flirtations with film: Isle of the Blessed (1913) and A Venetian Night (1914).) Although it’s impossible to say for sure what influence Reinhardt left on Freund and the other German filmmakers of this era, it certainly seems that many of his techniques and theories remain discernible in their work.
Following in the footsteps of many of his contemporaries and collaborators (including Murnau and Lubitsch), Freund emigrated to the USA in 1929, taking the influence of Reinhardt and expressionism with him – influence he clearly brought to bear on Dracula and his other horror films of the 1930s. So as to not overstate the case for Freund’s contribution, however, it may be worth noting that émigré director Paul Leni had already made The Cat and the Canary for Universal (in 1927), and that the Studio probably saw Leni’s film as one of the works that paved the way for Dracula.Back in Germany, Leni had made the seminal expressionist film Waxworks (1924) – which was written by Galeen. Interestingly, though, Leni himself never worked with Reinhardt, despite starting his career as an avant-garde painter and theatrical set designer in Berlin. The Cat and the Canary, meanwhile, was adapted from a 1922 play of the same name.
Following the success of Dracula, Universal assigned Freund to direct The Mummy (1932) – a film which can be seen as harking back to German Expressionism in several ways. For instance, film historian Paul M. Jensen has noted that the The Mummy’s use of camera movement and pacing reflects the German idea of ‘stimmung’, in which action becomes secondary to the unstated, and images evoke psychological atmosphere. Jensen also has compared the content and construction of the sequence in which Helen Grosvenor answers Imhotep’s call to the moment in Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) in which Ellen responds to Orlok (and Nosferatu, let’s not forget, was directed by Murnau and written by Galeen, and starred a third Reinhardt steward, Max Schreck).
Other links between The Mummy and Expressionism emerge too, such as the way the flickering to life of themummy itself recalls both the awakening of Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and of the titular creature in the 1920 The Golem. (The impact of these two German films is also felt elsewhere: for instance, the sideshow element of Caligari also seems to have influenced Universal’s 1932 Freund-shot Murders in the Rue Morgue, while Frankenstein owes much to The Golem.) The Mummy’s torchlight search through the museum, meanwhile, seems to recall the chase through the catacombs in the Freund-shot Metropolis (1927) – though Jensen has compared it to a scene in The Last Laugh (1924, also shot by Freund).
Freund’s work in The Last Laugh is likewise felt in his 1935 directorial effort Mad Love, which contains a subjective point of view shot – something pioneered by Freund in both The Last Laugh and 1925’s Variety. Interestingly, Mad Love was also a remake of a German Expressionist film (Robert Wiene’s 1924 The Hands of Orlac) and was written by John L. Balderston, who had worked on the stage adaptations of Dracula and Frankenstein that Universal had drawn from in 1931. Balderston also wrote The Mummy for Freund, and there are elements which recur through both films, as well as through Dracula (such as a strange, foreign interloper who threatens the central relationship). The constancy of these ideas seems to suggest that Balderston, like Freund, should be considered a major player in the Classic Horror cycle of the 1930s.
It’s perhaps worth noting that Mad Love was not a Universal production (it was made by MGM), and that Universal were not alone in taking influence from the stage (see, for instance, Paramount’s 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which follows Thomas Russell Sullivan’s stage adaptation). The practice was also not limited to the 1930s: for instance, Henry James’ classic Gothic text The Turn of the Screw came to the screen via the stage – as The Innocents – in 1961. The influence of expressionism, too, is detectable beyond the 1930s, notably in the work of Tim Burton, whose skewed, angular set design seems to owe much to the legacy of silent German cinema (Burton, of course, also paid explicit homage to Frankenstein in both Sleepy Hollow (1999) and his two Frankenweenies (1984 and 2012)). It seems only fair to say, then, that Gothic cinema owes much to both the theatre and expressionism, and to the legacy of Reinhardt, Freund and Balderston.
F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu is also available throug EUREKA, MASTERS OF CINEMA: SPECIAL BLU-RAY, DVD AND DUAL FORMAT STEELBOOK EDITIONS.
Director: Nicole Garcia Writers: Nicole Garcia, Jacques Fieschi, based on a novel by Milena Agus
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Louis Garrel, Alex Brendemuhl, Brigitte Rouan, Victoire Du Bois, Aloise Sauvage, Daniel Para, Jihwan Kim, Victor Quilichini
Marion Cotillard is back with another intense character study that haunts this otrtured love story. In actor turned filmmaker Nicole Garcia’s eighth film FROM THE LAND OF THE MOON she plays Gabrielle a woman from a bourgeois background who is desperate to find fulfilment in romantic love. Based on a best seller by Italian writer Milena Agus, the story opens in 1950s France where Gabrielle is driving her family to distraction with her violent and quixotic temperament. Fortunately beauty and money are on her side in an era where arranged marriages were still commonplace, so her mother organises a match with a penniless but decent Spanish builder, Jose (Alex Brendemuhl from Wakolda), who knuckles down to taking Gabrielle respectably off their hands and making an honest Catholic woman of her. From the outset, Gabrielle makes it clear that she will not be having sex with Jose and he takes this calmly knowing full well that his bedroom skills could potentially change her mind on the subject.
And Jose’s straightforward, kind and stable nature soon calms Gabrielle’s flighty temperament and emerges as one of the more sympathetic characters in the film and a counterpoint to Gabrielle’s selfish and wayward character. Garcia and Jacques Fieschi’s script also emphasises Gabrielle’s desperate need of sexual fulfilment as we seen her standing in the cool river on a hot day trying to achieve the same sexual relief as men did during the war with the use of bromide. Obviously this is a sotry that will draw comparisons with Madame Bovary, although Gabrielle is not constrained by her social, moral or religious scruples and her husband is kind and supportive. After a miscarriage, Jose sends her off to an expensive Swiss clinic for treatment and once again her febrile sexual imagination gets the better of her. Here she meet Louis Garrel as the dashing lieutenant Andre Sauvage and is immediately smitten, especially as his keyboard skills playing Tchaikovsky are to become a leitmotif for the piece in the whimsical closing scenes.
Cotillard’s is the driving force behind this visually ravishing drama. She illuminates every scene with her serene beauty and elegance instilling calm and grace despite her brooding unhappiness which morphs into euphoria when she meets Sauvage. As Gabrielle, she struggles to find contentment upsetting everyone else into the bargain with her toxic personality and meanness. This is a fabulously crafted classic drama that is both absorbing and intensely enjoyable. MT
Dir.: Claude Barras | Animation | Switzerland/France | 66 min.
Claude Barras’ stop-motion animation is a tender tale probing life’s saddest moment: not a kid’s film but one that resonates with the kid inside us – Heart-breaking and uplifting at the same time. Celine Scammia (Water Lilies, Girlhood) an expert on juvenile psyches, has cleverly scripted Gilles Paris’ autobiographical novel Ma Vie de Courgette, and although the film is not as dark as the book, Barras’ characters have to deal with considerable trauma, making it only suitable for the over-tens.
The story of nine-year old orphan Courgette (his real name is Icare, i.e. Icarus) is completely different from other child-themed animations Mathilda or Annie.Courgette himself has killed his alcoholic mother accidentally; he keeps one of her empty beer cans as the only memento of her life. A friendly policeman Raymond takes him to an orphanage where he meets look-alikes, who share his displacement: the faces of all the children seem to be made out of plasticine, they have a mop of coloured hair – in Courgette’s case – huge blue hands, and golf-ball sized eyes, with the iris looking as if it was stuck on. These eyes really are mirrors of their souls, pictures of their state of mind. And despite the slender running time, David Toutevoix’ delicately rendered images convey the passing years as the orphans develop seamlessly from children to gawky pre-teens. Initially the colours are muted, particularly in Courgette’s flat, where he hides in the attic to avoid his dipsy mother. But as life improves the visuals lighten and colours become more vibrant.
When Courgette enters the orphanage he is immediately accosted by the loutish leader of the pack, Simon, who calls him ‘potatoes’; whilst the dinosaur-obsessed Ahmed becomes more of a soul mate. Alice, always shy, hides behind her hair which she parts like two curtains over her face, when embarrassed. But Courgette falls for Camille. When Raymond re-appears, he takes the two children to his flat cacti-ridden flat. But then Camille’s money-grabbing aunt takes over: she feels nothing for her niece but wants to collect the grant for raising her. But Camille and Courgette find a way of being together.
Courgette is a sensitive study in grief, but also an authentic portrait of children growing up, coming to terms with their sadness and becoming sociable beings who have learned to look out for each other, like Simon who encourages Courgette and Camille to live with Raymond, even though they are sad to leave him behind. Barras and Sciammia create a wonderful cosmos of healing: symbolised by the children using a weatherboard for their moods: ‘Cloudy’ turning more often to ‘sunny’ than not. AS
Dir: Patty Jenkins | Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, David Thewlis | US | Adventure Drama
That sound you can hear right now is hundreds, if not thousands, of film writers and critics breathing a huge sigh of relief that they won’t need to think too hard about the positives in DC’s newest reboot of Wonder Woman. With a cast straight out any fanboy and girl’s dreams and more roles for women over 40 than you can shake a stick at, WONDER WOMAN is not only a welcome break from the usual male-centric superhero movies, but it also presents its audience with a truly engaging and thoroughly enjoyable storyline. Staring Israeli actress Gal Gadot and directed by the excellent Patty Jenkins (Monster, 2003), the film manages to cleverly avoid the usual pitfalls of big summer blockbusters by offering up a plethora of very likeable characters and a wonderfully engaging plot. Fans and foes alike will have to admit that DC has finally got a big hit on its hands, and the fact that this was a female lead superhero movie is even sweeter for some.
Diana (Gadot) lives on a mythical island inhabited by beautiful Amazonian warrior women, which has for centuries been hidden away from the prying eyes of the modern world. When American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash-lands on the island with tens of German soldier in his pursuit, Diana goes to his rescue and helps free him from the wreckage of his war plane. Together, they hatch a plan to leave the island, him to go back to his top secret mission and her in search of Ares God of war, whom she believes is responsible for the current World War. Staring Robin Wright as the Amazonian warrior Antiope and Connie Nielsen as Diana’s mother Hippolyta, the film spends a rather unnecessary amount of time setting up the mythical story behind our heroine, but once it gets going, there’s no stopping it. Chris Pine manages to be both charming and insufferably smug, his performance is beautifully nuanced and commendably comedic at his own character’s expense.
Whether WONDER WOMAN is, as some have said, a feminist treatment of a classic story, remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, Gal Gadot not only puts in a brilliant performance, but also presents a whole new generation of little girls and boys with a badass alternative to the usual male counterparts. On the whole, the film is very silly in parts, but this does nothing to put a dampener on the proceedings. I would dare anyone not to be entertained, at least by its witty dialogue and touching storyline. A sure hit for DC and Warner Brothers. LINDA MARRIC.
Mikhail Kaufman’s 1929 silent documentary IN SPRING (Ukrainian: Навесні, translit. Navesni, Russian: Весной, translit. Vesnoi) is Soviet Ukraine’s answer to Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera. The two brothers and regular collaborators had fallen out over artistic differences in their approach to filmmaking. Strongly rhythmic and stylishly symmetrical, IN SPRING was made in accordance with the ideas of the avant-garde manifesto Kinoks and was Kaufman’s directorial debut.
Much in the same way as Man With a Movie Camera, the experimental film explores the gradual awakening of a new spring day after the snowy rigours of winter. The film opens in the countryside, as opposed to the urban setting of Man With A Movie Camera, and as ice begins to thaw, illustrated by a humorous image of a snowman’s black eyes streaming down his melting face, people, horses and carts begins to emerge as people preparing for a sunny day as one of the shops lays out the newspaper “Socialist emulation Bulletin” for the year 1929. Agricultural activities give way to the pounding of machines in an industrial landscape. In the city parks and gardens, trees are sprouting leaves and in the branches birds build nests, bees swarm around flowers, buds bloom directly beforre our eyes. People walk freely unencumbered by heavy winter clothing. Soviet sportsmanship features again with a May Day demonstration with flags, competitions, a football match at a packed stadium. Daredevil-bicyclist rides on a street while playing the harmonica; girls are dancing and children excising in regimented rows.
BERTHA DOCHOUSE W1 | Introduced and followed by a Q&A with Stanislav Menzelevskyi, Head of Research and Programming Department, Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, who was involved in the recent restoration of In Spring, and hosted by Professor Ian Christie.
This event is made possible in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute in London and the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, Ukraine.
Director | Bence Fliegauf | Cast Angéla Stefanovics, Bálint Sótonyi, Miklós Székely, Mária Gindert,, Maja Balogh
90mins Fantasy Drama Hungary
Hungarian filmmaker Bence Fliegauf creates a world of fantasy based in the reality of a divorcing couple and their small son. With a few simple devices: a ghostly original score, technical effects such as slo-mo and extreme close-ups as the camera glides over his toys and giving them a otherworldly appeal, while a young woman slowly spins a fairy story. Bence Fliegauf’s mesmerising debut drama slowly emerges like an enigmatic crystalis from its cocoon. By associating simple objects and images – a broken toy, a stuffed animal, a mask, a stormy skyline: a suggestive narrative emerges connecting with our own childhood experiences of fear. Rebeka and Dani face these fears head on – embracing them to create their own fantasy world that drives the narrative forward.
In flashback, Rebeka (Angéla Stefanovics) casts back to happy times when her son was born. Clearly she was loved but now wants a separation from his father, but not a divorce on paper. LILY LANE shifts backwards and forwards; a stream of consciousness that sparks subconscious fears and memories of childhood, life and love.
The story unravels in black-and-white photos, snapshots of the physical intimacy and unique bond between mother and child. Often the camera creeps around at strange angles, giving a voyeurish feel of impending and oppressive doom and building palpable suspense. Angela Stefanovics is well cast: her dark looks are bewitching and she gives the impression of a being a soul from a bygone era. Her sudden emotional outbursts evoke impending tragedy or mental instability brought on by post traumatic stress. Her son asks simple questions: “what happens when we die” yet in the film’s context they often appear ghoulish. Fliegauf’s cognitive dissonance technique is similarly used by Veronika Franz in her debut Goodnight Mommy. Based on montage made with cleverly edited mixed technology LILY LANE is a simple yet highly effective fantasy drama that plays on the senses and remains in the memory. MT
Dir.: John Goldschmidt | Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Jerome Holder, Pauline Collins, Phil Davis, Ian Hart, Natasha Gordon; UK/Hungary | 94 min.
Veteran director John Goldschmidt (Maschenka) is best known for his TV work and here turns his hand to a feel-good portrait of London’s East End, where hero and villains live next door and no harm is done – really.
Kosher baker Nat Dayan (Pryce), whose wife has recently died, is about to lose his family shop to the greedy developer Sam Cotton (Phil Davis). His son Stephen, a Cambridge-educated lawyer, urges him to retire. Enter Ayyash Habimana (Holder), a black teenager from Nigeria, who shares Nat’s religious observance, although his Muslim faith does not prevent him from working for local drug dealer Sam Cotton (Hart). Nat is reluctant to employ Ayyash, whose mother is already on the baker’s payroll but when he does it emerges that Ayyash has hidden talents taking the bakery’s turnover and profits to sensational new heights. When the young Nigerian accidentally drops a pack of hashish into the challah dough, things go slightly out of hand, as Nat’s customers, friends and family are suddenly under the influence with dramatic consequences for all concerned. Masquerading as realism, DOUGH is just a run-of-the-mill early evening TV fare where everything falls into place, including a happy-end for Nat, in the shape of his landlady Joanna Silverman (Collins). Seeing him dancing with his granddaughter in the puddles in front of his shop (having watched Gene Kelly’s original over and over), is too cringingworthy. DoP Peter Hannan (Withnail & I) tries his best to make use of the studio-atmosphere, but cannot do much to save the saccharine narrative. A lightweight and unassuming watch. AS
Dir.: John Jencks; Cast: Roger Allam, Emily Berrington, Dean Ridge, Fiona shaw, Matthew Modine, Tommy Knight, Lynne Renee, Emma Curtis, Richard Glover, Gerald, John Standing; UK 2017, 89 min.
Based on a novel by Stephen Fry, director John Jencks (The Fold) and writers Blanche McIntyre and Tom Hodgson have come up with a pastiche on the “English Country House Mystery”, which is neither funny nor well-crafted. In fact, it’s pretty much a waste of time.
Just fired from his job as a theatre critic, irritable blunderer (and ex-poet) Ted Wallace (Allam), is asked by his god-daughter Jane (Berrington), who has been miraculously cured from leukaemia, to investigate the source of her cure. For this reason, Allam visits the country estate of the Logans, a family he was once close to Lord and Lady Logan (Matthew Modine, Fiona Shaw) have two sons, Simon (Ridge) and David (Knight), the latter Allam’s Godson. David is supposed to cure humans and animals alike, but Allam finds out the rationale behind the “miracles”: young David is sometimes apt to obtain sexual favours by masquerading as a faith healer – whilst the alcoholic Allam put a bottle full off whisky into the feeding bucket of a horse, which recovered on its own accord. When the light-hearted banter turns into something far more serious, the filmmakers lose the plot completely, when Jane’s mother Rebecca (with whom Allam had an affair) turns up out of the blue.
Complete with caricature appearances by Tim McInnery as the gay ‘Tunte’; Oliver Mills, Lynne Renee and Emma Curtis as the ‘French’ mother/daughter duo of Valerie and Clara Richmonde (sic), The comedy goes from bad to worse. DoP Angus Hudson undermines the project even further by letting his images look as pedestrian and third-hand as the narrative. Not even a persiflage, but just a caricature of itself, this is as tepid as it gets – even John Standing’s butler Podmore is mediocre. AS
Director and cinematographer David Bickerstaff is back with the final part of his illuminating series Exhibition on Screen that offers an armchair view of current worldwide art shows, this time tracing the life and work of Michelangelo from his birth in Arezzo to his final days in Florence. Bickerstaff acts as his own cinematographer in this rather dry but learned documentary that may have enthused better had it made more of the human story behind the artist, such as Michelangelo’s relationship with Florentine despot Lorenzo de Medici, or his well-known ‘terribilita’ a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur often remarked upon by his contemporaries. Recent outings Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood (2015); Vincent Van Gogh: a New Way (2015) and Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse (2016) are particularly exciting for this reason alone – the art treasures provide the icing of the cake.
Michelangelo, along with Leonardo di Vinci is considered one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance, a virtuoso craftsman, he was not only a sculptor but also a painter, architect, poet and spiritualist creating magnificent and diverse works such as the towering statue of David, the deeply moving Pietà in the Papal Basilica of St. Peter and his tour-de-force, the Sistine Chapel ceiling still leave us in awe of his skill, even today.
Spanning his 89 years (1475-1564), Michelangelo – Love and Death, takes a cinematic journey from the print and drawing rooms of Europe, through the great chapels and museums of Florence, Rome and the Vatican to explore the tempestuous life of Michelangelo. great deal of his work was commissioned and influenced by the Florentine Medici family who held sway in fifteenth century Florence. Bickerstaff’s pristine camerawork examines his work in minute detail with informed commentary particularly rom art critic Martin Hayford and various Italian curators and experts (including Francesca Nicoli who explains how carrera marble was the best medium for fine sculpture of the Renaissance style). The film delves deep – perhaps too deep for mainstream audiences – and features close-ups of the Rothschild Bronzes which were positively attributed to Michelangelo in 2015. It emerges that Michelangelo preferred men to women, but not in a sexual sense; more in the way that he worshipped the physicality of the male form, although he often endowed his male figures with more rounded thighs and buttocks, normally associated with Amazonian women, rather than the plump fulsomeness of women of his era. Highlighting the fact that sculptors of the day were given permission and access to study human corpses by the Church, in return for creating religious works on their behalf, the film also stresses how this experience made them more knowledgeable about human anatomy than their medical contemporaries.
Accompanied by an atmospheric score of lute music and enriched by its glorious Italian locations including Casa Buonarroti in Florence and the Medici Chapel and the Vatican, Michelangelo – Love and Death perfectlycaptures Michelangelo’s environment, and in turn, delivers a greater understanding of the artist and his work.
SCREENING NATIONWIDE from 14 JUNE 2017 | EXHIBITION ON SCREEN
This documentary complements the current Michelangelo event at London’s National Gallery.
Dir: Sophie Coppola | Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst, Oona Laurence | 91min | Thriller | US
Set in Louisiana and shot in 35mm THE BEGUILED is Sophie Coppola’s re-telling of Thomas Cullinan’s original 1966 novel that explores the powerplay and sexual tension that erupts between a group of differently-aged nubile females and an attractive male forced into their midst during the American Civil War.
Luminously mounted (the operative word – as the movie reveals!), THE BEGUILED sizzles swelteringly in its Southern Gothic aesthetic while remaining as delicate as a starched doily. Colin Farrell is dashingly seductive as the union soldier McBurney transported to this prim and proper confederate ladies’ school when he is rescued, wounded, in nearby woods by one of the youngest girls. Presided over by Nicole Kidman’s prickly Madame Martha who disapproves of the enemy element but secretly joins the innocent ladies’ lustful queue in the shape of Kirsten Dunst’ glacial French mistress Edwina, and Elle Fanning’s disruptive teenager Alicia with an eye for the main chance, the film works as a psychological thriller and a historical drama.
Sophie Coppola makes a dramatic reverse thrust in her clever narrative once Alicia’s cat has been let out of the bag transforming the dynamic of the entire household and transferring the power from a female perspective to a rugged male one, thus unleashing anger, fear and pent up longing all round, although we are never quite sure who is ultimately in control. As McBurney gets to know Martha’s pupils, it’s unsure whether he is trustworthy or a snake in the grass with lascivious intentions. And his masculine vulnerability sparks both desire and inquietude in the young women. He also has a cunning male knack of making them all feel intimate with him showering praise and compliments, individually, in an obsequiously sincere way. Competing with each other covertly for his affections, the girls try to maintain their ladylike behaviour but on an animal level their instincts lead them in a different direction.
Philippe Le Sourd’s hazy visuals give the film a dreamlike quality as if the college is caught in a time-warp from which there is no escape, and yet a drousy longing to remain. The film also has a timeless nature dealing with evergreen themes which could easily translate to a comtemporary setting. Don Siegel made a 1971 version of the story starring Clint Eastwood as the soldier who seduces the women, gradually turning them against each other and eventually himself.
Performances are superlative especially from Nicole Kidman as the cocquettish but buttoned-up Marsha, and Elle Fanning Alicia in the first flush of burgeoning sexuality. Both manage vague flirtatiousness while keeping their upper lips stiff. But Farrell is the standout in a complex portrait that feels ambiguous but retains an intruiging tension throughout. This is Coppola’s most absorbing and accomplished work so far. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 17-28 MAY 2017 | IN COMPETITION
Baumbach’s latest serio-comedy THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES asks the question: how do you manage a creative father who constantly puts you down?
Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler deal with their own neuroses while managing a creative father who puts them all down. Stiller is well-off LA lawyer Matthew Meyerowitz, a half- brother to failed musician Danny (Sandler) and non-entity Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) who live close by to their sculptor father (Hoffman) whose party piece is bringing the conversation back to himself. Harold’s retrospective show brings the family back together in the Brooklyn home he shares with his fourth wife Maureen, a scatty alcoholic played amusingly by Emma Thompson. But the show is put in jeopardy when Dad suffers a brain trauma that makes his narcissism worse.
The siblings find a certain love-hate solidarity as they struggle with the inevitable fallout, all operating from a position of shame; Danny feels a failure as an artist, although he’s a good father. Matthew fails by not being an artist, despite being a financial success; Jean has emerged from Harold’s negligent parenting never achieving anything, in act of self-sabotage; and they’re all latently angry with each other. Baumbach’s clever script ensures there’s plenty of dry humour, and even open wrestling, to lighten things up. With entertaining turns from Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson and a soulful Adam Sandler as the underdog, this is a film that will feel poignantly personal for many.
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL | 17 – 27 MAY 2017 | IN COMPETITION
Dir.: Jonathan Cenzual Burley; Cast: Miguel Martin, Alfonso Mendiguchia, Juan Luis Sara, Maribel Iglesias; Spain 2016, 98 min.
The harsh rural landscape of Central Spain is the backdrop to this story about what money (the lack of it and the lack of need for it) can do to rather ordinary men. This is not so much about greed, but about what happens when the pressure to be materially successful in life collides with the traditional values of a life outside modern society.
Anselmo (Martin) is a shepherd, who lives in harmony with nature and his dog Pillo in a rundown cottage in the middle of nowhere. He, and his very modest lifestyle, are introduced in the first ten minutes; apart from a few words to Pillo, the sequence is just an introduction to the landscape, which will dominate proceedings: As in his debut The Soul of Flies, Burley is his own DoP, his pristine camerawork captures the beauty a natural workd that is never sentimentalised. Anselmo has no television, his leisure time is spent having a glass of wine in the local bodega and visits to the library in the nearby city of Salamanca (?) where he meets the librarian Concha (Iglesias), who treats him with gentle respect: most people believe he is a simpleton for eschewing a material existence. The tranquillity is undisturbed, until a developer offers Anselmo a handsome amount for his land. Anselmo refuses, he sees no need to change his modest, but meaningful life. Enter Julian (Mendiguchia), the owner of the local slaughterhouse, and Paco (Sara), another businessman, who need to sell their land to the developer – but won’t be able to make the much-needed profit, if Anselmo does not join them in the endeavour. Both men depend on the deal, because the middle class Julian, as well as the petit-bourgeois Paco, are living above their means. The pace kicks up in the last fifteen minutes, with an action-packed finale that is much in contrast to what went on before, very much action packed: a boy falls into a well, after Anselmo foresees the accident – shades of the magic realism of The Soul of Flies. But the bloody confrontation between the male trio, whilst telegraphed, somehow seems a rather simplistic solution.
Great on atmosphere, THE SHEPHERD is a brilliant explores the collision of very different lives, but the characters – apart from Anselmo – are somehow unwritten. To resolve this rather delicate story with an explosion of violence, is somehow negating everything what went before. Beautiful to look at, and directed with great panache, it is Burley the writer whose narrative fails him in the end. AS
Dir: Aki Kaurismäki | Finland / Germany | Finnish, English, Arabic | Drama | 98 min · Colour · 35 mm, 2K DCP
The grass is always greener on the other side especially when your business is failing or you live in a war zone. Aki Kurismaki’s latest film is an unapologetically upbeat story of dystopia in modern day Helsinski where two lives converge – that of Khaled, a Syrian refugee and stowaway on a coal freighter and Wikström, a Finnish travelling salesman peddling ties and men’s shirts. Treating his characters with even-handed sympathy and understanding Kurismaki evokes a realistic picture of the local refugee crisis as well as the economic malaise affecting contemporary Finland.
When Khaled claims asylum at the government offices, he is bathetically told: “you are not the first”. This is the start of many telling observations that give THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE its spry and ironic humour. Meanwhile Witstrom leaves his wife and his business and, after a win at the poker tables, buys a local restaurant business. When the authorities turn down Khaled’s application, he decides to remain, going underground in the Finnish capital where he gets duffed up by the ‘Finnish Freedom League’ before some friendly street musicians offer support. And soon Wikstrom offers him a job in his new concern where the classic Kaurismaki community muddle along with the waitress, the chef and his friendly Jack Russell.
Starring regular collaborators Sakari Kuosmanen, Kati Outinnen and Ilkka Koivula, THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE is witty and watchable and never takes itself too seriously in showing how the kindness of strangers goes along way to making the world a better place. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE 26 MAY | SILVER BEAR WINNER BERLINALE 2017| BEST DIRECTOR
Dir: Taylor Sheridan | Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Jeremy Renner | US | Thriller | 111min
Taylor Sheridan is the writer behind Cannes UCR 2016 breakout hit Hell or High Water and scripted the competition title Sicario in 2015. He returns to Cannes this year with his own mystery thriller set in Wyoming and starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen.
Shedding more troubling light on American contempo society this action thriller explores events surrounding the violent murder of a teenage girl found in a snowy corner of Wyoming and its investigation by Renner Cory Lambert, a thoughtful and sensitive wildlife ranger who clearly has some issues relating to the recent loss of his own teenage daughter and breakdown in his marriage. Joining him in the investigation (Sicario-style in black SUV) is Olsen’s rather green FBI sidekick, Jane Banner. Clearly Cory is a hands-on type who is used to the territory, whereas she is not.
It also emerges that the dead girl has a brother whose sidekick Pete (James Jordan) seems to have some past connection with the oil company located on the Native American land, and although her father (Gil Birmingham) offers little insight into possible perpetrators, clues start to reveal that Pete is in some way connected.
Their inquiries lead them to an alarming confrontation with a group of Mexican oil-workers and this rather melodramatic second act sits uncomfortably with what has gone before. But Sheridan makes this good in the final denouement which brings us to an impressive close in this enjoyable thriller with its twists and dramatic turns. Clearly Sheridan is still learning but his directorial debut lacks the dialogue finesse of his former outings. WIND RIVER is solid entertainment showing Sheridan to be honing his skills as a consummate talent in the making. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2017 | 17-28 MAY 2017 | UN CERTAIN REGARD
Dir.: Feng Xiaogang; Cast: Fan Bingbing, Guo Tao, Da Peng Zhang Jiayi; China 2016, 138 min.
Director Feng Xiaogang (Back to 1942) and writer Zhenyun mock the Party bureaucrats but fail to give justice to the main character Li Xuelian, a woman fighting the law of an entire country, when she is wronged by her ex-husband.
Ten years ago Li Xuelian (Bingbing) and her husband Qin Yuhe got a fake divorce, the plan was to obtain another property. But after the divorce, Qin fell in love with another woman, and Li took him to court, to have the divorce annulled. But Judge Wang Gongdao (Peng) rules that the divorce stands; later Qin Yuhe calls Li a whore in front of his friends. A decade later, Wang is Chief Justice of the country, whilst Li is still protesting the court ruling at the Party Congress in Beijing. Wang asks the chef Zhao Datou (Tao), who had a crush on the young Li at school, to keep the woman away from the Congress. After raping Li, who tells him, “in spite of the rape this was the best sex I ever had”, she nevertheless leaves him when it emerges that he is spying on her on Wangs’s behalf. Much too late we learn at the end that the first divorce caused Li to have a miscarriage, and that she is fighting the courts on behalf of her unborn child.
Overlong and openly misogynist, the only saving grace is the innovative camerawork of DoP Pan Luo (Old Fish), whose circular images are a joyful reminder of silent films. But this does not compensate for the many issues director and writer have with women and their representation. AS
I AM NOT MADAME BOVARY (WO BU SHI PAN JIN LIAN) RELEASE ON 26 MAY 2017
Dir.: Alex Taylor | Cast: Alexa Davies, Antti Reini, Tallulah Rose Haddon, Lara Peake, Lucian Charles Collier | Drama | UK 86 min.
First time filmmaker Alex Taylor tries to evoke an alternative teenage world of alien abduction and unicorns in a dull corner of English suburbia. The result is a pretentious cocktail of pseudo-philosophy borrowing hopelessly from masters Gregg Araki and Guy Maddin.
Lucidia (Davies) is one of a bunch of teenagers who mistake their boredom for a creative impulse: popping pills and drinking whisky, they dress in psychedelic garb, trumping it up to be ‘avant-garde’. Lucidia’s mother died years ago under mysterious circumstances in her swimming pool, and her father Gabriel (Reini), an archaeologist of some sorts, has not come to terms with the loss. Feeling abandoned, Lucidia stages her own alien abduction. Her friends, stoned and/or role-playing, support this event: it gives them a credibility they have longed for. Gabriel now decides to get to know his daughters peers: there is Alice (Haddon), who drags her leather-clad boyfriend along on a leash like a dog, is supposed to be a vampire; Tegan (Peake) wants to be saved by Gabriel, but is happy spending her time being high, and Luke (Collier) who rides around on his motorbike, a tame imitation of Slater/Dean, eventually getting attached to a crashed helicopter. We never see the unicorns and black hole, but when Lucidia returns with a lame reason for her disappearance, the relief of cast and audience is mutual.
SPACESHIP looks like college cocktail of weird ideas, but rather than abandon the project, Taylor states in an interview that this improvised script was re-edited, and it shows: much of the senselessness of the narrative comes from the residue of another script version. To confuse matters even more, Taylor changes the POV structure of story-telling half-way through, to take an omniscient overview. DoP Liam Iandoli, also a debutant, tries to adjust to the spontaneous changes, without finding his own style in the process. The best part of SPACESHIP is its young ‘cast’, who just had fun. Most of the time, SPACESHIP is a bit of reverie for a middle-aged man surrounded by a group of sparsely clad teenage girls. AS
Dir.: Rahul Jain | Documentary | India/Germany/Finland | 75 min.
Originally ‘just’ a midterm project for debuting director/co-editor/co-DoP Rahul Jain at Cal Arts, his ‘student film’ MACHINES found its way into Sundance. Whilst describing the hell of working in a textile plant in Surat, with 4.5 million inhabitants India’s eighth largest city and economical capital of Gujarat, Jain chose to film the hellish environment in an extravagant, visually beautiful style.
Like a flies on the wall, Jain and his crew are invisible: the machines – running for 24 hours – churn out spools of fabric, dyed in sumptuously imaginative patterns, as young children, teenagers and older workers shuffle around their twelve hour shifts, looking like hunted animals in the dark sweltering jungle of this material world. “There are machines and then there are humans that are machines. My main focus was on humans who have ben dehumanised by labour to the point of losing their identities”.
Workers are aware of the trap they find themselves in: “Nobody makes me to work here, I travel 1600 km, 36 hours to get to this place”. Whilst they can stop working at any time, there is no guarantee that they will be re-employed. This is underlined by the sadly astonishing fact that all those interviewed, apart from the managers, had been replaced by the end of the shoot. Only 95% of the state’s workplaces are unionised and more than one labourer states, “When we unite, the leader of the union is usually killed”. Health and security issues are ignored, considering the huge cascades of chemicals and sludge-dumping, one wonders about the long-term health issues of the workforce. At one point, the director is directly questioned about his intentions – and he is compared, not favourably, to politicians who engage with the workers ‘ plight at election times, but disappear quickly after polling day. The textile plant looks like a re-incarnation of a Dickensian nightmare, yet it has been in operation for just twelve years. Since the 1960, India has undergone a massive, unregulated industrialisation. In the textile industry alone, 45 million workers are employed, just under a third of which are children. Overtime work means a working week of 70 to 80 hours, the weekly wage is between $US 90 and $US150 a month in an industry with a turnover of $US 40 billion.
When asked, why he made such an aesthetically beautiful film of a nightmarish situation, Jain is adamant that “if it weren’t so beautiful, it would be easy to look away. There is something that you cannot ignore about beauty. I wanted the audience to be hypnotised and lulled defencelessly into submission when the images enter their brains”.
Helped by a sound design team led by Susmit ‘Bob’ Nath, MACHINESis a cacophony of noises, where the camera prowls in search of human life, a life with which fades in front of our eyes. The mainstream media is afraid of humans becoming more and more like computers, and Jain pictures an atavistic battle field where workers are left with just one, somehow medieval hope: “My only satisfaction is that everyone dies. Even when the rich go, they leave the world with nothing”. AS
MACHINES IN ON RELEASE FROM 19 MAY 2017 | SUNDANCE WORLD DOC WINNER 2017
Dir: Gilles MacKinnon | Cast: Eddie Izzard, James Cosmo | Drama | UK
Alexander McKendrick’s 1949 screen adaptation of Compton McKenzie’s true story is an Ealing classic fondly remembered for its feisty depiction of the fearless folks of Todday Island in the Scottish Outer Hebrides and their attempts to recover the whisky cargo from a shipwrecked boat.
Quite why Gilles MacKinnon has decided on a remake of this popular arthouse gem is questionable given the high status it holds in the collective memory and the lacklustre cast he has selected to replace the originals: Basil Radford, Joan Greenwood, Gordon Jackson and James Robertson Justice.
The film is set during the Second World War when the Scottish Islands were a reasonably tranquil outpost in the war effort but impacted nevertheless by a serious dearth of whisky brought on by a breakdown of supplies. When a ship runs aground on a rocky outcrop, the residents club together to relieve the vessel of its precious liquid cargo. Hampered by a slowdown due to the Sabbath Sunday, the islanders are forced into ingenious ways of overcoming strict religious observances enforced by the local minister Macalister (James Cosmo). The only other spanner in the works is – naturally an Englishman – Captain Wagget (Eddie Izzard), who is tasked with maintaining order as Head of the Home Guard.
MacKinnon’s film beautifully evokes this period in history with painterly set design and some magnificent local scenery of the glorious location. Nigel Willoughby captures summer on the island which glows with lush landscapes and wonderfully vibrant seascapes, clouds scudding by. Patrick Doyle’s original score compliments the narrative but the witty script falls flat on mediocre performances that lack the star quality needed to lift the film in Mackendrick’s brilliant 1949 league. The Home Guard appears to be modelled on the characters from Dad’s Army and are a pale imitation, borrowed again from another inimitable national treasure and cannot compete with Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier or Arnold Ridley. Some viewers may also be offended by the indelicate racial subtext that creeps into some of the dialogue and feels out of place for modern audiences.
That said, this is a decent if rather tame period piece, totally lacking drama but hopefully instrumental in reviving the treasured forties classic original. MT
Dir.: Jim Sheridan | Cast: Rooney Mara, Vanessa Redgrave, Theo James, Aidan Turner, Eric Bana, Susan Lynch | ROI 2016, 108 min | Drama
After some Hollywood mediocrities such as Brothers, director|co-writer Jim Sheridan has tried to recapture his breakout success with My Left Foot by adapting Sebastian Barry’s artful novel The Secret Scriptures. The result is an uneven and often bewildering melodrama, but a moving one that is certainly worth seeing.
Set in the early 1940s and at the end of the 1990s, the drama tells the story of Roseanne McNulty who spent nearly all her adult life in a prisonlike psychiatric ward in Ireland where the film opens showing Vanessa Redgrave as an emotionally distraught elderly Roseanne whose future in the home is threatened due to plans for an upmarket Spa. In flashback the story retraces her young days in Sligo where Rooney Mara is captivating as the young Roseanne who clearly “has power over men”, as the town’s priest Father Gaunt (James), puts it. The Second World War has just started, with Southern Ireland staying neutral but actually supporting Nazi Germany in a clandestine way. Roseanne is marked by the priest as a ‘dangerous’ influence, and soon moved to a dilapidated cottage by her aunt, having worked in her shop and turned too many heads. After rescuing RAF pilot Jack McNulty (Reynor) on the beach one day, she hides him from the paramilitary forces acting on behalf of the Government. The two have a whirlwind affair and marry in haste, but McNulty is captured by his pursuers and executed. Roseanne, pregnant, is send to a horrific church institution for “fallen Women” and gives birth to a son. Learning that the nuns will take her child away and sell it to rich US-citizens, she flees with her baby into the sea.
The narrative is interlaced with Roseanne (Redgrave) telling her story to psychiatrist Dr. Grene (a thoughtfully appealing Eric Bana) and a sympathetic nurse (Lynch). Veering wildly between flash backs and Roseanne’s more contemporary narrative (including her diary, written into a bible), does not help the creation of a dramatic arc: it creates an episodic structure, which not only reduces the emotional impact but also skips over vital clues that muddle and fail to serve what could have been a spectacular denouement.
Whilst Mara, Redgrave and Bana are brilliantly believable, overcoming the shortcoming of Sheridan (both as director and co-writer), the rest of the ensemble is reduced to clichéd cardboard figures despite best efforts from Aidan Turner, Jack Reynor and a mesmerising Theo James as Father Gaunt. But ultimately it is the clumsily-handled finale that robs the film of the glory of its early scenes. Leviathan DoP Mikhail Krichman’s sumptuous camerawork and set pieces of the Irish countryside and interiors are really stunning in conjuring up the romantic past, and the miserably grim atmosphere in the hospital. But Jim Sheridan wastes all this for a sentimental TV melodrama retelling a story which has been told in a much better ways since the original true events. MT
Dir.: Georgia Scott, Sophia Scott; Documentary; USA(?) 2016, 78 min.
Siblings, directors, producers Georgia (who also edits) and Sophia Scott (DoP) have created a very personal but convincing portrait of Syrian emigrants in Lebanon, very much in line with their debut doc The Shadow of War. Fleeing a country where 400 000 died and 13 million are displaced, the 1.5 million Syrians living in Lebanon face a uncertain future: over 600 000 of them have lost their legal status to remain there.
We meet Sheikh Abdo, a community leader in exile, who has helped the new arrivals to access medicines. This settlement of refugees, now proud owners of self constructed huts, is about five km away from the border to their homeland. They can hear the bombing and shelling, it has become a cure against homesickness – but not an ideal one. Abdo has even provided a school for nearly 70 families. Nemr, a student who left in 2012m helps in the Kindergarten, is clear about his task: “We want to educate scientists, not terrorists”. He is adamant that children should grow up without weapons – but the reality, at least in Syria, makes this wishful thinking. Pictures of his family in Syria still keep him company, but he admits: “I would return home, but I would be a killer or a victim”. Mwafak, in his twenties, an artist who lives in the capital Beirut, gives children lessons in painting; they sing anti-war songs, but want to return to Syria. When he takes the children on a bus, they get suspicious looks: They think we are all ISIS”, says Mwafak. At least, he succeeded in smuggling his 16year old brother into Syria.
Sheikh Abdo’s wife is expecting her second baby, “but the real joy is gone” says the father, who has been arrested several times. The Lebanese authorities are clamping down on Syrian immigrants: Abdo tells us how difficult it is to get official birth certificates for newly born Syrian babies: 70% of them have no birth certificates, which means that they will be classified as Stateless when they grow up. “All of them will know never anything about life in Syria”. The most harrowing moment is filmed in Shatila, the camp where Palestinians emigrants were slaughtered in 1982 by Lebanese Falange soldiers. Reema, an aid worker, and herself a refuge from Syria, walks along the main street of the camp and a woman accompanying her describes the horror: “the bodies lay on the street, from one end to the other”.
In avoiding any direct political blame, the directors manage to achieve a clarity that is second to none: we simply are confronted with the human plight and suffering. As one survivor says: “We would be willing to drown, just to live as humans”. But the reality is that these Syrians, despite risking their lives to get here, will be soon very unwelcome in Lebanon. AS
Dir: Handl Klaus | Cast: Kater Moses, Lukas Turtur, Philipp Hochmair, Sebastian Loschberger | Drama | Austria | 123min
Klaus Handl is an Austrian filmmaker known for his Locarno prize-winning debut March. His second feature – Berlinale Teddy winner TOMCAT – is a finely crafted piece that pictures the soigné existence of two loved up classical musicians and their handsome tomcat Moses. The trio enjoy a peaceful existence in a leafy upmarket suburb of Vienna and they are not wafting around naked petting each others’ penises and plucking their home grown plums, the couple a enjoy a varied social life and regularly have great sex that sometimes includes their timid clarinetist friend Andreas (Philipp Hochmair).
But Moses isn’t so sociable and their domestic harmony is ruptured one night when the cat gets involved in a territorial scrap and comes off the worse for wear. Stroking him the following morning, Moses snaps back at Stefan, who breaks the poor cat’s neck in retaliation. Life will never be the same again. But this tragedy comes as a distinct relief after over thirty minutes of rather twee domestic bliss now ruptured by a welcome undercurrent of conjugal conflict. While Stefan sobs emotionally in the bedroom, Andreas descends into a deep sulk as the pair engage tight-lipped – and now fully clothed – in a peevish passive aggressive bout of soul-searching. Also gone is the mincing classical music score and we’re left with brooding silence. Then the violence starts with a short sharp cat fight initiated by aggrieved and angry Andreas. Enter screechy violins and more tight-lipped bottom clenching silence and an angst ridden outbreak of tears from Stephan after a football match, where he is soothed and pacified by another male player.
Clearly nothing in this Garden of Eden will ever be as it was and the narrative unravels in a prolonged bout of Andreas sulking petulantly and Stefan trying to appease him until an accident in the plum tree, once again shifts the status quo. What starts out as an enticing Austrian arthouse drama ultimately offers little more than narrative torpor for the remaining hour, as TOMCAT pussyfoots around some resonant relationship issues, instead of bringing something real and resonant to the party. Although pristinely crafted and earnestly performed by Hochmair and Turner, ultimately TOMCAT is just another mediocre domestic drama. MT
OUT ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 12 MAY 2017
Actor turned director Sean Penn brought his well-crafted but empty action film to the competition line-up in Cannes Film Festival. Many booed and there was slow clapping. Charlize Theron leads and partly narrates this wartorn saga which has not yet been picked up leaving us in no doubt at to its popularity in the harsh world of the film market where the best films are either pre-sold or snapped up within minutes of their press screening in a voraciously competitive marketplace, where the Hollywood eye is on the money. And this is a Hollywood-style movie.
Unspooling in just under two hours THE LAST FACE throw us into the harsh realities of civil war in Africa where Theron plays well-respected Doctor Wren Petersen who divides her time between her office at the UN Human Rights Department and the killing fields of Liberia where the love of her life Dr Love (Javier Bardem) slaves overtime to patch up and save broken bodies in his work for a NGO relief agency. With its melodramatic score and bleeding heart overtones THE LAST FACE is the last word in worthiness with a capital W. That these high-minded and privileged white people should be seen falling in love while they dedicate their lives to ‘poor black people’ is a premise that is both condescending and hackneyed and explicit references to female injuries, rape and pillage (“she was ripped from her vagina to her anus and yet she’s still dancing) feel both crass and strangely misogynistic, reducing women to the level of animal specimens and robbing them of the little dignity they undoubtedly deserve in this humiliating scenario where refugees merely exist to serve the narrative as the inevitable casualities of war, rather than real people with backstories.
Javier Bardem and Jean Reno give their utmost along with a quality ensemble cast, but there is nevertheless an undertow of male superiority in the film’s blatant denegration of Dr Petersens’s character which comes in the opening scenes where, in voiceover, she admits to being the daughter of a man who desperately wanted a male heir, and never felt she existed until endorsed by the love of a ‘good’ man. Whatever happens next brings nothing original to the party and the patent lack of interest in this overblown gorefest – that poses as entertainment – should send Penn sculttling back to the drawing board for some new ideas. MT
Dir: Michel Hazanavicious | Cast: Louis Garrel, Stacy Martin, Berenice Bejo, Micha Lescot, Gregory Gadebois, Felix Kysel | French | Biopic Drama
Agnes Varda showed us the borish side of Jean-Luc Godard in her Cannes film Visages, Villages and in REDOUTABLE, his Palme d’Or 2017 hopeful, Michel Hazanavicius shed light on the narcissistic introvert he eventually became in the late 60s, away from the bright lights and adoration of the French film industry that made him a legend.
Played here with sardonic insouciance by a balding Louis Garrel, this is an enjoyable biopic that sees Godard withdraw from society to experiment with radical filmmaking and political activism. Refusing to except that his big time was over – he is seen reliquishing control of Wind from the East, a notion that might prove controversial to some viewers. Also he has started to resent his wife Anne Wiazemsky (played by Stacy Martin) on whose memoirs the film is based, she is spending less time with him and away on location – but the pair still generate a pleasurable chemistry. And although his career and marriage are clearly unravelling, Anne still seems an important part of his life.
Naturally the film was going to be a pastiche – this was Godard’s raison d’etre and fittingly Hazanavicious makes extensive use of Godard’s visual and stylistic gimmicks and the famous intertitles in his film’s primary-coloured 60s aesthetic. The famous dark glasses are there, even if he continually breaks them. Godard himself is naturally not keen on REDOUTABLEwhich makes him out to be a ‘has been’ when clearly he feels he is still a happening director, capturing his audience’s imagination to this day.
There’s plenty of action and debate in REDOUTABLEbut strangely played down are the riots of 1968 which affected that year’s Cannes film festival, and seem to be particularly relevant at this time. An interesting watch for his fanbase and the arthouse crowd , but not possibly one for mainstream audiences. MT
Cast: Paula Beer, Pierre Niney, Ernst Stoetzner, Marie Gruber, Johann von Buelow, Anton von Lucke, Cyrielle Clair, Alice de Lenquesaing
Drama | France | 112min
With the theme of guilt firmly at the forefront, François Ozon takes his inspiration from Ernst Lubitsch’s ‘Broken Lullaby,’ in his first black and white film – a gloriously imagined postwar drama that flips fluidly from French to German.
The First World War changed everything – not only from a political point of view but also from a societal one. European countries were left reeling from the devastation but Ozon focuses here on the bitterness and remorse ordinary people felt at losing their dear ones to the war effort and the enemy, both from the German and French perspective.
After a lightweight dramady The New Girlfriend, Ozon is back on form with this lusciously filmed magnificently mounted masterpiece that takes place in the immediate aftermath to the Great War in a small village in rural Saxony (with echoes of Haneke’s The White Ribbon) and slowly builds to a powerful bodyblow in its emotive final scenes set in Paris and provincial France before returned to Germany. Basing his premise on a series of blatant lies, albeit white ones, the inventive French filmmaker tells a story of guilt and loss – where a young man (Pierre Niney plays Adrien) is driven to protect an old couple (the Hoffmeisters) and their daughter-in-law Anna (Paula Beer), in order to assuage his own actions in the trenches of Verdun, where Anna lost her lover in the slaughter that wiped out thousands and divided Europe in a way that many of our own relatives can still remember (beware Brexit!).
Paula Beer radiates a tragic sadness here as the complex heroine who gradually falls for Pierre Ninney’s fragile yet hopelessly handsome French soldier who manages to conceal his secret for most of the film, spinning her tortuously into a spiral of mixed emotions ranging from longing to anger, hatred and gradually, love and acceptance.
Ozon’s cinematographer Pascal Marti crafts velvety images 35mm in black-and-white. His regular composer Philippe Rombi crafts a atmospheric soundtrack of orchestral splendour that seems to continually presage doom in judiciously chosen moments, and there is an enchanting scene in Adrien’s family chateau where an impromptu piano and violin recital takes place between Anna, Adrien and Fanny (du Lenquesaing). Ozon’s theme of art as a potential healer and inspirer once again appears with Manet’s painting Le Suicide representing a potent motif. This is an accomplished and immersive period drama that will resonate with arthouse audiences and is certainly Ozon’s most mature and accomplished film so far. MT
NOW OUT ON RELEASE FROM 12 MAY 2017 at selected arthouse cinemas including CURZON | BEST EMERGING ACTOR SOPHIE BEER | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2016
Dir.: Thomas Q. Napper | Cast: Johnny Harris, Ray Winstone, Michael Smiley, Ian McShane | UK | Drama | 91 min.
First time director Thomas Q. Napper conjures up a bleak and shadowy portrait of a homeless, alcoholic boxer who has seen better days and retreats to the glory days of his old boxing club in Union Street near Waterloo Station. But the journey into the past confronts him with his lost opportunities and few alternatives for the future.
Jimmy McCabe (Harris, also writer and co-producer), has been evicted from the council flat where he grew up; the whole estate is being raised to the ground. Losing this final connection with his mother, who died a year ago, he runs berserk in a council office, protesting violently, attacking police officers and spending the night in jail. He turns for help to William Carney (Winstone) and Eddie (Smiley), who now run the club where McCabe’s career started so successfully. Carney, who is on his last legs, does not want to hear any hard-luck-stories from Jimmy: “I have heard them all”, but reminds him that alcohol is a taboo in the club, where young boys and teenagers try to channel their isolation and violence into something constructive in the ring. Eddie, who is very close to Carney, has no patience with McCabe, who is sluggish in training and full of self-pity. When McCabe meets the shady promoter Joe Padgett (McShane), he agrees to a non-licensed fight ”up north”, where he will meet a stronger and much younger opponent. Padgett is open about McCabe roles in the fight: for two and a half thousand GBP (plus 500 extra if he unexpectedly wins), Jimmy is the scapegoat. “People love seeing this guy hurting his opponents, and they pay good money for it” is Padgett’s take on the forthcoming fight.
This is a grim and hapless British Noir that calls to mind John Huston’s classic Fat City (1972). Napper holds outlittle hope for the future but creates a blistering portrait of alienation in a desolate journey through this corner of South-East London, which has not changed much since the ’60s. The timeless settings and authentic characters enhance the quality of JAWBONE,overcoming the limits of the boxing genre, and establishing a noirish scenario, in which the anti-hero is trapped. Like John Huston’s Fat City, the ageing ex-champ is very much the victim of greedy promoters as well as his own inability to come to terms with life without alcohol abuse. But there is more: After Padgett had warned Jimmy about the odds against him in the ring, we see the crowd response: there is an alliance between the sadistic prize-fighter and his supporting audience – as long as he is winning against Jimmy. But this support turns into hatred against McCabe. When he leaves the ring as a winner, he has spoiled their evening, they had came for his blood. Napper taps into the rather shameful audience that watches endless hours of Reality-TV, to see others humiliated. This morose world is hauntingly evoked by DoP Tat Radcliffe (Pride), creating a world of half-shadows, in which the sun never shines. Artificial lights of all kinds, just give Jimmy a moment’s respite, but he can only hide for so long. Worse still, the two protagonists socially inclined to help others, are the dying Carney, and Eddie, who is the same age. One does not want to imagine a world without them – as Jimmy put it to Eddie: “I am not like the two of you, helping others, I can’t even help myself”. JAWBONE is a ballad of doom, atmospherically brilliant, a dark poetic realism for a time of utter disenchantment. AS
Dir: Directors: Timothy Marrinan, Richard Dewey | 89min | Biopic Doc | US
Often known as the Evil Knevil of performance art, the charismatic sculptor Chris Burden emerges as the ultimate control freak in this entertaining documentary by co-directers Dewey and Marrinan that will interest art-lovers and cineastes alike. Burden burst on to the art scene in early 1970s California and seemed to derive most of his satisfaction from the dynamic behaviour (and often angst) provoked by his outlandish ‘pieces’ which often involved violence and danger – mostly to himself, although he did once pull a dagger in a TV interview “for the sake of art”.
Rejecting the Evil Knevil tag, claiming he was certainly not a trickster, Burden was interested in creating art that couldn’t be bought or sold thereby gaining control of his own work as a reaction to the inflated art scene of the 1970s. Chris Burden died in 2015 just five days before the opening of his final peaceful ‘Ode to Santos Dumont’ a motorised illuminated balloon, he is probably best remembered for having a friend graze his arm with a rifle, in the name of art, although when asked about the piece he states “the public still talk about ‘Shoot’. It’s like a very old girlfriend – you remember but you don’t think about every day”. ‘Making ‘Shoot’ turned out to be dangerously thrilling but also involved the Police – as a matter of procedure – but this did not put an end to Burden’s daredevil creative antics – for other installations he had himself nailed semi-naked to a Volkswagen and covered by a tarpaulin as he lay on the roadside tarmac by a Saab – again the Police attended the scene.
The youngest of three kids Burden enjoyed a cultured and peripatetic childhood mostly in Europe where his father was a big cheese at MIT; Burden himself later went on to be a professor at UCLA. Thoughtful and quietly spoken, he clearly possessed a rich inner life and was fascinated by the energy generated around creating a piece, but this energy often caused great pain to himself and those involved and after his first marriage broke down – after an affair confessed publicly during one of his performances pieces – Burden experienced a phase of down-spiralling depression that caused his work to become even more dangerous and obsessed by guns and firearms. In one piece, Burden was bolted to the floor near two electrically-wired buckets of water; his survival depended on the buckets not being kicked over by visitors.
Burden had his critics: Brian Sewell essentially called his work “rubbish” and Roger Ebert said: “If this is Art, it’s World War II”. But Burden was always quick to point out that he was driven to minimalism in order to expose essential meaning in his art. In his sculpture ‘Urban Light’, which is now the most photographed site in LA alongside the ‘Hollywood’ sign, street lamps have been honed to the highest degree of uniformity (by sandblasting) in order that they are absorbed and dominated by the essential idea of the piece. This is most effective when experienced at night.
His last years were spent seemingly at peace with himself creating immense artworks in his estate in Topanga Canyon, where his carefully curated team transform collected stray objects into works of art and his very satisfying sculpture cum model Metropolis II, an immense microcosm of the city of LA city, complete with toy cars. Burden ended his days a contemplative soul happy in the company of his dogs and his objets in the California countryside. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 5 MAY 2017 COURTESY OF DOGWOOF
Dir: Sean Foley | Cast: Julian Barratt, Steve Coogan, Russell Tovey, Andrea Riseborough, Simon Callow, Harriet Walter, Kenneth Branagh, Simon Farnaby, David Schofield | UK | Comedy | 89min
If you liked Alan Partridge or Alpha Papa then MINDHORNwill appeal. Washing over you like a cloud of laughing gas there are scenes are so hilarious it’s impossible to remain dignified, others so cringingly embarrassing you will never wear lycra again – let alone tight jeans. Some of it’s self-indulgent and some of it’s just mind-boggling grotesque, but there’s a poignancy too that touches on emotional frailty and the pangs of regret that often surface as we stare back at photos of the past.
MINDHORN is the first feature of TV veteran Sean Foley who has a keen sense of comedy, assembling a accomplished cast of Andrea Riseborough, Kenneth Branagh, Steve Coogan and Simon Callow in his big screen debut. Some of the humour has echoes of TV hits such as John Morton’s Twenty Twelve. It will certainly put you off organising that trip to the Isle of Man – if you were toying with the idea. Seemingly stuck in the Seventies, the island is portrayed as a misty, rain-soaked backwater full of twee tearooms, mildewed caravans, ghastly Civic concrete buildings and mock Georgian manors the English seem unable to escape from. Into this retro retreat steps Julian Barratt as Richard Thorncroft, a pot-bellyed actor who’s lost his touch but not his self-belief (or his skin tight polo-neck and ‘slacks’. He’s joined by his nemesis Simon Farnaby who co-wrote the script and appears as Clive Parnevik, also consigned to scrap heap, a raddled has-been who never really was anything but a stuntman of dodgy origins. A loose narrative gives our comic heroes a vehicle to entertain us with their witty one-liners in the worse possible taste. Barratt’s comic timing in the Police Custody room scene is one of the funniest things you’ll see this year.
Thorncroft is helping the Police with their hunt for a killer called the Kestrel (Russell Tovey) who slips in and out of their grasp. The Kestrel has a mental age of nine and is a keen fan of Mindhorn, believing his to be a real detective. Thorncroft also bumps into his ex love Patricia Deville (Essie Davis) who’s now a ‘serious’ journalist since he walked out on her years before. A man of strong passions and even stronger rivalries he’s also made some enemies, insulting almost everyone on the Isle of Man, including Steve Coogan’s medallion man country club owner Peter Eastman who, from a bit part in ‘Mindhorn’, has spawned a more successful series called Windjammer, and has also been involved with Patricia (now married to Parnevik). Foley’s well-filmed comedy is all extremely silly and outlandishly gross for its sleek running time of 89 minutes. You’ll either be bewildered by the awfulness of it all, or laughing your head off in disbelief. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 5 MAY 2017
SCREENING PART OF THE BFI’s LOCO FIOM FESTIVAL 4-7 MAY 2017
Writer| Dir: David Lynch | Cast: Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Ann Miller | US Mystery Thriller |
“One night, I sat down, the ideas came in, and it was a most beautiful experience. Everything was seen from a different angle…Now, looking back, I see that (the film) always wanted to be this way. It just took this strange beginning to cause it to be what it was.” David Lynch.
David Lynch’s neo-noir existential thriller is dreamily weird and strangely intoxicating to watch. Themes of denial, aspiration and unrequited love coalesce in a cryptic psychological thriller whose apparent normality mingles with a surreal and darkly comic speculative storyline unfolding when a wannabe actress arrives in Los Angeles and befriends a semi-amnesiac woman she finds hiding in her family apartment.
Now regarded as one of of Lynch’s best films it launched the career of Welsh actress Naomi Watts who has gone from strength to strength as the vulnerable figure of hope who finds rejection and disillusionment in the city of dreams. David Lynch reinvented postmodernism making it edgy and fashionable again. Mulholland Drive was original devised as a TV series after Twin Peaks was rejected for TV, so here Lynch gave it an ending.
It also starts with a car crash the beguiling sole survivor Laura (Elena Harring) staggering disorientated from a stretch limo onto LA’s Mulholland Drive. She fetches up in a nearby apartment where wannabe actress Betty (Watts) later arrives after a long flight from Canada. So vulnerable and lost is Laura that Betty develops a strange and sympathetic attraction to her that eventually morphs into attraction and love in scenes of a graphic sexual nature.
Betty is an entirely straightforward and fresh-faced ingenue at the start of film – much in the same vein as Kyle MacLaclan’s Jeffrey in Blue Velvet (where Isabella Rossellini plays Dorothy, the equivalent of Laura). It seems that this dazed and confused female image could come from Lynch’s recurring teenage memory of a neighbour who appeared semi-naked and bleeding on the driveway of his family home, as discussed in David Lynch – The Art Life (2017). All this feels plausible and yet imbued with a hypnotic sense of disorientation where ‘Rita’ (from a poster of Rita Hayworth) and Betty’s dark persona’s appear as Diane and Camilla. Diane is also a struggling actress and Camilla’s lesbian lover. Successful star Camilla is swept away by Justin Theroux’s film director Adam, and the jealous Diane has her killed in the ‘car crash’.
Confused? The reality depends on which side of the looking glass we are standing. Looking forward, “Betty” is vouchsafed a vision of where infatuation and professional failure could lead. Looking backward, the drama’s first part is the final anguished, transfiguring dream of “Diane”. All this is open to interpretation but in such a way as the reverie is pleasurable as well as intoxicating – like tripping on medazolam. There is a weirdly authentic cameo from Maya Bond as Aunt Ruth, and Monty Montgomery as a cowboy cum Diddy man.
Angelo Badalamenti’s languorous score washes over the feature that glows in Peter Deming’s sumptuous visuals (Peter provided the vibrant images on Oz the Great and the Powerful and Twin Peaks). MULHOLLAND DRIVE is a sensual experience, unforgettable and alluring. MT
Latest digital restoration of a 4k transfer now on BFI Player | DVD, Blu-ray & EST
Dir.: Matt Tyrnauer; Documentary; USA 2016, 92 min.
Director/producer Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor) has created the model documentary: his portrait of city planning and environmental activist, author and journalist Janet Jacobs (1917-2006) and her fight against the might of New York City’s political bureaucracy, spearheaded by ‘Planning Czar’ Robert Moses (1888-1981), unfurls like a thriller. It examines the consequences of failed urban planning and how it impacts on lives all over the World.
Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford led the New Urban Movement in the 1960, pioneering the fight against modern planners and architects, not only in the built environment, but also as a theorist: her ground breaking book, The Death and the Life of Great American Cities (Random House,1961), was a battle cry to repudiate the destruction of urban centres, where under the slogan of “Slum clearance” whole neighbourhoods were destroyed. Jacobs, journalist and researcher, had first hand experience of this fight, before writing her book – which was belittled by the male-dominated architectural world, with critics describing it as “housewife’s remedies”.
In the mid-fifties Robert Moses proposed the demolition of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, to build the Lower Manhattan Express Way (LOMEX). Moses, who at one time held twelve titles simultaneously, among them NYC Parks Commissioner and Chairman of Long Island Park Commission, was never elected but appointed as a result of political patronage, mostly by successive NYC mayors. Jacobs had lived with her family in Greenwich Village and had seen the disastrous results of the super-highways of the Cross Bronx Expressway and Brooklyn Queens Express Way; the former destroyed large parts of ‘Little Italy’. The original ‘battle’ against the building of LOMEX was won in 1958 – due to the support of Eleanor Roosevelt and other politicians and celebrities – but Moses did not give up. During the 1960 he attempted thrice to resurrect his plan. At a public hearing in 1968, when it looked like the State Authorities would give in to the “Master Builder”, Jacobs collected the records of the hearing, which had fallen out of the stenographer’s machine. “No record, no LOMEX “ she exclaimed. Jacobs was arrested by a plain-clothes policeman, and charged with three felonies. She moved to Toronto the same year and continued her planning battles and campaigned until the charges were reduced to misdemeanours.
LOMEX was never built, and Moses’ influence waned, although the automobile was always considered more important than the inhabitants of the city. Public transport was neglected: the huge, costly Express Way schemes were built, but public subway and EL travel was neglected. Moses’ final disgrace was his (abandoned) plan, to demolish a playground in Central Park, to make space for a parking lot for an expensive restaurant.
We witness the demolition of so many high rise blocks in urban centres of the USA in the late 90s, which had become much more un-inhabitable than the ‘slums’ they replaced, we watch the same type of high rise blocks being built in India and China: “Moses on steroids, building the slums of tomorrow today”. CITIZEN JANEis a near perfect piece of history, the struggle for control over the way we live, and the story of an intelligent and brave woman, who took on the male establishment at time when few dared. AS
Dir: William Oldroyd | Cast: Florence Pugh, Christopher Fairbank, cosmos Jarvis, Bill Fellows, Naomi Ackie | drama | 89min | UK
British director William Oldroyd transports Nikolai Leskov’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk to the wilds of 19th century Northumberland in his standout Gothic horror debut, served with a dash of noirish melodrama.
How male authors love to punish their female heroines, particularly the attractive ones. The main character in Leskov’s 1865 novella follows a long line of leading ladies such as Madame Bovary, Therese Raquin and Therese Desqueyroux. And Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned particularly when she is a young wife married to an impotent middle-aged psycho who comes (not) and goes of his own accord, leaving her locked in a stone mansion. Oldroyd adds modern flavour to the brew with a feminist, racial and gender subtext but the narrative retains a distinct whiff of Victorian starchiness from the tight bodices to the gracefully austere set design. We first meet Katherine (played by Florence Pugh) as a nervous teenage bride joining the household of Alexander (Paul Hilton) a wealthy but dysfunctional mining boss with brutish manners and a bedside manner to startle Jack the Ripper.
His lack of bedroom skills and frequent absences leave her craving companionship, sharing the house with her timid housemaid Anna (Naomi Ackie) and tight-lipped father-in-law Boris (Christopher Fairbank). But cocky stable groom Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis) soon steps in to warm her wintery solitude and eventually the two find themselves locked in lust unable to keep their love a secret from the household staff and Alexander himself. Murder and mayhem ensue in the devilish denouement.
Performances here are astonishing particularly from Pugh in her first major role, mastering a decent Northumberland accent and a minxy sparkle in her eye to boot. While Oldroyd and screenwriter Alice Birch stay true to the pages of the original, the finale is more in line with Polanski than Leskov intended.
Shot on a tight budget but none the worse for it, Lady Macbeth was made for under £500,000 as part of a regional film-funding programme supported by BBC Films and the British Film Institute. Sometimes the film feels claustrophobic trapped in its country house setting and Lady Macbeth makes a pretty swift descent into Hell given the scant running time of 89 minutes. That said, this is an enjoyably gruesome romp that remains top drawer (particularly in the dress and lingerie department) and true to its literary pretensions never sinking into tawdriness as it unleashes a gripping tale of male oppression and female fury in a remarkable debut. MT
Best known for her feature debut Love Like Poison, Abidjan born Katell Quillevere’s third feature is an ambitious but tonally uneven drama that brings together the lives of two French families through an extraordinary gift.
Featuring an eclectic cast from Canada, Belgium and France, and based on Maylis de Kerangal’s novel Mend the Living, the narrative is told in two parts, the second half linked to a tragedy that unfolds in the first. The film opens with a thrilling Dardennesque escapade of surfing and skateboarding for a young French boy (a spirited debut for Gabin Verdet), and develops into a nerve-shredding struggle for survival after a spectacular accident leaves him with life-limiting injuries. Without revealing the entire story suffice to say that the final segment is a sluggish study of a ciggie puffing bisexual middle-aged woman (a thoughtful Anne Duval) who suffers degenerative heart failure culminating in a plodding medical procedural.
Although the plot is an inspiring one, the characters involved are singularly less so apart from Simon, who has the winning charisma and ebullient energy to carry the first act forward giving it considerable dramatic heft and one of the best surfing scenes ever – followed by his subsequent tragic death. There is a delightful scene, told in flashback, where we see him flirting with his girlfriend Juliette who then takes the funicular to the top of the hill, and Simon follows her on his bike, appearing at the summit to give her a romantic surprise and a really passionate kiss. His parents – played by Emmanuelle Seigner and Kool Shen – are understandably devastated by the accident but act with tremendous courage in the aftermath. After that we never see them again. Tahar Rahim plays an amiable hospital assistant who is responsible for organising the aftercare, he is also a bird fancier (or the feathered variety) who is prepared to pay over 1000 euros for a goldfinch, adding his tousled-haired charm to the otherwise bland medical staff. After the hero of the piece is killed off, the second segment feels comes as a crashing disappointment. Anne Duval fails to generate any sympathy for her character who is a one a dimensional mother who lives for her two teenage kids (Oldfield and Cholbi) and – in a bizarre twist – is also attempting to have an affair with a concert pianist (Alice Taglioni) but is perpetually too out of breath. Apart from being less dynamic or resonant, this second part is also more pedestrian with its needlessly graphic scenes of prolonged surgery feeling a little ‘de trop’ in what is essentially a drama. If you’re squeamish or anti-smoking, it’s prabablu time to call it a day at this point . MT
ON RELEASE FROM 29 APRIL | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 10 SEPTEMBER 2016
Dir.: Andreas Dalsgaard, Obaidah Zytoon l Doc l Denmark, Finland, Syria l 100 min.
Writers/directors Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon have created a very private diary of the Syrian war, which has so far cost 400 000 lives and displacement of 11 million citizens. The emergence of Isis brought the Superpowers into the conflict, but after five years of fighting, no end is in sight.
When the Arab Spring reached Syria, radio DJ Obaidah Zytoon picked up her video camera and started filming what would become one of the bloodiest conflicts of the region. THE WAR SHOW is first and foremost the director’s personal diary, along with her friends: the poet Hisham (who was madly in love with law student Lulu); drummer Rabea Amal, an activist; dental student Argha and Houssain, who studied architecture at the outbreak of the war. Three of them would lose their lives, the rest would end up in European exile.
Told in seven chapters (Revolution, Suppression, Resistance, Siege, Memories, Frontlines and Extremism) and an epilogue, this war diary starts, like any student film, in the Sixties: the participants wanted fun, fewer restrictions and the abolishment of a dictatorship. But the dream of freedom turned very quickly into a horror show, because the Assad regime fought against their own population, using starvation as a weapon.
Zytoon’s group followed the war to her hometown of Zabadani, where the killings multiplied and the viciousness of the conflict increased: the tone of the video changes dramatically, the “playing” at having a revolution had become deadly serious. When the group reaches Homs, the capital of the uprising, Zytoon films wounded and dead children – it all became too much, “it pierced by spirit”. Later in 2012, Rabea was found shot dead in his car, Hisham was kidnapped by the security forces, Argha arrested and Houssain tortured to death in a police station.
In Zabadani, Zytoon’s Syrian odyssey finally comes to an end: confronted by Islam Caliphate forces, the forerunner of Isis, she is forced to flee: the Muslim soldiers refuse to be filmed by a woman, shouting “send us a man if you want pictures”. In the epilogue filmed in Istanbul, Zytoon consoles Lulu, who has found images of the murdered Hisham. Amal survives in Istanbul, and miraculously, Argha reaches the Turkish capital, after being released from prison.
Whilst unstructured and often suffering from the – obvious – production difficulties, THE WAR SHOW is a convincing example of cinema verite, shot directly from the heart. It is the story of a great tragedy, filmed from the perspective of a plucky, but in the end, helpless and defeated young woman, who lost her youth and many of her friends in an unwinnable conflict. AS
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 12 MAY AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE | SCREENING DURING IDFA AMSTERDAM 16-27 November 2016 | VENICE DAYS AWARD WINNER 2016
Dir: Niki Caro | Screenwriter: Angela Workman (based on the book by Diane Ackerman | Cast: Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Bruhl, Timothy Radford, Efrat Dor, Iddo Goldberg, Shira Haas, Michael McElhatton, Vad Maloku | 127min | Drama
The most poignant aspect of THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFEis the non-human story. But sadly the animals concerned are not the main focus in this Holocaust tale about a woman who sheltered Jews in her Zoo in Warsaw. Niki Caro’s drama is a variation on the The Diary of Anne Frank with exotic beasts thrown in – and this time getting the short straw – most of them being slaughtered by the Germans during bomb raids over the Polish city. The commendable but controlled drama film is also a showcase for Jessica Chastain’s talents as Antonina a gentle Polish woman whose guile and courage helped save a group of Jews who were banished to the Warsaw ghetto towards the end of the Second World War and escaped with their lives.
THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE faces stiff competition with Polanski’s Warsaw epic The Pianist and Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness, where a Polish World War Hero, Leopold Socha, hid a group of Jews. But the human element here is far less memorable than the story of the Zoo. Antonina Zabinska and her husband Jan , sheltered 300 Polish Jews at the Warsaw Zoo during World War II. The story opens cosily in the balmy summer of 1939 with Chastain waking her son and two lion cubs that share the family home. Her husband is a Prof and together they’ve nurtured the Zoo and its impressive menagerie of animals and are now basking in the afterglow of their hard work, blessed with a young son Ryszard (Timothy Radford) and an active sex life. The characterisation is all rather predictable. Prof is a masculine protector (The Broken Circle Breakdown‘s Johan Heldenbergh, Chastain as Antonina exudes feminine wholesomeness from her bouncy curls to her curvaceous figure and rocks a rather good Polish accent. Then it all goes pear-shaped when Germany invades Poland. The Nazis are nasty and shouty and their commandant Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl)- who we first meet as a German zoologist from Berlin Zoo – rapidly turns callous at the outbreak of hostilities informing the couple that their Zoo is to be ‘liquidated’. The animals are then mostly shot or slaughtered – one of the worst scenes involves the shooting of an elephant and a prize golden eagle who Bruhl orders to be ‘stuffed and mounted’. It later appears in his private office as he announces his plans for a selective breeding programme. At this point Antonina uses her feminine wiles to persuade Heck to run their Zoo as a pig farm providing fodder for German soldiers. The pigs will be fed vegetable waste that Jan will collect daily from the Ghetto. But the two plan to secrete Jews onto his truck, hiding them under the litter.
Although awful things happen to the Jewish hostages here we remain mostly unaffected by their plight largely due to a lack of complexity. The underwritten characters are like cyphers so we fail to feel their pain – or their joy and Antonina and Jan Zabinski – despite their bravery – emerge as martyred victims rather than shining heroes. Adapting Diane Ackerman’s best-selling book, Caro and screenwriter Angela Workman portray their protagonists as endlessly virtuous saviours and the enemy as vicious and venal. The only flicker of naughtiness comes when Antonina willingly submits herself to Heck’s blandishments- to save her husband, Jewish friends and cherished Zoo.
As Holocaust film go this is a safe bet, yet also a unexpected tear-jerker. It has cuddly bunny scenes (where the CGI is barely distinguishable) and cuddly conjugal scenes showing how men very much had the traditional upper hand in wartime. DoP Andrij Parekh camerawork is skilful and Daniel Bruhl breaks out of his usual buttoned-up roles in a scene of surprising passion which adds to his repertoire and his allure. The most disappointing aspect here is tragically the human story. MT
Dir.: Sabine Krayenbühl, Zeva Oelbaum | Cast: Eric Lohscheider, Rachael Sterling, Andrew Havill and the voice of Tilda Swinton | USA/UK/France 2016, 95 min.
Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum convey the pioneering spirit of Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), an archeologist, spy, political bureaucrat and explorer at a time were women simply did not feature in public life. Featuring Bell’s letters, mainly to her father, complemented by “comments” made by dignitaries like T.E. Lawrence – this structurally uneven documentary feels more authentic than Werner Herzog’s overwrought imagined drama Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman.
Gertrude Bell was bon in 1868 in the stately family home in County Durham. Her father, Sir Hugh Bell, was a wealthy landowner and industrialist and the two formed a close bond after Gertrude’s mother died giving birth to her brother. Even though Sir Hugh later re-married, and Gertrude got on well with Lady Florence Bell, she was closest to her for the rest of her life. At Oxford in 1886 she obtained a first in Modern History; one of the few subjects women were allowed to study. And later travelled to Tehran in Persia where her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, was the British ambassador. In common with many British citizens of her class, she fell in love with the region and soon embarked on countless arduous expeditions around the Middle East. In 1909 she met T.E. Lawrence (Lohscheider) for the first time, their paths would cross again later, after the end of the Great War. Bell was doing “research” for the government, even before the Admiralty officially employed her. But her knowledge of the language and customs of the different tribes would serve them well during and after WWI.
The war itself became a personal tragedy for Bell, because her closest confidant, Major Charles Doughty-Wyllie, a married man, with whom she had an unconsummated affair, was killed at Gallipoli, with Bell hearing about his death in a restaurant in 1915. From now on, she would only live for her work. Vita-Sackville West (Sterling) comments on the lack of private fulfillment in Bell’s life – as far as we know, she only had one passionate love affair with Sir Frank Swattenham, which was short-lived. After the war, Bell was instrumental in drawing up the borders of the new state of Iraq, which would be ruled by Prince Feisul, the latter being very close to Bell. But Gertrude Bell was unhappy with the British Forces’ treatment of the locals: whole villages were punished because taxes had not been paid – even places of worship were destroyed. Bell wrote to her father “We are an immense failure. We wanted to set up a Arab government with British advisers, but we ended up with a British government with Arab advisers”. In another letter in 1921 she states her sorrow of “not having been home for Christmas for the last eight years”. In the same year she met T.E.Lawrence again, when she was working for Sir Perry Cox (Havill) at the Arab Bureau. But when Cox left in 1923, she was pushed aside by the Civil Service. Two years later, she visited her home in England for the last time, her family had fallen on hard times. Back in Baghdad, she helped to set up the Archeological Museum, which was opened a few weeks before her death from an overdose of sleeping pills in July of 1926.
Whilst the rich information about the life of this extraordinary woman is only too welcome – particularly after the superficial Herzog approach – perhaps a radio play would have not been a better way of telling this impressive story. Still, the newsreel clips and photos conjure up certain historical impressions. And it is particularly interesting to discover that Bell was not a friend of Standard Oil and other companies who exploited the region of Mesopotamia, the then British Mandate, where colonial rule would later cause even more havoc – until this very day. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 21 APRIL 2017
The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki is Finnish filmmaker’s Juho Kuosmanen’s dynamite debut, a black and white retro-flic based on the true story of the Finnish boxer Olli Mäki and his 1962 championship match against the American featherweight champion Davey Moore (who died shortly afterwards). As much a poignant love story as a raw and visceral sketch of pre-match preparation involving gruelling training sessions, this impressive debut also reflects the quiet pensive moments in the run-up to Maki’s happiest day in August 17th, 1962, as he determines what he really wants out of life.
With hand held camera in high contrast 16mm and cinema verite style the film captures the febrile intensity and gruelling pain of day to day match preparation for the legendary episode in Finnish sporting history and the euphoric national pride and excitement of a country on the crest of international sporting fame.
As the unassuming amateur boxer, known as the “Baker of Kokkola”, trains for his first world class fight he is also falling in love with Raija, a local country girl (Oona Airola), and their romance blossoms distracting him but also grounding him as to his true ambitions while he competes in the world of professional boxing amid the glamour, bright lights, sponsors and press.
Kuosmanen also captures the contrast between the sophistication of Helsinki’s elite and the wholesome country folk, the art nouveau splendour of the maritime capital and the open skies of the countryside where vast pine forests and lakes provide a lush setting for the romantic scenes and spartan training hours, in and out of wooden saunas and snowy woods.The film’s grainy black and white freshness and glowing fervour capture our imagination and conveys the heart-pumping joy of first love and thr the simplicity of the sixties when sport was simply about talent. Peter von Bagh would be proud. MT
OUT ON 21 APRIL 2017.| Winner Prix Un Certain Regard
Dir: Christine Franz | with Andrew Fearn, Steve Underwood, Jason Williamson | Germany | Music Biopic | 106min
BUNCH OF KUNST accurately reflects the mindset of the Sleaford Mods, a couple of angry individuals who turn their feelings into sweary music. Whilst lacking the acerbic humour of Ian Dury, the Sex Pistols or The Clash the band gladdens the hearts of a fervent fan base with an axe to grind in modern Britain. They also stand out as a cry for help amid the saccharine hurling of so many of today’s British vocalists: at least the Mods are unaffectedly genuine in their vitriol, captured so candidly here by new German director Christine Franz.
There is clearly no animosity between the duo themselves who share a warm and mutually respectful friendship: writer Jason Williamson and computer ‘beat man’ Andrew Fearn call themselves “the voice of Britain” but continue a long tradition of fury that brings nothing particularly new to a party that’s been rocking on since the 1980s Punk era.
Franz follows the band from their genesis in a Nottingham bedroom to chart success – a journey that has taken two years and now sees them performing to fervent wide-eyed fans whose lives they seemingly reflect in livid lyrics. The long-forgotten towns and dreary backwaters epitomised by Morrissey are here again and chiming with a new generation of disenfranchised followers. Daniel Waldhecker visuals capture the heady waywardness of it all on stage and behind the scenes. This strong and evocative debut for Christine Franz will certainly delight fans. MT
Dir.: Mohamed Diab; Cast: Nelly Karim, Hany Adel, Mohamed El Sebaey, Ahmed Dash, Mai El Ghaity, Ahmed Abdel Hameed; Egypt/France 2016, 98 min.
CLASH is a visual tour-de-force that occasionally loses the big picture in exploring the aftermath of the Muslim Brotherhood’s surge to power after Mubarek’s reign in Egypt. The action is literally crammed into a police prison van, where supporters of the just deposed president Mohamed Morsi and the Army generals who toppled him, go on fighting their street battles in this confined area, often resembling a crowded boxing ring, with hysteria and chaos the ruling elements.
In 2011 the regime of president Hosni Mubarek was swept aside, and a year later, Mohamed Morsi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, was elected as his successor. But by 2013, Morsi himself has been overthrown by an Army under the current president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. CLASH is set in the immediate aftermath of Morsi’s arrest, when his supporters still had a viable organisation to fight the new regime. Military police is unable to keep law and order, emotions are running high, and the MPs throw everyone suspect into the van, measuring eight square meters. First to go are the AP journalist Adam (Adel) and his photographer Zein (El Sebaey), who protest in vain their right to report and photograph the street fighting. But the mayhem escalates, and the MPs loose their cool, imprisoning right, left and centre, including their own supporters, who are celebrating Morsi’s overthrow. Nurse Nagwa (Karim) is the only one keeping a cool head, even though some men reject her help in the sweltering heat, not wanting to be touched by a woman. Nagwa’s teenage son Fares (Dash) is much more of a rabble-rouser, and joins the fray to the chagrin of his mother. A’isha (El Ghaity), an adolescent girl in a hijab, is very vociferous, but still cares for her elderly father who is suffering extremely from the heat. And there is even a good cop, Awad (Hameed), who tries to get as much water for the prisoners as possible. But it is impossible to cater for around 25 people, when the MPs also have to deal with the rioters outside who often outnumber them. The prison van is trying to get away from the riots, but in vain: soon it is questionable whether it’s safer inside or outside; particularly as laser beams are used by both rioting factions to unsettle the opponents, creating further havoc in the mobile prison.
DoP Ahmend Gabr (Asmaa) really conveys the escalating pandemonium, as fear takes over all sections in the van, and very soon engulfing the MPs too. The cast is equally admirable, the sheer force of their engagement is always visible. What is missing is a clear distinction between the factions: after all, people die, but we never learn the reasons for the overthrow of Morsi, nor do we get any insight in the ambivalent feelings of the demonstrators on both sides for each other: because only two years ago, the majority of them were fighting on the same side to do topple Mubarak. We only get a few dark hints, when Morsi supports talk about discipline in their own ranks, but apart from that, CLASH sometimes degenerates into a battle between two clans of football supporters, with petty and personal issues surging to the fore. But the bedlam we witness is symptomatic of the widespread internecine chaos that runs through Egyptian society – surely we deserve a more detailed explanation of. AS
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 21 April 2017
Dir.: Jedd Wider, Todd Wider; documentary with voice-over by Lori Singer; USA 2016, 97 min.
The directing debut of producers Jedd and Todd Wider, credited for many Alex Gibney documentaries, is a melancholic and visually stunning portrait of the life and death of Linda Bishop, whose decomposed body was found in an abandoned farmhouse in rural New Hampshire in May 2008.
Linda left two notebooks describing her final few months which are narrated by Lori Singer. Born in 1956, Linda was nature-loving and gentle, a joyful child and teenager – according to home videos. After the birth of her daughter Caitlin in 1985 and a subsequent divorce, Linda’s mental health deteriorated. She told friends she was being hunted down by the Chinese Mafia through her job in a local Chinese restaurant. Her sister Joan, and Caitlin talk at length about Linda inventing a male figure, a ‘knight in shining armour’ “who was going to save her”. This man was Keith, who was actually married and working in the same restaurant as Linda. Her diary states she had high hopes about him in the lonely cold winter in 2007/2008.
Linda had been in and out of residential psychiatric care for over a decade, her diagnosis was Paranoid Schizophrenia: A classification recently removed by the American Psychiatric Association, who eliminated all sub-types of Schizophrenia as a diagnostic tool, because “of their limited diagnostic stability, low reliance and poor validity”. But the failure of Linda’s doctors went much further than a muddled diagnosis: after Joan was named her guardian Linda repeatedly refused to take her medication over long periods of time, the hospital simply let her go. And a court, in a very short session, declared her sane enough to live on her own. Without notifying Joan, Linda was set free: in her notebooks she describes the elation of this freedom, and how she found the farmhouse in 393 Mountain Road.
The winter of 2007/8 was one of the harshest in history. Linda arrived in Autumn and collected apples from a nearby orchard. She lived on these apples and snow water until she died of starvation in January 2008. In her diary, she counts the remaining number of apples meticulously. But in her delirium, she also expects to be alternatively saved by the “Keith” figure, or killed by “domestic violence, because she cannot go to a home for battered women, as the ‘evil’ is everywhere.” In the end she turned to God, whom she asked to save her “I am trying, but I don’t know what to do”. And “It is so sad, that I am dying, when I have so much to look forward to”. Finally, she asks to be buried in the nearby cemetery, “where I have friends”.
DoP Gerardo Puglia shoots mainly on 35mm, and the depth of the film is apparent in these images: nature is shown as a refuge for Linda. The farmhouse where she took refuge was not a place of horror, but a sanctuary where she found a certain peace, particularly in the attic. Another sad story of how her family failed to be there for her, and a system that let her down. It did not help her to connect the two different parts of herself, as best described by her daughter Caitlin: “There was my mother, and there was Linda Bishop”. An elegiac swansong for a lost soul. AS
Cast: Eric Ruffin, Chloe Levine, Aaron Clifton Moten
97min | Drama | US
Eric Ruffin (Nature Calls) plays a dark horse called Milo in Michael O’Shea’s pseudo vampire flick that premiered at Un Certain Regard Cannes side-bar last year. This low-budget indie follows the teenage African-American orphan in his freewheeling daily grind in a story that generates a palpable tension but never seems to know where it’s going.
Although O’Shea splatters his downbeat narrative with numerous vampire tropes in this impressive first feature that takes place in the backwaters and beaches of New York’s Rockaway Boulevard, the horror element is lowkey and is most distinguished by the atmosphere of alienation and loneliness generating in a desolate urban milieu.
Grieving Milo lives a solitary existence with his brother Lewis (Aaron Clifton Moten) in a flat they once shared with their mother who appears, in flashbacks, to have commited suicide. Plagued by a crew of gangland heavies, who call him ‘the freak’ on account of his tiny stature, Milo strikes up a tentative friendship with a white girl called Sophie (Chloe Levine) who moves into his housing block but who we later see being abused by the gang in nearby grassy wasteland.
With his vacant stare, Milo strikes a melancholy figure tramping silently through the streets, clearly still traumatised by his mother’s death and withdrawing into himself while attempting to build an impenetrable poker-faced facade to the outside world. In his bedroom he watches youtube footage of animals being slaughtered and has also experimented with drinking the blood of solitary warefarers who approach him in the subway, although there is no rhyme or reason to these desultory and unprovoked attacks.
Although it feels as if Milo’s budding romantic relationship with Sophie is heading the same way as that of Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One, with roles reversed: the slightly older girl’s affection for him appears to act as a calmative influence on Milo and he soon backs off emotionally, freezing Sophie out of his life for her own salvation and ultimately his own tragic demise. THE TRANSFIGURATION eschews schlockiness to focus on building a potent sense of malevolent stillness ably assisted by a droning occasional electronic score composed by Margaret Chardiet. This is a promising debut from Michael O’Shea and his young cast but the dread of the enigmatic early scenes never really transmutes into anything meaningful. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard) 12-22 MAY 2016
Dir.: Emiliano Rocha Minter | Cast: Noe Hernandez, Maria Evoli, Diego Gamaliel, Gabino Rodriguez; Mexico/France 2016, 79min.
Director/writer Emiliano Rocha Minter has certainly learnt a great deal from producer Carlos Reygadas (Silent Light): his debut feature is a darkly subversive and enigmatic sexual tour-de-force with shades of Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room and even fellow Mexican Amat Escalante’s The Untamed. Teenage siblings Fauna (Evoli) and Lucio (Gamaliel) looking for a place to stay in post-apocalyptic Mexico City find refuge with the rather demonic Mariano (Hernandez), who lives in a derelict and dark cellar apartment. He offers them drinks laced with mind-enhances, and encourages them to build a womb-structure from wood and masking tape. Then, out of the blue, Mariano makes the siblings sleep which each other, much against Lucio’s. Watching and masturbating, Mariano suddenly dies. The intercourse awakens Fauna’s sexuality, but her brother wants nothing to do with it. Turned on by it all, Fauna has sex with Mariano’s body. Somehow, a Mexican soldier finds his way into the place and is killed by the siblings, to the tune of the National anthem of Mexico. But the main theme of the film is illicit sex and, Fauna soon finds a willing female partner, passing her over to her brother and writhing in ecstasy whilst watching the two. As a grand finale, Minter serves up a phenomenal sex orgy, leaving us in no doubt that he is the Wilhelm Reich of filmmaking.
Shame then that this short version of the narrative fails to give Minter’s films the credit deserves, it is an illuminating exploration of sexuality serving as a coda to the nuclear family, which is finally destroyed by the chaos brought from the outside. There are echo’s of Bataille; and certainly Gaspar Noé, but Minter also captures a certain opaque quality which is very much his own style: the roving camera of DoP Yollitl Gomez Alvarado roams around 360 degrees finding new angles to explore the escalating sexual frenzy. Switching from almost colourless black and white to luminous primary colours, Minter develops a permanently changing environment where Fauna staggers wildly like a huntress in search of pray. Bach’s harpsichord concerto has never been heard in a less peaceful place; and exclamations like “Neither the Sun, nor Death can be looked at steadily” suddenly make sense in this context. Minter somehow pulls it off: WE ARE THE FLESH is certainly one of the most innovative and original debuts of recent years. AS
COMES TO SHUDDER ON 20 APRIL 2017 | THE FILM HAS BEEN BANNED BY OTHER STREAMING PLATFORMS IN THE UK
Dir: Miloš Forman | Writer: Lawrence Hauben | Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Scatman Crothers, Danny De Vito | Drama | US 1975, 128 mins
Randle Patrick McMurphy is a catalyst for change. Arriving at the Salem State Sanatorium (Oregon) he brings a spark of life to twelve random inmates. Surfacing as the ringleader of this group of lost souls he is a free spirit, a force for good – while also being a convicted rapist. In Milos Forman’s film version of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, Jack Nicholson, armed with his Oscar for Chinatown, gives a joyfully subversive performance in the leading role. A quick-witted, sly-eyed anti-hero whose life before never really amounted to much, is transformed into a saviour who brings light to the befuddled darkness of the loony bin.
But is Randle really mad, or just faking it to avoid serving his time in jail? This whole question is one that has been debated again and again and recently in Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test, where the central character explores the spectrum of mental health by checking himself into a home where he purports to be unhinging and ends up being a victim of the system. And this is partly what happens to Randle. When we first meet him, he has been transferred from prison to the state institution, on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Here he undergoes psychiatric observation while making a spectacular rise to glory and then a tragic fall. In some ways Randle is a Christ-like figure, bringing redemption and salvation to his disciples at the expense of his own life on Earth. He battles a system that attempts to rob the patients of their souls by dumbing them down with medication and reducing them to simpering idiots. The bête noire of the story is Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher in an Oscar winning turn as a cruel and cold-eyed control freak who imposes her will on her patients, only being sympathetic when operating from the moral high ground.
Randle kicks against the system, represented by Ratched, determined to get his own way and corralling his co-inmates (some of whom are socially dysfunctional or lonely elective patients) by championing their human rights. These are people who have lost their way in life circumstance or upbringing, none of them is nefarious or ill-intentioned making this tragedy of the institutionalised even more poignant. With Randle they go to the match and even a spot of deep sea fishing, but it all eventually ends in tears.
Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman’s script leads to a schematic and anticlimactic ending when Randle suddenly loses his impetus after a night’s drinking and revelling with the boys (including Scatman Crothers’ sympathetic nightwatchman), making a mockery of all that has gone before. Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched is an intriguing and almost underwritten character whose backstory can only be imagined.
Although this scathing satire of the American mental health system fails to be as moving as it could have been, the performance are worth their weight in gold. Jack Nicholson’s jubilant Randle with his subtle expressions and facial dynamics, will pave the way for his villainous turn as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980). The tremendous support cast headed by William Redfield (who spouts blithering nonsense); Danny De Vito (as an engaging simpleton); Will Sampson (a strong and silent Native Indian) and finally Brad Dourif (as a young man with a mother complex). MT
Opening at BFI Southbank, IFI Dublin, Light House Dublin, Electric Cinema Birmingham and selected cinemas UK-wide on | 14 April 2017 in celebration of Jack Nicholson’s 80th birthday
Dir/Writer: Danièle Thompson | Cast: Guillaume Canet, Guillaume Gallienne, Alice Pol, Deborah Francois, Sabinz Azema | Drama
Emile Zola might have written some desolate novels but his private life appears to be rather pleasant according to CÉZANNE AND I exploring the close friendship between two of France’s most famous 19th century cultural geniuses: the titular novelist and the impressionist painter Cézanne. Unlike Gilles Bourdos’ tepid Rénoir (2012), there is plenty of drama here, as befits the subject-matter.
Writer and director Danièle Thompson’s painterly period piece imagines the two enjoying a beautiful bromance that lasted from childhood until their deaths, although it wasn’t without its tiffs and rivalries as the strong creative personalities often clashed giving rise to some moments of drama and even tears, and the racy often lyrical dialogue doesn’t hold back in expressing the deep intimacy of their conversations about the pleasure and pain of creativity (“do you still get a hard on from your writing?” asks Cézanne of his mate).
Starring Guillaume Gallienne (Yves Saint Laurent) as Cézanne and Guillaume Canet (Tell No One) as Zola this is a spirited and enjoyable – if occasionally soapy – affair with its sumptuous settings making great use of the gloriously lush and sun-drenched scenery of Provence and elegant boulevards of Paris and the Louvre, where the Salon de Réfusés episode descends into a brawl .
Eric Neveux’s intrusive score primps up moments of sauciness by a lakeside as Cézanne executes his’ plein air’ canvasses, and Jean-Marie Dreujou cleverly evokes some of the artist’s outdoor compositions with limpid camerawork and a fabulous choice of settings. While the painter comes across as the more louche of the pair, with his wealthy background and family funding; Zola is a more sober character and Canet plays him as a rather buttoned up and inaccessible, growing up a penniless orphan until he joins the successful bourgeoisie, as captured in the final scenes. The narrative unfolds from 1888, when Cézanne accuses Zola of writing a novel whose central character – a striving but unsuccessul painter – feels too near the bone for his liking. But Zola assures him that the novel in question ‘L’Oeuvre’ is not about his close friend. Most of the scenes involves tête à tête set-toos between the pair highlighting their creative differences and expressing their feelings about sex and women. According to Thompson, they both fell in love with the same person, Alexandrine (Alice Pol), who would eventually become Zola’s wife. While Cézanne is restlessly married to his muse Hortense (Deborah François) there appear to be issues with his sexual performance, and she complains that “I fuck her too quickly and paint her too slowly.” The two debate Zola’s theatrical naturalist style that today feels stuffy and dated as opposed to Cézanne’s impressionism which proved the more universally evocative form of expression due to its avant-garde appeal that gave birth to modernism. Zola resents Cézanne’s monthly income that allows him freedom to explore, while the writer is hampered by his lack of funds. Meanwhile, Cezanne calls him a “a violeur et un voyeur”, somehow implying that his ideas were not original.
Artistic context of the era is further provided in the shape of fellow impressionists Edouard Manet (Nicolas Gob), Auguste Renoir (Alexandre Kouchner) and Camille Pissaro (Romain Cottard). This is a watchable and vivacious drama that paints an absorbing picture of two driven men but despite Thompson’s learned research CÉZANNE AND I comes across as a lightweight drama rather than a resonant biopic of the creative duo. MT
Cézanne et Moi will be released on Friday 14th April at Ciné Lumière, find out more here: http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere/whats-on/new-releases/cezanne-et-moi/
Dir: Ronnie Thompson | Writer: Ray Bogdanovich | Cast: Matthew Goode, Joely Richardson, Stephen Moyer, Clive Russell, Larry Lamb, David Calder, Phil Daniels | UK Thriller | 93min
A remarkable real event story turns into an enervating film that can’t be saved by Matthew Goode, Joely Richardson or even veteran David Calder as the plastic perps involved in a 2015 heist known as the “largest burglary in English legal history” involving loot of over £200million. Apart from the usual misogynist script that we’ve come to expect from recent British crime flicks (with lewd jokes that aren’t even funny) the editing is sluggish and cinematography poor. The only watchable sequence is that of the robbery itself and this lacks dynamism and drags the action out to the point of tedium and beyond. This is a film that thinks it’s super cool but just isn’t. MT
MASAAN enchants Un Certain Regard audiences with a painterly modern love story set in the holy city of Benares (Varanasi).
With his co-writer Varun Grover, Ghaywan creates a sure-footed character-driven debut that has all the intensity of a Bollywood drama but is told with a delicacy of touch similar to recent Indian dramas The Lunchbox and Udaan.
The three-stranded lyrical drama is essentially a coming of age affair where we first meet Devi (Richa Chadda) and her student friend Piyush checking into a hotel for an afternoon of sexual discovery. Both virgins, they are piqued to explore forbidden pleasures but Police break into the room before they have a chance to consummate matters. Piyush tries to kills himself during the onslaught and is rushed to hospital and the scandal brings shame on Devi and her father Pathak (Sanjay Mishra).
Meanwhile, in another part of the riverbank, Deepak (Vicky Kaushal) works at the funeral pyres of the ghats but his dream is to become to become an engineer. Shy yet stunningly attractive, he has set his heart on a Shaalu (Sheta Tripathi), who he meets on Facebook, but her higher caste means that their love affair is doomed before it begins.
This is a sweetly romantic and endearingly old-fashioned film that avoids sentimentality but finds a satisfying conclusion with some moving moments along the way. Although some of the musical choices feel slightly out of place – more locally-rooted music would have better captured the mood – Avinash Arun Dhaware’s visuals of the exotic landscapes and rose-tinted sun-sets are amongst the most gorgeous of this year’s Un Certain Regard section, creating a real sense of place and transforming this beguiling drama into a memorial tribute to the people of Varanasi. MT
NIW SHOWING AT BFI AS PART OF THE INDIA SERIES
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 13 – 24 May 2015 | UN CERTAIN REGARD
It behoves a Canadian documentarian to make ALL GOVERNMENTS LIEa film that raises the timely issue of mass media control by large corporations who are in turn influencing the election process and making a mockery of democracy. Peabody’s scattergun approach makes some salient points – over and over again – but brings little new to the table, it just seems more pertinent in the light of the recent US elections.
Fake news is not a recent phenomenon: indeed Fred Peabody argues that powerful organisations have been spinning narratives to further their own interests since the 1960s and the central news organs have been playing along with their stories and benefitting in the shape of large advertising revenues, in a hand in glove, ‘you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours’ style operation. Corruption of this sort has been the subject of films such as All the Presidents Men, Bowling for Columbine and Citizenfour. But doesn’t just happen in political news; it goes on across the board and filters down into lighter news about culture, travel, the Arts and even cinema (give us some positive spin on our restaurant, film or resort and we’ll reward you with a fat advertising cheque for your trouble).
It was an independent, investigative journalist – ‘the first blogger’ – called I F (Izzy) Stone – later known as ‘the first blogger’ who actually coined the phrase: ‘All Governments Lie’ during the 1960s. Stone was the only real voice to question the US Government’s policy during Vietnam that lead to great military involvement in the region. and the film uses his precedent and singular crusade against government deception as the thrust of its narrative. Peabody also introduces us to indie journos Glenn Greenwald, who helped bring Edward Snowden’s story into the public domain and Amy Goodman whose Democracy Now! channel uses respected, indie journalists to cut through the worldwide news agenda with the sword of truth; other talking heads are luminaries Carl Bernstein and Noam Chomsky; Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks; Jeremy Scahill (Greenwald’s partner at The Intercept); John Carlos Frey (independently financed), filmmaker and activist Michael Moore and Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi. These all show how journalism can be a great force for truth and peace, rather than a conveyor belt for lies.
Combining striking news footage of Obama, Trump and fascinating insight from the talking heads – in particular Stone’s son Jeremy, this is a worthwhile watch that shows how ‘sometimes the truth is just true’. Perhaps we need to ‘stop catching up with the Kardashians and go back to I.F. Stone’. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 24 MARCH 2017 AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE
Dir: Dan Kwan | Castaways: Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe | Comedy | 97min | US
It’s hard to work out why two decent actors would get involved in the tedious exercise that is SWISS ARMY MAN, a title that immediately brings to mind a really world class piece of kit – the Swiss Army knife. Unlike the legendary gadget, the film version won’t be remembered, other than possibly for a lavatorial sense of humour as weak as the sphincters that form its focus. A bedraggled and querulous castaway (Dano) fetches up on a desert island where he finds creepy comfort in the flatulent corpse of a dead man (Radcliffe) whose post mortem bodily gases propel the gormless groper over the waves for a joy ride that’s about as joyous as death by drowning in slurry. MT
Lionsgate UK Releases Swiss Army Man on DVD & Blu-ray 10th April, 2017
DVD Amazon link: http://amzn.eu/cxDk6BZ Blu-ray Amazon link: http://amzn.eu/2gO0O6f
Dir.: Juan Mejia Botero, Jake Kheel; Documentary; USA/Dominican Republic 2016, 75 min.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic (DR) share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola: they also share a long colonial past and brutal dictatorships during the 50s and 60s, when “Papa Doc” Duvalier in Haiti and Rafael Trujillo in the DR reigned supreme. But here all similarities end: whilst Haiti is one of the poorest nations on this planet, the DR on the other hand is one of richest countries in Central America.
Juan Mejia Botero’s ravishing documentary examines the main reason for the divergence: the near total deforestation in Haiti, where just 2% of the rain forest remains, whilst the DR thrives economically thanks to their preservation of its woods. Haiti’s population in the border region has taken to transgress into the forests of their neighbours, to cut trees down and produce charcoal, which they transport back into Haiti. The DR employs rangers who try and catch the Haitians, often beating them up and destroying the charcoal produced. In 2012, one of these rangers, Elisio Eloy Vargas, also known as Melaneo, was killed by the Haitian intruder Pablo Tipal. Vargas’ widow Calina suffers most from his death: she is from Haiti, and does not have the citizenship of the DR. Melaneo’s family, his mother and brother Chichi ostracise her, and the six children, three of whom had been fathered by Melaneo.
As the environmentalist Dr. Yolanda Leon drives through the boarder section, she discovers an increasingly presence of DR citizens breaking the law by cutting down trees and producing charcoal to transport via HGVs into Haiti. Big profits (dwarfing the amount of the illegal Haitians charcoal producers), are made by the HGV owners and bribes are made to the upper echelon of the DR administration. At the same time, there is a growing anti-Haitian feeling in the DR. Haitians are called ‘lazy’, and many are expelled. Even Calina is lucky to gain at least a provisional residence permit. Two years after the Melaneo murder, the son and cousin of Pablo Tipal are found dead: their throats are cut in the same way as Melaneo’s. As one citizen of the DR remarks: “To live at the boarder, you have to have a hard heart”.
Sumptuously photographed by DoP Juan Carlos Castaneda, this documentary illuminates many problems faced all over the world: the inequality of bordering countries, class diversions, corruption, legal and illegal emigration, ecological catastrophes and a growing hatred of all foreigners. This micro cosmos is superbly analysed by the directors – the personal and the political are always intertwined. An impressively, but sad study of human nature. AS
Director: Raoul Peck | Writers: Raoul Peck, James Baldwin | With Samuel L Jackson | 93min | US | Doc
Black activist and writer James Baldwin once said: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”: Writer and socal critic Baldwin was an highly intellectual thinker who explored the unspoken intricacies of racial tension, and here illuminates the lives of three American civil rights campaigners in Raoul Peck’s immersive and meaty biopic, narrated by by Samuel L. Jackson.
Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are the focus of I Am Not Your Negro (also the title of , an unflinching study of flagrant prejudice in 1960s America. It sometimes feels pretty close to the bone in its stark exposé of white supremacy and the apathy of ignorance.
When invited by literary agent Jay Acton to pen a book on the three, Baldwin’s turned him in the form of a slim yet pithy manuscript entitled Remember This House. And this became the basis for Raoul Peck’s film. Baldwin comes across as a calm and appealingly reflective man in television interviews and chat programmes. The film is fleshed with excerpts from classics such as In the Heat of the Night; Stagecoach; Dance, Fools, Dance and Elephant that feature Black actors portraying America’s cultural background in controversial settings or positions of inferiority.
Saliently shot in black and white and cleverly edited by Alexandra Strauss, the doc also includes topical posters. The occasional inter-titles, flagging up various ideas and headings, feel superfluous in a film that tells its own story evocatively and engagingly without a need for introduction.
Honourable and important in its subject matter, the only criticism of I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO is its lack of a cohesive narrative. Freewheeling between themes and ideas, the underlying thrust is one of social unease and violence, wherein the White man exploits the Black man feeling threatened by him, for reasons that never become entirely justifiable to modern audiences. Such is the nature of prejudice.
Baldwin, who was born in the Bronx and eventually died in Saint-Paul de Vence in 1987, commented that the history of America was a Black one, but he never comes across as vehemently racist or angry despite his background of poverty and deprivation, always peddling a reasonable and contemplative agenda that nevertheless maintained that racism was the source of America’s social divide. This is an enjoyable and edifying experience. MT
NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS APRIL 2017
Dir: Elliott Lester | Javier Guillon | Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maggie Grace, Kevin Zegers, Scoot McNairy | 94min | US | Psychological Drama
Elliott Lester cut his teeth on commercials and his stylish cinematography is the best thing about this episodic and moodily opaque psychological drama that reflects on themes of bereavement and letting go of the past.
The film is based on the real-life Überlingen mid-air collision and the aftermath to the tragedy that impacts of the lives of those left behind. Arnold Schwarzenegger is powerfully grim as Russian architect Vitaly Kaloyev, whose wife and daughter are lost in the crash. He holds Danish air traffic controller Jake Bonanos (Peter Nielsen) responsible for the death of his family. Nielsen remains distraught and sinks into a depression that ultimately destroys his career and his marriage. But Kaloyev cannot let go and tracks Nielsen down determined to make him pay for the error.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is impressive here as a strong and smouldering type who whose latent rage eventually finds a bruising outlet. The denouement is quietly shocking but somehow anticlimactic in the scheme of things. AFTERMATH is more a study about a man’s lack of philosophy in managing grief and tragedy than a gripping thriller, but Lester provides Schwarzenegger with a vehicle to show off his acting potential away from his usual blockbuster roles. As a story portraying actual events AFTERMATH feels decidedly slim. MT
Dir.: Pete Travis; Cast: Riz Ahmed, Billie Piper, Roshan Seth, James Floyd, Mohamed Al Amiri, Cush Jumbo, Hanna Rae, Alexander Siddig; UK 2017, 110 min.
With Raymond Chandler in mind, director Pete Travis (Dredd) and writer Patrick Neate, on whose 2006 novel of the same name the film is based, paint a dark picture of London, in this British Neo Noir, where Private Eye Tommy Akhtar stumbles around finding new violent connections, whilst searching for closure on his own troubled past.
Tommy (Ahmed) runs a seedy detective agency called TA – in his own words, he “discovers and buries secrets”. One day, the prostitute Melody (Jumbo) asks him to search for her co-worker Natasha who has gone missing. Tommy can’t find her but he traces Natasha’s last client: a Pakistani business man, murdered in his hotel bed. Enter Lovely Ansari’, a property developer and pillar of the community who is also a good old friend of Tommy. Soon it becomes clear, that many people are interested in the victim: American agent Regan (Schaefter), the leader of Islamic Youth Centre Al Dabaran (Siddig), and the local cops ever ready to give Tommy a hard time. Not that his life is a bed of roses: his cricket obsessed father Farzad (Seth) never lets him forget that he wants a much straighter lifestyle for his son, and Shelley (Piper) and her daughter Emma (Rae) share a bond from a past trauma with Tommy. The plot is not much more than a McGuffin, and the all-around happy-ending rings false.
Where it not be for the excellent work of DoP Christopher Ross (Detour), we could dismiss Tiny Lights simply as TV pilot. But the nightime images, mostly shot with natural light, are vey invocative: shadows lurk everywhere, and Tommy stumbles through a urban nightmare like the heroes of Cornel Woolrich, with all the implications of a cliff hangar depending on the exact timing.
Pete Travis tries to refresh the genre with the introduction of an Asian lead and his Bangladeshi father, as the shadow of Islam creeps in with shady clerical activity, the film feels much more at home with Akhtar being clubbed over the head by hired thugs, in the best Robert Mitchum tradition, than it ever does with reflecting the complexities of modern Britain.
Unfortunately, unlike Woolrich, Travis/Neate do not care much for an authentic narrative, and are content with a loose, episodic shape. Full points for atmosphere, but the strong cast could have done with some more structure. AS
Director: Tomer & Barak Heyman; Documentary; Israel/UK/Germany 2016, 84 min.
Tomer and Barak Heyman (Bridge over the Wadi) have always combined the personal and socio-political in their longterm documentaries shot mainly in Israel where Barak produced the award winning Lady Kul el Arab by the Palestinian filmmaker Ibtisam Mara’ana. This was a manifestation of her brother’s political statement showing a divided Israel, trying in vain to come to terms with a permanent war against Palestine.
Saar Maoz, the central figure of WHO’S GONNA LOVE ME NOW? is forty and lives in London. For the past eleven years he has been HIV Positive. An ordinary gay man, he sings in the London Gay Men’s Chorus but his life is ruled by the medication he takes which often has side effects ranging from nausea and muscle cramps to very disturbed sleep patterns. What makes Saar’s life even more difficult is his relationship with the family in Israel, where he grew up on a Kibbutz with six siblings. His father is a paratrooper who tells everybody with pride that all his children served in the same military branch like him, and he parachuted “with all of them, even the girls”.
During one of Saar’s visits; his father, in uniform, shows guests around the military monument “Ammunition Hill”, proclaiming a rather belligerent, un-reflective ideology of Israel’s right to annex Palestinian territories. Prior to this we had witnessed Saar reading a letter from his father, which is insulting on a personal level as his political ravings in Israel. But Saar still craves the love of his family and blames them for his being thrown out of the Kibbutz, when his homosexuality became apparent: “They should have said, we are all going to leave the Kibbutz, if you exclude our son”. Obviously, this was far from realistic.
The only person who loves Saar unconditionally is his grandfather, who is old and frail, and will die during the filming. When Saar’s mother comes to London later she is helpless and has obviously not come to terms with her son’s homosexuality: “You are like a branch without continuity”. Whilst she loves Saar, she still hopes he will give up s his sexual orientation. During the film, Saar becomes a little more realistic: when walking with a friend round Brompton Cemetery, he remarks sarcastically that the Kibbutz will bury him, but “hey we’ll put that Queer only in the far away corner”.
When his father visits Saar in London he also displays a huge degree of insensitivity: sitting in an outdoor café, he remarks loudly to his son “are these also gay?’ when two young women walk by. Later he asks Saar “who is gay here?” as if the promenading people were so easily classified. But Saar’s parents are not the worst – by far. When Saar finally decides to go back to Israel, working for The ‘Israel Aids Task Force’, his younger brother is openly hostile: he is afraid his small children may get infected “when you move here, the risks are so much greater”.
The great strength of the film is the long-term observation, making the awareness (or lack of it) of the Maoz family much more apparent. Filming in London and Israel, the scale of the different environments is huge: the man employing Saar at the Aids Task Force points this out to him. But Saar is set for a reunion with his family in a country which will not welcome him with open arms: he will be a stranger both at home and in a society geared to male values, needed Israel is a militaristic society. The images are clear and well-0bserved, there is humour here but also overriding sadness for Saar, who wants more than anything to come home, without being really wanted by those he loves and values. AS
Director|Writer: Terence Davies | Cast: Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine, | 124min | Drama | UK
After his sober portrait of Scottish life during wartime, Terence Davies turns his camera back to American life, and particularly that of the reclusive 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, played sensitively here in this illuminating aptly claustrophobic biopic, by Cynthia Nixon. Jennifer Ehle plays Emily’s sister and Keith Carradine her strict but loving Victorian father in an attempt to explore and open up an introspective but hopeful young woman whose poor health saw her gradually regressing into her bedroom as a frustrated spinster. Dickinson had some success at being published at a time when women of her background were considered ill-suited to writing or any other kind of creative pursuit.
Her poetry is sometimes described as elliptical; it is certainly avantgarde but she never blossomed personally or professionally, opting for the closeted atmosphere of her close family rather than one of emotional fulfilment in household of her own. Highly self-critical, Nixon cleverly portrays her own worst enemy, whose inner monologues and negative overthinking continually self-sabotage her success: despite a prodigious output of nearly 2,000 poems, only 11 were published.
Dying from kidney failure at 55, Dickinson endured a maudlin household where, despite Vinnie’s uplifting support and love, the women seemed to teeter perpetually on the bring of anxiety-induced poor health. Her mother can barely get to the end of the day without dissolving into tears of melancholy (often looking like Stanley Baxter in drag).
Shot almost entirely indoors, within the confines of her luxuriously decorated home and flower-filled garden in Amherst, Massachusetts, Davies’ script is suitably coy and wittily crafted; guaranteed to elicit a tittering response of pleasure from its litterary-minded devotees. Played briefly as a young woman by Emma Bell, Dickinson is a sparky and sharp-tongued virago whose pluckiness turns to bitterness in the fullness of time as Dixon takes over the role.
Her God-fearing family is headed by her father who allows her to write at night time and to receive visits from her canny, Dorothy Parker-like friend, Vryling Buffom (Catherine Bailey) who eventually marries. But Emily’s ardour burns only for the unobtainable in the shape of Rev. Wadsworth (Eric Loren). When a good-looking admirer visits one day Emily rebuffs him with vituperative conversation while hiding behind her bedroom door. He never comes again, yet Emily remains desperate to be ravaged by a midnight guest – seen only in profile in a dimly lit fantasy scene. Best known for her antics in Sex and the City, Nixon plays Jane as plain and scathing in contrast to her sister Vinnie’s electrifying smile and brother Austin’s dark good looks.
Terence Davies’ mise en scene is fastidiously crafted as his camera glides stealthily through each shot. Delicate flower arrangement bring freshness to the otherwise crustily powdered and heavily wigged look of the cast whose superb but mannered performances evoke the stiff propriety of the day. A score of appropriate music selections from Schubert to Chopin adds to final touches to this rather twee but beautifully rendered arthouse piece than never quite reaches the emotional heights of House of Mirth or Deep Blue Sea but is nevertheless moving as a portrait of female endeavour and longing. MT
TERENCE DAVIES RETROSPECTIVE | VIENNALE 21-31 OCTOBER 2021
Dir. Robert Mullan | Cast: David Tennant, Elisabeth Moss, Michael Gambon, Gabriel Byrne, David Bamber UK | 106 mins
You may not learn a great deal about Sixties psychiatry in Robert Mullan’s impressive biopic of the maverick Scots mind doctor RD Laing, but after Dr Who David Tennant plays him with a stunning magnetic charisma that captures our imagination and goes along way towards helping us understand why he was successful in treating patients who had often been failed by the conventional medicine of the day.
Dubbed ‘the acid Marxist’, RD Laing is certainly an elusive and highly complex character to pin down. Like many dedicated to their cause, he is portrayed as often failing his nearest and dearest in his attempts to be all things to all people, and in particular his patients. But while being intense and empathetic and vulnerable, he comes across as an arrogant narcissist in respect to his avant-garde professional methods.
Robert Mullan has hired himself a splendid cast – Michael Gambon and Gabriel Byrne are impressively convincing as patients afflicted by mental illness, and the narrative in seen through Laing’s relationship with Angie Wood (Elizabeth Moss to appeal to US audiences) – a psychology graduate who comes to meet him for lunch one day, and ends up staying and having his baby, losing her own way and self-respect in the process. Clearly Laing was not a complete cad, acquiescing to all her demands in the East London alternative centre Kingsley Hall; where they live with his medication-free patients in a care in the micro-community-style environment, but he is not prepared to set up home with her when she insists on having a child, despite the threatening behaviour of those in his care who want his continued and undivided attention. Their relationship is often tested, when he own family of four children make themselves known, but Laing always makes it clear what he is about, in a charm offence. The film suffers from some tonal unevenness in the scenes changes: it’s not sure whether it wants to be a straight-up biopic or a dreamy dark comedy, shot in a smoky pot-fuelled haze of pastel peach hues.
MAD TO BE NORMAL makes much of its Sixties sensibilities, the score includes The Kinks “You Really Got Me” and Donovan’s Season of the Witch” and Laing struts his stuff in Beatle boots, besuited in bottle green velvet and Sargent Pepper style patterned tunics. This is a captivating film largely because of Tennant and his memorable portrayal of a man who, like many psychiatrists, might just have been slightly deranged himself in order to enter the minds of his patients. As the saying goes: You don’t have to be made to live here, but it helps”. MT
Dir.: Pablo Larrain; Cast: Luis Gnecco, Mercedes Moran, Gael Gabriel Bernal, Alfredo Castro; Chile/Argentina/France/Spain/USA, 107 min.
Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain has immersed himself in two iconic figures of the 20th Century to bring us films about Jacqueline Onassis and his fellow countryman Pablo Neruda, premiering at Venice and Cannes this year, respectively. NERUDA is not so much a biopic of the Nobel Prize winning poet, more a noirish character study of the man himself, in the format of a deconstructed detective novel.
In Chile 1948, President Videla (Castro) has joined the Cold War hysteria by arresting communists and putting them into concentration camps – one run by a certain Augusto Pinochet. Fleeing the police forces with his Argentine wife Delia del Carril, poet and Senator of the Republic, Pablo Neruda (Gnecco), is being hotly pursued by a part-factual and part-fictional detective Oscar Peluchonneau (Bernal), the putative son of a late police chief and a prostitute.
Aided and abetted by national sympathisers, Neruda enjoys a lifestyle which is anything but spartan: he and his wealthy wife are fond of the good life: but it does not detract him from writing his radical poems. Oscar belittles Neruda in his off-screen commentary, but at the same time he is in awe of him. The longer Neruda continues to evade him, the more Oscar becomes a pure invention of the writer who increasingly sees himself in a central role, everything revolving around him. In the third act, when Neruda escapes via the snowy Andes to Argentina, the duel between the poet and his creation becomes almost satirical.
Neruda was – like his Chilean compatriot Robert Bolano – an admirer of the detective novel, and Larrain plays the genre to perfection. The name Peluchonneau is a dead give-a-way: ‘peluche’ or a ‘stuffed toy animal’. The director weaves Guillermo Caldron’s script into a new form of magical realism: a form of noir, in which Neruda directs his own world, sometimes making fun of himself to deflect from the deadly game of reality. Oscar is somehow his alter-ego, very much an outsider, like himself: but the difference between them is that Neruda has never forgotten his impoverished childhood, he walked barefoot until the age of 12. Meanwhile Oscar is desperate to be the son of his father, who never really acknowledged him. Both men are pompous at times – pretenders; but Oscar lacks Neruda’s genius, and perhaps, more importantly, his courage to rebel.
Gnecco, a real look-alike, plays Neruda in the style of Cervantes, larger-than-life and always careful with his words in recording the most banal events for posterity. DoP Sergio Armstrong (The Maid) creates sumptuous, flowing images, the camera rolling over wild landscapes, starry skies and dark streets full of hidden danger, blacker than black. Chile is the 1940s is shown as a treacherous and exotic badland. The scenes in the brothel, where Neruda holds court, are reminiscent of early Renoir paintings. Larrain directs not so much with anger, as he did in The Club, but with a mischievous playfulness, never letting the audience forget the dangerous path the fearless poet is treading. Neruda’s works of art live on, giving voice to the fight against Fascism that engulfed his sub-continent for so long.
Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara Valentin, Irm Hermann
94min | Drama | Germany
Long before Ulrich Seidl (Paradise Love) or Laurent Cantet (Vers le Sud) captured transracial intergenerational love on the screen, Fassbinder exposes the xenophobic underbelly of ’70s West German society through a surprising romance between a Polish German cleaner in her sixties and a Moroccan Berber immigrant twenty years her junior.
Arabs are family loving-people and, far away from home and lonely in a foreign country, Ali (ben Salem) finds the comforting presence of a mature and modest woman attractive. Emmi Kurowski (Mira) clearly adores him, flattering his ego with her subtle brand of charm. The two strike up an uncomplicated relationship in the confines of her small flat and the local restaurant where Ali works, and soon decide to get married. Ali is fascinated by Emmi’s calm self-assurance and her love of food and good coffee. Their simple wedding takes place against the rainy backdrop of a grim Munich and afterwards they enjoy dinner in a local gourmet restaurant. Emmi’s family regard Ali with savage mistrust, her son kicking in the television in anger before walking they all walk out. It gradually emerges that the local community are also scandalised by the marriage; shops often refusing to serve Ali.
Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem give sombre yet affecting turns as the doomed romantic couple: Fassbinder accentuates the disapproving visual expressions and hostile body language of his support cast to reflect their feelings of disdain, pushing this ordinary social realist drama into the realms of melodrama on occasion, as in the cafe scene where Mira breaks down sobbing as the staff look on, standing in pseudo military formation. Wildly prolific in his output, Fassbinder was a fan of his compatriot Douglas Sirk and this is in some ways a tribute to Sirk’s Hollywood-style melodrama. Fassbinder shot the political and social statement in only 15 days and also appears in cameo as Emmi’s weasel-like son-in-law. MT
SHOWING AT PART OF A BFI FASSBINDER RETROSPECTIVE | OUT ON BLU-RAY COURTESY OF ARROW FILM AND VIDEO
Dir.: Dito Montiel | Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Kate Mara, Gary Oldman, Jai Courtney, Charlie Shotwell | US | 91 min.
There have been many films about post traumatic stress disorder, but the plight of American veterans returning from far-away battlefields since the days of the Vietnam War in the early ’60s has been more or less neglected by successive governments. On the big screen, the efforts have also been mixed to say the least, and Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing your Saints) has tried to come up with an original approach, which proved in the end – again – not wholly satisfying.
The four-stranded narrative is centred around two GIs returning from a tour of Afghanistan: Gabriel Drummer (LaBeouf) and Devin Roberts (Courtnay), and flips between the pre-war memories of Gabriel, featuring his wife Natalie (Mara) and his son Jonathan (Shotwell); the traumatic war experience; a lengthy interview with councillor Peyton (Oldman), who tries to help the suicidal Gabriel; and finally, the return of the two buddies to a (seemingly) apocalyptic America, where Gabriel tries to find his wife and son.
There is certainly a soft streak in the original Gabriel before “the fall”: Learning that his cute was bullied by his school peers, after they overhead him saying to his mother “I love you”, Gabriel arranges a secret code with Jonathan: They will say “Man down” instead of “I love you”. Devin is much more uncompromising, he basically drags Gabriel into joining the Marines; the scenes in the Lejeune base camp of are conventional, featuring the nominal OTT drill sergeant. But nothing prepares the soldiers for the real war in Afghanistan, where combatants and families often live under one roof and leads to a gruesome incident, from which Gabriel does not recover, in spite of a lengthy session with Peyton. When the two return to their hometown, they find a country devastated by war.
Only in the final part do we learn about the true nature of the denouement, even though, in hindsight, the clues have been there all along. In attempting to tell the story in four different strands, Montiel often loses coherence. DoP Shelly Johnson’s visuals (Wild Card, Hidalgo), particularly of a ravaged America, go a long way, to keeping our interest going, but plot-wise MAN DOWN is often opaque, particularly with regard to the true nature of the relationship between Natalie and Devin during the weeks before Devin joined Gabriel in Afghanistan, due to a broken arm. LaBeouf is tries his best to impress, but is really the weak link – not given helped by the script enigmatic script. MAN DOWN simply lacks the direction to do the topic justice: trying to be avant-garde does not lead to an immersive experience in a story hampered by too many contradictions and unsolved equations. AS
DIR: André Øvredal | Cast: Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, Ophelia Lovibond | Horror | 99min
Intrigue and mystery give way to shlocky horror and gore in André Øvredal’s high-concept follow-up to his quirky and inventive Trollhunter, a mockumentary foray into Norway’s folklore and one of the highlights of London’s First Nordic Film Festival back in 2012.
Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch are cast as father and son forensic pathologists tasked with discovering the cause of death a mysterious Jane Doe who bears extensive internal injuries despite being her corpse pristine as a pin on the outside. Rather like a Patricia Cornwell paperback or an episode of CSI, JANE DOE offers a procedural autopsy of a body discovered at a traumatic murder scene where all the other victims have been savagely brutalised. Coroners are not supposed to inquire about how their cases died, that is a matter for the police and the detectives. But Jane Doe’s cause of death gives the doctors much food for thought, as well as spurting blood and active brain tissue, that seems to fly in the face of reason, questioning whether Miss Doe is indeed dead after all.
The backstory here is that Tommy (Cox) has thrown himself relentlessly into his work since the death of his cheerful wife Rae, two years previously. Austen (Hirsh) is not so keen on becoming a coroner but feels duty bound to his father and their relationship is becoming more distant since the arrival of a love interest for Austen in the shape of Ophelia Lovibond’s Emma. Initially JANE DOE provides some moments of tension as Cox and Hirsh probe question what seems like an sinister case of New English witchcraft and a corpse that appear ‘undead’. But the autopsy soon descends into a blood bath – quite literally – as the mortuary cat is found butchered to death and blood seeps from zip-locked bags in the cold storage. Meanwhile, the radio announces a gale force storm warnings advising listeners to batten down the hatches and stay home. The usual horror tropes are rolled out attempting to scare us (jumpcuts, screeches and slamming doors) but Goldberg and Naing’s script is more a case of initial fascination dissolving into disappointment, rather than slowly mounting terror. If you’re looking for a straightforward gore fest then THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE is likely go down a treat, for others it’s a missed opportunity to delve into the occult. MT
Dir: Nick Willing | With Paula Rego | UK | Doc | 92min
“Just take of your knickers” said Victor Willing to Paula Rego and thus began a love story that was to dominate the life and work of a talented but timid Portuguese painter who arrived in London in 1950 leaving the comfort of a middle class home and a country in thrall to Salazar’s misogynist dictatorship. Salazar was to die after falling off a canvas deckchair, but Paula Rego fought manic depression and the male-centric art world to achieve international success painting canvasses that left Charles Saatchi gobsmacked.
This unique insight into the celebrated artist, who has died at the age of 87, is pictured above with her her son and film-maker Nick Willing, was brought up in Portugal and in Camden in a house bought by her father, where Paula and her husband the artist Vic Willing, arrived penniless after he was struck with multiple schlerosis, having lost the business left by Paula’s father. Notoriously private and guarded, Rego opens up for the first time, revealing how she channeled her shyness into her art with extraordinary results, using her powerful pictures as a therapy for her own demons, difficulties and personal tragedy. Through painting she continued to raise awareness of female issues and animal rights (her personal favourite charity is Dogs of Barcelona. Nick Willing enriches the film with a fascinating archive of home movies, family photographs and interviews spanning 60 years, describing the evolution of Rego’s work from early days at the Slade to the present day. What emerges is a deeply personal and intimate portrait of an artist whose legacy will survive the years, graphically illustrated in her preferred pastel, charcoal and oil paint. Poignantly, Willing asks his mother about her most proud achievement: “Winning the Slade Summer Prize when I was 19”. MT
PAUL REGO: STORIES & SECRETS IS AVAILABLE On BBCIPLAYER
Dir Sara Taksler | Documentary with Bassem Youssef, Jon Stewart | USA 2016 |111 min.
During the Arab spring, cardiac surgeon Bassem Youssef from Cairo went to a demonstration against the regime of president Mubarak in Tahrir – an event which would change his life. Director/writer Sara Taksler, producer of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” has followed Bassem’s rise and fall as the face of his satirical TV programme “The Show”, which saw him taking on three presidents: Hosni Mubarak, Mohamed Morsi and Fattah el-Sisi, his audience reaching 30 million at its peak.
When Bassem was demonstrating in Tahrir against the near thirty-year rule of Mubarak, he wanted to help the victims of the police brutality but a teargas attack left him incapacitated and he remembers, “I saw two different realities, the one I saw in the streets, and the other reality I saw on television”. With his friend Tarek Elkazzaz and the cartoonist JF Andeel, Bassem started a satirical show “The B+ Show” on You Tube, which became so successful that Bassem gave up medicine and started “The Show” (Al-Bernameg) on TV. Soon he became a popular figure, and after the fall of Mubarak in 2011, to which he contributed, Bassem soon found out that Mubarak’s successor Mohamed Morsi, though democratically elected, turned out to be a ruthless dictator, who wanted to change the secular constitution of the country, turning it into an Islamic Republic.
After Morsi’s overthrow by the military, led by Fattah el-Sisi, the latter was elected as the new president in 2014, garnering a staggering 96% of all votes cast. Needless to say, that Bassem did not stop attacking the new regime, which was more or less a Mubarak 2.0 version. Helped by a visit from Jon Stewart, the host of “The Daily Show” in the USA, Bassem at first seem to keep his audience, but the new regime instigated mass protests against “The Show”: A woman shouting into the camera of the State TV Station “Don’t mess with the Egyptian Army and Sisi!”. To which a Bassem supporter answered” Why are you against the man who fought against the Brotherhood?” Bassem would soon find out “how scary it was, to be a TV host”. Shot behind the scenes, we see the collaborators being equally frightened – after all the military had re-introduced Martial Law and nobody was safe. At first, the CBC TV station let Bassem and his crew go, and after they found a new station, the government blocked the transmission of “the Show”, a step, even Morsi had refrained from. With his family and friends frightened, Bassem finally gave up and said good-bye to his audience. But CBC went to court, and Bassem was convicted of having to pay a fine in the nine figures region “for breach of contract”. With two suitcases he fled with his wife and baby-daughter to the USA – trying to drum up support for a new TV show, whilst giving lectures. After Trump’s election, this may be just another ironic twist in Bassem’s search for freedom of expression.
Whilst TICKLING GIANTS tries to keep up the humour, it is truly very dark, even though Bassem jokes at the very end that he hopes that this documentary will make it easier for him to meet a nubile Italian film star –the reality is, that he could not even attend his father’s funeral in Cairo. And president el Sisi has certainly reached his long-term goal “of influencing the media”. Taksler is very professional, always interested in the changes of the show’s crew, where the participation in this daring enterprise has brought also personal liberation for the female members. But overall, there is no sign of a happy-end anywhere – the giants are marching on. AS
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Gong Yoo, Um tae-goo, Han Ji-min
South Korea 2016, 139 min.
The original Korean title in translation means Secret Agent, and writer/director Kim Jee Woon (The last Stand) offers us a dazzling spy story, set in Seoul as well as Shanghai during the 1920s when large parts of South East Asia were occupied by the Japanese. Kim gets very near to the spirit of Joseph Conrad’s Secret Agent: double crossing, based on ambivalent interests, dominates this sumptuous ballet of shadow fights played out against the alluring background of twenties architecture, lovingly recreated.
The first ten minutes set the tone: Kim Jan-ok, a leading personality of the Korean resistance movement in Seoul is chased by Japanese soldiers, led by Captain Lee Jung-Chool (Song), who once was himself a resistance fighter, before changing sides in Seoul. Cornered, Kim Jan kills himself. The whole sequence is filmed like a ballet: the soldiers jumping from rooftop to rooftop, whilst Kim tries to loose them in the narrow alleyways. Lee is truly sad about Kim’s death, and when he is ordered by his Japanese superior Chief Higashi to catch the leader of the resistance Kim Woo-jin (Gong), he remembers the time spent with Kim Woo and the beautiful Yeon Gye-soon (Han) in the underground movement.
In Shanghai, Lee meets up again with Kim-Woo, who is buying TNT from Hungarian anarchists, to use it against the Japanese in Seoul. On the train journey to the Korean capital, Lee has to kill his nemesis, Hashimoto (Um), to save Kim Woo’s life and that of the other resistance leaders. When they arrive in Seoul station, the police have surrounded the concourse, and one of the most memorable fighting sequence is set in motion – whilst Lee is still able to hide his true conviction to his Japanese superiors.
The true star of the film is DoP Kim Ji-jong, who effortlessly conjures up images of a bygone era: everything glitters in fragmented lights, cars roaming the streets, casting frightening shadows at night where the protagonists look very much like marionettes, pulled along in their own dangerous ways. The vibrant colour schemes are permanently changing, melting into each other, creating prisms and a dreamlike atmosphere. Even the violence takes place in an elegant way – apart from the torture scene with Yeon, which seems out of place. The sequences in the train feel seemless – an endless chase in a labyrinth. Song brilliantly evokes his character: a tormented man whose past eradicates his present. Kim Jee Woon directs with great sensibility, avoiding cliches as much as possible. The Age of Shadows is a real masterpiece: a paean to a people lost in the chaos of events well beyond their control, with images of true magic. AS
NOW SHOWING AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER 2016
Dir: James Gray | Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, Angus Macfadyen, Tom Holland | US | 140 min.
Director James Gray, who based this biopic of Army officer/explorer Percival Fawcett on the non-fiction book by David Grann, delivers an un-ashamedly old-fashioned and linear boys-own-adventure, shot on grainy 35 mm, making The Lost Citya stunning visual adventure spoilt by its overlong running time and regurgitation of the well documented stifling ideology of the Edwardian era which detracts substantially from the film’s enjoyment.
We first meet Major Percival Fawcett (Hunnam) in his late thirties, during a hunt staged for foreign dignitaries, where Fawcett distinguishes himself by killing a deer. But praise, in the form of an invitation for a formal dinner, will not come his way: his commanding officer explains, that “he choose the wrong ancestry” – meaning, that Percival’s father disgraced himself by alcoholism and gambling. But soon afterwards, there is a chance of redemption: The Royal Geological Society (RGS), of whom Percival’s father had been a member, offers Percival a tricky job in the Brazilian jungle where he has the thankless task of establishing a border between Brazil and Bolivia, rendered indistinct by newly installed profitable rubber plantations. Between 1906 and 1924 Fawcett would undertake seven more expeditions into the Brazilian jungle where he became obsessed by the idea of the lost city of Z, located somewhere in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil. Often clashing with James Murray (Macfadyen) an obese and unsuitable head of the rather reactionary RSG, who could not stomach the fact that the indigenous population had established a culture long before Great Britain, Fawcett is accompanied on all but his last trip by Henry Costin (Pattinson), who served him faithfully, backing him up in the dispute with Murray.
Fawcett joined the Army at the outbreak of WW1 in spite of his advanced age and he was injured and temporarily blinded at the battle of the Somme. His relationship with his wife Nina (Miller) was marked by his permanent absences: she had the burden of bringing up the children, whilst he followed his obsession. When Nina rebelled, wanting to accompany her husband on one of the expeditions (she was certainly fitter than Murray), Fawcett denied her vehemently, claiming “the different roles of males and females are the cornerstone of our culture”. In 1925 Fawcett made a final trip to the Brazilian jungle with his oldest son Jack (Holland): they were presumably killed by Indians along with around a hundred would-be-rescuers.
Percival Fawcett was a certainly a colourful character: he was befriended by Rider Haggard and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used Fawcett’s exploits as material for his books: ‘The Lost World’. Fawcett was very much a one-dimensional man of his time: unable to settle down to family life, he searched for a holy grail, always preferring physical exhortations to reflective patience. He had an anti-authoritarian streak, in reaction to his father’s reputation, but was a male-chauvinist when it came to his relationship with Nina. James Gray (The Immigrant), reiterates the clichés of the era and Fawcett’s part in it over and over again, in a linear narrative that is as conventional and bloated as the characters themselves. A more contemporary approach, such as Pablo Lorrain’s deconstructed approach for Neruda, could have offered a tighter and more engaging watch, The overriding entertainment comes from DoP Darious Khondji (Amour, Seven) sumptuous jungle scenes, the opera house in the middle of the wilderness, the serenity of the natives and the attacking animals which are captured in magnificent lighting. Contrapuntal to the lush jungle landscapes, England is pictured as cold, artificial light dominates in the scenes shot at the RGS. The Lost City of Zis a visual masterpiece, if you can forgive the rather stolid narrative. AS
What is it like to be a teenager girl today? The adolescent time in a girl’s life has always been the focus of Jenny Gage’s work as a filmmaker and photographer. With ALL THIS PANIC she offers up a female answer to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood in a fresh and effervescent vérité portrait of Brooklyn’s magical youth from teen to young adulthood. Despite its title, this is an uplifting and positive portrait of puberty – a time that seems much the same today as is did 40 years ago – in far less permissive days.
Gage has known some of their girls in her documentary since they were only little (6-8 in the case of Dusty and Ginger) and growing up in her neighbourhood. The film begins around a decade later and takes place over three years. We first meet the crop-haired and delicately gamine Lena while she’s still at school – by the end she’s in college, with her hair tipped in sky blue. Despite her broken family – who love her to bits – she’s sensible and engagingly courageous about her hopes for the future which include a boyfriend and travel. Her father is mentally unstable and her mother is open with about their limited resources – but this could be the making of Lena, just going to show how parental love and security is far more important for kids than money.
Ginger is unsettled and less sure of her direction. A tiff with Dusty sees them heading out for the city – both wearing headphones in protest, yet travelling together. Having decided not to go to college Ginger debates dreams of becoming an actor with her father – who appears unorthodox, English and covered in tattoos – and is not impressed with Ginger’s lack of effort in this endeavour. Little sister Dusty and her best friend the freckled Delia, listen carefully to the discussion and try to fathom out their less ambitious yearnings that include losing their virginity and having kids.
Sage is an articulate and strong-willed black girl who has recently lost her father. Attending a private school in Manhattan, she has won a coveted scholarship to Howard University. Squabbling with her mother over the household chores, she seems the most driven of the group. Olivia is introspective and softly spoken, with the most beautiful eyes – by the end of the film she is in love with another girl. And lastly, Ivy – the most streetwise – is in a committed relationship but unsure about the future without strong support from her parents.
Delicately captured in Tom Betterton’s limpid visuals this is impressionistic snapshot of blossoming womanhood explores intimate moments as the girls share their expectations of sex, studying and financial independence. Gage presents an encouraging picture of the next female generation, as giggly young things become the next generation of leaders, mothers, wives and partners. MT
Writer|Dir: Nicolas Pesce Cast: Kika Magalhaes, Will Brill, Olivia Bond, Paul Nazak, Diana Agostini, Clara Wong
Nicolas Pesce cut his teeth in the world of music videos and his feature debut – an intense and stylish psychological thriller – is embued with the melancholy moodiness of Portuguese Fado laced with macabre American Gothic.
Set in a remote forested backwater THE EYES OF MY MOTHER could easily have lost its way but a clever script never allows the film to wander too far off the beaten track, eventually reaching a rather satisfying ending, while keeping our attention fixed on its mesmerising central character Francisca, played with captivating nonchalence by Kika Magalhaes. We first meet Francisca as a little girl (played by Olivia Bond) who whose slightly bohemian mother (Diana Agostini) has fetched up in a cattle farm in the wilds of New York State with her strong but silent husband after a lifetime’s practising eye surgery in her native Portugal.
Nicolas Pesce could be the US answer to Jonathan Glazer in his stylish ‘less is more’ approach to directing with a slowly mounting atmosphere of dread deftly complimenting the pristine look of the film. Zach Kuperstein’s elegantly composed black-and-white visuals turn what could have been a gory film into a gracefully poetic arthouse chiller: blood and bodily fluids ooze like obsidian ink and a chiaroscuro aesthetic transform the story into a modern classic with the same unsettling dread of The Night of the Hunter with Magalhaes’ subtle psychopath replacing Robert Mitchum’s Harry Powell, and a switcheroo male/female dynamic that appears in third act. Apart from the film’s strong visual appeal, the paucity of dialogue allows us to retreat into the deepest corners of the psyche to ponder over the implications and possibilities of a narrative that leaves so many questioned unanswered.
Bilingual Francisca is extremely close to her mother who has taught her all about anatomy and surgery not only leaving her skilfully au fait with dissection, but also making the process of carving up bodies completely natural. This will be crucial when her mother is murdered by a creepy stranger (Will Brill), not only leaving Francisca unfazed by her brutal death but also seemingly untraumatised in the aftermath (where he father keeps the man chained up in the barn), allowing Francisca to practise her surgical skills.
Her distant but respectful relationship with her father seems to have unleashed some kind of attachment anxiety in Francisca when she becomes an adult. Clearly she aches with loneliness, but rather than seek out an amorous encounter to avoid being alone, Francisca uses her talents to make sure nobody ever leaves her.
Most of the violence is tactfully alluded to rather than overt, and where brutality does occur it is often in silent scenes where Francisca demonstrates a tender and almost religious devotion. Ariel Loh’s atmospheric occasional score makes unsettling intrusions into the quiet moments without disturbing the sinister sense of terror. MT
Dir: Christopher Menaul | Writer: Jenny Lecoat | Cast: Jenny Seagrove, John Hannah, Julian Kostov, Amanda Abbington, Ronan Keating, Susan Hampshire and Brenock O’Connor | UK | Biopic | 90min
Best known for her TV work and the dire docudrama Diana: Last Days of a Princess, writer Jenny Lecoat unearthes another wartime story and this time one close to her own heart. Set on the island of Jersey in 1940 it explores the life of her great aunt and war widow Louisa Gould (Jenny Seagrove) who took in a young Russian prisoner of war in the final days of the Second World War.
Directed for the big screen by Christopher Menaul (Summer in February) with a decent British cast this painterly period piece conveys the community spirit of the islanders who were forced to live in reduced circumstances in the only part of the British Isles occupied by the Nazis. The wartime storyline lends itself to some rich moments of drama and gentle comedy but tension soon mounts in the third act when reality bites in a shocking denouement where the tone suddenly shifts to melodrama as Jenny Seagrove rather hams it up as she is overtaken by unexpected events.
ANOTHER MOTHER’S SON would work really well as a TV drama so it’s unclear why the producers have decided to give it a theatrical release but the significance of the true story, set to Mario Grigorov’s rousing original score; the lushly verdant landscapes of Jersey and some quietly moving performances from Seagrove (as the resourceful but cavalier Gould ), Julian Kostov (the impetuous Russian POV known as Bill), and Ronan Keating (rather appealing as Louisa’s brother Harold) give this tale of love, loyalty and betrayal a resonance that many may find deeply affecting. MT
ANOTHER MOTHER’S SON IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 24 MARCH 2017.
Dir: Phil Grabsky | Narrator: Gillian Anderson | US | Art Biopic |
After a look at French Impressionism, director and producer Phil Grabsky takes his camera across the Atlantic to explore the American Impressionist movement in a study that follows on from Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse (2o16). Once again, Grabsky explores galleries and gardens up and down the US, France and Britain to offer insight and enrich his film with sumptuous visuals. But although resplendent in its subject matter, this doesn’t quite live up to his previous documentary both from the quality of the narrative and in the commentary provided by curators and talking heads.
In America the Impressionist movement covered almost four decades and was rooted in a deep held desire to preserve nature by a largely rural nation that underwent rapid industrialisation towards the end of the 19th Century.
Grabsky shows how the origins of American Impressionist can be traced back to France, and, in particular, to French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel who arrived in New York at the end of the 1880s with a massive stock of impressionist works which he had not been able to sell back home where their counter cultural nature faced harsh opposition to conventional art community. The avant-garde canvasses provided inspiration and captured the imagination of American artists who beat a path back to Europe and the home of Monet in Giverny where they developed a new strain of Impressionism, changing the course of American art forever.
Impressionism had been met with ridicule in the salons and galleries of France but American dealers were now rich on the profits of industrialisation and snapped up the works in a buying frenzy. This all coincided with a time of urban renewal and regeneration when horticulture and landscape design lead a drive to improve the amenity value of the built environment in the form of parks and gardens that provided green spaces and fresh air to the new cities and towns. These in turn provided inspiration for the middle classes who were keen to re-create a ‘rus in urbis’ that reminded them of their rural past and provided inspiration for the future. Women were becoming highly educated and increasingly independent and sought to copy the fashionable ideas of Gertrude Jekyll, Lawrence Weaver and William Robinson in their homes, gardens designs and their painting, not only as a recreational activity but also as a pathway to spiritual renewal. MT
The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism features the sell-out exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920 that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut.
ON RELEASE FROM 23 MARCH 2017 | FOR TICKETS TO A SCREENING NEAR YOU, CLICK HERE OR SELECT YOUR LOCATION ON THE MAP
Dir.: Clay Tweel | Documentary with Steve Gleason, Michel Varisco; USA | 110 min.
Director/co-editor Clay Tweel (Finders Keepers) tells the story of Stephen Gleason, who played eight years for the New Orleans Saints as pro-line-backer in the NFL, and was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) in 2011, three years after having retired from the sport. As irony has it, his son Rivers was born in October of that year.
Live expectancy with ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease) is five years, and the documentary opens with Gleason starting his video blog for his son while he retains the ability to talk, but already has difficulties annunciating. Later, Gleason is to lose his voice completely (to be replaced by a voice box, directed from a computer keyboard) and even his ability to breathe, he is now on a mechanical ventilator. But he is still alive, using a wheelchair and needing 24-hour care by a team, led by his wife Michel, an artist. Gleason appreciates the contradictions of his situation: once, he was a sporting hero making a daring play on the football field, where he became a symbol for the resurgence of New Orleans devastated by the hurricane. the city, including the Super Dome. Now he is largely incontinent.
Michel is looking after two children: but the strain has caused a growing distance between the parents. Rivers loves being taken for a ride by his Dad on the wheelchair, but one suspects, that this will not last much longer. Stephen’s video log is a testament of his care for his son – particularly considering his own relationship with his father. Stephen grew up in a dysfunctional family, his father not being able to give him the love he needed. Even during the first stages of ALS, Gleason sen. insisted on his son visiting a Christian faith healer – a move Michel called “bullshit”. Stephen has used his celebrity status for other ALS sufferers: his ‘Team Gleason’ helps to get equipment and care (not covered by insurance) for other ALS patients.
But Tweel’s hagiographic approach avoids some valid questions relating to American Football. On a small scale, the Gleasons worked with the filmmaker Sean Pamphilon until the release of the audio-tape regarding the ‘bounty scandal’ of the New Orleans Saints. This involved a coach asking his players to injure the opposition on purpose – in return for a bonus. Stephen Gleason tried to prevent the release of the tape, insisting that he did not authorise it. And then there is the issue of overriding connection between brain damage and the sport itself – long repressed by the NFL, until recently. These very relevant issues should have been mentioned.
Gleason shows a father struggling to be the best possible father for his son – watching Stephen’s condition deteriorate, both physically and psychologically, is hard. DoPs David Lee and Ty Minton-Small never take the easy way out and show every detail of Gleason’s fight which is still going on to this day. AS
Director/Script: Asghar Farhadi | Drama | Iran | 127min
Asghar Farhadi is best known for his enigmatic drama A Separation (2011). This was a film that impressed the arthouse crowd with its slowburn intensity gradually building to a shocking final. About Elly (2009) followed with slightly less acclaim and The Salesman fits comfortably into the Farhadi groove. It’s a good film but not a great one. Starring the same lead as his Fireworks Wednesday (2006) the superb Taraneh Alidoosti, it explores a similar premise and now universal theme: that something familiar and safe is now fraught with uncertainty and the resulting chaos provides the testing ground for the protagonist’s integrity, or lack of it.
There’s an artificial and rather forced quality to The Salesman, a tale of Tehrani bourgeoisie: Rana (Alidoosti) is a housewife and Emad (Shahab Hosseini who won Best Actor) teaches at the University. They both enjoy the theatre and have joined an acting group staging Arthur Miller’s ‘American Dream’ play Death of a Salesman when the film opens. Emad gets the lead part of failed salesman Willy Loman and Rana – his wife -Linda. But events are waylaid by an horrific structural collapse at the couple’s apartment block and they are forced to move out into alternative accommodation, provided by another member of their group. The previous occupier has been involved with some unsavoury characters who swing by regularly at all hours of the day and night. And one day Rana accidently opens the door to one such individual. This paves the way for some startling unpleasantness as Farhardi mixes scenes from the American play with the couple’s sombre reality. The normally restrained Emad starts to take on a rather self-congratulatory grandiosity as his masculinity is challenged, much as Willy Loman’s salesmanship is when he fails in his sales efforts- the similarities emerge between the two man, albeit in a rather fatuous way in the final twist.
Although The Salesman has possibly more mainstream appeal it lacks the subtle quality of A Separation. That said, this is an intelligent and watchable drama that provides a great deal to reflect on, winning the Best Script award at Cannes Film Festival 2016. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 11-22 MAY 2016 | Winner Best Script and Best Actor
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Nora vonWaltstätten, Anders Danielsen Lie
101mins | Fantasy drama | France
Paris has always had a sinister side inspiring Poe’s Murders in The Rue Morgue and Balzac’s Pere Goriot, a story of social realism set near the Pierre Lachaise Cemetery: French literature is redolent with macabre stories conjured up by the dark side of the capital. So it seems somehow feels fitting that Olivier Assayas should add other chilling chapter to this spectrally charged city with his ghost-themed story PERSONAL SHOPPER.
The film is creepy, charismatic and as quirkily inventive as Olivier Assayas who has explored differnet genres in his consummate career but never a ghost story. And Kristen Stewart its star shimmers here in a sombrely subtle turns that is as dark as its subject matter. She plays the unlikely named Maureen Cartwright, a 27 year old American girl who is bored with life and living out a meaningingless few months as a personal shopper to bitchy German media figure Kyra (Nora vonWaltstätten), while she mourns the death of her twin brother Lewis.
Paris is the capital of the fashion world and Assayas works this elegantly into the plot as Maureen glides through a series of glitzy ateliers garnering hand-styled garments for her boss and jewelled accoutrements from Chanel and Cartier. This is work that fills Maureen with ennui as she considers herself worthy of better things and idly sketches and researches her yen for the supernatural and the psychic experiments of Victor Hugo and the avant garde Swedish artist Hilma af Klint. On the sly, she guiltily slips into Kyra’s couturier gowns and fetishistic footwear before pleasuring herself on Kyra’s bed during her trips abroad. Kristen Stewart brings a gamine insouciant sensuality to her role that feels both menacing and intriguing in its sexual ambivalence.
Maureen is also developing her psychic skills in trying to contact her brother Lewis who died of a congenital heart condition in a dreary nearby fin de siecle mansion where they both grew up. Spending several spooky nights there a ghostly presence is felt as Maureen whispers inaudibly in scenes that are genuinely scary and entirely plausible given the undercurrent of glowering spitefulness that vibes through the increasingly dark narrative. This leads us to believe that Maureen is herself conjuring up the devil’s work. Olivier Assayas’s wickedly inventive vision is the most exciting thing so far at Cannes 2016. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE 17 March | CANNES FIL FESTIVAL 11-22 MAY 2016 | Best Director for Olivier Assayas
Dir/Writer: Anna Biller | Cast: Samantha Robinson, Jeffrey Vincent Parise, Laura Waddell, Jared Sanford, Robert Seeley | US | Fantasy Drama | 118min
Anyone who enjoyed TVs Bewitched will appreciate this hyperrealist technicolour drama where the harmless Elizabeth Montgomery is replaced by a mysterious modern day minx who mixes potions and plots to make men fall in love with her, forever. Elaine (Samantha Robinson) is gorgeously winsome and perfectly poised until she retreats behind closed doors to a boudoir bursting with lurid love games and sexy underwear and where she shamelessly seduces her prey leaving a trail of dying and distraught menfolk wondering what on earth happened. Anna Biller’s clever script has nailed men’s egos to a cross and brazenly exposed their deepest anxieties of losing control, falling in love and ‘drowning in the oestrogen’ of their new found perfect playmate. Set in an imagined kitsch community in 1960s California, there’s also a whiff of Chaucer’s Friar’s Tale and Polanski’s Fearless Vampire Killers to Biller’s dark and mocking humour which also has a pop at women folk and their machiavellian ways when it comes to romance. Weird and possibly the most watchable satire you’ll see this week. A cameo from the wonderful Agnes Moorehead would have been the icing on the cake. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY, 10 MARCH 2017.
Dir.: Anna Sandilands, Ewan McNicol; Documentary; USA 2015, 82 min.
Uncertain is a town of 94 inhabitants that lies on the Texas side of the border with Louisiana. The Sheriff jokes:“You’ve got to be lost to find it.” Rumour has it that the only reason for its existence is that a surveyor made a mistake on the map. But debut directors Anna Sandilands and Ewan McNicol get the most of the gloomy atmosphere of the Bayonne – a heaven for lost souls.
The lake, which supports the town’s fishing industry, has an eerie quality: Southern Gothic, mysteries and forgotten crimes haunt the murky waters. McNicol says “we spent time with the lake like as we would with another character”. But the lake is in peril; it is being invaded by a species of parasitic waterweed, salvinia, which covers the whole water surface, killing the fish and blocking oxygen and light and doubling its surface area every two days. Scientists have found a way to eradicate the prolific weed by introducing weevils but anticipate it will cost the authorities a pretty penny.
The filmmakers follow three Uncertain denizens, all with a skeleton in their cupboard. They seem fitting protagonists in this atmosphere lingering doom. Henry, a man in his seventies, has been coming to terms with getting older and losing his wife. In his hot-tempered youth he killed a man in an interracial contretemps. Like many, Henry relies on the lake for his liveliehood, and a friend states categorically “if the lake dies, the town dies.” Wayne is also a killer who caused the death of a young man while under the influence and is now trying to put the past behind him by going back to his native roots, hunting the local wild boar. His prime target is the leader of the herd, a bull Wayne has christened ‘Mr Ed’. He becomes obsessed with the hog, treating him like a warrior. Zach is perhaps the saddest of the trio: a young man, anorexic, diabetic and alcohol dependent, he dreams about a future in Austin, but his poverty is keeping him in Uncertain. Even when he finally gets away, we see him in hospital being told that he will not see thirty-five if he goes on drinking. Traumatised by a mother who had to be incarcerated in a psychiatric ward, he has even lost any illusions about his future: ”Don’t dream, that’s not how you’re gonna be happy in life. I kinda pushed my dreams aside”.
UNCERTAINis a respectful non-judgemental study of people living on the margins of US society and the filmmakers really convey this doleful, festering quality – synonymous with the current mood prevailing in the country. AS
UNCERTAIN is at the ICA from 10th March and On Demand from 17th March
www.uncertainfilm.com
Dir.: Jan. P. Matuszynski; Cast: Andrzej Seweryn; David Ogrodnik, Aleksandra Konieczna, Andrzej Chyra, Alicja Karluk, Magdalena Boczarska; Poland 2016, 122 min.
The debut feature of 32 year-old Polish director Jan P. Matuszynski is an emotionally harrowing and visually stunning tour-de-force, capturing the latter part of the life of the Polish post-surrealist painter Zdzislaw Beksinski (1929-2005). Brilliantly executed in details, in common with many biopics, it suffers from occasionally lacking cohesion in so far as that the scenes, however impressive, do not always hang together as a whole.
The most important aspect of The Last Family is the part we never get to see: Beksinski Senior actually painting (even though the flat is filled with his finished works). His art is hardly referred to, and during the lengthy episode of his life that forms the focus of this study, from 1977 to 2005, none of the Poland’s political changes are mentioned or in any way manifest themselves in the life of the family. Instead we are immediately thrown in at the deep-end: in 2005 the painter recalls disturbing phantasies in an interview, concerning a virtual reality in which he wants to have S/M games with Alicia Silverstone (artificially made taller by three inches). The narrative then flips back back to 1977 when the Beksinki parents Zdzislaw (Seweryn) and Zofia (Konieczna) take their son Tomasz (Ogrodnik) to his new flat, which is in a high-rise block opposite their own. It soon becomes clear that Tomasz keeps his parents busy: whilst professionally adapt – he is a club- and radio DJ, as well as a translator from English into Polish – his emotional growth seems to stunted, he permanently self-pities himself, relying on his parents for any domestic arrangements, and seems to be unable to love anybody but himself. He also seems unable to perform sexually, which is graphically displayed in a scene with his girl-friend Patrycja (Karluk).
His father, who obsessively tapes and videos his family, seems, in contrast, very placid and good-natured, even though, looking at his paintings we may doubt his inner peace. The family is held together by Zofia, who cares for the two men, in addition to the paternal and maternal grandmothers, both called Stanislawa. The only outside interloper is ex-pat Piotr Dmochowski (Chyra), who visits the painter from Paris, trying to sell his paintings in France. He is later banished on account of his unauthorised biography of the family, but after Zofia’s death, Zdzislaw allows him back into his life. After trying in vain to kill himself for twenty-three year, Tomasz succeeds finally at the end of millennium: his father, sitting beside his body, sarcastically congratulates his son. In a violent finale the painter becomes the victim of a young man, reminding us very much of Kieslowski’s A short film about Killing.
DoP Kacper Fertacz camera pictures the Beksinski’s through a peephole: giving us an intimate and voyeuristic view of proceedings. Tomasz’ place is shown the same claustrophobic way. Writer Robert Bolesto, basing his script on the painter’s recordings and diaries, surprises us with some unusual ideas: there is a scene where Tomasz is telling the inflight stewardess that his numerologist told him the plane would crash, but he would survive – which is shown to be true. The leading trio is brilliant, particularly Konieczna, whose Zofia is always keeping the balance of the family life and Andrzej Seweryn went on to win Best Actor at Locarno Film Festival 2016. The choice of music – among others Schnittke and Mahler at the finale – rounds up this apocalyptic and traumatic experience. AS
SCREENING SATURDAY 18 MARCH | 15.00 REGENT STREET CINEMA
KINOTEKA POLISH FILM FESTIVAL 17 MARCH – 5 APRIL 2017
Dir: Andrzej Wajda | Script: Andrzej Mularczyk | Cast: Boguslaw Linda, Aleksandra Justa, Bronislawa Zamachowska, Zofia Wichlacz, Zofia Wichlacz, Krzysztof Pieczynski | Biopic | Polish | 98min
The last work of Poland’s most revered postwar filmmaker, Andrzej Wajda (Promised Lands, Pan Tadeusz), is a fiercely committed obituary of Wladyslaw Strzeminski, one of his country’s most strikingly visionary contemporary artists, victimised by the communist regime all the way to his death in 1952. As played by Boguslaw Linda, whose features bear more than a passing resemblance to both Wajda and Strzeminski, this is a fitting end note to Wajda’s career; the filmmaker recently passed away at the age of 90, leaving a filmography largely dedicated to crucial moments and leading characters in the history of his country.
The film stands as an imposing monument to the memory of a great artist although it’s clearly a festival item per excellence – after all, no film event would want to miss the last work of a grand master. This is an essential addition to the tragic cultural history of the communist era in Eastern Europe and the disasters wrecked by this totalitarian rule. Since Wajda’s career was launched at about the same time this story takes place, his intimate knowledge of the background is not necessarily the result of thorough research but also an expression of personal frustrations and pain he experienced himself through long patches of his own artistic life.
Strzeminski, born in 1893 in Minsk, now the capital of Belarus, and educated in St. Petersburg, lost an arm and a leg in WW1, despite which he attended the First Free State Workshops in Moscow and was close to such ground- breaking avant-garde artists of that period as Malevich and Chagall. In 1923 he moved to Warsaw to become one of founders of the constructivist group Blok.
A scholar, theoretician and art historian, Strzeminski formulated the Unism theory, an artistic conception based on the integrity of the universe which considers the levels of artistic, scientific and cultural achievements as an indication of social development. Most of his ideas about art in general and visual arts in particular are to be found in his posthumous Theory of Vision, published by his students after his death.
Wajda’s film, written by Andrzej Mularczyk, picks Strzeminski up in 1949, when he is about to be fired from his teaching job at the Higher School of Visual Arts in Lodz over preaching a modernity strictly opposed to the populist demands of the Communist Party.
The film’s plot follows the regime’s systematic efforts to break down this headstrong, unbending artist who refused to compromise on any artistic grounds whatsoever. A chain smoker and man of great personal charm, exclusively dedicated to his art who, notwithstanding his disabilities, was living on his own at the time – apart from irregular visits from his teenage daughter – he carried on teaching his devoted students in as much as was tenable.
With his work systematically destroyed and obliterated, Strzeminski was gradually deprived of any income, fired from the Artists Union and even denied the right to buy paints. Pushed into utter misery and forced to accept degrading jobs, only to be kicked out of them as well, he collapsed one day on the street, was taken to a hospital where he died of tuberculosis in 1952.
Wajda, whose early films (Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds) are considered definitive portraits of Poland of that period and who clashed often throughout his long career with the Polish communist regime (on films such as Man of Marble), evidently felt strongly for Strzemynski and his fate, seeing in him a symbol of the creative artist crushed down by a narrow-minded, ferociously dictatorial regime which allows no digression.
Lynda, one of his country’s leading actors, who was associated with most of the great films coming out of Poland in the 80’s and 90’s – including Wajda’s own Man of Iron – is probably the perfect fit for the role, not only because of his obvious thespian gifts but also his physiognomy.
A remarkably neat, correct, and historically faithful picture, Wajda’s passionate veneration for Strzeminski clearly led to a rather didactic approach. Characters are not too deeply probed, there are heroes we admire, villains we detest and nothing much in between, but some scenes, such as the funeral of Strzeminski’s estranged wife, the sculptor Katarzyna Kobro, and the moment when he finds out about her death, a few days later, are truly moving.
DoP Pawel Edelman are, as always, exquisite, but the art direction fills the screen with freshly made, antiseptically clean sets, seemingly never lived-in before. This may be rather out of tune, but despite it, the film still stands as an imposing monument to the memory of a great artist. AS
Dir.: Gurinder Chadha | Cast: Gillian Anderson, Hugh Bonneville, Michael Gambon, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Simon Callow, Om Puri, Neeraj Kabi, Tanveer Ghani, Denzil Smith | UK/India, 106 min.
Director/co-writer Gurinder Chadha creates a true epic inspired by her own life story in this magnificent Upstairs Downstairs version of the events leading to the independence of India and Pakistan from British rule in August 1947. Seven years in the making, Viceroy’s Housebenefits from a tight and imaginatively witty script, as well as stellar performances from an international cast crowned by Hugh Bonneville and Gillian Anderson.
When Earl Mountbatten (Bonneville) and his wife Lady Edwina (Anderson) land in India at the beginning of 1947, their role is clear: they have to give India Independence. The Earl is to be the last Viceroy, who will live in the splendid palace, where the family inhabits the whole upper floor, serviced by a staff of 500 servants on the ground floor. But the situation soon gets out of hand: all over the country Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are jostling for position in the future independent state, the Muslims under the leadership of Muhammed Ali Jinnah (Smith) hell bent on having their own state, Pakistan. The Hindu leaders Mahatma Gandhi (Kabi) and Jawaharial Nehru (Ghani) are fighting the partition of their country vehemently, finding an ally in the Earl and his wife. Whilst the tension increases, all over the country, violent clashes between the fractions grow into a near civil-war, and Mountbatten has to bring forward the independence date – and submit to the partition he has fought against for so long, “because otherwise, there is nothing to be handed over any more”.
Chadha shows the machinations between the British diplomats: General Hastings Ismail (Gambon), is fighting for the partition (which was planned by Churchill during WWII, who wanted the oil refineries not to fall into the hand of the Hindus, which he regarded as unreliable and left-leading), without telling the Earl about his devious manipulations. Then there is Cyril Radcliffe (Callow) a civil servant who, on his first visit to India, is supposed to draw up the new border between India and Pakistan – on the lines of the Churchill plan – without having set foot in the country before. Huge areas, like the Punjab, where Muslim and Hindus were living in near equal numbers, had to be divided.
On the ‘Downstairs’ level, the ‘forbidden’ love affair between Jeet (Dayal), a Hindu working as a valet for Mountbatten, and the clerk Aalia (Qureshi), daughter of the Muslim politician Rahamnoor (Puri) doesn’t quite ring true. We learn how he was greatly helped by Jeet during his imprisonment, which cost him his eyesight – and this strand serves as a reminder of the personal sacrifices of ordinary citizens. The great strength of Viceroy’s Houseis in showing how far removed the participants were from the people they pretended to represent. The Earl and his wife, full of good will and decency but naïve in their dealings with politicians, stand no chance as their aristocratic bonhomie is not match for the ‘Real-Politik’ of political advisers, who do not care about status. At the same time, the three leading Indian politicians – Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah – are much closer to the British establishment than their own citizens. After all, they were all educated at British universities – resistance against, and imprisonment by the British ruling class, with which they shared an upbringing in their formative years – was more like a game of chess in which they tried to outwit their former masters. But they were as detached from the Jeet’s and Aalia’s they to represented as their British counterparts.
DoP Ben Smithard (Belle) is a true heir to Freddie Young, who shot the David Lean treble of Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Ryan’s Daughter. He often switches to black and white, creating authentic newsreel-look-alike images. The mass scenes of destruction sweeping the country are brilliantly executed. And although the romantic sub-plot is too far-fetched to be plausible, the triumph of Viceroy’s House is its stance denouncing any political class: be they British “stiff upper lip”, or crafty Indian politicians. Despite the rather convenient denouement between Aalia and Jeet, their genuine emotional suffering and upheaval represents the real human trauma behind the statesmen-like façade of political turmoil.
July the 3rd, 1973 was Ziggy Stardust’s last night on planet Earth. It took place in the Hammersmith Odeon where Bowie as Ziggy seared his indelible persona into the public consciousness for the final time. The mesmerised audience projected their wildest fantasies onto the psychedelic troubadour, and the event was captured for all to remember in D A Pennebaker’s intimate cinema vérité concert film.
This is a first hand experience, close up and personal, and one of most inventive concert films ever made. Bowie, an otherworldly legend in the making, chats mundanely to his mates Ringo Star and Marc Bolan in the privacy of a down to earth dressing room. An ordinary bloke takes off his trousers and is then transformed into a lithe and shimmering chameleon sensuously girating to the rhythms of his magical music. Pennebaker’s grainy portrait communicates the casual switch between the actor and the ordinary man. While Bowie is full of gamine grace, guitarist Mick Ronson (who, like Bowie, was to die of liver cancer at the much earlier age of 46) takes himself a tad too seriously appearing to be grimacing in pain, his jutting chin and thrusting pelvis throbbing down at the camera. There are no guts or glory behind the scenes, just ‘business as usual’ as the tight performance schedule neatly dovetails into the splendour of the stage appearance where a sweaty clutch of febrile females strew their adulations at the feet of their sexually ambivalent superstar .
Mesmerisingly bold and beguiling, Bowie still seems endearingly vulnerable at a time where his creative juices were flowing and impressively diverse. As he sashays seamlessly through his songs – from Suffragette City, Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud and Rock N’ Roll Suicide, All the Young Dudes to Oh! You Pretty Things, he fires on all cylinders still on an upward flight to the height of his powers, where things would grow more intriguing and innovative for the following three decades. This concert was not the end; just an extraordinary beginning. MT
FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY ON 7TH MARCH 2017 WITH A NEW EXCLUSIVE FILMED INTERVIEW WITH SPIDERS DRUMMER, WOODY WOODMANSEY. TICKETS AND VENUES HERE
Dir.: Adam Smith; Cast: Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson, Lindsey Marshal, Georgie Smith, Rory Kinnear, Sean Harris; UK 2016, 99 min.
The British crime family thriller – almost a sub genre since Get Carter and The Krays – has always been popular. Here Adam Smith and his scriptwriter Alastair Siddons focus on another British crime family but are never quiet sure if they want to go for thrills or a salient message.
From the chaotic opening scenes, the Cutler family is introduced to us as a wild bunch: at the wheel is young Tyson (G. Smith), not out of primary school, but hell-bent on copying his elders. Colby (Gleeson), the family patriarch, is a poor-man’s Kray: never having learned to read, he goes with the Creation theory; somehow you could sell him the idea that the earth is flat. Tyson’s father Chad (Fassbender), is the brains of the family – even though his father kept him successfully out of school. Chad and his wife Kelly (Marshal) want to cut all ties with Colby and his mad crowd, who live in a caravan camp in Gloucestershire. Kelly and Chad want to move out, starting a new life with Tyson and his little sister. But Colby is possessive, and he uses Tyson as a pawn to keep the family together: Tyson is obviously drawn to his grandfather, who promises a life without sweat but high rewards. The family crisis is finally solved by the police, when PC Lovage (Kinnear), Chad’s nemesis, arrests him, after the robbery of a country mansion, which belongs to a very important member of the establishment.
Dog-lovers would probably be best to avoid Trespass, as there are some rather unsavoury moments, mostly involving Gordon (Harris), a mentally disturbed young man, running around half-naked in the camp, and enjoying cruel games. Although the car chases are exciting, and there is the occasional original idea (Chad hiding below a cow, as not to be spotted from the helicopters trying to trace him), Trespass suffers from the indecision of its filmmakers: Chad is shown as a rebel with a cause, but he seems to be putty in the hands of his father, whilst being a mastermind as a thief. Surely, since his father just sits around sprouting out his imbecile slogans, Chad has the upper-hand, since there would be no income for the clan, if he would leave.
But the botched ending shows that he is just in as much in love with a romantic-outsider existence as his father. DoP Eduard Grau (A Single Man) delivers professional images, but cannot save the cliché-ridden narrative. The cast is lead by Gleeson, who obviously enjoys himself, whilst Fassbender portrays his unease and ambivalence with a reserved performance, only really coming alive in the scenes with his son. Smith and Siddons have the setting for an original clan-crime story, but waste it with a story which falls between all stools: having built up excitement, they don’t know where to take it and could have learned so much from past master Thomas Hardy, whose novels of family crime in the rural West are full of drama and destructive passion. AS
Cast: Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart, Jared Harris, James Le Gros
107mins | Drama | US
Auteur Kelly Reichardt’s latest film is a humane and poignant story capturing the isolation and quiet devastation of loneliness. Following her noirish eco-thriller Night Moves, CERTAIN WOMEN feels even more prescient, yet low key and leisurely as it reveals with startling vulnerability the lives of three women in contemporary America.
Adapted from short stories by Maile Meloy and set around the trendy mountain outpost of Livingston, Montana (Michael Keaton, Dennis Quaid and David Lettleman have places nearby), this female-themed drama initially feels understated but eventually resonates as its gently calibrated rhythm echoes through the wide open landscapes of the northwest Pacific and the close reliance between people, animals and nature.
Casting stars alongside newcomers, regular collaborator Michelle Williams (Meek’s Cutoff) joins Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart and a welcome discovery in the shape of Lily Gladstone. These women play characters who could be you or me. And their daily lives strike a knowing chord as they trip lightly through our own experiences, in the capable hands of Reichardt and Meloy.
The opening scene is one that springs to mind as local lawyer Laura Wells (Dern) lies pensively in bed after a brief encounter with her lover Ryan (James Le Gros), who we later discover is married to another member of the trio. Pulling on his thermal underwear he goes back to his roost with wife Gina, Michelle Williams’ spiky mother of sulky teenager Guthrie (Sara Rodier). Turns out he also shares a close bond with Guthrie as the family camps on a piece of land where they plan to build themselves a house. Gina and Ryan hope to get elderly Albert (Rene Auberjonois) to sell them some local sandstone so that their house will have a touch of the vernacular. This is the only scene where Gina cracks a disingenuous smile as her assertive qualities comes across as machiavellian manipulativeness.
Laura Wells, meanwhile, is tasked with defending local chippie Fuller (Jared Harris), who is proving to be an irritating client fighting an un-winnable compensation claim over an accident at work. Taking liberties and turning up in unexpected places, Fuller seems to think he has the upper hand because Laura is a woman, and a sympathetic one at that.
The third strand is an enigmatic encounter with a twinge of l’esprit d’escalier where Kristen Stewart’s legal graduate Elizabeth travels thousands of miles each day to teach teachers education law. Attending the classes is Jamie (Lily Gladstone) a groom from a nearby ranch who seems drawn to Elizabeth, but whether this is a schoolgirl crush or nascent lesbian longing is wisely never examined, giving the story delicious depth and mystery. Jamie’s days are spent in the company of horses and her trusty mutt (Reichardt’s own corgi cross), but she seems ready to spread her wings although her direction never quite unravels. The two grow strangely close – emotionally and physically – as they share evenings together in the diner and a horseback ride back to Elizabeth’s car.
CERTAIN WOMEN is both pleasurable to watch and enjoyable to contemplate, It probes the lives of intelligent women whose longings never quite materialise, remaining inchoate and undefined but instilled with the growing melancholy of possibilities untrammelled and romantic disillusionment. DoP Christopher Blauvelt adds a grainy, indie feel to his glistening 16mm camerawork, and the tone that is subdued and introspective, enhanced by Jeff Grace’s atmospheric score. These are women who seem to know themselves but are somehow back-footed by their circumstances, being too empathetic with their fellow humans to boldly make a stand in raw emotional scenes that communicate more in visuals than they ever could in words. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 3 MARCH 2017 | BEST FILM BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2016
Cast: Pyotr Skvortsov, Victoria Isakova, Julia Aug, Nikolai Roschin, Svetlana Bragarnik; Russia 2016, 118 min.
Kirill Serebrennikov’s adaptation of the stage play by German playwright Marius von Mayenburg is set in contemporary Russia, creating a vicious intellectual discourse of clashing ideologies and religious fanaticism.
Whilst Muchenik means ‘martyr’ in Russia, ‘uchenik’ translates into student – since this wordplay would not be understood outside Russia, the English title Student was chosen. But Serebrennikov’s anti-hero Venya Yuzhin (Skvortsov) is exactly the amalgamation of the two: a martyr in his own and in the eyes of the worldwide anti-enlightenment movement; a student for teachers, who educate in believing in a rational world and the importance of tolerance.
Attending secondary school in Kaliningrad Oblast, Venya is an angry pupil: his first hate object is his divorced mother Inga (Aug), who is holding down three jobs to survive. Venya attacks her with his rabid bible quotes (one of hundreds, annotated on screen), calling her a whore for leaving the father, who abused her. Inga wails: “I wish he collected stamps or jerked off all the time”. At school, Venya, afraid of his sexual orientation, rages against the girls, wearing bikinis in the swimming pool. The reactionary head teacher Stukalina (Bragarnik) even tries to accommodate Venya: she asks the PE teacher to have the girls wear one-piece bathing suits. But Venya is far from finished: he wears a gorilla outfit (shades of Karel Reisz’ 1966 British New Wave film Morgan!) in an Economy lesson, arguing against the need for industrialisation, because it does not confirm with the demands of St. John in the bible.
On a personal level, Venya is only to keen to kiss an attractive female student, and he also tries to heal a limping co-student, putting his hand on his deformed leg. Confronted by the orthodox priest (Roschin), Venya accuses him of lacking fighting spirit “unlike the martyrs of the Jihad, who want to die for their cause”. But Venya’s main enemy is the biology teacher Elena (Isakova), whose views on contraception and evolution he challenges. Again, Stukalina gives in, asking Elena to “find a tolerable mixture of scientific and religious ideology”. Venya has, in vain, asked his handicapped friend to manipulate the brakes of Elena’s motor Scooter, and clobbers him with a rock when the boy tries to kiss him. In a final confrontation, Stukalina takes sides, when Venya accuses Elena “to have fondled him”: she agrees with the priest, that Elena’s worldview is governed by her being Jewish.
The real monster of Student is not Venya, but Stukalina, whose far right-wing views on feminism, Judaism and homosexuality were the norm in Stalinist Russia. She is very much at home in Putin’s Russia, as intrinsic a nationalist state like the old USSR.
DOP Vladislav Opelyant’s visuals are breath-taking: his looping long shots set the antagonists on their confrontations. The images of Venya’s and Inga’s flat are symbolically divided: her living room is full of ungainly figurines, the walls covered with gruesome wallpaper; his ‘prison’ room is dark and spartan: the wallpaper ripped off, the windows closed with planks. Laibach’s pounding “God is God” is adequate good choice for an anthem: Serebrennikov shows a Russia of oppressive puritanism where hate is becoming institutionalised – again. AS/MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 3RD MARCH 2017 | REVIEWED AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 11-22 MAY 2016 |
Dir.: George Mendeluk; Cast: Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Terence Stamp, Gary Oliver, Tamar Hassan; Canada 2016, 103 min.
Veteran auteur George Mendeluk was born of Ukrainian descent in Germany and emigrated to Canada where he worked in television and the US (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Miami Vice). BITTER HARVEST recreates one of the most dramatic episodes of the 20th century where in early1930s Ukraine, Joseph Stalin caused mass starvation with an economic policy of collectivisation which led to his man-made famine of ‘Holodomor’.
After the idyllic opening scenes in a Ukrainian village where schoolboy Yuri (Irons) battles to save his childhood love Natalka, comes the Russian October revolution and the death of Tsar and his family, an event that is celebrated by the Ukrainians. For a few years Lenin has his hands full with the Civil War, and the country enjoys freedom and prosperity. But this would change dramatically when Stalin came to power forcing collectivization on all the farmers in the Soviet Union. Ukraine was then the “bread basket of Europe”, and suffered horrendously from the results of this policy. By the mid 1920s, before Stalin had killed or exiled his political enemies and established his dictatorship, Yuri (Irons) has grown up into a handsome young man, but contrary to his father and grandfather Ivan (Stamp), who were warmongers, Yuri is only interested in painting and Natalka (Barks). His friends leave for Kiev, to take part in the a new revolutionary art movement. When Yuri later joins them at the art academy – Natalka stays in the village to look after his sick mother. But the wind is changing: Stalin policies not only mean the end of any independence for the Ukraine, but also the death of a true revolutionary, modern art: in painting this is replaced by a drab soviet-style-realism. At the beginning of 1932 Stalin (Oliver), has decided to destroy the “Kulak class” – in reality independent farmers, not rich feudal lords, as Stalin called them. With Yuri in prison in Kiev, and one of his friends, a leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party, commits suicide and his family and Natalka are brutally repressed: they are led by the sadistic Sergei (Hassan), who fancies Natalka, and humiliates her. Yuri has escaped from prison, joining his family in the bloody uprising against the Russian troops. Whilst his father and grandfather are killed, Yuri and Natalka, who has lost her baby, escape with a young boy, they have adopted, trying to escape, they flee to the Polish border.
BITTER HARVEST tells it like it is without pulling any punches in recounting the harsh realities. DoP Douglas Milsome are very much in line with his work on Full Metal Jacket, but the narrative is full of plotholes. Although a more measured approach occasionally would be preferable, the rawness of the unflinching confrontation between good and evil, is perhaps the only way to tackle this genocide. After all, when Stalin was warned by Bukharin that his policy would cost millions of lives, Stalin answered “And who will know?”In spite of all its shortcomings, BITTER HARVESTis perhaps the only way to bring these atrocities to a wider contemporary public, not only just an arthouse-audience. Considering the recent invasion of large parts of Ukraine by Russia, we need to learn more about the history of Russia’s ongoing subjugation of an independent country: there is a clear line from the feudal imperialistic empire of the Romanovs, the genocide of the Stalinists and Putin’s unpunished invasion of today. MT
Dir.: Joan Carr-Wiggin; Cast: Anna Chancellor, John Hannah, Hermione Norris, James Fleet, Katie Boland, Hannah Emily Anderson; Canada 2016, 105 min.
Writer/director Joan Carr-Wiggin (Happily ever After) has come up with a rather awkward narrative: after being told that she might only have five days to live, the heroine is forced to spend the remaining 120 hours in a déclassé rom-com with a cheating husband and an immature ex – not to mention two empty-headed daughters, who rush to find their life partners before Mum leaves this world.
Grace (Chancellor) is an architect in Toronto. Told by her doctor that her brain tumour might be inoperable, she reacts with stoicism. Not so her family: husband Tom (Fleet) cries non-stop and goes on drinking, feeling more sorry for himself than his wife. Enter Richard (Hannah, a popular author) and Grace’s ex-husband and father of their daughter Zoe (Boland). Richard suddenly realises that Grace is the love of his life, even though he left her for Tamara (Norris), who also lives in Grace’s family house.
Meanwhile, Tom goes on drinking – and sleeps with Tamara, who wants to prove that Tom is non-deserving of Grace’s love, Richard makes a play for Grace, who is already overwhelmed by the chaos of what may be her final hours. Daughter Kaitlyn (Anderson), whom Grace suspected to be a lesbian, suddenly finds “the right man”. But it turns out, that he is married, and (in one of the most embarrassing scenes) is cornered at his front door with his wife by Richard and Kaitlyn. When Richard finally gets Grace on her own for a restaurant tête à tête, a bizarre turn of events scuppers the whole affair.
You really have to feel sorry for the cast, trying their best to hold this all together without cringing. DoP Bruce Worrall, who shot the director’s previous outing: If I were You, cannot really save the day: nearly all the ‘action’ takes place in the studio, giving the feeling of filmed theatre: doors open, and people enter, speaking/shouting their lines and exit. Truly a missed opportunity to create a funny and intelligent comedy drama. AS
Dir.: Chad Stahelski; Cast: Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scarmarcio, Claudia Gerini, Ian McShane, Ruby Rose, Common; USA 2017, 122 min.
Doubtless creating a new action franchise, director Chad Stahelski and writer Derek Kolstad return Keanu Reeves as a super-hero killing machine – with a new dog and an even larger kill quota.
After a sort of overture, in which Wick fights a gang of Russian mobsters who have stolen his beloved Mustang, he settles in his new home with his canine friend. His retirement does not last long: Santino (Scarmarcio), an Italian member of the Camorra, asks Wick to kill his sister Gianna (Gerini), producing a blood token for help, signed by Wick for assistance rendered in the past.
In Rome, Gianna takes her own life in the bath, Wick watching, making small talk. But Santino is double-crossing Wick, sending his killers after our hero, amongst them is the mute Ares (Ruby Rose), a martial arts fighter who communicates in sign language. Returning to New York, every beggar and street tramp seems to be on Santino’s pay roll, not to mention Cassian (Common), Gianna’s body guard, who is out for revenge. After killing Santino in the New York Continental, a sort of violent free exclave for gangsters, Wick is given an hour’s grace by its proprietor Winston (McShane), before the Camorra and “The High Table” will up the seven million bounty on Wick’s head, ready to chase him in Chapter 3.
JOHN WICK is A perfectly choreographed dance of the dead; the body count is so astronomical viewers might expects the combo meter to appear any time in the right hand corner of the screen – this is a video game indeed. There are jarring moments, when Wick remembers his dead wife, but overall Wick is left do what he is best at: killing with ease, death seems to be painless. Coming nearest to a pure, classic Hong Kong product of the past, the irony of a 52-yer old hero causing mayhem will be lost on testosterone-driven audience. AS
Dean and Butler are experienced TV documentarians whose first foray into narrative features is this stunningly cinematic tribal tale from Vanuatu in the South Pacific.
TANNA is a tragic love story whose implications ripple out into the wider world and connect us to the narrative of disappearing communities and survival of remote tribes. There is a disarming innocence and fierceness that marks the traditional tribal villagers out as philosophical and emotionally highly evolved, despite their frugal and backwood existence in the magical island set in its Pacific splendour. The Australian helmers make no attempt to trivialise these honest and gentle people, or diminish the very real threats they face from rival tribes who pose a very real danger if their customs and beliefs are not upheld. By incorporating elements of ethnography and spirituality in their storyline TANNA comes across as a serious study while cleverly also appealing to mainstream and arthouse audiences, children and adults setting the story from the young protogonist’s perspective.
The island of Vanuatu has around 30,000 inhabitants who form part of distinct tribes who embrace the Kastom system of beliefs, rejecting Colonial invasion, Christianity and the lure of 21st century economic advancement. Dean and Bentley lived amongst the islanders in a village called Yakel where they gradually put together a narrative based on tribal customs, rituals and traditional stories basing their drama on an incident that occurred during 1987.
Women play an important role in this patriarchal community and the story is seen through the eyes of a little girl called Selin who quietly observes a budding romance between her sister, Wawa and a the village chief’s orphaned grandson Dain, But Wawa is coming of age and been committed by her grandfather to an arranged marriage with a man from another tribe which will serve to heal a rift between the rival villagers. Both the sisters share a rebellious streak and Wawa has no intention of fallong in with the arranged marriage haven fallen in love with Dain. Selin’s grandfather is the village shaman, and he takes her to visit the island’s active volcano, Yahul. The vermillion sparks and fiery energy provides the focus for a spritual force that offers both comfort but commands supreme respect.
TANNA is a poetic and magical drama that also highlights the songs and music of the tribal traditions focusing on the virtues of conflict resolution, forgiveness and wisdom gained through experience. The film shows how the rival tribes are proud but deeply philosophical and always willing to ‘see another way’ in resolving their differences, and although they appear backward are highly evolved, bringing compassion and intelligent to their way they conducting inter-tribal relations.
With its tantalising score and natural performances from the villagers, Bentley and Dean have created a tense and tender drama that is instructive and dazzlingly cinematic harnessing the rain forests, colourful tribal costumes, volcanic landscapes and palm-fringed beaches of Vanuatu. MT
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 17 FEBRUARY 2017
Dir. Denzel Washington, USA/Canada 2016, Dur. 138 mins.
Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson
August Wilson wrote his play FENCES some 33 years ago. It has been on stage in England, most recently the 2013 version with Lenny Henry, who was very good as the father. Now Denzel Washington, who played the part on Broadway in 2010, along with others in the film, takes the role of Troy and also directs the movie FENCES.
Taking place in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, we gradually learn Troy’s story. Once he had aspirations to be a baseball star but was thwarted as, at that time, only white sportsmen succeeded. Now he is bitter and talks about the past as he works on a garbage truck alongside his best friend, Bono (a most sympathetic performance by Stephen Henderson). The two, in fact, met when Troy had a spell in prison. Troy is supported by his wife, Rose (Viola Davis), who attempts to get her husband to promote the ambitions of their son, Cory who wants to become a professional footballer. Troy refuses to allow him to play in the college team and wants him to get a job. Troy also argues with Lyons (Russell Hornsby), his 34 year-old son from a previous marriage. Lyons is a musician, but regularly appears at his father’s door on paydays to ask for money.
Denzel Washington plays Troy convincingly. He puts over the playwright’s tremendous dialogue with a real feeling for the words he speaks. Sometimes he sounds like a musical instrument as he gives colour to the words. He is backed by a most sympathetic performance by Stephen McKinley Henderson as his white work mate who is mostly content to sit and listen as Troy tells stories about his past.
The two sons come across well, too. Older son, Lyons – a tough role to put across well but Russell Hornsby manages it – a struggling musician who feels forced to ask his father for cash and the youngster Cory, a breakout performance by young Jovan Adepo. Mykelti Williamson is moving in the small part of Gabriel, the mentally damaged brother of Troy.
The outstanding role is played by Viola Davis as Rose – she is terrific and you can see why she is up for a Supporting Actress Oscar. In her speech telling her husband that while he regrets not having achieved much in his life, she has stood next to him all the way, she is not afraid to let mucous from her nose run down her face she confronts her husband with a few home truths.
Washington directs the movie in a workmanlike fashion. Even if there is not a lot of flair here, it is always truthful and one can believe that the characters portrayed really exist. It mostly takes place in the front yard of Troy’s home and doesn’t show much of the area around. Yes, it is stagey but it is actually very well-staged. It’s good to see that August Wilson, who wrote the screenplay of his play, got his wish for the film to be directed by a black director. It is a long film but always absorbing and one not to be missed. CARLIE NEWMAN
John Waters’ MULTIPLE MANIACS is a slim but grotesquely bloated comedy caper that could benefit from a general tightening up, not least where its portly central character Lady Divine is concerned. It’s 1970 and the pouting princess of porn is poncing around Baltimore in a petulant fit after she discovers her boyfriend Mr David is being unfaithful with a wannabe star in her own comedy circus, the Cavalcade of Perversions, a disgusting free travelling show that lures punters in on a promise of free access to the most disreputable acts of indecency.
What starts as a fairly harmless peep show rapidly descends into mayhem and even murder in Maryland as the libidinous Divine wreaks havoc in this cheap and tawdry affair made all the more so by its grainy bleached out visuals and racket of a soundtrack. Yet there’s a touching honesty to MULTIPLE MANIACS that makes us forgive the creaky acting and amateurish scene transitions. Made on a meagre budget of $5,000 it was Waters’ second full length feature following on from his 1969 comedy Mondo Trasho, yet doubled its money on the opening weekend clearly marking Waters out as a cult director in the making. The narrative is not as light-weight as it would initially have us believe: Heavily influenced by the murders of Sharon Tate and her houseguests, Waters likens the freak show minstrels to the marauding gang of Mansons who rape and pillage with tragic consequences. MULTIPLE MANIACS is not for the faint-hearted but it’s still eye-stingingly ludicrous, particularly the episode with the giant crustacean. Raucous and surprisingly watchable. MT
MULTIPLE MANIACS is screening from a new restoration from Janus Films – this restoration will present the Pope of Trash’s full, un-cut version for the first time ever on UK screens.
Director: Danae Elon; Documentary; Canada/Israel 2015, 87 min.
Filmmaker Danae Elon offers a straightforward and very honest film diary of the three years following her return to Jerusalem. Her father Amos Elon was a writer and a fierce critic of Israel’s occupation of Palestine who advised her not to return to “this nation of thieves”, before his death in 2009. And Elon’s is a heart-breaking story of personal disappointment amid the day-to-day violence in Israel.
A child of the ’70s, Danae Elon grew up with parents who actively protested against Israel’s ‘Apartheid’ policies and the permanent violence against Palestinians. After living most of her adult life in the USA, her main motive for returning to Jerusalem was to relive her childhood, because “Jerusalem was the only place I call home”. With her two sons Tristan and Andrei – a third child, Amos, was born just after the arrival in Jerusalem – and husband Philip Touitou, a French-Algerian Jew, Danae tried in a way to recreate her own childhood, taking her children to rallies against new Jewish settlements and enrolling her oldest son Tristan in Jerusalem’s only school bi-lingual school for Arabs and Jews.
Whilst teaching her children to see Palestinians as their equals, she had not reckoned with the openly violent attitude of her fellow Israelis towards the Palestinians in the capital. At one point an enraged Israeli shouts at Danae and her son during a demonstration against an evection of an Arab family: “Your ancestors must have helped the Nazis, since you are helping the Arabs. Your father was a Kapo [in the Camps] !”. Even at home the atmosphere changed from he happy time of their arrival: Tristan exclaims “Mummy comes from here, she understands. Dad shouldn’t be here”. The oldest sons are proud “Mummy was a soldier” in the Israeli Army. Naturally, Philip, who has trouble finding a job as a photographer, feels alienated and fears for the future of their children when asking his wife: “You make the children feel different from others, they have different values. But is it good for them?” Philip feels even more isolated than he did growing up as an Arab in Paris. And he yearns to live “with normal people, without all the political barriers erected between Arabs and Jews”. Danae too starts questioning the future of her sons: “Will they be hated as members of the Peace Movement, or will they start to hate?”
Everywhere Danae starts to see contradictions when arguing with fellow Israelis: “The whole myth of the founding of the State of Israel, where the settlers build the country from ‘barren land’, whilst the reality was, that the best agricultural part of the country was taken from 700 000 Palestinians, who were displaced”. Things come to a head for Danae on “Memorial Day for Jewish Soldiers”, the only day, when the students in Tristan’s school are separated. The open contradictions of this “celebration” lead her to conclude that she wanted to bring the boys up where she was a child. “Perhaps I need to become a person away from my childhood. The only home for my children is their family”.
A tearful farewell with Tristan’s best friend, a Palestinian boy, notwithstanding, P S JERUSALEM shows that it is impossible for Danae, or anybody else, to bring up her children in a tolerant way given the violence and hatred between Jews and Arabs growing with every new Jewish settlement and every eviction of Arabs from their family home. Danae’s father, an emigrant from Austria, saw the roots of this tragedy as a journalist during the War of Independence in 1948 – his daughter had, rightly, tried to make a difference in this unequal struggle between the Have and Have-Nots. In the end, Danae did not want to pay the penalty of “a divided family as a price for being a Jew in Israel”.
Made on a shoestring budget, and no worse for it, the director was her own DOP, in what is by far the most impressive document of the seemingly unavoidable conflict between Israeli and Palestinians: Violence has become the norm, and minorities on both sides, fight a losing battle for reconciliation. Danae Elon’s truthful, unflinching account of her struggles is a milestone of personal/political filmmaking. Dedicated to her mother, who still lives and fights for reconciliation in Jerusalem, this documentary is a tribute to both her parents. AS
SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE FROM 17 FEBRUARY 2017
Dir: Martin Scorsese; Script: Paul Schrader; DoP: Michael Chapman; Score: Bernard Herrmann | 112 minutes | Cast: Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, Albert Brooks, and Martin Scorsese.
Scorsese’s searing portrait of alienation is every bit as raw and relevant now as it was in 1976. But it carries with it a message of hope; a happy ending that so often is different from today’s reality. Robert De Niro plays a young Vietman war veteran who fetches up post-combat in a Manhattan bedsit, aimless and unable to sleep and : “Loneliness has followed me all my life”.
TAXI DRIVER captures New York in the seventies, a neon trashcan stuffed with the American Dream where hopes slowly seep away into the steaming sewers while politicians slogans still promise: “A Return to Greatness” forty years ago.
Meanwhile, in the city “all the animals come out at night: hustlers, pimps, pushers, frauds, and freaks—they’re all at large”. So hero/loner Travis Bickle (De Niro) takes a job where he can work long hours driving out to Brooklyn, The Bronx and Harlem and popping pills and watching blue movies to relax. He’s a complex and strangely charismatic character driven to the edge by his seclusion. But when he sees Sybill Shepherd’s political campaigner Betsy working in a Columbus Circle office, he becomes obsessed with her grace and beauty and boldly asks her for a date. A mutual attraction but blossoms then deteriorates when he takes her to an explicit film. Travis Bickle’s latent pyschosis then floats to the surface of a landscape that is increasingly hostile and depraved, but distinctly New York in the ’70s, as we are instantly wafted back there by Bernard Herrmann’s highly charged and woozily romantic score.
TAXI DRIVER is in many ways naive in its belief that its central protagonist can find salvation in such a sordid set of circumstances. When Travis is rejected by the fresh-faced college grad Betsy it feels like his world will implode and destruct but scripter Paul Schrader endows him with a backbone and integrity that fights back to vanquish evil, redeeming him as a hero of almost Christ-like proportions. He suffers, reaches out enters Hell and comes back again with glory. And De Niro plays him with a subtlety and strength of feeling and expression rarely seen on the bigscreen today. The spectrum of psychosis is so broad that it’s entirely plausible that this man eventually pulls through. He is not hard bitten criminal but a decent type who temporarily loses his way, like Dante’s hero.
More slick and than Scorsese’s other Manhattan movie Mean Streets, TAXI DRIVER is a deceptively nuanced narrative: drama, sex, politics, romance, violence coalesce in a richly textured character study. Scorsese himself appears in a vignette as a cuckolded husband watching his wife’s silhouette in her lover’s window; the scene in the gun parlour over-looking Manhattan island is full of authentic details, in another scene, a professional-looking street musician runs through Chuck Webb titles but nobody stops to listen.Travis Bickle is in some ways similar to Polanski’s tragic Parisian loner Trelkovsky in The Tenant which interestingly came out the same year. But he lacks the emotional ballast to underpin his psychosis, and get him back on the straight and narrow, like Travis. Clearly, Travis is a bundle of self-destructing neuroses but his redeeming feature is his respect and love for women. . He makes friends with the angelic and intelligent campaign worker, played by Cybill Shepherd. His unfortunate choice of movie shocks her, and their palpable sexual chemistry is unable to overcome this grave error on his part, committed not intentionally but due to his mind swimming with a complex brew of emotions and ideas. Jodie Foster plays a sympathetic teenage hustler, whose inner vulnerability captures Travis’ imagination and is his saving grace. Harvey Keitel plays a sleazy pimp. None of Scorsese’s main characters are inherently evil; they are just ordinary people driven to the wrong side of the tracks through of force of circumstance. And that’s probably why, with its positive, message of hope, TAXI DRIVER won the Palme d’Or that year, while The Tenant went away empty-handed despite its similar narrative vigour and acclaimed performances. MT
TAXI DRIVER IS BACK IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE FROM 10 FEBRUARY AND AS PART OF THE BFI MARTIN SCORSESE RETROSPECTIVE UNTIL THE END OF FEBRUARY 2017
Dir.: Alice Lowe; Cast: Alison Lowe, Kate Dickie, Tom Davis, Dan Renton, Jo Hartley, Dan Renton Skinner; UK 2016, 88 min.
Actor and writer Alice Lowe, tries her hand at directing here in Prevenge, and her script is very much inspired by her film Sightseers, in which she also starred: in both cases, the murderous actions are committed by rather ordinary people in an everyday environment. Acting in both films, Lowe makes the connection even tighter, robbing Prevenge of any originality.
Set in a charmless Cardiff, Ruth (Lowe) is pregnant with a baby girl, the child’s father having died in a climbing accident. The baby seems to have a mind of its own, talking to her mother, mostly encouraging her to commit some gruesome murders. First in line for execution is an uncouth pet show owner (Skinner), who rapidly meets his bloody end; followed by an obnoxious DJ (Davis), and a joyless career woman (Dickie). The last case robs us of any sympathy we might feel for our our heroine, and the other attacks underline the fact that Ruth is an out and out psychotic. This serious factor takes the fun out of the movie, and all that remains is an endless blood feast, and a rather botched ending. Prevenge also suffers from its one-dimensional protagonists who, with the exception of Jo Hartley’s midwife, feel utterly unconvincing.
It is ironic that film directed, written and starring a woman should be aimed at a mostly male audience. Gory repetitions aside, the endless clichés simply overwhelm any sort of attempted humour: in spite of Lowe’s stellar performance, Prevenge is just a bloody rant. DoP Ryan Eddleston’s images are as pedestrian and redundant as the whole enterprise. AS
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE \ REVIEWED DURING VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2016
Dir.: Mitu Misra; Cast: Gabriel Bryne, Sibylla Deen, Jn Uddin, Harvey Keitel,Mark Addy, Reece Ritchie, Emily Atack, Danica Johnson, Harish Patel, Harvey Virdi; UK 2017, 109′.
First time director Mitu Misra tries, perhaps too hard, to construct a complex narrative that leaves too many loose ends to be convincing.. On the other hand, Misra offers a vey honest portrait of the underbelly of the Pakistani Muslim community in Bradford.
When crime lord Demi Lamprose (Keitel) dies, his chauffeur and general dogsbody Donald (Bryne) has to clear his luxury flat, forcing his fledgling solicitor lover Amber (Deen) to move out immediately. As Donald, Byrne rocks his signature hangdog look: estranged from his wife after the death of their daughter Amy, he gets involved with Amber, who has a troubled past -and present, for that matter. At sixteen she was forced to marry her cousin KD (Uddin) in Pakistan, and he is now a high profile gangster in Bradford. Having raped Amber, he tries to marry her 16 year old sister Miriam (Johnson), whose parents are only too willing to give her away, since the bounty from the marriage will cover their debts. It also emerges that Amber was pimped out to by her father to Lamprose for the same reason. When Lamprose’s son Nathan (Ritchie) wants to ‘inherit’ Amber from his father, Amber’s troubles get out of hand. She successfully disrupts KD and Miriam’s marriage – and KD goes on to marry his pregnant girl friend Emily (Atack), whom he abuses, bloody revenge killings conclude this saga.
DoP Santos Sivan steers clear of bleak social realism and instead uses shadows and innovative angles for his noir images. The nightlife, ‘sponsored’ by KD is from another planet compared with the tradition of Amber’s family, both parents clinging to a religion they have great difficulty in following. Ambers’ workplace is cold, clean and white, a place she somehow finds comforting. Perhaps seedy KD is a little bit over the top in his nastiness, but Misra coruscating portrait of organised crime and this male-dominated culture, fed from both second-hand western macho images and Muslim religiously motivated misogynist ideology, feels very real. There are some great performances, particularly from the reliable Bryne and Deen, and in spite of structural difficulties, LIES WE TELL is always gripping. In the end, the brutal honesty of Misra’s arguments outweigh the flaws of this convoluted chronicle. AS
Dir: Stephen Gagham | Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramirez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Bill Camp | US | Adventure Drama | 121min
“Inspired by true events”, is the old chestnut that warns us to be deeply sceptical about Stephen Gaghan’s ambitious attempt at boys own adventure with a financial thriller in his latest drama GOLD.
The perfect vehicle for Matthew McConaughey to play a traditional Southern oilman armed irrepressibly pioneering for the American Dream, it sees him break out from the confines of his father’s mining company to forge a booze-soaked path to hell and high-finance when he bets his bottom dollar and joins forces with the legendary geologist and copper striker Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramirez) to forge a precious metal venture in the wilds of Indonesia.
As Kenny Wells, McConaughey cuts a comical figure, half Hottentot, half orangutang, striving with a genial gusto that impels him forward to keep panning for gold, despite numerous setbacks, and a narcissistic self-belief that sees him continually coming up smelling of roses, despite smoking a cartload of Marlboros on his indefaticable journey to the dream. But despite this ebullient tour de force and a gilt-edged ending, the film falls flat around him, largely due to an overly episodic and scatty script by Patrick Massett and John Zinman.
GOLD is a story rich in dramatic elements: an amiable opening in early ’80s Albuquerque, where Kenny courts his sweetheart Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard) while working for the family business,Washoe Mining, father Craig T Nelson), an economic down-turn where Kenny scrapes the barrel and loses his home and is reduced to living in Kay’s flat-pack villa; an exciting interlude in the steamy jungles of Jakarta where the prospecting story deepens; and the lustrous lure of Wall Street where their discovery hits the dealing rooms. What transpires is a muddled mess, where even the score with its inappropriate hits has us confused and uninspired. (what has Iggy Pop got to do with gold mining or Wall Street for that matter). Bewildering too, is a series of flash-forwards to an interview with Kenny and an mystery interrogator (Toby Kebbell), which intends to elucidate but actually leaves us in the dark. Despite all this, GOLD is strangely enjoyable and entertaining – rather like a piss-up in a brewery; you’re not quite sure what’s happening next, but it seemed fun in the afterglow, largely due to McConaughey and his antics. And although his character lacks impact, emotional integrity or intelligence there’s an authenticity to his relationship with Kay. And, in this end, his self-centredness is what really saves him. Kenny is not a selfish man, but his narcissistic self-regard prevents him from actually seeing the truth of the situation. Acosta is a man of few words who remains a cypher and a dark horse until the final denouement.
Corey Stoll’s New York investment banker is well played and Kenny’s flirt with Rachael Taylor’s City femme fatale provides relief but this is very much a one note film with few dramatic peaks and troughs despite the dramatic possibilities. Gaghan direction is uninspiring with the use of split screens feeling rather ineffective. The jungle scenes, filmed in Thailand are the most visually entrancing part of a drama that somehow fails to in impact despite its energy and potential. MT
Cast: Peter Simonischek, Sandra Huller, Michael Wittenborn, Thomas Loibl, Trystan Putter
142min | Comedy | Germany
Following in the wake of some quirky and enjoyable comedies at Cannes Film Festival this year was German filmmaker Maren Ade’s TONI ERDMANN, a European arthouse drama that celebrates the intergenerational gap between parents and children with humour rather than strife.
Maren Ade explores whether comedy is the right way to fix family issues or whether we should just try to be more sympathetic and understanding. In a film that runs just short of three hours, she achieves a blend of situational comedy, embarrassing incidents, pervy sex scenes and even a good old German nudist party in the style of an Ulrich Seidl film.
And in fact TONI ERDMANN‘s hero is Austrian: Peter Simonichek plays Winifried, a divorced German music teacher who loves playing inappropriate practical jokes on his friends and colleagues, with whoopee cushions and the like. We first meet Winifried in the throes of arranging a surprise musical tribute to an old colleague’s retirement. But not everyone likes surprises or to be part of this harmless fun, least of all his serious-minded daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller), a top management consultant in Romania. When she realises that her father has been up to his tricks in a bid to poke fun at her childless state and perceived loneliness, it’s already too late to block his impromptu visit in Bucharest, after the death of his dog Willi leaves him footloose and a bit down in the dumps. As a little girl she loved his pranks, but his casual arrival at her offices in fancy dress, makes her extremely irritated. Rejecting his bid to offer fatherly appreciation, Winifried then starts to behave like a stalker, popping up at Ines’ dinner dates pretending to be his alter ego ‘Toni Erdmann’ complete with wig and grotesque false teeth which he claims are from cosmetic dentistry “I wanted something different – fiercer”.
Only a woman can appreciate the intricacies of life in the competitive corporate world where women are supposed to “go on shopping trips” when they travel with their CEO husbands. Rather than hanging with the guys after work, poor Ines is forced to show the women round the shops while the men ‘kick back’ over drinks. Extremely galling! At one point she tells her boss “if I was a feminist, I wouldn’t tolerate guys like you”. Ade’s script is really spot on, brilliantly manipulating this father daughter relationship and drawing some subtle and intricately-played performances from Simonischek and Huller, who start as polar opposites in their frosty stand-off but gradually grow more sympathetic and human during the course of the film. Beneath Winifried’s silliness lies a heart of gold, he appreciates the real world but has withdrawn from it to reflect and his daughter emerges to be far more caring and worldly than he gives her credit for.
Winifried’s old dog Willi sets the furry leitmotive for rest of the film, and he pops up in various shaggy wigs and even a full blown Bulgarian scarecrow outfit. The irony comes from the way Ines intuitively manages her difficult colleagues and local friends; her secretary Anca is the only sympathetic female character and there are some really poignant scenes at the end where Ines and her father finally let their guards down to acknowledge that blood really is thicker than water. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 12-22 MAY 2016 | WINNER OF THE FIPRESCI AWARD 2016
Director-writers: Ester Gould, Reijer Zwaan | Cast: Luis Camacho, Oliver Crumes III, Salim Gauwloos, Jose Gutierez, Kevin Stea, Carlton Wilborn | Doc | US |
Revisiting Madonna’s 1990 Blond Ambition gig, 25 dancers reflect on their experience in a very different world, a quarter of a century ago. This Dutch documentary looks at what happens once the performance high is over and the champagne glasses are washed and back on the shelf.
1990 felt feisty and fresh and so was Madonna and her dancers. Breaking onto a music scene that still seemed rather touching and naive, the quaint newness of ‘nautifying’ religion now seems very dated and tame in its way, and Gould and Zwaan successfully capture the zeitgeist of those ‘ground-breaking’ moments, with the usual talking heads, clips and footage format. But STRIKE A POSE is rather top heavy on sentimental family stories and light on entertainment, music and Madonna herself. So don’t go expecting a toe-tapping cheer-filled shindig; this really should be classified as an LGBT interest documentary rather than music biopic, per se. None of the dancers stands out as a personality with any particularly charisma. That said, this low-key indie makes some salient points about the cult of celebrity and its often catastrophic consequences for delicate egos and sensitive types, many of whom were still really kids when they took part, and there are some sincere revelations about what it feels like to be gay, then and now: “We carried our flamboyance as a warning,” says Camacho. “Yes, we have earrings on, we have eyeliner on, but don’t mistake any of this for weakness.”
So STRIKE A POSE is certainly worth a watch if you’re in the mood for a human interest story about the soulful introspection of gay men in the entertainment business and their melancholy reflections on the past, and of the first great arena spectacle that now is very much the way to go. MT
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 3 FEBRUARY 2017 AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE
Danny Fields was a key figure in America’s music scene of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. A trend forecaster with a prescient talent for spotting talent, he discovered artists floating in the ether and brought them to the public consciousness and the enjoyment of all. Everything Danny touched turned to gold, sooner or later, and although he nearly destroyed the Beatles’ US career with a misjudged headline, he put the Ramones and Nina Simone on the map and shared a close friendship with Lou Reed, Jim Morrison and Nico during his time as journalist, publicity director at Electra Records and Warhol’s Silver Factory.
Growing up in Brooklyn, Fields was always a rebel in his Jewish family. “I was on the wrong table from the get go”; “a flaming faggot”. At Harvard he read Law but broke away from his studies to have sex with as many men as possible and moved back to Greenwich Village at a time in the late 1950s where gayness was not a point of reference or a definition: “No one came out, because nobody was ever in”. Homosexuality was a covert state between his buddies and they kept it to themselves: “Trying to find a gay bar New York in those days was like trying to find a protestant church in Spain.”
Fields eventually moved into publishing before gravitating to the music business as a general mover, shaker and fixer who had a gift for capturing the zeitgeist and selling a new idea that invariable took off. In 1965, The Doors, James Brown, Bob Dylan and Martha and the Vendellas were all breaking onto the scene with standout albums and Danny was in his element. But on the eve of the Beatles 1966 US Tour, he wrote a controversial headline in a music magazine that highlighted the band’s comments about Jesus and Black people. As a result, the band’s landing in Memphis was marred by a general trashing of their album and catastrophic ticket cancellations.
Taking its title from a Ramones song in his honour DANNY SAYS is enlivened by humorous cartoons, audio clips and fascinating footage, this fascinating freewheeling life story flows along as if on quaaludes, with the loquacious Mr Fields and the likes of Iggy Pop and Nico chipping in with their wit and wisdom on the music scene of the era. So Bravo to debut director Brendan Toller for this energetic and enjoyable biopic. Clearly he’s a fan of Mr Fields but could have curbed his enthusiasm with a tightening up of the final scenes which focus on the future of a man who is clearly still raring to go in his late seventies. MT
Dir.: Marcus Vettel, Karin Steinberger; Documentary; Germany/Denmark/Sweden/ Netherlands, 130 min.
Directors Marcus Vettel and Karin Steinberger (The Forecaster) have documented the circumstances of the gruesome murder of Derek and Nancy Haysom in Virginia in March 1985, and the subsequent trials of their daughter Elizabeth and her lover Jens Söring, who were both convicted of their murder. But far from illuminating events, THE PROMISE tries to absolve Söring from all guilt, with the premise that there was a judicial conspiracy to convict him.
When the bodies of wealthy retired industrialist Derek Haysom and his wife Nancy, an artist, were found by friends in their house in their Bedford County/Virginia on March 30th 1985, this upmarket neighbourhood feared that a serial killer was on the loose. Nobody suspected either Elizabeth or Jens – only their disappearance to Asia and Europe (they were arrested months later in London for cheque fraud) led the police to them. They were a weird couple: Jens, the son of a German diplomat was only 18 years old; Elizabeth, who had been educated in boarding schools in Switzerland and the UK, was not only over two years his senior, but had run away from home and had dabbled with drugs. Jens was obviously very much in love with her, and after their arrest, he confessed to the murders, knowing full well that he would be tried in Germany, where there was no death penalty; whilst Elizabeth, if found guilty, could face the Electric Chair.
The couple had created an alibi for the weekend of the murders – a double bill at a Washington cinema – which became the point of contention between the two, after Elizabeth decided to plead guilty to being an accessory to murder. She claimed, that she knew, that Jens was setting out to kill her parents, whilst she stayed in Washington. Elizabeth was given a 90 years sentence, she is eligible for parole at the earliest in 2032, when she would be 68 years old. After Jens was extradited to the USA in 1990 – the Virginia court had promised not to go for death the penalty – he withdrew his confession. Elizabeth who was a witness for the prosecution, again accused him to have murdered his parents. Jens was given two life sentences, running consecutively. In an interview with the filmmakers, Jens (with Daniel Brühl voicing his statement, just as Imogen Poots voiced Elizabeth’s statements in the court recording of her trial), explained that he sacrificed himself and confessed in the first place out of love for Elizabeth.
Then THE PROMISE takes a strange turn: the filmmakers start interviewing experts, who come to the conclusion that a third person (Elizabeth’s drug dealer, since deceased) has helped Elizabeth to kill her parents. Elizabeth is called “a practiced liar”, whilst Jens is made out to be the naïve victim of the older woman. This biased ending – basically, one has to believe either Jens or Elizabeth – somehow contributes to make this bizarre case, which was the first televised trial in US TV history, even more compelling, particularly since Elizabeth had at first accused her mother of sexually abusing her, an accusation she later withdrew.
THE PROMISE is not so much a documentary, but an attempt to construct a case against Haysom for the murders, whilst white-washing Jens Söring. It is left to the audience to make up their mind. But in spite of the bias, the Haysom trials are one of the most peculiar and enigmatic court cases of modern times. The filmmakers, not withstanding their interference and a very unimaginative title, have contributed to a compelling viewing. AS
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | BERTHA DOCHOUSE
Director/DoP: Kirsten Johnson Editor: Nels Bangerter | Doc | 103min | US
Seasoned cinematographer Kirsten Johnson has worked in all corners of the globe on documentaries with the likes of Laura Poitras and Michael Moore. CAMERAPERSON is a raw and deeply-affecting patchwork of photo-memories that serves as visual autobiography of her life.
This essay film has no narrative as such but works its way towards a gradually more involving story from a recurring set of themes and locations. Reportage blends with personal footage of her own life in Beaux Arts Washington and Brooklyn; sorties to the former war zones of Bosnia, Dafur and Rwanda and closer to home, an electric storm in a Southern State, a field of wild flowers recording the memory of Wounded Knee; and the dreadful murder of James Byrd, Jr, dragged to death behind a pick-up truck. Each vignette is introduced with its location, making it all the more satisfying and resonant.
Never showy or sensationalist but always beguiling, her snapshots swoop silently into everyday life: a Bosnian re-settler bakes bread in her humble shack and there are incandescent moments where a boxer bitterly rages against his failure in Brooklyn, and a newborn baby is brought back to life by a midwife in a spartan Nigerian clinic; his tiny bewildered eyes meet ours as he desperately gasps for his first breath. In perfect English, a little Afghan boy talks tearfully but candidly about losing his eye and his older brother in a bomb blast. The tragic faces of the living are so much affecting than gory bodies of the dead.
Then there is the recognisable footage of Happy Valley and Citizenfour and glimpses of Michael Moore laughing on set. These makes the viewer realise that the ‘objective reality’ of freewheeling documentary relies on clever staging and editing to enhance our experience of factual filmmaking. Simple family moments can be surprisingly moving: Johnson’s mother (in the final stages of Alzheimer’s) points to a photo of her husband with the comment: “oh really, you knew him too?”
But Africa offers the most compelling footage: in barren wastelands women work with humour and forebearance in heart-warming testament to the human condition. MT
Hacksaw Ridge is one of the most violent and gory films about pacifism ever made. But there again, its director is Mel Gibson. Based on the true story of a war hero and conscientious objector from Virginia, it is a film full of cliches and contradictions that still manages to move and inspire with its heartfelt and plausible narrative underpinned by the simple message of sacrifice and faith.
In common with Gibson’s unflinching dramas: Apocalypse, Braveheart and The Passion of Christ, Hacksaw ridge is long on a brutal battle that takes place on the blood-drenched battlefields of Okinawa. Shot in Australia, Gibson and his scripters Shenkkan and Knight create a narrative that embodies all that the United States strives for, particularly in the light of the Trump era.
Andrew Garfield succeeds in the leading role of a gentle but decent man who is first seen as a weak coward who adheres to his pacifist principles, but who later goes on to achieve greatness in battle eschewing violence: he will not carry a gun due to his religious beliefs as a Seventh Day Adventist. In reality, Desmond Doss came from a poor and dysfunctional background in rural Virginia but was keen to join the war effort believing he could do so as a medic. Naively believing he would go straight to the battlefield in a white jacket and stethoscope, it soon emerges that training and combat is part and parcel of the war effort.
At home in Virginia, Doss Senior (Hugo Weaving) is a hardbitten alcoholic and First World War veteran who balks at the idea of Desmond enlisting. But a childhood accident, where Desmond nearly kills his brother, has made a big impression and he is determined to avoid conflict. When he enlists for Pearl Harbour he comes across initially as a pain in the neck by upholding his stringent religious scruples. This premise is clearly going to set the men from the boys in the abuse he receives from his comrades (Sam Worthington and Vince Vaughn) that leads to a ludicrous court martial on the grounds of his refusal to bear arms and undergo the requisite training.
But when he gets to the battlefield his true grit emerges, as limbs are blown off and blood gushes in some startling combat sequences, filmed by DoP Simon Duggan and edited by John Gilbert, this is a heartfelt and inspiring action drama that will leave you upbeat and in a positive frame of mind about the power of peaceful conviction.. MT
Dir: Garth Davis; Cast: Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Sunny Pawar, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Abhishek Bharate, Divian Ladwa, Priyanka Bose | Australia | drama | 118 min.
Garth Davis co-directed the TV-Miniseries Top of the Lake with Jane Champion and now turns his hand to Saroo Brierley’s autobiography A Long Way home with Luke Davies adapting it for the screen as a sprawling emotional drama that sometimes crosses into soap-opera territory. Davis’ advertising background – among his credits the Toyota “Ninja Kittens” – makes this a slick and visually ravishing watch with DoP Greig Fraser (Foxcatcher) conjuring up amazing images, particularly in Calcutta.
Newcomer Sunna Pawar (young Saroo) is spellbindingly gorgeous as the young boy who in 1986 is separated from his mother Kamla (Bose) and sister Shekila, after talking his older brother Guddu (Bharate) into taking him away from their rural home to help on a building site. But Saroo falls asleep at the station and wakes up in a decommissioned train, taking him 1000 miles away to Calcutta. There he avoids child-snatchers and ends up in an orphanage. Saroo cannot speak the local Bengali, and his Hindi dialect is insufficient to express the name of his village or his mother. Roughly half-way into the film, Saroo ends up in Tasmania, Australia, where Sue Brierley (Kidman) and her husband John (Wenham) adopted him. Saroo is an exemplary son, relieved to find a home of emotional and material wealth after his traumatic time in Calcutta. But Mantosh, the second boy adopted by the Brierleys, is unable to cope with his past and is proving a handful.
The plot skips forward about 20 years to when Saroo (Patel, star of Slumdog Millionaire) has left the home where Mantosh (Ladwa) is now self-harming and troublesome. Saroo takes a course in hotel-management in Melbourne where he meets Lucy (Carol co-star R. Mara) a lover of Indian food. Tasting a childhood sweet one day he realises that his hometown is not Calcutta. His search for his hometown is the weak link in the narrative, his traumatic experience is seen as an hero’s adventure, rather than an ordeal. Although this is underlined by the breathtaking images, showing Calcutta in high-resolution fly-over shots, the emphasis is on the thrills, rather than the terrible danger Saroo experiences there.
There is simply not enough darkness in Saroo’s Calcutta abandonment years – and when he finally enters the Brierley’s home in Tasmania, he appears blasé about the sensational new home comforts – such as the ‘fridge and television, rather than awestruck. He also seems to lack an inner life whereas Mantosh is a far more believable character. Apart from skimming over this relationship with Mara, it is never explained Saroo waits so long to look for his birth mother – the sweet he remembers from his childhood can hardly be the first or sole reminder? It is stringent – and rather lazy – in this context, that Google Earth is just another star in the visual high-tech extravaganza. It would have been more interesting and convincing to show the search for her son from Kamla’s perspective, without the intrusion of computers. LION triumphs despite these plot-holes: a powerful and sumptuously photographed tear-jerker with a happy ending, despite its lack of teeth. AS
NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 20 2017 | VUE, PICTUREHOUSE, EVERYMAN, CINEWORLD NATIONWIDE
Chatting to his mother in the opening scenes of RODNYE, Ukrainian director Vitaly Mansky (Pipeline) discovers for the first time that his background is mainly Russian and that one of his grandmothers was Polish Lithuanian (Babushka Sonya), indicating that Ukraine was at one point, part of Poland. Pictured sitting in the modest flat where he grew up, and where his mother still lives in Lvov, Mansky’s relishes his humble beginnings. After leaving to study filmmaking in Moscow, he is back again due to the recent upheavals in the eegion. RODNYEexplores the current climate through a series of informal vists to his close family members in Lvov, Odessa and Sevastopol (Crimea). What unfolds from their differing perspectives is a fascinating potted political history of this part of the world during the period May 2014 to October 2015. Mansky brings his usual brand of black humour to the film, and some poignant family moments into the bargain.
Juxtaposing often feisty debate with low-key domestic scenes (a stray dog adopted by his sister wanders into the picture at one point and listens intently) and personal reflections (that echo Jem Cohen’s style), Mansky offers up something much more illucidating and profound than could ever be gleaned from newspapers or TV. This multi-faceted and nuanced analysis of national identity comes with some impressive footage of everyday life along with family photos from the album.
In Sevastopol New Year’s Eve is being celebrated in Russian and Ukrainian styles. In common with most of Eastern Europe, borders have been a moveable feast since time immemorial and Mansky’s birthplace Lvov used to be Polish and before that, Lemberg, part of the Hapsburg Empire. An irrestible documentary for those interested in poltical history RODNYE offers arresting scenes of the Black Sea port of Odessa; a bride and groom floating down the famous steps that featured in Battleship Potemkin; a funeral cortege complete with Ukrainian millitary in official regalia; Spring in Kiev and Donbas in Eastern Ukraine (“Ukraine has chosen the European path at last” sighs one of his sisters); and finally – a trip to the ballet. Describing the film as his “personal tragedy” Mansky offers a moving but often conflicted portrait of contemporary life amid crisis. MT
SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE from 20 JANUARY | LFF REVIEW
Dir: Damien Chazelle : Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone | US | Musical Drama | 129min
The 73rd Venice Film Festival opened with the razzmatazz of a rousing Hollywood musical, that is sadly not as good a film as it thinks it is, despite the much hyped critical acclaim that has it scoring more points on Imdb than some real classic masterpieces. Damien Chazelle’s much anticipated follow-up to Whiplash is a musical by theme and content and breaks into song during a title sequence that feels rather awkward and amateurish with most of the songs sung off- key, when you consider the wealth of US musical talent available.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star as LA wannabes at the bottom rung of the creative careers: he is Jazz pianist Sebastian, she as aspiring actor Mia. Gosling and Stone have worked together before with writer-director Damien Chazelle and both are decent enough dancers even if they do not have perfect pitch. They share a sparky onscreen chemistry from the outset when they first fall out during a mini fracas from their respective cars while driving into LA, and then later when their paths cross again just after Sebastian (Gosling) has been fired for playing his own tunes during his nightime gig at a fancy restaurant. LA LA LAND would work just as well, in fact better, as a straightforward drama – the banal script and musical elements sometime feel forced and unnatural although Seb does compose one catchy tune (from original composer Justin Hurwitz) which becomes ‘their’ song in an fluffy leitmotif that runs through the rest of the movie – at it is very much a movie: and boy can Gosling move.
This is a lively and entertaining film that make the mainstream crowd happy – it could be anybody’s story and resonates with most of us, whether we are working in creative fields or not, with its ‘reach for the stars premise’ of following your dream rather than settling for a safe and comfortable existence. Stone is the most vulnerable of the two as she finds the constant rejection of screen tests and auditions difficult to deal with but eventually gets into her groove. Gosling is more punchy and down to earth. Obsessed by trad jazz rather than the meandering self-indulgent kind, he eventually lands up with a well paid job playing the latter before setting up his own club which allows him to play the stuff he really enjoys. Falling in love comes naturally to them both but the road is rather rocky and involves the less travelled one on the way.
Gosling gives a suave and seductive turn throughout, never doubting himself for a moment. Stone – who won the Volpi Cup at Venice 2016 – feels more brittle and spiky, although she really puts her heart and soul into singing, dancing and acting. Damien Chazelle has a film grasp of the dark and dangerous nature of showbusiness and brings this to LA LA LAND as he did to his debut Whiplash. The final ‘what might have been’ montage works well enough to send to you off with a spring in your step. It’s a good film – but not a great one. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 13 JANUARY | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER 2016 | Best Actress Emma Stone
Cast: Ricardo Darin, Dolores Fonzi, Alejandro Awada, Pablo Cedrón, Jorge D’Elia, Manuel Rodal, Rafael Castejón, Walter Reyno, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart
Argentina-Spain-France / Drama / 134mins
El Aura (The Aura) was the second and final feature of the up and coming young Argentinian director Fabián Bielinsky (1959-2006) who died suddenly from a heart attack aged only 47 having just collected a host of awards for this film. His quirky debut feature Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens, 2000) had enjoyed a West End run in 2002 and received the mixed accolade of a Hollywood remake in 2004. But despite the acclaim El Aura received elsewhere, in Britain it was only screened once in an Argentinian season at the Riverside before dropping off the radar (although it can be found subtitled on YouTube) until recently revived at the Prince Charles.
It’s difficult to discuss this film without revealing the increasingly unpredictable turns the narrative takes, so I shall attempt to be vague. (Films, however, that it recalled for me for various reasons included D.O.A., Rififi, Bob le Flambeur, Le Deuxième Soufflé, The Passenger, House of Games and The Usual Suspects). One of Argentina’s top actors Ricardo Darin plays Esteban Espinosa – possibly the screen’s most bemused taxidermist since Norman Bates – whose fantasy of pulling off the perfect heist suddenly seems about to come to fruition due to an accident while hunting in Patagonia (he promptly acquires a familiar of sorts in the form of an attentive wolf with one blue eye and one brown who spends the rest of the film keeping a watchful eye on him). Did I mention that Esteban also happens to be an epileptic? The film begins with him regaining consciousness after a seizure and he later suffers two more at inopportune moments; the possibility arising that what we witness may be some sort of Incident at Owl Creek hallucination resulting from his epilepsy.
The narrative develops in a series of very gradual leisurely paced steps, with long stretches wholly devoid of dialogue, the camera concentrating upon Esteban’s face, and the photography simultaneously drab and atmospheric. Esteban is invariably a step or two behind developments which although realistically depicted often involve extraordinary coincidences, through which he is always able to muddle his way because he happens to possess a photographic memory (did I neglect to mention that too?) invoked in the style of the final scene in the interview room in The Usual Suspects. His phenomenal memory comes to the rescue in a number of very awkward situations with the mean-looking collection of hoods he incongruously now finds himself in the company of (like Edmond O’Brien in DOA), until it abruptly fails him with cataclysmic results. How much of this is actually happening is open to speculation. What violence there is fairly restrained in its depiction, but its impact on some of the characters – if it did really happen – leaves a bad taste in the mouth. RICHARD CHATTEN.
SCREENING AT PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA LONDON W1 | NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
Dir.: Pablo Larrain; Cast: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Max Castella, John Hurt; USA/Chile 2016, 91 min.
Director Pablo Larrain (Neruda) films Noah Oppenheim’s intricate script of JACKIE, covering four days in the life of first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy that opens on her arrival in Dallas on that fateful day in November 1963. Roaming ecliptically, the film de-constructs the tragic and delivers a moving portrait of trauma and grief that turns into a media event.
Even though politics are always present, this is never a political film. Jackie (Portman) has to deal with the sudden wrecking ball of her husband’s death followed immediately by the loss of her family home in the Whitehouse. The presidential successor Lyndon B Johnson, follows hot on her heels, chasing her out to move in with his own family, just as Jackie has restored the place to reflect the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. With the move, shown in great detail, comes the realisation of her loss in status: Jackie is quickly becoming a ‘has-been’, her husband’s funeral arrangement are her last official occasion.
Suffering from survivor’s guilt, Jackie argues with her brother-in law, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (Sarsgaard), about marching behind her husband’s coffin from the Capitol to Arlington cemetery – which is seen as a security risk by the new administration and foreign dignitories such as General de Gaulle. Changing her mind more than once, Jackie finally decides to risk of walking alongside the cortege – as did De Gaulle. Having no illusions about her late husband’s excessive philandering, she nevertheless wants to write a final chapter to his presidency, “something the world will remember”.
The losses mount up: Jackie decides to re-bury her two lost children the next to their father’s grave in Arlington, whilst dealing with her official assistant Pamela Turnure (Gerwig), who was one of her husband’s mistresses. The awkwardness is obvious, Nathalie Portman’s performance resonates with subtle complexity in her leading role. Only in an interview with Jack Valenti , (Castella), a PR man working for Johnson, do we get a glimpse of the real Jacqueline Kennedy, who after all worked as journalist before her marriage. Acutely aware of the difference between public perception and the truth: she is not willing to give an inch in her battle to canonise her husband as a great president.
The film flashes back to a black and white re-created TV clip, shot at beginning of her reign as First Lady, explaining to the public the redecorations she had made in the White House. Here, we see Jackie, fragile and vulnerable, before she enters public office, part of the illusion played out for the adoring public. And finally we learn about the legendary “Camelot” reference which is always associated with JFK’s presidency. It turns out to the name of his favourite musical – the vinyl was on the turntable before the couple left for Dallas. JACKIE is not so much history biopic as a case study of a courageous woman who was loyal to her husband, even after his death and despite his utter contempt of her: “we did not spend many nights together, not even the [last] one in Forth Worth”
Larrain directs with great sensitivity and a good eye for detail. Only the scene with a cleric (John Hurt) come over as stilted, the rest is perfect detachment and observation. DoP Stephane Fontaine finds a perfect style for all occasions: the Dallas shooting is tense and realistic, the White House sequences show not so much glitter but a film-studio like appearance. The close-ups are always telling, separating lies from truth. Natalie Portman gives the performance of a lifetime, as a intelligent woman, adored by the public for her innate style and elan as ‘sold’ by the media. AS
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 20 January 2017 | BEST SCRIPT WINNER NOAH OPPENHEIM
Dir: Thomas Lilti | Writers: Thomas Lilti, Baya Kasmi | Cast: François Cluzet, Marianne Denicourt, Isabelle Sadoyan, Felix Moati, Christophe Odent, Patrick Descamps, Guy Faucher, Margaux Fabre | Drama | France | 91min
Doctor turned screenwriter Thomas Lilti has finally found his groove with a couple of well-made and watchable medical dramas using classic French stars. Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor was the first, withReda Kateb as a hospital clinician working in Paris. The latest, IRREPLACEABLE, is set in the farmlands of Ile de France where Intouchables star François Cluzet is a doctor diagnosed with a life-changing condition that forces him to recruit a colleague in his small country practice.
Jean-Pierre Werner (Cluzet) is rather a tetchy single father in his fifties who prides himself in his personal approach to his patients, spending his days on home visits in the rural community, often beyond the call of duty. But when he is told to cut down on his workload due to a tumour, he grudgingly interviews Dr Nathalie Delezia (Marianne Denincourt/Hippocrates) who has come late to the professional, in her forties, but has loads of experience as a nurse in casualty. After giving her rather a hard time, the two start work together, Nathalie feeling her way forward cautiously with a caseload of tricky patients and a crusty colleague into the bargain.
Lilti cleverly brings reality to the film – not just in his medical knowledge – but in his maturity of experience in dealing with patients and the profession as a whole. And this makes such a difference to a film which could so easily have been just another implausible medical procedural. Combining quality acting talent with a pithy script, he brings integrity to the film, making it enjoyable but also entirely natural. Theres’s a feisty tension between Werner and Delezia that brings a welcome relief to the more serious medical narrative dealing with real issues facing the profession in France.
This is a restrained and nuanced character drama which makes great used of its lovely rural setting in the Val-d’Oise and the towns of Omerville and Magny as Lilti creates tension and cleverly balances the three narrative strands: the relationship between the two doctors; Werner’s uncertain medical future and the social politics of the patients themselves, and their life and death issues. Thomas Lilti is certainly a talent worth looking out for where quality French drama in concerned. MT
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 13 JANUARY 2017 | A special preview with Q&A ON 10 JANUARY TICKETS HERE
Dir.: Kenneth Lonergan Cast: Casey Afflick, Lucas Hedges, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Gretchen Moll; USA 2016, 135 min.
Director/writer Kenneth Lonergan sprawling, near epic tableau of a man caught in his guilt, is set in the idyllic Massachusetts seaside town of Manchester: the sheer beauty of the environment colliding with the pain and anger of a past, when a man’s whole life disintegrates.
We meet Lee Chandler (Afflick) working as a janitor in Boston: he is efficient, but on a collision course with nearly everyone he meets, clients or fellow drinkers in a bar. The first one he insults, the second he beats up. He lives in a basement studio, a cell, without much light. This place is as neglected as the man himself, and we want to know more about him. A phone call from Manchester-on-Sea has him rushing to the local hospital – but he is too late, his brother Joe (Chandler) has died of a heart attack. In his will he has stipulated that Lee will be the guardian for his 16 year-old son Patrick (Hedges). We watch flashbacks from a decade ago when the three are happily fishing on Joe’s boat. Slowly more emerges about Lee and his problems in Manchester. Patrick does not want to leave town: he is a member of the school’s ice-hockey team, and successfully two-times his girl-friend. In denial of his father’s death, not uncommon in his age group. His mother Elise (Moll) was alcohol dependent and left the family, the re-union between mother and son is strained. Lee continues where he left off in Boston: bar fights and arguments. When he meets his former wife Randi (Williams) the grim truth eventually comes out about the loss of his three children.
Any parent losing a child will never really recover, but to lose three children and live with the guilt of your own negligence is impossible. After the accident, interviewed by the police, Lee tried to kill himself, snatching a revolver from an officer – only for it to jam. It would have been more human on Lee if he could have succeeded, because he really is empty inside, reliving his nightmare daily. His aggression is just a bait: he wants to be punished, at least physically. He might just be functioning in Boston, but Manchester is a step too far. Lonergan shows that Patrick is just a Lee in the making: he, like many males, is only interested in sex, booze and sport, the latter active or on TV. It is no accident that Patrick and Lee communicate best, when they play with a tennis ball. Most women and men live a near segregated life in the small community: divided very much on emotional lines, which determine their activities. There is a seemingly total absent of culture in Manchester, the provinces are left to rot intellectually. All this is chronicled without any resort to sentimentality.
Despite some flaws, DoP Jody Lee Lipes (Marta, Marcy, May, Marlene) catches the outside beauty with stunning panoramic shots in primary colours, in contrast to the dim interior landscape . Affleck is good, but not great, the ensemble cast helps underline the emotional helplessness between the genders. At well over two hours running time, Lonergan keeps this intense drama absorbing, emerging as a sort of East Coast Tennessee Williams.AS
Chilean Maverick Alejandro Jodorowsky was back at the Quinzaine this year with another riotous family affair, this time starring his sons Brontis and Adan, and shot by multi-award winning DoP Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love).
A follow up to The Dance of Reality, ENDLESS POETRY is an episodic but spectacular affair and one of his most accessible outings to date, filmed in Santiago de Chile – dressed up in its original 1930s look – and recording his early rebellious years in 1940s Chile where he alienated himself from his Eastern European Jewish family background to mix in a bohemian circle of artists such as Stella Diaz Varin and Enrique Lihn (Leandro Taub) – with whom he marches through the city in defence of artistic freedom and defiance of the establishment. Using a familiar cocktail of magical realism and surreal mysticism, the film serves as a philosophical celebration of life that echoes The Holy Mountain and El Topo.
After moving from Tocopilla to Santiago de Chile with his family: a loving mother who sings her lines and a strict salesman father, it emerges that although Alejandrito (played as a child by Herskovits) is light on his loafers and highly artistic – he is not infact gay. This is shown in a touching scene where his cousin Ricardo tries to hit on him and is gently enlightened to the fact that Alejandro is not that way inclined. The film then flips forward nearly a decade to Alejandro (as played by his actual son Adan) as he falls in love for the first time with a poet Stella Diaz and tries to ‘find himself’ as a poet, despite his father’s plans for him to train as a doctor. In reality he was to find his way to Paris to study mime before getting involved in filmmaking – but that’s for later.
The film rambles slightly in the second act and feels a tad long at over two hours running time, but this is a visually striking fantasy drama with its street scenes featuring crowds dressed as black and white skeletons and red devils and his trademark nudity . There are some political undercurrents and nods towards the hardline dictator President Ibanez (1927-1931 & 1952-1958) and Jodorowsky himself narrates from time to time with his son Adam composing an evocative original score.
The final denouement with his father is impressive, where he makes the salient and ground breaking declaration that informs his life: “by not loving me you revealed to me that love is all-important”. Clearly his father inadvertently did him a favour. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 6 JANUARY 2017 | ICA | CURZON HOME ENT
Dir: Martin Scorsese | Jay Cocks | Cast: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Ciaran Hinds, Yosuke Kubozuka, Tadanobu Asano, Issei Ogata, Shin’ya Tsukamoto | US | Biopic Drama | 159min
SILENCEis an impassioned labour of love and a testament to the religious fervour and devotion of two 17th century Portuguese Jesuit priests who undertake a gruelling spiritual mission to the wilds of Japan to spread their faith. Light years away fromGoodfellas and Casino, this is a diligent and earnest passion project and the result of 28 years of grafting for Martin Scorsese, a devout Catholic, and his scripter Jay Cocks. Scholars of Divinity and faithful Catholics will find it an immersive experience, for others the dynamite central performance from English actor Andrew Garfield (as Father Rodrigues) together with Dante Ferretti and Rodrigo Pieto’s magnificent mise-en-scènes will compensate for the demanding nature of the subject matter and its near three hour running time.
Background-wise, it’s worth remembering that 17th Portugal was a force to be reckoned with for the Japanese, and a towering trading power controlling the region’s Spice trade through the country’s domination of economic pinch points of Goa and Malucca. Shinto Buddhism was the prevailing religion and the Japanese rulers – the Shogunate – did not take kindly to Catholic proselytising at a time when the country already felt engulfed by Portuguese economic might. Based on Shusaku Endo’s ’60s novel, the local Catholic population had recently come under a period of heavy persecution due to their failed rebellion against the Tokogawa Shogunate – the Shimabara Uprising – and so any further Catholic missionaries were firmly stamped upon and uprooted before they could take hold of the population, particularly in remote regions such as the Goto Islands (Nagasaki) in the East China Sea where the missionaries land (filming actually took place in Taiwan).
Back home in Portugal at the time, the Catholic Inquisition was well underway, burning fiercely since the 1536 in its job of exterminating those who had rapidly converted to Catholicism, particularly from Judaism, while still covertly practising their own faiths. So this was a time of strong religious feeling and affiliations, not unlike today. The Jesuits, a Catholic order co-founded by Ignatius of Loyola, were stalwart missionaries known for their strong belief in education and whose motto is the famous chestnut: “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man”.
In the opening scenes, Padres Sebastiao Rodrigues and Francisco Garrpe (Adam Driver) discover that their mentor Padre Ferreira (Neeson), who has been in Japan for some time, has been forced to renounce his faith by committing apostasy and stepping on a fumie, a bronze image of Jesus used as a test of faith. The Japanese had their own religious inquisition, and suspected Christians were made to trample on the fumie or face horrific torture or imprisonment. Arriving by boat on the treacherous shoreline of one of the islands, the intrepid pair fortuitously fall in with an uncover Christian community who shelter them in shacks in the lush vegetation, but the cruel and wily local inquisitor (a foppishly whimsical Issei Ogata) has offered a silver-coined ransom for their capture, and they are soon turned in by their faithless, feral-eyed translator Kichijiro (Kubozuka), and go their separate ways in desperation.
A fork in the fractured narrative then follows the wide-eyed, tousled-haired Rodrigues – played by Garfield as a deeply troubled, gibbering wreck, praying and sobbing incessantly as he tries to come to terms with why his mentor Ferreira has become a heretic as he faces his own dilemma: denouncement or death.
Amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth, this is a gritty and mournful affair where scenes of torture by crucifixion, burning and drowning offer little relief from the grinding misery of religious conviction. Spiritual succour has fallen by the wayside, and the only scene where we feel the comfort of ‘our Saviour Jesus Christ’ is when Rodrigues is encouraged by a kindly voiceover exhorting him to step on the fumie without fear of divine retribution, and momentarily denounce his religion in order to save a group of his followers from being hung upside down and bled to death, like cows in an Halal abattoir. Rodrigues’ character would have made a more appealing priest had his faith and prayers endowed him with a greater sense of composure, but here he plays a mere mortal. Liam Neeson gives a canny twist to his opportunistic Father Ferriera, who choses an easy life of compliance with his Japanese hosts rather than the designated path of religious rectitude – giving the impression, in the glint of an eye, that he has made his peace with God despite his outward transformation into a Judas.
There are echoes here of Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ but this is an altogether more doom-laden and tortured saga and more like Roland Joffe’s The Mission (1986), not least for its focus. Prieto’s painterly tableaux evoke the style and chiaroscuro lighting of Caravaggio, illuminating the cast as if by candlelight. Prieto also conveys the stark religious purity of El Greco, particularly in the scene where Rodrigues imagines the face of Christ appearing to him, while washing his face in a pool of water. And while the missionaries are portrayed as squeaky clean, the Japanese come across as conniving and merciless monsters who embody nothing of own their Buddhist or Animist references in their vicious regimes of torture. Certainly a film that will appeal to the American Christian heartland and devout Catholics,SILENCE is a timely story that has come full circle in the past 400 years. The fact that Religious conflict still divides and tortures our contemporary world is a sobering thought to take into 2017. MT
OUT ON NEW YEAR’S DAY 2017 | Picturehouses | Gate Cinema | NATIONWIDE
Writer| Director: Alex Gibney | 116min | Documentary | USA
Alex Gibney’s new documentary about cyber-warfare is like the inside of a freezer: chilling and done dry. A palpable menace permeated the early scenes as your brain juggles to process endless facts and figures, but the bottom line is cold war fear: are we heading for meltdown through our computer screens? It’s highly likely rather than just possible.
Offering no conclusions, Gibney once again gives us a fast-paced and well-edited, authoritative documentary that is scary and quite bewildering. In ZERO DAYS he claims that cyber-attacks are the next big thing in international warfare; instead of bombs or even chemical warfare, these silent systems can invade at the touch of a button and take over nations – even the whole world. There is something decidedly horrifying and apocalyptic about this form of attack that feels underhand and rather sly: like a silent germ ‘Stuxnet’ a piece of weapons-grade malware developed during the early years of the 21st century by Israeli and US security forces – who gave it the codename “Olympic Games” – begins rapidly to replicate, like an embryo, imbedded in the cosy comfort of the aptly-named computer software.
By 2010, the cyber weapon had been successfully installed at the Iranian nuclear power plant in Natanz, where it a was able to disrupt the functioning of the underground spinning centrifuges which operate at the speed of light in order the complete the nuclear refinement process. The Iranian Government were aware of the infringement but had no idea it was being caused by the Americans, seemingly under their noses. The Iranians themselves had developed malware systems and they eventually retaliated with attacks of the Bank of America but, like germ warfare, Stuxnet got out of control and began a computer pandemic infecting other systems on a global basis.
American president, Barack Obama has secretly authorised various attacks intended to destroy their enemy’s computer systems running the country’s electricity, communications and even water supply –but it cuts both ways. In future, war will be silent and deadly: suddenly darkness will descend in a universal meltdown.
But there have been so many threats of this kind since time immemorial. Armageddon was mentioned in biblical times in the book of Revelations and, more recently, the Millennium Bug which threatened to strike with the dawn of 2000, wiping out all computer systems. So just how soon is ZERO DAYS intending the world to end? Not the for the faint-hearted or those looking for light entertainment, this is a film that needs to be taken with a heavy dose of caution, but taken seriously, nevertheless. But don’t dismay – there’s still tomorrow. Take a walk in the park and smell the roses. There’s a lot to be thankful for. MT
NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 6 JANUARY 2017 | BERLINALE 2016 REVIEW
HITCHCOCK|TRUFFAUT: Director: Kent Jones | 80min | Documentary | US
Hitchcock |Truffaut is a well-made documentary that gets behind the scenes with two of cinema’s legendary directors: Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut. In 1962, after an exchange of letters declaring their mutual admiration for one another, François Truffaut invited ‘the master of suspense to take part in a filmed interview, via an interpreter, that resulted in a book that became a film bible for critics, filmmakers and cineastes alike.
Here Kent Jones excels himself with this epicurean delight for film-buffs everywhere, depicting the meeting of creative minds. Not only do we get to meet ‘Hitch’ and Truffaut but also David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Wes Anderson and other top-drawer directors opining on the subject of how Hitchcock influenced and formed them, cinematically-speaking. Hitchcock /Truffaut plays out like a masterclass in filmmaking – all in 80 glorious minutes – making you want to rush home and watch Hitch’s entire oeuvre in a darkened room.MT
FRANCOFONIA | Director: Aleksandr Sukurov | 89min | DocuDrama | Russia
FRANCOFONIA is the first Sukurov film which shines a positive light on the Soviet Union. Bruno Delbonnel’s breathtaking cinematography successfully recreates the wartime effort in Paris, and the extensive archive material offers so much information and philosophical debate that one viewing alone cannot do justice to this masterpiece. MT
FIRE AT SEA: Dir: Gianfranco Rosi | 114min | Doc | Italy
Rosi’s spartan yet absorbing documentary offers an important and non-judgemental portrait of the immigration crisis facing Southern Italy, where both immigrants and islanders are given ample weight. But pictures can tell a thousand words and that’s the way Rosi leaves it: we must draw our own impressions and conclusions of the humanitarian tragedy. MT
A BIGGER SPLASH: Dir: Luca Guadagnino | 125min | Drama | Italy
Paolo Sorrentino, Piero Messina and Luca Guadagnino: the meridionali seem to be making the most interesting Italian films at the moment, using their native towns and villages as the cinematic backdrop to their dazzling narratives. A BIGGER SPLASH is set in the volcanic island of Pantelleria – nearer to Tunisia than to Sicily, it is a wild and savage place popular for its hots springs and therapeutic mud – a suitable place then for a re-make of Jacques Deray’s sixties psychodrama. Guadagnino’s muse and regular collaborator Tilda Swinton is an inspired choice as Marianne, a jaded rock star and a cross between Eve, her Only Lovers Left Alive character and a female David Bowie. Wise and witty, she is a statuesque and sexy heroine with an aristocratic swagger. The strong and silent Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) keeps her satisfied in their deserted villa, while ex-lover Ralph Fiennes turns on the wit in a performance of pizzazz. MT
LOVE & FRIENDSHIP: Dir: Whit Stillman | 92min | Drama | US
LOVE & FRIENDSHIP leaves you wanting more of its delightful wit and charm. From the main performances to the small cameos – particularly that of Tom Bennett as the hilarious Sir James Martin, in the jaunty style of a dumbed-down Robert Peston. Lady Susan is the ultimate ‘mistress of the put-down’ who cunningly moves between Xavier Samuel’s tousled toyboy DeCourcy and the subtle stability of Sir James with the consummate skill of Molière’s Célimène or Choderlos de Laclos’ Marquise de Merteuil – with lines like “Facts are horrid things” showing that she is woman who won’t ever countenance defeat in this tightly-plotted marvel and wittiest drama of the year – so far. Kate Beckinsale’s Lady Susan has her tipped for Best Actress at the London Critics’ Circle Awards 2017. MT
THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MAKI: Dir: Juho Kuosmanen | 92min |Drama| Finland
With handheld camera in high contrast 16mm and cinema verite style, Juho Kuosmanen captures the febrile intensity and gruelling pain of match preparation for a legendary episode in Finnish boxing history, conveying the euphoric national pride and excitement of a country on the crest of international sporting fame.
Kuosmanen’s debut is both a love story and a 1960s set sporting drama that captures the contrast between Helsinki’s elite and the wholesome country folk; the art nouveau splendour of the maritime capital and the open skies of the rural heartland where vast pine forests and lakes provide a lush setting for the romantic scenes and spartan training hours, in and out of wooden saunas and snowy woods. Winning this year’s Un Certain Regard award at Cannes, its grainy indie visuals and glowing fervour capture our imagination and convey the heart-pumping joy of first love. Peter von Bagh would be proud. MT
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV | Dir: Albert Serra | 110min | Drama | Spain/France
Dying very slowly in the 18th century was always going to be a painful affair. The lack of medical knowledge and the quackery of charlatan doctors, not to mention the absence of pain relief, clearly made the final hours of life unbearable even for the ultra privileged Roi de Soleil (1638-1715).
French New Wave veteran Jean-Pierre Leaud gives a performance of subtle dignity as Louis XIV in Catalan director Albert Serra’s painterly and well-paced portrait that captivates and mesmerises for just under two hours. MT
PEGGY GUGENHEIM: ART ADDICT | Dir: Lisa Immordino Freeland | 96min | US | Doc
Art lovers and social voyeurs will be thrilled and inspired by this engrossing biopic that reveals Peggy Guggenheim as an enthusiastic and appealing maverick who used her meagre fortune to amass one of the most eclectic art collections ever – Peggy Guggenheim — Art Addict, follows the bumper crop of remarkable documentaries – along with The Best of Enemies, Listen to Me Marlon, Janis Little Girl Blue and Hitchcock/Truffaut making 2015 a standout year for American documentaries. MT
THE NEON DEMON: Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn | 118min | Drama | US
In his coruscating takedown of the fashion industry in contempo Los Angeles Nicolas Winding Refn’s Palme D’Or hopeful THE NEON DEMON epitomises the competitive resentment women feel for one another in this cat eat cat world.
Its subject matter clearly indicates that this is not a thriller about wallflowers or the faint-hearted. A phenomenal central performance from Elle Fanning leads a cast of international acting talent categorised by punchy female characters with two standout male roles for Alessandro Nivola and Keanu Reeves. Scripted by Winding Refn and co-writers Mary Laws and Polly Stenham, this mannered often bitchy exposé is driven forward by its blindingly magnetic visual style and a pounding electronic soundtrack from Cliff Martinez (Drive). MT
TROUBLEMAKERS: THE STORY OF LAND ART (2015) | Dir.: James Crump; Documentary; USA 2015, 74 min.
Best known for his 2007 documentary Black White & Gray, about the relationship between photographer Robert Maplethorpe and Sam Wagastaff, Robert Crump here turns his camera on a group of artists who create Land Art, a movement which grew out of the rejection of gallery culture in late 1960s Los Angeles.
It goes without saying that these artists were idiosyncratic. While Heizer is a throwback to the American pioneer, who conquered the West, de Maria was a much more gentle and poetic creature. Crump avoids a hagiographic approach, but he manages to convey the utter originality of the artists. TROUBLEMAKERS is a film to be savoured: the images of DOP’s Robert O’Haire and Alexandre Themistocleus, as well as the films by Heizer and Holt about their work process, are absolutely out of this world. Together with the documents from the late ’60s showing how the artists gradually left the bars of LA for the wide-open spaces of the deserts, TROUBLEMAKERS is a unique visual journey. AS
And one for 2017..
PERSONAL SHOPPER | Dir: Olivier Assayas | 105min | Fantasy Drama | France
Paris has always has sinister side, inspiring Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue to Balzac’s paean to the Pierre Lachaise Cemetery in his Comedie Humaine: French literature is redolent with the macabre. So it seems somehow feels fitting that Olivier Assayas should add other chilling chapter to this spectrally- charged capital with his fantasy ghost story PERSONAL SHOPPER. The film is creepy, charismatic and as quirkily inventive as its French director whose films constantly challenge as he dabbles for the first time in the supernatural. Its superstar Kristen Stewart shimmers in a sombrely subtle turn that is as dark as its subject matter. She plays dark horse Maureen Cartwright, a 27 year old American girl who is bored with life and living out a meaningingless few months as a personal shopper to bitchy German media figure Kyra (Nora vonWaltstätten), while she mourns the death of her twin brother Lewis. MT
Prod|Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Writer: Rod Serling | Cast: Sterling Hayden, Ben Gazzara, Peter Sellers, Eva Marie Saint, Steve Lawrence, Pat Hingle, Robert Shaw, James Shigeta, Barbara Ann Teer, Percy Rodriguez, Britt Ekland.
USA / Drama / 84min
This ambitious pacifist reworking of ‘A Christmas Carol’ with echoes of H.G.Wells’s ‘Things to Come’, commissioned by the United Nations, is one of those creations more interesting for the fact of its existence than for what it actually achieves. The only TV production ever directed by Joseph Mankiewicz (who was still feeling ashamed at himself for making Cleopatra), it was written by Rod Serling, and resembles a feature length episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ at its most earnest. As liberal America breathed a sigh of relief at having just dodged the bullet of a Goldwater presidency, it probably already felt dated the very evening it was transmitted without commercials on ABC on 28 December 1964, when it attracted a lively debate; followed by a silence that lasted nearly half a century. There was a one-off screening at the National Film Theatre on London’s South Bank in 1977, but for decades all that survived of CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMASwas its haunting theme by Henry Mancini. Not until 48 years later, on 16 December 2012, was it finally re-screened on TCM. A month ago it was posted on YouTube, so now we can all finally see it.
Made at a time when the world was still shaking from the twin traumas of the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy, it ironically now seems in retrospect a relic from a gentler age, before Vietnam and Kent State. The elephant in the room of CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS was an escalating Asian ‘police action’ which had already swelled the number of US military personnel in Vietnam from several hundred to over 10,000 by the time the 25 January 1963 edition of LIFE magazine carried a cover article entitled ‘We Wade Deeper into Jungle War’. The obsession with The Bomb and the almost comforting abstraction of Mutually Assured Destruction displayed by DR STRANGELOVE and CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS would soon be replaced by the messier and more immediate shambles of the Vietnam War and the emergence of hippie culture which swiftly rendered CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS irrelevant and unrepeatable.
Sterling Hayden (playing what was probably his final lead) is Daniel Grudge, who has never got over the death of his son Marley on Christmas Eve 1944 (seen in a portrait and fleetingly as a ghost played by an uncredited Peter Fonda) and has withdrawn from the outside world. Having shunned his young nephew Ben Gazzara’s pleadings to support world unity, Grudge is shortly afterwards spirited away to a WWI troopship loaded with coffins where the Ghost of Christmas Past introduces himself in the form of a loquacious American doughboy from 1918 (Steve Lawrence) who talks (and talks) like a hip 60’s peacenik. Like most of the characters, Christmas Past has made his point long before his lecture ends, and when criticising the world community for inaction in the face of Nazi expansionism whitewashes the role of Hitler’s then ally into a neutral bystander through the extraordinary claim that “Russia kept the phone off the hook while Poland was destroyed” (Katyn anyone?). The fact that the film’s concern is with atomic rather than conventional warfare is underlined by Drudge’s next visit (with Eva Marie Saint), back to Hiroshima in 1945; after which Pat Hingle as Christmas Present is shown stuffing his face while others go hungry. (Drudge’s distaste at his display of Western indifference to the hardship of others is more implicit than apparent in Hayden’s monotonous performance, as his expression changes little through this or what follows).
Christmas Future in the form of a bearded Robert Shaw then introduces Grudge to a post-Apocalyptic nightmare reminiscent of ‘Things to Come’, and presided over by Hayden’s DR STRANGELOVEco-star Peter Sellers. Making his first acting appearance since his near-fatal heart attack the previous spring, Sellers is visibly a changed man. Leaner and with a manic gleam in his eye (it is hard to tell whether it is simply acting or the result of his recent near-death experience), he makes the flesh crawl as a demagogue rejoicing in the name ‘Imperial Me’. He wears a pilgrim suit and ten gallon hat bearing the moniker ‘ME’, and as he expounds the New Order of self-centred pig ignorance and rouses his ragged followers in a frenzied chant of “ME! ME!! ME!!!”, the possibility occurs that after 52 years of obsolescence, maybe CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS‘s time has finally come. RICHARD CHATTEN
AVAILABLE TO BUY ON AMAZON.CO.UK OR VIEW ON YOUTUBE
DIR: Thierry Demaiziere, Alban Teurlai | Doc | France | 107min
Despite a nondescript and bland title – RESET turns out to be a fascinating documentary about the oldest national ballet company the the world: the Paris Opera Ballet. Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai explore a new chapter for this prestigious organisation with the visionary appointment of dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied – best known for his work on the Black Swan – and his marriage to Nathalie Portman.
This is a more fluid and unstructured affair in comparison with Frederick Wiseman’s impressive film La Danse which captured the austere and highly traditional set-up before Millepied took over. If anything, RESET has the same charismatic gusto of Nick Read’s highly enjoyable Bolshoi Babylon (2015) that captured the zeitgeist of recent upheavals at Moscow’s famous ballet company. There is a great deal of talky behind the scenes politics which may not appeal so much to general non-French speaking audiences but devotees will lap this up and find Millepied’s unorthodox approach and political machinations enthralling. Alban Teurlai’s expert camerawork conveys the ethereal bliss of the mise-en-scènes and dancing routines and those bored with the politics will soon be entranced when things lighten up after the initial preamble where the likeable maverick Millepied gets his knees firmly under the table blowing the cobwebs away in the darkest corners of this maze-like institution, with the help of his stressed-out assistant Virginia.
The film divides its study into brisk chapters but could have made more of the corps de ballet’s more of Millepied’s electrifying affect on the individual performer with his Millepied’s charisma shining as an an exciting beacon of hope and innovation for the Paris Ballet’s future. MT
Dir.: John Hamburg; Cast: James Franco, Zoey Deutsch, Bryan Cranston, Mengan Mullally, Keegan-Michal Kelly, Griffin Gluck; USA 2016, 111 min.
WHY HIM? is just another chapter in the Meet the Parents saga, and director/co-writer John Hamburg tries very hard to succeed, forgetting that the success of any Rom-Com is measured by its light touch. But instead of a soufflé up comes a stodgy brew of clichés and didactic, overlong scenes, ramming home his points, afraid that the audience needs permanent reminders when to laugh.
From the sticks of their Ohio home the three Flemings – father Ned (Cranston), mother Barb (Mullally) and teenage son Scottie (Gluck) – set out to visit daughter Stephanie (Deutsch) in California for Christmas, where they hope, that the future son-in-law Laird (Franco), will make a better impression in person than in their introductory, rather disastrous Skype session. But Laird is even worse in person: a rich young man, worth all of 193 million bucks, he runs a high-tech labour in his futuristic house, where he insists on a strict New Age lifestyle, including a paper free environment, including the bathrooms. Since he is also fond of including at least two swear words in one sentence, a combative confrontation with Ned is guaranteed: apart from the normal Electra obsession with his sex-loving daughter, his printing business in Ohio is going bankrupt. Laird’s side-kick, Gustav, speaking with a very fake German accent, attacks his master violently at will, keeping him alert to any danger; prompting Ned to compare their relationship with the one between Closeau and Cato in the Pink Panther films – a symbol for Hamburg’s heavy-handed approach. Needless to say, the two males – mistaking their diverse obnoxiousness for candour – will end up in a brawl themselves, shattering the glass case in which an elk is preserved in his own urine, in the process. But fear not, the landing is very safe indeed.
Trying hard in every aspect –wanting to be funny, daring and original – WHY HIMsomehow manages to be neither. To start with, Deutsch’ character is dreadfully under-developed. She is just an object for the men to fight over, and even though Stephanie rebels initially, she eventually finds her place in a united family business, featuring orgasm-inducing toilet water works, instead of ordinary loo paper. Her mother Barb is just an appendix to her husband, reminiscing about the past and moaning about a lack of sex. Yes, there are some funny ideas, but even the best suffer from Hamburg’s inclination not to cut any scene, before it has run its length – and more. The result is a near two-hour running time, including a rather sad appearance of two members of Mom’s and Pop’s favourite band Kiss, and Barb’s equally misplaced attempt of rivalling her daughter, when admitting to a ”hand-job for Ned” after the young couple had attended a concert of their favourite quartet. AS
Dir.: Aaron Brookner; Documentary with Jim Jarmush, Tom DiCillo, Sara Driver; UK/US 2016, 96 min.
Filmmaker Aaron Brookner (The Silver Goat) has not only rescued his uncle’s Howard most famous documentary Burroughs: The Movie (1983), but also created a moving portrait of the late director, who died of Aids in 1989, just 34 years old.
UNCLE HOWARD is not just a trip down memory lane or a hagiography shown through poignant home movies of Aaron and Howard, it is very much a research document, however loving. To start with, it took quite a while to get to “Burroughs Bunker”, at 222 Bowery in New York, a windowless flat in New York, where the late writer and provocateur worked until his death in 1997, when the place was taken over by his friend, the poet John Giorno. He was reluctant to allow Aaron access to the archive, which included positive and negatives of the Burroughs film. But finally, with the help of Jim Jarmush – co-producer of Uncle Howard and sound technician on the Burroughs film – Aaron rescued the film from oblivion. What Aaron found, was not only the documentary itself, but also shots of its making. Apart from Burroughs and Ginsberg, many of the ‘underground’ artists of the New York scene can be seen in action: Frank Zappa and Andy Warhol amongst them, as well as filmmaker Tom DiCillo, Howard Brookner’s DoP, and director and actor Sara Driver, one of the co-producers of UNCLE HOWARD. Interviews with the theatre director Robert Wilson, subject of Howard’s second documentary Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars (1987), shed further light on Howard Brookner’s working method. When Howard was negotiating with Columbia about the contract for his first feature film Bloodhounds of Broadway with Madonna and Matt Dillon, one of the studio executives remembers, that the director mentioned this could be his first and only film – not taking this literally. But Howard died in April 1989, before the premiere of Bloodhounds.
UNCLE HOWARD visits favourite artist haunts such as the Chelsea Hotel, and the St. Vincent hospital in New York – “the Ground Zero” for New York’s Aids victims of the Eighties and Nineties – which today is a luxury apartment block. DoPs Gregg De Domenico and Andre Döbert thoughtfully select styles to show how much the city has changed – for the better, and how much it has lost in the last 25 years. UNCLE HOWARD is a Trauerarbeit, but also a celebration of the life and work of Howard Brookner.
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS INCLUDING CURZON FROM 16 DECEMBER 2016
Dir: Otto Bell | With: Aisholpan Nurgaiv, Daisy Ridley | Doc | UK | 87min
The Kazakhs are a fiesty lot and their kids are no exception, growing up in the hostile terrain of the Steppes with its perishingly cold winters and scorching summers. With echoes of Sergei Dvortsevoy’s drama Tulpan (2008) THE EAGLE HUNTRESS explores the life of a young Kazakh girl who grows up in the remote Altai mountains of Mongolia (west of Ulan Bator) where she has made her mind up to become the first female eagle hunter in twelve generations of her Kazakh family. Theirs is a nomadic lifestyle that very much connects to a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the world.
The feature debut of filmmaker Otto Bell, this is an informative piece of cinema vérité that unfolds in the snug interiors of Kazakh family yurts (with solar panels!) and offers some dizzying, often slow-mo, widescreen aerial shots of this vast and inhospitable region between Russia and China. We first meet the rosy-cheeked 13 year old as she starts her training with golden eagles under the auspices of her father – who looks about 50 but is feasibly in his early 30s.
As you can imagine, this is no cuddly animal story, once trained in the art of – what amounts to falconry – Aisholpan has to descend on ropes down a vertiginous rockface to steal a baby eagle from under its mother’s nose in a nest hundreds of feet above the valley. The eaglet is just old enough to fly but young enough to get accustomed to its new form of captivity where it will help in hunting foxes, before eventually being returned to the wild, according to Kazakh tradition.
The rest of the community is dubious about their women going out to hunt. The elders, in particular, think their females should stay at home and cook and are not adapted to the fierce outdoor conditions – especially during the winter months. But Aisholpan is undeterred and goes on to prove them all wrong in both her competitive skills – where she gets all dolled up with nail varnish and a fancy fur hat – and in endurance tests where she accompanies her father in a gruelling fox hunt that leads them on horseback into deep snow drifts, carrying their eagles aloft.
Daisy Ridley’s accompanying narrative doesn’t quite have the Attenborough touch, making you wish for more salient facts about the Kazakhs and their daredevil lifestyle, but all said and done this is an impressive film, and an ambitious one at that! Wishing Otto Bell the very best of luck his documentary and may he make many more along these lines. MT
ON RELEASE AT PICTUREHOUSES AND CURZON CINEMAS FROM 16 DECEMBER
Cast: Sofia Boutella, Joelle Koissi, Robert Sheehan
Drama (2016) 80mins UK/India
JET TRASHisn’t exactly trash: the title refers to the aimless young drifters who arrive in India to ‘find themselves’, often finding themselves in more dubious circumstances, as they do here in Scottish filmmaker Charles Henri Belleville’s second roadie title – his debut one was The Inheritance. Gorgeously lurid and party-loving is how the billing describes this stylishly psychaedelic back-packer thriller that’s schematically plotted but well performed by a promising cast of British actors, amongst them the mesmerising Robert Sheehan. The takeaway is Belleville’s stunning ability to re-package quite ordinary material into something glamorously hedonistic and fun, albeit rather glib.
Aimed at the ‘millennial’ crowd and based on his book ‘Go’, Simon Lewis co-scripts with Dan M Brown to evoke the contempo zeitgeist where brash and privileged Brits ease themselves into adulthood not by hard work and entrepreneurial endeavour but by an infinitely more unimaginative and streetwise mix of drug-dealing and marrying for money (of the passport variety). The result is an under-scripted affair that leads its impressive cast on a predictable dance rather than an exciting journey.
Waking up on Christmas Day on a palm-fringed caster sugar beach was always going to be preferable to a wet one-bedder in Harlesden or some inner city tower block. And this is where our unappetising lead duo find themselves, after a dip and ‘one off the wrist’ in the crystal waters of Goa. Lee (Sheehan) and Sol (Osy Ikhile) have fetched up here courtesy of Sol trousering £17,000 in a dodgy marriage deal – to one Adeze (Adedayo), all pimped by the venal villain Marlowe (Craig Parkinson) who has knocked up his girlfriend Vix (Sofia Boutella) to keep her under control. Sadly, a sacred cow gets involved and, being India, the fallout is pivotal to the storyline of a sassy thriller that never takes itself too seriously and is all style over substance, but strangely none the worse for it.
By all accounts the cast and crew had a lovely time filming JET TRASH and it looks stunning too thanks to Maja Zamojda’s sumptuous cinematography and Laura Ellis Cricks’ vibrant set design. JET TRASH is just that: See it as a bit of a knees up and you won’t come away disappointed. MT
JET TRASH PREMIERED AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL 2016 AND IS NOW ON RELEASE AT VUE CINEMAS
Writer|Dir: Richard Kelly | Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne, Patrick Swayze | US | Fantasy Drama Horror | 102min
Richard Kelly’s debut DONNIE DARKO is a strange and wonderful beast. The story opens in the wealthy family county of Middlesex, New Jersey where Jake Gyllenhaal’s rebellious teenager Donnie lives with his parents and younger siblings in a plush and leafy part of town. This is no straightforward fantasy but a dark and tonally complex curio seeped in unsettling anxiety that scratches at the edges of horror, and seems even more relevant today in our unpredictable social climate, than it did back in 1988.
Assigned to a kindly behavioural therapist (a middled-aged Elaine Robinson/aka Katherine Ross), Donnie seems to suffer from mild paranoid schizophrenia manifesting in daytime visions of a fierce grey bunny rabbit, who exhorts him to commit crimes and misdemeanours in the upmarket residential backwater where Donnie’s pleasantly straight-laced parents only want the best for him and his sisters Elizabeth (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a Harvard hopeful, and Samantha, who is part of a slightly inappropriate dance troupe.
Donnie is a gifted and smart adolescent whose sleepwalking habit actually saves his life when he narrowly avoids death on the night when a 747 engine lands on the family house. This is weird for two reasons: the rabbit told him to make himself scarce before the event, and, there is no trace of the engine’s plane. And when Donnie’s doc discovers he has stopped taking his meds, she recommends hypnotherapy, which ends embarrassingly – on the verge of Donnie playing with himself.
Gyllenhaal is perfectly cast in the lead: far from geeky, his face has a compelling quality that is both wholesome and otherworldly depending on Steven Poster’s clever lighting techniques. He also conveys a dreamy sexuality that feels entirely natural as he falls for Jena Malone’s troubled teenage crush, Gretchen Ross, who father is a criminal.
But the underlying theme of the narrative is teenage anxiety in all its forms. And Patrick Swayze’s inspirational school mentor Jim Cunningham aims to counsel the kids on how to realise their true potential, adding a very prescient and modern day touch to the proceedings.
Where Donnie Darko slightly goes off the rails is in scenes featuring the ‘wormholes’ as described during the physics lessons. These are shown in bubbles that extend from each character’s torso, yet move the film from its disturbing psychological agenda to an unfeasible fantasy territory that feels unconvincing and lacks the charm of, say, Michel Gondry’s magic realist moments in Mood Indigo.
But Gyllenhaal’s mesmerising and mystical performance carries the film through these flaws, making Donnie’s sinister world of worry a compelling and
twisted portrait of teenage anguish and a convincing parallel universe to his upbringing in conventional suburban America of the 1980s. MT
Dir.: Min Bahadur Bham | Cast: Sukra Ray Rokoya, Khadk Raj Nepali, Benisha Hamal/Nepal/France/Switzerland/Germany | Drama | 90 min.
First time director Min Bahadur Bham explores an intense story of friendship in the midst of a civil war: The Black Hen is set in 2001, during the Maoist insurgency in Nepal from 1996-2006. The conflict cost over 13 000 lives – over twelve per cent were children who had to join the Maoist forces, often against their will.
Prakash (Nepali) and Kiran (Rokoya) are school friends at their primary school, divided by classes: Prakash’s father is a poor peasant, whilst Kiran’s belongs to the wealthy ruling class. The boys are nevertheless the best of friends. One day, Prakash’s sister Bejuli (Hamal) gives her little brother a white hen as a present. Soon afterwards she will be married, but runs off fighting with the Maoist soldiers. Prakkash’s father sells the hen – called Karishima, after a Nepalese film star – to Tenziny, whose daughter is pregnant and needs nourishment from the bird’s eggs. But Prakash and Kiran don’t give up easily: they steal the hen, and colour it black. Prakash pretends he has bought it for a good price with the money his sister left him, and his father lets him keep it. But soon the hen disappears, and the two boys stumble into a deadly battle between forces of the Nepalese Army and the Maoists, supported by China. They nearly fall out with each other, having to play dead to save their lives – but back at home, a surprise awaits them.
THE BLACK HEN is told without sentimentality, this story of friendship conquering class divides and a brutal war, is moving and full of deeply felt humanism. Prakesh and Kiran are anything but goody-two-shoes boys – they are truants who steal money for cinema tickets, and are not above picking a fight with anyone. But the hen is the symbol of their friendship, they fight for it with idealism, untainted by adult opportunism. DoP Aziz Zhambakiev excels particularly in the dream sequences, when Prakash imagines the big city, where Nepalese monks and Maoists fight their battle on the streets. Whilst the colours here are dreamy and soft, his images of the hilly countryside seem bleached out of all light, the action occurring at always dusk or dawn. Amidst the harsh reality of war, THE BLACK HEN is imbued with a childlike magic, deservedly winning the Critic’s Week Prize at Venice Film Festival 2015.AS
Dir.: Ingmar Bergman; Cast: Betil Guve, Pernilla Allwin, Ewa Frölling, Jan Malmsjö, Allan Edwall); Sweden/France/West Germany 1982, 168 min (film version) 312 min (TV Series)
Fanny and Alexander was supposed to be the swansong of Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007), but he went on to direct many more TV films, like Saraband (2003), often with his favourite screen actors Liv Ulmann and Erland Josephson. FANNY AND ALEXANDER was one of his most optimistic features, even though the dark epilogue takes some of the positivism away.
Set between 1907 and 1910 in Uppsala, a Swedish city famous for its university, it tells the story of two siblings Fanny (Allwin) and Alexander (Guve), whose father Oscar (Edwall) dies suddenly of a stroke. Their mother Emilie (Frölling), soon remarries the bishop of the city, Edward Vegerus (Malsmsjö), who turns out be an autocratic, joyless tyrant. The children and their mother were used to a carefree, artistic lifestyle, and do not want to adjust to the cold hearted stepfather, who in particular punishes Alexander, for his ability to see “invisible friends”. When Emilie decides to leave with her children, Edward threatens that she will loose them, since he will not agree to a divorce. But a friend of her former mother-in-law, smuggles the children out of Vegerus’ house, while he is sedated with a bromide drink. She tells Edward, that she intends to leave him, but he makes it known that he will go on ruining their lives. Vegerus’ dying aunt, who lives in his house, sets her hair and bedclothes on fire with a gas lamp, and runs to Edward’s bedroom, setting him on fire. In spite of his sedation, he manages to save his aunt, but dies soon afterwards. In an epilogue, the family is again living their former, sunny and lighthearted way, when Alexander sees Vegerus in his dream, And is told “you will never be free of me”.
Whilst the sprawling saga is one of Bergman’s more traditional outings, DoP Sven Nykvist conjures up a romantic atmosphere of a bygone era, which overwhelms the audience with its sumptuous visual aesthetic. The contrast between the dark, mausoleum-like atmosphere in Vegerus’ house, is set against the playful, lightly and softly lit scenes bookending the dreadful insulation where the three have suffer. The cast, particularly the children, are brilliant and Bergman directs with his usual thoughtful sensitivity. AS
Writer|Dir: Robin Pront | Cast: Kevin Janssens, Jeroen Perceval, Veerle Baetens, Jan Bijvoet, Viviane de Muynck | 96min| Crime drama | Belgium
Robin Pront proves that blood is thicker than water, but that love doesn’t conquer all in his feature debut, a hard-edged ‘Flemish noir’ that explores the rift that develops between two petty criminal brothers whose relationship is put under strain after a burglary goes wrong.
The verdant rolling hills of the title give way to the rainy urban setting of Antwerp where their family echoes that of Bullhead – close-knit and protective of their own but always open to internecine resentment and small-mindedness. In fact the films share the same producer Burt Van Langendonck. But the only pâté made here is a by-product of violent head-butting and brutal violence between the males.
After an intriguing opening scene where a man struggles out of a domestic swimming pool, fully clothed and gasping for air through his stockinged hood, it turns out this is Dave (Jeroen Perceval/Bullhead), escaping from the scene of the crime but his accomplice brother Kenny (Kevin Janssens) ends up in the clink serving seven years for burglary. Once in prison, Kenny’s resistance to grass on his brother ends in a poke in the eye when Dave promptly runs off with his trailer trash ex-druggie girlfriend Sylvie (Veerle Baetens), who has aided and abetted the pair’s criminal career.
Kenny is less than pleased, on parole four years later, to discover that Sylvie is pregnant and shacked up with Dave, and it later transpires his former gang have gone straight and teetotal, and his only future lies in manual work. Clearly, these men are meatheads, and even their mother looks like she has had her fair share of punch-ups. THE ARDENNES spends a great deal of time painting a portrait we can already well imagine: grimy sink estates, violent outbursts of machismo, Sylvie vomiting and smoking riffs, and general cries of ‘Gott Verdomt’ but this sordid and repetitive detail adds nothing to a the tension of a narrative whose central thrust is: when is Dave going to spill the beans to Kenny about Sylvie.
The climax eventually comes when Kenny loses his cool and kills the owner of their local, giving Dave the leverage he needs – assisting with the disposal of the evidence. And this all takes place in the isolated trailer home of Kenny’s old prison roomie Stef (a slimy Jan Bijvoet), deep in the Ardennes countryside where Stef’s transvestite boyfriend cooks up a mean fry- up while Pront gets rounds to delivering the denouement we’ve all been waiting for. This is a decent thriller that could have been a bit tighter in the first two acts but all’s well that ends well, or doesn’t, in this arthouse tragedy that will make you re-think that walking trip to the gentle pleasures of Belgium’s Ardennes. MT
OUT ON RELEASE FROM 9 DECEMBER 2016 courtesy of STUDIOCANAL at CINE LUMIERE AND THE ICA AND CHAPTER CARDIFF FROM 16 DECEMBER 2016
Dir.: Roger Ross Williams | Documentary with Owen Suskind | USA 2016 | 89 min.
Director/co-writer Roger Ross Williams (God loves Uganda) offers up a humane and hopeful portrait of Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) through sufferer Owen Suskind and based on “Life, Animated: A story of Sidekicks, Heroes and Autism” by Owen’s father, the Pulitzer winning journalist Ron Suskind, who is also the executive producer of this documentary.
When Owen Suskind was three years old, the communicative and lively boy withdrew into himself cognitively and emotionally. For over four years, his only stimulation where Disney films, which he watched over and over. When his father Ron and mother Cornelia were told that their youngest son was suffering from ASD, their dream of a perfect family life was shattered. But with the help of therapists they have enabled their son, who is now 25, to lead an assisted but nevertheless rewarding life with his own home and romantic attachment. Owen gave a speech to a conference of specialists in autism in France, and hosts a radio-show. His message to all his audiences is clear: autistic people do not want to be alone.
LIFE, ANIMATED does offer insights into ASD: one of the signs is Echolalia, a sort of parrot speech, which peaks with normal children at around 30 months, but ASD sufferers, who have great anxiety problems because their brains are differently wired, do not unlearn this early communication model. Their prediction and anticipation timing is much slower than the norm. Furthermore, as Owen’s history proves, they often suffer from weak co-ordination and motor planning inflicted by a low muscle tone which leads to walking impairment, amongst other inflictions. Because those afflicted by ASD have great difficulty identifying the meaning of words, due to a lack a rhythmical understanding of the words, their speech is often slow and sometimes difficult to understand and this is made worse because they cannot grasp the body language of the person they communicate with. Owen proves over and over again that this is not because of a mental disorder, his drawings and acute analysis of concepts like heroism, in his beloved Disney world, show a vivid imagination and acute knowledge of interactions. But this is limited to the black-and-white world of Disney cartoons. In the real world, Owen struggles, because the signals he gets from his environment are not clear and understandable for him. If we consider that we all suffer from double-bind signals given to us, we can imagine how hard it is for someone like Owen to cope with contradictive signals given by the adult world he lives in.
His first relationship with Emily, who also suffers from ASD, comes to an end, because she does want the closeness Owen needs. Owen is stunned, because Disney movies, with their regular happy-endings, have not prepared him for this outcome. As his older brother Walter – who is prepared to look after him, when their parents are gone – muses, Disney has not prepared Owen for a normal sex life, since there is no “Disney Porn”. It is a sign of normality – rightly or wrong – that children who want to be Superheroes, are seen as normative, whilst Owen, who identifies with all the sidekicks in the films, is really much more realistic than his so called normal brethren.
LIFE, ANIMATED is greatly helped by the original animation of Mac Guff, who draws the world in which Owen lives. DoP Tom Bergmann’s close-ups of Owen are highlighting the world he lives in – trying to understand a universe that does not always complies with the norms of his Disney world. A deeply humanistic and emotionally satisfying documentary showing that the other side of ‘normal’ is often more innovative than the bland world the rest of us live in. AS
77min | Documentary | Azerbaijan | Romania | Germany
Writer and filmmaker Iman Hazanov’s debut feature uncovers a picturesque corner of rural Azerbaijan where the only immigrants are of the bovine variety. Magnificently captured on the widescreen and in intimate close-up, this cinema vérité piece takes us through a year in the life of an impoverished villager who is determined to give his family a better life without leaving his homeland.
A decent family man, Tapdig figures that prosperity is cow-shaped. On the telly he’s seen that European cows are bigger and more healthy than Azerbaijani ones. They also produce more milk. Unfortunately the local village elders don’t agree: “Bring a woman, yes, but not a cow”. Although the subject matter is light-hearted there are important messages in the idle chat of these village elders who, despite their old-fashioned thought patterns, consider themselves fully part of the European Union, but are at pains to point out “Prosperity must come from the top”. These Azerbaijani villagers claim to be contented feel looked after by their Government. Traditional they may be, but they also have minds of their own in this close community, and are not afraid to express them. But Tapdig believes prosperity is a ‘bottom-up’ affair and is determined to prove it, despite the negative opinion of his elders.
Sarvar Javadov’s camera-work is Turkish in style with its wide-screen panoramic views capturing the great sense of space in the surrounding countryside and the moody skyscapes of the Eastern Caucasus, and this is borne out in the views of the villagers: “there’s plenty of room here for everyone”. The dialogue scenes are shot in long slow takes, often with subjects wandering out of the frame while still talking, which adds a freshness and spontaneity, and occasionally a comic element, as when one of the old men nearly slips on the ice and the path of the cameraman.
Ready to risk it all, Tapdig eventually buys his cow, names her Madona, and brings her home to his family where she flourishes in a seemingly idyllic setting, providing milk, and even a calf: Alyona, although there is no mention of the breeding process, and no evidence of any other cattle in the village, apart from geese. The community here is clearly of the Muslim faith with their mosque the biggest building in the village. Azerbaijan, like Turkey, remains a secular country but a traditional one, where women are clearly submissive to their husbands but well cared for and loved, almost on a par with their animals, or so it seems. We see this in Tapdig’s single-mindedness and the fact that he discusses business matters with his son, even though the boy is yet hardly a teenager. His wife Vafa is reluctant to take care of Madona but eventually the cow becomes part of the large community with a promise of better things to come with Tapdig managing to finish building his house thanks to the proceeds from Madona’s milk.
Imam Hazanov took part in the Berlinale Talents scheme in 2014 and his touching human interest documentary very much connects to a global narrative of survival of small communities all over the World, and even provides an interesting counterpoint to the timely economic migration story, as revealed in its final third act. Hazanov’s story-telling shows a rich vein of situational humour that recalls that of Pawel Pawlikowksi’s early documentaries Tripping with Zhirinovsky (1995) and Serbian Epics (1992), obviously these are grander in scale but it will be interesting to see what Imam Hazonov makes of weightier matters himself. Clearly a talent in the making. MT
SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE FROM 9 DECEMBER | REVIEWED AT INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL | AMSTERDAM | 2015
Dir: Clint Eastwood | Cast: Tom Hanks, Laura Linney, Aaron Eckhart, Mike O’Malley | Drama | US | 96min
For a film about a near disaster SULLY is terrifically buttoned up. Clint Eastwood’s slowly stirring study of the day an Airbus A320 was skilfully landed in the Hudson River by its pilot, one Chesley Sullenberger, is more of a procedural than the melodrama it could have been, or perhaps audiences expected it to be – but it nonetheless stands as a quiet tribute to courage and experience, and that added ingredient – the X Factor – is enjoyable although its narrative style quails away from an over-dramatic impact that would have sent it into the realms of melodrama rather than biopic exploration.
Tom Hanks is serenely magnificent as Captain Sullenberger – or Sully – as he is affectionately known. A man who embodies duty, responsibility and dignity – a triumvirate of qualities that may come across as comfortably dull but are actually beyond reproach and undervalued in this age of male meltdowns. He has a wife (Laura Linney) to do the tearful bits, leaving him to his nerves of steel. As a pilot he is exactly what you want him to be: calm, detached and sympathetic: and that doesn’t mean he goes home to a night of undisturbed dreams: part of his appeal comes from his ability to remain focussed on the job – allowing his fears and trauma to be unleashed and processed in the aftermath in sleep disturbed by recurrent nightmares that imagine a dreadful scenario where his engine-less plane, with crew and 155 passengers, carroons through Manhattan’s skyscrapers in an incendiary ride to Hell. What actually happened during the near-fatal flight is relayed in a fascinating and supremely-crafted landing sequence where we join the striken passengers as the plane touches down on the Hudson with some of the most extraordinary skylines known to mankind as a variety of river craft zone in on the rescue mission that transforms the stricken journey becomes a miracle in Manhattan.
SULLY tells how on January 15th 2009, flight 1549 left La Guardia airport and, shortly after take-off, is hit by a squall of birds, wrecking both the plane’s engines. Rather than turning back to La Guardia, which he deems unfeasible, Sully takes an informed but split-minute decision (208 seconds to be precise) to land the plane in the Hudson River, successfully saving all souls on board. Later, he finds himself under intense scrutiny by the NTSB, whose investigation reveals that potentially one of the engines was still working and theoretically could have made it back to the airport. But that’s all theory and conjecture and Eastwood’s film sets out to show what actually happened and how Sully saved his reputation, his career and the lives of all concerned.
In a world of multi-orgasmic melodramas, of tiredly emotional meltdowns and ever-climaxing dramas, SULLY comes as a pleasant relief with its calm analysis and restrained performances. Don’t go expecting to be reduced to a nervous wreck, go to discover what really happens when a plane is forced to lands in water, and you’re lucky enough to have Captain Sully at the controls. MT
NOW SHOWING AT ODEON CINEMAS, ELECTRIC CINEMA, PORTOBELLO, ARTHOUSE CINEMAS, GATE NOTTING HILL
One wonders if the Dardennes brothers are still living in the real world with this low-key Belgian crime drama which feels stuck in the 1970s. It follows the daily life of a young GP who makes round the clock personal visits to her patients and harshly admonishes her practice intern for his lack of emotional detachment before reacting with guilt and tearful outbursts when a total stranger calls at the surgery after hours, and subsequently winds up dead.
The Dardennes’ 10th feature is a slow-burning procedural drama set in modern Liège where a solid cast perform a dreary tale of social realism amid unremitting gloom. This is not the Belgian city of frothy chocolate drinks and buttery waffles, but one of drugs and the dejected.
Hanael plays the bossy and humourless Jenny who takes great care of her patients but comes up against her intern Julien who decides to leave the medical world for good after a mild contretemps with Adèle Hanael’s good doctor. Matters take a turn for the worst when the police arrive to investigate the death of a young black girl who attempted to gain access to the surgery, just as it is closing (we feel her pain). Jenny is fraught with guilt at the incident and turns passive aggressive on several of her patients as she begins a freelance investigation into the possible murder.
For the first part of the two hour running time the film unspools in intimate close-up shots in the confines of the surgery and various domestic locations – as Jenny attempts to juggle her worthy medical activities (examining her patients’ seeping wounds, foot ulcers, stools and vomiting)- but eventually the ‘murder investigation’ takes complete hold of her and widens out into the environs of a wintery Liège where she is unable to let go of the stranger’s destiny for a predictable conclusion in the Dardennes’ trademark elliptical style.
The Dardennes Brothers have a legendary history of social realist filmmaking with successes at Cannes Film Festival winning the Palme D’Or for The Child and Rosetta and gongs for The Kid with a Bike, The Silence of Lorna amongst others. This is their least enjoyable film to date, but will no doubt appeal to ardent fans of their particular pared-down brand of realism. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 11-22 MAY 2016 | IN COMPETITION
Dir.: Spike Lee | Cast: Teyonah Parris, Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes, Angela Basset, John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson | USA | 127 min.
Director/co-writer Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing) seems to be getting more and more angry as he gets older. Whilst the reasons are obvious, and we did not need a triumphant Trump for proof, Lee’s method of translating his rage in Chi-Raq (as in may of his other films) is hardly helping a reasonable discussion about the social woes of the United States. Chi-Raq (the first major production of Amazon Studios) is an overblown numbers revue, a re-setting of Aristophanes Lysistrata in Chicago’s notorious Southside and a sort of hip-hop musical.
Lysistrata (Parris) is living with her lover Demetrius Dupree alias Chi-Raq (an amalgamation of Chicago and Iraq), the gang leader of the purple clad Spartans, in Chicago’s Englewood district. Their sworn enemies are the Trojans, led by Wesley Snipes (with an eye patch) as Cyclos. As in reality, the gang warfare has claimed more victims in Chicago than the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts combined. After the death of a baby-girl called Patti in a shoot-out between the gangs (most perpetrators and victims are black), Lysistrata, with the help of her wise neighbour Miss Helen (Basset) and her many sexy girl friends, organises a sex boycott: the men of both gangs have to give up their weapons, to gain access to their bedrooms again. With the help of preacher Mike Corridan (Cusack), Lygistrata organises the withdrawal action (No peace, no pussy), supported by a big chorus and Dolmedes (Jackson), who comments the action like a ringmaster.
Chi-Raq immediately sets the tone with its opening number “Pray 4 My City”, a raucous chorus. From then on, Lee hammers home his message, borrowing shamelessly from West Side Story, Patton and Dr. Strangelove, among others. Yes, this is supposed to be satire, but the numbers are so overblown, that they are more caricature than critique. Particularly the contrived ending underlines that form has overtaken content to a degree that the aesthetics have swamped the critical aspect of the film. Furthermore, Lee, like many others, does not seem to recognise the obvious: that the free availability of weapons and the billion Dollar profits of the industry are the true reasons for the killings. With its running time of more than two hours and its uneven narrative, Chi-Raq loses the audience at the end, when one gag after another tries to outdo its predecessor. DoP Matthew Libatique images dominate the proceedings, his choreography is truly marvellous – but help to suffocate the message. The cast, obviously having fun, is brilliant, particularly Teyonah Parris, who dominates the proceedings. What a shame that script and structure let everyone down. AS
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbinder, Rachel Weisz
Based on the 2012 novel by M.L. Stedman, director/writer Derek Cianfrance picks up where he had left off with Blue Valentine: a relationship spoilt by circumstances, fate and human fragility. The epic format, rare today, suits the subject well: spanning decades, the emotions are played out in full, leaving the audience exhausted by the end of the sweepingly romantic tragedy.
Tom Sherbourne (Fassbinder), a British soldier in WWI, seeks refuge as a light keeper on an isolated rock called Janus, off the coast in Western Australia. Emotionally and physically spent, he just seeks solitude; the bloodbath in France has opened his eyes to the endless possibilities of human cruelty. Just before he leaves for his post, he falls in love on the mainland with the young and headstrong Isabel Graysmark (Vikander), who later agrees to marry him. The two live – for a time – happily in the wilderness, before two miscarriages drive Isabel into a manifest depression. When Tom rescues a rowing boat, the couple find a dead man, and a baby girl very much alive. Isabel talks the very reluctant Tom into keeping the baby, pretending it was their own and setting in motion untold drama of colossal proportions.
The Light between Oceans is somehow a meeting between Henry James/Thomas Hardy and David Lean. The emotional hurt inflicted on their protagonists by the two authors, match well with Lean’s strong sense for the epic battle in hostile surroundings. The wild, beautiful landscape is the perfect background for this drama of guilt, savage suffering and motherly yearning seen through this visceral human need to procreate. DoP Adam Arkapaw’s magnificent visuals match both the human obsessions in the intense close-ups, and the dramatic remoteness of the environment in panoramic shots. Vikander and Fassbinder, a couple in real life, play their hearts out; Vikander’s strong but elegant poise (she is a trained ballet dancer), is well opposed to Fassbinder’s tortured movement and demeanor. Weisz’ Hannah, in spite of her turmoil, being the detached chess player, setting a trap for Isabel. This might be traditional cinema, but it is emotional and aesthetically powerful, well crafted on all levels, and truly moving thanks to Alexandre Desplat’s operatic score. AS
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS VUE, ODEON, CURZON FROM 2 DECEMBER 2016 | VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2016 REVIEW
Dir: David Bickerstaff | Prod: Phil Grabsky | Documentary | 86min |
The dynamic duo of Grabsky and Bickerstaff are at large again this time in Holland where the latest addition of their Exhibition of Screen series offers insight into one of the most intriguing painters of the medieval times through the Hieronymus Bosch Exhibition that took place at the Noordbrabants Museum in the small Dutch city early this year. Not only does this allow us unprecedented access to the extensive paintings and their curators, it also enables us to get a clear and often microscopic look at Bosch’s highly detailed 16th century world in his intricate artworks.
And commentary is provided by the experts; this time chief curator, Jos Koldeweij, Rachel Campbell Johnson, Art Critic of The Times and British filmmaker Peter Greenaway. And there’s so much to see and learn about here in The Garden of Earthly Delights where animals are often bigger than people, as they cavort on unicorns while birds swims and fish fly. Or The Last Judgement where grotesque events take over in a manic mayhem. The small town has able to gather all his most important works into this one place by offering deep insight into his work by an impressive collection of scholars. Campbell Johnson explains how Bosch interpreted his medieval vision and translated into our modern world, as if we were meeting the man himself, face to face. But what does it all mean?
In a tiny corner of Saint John of Patmos, we see a self-portrait of Bosch who was, contrary to popular belief, an ordinary and quite serious man who married well and became a leading member of the city’s religious fraternity ‘Brotherhood of our Lady’, living in one of the most illustrious townhouses in the main square. But behind this bourgeois facade, lay a highly inventive mind. Many of his triptych’s portray Heaven and Hell, a sort of pictorial version of Dante’s Inferno, where figures were roasted on poles or cast out in the wilderness, reflecting the doctrines of his era and gave rise to his vivid imagination and often tortured soul. Twenty of his drawings survive and 19 are offered in the exhibition and they depict an existential angst of nightmarish scenes where terrible eyes peer out from the ground and ears from the branches of trees. And then there is the legend of the woman who was martyred on the cross for growing a beard. As the camera zooms in to the delicately rendered portrait, it’s clear to see the bum fluff sprouting on her pale chin.
The Curious World of Hieronymus Boschcertainly lays to rest some myths and provides a fascinating insight into the artist himself, giving us a chance to get to grips with Bosch’s work in the context of this most intriguing time in art history. MT
Cast: Anja Plaschg, Laurence Rupp; Austria 2016, 89 min.
Vienna born director Ruth Beckermann (East of War), explores the relationship between the Romanian born Jewish poet and author Paul Celan and the Austrian poet and writer Ingeborg Bachmann and the unsurmountable emotional conflicts brought about by different parental influences. Celan was a Jew whose parents were murdered in the Holocaust and Bachmann was the child of a committed Nazi.
Beckermann has chosen an interesting structure: two actors read the letters between the couple, dating from 1948 to 1967; including the ones from Bachmann which she never posted. Between the readings, the actors Anja Plaschg (Bachmann) and Laurence Rupp (Celan) talk and smoke and wander around in Vienna’s “Funkhaus” (Broadcasting House) listening to concert rehearsals and dining in the cafeteria. Their discussions are earnest and give the impression of genuine conflict resolution.
Celan and Bachmann only spent a few months living together in the late 1940s, but they were obsessed with each other. Bachmann had great difficulty committing to any long-term relationships, and Celan’s hesitant nature was no help. But the main stumbling block was their rivalry as poets and writers. Both were writing in German, and as members of the literature circle “Gruppe 47” they were fierce competitors. Celan had written the Holocaust poem ‘Death Fuge’ (Todesfuge) in 1945, which was published in 1948. In 1953 Bachmann won the “Gruppe 47” award for ‘Die gestundete Zeit” (The extended hours), while just a handful voted for Celan’s ‘Death Fuge’. As Celan put it: just six people remembered my name. To make matters worse, Böckler, a critic of the West Berlin paper “The Tagesspiegel”, criticized Celan’s “dead language” and insinuated the poet “ gets away with it, because of his race”. This sort of reaction was not uncommon in West Germany after the war where the majority of Germans, including intellectuals, felt sorry for themselves, and transferred their repressed guilt for the Holocaust into attacks on Jews.
Both Bachmann and Celan had two major relationships during their involvement and avid exchange of letters: Celan was married to the French aristocrat Gisèle de Lestrange, with whom he had a child. Bachmann lived with the Swiss writer Max Frisch in Zurich and Italy. Dominated by hatred and self-hatred, their obsession with each other was to end in tragedy: Celan committed suicide in 1970 drowning in the Seine. Bachmann, addicted to Barbiturates, literally set herself alight with a cigarette in bed, and died three weeks later in Rome.
Their mainly unfulfilled love was typically for the decades after the end of WWII, when the emotional chasm between the victims (or their children) of the Holocaust and the Nazis (and their children) was simply too much of a hurdle to overcome, however strong their feelings for each other. Celan and Bachmann simply stood no chance: history overcoming their love .
DOP Johannes Hammel creates loving close-ups of the ‘couple’, and his matter-of-fact shots of the “Funkhaus”, where broadcasting history has been made for the last 90 years or so, is a reminder that these ordinary-looking places have witnessed a violent and changing history. THE DREAMED ONES is a chronicle of despondency and unfulfilled desires in a time over-shadowed with a past which not only lead to the death of millions, but also poisoned the lives of innocent survivors like Celan and Bachmann. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS COURTESY OF CONTEMPORARY FILMS | 2 DECEMBER 2017
Dir|Writer: David Lynch | Cast: Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, Dean Stockwell, Hope Lange, Priscilla Pointer | US | Fantasy thriller | 120min
In the recent eponymous documentary The Artlife, David Lynch talks about unsettling events that took place during his childhood in a small-town American setting, similar to Lumberton where BLUE VELVET takes place (although this feels like a larger city given its river and industrial wasteland). One of these incidents involved a naked woman outside his neighbour Dickie’s house. Sitting on a curb, she was crying and bleeding from the mouth – is this Dorothy? Those pivotal moments seem to have sparked a dark introspective quality in Lynch that he can’t talk about, but that later found its way into his films: Eraserhead, BLUE VELVETand Mulholland Drive.
BLUE VELVETis a noirish fantasy thriller flecked with irony, and a convincing rites of passage love story. Lynch could easily be Jeffrey Beaumont, the pleasant college boy who returns to the fictitious town of Lumberton to run the family hardware shop, while his father recovers in hospital from an incident involving the garden hose. The discovery of a severed human ear then takes Jeffrey to the local police chief, Detective John Williams, whose daughter Sandy will become Jeffrey’s accomplice in an adventure that leads to sexual awakening – although not with Sandy, at least not in the beginning.
Clearly, both Lynch and Jeffrey Beaumont come from similar loving families, but they also strive for adventure and, particularly, the darker side of life. Not content with running the local hardware store, student Jeffrey turns detective, hatching a plan that dices with danger, based on Sandy’s inside information on the police inquiry. And this involves gaining access to the home of nigh-club singer Dorothy Vallens (Rossellini) who is linked to the case and lives nearby. What Jeffrey discovers next involves a sordid criminal underworld that excites and appals him. Gradually he is drawn into a nefarious web of sexual deviancy, deceit and murder that runs contrary to his simple life in the lumber town where the most dangerous threat is being hit by a falling tree. A place where “a woodchuck actually knows how much wood he can chop” according to the local radio station.
BLUE VELVET is full of contrasts: red roses and white picket fences jossle with a severed human ear and a kidnapped child. Tonally, Lynch lurches successfully from sinister noir to light romance, and dissonant irony, and the dissonance is what makes it all so compelling. Jeffrey and Sandy are squeaky clean (how does the raunchy red décapotable fit in?) – sanitised even, in contrast to Dennis Hopper’s snarlingly vicious sadist and Isabella Rossellini’s battered bunny boiler. The motley crew that hang around in Rossellini’s private life – when she is not crooning on the dance floor of The Slow Club – are truly are a weird mix of depraved old biddies and over the hill hill billies, one of whom is also a convincing crooner in the style of Elvis (Dean Stockwell) . These are surely snatches from a Lynchian teenage dream, and over the years he has successfully channelled this dream life into the world of film.
Back in the day BLUE VELVETwas quite shocking – the scissor scene is seared to the memory; 30 years later the bizarre and ironic elements come to fore – the opening scene with the garden spray and dog and the final one with the model bird – and it feels almost quaint and Eighties. The score is magnetic and memorable but without the florid colour BLUE VELVET could actually be a Forties film Noir, complete with its functioning factories, Deco diners and even a smaltzy night club. The power of great cinema is its ability to re-invent itself across the generations. MT
CELEBRATING ITS 30 ANNIVERSARY BLUE VELVET is RE-RELEASED COURTESY OF PARK CIRCUS on 2 DECEMBER, OPENING AT BFI SOUTHBANK AND SELECTED VENUES NATIONWIDE
Dir: Niall Johnson | Script: Niall Johnson | Cast: Rafe Spall, Emilia Fox, Elaine Cassidy, Matthew Stagg, William Stagg | UK | Drama | 101min
To-do lists and highly personal catchphrases are the legacy Kate Greene (Emilia Fox) left a likeable husband and well-behaved kids in Niall Johnson’s soppy but thoughtful tear-jerker depicting her final months before succumbing to cancer, aged 38, in the idyllic coastal town of Clevedon, Somerset. It would be churlish to criticise this efficient film based on the bestseller by husband and teenage sweetheart St John Greene (Singe), an appealing Rafe Spall. The story flips between the couple’s whirlwind romance as gooey-eyed teens, and the weeks before and after Kate’s tragic death. Don’t expect much backstory on the family’s real life: this is a tribute to Kate’s never-ending dignity. Tissues at the ready. MT
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE VENUES FROM 25 NOVEMBER 2016
Dir.: Na Hong-jin; Cast: Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Jun Kunimura,
Chun Woo-hee, Kim Hwan-hee, Moo Myeong); South Korea 2016, 150 min.
Director/writer Na Hong-jin (The Yellow Sea) imagines a monstrous journey into the occult – gigantic not only in length, but also in narrative and aesthetic over-kill. What makes THE WAILING bearable in spite all of the hocus-pocus, is the performance of lead actor Kwak, whose police officer Jong-Goo is more of a loafer than an enforcer, bringing some comic relief to the often gruesome proceedings.
Set in the same rural environment as many of the famous South Korean detective mysteries like Memories of Murder, Jong is introduced at the breakfast table with his wife and daughter, eating leisurely before setting out to investigate a multiple murder – as if this would be a routine case in his tranquil village. As it turns out, Jong doesn’t need to worry, because the culprit, the father of the slain family has been already caught. Soon more gruesome killings occur, and Jong sets out into the woods, to look for the chief suspect, a Japanese stranger (Kunimura), who has been spotted eating animals. But in spite of employing a shaman (Il Gwang), Jong does not get any nearer to the solution of this mysterious murder spree, which starts to dominate his dreams, But worse is to come when his daughter (Hyo-jin Kim), is affected by the illness. Then a strange woman (Moo) starts throwing stones at the detective, before warning him that the Japanese is not the culprit. In the end, THE WAILING ends as it began: as a riddle about religious obsession: which is really the devil behind the mass slaughter – and poor Jong has to come up with the right guess, to save his daughter.
THE WAILING is not a traditional horror movie, it does not rely on jump-scares (only once) or use sound as a harbinger of approaching evil – it more or less sucks the audience in, just like the virus spreading in the village. This is a story about desperation, the helpless Jong (and the audience) trying to find a rational solution for the crimes. There is contamination, affected victims vomit constantly: bodily and psychologically possession is the name of the game. But in the end, this endless cycle of new victims and new suspects is tiring: the self-indulgence of the director takes it toll – not only in running time, but in the narrative structure of film. DoP Kyung-pye is able to create to create two separate worlds: the mundane village life, to which Jong clings too long for his own good, and the jungle of the woods, from where evil spreads. It is ironic, that after such an exhaustive tour-de-force the main emotional impact should be deflation. AS
Writer|Director: Jane Linfoot |Cast: Ruta Gedmintas, Tom Hughes, Tasha Connor | 90min | Drama | UK
A rather unsatisfying and typically British class drama whose message is enigmatically couched in a series of polite middle class characters who exchange doleful glances but fail to make THE INCIDENT resonant or rewarding as a piece of filmmaking.
In an impressive central performance Ruta Gedmintas does her best as Annabel to stretch the wafer thin narrative into something meaningful. Various incidents do occur but we are never sure which one Linfoot is referring to in her enigmatic title. Is it the initial one where Annabel’s unsatisfied architect husband Joe (Tom Hughes) has it off with troubled teenager Lily (Tasha Connor) in the confines of his car? Cracks were already visible in the facade of their marriage and they irritate each other in every scene.
Or is Linfoot alluding to the second interminably long but undeniably frightening incident where Lily turns up at the couple’s home, blind drunk and rocking a jaunty balaclava, when Annabel is alone, startling her before then disappearing without further ado?.
After a while the film gradually loses its momentum as it wanders into a didactic exercise in the British class system where the teenager is villified while the married couple discretely cough and distance themselves from the rather unfortunate scenario, deciding to ‘keep calm and carry on’ in an increasingly alienating denouement.
For the most part, THE INCIDENT fails to get under the skin of its characters, but perhaps this is what Linfoot intended in portraying typical English reserve. Hats off to Ruta Gedmintas for making it strangely compelling and watchable for her performance alone. Cinematography is also to be applauded, reflecting the mournful mood and sober aesthetic of muted shades with intimate close shots and subtle lighting techniques. Linfoot could have dug deeper into the rich morass of moral issues behind her storyline but decides not to and this is why THE INCIDENT ultimately feels as hollow as Gedmintas’ beautifully sculpted cheekbones. MT
THE INCIDENT IS PLAYING AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS DURING UNDERWIRE FESTIVAL 2016
Dir: Norman Jewison | Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates | US | Crime Drama | 109min
Directed by Norman Jewison (Rollerball), and scripted by Stirling Silliphant from the novel by John Ball – In the Heat of the Night was shot during the height of the Civil Rights movement and the Anti-Vietnam war protests, in the openly racist Southern state of Mississippi. It was the year before Bobby Kennedy’s murder and Richard Nixon’s victory in the Presidential elections: this was not only a topical, but also a brave undertaking, considering the violent climate in politics which spilled over into the streets.
In the little town of Sparta, Philadelphia homicide detective Virgil Tibbs (Poitier) waits at the railway station for the next train, taking him on to Memphis. Tibbs is arrested, without reason by the sheriff’s deputy, Sam Wood (Oates) – just because he is black. For Wood and his boss, sheriff Gillespie (Steiger), Tibbs is a godsend: he is the fall guy for the murder of industrialist Colbert who has been killed on the streets of the sleepy town the night before. After Tibbs shows Gillespie his police shield, the sheriff checks his identity with his home precinct, then asks Tibbs to help him clear up the murder, since he has already imprisoned the second wrongly accused man. Against his better judgement, Tibbs takes on the task: his main suspect is the cotton farmer Endicott (Grates), who had a motive to kill Colbert. Endicott slaps Tibbs, who retaliates, making the stunned Endicott cry out “my grandfather would have shot you for this”. In spite of being chased by a deadly quartet of racist killers, Tibbs solves the case, winning finally Gillespie’s respect.
This is not really a whodunit but a portrait of Southern society still living in the days of the Confederation whose flag can not only be found on cars and buildings in this film, but still proudly raised above the Governmental Mansions (and many ordinary houses) in some southern States today. Tibbs is permanently taunted being called “boy”. Meanwhile other black people in Sparta can’t get their minds round how a fellow black man could be a police officer.
Institutional racism is the order of the day and even the local café waiter ignores him. Verbal and physical threats poison the atmosphere – Tibbs is made to feel like a second-class citizen. The Voting Act of the 60s helped to restore some lawful semblance of order – at least at the polls, but the Supreme Court abolished it before this year’s election – making voter suppression in the South of the USA rife again.
The cast is stunning, but DoP Haskell Wexler is the real star (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Mulholland Falls) is the real star: his images reflect the simmering heat and violence, the evil lurking in the shadows and in broad daylight. His confrontational close-ups of Tibbs and Gillespie show restrained anger confronting bullying prejudice. The seediness of the little town where Wood lurks voyeuristically, looking at naked white women, is symptomatic of the era’s repressed sexuality. Edited by director-to-be Hal Ashby, Jewison has created not only an aesthetically supreme film, but a political document, that is still resonant today, nearly 50 years later. AS
Award-winning documentarian Mehrdad Oskouei (The Other Side of Burqa) gives us a predictably stark snapshot of life in an juvenile correctional facility for teenage girls, on the outskirts of Tehran.
Infact, the word correctional seems to be rather a misnomer as none of these young women appears to receive any behavioural therapy during their stay in the spartan dormitory where they only have each other for comfort, and a few cuddly toys. STARLESS DREAMS (Royahaye Dame Sobh) is a sensitive and compassionate study that never attempts to offer judgement. The girls discuss their harrowing experiences to camera, often breaking down in tears or even smiles of embarrassment in revealing sexual abuse (euphemistically termed ‘bother’) from their crackhead fathers and uncles and verbal and physical abuse from their mothers (often by ‘burning’). What emerges is a generalised picture of familial discord and dysfunction where the parents favour their sons and mistreat their daughters in a cycle of anger, drug use and petty criminality that percolates through to the girls, who are often forced into dealing and drug addition themselves.
Often outwardly flippant, the girls face up well to camera but behind the scenes they are depressed and often hysterical: “Once I was young and in love but unfair times have made me feel old”. The tone is claustrophobic and unremittingly grim as some talk of “chains and beating” back home, others of going back to the streets. STARLESS DREAMS could have benefited from the occasional cutaway to some hard facts or more ample backstories to give context to the girls’ misery. When their families arrive, tears, smiles and hugs give a different impression from the girls’ negative feedback offered ‘in private’, leading us to believe there is possibly more going on here than meets the eye. But it is clear that these girls are unhappy, unfulfilled and mistreated by their families and are never going to be given equal treatment in their male-dominated society. The ‘therapy’ offered inside the remand home consists of washing babies, hairdressing and making glove puppets, yet when the Imam arrives for prayer and discussion, the girls are ready for some feisty debate and probing questioning. Of course, all their intelligent ideas meet a dusty and non-committal response answer from the Imam. MT
Writer/Dir: Petr Kazda, Tomas Weinreb | Cast: Michalina Olszanska, Martin Pechlat, Klara Meliskova, Marika Soposka, Juraj Nvota
Glowing in Adam Sikora’s luminous black and white photography, I, OLGA HEPNAROVÁ is a stylised debut drama telling the true story of a mentally unstable teenager who became a cold-blooded killer in 1970s Czechoslovakia.
Olga Hepnarová was born in Prague in the early 1950s. An unhappy and alienated childhood made her reject her family and after an attempted suicide lead to a spell in a psychiatric institution, her career as a manual worked was brought to an abrupt end when she drove an HGV into a crowd of people at a tram stop in the city centre.
The subject matter is grim enough, but Tomas Weinreb’s spartan linear narrative gives this moody and at times explicitly sexual gay-themed character piece a detached and clinical feel so that it almost feels like a caricature of Eastern Bloc stricture. This acetic treatment feels too emotionally chilly and insubstantial to spark any mainstream interest outside the LGBT or arthouse crown who will be intrigued by Michalina Olszanska who plays the perverse and glowering chain-smoker with poise and an almost wilful insouciance.
The life of a mass murderer is surely rich in dramatic potential yet I, OLGA HEPNAROVA is completely devoid of drama. It initially feels as if Weinreb has failed to get under the skin of his anti-heroine, who remains a cypher throughout, not really appearing to care about being bullied at school, or ostracised in the mental home. The only time she shows emotion is during sex. And yet, in some ways, this is the perfect portrayal of a psychopath, who feels absolutely nothing for others, yet demonstrates a well concealed but seething narcissistic rage when ignored or thwarted, which is exactly how Olszanska plays Olga. It certainly explains Hepnarova’s anger which later erupts as revenge on the society that has failed to recognise her worth and potential. The final bathetic denouement has absolutely no impact in dramatic terms, coming without any warning or build up and almost seeming like an irrelevance until the police arrive, when we realise what exactly has happened – blink and you almost miss it.
Klara Meliskova is subtle and quietly affecting as Olga’s disappointed yet restrained mother but this is Olszanska’s film and she dominates it with a powerful sense of entitlement and denial. The final scene is a masterpiece in stiff upper lippery. MT
OUT at SELECTED VENUES ON 18 NOVEMBER 2016 BEFORE THE FILM LAUNCHES ON MUBI LATER IN THE MONTH.
Script|Director: James Schamus Writers: Philip Roth
Cast: Sarah Gadon, Logan Lerman, Linda Emond, Ben Rosenfield, Tracy Letts, Margo Kazaryan
110min | Drama | US
Best known for his successful writing collaborations with Ang Lee, James Schamus adapts a Philip Roth novel for his directorial debut INDIGNATION.
Themes of love and religious commitment play out in this impressively mounted and gently affecting drama with dynamite performances from Logan Lerman, Tracy Letts and Sarah Gadon. Lerman plays Marcus Messner, an aspirational A student from a strict Jewish background who dreams of becoming a lawyer in the Supreme Court and avoids conscription to the Korean war by winning a scholarship to Winesburg College Ohio during the close-minded society of 1950s America.
Despite identifying as an atheist, Messner finds himself sharing a room with several disruptive Jewish boys (Philip Ettinger and Ben Rosenfield) who are desperate to involve him in their Fraternity. Against his better judegement, he then falls for the charms of fellow student Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gadon) who is sexually experienced and emotionally unstable despite her respectable background.
Consumed by passion and finding it difficult to fit in, Marcus is transferred to a single room but not without the intervention of his college rector, Dean Caudwell, who debates the pivotal issue with him at length in a coruscating battle of wills and one of the best scenes of this intelligent drama. Schamus focuses on the intellectual and cultural aspects of the narrative rather than delving deeply into its romantic ideals: the love affair is there to serve the story rather than the other way round, and what transpires in the aftermath involves a deal with his mother (a superb Linda Edmond) who reads the riot act as only Jewish mothers can.
INDIGNATION is an absorbing and accomplished literary adaptation for James Schamus and a storming start to his filmmaking career. MT
Director: Morgan Neville | 99min | Documentary | US
A motley crew teams with Yo-Yo Ma in a bid to foster cross-cultural connectivity in another highly enjoyable documentary from Best of Enemies director Morgan Neville. For those new to Yo-Yo Ma, he is a proponent of Western classical music but here takes time out with the Silk Road Ensemble, a group of storytelling troubadours who co-create art, performance and ideas.
But first Neville sketches out a brief introduction to Ma, a Chinese American who was born in Paris in the ’50s and accidentally discovered his musical talent for cello during his childhood when he met the conductor Leonard Bernstein. The cello prodigy then developed his musical style collaborating with such luminaries as John Williams, Stephane Grappelli and Bobby McFerrin. Inventiveness is clearly the challenge for Ma who wanted to be more than ‘just’ a cellist and when he got together with the Silk Road Project, his creative juices continued to flow and percolate through their rich river of musical styles and influences from Italy to the Middle East culminating in their first experimental concert at Tanglewood in 2000.
Concentrating on the more eclectic members of the group and their newsworthy backgrounds of political upheaval and migration, Neville never really explores their musical genesis. Wu Man who plays the Chinese pipa; Iranian Kayhan Kalhor; the kamancheh – a stringed instrument – and Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh are amongst the collaborators whose stories are explored in greater depth but the nature and origin of their instruments is a subject for a more thorough musical doc.
The most moving story is that of Kalhor’s who was forced to flee Iran nearly a decade ago despite his desire to remain in his homeland. Live music also features in Neville’s film and we are entertained by a variety of upbeat songs and more poignant fare. Clearly this is a heartwarming collaboration that will go from strength to strength, forging new links that transcend those of race or nationality. MT
SCREENING AT CURZONCINEMAS.COM FROM 18 NOVEMBER | REVIEWED AT BERLINALE 2016
Director: Tomasz Wasilewski (Floating Skyscrapers)
Cast: Julia Kijowska, Magdalena Cielecka, Dorota Kolak, Marta Nieradkiewicz, Łukasz Simlat, Andrzej Chyra, Tomek Tyndyk
Drama | Poland / Sweden
After the festival success of 2013s Floating Skyscrapers, Tomasz Wasilewski returns with UNITED STATES OF LOVE; which had its world premiere at the 66th Berlinalé. Mining similar themes that include a pessimistic representation of emotional entrapment and the effects of such situations.
The film opens in Poland, 1990. The huge changes are brewing and percolating. The first euphoric year of freedom, but hovering is the idea of the unknown. An attempt to create a state of the nation micro epic, Wasilewski focuses on four women of different ages who ponder the central premise of existential action to please themselves. Agata is a young mother, trapped in an unhappy marriage, who seeks refuge in another, impossible relationship with a young priest. Renata is an older teacher fascinated with her neighbor Marzena – a lonely former local beauty queen, whose husband works in Germany. Marzena’s sister Iza is a headmistress in love with the father of one of her students.
The four stories overlap and intersect at various points but none strikes an emotionally fulfilling enterprise. The film seems a collection of much mocked eastern European art house tropes which we have seen before and been better handled by superior filmmakers. Expertly shot (by ace Romanian DoP Oleg Mutu) and with very strong performances by the four central actresses, you are very much left with the idea that the film is not the sum of its parts.
It is obvious that Wasilewski is attempting to move the big table of Polish art house greats but one comes away thinking that all he has been successful in is strip mining visual iconography and thematic questions and answers of a specific time and place. In all the qualities the film presents the female perspective is the most startling and welcome but again one feels that these female characters are laid naked (both metaphorically and literally) but ultimately for cynical and self-serving reasons.
In the role of Renata (expertly played by Dorota Kolak) we are faced with the one time in the film that Wasilewski gets to a point that passes his rigid distancing devices but typically he manages to drop the ball with an act of doubling that he probably thinks is a coup de cinema but only comes across as yet another international art trope that he hasn’t deserved to present.
UNITED STATES OF LOVE is not a lost cause and for that matter neither is the director. There is plenty here to interest; whether that be an all-encompassing melancholia or the stellar female performances. In retrospect he needs to lose the affluence of influence and head for pastures new that will enhance his obvious talents. D M Mault.
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE VENUES | 18 November 2016
Dir.: Anne Fontaine; Cast: Lou de Laage, Agata Kulesza, Agata Buzek, Vincent Macaigne; France/Poland 2016, 115 min.
Director and co-writer Anne Fontaine (Emma Bovary) creates an emotionally intense, aesthetically outstanding and politically brave film. Set in rural Poland in December 1945, THE INNOCENTS draws on material by the French doctor and resistance fighter Madeleine Pauliac (1912-1946) who was a Medical Lieutenant in the French Army and a member of the ‘Blue Squadron’, an all female unit involved in repatriating displaced citizens after the WWII.
Mathilde Beaulieu (de Laage) works in a field hospital in the Polish countryside. The war wounded are still dying, but the psychological impact on the even more serious, as Mathilde will soon find out when she meets Maria (Agata Buzek) a nun from the nearby cloister, who approaches her in a desperate state of mind, asking for help. Smuggled into the cloister by Maria, Mathilda finds out that more than a dozen of the nuns are pregnant, having been raped by Russian soldiers. Mother Superior (Kulesza) is against any outside help, she wants to sweep everything under the carpet: the esteem of the cloisters in the eyes of the outside world is more important to her than the physical and mental wellbeing of her nuns. With the help of her lover, the Jewish doctor Samuel (Macaigne), Mathilde intervenes to help the women but the Mother Superior remains deeply troubled and devises a scheme of her own.
Agata Kulesza – brilliant here as the Mother Superior – was cast as the die-hard Stalinist in Pawlikowski’s Ida. Both Catholicism (together with some other religions) and Stalinism (in common with other authoritarian ideologies) represent a deeply inhuman ideology (camouflaged by a canon of salvation for the worthy), with often deeply misogynist tendencies. The Mother Superior is hell bent on being the executor of a dogma, punishing “her” women again, after their traumatic experience with the Russian soldiers. And, like the Stalinist gospel, it is all about blind, intransigent submission: “We cannot doubt her, we can only obey her” says Maria to Mathilde at first – but her later defiance will save lives. Samuel, whose parents were murdered in Bergen-Belsen, and Mathilde, from a working-class background, are the sceptics: they have seen enough horrors not to rely on any religious or political faith to cloud their judgement. Focusing on their humanitarian convictions, they don’t select victims, but help them all. Needless to say, both of them are ‘suspects from the sinful world’ for the Mother superior. Their own low-key romance helps to leaven the austerity of the Convent theme, with Macaigne injecting some caustic moments of humour to an otherwise severe scenario.
DoP Caroline Champetier again works wonders with natural light. She frames landscapes, cloisters and the hospital with a limpid and painterly lens that seems illuminated by candllelight to show the darkness of the era. The delicately rendered interior scenes glow with a gentle purity and those in the snow evoke a white shroud placed over all the mass-graves of those that have fallen. THE INNOCENTS is never melodramatic with Fontaine keeping a detached eye in spite of the emotional turmoil, but this makes for an even even more harrowing drama. Whilst getting the balance between form and context right, the real success Is her ability is to create an overwhelming emotional impact, which remains for a long time.
ON GENERAL RELEASE AT PICTUREHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 11 NOVEMBER 2016|
Cast: Louis-Do de Lencquessaing, Vincent Nemeth, Benjamin Utzerath, Johanna Krthals Altes
87min | Docudrama | Russia | France | France | Germany| Netherlands 2015
Sukurov once again reminds us what cinema could be: an intellectual tour-de-force of documentary, essay and feature: as such, FRANCOFONIA is entertaining and absorbing fare.
FRANCOFONIA is foremost a film about German-French relationships on a mostly cultural level; the director calling the link between the two nations “sisterly” which is an unusual word to use considering the many wars they fought with each other – unless he is hinting at sibling rivalry here. The star is certainly The Louvre where the two protagonists: the French director of the museum, Jacques Jaujard (Lencquesaing), and the German officer, Count Franziskus Wolff Metternich (Utzerath), in charge of cultural affairs for the German occupiers, fought in a low-key manner between 1940 and 1942. Metternich was then recalled to Germany not having given in to the Nazi leadership whose main aim was to steal the art treasures – a task they managed successfully later. Jaujard, who worked for the French Resistance, could rely on Metternich for help, a favour which was returned after the end of WWII, when Metternich needed help for the de-Nazification trial. But in the two years, Metternich, a Nazi Party Member since 1933 was civil while trying to delay the art robbery of his superiors, like a good Nazi.
In the summer of 1940 it was clear to the M Jaujard that his Museum was in danger, haunted by the spectre of Germany as the French government surrenders and the German army arrives in force. Archive footage of the era shows Hitler casting his beady eye over the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees, desperately looking for the Louvre and its treasures.Fortuitously the perspicacious M Jaujard, the museum director, has taken precautionary measures and does not flee his museum when Count Wolff-Metternich, the officer commanded by Hitler to supervise France’s art collection for the Nazis, arrives at the Louvre to find its most important works have vanished. Jaujard has had them moved to Chateaux hundreds of miles away in preparation for the German bombings – and Metternich – who made the same wise moves in Germany – thus protects the French patrimony from the thieving hands of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels. In this ‘sisterly’ way Jaujard (a suave Louis Do de Lencquesaing) and Metternich (a suitably aristocratic-looking Benjamin Utzerath) are bought together with their love and appreciation of Art.
Marianne, the typical French heroine who chants “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” and self-obsessed Napoleon – who points to himself in paintings around the walls – are the ghosts who haunt the Louvre in their traditional costumes. Napoleon claims that his sole purpose of waging war was to raid countries for their art treasures. And Sokurov takes us on a guided tour of these treasures, marking out the particular European propensity for portrait painting, enabling us to identify ourselves hundreds of years ago. Something that, he points out, the Muslims did not do. The Mona Lisa is given the most attention, with her enigmatic smile.
Often the director is seen sitting in his office, talking to a sea Captain on a ‘ship to shore’ computer link. The ship is bearing artworks and clearly many thousands have been lost at the bottom of the sea during their transportation around the globe, by trophy-taking warlords.
FRANCOFONIAis the first Sukurov film which shines a positive light on the Soviet Union. Bruno Delbonnel’s breathtaking cinematography successfully recreates the wartime effort in Paris, and the extensive archive material gives so much information and philosophcal debate that one viewing cannot do justice to this masterpiece. This is a film to savour.
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 11 NOVEMBER 2016
Dir: Denis Villeneuve | Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forrest Whittaker | US Canada | Sci-Fi | 120min
We can always expect something fresh and exciting from Canadian filmmakers and Denis Villeneuve delivers just that with this Venice Competition entry: a Sci-fi thriller based on a positive premise: that non-verbal communication has the power to save the world.
Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner star as academics hired by the US military to attempt a parly with the aliens that arrive in a mysterious pod-shaped spacecraft that lands in the Montana farmland. This is a crisp and pristinely packaged piece of kit that brings no blood-letting or gruesome images in its wake. Instead it feels like a dreamily intelligent vision giving an uplifting image of an imagined future where our scientists and, particularly, our linguistic specialists can use their brainpower and training to bring about good and heal our troubled, wartorn planet.
And it is a woman who naturally will bring this into being. As a professor of linguistics, Amy Adams gives a deeply sensuous and emotionally intelligent performance in this adult drama whose tension and palpable terror rises out of the cherished hope that human communication could be the answer rather than malign or nefarious forces. Suffering from an intangible loss or beareavement she harnesses her innermost intuition and professional training in an attempt to reach out amicably and sensitively to the seven legged shapeshifters or heptopods that emerge from the summit of the pod. Scripted by Eric Heisserer, ARRIVAL is based on Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life, and feels very much like Close Encounters in its subtle approach to the interplanetary arrivals unspooling as a peaceful and intelligently nuanced arthouse outing. Ambitious in scope and exquisitely mounted, there are minor flaws and ambiguities in the plotting that occasionally arise out of the parallel narrative of present and future. That said, the spirit of adventure and compromise is laudable in this decidedly upliting and inventive film that will make you leave you with a smile, if not the odd tear. MT
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 11 NOVEMBER 2016 | REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2016
Dir: Mikhail Kalatozov | Writers: Grigori Koltunov, Valeri Osipov, Viktor Rozov | Cast: Tatyana Samoylova, Evgeniy Urbanskiy, Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy, Vasiliy Livanov | 97min | Drama | Soviet Union
A plot summary of Letter Never Sent appears simplistic. Four geologists are sent by the government into the forests of central Siberia to look for diamonds.Initially they find little evidence, express philosophical doubts and yet strive for the best. A diamond seam is discovered. On returning with the good news they are blocked by a forest fire, lose radio contact and most of their supplies. There then follows a struggle to survive in a forbidding landscape. We share the hopes and fears of a very human and idealistic group. Sabinine
(Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy) is writing a letter home to Vera (Galina Kozhakina) that turns into a diary that is never sent. Sergei (Yevgeni Urbansky) is sexually attracted to Tanya (Tatyana Samoylova) already the girlfriend of Andrei (Vasili Livanov). She discovers a note from Sergei expressing his passionate feelings for her.
There is a remarkable sequence where Tanya and Sergei are working in a trench. Tanya is examining the earth for diamonds and Sergei is digging with pick-axe. He stops and attempts to seduce Tanya. She recoils and Sergei departs. Tanya is shaken. Yet she gradually becomes overjoyed in realising that she has discovered the diamonds.
In a rare moment for Soviet ‘50s cinema things turn intensely sensual. Andrei appears and as they both run ecstatically through the woods there is a lyrical scene that is remarkable for its pantheism. However this proves only a momentary reprieve in Letter Never Sent. Soon the geologists will confront the intense hostility of Nature. Visually the film has a poetry that few wilderness adventures can match. The black and white photography is miraculous. Superimpositions, dissolves, tracking shots and natural lighting are used to masterly effect. People are pitted against the elements of earth, fire, air and water to create a cinematic osmosis. Fire and water are filmed in a way that makes these forces appear to be real constituents of the actor’s bodies.
Where words often fail to describe these images, music succeeds in the visceral nature of Sibelius’ Finnish tone poems (especially Tapiola and Oceanides). One criticism levelled at the film is that its characters are underwritten and that Sergey Urusevsky’s brilliant photography is a triumph of form over content. I disagree. Firstly the characters are convincing and rounded enough for their conflict and primal relation with the film’s principal character – its natural environment.
Mikhail Kalatozov’s direction is powerfully understated. He gets subtle performances from his actors and, aided by Uresevsky, produces unforgettable imagery and compositions that hark back to Pudovkin (Arsenal) and also forward to Tarkovsky (especially Ivan’s Childhood released in 1962). Kalatozov also creates a subdued homage to the endeavours of the Soviet state (See Sabinine’s hallucinations of the shipyards) accompanied by a subtle critique of power (the declamatory hollowness of the authoritarian radio voice they lose contact with).
Cinema has given us many adventure stories and Kalatozov’s film has echoes of Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala (1975) and documentaries such as Robert Flaherty’s Man of Arran. But there is nothing really like Letter Never Sent. A genuinely immersive experience of nature and a treasure of Russian cinema. @ALAN PRICE
Dir.: Tom Kingsley, Will Sharp; Cast: Will Sharp, Tiani Ghosh, Joe Thomas, Sophie Di Martino, Chris Langham | Comedy Drama | UK 2016, 86 min.
In a bid to be original Tom Kingsley and Will Sharp (Black Pond) deliver a hotchptoch of clichés in an indie drama which is inaccessible and sometimes hilarious – for all the wrong reasons.
Financial trader Zac (Sharp) is looking for his sister Alice (also co-writer) who has disappeared on a boat moored at Camden Lock, along with her boyfriend Toby (Thomas). Random flashbacks tell the story of the missing couple, who have both been unable to communicate properly with friends and family. But soon Zac’s story of “finding himself” takes over: Rejected by his girl friend Eva (De Martino), he cuts off his hair, produces maddening videos, which hardly help to find the missing couple, and visits Toby’s father Alan (Langham), in a country house where Toby grew up. There Zac discovers Toby’s cartoon story by entitled ‘The darkest Universe’, written for his sick mother, when he was little. Zac sinks deeper and deeper into a depression, blaming himself for Alice’ disappearance, having promised their dead mother, that he would look after Alice. The solution to their disappearance is about as nonsensical as the film itself.
DoP Will Hanke’s dreamy images of floating clouds are wasted on this amateurish production, which pretends to be enigmatic, and the actors try in vain not to sink to the level of script and direction – for which they are, at least partly, responsible. AS
ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE VENUES FROM 4 NOVEMBER 2016
Dir.: Jane Gull; Cast: Steven Brandon, Eileen Pollock, Sarah Swash, Will Rastall, Pixie Le Knot | UK 2016 | 83 min.
Steven Brandon makes an impressive screen debut in Jane Gull’s heartfelt care home drama MY FERAL HEART. He plays Luke, an empathetic young man with mild Down’s Syndrome who, despite his own heath concerns, becomes a positive asset to the inmates of Blossom House care home where he is transferred after the death his bedridden mother (Pollock), whom he cared for with great tenderness. Struggling to come to terms with his new environment, Luke befriends teenager Pete (Rastall), a gardener with a troubled past and a feral girl (Le Knot), who has been caught in an animal trap, nursing her back to health. Brandon carries the film with his understated performance, best shown in his scenes with Peter, which are a tribute to those suffering from borderline mental and physical impairment. Although Gull’s care home appears to be idyllic, she directs Duncan Paveling’s script with sensitivity and maximum emotional impact, Gull avoiding all sentimentality. DoP Susanne Salavati, also shooting her first feature, flips seamlessly between realism in the care home and the natural beauty of the surround countryside making MY FERAL HEART humanistic and engaging in its consideration for vulnerabilities on many different levels. AS/MT
SCREENING DURING THE EAST END FILM FESTIVAL ON 28 JUNE 2016
Anthony Baxter’s sequel to his 2011 film about a certain wealthy US Businessman’s clashes with his Scottish neighbours during the building his luxury golf course (in Balmedie) feels very much like a re-hash of the original. The only thing that’s changed is that Donald Trump is now in running for the American presidency while poor old widow Molly Forbes (92) is still trying to get running water on her property.
Playing out like a comedy – if it weren’t so tragic – YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED TOO – is a series of episodes garnered from Baxter’s previous socially-minded and earnestly intended documentary YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED. It certainly doesn’t make for an engaging watch or an informative one either, unless, of course, you missed the original. Baxter zips through the content like a CNN broadcast, rehashing the familiar news footage of Trump’s campaign interwoven with talking head interviews from both sides of the fence.
But just to recap, Molly Forbes and her farmer son Michael were left waterless when Trump’s builders broke through a pipe that supplied the Forbes with running water. While Mollie chunters around with buckets and kettles etc, Trump speaks very highly of the long-suffering Aberdeen granny, likening her to his mother. On the subject of her son Michael, Trump is less flattering referring to “the disgusting condition in which he lives”, simply because the boy spends his day riffling through rusty old machine parts before reclining on a battered tartan settee. Needless to say, this homespun pair have been offered full use of Trump’s 5 star Golf course, but no running water to their home.
Baxter’s documentary is wafer thin with new facts but stuffed full of election information and Forbes’s visit to the US in a bid to confront Trump’s supporters. Needless to say, he is unceremoniously told to back off by all and sundry. It’s all really rather inconclusive as to why, even now, the Forbes’ can’t get running water from a chap who has billions. And crucially, Baxter fails really to come up with a decent answer, or better still, a solution from anyone in team Trump.
More interesting would have been a documentary about Donald Trump himself – there have been several on Hilary. After Baxter’s first documentary was aired on the BBC, Trump agreed this time to appear in person. Surely a candid and informative film about Trump’s own life and background would have been preferable to this non-event? MT
Directors: Louis Black, Karen Bernstein | US | Doc | 86min
Richard Linklater joins the sparkling array of Texan talent along with Patricia Highsmith, Wes Anderson, Ethan Hawk, Tobe Hooper, Howard Hughes, Forest Whitaker, Rip Torn and Joshua Oppenheimer, to name but a few.
And in a this enjoyable documentary, Louis Black and Karen Bernstein uncover the life story of the modest and appealing Houston born director, described by his father as “a self-starter who was always going to make a go of anything he did” and who went on to be among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s.
Linklater comes across as gentle but also driven by a laudable and impulsive desire to learn and improve his craft with every film he makes. Surviving outside the movie industry of Hollywood and New York allows him to hold on to his creative vision rather than focus on the money-making side of things and this is best evidenced in his audacious project Boyhood (2014) which is perhaps his best known film since the non-narrative comedy drama Slacker which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 25 years ago.
Moving to the comparative backwater of Austin when his parents divorced was auspicious for Linklater as the city provided an open-minded and unrestrictive backdrop for experimenting (“it’s a long time before your technical skills catch up with your ideas”) and he set up the Austin Film Society with the aim of screening arthouse films. This led to the making of Slacker and providing local creatives for the project.
The documentary‘s talking heads are particularly insightful and, avoiding hagiography, are drawn equally from talent (Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke), industry and press (Justin Chang/Variety). New York-born Black serves as both director and interviewer. The founder of SXSW Film Festival has known Linklater since the beginning and has access to early footage of the him and they chat about his first hand written scripts in the writing sanctuary of Linklater’s eco ranch in Bastrop, where is preparing for Everybody Wants Some.
DREAM IS DESTINY is keen to stress Linklater’s collaborative approach to his filmmaking and Jack Black talks about Linklater’s earnest desire to know what his actors are experiencing and what they can bring to their roles, even though in the end the film is always the director’s. Here Linklater is at pains to point out that he would never want to lose artistic control of his work, whatever the financial situation, as in the case of Dazed and Confused where Universal wanted to take his film in another direction from that intended. The only criticism of the doc is in not really covering his lesser known films as the focus is primarily on Boyhood and the Midnight series, but given a trim running time of 86 minutes this provides scope for a more ample study of this personable and talented man in the future. MT
Dir: Roger Marwood | Voices by Jim Broadbent | Brenda Blethyn | Animation | UK
Jim Broadbent and Brenda Blethyn are the voices behind Roger Marwood’s ETHEL & ERNEST, an animated portrait of marital togetherness in suburban England. Based on Raymond Briggs’ biographical tribute to his own parents, this is an emotionally resonant drama that glows in its water-coloured tenderness echoing the likes of John Betjeman and Alan Bennett in capturing the quintessential middle class tolerance and quiet humour of the era.
Against the dramatic background of the 20th century, Ethel and Ernest’s modest story unfolds as a delicate domestic tapestry. They first meet in 1928 and go to enjoy 40 years of marriage that sees them through the privations of the Second World War, the start of the Welfare State and other national events, and the birth of their son who went on the create the evocative children’s animation Snowman.
For the most part enjoyable, some of the dialogue verges on twee in phrases such as “Mr Hitler”, and “this nice Mr Atlee” which feel like an attempt to trivialise Ethel – as if women were so ignorant back then. While some of the scenes begin to feel rather predictable, this is a touching arthouse treasure that will appeal to patriotic mainstream audiences and cineastes alike. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 28 OCTOBER 2016
Berenice Bejo stars in another tale of marital discord this time partnering with Cedric Kahn in Joachim Lafosse’s slick but uneven exploration of emotional unravelling.
In The Past (2014), she played the sequestered wife of an Iranian business man, while Childhood of a Leader (2016) saw her trapped in the home of Liam Cunningham’s fascist politician. Belgian auteur Lafosse is himself no stranger to the theme of claustrophobia which engulfs the characters in Private Property (2006), Private Lessons (2008) and Our Children (2012).
As the camera follows the couple through their elegant one floor living quarters AFTER LOVEtouches on a few raw nerves but mostly highlights the sheer desperation of wanting to move on from a situation that has run its term. Only the very wealthy can just ‘up sticks and run’, and Lafosse and his co-writers home in on this stifling aftermath when the ties that bind uncomfortably start to strangle the past and, crucially, suffocate the future, as one party refuses to let go.
The set-up is all too familiar: Marie (Bejo) is happily living in the flat with her twin girls (Jade and Margaux Soentjens), but wants rid of their father, Boris (Kahn), who is firmly staying put until he gets his share of the equity for a sale that simply isn’t happening. An architect and designer, he’s added value to the place. And now he is unemployed. Frustration, humiliation and barely concealing anger follows in spades as he becomes the elephant in the room in several scenes, particularly during a dinner party.
The relationship breakdown has also broken Marie and Boris, whose characters are slowly imploding with the sheer stress of it all. And this is not helped by Marie’s mother (Martha Keller) who contributes to her psychological pain, that tracks back to the past in uncomfortable ways. Most effective in its early scenes, AFTER LOVE shows how the flat becomes a toxic prison in a storyline riddled with slow-burning tension, that gradually dissipates in the final scenes that resorts to legalese. A must see if you’ve experienced marital breakdown. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016 | CANNES REVIEW
Dir: Basil Dearden | Writers: Jack Whittingham, John Eldridge
Cast: Bonar Colleano, Susan Shaw, Renee Asherson, Earl Cameron, Moira Lister, James Robertson Justice, Leslie Philips
82min | UK | Crime Thriller
Showcasing London’s docklands in the 1950s, Basil Dearden’s gritty film noir was one of Ealing’s darker titles intrepidly dipping its toe into the avangarde theme of interracial romance in a diamond smuggling story performed by a sterling British cast.
On a sunny Friday afternoon, merchant Navy sailors Dan MacDonald (Bonar Colleano/Dance Hall) and Johnny Lambert (Earl Cameron) arrive on board the freighter Dunbar which docks near Tower Bridge on the Thames. As Customs board the ship, the sailors eagerly squirrel away nylons for their girls, and bottles of whisky, amongst other more valuable goods. MacDonald is a glib chain-smoking American. Lambert hails from Jamaica on his last tour of duty. The polite and open-faced Jamaican has no idea why he is met with contempt by an usher at the theatre were he ends up after meeting Pat (a luminous Susan Shaw who also starred in the Ealing production It Always Rains on Sunday). But this is just the first of many things that will go wrong when he is drawn in a heist with MacDonald.
Pool of London features sparkling black and white footage of the working docks, up and running again after the end of the Second World War and with St Pauls and the City in the distance; a milkman delivering milk in a barrow (a bottle of which becomes the Maguffin in the heist), and the jazz dancing clubs that became a popular way for men coming out of the forces to meet young women. Jamaican immigrants had started to arrive in the capital with the promise of a new life.
Whittingham and Eldridge’s tight scripting is underpinned by amusing turns from Robertson Justice and Philips. New Yorker Colleano adds a briskness to the English cast (he was killed a car accident a few years later, but not before marrying Shaw, who never got over his death, dying prematurely of liver failure in 1978). But the tone changes from cheerful optimism to dark and seedy despair as the narrative sails on.
Filmed in 35mm, Gordon Dines’ brilliant camerawork captures the familiar with a sinister noirish feel; here is an amazing stunt where Max Adrian’s crim Charlie Vernon jumps from one building to the next. In fact, Pool of London‘s tense storyline is nearly eclipsed by the stunning backdrop of these 1950s images, with London’s iconic landscapes and buildings adding texture and verve. MT
OUT ON 24 OCTOBER IN A 2K BLURAY RESOTRATION COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL AND ALSO IN CELEBRATION OF THE BFI’S BLACK STAR SEASON | Q&A WITH EARL CAMERON CBE ON 23 OCTOBER 2016
Director: Ken Loach. Writer: Brian Laverty DoP: Robbie Ryan
Cast: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Briana Shann, Dylan Philip Mckiernan
100mins | Drama | UK
It seems appropriate that a British auteur with his own particular brand of social realism should still return at 80, to a Film Festival that, at 69, still prides itself with being about the art of film rather than just the money. THE CANNES COMPETITION line-up is still gloriously auteur-driven; but you may never get to see these arthouse films at your local cinema- apart from the Palme d’Or winner, naturellement. That’s why Woody Allen, a treasured regular at Cannes still brings Red Carpet glitz and the big crowds. His festival opener Cafe Society (out of Competition) is a romantic comedy and social satire of America in the 1930s, will definitely be coming to a cinema near you.
But back to Ken Loach and this latest film that arrives a decade after he won the Palme d’Or for The Wind That Shakes the Barley and two years after he brought Jimmy’s Hall to Cannes. This is a story about an decent man, another auteur, but this time one who crafts wood, and suddenly finds himself in his fifties having to fall back on the Welfare State due to a heart attack, after years of self-employment as a joiner. His life of using his hands comes to an abrupt halt – “I can build you a house, but I can’t use a computer” – and he feels demoralised and smoulders with quiet desperation at having to deal with the social services and a grim breed of people called ‘medical professionals’ and’ decision-makers’ instead of his regular normal customers in his Newcastle home.
Loach works with his regular co-writer Paul Laverty in this bleak but trenchant indictment of the British Welfare System where Daniel Blake, a Geordie, is played by stand-up comedian Dave Johns. The only score is that stalwart of ‘on-hold phone lines – The Four Seasons – but the dialogue is humorous and fraught with Geordie expressions.
Blake is a self-reliant bloke but soon he is smouldering with resentment at the humiliating situation of having to sign on for benefits having been warned by his doctor about retuning to work. Loach often offers a didactic approach which is occasionally moving and sparked with fierce humour, although the support characters often feel typecast into the nasty government types versus the compassionate underdogs. When Daniel sees a young mother (Hayley Squires) of two being denied basic support for missing her appointment slot, an unlikely friendship develops and he offers to help with the kids and odds jobs around her council flat. Although the mother’s story occasionally veers into the realms of mawkish melodrama, Daniel emerges as the hero, a truly likeable bloke mourning the death of his wife as he deals with the Kafkaesque absurdity of form-filling red tape that most of us will thoroughly identify with. Although the finale feels rather uncharacteristic in the light of Daniel’s previous sensible attitude it will certainly appeal to those who have reached the end of their tether with bureaucracy or share Loach’s signature political affiliations. It will no doubt be Jeremy Corbyn’s film of the year.
So six months down the line, after a revisit, I’m still with Robbie Collin on his Daily Telegraph review: “the award (Palme d’Or) sat awkwardly with a few critics, including myself, who felt the film’s determination to more or less frogmarch its audience around to its way of thinking felt less like the stuff of great cinema than the party political broadcast – although doubtlessly Loach and his long-time collaborator, the screenwriter Paul Laverty, would respond that right now, explicitly partisan left-wing politics is exactly what cinema needs.” MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 11-22 MAY 2016 | Winner Palme d’Or
In celebration of Ken Loach’s 80th Birthday in June 2016, Dogwoof and the BFI support a film by British documentarian Louise Osmund: VERSUS: The Life and Films of Ken Loach |
Dir: Vincent Garenq | Script: Julien Rappeneau | Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Sebastian Koch, Marie-Jose Croze, Emma Besson, Fred Personne | Drama | French German | 87min
Vincent Garenq’s suberb French legal procedural drama follows a father’s lengthy fight for justice grappling with international border complexities and the breakdown of his marriage.
Ably scripted by Julien Repeneau, it stars a dynamite Daniel Auteuil as a loving family man and tender husband whose wife falls for the doctor in charge of their recuperation from a road accident while they are living in Morocco. Relocating the family swiftly back to France, he tries to save his marriage but clearly his wife is smitten by Sebastian Koch’s suave German doctor Dieter Krombach, and she leaves to live in Germany, where Kalinka’s suspicious death occurs 8 years later during a holiday there.
Based on the true Kalinka Bamberski case, Au nom de ma fille spans Andre Bamberksi’s 30-year court battle to convict Dr Krombach of her murder and provides us with a stunning array of European of locations from seaside Archachon in South West France to Munich in Bavaria. Vincent Garenq masterfully manages the various timeframes in an intelligent narrative that takes into consideration the audience’s interest in knowing when and where the crucial events occur, as a peripatetic story unfolds from 1974 until 2011. The hard-hitting film takes on noirish proportions as it seamlessly transits from family drama to legal procedural and through to a sinister crime thriller, Garenq’ straddling tonal changes with the dexterity of a high-wire trapeze artist. Meanwhile Auteil is absolutely first class as Bamberski, nipping at Krombach’s tail with the perseverance and doggedness of a terrier, never giving in ’til his bitter struggle is through.The story alone makes for a gripping thriller and thanks to tight scripting the hatred between Andre and Krombach feels hard-edged and plausible. Naturally Auteuil has to age considerably but this all looks totally natural and even the cars are authentic, the Peugeots here are the very same models I travelled through France in during the 70s.
Auteuil and Koch bring a touch of sophisticated allure to the proceedings and this is carried through in soigné interiors and Nicolas Errèra’s sexy score. Auteuil’s sensitivity captures moments of tearful emotion and boiling anger and we feel his pain and desperation in the pivotal plotlines of a fast-paced narrative that weighs heavily on his fight for justice. Koch is also impressive as a man whose subtle charisma slowly turns malign. Solid entertainment. MT
Patrick Shen is an American award-winning filmmaker best known for his feature debut Flight From Death. Here he turns his camera to silence, an increasingly sought after commodity in our busy world. IN PURSUIT OF SILENCE is a well-intentioned but rather condescending documentary presenting the corrosive effects of noise and as this were some new revelation. But does he bring anything new to the debate with his premise that seems more affirming than revealing.
We know that modern life is a cacophonous existence. Twenty four hours a day we are continually bombarded by obtrusive sounds, whether we are aware of it or not: other peoples’ conversations on the tube; builders’ drills and sirens; musak in cafes and babies crying: wherever we go it is almost impossible to escape the intrusion of noise. Try to find noise-blocking headphones and you will be offered those that only function with personal media devices – more sound and sensory stimulation. Silence (or the sound of the natural ambient world) is becoming not only golden but also vital to our survival as human beings, but many (particularly the young) are aware of this: so it is vital that we tune into its healing power. As animals we need to retreat and connect with our natural environment. The more we resort to the technological world for satisfaction, the less we feel validated, and the more we have to clamour to be heard and valued.
Shen opens his investigation on the role of noise pollution with John Cage’s silent composition 4’33. We discover that silence was the main thrust of his work, and this piece consists of four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence (or, rather, of whatever ambient sound exist where this work is being performed). More common knowledge comes next. Unwanted sound can have a detrimental effect on both our physical and mental health. It leads to increased heart beat and cortisol release – causing stress, sleep deprivation, hypertension and even cardiac arrest.
We meet Greg Hindy who in 2014 walked from New Hampshire to Los Angeles under a self-imposed vow of silence, his innermost thoughts written on a notebook and held up to the camera – crystallise our feelings: “The sources of noise that I am trying to get away from are so embedded in electronics and entertainment that I really could not allow any such distractions. Time away has given me perspective on what I should allow back into my life, and to what extent. Sometimes to really see things the way that they truly are, you have to take a step back, and then another step, and then a few more”. Well put Greg. But is this new?.
Structurally, the film feels overly episodic with two many commentators making it feel fragmented rather than discursive, and where is the ground-breaking revelation in the third act?. As is often the case in documentaries: a point is made and then rammed home over and over again without leaving the audience to reach their own conclusions. We hear from Dr. Helen Lees (author of Silence in Schools), Pico Iyer (The Art of Stillness), Susan Cain (Quiet), Maggie Ross (Silence: A User’s Guide), and Brooklyn-based author George Prochnik whose book In Pursuit of Silence was largely an inspiration for Shen’s film and his definition of silence is simply “the interruption of the imposition of our own egos upon the world.”
There are glorious interludes in remote landscapes such as the Denali National Park in Alaska, where a geeky park “soundscape technician” instructs us on the balance between silence, listening, and space. Even here overhead planes can still be seen and heard. In Japan, a researcher explores the benefits of natural ambient sound revealing the calming effects that this has on improving the body’s overall capacity to heal itself. Particularly, the rhythmic sound of waves on a beach has the power to regulate human functions and heartbeat. Trappist monks spend a great deal of their time in meditation in Iowa and a Zen temple in Japan leading to some footage of a Japanese tea ceremony; silence offers us a way to return and to reconnect with ourselves and is the most reaffirming thing we can do, rather than to reach out to technology or even people. But this is all ‘white noise’ that qualifies what we already know.
And In Pursuit of Silence isn’t always the balm you may be hoping for when you see its title. To illustrate his points Shen frequently blasts us with loud noises, some of which are quite unbearable. We know what that feels like and don’t need to hear it – specially from TV news or talk shows. During a political TV debate we witness an hilarious scene of three people talking at once, none of them listening, leading to Lees observation: “If nobody’s talking, nobody’s dominating,” And this seems to be the only salient takeaway worth ruminating over. We live in an increasingly vocal world, where everyone is trying to impose their own will and their own opinions on the rest of us, even when they have no informed opinion on which to place their rhetoric. We have lost the power to remain silent. And sometimes silence is the most powerful statement of all. MT
Dir: Werner Herzog | Cliver Oppenheimer | Doc | 100min
Visionary filmmaker Werner Herzog seeks out the world’s most apocalyptic natural wonders in his latest film INTO THE INFERNO that comes hot on the heels of Low and Behold, It is a rambling but informative piece of filmmaking that will certainly appeal to devotees of Herzog’s inimitable style. Some of the images are so breathtakingly ethereal and often frightening, it’s difficult to believe they are actually real, flashing before our eyes to a score of operatic music. What seems to fascinate Herzog is their primordial ability to challenge our authority, exemplifying the essential fragilitiy of human existence. They also offer great filmmaking potential.
As his specialist guide and travelling companion Herzog choses the fizzingly enthusiastic Clive Oppenheimer, a leading luminary on the subject who offers scientific detail and he authoritatively engages with local experts as the duo journey through the South Pacific, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Iceland, North Korea and back to Vanuatu, whose inhabitants celebrate their volcano every Friday night. Some of the volcanoes are dormant, but some are still active spewing their firey red magma, billowing gas clouds and pumice showers over lush hillsides and stony ravines. Some photos are taken from space to capture the magnitude of volcanic crater lakes.
The Afar region in Ethiopia is the hottest place on Earth and Herzog and Oppenheimer can only enter with a miliary aide due to local hostilities. Here they discover the world’s best collection of fossils and hundreds of obsidian chips which, when fashioned into blades, are sharper than steel and were once used for eye surgery. In one of the film’s digressions, they meet up with a crackpot scientist and fossil hunter from California who describes how, thousands of years ago, the human species originated here as one type and gradually spread out to Asia, Europe and beyond where we different languages and characteristics developed. It also emerges that a massive volcano in prehistoric times nearly wiped out humanity.
In Iceland, Herzog gets to visit the Dead Sea scrolls equivalent, a revered manuscript that details and describes volcanic activity back to the Dark Ages. When invited to North Korea, Herzog accepts that his visit will be tainted with propganda. Here the main volcano is considered the mythical birthplace of the Korean people, and now a sacred site of pilgrimage. We meet a group of uniformed students who chant a (staged) anthem for the volcano, even though it has been inactive for over a thousand years. Oppenheimer is suitably deferential. Clearly he sees the authorities as more frightening than the possibility that the volcano might erupt. Although INTO THE INFERNO occasionally veers off into a field trip for Oppenheimer, especially in North Korea, it nonetheless provides absorbing entertainment for lovers of the natural world, MT.
Dir.: Robert Greene; Cast: Kate Lyn Sheil; USA 2016, 112 min.
Director/writer/editor Robert Greene (Actress) tries to answer more than one question with his documentary style psycho thriller KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE: he uses the 1974 on-air suicide of US TV newscaster Christine Chubbuck not as an isolated tragedy, but to highlight and explore questions of gender, gun control, news media and the reality of acting.
The documentary part of KATE consists of Sheil trying to retrace the steps of Chubbuck, whilst the re-enacted scenes are purposefully tacky and unsettling, stylistically close to the 70s aesthetics. Central to the film is lead actress Kate Lyn Sheil (You’re Next) who becomes obsessed with the life and death of the tragic newscaster, who seems to have faded from the public memory, dying just short of her 30th birthday. Reading up on the sparse literature which exists on Chubbuck, Kate travels to Florida where Chubbuck lived and worked. Sheil buys a spooky brunette wig, brown contact lenses and uses spray tan to get into character. In Sarasota, always a town of transients and tourists, hardly anyone remembers the dead woman. In an interesting contrast, we see Sheil buying a gun from the same dealer as Chubbuck in the re-enactment. The shop owner admits freely to Kate that everyone answering a few simple questions can acquire a gun “even if he is mad – after all, I am no psychologist”. Sheil also buys fluffy animals, it emerges that Chubbuck’s bedroom resembled more that of a nine year-old girl than a woman of 29.
Greene wants to avoid explaining Chubbuck’s suicide, depression is far too complex an illness to be explained in two hours. Instead he concentrates “on showing the gap between the ‘real’ self and the ‘staged’ one”, a gap, which Chubbuck savagely obliterated. The irony is that her on-screen suicide was a protest against the sensational packaging of news, which is run by men, and Chubbuck’s depression and loneliness was used as an excuse for her objective criticism of the male dominated TV news. The recent events at Fox TV, where millions of dollars were paid to female newscasters for sexual harassment by their male bosses, are proof that the tradition has survived. Chubbuck put all of her energies into her work and to be passed over for promotion by a boss who favoured her male colleague, who then landed the prize job taking with him her best friend at work, was just the last straw.
As for Kate Lyn Sheil, who is as much a collaborator as an actor, the experience of playing Christine Chubbuck has left her convinced that acting is much more than re-creating a person: “What I care about most is trying to give a voice to the lonely and unusual. Empathy is what matters to me. I hope that people watching the movie will feel as bewildered, infuriated and ultimately heartbroken as I did”.
When approaching the re-staging of the suicide, both director and actor came to a solution which does justice to Chubbuck. DoP Sean Price Williams excels with his colour schemes: the cool, cold Sarasota of today is shot in arctic blue, the TV studio is a mass of colours, fighting which each other, the close-ups reveal masks, not real people.
Greene struggles sometimes to keep a unity of the different styles, but Sheil always keeps everything together: unlike Network or the most recent Christine, Kate plays Christine asks question, and lets the audience answer them. An unique undertaking, worth watching as an example for its critical approach of the medium it represents. AS
KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE comes to DVD 14 November to buy. The DVD release will feature a bonus DVD of Greene’s 2014 cult film ACTRESS as well as incredible extras including: alternative opening, nine deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer.
“The Beatles became the emperors and prisoners of their fame” declares music journalist Jon Savage in Ron Howard’s documentary on the touring years (1962-1966) of the Beatles. He’s one of several interviewed talking heads who emphasise that the Beatles were as much a cultural force for social change as well as a musical phenomenon. Another is Whoppie Goldberg who as a teenager at a Beatle concert was given “Their (Beatles) idea that everybody was welcome.” Whilst screenwriter Richard Curtis informs us that “The Beatles were the dream of how you got through life.”
Eight Days a Week skilfully consolidates edited live concert footage to give what is probably the definitive account of the highs and lows of their touring experiences. There is much to enjoy. The spontaneity and warm irreverence of the Beatles is captured. “Four things that looked alike” (Paul McCartney) who actually spoke as non- manufactured individuals. Led by John Lennon their responses to journalists are joyful examples of the sublime art of being cheeky. Eight Days a Week also reveals the darker side of Beatlemania with its angry US response to Lennon’s remarks on the popularity of the Beatles compared to Jesus Christ. We are shown a burning at night of Beatles vinyl and memorabilia. Before this orchestrated ‘rejection’ we have references to the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, race riots and the war in Vietnam. Ron Howard’s documentary is very much about the Beatles’ external musical journey and the progress of their genuinely spontaneous personalities. By 1966 the Liverpudlians with “those fabulous hair-dos” were weary of being interviewed and sick of touring. After Candlestick Park in San Francisco they felt they were “becoming a freak show”. Music gigs were abandoned for the recording studio in order to undergo an internal journey of musical experimentation and to simply remain sane.
Yet Ron Howard’s film has some serious omissions. We have the Beatles accepting their MBEs but nothing about Lennon’s later rejection. And a TV recording of their Royal Variety performance at the London Palladium, where the Beatles asked the British royalty and the rich to clap hands and shake their jewels, ought to have been included.
The ‘colourisation’ of some of the monochrome footage feels redundant. All nicely digitised and good looking but…? And could there have been a least one Beatle song performed in its entirety? (On average they are only three minutes long). Pacy, economically edited, intelligently compiled and – as a social document really fascinating – although the inclusion of a cultural critic being interviewed about the reasons for Beatlemania would be appreciate here. Eight Days proves to be a very entertaining 138 minutes. Beatles aficionados will love it. Others will certainly feel admiration. See it on a fabulous big screen first where it will resound more powerfully than on your blu-ray player. And a small footnote; watch out for Signoury Weaver as a teenager, caught by the camera revelling in the music! Alan Price.
NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE At the EVERYMAN, CURZON, ICA AND RITZY BRIXTON
DIR.: Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow; Documentary with Brian De Palma; USA 2015, 110 min.
Directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s unusual but effective format for their documentary on Brian De Palma allows the director to appraise his own films. His often defensive approach in standing by the flagrant victimisation of his female characters make it obvious that the filmmakers raised these questions in the off. Not only does this approach spare the audience endless ‘Talking Heads’ crucially it allows De Palma to “hang himself” with his excuses and denials.
Brian De Palma (*1940) belongs with the directors of the era: Martin Scorsese; John Milius; George Lucas; Paul Schrader; Francis F. Coppola; Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott to a Hollywood creed, which dominated artistically first as a “New Wave”, and then very quickly the high-profit commercial cinema of the Dream Factory. De Palma is – together with Milius – the great outsider of this group. Brian De Palma studied physics before falling in love with cinema, largely due to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
But among his first films were the anti-Vietnam Agit-prop works of Greetings (Silver Bear Berlin 1968 Film Festival) and Hi Mom (1970). Later he would revisit this topic with Casualties of War (1989). His stringent logic about the catastrophic outcomes of all the American wars in foreign countries, from Vietnam to Iraq, is laudable. But when it comes to his own violent movies such as Dress to Kill (1980) or Body Double (1984), with its near fetishistic violence against women, he stumbles through his denials: admitting, quite seriously, that the drill used by the killer in Body Double had to be big enough to go through the woman and the ceiling into the room underneath, so that the camera could catch the dripping blood.
Blood dominates his work, whatever the genre: Scarface (1983), The Untouchables (1987), Carlito’s Way (1993) completing his Gangster trilogy; Obsession and Carrie (both 1976), Blow Out (1981) and the aforementioned Body Double and Dress to Kill are proxies of a more personal bloodbath. Compared with all these frontal attacks on sensitivity, his mainstream productions like “The Bonfire of Vanities” (1990), Mission Impossible I (1996) and Mission to Mars (2000) seem to be just ordinary by comparison.
Many critics accuse De Palma of having no personal style – unlike Lucas or Spielberg – but this argument seems false, at least on an aesthetic level. De Palma often uses split screen and very acute angles, he has never forgotten his beginnings as an Hitchcock epigone with Sisters (1972), where he playfully imitated the master, using the camera as his way to show distortion as reality.
Baumbach and Paltrow’s approach is simple, but not simplistic: they let De Palma contradict himself sometimes, whilst commenting on his film extracts. But overall, De Palma is a lesson in film history, and quite an enjoyable one at that. It shows a Hollywood before the money men took over, when experiments were still part of growing up as a filmmaker. Some did, but Brian De Palma certainly did not, he just got older: Passion (2012) is just a tired version of Sisters, but it is as cold and detached as his earlier works. De Palma has been married three times, all his marriages (among them with actress Nancy Allen, star of three of his films) lasted a combined eight years. The last word should go to David Thompson who described the filmmaker as somebody “who controls everything, except his own cruelty and indifference.” AS
Dir.: Elisa Paloschi; Documentary; Canada 2015, 74 min.
Elisa Paloschi’s uplifting documentary looks at the life of Selvi, the first female taxi driver in South India, chronicling her way from abused child bride to independence – and a licence to drive buses and HGVs. The film also offers a glimpse of rural life in India, far away from the modern images projected by the state agencies.
A month after having her first period, and in her last year at school, Selvi was forced by her parents to marry an unknown man. But Selvi’s family were poor, and in the absence of a dowry, the man pimped his wife out, to make the money he thought he deserved. Depressed, Selvi decided to throw herself under a bus, but at the last minute finds her fighting spirit. And does so with help of the Odanadi Organisation, which helps child brides and other repressed women to enable themselves to earn a decent living. Selvi learns to drive (the director’s vehicle ends up in a ditch during the learning process), and becomes the first female taxi driver in the city of Karnatuka. Selvi then goes on to find happiness with her second husband, Viji (who is also a professional driver), and makes a success of her life in more ways than one.
Apart from making the film, Elisa Paloschi is very much Selvi’s enabler and mentor who charts the young woman’s progress in some heart-breaking scenes that clearly show how female subjugation begins in the family unit and goes on into the workplace: when Selvi meets her aunt, the only relative who cared for her, it emerges that her mother did not even bother to feed her, giving all her love to her brother – who, having married her off, called her a whore. But Selvi’s story is full of hope as she is positive and very adamant about the future for her daughter “she will be my legacy, she will get everything I didn’t. One day, I might tell her my story”.
A simple but life-affirming documentary which tells the story of an exceptional woman, one of 700 million child brides, of which 250 million are under the age of fifteen – a third are living in India alone. AS
SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE from 7 OCTOBER 2016
The film was described by the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) as “… a tragic and poignant yet also energetic and inspirational portrait of an extremely tough Indian woman.”
Director: John Dower, Prod: Simon Chinn Writer: Louis Theroux
99min Doc UK | US
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by American science fiction author L Ron Hubbard, who lived from 1911 – 1986.
Well-known BBC documentarian Louis Theroux blows the roof of the Church of Scientology in this often hilarious exposé of the enigmatic organisation, made with the help of senior ex-members whom have subsequently ‘blown-out’ (been ejected or forced to leave). This is Theroux’s first big screen outing and together with a running time of 99 minutes, the piece successfully employs the elements that elevate it to feature status: a significant theme of worldwide appeal; a serious Hollywood-style orchestral score, a three-act structure where the third act offers a significant turning point or dramatic nugget. And Louis has certainly achieved this transition to feature doc – ‘cum laude’, as they say in the US.
Louis Theroux is at the top of his game: he is accustomed to dealing with unusual, unpalatable or unexpected themes and all manner of human behaviour which he invariably handles with supreme skill, without offending or seemingly being offended. Non-judgemental in his approach, he elicits remarkable responses from his subjects, often coaxing or beguiling with such self-effacing charm the individuals remain unaware that they are being gently manipulated into revelations or admissions. He uses the same techniques here with often remarkable results.
For MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE, Louis politely requested ‘The Church’s collaboration, but apparently they have flatly turned him down. But he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, even when he’s simply trying to deliver a letter to the Church’s headquarters in Los Angeles, California. Accused of trespassing on a public road, he eventually turns the tables on his accuser, a senior member of the Church, ‘allowing’ her to stay, rather than drive away in her car with the words: “it’s ok, you’re not trespassing”. When she asks: ‘why are you filming us?’. Louis responds with superlative politeness: “Why are you filming me?” In short these guys are not going to ‘shut his butt down’ on the fascinating subject-matter that he has come to explore.
In order to offer enlightenment and understanding as to the Church’s methods, Louis and helmer John Dower, use actors to role-play the characters and experiences of the ex-members – including one who “finds it easy to tap into a well of anger” to play the part of the current Head David Miscavige. In this way, Louis sheds light on an organisation which exerts control over its members, non unlike those of the Mormon religion, often keeping them from leaving using similar techniques. John Dower uses inter-titles to put the salient facts forward and there is recent archive footage from the Hollywood-style films that L Ron Hubbard created to promote the Church’s activities. What emerges is intriguing and alarming but Louis always keeps the tone light even when he is openly vilified by his collaborator Matt, an ex-senior official, who emerges as somewhat of a narcissistic individual, a personality type the Church seems to attract amongst its followers. Tom Cruise is a close friend of David Malsavige and another senior member who, we learn, has spent around 1 million dollars on courses to rise to the senior echelons of the Church. What transpires in Louis’ documentary will certainly give audiences food for thought and a better understanding of this arcane organisation. Who knows: You may even consider joining. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS | REVIEWED AT BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015
Cast: Michael Peña, Alexander Skarsgård, Theo James, Tessa Thompson, Caleb Landry Jones
98min | action drama | UK
John Michael McDonagh’s rip-roaringly irreverent cop buddy movie is largely a vehicle for the combined talents of Alexander Skarsgaard and Michael Pena who play the glib twosome and Glen Campbell who provides the musical hits. Short on laughs but long on cinematic scenery, WAR ON EVERYONE is very much a curate’s egg. Crashing cars and waging war on international crims the duo manage to upset everyone, as the title would suggest, but their bad boy blunders all boil down to boredom in a patchy comedy that exposes the police force as a bunch of warm-hearted racist thugs. But there’s nothing new there. WAR ON EVERYONE works best in its filmic scenes where Glenn Campbell’s iconic hits provide golden moments for the starry Skarsgaard (the camera loves him) and his bouncy love interest who have great fun between the sheets and up against walls. Spectacular widescreen visuals of the desert and snowy Iceland provide the background to the duo’s pursuit of a criminal gang of vicious paedophiles. McDonagh’s loose ‘cops and robbers’ narrative stitches it all together with a script that is gloriously politically incorrect; kicking over the usual hackneyed racial slurs in a formulaic plotline. But hey; there’s plenty to enjoy im this blistering britflick if you just switch your mind to autopilot and enjoy the ride. MT
NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS | REVIEWED DURING BERLINALE 11-21 FEBRUARY 2016 | FOLLOW OUR COVERAGE BERLINALE 2016
Cast: Michael St Michaels, Sky Elobar, Elizabeth De Razzo, Gil Gex
93min | Drama Comedy | US
Jim Hosking’s debut feature can best be described as repulsive; at worst – a simply awful con intended to perplex and intrigue audiences with its ambiguous title, the fantasy is none other than a repetitive series of vile visuals exploring the relationship between a dysfunctional father and co-dependent son who inhabit the seedy backwaters of Los Angeles. These grotesquely sordid scenes exist merely to flesh out a vapid narrative that serves no other purpose other than providing a salacious talking point between critic and cineaste, some of whom postulate that the feature may appeal to kids – which is frankly insulting, as most kids have a modicum of taste and know when they are being taken for a ride.
The plot is simply thus: Big Ronnie (St Michaels) and his son Big Brayden (Elobar) are forced into romantic competition over Janet (De Razzo) a pleasant participant in one of their bizarre walking tours while the murderous activities of the soi-disant serial killer the Greasy Strangler, play out in the hinterland.
Visually and technically The Greasy Strangler is well-crafted with Marten Tedin’s camerawork capturing the low-life lassitude of nighttime Los Angeles. Performances are lacklustre in an outing that transcends even the cult status of being camp or kitsch. Endless stomach-lurching bodily functions are frequently thrust into our gaze – if The Greasy Strangler were an exhibit it would smell like a fetid cesspit in downtown Dakar – that said – if you get your kicks from fetid cesspits in Dakar – this is your flick – and no offence to Dakar which has a delightfully dry year-round climate and some wonderful street markets. Catch the boat to the nearby island paradise of Gorée for its fascinating history and idyllic beaches!. MT
NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS | SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL LONDON | 2-5 June 2016
Writer filmmaker Babak Anvari grew up in Tehran in the 1980s, before moving to the UK. His debut is this harrowing portrait of family life during the last phase of the Iraq/Iran war in 1988 using elements of the horror genre to show the effects of war and the Islamic Revolution on the mind of an emancipated mother during the bombing raids in Tehran.
We first meet university administrator Shideh (Rashid) after she has been expelled from the medical faculty for her left-wing activities after the Islamic takeover of 1979. She had hoped to be re-instated, but the stern bureaucrat rejects her application, asking her to look for another goal in life. Her doctor husband Iraj (Naderi), who has stayed out of politics tells her “it may be all for the best”. He later further undermines her skills as a mother to daughter Dorsa (Manshadi) and claims that she only wants to be a doctor because it was her late mother’s dream – to which Shideh caustically replies “the dead don’t dream”. Stuck at home all day, she spends her time dancing to a Jane Fonda video and listening to the BBC.
As the bombardment of Tehran intensifies, the family are forced into the cellar of the apartment block with their neighbours. Iraj is called up to do his annual medical service; this time in a district near the front of the fighting and advises Shideh to leave the city and live with his parents in the countryside, but she refuses. When a (dud) bomb hits the apartment above Shideh’s flat, cracks appear in the ceiling, and Dorsa puts it down to evil spirits of ‘djinn’. Shideh laughs this off at first but soon jump scares, violent sound effects and moving objects frighten her out of the house. In wild panic, she is caught on the street by police who arrest her for not wearing a hijab: “A woman should fear nothing as much as being exposed” she is told, and gets lucky, with only one night in jail. But when Dorsa’s favourite doll disappears, the tone darkens further. With all the neighbours having moved out, Shideh must make a decision.
Under the Shadow is an inversion of A Girl walks home alone at Night: this time the female main protagonist is not in charge, but is invaded by external manifestations provoked by emotional turmoil. Shideh is isolated and abandoned by her husband, in more than one way, and has no friends to turn to. Whilst the djinn – medieval spirits – do not exist, Shideh and her daughter need an explanation for their plight, and the terror of the bombings drives her into a fantasy world of terror. Under the Shadowusessymbols and metaphors to create a specific feminist horror scenario. DoP Kit Fraser turns living rooms, hallways and staircases into nightmare alleys, the lighting is expressionist and evocative. Narges Rashid is brilliant in this tour-de-force of emotions, and her interactions with Manshadi’s Dorsa are near telepathic. Babak Anvari has created something of a contradiction: a meaningful horror film. AS
Dir: Ira Sachs | Cast: Jennifer Ehle, Greg Kinnear; Paulina Garcia, Theo Tapitz, Michael Barbieri, Talia Balsam | USA 2016, 87 min.
Best known for his theatre work, director and co-writer Ira Sachs’ follow up to his screen debut Love is Strange is a keenly observed story of two teenage boys whose friendship is threathened by parental intervention and an overdose of middleclass cultural aspirations.
Jake (Taplitz) moves with his parents, psychologist Kathy (Ehle) and actor father Brian (Kinnear), from a small flat in Manhattan to a bigger place in Brooklyn. The reason for their advancement is the death of Brian’s father, who left them the flat and a shop, where Chilean emigrant Gloria (Garcia) works and lives in a small backroom with her son Tony (Barbieri). Both boys are in their early teens, interested in art, and want to go to a prestigious high school. Due to her friendship with Jake’s grandfather, Gloria is still paying the same rent as when she moved in years ago and Brian needs to increase her rent to supplement his meagre income as a fringe actor and he is encouraged in this decision by his sister Audrey (Balsam), who owns a share. But Gloria cannot to pay any more and when Jake learns about the eviction order for his friend Tony, he breaks down in tears and asks his father in front of Gloria, to reconsider.
Even despite its meagre running time of 87 minutes, LITTLE MEN suffers from this rather slim narrative but the glaring flaw lies in the cultural discussions between father and son. Sachs takes very much an adult view of teenage boys: fourteen year olds do not engage in lengthy discussion about the proper way to become an artist – unless they are child prodigies – and very few are capable of intensely watching a performance of Chekov’s Seagull, even with a parent as the lead. LITTLE MEN would have been more convincing if Sachs had focused more on the conflict between Jake’s high-minded parents and the Chilean immigrant, Gloria. Performances on the whole are convincing, with a brilliant turn from Paulina Garcia in the role of Gloria. DoP Oscar Duran employs sensitive panning and long tracking shots to show the anguish and disappointment of all concerned. But a superfluous ‘second’ ending leaves even more to question. Had Sachs taken a more teenage viewpoint of the storyline, LITTLE MEN could have been a real gem. AS
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 23 SEPTEMBER AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS.
Director: Andrew Rossi | With Anna Wintour, Andrew Bolton, Wong Ka Wai | 90min | US | Doc
The first Monday of every May is a red letter day for the fashion industry worldwide. From New York, Andrew Rossi’s documentary explores the collaboration between the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and its annual fundraising event, the Met Gala. He reveals the preparations leading to the evening when the world’s most recognisable figures in fashion, business and entertainment will unite to honour the spectacular 2015 exhibition China: Through the Looking Glass, curated by the Institute’s Andrew Bolton who attempts to unite contemporary and historical fashion with fine art, world history and film. The Met evening has burgeoned into one of the premier events of the New York social calendar since Anna Wintour took over the fundraising as co-chair, raising over USD 12 million for the Institute from this glittering soirée.
Where once only architecture, painting and sculpture were considered ‘art’ by the Met. Nowadays, thanks to Andrew Bolton, whose Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition was a breakout success and the eighth most popular show in the Met’s history, fashion has joined the critical list. Laden with concepts and intricate techniques, fashion, and in particular ‘haute couture’, transforms clothing into veritable works of art. This has changed the way art critics view fashion, according to Bolton, who plods around sockless in black lace-up brogues, half-mast trousers and a un-ironed shirt. Clearly the stress is taking its toll on the highly organised, and biddable Lancashire-born art supremo. His intelligent raciness adds a touch of class to the proceedings.
Alongside Bolton, Vogue editor-in-chief and eminence grise, Anna Wintour (Starbucks venti coffee permanently at hand) finesses the guest list, hoping to ‘lose’ a few B list guests, while sternly overseeing the general style of the evening in collaboration with filmmakers Wong Ka Wai and Baz Luhrmann who warn against tainting Chinese heritage with inappropriate influences. John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Karl Lagerfeld also offer their opinions and insight into the world of haute couture.
Rossi certainly showcases the event and the exhibition to perfection in his comprehensive documentary that offers compelling viewing for those interested in the world of celebrity and fashion. America’s answer to Baz Bamigboye does some witty compering on the red carpet, buttering up a fur-strewn Rihanna before she unleashes her tribal-style opening song that has the ensemble guest list bopping and writhing to her command: George and Amal Clooney, Kate Hudson, Justin Bieber and Alicia Keys are all their acting their part in this opulent costume drama that feels rather grotesque. MT
Cast: Sidse Babett Knudsen, Fabrice Luchini, Marie Riviere, Miss Ming
98 min | Drama | France
United with Fabrice Luchini, the star of his 1990 film La Discrète, director Christian Vincent’s drama COURTED observes the goings on in a courthouse in Saint-Omer, north-west France, where the trial of a presumed child murderer is taking place.
Judge Racine (Luchini) is presiding over the trial, he is not very much liked, his frigid manner and punitive nature earned him the nickname “Double-Figures” because of his severe sentences. The defendant, a young man is not very helpful, he simply repeats that he did not kick the four-year-old Mélanie to death. Racine, who is in the process of divorcing and lives in a hotel, comes down with a heavy flu at the beginning of the trial, which does not improve his mood. But soon enough, Racine mellows, when he finds out that one of the jurors, Ditte Lorensen-Coteret (Knudsen), is the anaesthetist he fell in love with in the hospital where she treated him after an accident. Suddenly, Racine becomes human and allows the defendant to go free, since it is clear, that he covered up for his girl friend, who was expecting another child at the time of the crime.
The meetings in a restaurant with Ditte show another side of Racine: he is a lonely man, only too willing to impress Ditte, even trying not to show his annoyance at her internet-obsessed daughter, who hijacks the rendeszvous of her mother. The visuals cleverly convey the two levels of this film: medium and wide shots dominate the court scenes, close-ups the restaurant scenes. Vibrant colours suffuse the romantic meetings, whilst in the court the light is harsh with all protagonists being more or less colourless ciphers. Vincent does not try to tell a story: L’Hermine is episodical and fragmented, only held together by Luchini’s personality, and it carries it well and very competently. There is a masterful dramatic tension here that leaves the audience always wanting to know more. AS
ON RELEASE FROM 30 SEPTEMBER | VENICE 2015 FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW | WINNER BEST SCRIPT AND BEST ACTOR
Cast: Mart Avandi, Liisa Koppel, Joonas Koff, Ursula Ratasepp, Hendrik Toompere
Director: Klaus Haro Writer: Anna Heinamaa
Cinematographer: Tuomo Hutri
Klaus Haro’s drama THE FENCER is a smalltown old-fashioned drama with universal appeal making it ideal as the country’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. Set in Estonia during the Soviet regime, it lacks the dramatic heft or character development for really engrossing viewing, veering towards clunkiness in its overly didactic approach. A rather stolid and pedestrian experience then, despite being impeccably filmed and impressively mounted.
It follows the story of Endel Nelis (Mart Avandi) who we first meet in 1952 when he arrives in the small town of Haapsalu in Estonia, which was under the Stalinist rule. Athletic and entrepreneurial, he starts up a fencing club which is soon the talk of the town where he meets young Marta (Liisa Koppel) and Jaan (Joonas Koff) and soon falls for Kadri (Ursula Ratasepp). But the fly in the ointment is the stern head master (Hendrik Toompere), who takes a dim view of his sporting activities simply because swords are involved. Coming up against the locals, the frustrated head master decides to undermine Niels’ popularity and begins digging for dirt on his rival, aided and abetted by a hostile political climate that is open to any kind of controversy and always ,ready to pursue negative claims against individuals.
And it does appear that Niels has something to hide in Estoni, but he is drawn between sporting heroism for the nation in an upcoming fencing tournament, and risking his own life by playing into Moscow’s hands. Kadri supports him with romantic gusto as the two lead their fellow Estonians into battle against the superior Russian team, a metaphor for Communism in its purest form. This is a rousing if rather reductive drama based on imagined events; a codicil confirms that the real Niels lived through the reign of terror finally dying in the 1930s but is still remembered for his fencing club. MT
Dir: Rachel Lang | Cast: Salome Richard, Claude Gensac, Oliver Chantreau | France Belgium | 90min
French director Rachel Lang won a Silver Leopard at Locarno for a short film in 2010. Her rather slim feature debut follows the vacuous life of its young Strasbourgeouise heroine who dreams of greater things and richer emotional pastures after going back home to reconnect with past loves and install a shower in her grandmother’s bathroom.
Guaranteed to leave some viewers mildly irritated with its aimless plotline and rather pretentious characters whose ditzy exploits may intrigue others,. there are some laughs to be had in this realist drama with its brief moments of surrealism and sardonic humour.
Ana (Richard) is a film chauffeur who spends the opening scene driving round in circles to deliver the lead actress (Kate Moran) to the set on time and failing miserably. Excused by a sympathetic boss, she then takes the courtesy vehicle, a Porsche Panamera, for an extended spin all the way home where her likeable grandma, Odette (Claude Gensac, On My Way) promptly has a fall, literally bringing BADEN BADEN down to earth with a thud. The freewheeling nature of this arthouse drama gives the impression that Lang is making things up as she goes along or she may just be trying to convey the hit and miss attitude of her central character.
For want of anyone better, Ana gets back with her ex Boris (Olivier Chantreau), who shoots videos, and then is attracted by hunky Gregoire (Lazare Gousseau) who offers his plumbing services for the bathroom project, although it soon emerges that DIY is clearly not his schtick. Later Ana dreams of following Boris through some magical woods – clearly wishing him to be something he is not. BADEN BADEN could be seen as a metaphor for modern life trapped in a grim and directionless urban existence, conjured up by Strasbourg’s stark and featureless architecture, whilst longing for the romantic release and promise inspired by Le Corbusier’s stunning Notre Dame de Haut chapel seen through Fiona Braillon’s impressive camerawork. MT
ON RELEASE VIA MUBI FROM SEPTEMBER 2016 | BERLINALE 2016 review
.
Cast: Greenwell, Tom Hughes, Christine Marzano, Brendan Somers
100 min | Drama | ROI
First time writer/director Vivienne De Courcy makes an ambitious attempt to connect the highly organised Chelsea Flower Show with the adjective “wild” – personified in this case by the real life Irish garden designer Mary Reynolds, who won a Gold Medal there in 2002. Somehow, the filmmaker brings these contradictions together, even though the strain sometimes shows.
Mary Reynolds (Greenwell) grows up in the Irish countryside as a wild child, falling in love with nature. A headstrong young woman, she then moves to Dublin to try her luck as a landscape designer. But her first employer, Charlotte “Shah” (Marzano) steals her design book, and sells the designs as her own – before firing Mary, after marrying a rich Englishman. Luckily for Mary, she also falls in love – with Christy Collard – the leader of a band called The Green Angels, who lives in Cork and has a highly competitive relationship with his father Mike (Somers) who has a New Age group. Mary needs the help of these men for her project at the Chelsea Flower show, where she wants to re-create a nature garden – not forgetting the £250 000, which are needed to enter the competition. But Christy, although very much in love with Mary, goes back to Ethiopia, where he leads a campaign for re-forestation, telling Mary that this project is much worthier than her Chelsea project and putting their love on the back burner.
De Courcy does her best to create a very lively drama, with Mary travelling the world, but never losing sight of her target: winning at Chelsea. Greenwell is vey apt at portraying the young woman as a mixture of stubborn, adventurous and naïve. She carries the film singlehandedly, and lets the audience forget the many contradictions and implausibilities of the storyline. Gorgeous to look at, Cathal Watters sumptuous visuals paint a glorious background, and particularly the African environment is shown impressively. The Chelsea settings are a also brilliantly re-constructed, complete with an actor impersonating Prince Charles having a word with Mary. In reality, he helped her create her own garden project at Kew Gardens, the first designer for 250 years to be honoured this way.
Somehow DARE TO BE WILD is true to Reynolds’ spirit of preservation and protection, the desire to return to our naturalistic gardens and to the simple beauty of the environment, rather than the manicured phoniness of many of the showcased contemporary gardens where props have taken over from reality. AS
THE CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 25 – 29 MAY 2016 | DARE TO BE WILD IS ON RELEASE FROM 23 SEPTEMBER 2016
In his well-crafted documentary based on Andrew Feinstein’s book. Johan Grimonprez tries to flesh out and shed further light on the well-known but nonetheless inflammatory subject of arms trading and, crucially, the finance governments receive from the racket. Whilst our leaders try to distance themselves from it, they condone the damage it causes by perpetually greasing the wheels of the gravy train that rolls on from one to the next, like a lucrative hot potato.
The evidence is all there and is masterfully curated by Grimonprez and corroborated by talking heads and witnesses who profess incredulity. The whole process started back in the 80s during Ronald Regan’s time in office when the term ‘special relationship’ with the UK’s Margaret Thatcher was first coined (and later passed to Blair, Bush and Obama) and led to and facilitated a profitable trade with Saudi Arabia that escalated into an ubiquitous state of perpetual international conflict – still happening today – and ‘affectionately’ termed (and I use that term ironically) the ‘War on Terror’.
According to the alledged findings of Shadow World, which seem entirely plausible – this is a conflict that shows no signs of abating, and why should it when one considers the positive contribution that it has made to those concerned. Not a documentary that will make you leave the cinema laughing. MT
NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE from 17 SEPTEMBER 2016 | Bertha Dochouse W1
DIR.: PANKAJ JOHAR | Documentary | India/Norway | 83 min.
Director/producer/DoP Pankaj Johar (Still Standing) has invested a great deal of emotional energy in his documentary CECILIA: becoming a participant rather than a detached observer in this tragic film about child-trafficking.
Cecilia Hasda was 54 when she arrived in Delhi from her village in Bengal (1500 km away) to housekeep for Pankaj Johar and his lawyer wife, Sunaina, in the first year of their marriage. Almost immediately Cecilia finds out that her daughter Mati, 14, has been found dead in Dehli, having hanged herself. Cecilia is naturally distraught, and Pankaj and Sunaina try to help her investigate the circumstances of Mati’s death. The couple shamefully admit that they have employed children as young as twelve to work for them when they finally discover a child-trafficking ring, led by a certain Rafiq, who ‘bought’ Mati in her home village, obviously with the consent of her father – and, as it turns out, the consent of the whole village. In turns out that all the villagers are in league with Rafiq and his men, paying them to procure household staff.
Researching the widespread issue of child-trafficking, Johar and his wife meet the campaigner Kailash Satyarthi, who has fought against the practice for twenty years, just before being awarded the Nobel Peace Price. Mati’s employers approach Cecilia offering her compensation for her loss, on the proviso that she agrees to swear to an affidavit that they treated Mati well. But soon it becomes clear that Cecilia’s husband is attempting to have Rafiq freed from jail. Cecilia learns that he has agreed to the affidavit on the basis that he was divorced from her at the time when Mati started work in Dehli, so making it impossible for Cecilia to pursue the case further.
Pankaj and Sunaina travel with Cecilia twice to her home village, but are frightened away by the villagers, who blame Cecilia for setting the police on them. At one point Sunaina is so upset she admits: “I don’t trust anybody in this country”. And it turns out that she is right: the villagers and her husband put Cecilia under pressure to take back the accusations against Rafiq. Returning to her home village for good she steadily becomes an alcoholic.
Working on three levels, CECILIA is a testament to the evils of child trafficking; an exposé of the financial benefits of the racket to the police and legal authorities (who are well compensated); and a portrait of a middle class Indian couple who finally wake up to the stark reality of their domestic lives. At least Pankaj Johar accepts his co-responsibility for the injustice he exposes in this brutally frank documentary. AS
SCREENING AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE | www.dochouse.org for tickets
Dir.: Jerry Rothwell, Reuben Atlas; Documentary; UK/US/France 2016, 85 min.
Directors/writers Jerry Rothwell (Deep Water) and Reuben Atlas (Brothers Hypnotic) investigate a scandal concerning vintage vine and mega rich US citizens in SOUR GRAPES, a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie with its twists and turns. Dosed with a dollop of humour – after all, there cannot be much pity for victims who spend six figures on a bottle of wine – fake or not – but they are still victims and deserving of justice.
This well-crafted documentary opens during the dot-com-boom in the late 1990s, which produced an incredible number of super-rich patrons, vintage wine becoming one of the most sought-after commodities. Novelist Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City) joined the wealthy crowd as a wine journalist – he was one of the first to meet a certain Rudy Kurniawan, an Indonesian businessman of Chinese heritage, born in 1976 – a man with a yen for vintage wines and impressive manners. His background was slightly murky but his opulent wealth was family-related: his father ran the Heineken franchise in China, and gave his son a cool yearly allowance of one million US Dollars. Kurniawan’s wine cellar was legendary, and between 2003 and 2006 bottles worth more than 35M$ were sold, often in auctions at Christies, but also at Acker/Merrall/Conduit in New York, where Rudy’s auction of his wine fetched 24.7 M$ in 2006 – a new record.
But Rudy’s luck – his clients included the Hollywood producer Arthur Sarkassian (Rush Hour) and film/TV director Jef Levy (Inside Monkey Zetterland) – would run out soon: mainly, because in far away Burgundy, Laurent Ponsot, wine producer, discovered, that Rudy had forged labels, corks and content of his most famous Wines from the Côte d’Or. And closer to home, industrialist Bill Koch (brother of the infamous arch-reactionaries Charles and David), had put Ex-FBI agent Jim Wynne on to Rudy, after discovering that he had paid several million Dollar for counterfeit bottles. But there is much more here than initially meets the eye.
SOUR GRAPES is a slick documentary that plays out like a crime caper in a luxury environment. Rothwell and Atlas show Kurniawan very much at home in this world: basically playing a shell game, always borrowing just more than he would spend on his own luxury equipment, needed keep up the front. As fine wine consultant Maureen Downey states: “The overwhelmingly male-dominated field of the highest-end collectors is fuelled by “F.U.” money, a kind of money most humans never experience; it is a world of swagger, camaraderie and one-upmanship, in which the participants have more in common with James Bond than Richie Rich”. The documentary is awash with archive footage showing Rudy very much at home in an environment where over 40, 000 fake bottles sold by the man ”who revolutionised the market”, are still in the wine cellars of his friends and clients. Watchable and intoxicating. AS
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE from 16 SEPTEMBER 2016 COURTESY OF DOGWOOF
Dir: Alexandre Aja | Cast: Sarah Gadon, Aaron Paul, Aiden Longworth, Oliver Platt, Jamie Dornan | US Drama | 90min
Filmmaker Alexandre Aja bases the premise of this tonally up the spout but enjoyable supernatural thriller on the belief that any human life, no matter how damaged, can be valuable and build connections. Adapted for the screen from Liz Jensen’s 2004 novel, this is watchable and rather wacky largely due to Max Minghella’s engaging script and a wonderful central performance from Aiden Longworth as the little boy who dies after falling into freezing water and is brought back to life becoming quirky and amusing in his therapy sessions. “When I grow up, I’d like to sit in a chair and say ‘how does that feel,’ for a living”. MT
Dir: Victor Erice, DoP: José Luis Alcaine | Cast: Iciar Bollain, Sonsoles Aranguren, Omero Antonutti, Aurore Clement, Lola Cordona, Rafaela Aparicio, Francisco Merino, and Maria Caro | 97min | Drama | Spain
Enigmatic and soulful, El Sur reveals its slow-burning narrative as tentatively as sunrise on a winter’s day. In the opening scenes, a young girl gradually awakens in the penumbral darkness of her room to realise that her life has changed forever, as the film unspools, the memories of her childhood play out and gently crystallise into this moment of wistful sadness when all that has gone before suddenly become clear in the exquisite metaphoric dawn. This is a rare and subtly nuanced study of a father daughter relationship.
Victor Erice’s painterly depiction of Spain in the 1950s expresses the conflict of Civil War through a domestic tragedy that takes place in the family’s ‘chalet’ in the Logrono countryside near Madrid. The South and Seville is imagined as a sultry El Dorado of movie stars and exotica. It is also the birthplace of young Estrella’s father (Omero Antonutti) who in turn dreams of a glamorous starlet Irene Rios (Aurore Clement) whose name Estrella finds scribbled in his bookcase in the sequestered antic of their home.
Estrella, played as a child by Sonsoles Aranguren and a teenager ny Icíar Bollaín, tries to understand the adult world around her which is fiercely traditional one held under the of General Franco’s rule, where women stay timidly in denial at home and men got on with being men. “I grew up more or less like everyone else, getting used to being alone and not thinking too much about happiness.” But Estrella forms a charismatic bond with her father, feeling more compatible with him than her straight-laced mother, and the two share a rich interior life of reverie against the backcloth of their dank and dismal provincial life.
Victor Erice’s EL Sur is an elegantly understated drama about childhood that actually benefits from its modest running time of 97 minutes although the director had hoped to create a lengthier film envisioned a lengthier venture and got the Stroheim treatment, the half that remains is nevertheless exquisitely lucid and tender about childhood’s shifting emotional spaces. The drama is soberly shot in burnt ocres and muddy browns synonymous with Franco’s grim regime and the starkness of Northern Spanish winters Erice but spices up this cold terrain with sensuous moments: cognac and cigars in the Gran Hotel, a pasa doble plays at a wedding; and Film Noir posters in the local cinema that capture the imagination and beckon Estrella to a life beyond her lonely childhood. MT
Cast: Anthony Head, Jed Rees, Belinda Stewart Wilson, Tygh Runyan
86min | Crime thriller | UK Canada
This slick and rather enigmatic crime thriller is made on British soil with Canadian money and a transatlantic feel that gives it the edge over most contemporqry Britlicks of the genre. It also has a well-chosen Canadian\British cast which gives a shot of international glamour to a story that could have been rather more pedestrian in British hands. Ryan Bonder was born in Canada but latterly came to London where he honed his craft shooting commercials in preparation for his second feature THE BROTHER which he describes as ‘thematically resonant with the rest of my work – about Memory, Identity and Loss’.
The story is straightforward and unfolds in linear structure: Adam Diamond escaped the family business of international arms dealing to set up a new carefree existence. His past crashes in around him upon the arrival of his brother, who brings news that his father’s (Anthony Head) health is failing, leaving him to pick up the pieces of a deal about to sour.
Of course, English actor Anthony Head’s gritty performance as the spaced out pater familias scratching on the foothills of Alzheimers keeps it firmly tethered to its London territory along with Brian Johnson’s impressively shot cityscapes, but this is no sweary, overtalky caper. Quite the reverse, it feels spare and rather refined at times and despite some brutal bouts of violence, such as Head’s hand being staplegunned to the floor (obviously Bonder had the Kray Brothers in mind), his two sons are Canadian actors who adds a twist of suaveness to the proceedings, along with Bjorknas’ ominously stylish score that ramps up to the feeling of underlying tension, making THE BROTHER a compulsively watchable but ultimately rather unsatisfying experience. MT
Writer/director Ysim Ustaglu is known for her soulful portraits of characters in challenging circumstances in Turkey. Her latest Clair Obscur is about two women who, at first sight, seem to have very little in common. But as the harrowing narrative unfolds we learn a lot about the fate of many women in Muslim society – regardless of their social status.
Shenaz (Eryigit) works as a psychiatrist in a hospital in small seaside town. One of her patients, a teenager called Elmas (Uzun), has been found one morning on the balcony of the flat she shared with her husband, Koca (Kesucin) and her mother-in-law Kaynana (Poyraz). The older woman, a diabetic, is found dead in her bed, while Koca died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Elmas seems to have no memory of the night in question, but Shenaz works patiently with her to unblock her memory.
It soon emerges that Elmas had to marry her husband, who was in his forties, when she was only thirteen. Her father had her passport changed, and she was literally carted off straight from school. From the first days of their marriage, Koca literally rapes Elmas every night, causing her physical and emotional distress. Shenaz doesn’t fare much better, despite her more privileged background. Her jealous boyfriend is a great cook but a lousy lover who tries to control her. But when Shenaz finally finds someone else, her boyfriend threatens to kill Shenaz and himself.
Clair Obscur is a sensitively told drama but some may find it too opaque and ambiguous; the relationship between Shenaz and the two men in her life only becomes clear at the very end. And her therapy sessions with Elmas show positive results in days – this would take months or even years in a real setting. Still, Eryigit and Uzun are convincing as the two distraught women, and DoP Michael Hammon makes the claustrophobia of their marginalised lives seem real despite its modern day setting, using muted colours in the maritime locations. Clair Oscur is similar in tone to the work of Ustaglu’s fellow countryman Nuri Bilge Ceylan, presenting a unique female voice from Turkey. AS
CLAIR OSCUR won the Golden Tulip Award | Best Feature | Antalya Film Festival 2016
Dir: David Mackenzie. Writer: Taylor Sheridan | Cast: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine | 102min | UK/US | Crime Drama
Hell or High Water is a rangy arthouse western with a witty political undercurrent courtesy of actor turned writer Taylor Sheridan, who wrote Sicario. British director David Mackenzie (Starred Up) continues to impress with a Texas-set heist led by a laconic Jeff Bridges (with an undecipherable Texan drawl).
Texas is looking a bit tired round the edges as brothers Toby and Tanner (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) embark on the dodgy business of robbing banks. The humour sparks from their cynical repartee as they go through the motions of petty crime for paltry financial gain.
Toby and Tanner get down to business early in the morning so as to steal a march on the banking staff before they are really geared up for the day. This is a high-risk business, and they only take small amounts of untraceable bills so it’s not worth the bank’s while pursuing charges. Toby, a divorcé, was very much the apple of his mother’s eye and the sole beneficiary of her will, leaving him in control of a family property on oil land which he has signed over to his kids in trust. The bank heists have become a way of life rather than a desperate need, but he still goes through the motions to support his brother Tanner, a career criminal who got nothing in the Will, so there is a kind of irony in the plotline that spikes the dark humour.
Meanwhile, the Texas Ranger Marcus (Bridges) has his eye firmly fixed on their trail through his Wayfarer sunglasses. His partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham) is a Native American and they share an affectionate relationship – this is the kind of film that doesn’t pull its punches – with some politically incorrect racial jibing – in the best possible taste.
Marcus is on the verge of retiring but reticent to throw in the towel knowing that not much else awaits him but the inevitable, and the two of them mooch around town checking in at the same old diner where the feisty old local waitress would certainly give them the cold shoulder if they went too far off the main menu selection by ordering the trout like some out-of-towner did back in 1987.
Nominated for a fistful of Oscars this is an upbeat crime thriller with some vicious dust-ups and convincing action scenes between Marcus, Toby and Tanner that feel at home in the sun-baked landscape of New Mexico and Arizona. MT
Dir-: Andrew Dominik | with Nick Cave | Biopic | UK | 112min
Embracing the overwhelming grief Nick Cave is feeling due to the death of his son, New Zealand filmmaker Andrew Dominik has chosen to film his biopic in black and white, and with “ridiculous handheld 3D camera” – his words precisely but with the help of Benoit Debie and Alwin Kuchker things finally get on track. Leaving the 3D glasses off detracts nothing from the well-observed but overlong picture of the musician’s experience since the death of his son. Cave brings his own witty stream of consciousness to the party, as we watch the film taking shape in the studio during a pre-recording session.
With his seemingly idyllic life: a wife and soulmate, and twin sons – actor, writer and musician Nick Cave confessed to having it all in Iain Forysth’s (far superior) 20,0000 On Earth. Here he pours his grief on losing a child into a string of striking lyrics (“your legs are so long they should come with their own elevator”). He now confesses to occasionally feeling “an object of pity”, a fact that does not fit well with his own self image, but his natural self-deprecation prevents this from sounding narcissistic. Cave also admits that songs can foretell certain events, as dreams can be visionary, and this is something he shares with his wife whom he describes as multi-facetted. Clearly death and bereavement has brought them even closer together. But as he gets older he feels that “the struggle to do what I do requires more effort”.
The test of a successful biopic must surely be that it offers entertainment not only to fans but appeal to wider audiences. And here Dominik largely fails as the format and filming detracts from the subject matter. Despite these obvious flaws ONE MORE TIME WITH FEELING adds a certain something to the Nick Cave experience that will appeal to his many fans and resonate with the bereaved arthouse audiences. Let’s hope there’s more great stuff to come from this engaging musician and lyricist. MT
This ‘boy meets boy’ drama deftly handles tonal shifts ranging from euphoria to anxiety to offer a slightly flawed but engaging experience of gay coupledom. What starts out as an 18 minute unbridled orgy in a Parisian sex dive (severely testing viewers’ attention spans), leads to a breezily romantic nighttime bike ride for Theo and Hugo (newcomers Couet and Nambot) who then make the angst ridden discovery that they have had unprotected sex and this leads to a blow by blow procedural of their medical treatment.
Capturing the freshness realisation of new love this drama will be a winner with the LGBT crowd or those drawn to bold filmmaking. MT
OIT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 9 SEPTEMBER 2016 | BERLINALE REVIEW
Director: Mathieu Amalric | Crime Romance | France | 76min
Mathieu Amalric bases his directorial debut, in which he also stars, on a 1964 crime thriller from Belgian detective Simenon. Lushly erotic, highly stylised and superbly shot on the Academy format by the capable Christophe Beaucarne, it will please the art house circuit with its skilful performances and clever fractured narrative. After making love to his mistress Esther (a sinuous Stephanie Cléau) in the eponymous blue room, tractor magnate Julien (Amalric) goes home to his lovely wife (Léa Drucker) and daughter. The story jumps forward to show him being cross-examined by a local magistrate (a masterful Laurent Poitrenaux) as it transpires that his affair with Esther is not as simple and compartmentalised as has hoped for. As the story flips backwards and forward further clues gradually emerge, fleshing out the storyline but at leaving the details as shady as Esther’s background. The Blue Room is a workable and sophisticated piece of cinema that offers good entertainment, but many critics questioned why it premiered in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes on its release. Those in the know will realise it was due to Amalric’s close relationship with the festival. Bijoux, smart and entertaining – it’s certainly a film to be proud of. MT
Cast: Jamie Dornan, Cillian Murphy, Charlotte Le Bon, Anna Geislerova, Toby Jones, Jiri Semek
120min | Czech Republic/France/UK, 120 min.
Three years after success with his multi-award winning thriller Metro Manila. Sean Ellis turns his focus back on Europe with an ambitious WWII thriller ANTHROPOID, based on the assassination of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, acting Reichs Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. His death has been planned by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, and was carried out by two Czechoslovakian soldiers, trained by British SOE Forces in London, on May 27th 1942 in Prague and was a turning point in WWII. The event has been the subject of several feature films, notably the Czech production of The Assassination, and Operation Daybreak. HHhH (Himmler’s Brain is called Heydrich), based on the novel by Laurent Binet, directed by Cedric Jiminez to be released later this year.
Heydrich, chief organiser of the Final solution at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942, was soon to be ordered back to Berlin by Hitler, to be promoted to run all occupied countries, setting him up as The Führer’s heir. Heydrich was by far the most intellectually competent member of the Nazi leadership, which he proved in his position in Prague, carrying out his reign with stick (nearly completely liquidating the Czech resistance movement), and carrot, paying the Czechoslovakian workforce decent wages to raise their productivity in the factories – unlike his compatriots, who literally starved to death the foreign workers in the countries under their control.
Sean Ellis acts as his own DoP, as well as writing, directing and producing and has chosen the name of the operation, Anthropoid, for his version of the campaign. A hand-held camera retains a gritty, indie feel to the piece which is shot in intimate close-ups and on the widescreen, offering magnificent vistas of Prague. The assassination endeavour was riddled by bad planning, hampering the progress at nearly every stage. When Jan Kubis (Dornan), Josef Gubcik (Murphy) and Karel Kurda (Semek) parachute into the Czech countryside, Jan and Josef are separated from Karel. The two are injured and have lost their equipment but soon have to deal with two traitors, before they even set out for Prague. There the underground agents, led by Jan Zelanka-Hajsky (Jones), are aghast at the proposal to kill Heydrich. They are aware that a successful attempt would bring revenge from the Germans – as it happened, over five thousand Czechoslovakian citizens lost their lives in the Germans reprisals, among the nearly the whole village of Lidice. But Kubis and Gubcik are adamant, and finally Zelanka gives in and supports the trio, Kurda having joined them after a visit to his family. Jan falls in love with Maria, Josef with Lenka (Geislerova). The women are very different: Maria emotional and full of histrionic outburst, trying to deny the danger they are in; Lenka, the daughter of an officer, has no illusions about the outcome as is calm and controlled.
The scenes in the countryside are feels like a noir-western: darkness prevails, the environment is as hostile as the human opponents. Prague is magnificent, full of twilight and foggy mystery; human relationships are fragile, but again, it never really gets light, shadows linger everywhere. The grandiose finale in the church is again a return to the western motive: the Alamo, were the brave outlast the enemy, superior only in numbers, for an eternity, before darkness falls. Performance-wise Cillian Murphy as Josef is the standout: strong and full of integrity while retaining his vulnerability in the scenes with Lenka. Toby Jones makes a believable and utterly sober, always reinventing himself as her with a fine portrait of Uncle Hajsky, and Hana Frejkova makes an appealing Mrs Lukesova, who shelters the pair while they plan their mission. Ellis crafts his central characters carefully and appealingly in the early domestic-based scenes and we invest in them enough to care what happens at the denouement. ANTHROPOID is an exercise in resistance: the human spirit triumphs over all obstacles, as in Lang’s Hangmen also Die, the tyrant is caught by fate as much as human struggle. AS/MT
Dir: Tony Britten | Cast: John Hurt, Niamk Cusack, James Wilby, Dame Eileen Atkins | Comedy | 90min | UK
Writer/director Tony Britten’s (In Love with Alma Cogan, Benjamin Britten: Peace and Conflict) latest feature provides some welcome humour this summer with its stellar British cast of John Hurt; Niamh Cusack, Caroline Katz, Cathy Tyson, James Wilby and Dame Eileen Atkins to name but an impressive few.
Set in a north Norfolk village where an upmarket mixture of Brexiteers and eclectic London ‘ex-pats’ have found a quieter existence, the story follows their collective bright idea of using an erotic (aka ‘mummy porn’) novel in the style of “50 Shades of Grey” as a vehicle to raise funds to prevent their local pub from closing its doors on this recherché community.
The ensuing caper is amusingly scripted by Oliver Britten lampooning a series of caricatures (the sexy barrister; the sardonic literary agent; the gay booksellers, the aspiring novelist and the TV exec) all played wittily by a fabulous cast, who gently send each other up. The slightly bumbling chaps get together in the pub one night and agree to each pen several pages of purple prose together to form the book which is then delivered to said literary agent (Eileen Atkins in classic form) where it is snapped up. However, there is a catch, the interested publisher (John Hurt) stipulates a female author – and not four middle class blokes – to spearhead the book’s publicity campaign. Keeping their involvement a secret, they engage an out of work actress to ‘role play’ the part of the author but the tables are turned on the guys when she takes control.
Combining TV and film talent CHICK LIT is an enjoyable comedy drama of the kind you might enjoy on BBC1: it’s amusingly written, attractively filmed and impeccably performed by the best of British acting talent, and best of of all – it doesn’t take itself seriously. MT
In UK cinemas from September 2nd courtesy of Capriol Films and VOD Trinity | VoD from September 12th with a US release planned for Autumn 2016
Dir.: Brian Oakes | Documentary | USA 2016 | 120 min.
First time feature documentary director/co-writer Brian Oakes’ portrait of conflict journalist James Foley, whose execution by ISIS in northern Syria on August 19th 2014 was videoed by the terrorists and went viral, is a passionate portrait of a man who tried to give voice to the many who have none. Oakes, like co-writer Heather McDonald, is a childhood friend of ‘Jim’ Foley, and has wisely not included the sensationalist clip in his documentary, stating that he “never watched it and probably never will”.
James Foley was born in 1973, the oldest of five children who grew up in quaint, middleclass surroundings in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. After his studies at Marquette University in Wisconsin, he worked for four years with ‘Teach for America’ in inner-city schools in Phoenix/Arizona. Whilst doing his MA in writing at the university of Massachusetts, he taught English to inmates of Cook County Jail. Becoming a conflict journalist in Afghanistan, Libya (where he was hold hostage for 44 days by Gadaffi’s forces) and finally Syria, he found yet another way to help those worse off than himself, in this case Syrians, who were at the mercy of Bashar-al-Assad’s regime and the growing terror of ISIS. He lived with Syrian citizens, gained their confidence and reported home. He was abducted in November 2012 in Syria, and held hostage with other conflict journalists (many of them were released) for nineteen months.
Oakes interviews colleagues of Foley and their stories are anything but heroic. Many full time journalists and photographers had been made redundant by their media outlets in the US, and the freelancers had to fight to make a living – whilst also being in a war zone; often mistrusted and constantly under threat by the forces whose war crimes they were reporting. Foley’s own videos are very much proof of this. Nicole Tung, who often worked with Jim, states that “conflict journalists are the intimate chroniclers of conflict.” She talks about their day-to-day life, playing with Syrian children, capturing the life of the communities, as they were destroyed by outside forces.
Oakes has recreated some scenes from captivity, with some of Foley’s co-prisoners giving harrowing testaments of their physical and psychological torture. But they also tell about their small victories: like inventing a simple board game, and playing it with such passion that they totally forgot where they were. These black-and-white images shot in shadows, support the emotional content of the narrative.
Interviews with family members (and videos about the siblings growing up together) show Jim as very much at odds with his socially adjusted family. There is still so much regret that they did not know him better. Jim was foremost a moralist, somebody who never owned a property, particularly valued material possessions. He was a nomad who identified himself with the victims of society, wherever he went.
The James Foley Story is a testament to a man who had not only the physical, but also the moral courage to live in war zones. It is only fitting that the James W. Foley Foundation is a living legacy of this brave humanitarian. AS
Cast: Anna Gunn, Sarah Megan Thomas, James Purefoy, Lee Tergesen, Alysia Reiner, Samuel Roukin
110min | USA 2016 | Drama
Director Meera Menon’s second feature, written by Amy Fox and co-produced by two of the leading stars, Sarah Megan Thomas and Alysia Reiner, sees Wall Street as a shabby place of deceit and back-stabbing, but, unlike the Wolf of Wall Street (where women were just trophies), there is no hedonism involved – and the only substance abuse is a pregnant woman drinking a glass of wine. Women in the City are too busy fighting male discrimination to have time for self-indulgence and displays of grandeur. Whether they are better than the money men, is left open.
Senior investment banker Naomi Bishop (Anna Gunn) is preparing a new IPO for her company: Cachet. The brainchild of Ed (Roukin), the new social media site is bigger and much more secure than Facebook. But Naomi is suffering from the failure of her last IPO, and her boss Randall (Tergesen), is more interested in playing with his Jenga tower than the details of the operations. That said, he does not let forget her failure. In a place were innuendos and rumours are often more powerful than figures, the comment “Naomi brushed up the clients of her last deal the wrong way” is just code for “she is not flirty enough”.
But forty something home boxing fan Naomi is no lightweight, but bloody good at her job. It’s the company she keeps that contributes to her downfall: her part time lover, hedge-fund broker Michael Connor (Purefoy) seems to more interested in the Cachet deal than making love to Naomi. And – beware of deputies – Naomi’s second-in-command, Erin Manning (Thomas), feels wronged by her boss who denied her a promotion, and will do everything to get her revenge. Erin sees her pregnancy and wimpy boyfriend as a hindrance in her quest for success. Still, Naomi needs Erin to be nice to Randall, after a source revealed that Cachet might not be so secure as advertised. The third women involved is an old friend of Naomi’s, Samantha. Joggling a lesbian lover and twins in her spare time, she works for the Justice Department, earning a fraction of the remuneration paid in banking. After bagging a trader, Samantha is soon convinced that Michael is also involved in manipulating the opening price of the Cachet IPO. Naomi’s future – to take over the global leadership of the bank – is tied to the success of her IPO, which is in the hands of Erin and Samantha.
There are some entertaining scenes in Equity: when Naomi is stressed during a meeting, she sees another man munching the same cookies as she is – but his have more chocolate chips – she explodes, making him count the chips! And when hedge-fund broker Michael passes on a tip about Cachet to a dealer, the information is hidden in a toy hedgehog. Equity offers a new perspective on the world of high finance, but does not follow the rules of the classic finance thriller. Manipulation and treachery are just as rife amongst the She-Wolfs of Wall Street as with their male colleges. The ensemble acting is admirable, with Gunn stealing the show. DoP Eric Lin images creates a hard-edged and cold-hearted environment overloaded with tacky art bought as an investment rather than an adornment. Naomi’s catch-phrase is ‘Money is not a dirty word.’ AS
Steve Read and Rob Alexander get together again for their second documentary that stylishly explores the human side of the reclusive British synthpop pioneer who started Tubeway Army rising to fame with two iconic ’70s hits – Cars and Are Friends Electric?
After thirty years away from the spotlight 55 year old Gary Numan emerges a blissfully married father of three small girls and making a move to a castle in Los Angeles to expand his repertoire into the film world and promote Splinter (2013) – his latest album which turns out to be a bestseller. Alexander and Reed’s film doesn’t attempt to fill in the blanks of the past three decades career-wise, but looks behind Numan’s cold and alienating public persona to expose a rather loveable man who is genuinely passionate about his music and disarmingly down to earth. The directors also avoid a talking heads approach centring their biopic on a close circle of Numan’s collaborators and his parents, who reveal how their son was a self-starting loner who suffered pathological stage fright as was much later diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.
Numan started life as Gary Webb and formed his five man band Tubeway Army as a London teengager in the late ’70s, getting them signed to a major label during punk rock’s surge to the public consciousness. When he discovered how the moog synthesiser could produce a series of highly original sounds Numan incorporated these electronic new wave vibes into a groundbreaking album ‘Replicas’ creating the first UK synthpop hit ‘Are Friends Electric?’ – along the same lines as the German band Kraftwerk several years previously. His robotic stage routines and swivelling eye movements where a clever attempt to emotionally detach himself from his public appearances in order to cope with severe shyness and social unease caused by Asperger’s, but they soon became one of the most innovative and successful features of his performances.
However, debt rapidly followed his breakout success largely due to the mounting costs of his futuristic stage sets and expensive lighting equipment and this caused a rift with his father and manager as the family had sacrificed everything for their only son’s career. The film makes no attempt to explore how financially Numan bounced back simply stating that he carried on working and touring, clutching success from the jaws of failure due to inner strength and his relationship with Gemma – a long-time groupie who eventually became his wife in 1997. One of the takeway moments of the film is when Gary shares his composing techniques ensconced in his musical studio. Fully admitting how unpleasant he can become during this anxiety ridden process, he confesses to coming alive nowadays on stage and wishes he could go on forever.
GARY NUMAN; ANDROID IN LA LA LAND works as a portrait of a fully evolved creative force and also as a tribute to his relationship with the driven force of bubbly Gemma whose hair changes from a raven to flame and then butter blond bombshell during filming and, whom he describes as “everything that I am not” and his conduit to the outside world. Gemma has clearly built her entire existence round the easy-going and appealingly self-deprecating musician who appears to be charmingly devoid of hang-ups or pretensions as he goes about his days in black jeans, tee-shirts and sleeve tattoos. Numan still dyes his quiff of hair black in an attempt to stay youthful. But as his daughter Echo comments: “Daddy you still look old – but with black hair instead of grey”. Clearly children keep you grounded, even when you’re a pop star. MT
Cast: Miles Teller, Jonah Hill, Ana de Ama; Bradley Cooper
USA 2016, 114 min.
Hollywood is full of directors who have never really grown up. Todd Philips, with his Hangover trilogy, definitely qualifies as a leading contender in this category – but with WAR DOGS he has his coming-out as an adult. And, even more surprisingly: his latest feature (co-written by him based on an article in Rolling Stone) is truly funny.
We meet David Parkouz (Teller), a college drop-out, selling quality bed-linen to nursing homes, whilst also working as a massage therapist in Miami Beach. This is not exactly the career he dreamed of and when he meets long lost school friend Efraim Diveroli (Hill), who runs a one-man conglomerate called AEY (which stands for nothing), trying to get into the arms business, David is only too keen to join.
We are in the middle of the Iraq war and the Pentagon, having given giant companies like Halliburton and Lockheed Martin countless no-bid mega defence contracts, wants to level the playing field somehow, and invites everyone to bid for the small fry contracts. Whilst Efraim obviously adores violence, his office wall features a big poster with Al Pacino in Scarface, shooting wildly. David, on the other hand, is a pacifist and he and his – soon to be pregnant – girlfriend Iz (de Ama), have been on many anti-war marches. After spending hours on the net, the duo finally lands their first contract: they have to smuggle Berretta guns from Jordan to an US unit Bagdad. The two have to cross the “Triangle of Death” – without being aware of it – but their 17000 $ reward makes it all worth it. At least for Efriam, because Iz finds out about David’s activities and leaves him with their daughter Ella. When David meets a shady arms-dealer (Cooper) in Las Vegas, AEY hits the big time: $ 300M worth of AK-47 munitions is rotting in an Albanian warehouse. The only hitch: it was manufactured in China, which means it is on an embargo list, and can’t be used by the US military. But David and Efraim have another brilliant idea: they re-package the munitions, making them products of a neutral country. The whole exercise takes months, after which, Efraim, always with an eye for extra-profit, “forgets” to pay the Albanian helpers, which will have consequences.
One could call WAR DOGS a comedy of terror. Instead of a buddy movie we get the opposite: Efraim, always trying to be everything to everyone, has cheated his way through life by mirroring people’s needs. He uses them constantly, pretending to be something he is not. David is naive, and obviously in need of a friend, so that he glorifies their High School past. Whilst Efraim is aware of the danger all the time, always pretending that everything is will be alright, David only wakes up to the many threats of their ”business” in stages. In short: David has something to lose (his family), while Efriam, the chameleon, has no close ties with anybody – apart from himself. Male friendship has never been caricatured so efficiently.
DoP Lawrence Sher (Garden State) has found a colour palette for every stage of this adventure: David and Iz’ old home has warm brown colours, their new home at the beach front is cold, arctic blue – symbolising the soullessness. The Bagdad scenes are shot in primary colours, the reality of war never far away. Albania is a dark, unforgiving environment, a true set for a horror movie. Teller and Hill feed of each other well, the only drawback being that Iz’s role is not fleshed out enough. We can only hope that Philips stays with his newfound maturity, because he owes it to his talents as a filmmaker. AS
Dir | Mohamed Jabaly; Documentary | Norway/Palestine 2016, 109 min.
In the summer of 2014, Israeli forces bombarded Gaza for 51 days, after Hamas attacked Israeli Special Forces. 18,000 houses were destroyed, half a million people had to leave their homes. After his neighbour’s house was destroyed on the first day of the war, 23 year-old Mohamed Jabaly took his camera and filmed an ambulance crew for the most of the war; his main reason was “to escape his own fear, clinging to the camera make me feel safe”. The result is an honest reportage, where we always hear Jabaly’s comments, without ever seeing him.
Surprisingly, there is a nearly total absence of politics – neither the director, nor the citizens of Gaza even mention Israel. Most comments of the victims praise their resilience, for which they thank God. And they need it – the camera showing the chaos of the fleeing masses. Strangely, the Israelis often give warning of around a minute, which block of flats they are going to attack. Sometimes the information is true, helping the targeted populace to flee in time – some times the phone calls are pure hoax. There are very strange moments, like the male nurse in the hospital proudly wearing proudly a Frank Lampard Chelsea shirt, and a man complaining to Jabaly, “the bomb destroyed my washing machine, which I did not even pay for.”
Finally, the director gets caught an apartment block, where he has followed the ambulance crew, and the rubble comes down on him. “I only wanted to run, for my life”. There are hardly any gory scenes, Jabaly does not hover over the casualties; a bone fragment on ground makes an impact, but at the same time, Ambulance shows the doctors in the hospital, trying to get the crowds away from the hospital entrance because they are blocking the way of the ambulance. Jabaly’s comments are confirming his approach to show as much as possible: but his fear grows, and he has to take a break form shooting; his family more or less locking him in. But five days later, he is back with the ambulance crew: the driver Abu Zouq, a calm and competent leader of his men. Jabaly shows the rubble, through which the people are fleeing back into their bombed houses, just to fetch a mattress so as not to have to sleep on the bare ground. Suddenly, the ambulance becomes a taxi service when the crew drives women and children from an area under bombardment to a safer zone in the city. After an excursion to a boarder crossing with Egypt, where families are separated because they do not share the same nationality, Ambulance ends on a hopeful note: children playing at Eid, just before a ceasefire ends this war – one of many since 1947 when the British government partitioned their Protectorate Palestine. Ambulance is passionate: it not only shows the suffering, but also the happiness of the survivors at being alive. Jabaly’s portrait of Gaza echoes Humphrey Jennings documentaries about London during the Blitz – a well deserved compliment indeed. AS
AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE | CURZON BLOOMSBURY from 26 AUGUST 2016
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve Cast: Isabelle Huppert, André Marcon, Roman Kolinka, Edith Scob,Sarah Le Picard
100min | Drama | France Italy
Nathalie is a philosophy teacher in Paris. Happily married to another intellectual, she has a full life with two kids and a possessive mother to take care of. But gradually, in her sixties, her life starts to unravel.
French auteur Mia Hansen-Love’s fifth feature could almost be mistaken for a film by Eric Rohmer with its themes of philosophy, ménage à trois and the infinite cycle of love and life. Appropriately she casts Isabelle Huppert in the leading role which she plays with her usual elegance and panache. Taking life in her stride she encourages her pupils in provocative thought, whisks up a delicious family lunch and rushes to her petulant mother’s bedside to dole out tisanes and sympathy at 5 in the morning.
In all this she suddenly finds herself alone when her husband Heinz (Andre Marcon) announces his departure to leave their airy Parisian apartment to live with a younger woman. Crucially she keeps on going nonchalently; a towering figure of strength and compassion in a world where she is needed but not always valued. Insightfully, Hansen-Love spots she important things she will miss: her husband’s family seaside home where she loves to swim and relax, surrounded by books and beautiful sunsets, but she is still grounded in her Paris home; a salient fact that Hansen Love flags up – a woman’s home is more important to her than an outworn relationship. Nathalie’s ageing mother, Yvette (the immensely attractive, Edith Scob) finally agrees to move to an expensive nursing home and Heinz is seen walking in town with his girlfriend. The tone is upbeat and matter of fact: Hansen-Love and Huppert treat this all with a light-hearted derision.
Sex and romance take a back seat in L’AVENIR and this is the only criticism of the film: to assume that a woman in her early sixties is content to be absorbed into her children and grandchildren at such a young age, is simplistic and questionable but this dimension is glossed over here. Although Nathalie recoils from an approach from a young would-be suitor in the cinema one night; further exploration of her emotional (and sexual) needs, beyond the intellectual ones, could have added further texture to bring this drama into the 21st century. Cleverly Huppert identifies herself as an empowered woman, open to choices, allowing herself moments of grief and laughter at the absurdity of it all. Vulnerability is not dealt with here, although it may be locked away somewhere in her character’s psyche.
If Nathalie’s does have some emotional life it’s will with a good-looking and younger pupil, Fabien (Roman Kolinka), who offers to look after Yvette’s cat whom she visits in the a communal mountainside chalet in the Grenoble countryside. This episode is a clever vehicle for examining alternative ways of surviving financially for those whose passion is to be creative. But those hoping for a sex-fuelled spring /winter romance will be disappointed, and rightly so, this realist and well-crafted vision if about a woman taking control; empowered by force of circumstance, to re-invent herself once her biological imperative ceases to count. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 2 SEPTEMBER 2016 | BERLINALE 11-21 FEBRUARY 2016 | IN COMPETITION
Where once verdant grasslands carpeted Inner Mongolia in a lush natural landscape of green, dehumanisaing machines now occupy the home of herdsman and their families alienating them from their former life with a cacophony of drills and ash mountains in the place of pastureland.
Zhao Liang’s documentary serves as an ode to the past and a meditation on an uncertain future as industry destoys a way of life that was for centuries both spiritually nourishing and profitable for the locals. Behemoth is a visually evocative piece that recounts a descent into hell brought about by the surge in mining activities, offering gruelling employment to both Chinese and migrant workers as is it wounds the scenery in search of coal. The grimly drawn images offer a plaintive paean to the past that is mesmerising, rhythmic – monotonous even. Life before was tough, but this new order sucks the souls from the workers and infects their lungs. Once proudly in control of their destiny now they are cogs in a mindless, meaningless inferno.
Zhao and his French co-writer (and producer) Sylvie Blum liken the process to Dante’s Inferno where gradually the circles of Hell get hotter and darker commensurate with the sins of the souls forced to endure their torment; but these people have commited no sin.
After a day’s work we see them retreat to their shanty homes as grey slags heaps dominate the distance. Caked in soot they scratch around for supper after wiping themselves in grey cloths, having lined the silken pockets of their new masters, the mining companies. One evocative scene shows a naked man curled up in a green field with a slag heap sharply jutting up in the background. And this is a clever motif that runs through the film.
Zhao’s most striking footage turns the screen red with the incandescent fires of the furnaces. This is contrasted with a simple image of a horseback shepherd returning a lost lamb to the fold. Now these people are the lost and forsaken. A haunting and sinister soundtrack accompanies the frightening images; word seem redundant.
Not that there is anything to be gained by this flagrant industrialisation. As we experienced in Stray Dogs (2013) and Black Cole, Thin Ice (2014), the rapid and ill-conceived urbanisation of China and its neighbours is a tragedy that is made more relevant when we witness the dispossession and destruction it has created in its wake. And the final act of Zhao’s important documentary builds to a startling finale. You won’t know whether to laugh or cry. MT
Dir.: Louis Clichy, Alexandre Astier | Voices of Roger Carel, Laurent Lafitte, Alain Chabat
Animation 3D; based on the comic book of the same title by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo from 1971
France/Belgium 2014, 85 min.
After some sadly failed attempts at live-action, our Gallic heroes re-emerge as the original cartoon figures: this time in 3D and with lively CGI action.
Beastly Caesar plots in Rome (again) the downfall of the last village in Gaul not under his control. This time he wants to undermine the spirit of the villagers by building huge luxury mansions around their village and populating them with Romans, who soon find the villagers quaint and since everything is so much cheaper than in the capital of the empire, trade breaks down the barriers. But the development goes both ways: the villagers find the apartments appealing and only a pact between the exploited black slaves, who build the mansions, and Asterix and the druid Getafix (with the usual physical assistance of Obelix) avoid the villagers losing their independence.
MANSION OF THE GODS falls between two stools: whilst the action will keep younger audiences occupied, the rather complex plot with its very adult connotations is rather secondary to the main target audience. This is hardly unique: most modern animation classics are equally loved by adults – not only parents – and the younger audience. But in this specific case, the underlying ideologies are so complex that they might detract from the enjoyment for anyone not interested in labour laws, equality and racial harmony. The merits of CGI and 3D have ben endlessly discussed, and after watching MANSION OF THE GODS the 3D feels like a gimmick, adding nothing to the original. Certainly, CGI improves the action-orientated sequences, but it also somehow adds a soulless quality – our eyes are, after all, meant to watch analogue images, not digital ones.
That said, diehard fans of the original cartoons will no doubt lap this up, particularly those who devoured the original adventures back in the day. AS
Dir: Ralitza Petrova | Cast: Irena Ivanova, Alexander Triffinov, Ivan Nalbantov, Ventzislav Konstantinov, Dimitri Petkov; Bulgaria/France/Den | drama | 100 min.
The first feature film by Bulgarian director/writer Ralitza Petrova, who studied at the NFTS, won the Golden Leopard at last year’s Locarno Film Festival, and its main protagonist Irena Ivanova, was awarded the prize for Best Actress. Reminiscent of Jim Thompson, this minimalist, small town noir is a stunning debut from an uncompromising talent.
Gana (Ivanova) is a geriatric and dementia nurse in the small Bulgarian mountain town of Vratsa. The young woman seems caring at first, but it soon emerges that she is stealing her patients’ ID-cards. She, and her partner Aleko (Konstantinoiv), a car mechanic, sell the ID-cards to the local police officer Pavel (Triffinov), who runs a money laundering racket. Pavel is also in league with the local judge (Petkov), who makes sure that any complaints are rebuffed by the court.
However, despite all this criminal activity Dana lives a modest existence with her mother in a run-down apartment block, where gun fire is a nightly occurence. Her sexless relationship with Aleko gets by on a morphine addiction, which Gana steals together with other prescription drugs. Her relationship with her mother is equally emotionless, summed up by Gana herself in the words: “I want to love, but can’t. Neither can you. Do you have any pills for it?”.
Unflitchingly grim, this is a drama that delves into the sad deparavity of modern life in this formally Stalinist state where corruption and larceny seems endemic and continues to thrive despite apparent economic improvememts. But there is a chink of light in the darkness that sees Gana redeeming herself in the final act.
GODLESS takes its – ironic – title from a mountain near Vratsa, were a local priest in the middle ages took his flock and was duly massacred by invaders. The cryptic coda of the film might refer to this. Sparse and unforgiving, Godless is a claustrophobic masterpiece. Rooms are narrow and unlit, grimy snow covers a bleak landscape. Even a brothel scene, where the judge and Pavel copulate, is passionless. In her apartment block, Gana finds a young boy alone in the staircase. He later wanders off and watches a couple having sex, having left the door to their flat open. Desolate and abandoned, people in post-communist Bulgaria seem to have given up on themselves. DoPs Krum Rodriquez and Chayse Irvin evoke this grim rigour on 35 mm film, transferred to digital. With its opaque conclusion, Petrova avoids any judgemental comment. GODLESS is a cheerless experience – but it is a gem despite its restricted budget. MT
GODLESS HAS BEEN AWARDED THE GOLDEN LEOPARD AT LOCARNO 2016 AND TOP PRIZE AT THE SOFIA AWARDS 2017
Andrzej Zulawski gets in and amongst it with COSMOS, his first feature in 15 years. This French-language adaptation of Witold Gombrowicz’s 1965 novel is a top-to-bottom fever dream, extending the Polish filmmaker’s penchant for mania with an exceptionally reference-heavy tale of wham-bam obsession. Seconds in and we have a melodramatic score, jolting jump-cuts, opaque voiceover, plush pans and a narrative that proceeds onward like a furious sprint through a theatrical downpour. What’s not to love?
Plenty. With viscous plot and rake-thin premise (make what you will of that narrative contradiction), many a good film has been made. But it’s nigh-on impossible for any of the myriad ideas put forth here to take hold with any lasting thematic coherence. With a slickly-rendered attention-deficit (the real glue that holds his surgical focus together), Zulawski promotes his rococo vision by piling meta-echoes upon meta-echoes with such off-puttingly ugly verbosity that the engineered madness, a kind of ad hoc lo-budget ornamentalism with the hyper-jittery frame-rate of a TV movie, becomes the entire raison d’etre. It forewarns the impatient: fall for the first minute and the next 101 are a treat.
Otherwise, pith off: “You are just a face, a mask. Behind it, there is nothing.” But what a mask! Memorably gaunt-cheeked, sunken-eyed, Jonathan Genet plays Witold, a law school dropout who arrives with his pal Fuchs (Johan Libéreau) at a family-run bed-and-breakfast (with breakfast-in-bed) in Portugal with dreams of writing his first novel—and finds no shortage of inspiration there. Rocked by inexplicable spasms that run through his face like an electrical current, Witold falls for the whole affair: the gobbledygook-gabbling patriarch Leon Wojtys (Jean-François Balmer), his long-suffering wife (Sabine Azema), their daughter Lena (Victoria Guerra) and even the deformed lip of family maid Catherette (Clementine Pons). A murder mystery runs beneath all of the feigned and strained emotionalism: a sparrow, a cat and pieces of wood are all found hanged on the guesthouse’s premises.
Words, words, words. Tongue twists abound in this hotchpotch of “chasms, patterns, strata, rhythms, wounds, spasms,” and the crazed maximalism and heightened delirium make this a dramatic exercise rather than a drama per se: when one character breaks down into tears, it’s impossible to engage with the material due to the heightened delirium—and just when a scene threatens to convince us into something resembling a consistent mood, Zulawski hangs the string score in mid-air: just when we thought we were in, he wrenches us back out. As Witold himself remarks, “She is impenetrable, elusive and vast like the ceiling.” There are enough highbrow references and self-deprecating winks, meanwhile, to keep a certain crowd chuckling away to publicise their own understanding of this essentially self-serving work.
There’s an unconsummated eroticism at play here. All of the film’s secret, underlying energies are contained in Guerra, whose Lena is subtly flirtatious with and increasingly exasperating to Witold. Guerra’s beauty is her ordinary (and unexceptionally photographed) face, which explodes in later scenes into outrageously striking frivolity, tongue out between perfect teeth and eyes to be read as one wishes. In truth, it’s a test of one’s patience whenever she’s not onscreen—and the film carries all of its weight when she is. MICHAEL PATTISON
ON RELEASE FROM 19 AUGUST 2016 | LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTlVAL | BEST DIRECTOR 2015 WINNER |
A retrospective on MUBI looks back at the work and influences of Pedro Almodóvar and forward to his most recent work.
Visionary filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s – now in his seventies – is showing no signs of slowing down. Pain and Glory his latest – an intensely personal film – took Best Actor at Cannes 2019 for its star Antonio Banderas, but the Oscar-winning auteur has never yet won the Palme d’Or, ironic considering most of the films are European arthouse in nature, including his Hitchcockian 2016 outing Julieta.
Last Summer’s Venice festival premiered his impressive short film The Human Voice that starred Tilda Swinton in Jean Cocteau’s one-act, one-hander, 2021 will see the release of a full length drama Madres Paralelas a that follows two mothers who give birth on the same day. And Almodovar is already working on the next one based on a novel by Spanish co-writer Lucia Berlin (A Manual for Cleaning Ladies) that will hopefully screen next year.
Inventive and always surprising his work melds comedy with the intensely personal and the mood is generally upbeat. One of his most outrageous films to date I’m So Excited was a random comedy but one that was well received by his Spanish audiences and proved that even his more forgettable films have wacky and watchable appeal.
Although, in common with Aki Kaurismäki, Almodóvar is one of the few auteurs never to have won the coveted Cannes main trophy, he is considered amongst many cinephiles as the most accomplished and triumphant Spanish filmmaker of all time. However this illustrious director is still to make an English language film or be tempted by the allure of Hollywood – and yet his work continues to be admired and adored across the globe. So what is it about this remarkable artist that has such worldwide appeal?
Although producing an eclectic range of films, there is something instantly recognisable about Almodóvar’s work, with his unique blend of comedy and melodrama. A consistent, and certainly universal, theme within his pictures is that of sex, as he explores every taboo related to the subject, with sexual identity a consistent issue within his films, expressed provocatively in the likes of All About My Mother, Bad Education and The Skin I Live In. However where Almodóvar stands out, is within his ability to tackle these sensitive subjects in such a surrealistic way, introducing humour into the most complex situations, and vibrantly portraying humanity with all its foibles.
Much of the reason why Almodóvar’s work is so well-received worldwide, is due to his unashamed appreciation of Hollywood, with a brazen-faced admiration of classic cinema, conspicuously referencing films such as All About Eve, A Streetcar Named Desire and Frankenstein. Almodóvar is a storyteller first and foremost, who thrives on the tense nuances inspired by one of his heroes, Alfred Hitchcock, as well as the intertwining romantic narratives and eccentric plot-points, which are certainly a nod in the direction of Woody Allen.
That said, the one divine guidance upon his work is a home-grown talent, as he is evidently influenced by Luis Buñel. He unapologetically references the father of cinematic surrealism in his movies, remaining faithful to his Spanish roots and heritage. In his more recent films Almodóvar has also taken to referencing his own work– with a parody of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdownperformed in Broken Embraces.
Almodóvar always manages to bring popular Spanish culture into his productions – even within his latest feature he touches upon the current economic crisis. He isn’t afraid to explore the political implications of the authoritarian dictatorship of Franco either, nor Catholic religious schooling in Bad Education, whilst bullfighting is explored in great depth in both Matadorand Talk to Her, being both beatified and vilified in equal measure. As such, Almodóvar has changed our very own perceptions of Spain as a nation; his features are unreservedly intertwined with his homeland, making it impossible to detach ourselves from his unique representation of the country.
Another factor in Almodóvar’s appeal is his incomparable portrayal of women, as they are always shown to be the more powerful of the sexes. The female characters are not only strong-willed, but fervently idolised by their male counterparts, to a quite disturbing extent in films such asTalk to Her or Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Though his lead roles tend to be disturbed and dark, he somehow manages to humanise them, allowing the audience to empathise with our protagonists, despite them frequently being sexual deviants, rapists and kidnappers. Here is an example of a filmmaker who is approaching cinema as an art first, and an industry second.
There is just something about Pedro Almodóvar. His original, innovative approach to film-making remains unsurpassed, and his immense ability in finding solace and humour within the darker sides of the human brain is miraculous. He will forever continue to apply his twisted, whimsical style to these universal themes, maintaining this definable, idiosyncratic approach which has lasted from the very start of his career until the present day.
Whether he makes the move to Hollywood one day is ultimately a futile question, as regardless of where this director plies his trade, his films will continue to involve and inspire audiences, as a good story is a good story in any language, and here is a director who is majestic at telling them, finding a common ground in the most unlikely of places.
MATADOR ***
Pedro Almodóvar had once admitted that he considers Matador to be one of his weaker films, and regrettably this surreal allegory of sex and death makes such a statement somewhat easy to agree with.
We delve into the lives of a trio of damaged individuals, where a thin line exists between murder and sexual desire, as a provocative black comedy that explores the darker side of the human mind, with a young Antonio Banderas standing out.
Matadoris full of the symbolism and idiosyncrasies that define Almodóvar’s work. Ultimately quite fatuous, this struggles in its tedious story and lack of depth to characters. An early Almodóvar production that ensures it’s only uphill from here on.
WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN ****
The film that made Almodóvar, and you can see why. An ingenious and fanciful farce that signals the filmmakers move towards the whimsical melodrama of which he has since become renowned.
When Pepa (Carmen Maura) is left by her lover, she confronts his son and partner seeking answers, a matter made complicated with the arrival of her fugitive companion, all taking place in her apartment across one fateful day.
Hitchcockian in parts, Woody Allen in others, this flamboyant and elaborate comedy is surrealistic, detracting from the severity of the distress felt by our protagonists, as a film that cements Almodóvar’s status as one of the most important and promising filmmakers in world cinema – a promise very much fulfilled.
TIE ME UP TIE ME DOWN! ***
With pointers from Martin Scorsese, influenced by the likes of The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, this dark and disturbing thriller manages to retain a sweet and somewhat touching sentiment, taking characters you shouldn’t approve of and endears you to them. This is Almodóvar doing rom-com. Sort of.
Ricky (Antonio Banderas), is a deranged opportunist who kidnaps a porn-star and ties her up, not allowing her freedom until she agrees to marry him. Banderas is outstanding, in a tense and beguiling feature that keeps you captivated throughout.
You could be offended by this offering given the questionable sexual politics in one of Almodóvar’s most divisive works – but it all depends on how earnestly you view it.
LIVE FLESH ***
Almodóvar has received eight nominations for Best Film not in the English Language at the BAFTAs, and Live Flesh – a less celebrated title by the notorious filmmaker, is one of them – exploring the intertwining relationships between five ardent, passionate and proud lovers.
We follow an ex-convict who is determined to make amends with a former fling and prove himself as the world’s greatest love maker, with a supporting Javier Bardem stealing the show.
Conflicting with the tragic themes comes an optimistic political undercurrent, playing against the rejuvenation of Spain following the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Live Flesh is also witty, allowing for any grave situation to be viewed upon as chic and frivolous, deserving of its BAFTA recognition.
ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER ****
Almodóvar’s most iconic piece of work, unapologetically influenced by classic Hollywood productions such as All About Eve and A Streetcar Named Desire, while always feeling innovative, with that Almodóvar spirit stamped all over it.
When a distressed mother (Cecilia Roth) loses her son in a car accident, she attempts to track down his father, who has since changed his identity to that of a woman. Combining comedy and tragedy expertly, All About My Mother is intimately moving, despite the exuberant, melodramatic setting.
Every lead is a strong female character – so dominant that even the male protagonists are transvestites. Sexual identity is an important factor in this, dealing with severe themes such existentialism and homosexuality in true Almodóvar fashion.
TALK TO HER *****
Talk to Her is Almodóvar’s one true masterpiece, as an outstanding drama that is beautifully touching, blended majestically with a dark, harrowing edge.
Epitomised in lead character Marco (Darío Grandinetti), in touch with his emotions and cries consistently – he falls for a bullfighter who is admitted into a coma, where they meet nurse Benigno (Javier Cámara), who has an unhealthy adoration for a patient.
Spanish culture is magnified, beautified and scrutinised in one film – intriguingly witnessed through the eyes of an Argentine, in what is a delicately crafted, unassuming slice of cinema. This is Almodóvar’s most accomplished piece, following a narrative that doesn’t deviate too far from realism, unlike what we have grown accustomed to with his work.
BAD EDUCATION ****
A fascinating look into how our past can affect our future – particularly in the wake of the Franco era, and the implications his reign has had on Spain and those who have lived through it.
Gael García Bernal plays a man (and woman) who returns to a childhood sweetheart turned filmmaker, to present a screenplay he has written about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of priests at their all boys school.
A lurid melodrama combined masterfully with a murder thriller narrative running through the heart of it, Almodóvar leads you down one path before heading down another. The intense themes are contained within a grandiose setup that allows us to explore such issues while avoiding morbidity.
VOLVER ****
After Bad Education and Talk to Her, Almodóvar returns to a female orientated cast, with Penélope Cruz turning in a career defining performance that earned her a much deserved Oscar nomination.
She plays Raimunda, a single mother who returns back home to visit her mother’s grave, only to be told by her auntie that the deceased woman is still alive. Volver is an archetypal crime thriller, well, by Almodóvar’s standards.
The filmmaker comes into his element, with a riveting story that is full of the nuances of the thriller genre, yet combined with his typically theatrical and darkly comic edge. Also working as a hypothetical fantasy, anyone who has ever lost someone can find solace in this absorbing production.
BROKEN EMBRACES ***
You’d be forgiven for admitting to this one passing you by, as although earning a BAFTA nomination, Broken Embraceshas been overlooked somewhat. A surprise given this tells a gripping story, with an engrossing lead performance from Lluís Homar.
He plays Harry Caine, a blind writer who is reluctantly transported back to his past with the arrival of an aspiring filmmaker, coming to him with the idea for a screenplay, yet one that stirs up old memories – recalling the twisted love triangle surrounding the beautiful actress Lena (Penélope Cruz).
Without a palpable wit, Broken Embraces is a more conventional, narrative driven piece, blending together a series of interlinking characters and erotic tales, through a vibrant and glorious aesthetic.
THE SKIN I LIVE IN ****
Following on from two somewhat conventional thrillers inVolver and Broken Embraces, anyone anticipating a shift in style from Almodóvar – with Hollywood lingering at the back of the mind – were soon put right, as he returns to his dark and disturbing ways with his most deranged picture since Matador.
A self-described horror story, we delve into the twisted world of a plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas), who creates a synthetic skin that can withstand any burns, using the imprisoned Vera (Elena Anaya) as his guinea pig.
Helped along by a haunting Hitchcockian score, The Skin I Live In is one of Almodóvar’s most erotically intense works, as a psychosexual thriller that sees Banderas put in his finest career performance. SP
Dir.: Steve Hoover; Documentary; USA 2015, 100 min.
Blood Brother director Steve Hoover creates another tour-de-force aesthetically as well as contents wise with this portrait of the “vigilante priest” Gennadiy Mokhnenko, who singlehanded created a refuge centre for abused children in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, liberating the victims by force from abusive parents and exploiting drug dealers,
Gennadiy Mokhnenko likes to be seen as the hard-but-fair, rather naïve do-gooder, who is both priest and strongman: saving the young victims in the Ukranian city of Mariupol and enforcing the law, police and civil authorities seemingly do not want to uphold. This requires certainly an uncompromising attitude in a society, where lawlessness seems not the exception: it is fair to say, that order has broken down in Mariupol. At the beginning, we see Mokhenko cultivating this image in front of a TV, where “Crocodile Gennadiy” a Russian cartoon character from the Soviet era, saves children. Then we are introduced to Mokhnenko’s own Republic “Pilgrim”, an orphanage for the forcefully liberated children: sex-slaves, drug addicts and victims of horrific parental abuse and neglect.
But Mokhnenko’s biography is anything but simple: In 1991 he attended a bible course in Latvia, a year later he founded his own church in Mariupol, and became its pastor. In 1994 he started to study at the Donetsk Institute of Social Education in the Department of History and Religion, graduating in 1999. He followed it with an MA in Theology at Kiev branch of the Westminster Theological Seminar. And when he reads through his Wikipedia page under the heading ‘Criticism’, he smiles warily: one of the few moments when the mask of guilelessness slips. Next we see him munching hotdog, drinking a coffee from plastic cup, declaring “that he likes everything Western”.
But there is an organised purpose behind the façade, his missionary streak is very cultivated, but he reaches out to many: his speech at a women’s prison is a great example of motivational vigour: he coaxes and threatens at the same time, a born orator. It is fair to say, that the long and unhappy relationship between the Ukraine and USSR/Russia, culminating in the war, and the annexation of the Crimea by Putin’s forces, plays a big role in this conflict ridden region: Donetsk, the capital, is occupied by pro-Russian forces of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, and Mariupol is now the provisional centre of the Donetsk Oblast. In June 2014 the Ukrainian army recaptures Mariupol from the Russian forces after a short invasion, but Russian rocket attacks continued into 2015. For once, Gennadiy, saying goodbye in the last take like a stranded walrus on the beach, is speechless and rather morbid.
Seguing back and forth between archive footage from 2000 to 2008 and the more recent past, Hoover does not spare us horrific images, like the deaf girl, who had been raped for many years, whose baby has been taken away by the authorities, and who lives now, after her liberation by Mokhnenko, in a psychiatric ward, asking to be re-united with her baby. DOP John Pope’s changing widescreen images include pure horror elements, cinema verity realism and dystopian S-F elements. Almost Holy is radical in its approach and innovative in its execution – but it is as bleak as a Hieronymus Bosch painting. AS
Pablo Trapero’s heightened melodrama chronicling the true story of the Puccio Clan, a family who kidnapped and killed people in 80s Buenos Aires, will have little interest for those outside Argentina. Though as a study of family psychopathy, it zips along in undeniably gripping although at times uneven style.
It emerges that the Puccio family were hardly on the breadline. The scion, Arquimedes Puccio, is father to five kids who live in reasonable comfort together with wife Epifania (Lili Popovich), a teacher; while making a living kidnapping those who clearly had a few bob more than themselves. Guillermo Francella (The Secrets of Their Eyes) plays the hard-eyed cool operator with a smug obsequious conceit that is both irritating and deeply unsettling; his fiery rugger bugger son, Alex (Peter Lanzini), is a more appealing character and the two vy with each other throughout making this an absorbing father|son portrait as much as it is a noirish seventies-set crime thriller.
EL CLANopens with a brief political sketch of the Argentinian scene in the early eighties when the country was attempting to return to democracy after years of dictatorship. As in most Latin countries, well-heeled Arquimedes is closely connected to the right people in business and government. He also expects to rule his family with a rod of iron, maintaining a close grip on family affairs and engaging the children as accomplices in his skulduggery – whether they like it or not. Alex resents his father using him to facilitate the kidnap of a rugby club contact – even though he gets to set up a diving shop with a cut of the dosh – but is horrified when the victim is kept chained to a radiator in one of their bedrooms. Kidnappings pile up often ending in the victims being killed after the ransom is collected.
There’s nothing particularly stylish or inventive about the brass-tinted aesthetic of Sebastian Orgambide’s production design or Julian Apeztquia’s camerawork: this is a bog standard genre thriller that slips down nicely as a straightforward narrative – if you happen to drop off for twenty minutes – you can rejoin the action without really missing a trick, although you’ll be hard-pressed to get much rest with Sebastian Escofet’s pounding soundtrack. Particularly macho and misogynist is the scene where Alex’s girlfriend’s cries of ecstasy are matched with those of a distressed kidnap victim.
All and all, this is stolid, run-of-the mill stuff. Decently scripted by Trapero and his sidekicks Esteban Student and Julian Loyola this will appeal to men who like a good kidnapping story or Trapero’s style. Quite why it won Best Director at Venice Film Festival remains as much of a mystery as the activities of the strangely banal yet clearly lethally dysfunctional Puccio family. MT
ARGENTINIAN FILM FESTIVAL | CURZON LONDON on 18 August 2016 | REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2 -12 SEPTEMBER 2015
Cast: Kristoffer Joner, Thomas Bo Larsen, Ane Dahl Torp
104min | Norway | Drama
Norway’s mountains and fjords provide a magnificent setting for the country’s first natural disaster film and the Norwegian Academy Awards 2016 Foreign Language hopeful.
Starring Kristoffer Joner and Ane Dahl Torp, THE WAVE is based on the probability of a massive rockslide and resulting tsunami destroying the fjord’s shoreline community. There are echoes here of The Poseidon Adventure and The Impossible as director Roar Uthaug takes a visual cue from the ice-bound landscapes of his homeland for a well made but rather stolid affair whose tonal watchwords are restrained panic rather than the unbridled hysteria or even heightened melodrama which characterised its Hollywood predecessors.
With a modest €6 million budget (part-financed by Danish funds) THE WAVE still manages to be a thrilling rollercoaster employing every cliché in the book with a large chunk of ‘Jarlsberg’ chessiness to deliver a tale that takes place in the small community of Geiranger. Geologist Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) is responsible for reporting rockslide changes with his prefessional crew. The previous slide happened in 1905, but disaster is always imminent in this perilous but impressive location; the sound of klaxons giving the community ten minutes to flee to higher ground.
Kristian and his highly capable wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp) are on verge of moving to Oslo for an oil company – Statoil?. The kids are not altogether pleased with the change as teenage son Sondre (Jonas Oftebro) – unusually for a boy his age – likes the peace and safety of the location: little does he know how exciting his life is about to become.
The screenplay adopts the classic three-act form: Uthaug takes time to familiarise audiences with the set-up in this traditional provincial town where the family are wrapping things up for the move ‘to pastures new’. Kristian senses that all is not well, however, and a last visit to the early warning centre has him fearing the worst. His warnings to ex-colleagues that evacuation may be prudent all fall on deaf ears as the season will shortly be in full swing. Meanwhile, Idun goes on duty in the chintzy local tourist hotel, while Kristian takes Julie for a last night at their old home as disaster lies only hours away. Dozing over a late nightcap of whisky on the rocks, as heavier rocks head towards him, and these are not going to just chill his drink. D.P. John Cristian Rosenlund’s superb widescreen visuals bare witness to the village’s rude awakening and his hand-held camera judders through the fleeing footfall as a thundering avalanche of boulders cascade into the fjord throwing up a tsunami of ash-filled breakers as the sky turns obsidian black.
Joner and Dahl Torp gives performances of surprising strength and complexity for a film of this genre. Dahl Torp comes out on top, very much the Nordic heroine of the piece, leading the men with icy determination and laudable calm, given the circumstances. For a hotel receptionist, she appears to have a thorough grounding in physics, casualty-level resuscitation techniques, not to mention the lungs of a whale.
Despite its clichés and practical implausibilities, there’s a great deal to enjoy here although it’s somehow doubtful that Norway will be coming home with the Oscar. Let’s just hope that if disaster does strike, a woman like Idun will be around to save the day. MT
SCREENING DURING THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 7 -18 OCTOBER 2015
Several decades after after appearing together in Maurice Pialat’s Loulou, Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu are reunited in Guilluame Nicloux’s VALLEY OF LOVE, where they play a long divorced middle-aged couple, trying to come to terms with the death of their adult son Michael, who committed suicide.
Whilst Huppert and Depardieu have gone from strength to strength in their careers, not only in France, the director has struggled since his debut with Les Enfants Volant in 1991. Guillaume Nicloux’s twelve feature films – among them a remake of Rivette’s La Religieuse, also starring Isabelle Huppert – vary in style and content, but always seem to fall short; never fulfilling the director’s great potential. With VALLEY OF LOVE Nicloux has finally realised his ambitions as scriptwriter and director: a contemporary parable of spirituality, very much in the way of Robert Bresson.
A long tracking shot of Isabelle (Huppert) opens the films, the camera follows her patiently through a resort in the Eastern Californian desert. Later she meets Gerard (Depardieu), who turns out to be her long divorced ex-husband. Both are uneasy, after all, they have come here for a ‘meeting’ with their son Michael, who committed suicide a few months previously, but who has written letters to both his parents agreeing to meet them – albeit briefly – in one of seven spots in Death Valley, as described in the letters. The two have not been very attentive parents: sending him to boarding school at a very young age, and after his 18th birthday have lost contact more or less altogether – Isabelle even missing his funeral. Michael was gay, and his mother is more concerned whether he had Aids, than the reason for his suicide.
Wiry, passive-aggressive Isabelle is seemingly the total opposite of her saggy-bodied ex-spouse, who is fond of banal small-talk and avoidance. But somehow, they not only end up in bed together, but find a common language, their old emotional bonds surfacing – even though they have nothing in common anymore. But they visit the Death Valley rendezvous, as instructed, Gerard suffering particularly in the overbearing heat. They mourn their own lives more than the loss of their son: new partners and children have obviously not satisfied them any more than their own relationship: Isabelle is separating from her husband, and Gerard is distraught about his fragmented life, having been diagnosed with cancer of the bladder. He wants to see a consultant for a second opinion, leaving a day earlier than asked for by Michael – something Isabelle fights vigorously. There is a spooky nighttime scene on the tennis court, when Gerard is visited by a ghost – David Lynch would have been proud of it. But the way Nicloux introduces some spiritual healing for this dreadfully ordinary and self-obsessed couple, is truly amazing.
DoP Christophe Offenstein creates serene widescreen images, dwarfing the main protagonists in the desert and towering mountains. Charles Ives’ mournful, a-tonal music underlining the couple’s struggle to come to terms with their own lives as well as the loss of their son. Huppert and Depardieu are always caustic to the point: she answers his statement “I got fat” with a dismissive “Whatever makes you happy”. The ethereal paradise they can’t grasp at first, finally allows them a view beyond the boxed-in existence they call reality and Nicloux ends with a glimmer of hope – like with Bresson, you don’t have to be exceptional to be chosen. AS.
Cast: Blake Lively, Oscar Jaenada, Angelo Josue, Lozano Corzo, Jose Manuel, Brett Cullen
87min | Action Thriller
Billed as the most terrifying shark thriller since Jaws, THE SHALLOWS doesn’t quite push the boat out in the same way as Steven Spielburg’s seminal seventies shocker, but for a slick 87 minutes it serves up a shot of adrenaline that will see you through the summer’s torpid cinema selection. Certainly filmic and well-constructed with some taut and tricky action scenes THE SHALLOWS makes great use of its tropical Australian seascapes and Blake Lively’s considerable charms as a stunning actor and capable action woman.
Catalan director Jaume Collet-Serra is known for a string of decent but untroubling thrillers, amongst them Unknown and Orphan, and this glossy bikini-buster is a welcome addition to his workmanlike repertoire, it slips down easily offering light entertainment unlikely to take the enjoyment out of your relaxing holiday swim in the sea; whether it be in the Med or a more exotic location.
Essentially a one-hander THE SHALLOWS is carried through on Lively’s perfectly formed shoulders as Nancy. a Mermaid-defyingly devastating surfing heroine who exudes a sensual, sweet-smiling vulnerability as a dropout medical student who is taking time out to kick back after a tough year. A backstory as tight as her buttocks contextualises her life: Mum also loved the beach but has recently died and she is close to her sister and father back home on the ranch in Galveston Texas. She arrives on a remote palm-fringed beach courtesy of her hungover companion Carlos and flirts with a bevvy of surfing buddies on her way to ‘blue hell’ (the film’s Spanish title is Infierno Azul) after tripping through the shallows in her neoprene wetsuit and gold jewellery (which later comes in handy when surturing her thigh). The rest is pretty much formulaic but tenderly told: nasty shark threatens, mermaid is injured but avails herself of her medical training to add spice to this compulsive survival against the odds narrative that incorporates a Friends of the Earth subtext. Ultimately THE SHALLOWS is less of a shark shocker and more a guide to surviving against the odds by using our instincts in harnessing nature’s protective forces. Amid a flurry of wetsuits, blonde tousled locks, twisted limbs, sharks teeth and gulls wings, Anthony Jaswinski somehow crafts a convincing storyline to keep us amused for the duration and although the finale comes as no surprise it’s somehow enjoyable getting there. MT
Cast: Greta Gerwig, Julie Delpy, Charlie Tahan, Ellen Burstyn, Danny DeVito, Zosia Mamet
90min | Comedy | US
Todd Solondz is often seen as a divisive figure in the world of filmmaking where his dark comedies are often uncomfortable to watch despite their mordant humour and edgy subjects. His eighth feature, the intriguingly titled Wiener-Dog is no exception. For those of us who may wonder at this canine breed, it is a dachshund or more commonly known as the sausage dog. And this one is billed as no ordinary pet who ‘changes or inspires’ the lives of its various owners, who will possibly enrage you but certainly leave you dreadfully sad.
WIENER-DOG takes the form of a series of four vignettes featuring the dog in question whose peripatetic life leads him to a selection of owners – and not all appear to be animal lovers. We first meet the female dachshund languishing in a cage in a dog’s home, where her little paws are trying to find a comfortable spot to settle down. Bought by the father of a boy to help him on remission from cancer (Keaton Nigel Cooke), his mother Dina (Julie Delpy) takes an instant dislike to the pooch, emerging from her own childhood pet who was ‘raped’ by a dog called Mohammed, and has him speedily put down.
But Greta Gerwig’s veterinary nurse Dawn Wiener (the grown-up version of the shy girl in Welcome to the Dollhouse) takes pity on Wiener-Dog and nurses her back to life before embarking on a weird weekend with an ex-classmate she meets while shopping. Leaving the pup with her friend’s Down Syndrome brother and his wife, Wiener-Dog ends up with Danny DeVito’s professor of film studies who is despairing of his lacklustre students. Clearly Solondz brings his personal feelings into this caustic satire: he dislikes dogs, and doesn’t think much of modern day Hollywood or even men called Mohammed…go figure.
But the closing chapter really takes the dog biscuit when it comes to cruelty, in an hilarious segment involving a bitter old woman (a superb Ellen Burstyn) who re-names the dog ‘Cancer’ and reminisces over her mispent youth. Beautifully filmed by award-winning DoP Ed Lachman (Carol) WIENER-DOG is an acquired taste – enjoyable enough but with an ending that is the worst nightmare for any self-respecting dog lover. You have been warned. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT SUNDANCE LONDON | PROGRAMME
Cast: Jean Dujradin, Virginie Efira, Cedric Kahn, Stephanie Papanian, Cesar Dombuy;
France 2016, 95 min | Romantic drama
French director’s Laurence Tirard’s straight remake of the Argentinian film Corazon de Leon by writer/director’s Marcos Carnevale (2013), seems to have gained little from its change of location to the Cote d’Azur. The frothy love story between tiny Diane and architect Alexandre, who finds her mobile, is simply too glossy to have an real emotional impact.
Diane (Efira) leaves her ‘phone in a restaurant, after yet another row with her ex-husband Bruno (Kahn) largely sparked by their shared legal practice. Later, a charming voice belonging to Alexandre (Dujardin) invites her to dinner to hand over the phone. Diane is taken back when she sees Alexandre in the flesh and soon forgets her reservations when he invites her to parachute – certainly a novelty for a first date. Meanwhile, at the office, Bruno stills makes life difficult for his ex-wife, sleeping with judges and clients, to help his course. The office secretary Colarie (Papinian) is a sort of referee for the fighting lawyers, changing her support frequently. Alexandre, whose grown-up son Benji (Domboy) lives with him, has a running battle with the indolent femme-de-menage, and a St. Bernard’s dog, who loves nothing more than flattening his beloved master. When Diane introduces her parents to Alexandre, the first cracks appear, and Bruno’s jealousy is not very helpful either. Whilst Alexandre is aiming for full cohabitation, Diane is getting cold feet.
It would have helped had Tirard (Moliere) chosen less opulent settings: the sun always shines, illuminating the couples’ wealthy dwellings – particularly Alexandre’s, who is a star architect, and always hops over to Liege, where his designs for the rebuilding of the opera house are realised. Apart from the parachuting, he always finds new, exotic pleasures to impress Diane with, whilst showing his more insecure side to his son.
Then there are the speeches, Colarie, in particular, is always ready to launch into one; at one point accusing Diane of being an emotional fascist because she cannot get over the fact that her friends, family and the public will always baulk at the height difference btween the two of them. Needless to say, the resolution is as much over-the-top as the build up. DOP’s Jerome Almeras’ images would be better suited to glossy commercials: the lighting is always perfect, showing off a luxurious environment, where opulence dominates, stifling the protagonists: UP FOR LOVE feels like a competition where Alexandre tries to woe Diane with more and more extravagant surprises, to make up for his missing inches. When Diane tells him he is so special, we cannot recall a single emotional quality: he is just a stage manager, coming up with new sets to impress Diane. As frothy as candyfloss and as sweetly insubstantial.
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Carmen Ejogo, Callum Rennie, Tony Nappo, Stephen McHattie
97min | Biopic | US
Ethan Hawke’s career took off when he received critical prise for Reality Bites which lead to his role in the Before trilogy in a career that has steadily grown as a screenwriter, novelist director and actor in mainstream titles and independent arthouse fare such as BORN TO BE BLUE where he plays the role of Chet Baker in a re-imagining of a period in the celebrated jazz musician’s life that blends reality with ‘semi-fictiona’l elements as a film within a film.
Opening with Baker playing himself in a biopic, we see him falling for his on-screen love interest (Carmen Ejogo) as he battles with heroin addiction.
With its relaxed jazzy score, BORN TO BE BLUE plays out in a freewheeling way as it dabbles at the edges of truth which gives it an innovative but also questionable slant, neatly side-stepping cliche. Like many artists, Baker did struggle with drugs, and interestingly, he found it difficult to break into the world of jazz as a white man – but this is by no means a pitiful portrait or one that see Baker cry into his cups but it is certainly a worthwhile take on the music industry of the era.
Hawke is convincing as the tortured musician (did he have trumpet lessons – possibly) and appealing in the role to which he brings a certain intensity without going overboard. Born to be Blue is an enjoyable film rather than a great one. But worth watching nevertheless. MT
Cast: Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb, David Hayman, Andrew Schofield, Courtney Love
112min | Biopic | UK
Far the most interesting thing about the Sex Pistols was their music. The story of the band is, for the most part, unedifying and one that Alex Cox and Abbe Wool’s narrative does no favours in the re-telling via the love story between bassist Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb) in this tame ’80s biopic. Intimate in scale and shot largely within the claustrophobic confines of sordid bedrooms, New York hotels and bars, Sid and Nancy is gut-retchingly unappetising (puking and bodily fluids abound – but at least the blood looks authentic) but there are a handful of scenes where DoP Roger Deakins’ masterful cinematography is really given reins to take flight – when the band goes on tour in the US and the final scene encompassing the magnificent Manhattan skyline shrouded in morning fog, which must rank amongst the most memorable of any committed to celluloid during the 80s. The score features a smattering of iconic tracks but we are well into the first half hour before any are played in a truncated ‘on-stage’ gig in a small bar. This is not a film to see if you’re hoping to hear The Sex Pistols malevolent musical brilliance.
The film opens at the end of 1978 in the immediate aftermath to Spungen’s death in the Hotel Chelsea, where the couple lived, with the police questioning a catatonic Sid Vicious over his involvement. Flashing back to a year earlier, Johnny Rotten (Andrew Schofield) and Sid have just met drugged-up groupie Nancy, whom Sid eventually starts dating, feeling sorry for her sad plight and following her into heroin addiction, which will eventually claim his own life the following year. Their love gradually drives a wedge between Sid and the rest of the band, and a disastrous American tour sees Sid go off the rails, destabilised by Nancy’s neediness, a result of her unhappy childhood. Back in New York, the couple reunite with Nancy attempting to manage Sid’s solo career, organising gigs which never actually pan out. In the midst of Nancy’s depression, Sid decides to return to England and the two argue in a drug-induced haze that eventually comes to a tragic end.
Gary Oldman is the only star turn here, loose-limbed and lithe as he weaves from mouthy punk performances to a profanity-ridden ‘My Way’ version, set on a neon sweeping staircase, in an early music video. Webb is true to her character, an annoying, whiny irritant swathed in tattoos and bruises, with no saving graces and not particularly good acting at that. The band’s guru Malcolm McLaren is convincingly played by David Hayman rocking an ill-advised rusty wig. Schofield’s turn as Johnny Rotten – the only one who seems to have made good – is gutsy and plausible. There is also a welcome glimpse of Courtney Love in a cameo role. But none of the edgy blast of anger that was punk really comes through here as we remember it. Everything feels rather stagey and timid compared to the real thing.
Attempts to recreate a socio-political backdrop of British life to this romanticised counterculture feel largely false and rather tacked on: a Luncheon Voucher banner in a newsagents, the famous Saatchi poster, ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ and detectives in tweeds and heavy-rimmed glasses. The US scenes fare far better feeling fresh and original and particularly a final track of street kids boogieing with a transister to KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Get Down Tonight’ (1975). That and the Manhattan skyline makeSid and Nancy worth seeing, if you can sit through the rest of it. MT
BACK IN CINEMAS 5 AUGUST AND BLURAY\DVD OUT ON AUGUST 29 2016
Director: Stanley Kubrick Screenplay: Kubrick Novel: The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.
Cast: Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Leonard Rossiter, Gay Hamilton, Marie Keen, Hardy Kruger, Philip Stone, Murray Melvin, Leon Vitali, Andre Morell
183min | Drama History Adventure | UK US
BARRY LYNDONis certainly Stanley Kubrick’s most underrated film. A UK and US production, it was shot in 1975 after a trio of international sensations: Dr Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) it received indifferent reviews on its release (possibly due to Irish sympathies, Kubrick received death threats from the IRA) but has since grown to become one of the most lauded historical dramas.
Based on William Makepeace Thakeray’s 1844 rags to riches story about a feckless Irish adventurer (Redmond Barry) who lacks integrity or judgement who nevertheless enjoys an illustrious and eventful career before ending life with nothing to show for himself but tragedy. Barry Lyndon’s emotional lassitude is possibly key to his popularity as an appealing antihero who we initially admire but eventually grow to dislike, and provides Kubrick with the requisite unhappy ending for his ambivalent but colourful character. And although he remains detached and emotionally distant from his protagonist, the film exudes a sweeping romanticism that makes it all the more effective as a tragedy. Kubrick’s trademark attention to detail, exquisite framing, narrative rigour, musical choices and peerless performances, elicited from an eclectic international cast, all go to make this film an enduring masterpiece that can be revisited and savoured time and time again.
After losing his childhood sweetheart to a wealthy English soldier (Leonard Rossiter in one of his most idiosyncratic turns), Barry leaves home and becomes a British deserter in the Seven Years’ War, soon switching sides to become a Prussian conscript, and then an itinerant gambler thanks to his suave Irish mentor, the dapper Chevalier du Balibari (a resonant Patrick Magee). The mood turns more sombre in the second half of the film that explores Barry’s attempts unsuccessfully to become an aristocrat, via the vicarious ambitions of his mother (a wonderfully crafty Marie Keen) through his marriage to the elegant Lady Honoria Lyndon (Marisa Berenson in a performance of discrete charm) but his insensitivity and lack of judgement eventually make his wife and stepson despise him and he is disdained by their friends and courtiers before he ends his days in a comparative squalor.
Made all the more enjoyable by Michael Hordern’s sonorious but mellow narration, the tone is sober throughout the 183 minutes and Ryan O’Neal brings a brooding often mournful intensity to his role as a self-seeking empty vessel who acts but never feels: his only love is for his young son Brian, but even as a parent he is morally loose and indisciplined. Marisa Berenson triumphs in a portrait of poignant and elegant disappointment as she goes from a respectable but sexless marriage à la mode (to Frank Middlemass’ crusty but amiably appealing Lord Lyndon) to one where she is completely demeaned after her brief love affair with Barry.
Murray Melvin and Philip Stone (the only actor to appear in all of Kubrick’s films) are memorable as the Lyndons’ advisors and Leon Vitali manages to play the part of a pasty-faced but well-intentioned Lord Bullingdon without losing credibility. The film won four Oscars, most notably for John Alcott who used the well-known NASA lens (f/0.7) to convey the glowing candlelit scenes and those that ethereally capture the lushly rolling England landscapes with a soft incandescence. BARRY LYNDON can be a simple story or a highly complex study of psychopathy and social history: whichever you desire. Relax and be enveloped by 19th century life, as the slow movement of Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat major and Handel’s sinister Sarabande in D Minor gently sears itself into your memory for the rest of time. MT
Growing up in a commune in Denmark, Thomas Vinterberg brings his experience to bear on this long-awaited but rather disappointing and occasionally vapid drama set in Seventies Copenhagen. Inspired by Vinterberg’s own childhood spent in a similar set up, he roundly dismisses the idea that commune living is the be all and end all but not in a way that’s altogether convincing, despite this collaboration with well-known and reliable scripter Tobias Lindholm. Refreshingly, he pitches his story from a middle-aged angle with the premise that commune living might be the answer to jaded marriages rather than offering unbridled sex for the twenty something brigade. But what emerges is quite surprising and often emotionally cruel: that said, it is a more cheerfully playful film than its more interesting bedfellows Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm and Lucas Moodysson’s Together.
Talk of communes immediately conjurs up the subject of drug-fuelled evenings by the camp fire but there are more provocative issues stoking the flames in this ’70s household that was once the exclusive family home of its altruistic owners, Ulrich Thomsen’s well-off middle-aged architect Erik and Trine Dyrholm’s newscaster Anna, whose marriage is ticking along nicely but needs some tuning up as it approaches the final hurdle. And as women often are, Anna is the one to suggest that commune living might be the answer to spicing things up in the bedroom and elsewhere.
The idea here is that Erik and Anna will open their spacious home in an upmarket suburb of Copenhagen to friends and acquaintances with the hope of creating an interesting new dynamic in their domestic arrangements. Clearly extroverts – the pair of them – but even then, this facile idea predictably falls flat when, surprise surprise, blond bombshell Emma comes along in the shape of Helene Reingaard Neumann. To be fair, she emerges via Erik’s office as a young architect keen to cosy up to his superior design skills and a bit of extracurricular activity. Emma makes all the running initially but Erik is soon smitten and the two begin a torrid affair. Initially gobsmacked, Anna takes it all in the spirit of openmindedness but pretty soon cracks begins to appear in the facade of false bonhomie. The saying “Out of sight, out of mind” couldn’t be more apt here as things take a turn for the worst. Had Anna had a chance to tackle Erik from a position of strength and silence, all might have turned out reasonably; the affair burning itself out naturally due to living arrangements not being up to standard (he is an architect, remember). But having the affair played out in front of her in the confines of her family home – with Erik enjoying the marital bedroom and still having access to her whenever he needs, the dynamic takes a toxic turn for the worst.
The Commune is a watchable drama – even if, by the end, you’re watching it while grimacing or slowly dying inside. But there’s a trite glibness to the story that feels overly misogynist and mean. Characterisations are superficial and flimsy, with every part underwritten except for Anna’s. And here Dyrholm gives a moving and intensely knowing performance for which she won a Silver Bear. The Commune has the quality of a soap opera rather than a serious drama and there is nothing to tether it to the ’70s setting apart from its fashions and hairdos and the odd reference to Vietnam, making it feel insubstantial, immature and tonally bland in the competition line-up. One feels sorry for Anna, but Vinterberg keeps on turning the knife, almost as if he had a personal axe to grind with the cruelty unremitting until the bitter end – in a similar vein to his previous Berlinale 2012 outing The Hunt.
Vinterberg and cinematographer Jesper Toffner go back to Dogme days with their dizzying handheld cameras and the colour palette of pastels adds to the feeling of glibness: duck-egg blues and caramel creams. It’s all a bit beige and unchallenging but the undertone is rapier sharp and raw.MT
BERLINALE 11-22 FEBRUARY 2016 | IN COMPETITION | ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 29 July 2016
Dir.: Sanne Van Der Bergh, Daniel Turi, Greg Ward| Doc, UK 2016, 92 min.
This is the closest a documentary has come to pure agit-prop in recent years: whilst directed by first timers Sanne Van Der Berg, Greg Ward and Daniel Turi (head of research), The Killing$ of Tony Blair is a film by George Galloway, as stated in the production notes.
Blair and Galloway have been intimate enemies for the whole millennium, since Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003, over his opposition against of the Iraq war. Both men’s reputation has suffered mightily in the last years, and although Galloway is certainly not in the league of the ex-PM, this documentary is very much a case of projection.
Still, as we learned from the Chilcot Report, Blair dragging this country into the Iraq war was at least negligent – some might call it criminal. George Galloway to his credit opposed the regime of Saddam Hussein, when Western powers armed the dictator in the hope he would defeat Iran in the war of neighbours. Galloway, then a Labour MP in Glasgow, later switched sides when the US-led embargo on medicines Iraq was subjected to, led to the death of over 100 000 of children in the country.
Galloway, who always pops up to have the last word here, has assembled an impressive array of witnesses for his case against the war, among them the ex-shadow secretary David Davis MP (Con); Naom Chomsky (MIT); the former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday; the former British ambassador to Iran and Libya, Sir Richard Dalton and former British intelligence Officer Annie Machon – none of them have anything in common with the former Respect MP George Galloway. Davis in particular is very adamant about the fact that he felt that Blair misled parliament. Stephen Fry and Lauren Booth, Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, talk about the charm of the Ex-PM, which is proven in news-clips: Blair striding in war zones, smiling like a saviour, every inch the messianic figure he wanted to be.
The second half of The Killing$ is a little bit of a murky affair, but mainly due to the fact that Blair, using a loophole in the law, is not required to make his tax returns public. This leads to wild speculations about his real wealth, anything between fifty and a hundred M£. The only fact for certain, is that his property portfolio alone is worth 25m£. But the exact figure of Blair’s wealth is irrelevant: the fact that he brokered deals, earning millions for a few phone calls for the likes of Muammar Gaddafi and the Sultan of Kuwait (to name but a few), very well known for their violation of human rights among other crimes, is sufficient. A final mention should go to Blair’s relationship with Rupert Murdoch, whose British papers supported him during his time in office: in 2013 Murdoch filed for divorce from his third wife, Wendy Deng, rumours indicating an affair with between Deng and Blair. Blair’s negative treatment in the Murdoch press since are indications that these rumours might be true.
George Galloway has done a fine job in The Killing$. Apart from his own vanity making him literally centre stage, there are are too many Talking Heads, and the structure is sometimes undermined by the over-emotional approach, but The Killing$ is still informative and, yes, amusing. But, we have not forgotten the George Galloway of the 2005 General election in Bethnal Green and Bow, where he defeated the black, Jewish Labour MP Oona King by some 800 votes, after using the Islamic Forum of Europe – who supports the Sharia Laws – extensively in his vile and vicious campaign. A little projection can go a long way
Cast: Dylan Duffus, Tayo ‘Scorcher’ Jarrett, Jade Asha, Sarah Akokhia
UK 2016, 104 min.
Directors/writers/producers Femi Oyeniran and Kalvadour Peterson exploit every stereotype of black-gangland in this East London crime thriller. THE INTENT is as foul-mouthed as it is simplistic and self-indulgent.
Led by the trigger-happy Hoodz (Jarrett), the TIC gangland violence soon erupts from weed peddling into robbing shops and post offices. Officer Lee Biggins (Duffus) tries to infiltrate the gang, but his superior, Sergeant Rebecca Smith (Akokhia) cannot work out if Biggins has changed sides. After Naema (Asha), witnesses the brutal killing of her mother in a TIC robbery in their shop, she discovers a mask worn by the gang in her boyfriend’s apartment and goes to the police, but Smith cannot prove anything, having to rely on the dithering Biggins.
DoP Scott Sandford has done a professional job, slow motion and jump-cuts dominating, but he cannot save a banal narrative which uses cardboard cutouts instead of personalities, the result overstays its welcome by at least 20 minutes. Like the whole exercise, the acting is over the top, in a senseless self-parody. Ultimately it seems the filmmakers’ immaturity has rubbed off on the whole project, dangerously reinforcing every single prejudice about black youth in the inner city. AS
Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari | 99min | Comedy Drama | Greek with subtitles
If you didn’t get the humour in Athina Rachel Tsangari’s first Weird Wave outing Attenberg, you’re unlikely to appreciate the subtlety of her indie follow-up, CHEVALIER,voted Best Film at the London Film Festival by a jury whose president, Pawel Pawlikowski, took won an award for IDA, and a foreign language Oscar.
A tribute to male competitiveness, Chevalier is a sparky and sophisticated affair that takes place on a wintry out-of-season yacht trip where six well-off men attempt to get ‘one up’ on each other over a pivotal few days on the Aegean.
The one-upmanship revolves around a game. And the game is called ‘Chevalier’, named after the signet ring worn by French noblemen. By the end of the voyage, the winner of the game will get to wear the so-called Chevalier ring on his little finger, although the narrative gradually sails into more eclectic waters.
Tsangari’s usual collaborator Yorgos Lanthimos was away making The Lobster, but she works again with their co-writer Efthimis Filippou in a narrative that concentrates on male dominance rather than female submission, as was the case in Attenberg.
The men on board all vary in age, attractiveness and kudos. ‘The Doctor” (Yorgos Kentros) is clearly the most distinguished and urbane of the motley crew, he is also the owner of the critical ring. The youngest and least bankable is the pudgy Dimitris (Makis Papdimitriou) who has been brought along by his older brother, Yannis (Yorgos Pirpassopoulos) who threatens to reveal his fear of sleeping alone if he misbehaves. Yannis also happens to be the Doctor’s son-in-law, so is on his best behaviour; the suave Christos (Sakis Rouvas) is the best looking. Josef Nikolaou (Vangelis Mourikis) and Yorgos (Panos Koronis, from Before Midnight) are long-term colleagues.
Once holed-up ‘at leisure’ in the yacht with diving trips and boozy lunches to enjoy, certain patterns of behaviour start to emerge in the name of the game. The men spar and vy for superiority indulging in playful and, at times, more more ribald banter that occasionally verges on the hilarious, particularly when Dimitris does an on-deck rendition of Minnie Ripperton’s “Lovin You`’ complete with girlie high-pitched voice.
The ultimate aim here is to establish who is the best at everything rather than in one thing in particular – ‘primus inter pares’ style. Challenges also include who is the ‘most loved’ on the home front – requiring the men to engage in hands-free phone calls in front of the others. There is even an ‘erection contest’ in this male-bonding (aka competitiveness) routine. The winner is thankfully never revealed.
For a film that takes place by the sea, the colour palette is refreshingly devoid of azure blues and dazzling turquoise: instead Tsangari has chosen a chic taupe, teal and gunmetal aesthetic which compliments this recherché masculine set-to. D.oP Thimios Bakatatakis does his best to frame and photograph within the claustrophobic confines of tight spaces to great effect, given the equally tight budget.
And in the end, the individual tasks are not taken that seriously; they are simply representative of the male ego and what it is prepared to undergo and tolerate within the parameters of the game, however outlandish or absurd. At times, there are echoes here of Eddie Waring’s “It’s a Knockout”. Spot Greece’s answer to Keith Chegwin and you’ll enter the spirit of this clever satire. MT
NOW ON MUBI CHEVALIER WON A SPECIAL MENTION BY THE JURY AT SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL 2015
Dan Pringle’s confused but stylish K-SHOP has something of the modern day Sweeny Todd about it. Certainly not for the faint hearted: blood and gore dominate in repetitive sequences along with disgusting bodily functions showing Pringle to be self indulgent in a debut that grimly outstays its welcome, and some. But far more questionable is Pringle’s treatment of serious issues such as racism and vandalism with the over-use of over-the-top, sensationalised aesthetics to hammer home his point – quite literally. Performance-wise there is a particularly strong turn by Abaza, but K-Shop is somehow too muddled and contradictory to be taken seriously.
Briefly, the plot centres on Salah (Abaza), a Middle Eastern political science student who is shocked when his Kebab shop owning father dies at the hand of hooligans. Taking over the joint, he soon falls foul of late night revellers who raise hell one night, racially insulting Salah into the bargain. But when a rowdy victim falls into a pan of chip fat, Salah decides to take the law into his own hands with disastrous consequences for the troublemakers, but positive feedback from his customers. As they say on TV: best not to try this out at home. That said, K-SHOP is the kind of brutal fare that will go down very well at Fright Fest.
Cast: David Dencik, Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kass, Søren Malling, Nicolas Bro,
Fantasy | Comedy | Horror
Anders Thomas Jensen is best known for strong storytelling and screenwriting both in his native Denmark (Brothers | In a Better World) and the UK (The Duchess | Love is All You Need). His latest film is almost impossible to define: a lyrical blend of tragicomedy, fantasy and horror with dynamic performances from the best of Denmark’s acting talent all go to make this film an unforgettable experience in tonal weirdness. CHICKEN & MEN is best described as a grotesque Danish version of the BBC’s League of Gentlemen with undertones of Cold Comfort Farm.
Family dysfunction is at the core of a story set in the glorious island seascapes of Ork (the Danish isle of Fyn) where three retarded and cleft-paletted half-brothers (Franz (Soren Malling), Gregor (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Josef (Nicolas Bro) occupy the rambling stately ruins of a manor house (Beelitz, Brandenburg Germany) overrun with a range of hybrid farm animals (some alive, some preserved in formaldehyde) adding a twist of quirkiness to its Gothic splendour. The film opens as two other ‘brothers’ Elias and Gabriel (Mikkelsen and Dencik) arrive on the estate having found out from their dying adoptive father, that their birth father, an eccentric scientist, is still living in the stately pile.
From this bizarre narrative, a strangely philosophical parable emerges which is by turns hilarious, macabre, romantic and even tender in its fairytale pretensions. Mads Mikkelsen swaps his signature sexual allure for one of sad sexual disfunction in a role that is gruesome and at times even demeaning: rocking brassy curls and a lopsided grin, his strange affliction forces him to wank involuntarily every time he comes into contact with a woman. The ‘maguffin’ here is a well-used role of loo paper. Each character gives a nunaced interpretation of madness and physical deformity that keeps us entertained and intrigued in disbelief and horror. At the end Gabriel is the brain behind the brothers delivering the philosophical thread that weaves the story together giving it a meaningful integrity. Bak and Kaas’ sweepingly romantic score elevates the film in a poetic way and combined with Sebastian Blenkov’s wildly bucolic cinematography MEN & CHICKEN is both entertaining and memorable whether you buy into its grotesque humour or not.MT
SCREENING DURING THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 7 – 18 OCTOBER 2015
Dir.: George Amponsah; Documentary; UK 2015, 85 min.
Director/co-writer George Amponsah (The Fighting Spirit) explores the aftermath of the 2011 riots and social unrest sparked by the death of Mark Duggan by following the path of two of Duggan’s best friends, Marcus Knox and Kurtis Hanville.
Amponsah places us right in the cultural milieu of this unsettling era of British social history in a documentary that sometimes crackles with raw emotion in a bid to convey the human aspects of the story from Knox and Hanville’s perspective, while remainingly resolutely dignified in covering three years of their lives from the time of the riots up to the 2014 court hearing that exonerated the police offficer who shot Duggan.
Mark, Marcus and Kurtis were just four years old when PC Blakelock was hacked to death in 1985 at Broadwater Farm, where the trio lived. Rightly or wrongly, these three and many others on the Estate believed that the police were treating them unfairly, wanting revenge. After Mark’s shooting during a “hard stop”, when police vehicles swooped in on his car, the riots erupted in Tottenham and spread, first all over London, than nationwide. By 2009 Marcus and Kurtis have left Broadwater Farm (and their Tottenham Man Dem gang), Marcus is married with two children and has converted to Islam but is still engaged in street activities and is arrested after sparking another street riot by throwing a stone at a spontaneous gathering.
It has to be stated that since 1990, over 1500 people were killed during police raids or in custody – not a single case resulted in a guilty verdict. The police tactics are not always sensitive, and sometimes provocative: there is a widespread ‘us and them’ feeling among the population in deprived areas – with the police often the scapegoat for indolent politicians. But the recent events in Dallas should have shown us that to radicalise the issue is counter-productive: we have to encourage cooperation between ex-offenders like Marcus and the police, to find ways to save ‘street-kids’ from the plight of Mark Duggan.
THE HARD STOP often stridently takes sides but in the end – like Marcus – comes to the conclusion that adjustment to a system, however imperfect, is much preferable to a violent life of gang culture. DOPs Colin Elves and Matthias Pilz’ images convey the frenetic emotional intensity, utter desperation and a permanent propensity to violence – only mediation, enlightenment and adjustment can help to appease the fury of the male ego, whether black or white. AS
Cast: Hannah Arterton, Joe Banks, Daniel Metz, Rea Mole, Josh O’Connor
82min Drama US/UK
In the depths of an English summer, four loosely connected friends from London move into a remote country cottage with the aims of creating an environment free from social conventions including those of sexuality. Living in this intimate setting they hope to drift into a state of harmony where there are no boundaries and they will discover the missing element in their lives.
Joanna Coates first feature is an elegant and visually inventive art house affair. Evoking a suspenseful sense of intrigue from the opening, with an eclectic choice of music and her clever casting: a slightly neurotic Leah (Rea Mole), a relaxed and playful Charlotte (Hannah Arterton), ) an assured and assertive Max, (Josh O’Connor) and a placid American (Jack), Daniel Metz). This radical approach works well at the start especially as the foursome seem mutually attracted to one another. But it also feels slightly hopeful on the sexual front. That they are all going to casually sleep together on an ongoing basis seems naive and presumptuous. However, Joanna Coates’ well-paced drama makes this an enjoyable voyage of discovery, leaving us to guess how things will eventually work out with some spirit of faith. The characters are enigmatic yet plausible even though the physical side of their relationships gets considerably more exposure than the emotional and intellectual one. Although it often feels as if events and scenarios are being forced unnaturally by some outside party, somehow this works. The arrival of another male friend (Simon, Joe Banks) changes the dynamics abruptly. His inquisitive line of questioning and perceptive comments seems quite natural, in the scheme of things, and yet seem intrusive to the quiet cohesion of the existing group, which has reached a state of suspended nirvana.
But the psychological parlour games start to destabilise his equilibrium and when one of the girls attempts to force a fantasy scenario on him he makes a desperate attempt to inject a spirit of reality into the proceedings. Afterwards, it’s clear that the utopia has been challenged but also that an unwanted element of their former lives has been purged. A thought-provoking and engaging debut that explores the state of modern society, xenophobia, nuclear relationships the fear of loneliness. MT
Winner of the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film at the Edinburgh Film festival 2014, HIDE AND SEEK, opens in selected cinemas across the country on Friday July
Director.: Les Blank | Documentary with Leon Russell | USA 1974 | 90min
Shot between by Les Blank between 1972 and 1974 at the compound of singer/songwriter Leon Russell in Tulsa, Oklahoma, A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON could not be shown until 2015 because of rights issues involving the star singer and the director. Blank’s son Harrod finally got in contact with Russell to resolve these.
Les Blank (1935-2013) was a veteran filmmaker and as eccentric as his many documentaries featuring among others, director Werner Herzog in Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe. One reason for Russell’s long resistance to having the film shown was that he did not always appears centre, quite literally. Blank focused on the lively artist community in Tulsa where painter Jim Franklin painted a mural resembling nightmares from Hieronymus Bosch – while also sweeping out an empty swimming pool and removing baby scorpions. Other offbeat attractions are a glass-eating parachutist and a demolition job of a large building.
Singer/Songwriter Leon Russell had performed with Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Joe Cocker. He had been a member of the Wrecking Crew since his early teens and recorded with The Byrds, Frank Sinatra and Herb Alpert. But Blank was also interested distilling the environment: the old-fashioned storefronts of Tulsa; the floating motels; the beautiful women, ordinary folks and Tractor Pull competitions.
Les Blank being, as usual, his own DoP, relied mostly on sound technician and editor Maureen Gosling, who collaborated with Blank over twenty years on films such as Burden of Dreams (1982) and In Heaven, There is No Beer (1984). For A Poem is a Naked Person, “we had about fifty to sixty hours footage”. Blank’s concert shots of Russell are a sweaty affair and the studio sequences are intimate. Harrod, who was nine years old when shooting started, was often present and remarked that his “father’s penetrating camera work was a result of luck and patience. He would be filming with one eyes and looking out with the other ahead of the shoot, He would anticipate when to move the camera.” Still, he missed one particular shot – when Russell and Bob Dylan tried to get away in a canoe to seek out some privacy.
Blank cut about twelve minutes of the original, mostly slow scenes, having no patience with long shots; he wanted authenticity, as seen during a concert performance when the camera is on Russell’s shoulder during the honky-tonk melody of ‘Tight Rope’, and the next moment we see a member of the crowd literally in ecstasy. Overall, A Poem is a Naked Personis much more like a music documentary, it is a time capsule from a bygone era where everything was meant to be an excuse for a great party, and music and all other art forms were a way of life. AS
OUT ON RELEASE AS SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 8 JULY 201
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn | Cast: Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves, Alessandro Nivola, Christina Hendriks, Jena Malone, Karl Glusman | 110min | Thriller | US
Nicolas Winding Refn’s coruscating takedown of the LA fashion industry epitomises the competitive resentment women feel for one another in this cat eat cat world.
Its subject matter clearly indicates that this is not a thriller about wallflowers or the faint-hearted. A phenomenal central performance from Elle Fanning leads a cast of international acting talent categorised by punchy female characters with two standout male roles for Alessandro Nivola and Keanu Reeves. Scripted by Winding Refn and co-writers Mary Laws and Polly Stenham, this mannered often bitchy exposé is driven forward by its blindingly magnetic visual style and a pounding electronic soundtrack from Cliff Martinez (Drive).
When 16 year old Jessie (Elle Fanning) arrives in LA from her native Georgia she cuts a seemingly demure and homespun figure amid the blare and bright lights of LA’s modelling fraternity. Jessie is no strinking violet, but up against the hard-bitten competition she has a ‘deer in the headlights’ quality which is much sought-after by the agency heads and photographers and soon catches the eye of Alessandro Nivola’s cliquey fashion designer wannabe actor. Beauty isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. You’ve got something that other women would kill for – natural beauty”. His words will eventually bear poisonous fruit although Refn fails to delivery a satisfyingly convincing outcome for his underwritten heroine.
There are scenes in this shocking often erotic thriller that audiences will find objectionable. Elle Fanning carries through her character’s naive personality with a subtlety that connects us to the hard-edged world where most sink in the mire. The themes of vampirism and cannibalism at times feel far-fetched and outlandish but make this fantasy somehow plausible in this fake community where evil lurks in every character, a manifestation of fear of failing and losing face – quite literally.
Refn’s visionary visual style that aligns him with Jonathan Glazer in Under the Skin where unspoken scenes project us into the realms of mystery and even terror and once again, he is driven by the power of electronic sound which tinkles and throbs by turns. This is an LA inhabited by real and metaphorical vampires who ‘feed off’ their victims with a creepy and hateful fascination showcased by Klaus Kinski in Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) and Gary Oldman’s Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).
There are some impressive performances from Christina Hendricks’ model booker and , Jena Malone’s lesbian make-up artist Ruby. Jesse’s rivals Sarah (Abbey Lee) and Gigi (Bella Heathcote) seethe with poorly disguised malice in some of the most viturperative lines their vacuous characters have ever uttered, spitting venom on Jesse’s meteoric rise to acceptance amongst the male designers and photographers. Alessandro Nivola is stunningly persuasive as a cruelly narcissistic fashion designer who has models parade in front of him in their underwear before callously dismissing them. The only character who plays it straight is Jesse’s decent boyfriend (Karl Glusman) who is cast aside when he cramps her style. As despite her lack of redemption, Fanning is nonetheless our conduit into this sunny world of lost souls floundering on the dark side that Refn conjures up with conviction and aplomb leaving us without a Hollywood happy ending in the true style of Polanski. MT
Dir: Robin Hardy | Wri: Anthony Shaffer | Cast: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Ingrid Pitt, Diane Cilento, Britt Ekland | UK Cult/Mystery Thriller, 88′
THE WICKER MAN is not actually a horror film, more an occult drama of brooding malevolence with a total lack of blood and gore. Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth) purposely set out to script a film that was devoid of carnage, yet one that succeeds in provoking an unsettling feeling and a palpable sense of dread from the opening sequences when Edward Woodward, as Sergeant Howie, arrives in the small and remote Scottish fishing community. A man alone in an unknown and hostile place, a missing child, a secret couched in suspicion and folklore are the simple elements that slowly coalesce to fuel our atavistic fears. Hardy weaves a web of uncertainty and unfamiliarity, sending messages of alarm and shivers of discomfort as we are drawn in to this dread-filled drama which went on to win the Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in 1979. Even that has a sense of weirdness to it.
Of course, no one will forget the eerie soundtrack of haunting tunes written and performed by Paul Giovanni or Britt Ekland as Willow, the coyly seductive daughter of the publican. Music plays an important role in the film, often leading the narrative forward as when Willow dances naked in her bedroom. Edward Woodward goes from a confident and commanding police officer to a whimpering, doubt-ridden wreck and Christopher Lee is masterful as the flamboyant and powerful Lord Summerlisle, head of the pantheistic pagan clan.
The story is plausible. Woodward arrives to investigate a missing girl and, being a stalwart Christian bloke, has no truck with the locals and their flimsy suspicions and Druid and Celtic Gods. But then there’s the sexual twist. Couples make love openly in the street and Ekland offers herself to Woodward without any sense of shame and posing winsomely in ‘Baby Dolls’. The investigation turns tricky, hampered by lack of information and anybody in the village admitting the girl’s actual existence.
Naturally, we take the Policeman’s side although he’s not altogether an appealing character – or an endearing one, for that matter. The religious zeal of the locals gives this a sinister twist: their values are crucial to their daily existence and these people will go to any lengths for their beliefs. And that, as recent history has shown us, is ultimately the most frightening element at play.
The final shocking scenes will remain seared to the memory. But more than that, the film raises existential questions linking us to our distant past and to our future in a way that’s resonant, unnerving and relevant to all our lives today.
Interviewed by Sue Lawley for BBC’s Desert Island Discs Christopher Lee claimed the film they all made was nothing like the final release, much of the wittiness and texture having ended up on the cutting room floor.
Our critic Richard Chatten adds: ‘Although as the director Robin Hardy gets much of the credit for ‘The Wicker Man’ the main title actually reads “Anthony Shaffer’s The Wicker Man”.
Anyone wishing to understand the British would be well advised to watch a double bill of ‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp’ and ‘The Wicker Man’. Not for nothing the personal favourite of Sir Christopher Lee – for whom it was specifically written with him in mind – the latter film (originally released fifty years ago on 6 December) in depicting a cosy little community which just happens to practise paganism – and in which schoolchildren are matter of factly taught the phallic significance of the maypole – demonstrates that this island race have a centuries old pagan tradition, made implicit at the conclusion when Lord Summerisle leads his flock in a rousing chorus of “Summer is a comin’ in”; a moment that lays bare the significance of a tune that seems simply quaint when performed at school but here is revealed in all its final glory”.
CELEBRATING ITS 50th ANNIVERSARY | THE WICKER MAN IS NOW OUT ON BLURAY
THE WICKER MAN: Final Cut was released in UK cinemas with accompanying 50th Anniversary event footage on June 21st: the Summer Solstice.
THE WICKER MAN (all 3 versions) was then be released in an exclusive Collector’s Edition and on 4k UHD for the first time on September 4th
Cast: Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep
USA1978, 182 min.
Michael Cimino only directed seven feature films, yet he can claim to have put a maximal impact on film history – even if not always for the right reasons. His third feature HEAVEN’S GATE (1980) bankrupted the production company United Artists, but he will be even more remembered for THE DEER HUNTER. Only his second film is nevertheless caused a world wide political storm – and garnered five “Oscars”, including “Best Director” and “Best Film” in 1979.
Whilst THE DEER HUNTER was premiered on 8.12.1978 in New York, the film had its international coming out at the Berlin Film Festival in February/March 1979. Even before the screening, the Soviet delegation protested about the film and wanted it withdrawn. After very mixed reviews, the Soviet delegation withdrew all their films and walked out, followed by Cuba and the rest of the East European countries, including the jury members Vera Chytilova (Czechoslovakia) and Pal Gabor (Hungary); a third, Julie Christie, left well before the end of the festival. (Ironically, nine years earlier, the festival was abandoned, after the Jury president, the American director George Stevens walked out in protest against the Anti-Vietnam war film “o.k.” by the West-German director Michael Verhoeven, shown in competition).
Seeing THE DEER HUNTER thirty-five years later after the great scandal (festival director Wolf Donner was pushed to resign), it surprises how quaint the first third of the production is: the scenes in the little Russian-orthodox enclave near Pittsburgh, with the steel mill and the church as centre points, are overly idyllic and the male protagonists acting out the rituals of arrested development, with the occasional casual violence against women thrown in. Frank Capra would have loved this version of small town America. But therefore, the shock of the bestial North-Vietnamese torturers in the middle part is far greater, as if the movie would have started with this segment. The chaos of the last war years is again shown out of the perspective of the American soldiers: victims to the end. Part three, back home, trying to put the broken lives together, seems to be more sober, until the very end, the rendering of “God Bless America” by the survivors (plus Meryl Streep’s Linda, the token woman of the narrative) shows patriotism as it worst.
Peter Biskind (“Vanity Fair”) wrote in 1978: “..that the political agenda of THE DEER HUNTER was something of a mystery. It may have been more a by-product of Hollywood myopia, the demands of the war-film genre, American parochialism and simple ignorance than it was the pre-meditated right-wing road map it seemed to many”. Pauline Kael argued: “The impression a viewer gets is that if we did some bad things there we did them ruthlessly but impersonally; the Vietcong were cruel and sadistic”. And John Simon in the “New York Magazine” summed it up for all: “This film is only an extension of the old Hollywood war movie lie. The enemy is still bestial and stupid, and no match for our purity and heroism; only we no longer wipe up the floor with him – rather, we litter it with his guts”. Today, after Iraq and Afghanistan, we might point to THE DEER HUNTER more with sadness than anger. AS
Dir.: Luca Viotto | Documentary with Antonio Paolucci, Paolo Portoghesi, Claudio Strinati | Italy 2016 | 100 min.
Director Luca Viotto (Florence and the Uffizi Gallery) is back with another cultural travelogue; this time he turns his camera on the four main basilicas in Rome to offer an architectural exploration with commentaries by leading museum directors, an architect and an art historian, and readings from Stendhal’s diaries between 1814 and 1821 (when he was expelled as a spy). For lovers of art history and architecure this is an informative and aesthetically overwhelming portrait not only of the basilicas, but their central function in Rome.
Antonio Paolucci, the Vatican’s Museum director, comments on the building of St. Peter’s, which took nearly 100 years to complete in 1626. Its main architect, Michelangelo, did not see the finished building, the world’s largest church which also has the world’s tallest dome Housing Michelangelo’s Pieta and Bernini’s baldacchino. The latter also designed the Piazza San Pietro in front of the basilica.
The Papal Archbasilica of St. John’s in the Lateran is the “Mater et caput” of all the churches in the world, not only Rome’s. It was founded in the forth century by Constantine the Great, and is dedicated to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. The architect Paolo Portoghesi describes all the phases of the re-construction well into the 18th century, when the great façade, a two-storied portico supported by giant columns and crowned by 15 meter high statutes and white marble steps, cased in wood, which, so the Catholic teaching, were used by Jesus on his way up to Pilatus “Praetorium” before his trial.
The basilica of St. Mary Major, the largest church in Rome, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is located on Piazza Equilino, not far from the Termini train station. It is the only basilica of the four, which has kept the paleo-christian structure of the 5th century, even though, as art historian Claudio Strinati explains, it underwent countless makeovers and additions. One of them is a campanile (bell tower) added in the 14 century, the highest in Rome at 75 meters. The 16th century coffered ceiling, designed by Guiliano da Sangello, is said to be gilded with gold from the Americas, presented to Pope Alexander VI by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.
The Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls is the second largest basilica of the four. It was founded by Emperor Constantine I, and covers the burial place of St. Paul, who was supposed to be beheaded on this site. Whilst the basilica has maintained most its original structures, it was nearly completely destroyed by fire in 1823. Pope Pius VII, who was dying, was not told of the destruction. His successor Leo XII, ordered a total reconstruction, a work, which lasted until 1930. As Micol Forti, the director of the Vatican’s Museum collections (by far the liveliest commentator) explains, the nave’s interior walls are decorated with scenes from St. Paul’s life. South of the transcept is the cloister, one of the most beautiful of the Middle Ages, designed by Vassaletto who also designed the magnificent Easter candle stick.
Massimilano Gatti sumptuous camerawork glides impressively over the city into the basilicas, treating the churches and piazzas like giant film sets, which provided the backcloth to the city’s fascinating political and ecclesiastical history. The endless data is rather dry and overwhelming, but for devotees of this is provides comprehensive and compelling viewing. AS
A ONE OFF SCREENING AROUND THE UK ON 4th July 2016 at DISCOVERARTS.CO.UK
Cast: Cristiana Capotondi, Alex Bisconti, Ginevra Antona, Pif, Barbara Tabita
90min Italian Comedy
An appealing rom-com that races irreverently and at breakneck speed through the director’s imagined family story, growing up in a sixties Palermo as Arturo. But beneath its sunny exterior lies a dark indictment of Mafia violence throughout Sicily. THE MAFIA KILLS ONLY IN SUMMER is the big screen debut of popular Italian household name, Pierfrancesco Diliberto or “Pif” as he’s best known to his fans. He also wrote and produced the title which won the audience award at Turin Film Festival in 2014.
According to the story, told mostly in flashback, Diliberto’s birth coincides with the election of a famous anti-Mafia mayor, Vito Ciancimino and a mass execution by the legendary clan. Played cheekily as a young boy by Alex Bisconti, and later by the director himself, Arturo develops a keen interest in Mafia-linked PM Giulio Andreotti, obsessing over his biopic (Il DIVO by Paolo Sorrentino) and even going as the PM to a kid’s fancy dress party. During this time, he also develops a shine for his a little girl called Flora (Ginevra Antona).
His childhood it full of chance meetings with anti-Mafia heroes in Italian society who all end up victims of the deadly organisation – magistrates Giovanni Falcome and Paolo Borsellino and General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa. Eventually in his twenties, Arturo wises up to the corrupt criminal underbelly in his hometown of Palermo and his drama ends on a triumphant note in tribute to all those who have lost their lives as innocent victims of the Mafia’s treachery. Deftly intertwining fact and fiction by a skilful blending of archive footage and actual staging: the upshot is an entertaining if slightly slapstick story with the same cheerful charisma as Roberto Benigni’s LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.
Significantly Diliberto has declined to pay protection taxes to the Mafia, in line with the Addiopizzo policy adopted by a group of Italian businesses. Let’s hope he’s stays around to bring more of this kind of cinema to arthouse audiences.
OUT ON RELEASE IN LIMITED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 1 JULY 2016
Director/Writer: Alex Ross Perry | Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Patrick Fugit, Katherine Waterson, Kate Lyn Shiel | 90mins Drama Thriller US
One of America’s best loved indie directors takes a dramatic left turn with this entrancing thriller. He broke onto the scene with his low budget road trip comedy The Colour Wheel in 2011 and won over audiences with the wonderfully narcissistic Listen Up Philip, but Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of the Earth is a different fish entirely. Boasting yet another scenery-devouring central performance from Elisabeth Moss, QUEEN OF THE EARTH is a film of passive aggression, crumbling friendships and psychological trauma in an idyllic wooden cabin in the outskirts of New York.
We’re introduced to Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) in unforgiving close-up. Her boyfriend is breaking up with her. She’s in a bit of a mess. She wants to get away from it all, so decides to take a trip to her friend Jinny’s family cabin. We learn that the women have been friends for years but flashbacks to previous summers suggest it’s a relationship in free-fall decline.
It becomes apparent that neither Catherine nor Jinny have had such a difficult ride and, as blows are exchanged about their respective upbringings, a rotting passive aggressive atmosphere grows. When a local guy called Rich (Almost Famous’ Patrick Fugit, all grown up) is thrown into the mix things reach critical levels of toxicity. Nerves are shot; eggshells get trampled; Catherine soon loses her marbles.
The female ‘force-of-nature’ angle that Perry’s title suggests is never quite fully realized, but Moss has plenty of fun with it anyway. The Mad Men star gives a terrific central performance, stretching and contorting Catherine’s psyche into various degrees of mental disrepair. Katherine Waterston, hot on the heels of her Inherent Vice breakthrough, offers a fitting foil in the supporting role.
Fans of Listen Up Philip will be pleased to see Sean Price Williams back behind the camera and his lightweight grainy handheld photography is just as beautiful here, fitting surprisingly well into the psychological horror mold. The change of pace from Perry’s earlier outings might seem alarming and yet, with Mumblecore/gore head honcho Joe Swanberg among the producers; perhaps it shouldn’t come as such a surprise. Indeed, Queen of the Earth might seem a long way away from Jason Schwartzman’s troubled author and yet it does sort of fit in with the director’s fascination with narcissism in extremis. Whatever the case, it’s terrifically uncomfortable stuff and, for Perry’s catalogue, a finely navigated diversion. Rory O’Connor
ALEX ROSS PERRY SEASON | NOW AT MUBI | BERLINALE REVIEW 2015
Cast: Alfredo Castro, Luis Silva, Jerico Montilla, Catherina Cardozo
93min Drama Venezuela | Mexico | Spanish with subtitles
The feature film debut of director Lorenzo Vigas, who has created a body of documentaries, is a small but well- observed drama set in the violent environment of Caracas and is based on a story by Guillermo Arriaga.
Armando (Castro) is a well-to-do but lonely man in his fifties resigned to his lucrative work a dental laboratory. At an encounter with his middle-aged sister, who is planning to adopt a child with her husband, we meet Armando for the first time agitated at his father’s return from abroad; his sister attempting to keep the peace. It never emerges what Armando’s issue is with his father (who we see a few times in the distance), but these negative feelings seep into his life. Sometimes he pays for a young male prostitute, but the sexual experience is more voyeuristic than anything else – until he meets the young Elder (Silva), who beats him up. Strangely, Armando seems to return for more punishment, until we begin to understand that the older man is trying to use Elder to revenge his father. Eventually passionate sex occurs but Armando warns Elder “not to get too close”, a warning Elder, who is looking for a father figure, after his mother had rejected him as a ‘faggot’, does not take seriously. The clever twist in the tale lies in the ambiguity between the two men: what appears as a tale of sexual awakening turns out to be something quite different and intriguing.
Castro is well cast as the loner who is single-mindedly focused on his own revenge: his Armando is a distracted avoidant, wrapped in his own world, alone at work and in his flat, a subdued retreat full of books and records. Elder, on the other hand, is full of contradictions: his violence is a defensive mechanism, ashamed of his tender feelings for Armando, he compensates with a macho role when he is with his friends. Vigas evokes a threatening sense of place in the Venezuelan capital where violence and alienation of the young and poor, dominate. Somehow, Armando’s psychopathic tendencies gradually emerge and it is clear that his relationships have all being tainted by his hatred for his father but his reaction to Elder comes as a complete surprise. Cinematographer Sergio Armstrong (NO) creates a sense of alienation and detachment with his washed out and torpid palette of sombre olive green and teal. A subtle and expertly-performed character study from veteran Alfredo Castro (The Club, Tony Manero) and newcomer Luis Silva. AS
REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2 -12 SEPTEMBER 2015 | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 1 JULY 2016
Cast: Lauren McQueen, Brogan Ellis, Stephen Lord, Liam Aisnworth, Derek Barr, Challum King Chadwick
97min | drama | UK .
Helen Walsh is a novelist turned filmmaker Helen Walsh whose debut feature takes place in the grim post-industrial landscape of Birkenhead’s council estates in Cheshire. Ultrarealistic in tone and supremely acted by the two female teenagers, Walsh’ script plays with underlying sexual motives, before a dramatic final rush destroys much of the intricacies that preceed.
In their rundown council flat, sixteen year-old Lauren (McQueen) has to look after her two brothers: the adult, near catatonic Andy (Barr) and the schoolboy Jerome (Chadwick). Lauren befriends Rachel (Ellis), who lives in a posh gated complex. It is unclear why Rachel showers Lauren with gifts as their relationship seems impenetrable and enigmatic. When Lauren learns that their violent father will soon be released from prison, she panics and has asks middle-aged pawnbroker/debt collector Mikey (Lord) for help. The would-be sugar-daddy exploits her sexually, but when Laura discovers that their father is to remain incarcerated, she turns to the her neighbour, the friendly army cadet Kieran (Ainsworth). With the audience still wondering about the Lauren/Rachel relationship, Walsh decides to deny all the malevolence, which has festered throughout the film, opting for a sudden and dramatic finale.
Despite this botched ending, THE VIOLATORS suffers from its ambiguous storyline where too many questions remain unanswered. Eerie images by first time DoP Tobin Jones always promise much more than the narrative delivers. A shroud of tension hovers over the proceedings, but the atmosphere of decay and alienation is by far the strongest part of this promising first feature – apart from the teenage leads, who are impressive in acting out the subtle nuances of their individual emotional issues. Perversely, the novelist in Walsh actually lets down the filmmaker with her script, creating dark, forlorn images which fail to be matched by convincing dramatic arc. AS
Director: Matthew Miele | Documentary | 87min | US
Matthew Miele’s ‘fully authorized’ documentary on Tiffany & Co plays out like a glossy (what else) commercial for the jewellery brand founded in 1837 that now aligns itself with a celebrity following of media mavens, New York socialites and ladies who lunch, along with more illustrious clientele such as JFK and the Roosevelts. Those seeking to learn more about Louis Comfort Tiffany’s glass and ceramic designs will be disappointed as this very much concentrates on the modern and contemporary cultural impact of the fine jewellery creations, and also its film associations.
CRAZY ABOUT TIFFANY’Srelies heavily for its commentary on an endless stream of talking, coiffed and botoxed heads – amongst whom are Razzie award-winner Jessica Biel, Jennifer Tilly (Bride of Chucky) and filmmaker Sam Taylor Wood (50 Shades of Grey) – who extol the spinoff effects of the jeweller’s highly fashionable diamond-encrusted credentials for a vacuous 86-minutes commercial. All this is interwoven into a cursory, often animated, history of the iconic emporium which was founded in 1837 by Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B Young originally as a stationery company that soon grew into a classy mail-order store and originator of the famous “Blue Book” and eventually the most desired address to buy your girlfriend (and nowadays your boyfriend) an engagement ring, even for those who “self-purchase” (ie: buy their own).
“I’m really a fan of big, big pieces,” gushes Jennifer Tilly, shaking a multi-coloured hair-do onto her low-cut décolleté. Others leer through porcelain-capped teeth (probably more expensive than the jewels they “self purchase”) to rave about the beauty and rarity of the ‘pieces’ (and we’re not talking about guns here) and their incredible craftsmanship and legacy interpreted by British design director and Audrey Hepburn lookalike – Francesca Amfitheatrof.
All of this majors on clips from the ’60s classic Breakfast At Tiffany’s. We hear from Andy Tennant who directed Sweet Home Alabama and see footage from the 2002 romcom and excerpts from The Great Gatsby further tenuously endorsing the luxury product and providing retail porn for those who get their rocks off on rocks.CRAZY ABOUT TIFFANY’S is ultimately a vehicle that will appeal to acquisitive fashionistas and the likes of news anchor Katy Curic, who claims that her 50th birthday was ‘the most fun event ever’ simply because it was held at the flagship store in New York City’s Madison Avenue. MT
After his standout first feature film ACAB – All Cops are Bastards, director Stefano Sollima directed two hugely successful crime series for TV, Romanzo Criminale and Gomorra (both were remade as features), before returning to the cinema with SUBURRA, an apocalyptic, anarchic and violent operatic saga of greed and decadence.Based on the novel by journalist Carlo Bonino and crime writer Giancarlo De Cataldo, the film takes its name from a district in ancient Rome, known as a Red-Light area, but nevertheless is the birth place of no lesser than Julius Caesar. This connection, linking Upper Class crime executed by professional criminals, links the action in SUBURRA.
In early November 2011, Rome two momentous events: torrential rainfall and the abdication of Pope Benedict XV. Sollima shows the week leading up to what he calls an apocalypse (an end of the world scenario) which leaves Rome in danger of being submerged in the floods. Filippo Malgradi (Favino) is an MP in the Lower House of the Italian Parliament and a well-known fixer with good connections to the underworld. After trying to sponsor a bill allowing the costal region of Ostia to be transformed into an Italian Las Vegas, with huge kickbacks for lawmakers and property developers, he spends the evening with two prostitutes, one under-aged. One girl dies of an overdose, and Malgradi leaves the other woman, Viola (Scarano), to get rid of the corpse. This way Malgradi sets in motion a violent circle of revenge killings, whilst he tries to get the Planning Bill through parliament.
A small-time pimp, Sebastiano (Germano), falls into the hands of the vicious Gypsy gang leader Manfredi Anacleti (Dionisi), after his father, a one-time powerful gang boss, commits suicide, leaving huge debts with Anacleti, who takes his anger out on Sebastino, taking away his villa and car. Meanwhile, Numero 8 (Borghi), Viola’s on-off boyfriend, a loose cannon, murders the man who helped Viola to dump the corpse of the girl in the sea. Unfortunately for Numero 8, his victim is Anacleti’s son Spadino.
Anacleti senior is unable to control his family; his sons are playing football in the living room, and the he goes into overdrive: he tries to kill Numero 8 and Viola, whilst kidnapping Malgradi’s son. All this chaos is anathema to the Samurai (Amendola), an ex-right wing terrorist, now in charge of the property deal in Ostia. Whilst he literally cleans up the loose ends, he underestimates Viola. And as the rain engulfs Rome, Malgradi, Anacleti and The Samurai get a very different, but deserved punishment.
DOP Paolo Carnera’s images of near eternal night and torrential rain together with an equally overpowering, electronic soundtrack by the French duo M83, make SUBURRA an emotional overpowering tour-de-force. It’s a contemporary Dante’s Inferno; a cesspit of soulless characters who are so regressed, they are almost antediluvian. Their bungling and lust for violence is astonishing, as is their capacity for self-glorification and deceit. Whilst the narrative is hardly original, it just about enough for this opera of wild decadence and engrossing sadism. SUBURRA is a B-picture with the aesthetics of Visconti’s La Caduta degli Dei. AS
Cast: Penelope Cruz, Asier Etxeandia, Teo Planell, Luis Tosar, Alex Brendemuhl;
111min | Drama | Spain/France.
Best known for his drama Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Spanish director Julio Medemhas always built his films around great love and equally overwhelming loss. In Ma ma he manages to go over the top, even by his own hyper excessive standards.
Ma Ma is produced and driven forward by a passionate performance from Penelope Cruz who plays Magda, a teacher who loses her job in Madrid and her husband Raul (Brundemuhl). After being diagnosed with breast cancer by Julián (Etxeandia), her gynaecologist, she meets Arturo a Real Madrid scout, while watching her son Dani (Planell) play football. His daughter is killed in a car accident, and his wife is in a coma, shortly to die. Magda and Arturo are thrown together in the turmoil only for Magda’s cancer to resurface.
This is Cruz’s film and she carries Ma ma– just – by the force of her personality and acting skills but the outlandish narrative stretches the imagination often to breaking point, relieved only by occasional poetic interludes, which make up for the absurd plotlines. Julián has all the time in the world for Magda largely due to his own unhappy relationship which comes under pressure when he and his wife want to adopt Natasha, a little girl from Siberia. Magda’s life revolves around the image of a frail little girl in the arctic cold, calling her Natasha. And this girl accompanies Magda as a side reality during her last months; and she christens her unborn daughter Natasha.
Surprisingly, Magda seems to have no women friends (apart from a friendly nurse at the hospital), and is surrounded by three adoring men, including Raúl, who begs – in one of many cringe-worthy scenes – for her forgiveness. Cruz’s Magda sails through everything with great spirit, never losing her optimism. One has to admire her, but in spite of DoP’s Kiko de la Rica’s poetic images of Natasha, and his pristine close-ups of Cruz, Medem’s script often tends towards kitsch. The subject matter really deserved a more realistic, less grandiloquent approach. AS
Director: Chantal Akerman; Belgium/France 2015, 113 min.
The last film of avant-garde director Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) is a still life of her mother Natalie, survivor of Auschwitz, who occupied her flat in Brussels. It is the final filmic account of Natalie Akerman, by a daughter whose life (and work) she completely dominated, unintentionally yet inevitably, until her death in 2014. Chantal Akerman committed suicide the following year.
Chantal Akerman’s obsession with her mother is the topic of News from Home (1977), a work show entitled My Family and other dark Materials, and Letters Home (1986), about the visceral link between the poet Sylvia Plath and her mother Aurelia; who described Sylvia’s struggle with her Jewish identity before her own suicide in 1963. And, as Akerman once said in an interview, “my mother is Jeanne Dielman”, the heroine of the director’s most famous work of the same title: “My mother making her home into a jail”. In common with all children of Holocaust survivors, Chantal Akerman’s life was formed by the Shoah. Her mother Natalie had fled Poland in 1938 to Belgium, but was deported by the Germans in 1943 to Auschwitz, not 30 miles away from the place she grew up near Kracow. Returning to her husband in Brussels, the rest of her family having been murdered, Natalie gave birth to two daughters, Chantal and Sylviane, who also features in NO HOME MOVIE. Without a formal education, Natalie became a prisoner in her own flat, while Chantal lived a peripatetic existence, filmmaking and making her home everywhere, yet nowhere.
After watching a screening of one of her daughter’s films, Natalie commented: “You have all this, I only have Auschwitz”. There is no way a child can have a remotely satisfying relationship with a mother like this. Akerman opined to her fellow Belgian filmmaker Marianne Lambert “I don’t belong anywhere, yet my mother is the centre of my oeuvre”. And yet her Jewish roots would always catch up with her wherever she travelled, rather like the Jewish joke about the man called Katzmann (Catman) from Paris, who wanted a less Jewish name – his friend translated Cat into ‘Chat’, man into ‘l’homme’, finally calling him Shalom.
NO HOME MOVIE, a medium between essay and documentary, is a final attempt by Akerman to come to terms with her mother’s history, and to make peace with a woman whose total apathy in terms of feminist emancipation must have made her feel desperate at times, even though she inspired, or better, counter-inspired, her to make all these films. Using consumer grade digital camera (and Skype), NO HOME MOVIE is very different from many of Chantal Akerman’s ‘formal’ films, being her own DOP underlines the concept: but she has chosen this personal medium to show a relentless private world. And the private world and the director’s world come full circle, when her mother goes into an endless monologue about how to cook potatoes, evoking the potato peeling ritual of Jeanne Dielman. But other topics are also sensitive: the war, anti-Semitism and the double bind her parents put her into as a young girl: Her father wanted her to be slim so she would find a husband; her mother fed her constantly, to make up for her own near-starvation. To watch NO HOME MOVIE requires patient tolerance; it only leaves the confines of the flat/jail for two long shots of desert grass in Israel – apart from this, it is a ‘Trauerarbeit’ about a mother and two daughters. Cut from over twenty hours of original footage (“if I had tried to make a film about my mother, I might not have dared”), NO HOME MOVIE is a still life, where events unfold out-of-frame: when we leave her mother’s graveside, what happened the following year seems somehow a logical conclusion. AS
NO HOME MOVIE IS ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS
Director.: Omer Fast | Cast: Tom Sturridge, Cush Jumbo, Asher Ali | UK/Germany 2015, 103 min.
Well known for his video installations, REMAINDER is Israel-born filmmaker Omer Fast’s first full-length feature after his debut with the medium length hybrid documentary/fiction Everything that Rise must Converge. Based on the novel by Tom McCarthy, the obtuse drama deals with the function of human memory, and is difficult to classify.
Tom (Sturridge), loses his memory after being hit by a big black box falling from a highrise office block in central London. He spends the rest of this film trying to reconstruct his life before the accident. After receiving an £8 million settlement, he buys an old-fashioned mansion block, where he believed he had lived before. He then employs all the tenants to act out his memories. Two men, supposedly agents from the Security Services, kill a man with whom Tom was in contact, near a phone box out side his flat. The mysterious Catherine (Jumbo) visits him and he has her repeat some dialogue from their past. With the help of the equally enigmatic Naz (Ali), who is supposed to be an architect, Tom assembles a crew in order to restage a bank robbery in a private City bank, where Catherine works. When the restaging turns real, Tom feels as if he is caught in an endless time loop.
REMAINDER is well crafted on all levels, but lacks any emotional interest for the audience. We are tossed a few red herrings about Tom’s past but he remains a cypher along with the other protagonists in this guessing game exercise: Fast plays with the audience, but he does not engage for a moment. DoP Lukas Strebel’s images are fittingly cold and ascetic creating an atmosphere of enigma, where the protagonists float rhythmically in this soulless operation that fails to connect on any level. AS
Writer-director Anurag Kashyap is best known outside India for his dazzling gangster saga Gangs of Wasseypur that took the LFF by storm in 2012. His latest crossover outing is an arthouse thriller with a Bollywood signature premiering at Cannes Film Festival’s auteur side-bar Directors’ Fortnight.
RAMAN RAGHAV spins the common perception that criminals and cops have sociopathic tendancies in common. Stained by a violent misogynist streak, this is a nevertheless a strangely captivating story not least for its sizzling snapshot of modern Mumbai – a city that seethes with a sleepless outdoor population making it an ideal setting for a crime thriller. Taking its name from an infamous ’60s serial killer Raman Raghav, who killed 41 people on the streets Mumbai, this violent and rambunctiously rowdy film is fuelled by a pulsating energy and punctuated by Ram Sampath’s electronic score. With violence aplenty but hardly any gore, the director inculcates an atmosphere of palpable fear from the opening scene where we first set eyes on our narcissistic abusive anti-hero Raman (Nawazuddin Siddiqui in ferocious form). But he is not the only character wielding a weapon – a bloodied car-jack that he drags along behind him noisily – Detective Raghav, investigating the crimes, has a licence to kill that is equally illicit.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui carries the film with glaring eyes and a gleeful disassociation from the terror wreaked in his brutal killing spree: murdering just for the pleasure of it, indiscriminately and abundantly as a reflex action. Siddiqui’s greedy smile and peacock preening make him a hateful criminal as Raman in total contrast to his portrayal of a lowly office clerk in The Lunchbox, this is more in the style of Sonu Duggal in Miss Lovely.
Vicky Kaushal, who played the romantic teenager in last year’s Un Certain Regard entry Masaan, is also a nasty piece of work here as the gorgeously handsome Raghav Singh Ubbi, a coke-snorting detective who terrorises his girlfriend Simmy (Sobhita Dhuliwala in a poorly underwritten role) and arrives on the crime scene before heading off for another fix. Discovering that his pusher has been murdered, his reflex action is to take out an intruder and snaffle a package of drugs, firmly establishing him as another villian rather than the hero of the piece in the audiences’ eyes. Although he rises to the occasion, Kaushal doesn’t quite muster the requisite charisma or grist for the part.
The killing rampage goes on bruised by vibrant bursts of Bollywood-style electronic vibes as the terrible two slither in and out of each other’s clutches. Both men are killers in a crime wave that showcases the inner workings of the city with an authenticity that seems grittier and more visceral than the Mumbai of Slumdog Millionaire yet with a striking psychedelic aesthetic that makes it wicked to watch, the only thing lacking here is some strong female guts. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 11-22 MAY 2016 | UN CERTAIN REGARD
Dir.: Brady Corbet; Cast: Tom Sweet, Berenice Bejo, Liam Cunningham, Stacy Martin, Yolande Moreau, Robert Pattinson;
UK/Hungary 2015, 113 min.
First time director Brady Corbet tries to engage with Jean-Paul Sartre’s L’enfance d’ un Chef (1938), crucially leaving out one of the main themes of the book – anti-Semitism – to end up with a caricature; in the process transforming the future petit-bourgeois ‘leader’ of Sartre’s work into a laughable, monstrous dictator by the ending.
Set in a French village after the end of WWI, little Prescot (Sweet) the son of an American diplomat (Cunningham) helping President Wilson with the Peace treaty and a German born, religiously devout Catholic(Bejo), is prone to histrionics and dark tantrums. Since both his parents are control freaks who take an emotionally distant interest in the boy (quite normal for the era) this is not particularly surprising. After his mother dismisses Mona (Moreau) the only person of any warmth in Prescot’s life, on the grounds of her disobeying orders, the wilful boy decides to stay in his room, rejecting figures of authority. The mother also sacks Ada (Martin), the boy’s French teacher. Finally, the father chases beat him brutally when he refuses him entry to his boudoir – where he literally is, as the word suggests, sulking. Childhood of a Leader ends as a farce, with the grown-up Prescot morphing into a ludicrously overbearing ruler.
Corbet’s debut is a muddled affair that attempts to keep us in the dark throughout: the tone is sinister and often terrifying, heightened by a ominous and melodramatic orchestral score. Does Presot’s father have an affair with Ada? Has the mother (an effectively coquettishly petulant Bejo) has the mother slept with family friend (Pattinson) mother f who comes for sporadic visits? Prescot seems to look more like him than his putative father. It’s uncertain. And finally, what is the reason for the mother getting rid of everyone who comes into daily contact with her son without replacing them?. The acting – apart from young Tom Sweet – is contrived and rather wooden, DoP’s Lou Crawley’s images are muddy and pseudo-naturalistic – pseudo being the operative word which characterises the whole production: bereft of any insight into psychological or political structures, this is a superficial travesty of Sartre’s novella. Quite why it was awarded the LEONE D’ORO for Best Debut is also unclear. Corbet has a future, let’s hope it’s a more promising one than that of his protagonist little Prescot. AS
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2015
Cast: Vincent Cassel, Salma Hayek, Toby Jones, John C Reilly, Shirley Henderson
125min Fantasy Drama Italy
Matteo Garrone’s TALE OF TALES is an orgiastic fairytale romp in sumptuous costumes far away from the real world. Based on the fables of the 16th-century Neapolitan poet and scholar Giambattista Basile, this splendid offering is an imaginative blend that echoes Beauty and the Beast, The Singing Ringing Tree, Immoral Tales, Dante’s Divine Comedia and every other trip to fantasy that literature has offered since the beginning of time. To watch it is to surrender to a mythical realm of the senses steeped in madness, magnificence and medieval bodily fluids – a dark and sinuously sensual world of pain and wicked pleasure.
Three fables intertwine from neighbouring imagined kingdoms drawn from the Pentamerone, a 17th-century book of Neapolitan folk stories compiled by the Italian poet Giambattista Basile: In Selvascura (Dark Wood) Selma Hayek and John C Reilly play a troubled King and Queen desperate for royal offspring. Their efforts to procreate lead them to a soothsayer who offers a remedy that results in ghastly albino twins.
Meanwhile, in Roccaforte (Strong Wood), a aptly-cast Vincent Cassel plays a corrupt and sex-obsessed King who has slept with all the available maidens in his pleasure-filled kingdom. When he becomes bewitched by the singing of a old woman, who he imagines to be a sexy nubile girl, he goes in hot pursuit of his prey. When she finally agrees to entertain him during the hours of darkness, Dora (played successively by Hayley Carmichael and Stacy Martin) emerges in her full glory, to his utter horror.
In the third Kingdom, Altomonte (Top of the Mountain) a tearful and cheerful Toby Jones plays a deranged King who decides to challenge his daughter Viola’s suitors with a bizarre test involving a giant flea the size of a cinquecento, reared tenderly in his palace. You can’t imagine the horrific outcome here.
Despite this extraordinary spectacle of grotesque black comedy – some of which is quite outlandish – the tone of TALE OF TALES is completely serious and dead pan and there are clearly stark moral lessons to be learnt from the wise Basile’s writings: Selma Hayek has the ridiculous task of devouring a giant bleeding heart, with utter dedication rather than horror. And Toby Jones is simply wonderful as the detached and mournful King, offering his daughter in marriage to the man who guesses the identity of a bizarre animal hide. Peter Suschitzky’s inventive cinematography sets this fantasy world on fire and Dimitri Capuani’s set design conjures up jewel-like contrasts from glowing candlelit interiors to sun-filled set pieces where Massimo Cantini Parrini’s gorgeous cossies glow vibrantly in gem-like crimson and indigo against pristine white and woodland green. A sumptuous treat. MT
Cast: Lauren McQueen, Brogan Ellis, Stephen Lord, Liam Aisnworth, Derek Barr, Challum King Chadwick
97min | Drama | UK 2015
Novelist turned filmmaker Helen Walsh sets her debut feature The Violators in and around the sink estates of Birkenhead (Cheshire), a grim post-industrial heartland. Ultra-realistic in tone and supremely acted by the two female teenagers, Walsh’ script plays with the underlying sexual motives of female solidarity before a dramatic final rush destroys the intricacies that take place beforehand.
Sixteen year-old Lauren (Mc Queen) has to look after her two brothers – the adult, near catatonic Andy (Barr) and the schoolboy Jerome (Chadwick) – in their rundown council flat. Lauren strikes up an unlikely friendship with Rachel (Ellis), who lives in a posh house in a gated complex. Lauren showers Rachel with gifts a in a relationship that seems impenetrable and enigmatic. But Lauren panics and turns to middle-aged pawnbroker Mikey (Lord) when she hears that their violent father is to be released from prison. The would-be sugar-daddy exploits her sexually and when she discovers that their father is not coming home she then turns to her neighbour, a friendly army cadet Kieran (Ainsworth). With the audience still wondering about the implications of the Lauren/Rachel relationship, Walsh decides to deny all the previous festering malevolence, opting for a dramatic finale. But the botched ending is not the only problems with The Violators. Walsh’s underwhelming script leaves too many unanswered questions to satisfy the shroud of seething tension created by first time cinematographer Tobin Jones’ dark and eerie images, which are the most potent element of this edgy drama; with the teenage leads impressively acting out the individual nuances of their quiet emotional despair. AS
Director: Remi Chaye; Animation; France/Denmark 2015, 81 min.
In this animated big screen debut Remi Chaye incorporates elements of Mulan in a 19th century snowbound adventure that follows teenage Russian aristrocrat Sasha to the North Pole in a bid to reclaim the family honour and find the ship of her grandfather Oloukine, an intrepid explorer.
This delicatately rendered 2D animation opens in St. Petersburg where Sasha is mourning the loss of her grandfather Oloukine who was lost after setting out with his ship Daiva to find a passage to the North Pole. Her father, Count Chernetsov, is only interested in his diplomatic career, hoping to become the Russian ambassador in Rome. But the new scientific adviser to the Tsar, Prince Vladimir Tomsky, the nephew of the Imperial ruler, tries to discredit Oloukine and his mission. At a ball, Sasha challenges the Prince, who calls her grandfather a megalomaniac. Tomsky is only too happy to be insulted, and leaves in a huff: Chetnetsov can say goodbye to his post in Rome.
Sasha flees her home and sets out to find the Daiva, a supposedly unsinkable vessel that cost the State a fortune. She has to work for months in restaurant near the Arctic circle before she finds a ship which takes her near the Pole, where the frozen corpse of Oloukine is discovered. After a gruelling mission in the icy wasteland hampered by a fierce bear, the exhausted crew finally track down the Daiva and sail back to St. Petersburg, where Sasha’s parents, all forgiving, await her.
LONG WAY NORTH seems to be two films rolled into one. The action only gets going halfway through, when Sasha climbs on board to start her journey to the Pole after a lengthy and didactic preamble explores the changes Sasha goes through in her quest to raise money to finance her trip. The hand-coloured images are highly original using a bleached out pastel palette. Young audiences might have difficulty sitting through the adult-orientated narrative of the first half in St. Petersburg. Still, when Sasha finally makes it to the world of mountainous icebergs and growling polar bears, their attention will be rewarded. AS
Director: Mike Kaurismaki, Writer: Michel Marc Bouchard
Cast: Malin Buska, Sarah Gadon, Michael Nyqvist, Laura Birn, Hippolyte Girardot, Lucas Bryant
106min | Drama | Finland Sweden
Finnish director Mika Kaurismaki (Road North) and writer Michel Marc Bouchard (Tom at the Farm) join forces for this impressively-mounted historical biopic that focuses on an interesting era in Swedish history. Queen Kristina, who ruled Sweden in the middle of the 17th century, was an enterprising feminist in many ways similar to our own Queen Elizabeth I, Previously played most notably by the legendary Greta Garbo in Rouben Mamoulian’s 1933 classic Queen Christina; what makes this version special is Kaurismaki’s full throttle slant on Kristina’s lesbian tendencies, where previous adaptations have just pussy footed round the subject.
That Kristina was a fully-fledged lesbian is a bold premise but sadly the film fails to live up to this intended ideal and ends up being just another period drama, albeit a watchable and beautifully-crafted one. This English language production has newcomer Malin Buska as Kristina, and Martina Gedeck as the mother of the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolf (Samuli Edelmann). Tomboyish Kristina becomes Queen as a tiny girl and starts to reign when she is just 18. In masterful form, Michael Nyqvist plays her chief political consultant, Chancellor Axel Von Oxenstierna, advising her on the peace talks during Europe’s religious Thirty Years’ War. We discover how Kristina was an ardent and respected patron of the arts and engaged with Europe’s finest artists and philosophers of the era, such as Rene Descartes (Patrick Bauchau) who is invited to stay at the Royal Palace. But her lesbian love affair with a beautiful young countess Ebba Sparre (Sarah Gadon) and her Catholic leanings (in Protestant Sweden) were the factors that made her unpopular when the going got tough.
Queen Kristina’s is a riveting story of bodice-ripping raunchiness and rich historical intrigue yet Kaurismaki and Bouchard’s offering is tepid in comparison with the real life deal; it is a drama that lacks dramatic heft and we care little for the protagonists or their tragic plights. Much of the problem lies with Bouchard’s script which was clunkily translated into English from its French original and then given to a cast of non-native speakers who do their best despite some real corkers on the dialogue front. Some of the performances are uneven and leave a great deal to be desired including the seduction scene between Kristina and Ebba.
That said THE GIRL KING is a sumptuously crafted historical romp set in some gloriously evocative snowy landscapes, featuring amongst others Turku Castle in Finland and Eschenlohe in Bavaria, but the tone too often veers towards the melodramatic rather than the politically and emotionally resonant. MT
Cast: Finnegan Oldfield, Marylin Lima, Daisy Broom, Fred Houtier, Lorenzo Lefebvre;
France 2015, 98 min.
When Larry Clark exploded onto the film scene in 1995 with Kids, the schlock-value barometer seemed to go into the stratosphere. Further outings allowed Clark to gain cult-status – but first time writer-director Eva Husson’s equally provocative Bang Gang is just pure soft porn, lacking any narrative and providing a bland amateur version of Clark’s film, which was after all an exercise in socio-political reflections.
Set in trendy Biarritz, George (Lima) is the blond bombshell of her class while her best friend Laetitia (Broom) is rather shy. When George conquers Alex (Oldfield), who lives alone in a big house, his mother being in Morocco, all seems to go to plan. But Laetitia, for once, gains the upper hand leaving George fuming. Alex’s creepy friend Nikita (Hotier), helps to come up with the not very original idea of group sex and George has ample time to sleep with every adoring male. But she still has time to fall in love with Gabriel (Lefebvre), a composer of some sort. Soon the party dwellers are infected with syphilis, parental control takes over, Alex goes to live with his mother, but George and Gabriel elope to Paris, where we can see them frolic naked in the kitchen.
This is a pure excuse for a film. It is not so much the voyeuristic nudity which makes Bang Gang so unbearable, but the absence of any narrative or plot. Shot like a commercial by DoP Matthias Troelstrup, the images overwhelmingly depict (half) naked teenagers snorting, smoking and copulating. Even the good old-fashioned slow motion is back with the protagonists roller skating or driving their Vespas through the gorgeous landscape – only to be disturbed by an annoying voiceover, explaining the obvious. Bang Gang is a wasteful exercise in banal superficiality. AS
Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Palme d’Or in 2010 with his strangely-titled piece of poetic reverie Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Cemetery of Splendour premiered at Un Certain Regard in 2015. Taking up the fashionable theme of psychogeography, it is a blissful and serenely spiritual study of a group of soldiers who have fallen ill with sleeping sickness while working on a government building project. Their convalescence is overseen in the tropical surroundings of a “laying in” hospital by the calming presence of elderly volunteer, Jenjira, and a local medium, Keng, who is uses her spiritual powers to heal the soldiers. The women are also visited by the spirits of two Laotian princesses who appear naturally and calmly: dressed as mortal women.
Cemeteryworks as a clever allegory of the suffering of the Thai people. The twist is that this ground was once the site of an ancient Royal Palace. The spirits of past royals (who also represent the unquiet ghosts of the corrupt Thai nation) are drawing on the energy of the soldiers and using it to fight their own continued battles, causing a generalised sleeping sickness amongst the veterans.
Weerasethakul’s film is beautifully-framed in a series of long and medium shots. On a spiritual level, it serves as a meditation that contemplates the value of harsh western medicine in contrast to the curative powers of touch and silence that assist healing. An atmospheric soundtrack of ambient insect sounds and cicadas lull us into a deep sense of calm, making this an affecting and deeply restorative experience. MT
THE TATE MODERN is currently running a film installation entitled PRIMITIVE 2009
CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR is on general release from 17 JUNE 2016
Director: Gianfranco Rosi Documentary | World premiere | Italy France | 95min
Samuele is twelve and grew up on the island of Lampedusa with his family of fishermen, all struggling to survive. But fish are not the only thing in the sea, miles from mainland Italy. For years, his home has been the destination of thousands of people trying to make the crossing from Africa to a better life in Europe. They have paid expensive fares to traffickers but their journey often ends in death. The Italians rescue them and respect their dignity. Gianfranco Rosi’s sober exploration of this human crisis is a tribute to the kindness of strangers who say “we are all in the same boat”.
Rosi’s starkly rendered and absorbing documentary paints a vital and non-judgemental portrait of the situation where both immigrants and islanders are given ample weight. But pictures can tell a thousand words and that’s the way Rosi leaves it: we must draw our own impressions and conclusions of the humanitarian tragedy.
Samuele’s family are decent but poor. Eking out a meagre existence through diminishing returns, they prey to God and drink out of plastic cups at dinnertime, but somehow they are content with their simpe life and its ingrained traditions. His grandmother remembers the hardship during the Second World War when their livelihood was once again threatened by ships that came by with guns rather than immigrants, but they survived.
Amusing himself with a handmade sling Samuele spends his days messing around on the shoreline with pals and gaining his sea legs for when he becomes a fisherman himself. Those who reach the island are often mothers with kids and babies on the way. They have suffered war zones and hardshipin Sudan, Eritrea and Syria. Many have died in the overstuffed, leaky boats and appear like tragic creatures, bedragled from the heart of darkness or a holocaust; their gold plastic insulation blankets giving them an otherworldly appearance of stranded meteors with coal black skin. Patiently the Italian coastguards take them on rescue boats and doctors examine them, expertly offering free medical care.
FUOCOAMMARE is a calm and sobering film that often makes tough and gruelling viewing but its images linger long afterwards: the rugged landscapes, azure coves and bleeding corpses speak for themselves. It’s a bittter pill to swallow, sweetened by Samuele’s chipper vulnerability as we watch him learning English and coping with his own difficulties: asthma and heart palpitations suggest the boy is internalising some sort of inner turmoil or grief. The title is name of the song his granny dedicates on the local radio station to her sailor son who is hoping for better weather so he can launch his rickety boat and earn his living. MT
NOW ON RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | BERLINALE GOLDEN BEAR 2016
Writer|Director: Whit Stillman Novella: Jane Austen
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Chloe Sevigny, Xavier Samuel, Emma Greenwell, Justin Edwards, Tom Bennett, Morfydd Clark, Jemma Redgrave, James Fleet, Stephen Fry, Conor Lambert, Jenn Murray
92min | Drama | US
Kate Beckinsale plays the quintessential English coquette in Whit Stillman’s witty screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan. Tripping lightly and astringently through this little-known and long-unpublished epistolary novella, Beckinsale is joined by a caustic cast of sterling British acting talent in the shape of Stephen Fry, Jemma Redgrave and Tom Bennett with transatlantic twists from Chloë Sevigny and Emma Greenwell.
And this is no staid period drama but a spritely, often hilarious, comedy of manners that follows the newly widowed machiavellian adventurist, Lady Susan Vernon, through a risqué game of shrewd social ritual to redemption in the arms of a malleable replacement suitor. With his well-known comedies Last Days of Disco and Metropolitan, Stillman has proved to be a dab hand at distilling delicious drama from urbane society. And Kate Beckinsale is at her best yet, back in a literary role that she handles with delicious aplomb (occasionally echoing the TV mannerisms of Nigella Lawson) and hopefully ushering in a return to a genre she does best.
The story opens with Lady Susan on the verge of leaving the household of “a divinely attractive” but irritatingly married Lord Manwaring, introduced by caption but ever to remain silent on screen, glowering with lustful intent in a walk-on part. In order to clear the path for her indiscretions in the homes of suitable friends and connections, Susan has despatched her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) to finishing school in London, while she plots her next incursion into her late husband’s family, alighting on the coltish charms of a young in-law, Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel).
Her partner in crime in these adventures is one Alicia Johnson (a discreet Chloe Sevigny, her sidekick from Last Days) who is married to Stephen Fry’s staid statesman who is, inconveniently, also the guardian of Lord Manwaring’s wittering wife Lady Lucy (Jenn Murray).
The enjoyable thing about LOVE & FRIENDSHIP is that it leaves you wanting more of its delightful wit and charm. From the main performances to the small cameos – particularly that of Tom Bennett as the hilarious Sir James Martin, in the jaunty style of a dumbed-down Robert Peston. Lady Susan is the ultimate ‘mistress of the put-down’ who cunningly moves between Xavier Samuel’s tousled toyboy DeCourcy and the subtle stability of Sir James with the consummate skill of Molière’s Célimène or Choderlos de Laclos’ Marquise de Merteuil – with lines like “Facts are horrid things” showing that she is woman who won’t ever countenance defeat in this tightly-plotted marvel and wittiest drama of the year – so far. MT
Director: Louise Osmond | Documentary | UK | 93min
With a string of award-winning documentaries under her belt Louise Ormond is fast becoming one of Britain’s foremost female filmmakers. Here she makes swift work of uncovering her subject – the social realist superman Ken Loach whose charming and gentle persona belies a steely and terrier-like resolve. Cutting to the chase, the doc opens with Loach branding David and Samantha Cameron ‘bastards’, he is later seen tearfully reflecting over the endless pain of losing his own son at nearly the same age – in a car accident. Raised in an aspirational Tory household in Nuneaton we discover that Loach did well at the local selective Grammar school and read Law at Oxford where he was ‘radicalised’ before failing to make it as an actor, joining the BBC at a time when it was casting around for new blood. Here he joined committed left-winger Jim Allen in making a series of films that went beyond the remit of the channel’s regular ‘posh filmed drama’ by presenting life as it really was: aka social realism.
Osmond neatly avoids a hagiographic approach using a tight selection of informative talking heads and although Loach appears charmingly self-effacing on screen and adept at giving his actors the security needed show their vulnerability, as in the case of Carol White in Cathy Come Home, Osmond is quick to point out that he can also demonstrate a rapier-like intransigence when on the attack evidence in his doomed directorship of the 1987 stage play ‘Perdition’ which was pulled from London’s Royal Court Theatre in a controversy that curtailed his filmmaking activity until the mid 1990s – due to lack of funding – forcing him into the commercials domain to keep his family in their large North London home.
At 80, Loach still sticks to a politically incisive style whose social relevance was most poignant in ’60s dramas Kes (1969), Poor Cow (1967) and Cathy Come Home (1966) but whose velvet sledgehammer approach now only appeals to a European arthouse crowd who feted his latest flawed agitprop I, Daniel Blake at Cannes this year. Cleverly, Louise Osmond points this out in her subtle and watchable biopic. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE 3 JUNE | A ‘PAY AS YOU CAN’ DAY WILL OPERATE ON THE 6 JUNE AT THE FOLLOWING CINEMAS.
Director: Neil Armfield Script: Tommy Murphy Autobiography: Timothy Conigrave
Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Ryan Corr, Craig Scott, Anthony LaPaglia, Guy Pearce, Kerry Fox, Camilla Ah Kin
127min | Drama | Australia 2015,
Neil Armfield (Candy) screen adaptation of Tommy Murphy’s script, based on a true story of forbidden gay love in the ’70s and ’80s Australia plays out like a heightened melodrama in tonal oddity HOLDING THE MAN.
In Melbourne 1976, at the prestigious Xavier Catholic College, Tim Conigrave (Corr) falls for his classmate, the Australian Football player John Caleo (Scott). The sixteen year-old boys try to hide their mutual passion, but a love letter mistakenly falls into the hands of the teachers exposing their strictly illicit liaison in a society whose penchant was for tradition and masculinity. Where Tim’s parents Mary (Fox) and Dick (Pearce) simply try to deny their son’s wrongdoing; John’s father Bob (LaPaglia) hits the roof, refusing to let the relationship develop. Tim is meanwhile keen to develop his acting skills and is having difficulty expressing the sadness required for his part as Romeo. His drama teacher gives him a hard time over this: “You lost your fiancée, not your bus pass”. Tim later moves to Sydney to attend Drama School, where his teacher (a masterful Geoffrey Rush) again criticizes his performance, this time in his performance as a monkey: “There is not much work for effeminate monkeys”. John meanwhile is training to become a chiropractor but gradually the relationship breaks down – Tim enjoying the gay life of the capital. A reconciliation leads to tragic news for both men as the drama morphs into ultra realism, before a rather poetic ending on the Italian island of Lipari.
The main drawback of Holding the Man (a term from Australian Rules Football) is the poorly-drawn characterisation of this rather vacuous pair of men: they seem to lack any kind of moral fibre lack, particularly John, who is portrayed as a fluffy, simpering pushover, just waiting for Tim to tell him what to do – and without him, he seems to have no life on his own. John at least has a selfish streak, but not much more. This is billed as being a great, passionate love story, but the characters are so devoid of any real traits, that their homosexuality seems to be their only exceptional quality – hardly the impact Conigrave would have wished for when penning his memoir. The rather the top ‘ 70s aesthetics and cliché ridden images of DoP Germain McMicking give the film a strange retro feel, without adding anything substantial. And while the leads Corr and Scott are mostly convincing despite their poor material, their portrayal of 16 year old boys suffers from a rather too obvious age gap. Overall, HOLDING THE MAN is a missed opportunity to give voice to what clearly may have been a meaningful experience in challenging times, making it difficult for the audience to invest emotionally or feel sympathy for their struggle. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE AT ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 3 JUNE 2016
Le Loi de Marche is a trenchant slice of social realism. It comes from Stephane Brizé, and is France’s equivalent of the Dardennes brother’s The Unknown Girl that polarised critics in this year’s festival, and a rather better British equivalent of this year’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake. Although not well-known outside France, Vincent Lindon has over 67 films under his belt and once dated Caroline de Monaco. He gets down and dirty here with that well-known elephant in the room: unemployment after 50.
In a sustained and sombre character piece, Lindon carries the film as Thierry Tagourdeau, a man in his early fifites struggling to make ends meet with his wife and disabled son, after being controversially sacked from a blue-collar job. Cleary there are legal ramifications here but Thierry sensibly has decided not to pursue an emotionally draining legal fight for compenation – and we can all feel his pain and empathise from the get go. Being unemployed as a student is one thing, but when there is a mortgage to pay and a social lifestyle to maintain, it is probably the most demoralising aspect of getting older. An emotionally charged opening scene is cleverly-balanced with rather a ridiculous one where Thierry and his wife are learning to dance. Whether this was supposed to leaven proceedings is unclear, but it has an almost derisory quality to it. Laudably, Thierry he knuckles down to his job search, including an embarassing ‘skype’ interview, every nerve and sinew is focused on self-improvement and self-justification – whilst a growing sense of dread and anger quietly takes hold.
Those who can’t appreciate Thierry’s predicament should count themselves lucky. Suffice to say Lindon gives the role his best shot; aided and abetted by his supportive wife as they trying to sell a second rate mobile home and deal with their son’s education issues. In one particular scene, where Thierry is undergoing a character assassination by fellow job-seekers during a presentation skills session, Lindon’s expression gradually wilts from calm acceptance of criticism to a sort of vacant hopelessness: so subtle is this facial transformation that it’s almost imperceptible: but nevertheless it’s one of the joys of this otherwise quite dour social drama. When Thierry does find work in supermarket security, a further twist presents him with a moral dilemma that finally breaks the camel’s back. As his perseverance finally lets him down, Thierry makes a hot-tempered decision that may have a negative impact on his family. Brize leaves us with the question: is it right to do something we are morally apposed to, for the sake of our family’s welfare?
This is perhaps not the stuff for a cheery night out, but as social realism goes, it’s well-crafted and bang on the button performance-wise with Lyndon giving it all he’s got in a role that feels real. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 3 JUNE 2016 | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL Winner Best Actor 2015
Director: Thea Sharrock Writer: Jojo Moyes from her novel
Cast: Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Janet McTeer, Charles Dance, Vanessa Kirby, Brendan Coyle, Samantha Spiro
110min | Romcom | UK
ME BEFORE YOU is a watchable British romcom that finds its way onto the big screen in Jojo Moyles’ adaptation of her eponymous chicklit bestseller where love blossoms across the social divide when a ‘bubbly’ young carer Louisa (Emilia Clarke) lightens the final months of dashingly dishy Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), confined to a wheelchair after an accident.
Paraplegic Will may be, but peripatetic he certainly becomes – thanks to Lou’s loving care and energetic enterprise. Desperate for work to support her unemployed family, she joins the well-heeled Traynor household in their magnificent English castle and gradually transforms her charge’s life from desperate drudgery to globe-trotting splendour despite a tough ending.
ME BEFORE YOU is a success largely due to strong and believable performances from the endlessly upbeat Emilia Clarke to Sam Claflin’s starry charisma – both have megawatt smiles and genuine charm. Janet McTeer and Charles dance provide elegant allure as Will’s wealthy parents and the Clarke family genial support – but quite why Lou is the only breadwinner in a five person home is never explained.
And life isn’t all singing and dancing in the Traynor household either. The bittersweet but shaky narrative hints at an unhappy ending despite the positive effect Lou has on Will’s self-esteem as a man. His parents are well aware that Will intends to head to Dignitas in six month’s time but once Lou works her magic with a range of uplifting outings to the races and beyond, the possibility that he will change his mind is hovering in the background. And sadly, so is Louisa’s cycling mad and inattentive boyfriend Patrick (Matthew Lewis) who clearly is a loser in the game of love, despite his sporting prowess.
Craig Armstrong’s original score and a selection of tunes from Ed Sheeran and Imagine Dragons keep the tone light-hearted despite tugging at the heart-strings. But ultimately ME BEFORE YOU is not about embracing the present or the future but an inability to let go of the past that eventually wins the day with the clear message that spiritual evolvement is not the driving force in the face of personal tragedy. MT
Dir.: Marco Orsini; Documentary; Ireland/Monaco/USA/France/Germany/UK, 76 min.
Director/Co-writer Marco Orsini (The Reluctant Traveler) portrays the life of the iconic Irish designer and architect Eileen Gray (1878-1976) in this compact, non-frills documentary which would have pleased the artist who was well known for her down-to-earth approach, but always ahead of her times – and often her male competitors.
Born in the Irish town of Enniscortly, the youngest of five siblings of a wealthy and aristocratic family, Eileen went to the Slade School of Fine Arts in 1898, a very brave step, particularly for a woman of her background. But her social class did not affect how she developed into a radical and passionate bi-sexual lover.
Orsini sketches out how in 1900 Gray emigrated to Paris, where she stayed for the rest of her life, returning during the first World War and s short break to look after her mother. After studying at the Academie Julian, and the more formal Academie Colarossi, Gray met the Japanese lacquer artist Seizo Sugawara and became engaged in this art form. Her first exhibition in Paris in 1913 was a great success. After work on the now famous Bibendium chair (1917-21) Eileen had a long affair with the singer Marie-Louise Damia amongst other female artists, but she fell in love with the Rumanian architect Jean Badovici, a friend of Le Corbusier.
In 1924 the couple started work on Eileen’s first architectural project, the Villa E 1027 in Cap-Martin, near Monaco. The villa and the furniture were later (one of many) reasons for the couple to split up, when in 1938 Badovici, in whose name the villa was registered, allowed his friend Le Corbusier to paint the walls with some occasionally explicit, murals. This way, E 1027 became wrongly associated with Le Corbusier, who somehow must have felt jealous of Eileen’s achievement. He later bought a property next door, and, in an act of poetic justice, finally drowned in August 1965 swimming in front of the house he desired so much. But the irony goes further, Le Corbusier saved the villa’s furniture, and because, it was – wrongly – assumed, to be his building, the State looked after it. It should be said that Gray and Le Corbusier corresponded well into the late 50s and in 1970, Gray opined how, “he never got enough praise for his work.” In the late 1930s Eileen Gray started work on her second home, Tempe à Pailla, in Menton. She supervised the buildings work and was very innovative with the furniture: it was foldable to save space. At the age 78 she led the construction of her summerhouse near Saint Tropez. Eileen Gray worked until her death in her apartment in the Rue Bonaparte in Paris.
Today, her classic furniture designs are mass produced and originals, like the Dragon Chair (1917-19), auctioned off for 19m £. Luckily she lived long enough to be recognised as one of the greatest avant-garde artists of her time, after being written out art history for over twenty years. Orsini employs the talking heads of the art world paying tribute to Gray, but centres his documentary on her houses in the South of France. This way he stays true to the artist: her work was not so much art, but creating ‘designs for living’ from any given material. She would have liked Orsini’s workmanlike approach, not a hagiography, but the portrait of the artist at work. As a minimalist, she never cared for dogmas or categories, but she was a modernist in her personal and artist life. Gray Matters, in its erudite understatement, does her fully justice. AS
Cast: Orla Brady, Francesco Scianna, Vincent Perez, Alanis Morisette, Adrianna Randall
Drama | France | 104 min.
Writer/director Mary McGuckian (Best) has done the avant-gardist designer and architect Eileen Gray (1878-1976), no favours as the main focus of her feature bio-pic The Price of Desire: a turgidly slow and Kitsch affair, it also manages to be a pretentious melodrama of the worst kind, colliding frontally with Gray’s cool artistic output and her self determined personal life.
Born into an aristocratic family in Enniscortly, Ireland, Eileen Gray attended the Slade School of Fine Arts, before moving to Paris and the South of France, where she spent the last 70 years of her life. Famous for her work with lacquer, which was used in Chinese and Japanese art, she also designed the Bibendum chair between 1917 and 1921.
McGuckian seems not to care much for Gray’s artistic output, but quickly dives into her relationship with the singer Marie-Louise Damia (Morisette); sex in slow motion is all we see of the couple. After meeting the Rumanian architect Jean Badovici (Scianna), Gray then begins a torrid relationship with the womaniser – again, his sexual escapades with Charlotte Perriand (Randall) are documented in great detail. Gray’s clashes with Le Corbursier (Perez) a friend of Badovici, who “defiles” Gray’s architectural masterpiece the Villa E 1027 in Cap-Martin near Monaco with his nudist murals, takes up the latter part of The Price of Desire, Perez’ Le Corbusier emerging the pantomime villain. Instead of attacking the architect for his ties with the Fascists during the German occupation, or his support for eugenics, the filmmaker again personalizes the professional conflict between Gray and Le Corbusier. A dreadful deathbed scene with Badovici could not have been worse.
The scenes shot by DoP Stefan von Bjorn in the renovated Villa E 1o27 are the highlight – at least we see, in detail, Gray’s – then revolutionary – approach, to make the border between furniture and architecture indistinct. The rest are of the images are on a par with the narrative: grandstanding, pompous and utterly unimaginative. Just the opposite of what Eileen Gray stood for. AS
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 27 MAY 2016
Director: Ron Scalpello | Documentary | 97min | UK | Russell Brand | Ray Winstone
Marking the 50th anniversary of England’s victory in the World Cup, this energetic tribute to East End footballer Bobby Moore (1941-1993) explores with appealing fervour the life of a young man from Barking who joined West Ham United in 1956 going on to become one of the greatest defenders of all time and a national icon after leading England to success in the 1966 international tournament, when Pele left the field. The film is co-produced by West Ham fan and family friend Matt Lorenzo and directed with great passion and verve by Ron Scalpello
Scalpello adopts a talking heads approach as fellow players recall their fond memories of Moore’s integrity as a leader and skill as a player. Known as “a Prince” among men, Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore commanded respect through his calm presence in a team of strong players who were a “tough bunch of boys”. His first wife reminisces about their first date – when she asked the ‘rather square’ young man round for tea with her mother – and the subsequent courtship which lead to marriage after a year. Far from being a macho man, she describes the sporting hero as romantic and vulnerable, but he was also practical: “when I had blond hair he used to do my roots – he was like a mate”.
His diagnosis of testicular cancer in 1964 (described as a groin injury in the press) left him humiliated and deflated. But despite training harder than anybody on the squad, Moore also wanted to have a life outside football. Rebecca Moore Hobbis describes her special bond with her father – due to his insomnia – he looked after her during the small hours in the first months after her birth and the two became close.
Old fellow footballers such as Sir Geoff Hurst, Harry Redknapp, George Cohen, Norman Hunter and Martin Peters speak with pride and fondness about their old pal and captain and touch upon how football became a popular career for them and the opiate of the masses due to the release it offered during the war and post war autherity. A dazzling array of archive material brings this colourful documentary to life and a rousing score from Benjamin Wallfisch (12 Years a Slave) reflects the highs and the lows of his career and personal life MT
BO66Y – the story of football legend Bobby Moore – is coming to UK cinemas on 27 May 2016 and will be soon available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download
Cast: Richard Dreyfus, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
35mm | Fantasy Drama | US | 137min
Combining scenes from both the 1977 original version and the 1980 Special Edition, Close Encounters, released in the same year as the first Star Wars film, proves that director Steven Spielberg, at 28 years old, was a child of the 1950s: Close Encounters being a compendium of SF films from his teenage years, feeding on the fears of the Cold War.
Electrician Roy Neary (Dreyfuss) encounters an UFO on the road while investigating a widespread power cut. Somehow believing that he is in secret contact with aliens, he tries to rebuild the scene of his encounter, so that he can meet them. His wife Ronnie (Garr), his three children and the whole neighbourhood is convinced that he is going mad. In a parallel narrative, four year old Cary Guffey runs away from home in the middle of the night and is picked up by a spaceship, leaving his mother Jillian (Dillon) desperate to regain her son. Roy and Jillian meet and with the help of the US military and the French scientist Claude Lacombe (Truffaut), make contact with the spaceship. Although Jillian is only too happy to be re-united with her son. Roy, whose family has left him, is overjoyed to join the aliens on their journey home.
Spielberg takes his story seriously delivering some slapstick scenes, particularly when Roy is going overboard with his quest for meeting the aliens. These creatures are rather benign yet somewhat enigmatic. After landing in a secret field in Wyoming for the final sequence, they deliver the sailors of the navy ship Cotopaxi, which is found empty in the Gobi desert, and some crew from WWII planes, before taking the grateful Roy in exchange. Spielberg’s explanations are rather diffuse, being a mixture of religious and philosophical ramblings.
The final segment in the desert is stunning, but also includes a lengthy quote from Hitchcock’s North by North West, when Roy and Jillian try to climb a mountain, very much in the manner of Eva-Marie Saint and Gary Grant. Overall, one never has the feeling that writer/director Spielberg offers his own take on SF, unlike Kubrick’s vision in 2001. Close Encounters reallt belongs to DoP Vilmos Zsigmond (who won the only Oscar of all the many nominations the film garnered), special effects supervisor Dalton Trumbull and composer John Williams.AS
OUT NATIONWIDE FROM FRIDAY 27 MAY 2016 Courtey of Park Circus Films
Dir.: Simon Stone; Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Ewen Leslie, Miranda Otto, Odessa Young, Sam Neill, Anna Torv, Paul Schneider; Australia 2015, 96 min.
Established Australian actor and theatre director Simon Stone has assembled a talented cast for his directorial debut based on Ibsen’s play The Wild Duck but his cliche-ridden script derails this predicable family drama.
In a small logging town in Australia, the feudal reign of Henry Neilson (Rush) is drawing to an end with the sale of his timber company, the mainstay of the community for many years. Apart from offering employment, Neilson s to have cut a swathe through the womenfolk of the small town and has even traded up his wife for a younger ‘model’ in Anna (Torv). Their upcoming nuptials coincide with mass redundancies hitting the local work force and their families. Neilson’s son Christian (Schneider), is also a nasty piece of work who returns reluctantly from the USA to join the celebrations but can’t forgive his father for his mother’s suicide. Blue colour worker Oliver Finch is disgruntled by rumours that Neilson also bedded his wife Charlotte, another long term employee, and possibly even sired their daughter Hedvig, a rumour shamelessly spread by the spiteful Christian.
Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neil carry the film with with their usual sterling efforts but the problem here is a lack of inventiveness and style in a narrative that leaves nothing to the imagination: all is revealed by wise old Grandfather Walter. DOP Andrew Commis’ images are bland, one-to-one naturalism underlining the anaemic impact of the film. And Mark Bradshaw’s score fails to lift this mundane drama out of the outback. AS
REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL | now ON GENERAL RELEASE
When fourteen year old Ethan, the son of filmmakers Debbie Shuter and Adam Tysoe, joined the ‘Entity Allstars’, an Under-16 Street Dance crew of twenty Hip-Hop dancers in Barking, his parents decided to film the journey without realising that it would take them from their home in Barking via Luton and Rimini (Italy) to Bochum (Germany). Here in September 2014 they were the first British team to take on the World Champions of the IDO (International Dance Organisation) in the Junior Streetdance category.
The directors called this a “passion project” – and quite rightly so. The young dancers, their parents, the choreographer, the juries and even the IDO president of the British section all infuse Streetdance Family with a spirited emotional impact on a level with the competition itself. To start with, Tashan Muir, a big burly man and the crew’s dance coach, saw himself “like a re-incarnation of Noah”. Helped on by Pater Adjaye, the religious undercurrent was very clear, and Muir certainly had all the qualities of a religious leader. Unfortunately, some of the dancers’ parents could not always keep their emotions under control, and made life for their children difficult. Petty quarrels erupted, some parents being not very good role models when it came to conflict resolution. It led to one of the main dancers missing the Bochum finals. To make matters more difficult Derek Povey, the President of the British Section of IDO, walked around the competition places, seemingly unhelpful to the course of Entity. Still, Muir held the group together and when they reached the final of the competition, he instilled an “us-against-the-world” underdog feeling in his troupe.
Being his own cinematographer helped Tysoe to capture the spontaneity and often also the chaos of the events. The rollercoaster ride is pure cinema-verite, recalling Jean Rouch documentaries about tribal rituals: with Entity coach Muir acting as the chieftain, putting his dancers into a trance-like attitude where they believed they could overcome all obstacles. The filmmakers tried not to be judgemental when it came to parental misbehaviour – resulting in early cuts when tempers flew. Overall, Streetdance Family retains a gritty indie feel, either by accident or design, and in the process achieves a hyper-realistic intensity, and an affectionate tenderness for the young dancers. AS
Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Damian Lewis, Ross Anderson
98min UK Drama
Damian Lewis is the driving force in Corinna McFarlane’s debut drama exquisitely set on a picturesque Scottish island during the 1930s. With a second world war looming, the local community is leaving the island to move to the mainland and the delights of Glasgow’s Willow tearooms amongst others. Hardly surprising, also, when their much revered pastor is a raving lunatic with unscrupulous Victorian morals and a mercurial temper to boot. Preaching in the local ‘kirk’ with his jet black robes and flaring eyes, Lewis evokes a devilish Dracula figure with the best Scottish accent since Dr Snoddy hit the airwaves in Dr Finlay’s casebook. Clearly, he is a force to be reckoned with and another example of religious fervour masking more deep-seated mental issues. The film opens with his wife, Aislin (Andrea Riseborough) writhing in childbirth: the consequent death of this child, his first born, further erodes his ability to engage with parishioners in a sympathetic and supportive way: his confessional style is one of ‘fire and brimstone’ rather than ‘care in the community’. As a husband, Balor is harsh, truculent and unloving.
In contrast Riseborough’s Aislin is gentleness personified, but with no child or work to keep her occupied she feels rather underwritten as the Vicar’s wife. Until, that is, the arrival of a young delinquent (Ross Anderson) who is delivered to their care and guidance from a local remand home. From the moment he sets foot in the remote Vicarage on the edge of the cliffs, Aislin has one thing on her mind. Andrea Risborough brings a delicate subtlety to her performance and, although she sounds more French than Scottish in some of the scenes, her soft submissiveness is tempered with a new hope radiating and a luminous serenity that transform her completely. Sadly, Ross Anderson makes for neither a believable rogue nor a simmering love interest as the bad boy looking for redemption. Clearly a deep and thoughtful thinker who has suffered a misguided past and enjoys literature; with his tousled curls and soft features, he is more cherubic that Byronic. For this love triangle to really succeed dramatically, the part clearly needed a brooding Colin Farrell type who could add ballast to Damian Lewis’ pugnacious fury as Balor, but the budget had been spent on the others. When Balor leaves for the mainland with a mission to transfer the kirch, the young pair grow closer, as Aislin feels his supportive presence. They are pictured frolicking in the local woods in an ill-advised vignette that is neither convincing nor well-staged with garishly bright lensing making the forest glow a sickly incandescent green. However, Aislin and the lad are clearly enjoying themselves and there is hell to pay in a predictable denouement when Balor finally hits the croft on his return.
Silent Storm is a visually ravishing affair that makes wonderful use of its lush island setting with Ed Rutherford’s superb camerawork. It works best dramatically in the scenes where Damian Lewis’s Balor injects his ebullient, masculine presence: strutting around the island as the bitter and frustrated priest, he is vehemence personified and makes this otherwise tepid story worthy of a watch. MT
SILENT STORM HAS ITS WORLD PREMIER SCREENING DURING THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE
Cast: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell
98min | Thriller | US
There is no point in being serious about Jodie Foster’s latest film Money Monster which plays at Cannes – out of competition. It comes under the genre of ‘silly thriller’ and for its 98 minutes running time provides a blast of vacuous energy that will sell some popcorn and a few laughs.
Julia Roberts plays a stressed out TV producer who has to manage her frolicsome financial presenter: Lee Gates, played by George Clooney, as he delivers a TV show called Money Monster intended as a dumbed down commentary on the stock market trends. Fired by cheap charisma and wearing the sort of hat you might see on St Patrick’s Day he delivers the financial news as if he has kissed the blarney stone.
But the news he brings on the day in question refers to a company Lee hot-tipped as being worth investing in. This financial derivatives trading company has just recorded losses of $800 million and taken down the savings of the kind of people who trusted Lee’s glib advice, including a truck driver called Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell) who appears on set holding Lee at gunpoint. Kyle wants as apology and forced Lee to wear a Semtex vest until he can get to the bottom of this Wall Street crisis.
Hardly the thriller to ruffle most peoples’ feathers this may delivers a few bolts of mild tension to the faint-hearted or infirm. In short, MONEY MONSTERdelivers nothing new and does so in a crass way that feels as if it its slipped into the wrong decade where the far superior Broadcast News or even Margin Call were screening. Worse still, the film fails in its attempt to address or even challenge the financial system.
George Clooney brings solid star quality to Lee who ends up being a good guy and one of surprising integrity given his headwear and along with Julia Robert’s reliable turn as the authentic professional character. MONEY MONSTER is fun and throwaway and just the right film for a throwaway night out with popcorn. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 11-22 MAY 2016 | OUT OF COMPETITION | NATIONWIDE FROM 27 May
Cast: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani | Drama | US | 118min
Jim Jarmusch’s Palme d’Or Cannes competition entry could be described as ‘cuddly and serene’. PATERSON has Adam Driver as the eponymous New Jersey bus conductor who cherishes pretensions as a poet. The tone is upbeat, the pacing languid in a film that plays out as a meditation on untapped creative potential.
Unremarkably, Paterson lives an ordinary and cosseted existence in a town called Paterson with his pleasant Iranian-American wife, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani), and his daily duties involve walking his English bulldog, Marvin, and taking a leisurely beer at a bar while he shoots the breeze with the locals. Does he write those musings for the London Underground, one may ask? Potentially he might, for he treasures his notebook where he scribbles down lines of poignant poetry (they are, in fact, the work of the 73-year-old Oklahoma-born poet Ron Padgett.) but he quails away from publishing them as, for Paterson, these words are a private diary. Many secret writers often blog away on the internet all day with no conscious realisation that their words could potentially go viral, read by millions, but imagine they are tucking thoughts away in the ‘soi-disant’ anonymity of the web. In some ways Jarmusch has found another way of linking his narrative to contempo audiences through through this cosy tale that is influenced by 1950s pre-counterculture.
Jarmusch pictures Paterson and Laura’s life as idyllic and stress-free. Laura is a homemaker with artistic qualities that involve plastering the interior of their place in geometric patterns.The story follows the course of one week where events are slowly repeated in a pleasant clockwork routine in this simple linear narrative that mimics a well-scanned piece of poetry. A paean to a peaceful existence, this is a film that dwells in the ordinary and in the agreeable symmetry of a life well-lived but one that never pushes the boundaries. And in our rushed and aspirational society there is a great deal to be said for both. MT
PATERSON NOW ON RELEASE AT THE GATE CINEMA AND PICTUREHOUSES
Cast: Scott Chambers, Yasmin Paige, Morgan Watkins
UK | Drama | 86 min.
First time feature film director Joe Stephenson, who has a track record of TV films, has set this drama CHICKEN in the countryside, creating an eerie, enigmatic atmosphere, but failing to fashion a believable narrative from Chris New’s script, based on the play by Freddie Machin. If that sounds familiar, it is a criticism levelled at many UK productions in recent years that look fabulous and feature strong performances, but fall apart on the narrative front.
Fifteen your old Richard (Chambers) suffers from impaired fine motor skills and severe learning difficulties which make schooling impossible. So he is living with his borderline psychotic brother Polly (Watkins) in a dilapidated caravan. Richard’s main interest in life is his chicken Fiona, and all his love is lavished on this feathered friend. When a couple of new landowners with their daughter Annabelle (Paige) move into the nearby country house, they cut off the electricity to the caravan, hoping the unwanted squatters will move on. Polly, who earns a meagre living as a casual labourer, takes the hint as is only too glad of the opportunity to leave his brother behind – with disastrous consequences for all concerned.
Sadly CHICKEN doesn’t appear to live in the modern world. There are too many plotholes and contradictions in the narrative. Nowadays, two brothers with such inadequate survival skills would have certainly being taken care of by Social Security. But, even more crucially, an intelligent and attractive teenager like Annabelle would hardly pair up with pubescent boy suffering from Richard’s severe impairments. Finally, given Annabelle’s poor relationship with her mother, it is unlikely that her mother would offer to accommodate such a problematic teenager such as Richard, into the bargain. The botched ending, however poetic, leaves the audience even more puzzled. When choosing social realism as a genre, one simply cannot disregard the simplest psychological and social facts. Chambers performance is impressive, his real age of twenty-five makes the narrative even more unrealistic, since he looks exactly the same age as his brother (Watkins.) DoP Eben Bolter does a great job in creating a haunting atmosphere, but his efforts are wasted on this infuriating incomprehensible feature. AS
Cast: Juliet Stevenson, Alex Lawther, Phenix Broussard, Finbar Lynch
108min | Drama | UK
An English mother and son make a final journey to their French holiday home in this intense character-driven debut which will appeal to fans of Joanna Hogg with its shades of Archipelago. InDEPARTUREAndrew Steggall shows impressive maturity in understanding life from the middle-aged perspective of parents Beatrice (Juliet Stevenson) and Philip (Finbar Lynch) and their pubescent son Elliott (Alex Lawther) and teenage friend Clement (Phenix Broussard). So often English debut dramas can be gorgeous to look but weak on narrative structure, but Streggall excels in a subtly nuanced rites of passage story sensitively rendered in a palette of soft autumn hues that echo a woman’s tristesse at the dying days of her marriage and the last hurrah of childhood innocence.DEPARTURE is full of nostalgia: its contempo themes of sexual longing, emotional loneliness and loss drifting alongside childhood memories and familial attachments as mother and son cling to a past that held high hopes for a rosy future, now shrouded in uncertainty.
As they arrive at the shuttered lakeside home, it’s clear that Bea (50s) and Elliott (15) bring with them a sense of bitterness and uncertainty. Elliott is detached and petulant: too immersed in the stirrings of his nascent gaydom to be aware of his mother’s depressed state. Bea is tearfully preoccupied and overwhelmed with feelings of anger over her sexually ambivalent and emotionally distant husband and the loss of her cherished home. It’s a toxic dynamic handled with gracefulness by Stevenson (in Truly Madly Deeply mode) and impressive newcomer Alex Lawther (who has the look of a character from a Rupert Brooke war poem, complete with the jacket).
When Elliott spys the slightly older Clement (Phenix Brossard – a younger Denis Lavant) diving into the local reservoir, he is immediately drawn to his vibrant swagger, and intoxicated by his bravery – the water is strictly out of bounds. But Clement is impervious to Elliott’s attempts to engage him in conversation as the boy becomes intrigued with his only local (bilingual) friend. What’s more, Clement seems more sympathetic to Bea’s feelings fuelling a spark of jealousy within Elliott as his obsession grows and a curious ménage à trois develops.
Cinematographer Brian Fawcett (who honed his craft on Venus and Control) cleverly uses his lenses to focus on the subtleties of facial expression and gesture, creating an evocative sense of place in the wooded countryside and local market towns in the ancient terroir of Languedoc-Roussillon. Clement is the breath of fresh air in this buttoned-up threesome, injecting irreverent humour and a sense of combativeness: when Elliott becomes too prissy he comments: “You’re a bit of a cliché – ‘the poet’- brusquely bringing things down to earth. And when the English couple drift into over-sensitivity, Clement pricks the bubble with his bullish earthiness. But he has a more reflective side to his personality and his occasional outbursts mask a troubled sadness. After the pent up scenes of his father’s visit, Elliott’s emotional epiphany is marked by an inspired slow-motion underwater scene scored to Dvorak, bringing a spurt of fresh energy to proceedings in contrast to Bea’s sad plight. Stevenson delivers an affecting finale that will resonate with many women, offering rare insight into the female psyche that refuses to rant outwardly; tending to internalise emotional pain: in some ways her character is the most complex and underwritten. Lawther, who played the young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game provides another typically English portrait of burgeoning adolescent sexuality; finely-tuned, verging on anally narcissistic. Brossard is fabulously feisty and almost feral, and there is strong but underwritten support from Niamh Cusack (as a neighbour) while Lynch does his best as the typically silent and deadly avoidant male. DEPARTURE is absorbing and watchable, and although it could be argued that Steggall lingers a little too long on some of the scenes, he offers a well-crafted and inspired first feature making him a welcome British talent in the making . MT
Best known for his 2007 documentary Black White & Gray, about the relationship between photographer Robert Maplethorpe and Sam Wagastaff, Robert Crump here turns his camera on a group of artists who create Land Art, a movement which grew out of the rejection of gallery culture in late 1960s Los Angeles.
This was a time dominated by the Vietnam War in the US and questions about the identity of the country were asked and artists, always at the forefront of change, asked for radical solutions: not only for politics, but also their own creative output. A group called the s Angeles, led by Michael Heizer (*1944), Robert Smithson (1938-1973), Walter de Maria (1935-2013), Nancy Holt (1938-2014) and Charles Ross (*1937) decided to end “the dictatorship of the gallery owners”, and move out of LA into the desert in order to find space for their Land Art, a technique 3000 years older than oil painting, with images not unlike those found in Stonehenge.
Ironically, one of the gallery owners, Virginia Dwan, the heiress of the 3M Group, helped the artists at the start, as did the Avalanche Magazine, the semi-official magazine of the movement. The enormity and scale of the artwork created can only be imagined when we discover that 240 000tons of rock in the Nevada desert had to be moved to provide an adequate canveas for Michael Heizer’s Double Negative (1969/70) which involved the digging of two enormous trenches 50 feet deep and 30 feet wide into the rock, for an entire installation spawning 1500 feet.
In 1969 Heizer had to abandon work on the rock installation ‘Levitated Mass’, because the equipment to transport the installation to the LA County Museum of Art could not be found. But he realised the project in 2012, transporting the 340 tons art work from the Stone Valley in California to the Museum, which took eleven nights. Ever since 1990 Heizer has been working on his project City, a huge complex in Lincoln County, Nevada.
Robert Smithson, the tragic hero of the movement, who died in a plane crash in Texas whilst researching his new project at the Amarillo Ramp, created the giant earthwork ‘Spiral Jetty’ in 1970 at the Salt Lake, Utah, measuring 4572 m by 457 m. His wife Nancy Holt, the only woman of the group, had spent most of her time as a peacemaker between the male artists who often had more energy for confrontation than for their art.
In 1978 she filmed the creation of ‘Sun Tunnels’ in the Great Basin Desert of Utah. The installation consists of four massive, 18 feet long tubes, placed in a radius of 26m. There are holes in the tubes, which are aligned to the star signs of Draco, Perseus, Columba and Capricorn. The configuration creates amazing play of light images. Walter de Maria’s Lightning Fields (1977) in New Mexico consists of 400 stainless steel posts, which lighten up during thunderstorms, and change optical effects, due to changes in time and the weather. The rectangular grid’s dimension is 1 mile by one mile. Charles Ross’ began working on he prism sculptures of ‘Star Axis’ in 1971 which places its viewers parallel to the axis of the earth, when walkimg alomg the imstallation. ‘The Star Tunnel’ is the centre of Star Axis, comprising a stairway, ten stories high, to a naked eye observatory, enabling an ever increasing view of the sky.
It goes without saying that these artists were idiosyncratic. While Heizer is a throwback to the American pioneer, who conquered the West, de Maria was a much more gentle and poetic creature. Crump avoids a hagiographic approach, but he manages to convey the utter originality of the artists. TROUBLEMAKERS is a film to be watched: the images of DOP’s Robert O’Haire and Alexandre Themistocleus, as well as the films by Heizer and Holt about their work process, are absolutely out of this world. Together with the documents from the late ’60s showing how the artists gradually left the bars of LA for the wide-open spaces of the deserts, TROUBLEMAKERS is a unique visual journey. AS
Dir: Laurie Anderson | With: Laurie Anderson, Dan Janvey, Toshiaki Ozawa, Joshua Zucker Pluda | 75min | Documentary | US | France
Apart from a brief foray at Cannes 2019 with her short film To the Moon (2019), Heart of A Dog is still Anderson’s most recent feature, playing out on many levels: documentary, animation, essay and installation – the latter part of the artists’ Habeus Corpi installation which showed in 2015 in New York City.
The star of the show is unsurprisingly a dog (to be precise, six canines were in front of the camera), with Anderson’s own, late companion Lolabelle, a terrier, taking centre stage. Early on the filmmaker dreams of giving birth to a dog, even though she cheated a little in the process, and this is shown in Laurie’s charming pencil sketches. Further musings after the death of Lolabelle lead Anderson to the main subject of her film essay saying goodbye not only to Lolabelle, but also her mother (and always unspoken) her husband Lou Reed, who died in 2013, and whose Turning Time Around plays powerfully over the end-credits.
The overall style is liquid with all segments flowing – in an associative way – into each other. Some strains are picked up again, a case in point is the potent reaction to 9/11 with images of the huge NSA HQ in the Utah desert in Utah (where the recordings of security agencies are made and stored indefinitely). In California Lolabelle nearly became the victim of a circling hawk who mistook her for a large rabbit. Later, Anderson dreams about her dog being in ‘borda’ for 49 days, a sort of liminal state before re-incarnation, as taught by the Tibetan ‘Book of Death’.
But the director is always self-critical: after telling the story of her long hospital stay after a childhood accident when she found herself in a ward with children suffering from serious burns, Anderson remembers censoring her memory and leaving out the “cries, dying children make”.
With quotes from Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, Heart of a Dog is a love letter about letting go – melancholic, but never depressing. It celebrates life and many art forms, the human and the canine spirit, leaving the audience in a contemplative mood. AS
British director Susanna White cut her teeth at the BBC with Bleak House and Jane Eyre, before her big screen debut Nanny McPhee Returns. Here she turns her camera to the spy thriller genre with John Le Carré’s OUR KIND OF TRAITOR, superbly adapted from the original page by Hossein and featuring a fine British cast.
English couple Perry Makepeace (McGregor) and barrister Gail (Harris) are holidaying in a fancy hotel in Marrakech in a bid to repair their ailing marriage. Perry, a university poetry lecturer has slept with a student and Gail seems not to have forgiven him. They argue, and while Gail takes a conference call, Perry falls into conversation with Dima (Skarsgard), a Russian Mafioso who is afraid that his new boss ‘the prince’ (Dobrygin) is out to kill him and his family. Dima’s fear is reasonable, since we have seen the prince having his henchman execute another ‘treasurer’ and his family in Russia. The two men meet again the next day over a game of tennis, and Gail gets to know Dima’s wife Tamara (Saskia Reeves) and family. But soon it becomes clear that Dima has an ulterior motive, that of asking Perry’s help to negotiate his escape from the Russian mob, with the help of the British Government. In leverage, Dima is able to provide hard proof that a British MP (Jeremy Northam) is in cahoots with the Russians and abusing his influence to help them launder ill-gotten financial gains.
At Heathrow airport, Gail and Perry then meet MI6 handler Hector Meredith (Damien Lewis), who appears a little too keen to help, aided and abetted by spy sidekicks Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner) and Mark Gatiss (Sherlock). Soon Gail gets involved in helping to smuggle Dima, his wife and three children from Bern into Britain. On the run, they hide in a hut in the French Alps, where Dima’s daughter Natasha gives away their hideout inadvertently, phoning her lover on her mobile. Whilst the group survives the onslaught of the Prince gang, tragedy strikes when Dima travels by heleicopter to London, trying to convince Hector of the validity of his information.
There are some classical Le Carré constellations: the innocent couple abroad; the traitor within; and the “believer” who has to prove the guilt of the establishment traitor against the odds, whilst running a department of three. This being the 21st century, ideologies have vanished and it is all about money and nothing else. Skarsgard is the star, the classical anti-hero, with his long hair and even longer memories of the times of Stalinism. DoP Anthony Dod Mantle has caught the two domineering worlds of this drama: the ruthless pursuit of money and the desperate getaway, all filmed in shadowy grey. The establishment, meanwhile – in Russia and Britain – bathes in the glittering lights of parties, theatre and football events ostentatiously showing off, while selling and buying alliances for the best price available: a stockmarket of commodities. Lewis’ Hector is the modern Smiley: in his case, it is not his errant wife, who trobles him, but his son, imprisoned for drug dealing. Hector suffers with the same dignity as Smiley, and tries to nail Longrigg with the same perseverance. OUR KIND OF TRAITOR is very well-crafted entertainment with some social criticism: enjoyable but not too taxing. AS
Dir: Deniz Gamze Erguven | Cast: Günes Sensoy, Doga Zeyneb Doguslu, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elit Iscan, Ilayda Akdogan; Nihal G. Kolda, Ayberk Pekcan | 97min | Drama | France/ Turkey/Germany/Qatar.
Turkish director Deniz Gamze Erguven has won international awards for her short films. Her feature debut is an emotional and ideological tour-de-force exploring how five sisters fight repression in a small Turkish village: Mustangis a vehement political statement and a great example of female solidarity.
On the last day of school, five orphaned teenage girls have a harmless water fight on the beach with their male friends. After watching them, a sneaky neighbour informs their grandmother (Koldas) and uncle Erol (Pekcan) complaining of “sexual perversion”. The girls are literally barricading into their home, their grandmother dragging the three older girls off for a “virginity test” in hospital. But the draconian behaviour doesn’t end there -‘phones, mobiles, computers and TVs are confiscated, as the girls are forced into frumpy clothes, their grandmother insisting on cooking classes to keep them ‘suitably’ busy, prepare them for marriage and making the house into a “wife factory.
Mustangfeels like a story from medieval times but this is rural Turkey in the 21th century Turkey. What makes it so enjoyable is the girls’ ingenuity in the face of discipline. Sonay (Akdogan), the oldest, at least gets the husband she wants: her long-term boyfriend Ekin. But Selma (Sunguroglu) ends up with the clumsy Osman, whom she hardly knows. Ece (Iscan) tries to fatten herself up by eating sweats non-stop to put her future – unloved husband off – but commits suicide in the end. But grandmother and uncle go on regardless: finding a husband for Nur (Doguslu). The two grown-ups share a guilty secret: uncle Erol is has been abusing Nur sexually for quite a while. The youngest Lale (Sensoy), the most spirited of the quintet, finally takes over: whilst the wedding party is outside, waiting for the bride to emerge, Lale and Nur are barricades themselves into the house, before trying to escape to Istanbul.
Shot in the Inebolu, in the North-East of Turkey, with an all-Turkish cast, MUSTANG nevertheless has a West-European aesthetic since Erguven grew up in France. Sexual politics are in the forefront: whilst the girls discuss their bourgeoning sexuality openly with each other, for the grown-ups this topic is a taboo.The grandmother leaves a ’50s “guide for girls” on the kitchen table. And when Selma’s hymen does not rupture during the couple’s first intercourse after the wedding, the enraged parents drag her to a hospital, where the understanding doctor can calm them down. The old woman’s complicity with her son over his abuse of Nur, is unfortunately not only a problem encountered in Muslim countries. Which leads us to the wider implications: the excuse that forced marriages are necessary for social peace in Islam societies (as voiced by the grandmother and her son) is just a scam: Men very much participate in all the “vices” of modern Western culture, they just do not want to give up their privileges: since the repression of women forced to live in the medieval times in 21st century.
DOPs Ersin Gok and David Chizallet evoke a perfect ‘huis clos’ atmosphere in the house: the gloomy images give a feeling of lock-down, with the ugly clothes as prison garbs. And whenever Lale escapes to learn to drive, meeting the friendly Yasin (Yigit) – who teaches her – alas with no success – the sobriety recedes and the colours become bright and joyful. Even the mention of ‘Istanbul’, a heaven of freedom, brightens up the atmosphere in the house. The ensemble cast are outstanding with a dynamite turn from debutant Sensoy: her Lale is so full of vitality, resistance and ingenuity, that in spite of her age, she pioneers the fight for freedom. MUSTANG is not perfect, there are over-melodramatic moments in the football stadium with the girls celebrating in an all-female crowd – but the powerfully passionate, stringent offensive approach Erguven choses, is impressive. AS
Cast: Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Anton Yelchin, Patrick Stewart
94min US Horror
Saulnier emerged on the indie scene at Cannes 2013 with his richly-textured arthouse revenge thriller Blue Ruin. But this latest outing GREEN ROOM feels like he’s slid back into the teenage slasher territory of his debut Murder Party. Whilst being reasonably entertaining, this tale of a punk band who wander into the dangerous clutches of a gang of fascist drug dealers, feels slacker and less convincing with its throwaway gory violence and puerile stab at black humour that will go down well at Frightfest.
Another reason why GREEN ROOM feels less edgy and unsettling is the casting of mainstream actors, Imogen Poots and Patrick Stewart. Although this talent may be more of a box office draw, the result is a film that feels more anodyne despite some macabre moments. For a start Imogen Poots will always impart a Sloaney feel for British audiences and Patrick Stewart pales into insignificance compared with Ben Kingsley, in ‘gangleader mode’. The extreme schlocky violence is another reason GREEN ROOM fails to impress, causing many more eyes to roll, than heads and limbs. The continual meaningless re-makes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre have shown why ubiquitous hacked-off limbs and geysers of blood simply aren’t scary or horrific. Less is always more, where blood and gore are concerned.
The story follows a punk band that have just been on tour throughout the US and haven’t really been coining it. Petty arguments have broken out between band members – bassist Pat (Anton Yelchin) and drummer Reece (Joe Cole); so guitarist Sam (Alia Shawkat) and lead singer Tiger (Callum Turner) are the only ones still speaking when they fetch up at a roadhouse in Oregon. This is extreme right fascist skinhead territory, apparently. After a pretty miserable go on stage, one of the ‘Ain’t Rights’ returns to the Green Room to discover a murder scene. One of the skinhead girls has been stabbed in the head and her friend Amber (Imogen Poots) is frightened to move. In the end, they barricade themselves into the Green Room while venue manager, Macon Blair (Blue Ruin), and the venue’s owner Darcy (Stewart) hang around outside with murderous intent.
There’s nothing inventive thereafter as, gradually, the band members meet their grisly deaths in ways that will unfold for those interested in seeing the film, which, to its credit, is laced with a lacerating black comedy. Dogs are involved but, for once, don’t seem to be involved in the death count. Disappointing and predictable then as an edgy horror outing, but entertaining if outright slasher movies are your bag. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT QUINZAINE DE REALISATEURS | CANNES 14 – 24UI MAY 2015 | CANNES 2015
Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Bradley Whitford, Cherry Jones, Maddie Hasson, Wrenn Schmidt
123min | Biopic |
Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen are the stars in Marc Abraham’s tribute to US country music legend Hank Williams which takes its title from one of the best loved songs by the singer. The biopic charts Williams’ rise to fame from his 1944 marriage to Audrey, at a petrol station in Alabama when he was just a small time ‘country’ singer, through to his tragic death from heart failure at only 29 as the best-selling, chart-topping superstar headlining the “Grand Ole Opry “show in Nashville, Tennessee (1953).
Abraham’s narrative focus here is very much on Williams’ failed love affairs that started with Audrey and continued with a series of other women, culminating in his second marriage to Billie Jean Jones (Maddie Hasson), as he desperately sought emotional support, fuelled by alcohol and drugs, to sustain him through his short but meteoric musical career.
The film takes its title from ‘I Saw the Light’, one of the most popular songs by the country legend, but another song ‘Lovesick Blues’, would have been more appropriate for a story that fails to distill the spirit and joy of Williams’ phenomenal contribution to the music scene in 1940’s America, concentrating instead on his rather maudlin marital turmoil and succession of sad love affairs, overshadowed by the domineering presence of his widowed mother Lillie (Cherry Jones).
Tom Hiddleston dazzles in the role and the renditions – his tall and willowy frame ideal for the part of a man who suffered from a rare form of spina bifida, leaving him occasionally crippled, bedridden and addicted to painkillers. Complete with cowboy suites encrusted with diamante and an ubiquitous cowboy stetson he really looks convincing, and although he feels miscast, despite sterling efforts, in evoking the folksy charm of a “lil’ ole Southern boy” and part-time philanderer: Williams’ off-piste activities feel cheeky and playfully forgivable in Hiddleston’s take. As Audrey, Elizabeth Olsen has the same hard-voiced, unsympathetic edge to her character as she does in Avengers, competing with Williams in the singing arena, peddling her own canoe and nearly submerging his own showboat in the process as a rather bullish femme fatale who comes to the marriage with a child and has a cherished boy with Williams as they serially split and regroup in a partnership where she appears to wear the trousers.
Ultimately, I SAW THE LIGHT doesn’t carry a candle to recent biopics such as Love & Mercy and even Miles Ahead which have better showcased their artists’ iconic 20th century American success stories. None of the musical numbers here really shine out as the enduring classics that they undoubtedly have become in the American ‘country’ consciousness.
Yet despite its failure to set the musical world on fire, there’s much to be admired in Merideth Boswell’s set design and some stunning set pieces as the luminescent Lousiana landscapes really come alive in the capable hands of Michael Mann’s regular DoP Dante Spinotti (Heat/L.A.Confidential). MT
Cast: Max Brebant, Roxanne Duran, Julie-Marie Parmentier
France/Belgium/Spain 2015, 81 min.
It is nearly eleven years since Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s memorable debut feature Innocence, which dealt with a teenage girl in a boarding school. EVOLUTION centres this time on a group of boys on the crest of adolescence. Living a frigid existence with their insipid-looking mothers by an eerie seashore, there are no adult males to be seen. Hadzihalilovic presents a joyless antiseptic world where even the meals of strained seaweed broth appear medicinal rather than satisfying. Cinematographer Manuel Dacosses’s spare and pristine interior visuals give the impression of a wide-scale marine laboratory where a sci-fi experiment is underway and the boys are the victims.
Young Nicolas (Brebant) and his mother (Parmentier) live in a dreary community: their spartan lifestyle is marked by robotic rituals: dinner is always followed by the intake of an inky medicine, which appears to be therapeutic. Somehow Nicolas suspects that something is going on beyond the surface of enforced rigour: he follows his mother to the beach at night, where he observes her writhe in ecstacy with other women. Before he can unravel the mysterious plan, he is sent to a dilapidated early 20th century hospital, where some of his friends are also patients. Weird experiments are carried out and one boy disappears completely. Nicolas is befriended by one of the nurses, Stella (Duran), who supplies him with material for his drawings. When the dreadful secret emerges, Stella tries to help Nicolas to escape.
The boys in EVOLUTION have no rights over their bodies, but what emerges is that they are the unwitting victims of some kind of freaky, gender-reversal surgery. The dreamlike atmosphere evokes a past we can not see, but the boys’ dreams suggest that they have been taken away from their real families to take part in a medical experiment destined to help mankind’s survival. But dreams and reality are indistinguishable: the underwater scenes suggest that more sinister plans are underway: perhaps mankind has to become amphibious to survive. The ghastly hospitals are horror institutions located underground and under the control of the sullen – all female – doctors and nurses. Syringes and scalpels take on a sadistic undertone creating a frightening parallel with medical experiments in Nazi concentration camps.
EVOLUTION haunts and beguiles for just over an hour. Hadzihalilovic and her co-scripter Alante Kavaite (Summer of Sangaile) cleverly keep the tension taught requiring the audience to invest a great deal in the narrative before any salient clues emerge – but even then much remains unexplained and enigmatic; not that EVOLUTION wants to be understood. Part of its allure is this inaccessibility, unsettlingly evoking a world far apart from any genre, it is esoteric and anguished in its unique otherworldliness. Too many films feature repetitive images and schematic self-indulgent narratives: how refreshing to find an true original which opens a totally new world in just 81 minutes.
NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | EVOLUTION |
Cast: Ricardo Darin, Javier Camara, Dolores Fonzi, Troilo (the dog)
108min | Comedy Drama | Spain
This warm-hearted and sensitive ‘buddy movie’ is told with a gentle humour and frankness that will resonate with those familiar with final days of friends or parents who have reached the end of their time together. TRUMAN is a character driven arthouse drama which features two strong performances from Ricardo Darin as Julian, a slightly passive aggressive Spanish actor who is on his way out, and his laid back and supportive friend Tomas who makes a surprise visit from Canada, to be with him. Essentially a two-hander, TRUMAN enjoyably sidesteps sentimentality opting for an honest and deadpan approach but it also deals with the thorny themes that can surface when life and friendship reaches the end of the road.
In Madrid, Julian (Ricardo Darin) is dying of lung cancer and has decided to put his affairs in order, gradually saying his goodbyes as honestly as he can to his friends and colleagues. On the suggestion of his sister Paula (Dolores Fonzi) his best friend Tomas (Javier Camara) pays him a surprise visit from his home in Canada but rather than wallowing in self-pity, Tomas finds his old pal engaging in displacement activities, and more concerned with the re-homing and emotional welfare of his dog Truman (Troilo) than with his with own chemo treatment, which he has decided to terminate.
The two settle into an agreeable rhythm where Tomas accompanies Julian to his old haunts as he ties up loose ends. It’s not all plain sailing here as ructions do develop but are swiftly smoothed over in the best of humour. In one such scene, Julian approaches a couple of colleagues he sees in a local restaurant, pretending not to notice him – clearly they feel unsure and uncomfortable with the Julian’s situation – and Julian flags this up with dignity and aplomb. And it is these kind of touches that make the film feel authentic and genuine engaging rather than mawkish or morbid.
Insightfully written and beautifully acted by its accomplished Spanish cast, what really makes TRUMAN special is the impressively subtle take from Ricardo Darin, who breezes through every scene with a wry and self-effacing candidness that is perfect for a film that seeks to avoid emotionalism but ends up with some incredibly moving moments accompanied by soulfully scenic visuals of Madrid and Amsterdam (where they visit Julian’s son), and a suitably atmospheric score that somehow feels just right.
The only character that feels out of context and is that of Paula, who’s has an awkward rapport with Tomas from a past involvement and puts a spanner in the works in the final scenes that feels forced and inappropriate in the scheme of it all.
Full of philosophy, TRUMAN explores the suffering behind bereavement with a dark humour that makes this drama enjoyable and full of subtle charm.
OUT ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 6 May 2016
Director: Miguel Gomes | Cast: Christa Alfaiate, Chico Chapas, Americo Silva; Portugal/France/Ger/Switz |125 min.
In part of three of his trilogy The Arabian Nights, entitled The Enchanted One, Portuguese writer and director Miguel Gomes finally moves Scheherazade (Alfaiate) into the centre of this modern retelling of A Thousand and One Nights, set in a a contemporary Portugal haunted by economic decline. Part III consists of three fables that are more interconnected than in the previous section – The Desolate One.
Scheherazade’s own story is told in the outrageously sumptuous Chateau d’If (against the background of high-rise blocks in working class Marseille). The magnificent setting is further enhanced by DoP Mukdeeprom’s resplendent visuals that picture a costume drama that feels more of a f’ilm-in-a-film’ than the previous segments. Scheherazade’s father, the Grand Vizier (Silva) is kitted out in full Ali Baba regalia complete with bulbous headgear. Frightened that his daughter will run out of stories and finally lose her life, he is also lost in nostalgia for his much-loved wife, now dead; and the images of the two women intermingle in his mind. This clearly artificial and theatrical episode echoes Gomes’ Murnau take in Tabu, but it lacks focus, failing somehow to fit into the whole canon.
Leading to the second segment ‘Baghdad Archipelago’, where Scheherazade meets the paddle man (Charloto), who has 200 children, and Elvis, a robber cum street dancer, Gomes suddenly switches to a Godard mode, where multiple texts overload the attention capacity of the audience, particularly the section with subtitles. Inserts like: “From the wishes and fears of men, stories are born” seem clever, but do not add much value. Most of The Enchanted One is taken up by the 80 minute final segment “Chorus of the Chaffiniches” (shot by Lisa Persson), starring again Chico Chapas (Simao in Part II), as a birdsong expert and bird trapper. These bird trappers are mostly unemployed men, and when we one caught in a net meant for the birds, the symbolism is clear. The story of a Chinese girl, told in voice-over, who came to Portugal at the time of the depression, adds a further layer of melancholia to the trilogy’s ending. Still shrouded in enigma and inconclusive, The Enchanted Onesomehow loses his way, subtracting rather than adding to the whole trilogy.
The structure ofArabian Nights is obviously the main attraction; the narrative, however inventive at times, would not have carried 381 minutes. Gomes has fused Buñuel’s satire, Brechtian allegories and phantasy elements not unlike Fernando Birri in his South American poetic realism. The stylistic variations, sometimes disperse and are often overwhelming, but Mukdeeprom’s images give the Arabian Nights its unique look, and a visual coherence. Whilst the opulence of Arabian Nights is obviously part of its strength, Gomes might have overreached himself a little. He is strongest in the ethnographic chapters, when he shows serous interest in the lives of real people. His choice of popular music, from Rod Stewart to Lionel Ritchie, underlines this argument: his journey between Italian Neorealism and South American Poetic Realism is strongest, when he chooses a pictorial approach. AS
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE IN SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 6 MAY 2016
Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Brian Dennehy, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto
118min | Drama | US
There is still a great deal to admire here in this saccharine series of simpering stories, largely thanks to Emmanuel Lubezki visual wizardry. But Malick’s style, which scratched the edges of mannerism in To The Wonder, has now broken fully into the confines of cliché in a drama whose intention is to evoke the tinseltown tedium of the Big City seen through the existential crisis and subsequent epiphany of its self-regarding central character, a writer, played by Christian Bale.
Terrence Malick succeeds in offering up another empty experience, ushered in by a pompous voiceover with John Gielgud reading from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and leading to a similarly swirling set of images and thoughts that shaped To The Wonder. emanating from a Hallmark Greetings style storyboard, and ultimately feeling meaningless to the thrust of the narrative. LA’s beautiful people float and tease to a backdrop of glittering sunsets and show-house interiors. Lovers smooch and flirt as they dance into the sea, fully clothed, or run their fingers sensuously through the limpid waters of infinity swimming pools, in luxury locations.
Rick (Bale) is good-looking, narcissistic and – we are led to believe – successful, but his marriage to his medical director wife Nancy (a shimmering Cate Blanchett) has faltered, and so has his relationship with his father (Brian Dennehy) and brother (Wes Bentley). And the tragedy of his trashed apartment, turned over by robbers, is treated with the same dreamlike delicacy of touch as the moments where gorgeous girls trip lightly behind him in their filigree frocks. Despite this seemingly minor setback, Rick continues to caruse and cajole with his coy admirers in a series of glitzy hotels and parties, occasionally contemplating his life in the desolation of the desert or showing his spiritual side by consulting a Tarot reader for guidance.
According to Tarot legend, the Knight of Cups is a charmingly emotional youth who is willing to please, but naive as a puppy. And the problem with Rick is that, by the end of the story, rather than evolving into a real person, he still appears to have the emotional depth and integrity of a new born despite Malick’s desperate attempts to have us believe otherwise, by association with his folie de grandeur lifestyle and literary success. MT
BERLINALE 2015 REVIEW | NOW OUT ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE VENUES from 6 May 2016
Director: Nicholas Ray Writer: Philip Jordan. Cast: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady, Ward Bond, Ernest Borgnine, Royal Dano, John Carradine, Ben Coope | 110min | Western | US
Nicholas Ray saw Johnny Guitar as a first step to independence. Little did he know he would be engulfed in a battle for control of the film with its star, Joan Crawford. She literally had the script re-written during the shoot to please her ego, and to denigrate co-star Mercedes McCambridge who was married to one of Crawford’s former lovers.
Vienna (Crawford), a saloon owner, is nearly bankrupt but she is waiting for the planned railroad to boost her profits. But the townspeople, led by Emma (McCambridge) want her to move on, suspecting her of the murder of Emma’s brother. With her four friends she terrorises the town with a gang led by Dancing Kid (Brady). When Kid’s gang holds up a stagecoach and kills a man, Emma wants to hang Vienna. But she is rescued by her former lover, Johnny Guitar (Hayden), and erstwhile famous gunslinger Johnny Logan. Emma burns the saloon down and after a long chase, Vienna gets her revenge.
The shooting of this cult film with its outstanding colour images by the legendary DOP Harry Stradling (Guys and Dolls) and Peggy Lee’s title song could not have been more problematic. Johnny Guitar was a project for four clients of the Lew Wasserman agency: Roy Chanslor, who wrote the novel of the same name, published in 1953, was the first. He dedicated the book to Joan Crawford, who had just finished her comeback film Mildred Pierce. Script writer Philip Jordan was a front for many blacklisted writers, particularly Ben Maddow, who wrote the The Naked Jungle and Men in War under Jordan’s name. “Just like Wasserman sold film packages, Jordan sold script packages with a guarantee of quality”. Jordan worked with Ray during 1953 in Hollywood, their script run up to 200 pages, Ray depositing thirty pages with Cinematheque Francaise. Shooting started in mid October 1953 at Sedona, Arizona, where Republic had a Western Street, a permanent set. McCambridge, who played the villain, recalled in her memories “I felt I had a certain edge because a gentleman with whom [Crawford] had had some association, to the degree that she has given him gold-cuff-links, was now my husband”.
When Ray was filming McCambridge in the scene where she addresses the posse to hunt Vienna down, he sent Crawford back to camp. But after he finished the scene, he saw Miss Crawford sitting up on the hill watching. “I should have known some hell was going to break loose”. That night, Crawford asked for “five more scenes”, having strewn McCambridge’s clothes all over the road. As Jordan said, “They were on location, and Joan Crawford decided she wasn’t going to make the picture. They were shooting about 2 weeks without her. So Wasserman called me up and he flew out here.”
According to Ray, Crawford “got some crazy ideas. she said she wanted the man’s role.” Crawford commented: “I’m [like] Clark Gable, [but] it’s Vienna who has the leading part”. She threatened to leave for good, and the picture would have been finished. In this case, Republic might have gone bankrupt because they were used to making films for $50 000 and Johnny had budget of $2.5m.
Jordan had to rewrite the way Crawford wanted it: neither the novel nor the script mentioned that Johnny and Vienna had known each other before. And this way added much more weight to their relationship in the completedfkm. Jordan decided to let Hayden play Crawford’s part with her having the shoot-out at the end, killing Emma/ McCambridge. The 44 shooting days were very traumatic for Ray and as he was directing his next film, Run for Cover, he wrote to his actress friend Hanna Axmann: “The atrocity of Johnny Guitar is finished and released to dreadful reviews and great financial success. Nausea was my reward, and I am glad you were not there to share the suffering”. But there was no pleasing Crawford, in her autobiography she wrote, blaming McCambdrige and lashing out at Ray: “The responsibility lies with an actress who hadn’t worked for ten years [McCambridge had won an Oscar two years earlier]. There is no excuse for making such a bad film”. AS
ON BLURAY FROM 20 SEPTEMBER 2021 | MASTERS OF CINEMA
László Nemes learnt his craft under the legendary Hungarian director, Bela Tarr. His feature debut is a shocking and claustrophobic thriller exploring the little known lives of the Sonderkommando, Jews who were forced, under pain of death, to clean up the gas chambers during the final days of Auschwitz in 1944.
Clearly, Nemes is an inventive talent in the making. His restless camera tells a secret and conspiratorial story in pin-sharp close-up while in the background, out-of-focus atrocities are seen unfolding in the Nazi concentration camp and its surroundings. The action focuses on Saul (Géza Röhrig), a man whose mission is to herd his own people into massive ovens and lock them in as their pitiful cries and raging emerges.
One boy survives the onslaught, but is subsequently suffocated by a German officer. Saul appears to recognise him as his own son and sets off in desperation to find a Rabbi to say prayers and bury him according to the Jewish faith. A constant whispering and bartering in going on before our eyes, and while Saul is bribing his fellow inmates with golden and precious personal effects (from the dead) jewellery, an escape plan is also brewing.
But unlike his master of slow-motion, Nemes offers up a fast-moving and disorientating action thriller. Sometimes the camera is behind his shoulder focusing on the chattering and internal conspiracy between the inmates, others it focuses on the background, where German officers bait and bully the Sonderkommandos. Dead bodies are dragged by and thrown onto trucks in blurry, soft-focus. In one scene, at entire battle is going on in the hazy distance, where prisoners are being shot and forced into open burial pits as fires rage and gunfire rings out. It feels as it Nemes is running two contemporaneous film sets; one in the foreground and one of horrific slaughter and anihilation in the near distance. There is a remarkable single take, in pristine focus, where Saul carries the body of his “son” into a river and swims to the other side.
This is a work of supreme craftsmanship but also a harrowing and devastating tribute to the Sonderkommandos, who knew their lives would also end in slaughter, when their job was done and Géza Röhrig’s performance rings of both subtle defiance and acceptance. The final scene seems to allow a chink of light and hope into this dreadful darkness, as his face lights up into a gradual smile in the middle of a verdant forest.
Son of Saul serves as a positive revival of the Holocaust with other recent films such as Night Will Fall and Shoah. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE | OSCAR WINNER FOR BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM 2016 | FIPRESCI PRIZE WINNER CANNES 2016 | FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW | CANNES 2015
Writer|Director: Pietra Brettkelly | Documentary | 91 min
In cinéma vérité style, New Zealand director Pietra Brettkelly (Maori Boy Genius) follows Kabul film archivist Ibrahim Arify in his struggle to safeguard the security of the treasured Afghan film archive that has so far avoided destruction by the Taliban both during and after their time in Afghanistan. A FLICKERING TRUTH is a story that will interest film historians and those with a penchant for social culture and heritage.
What makes the documentary watchable is the painstaking passion of those involved in film preservation and cinema history which provides a fascinating window into the country’s past pictured in Jacob Bryant’s superbly crafted visuals and accompanied by a wistfully atmospheric soundtrack by award-winning British composer Benjamin Wallfisch (12 Years A Slave).
Arify is a masterful presence who knows how to deal with the locals when he arrives at the dusty location where film stock is in danger of spilling out and being damaged by the elements. It gradually becomes clear he has a mammoth task on his hands if the archive is to be saved. Under the Taliban (as under Hitler during The Third Reich) film and art were considered a decadent element of Western society and those in charge of the archives were forces to burn stock in massive bonfires. Fortunately, prudent archivists managed to hide their precious films which were remained cunningly boarded up for posterity.
It also emerges that Arify, is also a filmmaker who was imprisoned during the Mujahideen era and fled to Germany to seek refuge. Now back home in Afghanistan, he gently takes his Uncle Isaaq Yousif to task. The old man has been a custodian at the archives for over 30 years, and Arify accuses him and others of not being proactive in film conservation.
A FLICKERING TRUTH unearths some real treasures: apart from vibrant cult classics from a bygone era, the films also show young people dancing to a band during the roaring ’70s with a young Arify playing the guitar. On a more tragic note, archive footage bears witness to the bombing of Kabul in 1992, leading to a challenging and uncertain future for the country. It’s sad to think that some of these films show a past that feels more advanced than the present here in contempo Kabul – we see young boys playing football in fundamentalist attire in contrast to the fashionable Western clothes worn by the male and female ‘disco dancers’ nearly 50 years previously.
Having secured the archive, Arify is off to Germany again, fearing the worst for the future and bidding farewell to the personnel at Afghan Films. Despite the danger of coming face to face with the Taliban, some of the more plucky film archivists have decided to tour the country with a selection of films. The aim is to show the younger generation how their world used to look in a seemingly modern past. But these kids are not the only ones who will look on aghast. And this is where Brettkelly’s documentary moves on to the world stage, transcending its subject, and becoming something much important that resonates at a global level. While sharing the filmic glory days of the past with the Afghan nation, a more fascinating picture unfolds before our Western eyes: that of a medieval landscape and a society that has returned to the Dark Ages in a future where fundamentalism has taken over and women have entirely disappeared behind the veil. MT
OUT ON RELEASE AT CURZON CINEMAS and SELECTED FROM 29 April 2016
It takes one to know one, and former junkie Arielle Holmes has been there and survived to tell the story. HEAVENS KNOWS WHAT evocatively re–creates the drug-adled world of her past in a ‘fucked-up’ and fuzzy portrait of the dark side of addiction in her native New York.
This tension-fuelled cinéma vérité mood piece submerges us in the squallid subculture of flaky friends and foul-mouthed existence. Even love is sordid and brutally raw as pictured here by brothers Benny and Josh Safdie. But HEAVENS is also poetic and tragically moving seen through Sean Price Williams’ soulful city panoramas and Isao Tomita’s trance-like and explosive original music.
The film opens with Holmes’ character Harley and her sociopathic lover Ilya Caled Landry Jones kissing each other on the tarmac before he shuts down emotionally and viciously rejects her without explanation. Clearly out of control, Ilya’s only comfort lies on the moral high ground where he hunkers down with a soiled blanket. Harley’s subsequent suicide attempt leads to her seeking refuge with an older woman and she while attempts to re-connect with Ilya, she joins her other junkie mates shooting the breeze, shooting up and throwing up..
Despite its slender plot and sketchy characterisation of these lost lowlifes, who mostly need a stiff kick up the backside rather than a stiff drink, this is a film that wallows in the angst-ridden atmosphere it successfully creates. Clever acting effortlessly conveys this milieu and you don’t want to go there.MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 29 APRIL
Cast: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Helberg, David Haig
110min | Drama | UK
Meryl Streep plays celebrity croaker Florence Foster Jenkins in this chipper tragicomedy about an heiress who financed herself to operatic stardom in 1940s New York.
In common with its real life diva, Stephen Frears’ sentimental celebration of amateur light operatics hits a few bum notes but mostly stays in tune with its central characters; a circle of ageing aficionados, wannabes and has-beens who thrived on puff and tea parties in New York, while ordinary people were fighting the Second World War. Ridiculed for her lack of rhythm, poor pitch and tone deafness, Meryl Streep’s Florence is also bald and riddled with tertiary syphilis thanks to her first husband Dr Jenkins, whom she describes as an alley-cat.
The film opens in her opulent apartment in 1944, with Florence in the happier days of her dotage fawned over by an adoring second husband and manager, failed actor St Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), living secretly with his lover (Rebecca Ferguson) in a nearby Brooklyn Brownstone, paid for by his wife. So everything about Foster’s life was fake and yet, naively or narcissistically (and it feels very much like the former with Streep’s sincere treatment) she constructed her own romantic fantasy, perpetuated by disillusion or delusion, and funded by her vast inheritance. Frears’ film is very much an intimate and stagey chamber piece with the occasional foray into the locale (Victorian Liverpool and London). Clever use is made of special effects to achieve the Manhattan backdrop of Carnegie Hall and The Verdi Club, where Florence’s wealthy musical aficionados and luminaries- including Arturo Toscanini – gathered for their tea dances and soirées.
A light-hearted French version of the story Marguerite, transposed her story to 1920s Paris but lacks the emotional arc of Frears’ drama which feels convincing and surprisingly moving with its world class performances from Hugh Grant and Meryl Streep and an eloquently witty script by Nicholas Martin, a writer best known for his prodigious TV work.
So protected from the coal face of criticism courtesy of Bayfield, Florence decides to venture out into the public domain, hiring a talented young pianist Cosmé McMoon (The Big Bang Theory regular Simon Helberg) as her accompanist. After hearing a rousing tribute on the radio, she dedicates the concert to U.S. soldiers recently returned from the war and offers them free tickets. But despite support from her regular fans, and the sympathetic soldiers, press reaction is derisory and ultimately detrimental and Florence sadly suffers a setback.
With her unflattering wig and portly padding – Meryl Streep is a dead ringer for Tintin’s Madame Castefiore. Judiciously, we don’t hear her sing until the second act – allowing Frears and Martin to set the scene and develop the emotional dynamic between the central characters. Although this is a light-hearted role for Streep she delivers it with affection and aplomb managing to be vulnerable and ridiculous at the same time. Hugh Grant is impressive in his first ‘senior’ role swinging into his suave persona with spectacular ease in every scene and evoking a genuinely- felt affection for his wife in each loving gesture while masterfully managing her detractors – he even takes to the dancefloor. But the film’s real discovery is Simon Helberg, whose intricate facial gestures echo every subtle nuance of its tortured inner monologue from anxiety to rank disbelief, while verbally remaining delicately aloof and discrete. Florence Foster Jenkins is an enjoyable romp rather than an elaborate exposé of its eccentric heroine. The film will certainly go down well with the mainstream crowd but may be lost on younger audiences or the more aspiring arthouse crowd. MT
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper, Judah Lewis
101min | Drama | Canada
Québecois director Jean-Marc Vallée has a lively take on deconstructing bereavement in this quirky family saga sewn together by an inspired central performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, as a Wall Street banker and lateral thinker who loses his wife in a car accident that changes his life and adds intensity and insight to the harrowing and often surprising experience of human mourning.
While those around him are falling part, Davis (Gyllenhaal) fronts up well to this personal tragedy until cracks gradually appear in the facade of his outwardly shiny former existence – a fabulous house, wealth and a happy marriage to Julia (Heather Lind)- to reveal that his stoicism actually conceals a secret relief. DEMOLITION opens as a potentially depressing tale of loss that slowly morphs into a darkly humorous and enjoyable journey that transports him from death to destruction, then redemption and eventually emotional freedom. Despite a rather meandering middle section, there is tremendous energy and spirit here that carries the film through to its affecting denouement.
DEMOLITION also features gutsy performances from Chris Cooper, a slightly underwritten Naomi Watts and feisty newcomer Judah Lewis. Jean Marc Vallée always brings some something fresh and frisky spirituality to his filmmaking, as we saw in Cafe de Flore, C.R.A.Z.Y and Dallas Buyers Club. As such, Vallée has an appealing knack of connecting with his audiences through characters whose trials and tribulations bring them to a better place of greater awareness, in stories that inspire and often resonate with his audiences.
The theme of DEMOLITION is a case in point. Scripter Bryan Sipe tackles the thorny issues of disbelief, anger, sorrow and finally acceptance that accompany bereavement with some inventive touches: Davis’ grief is processed ‘out of the box’ and in unexpected and often inappropriate displacement activities; when his boss and father-in-law (Chris Cooper) suggests that Davis take his life apart in order to rebuild it without Julia he responds by dismantling his office computer and destroying his furniture. Instead of tears and tantrums with his friends and family, he destroys furniture and reaches out to complete strangers – an episode with a hospital vending machine ten minutes after his wife’s death leads to a lengthy correspondence with Karen, a customer service adviser (Watts) who ends up becoming part of his life and very much involved in his emotional healing.
DEMOLITION follows a linear narrative but regular DoP Yves Belanger cleverly uses jumpcuts and rapid flashbacks to fill in a backstory that initially leads us to believe that Davis is some kind of sociopath or, at least, suffering from Asperger’s syndrome; clearly he avoids ruminating on his inner demons with a series of personal techniques that keep him in a safe place emotionally – which his family interprets as a lack of feeling for Julia. But the finale seems to bring him to his senses – or even better, and plausibly – a place where his brain is healed so that he is able to feel and react ‘appropriately’ in a finale that is both moving and uplifting. Another tragedy that Davis discovers in the final scenes also brings him emotional peace through a relationship he develops with Karen’s 12-year-old son, Chris (Lewis) – it’s a meeting of minds that cuts both ways in bringing both their characters finally to safety. MT
Director: John Miller Script: John Miller, Nick Knowles, Jeremy Sheldon
Cast: Philip Davis, Bernard Hill, Simon Callow, Una Stubbs, Virginia McKenna, Sue Johnston, Alun Armstrong
96min | Comedy Drama | UK
GOLDEN YEARS may have slim appeal to a certain sector of the community who it cynically pictures long-retired and living on the outskirts of otherwise decent such as Wigan or Uttoxeter. Like a Woolworth’s pick ‘n mix GOLDEN YEARS is certainly cheap and cheerful and full of artificial flavours, but even Woolworth’s eventually acquired cult status, a tribute unlikely to be given to this flaccid comedy. It features a talented cast of well-known British actors who do their best to flog what feels like a proverbial dead horse by its cretinous denouement. Philip Davis; Bernard Hill, Simon Callow, Virginia McKenna, Una Stubbs and Sue Johnston all do sterling work to bring a certain charisma to a vacuous 96 minutes of entertainment.
Not so the script. co-written by director John Miller, Jeremy Sheldon and DIY SOS frontman Nick Knowles, it trips lightly through a thousand cliches, suffering middle age spread and then sinking into oblivion by its flatulent finale. Billed as a crime caper, the implausible storyline re-works the theme of financial crisis where Bernard Hill’s Arthur finds himself without a pension and his wife Martha (a game and still resplendent Virginia McKenna) invalided and requiring expensive medical care. Their limited social life revolves round the local club which is threatened by closure due to a bid from the developers. Then Arthur discovers a get rich quick scheme; a cunning plan to rob High Street banks from the unlikely cover of an innocuous-looking caravan, financed by his first hawl of swagger, and parked nearby. Consoling himself that his Robin Hood approach to re-financing is somehow acceptable, due to general feeling of animosity towards the banking fraternity, he manages to spin things out until Martha wises up after an unfortunate incident, and the two decide to garner support from their friends for a final heist. These willing accomplices include metal worker Brian (Philip Davis), policeman Sid (Alun Armstrong) and rambunctious bore Royston (Simon Callow) -amongst others. Whether the film is intended to be tongue in cheek – or just seriously misjudges the mood of today’s more mature filmgoer – is unsure. But GOLDEN YEARS feels like a poor re-working of a Carry On film minus the laughs and the charm, and with moments so toe-curling, they will make you want to curl up and die. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM TUESDAY 29 April – in over 108 Odeon Cinemas Nationwide, Scotland & Ireland from 29 April
Writer/director Gomes continues on his path of re-writing Scheherazade’s classical stories of Thousand and One Nights with the second part of his trilogy: The Desolate One. After the overwhelming opening salvo of the first part, The Desolate One is perhaps the most audience friendly of the trio: full of humour, self-irony, satire and much less hectoring, the streamlined second part consists of three fables outlining the disgruntlement of Portuguese workers during the financial austerity in the early 21st century, and connecting the present with the past.
Told with subtle irony by Scheherazade (Alfaiate), sometimes residing on a Ferris Wheel, the first tale Chronicle of the Escape of Simao – ‘Without Bowels’ is a gem. Simao (Chapas), an ageing farm worker, who earned his nickname for his life long anorexia, has murdered four women, among them his wife and daughters, and is on the run. In his hideout in the wilderness, he dreams about prostitutes and great banquets. But in spite of his crimes, he becomes a local hero for his Robin Hood style redistribution from rich to poor. Scheherazade blames his crimes on capitalism: “Evil is only a severe tendency of selfishness”.
The second story, titled “The Tears of the Judge” is a burlesque courtroom romp, where the severe judge(Luisa Cruz) presides over a case which starts out with the theft of 13 cows and continues, taking in a series of Chinese mail-order brides, a genie and a machete-wielding human lie detector. The stern judge, who almost loses it due to the complexity and buck-passing of the various witnesses and scenes involving her daughter, who has recently lost her virginity to a man selected by her mother, assuming a guise of domestic servitude which she then relegates her duties. This seems to be a metaphor for continuing misogyny and racial stereotyping in contempo Europe (yet it’s even worse in continents such as Africa, South America and India).
And, if matters aren’t complicated enough, this is the segment that won the ‘Palme Dog’ at Cannes 2015 for Dixie, the Maltese poodle, who here is passed on from one tenant to the next in a housing estate, where even the human residents have difficulties feeding themselves. Somehow there are shades of Chekov in this episode: the eviction notices spread a collective outpouring of melancholia.
Again, DoP’s Mukdeeprom’s sun-dried images are the highlight, producing serenity and beauty in spite of the poverty. Shot on 16mm and 35 mm, his work proves that our eyes, like the film stock, work on an analogue basis. The depth of these images is impossible to recreate with digital, however brilliant the HD. Gomes always tries to change, double and exchange the perspectives: This happens on the levels of images and sound, the mixing of documentation and fiction, the (sometimes overdone) multi-lingual components (which make this part particularly challenging for non-Portuguese-speaking audiences) and finally, in the episodic structure of the whole trilogy, where the actors participate in different episodes underlining the concept of total exchange. The Desolate One is made of legends: yesterday’s and today’s are finding a common platform where Gomes’ poetic realism steers his often unwieldy project to safe shore. AS
THE SECOND PART OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS IS ON RELEASE FROM 29 APRIL 2016 at SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS
Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes’ three-part epic aims to seduce us with a sorry tale of his native land in crisis due to the economic downtown of the last five years. Is it possible to make a derogatory film beguiling? With ARABIAN NIGHTS not only has he tried to re-invent “political cinema” but also to assimilate a new body of film language where genres are playfully mixed, and the audience is often left gasping in delight, but not always in comprehension.
Inspired by the classic Arabian Nights, Part One is an enigmatic string of stories that aim to encapsulate this time of austerity with an absurdist style embracing socialism realism and surrealism. If you’re hoping for something akin to Tabu (2012) or even Our Beloved Month of August (2008) you will likely be disappointed as this is much more sombre and recalcitrant fare where fables and documentary realism coalesce as often strange bedfellows, infused with the filmmaker’s own anger and sadness peeping through a narrative that gradually makes more sense but still, for the most part, mystifies.
The Restless One begins at a shipyard were the failures of the Portuguese government are apparent at the Viana do Castelo shipyard in Minho: the workers are on strike and a voice-over recounts a past where full employment offered job satisfaction and a meaningful life. As the shipbuilders clash with the anti-strike brigade, the mood turns sombre. At the same time Gomes appears, ruminating on how hornets are destroying the local bee population. Is this a metaphor for the Government and the people?. As if by magic, we are introduced to Scheherazade (Alfaiate), the princess who saved her life each night by telling a tale to make her Sultan wish for another night with her. She is introduced to the sounds of “Perdfidia” (Buñuel), telling three stories to Gomes and his strikers, who listen in rapt attention. The first one is about three bankers who wish for never-ending hard-ons in response to their erectile dysfunction, and end up getting more than they bargained for. The next is about a rooster who nearly comes to a sticky end by crowing at inappropriate moments. The rooster himself then tells a sad story about a love-triangle. Finally, we return to one of the strikers who literally feels sick when trying to tell unhappy tales about his fellow workers. It gradually becomes clear that these wild and disparate stories are all vehicles to describe Portugal’s demise. Gomes tries to re-invent the workers as modern-day crusaders in a fight to save their beloved Portugal. But they are not at all heroic but more melancholic in the style of Kafka – metaphors straight out of ‘The Trial’. Gomes wants the World to view Portugal as a prisoner of capitalism: the stories, old and new, are told to liberate the nation, or least to put off its fate until another day.
In the end, The Restless Onehas an attractive, experimental charm. Gomes’ choice of DoP, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (who shot Apichatpong Weerasethkul’s Uncle Boonmee), is appropriate for his drama: Mukdeeprom has an eye for details, his sumptuous images creating a unique cosmos of poetic realism. The colour palette ranges from the outrageous to the spooky. The Restless One attempts perhaps too much, but is never dull. It is a fairy tale for our times: often as puzzling, incomplete, enigmatic and contradictory as contemporary life. AS/MT
NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS | ICA | Curzon Bloomsbury
Cast: Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Moseley, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan, Brook Markham, Sean Marquette, Liesl Ahlers
Germany 2016, 92 min.
German director Simon Verhoeven (Men in the City) offers a self-ironic but critical contribution to the new Social Media Horror genre. Taking an seemingly normal daily occurrence, Verhoeven, who co-wrote the script, highlights the ever increasing sociological relevance of facebook and other media outlets of the same kind.
The story follows Laura (Debnam-Carey) a post-graduate psychology student who shares a flat with her two girlfriends Olivia (Morgan) and Isabel (Markham). Laura is ‘popular’ in the ether with over 800 friends on facebook and trying to add even more. But her integrity comes into question when she agrees half-heartedly to a Friend Request from Marina (Ahlers), a shy co-student who hides under her hoody. Laura is a psychologist in the making and should really have been more watchful, since Marina is signing in as Ma Rina, a sure sign of a split personality – but Laura just wants to collect friends. Marina then angles an invitation to Laura’s birthday party, purportedly “an event for two”, inviting her friends and family.
When Marina sees the party photos on Laura’s Facebook site, she flips and tells Laura “I will make you as lonely as I am” before committing suicide by hanging herself over a fire while looking into a mirror – a sure sign of black magic. Frightening videos then appear on the FB pages of the three girls and Laura’s boyfriend Tyler (Moseley) fails to calm her in the ensuing meltdown
FRIEND REQUEST is much more than a horror movie, the takeaway here is Verhoeven’s treatment of his main protagonists, focussing on their narcissistic need for continuous self-affirmation – a practice known in its most extreme form as “trolling for narcissistic supply” -facilitated and enhanced by a social media presence where there are always new people joining the circle of deceit and self-deceit in a carnival of self-glorification. Although many people use these networks to engage with like-minded individuals and family, FRIEND REQUEST on those who eschew critical intelligence, in favour of superficial self-indulgence.
Verhoeven’s film is the perfect pendant to Caroline Kepler’s novel “You”, about cyber stalking, where a man uses the social media accounts of the woman he stalks to control her, while killing his rivals. In this well-crafted creeper DoPJo Heim (Men in the City) captures the world of the ‘short generation span’ with breath-taking jump cuts that impressively showcase the tricks of social media. His horror images are seriously frightening; his use of night scenes and the finale in an old factory are perhaps not original, but show intricate composition. shot in the mellow light of Cape Town, South Africa, FRIEND REQUEST is a welcome take on the genre.
Cast: Idris Elba, Richard Madden, Kelly Reilly, Charlotte Le Bon
92min | Thriller | UK
Idris Elba is the standout in this hard-hitting Paris-based terrorist actioner with breath-taking rooftop chases reminiscent of Polanski’s Frantic. BASTILLE DAY never takes itself too seriously providing upbeat adrenaline-charged thrills throughout its well-paced running time.
Elba plays Sean Briar, tasked with investigating a lethal terrorist conspiracy set to unfurl during the annual French festivities. Going agains his orders, Briar recruits Michael Mason (Richard Madden) for his expert pickpocketing skills to help quickly track down the source of the corruption. But he soon realizes that Mason is just a pawn in a much bigger game and is also his best asset to uncover the large-scale operation. As a 24hr thrill ride ensues, the unlikely duo discover they are targets and must rely upon each other in order to take down a common enemy.
Rocking an authentic American accent Elba inspires confidence as the butch FBI operative, deemed “reckless” by his bosses, but using this to his advantage as he punches forward in a situation that demands an off-piste style of detective work; very much in the same mould as his character in TV series Luther.
And he is a busy man. Apart from co-composing the film’s theme which he also sings (!), he finds himself pitting his wits against Madden’s unlikely crook: a performance that fails to impress along with that of his vapid love interest Charlotte Le Bon (The Walk), who falls victim to his rapacious skills and also gets caught in the firing line as an unwitting bomb mule.
Despite its low budget credentials BASTILLE DAY gets out and about with Tim Maurice-Jones’ uplifting panoramic vistas of the French capital and an ambitious opening sequence that manages to meld London into the mix with surprising aplomb.
Scriptwise too, this is a well-written affair with a twisty plot echoing 36, Quai des Orfevres and sadly recalling the recent tragic Bataclan Paris attacks (out of respect, the film’s release was delayed). Weakest in its characterisation of Mason and his female sidekick (Le Bon), who are dwarfed by the powerful presence of Elba, BASTILLE DAY is still fun and entertaining with some dry-edged humour that carries it through to a cracking finale. MT
Documentary with Debbie Harry, Fran Lebowitz, Brook Shields; USA 2016, 118 min.
Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (Party Monster, Becoming Chaz) have used an angry comment by Senator Jesse Helms (R) for the title of their portrait of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989): whose death from the complications of HIV, caused Helms to make the controversial complaint, on the House floor, over public money spent on an exhibition of the the photographer’s work, asking people “to look at the pictures’, and calling the dead artist a “jerk”.
Robert Mapplethorpe grew up in the sleepy borough of Queens, New York. He had five siblings, all of them were brought up as Catholics and he showed early promise with his drawings, one of his first was of the Virgin Mary drawn in the style of Picasso. As with Bunuel, this Catholic upbringing would shape Mapplethorpe’s work: his photos of tortured lovers were very much the equivalent of those depicting Catholic martyrs – he simply transferred these icons into his personal world.
After studying Graphic Art at the Pratt Institute, this well-crafted documentary shows how he found his way into photography, at first with the help of Polaroid cameras. At this time in the late Sixties, photography was seen more as a craft than an art form. His first love was the singer Patti Smith, they moved into the famous Chelsea Hotel during their relationship, which lasted between 1967 and 1972; the couple stayed in contact, even after it became clear that Robert was homosexual. Robert then fell for art curator Sam Wagstaff (1921-1987) at a party in 1972, in a love affair that was to last15 years. Wagstaff was Mapplethorpe’s mentor and benefactor, buying a loft in 35 West 23 Street for his lover in 1980 – then worth half a million dollars. The pair were active in the burgeoning BDSM scene in New York. Robert, whose charm was enormous, admitted that his relationship with Wagstaff was only possible because of the curator’s wealth; Mapplethorpe also courted other influential figures, such as the editor of Drummer Magazine, Jack Fritscher. In the last ten years of his life, Mapplethorpe developed a yen for relationships with black men.
“The pictures” – of naked men engaged in sexual acts, or Mapplethorpe’s self portraits with a whip or with horns – Senator Helms was complaining about, are very much in the minority: surprisingly, his floral photographs are much more numerous. But even his most sensationalist work is anything but pornographic: everything is stylised perfection. Mapplethorpe was a master of details, Robert saw himself “as being a sculptor without having to spend all the time modelling with my hands”.
Bailey and Barbato are a little harsh on their subject: it is true that Robert was after fame and money – but this goes for most ambitious people, not only artists. And yes, his sibling rivalry with his brother Edward, also a photographer, perhaps went too far – Robert insisting that Edward should use a pseudonym for his work – but the long interviews with the Edward take up too much time. That said, the directors (and the images of DOPs Mario Panagiotopoulos and Huy Truong) give Robert Mapplethorpe the credit he deserved: he created new ways of seeing and aesthetics, to change the image of photography in his very personal way. AS
ON RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS FROM 22 APRIL 2016
Cast: Natalie Portman, Joel Egerton, Ewan McGregor, Noah Emmerich
Western l USA l 98 min.
Originally scheduled to be premiered in August 2014(!), this post-Civil War Western lost its original director, Lynne Ramsey, on the first day of shooting, followed by DoP Darius Khondiji, Michael Fassbinder, Jude Law, Bradley Cooper and finally its production company Relativity to insolvency, finally being picked-up by the Weinstein Brothers.
Despite this major setback, a team of various producers, including the film’s star, Natalie Portman and director Gavin O’Connor (Warrior) have delivered a well-crafted, if rather conventional, genre product that is neither sensationalist nor gory in comparison with this year’s offerings The Hateful Eight or Bone Tomahawk.
Jane Hammond (Natalie Portman) living with her husband Bill (Noah Emmerich) on a farm in the New Mexico Territory, rides out to call for the help of her ex-fiance Dan Frost (Egerton), after her husband returns from a gun fight much the worse for wear courtesy of the Bishop gang. Frost is none too keen to help, since Jane was supposed to wait for him, after he returned from the Civil War. But he does not know that Jane and their baby Mary, had been taken prisoner by the gang, led by John Bishop (McEwan). Jane was sold into prostitution and Mary killed, before Bill liberated her. Reluctantly Frost sets out to make the Hammond house into a fortress, using Molotov Cocktail like glasses filled with kerosene, hidden underground in front of the house. While Bill is killed, Jane is hell bent on revenge but the captured Bishop has a surprise, which he hopes will save his life.
Whilst the heroine in this case is a woman, all the rules of the macho Western apply. The same goes for the narrative, with flash-backs of Jane’s life supplementing the audience’s understanding of the protagonists’ main motives. It is no accident that the Western as a genre has come to the end of its dusty life – no matter how many insufficient attempts at resuscitation have been made – simply because it is set in a bygone era with limited plot lines available, and the happy-ending is even more guaranteed than in any other Hollywood genre. The ensemble cast is impressive and Mandy Walker’s images are resplendent with fight scenes full of bravura; the overall impression is more of duty: JANE GOT A GUN is a comfortable ride in the familiar territory of the traditional Western. AS
Director: Joachim Trier Writers: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne, Amy Ryan, David Strathairn
105min Drama
Anyone who has experienced a sudden and controversial family death will identify with the father and two sons in LOUDER THAN BOMBS, a drama exploring bereavement.
The Norwegian director is known for his previous character-driven dramas Reprise and Oslo and August 31st but this is his first film in English, with regular scripter, Eskil Vogt (Blind). He subtly explores the aftermath of the death of a dedicated photographer Isabelle Reed (Huppert), who has spent her career in war zones, shuttling back and forward on the brink of danger. Huppert brings a loving yet detached feel to her part as mother and wife. Clearly though there were cracks in the marital facade before she died, and Gabriel Byrne, as her placid and appreciative widower, Gene, picks these up with tearful concern and he grapples with a trucculent teenager and an academic son, who is out of his depth emotionally with the recent birth of his first child.
This story unravels slowly as Trier gradually fleshes out characters who genuinely feel like people you feel you know. It emerges that Gene gave up his career to support the boys before the tragedy and is now sensitively treading his way through a minefield of feelings as events continually surface to challenge his perceptions of this constantly shirting emotional scenery. Byrne plays him as an appealing, gentle man. Clearly lonely, he is at odds with both his sons and yet desperately tries to reach out in to both of them, while he also tries to find his way into a new relationship with a woman who happens to be his son’s teacher. Although Trier uses some images and techniques to explore the bereavement reveries of his characters, these feel unnecessary and out of place, as he has already proved that he can craft imaginative and authentic types who hold our attention, without resorting to gimmicks.
Huppert’s character threads through the fractured narrative, appearing as dedicated, yet also opportunistic in her need for emotional fulfillment during her overseas career. She also appears ignorant of the effects that her professional life has had on the rest of her family while she has been away, as her focus has been self-absorbed by her need to carve out her own professional niche, very much in common with the character Juliet Binoche played in Haneke’s recent outing A Thousand Times Good Night.
The story turns on the suspenseful news that her ex-colleague Richard Weissman (David Strathairn), is writing a piece in the local paper in tribute to her life, to coincide with a posthumous retrospective of her photos. He has warned Gene (Gabriel Byrne), that the piece is likely to reveal some personal details of their trips together and this causes Gene to reflect on his marriage and put his sulky teenage son, Conrad (Devin Druid) in the picture. As the older son, Jesse Eisenberg, plays his usual neurotic role as Johan, who is academically gifted yet emotionally much less mature that we first imagine. Although there are clearly some misjudged moments, this is an absorbing and at times affecting piece that shows the Norwegian director gradually developing his craft in promising ways. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE VENUES
Dir.: Richard Raymond | Cast: Reece Ritchie, Frieda Pinto, Makram Khoury, Bamshad Abedi-Amin | UK/UAE/Romania/Morocco | 98 min |BIOPIC
Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian fled to Paris in 2009 and his biopic from first time writer\director Richard Raymond’s is straight from the heart. Some may find the film’s directness reductive, but the narrative deals with young, rebellious students and detachment and reasoning are not their strength.
Since the Iranian ‘Revolution’ of 1979, dancing is forbidden under Islamic law, even though it was allowed up til then. As recently as 2014, six Iranian teenagers were punished with 91 lashes for dancing to Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’ on a YouTube video. The young Afshin (Gabriel Senior) grows up in this repressive climate, just copying some moves from a bootleg DVD of Dirty Dancing. Afshin is by a supportive teacher Mehdi (Khoury), who runs an independent school in their hometown of Mashhad, and allows him to express himself in front of an audience. Mehdi also exposes his young audience to western theatre, literature and music – even though the co-ed classes might not be particularly realistic.
When Afshin (now played by Ritchie) is a first year student at Tehran University, he meets fellow students in an illegal techno dance club (situated far underground to make the point) and they start a dance group, rehearsing in an abandoned print press. Afshin falls in love with Elaheh (Pinto), the daughter of a dancer with the Iranian National Ballet, who had to stop dancing after 1979, putting all her energy into teaching her daughter, before overdosing on heroin. Elaheh is far better trained than Afshin and she becomes his teacher. Unfortunately, she is also drug dependent; Afshin helping her to break the dependency. One member of the underground group is the polite engineer student Mehran (Abedi-Amin), whose brother is part of a gang of clerical thugs who terrorise the students with batons and knives.
Mehran’s brother finds out about the dance troupe’s plan to put on a performance for a selected audience in the desert – but and he sends him to a place far away from the actual performance. Forced to leave university, he tells Afshin “it was worth it, for one afternoon of freedom”. After Afshin is arrested at a pro Mousavi demonstration, Mehran’s brother makes an attempt to murder him and it becomes clear that he must find a way out of country.
Raymond is very successful in portraying the conspiratorial underground scene of the students: whilst the fear is palpable, there is also a good deal of daring. To criticise this as simplistic is missing the point: young people in any dictatorship – particularly this cultural oppression in Iran – do react simply with gut feeling and this is not a well thought out strategy. To provoke the authorities, kids go for maximum effect, choosing the most apparent examples of the forbidden culture; even if Dirty Dancing and other example of mainstream western culture are objectively not as daring as the would-revolutionaries in Iran think. The dance scenes in the desert are the highpoint of this drama: not just because of Afshin and Elaheh’s passionate dancing, but also the rapt attention of the audience, who, like the dancers, were very much aware of the dangers. DOP Carlos Catalan vibrant visuals help to recreate an atmosphere of unbridled rebellion in a climate of open brutality created by the clerical wing of fundamentalism. The shots in the underground venues and the close-ups with the main couple are particularly impressive making DESERT DANCERentertaining as well as valuable from the insight it offers. AS
Dir.: Katharina Round; Documentary; UK/US 2015, 74 min.
Katharina Round’s debut feature documentary is based on The Spirit Level by the epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket, a study about the relationships between rising income differences and their social results – all captured in graphs and charts.
Round was obsessed with mathematics as a teenager and saw the science “as a language, you just have to know how to read it.” After reading The Spirit Level, she decided to put human faces to the statistics, in a way translating the figures into a language we all speak, “because the book was at its heart a story of how big picture economics can pull very personal, individual levers in all of us and have an impact on how we live our lives”.
Round has chosen seven individuals in the UK and the USA, who are reacting in their different ways to the changed economic landscape. Alden is a psychologist, but he is not involved in personal cases, preferring to lecture Wall Street executives on how to maximise their income and personal happiness. In Glasgow, rapper Darren just tries to survive and stray off drugs. Rochelle, who lives in Newcastle, works as a carer. On workdays, she only sees her two kids when she wakes them and puts them to bed at night. Somehow she has managed to accumulate a debt of £4000, but her main concern is that her work is underappreciated by society as a whole.
A high income does not guarantee happiness; quite the reverse: Jen in California is living in a ‘dream house’ in a gated community near a golf course. Her neighbours don’t talk to her, she is simply not “one of them”; not surprisingly because she mocks their expensive golf-carts which cost $20000 dollars a pop. Janet, a Walmart employee in Louisiana, is comparing her shop assistant income with that of the shareholders, the ratio being about 1:1000. And Leah, working in a KFC outlet in Richmond, Virginia, feels so stressed out that her customers worry about her health.
Globalisation and deregulation, together with a great shift in power towards employers, are the main factors which have changed the political scene in the UK and US, since Thatcher and Reagan came to power in1979/80. But they were only the trailblazers; whoever followed them since the late ’80s, has slowly built up social divisions which followed the economic ones, so changing the way we live: from mental and physical health to increasing violence and addictions. – these drastic changes for the worse, underpin the lack of cohesion in a society where, in the USA, the 0.1% of the population owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%.
Another factor is the ‘squeezing’ of the middle classes, where the need to keep up appearances and support children, who return to live at home after university, have led to families taking on enormous debts. But in the UK it is more punative than ever for the small business to take on new staff, such are the regulations in place.
Round has tried a lyrical and sometimes even poetic approach aiming for humanity in her doc, which was crowd-funded on a low budget. DoP Woody James’ strength are the intense close-ups and panoramic shots of the environment but the indie feel, keeps it real. Overall, The Divide is a serious contribution to the inequality debate, but fails to set out a blueprint for real change. It seems there will always be the rich and the poor and that will never change. AS
THE DIVIDE is in cinemas from 22 April and nationwide on 31st May http://thedividedocumentary.com/
Dir.: Benjamin Rocher; Cast: Jean Reno, Caterina Murino, Thierry Neuvic
92 min | Action Drama | France 2015, 92 min.
Not even Jean Reno can save Antigang – a straight remake of the The Sweeney, a British film made in 2012, starring Ray Winstone – which was itself based on the popular ITV Series of the same name from 70s. Benjamin Rocher (Goal of the Dead) fails to come up with a semi-macho plot on his own so his ‘scriptwriters’ dived deep enough into the bargain basement of violent back titles to give him an excuse to show off this brainless joyride. Led by Reno as Serge Buren, this gang of Parisian cops enjoy violence at least as much as their law-breaking counterparts. Widescreen images by DoP Jean-François Hensgens are the staple feed of commercials and when you think it can’t get worse – one of Buren’s side kicks, whose partner is expecting a child, is asked what he will call the baby: “Serge, it’s a nice name for a girl too”. Yup – let’s hear it for the boys! AS
Cast: Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul, Jeremy Northam
102 min | Thriller | UK
Aaron Paul is a drone pilot who balks at pulling the trigger for Helen Mirren in Gavin Hood’s new film.
Before you dismiss EYE IN THE SKY as just another film about terrorism, think again. Gavin Hood’s gripping imagined drama is a tightly-plotted moral maze that places us right in the heart of the decision-making process with a front row seat.
In this Drone Drama, you will share and sympathise with army chiefs and governments ministers, the decision-making red tape that has to be gone through, laboriously and stringently, before anyone can pull a single trigger. The War on Terror is a now worldwide issue but here the anxiety here is distilled into a the sweaty confines of a tiny boardroom where the ‘powers that be’ debate and clash over matters of life and death under pressure and with nerves of steel, making sure that their own backs are covered in the chain of responsibility. Hood shows us the man at the coalface who feels his responsibility to his target just as keenly as a soldier confronting a civilian face to face – on the streets or battlefield.
But where Hood’s thriller falls down is in imagining that so many major minds would be involved in the life of one single person – and that Government ministers and trained soldiers could be driven to tears over such a decision. That said, Guy Hibbert’s script feels plausible and persuasive: in a Whitehall Cabinet office senior officials are summoned by Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman in a masterful final role) to curtail the activities of “most wanted” set of terrorist villains including a British woman allied to the Al-Shabaab militants in Nairobi. Meanwhile an American drone is gliding over the African village and sending information to British Colonel Katherine Powell (a steely Helen Mirren), who in turn is reporting back to the Cabinet and also liaising with her ground staff and local troops in the village locale. The order is sent out to capture but not to kill.
These highly-skilled ground operatives also have at their disposal tiny remote-controlled insect-shaped drones equipped with cameras that can fly into buildings and monitor the movements of their desired targets. As such they are sent in motion by these trained allies in ‘civvies’ nearby, to assist in the bombing of headquarters of the praying terrorists, who are plotting their ambush. Crucial also is the damage limitation required in such an exercise: the chances must be weighed up of a bomb causing collateral death and destruction. In particular, to a little girl selling bread in the street outside the perpetrators hide-out. To humanise the little girl, we see her sans hijab, with her parents in their home. When her mother has baked the bread, she is sent off with her camping table to sell her wares.
There are some terrific moments of tension where we root for the ground ally (Barkhad Abdi) and empathise with the ministers and Powell who is tasked with completing her vital mission. There is a deadly humour too to the board room buck-passing that shows how ultimately politicians always cover their backs before reacting; it is not doing the right thing that is important, but how it will be perceived in the newswire aftermath. MT
In his forth film, director Hirokazu Koreeda (Like Father, like Son), has changed his approach: so far he has tackled emotional issues head-on, Our little Sister is a melancholic, elegant and very intimate portrait of a family who bury conflicts behind a deceptively tranquil façade. Our Little Sister has echoes of Kon Ichikawa’s The Makioka Sisters and also happens to be set in Kamakura, a seaside town near Tokyo, were the great Yasujiro Ozu lived and is buried.
The slow-burning story follows three sisters in their twenties living in an sprawling old mansion: The eldest Sachi (Ayase) is a bossy nurse in the local hospital and dominates her younger siblings Yoshino (Nagasawa) and Chika (Kaho). Fifteen years go, the three were abandoned by their parents when their father left for another woman and their distraught mother also disappeared to start a new life. The stress of bringing up her younger sisters has taken its toll on Sachi. Bank worker Yoshino has a string of unsuitable partners, and Chika is in love with her rather immature, eccentric boss, the owner of a sports equipment shop. Sachi is having an affair with a married lecturer whose wife is suffering from depression. But when their father dies suddenly, they are forced to acknowledge his long term carer who is also their teenage half-sister Suzu (Hirose). Sachi immediately takes to the girl but inviting her to live with them as a family, but in doing so further submerges her own needs as a woman and fails to address the natural grieving process of the existing trio who still harbour resentment for Suzu “taking the father away from them”. Suzu herself expresses her guilt and also her feelings of being unwelcome in her new home. All these conflicts finally surface when their estranged mother turns up, wanting to sell the family home.
Less cinematically rigorous than Ozu, Koreeda’s patient approach – showing the conflict arising from the calm exterior of the characters and their traumatic wounds – Our Little Sister is very much in keeping with the master’s style of slow-burning tension. DOP Mikiya Takimoto’s pastel colours and gliding camera movements show nature as the primary healing force for human trauma evoking a wonderful portrait of deceptively peaceful life in the little seaside town. All the performances here are impressive but Ayase is the standout with her often forced Zen-like equanimity hiding a disturbing personality, with strong masochistic tendencies. Koreeda avoids fireworks, keeping the tone gentle and good-natured. Our little Sister is an insightful and moving story of four adult children forced to clear up the emotional legacy of their own terrible parenting. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 April 2016 at CINEMAS NATIONWIDE
Dir: Jaco Van Dormael | Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Pili Groyne, Benoit Poelvoorde, Francois Damiens, Yolande Moreau, Laura Verlinden | 113min Comedy fantasy Belgium
Belgian cult director Jaco Van Dormael’s absurdist imagined dramady reinvents God as ‘Mr Angry from Brusssels’; a miserable bully who turns his frustrations on his family and humanity. And while his little daughter (Ea) tries to save the world, his doltish wife quietly embroiders in the background occasionally dusting down a statue of their only son JC.
THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENTbuzzes with inventive energy; every scene is stuffed with surrealism: giraffes roam the empty streets of Brussels while birds flutter in formation and Ea (a charming debut turn for Pili Groyne) walks on the waters of the Zenne river). In this crazy cornucopia of cinematic delights, pop-philosopher Van Dormael irreverently restyles the New Testament with the Almighty wreaking havoc on the natural world, crashing planes and setting fire to all and sundry, and mischievously casts Catherine Deneuve as one of 18 Apostles who leaves her husband for a gorilla.
To teach her abusive father a lesson, Ea secretly breaks into his private office to hack his computer, sending a catastrophic series of “DeathLeaks” where everyone receives a text detailing the precise time of their demise. This game-changer unleashes havoc on the human race, allowing Van Dormael to tackle themes of fate and freewill in a contempo take on Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale”. Taking things further, God (the father) realises he no longer calls the shots, causing Ea to leave home and find support from a local tramp who helps her recruit six new Apostles. These are all characters who are afflicted in some way, and it is here that Van Dormael’s wackiness descends into tedious torpor – as none of them actually adds much to the gospel narrative. The first is Aurelie (Laura Verlinden) a sad soul who has lost her arm; Killer (François Damiens) so named for his sociopathic tendencies; Deneuve as a bored and neglected wife who finds contentment with her Gorilla. And finally Willy, a sparky little boy with a life-limiting illness, whose last wish is to become a girl. God’s wife (Yolande Moreau) saves the day in the final act where she adds homespun joy to the world with some delightful imagery from cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne. The message here is possibly that women just want a caring and peaceful life with someone to love them, while men are the ultimate power seekers.
Is it funny? Not in a laugh out loud way; but there’s so much verve and energy here and a natural ease that makes The New Testament visually entertaining and enjoyable if you gloss over the rather silly storyline. Poelvoorde and Groyne are on top form, carrying the caper through to its carefree climax with relish and aplomb. MT
Shaky performances and a poorly written script aren’t the only spooks lurking in Gareth Bryn’s promising feature debut, an atmospheric ghost thriller that takes place a haunted cottage in the remote Welsh countryside and home to Stanley (Mark Lewis Jones). During a storm, Stanley comes to the rescue a young couple (Sara/Elwy) trapped in their car and gives them board and lodging while they recover. Sara (Elwy) is grateful and strangely drawn to the reclusive Stanley but her boyfriend Iwan (Dwyfor) is less than pleased by Stanley’s unselfish heroism toward his partner and reacts with hostile jealousy bordering on paranoia, calling his a ‘retard’. It’s unclear where these two came from and they talk in riddles about their past. But Stanley too is hiding something, and Sara is eager to probe his secrets. Iwan’s state of mind gradually deteriorates and in an ugly scene he asks Sara to undress and have sex with Stanley, before storming out.
There are shades of early Polanski in The Passing (YR YMADAWIAD), a Cymraeg language film, that sidesteps innovation relying too heavily on horror tropes alone to create a gripping story. The storyline is too reductive to hold the audience’s attention for its running time. Although Jones’ naive hermit feels believable, the couple’s ‘special’ relationship doesn’t feel authentic: Elwy and Dwyfor somehow fail to grasp the highly ambivalent nature of their characters. DOP Richard Stoddard saves the film from a complete disaster: his images, in- and outdoors, are truly evocative, particularly strong in showing the dominant role of water as an emotional force, in its many forms. Overall, Bryn and writer Ed Talfan should have settled for a medium-length feature which would have played to the strength of their approach and reduced the gaping holes of the narrative. AS
Cast: Jeremy Irons, Dev Patel, Toby Jones, Stephen Fry, Kevin McNally, Enzo Cilenti, Devika Bhise
108min | Biopic | UK
Jeremy Irons and Jeremy Irons are screen dynamite in this earnest but intensely moving biopic of pioneering mathematicians G H Hardy and Srinavasa Ramanujan.
The Man Who Knew Infinity attempts to make maths as exciting as the discovery of a new plant species or the cure to cancer in this lush and impressively-mounted turn of the century drama. Blinding us with numbers and equations scrawled in chalk across a blackboard, the maths geniuses slave over desks replete with crumpled formula-filled papers and burn the midnight oil to prove their theories in the hallowed rooms of Trinity College of Cambridge, mesmerising us with this arcane subject matter but leaving us none the wiser as to their tangible achievements by the time the credits roll – there is a banal footnote about black holes in the final scene – but how could maths be so emotionally involving and melodramatic as it is portrayed here? The answer is in the personal story of an man who came from obscurity to share the academic limelight with the ‘luminaries’ of the early 20th century – the only one that stands out to most people will be Bertrand Russell.
In Matt Brown’s exquisitely-crafted sophomore drama, Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons are engaging and imminently watchable as intellectual sparring partners: beautifully attired in their hand-tailored tweed and starched collars, they make a formidable and mildly fascinating couple of spiritually-edged geeks. And there is the cherubic Toby Jones looking genuinely benign as another leading light of figures, John Edensor Littlewood. Matt Brown’s script, appropriately for the era and context, contains lashings of racialism and prejudice towards the Indian 25-year-old prodigy who sprung from the backstreets of 1913 Madras with his ground-breaking theories on continued fractions and pure maths to struggle to the heights of English academia – a spiritual vegetarian in a college where the ‘loads of grub’ largely consisted of meat. The Man Who Knew Infinityis certainly appealing for mainstream audiences who enjoy intelligent dramas but those looking for a biopic of greater ingenuity in its specialised subject, might find this a trifle unsatisfying – if so – the indie title ‘Ramanujan’ is likely to have more appeal.
Adapted from Robert Kanigel’s 1991 biography, this is certainly an entertaining story with its blend of exotic Madras settings counterpoised with the ethereal backdrop of pre-war Cambridge. The young self-taught Sri dedicates himself to the study of maths forsaking his job as a clerk; his overbearing mother (aptly named Arundhati Nag) and his newly married wife Janaki (Devika Bhise), to beat a path towards England where, hoping to be published, he writes a letter to Professor Hardy who immediately seizes on his brilliance, offering him tutoring at Trinity, despite the open hostility and racial prejudice of the crusty old dons – amongst the most cantankerous being Professor Howard (Anthony Calf). There, in a cramped single room, he eschews nutritional and emotional support (his mother intercepts his wife’s letters) to tirelessly expound his theories which, he claims, are instinctively enlightened and spiritually inspired by his Hindu religion. Hardy is a hard-nosed academic who has no time for love or religion and is more interested in form and discipline than inspiration and free thought, while the generous-spirited Bertrand Russell (a fine Jeremy Northam) urges Hardy to “let him fly”. That said, Irons plays Hardy as a tremendously empathetic and supportive character and not in the least dry or leaning towards Asperger’s, as one might be tempted to expect. Patel brings an energetic sensitivity to his role, with the delicate elegance of an exotic fawn, he is also feisty and diligent.
But as Ramanujan’s health deteriorates with tuberculosis, the mawkish flashes to Janaki pining on the beaches and temples of Madras start a downward spiral in the dramatic tension. The final scenes of this memorable biopic are deeply affecting: not so much because of Ramanujan’s ailing health, but because of the astonishing impact he steadily makes on his intransigent ageing peers in their ivory towers. MT
Cast: Doris Day, Howard Keel, Allyn McLerie, Philip Carey, Gale Robbins
101min | USA | Western (Sing-along version)
Director David Butler (1894-1974) was a major Hollywood filmmaker who brought successful family entertainment to the silver screen during the 30’s, 40’s and ’50s with cult classics such as Bright Eyes, Leave it to Beaver and Road to Morocco. In the ’60s he moved on to major TV work with series Twilight and 77. Sunset Strip, adding 90 directing credits to his name.
In Deadwood City, deep in the frontier territory of Dakota, men rule supreme. So it’s hardly surprising that the gun-toting, whip-cracking Calamity Jane (Day) tries to garner attention from her male counterparts – with mixed success. She saves the life of Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin (with whom she is secretly in love), liberating him from the Sioux and claiming “I understand why the Indians don’t want to give up this mountain country, it is so beautiful”. But the men of Deadwood want a real woman with feminine qualities and after travelling to Chicago to find such a ‘dame’ in celebrity singer Adelaid Adams, Jane mistakenly brings back the artist’s dresser, who promptly snatches Danny from under her nose.
There are cringeworthy moments galore in this comedy musical, particularly when Katie re-styles Jane’s home while the duo sing “A Woman’s Touch”. The ebullient Day overcomes most of this with her spirited and rambunctious performance, based on the real life character of Martha Jane Canary, a ‘scout’ who lived in the second half of the 19th century. The glorious technicolor images are a feast for the eyes – shame about the rather obvious back-projections. Writer James O’Hanlon can rightly claim he is the father of the central scene in John Ford’s Who Shot Liberty Valance (where John Wayne shoots the villain for John Stewart), in exactly the same way that Howard Keel shoots Jane’s glass out of her hand. The sing-along version is a great opportunity for audiences to join in with Doris Day’s gutsy heroine.
THE SING-A-LONG VERSION SCREENS NATIONWIDE FROM 8 APRIL 2016
Documentary with Helena Bereen | UK 2015 | 84 min.
Returning after a thirty absence to his home city of Belfast, director Mark Cousins (A Story of Children and Film) creates a rambling portrait of the city. Through the mouthpiece of a middle-aged woman wandering the streets, I AM BELFAST reflects on the past, present and particularly future of a city where 3800 lives were lost in sectarian fighting between the early 70s and 90s; and a third of the population, 120 000, simply left.
The cold facts are harrowing, but Cousins’ portrait is a moody, romanticising and often enigmatic feature. Helena Bereen, the woman in question, literally “is” Belfast, ten thousand years old and still going strong, even though late on into the film, the director lets us know, that she really died in the 1950s. These sorts of contradictions are a hallmark of this documentary. Cousins treats the city and its harrowing history like a work of art: open to interpretations, and full of unsustainable optimism. There is street theatre – laying the last bigot to rest – and clips from Jack Arnold’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Titanic, which was built in Belfast, is shown, so are the reconstructed icebergs, which were her undoing, followed by humour along the lines ‘she was okay when she left’. Old newsreels show a bustling place; and two men pass each other near McGurk’s bar, now just a façade: we learn that the owner’s wife and children, among others, were killed in the bombing – followed by a cousin musing “a crime scene, a rhyme scene, a time scene”. Very existential, indeed.
Worst of all is Cousins’ treatment of the sustained violence during two decades: Bereen/Cousins call it a fight between the “salt and the sweet”, never mentioning the organisations of the perpetrators by name. For crying out loud: “Sweet” is hardly a word associated with any of the armies of two religious factions killing men, women and children in the same of the same God. Only once, for a couple of minutes, does Cousins faces reality when he shows the “peace walls”, some of them twenty metres high, which criss-cross the city, keeping Protestant and Catholic apart. Obviously it did not occur to the director that the East German Stalinists, who built the Berlin Wall, called their monstrosity the same name: “Peace Wall”. Instead of spending more time on the Belfast Walls (some of them a combination of five different deterrents), Cousins lets Bereen maunder on about the arty future of the place.
With music by David Holmes, DOP Christopher Doyle falls in with Cousins to create a wishful, mellow portrait of a city which is still, twenty-five years after the civil war ended, anything but peaceful. Cousins’ arty collage is wishful-thinking at best – an historic confabulation at worst. AS
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 8 APRIL 2016 AT BFI SOUTHBANK, BARBICAN, QFT BELFAST, HOME MANCHESTER AND SELECTED CINEMAS AND BFI PLAYER.
Jacques Audiard’s searing social realism has won him much acclaim with hits such as A Prophet and Rust and Bone, With Dheepan he delivers another fraught drama about an immigrant family who bring their fierce loyalties to one another, and their religious convictions into the grim context of a strife-ridden community of outsiders who have recently arrived in Paris.
Shock and austerity greet them in a place thousands of miles from the soft jungles of Sri Lanka where the Tamil Tigers have taught them how to fight tooth and nail for their beliefs. But the struggle in their new home requires a more subtle form of combat. Suffused with images of the Hindu God Ganesh and sacred Indian elephants, who protect them during the night, daytime sees them facing a sombre scenario of inter-racial strife.
Audiard sets the scene in wartorn Sri Lanka where corpses are being burned after another incursion in Dheepan’s local village. Dheepan (Antonythasan Jesuthasan) and his friend Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan manage to flee by proceeding passports from three of the dead and arrive with an orphaned child, Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby), having passed through immigration, . an interpreter reinventing their unconvincing story so that the two can gain employment as caretakers in a block of council houses. There they meet Youssouf (Marc Zinga) who shows them the ropes of how to get by in their new environment, but their language skills are non-existent. Working as cleaners for another immigrant who is crippled and mostly bedridden, they settle in gradually. Illayaal is allotted a place in a special needs class at school, along with other immigrant children still learning French, but young kids always manage to cope better than the adults.
Using a cast of newcomers, Audiard paints his humanistic study of everyday migration with a colourful palette of vibrant colours redolent of the exotic spice island back home. With the support of regular co-writer Thomas Bidegain, and cinematographer Eponime Menonceau, he also injects a vibe of simmering social unrest to this outwardly cohesive picture of a dislocated community. Despite their surface cooperation and acceptance of the situation, trouble is clearly brewing as racial conflicts emerge, and the mesmerising finale unspools in a way that we could never have anticipated.
Once again, Audiard handles his subject-matter with the dexterity of a seasoned filmmaker evoking his central character as a man of pure instinct, trained as a soldier and operating from a professional point view, while also being an insecure and, clearly, disorientated human being away from home.
Antonythasan Jesuthasan brings a freshness and authenticity to his debut role, and we feel for him. Worth noting is the fact that he is also a real life writer and activist who has been personally been involved with the Tamil Tigers. There’s nothing particularly new or noteworthy about Dheepan, it’s consistent, well-made and watchable, but why it won the Palme D’Or in a competition which boasted memorable features such as Carol, The Lobster, Son of Saul and Youth – while this is almost forgotten – still remains a mystery. MT
Cast: Frederick Lau, Laia Costa, Franz Rogowski, Burak Yigit, Max Mauff
138mins | Thriller | Germany
A night out for a Spanish girl in Berlin is a life-changing experience in this self-indulgent ad lib thriller whose unique selling point its shooting, in one single take, by German actor turned director, Sebastian Schipper (Run Lola Run).
Schipper is so focused on his mobile phone experiment that pacing and authenticity falls by the wayside in this woozily kinetic, high octane night ride into danger and then oblivion. It seems our eponymous heroine (Laia Costa) has lost her way and her moral compass in Berlin. The classically-trained pianist is so desperate to meet new friends she is prepared to tolerate any kind of nonsense from the crowd of dodgy guys she meets, who predictably turn out to be wasters at best, criminals at worst. Needing to open her cafe at seven, she is no hurry to prepare to a busy day and loiters around idly, shooting the breeze, until she finds herself in deep water, as part of a heist that endangers her own life.
The star turn here is Frederick Lau as Sonne, a charismatic natural who carries the film through from its dialogue heavy first act through to its dazzlingly dramatic denouement. As Victoria, Laia Costa fizzes with energy and high-spirits, refusing to call time on the one-dimensional guys who constantly push the limits on her good nature. She has a fleeting chemistry with Sonne, but doesn’t have to be there for him through thick and thin, with a gun against her head. Her character is the weakest link in this high-octane thriller that has its moments, but pushes its luck too far. There are just too many plot-holes in Schipper’s narrative. Would such an intelligent woman seriously engage in a robbery with three men she has only just met? Is there no security in Berlin’s banks? In the hotel bathroom, after a tense shoot-out, wouldn’t you not need to use the loo or wash the blood of your hands? These are just a few of the endless implausibilities that make this slick and easy-going roadshow much less clever than it thinks it is, in retrospective analysis.
Schipper tightens the tension in the second act, the shaky camera tracking the action against the fuzzy nightscape of Berlin’s trendy Mitte district and making great use of the natural light of a gradual dawn from 4.30am until nearly 7am. Electronic music from Berlin compose Nils Frahm often takes over the dialogue, driving the action forward with its finger firmly on the pulse. Go for the ride but be prepared to suspend your disbelief. MT
Cast: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Fares Fares, Pilou Asbaek, David Dencik, Danica Curcic, Johanne Louise Schmidt
119min | Crime Thriller | Denmark
Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Angels & Demons) and Fares Fares (Zero Dark Thirty) are just the pair for this gritty noirish thriller that is as stylishly dark as its dirty dealings, and another another criminal case for Danish Department Q, again directed by Mikkel Norgaard. This is a nasty affair involving a double murder of twin siblings in the ’90s which is reinvestigated by the Copenhagen cold-case duo after the teenagers’ father commits suicide in the bath. If you enjoyed The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013) then this should go down well as the second adaptation of a Jussi Adler-Olsen novel in the Department Q series.
Kaas plays Carl Morck the taciturn detective with a permanent scowl, Fares is Assad, his pleasantly open-faced colleague who is rather chuffed to be hitting it off with their latest secretary, a spunky red-head called Rose (Johanne Louise Schmidt); Kaas is not amused “we can’t keep changing secretaries”.
After a brief visit to the country setting of the teenagers’ illustrious public school, we meet the man who served 3 years for their murder, a drug-taking share dealer with a penchant for restoring old Maseratis. Back in the day he confessed to the murders and then somehow got Denmark’s best lawyer (Hans Henrik Clemensen) to defend him. The detectives’ only starting point in the case is a call made by a terrified girl (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina), possibly a schoolfriend of the twins, though she seems to have disappeared now without a trace.
Scripters by Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg have chosen a fractured narrative that flips back and forward, giving us clues about the past, while following the chronological police investigation and the violent activities of the Danish hoods – all tightly edited to ramp up the tension while keeping us on our toes. We don’t warm to the young teenagers, although their bouts of bonking in the leafy boarding school surrounds do give light relief from the dim interiors which, apart from a dash of dark humour, make the THE ABSENT ONE feel rather glum and buttoned down at times, particularly when Rose threatens to throw in the towel after a particularly brutal scene involving a mummified corpse: ” I’m not cut out for this” says she. But who is, in their right minds? And this is Nordic Noir.
But THE ABSENT ONE is watchable largely due to its well-oiled parts, and particularly for Kaas and award-winning Fares who are used to working together and manage to inject a flourish of charisma into these sordid Nordic goings-on. Pilou Asbaeck and David Dencik (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) are also strongly cast as suave but lethal Danish criminals of the upmarket kind. Well-crafted, if not a trifle formulaic, ABSENT‘s plotlines all coalesce to offer a slick and absorbing watch despite throwing its toys out of the pram at the end. MT
SHOWING AT PICTUREHOUSES AND SELECTED SCREENS FROM 8 APRIL 2016
Director: Dexter Fletcher. Script: Simon Kelton, Sean Macaulay
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Taron Egerton, Tom Costello, Jack Costello, Jo Hartley, Keith Allen, Tim McInnerny
106min | Comedy Biopic | UK
Gentling lampooning Britain’s sporting prowess, Dexter Fletcher champions the ultimate British heroic failure through his story of Michael Edwards, a nerdish West Country plasterer who, from humble beginnings and a startling lack of talent, financed himself to represent us in the 1988 Winter Olympics, eventually carrying the torch, and winning the Nation’s heart with his own brand of sad-sack charm.
Well made and watchable in Fletcher’s capable hands; Maclaulay and Skelton’s embellishment of the true facts nevertheless stretches our imagination to breaking point with a misguided though timely portrait of self-delusion emblematic of the today’s cult of celebrity where average kids brim over with self-confidencd, egged on by their obsessed parents, to imagine they are more talented than they actually are. Edwards ain’t no superman, he’s just everyman – and that’s what made him an inspiration to Joe Average. But Eddie’s real life is funnier and more surreal than these scripters’ absurd imaginings – which sadly are a jump too far.
Apart from the script, there’s a problem with the casting: Taron Egerton’s Eddie is not endearing, he’s just plain irritating. As a kid Jack Costello’s Eddie is cute; as a grown-up Egerton’s Eddie fails to win any prizes – rocking Mrs Brown style glasses (and a Les Dawson grimace), his curly hairdo brings to mind Kevin Keegan and his waddling posture, Daffyd Thomas (‘the only gay in the village’) – which does him no favours at all: he’s also portrayed as being a teetotal, sexless dork who is ripped to pieces by the more experienced Scandinavian skiers (Finnish skier Matti Nykanen is played by Edvin Endre); he even passes up a quasi-flirt with willing and sultry Cougar bar owner (Iris Berben). The real Edwards did at least have stunt experience, where here he tackles 40 and 70 metre skiing ramps as a total ingenue who simply dusts himself down after some stratospheric and neck-breaking jumps – seen from his own POV as the jumper. Hugh Jackman has been wheeled in (to garner US box office support) as his fictional coach Bronson Peary – an alcoholic has-been who is now driving a snowplow and tries to teach Eddie how to jump by likening the experience to sex – clearly lost on Eddie. But in fairness, Egerton cools his jets once Jackman is on board, becoming marginally less annoying and more plausible. That said, the film does the real Edwards no favours – the maxim holds that truth is stranger than fiction and the need to embellish it is at best bad taste and and at worst, a downright crying insult to the man himself. To cut to the chase, Edwards finally makes it to the Olympics amid George Richmond’s inventive set pieces. A well-chosen score featuring Thin Lizzy, Hall & Oates and Holly Johnson) adds grist to our appreciation of the film’s more creatively quirky moments. MT
Cast: Alice Lowe, Dolly Wells, Tom Cullen, Rosa Robson, Richard Elis, Laura Patch
85min | Comedy Drama | UK 2016.
It looks like Jamie Adams (A Wonderful Christmas), had co-scripter Alice Lowe’s Sightseers performance in mind when he cast her as a scatter-brained would-be-poet in this feeble ‘Five Go Mad in Dorset’ style comedy. Black Mountain Poets sadly lacks cohesion but – more importantly – real humour.
The film opens with sisters Lisa (Love) and Claire Walker (Dolls) forcing their way into a camp site with wire cutters. Their bungling effort is spotted by a security guard who uses his mobile to photograph the pair and their get-away car. The car soon breaks down due to lack of petrol, and the sisters then steal a car belonging to the Wilding Sisters, Alys and Terry, who are on their way to a poetry festival. Finding their invitation in the car, Lisa and Clair immediately decide to impersonate the duo and are welcomed by the organisers and five competitors. Richard (Cullen) and Louise (Robson) have been a couple, but Richard, who has not written a poem for seven years, is jealously in awe of Louise, and soon deserts her for Lisa and Claire, giving them his tent, then sharing it with the sisters after a feeble attempts to erect it. Joined by Gareth (Elis) and Stacey (Patch), two not very well sketched out personas; the poets wander through the woods while the Wilding Sisters try to reach the Festival on foot.
In trying to show all the poets as dilettantes in more ways than one, BLACK MOUNTAIN POETS succumbs to an all-out bumbling approach of its own. The poems are dire and so are the pseudo-philosophical interludes: in one example Claire looks up into the sky, confessing disappointment with her life thus far. Instead of laughing, the audience actually feels sorry for Claire and Lisa, who Adams seems to be denounce and vilify – making them the butt of the humour rather than the generators of wit and repartee.
Visually Black Mountain Poets is flat, repetitive and unimaginative. The actors hector their lines, and even Lowe cannot escape the dour tedium. Bring back Carry-On Camping – at least it raised a real laugh. AS
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE from 1 APRIL 2016
Cast: Gary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth
USA 1939, 121 min.
Set in a isolated trading port of Barranca in South America, ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS is the typical Howard Hawks film: a woman trying to join the company macho men, who in this case, all seem to have a death wish. The men are pilots working for a small aviation company which is trying to gain a new, lucrative contract. For this to happen, the old clapped out planes have to overcome fog, storms and mountains – and never mind, what happens to the pilots.
The homo-erotic aspect of the male relationships is apparent here as it is in Hawks’ other aviation films. So is the oedipal complex: not for nothing are the younger pilots calling Geoff “Papa”. A film critic wrote to Hawks after the premiere, that he “was going to far”, questioning the reality aspect of the film. Hawks answered, that the story was the pure truth, since it was told to him by a Mexican pilot. Elaborating on this original story, Hawks told with pride an encore, which is indicative of the film’s ideology – and humour: “A friend of the bridegroom put a German aviation equipment under the bed of the newly married couple, to measure their sexual activities, by the bouncing of the bed. When he showed the couple the graph, the bride was so pleased, that she hung the graph of the wall”. This little episode somehow explains everything about the psyche of the director and the misogynist nature of the film.
Pianist cum singer Bonnie Lee (Arthur) is stranded at the airport, nothing more than a ramshackle little building, which houses everything needed, including a restaurant. Pilot and boss Geoff Carter (Grant), misogynist par excellence, introduces himself to Bonnie just after a pilot has been killed. “Joe died flying. That was his job. He just wasn’t good enough. That’s why he got it.” Then he tucks into the steak, the dead man had ordered. Bonnie is overwhelmed by such coldness and the ensuing dialogue shows where the two stand : “How could you do it?”/What?/Eat that steak./What’s the matter with it?/It was his/Look, what do you want me to do? Have it stuffed?”
In spite of this, Bonnie is falling for Geoff, against her better judgement. Shortly afterwards, Joe’s replacement, Bat Mac Pherson (Baserthelmess) arrives. He has once left a mechanic on board of a crashing plane, bailing out himself. He is “yellow” and Geoff lets him have it: “I can send you out in any kind of weather, on any kind of job, and only worry about the ship getting back. On those terms, do you still want the job?” Bat accepts the job, and later regains the respect of his fellow pilots, risking his life, trying to rescue a co-pilot. But his wife Judy (Hayworth), Geoff’s ex-lover, soon makes Bonnie jealous, and sets a story in motion, which ends with Geoff telling Bonnie to toss a coin to decide if she wants to stay with him.
The narrative’s set is claustrophobic, the camera seems to have no room to manoeuvre, the protagonists are pressed together like fish in can. Only Angels have Wings is a ‘Boys Own’ adventure, any social connections are missing. Geoff, like the rest of the pilots, is more in love with death than life, unable to form any lasting relationships with women; they talk in shorthand, and hide whatever emotions they may have.
ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS is best remembered for being the first film starring Rita Hayworth, who was casted more or less against the will of Hawks by Columbia boss Harry Cohen. Hawks complained later that she was not a good actress – how wrong he proved to be. AS
ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS | CRITERION COLLECTION UK | 18 APRIL 2016
First time writer|directorAmber Fares certainly enters new territory with SPEED SISTERS where five Palestinian women take to the race track; their breakneck fight for the title is as competitive as any men’s race.
Street car-racing is a very male dominated sport all over the world, so it is particularly surprising to see five young women drivers competing in Palestine. Proud to represent her country’s sporting prowess, Fares doesn’t hesitate to show the harsh reality of Israel’s occupation. Marah, who lives in Jenin, is very much supported by her parents, her father Khaled being her biggest fan. Her main rival is Betty, who was born in Mexico, Spanish still being her first language. Betty wins the first championship of this documentary, even though a technical fault on her car should have disqualified her – at least that is Marah’s argument. Betty is very much a modern woman, but also is keen on fashion. Her statement, “I am not a tomboy” is fully justified, and she has also internalised the commercial rules of the game, being very much aware of being “a brand”.
The racing drivers are managed by Maysoon, who runs a shop and is engaged to a Jordanian, whom she will follow to Amman where they will race together. Marah can’t wait to leave Jenin, bored with “seeing the same faces”. After gaining permits to visit Israel, Marah comments on the differences between Palestine and Israel – only a wall away. Her father Khaled is still nostalgic for the family home near Tel Aviv, which still lies empty since their departure in 1948. Gradually the scenes on the racing circuit take a backseat as this documentary explores the realities of life in the region including the harsh difficulties of filmmaking and shooting in the middle of a war zone. The third act brings a rude awakening as Betty suffers a setback but battles on again for supremacy. Noor emerges as a fierce competitor, making the successful change to compete professionally for Palestine all over the world.
SPEED SISTERS is another superb example of successful low-budget filmmaking. Fares keeps the ‘Talking Heads’ to a minimum and focuses on the action: the struggle between Marah and Betty is as vivid as life on the war torn Left Bank. The camera is literally in the face of all participants and this spontaneity and directness help to engage the audience. SPEED SISTERS, which won the ‘Finders’ Award at he Adelaide Film Festival, is a small but glittering gem. AS
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Garrett Headlund, Walton Goggins, Mark Wahlberg, Dania Ramirez
93min Thriller US
Disenchanted with his charmed life, a Hollywood hipster heads out to the desert where he meets a dangerous drifter with nothing to lose but everything to gain by following him back to his existence home home.
Director and Oscar-winning scripter William Monahan’s noirish thriller occasionally feels rather forced and artificial but his clever casting of Garrett Hedlund and Oscar Isaacs ensures an entertaining ride through contemporary California urging us to contemplate the meaning of fame, love and the ties that bind and asking the question: “When you get what you want, want do you want?”
MOJAVE‘s premise is actually very solid and even a noble one: the world of stardom is full of narcissistic types who can turn extremely dangerous if they don’t get the fame they think they deserve and this kind of twisted psychology runs rife in the concentrated toxicity of Hollywood’s starry Hills. Garrett Hedlund plays Tom, tells us in the opening scene how he’s “been famous since he was 19”. But in his early thirties, this facile success has left him empty and deluded: his English wife and daughter have abandoned him with his part-time lover (Louise Bourgoin) in a bijoux villa with infinity pool, and he is bored with the present and truculent about the future. Casting off to the Mojave desert in his jeep, in the hope of shaking off this ennui, he comes across a well-kemp wayfarer whom success has clearly deluded but whose articulate if embittered patter (“I’m into motiveless malignity”) indicates he’s no fool.
But things turn nasty as Tom immediately spots his alter ego, and after a brutal scuffle Tom takes Jack’s gun and finds refuge in a cave from whence he shoots and kills a federal officer mistaking him for Jack in the half-light of dawn. Tom then destroys the stolen gun and heads back to Los Angeles. But Jack follows him back and after killing a gay guy who tries to pick him up, he uses his house for a base from which to stalk Tom, as he re-invents himself with a new look. Essentially a two-hander, support comes from Walton Goggins in an campy cameo as his agent and Mark Wahlberg as his stroppy and petulant producer/partner.
Chocful of witticisms and literary allusions, Monahan’s script makes this desert duo slick and entertaining – but in a way that feels rather overplayed and pleased with itself. Clearly these two are easy on the eye and amusing to be around but Wahlberg’s turn just doesn’t work and is something he will regret in retrospect. These are people we don’t care tuppence for and so the denouement evokes little reaction other than reminding us that Hollywood and Los Angleles are places that echo loudly with an emotional and spiritual void.
UltimatelyMOJAVEis a well-paced thriller: over-talky but always entertaining, Oscar Isaacs does his best at being a nasty psychopath but previous roles in A Most Dangerous Year and even The Two Faces of January have suited his talents better. Hedlund’s role is rather one-dimensional, but he plays that dimension very successfully and is mesmerising in each scene. MT
Alice Winocour’s follow-up to Augustine is a mesmerising mood piece lushly set in the Southern French villa of its name, where Matthias Schoenaerts’ ex-soldier Vincent Loreau arrives to guard the wife of a shady Lebanese businessman. Fraught with tension and generating the kind of potent on screen chemistry experienced in cult classic Body Heat and Chinatown between its central characters, the enigmatic narrative is driven forward by a pounding atmospheric score involving no less than nine sound technicians.
Diane Kruger plays the stone-faced wife Jessie, who enjoys this luxury villa lifestyle with her tiny son Ali. But luxury comes at a price and it only emerges later that her wealthy husband is a crooked arms dealer, who gradually disappears leaving her prey to a continuous onslaught of hooded intruders, whom Schoenaerts sends packing. A tight and minimalist script is piqued with the odd dry comment, briefly lightening the suspenseful if rather schematic plotline, whose strength lies chiefly in a powerfully physical performance by Schoenaerts, who gradually brings a smile to Kruger’s tight-lipped Jessie, as their relationship deepens. DISORDER plays its secrets close to its musclebound chest as it unfurls towards an impressive but unsurprising finale. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL May 2015 | MARYLAND
Chilean director Pablo Larraín is well-known for exploring the dark corners of his homeland to ferret out a few skeleton’s from the nation’s history. THE CLUB is such a story. There is always a place for his regular collaborator Alfredo Castro in these dark and often gloomy dramas. In this one, Castro (From Afar) gets a leading role hiding out in a windswept coastal backwater as a crusty old paedophile priest, Padre Vidal. And he’s not alone, sharing his grim beachhouse are four other priests, serving time for a variety of sexual misdemeanours in the name of God. Victoria Zeggers is Sister Monica, the young woman who keeps house for these miserable old men whose only pleasure in life is their obsession with a jointly- owned greyhound they race at competitive meets.
Sergio Armstrong’s cinematography captures the wide open emptiness of gloomy seascapes beaten by winds and endlessly suffused by a dank and dreary fog. The old buggers (quite literally) are on their last legs, rationed in their movements and deprived of any kind of physical enjoyment with limited contact with the outside world. It’s a sobering regime but a bearable one, until one night a troubled fisherman Sandokan (Roberto Farías) fetches up in the front garden hurling an unsavoury humiliating accusations at the one of the priests. His gripe, it appears, results from being repeatedly sexual abused in childhood by one of the priests. This toe-curling outpouring is unspeakably filthy and the men of God are mortified by this public take-down that is met the follow day by the arrival of Father García (Marcelo Alonso) with a mission to close down this cosy little seaside set-up. Father García is rather sultry and inappropriately attractive for the job in hand, leaving us wondering about his own motives in the scandalous affair.
THE CLUB is a sinister and suspenseful piece of filmmaking. A palpable tension hovers over proceedings like heavy fog drifting in from the sea; continually threatening but always managing to contain is subversive undercurrents. Guillermo Calderón and Daniel Villalobos contribute to a screenplay that villifies the characters but never completely demonises them, leaving much wit and wisdom for all to enjoy in the devilish den of iniquity. “I am the king of the repressed,” says Father Vidal (Castro). Darrain’s El Club is not an edifying story but an fascinating one. Meredith J Taylor.
ON RELEASE FROM 25 MARCH 2016 | REVIEWED AT BERLINALE 2015
COURT is a mature and analytical debut for first time director Chaitanya Tamhane, and won him the Orrizonti Prize at Venice Film Festival (2014): Not only does it deal with the disturbingly inefficient court system in India, but also the confrontation of different social classes, cultures and generations.
In Mumbai, in the state of Maharashtra, a folksinger and political activist Narayan Kamble (Sathidar) is accused of causing the death by suicide of a sewer worker: allegedly, one of his songs called for “all sewer workers to commit suicide”. His lawyer, an upper class Gujurati, Vinay Vora (Vivek Gomber, who also produced the film), tries to convince judge Sadavarte (Joshi), that his client is innocent since there is no proof of suicide. But prosecutor Nutan (Kulharni) is adamant about Kamble’s guilt: she uses colonial laws from Victorian times and all sorts of prejudice to convince the judge, asking for no less than twenty years imprisonment for the accused. And although Kamble is a native of Maharashtra, the folk singer is also a lower-caste Marathi. But Mumbai is a huge cosmopolitan city; home to people whose heritage is from other states, at both ends of the social scale. Nutan’s ideology is that of a petite bourgeoise, disliking Kamble for the simple fact that he is a Dalit (Untouchable), whether guilty or not, and she is afraid of any subversive activity (how ever far-fetched) the singer might engage in.
After the widow of the dead sewer worker testifies that her husband never talked about suicide, but was suffering from the sulphur gases of the sewage system, Vora at least gets bail for his client, paying the 100 000 Rupees himself, with no hope of seeing any of the money. But Kamble returns from prison to publish his poetry and is arrested again for breaking the rule of his bail conditions. With a whole month of court holidays coming, Vora tries to save the 65 year-old singer from another prison stretch.
Courtroom dramas are usually full of emotional confrontations and dramatic incidents, but COURT showcases the rather pedestrian system where postponements and archaic laws dominate proceedings. Tamhane claims the idea came about: “When I attended a non-descript lower court in suburban Mumbai, the sheer lack of drama, and the casualness with which life and death decisions were being made, sparked my imagination”. But COURT is much more than a matter of how the law is applied: Vora is clearly a member of the new upper-class, and whilst his parents are traditional and only interested in grandchildren, their son loves his bachelor life. In contrast, prosecutor Nutan is an ordinary, middle class mother who cooks for her family and talks non-stop about groceries.
COURT is an immersive and engaging film: DoP Mrinal Desai’s widescreen images are precise: in the courtroom scenes he uses a static camera, showing the rigid system in all its ponderings. On the outside, everything is lively and fluid, in contrast the courtroom sessions, with their biased rules and incompetent procedures, take up most of the day. Tamhane never forces the tempo, letting everything unravel gradually, including the well-drawn personalities who are full of contradictions arising from a society where the pre-colonial world view and the modern, enlightened but crass materialistic society collide. AS
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED ARTHOUSE VENUES FROM 25 MARCH 2016 Winner: Orizzonti Award for Best Film and Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Debut Film, Venice Film Festival 2014 | More info: www.day-for-night.org/court-film
Cast: Ruth Negga, Douglas Henshall, Tom Brooke, Michelle Duncan, Ben Gallagher, Sorcha Groundsell
87 min | UK Germany | Drama
It may be a truism, but the saying that the second film is always more difficult is again proved right, this time in the case of Scott Graham (Shell), whose IONA, in many ways similar to Shell, is disappointing.
The Aberdeen writer director has set his narrative on a small Scottish island, where Iona (Negga), arrives with her son Bull (Gallagher), to take shelter in the place where she grew up. Bull has killed his violent policeman father raping his mother. The young man is guilt ridden and the religious community on the island gives him some comfort. But this all changes when he falls in love with Sarah (Groundsell), a teenager who is dumb and unable to walk due to an accident caused by the negligence of her father Matthew (Brooke). Sarah’s mother Elizabeth (Duncan), Iona’s half sister, has a very ambivalent relationship with Iona, suspecting her (rightly) of having a carnal relationship with her father Daniel (Henshall). After Bull sleeps with Sarah – enabling her to stand again – his trauma is re-ignited and he runs towards the cliffs, where two men follow him.
IONA is all rather enigmatic, and even when we discover some of the characters’ motivations and relationships, this drama remains rather unsatisfying with an overriding tone of guilt and remorse but few explanations. As with Shell, an extended short, Scott Graham commits the same error with IONA: the narrative feels 0ver-stretched and shrouded in an atmosphere of doom and gloom, from which there is no conclusion. The rationale behind the behaviour of the whole cast is always in doubt, particularly since everyone appears to hiding something. IONA also suffers a structural problem: too often there is a brooding silence; looks are exchanged and the whole tempo slows down, only to explode in the final minutes. DOP Yoliswa von Dallwitz evokes the limpid delicacy of the island landscape achieving the same feel as in Shell – with washed out hues for the scenes in the small, old-fashioned cottages. Dialogue is threadbare thrusting the focus onto the acting with some moving performances from Douglas Henshall and Ruth Negga doing their best to maintain our interest in this rather slim but touching affair. AS
Cast: Kristen Wiig, Sebastian Silva, Tunde Adebimpe, Reg. E. Cathey, Mark Margolis
100min USA/Chile Drama
Sebastian Silva (Crystal Fairy, The Maid) treats us to a feel-good-movie about a gay couple trying to become parents with the help of their female friend – or does he? Set in Brooklyn’s gentrified community of hipsters and would-be artists, Silva’s comedy of manners turns into a nightmare.
Mo (Adebimpe) and Freddy (Silva) would like a baby. Their best female friend Polly (Wiig) is only too willing to help out as her biological clock is ticking overtime. But Freddy’s sperm count is too low and Mo is at first reluctant to produce the sperm, driving the others crazy with his procrastination. Freddy is a would-be artist – like many in the neighbourhood – and tries to produce a performance act for a show, organised by a gallery; his contribution is called ‘Nasty Baby’, where Freddy and his friends take on the roles of babies – Silva lets no doubt arise about how embarrassing his ‘art’ is. When the trio travels to visit Mo’s parents outside New York, the friction between the hipsters from Brooklyn and the traditional lifestyle of Mo’s family becomes apparent in a repressed way – even though it spurns Mo on, to take the plunge. In a hilarious scene we witness the use of the full set of paraphernalia needed for artificial insemination. Whilst focussing on the would-be-parents, we may have overlooked a mentally disturbed character “The Bishop” (Cathey), who harasses people on the street; is clearly homophobic (attacking Polly for visiting the gay couple) and wakes the men up every morning at seven, using his noisy leaf blower – even though there are no leaves left. A friendly neighbour (Margolis) tries to mediate, but something in Freddy snaps, setting in motion a night in which he drags all his friends into a true Shakespearean drama.
Yes, in hindsight, there’s more than one sign of things to come – but hey, our trio is so lovable, that the audience is rooting for them unreservedly. Here we have the ultimate dream protagonists: a mixed race gay couple (with Mo being the peace-loving black teddy bear), a caring health worker (Polly) and lots of funny artist friends who might not do very much, but are so cool. What Silva is asking the audience to do is look behind the easy-go lucky facades presented to us: “It’s just an elitist group that can do and live a life like that. Most people in the world have to do a real job to make money, but in New York you have people doing the most whimsical things”. And he goes even further: “The film looks at how people are being displaced from their original homes, and displaced by rich kids buying everything. This film is a fable and lesson for these hipsters”.
Shot mainly with a handheld camera, DOP’s Sergio Armstrong’s images are truly chaotic, just like the lives of the protagonists. Everyone races around; permanent mobility is seen as a replacement for focus – the only exception is the Abyssinian cat who is more manhandled than petted by Freddy and, exceptionally for her species, not afraid of water – hence the cute scene in the bathroom), . The acting ensemble is impressive, particularly Wiig who tries not to show her vulnerability and emerges as a sort of “Alice in a (as it turns out) very troubled Wonderland”. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 8 APRIL 2016 | NASTY BABY WON THE TEDDY AWARD AT BERLINALE 2015
Cast: Kristen Wiig, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Robbins, Wes Bentley, Joan Cusack
87min | Comedy | US
In Shira Piven’s WELCOME TO ME, a mentally unstable woman becomes an unlikely TV personality. Alice Klieg is what is politely called ditzy: but her borderline bipolar personality disorder goes full throttle when she quits her meds on winning the Mega-Millions lottery. Narcissistic tendencies to the fore, Alice (Kirsten Wiig) buys a 15 million dollar TV Vanity slot: a programme entirely dedicated to herself.
Eliot Laurence’s script perfectly portrays the ‘me me’ generation in this amusing, kooky and off the wall comedy that won’t suit everyone. But if you’re a fan of Wiig and her bizarre antics then WELCOME TO MEwill certainly appeal. There’s a strange fascination to her portrait of mental illness that somehow reminds us of many people we actually know. Tim Robbins’ psychoanalyst Dr Daryl Moffet brings his own dry wit to the party taking the edge off Alice’s endlessly cloying self belief in an understated comedy performance of his own. Robbins’ is a welcome addition to the cast and a calm and balanced foil to the ongoing silliness, which includes a scene where Alice floats into her show on a boat and shares her deepest sexual longings. Wiig’s Alice is both vulnerable and attention-seeking with her food fads, putative spirituality and nymphomaniac behaviour. But when Alice steps into her Vet’s scrubs to operate on dogs during the live show there’s a distinct feeling amongst animal lovers that this is a bridge too far.
James Marsden plays the head of the TV station who cow-tows to Alice’s whims hoping her money will finance his ailing TV station while his study director (Joan Cusack) is just appalled and strung out by having to tolerate the endless drivel. Occasionally wince-worthy, endlessly bizarre and sometimes funny: WELCOME TO ME will go down well if you’re looking for light-hearted relief over the Easter break. Mental health is no laughing matter and, out of respect, Piven’s narrative always teeters on the brink of tragedy in this clever portrait of mainstream madness MT
WELCOME TO ME IS ON GENERAL RELEASE and EXCLUSIVE TO TO Sky Store on March 25.
Cast: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin, Elena Kampouris
94min | USA | Comedy Drama.
British director Kirk Jones made his name with a string of watchable comedy dramas such as Nanny McPhee and Everybody’s Fine. In MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2, he joins forces with writer Nia Vardalos, who carries the story forward from the original film, directed by Joel Zwick. With the same verve and the same cast as Part One, Kirk again conjures up the ebulliently loving and often overbearing nature of these family-oriented Mediterraneans.
Not much has changed for Toula (Vardalos) since she got married to Ian (Corbett) – if possible, things have got worse. Not only is she trying to motivate their 17-year old daughter Paris (Kampouris) to study at NW University in Chicago, so she can keep her at home; but her parents Gus (Constantine) and Maria (Kazan) have found out that they were not technically married in the first place and now want to be marry for real – in a big way. Toula and Ian’s marriage is on life support, as they rarely see each other: poor Toula is still slogging it out at her parent’s restaurant ‘Dancing Zorba’s’. All generations of the Portocalos clan live in three houses next to each other. Privacy is impossible and apart from everyone living on top of each other, hordes of relatives are likely descend at any moment on their unsuspecting in-laws. This status quo is fine for most of the elder generation, but Toula and Ian’s love life is often conducted in their own driveway – with the whole family as inadvertent voyeurs. Aunt Voula (Martin) always knows best and wants to be in charge of the wedding preparations but Toula does all the real work while her grandmother blithely bets the family finances away on her mobile. Gus torments everybody with his purported blood line to Alexander the Great and Gus and Maria’s wedding plans continually threaten to go off the rails.
Portocalos’ family is shown larger than life: faults and idiosyncrasies are highlighted, nobody is spared. The men in the family (apart from a weak Ian) are shown as overgrown babies, relying on their wives to get them trough life. But Vardalos never denounces her characters, showing them simply as frightened emigrants, trying to recreate the lifestyle they left behind in their beloved homeland. Emotions may be cloying at times, but they are enduring; relationships are not discarded in the face of difficulty. DoP Jim Denault expresses the histrionics in bold primary colours using long panning shots to show the circus atmosphere of family life, where clowns often run the show. Vardolos is impressive as the heroine, tragic and comic by turns, and there is valiant support from a sterling support, particularly John Corbett as her husband, Ian. Although My big fat Greek Wedding 2 lacks the spontaneity of the original, it still stands as a humane exploration of old world values colliding with contemporary life in the USA. AS
Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans Elizabeth Moss, James Purefoy, Keely Hawes
119min | Drama | UK
J G Ballard would turn in his grave if he saw Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of his 1975 novel High-Rise. It has Tom Hiddleston as Dr Robert Laing who lives in one of those arrogant ’70s brutalist tower blocks: nowadays these soaring monoliths belong to offshore buyers, bought as investment vehicles and mostly lying vacant. But Ballard, echoing the classic British class system, had the rich occupying the best penthouses while the poorer residents got the lower floors. A doctor, Laing is somewhere in the middle with one of those high walled balconies where he sunbathes naked, trying to keep the status quo as the ‘squashed middle’. There’s no need to leave the building – all the shiny mod cons are on site – but in this microcosm of society the pecking order goes gradually awry: the ‘lower’ classes try to move to the superior flats and as the delicate ecology of this ‘garden pond’ goes septic, mayhem ensues. J G Ballard was a clever chap. But Wheatley ain’t so bright.
The first problem with co-scripter Amy Jump and Wheatley’s film is the lack of visible contrast between their classes. Nowadays, everyone looks the same whether they’re rich, poor or middling. Without this crucial delineation the narrative comes unstuck – unless you’ve read the book (and luckily they’ve got producer Jeremy Thomas on board to ensure the film gets out there). When the building services start to malfunction (lifts break down, water leaks and so on), the residents only cooperate with their fellow men in getting water and going about the building. It starts with Richard Wilder (Luke Evans), a lower floor aspiring resident who makes a bid to move higher in the status quo, leading his co-residents into rebellion. Crass and rather beligerent, he is also a conspicuous alpha male who enjoys his wild parties and blaring music. Hiddleston keeps his head down: suave and pleasantly poker-faced, adapting chaemelion-like to every situation, he seems the only character with any calm self-possession (poor squashed polite middle classes); Sienna Miller’s Charlotte Melville is his female admirer (spying him from her flat above): quick-witted and cannily pragmatic, she also swims with his tide. Wilder’s wife, Helen (Elizabeth Moss) is the vulnerable earth mother who men just want to protect. Jeremy Irons (Royal) the building’s architect, pontificates from the more luxurious penthouse; he saw his project as a vanity statement and “crucible for change”.
There’s so much glorious material here: and a fabulous cast who do their best (while others wanders aimlessly about) but Wheatley’s HIGH-RISE is a structureless hiding to nowhere replete with aimless plotlines as Wheatley and Jump flounder around in their mammoth budget to create a towering inferno of crude and lurid style over substance ending in a multi-story muddle just waiting for the wrecking ball. At best a creative experiment; at worst a never-ending nightmare that far overstays its welcome at two hours: It may have taken forty years for High-Rise to make it to big screen but this is one disaster movie that’s a disaster in every sense of the word. MT
Xavier Giannoli’s portrait of the Roaring Twenties in Paris is neither a satire nor a celebration of the artistic life of the era; best described as a study of lonliness and self-delusion – even Catherine Frot’s stirring performance as the eponymous chanteuse cannot save this ill-advised and overlong drama from descending into tedium.
Frot, who has seen much better days in films like La Tourneuse de Pages, has to sing her heart out to keep the film alive. Her character is obviously a terrible singer, paying her way on the concert platform with her own enormous wealth. Her unsupportive husband George (Marcon) usually arrives too late at her concerts – his sports car always ‘giving up the ghost’ at the same spot – a running gag used too often. But then, repetition is the main curse of MARGUERITE: her black valet Madelbos (Mpunga) tries again and again to con her audience and journalists with bribes to attend these embarrassing soirees, the singer flirts with younger men, and the flower arrangements to mark the ‘greatness’ of her performances grow to monstrous proportions. Instead of emotion, we get pantomime; instead of characters we have caricatures and, worst of all, every move is telegraphed.
The opulent production design makes one one wonder how costs could have been spent more wisely and the dreadfully contrived ending sends everyone rushing home before the final credits have rolled – just to escape this unspeakably noisy, over-bearing and unimaginative caricature of a film where the only laughs are involuntary, directed at the majority of unfortunate collaborators. MT
Where NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT studied conditions in the Atacama Desert, THE PEARL BUTTONfocuses in sparkling 2k digital on the medium water, in an attempt to link the element with the disappearance of five native tribes of Patagonia and the genocide of countless political prisoners during Pinochet’s dictatorship.
A bright light shining through a block of crystal imbedded with drop of water seems an exciting way to open a documentary on how water came to be on the Earth. But after a brief look at celestial comets that purportedly conveyed the element to our planet, the narrative then wends its way into the tribal question to examine the ancient seafarers who once inhabited the southern tip of Patagonia (Land of the Large Feet). Chile benefits from a massive 2,670 mile seaboard, providing a fabulous climate for a successful wine industry, but its maritime possibilities appear to have been thwarted by the tragic wiping out of much of this seagoing ancestry in the early 1800s, by settlers intent of making the region their home. Three survivors of these tribes still keep their native tongues of Kawesqar, Yagan and Selk’nam alive and they give testament to a vibrant past when they circumnavigated over 600 miles of the regions southern seaways and lived completely at one with nature. Guzman combines his interviews with fascinating archival footage showing some eerie photographs of tribal indians painted with body designs and garments resembling the klu kluk clan.
The title of the film comes from a young Yagan teenager who was sold to the British Navy for the price of a pearl button in 1830. It emerges that a pearl button was also discovered welded to a metal girder discovered at the bottom of the sea during Pinochet’s reign of political terror and indicating widespread genocide of innocent people. Ultimately these historical tragedies are so individually important that they each deserve a separate film rather than one that runs for under two hours.
That said, Guzman has made a visually extraordinary film that wafts over the magnificent scenery and glacial landscapes of this South American nation. A gently meditative voiceover wafts over us providing space for contemplation but leaving us feeling both bewildered and unsatisfied. MT
BERLINALE 5-15 FEBRUARY 2015 | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE
Cast: Liron Ben-Shlush, Dana Ivgy, Yaakov Dniel Zada
90min | Psychological drama | Israel 2014.
NEXT TO HER is a startlingly honest first hand account of one woman’s experience caring for her mentally handicapped sister. In her screenwriting debut Israeli actress Liron Ben-Shlush avoids sentimentality and voyeurism to offer a candid and often moving drama exploring the coal face caring for the physically challenged.
Apart from her day job as a site manager for a school, Chelli (Ben-Shlush) has cut herself off from the world to be her sister Gabby (Ivgy) primary carer. The two of them live in a small, desolate flat where they share everything, including a bed: they even bath together. Gabby has the mental age of a two year old, and needs permanent supervision. When Chelli’ mother visits, Gabby plays up, and head butts her. It seems that only Chelli is able to contain Gabby’s unruly behaviour. But the social worker is not happy that Gabby is left alone for many hours a day, and arranges a place in a day-care centre for her. Chelli is slightly miffed when she discovers Gabby likes the centre and has bonded well with Sveta, a leading member of the staff. Suddenly, with more time on her hands, Chelli arranges a date with Zohar (Zada), the PE substitute teacher at her school, who still lives with his mother at the age of 34. Chelli is keen on sex and irritated that Zohar gets on well with Gabby. After Zohar moves into the cramped apartment, Chelli’s jealousy gets worse when she finds out Gabby is pregnant and throws Zohar out, without even looking for an alternative scenario.
Every relationship in a caring capacity, professional or private, is defined by the interdependency between carer and patient. This goes particularly for relationships of this kind between family members where boundaries are even more easily transgressed. Although she lacks freedom, Chelli is very much in control of the relationship and Gabby is dependent on her for everything. It is only too human for Chelli to feel superior – and to enjoy this feeling. When first Sveta, then Zohar show that they have an emotional input with Gabby, Chelli feels challenged. Without giving Zohar a chance, she abruptly reduces the relationship with her sister to the status quo, where she has total control of her symbiotic bond. Zohar has a similar interdependent relationship with his mother, mirroring Chelli’s relationship with Gabby. After Zohar moves in, the space seems to shrink even more, and Chelli has a job on her hands trying to in vain to get Gabby used to sleeping alone.
DOP Amit Yasour Ron Zikno evokes the claustrophobic oppression of this domestic set-up with dark, brownish hues that lighten up when the action moves out to the roof terrace of the block of flats or the school grounds. Directed by her real life husband, Asaf Korman, Ben-Slush and Ivgy interact impressively, the latter having made an in depth study of the mentally handicapped to prepare for her part which she pulls off impressively. Korman directs with instinctive sensitivity, trying successfully to keep the middle ground between film action and the real life events they are based on. AS
Writer|Director: Robert Eggers | Cast: Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Harvey Scrimshaw | 90mins | Horror | US Canada
THE WITCH is a genuine horror story set in the Puritan heartlands of New England in the early part of the 17th century. Sumptuously-mounted with meticulous attention to detail and atmosphere, Robert Eggers’ rigorously-scripted indie debut successfully tells a tale of witchcraft suggested by the prevailing climate of religious hysteria and folkloric belief, that touches a family of devout Christian settlers.
In this indie curio, which scratches at the edges of mainstream horror, writer-director Eggers orchestrates the atmospheric setting, unnerving score, morose tone and fervent performances to create a film that is more laudable and impressive than particularly errifying or surprising. Precision framing and gorgeous period costumes also go to give THE WITCH serious arthouse appeal although it is unlikely to shock the usual horror crowd.
The story is set about fifty years before the Salem Witch Trails. It concerns a family who have been exiled from the mainstream Puritan church and close community over some religious difference of opinion. Vowing to make a go of things with a small farm deep in the forest, the father (Ralph Ineson) nevertheless seems ill-prepared for the task ahead with the birth of their latest child keeping the slightly histrionic mother (Kate Dickie) preoccupied with her small twins Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas (Lucas Dawson). Meanwhile young son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) is capable of looking after the livestock with the help of his teenage sister, the open-faced and pleasant Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy). But the baby suddenly disappears during a full moon, seemingly carried off by a red-cloaked stooping figure who is later seen anointing her decrepit naked body in blood and gore.
To put these events in context, the 17th century was still a dangerous time to live outside established community settlements. Native Indians roamed New England and folklore created a climate of suspicion and fear. Infant mortality was extremely high, but the mother is unable to overcome her grief as it spills over affecting the wellbeing of the family. Their situation deteriorates as household items go missing, the goat sickens and the weather turns inclement and food supplies dwindle. To help the disconsolate father, Caleb and Kate venture into the forest to look for food with the rifle. All they find is a strange rabbit who evades their bullets. The pair become separated and Caleb finds himself outside a cottage where a tousled hair siren beckons him in. At this point the narrative swerves away from the witches and focuses on the family as it starts to implode. Threats of violence are bandied about and the mother starts to point the finger of blame at Thomasin, accusing her of witchcraft.
Eggers’ script has plenty of old English personal pronouns flying around and the religious fervour steadily ignites with some remarkable outbursts from a superb cast who embrace the tragic events with escalating hysteria in scenes of mounting melodrama. To to his credit, Eggers keep things plausible :THE WITCH could serve as a timely metaphor for the state of the family in the 21st century. MT
The Coen brothers’ HAIL, CAESAR is the starry Berlinale 2016 opener, bringing a touch of FiftiesHollywood glamour to this year’s festival and starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton and Channing Tatum and Alden Ehrenreich.
Underneath its all-singing, all-dancing comedy pretensions and Busby Barclay showstoppers Channing Tatum Does a Comme des Garcons style vignette) lies the real-life story of a saintly studio ‘fixer’ Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), whose days are dedicated to serving the studio’s interest in an era where the studio controlled the actors, writers et al. Mannix is a decent man who does good by everyone he works with; not unlike the worthy Larry Gopnik in the Coens’ much undervalued A Serious Man. Hail is a mainstream commercial caper and Mannix is a suaver operator, that said. A devout Catholic with zealous confessional habits: his worst sin is nicking a few ciggies – he’s trying to stop smoking; his job is to ‘physically’ produce a picture called Hail, Caesar! aka A Tale of The Christ which has the studio’s man of the moment Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) starring in the lead as a Roman aristocrat who roots for Jesus, so impressed is he by ‘seeing the light’.
Dealing with his daily dose of prima donnas (male and female) Mannix copes with good grace and calm control thanks to the services of his hyper efficient PA who always manages to help him find a happy Hollywood ending. Apart from Hail, Caesar! He’s managing Scarlett Johanssen’s accidental pregnancy as the ballerina star of a pool-based musical and Ralph Fiennes in a Noel Coward turn as the director (Laurence Laurentz) of a dainty drawing room drama. Although Fiennes is slightly underused here, his owning leading man Hobi is a vehicle for the talents of Alden Ehlenreich who is dynamite as a Western star with a spectacular sideline in lassoing, and who also ends up saving the studio with his streetwise charm.
The butt of the Coen’s Jewish-style humour here is Catholism and although it manages not to offend, it doesn’t quite get it either – perhaps it’s easier to make a comedy out of a religion that’s closer to your heart and they should leave the Catholics to the likes of John Michael McDonagh or his brother Martin. Despite that, the script is whipsmart and thanks to some deft editing keeps on firing like a kalishnakov with some really entertaining moments, particularly when Frances McDormand’s editor gets her scarf caught in the editing machine.
But Mannix’s biggest problem is that Baird Whitlock has vanished, kidnapped by Hollywood communists. These old, disgruntled writers hold their captive at a grand Malibu beach house where they ruminate over tea and cakes as to why their scripts never made them rich.- another underlylimg Coen theme. But as they await a $100,000 ransom payment, these salon Marxists try to enveigle Baird into their way of thinking. As Baird, Clooney gets a dorkish role which gives him plenty of opportunity to show off his thighs and his clever comedy skills while still being every inch a star (and clearly not just a pretty face).
Star power also comes in the shape of Tilda Swinton who plays identical twin sister gossip columnists who compete to dish the Hollywood dirt. But Eddie has his hand on the pulse as he beavers round cleverly manoevring Hobie into dating his co-star Carlotta Valdez (Veronica Osorio), providing another glittering sideshow. Mannix is also toying with a temptingly lucrative offer that would allow him more ‘family time’ but clearly less work satisfaction – another evergreen theme.
In the end, the Coens manage to deliver a film that Frank Capra would be proud of, premise wise. The hotch potch doesn’t quite coalesce but it’s an entertaining charmer that sprinkles stardust and glamour on its more weighty themes to deliver that classic Hollywood tenet the ‘happy ending’.
Mannix is the eternal everyman; the good shepherd leading his flocks and bringing them to safety each night. The man everyone wants as their friend or partner when the champagne glasses are put away. And Josh Brolin plays him well in a role that puts him firmly up there as a seasoned star in the Hollywood firmament. MT
The Austrians are very good at taking ordinary life and turning into horror at Venice this year. In the same vein as Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997), Ulrich Seidl’s (Im Keller) wife and collaborator, Veronika Franz, makes her directorial debut with, along with Seidl’s nephew, Severin Fiala, in this vicious and expertly-crafted arthouse piece full of malevolence and wicked twists, set in a slick modern house buried in the Austrian countryside.
In the heat of summer, nine-year-old Elias is enjoying the school hols with his twin brother Lukas (played superbly by debut actors of the same name). They appear normal boys: swimming, exploring the woods, and keeping giant cockroaches as pets. But in the pristine lakeside home, their TV exec mother has made some draconian changes. After a relationship breakdown, she is recovering from facial surgery and bandaged up literally like a ‘mummy’, in a draconian new regime (to assist healing) she has banned all friends from visiting the house while her recuperation takes place in total privacy. Nothing wrong with that, but the boys misinterpret her behaviour as a sinister sign that things domestic are going downhill and start to wonder whether this is an imposter or really their mother. The more they question her for re-assurance, the more fractious and distant, though strangely vulnerable and scary, she becomes. Reacting against her instinctively, the boys become convinced that their former warm and affectionate parent is a strange intruder, and decide to take control of the situation with a series of unpleasant and downright vicious tests.
Franz and Fiala create an atmosphere of mounting suspense with clever editing, minimal dialogue and the use of innocent techniques that appear more sinister and unsettling when taken out of context: window blinds that appear to signal morse code; a bloodshot eye in the bathroom eye; crunchy biscuits that sounds like cockroaches – all harmless in themselves yet unsettling and this startling paean to unbequemlichkeit, in this context. Martin Gschlacht’s cinematography switches between lush landscapes, sterile interiors and suggestive modern art to inculcate a sense of bewilderment and unease. Susanne Wuest is perfectly cast as the icy, skeletal blond matriarch with menace. The use of several characters to enforce local religious traditions and sensibilities help to ramp up tension and subversive humour: the overweight Red Cross couple, the sinister Sexton and a Catholic priest. The innocent boys transform into everyday psychopaths due to their lack of early maternal love or support, bring to mind those terrible kids from The Shining, The Innocents and even Cronenburg’s The Brood. With the complex manipulation of sound and music, this is a very clever film which contrasts images of visceral revulsion with those of serene beauty, as reality and fantasy start to blur. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2014
MUSTANG, SON OF SAUL, A WAR, THEEB and EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT were the five contenders for the Academy Award 2016, BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM. All concern the evergreen theme of conflict: Three are poignant stories told against a backdrop of War. SON OF SAUL: the memories of a Hungarian Jew forced to end the lives of his compatriots during the Second Word War: A WAR is the story of a normal family man caught up in a war thousands of miles from home and THEEB, Jordan’s first ever Oscar contender, a ravishing desert drama that takes place during the First World War. MUSTANG looks at an ongoing war of another kind and follows a group of Turkish girls who stand up against male subjugation in a male dominated society. Finally EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT is a black and white fantasy adventure that straddles two different generations of a journey exploring lost traditions and cultures, touched by the horrors of Colonialism. And the winner is SON OF SAUL.
MUSTANG | France | 2016 | 97mins | Drama
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT | Colombia | 2015 | 125mins | Drama
Indian documentarist Hemal Trivedi joined Canadian born filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi for an insight study of Jihadi incubator cells as a reaction to the death of her friend in the Mumbai terror attack of 2008. The result is a chilling portrait of the Red Mosque cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi who has declared war on the rest of Pakistan and is fighting to impose the Sharia law on the whole, secular state.
In Pakistan there are over a thousand Madrassas (seminars) led by the Red Mosque cleric Abdul Aziz in Islamabad, whose benevolent appearance during the documentary cannot mask his true focus: to overthrow the secular government of Pakistan with force. He is permanently surrounded by machine gun-carrying goons, their number in double figures. He wants to impose Sharia Law all over the country, and where better to start than with the young. ‘Students’ at the Madrassas range from four to sixteen. During this time they start to memorise the Koran on a daily basis from dawn to nine pm. Obviously, the younger ones cannot understand anything of what they are repeating endlessly, whilst shaking violently. The number of Aziz’s followers is put at 40 000, and it is difficult to understand how such a small minority can terrorise a country of nearly 200 million; but they do. Book and DVD burning is one of their weapons in their fight against Music, TV and sport. But Trivedi and Naqvi also show the longing of the young students at the Madrassas, to leave the strictly guarded institution and join their peers outside, who are watching cricket, the national sport of Pakistan, on TV.
The aim of Aziz and his followers is clear: to breed a new generation of Taliban fighters, akin to those who committed the Peshawar attack in 2007, where 132 were killed. Since then, the Taliban have destroyed 1200 state schools and over 50 000 people have been killed in Pakistan alone. After the Peshawar massacre, the military government of Pervez Musharraf put Aziz behind bars for 2 years, when he tried to leave the Red Mosque in Islamabad, surrounded by government troops, in a Burqua. And since January 2015, Aziz is under house arrest, after 145 students and teachers of state schools were killed in December 2014 alone.
AMONG THE BELIEVERSis told through the story of two young students Talha and Zarina. The latter one escaped the Madrassas by climbing over the wall to be re-united with her family in a village where the chief Tariq, has set up a school. Zarina is keen to re-join this school but it is closed down after attacks of the Taliban, Zarina, hardly fifteen, is married off by her impoverished parents. Talha, even younger than Zarina, has been put into the Madrassas by his parents for the same reasons: poverty is driving the parents of many children to offload them into the hands of the clerics. But Talha, unlike Zarina, loves the life in the Institute simply because he is fed regularly. His parents – the children are allowed one visit home per year – can see how much their son has changed, but it is too late: he is willing to become a martyr for the course. Nuclear physicist Perez Hoodbhoy seems to be the only person, brave enough to oppose Aziz on TV. The absence of any government figure in this documentary is proof of the successful terror of the Taliban.
DOPs Habib Ur Rehman and Haider Ali are literally in the faces of the participants. Close-ups, particularly of Aziz, dominate together with panoramic views of the poverty stricken countryside. The images of the book/DVD burning are very frightening, a reminder what may happen, if Aziz and his followers get their wish of “having Sharia laws all over the world”. Among the Believers is intense and very frightening indeed. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 11 MARCH 2016 at BERTHA DOCHOUSE AND VARIOUS ARTHOUSE CINEMAS NATIONWIDE
Cast: Charlie Plummer, Cory Nichols, Christian Madsen
98mins. Drama. US
Slim yet watchable and charismatically captured by writer director Felix Thompson in a feature debut that won Festival Audience Award at Tribeca this year KING JACK takes place one low-key summer in leafy New York state.
Charlie Plummer plays the Jack in question, the put-upon youngest son of a working class one parent family, who must fight or fall between the cracks, in this poignantly-painted social realist drama.
A visit from his younger cousin Ben (Cory Nichols) gives Jack a chance to pull rank and turn the tables on the little boy in a charmingly protective way never extended to him by his tough older brother or his over-worked depressive mother. This arthouse pleaser is authentically told, the touch is light, fresh and honest, the tone gently playful without ever resorting to sombre sentimentality or hard-edged intent; although the occasional bursts of violence are sharp and short-lived. Not a great deal happens that we haven’t seen before: childhood boyish pranks jostle with pubescent longings and ‘i’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ gameplay, as the boys get to know the local more mature girls. But it’s a winning formula that will keep teenage audiences on tenterhooks and the arthouse crowd immersed in its soft-peddle dramatic tension and its rites of passage storyline.
Plummer gives it his all as a free-wheeling, sensitive 15 year old boy perpetually harried by his brother Tom (Christian Madsen, clearly the son of Michael) with his mother an absent figure in most of his days. He is also bullied by a local mob led by a bolshy Shane and his mates. Keen on a local girl Robyn, (Scarlet Lizbeth) he’s persuaded to take a picture of his penis, which puts him in the line of fire for more humiliation when Shane and his gang attempt to get the better of him once and for all.
KING JACK was supported by The Sundance Institute, and its moody camera work and dreamlike framing, by DoP Brandon Roots, gives the piece the sultry feel of a summer softened by the warmth and verdant background of its Hudson Valley setting. Bryan Senti’s occasional guitar-led score is often softer than the action it accompanies. MT
NOW ON RELEASE FROM 29 FEBRUARY 2016| REVIEWED DURING LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015
In her first feature documentary, director/writer Jessica Edwards charts the life and career of Mavis Staples, born 1939 in Chicago. Mavis started her career in 1948 as part of her father’s Gospel group ‘The Staples’, and later, after the demise of the group, as a solo entertainer still going strong today: after 65 years, the last thing on her mind is retirement.
Mavis grew up on Chicago’s South Side, sharing a neighbourhood with Sam Cooke and Curtis Mayfield. Her father, Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staples (1914-2000) had emigrated from the South, and it took Mavis a while to find out that whilst she and her siblings (brother Pervis, sisters Cleotha, Yvonne) were singing Gospel, Dad’s guitar was pure ‘Blues’ – he had not forgotten his Missisippi roots. And neither did he forgot his harsh upbringing in the racially segregated South, were black women had to cross the pavement when a white person was walking towards them.
‘Pops’ and the ‘Staple Singers’ got in contact with Dr. Martin Luther King during the American Civil Rights Movement at the beginning of the 1960s. Around the same time, Mavis and her family met the young Bob Dylan, not very famous then, and the “Staples” performed his “Blowing in the Wind”. Dylan fell for Mavis and asked for her hand in marriage. But nothing came of it. Mavis shrugs her shoulders today with the throwaway comment: “We may have smooched”. For his part, Dylan is a lively interview partner, full of admiration for the ‘woman who got away’. Mavis was only married for a short time in 1964, but, as she explains: “I had the perfect father, no man could measure up to him”. Today, on her single career which started in 1994, she is nearly always accompanied by her sister Yvonne, “who enjoyed managing the group much more than singing”. Mavis’ long career, which led to musical co-operations with Prince, among others, led to her first “Grammy” in 2011 for the album “You are not Alone”.
Edwards succeeds in showing the feisty nature of the singer right from the beginning, at a live concert in her hometown of Chicago, and later at the Newport Folk Festival. Old concert clips from the latter and Wattstax, show that Mavis has not lost any of her bubbly energy and her empathy with the concertgoers is as strong as it was in Sixties. Newsreel and TV clips give us a glimpse of the musical history of the USA; a few too many “talking heads” only succeed in getting Mavis! closer to a feature length running time. As is often the case, less would have been more: Mavis Staples is far too much a forceful personality and has more than enough talent – she does not need the hagiographic approach Edwards chooses. AS
Cast: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Lili Simmons, Richard Jenkins
USA 2015, 132 min.
First time writer/director S. Craig Zahler has delivered the companion peace to Tarantino’s Hateful 8: slightly less obnoxious and with a narrative at least worth the name, Bone Tomahawk nevertheless falls victim to the gross and gratuitous violence served up in this Western cum Horror, exploiting the myths of the traditional genre.
When a bounty killer comes to the settlement of ‘Bright Hope’, he is followed by some weird creature – half Indian, half Zombie – wanting revenge for the killer’s desecration of the Indian burial site. The creature kidnaps not only the killer, but also one of he Deputy Sheriffs and Samantha (Simmons), wife of Arthur (Wilson), a rather peace-loving man, suffering from a leg wound. Sheriff Hunt (Russell) sets up to rescue the two, together with the bitter racist Brooder (Fox), his old deputy and ex-medic Chicory (Jenkins) and Arthur, who joins the group against the advice of the Sheriff and his Deputy. Brooder is killed and Arthur finally falls far behind, but reaches the mountain hideout of what turns out to be cannibals, in time for the showdown.
Some scenes are only just watchable, sometimes the gore is unflinching vile. The appearance of flesh eating Zombies in the middle of a desert makes no sense, particularly when Zahler tries so hard to emulate Ford’s The Searchers, only succeeding in making Brooder a soul mate of John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Chicory is supposed to be another Walter Brennan as Eddie in Hawk’s To Have and Have not – but Zahler is just a grave digger of past classics himself: showing a person ripped in half has nothing to do with serious cinema, never mind exceptional great ones.
DOP Benji Bakshi tries equally very hard to create images worthy of bygone eras, but he just copies and does not invent. Russell is a reliable lead: the trusty, slightly cynical and very tired. Matthew Fox, even though sometimes over the top, does create the menace and salaciousness of the eternal revenge killer. Wilson and Simmons are shown as a loving couple, but their characters are by far not fleshed out enough. Overall, Bone Tomahawkgives away any pretence to be serious film, by mixing a classic story with elements of a third rate Slasher movie. AS
Cast: Ulrik Munther, Mats Blomgren, Alexander Nordgren, Loa Ek, Wieslaw Komasa
100min | Drama | Sweden | Poland | France
It’s not easy to forget or forgive the past as a young man discovers in Magnus von Horn’s haunting Scandinavian Polish debut THE HERE AFTER. Lodz graduate von Horn clearly learnt his stuff in the legendary film school. The strength of his psychological drama is that we have no idea what has happened when John (Munther) is picked up by his father Martin (Blomgren) after serving time in a state institution. Clearly John has a violent past and Martin is a control freak. But John also shows signs of infantile regression when he is with his much younger brother Filip (Nordgren) who seems to be emotionally more mature than his older brother. When John goes back to school, we get an inkling of what might have happened: nearly all his mates are extremely hostile to and the teachers have no success in their arbitration. Then half way through the film, after John is attacked by a middle-aged woman in a supermarket, the audience start to get a clearer picture.
Secretly visiting the house of his victim, John meets Malin (Ek), who joined the school when John was away, and does not know much about the case. Surprisingly, John opens up to her: “They say I was like in trance, but I remember everything about it”. John seems to have had a special relationship with his grandfather (Komasa), but the old man is hardly talking any more and shoots the family dog, instead of calling a vet. When some of the boys throw stones through the windows of the John’s family house, he attacks them, and is brutally beaten up. Losing Malin’s trust after arguing with her, he confronts the victim’s mother in her home.
Instead of showing us the well-known world of Swedish conflict solution by talking and understanding, this is an extremely hateful and unforgiving environment, where only the teachers are ready to preach tolerance. The huge majority of students and their parents want John gone from the moment he returns. As for John, rehabilitation is near impossible: he lives alone with his guilt – his father just wanting to prove a point in having his son back at home, without really loving or even understanding him. His little brother Filip is torn between pity and fear that the shadow of guilt may fall on him too.
Malin is curious at first, but when the pressure of her peers gets too strong, she too abandons him as her ambivalent feelings are not strong enough to sustain a relationship under the circumstances. Using a palette of washed out hues, IDA cinematographer Lukasz Zal works his magic on the Swedish countryside that looks and cold and unwelcoming as the environment John finds at home and at school. The harsh lighting is a metaphor for the malice-ridden narrative. Munther, a pop star, is powerful in his understatement, and frightening when he loses his temper. THE HERE AFTER is a chilling and immersive account of crime and punishment. AS
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Bruno Ganz, Dean Norris, Martin Landau,
95min Thriller History
Atom Egoyan still has the power to pull an emotional punch, and even though REMEMBER doesn’t quite hit the highs of Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter it is a classy war-themed thriller with a relevant twist to its tightly scripted tale of revenge.
Christopher Plummer’s towering performance transforms this rather stolid affair into an emotional tour de force as Auschwitz survivor Zev Guttman who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and confined to a home after the death of his second wife Ruth. With time on his hands and the help of his fellow inmate Max (Landau) he hatches a plan to hunt down a former concentration camp guard Rudy Kurlander who lives under an assumed name in the USA. Rudy’s journey takes him from Canada to Ohio, then Idaho where he finds out that the Kurlander in question has already died. But his son (Norris), a state trooper, is an ardent Nazi like his father. who just a cook in the SS. Finally, in California, where Zev’s son Charles (Czerny) catches up with his father, henseems to have found the right man – but his name is not Kurlander.
REMEMBER’s rather formal structure is given an inventive, surprise-ending and Plummer holds our attention with his utterly believable turn as a dementia-ridden family man with a killer instinct, clearly homed during his war experiences and although Egoyan’s strict linear narrative takes some of the suspense away, he transforms little details into meaningful images: observations of the modern consumer world seen through the eyes of a septuagenarian make this feel real and even humorous, breaking up the sombre subject-matter. REMEMBER is old-fashioned but engaging – just the right film to see with the whole family on a Sunday afternoon. AF
ON RELEASE FROM 19 FEBRUARY 2016 |REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL | now SHOWING AT LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015
With loneliness and life expectancy increasing, Michel Franco’s third feature – a thriller entitled CHRONIC, seems entirely relevant but has deeply worrying implications. Don’t be put off by the subject-matter, the reason to see this slick psycho-drama is Tim Roth’s entrancing turn as a serial care-giver working in America. Set in an upmarket suburb of some West Coast town, Franco evokes an unsettling vibe from the opening scene where Roth, as David, appears to be watching a house from the privacy of his parked car. Franco holds this scene for just long enough for us to realise that this is not normal, bringing to mind Michael Haneke’s Hidden. David is looking after a terminally ill AIDS sufferer called Susan and this is where she lives. We first meet him, caring for her every need with an assisted shower. Smiling and serenely tolerant, David is the sort of nurse that anyone would wish for. He even attends Susan’s funeral shortly afterwards, but crucially seems evasive when her niece invites him to have coffee, claiming coldly that it wouldn’t be “appropriate”. Chatting to some strangers in a bar he tells them about the recent death of his wife ‘Susan’ from AIDS. David has other patients, each one gives his undivided attention often staying over and relieving other carers during their shifts. Totally dedicated to their wellbeing, it then emerges that he has his own apparently tragic backstory.
To reveal anymore about David would ruin this deliciously-paced, well-mounted drama with its stylish visuals and tightly-scripted plotline, for which it won Best Screenplay at Cannes this year. Despite a rather unsatisfactory finale, CHRONIC mulls over is a minefield of thorny and complex moral dilemmas that Franco weaves into his plotline leaving us to draw our own conclusions about David, his patients and the pitfalls of all aspects of the contempo care system. CHRONIC is spine-chilling in the most subtle way possible. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL RUNS UNTIL 2015 | Best screenplay winner | Cannes 2015 | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 19 FEBRUARY 2016
Director: Bill Guttentag Writers: Michael Ware, Justine A Rosenthal, Bill Guttentag
With: Michael Ware, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
77min Documentary Australia
A shocking hand-held video diary of the unravelling Iraq War invigorated by former Time and CNN journalist Michael Ware, who takes us through his stream of consciousness and comes to a stark conclusion.
When Ware heads out to Iraq his frame of mind seems sturdy and upbeat but the toll of bombings and hostilities gradually wear him down and his tone becomes more ruminative as he becomes increasingly appalled and obsessed with the rise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the dark and distinctly sinister beginnings of the Islamic State.
There’s nothing really new to report here but plenty of horrific images of suicide bombings and dismembered bodies; the documentary playing out like an extended youtube clip from the frontlines, distilled down to just over an hour from over ten years of footage recorded and brought to the big screen by director Bill Guttentag and co-writer Justine. Taking a scattergun approach, the film rambles on unevenly with a disorientating feel as limbs fly and vehicles ignite in the mayhem. Daniel Berg’s execution is shown and the car bombings at the Jordanian Embassy (2003). What the film does do to personalise the invasion and contextualise it within the evergreen theme of war and man’s tendency to succumb to a holocaust of psychopathic indifference towards his neighbour, whether soldier or civilian. This is particularly evident in the final scene of unspeakable horror.
In 2004 Ware headed up Time as it’s Bureau Chief in Baghdad and this leads to him becoming more directly involved with the insurgents as a go-between. He is responsible for publishing the famous tape of Berg’s execution but Ware stops short here of greater illumination and insight into his moral responsibilities as a journalist. He remarks, contentiously, that the American forces appear to be losing control in region.
The major climacteric of his term of office is where he avoids decapitation himself and is saved by one of his insurgent guides during a sortie in into the streets of Baghdad where his car is stopped by a man with a grenade. Rather than showing the ensuing footage, Ware only reports the events in narration, robbing the film of powerful visual impact. As the the saying goes “a picture tells a thousand words” and this lack of visual proof detracts from the narrative. Although the documentary raises provocative issues surrounding soldiering, reporting and voyeurism in a conflict zone, as chief protagonist, Ware appears at times to lack confidence in his mastery of events that took nearly a decade of his life.
ONLY THE DEAD | IN UK CINEMAS AND ON DIGITAL HD 15 FEBRUARY
Special Screening & Guest Panel – Curzon Soho, Monday 15 February | Sydney Film Festival Award Winner Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary
Dir: Craig Gillespie; Cast: Chris Pine, Casey Afflick, Holliday Granger, Eric Bana, Ben Foster
118 min. Drama USA
Set off the coast near the town of Chatham, Massachusetts in February 1952, THE FINEST HOURS tells the story of the “most daring sea rescue operation in history.” Whilst director Craig Gillespie (Fright Night) has come with some stunning images, the script somehow fails to bind the three main narrative strains together.
After a not particularly exciting courtship, Bernie Webber (Pine), a member of the Chatham Coastal Guard, is asked by Miriam (Granger) to marry her. The young man stutters to say no, but soon agrees to a wedding in April. But on February 18th two oil tankers break up near Cap Cod and Webber leads a small rescue boat with a crew of three, among them his mate Richard Livesey (Foster), to rescue the thirty odd seamen of the SS Pendleton, since all the other coast guard boots were helping the SS Fort Mercer.
The action shifts from the rescuers to the men on board of the Pendleton. Miriam accuses the strict Chief Warrant Officer of the Coast Guard, Daniel Cluff (Bana), of scarifying her future husband and his crew in a suicide mission. Indeed, some of Webber’s friends suggest that he should not leave the harbours, telling Cluff that he would not be equipped to overcome the 25 metre high storm waves. But Webber has none of it and reaches the Pendleton more by luck than judgement. After the majority of the survivors are on board the small rescue boat, one of the crew suggests to Webber to leave and come back for the rest of the seamen later. But Webber stays strong and what follows nect is nothing short of a miracle. “We are all going to die or to live”.
THE FINEST HOURS works best during the battle on board the Pendleton. Ray Sybert (Afflick), runs the ship to ground, against the will of some the men who want to use the life boat. The inside of the split tanker looks like a scene from Dante’s inferno, with the men working hard to keep the ship afloat. Miriam encounters some resentment from other citizen’s of Chatham, regarding a failed rescue mission of the past. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the small rescue boat is enhanced with dramatic effects. Overall, the CGIs help to make some memorable images: DOP Xavier Aguirresarobe captures the chaos and despair on the Pendleton with mesmerising panorama shots, creating a hell on the five levels of the ship cut in half. But the script lacks any coherence, with wooden acting reducing THE FINEST HOURS to an old-fashioned ‘boys own’ adventure yarn without any properly explored characters. AS
Dir.: David Leon | Cast: Stephen Graham, Michael Smiley, Giacomo Mancini, Rebecca Callard, Christopher Fairbank, Oliver Woollford | 93min l UK 2015 |
David Leon’s debut feature film debut ORTHODOX is really about the struggle of a Jewish man to keep his identity and make a living, whilst personal choices threaten to derail him. It has the same main cast as his 30 minute short film of the same title in 2012.
ORTHODOX has “Jewish Identity drama” written all over it: a young man secretly craves the approval of his father and the community, but his temperament is set against any compromises: he is a fighter, not only with his fists, but due to his determination to find his own way in life which is always undermined by his lack of judgement, leading him to pay for his guilt by keeping by committing criminal acts to keep himself in business.
Growing up as a orthodox Jew in North London, young Benjamin (Woollford) is teased and beaten by his school mates and takes up boxing to defend himself. This brings him into confrontation with his religious father, who disowns him, after his son insists on taking up the sport as a profession. The adult Benjamin (Graham) is over-compensating for his refusal by running his father’s butcher shop, which is running at a loss and that also alienates him from the Jewish community. Even though his wife Alice (Callard) hates Benjamin’s boxing in illegal fights to make ends meet, he is driven by self-destruction. Benjamin also totally misjudges the motives of the callous Shannon (Smiley) who is employed by the leaders of the Jewish community (among them Goldberg (Fairbank), to do the dirty jobs relating to tenant issues. Shannon simply delegates the harassment of the tenants to Benjamin – but after he burns down supposedly empty house, he finds himself in jail for the murder of a family. Shannon, who denounces him anonymously to the police, lusts after Alice and starts to threaten her. Together with Alice he is the victim of a systematic betrayal by the religious establishment, preaching humanity but persuading their profit-orientated activities with cold-blooded criminal means. When Benjamin returns from prison, he relies on more dirty jobs from Shannon, whom he still trusts. But when Benjamin meets young Daniel (Mancini), he also seems to be repeating all Benjamin’s mistake working for Shannon.
DOP Si Bell create a landscape of darkness, every location is imbued with gloom: the dilapidated estates, Benjamin’s home, the meeting place of the Jewish Elders and the boxing school where Benjamin picks up Daniel are all doomed, places of transition, soon to be abolished. The only light is in the flashbacks with young Benjamin: even though he gets beaten up, he stands up and fights back. Later on, all his strength has been sucked out of him, mainly by Smiley’s Shannon, a towering example of sheer creepy beastliness, reaching a level of Shakespearian proportions. Orthodox is a raw, uncompromising peace of drama featuring the destruction of man by a hypocritical religious establishment. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 19 FEBRUARY 2016 \ REVIEWED DURING THE UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 7 – 22 NOVEMBER 2015
Director | Cinematographer: Phil Grabsky | Documentary | UK 2016 | 87 min.
Phil Grabsky brings together the contrasting elements of the work and life of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), an early Impressionist painter who later turned his back on the movement he helped to establish – and the American millionaire who obsessively collected his work, Albert C Barnes.
Superbly photographed by David Bickerstaff at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia where part of the documentary is set; we learn how tailor’s son, Pierre August Renoir admired Manet and Corbet as a young man and instead of joining his friends for lunch, he visited the Louvre; rather like Sisley, Monet, Pisarro and Degas, who “learned more from their visits to the museum than at art school”. The group, and particularly Renoir, owed their living mainly to the art dealer Paul Durande-Ruel, who acquired over 1500 paintings of the father of the future filmmaker Jean Renoir. The art dealer in turn sold nearly 181 of these to Albert C. Barnes, founder of the Art Collection in Philadelphia. All these paintings at the Barnes Foundation are post 1880, a time when Renoir broke with the Impressionist movement after a visit to Rome, where he decided to give “up spontaneity in favour of something more solid”, the watershed being “Luncheon of the Boating Party” (1880/81), where on of the revellers was his future wife Aline Victorine Charigot, whom he married in 1890.
But after a few years, Renoir would return to a more expressionistic form, as in “Grandes Baigneuses (1897). Five years later, the painter developed rheumatoid arthritis, which in the end forced him to employ helpers, after he moved to the villa “Les Collettes” in Cagnes-sur-Mer at the French Riviera in 1907. During WWI, two of his sons were wounded, and his wife died of cancer. But his paintings, admired by Picasso and Matisse – the latter, who also moved to the South, visited Renoir at to show the older man his work – did not reflect the turmoil of war or his family life, instead he continued to paint serene portraits of mostly naked women in nature, such as “After the Bath” (1910). He was a prolific painter of the female body, which he often depicted as being passive and available.. His comments are, unfortunately equally misogynist (“Women should not think too much”), and critics called the women in his paintings “brainless and porcine, just available for men”. In one of his paintings, he showed two well-off men, flirting with young women, who were obviously financially worse off than them – a critic denouncing Renoir “because these women would become mistresses, not wives.” But Renoir, for whom the female body equalled nature, hoped that his paintings would be properly judged by future generations: “They will take fifty years to settle”.
The documentary suffers sometimes from too many talking heads and the long sequences of visitors at the Barnes Foundation, discussing rather banal aspects of the paintings, do not help either. But it captures the moment when is the moment when art history was in the making: Renoir’s ”The Artist’s Family” is x-rayed, to prove that Renoir over-painted a part of the picture, where he himself was standing with his wife and three children (among the future director Jean Renoir with an extravagant hat). Alas, no proof was found. The most moving aspect of the doc is the depiction of an older man still practising his skills despite his debilitating. While academic, Grabsky’s documentary offers a fascinating look at Renoir’s work, allowing the viewer insight into the Banes Foundation’s extensive collection. AS
OUT ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 16 February 2016. See the film here
Director Amy Berg | Producer: Alex Gibney | Narrator: Cat Power | Documentary US
In her biopic of the maverick artist Janis Joplin, which has its premiere here in Venice Film Festival, Amy Berg offers up a treasure trove of musical footage and interviews to flesh out a voluptuously generous portrait of an American sixties singer who sang from the heart and was tenderly in touch with her emotions: “maybe ambition is a quest for love, lots of love”.
Janis Joplin’s life was cut short when she died on October 4th, 1970 at the age of only 27, in the midst of a musical odyssey that had started to take a promising professional turn. In an era where most women were being housewives and mothers, Joplin was pushing out the boundaries of a musical career. Berg focuses on Joplin’s overwhelming desire to engage and interact with her audience rather than to be a star standing alone on a stage: “I like Music because it comes from emotion and creates emotion”. And this emphasis on her music as a gift to inspire is what ultimately makes Berg’s documentary JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE a winner on a human level.
With JANIS, Amy Berg is becoming somewhat of a star herself on the documentary stage. Deliver Us from Evil, and the upcoming Prophet’s Prey are recent examples of her remarkable ability to communicate difficult stories in a fascinating and absorbing way. Her films play out with the tension and resonance of great drama and by avoiding endless facts and figures, they illuminate their subject matter in appealing and comprehensive ways. And JANIS is no different. What we take away here is a portrait of a likeable, non-conformist who was dedicated to her craft and had the ability to inspire and impress everyone she met. Janis was not known for her physical beauty: she was once voted “Ugliest Man” by University of Texas male students – an episode that understandably crushed her – but her electrifying enthusiasm charmed and seduced men as she developed her craft. And although her life ultimately ended in tragedy, Janis had almost conquered her demons and come to terms with her unhappy early years as a woman who was, clearly, very different from her peers.
So Joplin emerges as a young woman who found she had a voice in her late teens. In the narration by Chan Marshall (Cat Power) we discover that she left home after university in Austin, Texas to go to San Francisco where she dated both men and women on the music scene and quickly became addicted to Methedrine, which sent her back to dry out at her parents’ back in Texas. After joining a popular band Big Brother and the Holding Company, she formed close links with Pig Pen and Country Joe McDonald in an industry that was dominated – and still is – by strong male personalities. There is a recurring motif of a train running down a track and this seems to celebrate Joplin’s spirit of always moving on to new challenges in the unknown, After a dalliance with the Kozmic Blues Band she went on to play at Monterey Pop and Woodstock, almost made a film with D A Pennebaker and gradually drifted on through a haze of drugs, drink, friends – Dick Cavett and Bob Weir (Grateful Dead) stand out – and lovers who remember her with great fondness and joy. There are frequent personal letters to her parents and her sister, who also appears on camera.
With JANIS, Amy Berg has distilled an intimate elixir of this charismatic force of nature, who wore her heart on her sleeve. When all is said and done – and the circumstances of Joplin’s tragic death are thankfully only mentioned briefly – what stands out is the tale of a pioneering woman who was loved and admired by everyone and who got better at the craft she valued most in her life. and that’s the most important part. This is not just a biopic for Joplin fans but for anyone fascinated by the music scene of the sixties. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | reviewed at VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2015
Irish humanist and aid-worker Christina Noble founded children orphanages for more than 700 000 victims of war in Vietnam. Writer/director Stephen Bradley’s tribute to her efforts is worthy in tone, but hampered by a clumsy script and an unconvincing realisation. It doesn’t do any justice to an extraordinary woman.
Told in linear narrative form, Bradley reveals how Christina Noble (an ebullient Cramer Curtis) loses her mother when she is ten. Her father, an alcoholic, neglects the family and the children are separated and put into orphanages where they have to work. During the late fifties, teenage Christina (Greene) is living rough in Dublin and is gang-raped. A Catholic, she is tricked into giving her baby away in the local home. Moving to Birmingham with a friend, she marries Mario, a Greek Cypriot bar owner. They have three children, but Mario is unfaithful and beats Christina up. Forced to leave and bring up her children alone. Having had ‘visions’ about Vietnam in Birmingham, she travels there as a middle-aged woman (O’Kane), and with the help of Madame Linh (Nguyen), starts to lay the foundations for her orphanages, after meeting two young, abandoned girls in the street.
It is understandable why Bradley chose to do this biopic of Noble; her life story literally cries out to be filmed. But Bradley’s schematic structure accumulates all the clichés possible during its three sections, which lack any continuity, making it difficult for the audience to appreciate fully the extent of Noble’s heroism. There are some attempts at humour: we see Noble talking to God in an very argumentative way, and attempting to imitate her own heroine Doris Day. DOP Trevor Forrest’s visual are uninspired, particularly in Vietnam, where he oscillates between postcard idyll and shocking realism. Overall, this is a simplistic hagiography, leaving the audience often un-engaged, in spite of the emotional input by the three actresses portraying Christina in the three stages of her life. AS
Cast: Mia Goth, Martin McCann, Douglas Russel, Olwen Fouere
104min Fantasy thriller UK
Stephen Fingleton’s monsyllabic fantasy thriller imagines an hostile, post-apocalyptic future where mentally fragile survivors are forced to forage and fend for themselves in the fertile wilderness. Trusting no one they grimly barter food, lodgings and even sexual favours as they eek out a grim existence.
Martin McCann plays an unattractive, unyielding man who allows a woman and her teenage companion to share his meagre smallholding on condtion the younger sleeps with him. But its an unhappy household where the women gradually plot against him as an atmosphere of uneasy hostility stealthily permeates their silvine tranquility. A judicious use of silence allows the ambient sounds of nature to make their presence felt: running water; rustling leaves; bated breath; stifled screams all add to an unnerving sense of doom and edgy anticipation in a world where ferility still holds the trump card from a female perpective. Elegantly framed and suberbly crafted THE SURVIVALIST is a triumph of ‘less is more’ filmmaking. In one scene, Damien Elliott’s camera hovers above the verdant woodland evoking an almost unworldy sense of forboding as eventually the three are forced to close ranks in another battle for survival when the threat from an encroaching enemy brings tragedy in its wake. MT
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K., Elle Fanning, John Goodman, David James Elliot
USA 2015, 124 min.
Jay Roach (Game Change) has filmed the battle of Hollywood script writer legend Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976) against the fanatical witch hunt of the ‘House of Un-American Activities Committee’ (HUAC), which cost him and other members of the filmmaking fraternity their jobs, and, together with other victims in the teaching professions, civil service and the military, in many cases their lives.
Roach tries not to portray Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) as a martyr – which seems about right, after all, he got his career (and his two Oscars) back; his family, thanks to his wife Cleo Beth Fincher, stayed together – but many victims of Senator McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade were not so lucky.
We meet Trumbo in the mid forties at his ranch house north of LA, ostentatiously living the good life with his wife and three children – he was after all one of the best scriptwriters in Hollywood, earning close to a million dollars a year. This lifestyle did not collide with his political beliefs, he was a member of the Communist Party of the USA between 1943 and 1949; like many of his fellow intellectuals he was drawn to communism, since the pre-war USA government supported the fascist regimes in Hungary and Spain, whilst turning a blind eye to the “German American Bund”, a Nazi organisation in the USA, supported among others by Walt Disney. Trumbo became one of the “Hollywood Ten”, who did not reveal names in front of the ‘HUAC’ hearings in 1947, and served eleven months in prison in 1950 for “contempt of Congress”. (In the correctional facility in Ashland, Kentucky, he met Parnell Thomas, one of the members of the HUAC committee, who served time for fraud embezzlement).
After his release, Trumbo had to sell his house, since he was blacklisted with countless others. He moved with his family to Mexico; on his return to LA in 1954 his neighbours made him feel very unwelcome, throwing garbage into his pool. By then Trumbo had not only re-started his scriptwriting career, using the names of others as front, but had also helped fellow victims to do the same. Sure, their salaries were meagre, but they still did good work: Trumbo was responsible for the cult classic Gun Crazy (1950) produced by Frank King (John Goodman), who swings his baseball at an agent, who wants him to stop Trumbo and others writing for him. Trumbo himself worked like possessed, and his family life suffered enormously – he would not even attend the birthday celebrations for his daughter Nikola (Fanning). His wife Cleo (Lane) had to put up with a rather dictatorial husband, who took to alcohol and Benzedrine.
Trumbo, whose scripts for Roman Holiday (1953) and The Brave One (1956) had won Oscars (which were collected by front writers), tried to fight the blacklist with others but one of his main foes was the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Mirren), a vicious anti-Semitic campaigner, who blackmailed the, mainly-Jewish, bosses into keeping the blacklist alive. Only in 1960, Otto Preminger (Exodus) and Kirk Douglas (the co-producer of Spartacus) finally killed the blacklist, supported among others by the powerful “American Legion”: Trumbo’s name was on the credits for both films; a year later President Kennedy walked through the picket lines of “American Legion” supporters, to watch Spartacus. In 1993, Dalton Trumbo received the Oscar for The Brave One in person, his wife Cleo collected the one her late husband won for Roman Holiday in 2011.
Roach’s TRUMBOis often funny, particularly in the middle part when he is writing with other blacklisted writers in a factory style process, to make ends meet. Mirren is fantastic as a vicious Hopper, her over the top performance, again, draws some laughs so does David James Elliot’s John Wayne who, attacking Trumbo, is reminded by him that he spent the war on beaches filming, shooting just blanks. But the fate of Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.), who suffered many years whilst fighting lung cancer through the 50s, is portrayed with great sensibility. Overall, a populist approach (which still is informative) to Trumbo and the ‘Blacklist’, is an clever option, because it will attract a new and younger audiences who might not be drawn primarily by the story, but the stars of the film. This way, they will learn about a very important chapter in film history. And that is worth a few slapstick moments – purists will anyhow have seen the 2007 documentary TRUMBO. AS
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED DURING LONDON FILM FESTIVAL UNTIL 18 OCTOBER 2015
AMAZONIA is Brazilian helmer Thierry Rogobert’s enchanting and eye-popping 3D docudrama filmed entirely in the Amazon jungle. Crafting an absorbingly tense adventure story, AMAZONIA follows Kong, an endearingly cute baby cappucine monkey, who is left to his own devices as the sole survivor of a plane crash that leaves him stranded deep in the Brazilian rainforest.
From the opening sequences we instantly bond with Kong. As his bewildered little face looks up at the camera, our natural instincts come to the fore with a strong desire to protect him on his journey as he fends for himself in the wild. Apart the natural ambient sounds of the forest: rain and random predators, Rogobert’s film is entirely unscripted providing viewers with a rich visual canvas of vibrantly and exotic flora on which to meditate on Kong’s eventful journey and its surprising outcome. David Attenborough will be proud!. MT
NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2013
Director: Paolo Sorrentino | Cast: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, Ed Stoppard | 118 Drama Italy
Sorrentino’s second film in English, YOUTH, opens with the Sicilian director’s signature razzmatazz and rhythm: a girl singing on a revolving bandstand in a luxurious Swiss mountainside Hotel, possibly Davos. This is where Michael Caine, as retired conductor Fred Ballinger, is meditating the future – missing his wife, but not his music. Joined by his film director friend, Mick (Harvey Keitel) their contemplate life and their married kids, Lena and Julian, (Wiesz and Stoppard).
YOUTH is a leisurely-paced drama that feels like a languorous troll down memory lane punctuated by explosions of dramatic choreography and entertaining vignettes from Jane Fonda, who plays an actress friend of the men; a voluptuous prostitute who services the male guests, and a couple who sit in silence at dinner, and an obese footballer who can barely breathe.
This riff on the pleasures of physical and emotional love has a three-stranded narrative that explores Lena’s sudden break-up with Julian, who has supposedly found a better lover (she spends the rest of the film talking about her own bedroom skills to anyone who’ll listen). Mick is meanwhile putting the finishing touches to a film script with the ‘legendary’ Brenda Morel (Fonda). Paul Dano, plays another filmmaker guest and stooge for Fred as the two shoot the breeze on the subject of fame and being type-cast for one’s previous successes.
YOUTH works best in the scenes involving Keitel and Caine who create some touching emotional moments and pleasant comedy. Caine is especially good as the staid yet sensitive ageing conductor – he’s similar in some ways to Toni Servillo’s Tito di Girolamo in Consequences of Love, Sorrentino’s first and most satisfying film to date.
Very much a case of style over substance, Youth occasionally feels like a series of interesting moments strung together rather than a satisfying whole. That said, it looks fabulous, Luca Bigazzi continues to wow us with some dazzling camerawork including a magnificent sequence of St Marks Square, and Venice sinking into the sea. There is plenty to enjoy performance-wise thanks to the sterling talents of Keitel, Caine and the rest of the starry cast, Youth is great while it lasts but instantly forgettable once the credits have rolled. MT
Place Vendôme (1998) was the last memorable Antwerp-set diamond-themed heist thriller – it starred Catherine Deneuve as the wife of a wealthy dealer, played by Jean Pierre Bacri. Eric Barbier updates the genre with this slick and shiny vehicle starring Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) as another glamorous business woman; in control of the world’s most famous diamond.
THE LAST DIAMOND (Le Dernier Diamant), has been hiding its light from UK audiences since its release last year and is now making a sparkling appearance courtesy of Frank Mannion’s distribution company Swipe Films. Yvan Attal (The Serpent) and Bérénice Bejo (The Artist), make for a pleasing pairing in the classically crafted crime caper which provides solid entertainment right up to its final dénouement and is best described as a Gallic Thomas Crown Affair.
While on parole from prison, suave professional safecracker, Simon (Attal) gets dragged into a spot of extracurricular crime with his sidekick Albert (Jean-Francois Stevenin). His goal is the theft of the famous Florentine diamond – purported to be worth €40 million (the real gem disappeared during the Second World War) – he uses his sophisticated charms gain the trust of the wealthy young heiress Julia (Bejo), who has put the diamond up for auction, following the mysterious death of her mother.
Barbier’s first two acts revolve around well-laid preparations for the heist, as the lead couple’s on screen chemistry builds to a sizzling climax, convincingly creating a subtley nuanced romantic sideshow to the crime caper, as Julia falls for Simon’s cunning dexterity in finding his way first into her boudoir and then into her heart. Meanwhile, the robbery takes place just as Julia is discovering Simon’s duplicity while the plotline twists into unexpected territory providing some tense final scenes. There’s nothing particularly new or daring about THE LAST DIAMOND: what ultimately carries it all along is the piquant romance between Julia and Simon, who, against his better judgement, steadily finds himself involved in a love affair he didn’t quite bargain for. Attal is spectacular as the sociopathic swindler, blending boyish vulnerability with bouts of brutal violence, his cigarette ‘schtick’ adding a certain loucheness to his urbane swagger – Attal is somewhat maligned as an actor despite his excellent chops; (as seen in Leaving, Rapt and Regrets and The Serpent) and he carries the film here providing sterling entertainment but never over-playing his touch, even when things go awry. Off-screen he’s also captured the heart of Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Cinematographer Denis Rouden’s classy visuals take us on a joyride through the Benelux countries with a sophisticated spin round Antwerp’s upmarket diamond district, thrumming to Renaud Barbier’s upbeat original score. This is a punchy thriller with plenty of heart and soul despite the glib twinkle in its eye. MT
OUT ON RELEASE at SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 29 January 2016.
Cast: Anna Karina, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur, Louisa Colpeyn | 95 min | Drama | France
BANDE À PART, shot in 25 days and based on the pulp novel “Fool’s Gold” by Dolores Hitchins, was project that Godard embarked on to support his marriage with Anna Karina. The pair hadn’t worked together since Vivre sa vie. Godard called his production company “Anouchka”, his pet name for Karina, and he gave the character she played Odile, after his late mother.
At an English language school in Paris, two petty swindlers, Franz (Frey) and Arthur (Brasseur) fall in love with Odile (Karina). Arthur lives with the enigmatic Madame Victoria (Colpeyn) in the suburbs, where a mostly absent Mr. Stolz has a huge amount of cash hidden in his cupboard. Franz and Arthur want nothing more than to bed with Odile – apart from stealing the money. Their clumsy plan backfires, they kill Madame Victoria, and while Franz and Odile escape to South America to start a new life, Arthur and his uncle kill each other in Madame Victoria’s garden before the money, now hidden in a dog’s kennel, is stolen by surprise.
Godard had run out of producers and had asked Columbia, Paramount and UA to give him 100.000 $ to make a picture. All questioned the high figure Godard was asking for and when he explained that this was for the whole production, only Columbia agreed to take him up on the project. Godard gave them a choice of three topics: the first about a woman leftie, the second about a writer and the final topic about the Hitchins crime novel: they obviously picked the latter. With such a small budget,, the studio did not even bother about a script.
The director’s poetic voice-over re-tells the story from the emotional point of view of the three main protagonists, in a narrative full of quotations, references and in-jokes. But instead of being all-knowing, the voice-over soon loses the plot – the characters are coming into their own. It gives the impression that Godard was filming in perpetual motion. Everything and everybody moves in silence: in a scene at the ‘Café Madison’, there is no sound for a minute, followed by the now famous dance scene of the trio, a polonaise copied by many, amongst them Hal Hartley and Quentin Tarantino. The film is symbolised by the three of them racing through the Louvre. The images are rush by: money, pistols, death, Odile’s stockings as masks, Shakespeare and always the leafless trees, set against a dark November sky. Raoul Coutard’s images literally shot on the run, like he had done during the Indochina war.
Again, Godard was in opposition to everything – even though the film turned out to be very much a neo-classical in style: “This movie was made as a reaction against anything that wasn’t done. It was almost pathological and systematic. A wide-angle lens is not normally used for close-ups? Then let’s use it. A handheld camera isn’t normally used for tracking shots? Then let’s try it. It went along with my desire to show that nothing was off limits.” For once, film and reality coincided: during the shooting, Karina and Godard got back together again, moving into a new apartment in the Latin Quarter, Karina admitting “It’s true: the film saved my life. I had no more desire to live. I was doing very, very badly. This film saved my life”.
Watching Bande À Part the for the first time in 1965, as first year students – we all admired the sequences when the actors read colportage stories from newspapers – we thought that it was vey cool. According to Raoul Coutard “there was no real script. Jean-Luc would show up with whatever he had written for the day. We’ve end up filming that. If he hadn’t written anything, we would not have filmed anything.” The newspaper stories, as it turned out, were just paddings, when the master had not written enough…. AS
SCREENING DURING THE GODARD SEASON AT THE BFI FROM JANUARY – MARCH 2016
Cast: Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot, Andre S. Labarthe, Brice Parain
France 1962, 85 min.
VIVRE SA VIEis a decisive step in the development of film aesthetics – but it is also the result of the emotional turmoil between its director Jean Luc Godard and the film’s star, Anna Karina, whose marriage had been very much on the rocks when filming started in February 1962 in Paris.
Karina, ten years younger than Godard, had met the actor Jacques Perrin whilst filming Le Soleil Dans l’oeil on Corsica in September 1961, where she celebrated her 21st birthday. During the shoot, Karina decided to leave her husband, Godard, for Perrin: “I admire Jean-Luc very much. But he’s of another generation. Whereas Jacques is my double”. On the night of November 21s Godard destroyed all their belongings in the flat they shared and left her. Karina, who reportedly had taken barbiturates, was taken to hospital. Godard and Perrin met for a duel with dice, then settled for poker, but when journalists crowded their table, nothing was decided. Whilst the papers reported over the Christmas period that Karina would marry Perrin, Godard and Karina got back together in January 1962 and he announced that he would direct her in VIVRE SA VIE – with Godard deciding that Karina didn’t need to be paid as they were living together (!).
Godard was a great admirer of Berthold Brecht (Cahiers had run a special edition dedicated to him), and VIVRE SA VIE was to be a tableau of 13 chapters, with the master of ceremony introducing every one. Godard obviously had Brecht’s ‘Three Penny Opera’ in mind” and wanted “to shoot only on location, but without making a film of reportage”. But the director abandoned not only the master of ceremony idea (replaced by inserts about the chapter contents), but also changed the ending: instead of a sardonic ending – Nana becoming a rich luxury prostitute -, she is killed at the end of chapter 12, now the last one. Needless to say, that Karina was furious, the shooting was halted to for a few days.
After the camera lingers for a long time on her back, Nana (easily deciphered as an anagram of Anna) tells Paul (Labarthe), the husband she had left, leaving her child behind “I want to die”. She has dreamed for a long time of becoming a film star and tells everyone that she has acted in a film with Eddie Constantine: Karina, Godard and Constantine acted un-credited in Varda’s Cleo. She shouts at Paul: “If we get back together, I will betray you again.”
Nana, who works in a record shop, is always broke, unable to pay her rent and humiliated by the concierge and her assistant. She sinks into prostitution, first as an amateur then, after meeting the pimp Raoul (Rebbot), as a professional. Her lonely and dreary existence is shown as heart-breaking; whilst waiting in street for a customer in Port Mailliot she is standing under a shop hoarding called Hans-Lucas (Jean-Luc in translation). Meeting a philosopher (Parain) in a café, Nana is told the story of Porthos, who was murdered. After meeting a young artist engrossed in a book by Edgar Allen Poe, (voiced-over by Godard) Nana falls in love and wants to start a new life, but is literally sold by Raoul to another pimp in a street.
Raoul Coutard’s triste black and white images and long takes, mostly over three minutes, evoke what Godard had in mind: “I was thinking – like a painter in a way, of confronting my characters head-on – as in the paintings of Matisse or Braque”. Godard seems to circle his environment, like a researcher, but he always returns to Karina: from the back, the front, the side and even in parts. She is his universe, but he can’t decipher her. Still, the search alone seems to make him happy. In an experiment in language, Nana is trying to intonate a sentence in different ways; Godard shows that there is no absolute truth in our words, and he always returns to her vulnerable face with the Louise Brooks haircut. VIVRE SA VIE won the Special Jury Price and the Critic’s Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1962. AS
ON LONG RELEASE AS PART OF THE JEAN LUC GODARD RETROSPECTIVE AT THE BFI UNTIL MARCH 2016
Cast: Kiernan Shipka, Timothee Chalamet, Elizabeth Reaser, Grant Bouter
USA 2015, 90 min.
Director/writer Andrew Droz Palermo’s debut is yet another rural mystery; strong on atmosphere but weak on a narrative that lacks any explanation for the supernatural goings on.
Set in the countryside of North Carolina, One&Two tells the story of a dysfunctional family who living behind a big wooden wall, keep the outside world away. The mother, Elizabeth (Reaser) suffers from frequent unexplained ‘petit mal’ attacks whilst her husband Daniel (Bouter), tries to keep their teenage offspring Eva (Shipka) and Zac (Chalamet) from activating their ‘supernatural’ powers at night. Amongst other gifts they are able to de-materialise and go through glass windows and walls and jump in and out of the water like dolphins in the nearby lake. Daniel literally nails his unruly children to the wall, hammering in long nails through the fabric of their clothes, so that they can’t move. All is in vain; the siblings go on frolicking at night, and when Elizabeth dies, Daniel puts Eva into a boat with a sack round her neck and lets her drift with the currents. Eva wakes up in a hospital in a small town, after having been found by passers by on the shore of another lake. At home, Daniel confronts his father for the first time with his super natural powers, whilst Eva is scheming for a return.
DOP Autumn Durald (Palo Alto) creates a mysterious atmosphere at the farm for the first twenty minutes or so, keeping things tense, taught and interesting. But when no explanation is given for the siblings’ supernatural powers, this lack of narrative weighs the film down: is the big great wooden wall near the farm supposed to keep the children in, or some ancient evil out? It all remains a mystery. Eva’s exploits in the town are a complete departure from the previous and final scenes and feel like a ploy to extend the running time to 90 minutes rather than a cogent part of the story. Performances are mixed; Shipka’s enigmatic gazing is particularly annoying. In the end, the many shortcomings of Palermo’s debut feature far outweigh the cinematographic achievements of Durald and sap the entertainment value. AS
RELEASED ON 29 JANUARY | HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASE 8 FEBRUARY 2016
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche, Rodrigo Santoro, Juan Pablo Raba, Laurence Golborne, Gabriel Byrne, Bob Gunton, James Brolin;
Chile/USA 2015, 127 min.
Mexican director Patricia Riggen’s account of the dramatic rescue in 2010 of 33 miners trapped for several months in Chile’s Atacama gold and copper mine is – like the cast – a mixed affair. The decision to shoot in English somehow robs the film of authenticity, and the strictly linear narrative does not help much either, since the outcome is already common knowledge.
Before the 33 miners go down on that fateful day, some of them are superficially introduced in their hometown of Copiapo: There is the expectant father who argues with his wife about the gender of the baby (born just in time for his rescue); the philanderer, whose wife quarrels openly with his mistress before he sets off and there is the troubled Dario Segovia (Raba), who sleeps on a park bench while his sister Maria (Binoche) sells the best empanadas in town. The explosion in the mine is impressive, the men running for their lives very realistic. But we return soon to stereotypes and clichés: overground, the Chilean Mining Minister (Golborne) is moved by Maria’s outburst and sets the rescue operation in action (shown as a selfless act, not a publicity stunt for his upcoming candidature in the 2013 presidential election), helped by mining experts Andre Sougarret (Byrne) and Hart (Brolin) and pushed by President Sebastian Pinero (Gunton). At least underground, where Banderas’ “Super Mario Sepulvoda” is taking over, rationing food and keeping the peace, heterogeneity is assured, even though the interaction is too often predictable. The joyous ending is played triumphantly to the full, but again we are left wondering why Maria and her brother cannot connect at first under such uplifting circumstances.
One wonders if Riggen should not have taken more risks, as in the scene when the starving miners, in a dream sequence filmed to Bellini’s “Norma”, imagine being served their favourite food by their beloved women. This breaks the predictability of the action and emphasises the strongest point of The 33: DOP Checco Varese’s images. But the script (written by a committee of five) and the international cast undermine any attempt at realism, let alone tackling the media circus in the “Camp Hope” set up at the entrance to the mine. As the final credits acknowledge, the miners were never paid compensation and the company was cleared (against all evidence) of criminal negligence, so one would have expected a little more input on these topics and less on grandstanding. And finally, it is really disappointing to see the worst clichés of yesterday’s macho world repeated in a film directed by a woman. AS
The third film to be released by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, since being placed under house arrest, plays out like a living, breathing video essay on the director and his work. But it also manages to capture so much about Iranian filmmaking, and cinema as a whole. Panahi takes us on a dense, multi-layered cab ride through the streets of the capitol; a thought provoking journey, packed with warmth and humor, and dotted with the sort of fleeting moments- some chance, some not; that make Iranian film so sublime.
Filmed entirely from small portable cameras in a Tehran taxicab, Panahi plays it all quasi-documentary as an undercover cab driver. On his 90-minute spin around the city’s streets, the director picks up a motley crew of passengers, many of whom offer little winks to the director’s past work.
The first argument about justice, we’re told, is taken from CRIMSON GOLD. Then there’s a blood covered man who must be rushed to hospital; a man with a bag of counterfeit DVDs; two old ladies in a rush with some goldfish; and the director’s niece trying to make a “distributable” film herself. The soft-spoken Panahi just sits and takes their confessions.
Through these conversations, the film throws up a number of questions about the role of the filmmaker, and whether or not it is right to follow any sort of moral code. When his niece enters the cab she recites the cultural ministry’s statute of what makes a film “distributable”. Then, just moments later, the girl attempts to direct the events of a little street-side drama so that her film will follow the code. The next passenger in the cab is a lawyer who has defended cultural dissidents, and Panahi has her show up with a giant bouquet of roses. It’s clear where his allegiances lie.
With Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, now both living in exile, the director is one of the last remaining lights of that old guard to stay home. And TAXI has retained many of the fine elements that made those directors’ New Wave films so great. The idea of automobiles as a center for conversation; the lightning in a bottle effect of filming children who seem oblivious to the lens; and the belief in cinema as a transcendental medium and one which can connect us, no matter how varied our situations are.
By putting himself in front of the camera, as well as behind it, is the film a touch too narcissistic? Perhaps. That said, Mr. Panahi has been collecting major plaudits since his house arrest took effect, and TAXImight just be the best of the lot. Rory O’Connor
REVIEWED AT BERLINALE 2015 | 30 OCTOBER 2015 NATIONWIDE
ATTACKING THE DEVIL: HARRY EVANS AND THE LAST NAZI WAR CRIME
Dir.: Jacqui Morris, David Morris; Documentary with Harry Evans
99min UK Doc
Siblings Jacqui and David Morris’s documentary is as much about the man who led the campaign, Harold Evans, as the Thalidomide scandal itself, which Evans uncovered in a ten-year battle as an editor of The Sunday Times from the mid Sixties onwards. The campaign brought not only some justice to the drug victims’ families, but helped to change the press law in this country.
Evans helmed the newspaper from 1967 and 1981 and had already started a campaign for the introduction of Cervical Testing in his previous position as Editor of The Northern Echo. The Thalidomide campaign, which lasted over ten years, is perhaps the best example of investigative journalism in this country. It all started long before Chemie Grunenthal, a German pharmaceutical company, created Contergan (the German name of the anti-sickness drug) and marketed it worldwide from 1957 onwards in over 46 countries, resulting in the birth of over ten thousand deformed babies, after their mothers had taken Thalidomide.
What makes Attacking the Devil such an impressive documentary aside from its mind blowing revelations; is the editing which deftly integrates original interviews, news-reel studies of the surviving children into a fast moving film, which is aesthetically closer to a detective thriller than a conventional documentary
Contergan/Thalidomide is very much connected to Otto Ambros, a German chemist, who was a lifelong friend of Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler. In 1938, having joined the NSDAP, Ambros became a member of the IG Farben board, and an expert on poison gas (Sarin). in this capacity he reported to Hitler personally. The “IG Buna Werk IV” in Auschwitz saw him visiting the KZ and its workforce of Forced Labour no less than 18 times between 1941-44. Ambros, being a keen advocate of using KZ inmates for work, was imprisoned after the war, and sentenced to eight years in 1948, but was released in 1952, after which he joined Chemie Grunenthal, where he met “old friends” like Dr. Schenck (Inspector of Nutrition of the SS) and SS Captain Dr. H. Baumkotter, Chief Medical Doctor for the Concentration Camps Mauthausen, Natweiler-Stuthof and Sachenhausen. Ambros also worked as an economic consultant for Chancellor Adenauer, and the industrial magnate Friedrich Flick, who had also been released from prison early.
In 1959 Grunenthal received its first reports that Thalidomide caused nerve damage. The drug, sold over the counter, required now a prescription. It was still marketed aggressively, the label proclaiming that it could “be given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers, without any adverse effect on mother and child.” More than ten thousand mothers gave birth to babies with horrible deformities, before Thalidomide was banned in 1962 in the UK.
The UK manufacturer Distillers Biochemicals Ltd.(now Diageo), came to an inadequate compensation settlement with a minority of the victim’s families in the UK. Evans campaign in the Sunday Times alerted David Morris, an art dealer whose daughter Louise was one of the victims. He tried to persuade the parents not to agree to the “40%” settlement proposed by Distillers, which meant that they would only receive a fraction of the money owed to them. The Treasury then took over to bring the scandal to a quick end: Morris lost his child, now a “ward” of the Treasury.
What happened next is remarkable in a film that cleverly balances facts and tension to create an absorbing and satisfying piece of filmmaking.
Perhaps the most harrowing moment of the documentary is the witness quote of a soldier who had liberated Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp and had seen the same deformations in his own niece nearly twenty years later. Chemie Grunenthal had always claimed that it had lost its documents that showed where and when the first human trials of drug were conducted. “The patents suggest that Thalidomide was probably one of the number of products developed at Dythernfruth or Auschwitz-Monowitz, under the leadership of Otto Ambros in the course of nerve gas research”, said Dr. Martin Johnson, head of the Thalidomide Trust in England. AS
Cast: Adrien Brody, Sam Neill, Bruce Spence, Jenni Baird, Olga Miller
90min Supernatural Thriller Australia
A rain-soaked Sydney is the setting for Michael Petroni’s schematic supernatural thriller where a bereaved psychologist is traumatised by visions of the past after the tragic death of his daughter. Adrien Brody is stunningly intense as Peter Bowers, the anxious but sympathetic therapist and Sam Neil is masterful and fatherly as his tweed besuited superior Duncan, offering professional support as he struggles to keep his sanity and marriage on track. The loss of his daughter opens him up psychically to a series of patients who appear to be ghosts from the past, including one who is a dead ringer for his little girl.
Off he goes to his family home in New South Wales to gain clarity. No one seems pleased to see him, least of all his heavy-drinking ex policeman father (George Shevtosv) or his teenage mate Barry (Malcolm Kennard). A series of flashbacks depict a local rail accident decades previously and memories start to resurface suggesting Peter was to blame for the accident and he quizzes his father who led the police investigation.
An atmosphere of mounting tension seethes throughout this slick and beautifully crafted thriller that makes good use of its Australian rural scenery and a haunting original score by Dale Cornelius. Despite the rather contrived plot that feels spookily familiar, Brody and Neil hold things together and the clever fractured narrative serves to keep us guessing why Peter is not the only person responsible for the train tragedy. Adrien Brody morphs into an impressive action hero in the final scenes managing the same appealing vulnerability that won him his Oscar for The Pianist. MT
BACKTRACK IS OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 29 JANUARY 2016 courtesy of ARROW FILM
Taiwanese director Hsiao-hsien Hou has brought a Palme d’Or probable to the Croisette with his stunning drama THE ASSASSIN. This is a serious and sumptuously composed masterpiece – in the true sense of the word. Hou brings a sense of uncompromising formal brilliance to the wuxia material. THE ASSASSIN is a work of spiritual resonance and historical importance, it is also visually orgasmic.
Set during the Tang dynasty, the story opens as a young girl played by Shu Qi undergoes training to be an assassin. But her female sympathies stand in the way of her killing instinct and after failing an important mission, she is sent back to her hometown. Some time later, she is again tasked with killing an important governor (played by Chang Chen) who is questioning the Emperor’s authority. The task involves a moral twist: not only is the governor her cousin, but also her first love.
Mark Lee Ping-Bing’s stunning visuals create a sparkling jewel box in every frame. The magnificent landscape showcase lush forests, mist-filled mountains and precipitous gorges in this remote and the often hostile terrain. But this is not the classic martial arts slasher movie and the killing sprees are spare and discrete. This is the domain of the highly disciplined and spiritually-trained Grandmasters, experienced recently through the work of Wang Ka Wai. But Hou’s martial arts sequences have their own brutal and breathtaking beauty and are nonetheless powerful for their distinct lack of gratuitous blood-letting. There is a serene and graceful delicacy to this filmmaking which is both tear-wellingly beautifully and satisfying austere. A sequence involving black magic is particularly sinister, making THE ASSASSIN a captivating masterpiece in elegance and restraint, holding his head proudly in the starry firmament of Taiwanese filmmaking. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL RUNS UNTIL 24 MAY 2015 | IN COMPETITION | CANNES 2015
Director: Christophe Gans | Cast: Vincent Cassel, Lea Seydoux, Andre Dessollier | 99min. Fantasy Drama. Germany, France
Jean Cocteau’s original was a pioneering piece of magic made when he turned his hand to filmmaking during WWII. With very limited resources, the result was enchanting and eerie. Even with a large budget (and filmed in Babelsberg where Metropolis and The Blue Angel were shot) this latest version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST doesn’t conjure up the same mystique, but is a lavishly-imagined if over-the-top frolic from Christophe Gans that spans both Renaissance and Napoleonic eras. It has Lea Seydoux as a gentle Belle and Vincent Cassel as her fiercely masculine Beau yet elegantly pathetic Beast – essentially an asshole who turns into a nice guy. Andre Dessollier is magnetically impressive as the kindly father. Because all the leads were versed in mime and method acting the piece really benefits from their acting chops and makes the production a success, if you can overlook the overzealous CGI. Narrative-wise Gans has developed Cocteau’s original here, with co-writer Sandra Vo-Anh adhering faithfully to Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s book to explore the origins of the Prince’s curse and its connections with the forces of nature. The result is more a children’s fairytale than Cocteau’s enchanting and subversive outing but there are some dark moments too. You can compare the two now on international platforms. MT. 111min.
Cast: Craig Fairbrass, Emmet J. Scanlon, James Cosmo, Olivia Grant, Amanda Wass, Rab Affleck
UK 2016, 110 min.
What happens if a contract killer has a mental breakdown and wants to leave the profession? First time director and writer Jonnie Malachi answers with a brutal, cliché ridden and poorly acted piece of film full of bad taste and gratuitous violence. The only redeeming feature is an occasional involuntary joke it throws up.
Alfie (Fairbrass) is a contract killer with a decent family and a home straight out of House & Garden. His wife Catherine (Grant) and teenage daughter Maya (Wass), are there to be protected by him – mainly from his employers, a nasty gang called ‘Homefront’. The boss, Albert (Cosmo) is furious when Alfie suddenly blacks out, due to remorse, while torturing a victim in front of a chuckling client. Albert finishes the job and Alfie has to kill a whole gang to keep the rather disappointed client happy, Alfie’s best friend and college, Connor (Scanlon) lusts after Catherine and is only too ready to slip into Alfie’s shoes. Luckily for Alfie, the mighty ‘Homefront’ consists only of six, rather incompetent members, and with the active participation of his family in his revenge killing-spree, Alfie could be all set up for a happy-end. DOP James Friend makes it easy for the audience: soft lensed action means family life; hard colours represent action – of which there is a lot – just enough to kill any idea that this apology for a film could be taken seriously in any way. AS
AT SELECTED CINEMAS ON 15 JANUARY. DVD DIGITAL FROM 18 JANUARY 2016
Cast: Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bruce Dern, Samuel L Jackson
187min. Drama. US
Quentin Tarantino’s HATEFUL EIGHT is ushered in by an ominous overture from Ennio Morricone rendered by the famous Czech National Orchestra and serves to warn us that tragedy is to follow, in more way than one. In the snowy wilds of post-Civil War Wyoming, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is hand-cuffed to his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), taking her to Red Rock to face her just deserves for murder. From their stagecoach they jossle with a handful of other bounty hunters on the way, including Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson). The film is noteworthy largely because it may be the final film to be photographed on archaic 7omm film stock. Ben Hur and other epics used this medium for its panoramic potential but here the width allows Tarantino an estate agent-style perspective of Minnie’s Haberdashery where the chamber piece will unspool its tedious, over-talky 187 minutes’ running time spliced by an intermission.
Tarantino has always championed the underdogs of genre, technique and society and this makes his latest offering a particular let down. A garish, self-indulgent parlour piece so bloated with boring sollioquiys and longuers that it never lives up to what could have been an intriguing and punchy 90 minute whodunnit. Known for his screenplays, the one he delivers here is neither wry nor witty although Tim Roth does his best with a Mr Micawber style turn.
Highlights are the cinematography by Robert Richardson and the snowy wilds are similar to that of an infinitely superior film called The Revenant. But the widescreen wonderland soon narrows down to a claustrophobic closet where our eight hateful characters gradually grind each other down. When the charming cuffed together duo arrive at Minnie’s with the Major and a confederate soldier played by Walton Goggins, they discover another party has already taken up residence at the hostelry cum store in the shape of veteran Confederate general (Bruce Dern); an English hangman (Tim Roth; a raddled, blue-eyed cowboy (Michael Madsen); and a mysterious muchacho named Mexican Bob (Demian Bichir).
While Minnie’s whereabouts occupy the Major’s time, Ruth is mainly concerned with getting his bounty in RedRock and getting shot of his grotesquely-gurning prisoner. The viewer’s primary concern is why Tarantino is wasting the potential of 70mm on this stuffily verbose filmed play.
There’s plenty of woman-bashing and nigger-taunting which accurately reflects an era when misogyny and racialism was rife but at least Mel Brooks made it amusing in Blazing Saddles. Tarantino also does his best to window-dress his drama with a touch of historical background to betoken a cultural underpinning but this HATEFUL is otherwise a trivial caper. Dern is quietly powerful as the daintily vehement veteran. The others deliver performances straight out of the stock Western closet. The tone is crass, caustic and candid. After the intermission, the mass slaughter kicks off in earnest; the initial tension of the steely whodunnit blowing out with the wintry wind. Those out for gore will appreciate this loathsome rivers of blood climax which is delivered with glee and gusto as limbs fly and bodily fluids splatter as our characters monotonously spout forth their bloated bluster while we cease to care who did the dastardly deed. Gradually all is lost as a vomit of filthy teeth, futile posturing and blood-drenched faces fill the screen in this Quality Street without the quality. You’ll be glad when it’s all over and make a mental note to avoid those ‘bottomless’ coffee pots in future. MT
As the film year gets underway there’s plenty to look forward to indiefilm-wise. Last year was all about strong performances and once again 2016 starts with the old professionals leading the way and some great new talent on the block taking us into the Spring. Documentaries are becoming more and more popular as they act as a sort of cultural exchange between countries, and in this list the American filmmakers really come up trumps.
But back in Europe, Sorrentino’s first film in English, YOUTH, opens with the Sicilian director’s signature razzmatazz and rhythm: a girl singing on a revolving bandstand in a luxurious Swiss mountainside Hotel, possibly Davos. This is where Michael Caine is meditating the future as retired conductor Fred Ballinger; missing his wife but not his music. Joined by his film director friend, Mick (Harvey Keitel) they contemplate their lives and their married kids, Lena and Julian, (Wiesz and Stoppard respectively) and indulge in witty truisms. YOUTH is a leisurely-paced drama that feels like a languorous stroll down memory lane punctuated by explositions of dramatic choreography and entertaining vignettes from Jane Fonda as a actress friend of the men; a gorgeous prostitute who services the male guests; a couple who sit in silence at dinner (like the pair in Consequences of Love) and an obese footballer who can barely breathe.
Weaving through the evergreen themes of ageing, memory and the continued fulfillment of physical and emotional love, the three-stranded storyline explores Lena’s sudden break-up with Julian, on the grounds that he has found a better better lover, (she spends the rest of the film justifying why she’s good in bed to anyone who’ll listen), a visit by an emissary from Her Majesty requesting a private performance for Prince Philip of his “Simple Songs” and Mick’s efforts to complete his film script with the ‘legendary’ Brenda Morel (Fonda). As a side show, Paul Dano, plays another filmmaker guest, empathising with Fred on the subject of fame and being type-cast by previous successes. YOUTH works best in the scenes involving Keitel and Caine who create some tenderly emotional moments and pleasant comedy. Caine is especially good as the staid yet sensitive ageing conductor – he’s rather formal, similar in some ways to Toni Servillo’s Tito di Girolamo, the lead in Sorrentino’s Consequences of Love, Sorrentino’s first and most satisfying drama. ON GENERAL RELEASE 29 JANUARY 2016
AMAZONIA is Brazilian helmer Thierry Rogobert’s eye-popping 3D docudrama filmed entirely in the Amazon jungle. Crafting an absorbing and tense adventure story, AMAZONIA follows Kong, an endearingly cute baby cappucine monkey, who is left to his own devices as the sole survivor of a plane crash that leaves him stranded deep in the Brazilian rainforest.
From the opening sequences we instantly bond with Kong. As his bewildered little face looks up at the camera, our natural instincts come to the fore with a strong desire to protect him on his journey fending for himself in the unknown wild. Apart the natural ambient sounds of the forest: rain and random predators, Rogobert’s film is entirely unscripted providing a rich visual canvas of vibrant and exotic flora on which to meditate on Kong’s eventful journey and its surprising outcome. David Attenborough will be proud!. OUT IN FEBRUARY 2016
In JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE Amy Berg offers up a treasure trove of musical footage and interviews to flesh out a voluptuously generous portrait of the American sixties singer who sang from the heart and was tenderly in touch with her emotions: “maybe ambition is a quest for love, lots of love”.
Janis Joplin’s life was cut short when she died on October 4th, 1970 at the age of only 27, in the midst of a musical odyssey that had started to take a promising professional turn. In an era where most women were being housewives and mothers, Joplin was pushing out the boundaries of a musical career. Berg focuses on Joplin’s overwhelming desire to engage and interact with her audience rather than to be a star standing alone on a stage: “I like Music because it comes from emotion and creates emotion”. And this emphasis on her music as a gift to inspire is what ultimately makes Berg’s documentary JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE a winner on a human level. OUT ON 5 FEBRUARY 2016
Slim yet charismatically captured by writer director Felix Thompson in a feature debut that won him the Fesitval audience award at Tribeca this year, KING JACK takes place one low-key summer in leafy New York state.
Charlie Plummer plays the Jack in question, the put-upon youngest son of a working class one parent family, who must fight or fall between the cracks, in this poignantly-painted social realist drama. A visit from his younger cousin Ben (Cory Nichols) gives Jack a chance to pull rank and turn the tables on the little boy in a charmingly protective way never extended to him by his tough older brother or his over-worked depressive mother. This arthouse pleaser is authentically told. The touch is light, fresh and honest, the visuals breathtakingly limpid and the tone gently playful without ever resorting to sombre sentimentality or hard-edged intent, although the occasional burst of violence is sharp and short-lived. Not a great deal happens that we haven’t seen before: boyish pranks jostle with pubescent longings and ‘i’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ gameplay, as the boys grow up and get to know the local more mature girls. But its a winning formula that will keep teenage audiences on tenterhooks and the arthouse crowd immersed in its soft-peddle dramatic tension and its rites of passage storyline. OUT ON 26 FEBRUARY 2016
HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT is a treat for cineastes and mainstream audiences who enjoy a well-made documentary about the auteurs of the 20th film. Although intended as a companion piece to François Truffaut’s eponymous book (that followed his 1962 interview with the ‘master of suspense’), it really concentrates on Hitchcock; his methods and his musings. Director Kent Jones has really excelled himself here with an epicurean delight for film-buffs everywhere. Not only do we get ‘Hitch’ and Truffaut but also David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich and other top-drawer directors opining on the subject of how Hitchcock influenced and formed them, cinematically-speaking. It plays out like a masterclass in filmmaking – all in 80 glorious minutes, making you want to rush home and watch his Hitchcock’s entire oeuvre in a darkened room. OUT ON 4 MARCH 4, 2016
JANUARY – MARCH ON THE INDIE FILM CIRCUIT | PART 1
Director Aléjándro G. Iñárritu Writers: Mark L Smith Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, Domhnall Gleeson, Forrest Goodluck, Brendan Fletcher
156mins | Adventure | US Mexico
Mighty and mysticalTHE REVENANT is a harrowing tale of revenge and survival that touches on the emerging arrogance of the early 19th frontiersmen towards the local Native American tribes they discover as they pushed westward. Magically poetic and brutally savage it travels beyond the realms of mainstream American filmmaking with every frame evoking the mystery of the ancient with the mastery of modern visual techniques. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and his DoP Emmanuel Lubezki have created a glorious and visceral portrait of man’s struggle to survive in the wilderness and his obduracy in overcoming the natural world. Leonardo DiCaprio carries the film in a performance infused with his charismatic strength and vulnerability. The other great performance is from Nature itself.
Iñárritu and his team inhabit the open space for most of the film’s 156 minutes’ running time, during which both ethereal silence and feral sound is a key player. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s atmospheric score occasionally adds an ominous twist here and there as the Lubezki’s camera slinks around at a snail’s pace uniting man, nature and beast in one magnificent revolving universe and savouring melting ice peaks; iridescent sunsets; floating mists: prowling paws; even the breath of its striving hero as its clouds the intimate lens: this is a film to savour for its moments of peace; its echoes of the wild and its pitiless ferocity. The director showcases nature as its most hostile and majestic: at one point a rifle shot actually triggers a distant avalanche: Kubrick and Konchalovskiy would be proud.
Set in 1823 in the Rocky Mountains, twenty years after the first expedition to America’s unknown western portion had been sent by Jefferson (to draw up a new map of the territory and establish trade with the local Native American tribes) Iñárritu and Smith’s script is based on real people, as well as loosely on those from Punke’s 2002 novel, which charted Glass’s gruelling, monosyllabic journey more precisely.
The story opens as a local Pawnee tribe is savagely routed by a group of white fur trappers. Iñárritu refreshingly uses arrow warfare as a swift and deadly savage twist on the usual ‘smoking guns and war hammers’ mode. Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) is a frontiersman travelling with his son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) and Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), and valued because he has had the benefit of Pawnee culture (through his dead wife whose spirit we see in regular existential and dream sequences as she encourages him to “keep breathing”) and is equipped with a grasp of the lingo, customs and lay of the land.
But the drubbing severely curtails their fur trading mission and with winter’s arrival and their strength and supply of pelts sapped, misfortune continues to dog the party: Glass has the misfortune to be mauled by a recalcitrant mother grizzly bear (an extraordinary piece of ultra-realism) while taking a pot shot at one of her cubs, in a scene that is both shocking and faintly humorous. Despite Captain Henry’s doctoring attempts, Glass’s wounds prevent him from walking and, with Henry going on ahead, he has to be carried by a cantankerous John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and a pubescent Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) who abandon him to die, half buried in a shallow grave. Glass’ struggle to survive takes over the coruscatingly eventful second act and this is where DiCaprio emerges an action hero harnessing his precious knowledge of the terroir to scavenge, scrape and scrounge his way across the wilderness.
As Fitzgerald, Tom Hardy is the weakest link in the cast in performance that’s almost outstanding in its tawdriness compared to his previous offerings. Spouting incoherent, bumbling gibberish in a non-descript accent from under his headscarf, he fails to alarm or even excite as the antihero, dragging down every scene he inhabits. As Glass makes his way to the fort, Fitzgerald’s duplicity emerges, forcing him to de-camp for a second time, Glass in hot and heavy pursuit: “I ain’t afraid to die anymore. I’d done it already”.
You might be forgiven for thinking that Alfonso Cuaron’s hand is involved in THE REVENANT. There’s the same doggedness about the human struggle and the same mystical, ethereal quality that elevates the action/adventure premise to some more meaningful; although Iñárritu’s piece lacks the whiff of humour that lightened Gravity – forgive the pun. Gleeson is both honest and appealing as the Captain, adding a faint air of charm and gentility to the proceedings.
Locations-wise we’re transported to Canada and finally remote snowy regions of Argentina, where the final scene takes place in untouched snow and using the chilling sombreness of natural light, thanks to Lubezki’s short lens wizardry. THE REVENANT is a film that stimulates all the senses: watch, look, listen, feel and be awed. MT
Cast: Pilou Asbaek, Tuva Novotny, Soren Malling, Dar Salim, Dulfi Al-Jabouri, Alex Hogh Andersen
110min Drama Denmark
Tobias Lindholm’s sober, realist and human study of a Danish officer serving in Afghanistan generates the same slow-burning power as A Highjacking, his previous thriller. There are no gimmicks here; and no tricky endings. The straight, linear narrative poses an honest question: what is an ordinary Danish soldier doing fighting a war thousands of miles away that has nothing to do with Denmark?
And there are no winners in this war, only losers. And how can anyone, in the cold light of a Copenhagen day, hope to understand the real issues facing commanding officers under pressure to follow orders while keeping their men safe, as well as defending a civilian population from a different culture who face danger from their own people, The Taliban.
Somehow this modest arthouse indie that focuses on ethical and moral dilemmas manages to generate more simmering tension than most other war ‘epics’ from the other side of the Atlantic that have attempted to blow our minds – and their own budgets.
Claus Petersen (Pilou Asbaek from A Highjacking) is a Danish company commander in his mid thirties with a wife and three young kids. Drafted to Afghanistan, he is in charge of a small troop who quickly become his own family: they spend every hour in close proximity getting to know one another, through thick and thin. Back home, his own family strive to life a normal life as his wife Maria (Tuva Novotny) struggles with their kids. The two narrative strands move in tandem, often comparing the dangers in the field with the stresses back home: this may seem far-fetched and ridiculous, but to those involved, their daily life is every bit as vital and pressurised: a soldier could get his arm blown off; a kid could swallow a plastic toy. Essentially a peace-keeping force, the Danish band are fully aware that they could die at any moment and this danger strikes quietly but brutally in the opening minutes of the film. Their protegés are not their friends – and could potentially be their lethal enemies. Although they have a duty of care to Afghans, they cannot offer them shelter from the Taliban in their own quarters.
When one day a particularly demoralised soldier takes a bullet in the neck, Petersen makes a decision that will lead to serious legal consequences – in a similar vein to Mads Mikkelsen’s character Lucas in The Hunt, another of Lindholm’s screenplays. Here, under pressure on moral grounds, Petersen must fight his corner in a testing courtroom in Copenhagen with the same integrity and serious commitment as he did in the battlefields of Afghanistan. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL RUNS UNTIL 12 SEPTEMBER 2015
Director: Ariel Kleiman Writers: Sarah Cyngler | Kleiman
Cast: Vincent Cassel, Jeremy Chabriel, Florence Mezzara, Katalin Hegedus
94min Thriller
Preening with narcissistic self-righteousness is how Vincent Cassel plays Gregori, the cultish pater familias of a child orphanage somewhere in a hillside town. 30 year-old Ariel Kleiman’s debut feature is an enigmatic thriller inspired by a article on child assassins in Colombia. For a director who has made his name from a string of award-winning shorts, this is a feature film with gravitas and aesthetic style – a kind of stylised realism.
The story unravels from the point of view of young Alexander (Jeremy Chabriel) who lives with his single mother Susanna (Florence Mezzara) in a subdued compound with eight or so other nubile women and their offspring who appear to be the protegées of the mesmerising Gregori. Cassel makes for a chilling and masterful leader – and although outwardly casting a concerned and kindly eye over his underlings, he is not a character to be crossed or challenged – and this is keenly felt when one of the kids stands up to him, and Gregori reacts with brutal authority. Sending them out on daily errands from their closed community in the rocky hillside, he appears to be fostering a den of iniquity of which he is the supreme leader, servicing his women folk – or so it’s implied.
The children are the focus of this strange story that feels alienating but somehow familiar. Cassel commands absolute authority in a narrative where he himself is morally questionable – a coiled spring waiting to pounce from a position of restrained yet magnetic menace – he gradually exudes antipathy and mistrust. You grow to hate him. It’s a superb portrayal of slow-burning and carefully concealed evil, cleverly directed and tightly scripted by Kleiman and his collaborator Sarah Cyngler. MT
PARTISANis a metaphor for a kind of smalltime fascist dictatorship with Cassel carrying the film as its repugnant overlord. It’s a shame therefore that the pace is narcoleptic and – in the end – the piece too ambiguous to sustain or satisfy its narrative pretensions. That said, PARTISAN meticulously paints a picture of how easily children can be detrimentally influenced by their carers and the heavy burden of responsibility adults have for the young people in their charge. MT
The long-awaited screen adaptation of the E L James popular novel has thrown the cat amongst the pigeons in what is clearly one of the biggest hypes of recent cinema history – if you choose to read the Daily Mail. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY emerges as fluffy and flirty as a freshly-groomed poodle. And as Ms Taylor Wood races to the bank, her classic romcom, a softcore porno outing suitable for teenagers (who are all on pornhub anyway), has captured the imagination of vast swathes of the mainstream cinema-going public.
This saccharine ‘erotic’ fare was scripted by Kelly Marcel, whose previous credits include Mary Poppins drama SAVING MR BANKS. But the tasteful and rather sanitised SHADES is possibly the most innocuous and respectable LGBT outing in cinema history. There were certainly more salacious and revealing adventures happening in Greenaway’s EISENSTEIN IN GUANTAJAUTO premiere which screened earlier in the day during Berlinale 2015.
But don’t be disheartened. There is plenty to enjoy about Taylor Wood’s film. The bland and baby-faced Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth and has come up smelling of expensive aftershave since being born to a crack addict who disappeared shortly afterwards. Adopted by the respectable Dr Grey (a delightful Marcia Gay Harden), he then morphs into a billionnaire (aged 27) with swanky offices in downtown Seattle: a successful career he puts down to his ‘people skills’. But this is more likely due to his being a dispassionate psychopath.
Christian Grey has plenty of time on his hands to interview college literature grad, Anastasia Steele (Melanie Griffith’s daughter, Dakota Johnson) about his business acumen. Taking a shine to Ms Steele, he then showers her with gifts and ‘love bombs’ her into his squeaky clean life of emotional denial and repression, assuring her that he will “fuck her hard”. It transpires that the sweet and sassy Anastasia is a virgin. Any young student with little experience of the male species would naturally fall head over heels for a gent who is solvent, be-suited and sweeps her off in a helicopter promising a good time between the sheets, even if he is a little ‘bossy’. But sexy he ain’t – rest assured – and the chemistry between these nubile lovers is sadly as flat as yesterday’s champagne.
After giving her a reasonable initiation ceremony into his sexual style: a bit of bondage, sexual role play and control freakery – but sleeping together; nights out for dinner and intelligent conversation are only up for negotiation by written contract. He doesn’t do romance but he does do expensive gifts, and the usual reverse psychology ensues – as it does in most early relationships – where the couple jockeys for position and the woman flirts and plays hard to get. And just as Mr Grey is falling hard for Ms Steele, her four-times married mother (a glowing and simpering Jennifer Ehle) has the best advice for her daughter: “I wish I could tell you that things get better – they don’t, you just get to know yourself”. Meredith J Taylor
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 13 FEBRUARY 2015 – REVIEWED AT BERLINALE 2015
Ravi Patel is an American via Gujurati and at nearly 30 he still hasnt met ‘the (Indian) one’. So with the help of his sister Geeta’s camera skills and his matchmaking parents, MEET THE PATELS documents his search for a bride.
Combining rough comic sketches, cartoons and interviews with family and friends, MEET THE PATELS is upbeat, fly-on-the-wall and fun. The first step involves compiling a ‘biodata” – a form of biography that includes family info and a personal CV. To be a Patel is to be a part of the biggest family in the world, so Ravi is sure there should be plenty of choice. And men are still the hunters, so how difficult can it be for an intelligent well-qualified decent looking actor to find a decent bride? Far from being fraught with setbacks this stab at home-movie-making is hilarious and poignant.
Ravi’s family may be traditional and old-fashioned but they are loving and reasonable, but he hasn’t told them about his his girlfriend of two years, Audrey, a flame-haired all American girl. And although the relationship recently ended, it’s clear that Ravi is not over her. What impresses here is Ravi’s close and remarkably mature relationship with his parents which is a refreshing change from the usual dysfunctional family stories that so often feature in drama. Also impressive is Ravi’s openness to experiment but not afraid to trust his heart. The idea of an Indian bride excites him and he begins the gruelling process that includes the usual internet dating and a traditional matchmaking incentive by his mother, Champa. Ravi sets off on the family’s reguarl family vocation with intention, this time, of finding a wife.
The style here is for the most part fresh and insightful; the handheld camera helping to keep things authentic and quirkily engaging. Ravi is an amusing guy who comes across as decent, approachable and well-intentioned – certainly any girl would be happy with him as a husband. The Patel girls are cute and comely and certainly no fools. But is Ravi really ready to move on?. An engaging and enjoyable documentary that explores themes of internet dating, matchmaking and ethnic heritage and ultimately reaches a surprising conclusion. MT
SCREENING FROM 26 DECEMBER 2015 AT BERTHA DOCHOUSE AND SELECTED ARTHOUSE CINEMAS NATIONWIDE
Here are ten indie films that have stayed in my memory this year. Some were viewed at festivals and are still hoping for a release, others started out as indies (CAROL and AMY) but have rapidly gained cult status and heading for the Oscars.
It’s not a definitive list: many of the films I’ve enjoyed the most this year are from the classics. Martin Scorsese’s Polish selection were my biggest discovery. Some have something new or different to enjoy with every viewing: I’ve changed too in the decades since I first saw them: BARRY LYNDON; THE TENANT and CHINATOWN are three that spring to mind. And there are Comedies that make me laugh again and again: Woody Allen’s SMALL TIME CROOKS and Peter Bogdanovich’s WHAT’S UP DOC. So here are my favourites for 2015 –
COUNTING | Director: Jem Cohen | 111mins Documentary US
‘Sleeping dogs; Waking cats; Straws that break the camel’s back/ The subtle urban portraiture of Jem Cohen’s work could be described as tragi comedy in motion. His recent drama MUSEUM HOURS was a hit amongst the arthouse crowd but COUNTING is a straightforward documentary that explores the peripatetic fillmaker’s wanderings through New York, Moscow, St Petersburg, Istanbul and an unknown city in the Middle East (Islamabad?).
Taking the form of 15 different but interconnected fragments, a lose narrative gradually emerges that points to a World where everyone is in contact but no one is actually engaging; people are talking but no one is listening. So COUNTING feels like an intensely personal take-down of our contemporary cities where animals and people are increasingly bewildered and alienated from their urban surroundings.
Continually leavening his film with ironic commentary that juxtaposes images of alienated people, cats or dogs photographed against the urban landscape often with poignantly amusing signs, his acute observations reflect the state of play in contemporary society. Whether faintly amusing or poignantly sad, they put Terrence Malick’s saccharine Hallmark greetingcard platitudes to shame, making Jem Cohen a unique and inventive director who deserves more acclaim. A treasure not to be missed, but not his best outing. MT. reviewed at BERLINALE 2015
THE ASSASSIN | Director: Hsiao-hsien Hou | Cast: Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Satoshi Tsumabuki | 12omin Taiwanese Drama
Taiwanese director Hsiao-hsien Hou has brought a Palme d’Or probable to the Croisette with his stunning drama THE ASSASSIN. This is a serious and sumptuously composed masterpiece – in the true sense of the word. Hou brings a sense of uncompromising formal brilliance to the wuxia material. THE ASSASSIN is a work of spiritual resonance and historical importance, it is also visually orgasmic.
Set during the Tang dynasty, the story opens as a young girl played by Shu Qi undergoes training to be an assassin. But her female sympathies stand in the way of her killing instinct and after failing an important mission, she is sent back to her hometown. Some time later, she is again tasked with killing an important governor (played by Chang Chen) who is questioning the Emperor’s authority. The task involves a moral twist: not only is the governor her cousin, but also her first love.
Mark Lee Ping-Bing’s stunning visuals create a sparkling jewel box in every frame. The magnificent landscape showcase lush forests, mist-filled mountains and precipitous gorges in this remote and the often hostile terrain. But this is not the classic martial arts slasher movie and the killing sprees are spare and discrete. This is the domain of the highly disciplined and spiritually-trained Grandmasters, experienced recently through the work of Wang Ka Wai. But Hou’s martial arts sequences have their own brutal and breathtaking beauty and are nonetheless powerful for their distinct lack of gratuitous blood-letting. There is a serene and graceful delicacy to this filmmaking which is both tear-wellingly beautifully and satisfying austere. A sequence involving black magic is particularly sinister, making THE ASSASSIN a captivating masterpiece in elegance and restraint, holding his head proudly in the starry firmament of Taiwanese filmmaking. MT | REVIEWED AT CANNES 2015
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT | Director: Ciro Guerra | Cast: Nilbio Torres, Antonio Bolivar, Yauenkü Migue | 122min | Adventure Drama | Colombia
Colombian writer|director Ciro Guerra’s third feature is a visually stunning exploration to a heart of darkness that echoes Miguel Gomes’ Tabu or Werner Herzog’s Cobra Verde or even Nicolas Roeg’s Belize-set drama of that name.
A backlash on the negative impacts of organised Religion and Colonialism EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT‘s slow-burn intensity has a morose and unsettling undercurrent that threatens to submerge you in the sweaty waters of the Amazon River whence its token German explorer, Theordor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet) meanders fitfully in search of a rare and exotic flower with restorative powers.
Impressively mounted and elegantly shot in black and white (by DoP David Gallego) this arthouse masterpiece was dreamt up by scripters Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde, who base this imagined drama, told in parallel narrative, on the diaries of two explorers travelling through the Colombian jungle in the early part of last century between 1900 and the 1940s. Theodor and Evan (Brionne Davis) are guided by the rather fierce figure of a shaman called Karamakate (played by Nilbio Torres and later by Antonio Bolivar) the sole survivor of a native tribe which perished due to invasion.
Karamakate knows the intricate tribal nuances and the subtleties of the local fauna but is filled with latent hatred for the explorers who he blames for destroying his forefathers. Despite this he cures Theodor, virtually bringing him back to life with potions distilled from the vegetation which is alarmingly shot through a pipe at high speed into the German’s nostrils. With the Shaman they encounter a fallen Catholic mission and a poor worker with a severed arm who begs to be put out of his misery.
For all the magnificent beauty of this wildly lush and desolate forest with its flowing river, there are signs of human destruction. EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT scored by Carlos Garcia’s haunting ambient soundtrack this is a peaceful, if slightly overlong, meditation on the havoc man has wreaked on lost humanity and the planet. MT | WINNER OF THE CICAE AWARD AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2015 | CIRO GUERRA
SLEEPING GIANT | Director: Andrew Cividino | 89min Canadian Drama
Andrew Cividino lampoons and laments the male of the species in his piquant and delightfully-observed rites of passage debut feature, SLEEPING GIANT. Making great use of the magnificent ‘big country’ landscapes of his native Ontario, Cividino is another starlight trouper from the fabulous galaxy of contemporary Canadian filmmakers. This is a teen drama with surprisingly universal appeal that will appeal to the arthouse crowd of all age-groups.
Quietly incisive yet monumentally moving, SLEEPING GIANT explores the angst-ridden adolescent awakening of three teenage boys who joke and jossle together one sun-drenched summer in Lake Superior, that starts predictably bright but ends in a dark and frightening place. A razor-sharp script is matched with cutting-edge performances from newcomers Jackson Martin as Adam, Riley (Reece Moffett) and Nate (Nick Serine).
Adam is a thoughtful, intelligent boy with a face as pure as milk. Spending the summer with his parents in their luxurious lakeside cabin, he strikes up a friendship with hell-raiser cousins Riley and Nate that soon starts to challenge his perceptions of his parent’s marriage and his discrete upbringing. As they steadily bait him into joining them on shoplifting and drinking bouts, they also encourage him to abuse the trust of local girl, who Adam takes a liking to. Outwardly, it feels as if Adam is unable to rise to the challenge of these young male bullies but the perceptive Adam is slowly biding his time.
As the narrative unfurls amidst the impressive lakeside landscapes, an ominous score signals a sense shift in tone towards of unease in this unassuming coming of ager, which on the surface looks like any other glossy teen flick. And as the boys’ friendship deepens and they jockey for supremacy, so the cracks and resentments start to appear. Nate, in particularly, becomes more vituperative and vindictive as we get to know him, constantly provoking Adam’s masculinity and whilst Adam stays surprisingly calm, he is quietly formulating an informed impression of the situation. Clearly a budding psychopath, Nate masks his insecurity with typically violent outbursts where he hits a dead bird repeatedly with a stick and burns a mating beatle to death. All this is lushly observed in James Klopko’s inventive cinematography that brilliantly evokes the joy and excitement of teenage years in those long lost summers of our childhood.
But these boys are not the only ones playing fast and loose. It emerges that Adam’s father, a deliberately uncool David Disher, is also indulging in some naughty behaviour that could ruin his cosy family summer for good. And when Adam wises up to his father’s behaviour, a subtle inter-generational power-play is added to the sparky dynamic of this holiday crowd.
This is very much a film that focuses on how male selfishness and need for dominance effects the females in their entourage. SLEEPING GIANT develops from a upbeat character-driven piece to one with significant and sinister psychological punch where Cividino demonstrates a masterful control his material and cast in engaging drama that never outstays its welcome with a startling finale. MT | reviewed at CANNES 2015 CRITICS’ WEEK
LISTEN TO ME MARLON | Director: Steven Riley | 95min | Documentary | US
A shady enigmatic figure with a gruff exterior is how most of us remember Marlon Brando in his later years (1924-2004). But Steven Riley redresses the balance with this intoxicating documentary compiled from reams of Brando’s own audio tapes recording his innermost thoughts and streams of consciousness that expose the icon’s soul for all to appreciate. It’s unlikely that Marlon would approve of this exposé, commissioned by his own estate. That said, it serves as a remarkable tribute to the screen legend and, for the most part, manages to enhance his his profile rather than diminish it; a decade after his death.
The film opens with a spooky digitised 3D image of Marlon’s head that the actor created for posterity – rather like some people commission a bronze bust or painting. It sets the tone for the woozy narrative that seems to capture the essence of the Marlon, often drifting dreamlike through filmed footage, clips and photographs of this stunningly handsome screen idol with his velvety voice, ‘come to bed’ eyes and macho persona.
It tells how from an early age Marlon was close to his creatively driven mother but wary of his father; a travelling salesman who drank and beat his family. Marlon’s early influences came from acting superstar Stella Adler at New York’s, ‘New Schoo’l, a theatre and film training establishment run by talented, intellectual Jewish immigrés. Marlon drifted into acting because he had a talent for ‘lying’: he was the youngest actor to win an Oscar for On the Waterfront, which he felt was undeserved. He later boycotted his Oscar for The Godfather, sending an American Indian to receive it in protest for the portrayal of the US Native race in Hollywood. His looks and allure made him popular with women although he was a poor father figure to the children whose birth he acknowledged: his daughter Cheyenne Brando later committed suicide; his son Christopher killed her boyfriend. There were many others.
But this did not tarnish his earning ability and he was much sought after often commanding vast figures for his acting performances which later left him free to pursue his human rights patronage of Black and Native American causes. A deep thinker and an introvert who isolated himself in the Hollywood Hills and in his beloved Tahiti, LISTEN TO ME MARLONbrings out his philosophical edge and his spiritual leanings. He also took his craft seriously, realising his gift was the making of him: “I arrived in New York with holes in my socks, and holes in my mind”. During his lifetime he formed close friendships with other realist actors such as Monty Clift, but on set he was never easy to direct and had contretemps with Trevor Howard during Mutiny on the Bounty and Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now.
Shot through with insights and musings about life and his acting, it emerges that Marlon never took his fame for granted but also yearned for a simpler existence in Tahiti: “A sanity and sense of reality is taken away from you by Success”. MT | REVIEWED AT LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015
SON OF SAUL | Director: László Nemes | Cast: Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnar, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont, Sandor Zsoter. | 107min Wartime Drama Hungary
László Nemes learnt his craft under the legendary Hungarian director, Bela Tarr. His feature debut is a shocking and claustrophobic thriller exploring the little known lives of the Sonderkommando, Jews who were forced, under pain of death, to clean up the gas chambers during the final days of Auschwitz in 1944.
Clearly, Nemes is an inventive talent in the making. His restless camera tells a secret and conspiratorial story in pin-sharp close-up while in the background, out-of-focus atrocities are seen unfolding in the Nazi concentration camp and its surroundings. The action focuses on Saul (Géza Röhrig), a man whose mission is to herd his own people into massive ovens and lock them in as their pitiful cries and raging emerges.
One boy survives the onslaught, but is subsequently suffocated by a German officer. Saul appears to recognise him as his own son and sets off in desperation to find a Rabbi to say prayers and bury him according to the Jewish faith. A constant whispering and bartering in going on before our eyes, and while Saul is bribing his fellow inmates with golden and precious personal effects (from the dead) jewellery, an escape plan is also brewing.
But unlike his master of slow-motion, Nemes offers up a fast-moving and disorientating action thriller. Sometimes the camera is behind his shoulder focusing on the chattering and internal conspiracy between the inmates, others it focuses on the background, where German officers bait and bully the Sonderkommandos. Dead bodies are dragged by and thrown onto trucks in blurry, soft-focus. In one scene, at entire battle is going on in the hazy distance, where prisoners are being shot and forced into open burial pits as fires rage and gunfire rings out. It feels as it Nemes is running two contemporaneous film sets; one in the foreground and one of horrific slaughter and anihilation in the near distance. There is a remarkable single take, in pristine focus, where Saul carries the body of his “son” into a river and swims to the other side.
This is a work of supreme craftsmanship but also a harrowing and devastating tribute to the Sonderkommandos, who knew their lives would also end in slaughter, when their job was done and Géza Röhrig’s performance rings of both subtle defiance and acceptance. The final scene seems to allow a chink of light and hope into this dreadful darkness, as his face lights up into a gradual smile in the middle of a verdant forest.
SON OF SAUL serves as a positive revival of the Holocaust with other recent films such as Night Will Fall and Shoah.
THE BEST OF ENEMIES | Directors: Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon | 87min Documentary US
In THE BEST OF ENEMIES Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon showcase the heavyweight intellectual TV sparring matches between William Buckley Jr and Gore Vidal, who offered their subjectivity on American Politics during 1968 and fro the last few decades of the 20th Century. Whether or not you agreed with their politics these wittily-crafted debates and well-reasoned arguments, spoken in cool patrician vowels, had US viewers pinned to their sets night after night from the late sixties until the nineties.
Best known for their musical biopics, Neville and Gordon take us on a rip-roaring ride through the lives of both men who had the American public hanging on their every word. Millions of viewers were fixated on their TVs each night, as Buckley, an ardent Republican and Vidal, a champagne socialist, expounded their views like an elegant game of Centre Court tennis. At a time when America needed to “change lanes”, the debates allowed a refreshing breeze of clarity to blow through the political landscape, but culminated in a famous exchange during news coverage of a convention in Chicago (1968), where Buckley finally puts his cards on the table during a highly-charged debate that went down in American history.
Multi-lingual William H Buckley Jr was a staunch Catholic from an educated New York family who went to Yale and spent the Winters in a chateau in Gstaad or sailing at his Stamford holiday home. Gore Vidal, seen posing in his romantic Italian coastal villa, was also from a privileged background with political connections although he never went to University, going straight into the Army, as did Buckley after Yale. The two went on to publish books and newspaper articles – Vidal becoming the best-selling author of the controversial sex-change novel “Myra Breckinridge” – Buckley set up his right-wing journal National Review and became the host of a NewsNight-style programme called The Firing Line. The two were polar opposites and would argue that black was white just to affirm their antipathy of one another. We also hear off-scene readings from John Lithgow (as Vidal) and Kelsey Grammer (as Buckley) and the late Christopher Hitchens’ adds his commentary further enhancing and inform our enjoyment of this immersive piece.
Slowly ramping up the tension as their gripping story unfolds, Neville and Gordon reveal that ABC-TV, lagging third in the news division behind CBS and NBS, had decided to up its game by hiring these sworn enemies to host a talk show during a convention in Miami. Grainy footage of these coruscating debates make gripping viewing as they each appraise the political situation of an American Society in crisis. When the debates reconvened in Chicago, the tone became more venomous between the men, reflecting a mood of hostility and social unrest that descended on the town at the height of the anti-Vietnam War, in a draconian Police presence. Theatrical texture is added with footage of Paul Newman and Arthur Miller who were also in town at the time. Discussion of the riots seeps into the coverage as these cool intellectuals lock horns, Vidal calling Buckley “a crypto-Nazi.” Rising to the occasion, Buckley is seen gurning with hatred – and the image is repeated several times – as he barks back “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face, and you’ll stay plastered.”
When seen on video footage, Buckley was clearly devastated at having lost his cool and apologized profusely but Vidal is strangely unphased with an icy coolness that is itself unnerving given the hatred he clearly felt. Vicious law suits zapped back and forth like angry hornets between the two men for years afterwards, as they each endeavoured to work through this televised trauma.
Ultimately, Gordon and Neville’s documentary serves to illustrate how Buckley and Vidal were the last to deliver stimulating debates of intellectual clarity on television. Nowadays, networks resort to “that which is highly viewable rather than that which is illuminating”. What a shame. MT
EVERY SECRET THING| Director: Amy Berg, Writer: Nicole Holofcener | Cast: Diane Lane, Dakota Fanning, Elizabeth Banks, Danielle MacDonald, Nate Parker |99min Psychodrama | Mystery | US
Oscar-nominated Amy Berg brings her documentary expertise (West of Memphis | Deliver Us From Evil ) to bear in this feature debut that makes an interesting pairing with her documentary Prophet’s Prey, also screening at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival and touching on similar issues. Although initially challenged by its slightly bewildering fractured narrative taking place in two different time lines – the past and the present in quick succession – the overtly sombre-toned psychological drama, based on Laura Lippman’s best-seller, goes on to exert a relentlessly unsettling grip throughout its 93 minute running time. This is largely down to four remarkable female performances: Elizabeth Banks, Diane Lane, Dakota Fanning and Danielle Macdonald.
Ronnie and Alice, (played as adults by Dakota Fanning and Danielle Macdonald, respectively) are suspected of kidnapping two mixed-race kids in separate incidents a decade apart. We join the story as an investigation into the latest disappearance is taking place in contempo New York state. And gradually we discover more about the initial crime which resulted in the girls being incarcerated for 10 years until they emerge as women in their late teens. Told through flashbacks to plausible but mock newspaper footage and news bulletins, the original murder is relayed from the perspective of the young girls, as the real story only emerges in the final stages of the movie.
Skilful edits require intense concentration as we bring our instincts to the forefront in analysing the characters of the girls and their families and so as to determine the upshot of a saga of female disturbance and deception fraught with many different possibilities, twists and turns. Berg casts aspersions at a dreadful early childhood for both Alice and Ronnie but the circumstances surrounding their start in life that lead them to become, in effect, psychopaths, is always shrouded in mystery. Even at the finale, there is no way of knowing exactly who initiated the kidnapping or who committed the murder although it is possible to make an educated guess, based on our own experience and intuitions. There is also the element of false memory that makes this a very exciting and challenging drama, particularly from a feminine perspective.
Themes of parenting; bullying; adoption and the break-down on the family unit and its affects on female relationships – not to mention issues of re-integration into the community – are all carefully woven into the narrative and seen from each different female’s perspective. Rob Hardy’s stunning cinematography incorporates inventive camera angles and a haunting original score from Robin Coudert (Populaire).
Diane Lane is superb as a single mother who appears to be grappling with parenting a difficult daughter whom she is also in competition with as a woman. Dakota Fanning is mesmerising; particularly in one scene where she chillingly appears both vulnerable and cunning. But Danielle MacDonald gives the most spine-chilling turn as a narcissistic fantasist with body image issues. And last, but not least, Elizabeth Banks plays an award-winning detective tasked with investigating the case and bringing her own psychological insight into this nest of vipers. You will have a field day!. MT | REVIEWED AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL | 17 -28 JUNE 2015.
CAROL | Director: Todd Haynes | Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler | Drama | US
Patricia Highsmith’s novels make striking thrillers: Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley and The Two Faces of January have become screen classics. The eagerly-awaited CAROL, which premieres at Cannes, is a perfect screen adaptation of one of her more romantic stories. Two remarkable performances, by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, who picked up the Best Actress award, make CAROL particularly enjoyable. They play elegant fifties women caught in the seductive embrace of a lesbian relationship. Todd Haynes’ lush and leisurely adaptation of The Price of Salt, which was seen as rather daring at the time, now seems rather coy and kittenish, although Blanchett certainly wears the trousers in both her heterosexual marriage and an outré lesbian flutter. This is a luxuriously affair that unfolds rather tentatively during Christmas 1952 in a snowy New York heralding the Eisenhower era.
Phyllis Nagy’s clever screenplay clings close to the page while conjuring up the younger woman’s profession as photography rather than theatre set direction. It also retains the open, rather positive ending of Highsmith’s novel. The story opens in a New York department store (akin to Bloomingdales). Mara plays the young Therese Belivet who is meets Carol Aird – a creamy, mink-wrapped Blanchett – buying Christmas presents for her little girl, Rindy. A perfect excuse for further contact is provided when Carol leaves her gloves on the counter, and later invites the gamine-like Therese to her turreted New Jersey home. But the two finally meet in town over eggs and martinis. A chemistry of sorts develops through the velvety visuals of Ed Lachman’s camerawork (he shot in 16ml and blew the images up to look like 35ml) and Haynes’ competent direction – they worked together on Mildred Pierce and Far From Heaven – so you get the picture.
Carol’s successful businessman husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), is seeking a divorce due to her previous affair with her childhood friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) but he still loves his wife and threatens to get custody of Rindy. But Carol’s mind is made up and she pursues Therese with masculine determination in a highly seductive role made all the more teasing in the rather languid pacing that takes in a multitude of changes in her gorgeous couture wardrobe (Sandy Powell excels in her designs). The two finally end up in a tastefully soft-focused, semi-nude embrace in Waterloo, Iowa, and Carol acknowledges the bathos of this location.
But their crime (and it was a crime in 1952) is captured on camera by a travelling ‘notions’ salesman and Carol swiftly extricates herself from the relationship. Blanchett plays her Carol as a woman of infinite breeding and stylish charm, occasionally looking down her nose but always with a witty grace. Mara is more cutely foxy with those exotic, piercing eyes. The delux experience is gift-wrapped in soigné sets and and an atmospheric period score from Carter Burwell. MT
Rooney Mara won Best Actress for her role at Cannes 2015 | The Golden Frog apAward for Best Cinematography (Ed Lachman) at the prestigious Camerimage Awards 2015 | REVIEWED AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 13 -24 MAY 2015 | CAROL | IN COMPETITION | CANNES 2015
FRANCOFONIA | Director| Writer | Director Alexandr Sokurov | Cast: Louis-Do de Lencquessaing, Vincent Nemeth, Benjamin Utzerath, Johanna Krthals Altes | 87min | Docudrama | Russia | Fr Germany| Neth | 2015
In a festival which oscillated between the mediocre and the banal, Sukurov once again reminds us what cinema could be: an intellectual tour-de-force of documentary, essay and feature: as such, FRANCOFONIA towers above all the other efforts so far.
FRANCOFONIA is foremost a film about German-French relationships on a mostly cultural level; the director calling the link between the two nations “sisterly” which is an unusual word to use considering the many wars they fought with each other – unless he is hinting at sibling rivalry here. The star is certainly The Louvre where the two protagonists: the French director of the museum, Jacques Jaujard (Lencquesaing), and the German officer, Count Franziskus Wolff Metternich (Utzerath), in charge of cultural affairs for the German occupiers, fought in a low-key manner between 1940 and 1942. Metternich was then recalled to Germany not having given in to the Nazi leadership whose main aim was to steal the art treasures – a task they managed successfully later. Jaujard, who worked for the French Resistance, could rely on Metternich for help, a favour which was returned after the end of WWII, when Metternich needed help for the de-Nazification trial. But in the two years, Metternich, a Nazi Party Member since 1933 was civil while trying to delay the art robbery of his superiors, like a good Nazi.
In the summer of 1940 it was clear to the M Jaujard that his Museum was in danger, haunted by the spectre of Germany as the French government surrenders and the German army arrives in force. Archive footage of the era shows Hitler casting his beady eye over the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees, desperately looking for the Louvre and its treasures.
Fortuitously the perspicacious M Jaujard, the museum director, has taken precautionary measures and does not flee his museum when Count Wolff-Metternich, the officer commanded by Hitler to supervise France’s art collection for the Nazis, arrives at the Louvre to find its most important works have vanished. Jaujard has had them moved to Chateaux hundreds of miles away in preparation for the German bombings – and Metternich – who made the same wise moves in Germany – thus protects the French patrimony from the thieving hands of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels. In this ‘sisterly’ way Jaujard (a suave Louis Do de Lencquesaing) and Metternich (a suitably aristocratic-looking Benjamin Utzerath) are bought together with their love and appreciation of Art.
Marianne, the typical French heroine who chants “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” and self-obsessed Napoleon – who points to himself in paintings around the walls – are the ghosts who haunt the Louvre in their traditional costumes. Napoleon claims that his sole purpose of waging war was to raid countries for their art treasures. And Sokurov takes us on a guided tour of these treasures, marking out the particular European propensity for portrait painting, enabling us to identify ourselves hundreds of years ago. Something that, he points out, the Muslims didn’t do. The Mona Lisa is given the most attention, with her enigmatic smile.
Often the director is seen sitting in his office, talking to a sea Captain on a ‘ship to shore’ computer link. The ship is bearing artworks and clearly many thousands have been lost at the bottom of the sea during their transportation around the globe, by trophy-taking warlords.
FRANCOFONIA is the first Sukurov film which shines a positive light on the Soviet Union. Bruno Delbonnel’s breathtaking cinematography successfully recreates the wartime effort in Paris, and the extensive archive material gives so much information and philosophcal debate that one viewing cannot do justice to this masterpiece. This is a film to savour. MT/AS
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Zac Efron, Kim Dickens, Heather Graham
105min Drama US
A father and son come into conflict in Ramin Bahrani’s well-made, pithy and absorbing MidWest drama AT ANY PRICE. that explores how country life has been made increasingly fraught by modern farming methods, as rural communities strive for commercial success.
Dennis Quaid is the main attraction here as the central character Henry Whipple: a morally ambiguous middle-aged family who exudes a bullish masculinity tempered by a finely-tuned understanding of human psychology that sometimes masks his unscrupulousness. As a craggy pater familias he rubs up against his more brooding, laid back son Dean (Zac Efron) who prefers to play things more honestly and is clearly frustrated with his small town existence. Whilst Quaid’s character occasionally echoes Kramer out of Seinfeld, his wife Irene (Kim Dickens) is attractive, calm and sincere despite his unfaithfulness with her rival Meredith (Heather Graham).
But this is Southern Iowa where women still take a backseat role. It’s a traditional world all round but seed farming is becoming increasingly more geared towards GM cropping and Henry Whipple (Quaid) is continually ambitious for his farming business seeking to acquire new land even if this involves swooping in on local landowners’ funerals where he makes ill-judged but often successful takeover bids to grieving families only too glad to sell their inherited farmland.
Meanwhile Dean is a keen petrolhead and has no interest in going into farming. A talented stock car racer, he dreams of making it to NASCAR, but a professional tragedy on the circuit curtails his budding career as storm clouds also gather over the future of the family farm.
The still beauty of the lush Iowa countryside collides with the brashness of the racetrack in scenes that stand as a metaphor for the conflict between father and son and grandfather, and things turn even darker when Henry’s seed-sales operation is placed under investigation. But when Dean to intervenes unwisely to protect his father’s business, the family is forced to reassess the future in the ever shifting sands of contemporary American morality.
Cinematographer Michael Simmonds captures the limpid beauty of the local landscapes with a clarity that feels calming against the overtones of of domestic strife and Dickon Hinchliffe’s melancholy occasional score echoes this with a sombre undercurent. MT
Director: Ron Howard Writer: Charles Leavitt (screenplay), Rick Jaff and Amanda Silver.
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw,
A vengeful killer whale; swashbuckling heroes; exotic islands and the legend of the Moby Dick:.Sounds like the perfect Christmas film, doesn’t it? But despite sterling efforts on all fronts, Ron Howard’s epic adventure IN THE HEART OF THE SEA manages to be curiously devoid of tension or even drama, doggie paddling its way to a deep and dark demise. This impressively mounted affair, taken from a real-life survival story that served as one of the key inspirations for Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”, sets sail with the best of intentions and a starry cast. Yet from the point where the good ship Essex embarks from Nantucket on a whaling mission with its trusty crew, you couldn’t care tuppence if any of them returned to tell their gruelling tale.
Despite the magnificence of the Nantucket whaling ship, built like a cathedral to withstand the ocean’s onslaught, the story feels strangely less horrific that of the simple sailing boat that met its fate in JAWS. According to legend, the vessel was initially laid low by tumultuous seas and later destroyed by a mammoth sperm whale in 1820. Flatly adapted from Nathaniel Philbrick’s non-fiction book by a solid crew of accomplished writers, the film attempts to rekindle man’s epic struggle against the laws of nature which ultimately reign victorious.
The film opens as Herman Melville (played by Ben Whishaw), arrives at the Nantucket home of old sea salt Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson complete with an unsuccessful ‘Grecian 200o’ makeover), a former ‘Essex’ boat hand who has who lived to tell the tale, but didn’t – as we discover from his humourless wife .Buttoned-up emotionally since the harrowing tragedy, Nickerson is a broken man, but Melville demands a de-brief in exchange for a fist full of dollars. Flashing back to 1820, we meet the young Nickerson (Tom Holland) as he begins his apprenticeship on the 21-crew whaler. Mission: to bring back as much whale oil as possible – a vital source of domestic energy before the discovery of West Texas Intermediate and fracking.
On board, the young patrician captain George Pollard Jr. (Benjamin Walker), comes into conflict immediately with his brassy first mate, Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth). Hemsworth (Avengers) cuts an experienced and confident dash here but his hybrid accent is practically unintelligible and he is as unlikeable as his supercilious boss. Matters are not helped by second mate Matthew Joy (Cillian Murphy), a rather seedy close buddy of Chase but lacking both on the moral fibre and stsmina front. Pollard’s inexperience is blamed for most of the setbacks that occur on the fateful voyage.
Doing his best to evoke the salty seafaring sortie to those of us sitting in the cinema, Howard and his dp Anthony Dod Mantle send us ducking and diving among the waves, often from a bird’s eye view and sliding along the deck, to the point of queasiness, as we attempt to focus on the action as Chase leads his dingy party as they savagely harpoon the exuberantly playful and defenceless whale colonies. The sight of blood and gore hitting the decks is reminiscent of Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s visceral documentary LEVIATHAN (2012). At this point Nickerson is forced to enter the body of the moribund whale in a nauseous bid to salvage the best quality oil.
But it’s only when the ship enters remote waters of South America that the crew comes face to face with the real monster – a battle-scarred white whale as big as the boat itself, impressively crafted in all its CGI splendour. From then on, the venture becomes a harrowingly pitiful blow by blow account of 90 days stranded at sea – apart from a brief sojourn on a desert island – where we care even less as these ciphers’ bodies disintegrate. But while weird excrescences and straggly beards appear on their faces, they fail to achieve any redemption or moral epiphany; weirdly, Chase sports designer stubble whereas Pollard grows a full Afro hairdo as they score points off one another and indulge in the fine art of cannibalism.
Meanwhile back at base, Melville is fading as he tediously attempts to extract his best-selling tome from Nickerson’s bleeding heart revelations and we are forced uncomfortably to countenance his wife’s declarations of unconditional love.
The final scenes deal with the unscrupulousness of the business brains behind the shipping industry as Pollard’s elders attempt to stifle the real story, for fear of losing out financially. And it is their tight-lipped, starchy rectitude that embodies IN THE HEART OF THE SEA. Unappealing and unsatisfying as a drama, it has all of the right elements in place but, through a strange quirk of alchemy, falls entirely flat as an experience. MT
Dir: Jennifer Peedom | 99min Documentary Thriller | Australian
April 18th, 2014 will go down as the worst day in the history of Everest when the Sherpas finally called time on their uphill struggle with mountaineering visitors.
The fascination with climbing Everest is a passion that seemingly knows no bounds for wealthy foreigners whose life ambition is to scale the World’s highest mountain. Summit, Touching the Void, Everest and Beyond the Edge have told of the dangers and elation of reaching the summit. SHERPA explores the conquest from the perspective of its much-maligned native Himalayans – the Sherpas. An ethnic group from Nepal’s mountain region, they are, for the most part, Tibetan Buddhists. Nomadic settlers they are physically and genetically adapted to life at high altitudes due to their blood’s unique haemoglobin-binding capacity and doubled nitric oxide production. From childhood they develop an intimate knowledge of the region and their compact, muscle-bound physiques enable them to carry large loads in this oxygen-poor environment.
Award-winning Australian documentarian Jennifer Peedom is no stranger to perilous outdoor themes with her previous films: Solo and Miracle on Everest, both riveting accounts of challenging endeavours. SHERPA takes a humanist angle, documenting the plight of Everest’s unsung heroes and valiant enablers of every mountaineering endeavour by those that visit their native region. With little left of their traditional farming subsistence, most Sherpas now make their living from ‘guiding’, which although lucrative for the Nepalese, is actually quite meagre in Westerners’ eyes.
For the Sherpa, Mount Everest is known as Chomolungma and is a spiritual place. The Government forbids the use of helicopters to ferry supplies to the summit so this has to be done by Sherpas and donkeys. Today’s ‘clients” expect a high standard of comfort with flat-screen TVs and morning tea served by the Sherpas at their various stations on the way up, and down. There is literally a ‘swarm’ of climbers making the ascent in a queuing system with log-jams and bottlenecks not dissimilar to the morning rush hour.
The best way to ascend the peak is via the Southern face whose most dangerous section is the Khumbu IceFall. Sherpas work during the night offering prayers to the mountain spirits before they cross this hazardous stretch of terrain, and they to have cross it frequently in order to ferry supplies from Base Camp to camps higher up, strategically placed to allow clients time to acclimatise to the altitude. Early on the morning of April 18, 2014, 16 Sherpas died on this Icefall – more in one day than had ever been killed in an entire year. Peedom’s film captures the chaos from Base Camp on fateful occasion.
The visuals are simply stunning recorded by two high-altitude specialist cinematographers Renan Ozturk and Ken Sauls, and some aerial helicopters. The narrative then flashes back several weeks as Phurba Tashi, the Sherpa in charge, reluctantly says goodbye to his family: he may never come back alive suffering the same fate as his sister-in-law, but the family needs the money to survive.
Commentary from various experts offers context: mountaineering writer Ed Douglas and Tenzing Norgay’s sons are the most informative. Being Buddhists the Sherpas are intuitive and non-confrontational but in extremis they will protest, and a scuffle that broke out in 2013 between a group of clients and Sherpa guides where we see an American climber swearing at a group of Sherpas.
Russell Brice, who runs a large travel firm organising mountain tours (costing around 50,000 US dollars), is eager to stand by his clients, many whom are making second and third attempts, but also respects his Sherpa guides and ultimately has to make a choice between the two after the disaster takes place at the start of a busy season. Phurba Tashi choses a path of enlightenment. Jennifer Peedom’s account of what happened is simply astonishing. If ever there was a documentary thriller, this is it. MT
NOW ON NETFLIX | SHERPA WON THE GRIERSON AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY | LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015
A great companion film to Jeff Orlowski’s CHASING ICE (2012)
Global warming:myth or reality? Whatever your viewpoint, you cannot failed to be moved and stupified by the startling revelations of Claude Lorius, the Jacques Cousteau of climate change, who is the eco-warrior of this documentary, brought to us by March of the Penguins director Luc Jacquet. Penguins feature briefly here but only in archive footage as Claude Lorius, now in his 80s, embarks on his lifelong mission to analyse and document the link between climate change and greehouse gases.
First travelling to the Antarctic in 1953, he has spent the past half century drilling into the ice to research his findings in order to prove slowly, surely, but beyond doubt, the subtle changes that are so critical to the future of our Planet.
Jacquet’s documentary flies in the face of climate change deniers and yet there’s nothing inflammatory or vehement about his claims or the calm method with which he presents them. The tone is sombre, rational yet quietly affecting. Enduring extremes of hardship and deprivation with his colleagues – he jokes how they ‘banned’ bads moods – and footage sees them entertaining each other during the long periods closeted in their communal heated room, salivating over descriptions of haute cuisine from the Michelin Restaurant Guide 1952 and even using “ancient ice” in a whisky toast later leading to the discovery that trapped air in the ice crucially reveals its gas content.
What emerges from his findings is based on the realisation that the ratio of “light” hydrogen atoms to “heavy” in each snowflake is closely linked to the ambient temperature of the day of the snowfall – hence the dawn of the isotopic thermometer. Through his meticulous and painstaking discoveries, Loriet builds a body of evidence that’s overwhelming in its plausibility. And Loriet seems to genuinely revel in his work, embracing the challenges and enjoying the friendships forged during his lengthy trips to the Polar regions which take his away from his wife and children for a total of 10 years.
Stephane Martin’s sparkling images makes this a feast for the eyes, but it’s not just another pretty eco-documentary: Jacquet collates his film in a powerfully cogent way that knocks the cosy smugness of denial imdustry into a cocked hat, challenges us in its final moments with an uncomfortable wake-up call: “Now that you know, what are you going to do?” ICE AND THE SKY is potent and unsettling. MT
Cast: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby
USA 1989, 96 min.
Often described as “Woody Allen light”, Rob Reiner’s WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, has aged well and cements its place as a quintessential feel-good romantic comedy of the late 80s. This is mainly due to the the chemistry between the leads Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, but even more so because of Nora Ephron’s script, which was the result of interviews between her and Reiner as well as producer Andy Scheinmann between 1984 and 1988.
What emerges fro the interviews was that Reiner was permanently depressed, his sardonic humour saving him from becoming morbid. When Billy Crystal (who was at that time Reiner’s best friend) joined the production, he witnessed Reiner’s despair after his divorce from the actress/filmmaker Penny Marshall. The Sally identity was a mix of Ephron’s own relationship experiences and the ones of her girl friends.
The nods to Allen are clear: there is the use of the split-screen (when Harry and Sally phone in bed, watching their TV sets), and the Manhattan references are clearly visible. During the pre-production time, Ephron would interview people who worked for the company about their relationships, these interviews were shown in stylised interludes in the film. Regarding the end, Ephron and Reiner realised that the most realistic outcome would be the permanent status quo of friendship between the couple, but they chose a more optimistic finale.
Harry (Crystal) and Sally (Ryan) meet after graduation on the campus of Chicago University in 1977, to drive off together to New York, where he starts his career as political adviser, she as a journalist. Having witnessed Harry’s long, passionate goodbye from her friend Amanda, Sally is annoyed that he immediately makes a pass at her. They argue, non-stop, and Sally is relieved to see the last of Harry, when they arrive in NY, even though he is the only person she knows in the whole city. Five years later, they meet by accident in an NY airport, both having relationships, their rather frosty relationship continues. In 1987 they bump into each other in a bookshop, both their relationships have ended, and they start a sort of friendship, even though Harry still insists that a platonic friendship between a woman and a man is impossible, because the man’s craving for sex would interfere. At the famous scene in Katz’ Deli in Manhattan, Sally stimulates an orgasm, to prove a point to the still rather misogynist Harry. After meeting with their respective best friends, Marie (Fisher) and Jess (Kirby), to end their single status, Harry and Sally watch, as the two run off together, blissful in love. After a one-night stand with Harry, when Sally breaks down after her ex-boyfriend marries another woman, the couple have a vicious argument at Marie’s and Jess’ wedding reception.
Reiner recalls, that at a test screening, all the women in the audience laughed at the Deli scene, whilst the men were dead silent. The director’s mother, Estelle, had a small part in the film, as the woman sitting next to Sally in Katz’, ordering “the same as she had” from the waiter. Even today, there is still a sign above the famous table, saying “where Harry met Sally…hope you have what she had.”
Twenty-six years later two elements stand out: there is the shock to see a world without mobiles, as well as a very basic, noisy computer, and the emotional intensity of the couple, which still reverberates today, in spite of the rather light weight narrative. AS
NOW OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE IN A SPARKLING NEW RE=MASTERING COURTESY OF PARK CIRCUS
Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Geraldine Chaplin, Maria de Medeiros, Charlotte Rampling, Ariane Labed, Roy Dupuis, Clara Furey
130min | Fantasy Drama | Canada
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM is the latest feature from Canadian auteur Maddin, whose credits include The Saddest Music in the World and Keyhole which has Isabella Rossellini This dreamlike and desultory concoction plays out as an ode to the forgotten films of the silent era pursuing progressive ideas on love, eroticism and life through the interweaving tales of a mysterious woodland bandit who appears on a submarine trapped under water, a group of child soldiers and a famous surgeon coming to rescue a damsel in distress.
Maddin melds genres, stocks and cinematic tropes (Expressionism, Hollywood glamour, faux Noir) in this magical melodramatic experiment whose upbeat and whimsical narrative sails off into absurdist backwaters that include a dreaming volcano erupting, a man obsessed with Janus, a musing moribund moustache and a psychiatrist’s stealthy seduction on board the night train from Berlin to Bogotá. Gorgeously mesmerising, occasionally humorous and sublimely beautiful it has some offbeat performances from Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Rampling and Geraldine Chaplin but is an acquired taste for cineastes who enjoy his work. Otherwise go along for the blissful and bewildering ride and let the enigmatic original score, with echoes of Wagner and Jules Massenet’s Elegie, waft you away to distant memories. MT
Cast: Peter Mullan, Keith Allen, Natalie Gavin, Sarah Solemi, Gina McKee
UK 2015, 98 min.
First time writer/director Jake Gavin portrays homelessness as an everyday reality and a lifestyle choice for HECTOR played here by Peter Mullan who carries this entertaining British indie with gusto and style.
We meet Hector for the first time in a Glaswegian hospital in the run up to Christmas where he is being told to come back after the holidays for a non-specified operation. This might or might not be related to the fact that he walks laboriously on crutches. His travelling companion Jimbo (Keith Allen, sardonic and true to type) is a veteran of the roads, along with 18 year old Hazel (N. Gavin). They split up, planning to meet in London for Christmas, whilst Hector visits his (not particulary sympathetic) brother-in-law, a manager in a car showroom, to get into contact with his sister Lizzie (McKee), with whom he had no contact, after leaving their home abruptly fifteen years ago. Rebuffed by her, Hector makes his way down to London to meet the rest of the trio, but it comes as no surprise that Christmas doesn’t go according to plan.
Gavin’s narrative, full of well-observed details, is told in a detached, candid typically English way: nobody complains, the travellers know better than to make a fuss; life is seen as inherently difficult at this level and dealt with as matter of fact: sometimes Hector gets lucky (when he arrives too late for the Christmas shelter, but is saved by Sara), sometimes he is literally kicked down by a couple of hooligans, who want to steal his bag – but a bat-swinging Indian shop owner fights the attackers off. The reason why Hector leaves his middle-class life never properly emerges although there are a few clues there are only a few clues: Hector blaming himself for the death of two children in a road accident, which he believes, he could have prevented. The guilt drove him out into the streets, but his self-loathing and –punishment are only part of the story – perhaps he just wanted out.
DOP David Raedeker’s avoids full-on hyper-realism, using long panning shots, framing the protagonists in carefully constructed frames. The audience gets used to the roads were Hector and his friends hitchhike – mainly on the motorways – and are finally seen as sort of stations. Everything is low-kew. Mullan is brilliant, but the ensemble acting is equally inspired. HECTOR is labour of love, a welcome variation on the narrative-less British films which seem to dominate today with either gangland violence or insipid scoial dramas. AS
Cast: Lili Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Sam Elliott
USA 2015, 79 min.
Serious themes of abortion and lesbianism are tossed around playfully in this derivative Hollywood Screwball comedy. Paul Weitz (ABOUT A BOY) trivialises a family’s conflicts, falling far short of Hawks or Cukor.
Elle (Tomlin), college lecturer and poet, has just split up with her much younger girlfriend Olivia (Greer), on the rebound from her longterm partner, Violet, who has recently died. Blaming Olivia (unjustly) for the split, Elle is in a foul mood, when her grand daughter Sage (Garner) appears in her flat, wanting money for an abortion. Elle, having just cut up all her credit cards, using the snippets for a creative mobile, tries in vain to borrow money from Karl (Elliott), an ex-boyfriend; the two women trying to avoid to involving Sage’s mum, the straightforward business executive Judy (Harden), who lives exclusively in the real world, and is equally exasperated by her ‘fly by night’ daughter and mother.
GRANDMA is a vehicle for Lili Tomlin to show off her considerable acting skills. Dominating the film, the cast are merely punchbags for her anger. There are some impressive scenes, like the one in front of the abortion clinic, where a vicious Pro-life lobbyist uses a little girl to argue her point; but mainly it is all about the frustrated Elle, having failed as a poet and is now lonely in old age. Worst of all is Weitz’ banal approach in trying to milk really serious situations for cheap laughter. Whilst Tomlin has a field day, the same cannot be said for the audience. AS
Cast: Margita Gosheva, Ivan Savov, Ivan Barnev, Stefan Denolyubov;
Bulgaria/Greece/Germany 2014, 105 min.
First time directors/writers Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov have created a film about newfound poverty in post-communist countries, very much on the lines of the impressive Kreditis Limiti (Credit Limits) by the Georgian director Salome Alexi. In both cases the central protagonist is a woman, fighting for the survival of her family, caught in the clutches of scrupulous moneylenders.
Set in small town Bulgaria, Nadezhda (Gosheva), a middle-aged teacher at a secondary school, finds out about the theft of a purse in her class. She gives the thief amble time to come forward, but in vain. We find out, that Nadeszhda (Nade) is a fanatical believer in righteousness, a belief that will be tested continually during the film. Her troubles start when she finds out that her husband Mladen (Barnev), an alcoholic, has bought a gearbox for a decrepit camper van he wants the sell for profit – with the money which was meant for the mortgage. The bank initiates a foreclosure, and Nadezhda has three days to save her family home. She goes to her wealthy, estranged father (Savov) who, having been widowed only three years ago, lives with a new partner, the skimpily dressed Galya, nearly 20 years younger than herself. Nade cannot conceal her dislike of her father’s partner, insulting the young woman on several occasions. So as a last resort, Nade goes to a moneylender to borrow the funds to save her home, but it emerges that he is a crooked letch and Nade but get her own back somehow.
Ideology-wise, THE LESSON is very much in the style of Lorna’s Silence by the Dardenne Brothers, demonstrating that poverty and homelessness is always just round the corner and always closer than we think – or hope. Nade is a very prim person, a dutiful teacher and good mother to her daughter Andrea. But her husband’s greed and incompetence lands her in a in a situation beyond help. At one point, she is racing against time to pay in the money from the lender to the bank. On the way to the bank, her car brakes down, she has to run, catch a bus, only to find out that the thief in her class has stolen her last penny and the piece is heads for a Kafkaesque denouement as we identify with her desperate predicament.
Gosheva is brilliant as the hassled woman, and DOP’s Krum Rodriguez’s images are very close to Pasqualino de Santis’ images in Bresson’s L’Argent. THE LESSON, which won the “New Director’s Award” in San Sebastian, is an outstanding portrait of a conscientious woman, who, without any fault of her own, suddenly has the rug pulled from beneath her feet. AS
REVIEWED DURING THE CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL 3 – 13 SEPTEMBER 2015
Wri/Director: Terence Davies Novel: Lewis Grassic Gibbon (novel)Cast: Peter Mullan, Agyness Deyn, Kevin Guthrie, Ian Pirie, Jack Greenlees, Douglas Rankine, Neil Greign Fulton | 135min | Drama | UK
Terence Davies follows The Deep Blue Sea with another English literary adaptation, SUNSET SONG, Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s classc tale of womanhood in transition at the turn of the 20th century. Emotionally prurient and brimful with Scottish traditions from the North East, it stars Agyness Deyn in a full-bodied turn that embraces stoicism and tenderness, as the main character Chris Guthrie.
Michael McDonough’s lushly burnished visuals set the scene: a remote Aberdeenshire coastal community on the cusp of the first World War, where blue-stocking Chris is the only girl in a farming family of three boys, her trampled mother Jean and disciplinarian father (Peter Mullan in fine form) doing their best in fraught circumstances, made worse when Jean falls pregnant with twins.
There is a strict religious undertone of vehement Calvinism for this Patriarchal family: in the dour and spartan home the women’s work is never done and they are but slaves to the father’s requirements with regular beatings for elder son Will, and intercourse on demand for poor Jean, whether she likes it or not. Eventually after a bloody, difficult birth, she takes her own life, with the twins and it falls to Chris to look after the family.
Slow-burning, and often ponderous, Terence Davies balances movement with stillness to achieve graceful dramatic tension as the narrative unfolds with unexpected, even positive, twists and turns. Although occasionally SONG strikes a questionable note with his tone and scripting. There are bright moments, echoed through the glorious sun rising through lace curtains, or on the endless billowing cornfields, blue sky overhead. The post War episode feels slightly and underwritten, with no real explanation for the rapid decline into mental illness of Chris’s young husband. Musical choices veer towards the folksy and hymnal; some may argue this misjudges narrative and tone. Davies evokes happiness without being sentimental and his mastery of staging and visual compositions are superb. Bitterness, rancour and bliss, all embodied in one pivotal decade in the magnificent Scottish landscape where Chris discovers life and love as it really is. MT
SCREENING DURING THE TERENCE DAVIES RETROSPECTIVE | VIENNALE 2021
Fairman and Gogarty investigate the increasing use of drugs in gay recreational sex in a worthwhile documentary that raises serious issues, not least for the gay community.
Recreational drug use has always been widespread in gay community including occasional weekend forays for those with non-scene profiles: ie who partner-up and remain faithful, possibly even fathering families. But here the directors dig deeper to reveal a more disturbing trend in the type of men who are falling prey to regular abuse that can lead to mental instability and fatal addiction, not to mention a rather cavalier attitude towards deliberate HIV infection.
A selection of brave young gay men tell their Chemsex stories to the camera: Enrique, Miguel, Andrew are revealed, others remain behind a curtain; the film gradually explores their lives in greater detail and some fascinating facts emerge about their mental stability. There is talk of dysfunctional backgrounds and the shame associated with coming-out that has made them ultra-sensitve and introspective about their sexuality. Drug use then becomes a crutch to lean on, giving them confidence and emotional freedom from the shackles of fear, doubt, loneliness and isolation, particularly in large cities like London. Those coming from abroad are also vulnerable. Spanish national Enrique in a case in point, after arriving with an MA in Economics and a job in banking, he down-spiralling into prostitution after falling prey to the ‘confidence-boosting’ effects of recreational drug abuse (known as ‘slamming’). Chemsex involves substances that enhance the libido such as ‘Tina” (crystal meth) and G (GBL is stronger than GHB although they are both given the same initial). All these drugs enhance ‘feelgood’ dopamine release in the human brain at low levels, but have sedative affects with higher doses and can gradually lead to emotional collapse.
The men are caught in a vicious circle, extolling the virtues of drugged sex and claiming they would never go back to having ‘ordinary’ sex. The one who seek help, want to break the cycle. Often filmed in group orgies, or in couples, many of the men are actually on the internet sites such as ‘grindr’, looking for their next partner while still in the throes of a sexual encounter and this may be their 20th one that weekend.
One pioneer who is helping to counsel men with substance abuse is David Stuart, who works out of 56 Dean Street (Enrique started working there at the time of the film). This is a service provided by the NHS, aiming to rehabilitate addicts who feel isolated, despite their internet hook-ups, which are cited as having made socialisation worse. Before, they may have spend time with friends for dinner and cinema: now they are merely having meaningless sex and going home feeling empty. This, in some ways, mirrors the heterosexual dating trend ‘netflix and chill’ that involves endless hook-ups for one night stands, a experiences that alienates and depresses those interested in forming ongoing, steady relationships.
What emerges in CHEMSEX victims is a general picture of emotional insecurity that degenerates into mental illness, facilitated by drug abuse. But Fairman and Gogarty have only examined those who have worked with David Stuart. Presumably there are gays out there who are suffering and every dying. Everyone can fall victim to abuse: but in the gay community this manifests particularly in drug addiction that leads to abuse at the hands of others during ‘bareback’ sex parties’. These men often deliberately become HIV-positive – and in Andrew’s case – to bring relief from the worry of eventually being infected.
But what is slightly questionable here are attempts by the filmmakers to glamorise these episodes with hazy camera shots of hedonistic ‘shagfests’ and there is made mention in the credits of ‘art direction’ which seems to fly in the face of the serious nature of some of the material.
CHEMSEX does have a positive finale with onscreen texts relating how the various men are progressing, having benefitted from the free NHS counselling service. If the NHS can offer free counselling to recreational drug abusers, the Government are making a positive contribution to gay mental health. But the saddest and most salient fact to come away with is that five gay men are diagnosed with HIV every day in London. MT
Director: David Bickerstaff | Producer: Phil Grabsky
Biopic | Documentary |
Francisco Goya is Spain’s most celebrated artist and often considered one of the leading protogonists of the modern art movement; his piercing psychological insight seen in his portraits of Spain’s leading figures during a time of great turbulence for Europe at the crossroads of the 19th Century.
In this feature-length documentary based on the major exhibition GOYA: THE PORTRAITS at London’s National Gallery, the film builds a compelling portrait of the artist’s 80 year life offering critical appraisal from experts and contemporary artist, illuminating behind the scenes footage, masterpieces from international collections and visits to the places where Goya lived and worked in Spain and France.
Once again regular collaborators, producer Phil Grabsky and director David Bickerstaff, offer an insightful and visually compelling arthouse piece with filmed excerpts provided by a professional actor in the part of Goya himself, to flesh out their straightforward documentary narrative, much as they did in their Van Gogh documentary. Occasionally feeling like an Open University title with its largely didactic approach, GOYA: VISIONS OF FLESH AND BLOOD is nevertheless absorbing and highly watchable. The film uncovers Goya’s close friendships and dalliances showing him to be a brilliant observer of everyday life and of Spain’s troubled past, and a gifted portraitist and social commentator par excellence. Bickerstaff’s peerless camerawork compliments Goya’s brushwork and technique showing how his penchant for white lead oils could well have lead to his deafness in later life but also shows how the painter developed his talent, continually improving and honing his craft, taking the genre of portraiture to new heights of genius, despite times of great financial hardship. MT
Cast; Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guinness, Rod Steiger, Ralph Richardson, Siobhan McKenna, Rita Tushingham
USA/UK/Italy 1965, 193 min.
David Lean read Boris Pasternak’s novel Dr. Zhivago in April 1963 on an ocean liner, crossing the Atlantic. His first reaction to the 500+ pages long novel was “Oh God”. But he soon got engrossed in it, and finished it two nights later. “Sitting up in my bed, with a box of Kleenex, wiping the tears away. I was so touched by it, and I thought that if I can be touched like this, sitting in a liner, reading a book, I must be able to make a good, touching film of it. As soon as I landed, I contacted my agent and said ‘Yes, I’ll do Doctor Zhivago’ ”. Two other directors, Stanley Kubrick and Fellini had been considered, but David Lean got the job.
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) had begun writing Dr. Zhivago in the 1920, but did not complete it before 1956. The Stalinist censors immediately banned the book (it was only published in the USSR in the Glasnost years in the late 80ies), but the manuscript was smuggled to the West, and published in 1957 by the Italian Feltrinelli publishing house. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958, but told by the Soviet authorities that he would not be allowed back into the country, if he accepted the prize. Pasternak stayed and died two years later.
Since the screen rights to the novel were owned by the Italian producer Carlo Ponti, David Lean was suspicious that Ponti might insist on Sophia Loren, his wife, to be cast as Lara. But unlike Sam Spiegel, Lean’s producer on Lawrence of Arabia, Ponti kept his distance from the production process. Yvette Mimieux was mentioned to play Lara, than Jane Fonda, who was favoured by Lean, but he had concerns about her American accent. Lean proposed Sarah Miles, but screenwriter Robert Bolt “called her a Northern slut” – he later changed his mind and married her twice. They settled finally on Julie Christie, who had impressed both Lean and Robert Bolt with her performance in Schlesinger’s Billy Liar. Christie, the darling of the British New Wave, went to screen tests in Spain, taking it as a paid holiday, not a serious undertaking. But Lean, who was “like a kind but authoritarian father” to her, fell, like the whole crew under her spell.
From the beginning, Lean wanted to cast Peter O’Toole in the title role after working together on Lawrence but the actor declined, after reading one of the first versions for the script, and was anyhow under contract to Sam Spiegel, who was not in the mood of giving a helping hand to Lean after their falling out. Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster and Max von Sydow were mentioned, but Lean went for Omar Sharif, whom he had already casted as Pasha Antipov/Strelnikoff, Tom Courtenay getting the part of the young revolutionary in the end. The director would have preferred Marlon Brando for the role of the shifty Komarovsky, but Rod Steiger was chosen and gave a masterful performance in the final film. When 19 year old Geraldine Chaplin landed in Spain for screen tests, she looked sixteen. Lean was concerned, since Chaplin was playing a mother of two in the film, but was reassured, when the daughter of Charles Spencer Chaplin and Oona O’Neill, showed some of the acting skills of her parents. She is enchanting and perfect as Tonya.
Robert Bolt was a slow writer (and in the middle of a divorce from his first wife Celia Ann Roberts), and Ponti had to be patient. Bolt had envisaged the film as a political drama, but Lean, like Bolt an old-fashioned misogynist (the director’s marriage to Leila was going through a rocky period due to Lean neglecting her for his work), was more interested in the romantic and carnal aspects of the novel. Ponti wanted to shoot in Yugoslavia, mainly for cost-cutting reasons, the USSR was also mentioned, but the authorities there were keen on the foreign currency, but not so much on the film itself. Production designer John Box spent nearly a whole winter in Yugoslavia, and was convinced that nobody could function properly in the near arctic conditions. Finally, the team settled on Spain, where Box rebuild Moscow “on a rubbish dump at Canillejas, outside Madrid”, where construction started on 3.8.64, whilst the scenes requiring snow would be shot near the CEA studios, in the north eastern city of Soria, four thousand feet above sea level. But it turned out that during the 232 day shoot, lasting from 28.121964 to 7.10.1965. the winter was extremely mild in and around Soria, so that many snow scenes had to be shot in Finland. Another sequence of scenes – the Zhivago family travelling to Yuriatin – was filmed in Canada. The bookends of Dr. Zhivago, were shot at a dam on the border of Spain and Portugal.
Dr Zhivago is essentially an intricate spy story but the tale of love dominates not least due to the chemistry of Sharif and Christie. The total production costs run up 85 M$ in today’s money, but the film has now grossed by now over 200 M$ – and counting and is considered in the Top Ten of the Britain’s foremost romantic dramas. After its premiere, the film was harshly treated by some of critics in December 1965, and MGM was paying the cinema to keep the film in rather empty cinemas. But after four weeks, box office picked up after ‘word or mouth’ and Zhivago was sold out for every performance. At the Oscar’s in April 1966, Dr. Zhivago was nominated for ten awards, winning five. Whilst David Lean did not receive his third Oscar – William Wyler had warned him that “they never give it to you three times in a row” – Julie Christie won Best Actress – for her role in Darling by John Schlesinger. AS
AS PART OF THE BFI LOVE: FILMS TO FALL IN LOVE WITH | BACK ON THE BIG SCREEN IN A 4 K DIGITAL RESTORATION IN ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR | ON LONG RELEASE FROM 27 NOVEMBER 2015 NATIONWIDE
Best described as a Western Documentary Phillip Paribeau’s UNBRANDED sees four young wannabe cowboys, fresh from college, follow their dream on a wild adventure along a 3,ooo mile backbone of the Mexico borders to Canada.
Their chosen method of transport is by mustang, just a folksy word for the wild horses (that were originally imported into the country 500 years ago by Spanish conquistadores) and whose cause the boys are promoting: Over 50,000 of the beasts are looking for adoptuion in holding facilities. Since 1971, the horses have been protected on the land and there is controversary as to whether they are over-breeding – as rangers claim, or are under threat. But under the AML guidelines (Appropriate Management Levels), the territory can only support 23,000 mustangs and there are currently over twice that amount, 60% are in Nevada alone, and therefore their existance is potentially untenable, aacording to so,e. Fortunately, the horses’ cause has been considerably enhanced by the doc winning the Audience Award at Hots Docs in Toronto.
Audiences may find the idea of a rites of passage journey exhilarating but occasionally the boys complain of boredom and resort to reading on horseback during their journey, ironically ‘Shades of Grey’ is the book of choice for one man – casting considerable doubt on his abilities to meditate and ruminate on greater things in this magnificent countryside of Utah, Montana, Oregon
Ben Masters leads the five month expedition through some of the most glorious scenery known to mankind and Dp camerawork is simply stunning to behold offering unbridled footage of national parks such as the Yellowstone and the Glacier. But the major challenge comes from the mustangs themselves who are fiercely wild and independent and, most of the time, an unknown quantity offering plenty of dramatic tension in this entetaining and informative film, scored by a Sergio Leone style original soundtrack. But for those looking for fast-moving action sequences there may be some longeurs: this is more about quiet meditation and being at one with nature.
The story kicks up briefly for some 4th of July celebrations including a tradional rodeo and cut throats shaves all round for the boys, in Jackson. But Ben claims to be “glad to get out of there” as they continue their journey. Donkeys join the group but there are also losses on the mustang front and eventually the trip proves tiring as food supplies start to offer poor variety on the nourishment front. “No matter how beautiful a country is, at some point it becomes a test of endurance,” and this particularly the problem when the troop have to take the long way round, in the case of private ground. And arguments break out as the tensions start to surface. But Ben Masters’ endeavour is ultimately about promoting the horses fight for survival so that every man and beast can successfully share the natural beauty and ressources of this spectacular part of the world.
Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, Alan Alda, Austin Stowell, Will Rogers, Eve Hewson | 145 min | Spy Thriller | US
The Cold War dragged on from the late 1940s to 1989, creating a new genre: the Spy film. Many of these films were purely propaganda vehicles, or portayed a romantic or nostalgic world devoid of reality. Bridge of Spies focuses on an attempted exchange of two famous captured spies at the height of the Cold War, just after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and before the Cuba crisis. With Bridge of Spies Steven Spielberg captures a realistic snapshot of an era where angst dominated day-to-day living on both sides. And who better to transmit this feeling of dread and make it compelling and entertaining but Mark Rylance and Tom Hanks in the leads, supported by a sinister Sebastian Koch, an incendiary John Rue and a smirking Alan Alda.
In February 1962, Rudolf Abel (Rylance), a Soviet Spy sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in New York, and the US pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), who had been shot down over the USSR. The film gets its name from the Glienicker Bridge in Berlin where exchanges took place during the era. This bridge connected West Berlin to the GDR, the borderline between two systems being the mid-point of the bridge.
Spielberg’s real hero is insurance lawyer James B.Donovan (Hanks) who is tasked with defending Abel and saving him from the death penalty, but his success is somewhat of a poisoned chalice as it makes the Irishman unpopular with both his boss and the American people. Most lawyers experienced in this kind of work had declined to act as Abel’s defence attorney, so Donavan was more or less pressganged by his boss Thomas Watters (a gritty Alan Alda) into accepting the role. But Donovan and Abel (the latter a dedicated painter, and we see his daubing a few canvases in the cutaways), for all their opposed political views, somehow find common ground: and a mutual respect.
Shunned at work, Donovan’s family home is attacked by enraged citizens: his teenage daughter Carol (Hewson) nearly killed in hail of bullets, shot through the window of the family house. In the commuter train, with his photo in the newspapers, Donovan feels the probing stars of his fellow passengers. But this all changes when the CIA suddenly needs Donovan’s powers of negotiation for the exchange. As Donovan had cleverly predicted, sentencing Abel to death would have meant that an American spy, caught in the USSR, would have suffered the same fate. Now, Francis Gary Power, pilot of a secret spy plane, which was was downed over the USSR, was the pawn in the hand of the Soviet negotiators in Berlin, who wanted their man Abel back as badly as the USA wanted Powers. Donovan went to Berlin to start negotiating, making his mission even harder when he insists on having a young American student, Frederic Pryor (Rogers), who was arrested by the GDR authorities, released into the bargain – whilst the CIA and the KGB simply wanted a straight forward exchange between Abel and Powers.
Mark Rylance is the right choice for the role of the enigmatic and likeable spy, Rudolf Abel (the name of a friend in the USSR who died). Born William August Fisher 1903 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Abel was the son of ethnic Germans, who were revolutionaries in Tsarist Russia, Fisher’s father had agitated with Lenin in St. Petersburg. Later the family emigrated to the UK, before returning to the USSR in 1921. Fisher, who was fluent in six languages, became a radio-operator for the secret service (OGPU) in 1927, but was sacked in 1938 during the Great Purge, his brother being a follower of Trotsky. In 1946 Fisher was working again as a radio-operator, re-joining the security organisation, now called KGB. In 1948 he was sent to the USA to build up spy networks.
Obviously Spielberg has build up Donovan’s hero status: his insistence on having Pryor released too does not seem to have been the gamble the film makes it out. The young student, having written a thesis on economics in a socialist country, was in the hands of the Stasi, the East German security services. But the power over all aspects of life in the GDR really lay in the hands of the USSR. Since the KGB was not interested in Pryor at all, but wanted the Abel/Powers exchange to go ahead, one phone call from them was enough to release Pryor. And Spielberg certainly got it wrong when he has Donovan travelling to East Berlin, using the Friedrichs Strasse Control Point. All members of the four Allies powers crossed to the East Sector via Check Point Charlie. Showing East Berlin as a city of ruins and roaming gangs is in the first place an exaggeration, and simply wrong regarding the youths, who robbed Donovan of his coat: the East German police was extremely repressive: gangs, of which ever kind, were simply not tolerated.
But apart from these small details, Bridge of Spies captures the angst of the Cold War era when American children were shown films about nuclear bombs at school, and were asked to learn superfluous precautions for the time after an explosion. Little Roger, Donovan’s son fills the bathtub in his home with water in case he has no time after the attack to store the drinking water. And the wild shots, fired into his daughter’s room, are proof (both sides) could not tolerate sympathy with the enemy – even if it was, like in Donovan’s case, purely imagined.
DOP James Kaminski (War Horse, Lincoln) conjures up many worlds with his images: there is Donovan’s family home, the typical backdrop, where Donovan can relax after his adventures behind the Iron Curtain. Then there is the work environment, in the office (dimly-lit like an English Gentlemen’s Club). The courtroom for Abel’s trial feels undignified, rather like a Roman arena. The presiding Judge is antagonistic towards Donovan, the public gallery wants his head, after Abel is awaits his sentence in an atmosphere that thirsts for blood.
Mark Rylance’s Abel somehow dominating the scenes with his subtle intensity, even though Hanks is nominal the hero and more present on screen: Rylance is resigned, only interested in his painting, having experienced Stalinist terror in the first place, he knows he may be put against a wall on his return, or be celebrated as a hero. Hanks’ Donovan is like a kindly bear, loving the good fight, whoever the opponent; he would later negotiate very successfully with Fidel Castro to release hostages after the invasion of The Bay of Pigs.
Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies is a triumph; an epic about two men caught in a time of mistrust, violence and overriding paranoia on both sides. AS
Cast: Rebecka Josephson, Amy Deasismont, Annika Halin, Henrik Norlan, Maxim Mehmet
Sweden 2015, 105 min.
In her first feature film, writer/director Sanna Lenken delves into the life of a middle class Swedish family without sentiment yet with deep understanding of the subject matter. Her focus on the sibling rivalry between the two sisters is realistic and intense: their mode of warfare oscillating between blackmail and bribery.
Stella (Josephson) is going through the difficult time of puberty. And her physical and emotional changes are made all the more unbearable by her slightly older sister Katja (Deasismont) who has lost her puppy fat and transformed into a slim and budding skating star. Naturally, parents Karin and Lasse dote on their older daughter, spoiling her rotten, whilst Stella feels more like an afterthought in the family dynamics. Stella develops a crush on her sister’s English coach Jacob (Mehmet), finally testing him with a kiss to find out if he really is a paedophile, like her big sister teasingly suggests.
The dynamics between the sisters change when Stella discovers that her sister is bulimic. Since Katja knows that Stella has taken to reading suggestive poetry, she has the upper hand, making her promise never to tell the parents her secret. But when Katja’s condition deteriorates – she is unable to train any more – Stella finds it hard to keep quiet. She develops destructive tendancies and slowly her emotional conditional starts to become an issue with both at school and at home. Her parents, particularly the mother, are overworked and under pressure; helpless and out of touch with this emotional rollercoaster that has derailed their daughter. It’s up to Stella to save her, but before she makes calls for an ambulance, she makes it abundantly clear to her sister just how much she hates her. Hardly surprising, since Katja has now totally monopolised her parents. Judiciously, Lenken avoids a happy ending, leaving the audience with some insightful reflections.
Josephson and Deasismont as the warring sisters are brilliant, the younger actress is particularly convincing. Both show vulnerability and deep-felt aggression, hurt and neglect and convey this with stunning imagination. Their parents are a mediocre couple, who are helpless when things start to go wrong with their treasured ‘little darlings’. The camera stays mostly at a distance, but the few close-ups speak volumes. Lenken tells her story as a straightforward narrative without any detours, concentrating on the relationship of the youngsters, who, in different ways, are left to themselves with no real guidance from their doting parents to rely on. MY SKINNY SISTER is an outstanding debut, superbly casted and sensitive in its crafting. AS
BERLINALE RUNS FROM 5-15 FEBRUARY. COVERAGE CAN BE FOUND UNDER BERLINALE 2015
LECCE FESTIVAL OF EUROPEAN CINEMA | FIPRESCI WINNER
180min French with English subtitles Romantic Drama
A romantic drama in the true sense of the word, Betty Blue is everything you’d expect a French love story to be: obsessive, sensual and completely off the rails; but deliciously so, transporting you back to holiday romances and torrid summers on the sunbaked beaches of Southern France. Drenched in its vibrant eighties aesthetic it also epitomises the ‘Cinema du look’ movement that focused on spectacle over narrative, recently re-visited by Leos Carax with Holy Motors(2012).
Essentially a two-hander, Betty Blue has the erotically-charged presence of Jean-Hugues Anglade as Zorg, a wannabe writer and handy man who falls for the earthy charms of mad-cap waitress Betty (Beatrice Dalle), a gap-toothed bundle of unpredictability and effervescent charm. She’s the type of woman who will burn your house down if thwarted and she does just this to force Zorg from his humdrum existence decorating beach-huts for his creepy boss, Eddy (Gerard Darmon). Believing in Zorg’s untapped writing talents, she whisks him away to more madness as his muse. It all ends in tears, after an exhausting but worthwhile three hours (here in this director’s cut DVD deluxe edition). Intoxicating and watchable as long as you suspend your disbelief and buy into its ‘amour fou’ wackiness with a decent glass of vin de pays – this is a feel-good cult classic that will ward off the winter blues. MT
SCREENING AS PART OF BFI LOVE SEASON UNTIL DECEMBER 2015
SECOND SIGHT brings both the director’s cut and original theatrical version to Blu-ray and DVD for the first time, along with some fantastic bonus material in a stunning two-disc set
Cast: Pierre Niney, Ana Girardot, André Marcon, Valéria Cavalli, Marc Barbé
104min | French | Thriller
with the feel of Hitchcock and Chabrol (remember that scene in Le Boucher when blood drips through the celling?). Yann Goslan’s terrically tense thriller is a delicious treat sumptuously set in the summer heat of a villa in Var. It stars Pierre Niney as a struggling writer, driven to extremes by his desire to produce a decent novel., or at least any novel at all.
Mathieu Vasseur (Niney) first manuscript, The Man From Behind, has been rejected by publishers. Working parttime as a cleaner in the local College near his Parisian bedsit, Vasseur stumbles into a lecture being given by a young woman, Alice (Ana Girardot), on the topic of scent and memory. When he’s hired to clear out the home of a dead man who has no living relatives, Vasseur finds a leather bound tome recounting the man’s experiences in the Algerian war. Vasseur has the brainwave to pass this off as his own work, and before he can say Highsmith, he’s written his perfect ‘debut’ novel. Soon he’s mixing in the same circles as Alice and when the pair become engaged, they head off to her parent’s gorgeous Villa near Dijon, armed with an advance to work on his second novel.
But Vasseur is somewhat of a slacker And his publisher is breathing down his neck for a few sentences. Meanwhile a friend of the original author also gets in touch and not just for a chat over a cafe creme – he also means business and tries to blackmail Vasseur. then One of Alice’s exes, Stanislas (Thibault Vincon), arrives at the villa and senses the the edgy tension in Vasseur.
Niney is perfect as the highly-strung, feline Vasseur, in this follow-up to his role as Yves Saint Laurent. With his sensitive masculinity he makes Vasseur a compelling character both sensual and vulnerable and his chemistry with Ana Girardot is perfectly believable. Vasseur’s nerves of steel make him similar to the famed Mr. Ripley character of Patricia Highsmith, novel. Gozlan’s crafts a portrait of an intellectual con man who allows his desperation for success to go against his better judgement. Sadly the background of the Algerian war is hardly mentioned and could have provided a rich counterpoint to the narrative that descends into blackmail and eventually murder and a really tragic denouement.
Still, the absolutely brilliant noirish score by Cyrille Aufort (A Royal Affair) and Antoine Roch’s gorgeous cinematography make this a gripping and watchable thriller for a Saturday night at the movies – or any other night of this week for that matter. MT
ON RELEASE FROM 20 NOVEMBER 2015 COURTESY OF STUDIO CANAL
The Heavy Weapons Company, 3rd brigade, 215 Corps of the Afghan National Army (ANA) has the thankless task of serving in the Gereshk River Valley in Helmand Province, named “Bomb Alley” by NATO troops. The location has been used many times for British films about soldiers in this lethal area. With NATO troops gone in 2014, the ANA has to fight the resurgent Taliban, very much on its own.
This is a personal documentary, told from the perspective of Captain Jalaluddin and Private Sunnatullah, the latter fighting since 2001. The most difficult aspect of their struggle is that the Taliban soldiers are hiding everywhere and even if they are captured by the regular army they are often released without further investigation after a few days. Some soldiers are angry and want to tie the Taliban to the back of their Humvees, but the interrogations are civil for the most part. Another problem is the continuing cultivation of opium. The farmers only admit to growing wheat, “the opium is on my cousins field”.
In their military base, an old sign left by American troops proclaims “God bless our troops, particularly the snipers”. The soldiers admit that they wanted NATO to pull out, but not so early. They have no illusions about their own government: “The government is a puppet of the Americans, but we still want to fight the Taliban”. And: “NATO achieved their own goals and left”. There are no illusions either about their own status: Most of the soldiers left school at the age of 15, they are “the poor and hopeless, who are asked to serve and say yes”. They often lie to their families about the danger they are facing, more afraid what their death would mean to their families, than actually dying.
The 3rd Brigade is sent to Sangin province, since the Taliban has started the largest offensive for 13 years. Sangin is a strategically important province, if it would fall to the Taliban, the surrounding district would soon be also in the hands of the Taliban. The 3rd brigade was promised that their stay in Sangin would last for just 24 hours, but in the end it lasted 45 days. The unit was soon encircled by the Taliban, which had stormed a police HQ, and gained all the heavy weapons, with which they were decimating the 3rd brigade, fighting from a little fort. The men have nearly given up hope, since the supporting troops have left them. But somehow, they are relieved, only to watch the wounded to be operated on, and mourning their dead friends. One soldier quotes a poem, which gave the film the title: “Tell spring not to come this year, not to cover the land with its shroud, let no nightingale sing, oh my country, alas my country.”
In their strictly non-judgemental approach, the directors try not to give their film any deeper meaning: it speaks for itself. Senseless deaths for over 14 years have taken their toll; but it is surprising how clear the soldiers see their situation, and how sane they are still, after witnessing the butchering of friends and foes. There can be no winners and losers; just the dead, to whom this documentary is dedicated: 30 soldiers were killed during filming, on top of countless civilians. AS
REVIEWED DURING THE CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL 2015 | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE
Hopefully, it’s not often that you’ll find yourself listening to an endless stream of drivel, delivered by an arch criminal, albeit a well-dressed and articulate one. But this is what you get with arthouse indie THE FEAR OF 13.
Director David Sington (Thin Ice) has been making award-winning films all over the world that have ‘freed the innocent and convicted the guilty’. His latest docudrama takes place in the stultifying confines of a small room in the company of ‘Nick’. with filmed excerpts intended to add interest and enlighten us further on his subject’s nefarious past – a ‘convicted murderer’ who has spent the 23 years on Death Row before the advent of DNA testing . For the most part Sington’s film feels like a confessional rather than an account of the salacious past of a murderer. Obviously there are grim details here but nothing worse than one might expect from BBC News At Ten. ‘Nick’ has the soft-spoken, calmness of a true psychopath. The tone is conciliatory and at times even poetic. Revelations spill out, often accompanied by tellingly violent gestures and a percussive tone, sometimes smiles leeringly as he unburdens his soul to reveal a tormented past of high hopes and dashed expectations over a murder he claims never to have committed.
‘Nick’s past is pitted with his unpredictable outbursts and psychotic interludes – stealing, looting, lying, deceiving for the hell of it – but in his calm and mesmerising delivery, these are played down as small fry in the scheme of his hurt feelings and disappointments with life’s setbacks. Self-justification is occasionally proffered: a poor relationship with his father or a perceived rejection by his family. He even claims to have been raped as a small boy, while walking his poodle in the woods. All this aims to justify why he went on to pursue the career of a criminal – that was never really his fault and he refuses to be defined by it – leading to the dream of eventually ‘finding himself a girl and having a family’. Clearly Nick was not interested in learning about morals or ethical rehabilitation while on Death Row, but he did develop a passion for reading and discovered the word triskaidekaphobia – the fear of thirteen. Was he a murderer though? All is revealed in Sington’s clever third act twist.
Clearly once the sheer amazement at ‘Nick’s brazen attitude has worn away, you find yourself growing bored of this irritatingly narcissistic character who believes everyone owes him a living, and that his criminal ways are justified by his difficult past, all ‘independently’ verified, as we are informed. Cleverly, he goes to dupe the Courts and finally Sington. In a ‘coup de grace’ of the truly passive aggressive, ‘Nick’ petitions the courts to set a date for his execution. Almost like the stalker who claims to have been the victim of stalking, this is the final straw.
Sington’s direction and reasonable pacing allows events to unfold seamlessly, but the undercurrent here is one that encourages sentimentality for this Uriah Heap-style convict who is “ever so umble me lud”. As water tumbles over his chair, representing the ‘ocean of tears’ that this poor, misunderstood man has been through? Sington finally delivers his clever denouement. MT
THE FEAR OF 13 IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 13 NOVEMBER 2015
Cast: Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Frances de La Tour, Jim Broadbent; UK 2015, 104 min.
Nicholas Hytner (The Madness of King George) directs the film version of Alan Bennett’s play, which he staged at the National Theatre. Maggie reprises her title role of the bag lady who lived in her battered van in Bennett’s drive way in Gloucester Crescent, Camden for fifteen years.
Miss Shepherd moved with her van into Bennett’s driveway in NW1 during 1974 and stayed there until her death in 1989. Only then did Bennett find out that M.T. Shepherd was once a concert pianist, having been taught by Alfred Cortot, whose extreme right-wing political leanings she shared. Her relationship with Bennett (Jennings) – played by two Alan’s, the writer and his alter Ego the man, who discuss and argue permanently – is one of strife and confrontations, mainly about her hygiene. On occasions she used Bennett’s toilet, and we see the writer cleaning endlessly after her. The neighbours “liberals, slightly guilty intellectuals”, among them Frances de La Tour’s Ursula Vaughn Williams, are glad that Shepherd has landed on Bennett’s property: the main reason being that she did not like the music of the children in the house she had used as parking space before. Shepherd once killed a young man on a motorcycle, whilst driving her car, and even though the accident was caused by the victim, it traumatised the woman , whose mental frailness had been increased during a stay in a nunnery.
The second “woman” in Bennett’s life is his mother, who drifts into Alzheimer’s, ironically after telling his son that Ms Shepherd will need to go to a home. Bennett’s relationship with his mother is, like with nearly everyone (including his alter Ego): full of guilt and regret. Whilst Maggie Smith is only too happy to have confrontations with everyone crossing her path, Bennett muses and reflects about his place in life, all his relationships troubled by inertia. There could not have been a more different ‘couple’ sharing a property: the shy, left wing writer and the load mouthed right-winger, who once wrote “to someone in charge of Argentina” that she was the real “Iron Lady”, and not Margaret Thatcher.
Even though the film travels outside London, when Bennett visits his mother in a care home in Weston-Super-Mere, or talks to Ms Shepherd’s brother, most of it feels like a play, the scenes shot at the original places. This makes THE LADY IN THE VAN into a reflection about art and life: how easy it is to slip once too often and loose the balance needed to cope with everyday life.
Maggie Smith is brilliant, always able to liven proceedings up, and showing a spirit – in spite of her mental illness – that is much stronger than Bennett’s careful life hidden behind words. Jennings ‘two Bennetts’ do need each other, to make a whole, which can survive. Hytner has re-created a London, which has long gone, its weird gentleness replaced by crass materialism and property speculation. LADY IN THE VAN is a sad goodbye to an era which allowed opposing personalities, how ever damaged, to live together. AS
Miklos Jancso (1921-2014) was not only the leading Hungarian director of his generation – if not the greatest Hungarian director of all times (as Bela Tarr claims) – his films, which spanned over seven decades from 1958 to 2010, influenced European Art House cinema particularly in the 60s and 70s. and he went on to win the Director’s Prize at Cannes in 1972 for Red Psalm and the Golden Lion at Venice in 1990.
Most of his films rely on long takes; a choreography of movement which is vey much like a ballet and rural settings where horses often dominate humans in their impact and a very allegorical approach. Whilst he was accused of formalism and Nationalism under Stalinism, he was always very critical of his fellow countrymen, whom he accused of having chosen a brutal and radical path in their history, coupled with abuse of power. Scathing about the younger generation of post-Stalinist Hungary, he makes fun of their crass materialism in Lord’s Lantern in Budapest (1999).
The original title of THE RED AND THE WHITE, which reads in translation as “The Stars on their Caps”, expresses Jancso’s intention much more so than the English title. A co-production between the USSR and Hungary, the drama was supposed to be a triumphant celebration of the October Revolution of 1917. How anybody could expect Jancso to fulfil these expectations is astonishing – and the result was anything but a revolutionary triumph: Jancso set the film in 1919 during the Russian Civil War, when Hungarian volunteers served in the Red Army.
Set around a landscape near the Volga, the film starts with White Guards taking Red Army soldiers prisoner in a dilapidated palace full of Greek columns and featuring an orthodox church: representing a past era, which is gone forever. The Whites are not only satisfied with simply killing their prisoners, but they make a game of power of it: the prisoners have 15 minutes to escape, before the soldiers on horseback will chase them. The outcome is obvious, the first mass slaughter of The Red and the White reminds very much of The Hunger Games and other contemporary productions, were mass killings take the form of a pastime.
Women are the obvious victims of male violence: a young peasant women only just escapes being raped by a White Soldier. Later the nurses in a field hospital have to identify wounded communist soldiers to the Whites under duress. Violence is everywhere: the Red army soldiers are only marginally better off, they too have a lust for violence; killing not so much out of revolutionary fervour, but because they can. As usual, Jancso is not interested in individual psychological motivations, he paints a colossal picture of mass hysteria culminating in more and more revenge killings: the War is not the culprit here, but human nature. Whilst the fortunes of the fighters change, their only goal seems to be revenge once they are in control of the situation. THE RED AND THE WHITE is simply not an anti-war film, but a documentation of human failure: they crave power only to express themselves in violent behaviour.
Aesthetically Jancso creates the opposite of realism: the world shown is very much a beautiful nightmare, in which soldiers and horses run in and out the frame, sometimes even entering it from behind the camera. The long takes are choreographed like ballet scenes. We often see certain actions, but from somewhere else voices tell a different story, and there is the ambient sound hear of different fights. There is an elegiac, enigmatic atmosphere of a nether-world, particularly in gentle scenes which end with senseless violence: the officers of the White Guard ask the nurses to dance with them in the delicate rhythm of a beech wood – for a moment human relations are civilised again. This mystic scene in the middle of Hieronymus Bosch-like on-goings, shows for a moment the human soul. AS
Winner of the Prix Max Ophuls for the best new director on its first appearance in 1968 but soon forgotten and never released in Britain, MORIRE GRATISfinally received its UK premiere as the concluding attraction in the ICA’s recent season devoted to Italian experimental cinema of the 60s and 70s. The only feature directed by Sandro Franchina, who died in Paris in 1998 at the age of 58, his film resembles Antonioni with jokes. The Italian art cinema having tired by the 1960s of neorealist examinations of the plight of the dispossessed, it instead turned its attention to the ennui of the affluent but discontented; represented in MORIRE GRATISby Enzo (Franco Angeli), an arrogant young sculptor who stroppily consents to serve as a drug mule. His ‘cargo’ concealed within the belly of his latest work – a Capitoline Wolf with a tape recorder inside it – his drive from Rome to Paris proves eventful.
Clearly inspired by Dino Risi’s Il Sorpasso (1962), and also recalling John Schlesinger’s Darling (1965) in the graceless self-centredness of its principal characters; the bulk of MORIRE GRATISconcerns itself with Enzo’s time on the road with a leggy, kohl-eyed French sixties chick (Karen Blanguernon) who he picks up along the way. We never learn anything about her and neither engages our sympathy; and the predictably nihilistic ending demonstrates that the director shares our feelings about them. The film’s working title had been Il Sole all’Ombra (Sun in the Shadow), and although the general shiftlessness of its main characters and bleak take on humanity anticipates the countless interminable road movies that followed during the seventies and eighties, MORIRE GRATIS moves along as swiftly as the restless anti-hero’s sometimes careless driving (there’s even a car chase at one point), the scenery is attractive – including a pretty little churchyard where Enzo moves the headstones about for a prank – and clocks in at a brisk 83 minutes. The audience at the ICA enjoyed it. RICHARD CHATTEN
MORIRE GRATIS was presented in 35mm with subtitles especially created for the screening as part of the ICA & Tate Modern film season IF ARTE POVERA WAS POP: ARTISTS’ AND EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA IN ITALY 1960s-70s.
Cast: Dougary Scott, Michael Pena, Djimon Hounsou, Olivia Dudley
91mins. Horror. US
THE VATICAN TAPES takes a case of demonic possession all very seriously in this eminently screechy, head-swiveling shocker that would have us believe that the Devil is amongst us. Well didn’t we know that already? So what new delights has director Mark Neveldine to import to us in his glossy-lensed jerky-handed derivative horror outing that cleverly combines all the classics horror tropes with some mean dialogue to boot. Abandoning the found footage formula of the original 2009 outing, it opts instead for a Vatican top-secret security cam formula.
The opening titles are rather seductively misleading in suggesting that this is going to be a well-mounted Vatican costume drama, where two vicars (one black, one white) investigate paranormal ecclesiastical activity. But we cut to comtempo LA where a Kristen Stewart lookalike blond is smoozing her BF: “honey, you look so beautiful” says he but within a short bus ride, during which a raven crashes through the windscreen, she has morphed into a hard-edged snarling bitch – of the kind you might meet on a dark night in rainy Harlesden, after one of TFL’s planned underground strikes.
Angela Holmes (Olivia Taylor Dudley), is then carted off by men in white coats much to the dismay of her man Pete (John Patrick Amedori), and her craggy, devoutly Catholic father, Roger (Dougray Scott). Slashes to her wrists and other wounds keep her comatose and, axiomatically, fasting for 40 days and 40 nights (but crucially not in the Wild) before she awakes to wreak havoc and nearly drown a newborn baby.
Clearly possessed by demons that also affect those around her, Angela is transferred to the psychiatric unit where her telekinetic powers cause untold havoc. Meanwhile Dougary’s doing his nut, rushing around furiously and claiming to know better than everyone else how to handle his little girl and secretly wondering why he agreed to sign up to this Vatican-themed nonsense.
Everyone does their level best to be unbalanced but even Dougary can’t save the film, let alone his own flesh and blood. The dialogue descends into unspeakable depths with phrases like: “The devil possesses what is already his” and you know by then, as your hand travels uncontrollably towards the “off” button with demonic gusto, that you have been possessed by higher powers to bring this film to the end of its natural life. MT
THE VATICAN TAPES IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 30 OCTOBER 2015 and VOD for HALLOWEEN
Cast: Rhys Ifans, Charlotte Church, Steffan Rhodri, Aneirin Hughes
87min | Drama | UK
When highly-coloured bits of plastic detritus bob along a fake sea bed in the opening titles to UNDER MILK WOODyou start to wonder if you’ve slipped into a screening of a Tellytubbies feature length drama. But the lilting Welsh voiceover is unmistakably the powerfully potent 1954 ‘play for voices’ by Dylan Thomas.
Kevin Allen’s ultimately pointless screen adaptation is a ghastly twee romp through a Welsh village. It is also the UK’s Foreign Language hopeful at the 2016 Academy Awards. And to top it all, it stars Charlotte Church (as the buxom Polly Garter). The whole point of this gorgeous play is to listen and imagine it, ringing out in richly evocative tones, as the lushness of its sumptuous imagery gradually unfolds in the subconscious to evoke a whimsical Welsh wonderland.
Take a paltry budget (hence the plastic) and some largely unknown actors (doing their best but cast simply through being Welsh) and you have a second rate production bristling with picture postcard lewdness that totally downgrades and denigrates one of Britain’s most wonderful and highly-regarded 20th century plays. What was Kevin Allen (Twin Town) thinking of?
The saving grace here is naturally the narration by Rhys Ifans, who can always carry a production with his exuberance and style. Starring as Captain Cat, one of the characters who dwells in the coastal village of Llareggub on whose musings the piece is based, he brings the drama to life with his sparky enthusiasm.
But the gently erotic immaginings of a Welsh seaside town become crude and tasteless under Allen’s direction. Instead of being the central focus and raison d’etre of Thomas’s creation, the velvety soft and sonorous sounds drift to the background as the dildo-shaped candles and bulging buttocks loom large. Shut your eyes if you want to enjoy this. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 30 OCTOBER 2015 | REVIEWED AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL 2015
Cast: Marco Leonardi, Peppino Mazzotta, Fabrizio Ferracane, Anna Ferruzzo, Barbora Bobulova
Drama, Italy, France, 103 mins
Dubbed as the new Gomorrah in some circles, Francesco Munzi’s mafia family drama purrs with tension, taking the brutal Mafioso world to the rustic villages of the Calabrian foothills at the southern tip of Italy.
This is the heartland of the ‘ndrangheta, the biggest and furthest-reaching mafia group in Italy, far stronger than the Comorrah and the Sicilian mafia, but more secretive and rarely infiltrated by outsiders. It’s because the group is made up of family units that the ‘ndrangheta are so tight, but it also means that entrance to the group for descendants is tacitly obligatory. If you don’t want ‘in’, you’re asking for trouble.
That’s the case with Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), a farmer whose brothers are long-standing members of the Carbone clan; he instead tends to his farmland of goats on the slopes of the Apennine Mountains. His son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo), however, is eager to join a group where he’ll gain respect, and in an age where Italian youngsters are frequently downtrodden by unemployment, this is something he is eager to commit to. His uncle Luigi (Marco Leonardi), a drug dealer who travels Europe, takes Leo under his wing, but after an altercation between Leo and a rival clan, events spiral to take the apparently peaceful town to gang war.
This is a slower, more composed film than Gomorrah, and doesn’t have that film’s electric socio-political edge. Instead, it works as a family drama that simmers with personal tragedy and works up to a powerful, gripping finale. Sumptuously filmed in the village of Africo, often said to be the home of the ‘ndrangheta, and with the peninsula’s craggy dialect, it convinces as a place where the state, the police, and perhaps conventional morality have trouble accessing. Among a cast of non-actors and professionals, Fumo, plucked from hundreds of local kids, is remarkable in his debut role as Leo, saying little but carrying a primordial terror with every retort at his disillusioned father.
Munzi’s script, co-written with Fabrizio Ruggirello, starts the film in Amsterdam and Milan, and perhaps could have done with setting the film more tightly in the insular ‘ndrangheta communities. Here it feels like there’s no escape, where every aspect of life is dominated by the mafia. The organisation helps local politicians gain election, bars and shops have to obtain ‘protection’ by one of the clans, and respect to members is non-negotiable. But that blinkered view of the world is also this family’s downfall, as the cracks in the foundations make the whole house fall down. Ed Frankl.
REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2014 | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 30 OCTOBER 2015
A shady enigmatic figure with a sulky exterior is how most of us remember Marlon Brando in his later years (1924-2004). But Steven Riley redresses the balance with this intoxicating documentary compiled from reams of Brando’s own audio tapes recording his innermost thoughts and streams of consciousness that expose the icon’s soul for all to appreciate. It’s unlikely that Marlon would approve of this exposé, commissioned by his own estate. That said, it serves as a remarkable tribute to the screen legend and, for the most part, manages to enhance his profile rather than diminish it; in a film made a decade after his death.
The film opens with a spooky digitised 3D image of Marlon’s head that the actor created for posterity – rather like some people commission a bronze bust or painting. It sets the tone for the woozy narrative that seems to capture the essence of the Marlon, often drifting dreamlike through filmed footage, clips and photographs of this stunningly handsome screen idol with his velvety voice, ‘come to bed’ eyes and macho persona.
It tells how from an early age Marlon was close to his creatively-driven mother but wary of his father, a travelling salesman who drank and beat his family. Marlon’s early influences came from acting superstar Stella Adler at New York’s, ‘New School’, a theatre and film training establishment run by talented, intellectual Jewish immigrés.
Marlon drifted into acting because he had a talent for ‘lying’: he was the youngest actor to win an Oscar for On the Waterfront, which he felt was undeserved. He later boycotted his Oscar for The Godfather, sending an American Indian to receive it in protest for the portrayal of the US Native race in Hollywood. His looks and allure made him popular with women although he was a poor father figure to the children whose birth he acknowledged: his daughter Cheyenne Brando later committed suicide; his son Christopher killed her boyfriend. There were many others.
But this did not tarnish his earning ability and he was much sought after often commanding vast figures for his acting performances which later left him free to pursue his human rights patronage of Black and Native American causes. A deep thinker and an introvert who isolated himself in the Hollywood Hills and in his beloved Tahiti, LISTEN TO ME MARLON brings out his philosophical edge and his spiritual leanings. He also took his craft seriously, realising his gift was the making of him: “I arrived in New York with holes in my socks, and holes in my mind”. During his lifetime he formed close friendships with other realist actors such as Monty Clift, but on set he was never easy to direct and had contretemps with Trevor Howard during Mutiny on the Bounty and Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now.
Steeped in insights and musings about his life and acting, it emerges that Marlon never took his fame for granted but also yearned for a simpler existence in Tahiti: “A sanity and sense of reality is taken away from you by success”. MT
ON THE WATERFRONT celebrates its 70th Anniversary with a remastered release courtesy of Park Circus
Dir.: Philip Walsh; Cast: Alain de Cadenet, Francesco Da Mosto; UK 2015, 70 min.
Between 1906 and 1977, the Targa Florio mountain road race in Sicily was much more than a mere sporting event: Much like the Siennese Palio, it was a play with death, performed in front of half a million spectators. Its history is part of the Sicilian identity: heroic, morbid but always glorious, a spectacle – one moment a dream, the next a nightmare. And Philip brings this vividly to life in his short documentary film
We discover how it was founded in 1906 by Vincenzo Florio, member of a cosmopolitan family, who outward-looking, wanted to bring Europe to Italy. The family was well-connected with local artists and authors, among them Count Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, whose novel “The Leopard” was later filmed by Visconti. Many motives of novel and film reverberate in A SICILIAN DREAM. Vincenzo Florio, though the race would finally bankrupted him, realised the family dream of making Sicily centre stage: for decades the best drivers in the world drove the course, which was insane, with poor safety controls for the drivers – the first cars who drove the circuit did not even have front brakes! Even though the early years brought no tragedies, with spectators lining the course with petrol cans, since there were no petrol stations.
The anecdotes are endless, like the one of the English driver Cyril Snipe, who was so tired, that he stopped and slept for two hours before his mechanic woke him with a bucket of cold water. Snipe re-entered the race and still won. In 1926 the first driver was killed, and the fortunes of the Florio family went into reverse. But between the wars, the Golden Age of sports car racing, saw the local school teacher Nino Vaccarella win the race three times. Still a local hero, his appearance is one of the highlights of A SICILIAN DREAM. After the Second World War, the lack of security of a racing course, only used by donkey carts otherwise, signals the end of the race: the 1977 edtion is abandoned half-way through (and the race for good) after a car crashes into a large group of spectators.
The docu-drama format has wonderful images of the Belle Epoche, with scenes of Vincenzo’s early days, and racing rivalries. The archive films of the race make it look truly scaring, particularly the early years are stunning – the adventurous spirit of drivers and spectators are caught in scratchy black-and-white images. The two main protagonists, Alain de Cadenet and Francesco da Mosto (always so enthusiastic and simpatico) join in with the other classic vehicles in a commemorate race through the sun-blasted landscape. During the filming, De Cadenet meets the son of the farmer who saved his life during a race, pulling him out of the burning vehicle, this way achieving a way of closure.
A SICILIAN DREAM is a true piece of Sicilian history: untamed in its beauty, but nevertheless, to quote De Lampedusa, “it is not a country in love with real progress, but with its languidness and love for death”. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 23 OCTOBER 2015
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Natalie Press, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whitshaw, Geoff Bell, Meryl Streep
UK/USA/ France 2015, 118 min.
All worthy themes deserve great treatment. So, whilst SUFFRAGETTE is very important in its subject matter, that doesn’t axiomatically make it the success it deserves to be.
Sarah Gavron has made a valiant attempt to convey the gruesome conditions of working women in the early 20th century. Maud Watts (Mulligan) is a laundry worker in Bethnal Green in the 1920s. She has worked part time since the age of seven, full time since she was twelve. In her early twenties, she has made it to the top of her career, as far as women are concerned in this workplace, which is closer to a workhouse than anything we know today. At home, her husband (Whitshaw) hides his weakness behind an authoritarian manner – their son has to bow to a picture of the ruling monarch Gorge V. before he goes to bed. Encouraged by her co-worker Violet (Duff), Maud joins the suffragette movement. Soon she is on police photos, which are brought to the attention of Inspector Steed (Gleeson), who tries – in vain – to make an informer of Maud. Whilst in the factory, the brutal manager Taylor (Geoff Bell), who sexually abuses women on a regular basis, threatens Maud, her husband throws her out of the house and then gives their son up for adoption – in a heart-breaking scene. Literally driven underground, Maud interacts with historical figures of the women’s movement like Edith Bessie New (Bonham-Carter), a pharmacist and bomb maker, as well as Emily Wilding Davison, who was famously fatally injured,when she threw herself in front of one of the King’s horses at the Derby in 1913. Emily’s sacrifice, witnessed by Maud, cements her will to fight.
Sarah Gavron’s aesthetic approach falls somewhere between a Hollywood blockbuster and a British kitchen-sink drama. Whilst the pace is always furious, the camera shows either panorama shots (with a few unnecessary crane-shots thrown in) or close ups, never coming to rest with medium shots, which should establish the characters. The relentless use of one-to-one images (in the name of realism) leave nothing for audiences to imagine. The characters are often too one-dimensional, because there is no time to explore their motives and history. And it is not asking for much to grant some of the protagonists some ambivalence. In the case of Taylor there is no need for this. But with Steed, a man driven by his profession rather than his knowledge about the eventual outcome of the struggle, the character deserves a more sublime approach. And Meryl Streep’s vignette as Emmeline Pankhurst, with her speech from a balcony, is surely too close to a caricature of a leader.
As far as the acting goes, a sterling British support cast generally does well. Mulligan gives a subtle performance, but not a brilliant one: the action plays out in her eyes but her screen presence is over-shadowed here by Helena Bonham-Carter and Nathalie Press, whilst Bell gets his brutal macho image absolutely right.
SUFFRAGETTE is an important film, not least for the fact that the social conditions of working women were gruelling in those days: they not only had to work from early childhood, they were sexual prey for all men: Taylor’s attitude shows that he has the right to get his way with any woman on the shop floor. And even the upper and middle class women were financially dependent on their husbands: when one of the women asks her husband to pay bail not only for her, but also for the working class women (to save them from prison), the gentlemen refuses, even though his wife reminds him that it is her money he is reliant on. SUFFRAGETTE is a timely reminder how much women were at the mercy of men: they were objects to be used, mistreated and punished like children: they were forced to turn to violence, (as women often still are today): the only language men understand, to free themselves.
SCREENING DURING THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL | 7-18 OCTOBER 2015 AND NATIONWIDE
Cast: Max Renaudin, Simon Abkarian, Francois-Xavier Demaison, Vernon Dobtcheff, Roger Dumas, Ronit Elkabetz, Deborah Francois, Thierry Fremont
Fr/Bel | 73mins | 2012 Animation
A finely wrought French animation based on the extraordinary true story of a Giraffe gifted to French royalty… although a certain dramatic licence has been taken with the ‘how it all went down’.
Told as a story within a story by grandfather sitting under the baobab tree relating it to his grandchildren, animation is absolutely the best way to put this wonderful yarn across; combining as it does the fantastical with comedy and the much darker human history of slave trade. Lawrence of Arabia meets Jules Verne meets Free Willy. Indeed, some of the more far-fetched elements of the story are infact true, as can be read in the interview with Remi. Besançon was originally sold the idea for Zarafa by his co-writer Abela, although, it being animation, it was another four years in the making once they found the finance. Indeed, Remi went off and made another live action film in the middle, while they waited for all the compositing to be completed.
Working on three levels, it’s a very well constructed and considered storyline that keeps the audience both rapt and entertained throughout its shrewd running time of 74 minutes. There’s an attention to detail and a gentle tempo, which enfolds the younger audience easily, rather in the fashion of the animations it was inspired by, coming out of that peerless Japanese powerhouse, Studio Ghibli, although it doesn’t quite hit the same level of accomplishment as the Spirited Away’s or the Princess Mononoke’s… but then, what does.
Zarafa tells the story of Maki, a young, orphaned Sudanese boy destined to be sold through the slave trade, who manages to escape his shackles. Whilst making his bid for freedom, Maki becomes the unlikely friend of a small herd of giraffe, also being hunted by Hassan, Prince of the Desert, a man intent on ensnaring a young giraffe to take to the Pasha. So the life of Maki and the young eponymous ‘Zarafa’ become irrevocably intertwined, as Maki endeavours to protect his charge and fulfil the promise he made to Zarafa’s mother.
Zarafa is really well-crafted, carefully thought-out and intelligent piece that has already demonstrated ardent support through festivals worldwide; speaking the universal language of animation and combining the exotic with just the right mix of tragedy, comedy, loopiness and larger-than-life characters to make it a winner. Tellingly, it also has enough to it that even the adults dragged along as unwilling chaperones might just find themselves enjoying it too. I predict huge DVD sales.
Documentary with Viacheslav Fetisov; USA/Russia 2014, 85 min.
An intriguing film about the close relationship between sport and nationalism, RED ARMY is centred around interviews with Viacheslav Fetisov, once the world’s most feared ice hockey defender in the world-dominating USSR ice-hockey team of the 70s and 80s. He later became Russian Sports Minister under Putin between 2002 and 2008.
Showing clips from famous games, particularly the “Miracle on Ice”, when the USA beat the favourite USSR team at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics in February 1980, to win the Gold Medal, RED ARMY brings back the feverish atmosphere of the Cold War when every sport event was a competition of life and death for the main participants, USSR and USA. Whilst the Soviets were very honest about proving the superiority of their system with goals, the USA commentary after the Lake Placid game proves that the western leaders thought in the same category: a coach phoning President Carter after the game, proclaims relief and states “that we now can go on living our way of life”. The irony being that Soviet sportsmen and -women were surveyed by special KGB agents to prevent defection; one of the ex-officers being very open about their strategy in an interview in the film.
The documentary is also the tale of two Soviet hockey coaches: Anatoli Tarasov (1918-1995) and his successor Victor Tikhonov. Tarasov saw ice hockey as a form of chess, collaborating with chess players of his homeland. He literally wanted to create “Bolshoi on ice”, but fell out of favour after he stopped a game of his “CSKA Moscow Army” team – of which he was the coach too – because he disagreed with the referee. Brezhnev was in the crowd, and Tarasov was fired; to be replaced by the brutal and heartless Victor Tikhonov, who, not surprisingly, refused to be interviewed by the filmmakers. Tikhonov had his team in barracks for eleven months of the year, with just one phone to communicate with the outside world. He denied one of his players to see his dying father, and the joke among the team was “if you need a heart transplant, choose Tikhonov’s organ, because it has never been used”.
In the late 80s, just before the collapse of the USSR, some star players went to play for the NHL (National Hockey League) in the USA and Canada. The state took most of their six-figure salaries, but Fetisov did not wanted to share, and was ostracized by the authorities. He was not allowed to practice. Only his old coach, Tarasov, stood by him and assisted his training. Finally, after a confrontation with the then Defence Secretary Yazov (whose failed coup led to the demise of the USSR), Fetisov, went to the USA and claimed his full salary. He was one the few successes, many of the ex-USSR players were too old to adjust to the more brutal and simplistic play in the NHL,whilst Fetisov would win two “Stanley Cups” (championships) with the “Detroit Red Wings”. Their coach encourages the Russian players to perform in the style of Tarasov, partly re-creating the best ever out field-team of Fetisov, Kastanonov, Makarov, Krutov and Lariona.
The only remaining question here is why would Fetisov and other players return to Russia to serve in high positions, and be governed by Putin’s ex-KGB men who had repressed them in their playing days? Fetisov’s answer is straightforward: whilst in Detroit, the wives and families of the American players would ostracize his wife and child. Fetisov and others felt like unwelcome strangers; just mercenaries hired to win games.
The Motel Life Director Gabe Polsky, a hockey player himself, here offers an informative and absorbing portrait of a sportsman turned politician, straddling his life between two, perhaps not so much different eras, dictated by nationalist pride. AS
After ‘weirding us out’ with Room 237 and ABCs of Death 2, Rodney Asher turns his documentary camera to the phenomenon of ‘sleep paralysis’ with THE NIGHTMARE. A word of caution: those who are salivating for enlightenment on the condition will find this foray deeply unsatisfying; veering between mild tedium and rampant hilarity, it fails both to terrify or to inform. Instead Ascher trawls through the twilight backwaters of the US and Manchester (all look the same) to provide an unedifying array of interviews with weirdos who bore on endlessly about their experiences with the debilitating nocturnal state.
It emerges that sleep paralysis occurs between wakefulness and deep sleep. Drawing examples from worldwide literary sources indicating that the condition has ancient mythological origins, Ascher suggests incubi and black cats are to blame, along with a shadowy figure of ‘the hatman’: a black silhouetted figure menacing the transfixed slumberer, who is also plagued by neurological symptoms of tingling, strange visions and ringing in the ears.
Ascher occasionally appears in the frame as he conducts these endless interviews in semi-darkness, using techniques of the kind seen in CSI Investigation (images of neurones buzzing etc), while actors replicate the ghastly experiences in various bedroom scenes. Jerky camerawork, unorthodox framing and jump cuts provide a sensation of otherwordliness ramped up by the characters themselves who are actually more scary than their dream characters: they range from the plain odd to highly strung and stressed individuals from troubled backgrounds. Jonathan Snipes provides an ambient soundtrack of buzzing and crackling. Sufferers seeking help from the medical profession have largely been greeted with scepticism, and suggestions that the condition may be contagious also appear to be unfounded: I slept soundly after the screening.
So Ascher’s film is inconclusive in its attempts to explain the phenomenon and, for the most past, THE NIGHTMARE fails to provide any real chills once we have become acclimatised to the shadowman images, which are repeated, ad nauseam. There are laugh out loud moments to be had from the sheer weirdness of the characters involved who become increasingly unbalanced as the film unspools. A missed opportunity, then, to shed light on a clearly debilitating condition. It appears that sleep paralysis is largely ‘mind over matter’ but those of a nervous disposition should probably give THE NIGHTMARE a wide berth: no pun intended. MT
Writer/director Phil Wurtzel (Chameleon) tries the trusted formula of setting a horror film in a production of a classic play, in this case Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Unfortunately, he is not able to make anything memorable out of this pairing, let alone create something original.
Vivian Miller (Shelby) is part of a group of young offenders, spending time in a rural correction institution in the Midwest. Vivian has ben convicted of murder at the age of fifteen, and is on medication. The camp is run by Lawrence O’Neil (Elwes), a failed Broadway director with a murky past. Vivian (“I am afraid of what I don’t know”) is chosen to play Lady Macbeth. The reasons for her issues, as O’Neill points out to her, are “all the things you are holding inside”.
After this pop-psychology offering, Vivian finds an old tape of a Macbeth play, directed by O’Neill, where the female lead is killed by a stranger. A lamp falls from the stage ceiling, nearly killing Vivian and then Brian, one of the offenders, is found dead after an attack. One female member of the old stage play visits O’Neill, to warn him that the play is haunted. But he doesn’t listen and Vivian, who does not trust anybody in the institution, puts her trust in Roddy (Welch) the local outcast, to solve the mystery and save herself from the vengeful ghost.
What could have been at least an enjoyable horror flick with tongue-in-cheek vibes, is played straight with awful pathos and jump cuts, which frighten no one. B/w video clips are far too prevalent and dodgy colour clips of the old play are just second-hand. The cast tries in vain to escape the clichéd lines. Overall, A Haunting in Cawdor not only uses Shakespeare, but sells him woefully short. When O’Neill comes down heavily on one of the offenders for calling Shakespeare boring, with a vicious: “Shakespeare is talked about 300 years after his death, but nobody will think about you three minutes after your death”, he is unwittingly drawing a parallel with himself. AS
Cast: Ariane Labed, Melvil Poupard, Anders Danielsen Lie
97min Drama France
A female engineer on a container vessel manages to have a man ‘in every port’ in this drama that navigates emotional, sexual and romantic waters on the high seas.
Fidelio: Alice’s Journey (Fidelio: L’odyssee d’Alice), is an absorbing and gripping drama that won Ariane Labed Best Actress at Locarno Film Festival 2014 for her characterful performance in the lead and at the helm of the ship. It’s also the feature debut of writer director Lucie Borleteau who manages to enfuse the masculine world of international shipping with female sensuality and a certain finesse.
There is never a dull moment on board the good ship Fidelio, once known as the Eclipse when Alice (Labed) first sailed on her, below decks. After a lusty scene on a beach with her land-based lover Felix (Anders Danielsen Lie), Alice discovers, when she re-joins the ship to replace the deceased Patrick, that her old sea-going flame Gael (Melvil Poupard) is the new Captain of her heart – literally and sexually. The two go on to enjoy a great physical and working relationship – and Labed injects her ‘all’ convincingly into both roles: personal and professionally. Meanwhile, back on shore, she re-discovers the delights of her Norwegian dalliance who admits that her long absences at sea keep the winds blowing pleasurably through their relationship sails.
Borleteau’s script – co-written with Clara Bourreau – goes full steam ahead at first and avoids over-working tedious ‘woman in a man’s world’ tropes by keeping things engaging and authentic as Alice enjoys the best of both worlds in this cut and thrust male environment of the French merchant navy; where the ship’s destination can change daily depending on commodity market movements back home. But the narrative becomes rather becalmed in the third act where Alice and Felix’s affair enters stormy seas – although this is less of a problem by this stage as the focus is on the journey ahead and Simon Beaufils’ magnetic cinematography broadens the appeal, both on the widescreen and in intimate close-ups on board the Fidelio. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 3 OCTOBER IN SELECTED CINEMAS
Cast: Toby Jones, Iain Sinclair, Eden Kotting, Freddie Jones
UK Experimental Drama
Experimental filmmaker Andrew Kötting is very interested in English journeys. Whether on foot or in a duck-shaped pedalo to Hackney – as in his previous outing, Swandown (2013) or on the coastal foray of his feature debut Gallivant (1996) – these gentle filmic wanderings unearth a stream of thoughts and memories that are nestling in the English countryside scattered by those that lived or worked there before he came, and waiting to add flourish and meaning to his own mysterious musings.
Before the 2012 Olympics, Kötting joined regular collaborator Iain Sinclair (in a Savile Row suit), for a wry and quintessentially English journey by pedalo on an expose of the thoughts of a private few. Taking inspiration from Sinclair’s psychogeographical work ‘Edge of the Orison’, BY OUR SELVES, sees the two together again in selvine seclusion, apart from a few close friends – a bewildered Toby Jones and his father Freddie, Kötting’s daughter Eden (as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz) and Kötting dressed as a straw bear – as they trace the tortured yearnings of John Clare, a humble English poet who “went mad”, was committed to a mental asylum in Epping Forest and thence attempted to reunite with his last true love Mary Joyce, rather than with his actual wife who had sent him there. Based on Clare’s book ‘Journey Out of Essex’, and diosyncratic as ever, the troupe wander from the wayside to discover their own unique and deeply affecting impression of the woodland experiment.
BY OUR SELVES follows Toby Jones (Clare), as he meanders, slightly disorientated, through this mystical woodland, bear in tow and occasionally taking control until it finally takes the lead. Sinclair joins him in a ‘Wicker Man’ style mask, lending a slightly troubling tone to the piece as he reads from Clare’s poetry and engagers with those they stumble across on the way. Later the pair are joined by Simon Kovesi who opines on the poet’s work in greater detail, before engaging with Sinclair in a pugilistic punch-up, as passers-by occasionally follow on conversing in a desultory way.
It is a pleasingly English portrait of a fairytale woodland, exquisitely framed and captured in delicately rendered monochrome visuals by Nick Gordon Smith; often voyeuristically tripping over the shoulders of Jones or viewing him, gnome-like, from afar surrounded by the gentle carpet of casual countryside, with the blend of ambient sounds and songs that softly envelope them in an atmospheric bubble of downy black and white.
BY OUR SELVES was made on a shoestring budget, largely financed by kickstarter, and proves that with the right blend of experimental wizardry, perfectly pitched performances from the pros and some pizzazz, perfect pictures can give pleasure to the arthouse crowd. MT
Dir.: Eric Baudelaire | Documentary | France 2014 | 103 min.
When filmmaker Eric Baudelaire (The Ugly One), wrote to the ex-foreign minister of the Republic of Abkhazia, Maxim Gvinja, he did not expect any reply. But this documentary is not only proof that Abkhazia exists, but also offers insight into the national identity of a mini-state.
LETTERS TO MAX would have been a successful medium length film; after all, not many people in this country know much about Abkhazia. But once again, its length minimises the impact: after all, there is not that much to say and Max’s ramblings about his self-invented philosophy get more and more tedious. The haphazard structure would have equally worked much better for a much shorter film. Overall, less would have been very much more.
It emerges that Abkhazia is a country of around 240 000 inhabitants, once part of Georgia, it is situated at the eastern coast of the Black Sea. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Georgia gained independence, but some regions wanted their independence from the Georgia, among them Abkhazia. In the war of independence during 1992/3, the Republic of Abkhazia was established with the help of Russian troops. Many Georgians fled across the border.
The documentary is an essay on statehood, Eric asking in his letters “how it feels to be an Abkhazian”, whilst Max answers in sending him video material, which shows not only his country, but also Max in his different incarnations of a patriot. Since Max is very proud of being a citizen of his country – not surprisingly of an ex-minister – his images show Abkhazia in all his glory: the beautiful, wild landscape and the romantic villages are indeed a scenery to be proud of. But everywhere we find empty houses and Max talks about the exodus of the Georgians, for whom he sees no possibility of repatriation. This chapter is closed, and Max, who is open to discuss nearly everything in a self-critical way, is adamant on this point. Images from his time as foreign minister see him visiting Cuba and Venezuela, two countries who recognise the independent existence of this state, which many others see as a Russian satellite state. The overall impression is a certain gloominess; the mass exodus of Georgians can still be felt as a cloud laying heavily over the countryside. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 2 OCTOBER 2015 | BRISTOL WATERSHED 9-15 OCTOBER | ICA LONDON 2 – 8 OCTOBER 2015
Marc Silver (Who is Dayani Cristal) has structured his documentary 3 ½ Minutes about the killing of a black teenager in Jacksonville (Fla.) and the trial of his murderer in a ‘Rashomon’ like fashion: the incident is told from of the viewpoint of the different participants, the parents of the victim and the fiancée of the killer.
On the 23.11.2012, a Sunday afternoon, four black teenagers, all of them high-school students, sat in a car at a petrol station in Jacksonville. They were approached by 45 year software developer Michael Dunn, who argued about their “loud’ music. Suddenly Dunn withdrew a concealed weapon, firing ten shots at the students in the car, killing Jordan Davis (17), miraculously missing the other three passengers. Dunn, who later claimed in his trial, that the teenagers branded a shotgun (no proof of this was ever found), drove off with his fiancée Rhonda Rouer to their hotel, where they had celebrated a wedding before. Next day, he drove them both back home, walked his dog and never contacted the police. In the courtroom, Dunn claimed the support of the “Stand your Ground” law, which allowed him to act in self-defence. Whilst the jury convicted him on the 15.2.14 on four counts of attempted murder (for which he got a combined prison sentence of 75 years), the jurors could not agree on a first-degree murder charge. In the re-trial in October of the same year, the jury did convict Dunn of First-degree murder, which leaves him no chance ever for a parole.
Silver has documented the prison calls between Dunn and his fiancée, at one point she is telling him “You’re a spirit that’s just not meant to be caged, a man of water, a man of life that’s just not to be put in a cage”. Dunn simply replied: “Right”. Ironically, Rouer’s testament in the second trial cost Dunn any chance of a parole, since his fiancée stated that he never told her about a gun being directed at him. Davis’ friends testified against him, telling the director “thug” is “the new n-word”, Dunn calling the teenagers by this name in his trial. During the trial, Dunn either set watching detached, or teared up, when he talked about the threat he had to face, and his “heroism” in defending the life of Rhonda Rouer.
Very moving are the scenes of Jordan parents (who have separated since) in the courtroom, trying to keep their composure during the trial. Whilst Ron Davis blames himself for not protecting his son, his mother Lucia McBath will visit Washington, to speak to Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz, about the abolition of the “Stand-Your’Ground” law, of which their son was not the only black victim. Strangely enough, when the police finally arrested Dunn, they did not had to resort to shoot him, like in other cases, when the perpetrator was black.
Apart from being informative, 3 ½ Minutes is very cinematographic, juxtaposing footing from the gas station, with the various witness statements in court. Silver puts together a mosaic of everyday racism, which seems to be prevailing in US society, in spite of an Afro-American president. 3 ½ Minutes won the Documentary Special Jury Prize at the 2015 Sundance Festival. AS
Dir.: Justin Trefgarne; Cast: Elliot Cowan, Robert Bathurst, Jonathan Pryce, Elodie Yung, James Caliss, Molly Gaisford, Cosima Shaw; UK 2014, 96 min.
NARCOPOLIS is a potent cocktail of Sci-fi and film noir and the feature debut of writer/director Justin Trefgarne who reminds us what cinema can really achieve. With a budget of around one million pounds, Trefgarne’s visionary approach is in stark contrast to many UK films which tend to be anaemic, ‘atmospheric’ studies lacking a narrative, or bland, TV-like unimaginative genre products.
Set in a dystopian London of 2024, burnt-out Detective Frank Grieves (Cowan) can hardly keep his family together, let alone fulfill his professional duties: in a society where drugs are free (and presumably safe), the police are consumers like everybody else. When Grieves finds a body with half its head missing and no recognisable DNA on the database, he stumbles into a mystery. His superior Nolan (Bathurst) pulls him off the case, but Grieves is stubborn and when he meets Eva Gray (Yung) who claims to be from the future, he starts to uncover a plot leading to Todd Ambro (Caliss), owner and CEO of the almighty drug company Ambro, who is controlling the police force and trying out an experimental drug aimed at dumbing down the population (surely this is the present?) . With the help of Sidorov (Pryce), an elderly scientist, Grieves must learn to time-travel: not only to save his son Ben, but the entire world in a show-down set in 2044.
Every scene in Narcopolis is stunning, Trefgarne pulls a powerful punch, even when sometimes less might have been more. DOP Christopher Moon has created a London that gleams and glitters on the outside but seethes in dankness where the action unfurls below.
A drug-riddled Grieves scuttles like a water rat running through a labyrinth, erratic and irrational. Everyone here has a function, Ambro’s wife Ellen (Shaw), a frosted beauty, who helps to represent her husband’s commercial façade of clipped respectability. In contrast, Grieves wife Angie (Gaisford), is harassed from the outset, pleading with her husband to leave the city for the sake of their son.
There are glaring plotholes: the time-travel mechanism is not very well explained, and Trefgarne quotes from classic noir and Sci-fi films are overdone – but the sheer brilliance of the images and a committed cast keep the audience engaged. logic only comes into play when the film does not convince (Hitchcock’s North by North West is simply barmy from a rational viewpoint), and Narcopolis’ low budget is in stark contrast to its high emotions and visionary images. Trefgarne might have put too much into Narcopolis, but that’s what first films are for. Recommended.
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Craig Roberts, Nia Roberts, Mark Lewis Jones, Sai Bennett, Richard Harrigan
84min UK Comedy Drama
Craig Roberts first surfaced to cineastes’ consciousness in Richard Ayoade’s sweet drama Submarine. A hundred years has passed since O A C Lund’s silent original flashed onto the silver screen and Roberts’ quirkily dark comedy JUST JIM, his debut as a filmmaker, is a fitting tribute to sardonic Swede.
Set in the dystopia of the dull as ditchwater Welsh village, Roberts takes the eponymous central role as a deeply shy and fearful teenager. Success here comes from its 50 retro feel and brilliant cinematography, courtesy of Bafta award-winning lenser, Richard Stoddard, to create a darkly comic vibe with similar framing and attitude to a slow-mo sombre Hal Hartley outing. The humour derives largely from the clever casting of US Emile Hirsh who, as Jim’s American neighbour Dean, injects a much-needed confident noirish swagger into the stultified atmosphere of the buttoned up Welsh backwater. Taking the painfully sensitive Jim under his wing, he starts to re-style the geeky village loser as the hottest thing that ever hit town; both with the boys and the girls. But Dean is not as good as he seems, and gradually Jim comes to learn that, even as his new and cool persona grips the glowering neighbourhood, trying to be special is not always as desirable at it seems.
Scriptwise, things are wobbly though and the entertainment and charisma is largely down to the strong performances of Hirsch, Roberts and his onscreen wannabe pink-haired squeeze, Jackie (Charlotte Randall). Roberts’ direction is charmingly kickarse and buzzes beautifully to Michael Price’s edgy original score. Clever collaborative choices on Roberts’ part makes JUST JIM a stylish and inventive debut MT
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern
USA 2014, 112 min.
In Ramin Bahrani’s gripping sub-prime thriller, we meet Dennis Nash (Garfield) for the first time in court, where he fights an eviction order. He lives with his mother Lynn (Dern) and son in a bungalow in Florida. Next day, the property “developer” Rick Carver (a brilliantly glib Michael Shannon) arrives to evict him with local sheriffs. The family has two minutes to pack their belongings – the furniture is dumped on the front lawn – Nash has 24 hours to remove them, before all will be trashed. Tearful farewells from the neighbours are followed by a move into a shabby motel. But Carver is not finished with Nash, he has done his homework: both men come from working class background, only Carver chose a career to sell houses, unlike Nash, who has worked on building sites, before his employers went bankrupt.
Carver offers Nash a way out: a job. First Dennis does the manual jobs for the ever increasing evictions, than Nash starts to be an enforcer like Carver. The money rolls in, and Nash is about to buy his house back, when a chance encounter with one the families he has evicted, lets Nash’ family into the secret he tried to hide from them. When Lynn takes his son away to her brother, Dennis has to make a decision.
In a contempo Faustian’ bargain: the devil (Carver) offers Nash the existence he would have had in the motel. Initially, Nash is only after getting his house back, than he is stung by the ever increasing profits as he becomes the devil’s apprentice. Step for step he looses his decency, represses the guilt with the excuse that he only does it for his family. He could be any of us. The mortgage crisis in the USA cost too many families their homes, families who paid their mortgages on time – as long as they could. But nobody is save from this fate, everyone is just a step away from this catastrophy.
This is a middle-class nightmare with some outstanding turns from three actors at the top of their game: Shannon is undestated, not painted as a bad person, just one who made the wrong decision. Garfied stumbles into the abyss, always looking over his shoulder to his former self. Dern is the sensitive but film matriarch: staying with her roots, unfazed by the opportunities her son might conjure up. The camera remains un-judgemental, showing the wealth and the poverty, neutral, like a true. 99 HOMES is a frightening film, because it could be all our tomorrows. AS
REVIEWED AT VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 24 SETPEMBER 2015
Cast: Robert Sheehan, Joely Richardson, Lily Cole,
101min. Horror | Drama | Fantasy.
Jack (Robert Sheehan) is a decent bloke suffering from a severe mental illness where he is plagued by hallucinations of the dead. Is he an untrained psychic receiving vital messages from a spirit guide? It’s unclear in David Blair’s muddled and meandering fantasy drama that takes itself extremely seriously. There are certainly some good ideas here but they never coalesce into a cogent story. What is THE MESSENGER trying to say?: your guess is as good as mine.
After a strong opening the film THE MESSENGER descends into an unwieldy often sprawling narrative that relies on some good cinematography to string together an occasionally laughable script and some pretty ropey performances particularly from Liiy Cole and Alex Wyndham. Although there are some moving moments towards the end, Blair takes the sensitive themes of psychic awareness and mental illness and trivialises them quite shockingly. A missed opportunity. MT
Buster Keaton (1895-1966), known as the man “who never laughed”, was not only the only silent movie star/director who could compete with Charles Spencer Chaplin, he was also a fearless stunt man who was in love with aesthetic innovation: The Playhouse (1921), a short, twenty-one minute silent ‘experiment’, featured not only, one, or two but nine (!) Buster Keaton’s in one frame. In this sparkling new restoration, with a score by Carl Davis and playfully directed by Edward F Cline, he stars not only as the inspirational leader of the vaudeville show but performs nearly all the roles of the characters and the audience. And, being Buster, he has to chase a girl who happens to have a twin sister. Full of visual gags, The Playhouse is still, nearly hundred years later, breathtakingly modern.
Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) is, with The General (1926), Keaton’s masterpiece of the silent era, before the studios took away his creative control of his films. Here, he plays Bill jr., the son of steamboat captain William Canfield, the latter a burly and robust tyrant who is disappointed that his son turns out to be a meek college graduate. Canfield senior is fighting for his existence while James King, another steamboat operator, runs a modern ship and is taking away Canfield’s customers. To make matters worse, Bill. Jr. falls in love with Kitty, King’s daughter. When a cyclone breaks out, Buster/Billy saves not only the lives of all main protagonists, but jumps again into the water, seemingly avoiding the grateful kiss of Kitty, only to fish the minster out of the sea. Steamboat Bill Jr. was a major production, $135 000 worth of street sets were built, just to be destroyed by the cyclone. In one of his most memorable stunts (often repeated in film-history), Keaton walks along a street, when a whole building façade collapses on him – the cut out of the set just big enough to miss him by inches. Steamboat Bill Jr. was the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Steamboat Bill, premiered six month later, and featuring, for the first time, a hero by the name of Mickey Mouse. AS
IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE FROM 19 SEPTEMBER 2015 | 4k RESTORATIONS COURTESY OF PARK CIRCUS | BFI
Set in a remote corner of countryside Korea, July Jung’s simple narrative centres on Young-nam (Doona Bae), a young Police Chief, seconded to the small community after misdemeanours in the capital Seoul. There she takes charge of the rowdy locals and drunks. One family is particularly troublesome: the father brutalises his young daughter Dohee, encouraged by his batty mother who rides around on a truck. But when Young-nam takes Dohee under her wing, the problems start for the dysfunctional teenager. Caught between her own dodgy reputation with the Force and the mental instability of her protegee, Young-nam fights for her own professional survival in an environment that on the surface appears calm but is full of quirky surprises and unexpected pitfalls. July Jung’s subtle drama is embued with its own brand of gently subversive humour and affecting performances from Doona Bae and Sea-rom Kim in the central roles. MT
REVIEWED AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2014 | ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 18 SEPTEMBER 2015
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Ninetto Davoli, Maria de Medeiros, Adriana Asti, Riccardo Scamarcio
USA 2014, 85 mim.
November 2nd 1975: the final day in the life of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian poet, novelist and filmmaker. After returning from Stockholm, were he met Ingmar Bergman amongst others, Pasolini’s day starts with a letter to his friend and fellow writer Alberto Moravia, asking him for advice on his nearly finished novel “Petrolio”. Later he is interviewed by a journalist and then dines with friends in a restaurant for supper, before setting off on his last journey to Ostia, having picked up the 17 year-old male prostitute Pelosi. In Ostia, on an abandoned football pitch, he is attacked by a gang, beaten to death. His Alfa Romeo driven over his prostrate body.
Abel Ferrara’s enigmatic portrait reigns back on any sensationalism to cover Pier Paolo Pasolini’s last day with dignity and sobriety. We see a refined man in love with writing and films; planning future projects on both fronts. We also see a man fearful of the future. “We are all in danger” – he tells a journalist. This is hardly surprising since the seventies in Italy was a decade fraught with politically motivated violence, kidnappings of industrialists and attacks by the “Brigate Rosse” (Red Brigades). Pasolini, a fervent Marxist, had many enemies.
Unlike Giordana in his 1995 film Pasolini, an Italian Crime, Ferrara does not dwell on the conspiracy theories, he simply shows a man who thrived on the streets of the Roman underworld. Cruising in his sports car, behind dark glasses, he diced with danger, enjoying casual sex with young adonises, often from the wrong side of the tracks. The film includes a part realisation of Pasolini’s film project “Porno-Teo-Kolossal“, where on one day of the year, the gay and lesbian denizens of the city have intercourse together, in order to procreate.
In a dynamite performance, Willem Dafoe not only looks like Pasolini, but brings him to life with integrity, sparse gestures; an economy of movement. Overall, PASOLINI is a film worthy of its subject, showing the two sides of the man: a sometimes aloof intellectual who loses his cool (and finally his head) in dangerous liaisons. In the end, Pasolini became a victim of the society he portrayed. AS/MT
REVIEWED AT VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL RUNS UNTIL 2014. ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM SEPTEMBER 2015
This is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first film in 23 years and it seems that the Chilean director has lost none of his absurdist inventiveness. This paean to the past is largely autobiographical: The film takes its setting from the Chilean desert coastal town of Tocopilla, where Jodorowsky was born in 1929 and underwent an unhappy and alienated childhood as part of his uprooted family, faced with anti-Semitism. Casting his own son Brontis to play his Communist father, Jaime, he mixes magic realism, mythology and poetry to project his viewpoint that reality is very much an expression of our own personal experiences. And his were bizarre, to say the least. But the desire here appears to be one of conferring glory on his father for the greatness he never actually managed to attain. The story opens as a disused local cinema has opened its doors again to show an outlandish film. Unhappiness clearly has caused him to submerge or block out the pain of his childhood and create a flight – or a dance of fantasy, which is entertaining and provocative, but naturally creates a smokescreen from what actually (or possibly) happened.
Jeremias Herskowits plays the young Alejandro and the director himself steps into his own shoes as a white-haired old man (he is now in his eighties). Alejandro’s mother Sara (Pamela Flores) is a voluptuous, dominating matriarch, very much in the Jewish style, a woman of great feeling and who smoothers her son with love, inadvertently de-masculating him to the annoyance of father Jaime, who would like to toughen him up. The emotionally confused Jaime finally leaves town on a misguided mission to assassinate the Chilean general Ibanez: a venture that will not bring triumph, but enlightenment.
The film is full of absurdist moments some hilarious and some just downright weird – although the products of a mixed up youth – but what a fascinating youth it – possibly – was; serving to bring to a close a era brimming with troubled thoughts, broken dreams, high hopes and magnificent imagination. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 21 AUGUST 2015 | DVD & Blu Ray from 14 September.
Woody Allen’s 45th film has him once again contemplating the perfect crime as he did in Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream and Crimes and Misdemeanours. With IRRATIONAL MAN (which takes its title from a 1958 work by philosopher, William Christopher Barrett, which aimed to explain existentialism to the uninitiated) his central character kills not for love or money but apparently as a intellectual exercise and out of a sense of social justice on behalf of a woman he takes pity on.
This rural drama takes place in the lush locale of the fictional ‘Braylin College’, at Salve Regina University, Newport Rhode Island, where Joaquin Phoenix stars a the rather louche and laconic philosophy professor, Abe Lucas (with beer belly). An immediate hit with all the women; he is single, vulnerable and a serial monogamist by his own admission, although too wrapped up in his own existential angst to be emotionally available ‘at the moment’. A red rag to a bull, and he knows it.
As he moves around the Campus, looking vaguely distrait, he also demonstrates courage and reckless abandon by playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun at a cocktail party: female students and lecturers are smitten. “Emotionally, I had arrived at Zabriskie Point” Abe tells us in voiceover, but this seems only to encourage his lustful entourage more, particularly the unhappily-married Prof. Rita Richards (Parker Posey in ‘cougar’ mode) who throws herself in his direction, offering to “unblock” him. And before you can say ‘Kierkegaard’ – they are in bed and he’s apologising (but not that much) for his lazy performance. Next up is fresh, young “ethical strategies” student, Jill Pollard (Emma Stone). But Abe is keen to remain detached because his depressive state has temporarily rendered him ‘asexual’. He is also well-aware of the intimate confines of this Red Brick community and Pollard has a regular boyfriend, who becomes suspicious of her increasing interest in Abe’s ‘mind’. But she plugs on attracted by his previous activist and aid involvement in Darfur. This sense of social justice is piqued again when Abe and Jill overhear a conversation in a local restaurant. A desperate woman is bemoaning the bitter details of her divorce and the judge who’s siding with her ex-husband – fancifully hoping that the judge will die before the final trial.
This pathetic wish seems to capture Abe’s imagination, galvanising him into action as he feels the stirrings of an ideal murder shaking him out of his mental torpor and even ‘unblocking’ him sexually. Suddenly, he is alive again, with the strategy for this crime coming together in his head. The premise is so fanciful and yet so all-consuming, that somehow this leap of faith seems entirely plausible.
Allen’s direction and editing are really masterful in IRRATIONAL MANand his cast performances slick and enjoyable. particularly that of Joaquin Phoenix, who exudes both charm and sexual chemistry as the feckless yet endearing Abe. Emma Stone and Parker Posey compliment each other as his amorous partners, each evoking their representative age groups, of hope versus experience.
Cinematographer Darius Khondji does great justice to the environs of Connecticut making it a verdant, appealing setting in contrast to the usual urban sprall and the score of The Ramsey Lewis Trio evokes the mood of mounting tension with original version of “The In-Crowd”. MT
IRRATIONAL MAN IS ON GENERAL RELEASE LATER THIS YEAR | CANNES 2015 REVIEW.
Cast: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe, Tex Smith, Paul Stewart, Jeff Corey, Gerald S O’Loughlin
130min Historical | Documentary | Thriller US
Truman Capote’s celebrated reporting of a Kansas murder case, In Cold Blood, is the basis for Richard Brooks’s disturbing docudrama is formally ambitious yet restrained with Conrad Hall’s stylish black and white visuals and classy score by Quincy Jones.
The events of the case grippingly unfold in chronological order recounting how four members of the God-fearing Clutter family were slaughtered in cold blood one night in 1959 by two two ex-convicts looking for cash during a random burglary in their substantial rural property. They stole a radio and a few dollars and left few clues as to their identity but Brooks shows how Kansas Police (lead by a superb John Forsythe) embark on a lengthy and painstaking investigation eventually catching and convicting the killers and bringing them to justice in 1965
Robert Blake (Perry Smith) and Scott Wilson (Dick Hickock) are utterly convincing as the ruthless killers. And although we already know that they committed the murders from the early scenes Brooks generates a palpable tension while he fleshes out the investigation and we get a chance to fathom the broken minds of the perpetrators.
At the end of the day, who can really understand why two people only intending to rob the Clutters, and who had not committed murder before, suddenly decided to sadistically murder four innocent people on a quiet night in 1959? And what did the God-fearing Clutters do provoke such vicious violence?
Richard Brooks’s fractured narrative flips nervously back and forth brilliantly evoking both the frenzied minds of the killers and the fervent need of detective to nail and endite their suspects. Conrad Hall’s noirish visuals re-visit the rain-soaked scene of the crime, the remote locations and the fugitives’ brief escape to Mexico and their chance arrest in Las Vegas, while allowing brief glimpses of the genesis of their disfunctional family stories.
Brooks skilfully avoids showing bloodshed, violence or macabre crime scenes, allowing the terror to haunt our minds rather than the cinema screen. The mercilessness of the intruders and the abject fear and vulnerability of Clutters in their final moments is more evocative than any blood-soaked bedroom scene. By the time we reach the trial and imprisonment, we are glad to be done with these criminals, although a papery vestige of pity remains for tawdry life of who Perry Smith who seems to have been led on. Robert Blake and Scott Wilson give chilling and resonant portrayals in the leading roles. MT
IN COLD BLOOD IS ON LONG RELEASE AT THE BFI DURING AUGUST | THE FILM HAS BEEN REMASTERED COURTESY OF PARK CIRCUS FILMS.
In 1971, the Canadian city of Vancouver was something of a centre for counterculture: draft dodgers from the USA, hippies, anarchists and environmentalist had found a home which would be the birthplace of “Greenpeace”.
Town of Runners director and writer, Jerry Rothwell’s documentation of the early days of what is now a worldwide mass-movement, is both informative and unsentimental. The birth of the movement seemed, ironically, not a great success: in the Autumn of 1971, President Nixon had authorised the underground explosion of a five ton nuclear bomb for test reasons at Amchitka, an island of the Alaskan coast. The “Don’t make a Wave” committee, the forerunner of Greenpeace, among them their future leader Bob Hunter (1941-2005), hired the ‘Phyllis Cormack’ and sailed towards the test site, trying to stop the test. Turned back by an US naval vessel, the crew returned deflated to Vancouver – but to their great surprise, also to a great crowd celebrating their attempt.
The US government was surprised by the worldwide protests and no further tests were ever scheduled. The next expedition of the Greenpeace warriors led them to confront the Russian Whaling fleet in 1975. Like the 1971 intervention, this was again filmed on 16mm, and the bloody operation of the industrial slaughter of whales still takes the breath away and is impossible to watch in its entirety. Putting themselves between the whaling vessel and the animals, the activists were in grave danger; one of the deadly spears fired at the whales, only just missed the head of one the protesters. Soon, the first controversy occurred when the US government gave Greenpeace the positions of the Russian whaling fleet (but not the one’s of Japanese fleet), so as to embarrass the cold-war enemy. Splits in the leadership of Greenpeace occurred, mainly because one of the founder members, Paul Watson, had a more direct and confrontational approach. After he was dismissed from the organisation, by a vote of eleven to one, he founded “The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society” in 1977. Again, the 16mm footage of the barbaric slaughter of baby seals by Canadian hunters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence – with their mothers trailing their bodies – is too much to watch. Whilst Hunter and the remaining steering board members of Greenpeace, called Watson an eco-terrorist, anybody witnessing the slaughter of the seals cannot be so unmoved as to really condemn more direct action against the perpetrators as “terrorism”. Watson’s organisation became soon very powerful, thanks to the support of Brigitte Bardot, after whom a vessel of “Sea Shepherd” is named.
Hunter left Greenpeace later to return to journalism, entering politics (running unsuccessfully for provincial parliament in 2001), before his death of cancer in 2005). His contribution to the movement is undoubtedly important, his leadership mainly free of any ego, he was the original poster guy in the early days, always constructive and trying to balance out the splits in the leadership. Whilst Paul Watson still commands our respect, this cannot be said about another early leading activists, Patrick Moore, who today runs a corporate consulting firm, arguing that “climate change is positive, since a warmer climate benefits all” and denies any men-made contribution to environmental problems.
James Scott brilliantly weaves the past and present in this skilfully layered storytelling that shows the founders of Greenpeace not as icons, but as very ordinary human beings whose success was not a result of their great strategies, but of their conviction that was powerful enough to put themselves in danger for the good of their cause. They and their enthusiasm did change the world, after all. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 11 SEPTEMBER 2015 www.howtochangetheworld.com. WINNER OF THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL WORLD DOCUMENTARY EDITING AWARD.
It is always tempting to try and follow in the footsteps of your favourite directors with your first film: writers/directors Remy Bennett and Emilie Richard-Froozan certainly have internalised much of David Lynch and Terence Malick’s work, but just being copy-cats is not enough, even if the film is set in a retro 70s aesthetic.
Pernilla (Bennett) and Patrick (Louison) are a couple with a secret buried in their childhood disclosed in enigmatic, dreamlike images. After the death of Flora, another childhood friend, Pernilla turns up on Patrick’s doorstep in the deep South, complaining that he has neglected her by not attending Flora’s funeral. He certainly makes up for it in the rest of the film; the two being more or less inseparable. Since the secret is not revealeduntil the final scenes (when everyone ceases to care), the audience has to guess why the couple have such a torrid relationship. Patrick is obviously a sadist, but Pernilla – who permanently runs around in various stages of undress – is only too keen to suffer physical and psychological abuse. This comes in the shape of Mena (June), a blonde with whom Patrick first has a one night stand, then, on her re-appearance (to collect her jacket!), he tries to make love to her in front of Pernilla, who is only to willing to watch before Mena runs off in disgust.
Apart the Southern preacher and freaky bar scenes, the narrative is nothing but a series of oddities – a collection of weird, pseudo-sexy and often involuntarily funny episodes.The total focus on atmosphere creates some wonderful images, but this reduction to a pure formal exercise leads to an audience detachment from which BUTTERCUP BILL never recovers in spite of the spilling of beans at the end. To call the film pseudo-mystic would be an understatement: its lack of any coherence degrades it to a freak show; with DOP Ryan Foregger being the only one able to claim credits. AS
Dir.: Matthew Heineman Documentary, USA/Mexico; 98 min.
Matthew Heineman’s second feature documentary is certainly a change in topic from his health care documentary Escape Fire: CARTEL LAND is as violent as one can imagine, an ultra-violent video game come to live.
CARTEL LAND is actually two films in one: both parts feature violent men ready to go to war for their cause because they feel their respective governments do not care. On the Arizona side of the US/Mexican border we are introduced to Tim “Nailer” Foley, who lost his job in 2008 during the recession, and has blamed Mexican immigrants for taking his job. He has ended up at the border with his friends of the ‘Arizona Border Recon’, trying to stem the “flood” of emigrants, feeling very self-righteous and comparing himself and his men to David in a fight against Goliath, a fight they have to win for the good of the USA, since the government has little interest in the issue. Foley, a bitter racist, looks much older than his years, alcohol and other drug abuse have left their marks. He and his men are like vultures, spoiling for a kill, their white-supremacy ideology condoning the most vicious attacks – these men are as much outside legality as possible and only in the Southern states of the USA could they roam in freedom.
On the other side of the border, about 1500 miles away, we meet Dr. Jose Miguel Mireles Valverde, looking after his patients during the day, whilst leading the ‘Autodefensas’ of local people against the drug cartel of Knights Templars. On first sight, the difference between him and Foley could not be greater: the doctor seems a poster-boy for goodness, but we soon learn of a certain overlap between drug dealers and the defence league: torture seems to be common on both sides. Doctor Valverde, whilst not actually condoning this, uses the same arguments as Foley: the government does not care, we have to look after ourselves – perhaps understandable words, spoken at the funeral of fifteen victims of the Templar Knights, the youngest a few month old. Later, Valverde is nearly killed in a very suspicious looking plane crash: this all out war, and the “good’ guys will take no prisoners.
The overriding problem, as nearly always with organised violence of this kind, is poverty: at the beginning of the film, we see some meth ”cookers” in action. In the desert they brew their deadly concoctions, apologetic and contrite, they excuse their trade with the utter poverty they live. “If you would be in our position” is the question hanging in the air, “what would you do?”
CARTEL LAND is shocking, not least because of its violence (never glamourised), but because of the total loss of a moral compass, on all sides. The groups claim self-defence, merrily killing and torturing each other. Rightfully, Heineman does not even try to find answers. Cartel Land leaves the audience in a stupor – ‘la bête humaine’ in action. AS
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED DURING EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 1 -12 JULY 2015
Both the dog and his master are being tracked by the authorities in Closed Curtain, Jafar Panahi’s oblique existential piece of meta filmmaking from contemporary Iran which follows on from his documentary This Is Not A Film.
Opening with an extended static shot of a seaside window barred by security gates, it’s a sober and bewildering set-up brought to life only by ‘the man’, played sensitively here by Panahi himself, and his lovely little dog who he is at pains to hide in this modern villa on the shores of the Caspian Sea. When a strange couple appear from nowhere pleading to be given shelter a reign of attrition sets in with each character eyeing the other suspiciously and the dog aware that something isn’t right.
With its ambient feel of menace, Closed Curtain is a disorientating film that alienates its audience and generates a strong feeling of claustrophobia as, understandably, it never moves outside the villa but is nevertheless atmospherically shot in a palette of soft seaside hues and terracotta: you could almost be on the Mediterranean were it not for the echoes of ambient hostility from local Police and some intruders who ransack the property. Our sympathies lie with the gentle man and his clever dog rather than the passive aggressive provocative who has purportedly attended a party and is seeking refuge from rebuke.
What develops is exactly what you imagine would happen if you asked a group of students to produce a film about creative expression in a repressed society: heavy-handed and amateurish in style. Not one of Panahi’s stronger outings then but considering he was purportedly under house arrest for “committing propaganda crimes against the Iranian Government” not a bad effort and certainly worth watching for devotees of this inventive and resourceful director’s work. MT
REVIEWED DURING BERLINALE 2013 | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE
Erskine’s chronology of the rise of the England Rugby Union team from whipping boys for the teams of the “Southern” hemisphere, like Australia and South Africa, to the triumph of becoming World Champions in 2003 – beating Australia in Sidney in the final – features the main protagonists Jonny Wilkinson, Martin Johnson and coach Sir Clive Woodward.
As far as hagiographies go, Building Jerusalem can compete with the best. Erskine starts with downtrodden England, being beaten by ridiculous scores like 76:0 by Australia in 1998. Afterwards, Clive Woodward England’s coach since 1997, introduced a new and innovative training program, also helped by the fact that Rugby Union had turned professional in 1995. The latter development was the result of the TV war between the Australian Kerry Packer and the Australian born Rupert Murdoch. There were some bumps on the road to success, like the resignation of the England captain Lawrence Dallaglio in May 1999, because the NOW discovered that he might had been involved in drug dealing. Dallaglio was replaced by Martin Johnson, but got the skipper role back in 2004, when Johnson retired. Most interesting is the involvement of Dr. Sherylle Calder in the development of the team; the world renown hand-eye coordination coaching specialist not only improved the speed with which the players handled the ball, but also taught them Afrikaans, so that the team could understand the signal calling of the SA team they faced during the World Cup in 2003. Alas, Dr. Calder went to help South Africa to defeat England in the 2007 World Cup Final in Paris.
Building Jerusalem suffers from its strict chronological order, as well as from the fact that nearly the whole team development is relegated to being an entrée, just to re-live and celebrate that “glorious” day in November 2003 when England defeated Australia on home soil by 20:17 after extra-time, with a dramatic drop goal by Jonny Wilkinson scored in the last minute. This way, Building Jerusalem (with Hubert Parry’s music triumphantly blasting over the end-credits) is more a fan’s tribute than an analytical document. AS
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
Norway/UK/Canada/USA/France/Ireland 2014, 130 min.
August Strindberg’s play was written in 1888 and premiered a year later. The playwright had seen the play as a tribute to Darwin. Set in a pure and naturalistic way, it showed the battle for survival between the Count’s daughter Julie and his father’s valet Jean, as seen and refereed by Christine, Jean’s fiancée and a servant in the house. Liv Ullmann has set the film in a manor house in County Fermanagh in 1890, where Jean becomes an English John and Christine, Kathleen. Ullmann attempts to soften some of Strindberg’s misogyny, which spoils many of his plays.
Set on Midsummer’s Eve, Ullmann’s Julie (Jessica Chastain) is a brittle young woman, in awe of her father, but trying to follow the advice of her mother – who died when Julie was a child – in never becoming the slave of a man. She is a virgin, and no match for the scheming John (Farrell), who has lusted after her since boyhood and wants to run away with her, using her father’s money to realise his grand dream of opening a hotel near Lake Como, where he was once a headwaiter. After sleeping with Julie, and rebuffing his fiancée Christine (Morton), it dawns on John that Julie will never be able to get out of the shadow of her privileged upbringing: he tells the desperate woman to kill herself, so as to save his own discretion coming to light.
Miss Julie is more or less filmed theatre and apart from the several outdoor scenes where Julie frolics in a woodland idyll, the action takes place in the manor house, which is more like a claustrophobic prison than anything else. Shot through with this sombre and stultifying aesthetic, even the seemingly whitewashed walls feel deadly grey – Ullmann’s version has very much in common with another Strindberg play, Dance of Death (Two Parts), written in 1900. Julie and John fight it out between themselves but there is never any doubt who will be the winner.
In spite of the great pathos, the two lead performances save the film. Chastain’s Julie is the disturbed child woman who looks for a way out of her ‘Golden Cage’, given to histrionics one moment then crawling at John’s feet as if she was his servant, the next. Her emotions are all borderline neurotic, she has not really developed into an adult. The oily John is a masterful portrait of a creep by Farrell, slimy as an eel, he controls and manipulates Julie to save his own skin, mastering perfect spoken French for the role of a faux sophisticate who can barely hide an empty, jealous and small-minded past. It would have been easy for Morton’s Christine to be marginalised, but her performance as an honest, faithful and rather brave woman is astonishing. She is not afraid to tell both Julie and John the truth about their personalities and unmask their lack of authenticity, and provides a mirror into which the feuding couple are afraid to look. Running at over two hours, the drama is by far too long for the limited interaction, MISS JULIE is not helped by an old-fashioned and stagey treatment, leaving it firmly in the past, in spite of its contemporary appeal. AS
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE AT SELECTED VENUES ON 4 SEPTEMBER 2015
Cast: Danny Huston, Matthew Goode, Joe Cole, Alan McKenna
UK 2015, 91 min. Thriller
Director Ron Scalpello (Offender) has made a thriller with absolutely no thrills or tension, for that matter. PRESSURE, the story of four divers trapped in their bell on the ocean ground is trite and hollow, on devoid of cinematographic values, due to the minimal spaces where the ‘action’ unfolds.
Classics of the genre, like Apollo 13, have shown that the use of a very restricted space for a man versus nature battle relies on the use of an alternative location and a narrative which uses fully-fledged characters with interesting/contracting backstories. PRESSURE is set nearly exclusively in the diving bell (apart from a few weak flash-backs showing the protagonists’ past), and none of the characters are anything but limp and under-developed. This is a shame, because Engel (Danny Huston) has a really dodgy past, but we learn nothing of substance about him. Mitchell (Goode) is ‘the’ family-man, but what emerges is the obvious, namely that he neglects his family due to his professional absence. Jones (Cole) the rookie, is just that; and even the semi-villain Hurst (McKenna), is just a weak wreck, unable to use his hands properly, thanks to to many hours under water, he nearly undermines the rescue work of the others, but redeems himself. It is difficult to root for any of them, and the main attraction for watching a film of this type is gone.
DOP Richard Mott tries his best to conjure up some images worth remembering, but narrative and locations give him little chance. PRESSURE is simply a wreck, better left to sink without trace AS
In cinemas 21 August | Available to download from 24th August & on DVD 31st August
Cast: Nozipho Nkelemba, Zenzo Ngqobe, Jerry Mofokeng, Lebohang Nisane,
96min Drama South Africa English and Southern Sotho
A young man living in Johannesburg, South Africa, discovers unexpected enlightenment and redemption when he is forced to make a journey back to his Lesotho birthplace in Andrew Mudge’s perfectly pitched indie debut THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM, another story of father/son estrangement.
Atang (Zenzo Ngqobe) has a buzzy life surrounded by friends and family in downtown Joburg. But duty calls him to his estranged father’s death bed in Lesotho. By the time he arrives the old man has already died of HIV, in a small remote village in the mountains, and Atang must give him a decent Christian burial. Set on the widescreen and in intimate domestic scenes, this magical modern parable is really brought to life by D.P. Carlos Carvalho’s stunningly limpid visuals that convey the luminosity of the South African countryside and the vibrancy of its people and customs. As Atang grudgingly connects with the place where he grew up, a low-key love story develops with his childhood friend Dineo (Nozipho Nkelemba), now a teacher, exerting a calm healing on his soul and helping him to come to terms with his complicated past. Atang eventually returns to Johannesburg with a greater perspective on his life and keen to earn enough money so he can make a life with Dineo. What he discovers on his return will be make or break him.
THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM is one of those charmingly poetic indie films that actually draws you to South Africa to experience its rich culture and extraordinary beauty, in contrast to the stream of overwhelmingly negative stories that come out of a country that is is pictured as being constantly submerged by strife and conflict. Like everywhere, there are positive stories and South Africans want them to be told and while Andrew Mudge doesn’t attempt to paint an overly romantic portrait of this young man’s life, he avoids cliché while acknowledging that Lesotho does have a considerable HIV problem, but is not entirely defined by it. An absorbing narrative, naturalistic performances from a cast of newcomers and experienced actors and Robert Miller’s original and unobtrusive score, THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM is a worthwhile, intelligent watch. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE IN SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 21 AUGUST 2015
If Posy Simmonds’ chick-lit and the saccharine charms of Gemma Arterton appeal to you then Anne Fontaine’s re-working of the classic Flaubert novel is for you. If not, stay well away from this trivial pick n mix of Chocolat and In the House, drenched in a helping of A Year in Provence…and a dash of Mother’s Milk.
Dumbly scripted by award-winning Pascale Bonitzer to echo Simmonds’ satirical paperback, this Normandy-set romantic romp will have Flaubert spinning in his grave with anger and dismay. A trashy English cast and half decent French one is lead by a charmingly sympa Fabrice Lucchini as, Martin Joubert, a publisher who has retired to the idyllic spot of Auberville-la-Manuel to run the local bakery with his sparky wife (Isabelle Candelier) and teenage son (Kacey Mottet Klein). Taking his romantic disillusionment out on kneading the daily bread, he has comes to terms with the banality of his life in this quiet country backwater when the arrival of English neighbours, a voluptuous young Gemma Bovery (Arterton) and her broke and raddled ‘hubby’ Charles move in next door, sets his feathers all a flutter with a sexual frisson tempered by the fear (or is it hope) that this perky young bride will end up with the same fate as her literary namesake from Flaubert’s 1850s novel.
Best known for Coco Before Chanel, Anne Fontaine opts for a jaunty and salacious tone that will most likely appeal to Daily Mail readers rather than Simmonds’ Guardian following, ramping up the sensational aspects of her Bovery story rather than the insightful realism of the French original, resulting in a schematic tale than feels rather dated with its 80s sensibilities riven with unlikely pairings and glaring plotholes (to discuss them would reveal too much). Let’s just flag up one for your consideration: Why would nubile and artistic Gemma end up with a divorced, insolvent loser like Charlie (Jason Flemyng) living in a damp and dreary country cottage in the 21st century? Clearly Fontaine wanted to make a commercial film that would appeal to UK|US audiences rather than French ones, and Bonitzer’s script is suitably tuned towards those audiences with its mentions of yoga, Notting Hill, rag-rolling and gluten-free bread).
In the same style as Ozon’s In the House, the story unfurls via Martin’s first person narration – he is the only interesting character – but the piece rapidly falls into what Flaubert calls ‘the pettiness and predictability of daily life” due to a trite and unlikeable set of provincial characters in a village that anyone would be desperate to get back to Paris to avoid. Luchini’s expression throughout is one of baffled wonderment and disbelief: that he can be the only decent actor in the film and that he is witnessing the destruction of his beloved literary work. Despite his better judgement, he falls under Gemma’s spell seduced by her sluttish vapidness and entranced by her louche disregard for decency as she falls for the local lord of the manor, a tousled hair youngster Visconte de Bressigny (a really well-cast Niels Schneider) and so begins her descent down the path of her literary counterpart. On the way we have to contend with the evil smugness of local arrivistes Wizzy and Rankin (ghastly Zylberstein and Torens), her ex, demon-lover Patrick (a second rate Mel Raido) and a strange cameo from Edith Scoob as the redoubtable Madame de Bressigny. All the while, we are treated to glimpses of Arterton in her undies (Myla or Agent Provocateur?), boogying down to her rag-rolling, and sensuously pouting over the freshly baked brioches which will finally lead to her downfall in the unlikely and far-fetched denouement. MT
Menelik Shabazz (Burning an Illusion) has tackled gender relationships in the black community in this wide-ranging documentary, relieving the overwhelming talking head interviews with spurts of comedy from Eddie Kadi and Donna Spence, as well as the impressive women poets Comfort and Nairobi.
LOOKING FOR LOVE features psychologists, counsellors, relationship coaches and spiritual healers, members of group sessions and many individuals trying to come to terms with the undeniable fact that the majority of males in the black community are not taking enough responsibility for their families, and often repress their female partners. There are two main arguments competing here: one cites the lack of positive male role models for the misery of so many black women; the other attempts to lay the blame on slavery, having taken the black male away from his responsibilities for too long – there is a third, rather confused strain of argument that attempts to blame society as a whole for preventing black male from using the right hemisphere of their brains in a society dominated by whites. Our sympathies lie with the (mainly female) psychologists and counsellors, coming up against arguments from faith healers and the like, who find apologies for the black male, simply ignoring the fact that equivalent socio-economic section of the white male population behave in identical ways (minus the charm of the West Indian men) to their black counter parts and totally ignore the predominance of white macho-culture the world over.
The culture of black male of today “avoiding learning” can not be put down to slavery, neither can their tendency to attack the success of other black male students to bolster their homosexuality. It is dangerous in the extreme to pander to such arguments in the name of racism, but this documentary shows just how common this is.
At a running time of nearly two hours LOOKING FOR LOVE over-eggs its message with repetitious interviews and although Shabazz’s non-judgemental approach is laudable, and follows the normal documentary code, here it does a disservice to the rational arguments. That said, he opens a long overdue debate. AS
With: Michael Dowd, Ken Eurell, Walter Yurkiw, Chicki, Dori Eurell
104min US
A documentary surrounding the life and crimes of the infamous, corrupt NYC cop Michael Dowd
True Crime doesn’t get more fascinating or entertaining than Tiller Russell’s film about a cop who swung between a life of crime and policing the notoriously deadly East NYC of the 80s and 90s when around 3500 murders were committed each year. This was a time when being a ‘good’ cop meant knowing how to cover your buddy’s back rather than being honest and capable. A Most Violent Year recently dramatised how individuals worked the system in the crime-ridden US capital but PRECINCT SEVEN FIVEgoes a step further to explore how, according to Russell, most cops in the five-mile square stretch of territory that would “scare Clint Eastwood” were also, to some degree, in cahoots with a criminal network.
Seen in court appearances and in person as focus of the story, Michael Dowd emerges as a likeable and charismatic character sounding a bit like Joe Pesci. As Russell zips through the encyclopaedic details of his misdemeanours, a catchy score of eighties hits plays in the background rendering the full flavour of this emblematic era: tunes from the Stones, Serpico and so on. The piece is further enlivened by some classy black and white photos of the vintage.
The doc opens with footage of Dowd in the dock as he is investigated by a commission for police corruption in 1993. Flanked by his lawyer, he listens intently and admits to committing “hundreds of crimes” while serving as a police officer. The court appearances contrast starkly with his enthusiastic almost volatile contempo interviews that chronicle his fall from grace from a straightforward young police office in 1982 to a fully-fledged gangland operator. As is often the case, it all started as the ‘thin end of the wedge’ when he took a small bribe from a ‘perp’ he was apprehending at traffic lights. The fillip of each cash made him ‘feel good’, and gradually he was able to provide more luxury for his young family: new cars, trips, jewellery for his wife, and eventually even a holiday home in Florida.
Trust between cops is the badge of honour and the most important element of working in the Precinct and Dowd eventually partners up with Kenny Eurell, whose quiet attention to detail perfectly complimented Dowd’s negotiation skills on the streets. Meeting maverick arch crims, Dominican druglord Adam Diaz, and arch crim Baron Perez, (who operated a drugs ring fronted by a car stereo shop) they formed a mutually beneficial alliance which earned them thousands of dollars per week – the icing on the cake of their police wages, which covered their ordinary household expenses.
But the pair knew that these rich pickings couldn’t last forever; the guilt was taking hold of Dowd and spending sprees were starting to be difficult to conceal, especially when he took to driving a bright red Corvette Stringray. And he was also developing a cocaine addiction, when things started to go wrong.
Well-paced and wittily-scripted, PRECINCT SEVEN FIVE zips along and there’s a vicarious cheeky enjoyment that spills over from the confessions and revelations of these opportunistic yet ordinary men. It’s easy to see how the whole affair developed and somehow we don’t end up hating their guts: Russell ingeniously contrives to make the audience feel empathetic, even complicit, with the pair. Interestingly, in the end, Dowd emerges more regretful about damaging his personal relationships than remorseful for the crimes he committed. A rip-roaring ride through a NYC of the 80s-90s. MT
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE | REVIEWED AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL 2015
Cast: Hugh Grant, Alicia Vikander, Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Jared Harris, Elizabeth Debicki, Luca Calvani
117min UK/US Action comedy
The Man From U.N.C.L.E was an iconic 60s TV series whose cool characters and Cold War credentials will remain burnt into the memories of devotees of Adam Adamant and The Saint. Guy Ritchie and his scripter Lionel Wigram attempt to update and re-badge the spy thriller as a Euro-trotting upmarket macho mens’ comedy caper with sexy ‘birds’ dressed up to the nines and glib guys in poorly-tailored suits; what we get is a Chavish dollop of Eton mess.
There are some really good ideas: the early 60s production detail is spot on and so is the female haute couture – but for the most part it’s a self-indulgent romp that lacks form, charisma and, crucially, clout. Male leads Henry Cavill (Napoleon Solo) and Arnie Hammer (Illya Kuryakin) are supremely dull and, worse still, rather fond of themselves: Critically, they lack the style and suave charisma of Robert Vaughan and McCullan despite their breezy male model modishness. The only entertaining performances come from a pert and pint-sized Audrey Hepburn-styled Alica Vikander, and Hugh Grant as a British intelligence chief Waverly, who walks through his role with the consummate ease of a craggy test pilot.
The original storyline is loosely intact with Napoleon Solo as an American agent in a Cold War East Berlin who is tasked with tracking down a missing nuclear scientist whose perky tomboy daughter Gaby (Vikander) plays an unlikely female car mechanic in the capital. But her chicly sinister Daddy (Christian Berkel) now appears to be working for an Italian nuclear power magnate who is seeking to gain control of the world. Naturally, the CIA and KGB want to control the world so, in order to bring the Italian super-magnate Alexander Vinciguerra (a simmering Luca Calvani) down to size , Solo is ordered to collaborate with Kuryakin, who, in a bizarre twist, is forced to go undercover as an architect.
As Illya, Armie Hammer is all pouty and gorgeous as the truculent Soviet spy (cum architect) who grudgingly falls for Gaby. As Solo, Caville’s main problem is fitting into the confines of his tailoring without popping out and looking gauche, an endeavour which doesn’t entirely succeed, leaving him glib. The constant hotchpotoch of action-scenes and lacklustre dialogue feel more tedious than tense as we are subjected to an onslaught of style over substance: in this mesmerising mess of European milieux, it’s very much ‘the price of everything versus the value of nothing’. The feline Elizabeth Debicki (Vittoria Vinciguerra) is the one to watch on the elegance front as she glides stealthily through her domaine, like Gustave Dore’s wife of (Alexander Vinceguerra’s) Bluebeard; delivering her lines with insuciant aplomb: she is a joy to behold.
Guy Ritchie’s caper has some clever ideas and it certainly whisks you away to some fabulous hotspots: Rome, Berlin, Goodwood, and Naples to name but a few. But the overall impression is a scattergun of entertaining, stylish and laughable moments that lacks any formal discipline to deliver a satisfying experience: At one point the whole thing feels like an extended advert for Cinzano Bianco – without ice or the slice. MT
Director: Mike Doxford Writers: Simon Richardson/Mike Doxford
Cast: Ian Sharp, Gina Bramhill, Rick Warden, Nicholas Day, Samuel Anderson, Darwin Shaw
98min UK Crime Drama
Another British indie in similar vein to Blood Cells and Dead Man’s Shoes, centres on a sensitive ex-military man who goes back to his home town to find that things have changed and, sadly, for the worst. This time we’re on the North Lincolnshire coast, a once wealthy area until the fishing industry died and left a decent but poverty-stricken community to fend for themselves. ‘Pleasure Island’ refers to the theme park that grew up in Cleethorpes in the early 90s to create jobs and a lifeline for the locals.
Thoughtfully-crafted with a fabulous sense of place evoked by Shaun Cobley’s limpid visuals of the fish-market, Cleethorpes’s stunning beaches and aerial shots of the harbour, PLEASURE ISLAND is well-acted by a decent British cast led by Ian Sharp (as Dean), who is at odds with his pigeon-fancier dad Tony (Nicholas Day), who runs an ingenious side-line in North Sea skulduggery involving his birds. Meanwhile Dean’s ex Jess (Gina Bramhill) is a now a single mum who strips in the evenings for extra money, pimped out by Connor, a nasty coked-up businessman with a penchant for Caribbean shirts (Rick Warden),
Despite a promising start, PLEASURE ISLAND suffers in the script department from a rather cardboard set of characters for the most part. Although Tony, his rivals Connor and boss Russ (Paul Bullion) are well-drawn and authentic enough, the story soon descends into the usual narrative-style of this misogynist Britflic genre: loutish lads versus passive lassies, with dialogue resorting to endless effing and blinding in place of more convincing parlance. Women get the rough deal here and are portrayed as weak, pathetic characters who invariably get beaten up and verbally abused. Sadly, Jess and Cordelia are no different, endlessly giving in and showing no back-bone whatsoever. So it’s left to Ian Sharp’s Dean to come to the rescue with his military training, avenging Jesse’s honour and sorting Tony out in the process. Sharp does a good job as a strong and silent type but somehow Dean lacks ballast on the characterisation front. There is something pathetic about all these people, and at the end of the day, you can’t help feeling sorry for them all in their downtrodden lives, trying to make the best of things: they come across as sadly comical rather than deeply venal. So there is much to be admired about Doxford’s feature debut which is appealing and watchable despite its flaws. And despite the violent overtones, he softens a tragic story of love and loss with moments of calm combined with a gentle atmospheric soundtrack from The Jive Aces. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 14 August 2015 | PREMIERING IN CLEETHORPES ON 10 AUGUST 2015
Dir.: Shaun Monson | Documentary | USA 2015 | 99 min.
After Earthlings, in which he tackled the exploitation of animals in the food, fashion and entertainment industries, it took writer/director Shaun Monson over seven years to compile this well-intentioned yet woozy and unfocused documentary: UNITYis a sort of catalogue of all human sins committed over the ages, the victims being animals, the environment and other human beings.
Narrated by nearly a hundred (mostly Hollywood) stars such as Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Anniston, Jessica Chastain, Amanda Seyfried, Ben Kingsley and Jeff Goldblum, UNITY is a ‘call to arms’ for the human race to join a bid for world peace, veganism, love and spiritual awakening, “since we are all part of the universe”.
Thus Monson states in his own words: “The title Unity signifies the intention of the content. It’s not so much to entertain, like a past-time, but rather turn something ‘on’ inside you that has been suppressed or forgotten by the mask that society or tradition puts upon us. But more than that the film also helps relate us to the mystery of existence, to all of existence, which we are merely a part”.
Expect lots of cruelty towards humans and animals, opening with a devastating scene of a bull attempting to escape ‘death row’ in the abattoir and followed by some rather fluffy images of togetherness. The participation of so many stars who openly participate in today’s crass materialism – one of the cardinal sins of humankind mentioned by Monson – somehow undermines this worthy but rambling and unstructured lesson, delivered in its earnest, preachy tone.
Cast: Sophie Okonedo, Ben Chaplin, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Shaun Evans, Kerry Fox, Adeel Akhtar, Phoebe Fox, Antony Sher, Nicholas Burns
UK Drama
Wide in scope and intellect, Tom Harper’s WAR BOOK is a chilling chamber piece based on a ‘game’ that took place regularly during the sixties and seventies in the political backrooms of Whitehall and is set here in contempo London. Key political staff assemble each day and are given a ‘scenario’ such as the aftermath of an international nuclear attack. As ministers, they are then tasked with reporting their individual strategies to cope with the ensuing meltdown, in a roundtable discussion.
Sharply performed by a glittering ensemble cast of British acting talent including: Sophie Okonedo, Ben Chaplin, Antony Sher and Kerry Fox, WAR BOOKbristles with political intrigue and in-fighting from the arcane to the trivial: a coruscating ‘corridors of power’ drama, it ducks and dives through the personal feelings, sexual predilections, and intellectual standpoints of some of ‘finest minds’ in politics, who make decisions on our behalf, but who are not all elected. Knives are drawn on the political front, and dirty washing is aired shamelessly behind an agenda of ethical and political stance-taking. Particularly good here is Ben Chaplin, an actor with ‘matinee idol’ looks who has been working away effectively for several decades in a variety of roles in both indie film (Dorian Gray) and TV (Game On). Here he shines as a suave and narcissistic sexual predator, Gary, to Phoebe Fox’s dilligent and seductive secretary who is tasked with taking the minutes. Antony Sher is integrity personified, in a ‘less is more’ role of senior advisor, elderly statesmen and contemplative intellect. Kerry Fox plays the soignée and experienced Maria – ‘you can’t put an old head on young shoulders’ type who fashions herself as a more glamorous and more sensual version of ‘the Widdy’ (Ann Widdecombe), and is in recovery from breast cancer. Token ‘Ethnic minorities’ are repped by a brilliantly measured Adheel Akhtar at Mohinder (Mo) and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as the fresh-faced but highly capable Austin. Shaun Evans is the subversive and strung-out Tom, who goes against the grain and has to be cautioned by Philippa for his strident views and outbursts. And last, but not least, is Sophie Okonedo as Philippa, the dispassionate and masterful ‘Chair’, who turns in a performance that is both subtly nuanced and striking.
Anyone with a keen interest in the workings of politics and ‘the powers that be’ will find this quietly gripping and restrained drama an immersive and entertaining experience. MT
PREMIERED AT THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL | NOW ON RELEASE AT SELECTED CINEMAS
Cast: Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgård, Kirsten Wiig
USA Drama 102mins
Edinburgh—Marielle Heller’s feature debut received its UK premiere in the aptly named ‘American Dreams’ section of the world’s longest continually running film festival. THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL is a tonally and emotionally complex rendering of a much-mined but often-misunderstood theme, namely female adolescent sexuality. Seen and narrated through the colourful prism of protagonist Minnie Goetz (Bel Powley), a precocious 15-year-old who embarks upon an affair with Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård), her mother’s (Kirsten Wiig) boyfriend, this coming-of-age drama is all the more unsettling for unfolding as a casual comedy, as the deeper ramifications of the ongoing affair at its centre are for the most part kept at bay.
Adapted from Phoebe Gloeckner’s graphic novel, DIARY takes place in 1970s San Francisco, and employs its setting’s clichés (libertarianism, sexual experimentation, acid trips and so on) as a familiar backdrop only to lend it a new edge by the young filter through which its events are narrated (possibly unreliably). “I had sex today. Holy shit!” chimes the opening line, and the film, mirroring Minnie’s own impressionable, passionate imagination, barely stops to ponder the hurt and confusion that inevitably stems from an underage teenager finding herself romantically involved with a man twice her age.
Bechdel schmechdel: as if to make a point of the inefficacy of standardising feminist forms of filmmaking, Heller invests so heavily in her protagonist’s mindset that there’s not one instance here of a girl-to-girl chat that doesn’t centre in some way around a man. As an audience removed from the film’s timeframe by four decades, but one who might still relate to the universal truths of growing up, we have to buy into Heller’s vision or we’re alienated from the start. For Minnie, the only thing that matters is her approaching adulthood—something that finds its ultimate meaning in the sexual pursuit of an older man. Dues to Heller, though, for scraping a great deal of humour from these otherwise complicated moments—and for doing so in an involving rather than ironic way. One need only imagine the same material in the hands of, say, Todd Solondz to see the strength and audacity of Heller’s approach.
A lot of this rests on the characters and how they’re played. Powley, best known to British audiences for her role in the first two seasons of CBBC series M.I. High, was 21 when filming began, though she’s a fine fit here, excelling as a woman happily swept into a myopic navel-gazing rather than a fully formed, satisfying emotional connection to someone (hence the childlike voiceover, and the animated interludes). Heller does well not to vilify Monroe even while making it clear that he’s a bit of a lout and no real prospect for Charlotte, Minnie’s mother, never mind Minnie herself. Skarsgård gives a delicate rendition, and it’s to his and the filmmakers’ credit that the character comes across as an ordinary rather than a monstrous guy, his deeds the result of gross misjudgement rather than predatory instinct.
The film’s biggest weakness might be Charlotte. Wiig does what she can here, but in spending much less time on her, Heller fails to elevate the character above a chain-smoking divorcee, a 1970s stereotype. It’s in the dialogue, mostly: throwing accusations of “bourgeois… fascist, misogynistic bullshit” around freely, Charlotte is painted in broad brushstrokes in comparison to the more pointillist construction of Minnie. Rather than fulfilling the requisites of a genuinely moving drama, it keeps the film rooted to a diaristic dispatch. MICHAEL PATTISON
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 7 August 2015 | Reviewed at EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL | 17 – 28 JUNE 2015
Dir.: Albert Maysles | Documentary with Iris Apfel | US 2014, 78 min
Legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles creates an imaginative portrait of the interior and fashion designer Iris Apfel who has since died – but always seemed much younger at heart than her students.
Maysles, who directed such classics as Gimme Shelter (1970), Grey Gardens (1975) – both co-directed by his brother David – and When We Were Kings (1996) lets the camera do the talking, catching Apfel often in un-guarded moments.
Iris Apfel comes across as a very shrewd business-woman and playful child who made her hobby – arranging clothes and accessories she finds abroad or in bargain stores – into a very successful profession. With her huge glasses, and glittering rings, necklaces and armbands, she is seen permanently re-inventing herself and in love with creating looks while being very much aware of the shortcomings of her trade in particular, and society as a whole.
Fully away that craftsmanship was fast disappearing, Apfel and her husband Carl (who celebrated his hundredth birthday during the shooting), founded the “Old World Weavers” company, so that the skills of weaving in 18th and 19th century would not be lost. Carl also shot 16mm films of their twice yearly trips around the world, where they would collect their materials in bazars and flea markets.
Today’s students can only marvel at their visiting professor but it is clear that it is Apfel, and not the students, who is the revolutionary here. Because Iris always made a clear difference between her identity and her presentations: “It is more important to be happy, than to be well-dressed”. During the years, she helped many White House residents to re-vamp their living quarters, sometimes, as with Jackie Kennedy, there were inevitably some disagreements, but Iris was not starstruck by any celebrity: “We should not talk too much about them”, making clear that she was not impressed by either status or money.
In spite of this, she had an eye for the latter (“I need some Shekels”), and when she empties three huge storage places, where the treasure from her many journeys is stored, it look like she could fill a huge department store with the contents.
But her work ethic was un-diminished til the end. Having grown up during the depression in middle-class Queens, she became a workaholic: “If you are lucky enough to do something you love, everything else follows”. But she never lost her wits or sense of reality, calling on the efforts of the fashion-scholar Harold Koda to “make me into an octogenarian starlet”.
Unlike in Grey Gardens, when the fashion designer Edie Bouvier Beale was the subject of Albert and David Maysles portrait, the interaction between the director and Apfel are very close, both sharing not only the same age (which Apfel makes very light of, even a hip replacement not slowing her down much), they also share the same taste, preferring childlike imagination to ordinary prettiness. IRIS is a truly original creation, and a fitting farewell tribute to one of the great documentary filmmakers of our time. AS
Cast: Sophie Traub, Joe Swanberg, Robert Longstreet, Kristin Slaysman
USA 2014, 79 min.
Hired farmhand Akin is lusting after Sarah, the daughter of his employer Jeremiah. But she soon finds out that he is married and has a daughter. Still, she drives him crazy and watches him masturbate in the barn. Finally, he succumbs to her on a field, after she eats a frog alive. This is not the only strange aspect of Sarah, we often hear her voice-over, talking about a lover who is always close –but it is not Akin. We begin to suspect that there is more to the father-daughter relationship between Sarah and Jeremiah, and when Akin’s wife Drew comes to rescue her husband, all is revealed in a bloody showdown.
In Butter on the Latch Decker creates an unsettling atmosphere, again opposing poetic shots of nature with characters moving around suspiciously, seemingly having to hide a lot. But unlike her debut feature film, THOU WAST MILD AND LOVELY has a much more structured narrative (even though the title is again enigmatic). And again Decker is not afraid to be rather daring (or silly, depending on the viewpoint): apart from the frog episode, Sarah’s alluring traps she sets out to catch Akin, sometimes border on the hilarious, and Jeremiah’s dark glowing eyes remind one of biblical characters in a religious history film. Still, Decker has enough talent to get away with it, creating a moody little B-Picture, which is (again) under 80 minutes, the length of the classic B-Movies of the forties and fifties. She also recreates an atmosphere of mild terror, leaving the audience always guessing.
Decker’s critics from the mainstream press accuse her of an amateur approach, but they forget that she has to deal with a budget, which does not cover even the catering costs of an ordinary Hollywood production. She has to make due with imagination and improvisation, and does this in rather an entertaining way. She holds the middle ground between the soulless formula products of Hollywood, and the often too worthy indie films, which can be sometimes a little tedious. Decker is certainly a one-off, only she could pull off a scenario like this one, keeping a unity of aesthetics and creating a dark universe, which has echoes of the best of Tourneur or Joseph H. Lewis, who used to feature women like Sarah: fragile, slightly deranged and with a brooding sexuality. AS
THOU WAST MILD AND LOVELY | REVIEWED AT THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 9-19 OCTOBER 2014 | screening on 1 August 2015
Cast: Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Del Herbert-Jane, Mario Spate, Beau Travis Williams, Imogen Archer, Sam Althuizen
120min Australia Drama
Newcomer Tilda Cobham-Hervey gives a dynamite performance as sixteen-year-old teenager, Billie, in Sophie Hyde’s fresh and frisky drama about female sexuality. Just as Billie is ready to discover boys, her divorced mother (Del Herbert-Jane) has decided to become James, in a challenging transformation that will take a year. To make things easier, Billie goes to live with her father Tom (Beau Travis Williams) but this change of circumstances leaves a gaping hole in Billie’s emotional life, just when she needs her close female role model the most: they shared everything and James’ promise to spend every Tuesday with her offers little comfort. Tom is in a new relationship and offers little help or support as a dad.
Sophie Hyde is best known for her documentaries and here she makes use of that experience with docu-drama style that takes the form of a video diary through which Billie records her emotional journey. In order to retain a feeling of authenticity, filming took place chronologically over the period of the year during which James’ amazing transformation (with incipient to full beard) provides fascinating food for thought as well as engaging factual information about female-male transition. But it’s Billie’s emotional state that really strikes the most meaningful chord as we witness the fragile mother-daughter dynamic slowly degenerate. James’ focus on his own burgeoning sexual desires leave little room for his focus as a ‘mother’: it’s a big leap of faith to expect Billie to suddenly understand an adult male’s issues when she herself is undergoing so much disorientating change from being a little girl to a woman, with hardly any guidance.
52 TUESDAYS asks the evergreen and universal question: do we have a duty of care to our kids when they really need us most, or is our own happiness of primary importance in best equipping us to provide this valuable emotional succour. Obviously it’s a question without an answer, and Sophie Hyde’s observational style offers a non-judgemental snapshot. As Billie, Hervey-Cobham is tender, endearing and vulnerable as she manages her life as cheerfully and as intelligently as possible in challenging circumstances. Sadly Del Herbert Jane as James, much as we want to understand him, never really convinces us or engages our sympathies in his own transformational journey. MT
52 TUESDAYS IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 7 AUGUST 2015.
In THE BEST OF ENEMIES Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon showcase the heavyweight intellectual TV sparring matches between William Buckley Jr and Gore Vidal, who offered their subjectivity on American Politics during 1968 and fro the last few decades of the 20th Century. Whether or not you agreed with their politics these wittily-crafted debates and well-reasoned arguments, spoken in cool patrician vowels, had US viewers pinned to their sets night after night from the late sixties until the nineties.
Best known for their musical biopics, Neville and Gordon take us on a rip-roaring ride through the lives of both men who had the American public hanging on their every word. Millions of viewers were fixated on their TVs each night, as Buckley, an ardent Republican and Vidal, a champagne socialist, expounded their views like an elegant game of Centre Court tennis. At a time when America needed to “change lanes”, the debates allowed a refreshing breeze of clarity to blow through the political landscape, but culminated in a famous exchange during news coverage of a convention in Chicago (1968), where Buckley finally puts his cards on the table during a highly-charged debate that went down in American history.
Multi-lingual William H Buckley Jr was a staunch Catholic from an educated New York family who went to Yale and spent the Winters in a chateau in Gstaad or sailing at his Stamford holiday home. Gore Vidal, seen posing in his romantic Italian coastal villa, was also from a privileged background with political connections although he never went to University, going straight into the Army, as did Buckley after Yale. The two went on to publish books and newspaper articles – Vidal becoming the best-selling author of the controversial sex-change novel “Myra Breckinridge” – Buckley set up his right-wing journal National Review and became the host of a NewsNight-style programme called The Firing Line. The two were polar opposites and would argue that black was white just to affirm their antipathy of one another. We also hear off-scene readings from John Lithgow (as Vidal) and Kelsey Grammer (as Buckley) and the late Christopher Hitchens’ adds his commentary further enhancing and inform our enjoyment of this immersive piece.
Slowly ramping up the tension as their gripping story unfolds, Neville and Gordon reveal that ABC-TV, lagging third in the news division behind CBS and NBS, had decided to up its game by hiring these sworn enemies to host a talk show during a convention in Miami. Grainy footage of these coruscating debates make gripping viewing as they each appraise the political situation of an American Society in crisis. When the debates reconvened in Chicago, the tone became more venomous between the men, reflecting a mood of hostility and social unrest that descended on the town at the height of the anti-Vietnam War, in a draconian Police presence. Theatrical texture is added with footage of Paul Newman and Arthur Miller who were also in town at the time. Discussion of the riots seeps into the coverage as these cool intellectuals lock horns, Vidal calling Buckley “a crypto-Nazi.” Rising to the occasion, Buckley is seen gurning with hatred – and the image is repeated several times – as he barks back “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face, and you’ll stay plastered.”
When seen on video footage, Buckley was clearly devastated at having lost his cool and apologized profusely but Vidal is strangely unphased with an icy coolness that is itself unnerving given the hatred he clearly felt. Vicious law suits zapped back and forth like angry hornets between the two men for years afterwards, as they each endeavoured to work through this televised trauma.
Ultimately, Gordon and Neville’s documentary serves to illustrate how Buckley and Vidal were the last to deliver stimulating debates of intellectual clarity on television. Nowadays, networks resort to “that which is highly viewable rather than that which is illuminating”. What a shame. MT
A biopic of famous Brazilian photographer and philanthropist, Sabastiao Salgado, manages to be both illuminating and moving. Directed (and narrated) by Wim Wenders and Salgado’s son Juliano, what starts as an harrowing and dramatic set of photographs from Africa and beyond, soon becomes a story with a truly inspiring and heart-warming conclusion, adding real weight to the simple story about this fascinating and creatively-driven man, now 70. From war zones in Ruanda and Bosnia to the deepest Amazon, his often shocking images show tremendous compassion and a desire to connect with his subject-matter. As is often the case, his son Juliano, received little attention as a child as Salgado travelled the World, while his wife Leilia, archived and published his works; setting up exhibitions from home and organising financing and funding. There are shades of the late Michael Glawogger to his searingly shocking images and a touch of the David Attenborough to his work with his animals. A peerless tribute to humanity and the animal kingdom. MT.
CÉSAR 2015 WINNER – BEST DOCUMENTARY | NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE
Cast: Alba Rohrwacher, Monica Bellucci, Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck, Sabine Timoteo, Agnese Graziani
100min Drama Italian with subtitles
GRAND PRIX WINNER – CANNES 2014
Writer/Director Alice Rohrwacher’s debut feature Corpo Celeste was a delicate coming-of-age drama that had a brief outing in London cinemas in 2011, introducing us this new director. She returns with THE WONDERS another wistful but sure-footed rites of passage tale of an enigmatic family of bee-keepers, eking out a living in challenging circumstances in rural Tuscany. This time our heroine is 13-year-old Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu), the eldest of four daughters who work hard in this cottage industry, helping their father with the hives and honey bottling.
Rohrwacher’s restrained, impressionist approach creates a vague feeling of suspense that allows our imagination to wander and luxuriate in this magical story. A palpable tension is felt amongst the sisters as they carefully spin the honey and decant it into plastic buckets and jars without losing any of the precious nectar in the process. They tiptoe round round their cantankerous father who lives in the fear that colony collapse disorder or contamination with ruin the family’s future. Gelsomina absorbs all this angst at a time where she is also growing up and finding her feet as a young woman and the second in command of the business, and all the responsibilities involved. Out of the blue, the police entrust the family with a teenage boy delinquent who needs rehabilitation into the community. They are then asked to take part in a TV competition for local farmers to enter their produce – Gelsomina develops a teenage crush for the glamorous presenter in the shape of Monica Bellucci – who dazzles the impressionable girls. The preparations are fun but nerve-wracking involving national dress in local Etruscan costumes. Rohracher’s bitter-sweet depiction of teenage awakening is brought to life by Pina cinematographer, Hélène Louvart who beautifully captures the young girls’ dreams and anxieties while growing up in the country. THE WONDERS is naive, surreal and absolutely enchanting. MT
Dir: Jean-Baptiste Léonetti | Stephen Susco and Robb White | Cast: Michael Douglas, Jeremy Irvine, Martin Palmer, Ronnie Cox, Hanna Mangan Lawrence | 95min US Thriller
A schematic battle of wits plays out against some rather splendid widescreen desert scenery in this bone-dry endurance test from French director Jean-Baptiste Léonetti (Carré Blanc). In contrast to the searing success of Lee H Katzin’s 1974 TV original Savages, this fails to deliver thrills or spills even with Michael Douglas as a sadistic gun-slinger, and Jeremy Irvine’s sunburnt good guy.
Douglas (Madec) arrives in the Mojave desert at the wheel of a souped-up SUV, pretending to be a City hot shot on the hunt for off-season game with his hired tracker Ben (Irvine). But a psychopathic streak gets the better of him when he ‘accidentally’ turns his hand-made gun on the local humans, taking out a local cave-dweller in the process (Martin Palmer), then attempting to bribe Ben to cover up his crime and lie to the local sheriff (Ronny Cox). Anxious to make some money, Ben agrees to Madec’s demands when it transpires that Madec will finance him through college and secure a lucrative City job to lure his girlfriend into (Lawrence) into a more permanent liaison. But when Ben draws the line at disposing of the body, Madec plays dirty, forcing him to strip down to his boxers and walk barefoot across the wilderness in a bid to survive.
Armed with a shoddy script our tediously miscast duo desperately make their way through Navajo country, a dissipated Douglas goading the saintly, sun-scorched Irvine through a series of trials and tribulations from the comfort of his air-conditioned Merc. It all plays out like some ghastly face-off between the Devil and a scantily-clad ‘Jesus’ in the wilderness. But on this occasion there’s no redemption in sight. MT
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Ryan Reynolds, Natalie Martinez, Matthew Goode, Victor Garber
116min Sci-fi thriller UK
SELF/LESS imagines a future where brilliant minds can prolong their lives by re-incarnation using bodies grown in a laboratory. Or at least that’s what we’re led to believe in Tarsem Singh’s remake of John Frankenheimer’s vastly superior 1966 outing, SECONDS. Ben Kingsley is masterful as Damian Hale, a trumped up but simpatico Donald Trump-style mogul who lives in a gilded penthouse but is unable to vanquish cancer.
Under the auspices of a crisp-vowelled Matthew Goode, as psycho-scientist Professor Albright, Hale undergoes a risky procedure and is beamed up as Ryan Reynolds’ dishy dime a dozen denizen of middle America – a young Damian in a muscly new physique. Whisked away to New Orleans with a cache of pills to keep his new persona intact, he soon starts living the high-life in a chic townhouse in the French quarter where he beds young babes and mingles with the locals. So where’s the glitch? It soon transpires that his brand new body was donated to science by Mark, a man with a wife and daughter who needed expensive medical care. When the new Damian forgets to takes his pills, memories of this former life come flooding back.
So far so good, but when did Ryan Reynolds look anything like Ben Kingsley? Reynolds does his best as the new man – easy on the eye and appealing in a part that stretches the imagination to the limits, even if we suspend our disbelief – but this promising drama gradually morphs into a misguided mêlée of tedious punch-ups, car chases and shoot-outs as the new Damian attempts to extract truth from trickery. Why? Apart from an inept script (from Spanish brothers Alex and David Pastor), this Sci-fi conconction is impressively-mounted and rhythmically scored by Tarsem Singh who once made REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’. Here he demonstrates his inability to make a film that’s as engaging and intelligent as it is good-looking, despite a dynamite cast.
SELF/LESS loses its way after the first 40 minutes and takes another hour to reach a schematic finale. A decent idea gets lost somewhere in between. Like Damian Hale, sometimes the original is better than the re-make. MT
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smi-McPhee, Caren Pistorius, Ben Mendelsohn.
84min Western UK-New Zealand
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the dramatic category at this year’s Sundance Festival, Slow West marks the feature debut of director John Maclean (late of the Scottish rock group The Beat Band) and marks the latest outdoor film to exploit the recently discovered scenic possibilities of New Zealand. Set in Colorado in 1870, Slow West at first seems to be shaping up as yet another grimly realistic depiction of the Old West – an amateurish attempt at a store hold-up has particularly harrowing consequences – peopled by unpleasant characters all looking after Number One. Adrift in all this is fresh-faced innocent Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) newly arrived from Scotland in search of a girl (Caren Pistorious) who has fled her former homeland with a price on her head. His quest crosses the path of cynical bounty hunter Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), who also serves as the film’s narrator.
At the point where fellow bounty hunter Ben Mendelsohn emerges from the undergrowth bearing a bottle of absinthe and two drinking goblets like Trapper John with his jar of olives in MASH, the mood shifts to something decidedly more eccentric. It becomes difficult to figure out if what Jay is now witnessing is actually happening or if his imagination (as in Donnie Darko or A Beautiful Mind) is taking over, fuelled by the absinthe. The film’s depiction of violent death becomes progressively more light-hearted, culminating in a spectacular and cartoonish spaghetti western-style shoot-out (would all those guns really have functioned so efficiently to such lethal effect in 1870?) centring on a small shack set in a vast valley that provides a backdrop that is imposing even by the expected standards of the modern western. Richard Chatten
Cast: John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Giamatti, Dee Wallace, Jake Abel, Joanna Going
121min US Biopic of Brian Wilson
LOVE & MERCY explores the life of iconic Beach Boys front man Brian Wilson during the formative years of the band and the abusive relationship with his father that led to mental illness that worsened under the control of a doctor whose care he sought in his troubled adult years.
In a resonant and well-managed double act Paul Dano (young Brian) and John Cusack (older Brian) evoke the creative brilliance of an intuitive soul caught between the strong egos of his father and the other band members while he strove to channel his musical talents into a string of highly original hits capturing the upbeat sunny vibe of America in the sixties while echoing the tender tones of love and loss.
Oren Moverman’s fractured narrative flips back and forth from the opening scenes as John Cusack’s quirky and quixotic older Brian is buying a cadillac from Melinda Ledbetter (a superb Elizabeth Banks), who is to play a crucial part in his adult years – and the early life portrayed by Paul Dano’s sensitive young Brian who is physically and mentally abused by his unhappy father, as he patiently feels his way ahead on a thrilling musical adventure. Although occasionally slack in places where the film attempts to drift into the dreamlike mindset of a creative genius or reflect the gruelling nature of recording sessions, this affecting emotional drama sings out with spine-tingling soul.
In some ways Bill Pohlad’s direction has tragic overtones of a man who succeeded against the odds. Wilson is seen as being constantly besieged by negative characters, amongst them his father, Murry Wilson (Bill Camp) who will eventually sell the rights to the Band’s music for less than a million dollars; bandmate and naysayer Mike Love (Jake Abel), not to mention the vehemently vicious Doctor Eugene Landy (a brilliantly ebullient Paul Giamatti), his disturbed legal guardian, who uses a toxic brew of Pavlovian tricks to keep Wilson psychologically under control. But glimmers of hope gradually transform the drama in the final scenes – and if you don’t know the story, this will come as a welcome surprise.
In the early years, a puppy-like Paul Dano paints Wilson as a home-loving peacemaker who relies heavily of intuition to be productive and uses accomplished professional musicians known as the Wrecking Crew to create the unique sound of mega hits ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Good Vibrations’. In one scene, we see him cancelling a $5000 dollars recording session simply because “the vibes don’t feel right”. Drummer Hal Blaine offers Wilson the only professional praise in the entire piece, assuring him: “Phil Spector’s got nothin’ on you”. This is a heart-warming moment in contrast to the many scenes of flagrant emotional abuse that Wilson suffers at the hands of Dr Landy and his father who continually puts him down: “Five years from now no one is going to remember you or the Beach Boys.”
John Cusack reflects Wilson’s inate good-nature but also his warped and tortured soul in the desperate lines “I want you to leave now, but I don’t want you to leave me”, after spending a romantic afternoon with Melinda in his beach-house. Their relationship develops under the constant control of Dr Landy, who insists on over-medicating Wilson, being a permanent presence in his daily acitivities and even dictating his living arrangements and attending his dates with Melinda. And as the couple gradually fall in love, the defensive Landy insists that Wilson wants no more of Melinda in his life due to his recording commitments.
Pohlad’s biopic is by no means hagiographic and this is the essence of its success as it accurately reflects the real nature of an intensely private man whose creativity strove to express deep-felt emotions and continual inventiveness and rather than a desire to engage with fans and pursue fame. And this is perhaps, in some ways, why Wilson was at odds with his bandmates. But even if you know nothing of the man himself but are familiar with the legend of the Beach Boys and their songs, this is moving musical biopic with appeal for the arthouse crowd and mainstream audiences alike. MT
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, Ugo Tognazzi
130min Comedy Drama French
One of the legendary European dramas of the era and the highest grossing, La Grande Bouffe redolent of seventies France with its mock ‘Louis Quinze’ interiors, florid cinematography and original score by Philippe Sarde (The Tenant). Mocking, cynical and drole in tone, it pokes fun at inappropriate sex, bestiality, marital strife, body functions and the more grotesque elements of everyday life, which are treated with a general nonchalance all round. Uniting the era’s famous acting talents: Michel Piccoli, Marcello Mastroianni, Philippe Noiret and Ugo Tognazzi give rather restrained performances as a group of friends (magistrate, chef, tv producer and pilot) who attempt to escape their woes by eating themselves to death in a French Maison Particulière with a trio of kindly callgirls, while salacious silent movies form background texture to their gargantuan feasts.
As the Cannes festival opener of 1973, the film was naturally going to divide critics, some who regarded it as a worthy enditement of mass consumerism and over-indulgence of the French and Italian middle-classeses (for whom it was quite normal to have a mistress); others as an amusing curio focussing on debauchery of one kind or another. Nevertheless, it went on to win the FIPRESCI prize that year.
There are shades of Walerian Borowczyk and Bunüel in the final scenes where Tognazzi gets a handjob while gorging on a vast pâté gâteau before dying of a heart-attack. The others meet their fate in equally distateful circumstances which somehow feel more tragically pathetic rather than offensive fifty years later; although at the time they must have felt shocking. The tragedy is to be found in the self-hatred and worthlessness of these men, rather than in their excess and depravity. These are people who have lost their zest for life due to stultifying self-satisfaction.
According to sources, the film was originally shown unlicensed at the Curzon Mayfair London causing an outcry from infamous campaigner Mary Whitehouse on the grounds of indecency in a public place. This only added grist to the censor’s mill, who went on to rule that films with “artistic merit” would be exempt from prosecution. Seemingly taking a cue from this experience, Ferreri went on to make Tales of Ordinary Madness, another drama focusing on excess and sexual depravity starring an equally impressive cast of Ben Gazzara and Ornella Muti. It won the FIPRESCI prize at San Sebastian 1981.
A 2K REMASTERING IS ON RELEASE FROM 3 JULY COURTESY OF ARROW FILMS
Script: Luigi Bartolini (novel) Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Oreste Biancoli, Adolfo Franci, Gerardo Guerrieri
Producers: Giuseppe Amato, Vittorio De Sica
Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda, Vittorio Antonucci, Guilio Chiari, Elena Altieri, Carlo Jachino, Michele Sakara
87min Drama Italian with subtitles
Taking their cue from the work of Jean Renoir, Italian filmmakers like Visconti and Antonioni helped create the Neo-Realist movement out of necessity, post war. This entailed dispensing with studios, expensive set-ups and even professional actors, with stories inspired by the lot of the common people, the lower working classes, desperate for work and even food.
The Bicycle Thieves is as pure an example as you can get of this style, using a cast of non-actors and shooting entirely on location, it cannot be underestimated the impact that the Neo-Realist movement had on film as a medium and even this film in particular, inspiring the French New Wave, The Polish Film School and even Satajit Ray in India. Even today, De Sica’s subtitled, black and white masterpiece can be found in countless significant lists of Greatest Films Ever Made and for a long time, even held the top spot. It’s easy to see why.
Erstwhile factory worker Maggiorani was cast to play the lead after he arrived for the audition with his son. A deeply impassioned and committed performance from both him and Staiola, playing his boy give this stark story it’s authenticity and edge.
Antonio Ricci is one of the many long-term unemployed, when he is plucked out of the jobless masses and given a job pasting billboard posters. The only condition being that he has a bike. He did have a bike, but pawned it to feed his family. So follows the mad scramble to retrieve his bicycle and thereby regain his self-respect by earning a wage with a proper job, working for the Council.
Underpinning this entire story, supplying its veracity and depth is the relationship between a man and his son; what it means to be a father and a father figure and all that befalls Ricci is put into even more stark relief by being played out with his boy as witness, serving to heighten the emotion for Ricci and by extension, the audience, be it the soaring heights of elation or black lows of humiliation.
This film won an extraordinary slew of awards across the world, from an Oscar, A Golden Globe and a BAFTA, to Bodil in Denmark, Italy, Japan and the Critics Circle in New York. It really doesn’t need me to tell you- deservedly so. If you haven’t seen it, take this opportunity and delve into the Italian Neo-Realist movement and see what all the fuss is about. An ageless story told with a fluidity, clarity and a peerless emotional power that still glisters like diamonds in grime. There are a few perfect films out there and this is one. AR
SEE THIS ON THE BIG SCREEN AT THE BFI SOUTHBANK DURING AUGUST
Over the past thirty years the Leeds born filmmaker David Wilkinson has tried to prove that Leeds was the cradle of filmmaking even though the inventor in question was the French born Louis Le Prince. Somehow overshadowing Wilkinson’s quest is a riddle, worthy of any detective film: Louis Le Prince disappeared without a trace on September 16th 1890, after boarding the Dijon to Paris express: he never arrived at his destination; his body was never found.
Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince was born in September 1841 in Metz. He soon became acquainted with the photographer, Louis Daguerre, a friend of his father. Young Louis spent many hours in Daguerre’s studio. Later he would study painting in Paris, after graduating in chemistry at the university of Leipzig. Louis saw active service in the Franco/Prussian war in 1870, after taking part in violent demonstrations. At the beginning of the 188os journeyed to the USA, where, amongst other activities, he was an agent for French painters. In 1887, after having developed a 16-lens camera in New York – Wilkinson has unearthed some ‘moving’ pictures – he went to Leeds, England, then a hotbed of innovators and artists. Here he shot on the 14th of October 1888, with a newly developed One-lens camera, the “Roundhay Garden” scene, where the participants not simply walk, but follow some instructions from the ‘director’ (Wilkinson can retrace the exact date, because one of the women in the film died a few weeks later).
Le Prince also shot a documentary with horse carts on Leeds Bridge, a pedestrian crossing. In 1890, Le Prince, who had patented his 16-lens, as well as the One-lens camera he used for the ‘Roundhay Garden’ scene, in Great Britain and planned to go to the USA, to lay claim to his invention there. Before his journey to the USA, he visited his family in Bourges, and on the 13th of September he arrived in Dijon, to visit his brother. Three days later, his brother was the last man to see him alive, boarding the Paris express. He never arrived, and passengers reported no incidents during the journey. Suicide, fratricide or murder (on behalf of Thomas Edison, a rival inventor who later claimed the single right to the patent) are all possible. The latter ‘perp’ is perhaps the most probable, since Louis’ eldest son Adolphe later fought in an US court to have Edison’s claim as the sole inventor nullified; Le Prince junior won on appeal, but died two years later under mysterious circumstances during an outing whilst shooting ducks.
Wilkinson tells the story of the “first” cinematographic event vividly, displaying an awesome knowledge of the rival inventors, coming to the conclusion that Le Prince only beat his nearest rival by a few days. There are not too many ‘talking heads’ in THE FIRST FILM and the archive material is nothing less than stunning. But somehow, the chronicle of the first movies is overshadowed by the mysterious disappearance of Louis Le Prince. Wilkinson has even unearthed a photograph of a man resembling Le Prince, who was buried in November 1880 – a man ‘of standing’, who had drowned. But try has he may; succeeding in all other respects, the director cannot solve the death of the man who (most probably) ‘directed’ the first movie. AS
Cast: Niijrô Muramaki, Jun Yoshinaga, Miyuki Matsuda, Makiko Watanabe,
121min Drama Japan
Set on the subtropical Amami Island off the South coast of Japan, there’s a blissful serenity to Naomi Kawase’s tender tale of love, ancient traditions and the healing power of nature that connects to a global narrative of survival for small communities all over the world.
Spiritual, intense and occasionally a tad pretentious in tone, very much in the vein of her previous outing, The Mourning Forest, Kawase explores how the cycles of nature are central to our existence and must be respected throughout our lives. Sumptuously captured on the widescreen and on intimate close-ups by Yutaka Yamazaki (I Wish), particularly magnificent are the aerial panoramas of lush jungles, turbulent sea-swells and the skylines of Tokyo.
Life and death coexist against the backdrop of everyday events and first love for teenager Kyoko (Jun Yoshinaga) and the ‘boy next door’ Kaito (Niijrô Muramaki), who is moody, awkward and emotionally less aware. Kaito’s father works as a tattooist and is divorced from his mother, a cook. Kyoko’s mother is slowly dying but her spiritual training as a shamen has prepared her to deal with the pain in a dignified and elegant way. In the midst of all this – a dead body floats on to the beach one morning after a heavy tropical storm. There is a vague connection between the drowned man and Kaito’s mother, although Kawase never really clarifies this in her otherworldly-style narrative. Clearly, the trauma affects Kaito’s ability to bond physically with Kyoko.
Exotic and surreal, the sea and verdant scenery has a hypnotic effect, lulling our senses with its gentle piano score and some island ‘Full-Moon’ dances performed by Kyoko and her extended family. Animals, however, do not get the same respect as Nature’s other creatures, and there are two highly graffic scenes of goats being slaughtered that seem to conflict the otherwise spiritual narrative flow. MT
First time writer/director Lee Chatametikool has edited Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s feature films since 2002, and the Palme D’Or winner is one the producers of Concrete Clouds. But whereas Apichatpong’s features are strictly arthouse, standing out for their originality and enigmatic narratives, Chatametikool has delivered a very mainstream soap opera, where the blandness of what actually happens is dressed up in pretentious dialogue and dreamy images.
Set in 1997, when Thailand was rocked by a financial crisis, Concrete Clouds starts with a quote by Milan Kundera “The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past”. The quote is superimposed on blueprints of houses never to be built, since its developer jumps out of the window of his forth floor house, a victim of the financial crisis. In New York, his son Mutti (Everingham), a stock trader, who lives with his girl friend Katherine (Reilly), an art student, learns of his father’s death and boards a plane to Bangkok, where he meets his teenage brother Nik (Hansten), who lives a listless and unfocused existence. The brothers have nothing in common, and soon Mutti’s interest shifts to his ex-girlfriend Sai (Parnto), an ex-actress, now working as a PR adviser. Nik’s love interest, Poupee (Sakuljaroensuk), has been left alone by her older sister, an escort, and is about to follow in her footsteps, accepting a job in a night bar, to the great chagrin of Nik. It turns out, that Sai too is a financially stressed: her flat has been re-possessed, and instead of making love to Mutti, she phones a wealthy suitor to bail her out. Her criticism of Mutti is as trite as clichéd: “You have put me on a pedestal, and I will fall”. Sai and her pseudo glamorous girl friends seem only to be interested in shopping, complaining “the currency thing is infringing my rights to shop”.
Apart from the rather superficial narrative, the director seems to have a problem with women in general: Katherine, the only independent woman, remains a cypher, whilst Poupee and her older sister are selling themselves to men, and Sai is hardly an improvement; choosing financial security over love. The two male leads are self-seeking, only focusing on immediate satisfaction. The mostly impressive cinematography tries to conceal the emptiness of Concrete Clouds: it is a misogynist rant about the drawbacks of crass materialism, but showing exactly the same failings by investing into aesthetics, and totally neglecting any real criticism of society’s values. AS
SCREENING DURING THE THAI INDIE FESTIVAL 6 JUNE – 6 JULY 2015 | GENERAL RELEASE 26 JUNE 2015
Cast: Vincent Lacoste, Jacques Gamblin, Reda Kateb, Marianne Denicourt
102min Drama French with subtitles
Reda Kateb (Abdel) and Vincent Lacoste (Benjamin) are the stars of this docudrama that follows the early internship of two young doctors in a large Paris teaching hospital. The warts and all portrait evokes the grisly dark humour that doctors often resort to (together with alcohol and cigarettes) to lighten their gruelling daily grind in a career which, as portrayed here, is very much a vocation and a labour of love. Hippocrates was the ancient Greek physician who gave his name to the code of conduct by which doctors live their professional lives and this sophomore feature from writer-director (and Doctor) Thomas Lilti.
At first Benjamin imagines this as a glamorous profession but as the days go by, in his six month stint in a department run by his father Prof Barois (Jacques Gamblin), the vulnerability and humanity of the patients (all played very movingly by an superb support cast) gradually persuades him otherwise.
Scenes of rowdy camaraderie with his colleagues in the common room punctuate more poignant moments of where we see patients suffering extreme pain and anguish and we soon discovery that the medics cover each other’s backs much in the same way as the Policemen portrayed in Precinct Seven Five. More sadly, older patients are not given the same chances as the younger ones and often patient care is managed according to the availability of beds and equipment, rather than the clinical requirements of the sick.
That said, Abdel (Kateb) goes out on a limb for the patients in his care offering them personal succour. A highly experienced immigrant doctor from Algeria, he is unable to be promoted due his lack of papers. Fully aware of this callous system, he tries to do his best for the patients, often going into ethical conflict with his superiors, and in particular, Dr Denormandy (Marianne Denicourt), the registrar of the department.
That public health provision is under-funded and over-burdened is nothing new and director Thomas Lilti, brings his experience at the coalface to bear in this gripping and affecting tale which explores how medics are worn out and demoralised leading to a volatile standoffs between staff and management. And HIPPOCRATES shows how the French medics are more vocal than their more tolerant UK counterparts. The situation goes from bad to worse in the final scenes where Benjamin and Abdel find themselves faced with a life-changing decision.
Reflected in a steely visuals of Nicolas Gaurin (Bright Days Ahead) HIPPOCRATES is hard-edged, its caustic humour authentically evoking real life. Kateb is dynamite is a likeable and sympathetic doctor who wears his smirking contempt for his seniors as a badge of honour on his white coat, show that when it comes to care-giving our immigrant workers often embody a sense of commitment and compassion that is sometime lacking elsewhere. Their much needed skill and approach is often hampered by their status, whereas Lacoste is sulky and clearly out of his depth, lacking the life experience and common sense to compliment his medical training. MT
Described by director US Director Doug Aitken as a ‘journey through modern creativity”, STATION TO STATIONdefies definition or description. To do so would merely produce a flow of arcane prose that most will find difficult or obtuse to decipher. Some things are made to be seen and STATION is one: A purely visual and aural experience – kick back and meditate on the lush vibrancy of its images with a glass of, in a darkened room, late at night.
This is an attempt to interpret it. A train travels 4,000 miles across North America with an onboard community of artists and musicians who create this drama through 61 one-minute shorts, recording artworks, films and “happenings”. Hypnotic and surreal, the film is shot with the aid of Aitken’s “kinetic light sculpture” fixed to the train’s exterior recording art happenings ranging from music, photography, dance and the visual arts which are recorded at 10 different stops and incorporated into the piece.
Evoking the movements of the train and the passing landscapes from urban to industrial or countryside, the shorts reflect the languid, stark or more staccato vibe scored by suitable indie music from the eclectic sounds of Olafur Eliasson to more modern classics such as Patti Smith, who is seen performing an outdoor concert. Some of the artists discuss their work in talking heads, but there is no traditional narrative as such so this could best be described as an experimental contemporary art installation as it defies both drama, feature and documentary forms. In brief, STATION is a portmanteau film showcasing a variety of different artistic disciplines. Don’t take it too seriously or analyse it; this kinetic piece is made to be enjoyed subliminally rather than interpreted intellectually. MT
Documentary with Damon Gameau, Stephen Fry, Hugh Jackman, Isabel Lucas
Australia 2014, 97 min.
In 2004 Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me took care of Mac Donald’s fast food products. Now ten year’s later, Australian actor Damon Gameau (Balibo) tackles muesli bars, fruit smoothies and other “natural” foods which contain sugar to an unbelievable level.
Gameau, a sort of friendlier and more serious version of Russell Brand, had been “sugar free” for years. With his girlfriend in the latter stages of her pregnancy, Gameau set out to prove what the average intake of sugar in Australia – 40 teaspoons of sugar or 160 gram of it – does to your physical and mental health. But instead of chocolate, ice cream or soft drinks he stuck to cereals, low fat yoghurts, fruit smoothies and musli bars: food you might find in your own fridge or larder, thinking it healthy. Consulting an array of physicians and nutritionists, the sugar intake had an dramatic impact on the actors life: during the 60 days of his “sugar trial”, he gained around half a kilo a day, even though he stuck to the 2300 daily calories he was used too before the experiment. Furthermore, he developed the first signs of fatty liver disease, and was affected by violent mood swings; quite like symptoms bi-polar sufferers endure.
Gameau travelled to a remote Aboriginal settlement in Australia, where government support had helped to wean the community off their Coca-Cola addiction – only to find out that the grant had been cancelled, and the community had fallen back on their bad habits. Flying to the United States, the home of the soft-drink giants Coca Cola and Pepsi, he found a teenager in the Appalachian mountains, whose teeth had been completely destroyed by “Mount Dew”, a soft drink with powerful caffeine and sugar levels. Gameau’s use of graphics is original, it serves the audience well when we see a fully stocked supermarket, and then reduce it to twenty per cent: the amount of articles that do not contain sugar. Like the Tobacco industry before it, the 80 billion Dollar sugar industry employs “scientists” who write papers, muddying the waters, by coming to the conclusion that sugar intake is not at all responsible for major health problems.
But it’s not all pedagogic effort: Gameau introduces funny elements, like minimalising himself and helping his mini version into his brain, to research the brain reaction to a hefty sugar intake. Stephen Fry and High Jackman also try to keep up a certain entertainment level, and the wonderful CGI show at the end that combining sex and lust for sugary products, sends the audience in a more light hearted way home – hopefully still in the mood to ditch those ‘health food’ items from their larders. THAT SUGAR FILMis just the right mixture of enlightenment, polemics and original aesthetics that might make us change our shopping and eating habits – a little. AS
THAT SUGAR FILM is on general release from 26 JUNE 2015
Cast: Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernhard Lee, Ernst Deutsch, Erich Ponto, Siegfried Breuer, Paul Hoerbiger
UK 1949, 104 min.
Like many classics, THE THIRD MAN benefited from the director standing up to the producer: Carol Reed insisted on shooting in Vienna (as opposed to an all-studio set), and he also chose Orson Welles to play Harry Lime, whilst (the un-credited producer) David O. Selznick would have preferred Noel Coward. Reed also argued in favour of Anton Karas’ zither music, which carried the film. Finally, Selznick and Reed successfully teamed-up to convince screenwriter Graham Greene to forsake a happy-ending, which would have seen Joseph Cotton and Alida Valli walk out of the cemetery, hand-in-hand.
Vienna in 1949 was a city (like Berlin) divided in four occupied zones, the centre being an international zone where the rule changed monthly between the four powers. Like Berlin, Vienna was a paradise for spies and black marketers; the murky atmosphere producing a background for the beginning of the Cold War. Naïve American pulp fiction writer Holly Martins (Cotton), married to the bottle and always in need of money to sustain his alcohol habit, arrives in the city, because his friend Harry Lime (Welles) has promised him a job. But Holly arrives just in time for Harry’s funeral, where he meets Harry’s girl friend Anna (Valli) and falls in love. Researching the circumstances of Harry’s death, who was supposedly killed in a road accident, Holly encounters three dubious friends of his: Baron Kuntz (Deutsch), Dr, Winkler (Ponto) and Popescu (Breuer), who, it turned out, helped the very much alive Harry in the black market distribution of diluted penicillin. Major Calloway (Howard), all stiff upper lip, shows Holly the victims of Harry’s trade, and hopes to rail him in, to catch Harry. The two friends meet in the Prater’s Ferry-wheel, where Harry gives its famous speech about the Cuckoo’s clock (which was actually not a Swiss, but a German invention), to justify his profiteering, which lead to many deaths. Holly finally gives in and rats on Harry, but Anna warns him, still loyal to the man who saved her life. The rest is (film) history.
Carol Reed, who was a member of the British Army’s Wartime Documentary unit, had DOP Robert Krasker (Senso/Trapeze) shoot THE THIRD MAN like a nightmare vision: instead of the glory of the allied victory, we see bombed houses and equally distraught citizens, who seem to have lost all moral compass. Harry is not alone in his crass materialism, his Austrian helpers, obviously with a fascist past, take full advantage of the new system (democracy), helping themselves to a nice fortune. The shadows are long, images tilt, the light is diffuse and opaque, as are most of protagonists with their shady dealings. But most interesting, is that one of the victims, Anna, a very haughty Alida Valli, sticks to Harry. She sees him as her saviour, never mind the way he made a living. Holly, befuddled, is out of his debt, and in spite of his decision to help the major, hankers after Harry and has lived a much too sheltered live in the USA to even begin to understand Anna – he arrives at a stranger and leaves as one. In The Third Man Reed created the hellish vision of a city between WWII and the Cold War: the human rats crawl in the sewers, morally bankrupt, with no alliances, but surviving at all cost. AS
THE THIRD MAN IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 19TH JUNE 2015 COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL
Dir.: Patrick Brice; Cast: Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, Judith Godreche
USA 2015, 79 min.
Writer/director Patrick Brice (Creep) can lay claim to having created the most toe-curling movie of the decade.
A young and very straight couple Alex (Scott) and Emily (Schilling) have recently moved to Los Angeles with their small son RJ, who introduces himself in the first scene, disturbing his parents’ lovemaking.
Later on in the park, his parents meet Kurt (Schwartzman) and his French wife Charlotte (Godreche) with their son Max, who invite them over to their house. Alex and Emily feel inferior since this home is vast and expensively furnished. After inhaling some substance from a pipe, the couples go swimming in the pool – Alex keeping his shorts on, because, as we soon learn, he has body problem: he considers his penis too small. Given that Kurt is extremely well-endowed we can appreciate his modesty. But Kurt, a pseudo-artist, who makes a living from self produced DIY videos featuring his attractive and well-stacked wife, is only too willing to help Alex with his problem. Charlotte than takes Emily to a massage parlour where she gives a stranger a hand job; Emily watching through a one-way window.
Back at the show home things come to a head – quite literally- Charlotte tells her guests that Kurt wants to sleep with Alex, explaining that “we do everything together, but have no sex life”. Alex and Kurt kiss, fall together onto the bed, fumbling prudishly, whilst the women grope them. Luckily JR and Max interrupt further action. Back in the park, we learn that all is solved: Charlotte/Kurt are seeing a therapist (!), and Alex/Emily will acquire a really big dog.
If you imagine that THE OVERNIGHT is aesthetically as bland as it’s narrative is cringeworthy, you get the general idea. AS
SCREENING AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL | ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 19TH JUNE 2015
Cast: Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Henrik Rafaelsen, Vera Vitali, Marius Kolbenstevdt
Norway/Netherlands, 96 min.
After writing the scripts for Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st and Reprise, Eskil Vogt’s debut film as a director, BLIND, is a stunning chamberpiece: a psychological cat and mouse game, truly original in its concept, and stunningly photographed by Greek DOP Thimios Bakatakis (Dogtooth, Attenberg).
Ingrid (Petersen), a woman in her thirties, has been blind for many years. She is losing her fight for independence, unable to leave her flat in Oslo, where she lives with her husband Morten (Rafaelsen), a successful architect, and finding the simplest of tasks, such as making tea, almost impossible. As soon as her husband leaves for work Ingrid imagines the world outside, constructing scenarios for her memories and imagination to wander through. One of these focuses on Einar, a former friend of Morten’s from his student days and now a reclusive, overweight figure who is addicted to internet porn. In her imagination, Morten is unfaithful to her with the imaginary Elin (Vitali), a lonely, divorced mother of a young daughter whom he goes to bed with (also in Ingrid’s imagination) and who soon suffers the same fate as Ingrid, when she starts losing her sight and also discovers she is pregnant from the one-night stand with Morten. This is in some ways a wish fulfilment on the part of Ingrid, who would like to have children. When Ingrid refuses to go to an office party, to celebrate Morten’s achievements, she imagines the (now blind) Elin, attending and being mistaken for Ingrid, only to find Morten in the company of three hookers. From here on matters take an even more unexpected turn.
Ingrid’s flat is a prison from which she tries to conjure up images with the help of a gadget, which is able to tell the colour of any object that it’s pressed against. This way, Ingrid hopes to stem the complete death of her optical nerves, which would otherwise die completely if not stimulated by her, by remembering the sensation of sight caused by the familiar objects. But BLIND is by no means a horror movie, on the contrary, it is utterly realistic in the way it takes the power of electronic communication just a step further to feed Ingrid’s imagination.
In a difficult role, Petersen’s Ingrid emerges a strong figure, despite her perceived handicap of blindness. She is stunning, not only in her portrait of a blind person, but in her ability to somehow transcend reality, whilst making it seem utterly realistic despite also being part-fiction. Bakatakis repeats his staggering skills of his Greek films, making everyday life seem threatening and oddly deranged in this sightless world, mired in an insipid and antiseptic aesthetic. BLIND shows a micro-cosmos of a society, were everybody has, literally, lost touch with each other, relying on the internet. Perception and reality blend in a fantastic way. Screen images allow the characters to engage in a life that avoids engaging emotionally, and particularly when it comes to sex. This emotional blindness makes it possible for a woman without sight, isolated in her home, to infiltrate the minds of others, who have given up on any form committed relationship. BLIND is a unique experience, if a coldly alienating one, in demonstrating the power of the mind and of fiction. AS
NOW ON DVD from 22 June 2015 | COURTESY OF AXIOMFILMS.CO.UK
Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga, Claudio Tolcachir, Chico Diaz;
Argentina/Mexico/Brazil/France/USA 2014, 101 min.
An on-screen text informs the audience at the start, that the people of the rainforest invoke beings from the river when they are threatened. Enter Kai (Bernal), whose name is never mentioned, emerging from the river with an strange tattoo on his shoulders. By introducing this enigmatic character, writer/director Pablo Fendrik (La Sangra Brota) sets in motion a story of greed and revenge, told in equal parts as magic-realism and Italo-western.
Three brothers, lead by the near psychotic Tarquino (Tolcachir), work for a company burning down the forest and replacing it with more lucrative pine and soy plantations. Murdering the farmers who do not give up their land – or, in the case of Joao (Diaz), even when they sell their land for nothing under threat, is their modus operandi. Joao’ daughter Vania (Braga) witnesses the murder and is abducted by the trio – another woman before her, hanged her herself in the forest to get away from her torturers). A friend of the family, trying to defend her, is shot, whilst Kai is in hiding. But he soon springs into action, saving Vania from a brutal rape and running off with her into the jungle. After making love, they are saved by a tiger, which gobbles up one of the brothers on the verge of shooting the sleeping pair. It becomes evident that Kai is somewhat of a pacifist and his reluctance to kill hinders his progress. In the meantime the brothers gather another six mercenaries to attack the farm where Kai, Vania and a friend (who once worked for Tarquino) are waiting. In a grand finale Kai will have to overcome his aversion to kill, if he wants to succeed.
THE BURNING is a confusing film that never clarifies whether its main protagonist Kai is a magical being, or just a warrior who is in harmony with nature and the tiger, whom he joins in the forest at the end. And whilst the images of DOP Julian Apezteguia, the real stars of the film, blend in with the magic realism represented by Kai and Vania and their often silent intensity. The ending is just another shoot-out, even though very masterly staged. One wonders if Fendrik would have not done better had he maintained the total ambiguity of the Kai character to the end, instead of making him the master-schemer and executor of a sophisticated action climax. The languid middle part of THE BURNING, which comes nearest to establishing the unity of Kai/Vania with the forest and its creatures, is in this way somehow eradicated in an old fashioned action spectacle. AS
You could be forgiven for thinking there’s a projection fault at the start of THE IRON MINISTRY, as brooding, bassy railyard hums meld over an appreciably sustained stretch of black screen, with the high-pitched screeches of trains coming to a halt. The resulting landscape, though evoked entirely through sound, is vividly panoramic—so it comes as something of a surprise when the first images proper of the film appear to be so disorientingly and claustrophobically abstract. J.P. Sniadecki’s latest documentary is a typically immersive work, and receives its world premiere this week in the 67th Locarno Film Festival’s International Competition.
With works like DEMOLITION (2008), THE YELLOW BANK (2010) and PEOPLE’S PARK (2012), Sniadecki had already proven himself to be a key member of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab. Though his co-directed documentary FOREIGN PARTS (2010) focused on an area of Queens, New York, the director’s body of work is growing into a committed and often compelling portrait of contemporary China, as witnessed and experienced by at a ground level perspective. The latest addition to this ongoing project was shot over the course of three years (2011-13) on the country’s vast rail network, soon to be the largest in the world.
THE IRON MINISTRY begins with the finer details—close-ups of rubber inter-carriage gangways, cigarette butts, raw slabs of beef and mutton—before allowing its many characters to emerge fleetingly from the chaos. Chaos is about right: overstuffed with families, workers, students and migrants, these passenger trains are a microcosm of human activity. Sniadecki’s camera negotiates its way through the carriages surveying what it can, proceeding at knee-height and at head-height, panning left and right to take in the crowd. Sometimes, it stops in the vestibules to absorb a conversation between smokers, or between two women in a Bechdel-passing chat about low wages, longer hours and rising prices.
On a sleeper train, one young lad ironic beyond his years welcomes everyone aboard from his top bunk, claiming that explosives are welcome and that, because it’s a civil train, pissing and shitting is encouraged. Extending limbs and heads out of the window, he quips, can help passengers contribute to China’s population control measures. On another train, the filming crew is prevented from entering a visibly less populated first-class carriage. Not long after, we hear the surreal diegetic sound of an instrumental rendition of the TITANIC theme tune mingling with the cacophonously ubiquitous drones of the train itself rattling along.
This music—presumably coincidental—is uncanny. Though the class divisions in James Cameron’s 1997 crowd-pleasing epic may have been milked for dramatic purpose, they remain militantly upheld across the world, not least of all in China, the mammoth embodiment of transglobal exploitation. Indeed, watching this film makes the flashily fanciful allegories of Bong Joon-ho’s SNOWPIERCER look decidedly less fantastical than they first seemed. The future is already here.
So, what of it? What, indeed, do we make of the many complaints, anxieties, desires and dreams expressed here, by the young and by the old, by the shoeshines and other quick-buck hopefuls? While Sniadecki’s access-all-areas approach is commendable, the anything-goes feel seems to be a matter of editorial indiscipline rather than of premeditation. One always feels that a documentary of this ilk could be three hours long or three minutes long, and the variation in canvas size wouldn’t impact our overall understanding of the content therein. It’s one thing to gain access to a social snapshot like this, but—just as a zoomed-in shot of the passing landscape outside suggests China is a patchwork quilt that denies easy comprehension—at a certain point, one must ask to what extent the artist is intervening upon matters.
At a stretch, one could argue that merely presenting recorded material is not necessarily the same as creating a picture from it. Though Sniadecki in this sense is a stronger artist than Wang Bing, his evident talent and previous achievements suggest that now might be the time to go beyond an ethnographical account and make something truly ambitious, hitting and more explicitly probing. MICHAEL PATTISON
Barry Ward gives an intensely heartfelt turn in this doom-laden debut drama that pictures Britain as a sombre soul that has lost its way: untethered from its agrarian roots, haunted by the past, drowning a mire of cultural dislocation. Ward plays Adam, one of as a stream of people who are struggling to make sense of their lives, adrift from family and meaningful identity.
Told through David Proctor’s hauntingly evocative wide-screen visuals and intimate close-ups, BLOOD CELLS is a poetically poignant low-budget drama from Joseph Bull and Luke Seomore, whose powerful documentary Isolation explored the tragic aftermath of war for injured British Servicemen .
In the post apocalypse of Foot and Mouth disease, Adam’s family farm on the Yorkshire Dales has suffered a crippling loss, leading to the widescale slaughter of livestock and his father’s suicide, pictured in the tragic opening scenes. Adam has wandered around aimlessly in search of work, desperately clutching at the straws of previous loves and relationships until his brother, Aiden gives him the chance to reunite with the family for the birth of his first child. Making his way home involves an uncertain journey into a lonely past as Adam rakes over the ashes of his youth. The wretched recollections of the past, seen in vivid flashback, continue to dog his days, undermining his mental wellbeing as he struggles on, often close to tears.
In one vignette, he finds himself in a bleak seaside backwater in Rhyl where his ex-girlfriend Lauren (Chloe Pirrie from Shell), bitterly rejects his attempts to re-kindle their romance. In a nightclub he meets a couple of girls who echo his sentiments of loss and disorientation in their own young lives, presenting a pitiful portrait of young and directionless life. Heading to Sheffield, Adam discovers that his hard-edged ex-lover Hayley (Hayley Squires), is keen to have him back but he finds her new work ethically unacceptable and moves on.
BLOOD CELLSoffers a strikingly naturalistic perspective of the British landscape and one that mixes various genres to create a deeply affecting and richly textured drama that is made all the more watchable by Barry Ward’s vulnerable and reflective performance as Adam. To its credit, BLOOD CELLS is the only British project ever to have been selected by the Biennale College: Cinema. Made on a shoestring budget £119,000 – and none the worse for it – and funded solely by the Biennale|Venice Film Festival. Recommended.
BLOOD CELLS IS ON GENERAL RELEASE ON 27TH JUNE AFTER A UK PREMIERE AT EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL
Cast: Jean Gabin, Arletty, Jules Berry, Jacqueline Laurent; France 1938, 86 min.
Between 1937 and 1953 the duo of director Marcel Carné (1906-1996) and writer Jacques Prevert (1900-1977) created more or less the canon of French poetic realism, and later the French version of film noir. LE JOUR SE LÈVE (1939) is perhaps their greatest achievement, though some might prefer the opulent “Les Enfants du Paradis”. But these two artistic collaborators were not alone responsible for the success of LE JOUR SE LÈVE: The Production Designer Alexandre Trauner had already worked with Carne and Prevert on Drôle de Drame (1937) and Les Quai des Brumes (1938). He had fled anti-Semitic Hungary in 1929, and worked for fellow emigres like Wilder and Zinnemann in the USA, apart from collaborating with Orson Welles, Joseph Loosey, Luc Besson and John Huston, his greatest achievement being Jules Dassin’s “Rififi”. Curt Courant (1899-1968) was the DOP, he had shot Fritz Lang’s Die Frau im Mond (1929), and after his emigration from Nazi Germany Hitchcock’s The Man who knew too much (1934) and would end his career with Charles Spencer Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux (1947).
LE JOUR SE LÈVE is told mainly in a flashback. At the start of the film we hear a shot, and then a well-dressed man tumbles down the stairs of a block of flats in a working class suburb of Paris. The block just exists as a corner piece, it will be soon be demolished like the rest. In one of the flats, high up, we see Francois (Gabin), who has killed Valentin (Berry), a man of the middle classes, who earns his living as a dog trainer in Vaudeville. Whilst the police surround the house, and start shooting at Francois, who is barricading himself in, two woman appear in the crowd outside the block: Clara (Arletty) comforts Francoise (Laurent), both had relationships with the men involved in the shooting. When night falls, the police decides to storm Francois’ flat in daylight, giving him a short night’s peace and time for the film to tell the story. Francois, a furnace worker, had fallen in love with the naïve Francoise, who sells flowers. Soon he finds out, that she has a relationship with Valentin. Hurt, Francois befriends Clara, Valentin’s assistant, a woman much more experienced than Francoise. But when Francoise decides to leave Valentin, Francois breaks off with Clara. When Valentin comes to his flat provoke him, Francois shoots him. In the morning, the police tries to storm Francois’ flat, they throw tear gas, but he commits suicide before they get to him.
Shot in grainy monochrome, echoing the depressive atmosphere, Gabin is already dead before night falls. The weight of the world is on his shoulders, his gaze is melancholic and forlorn, as the archetypal romantic looser. The crowd outside the flat takes his side, the police are the enemy. When they storm the place and throw teargas, the scene could have as well been shot in a WWI movie. Valentin is a glib character who uses language as a weapon. Whilst Francoise, like Francois, has grown up in an orphanage, and Clara has come up the hard way, Valentin uses his middle class power to seduce the two women. Francois on the other the hand, is too honest for his own good – he tries to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. In a way, he is even more naïve than Francoise, who finally sees through Valentin’s façade. Arletty’s Clara is world weary, distant but passionate – a future Garence from Les Enfants du Paradis. Even though the film starts in daylight, it never really gets light: an eternal fog hovers over the street, Francois’ room is more like a prison, even before he barricades himself in. Dusk and dawn melt into an uneasy night.
Well received by critics and audience in June 1939, LE JOUR SE LÈVE was first censured by the Vichy government (a naked arm of Clara under the shower was cut, and all references to the police being against the workers were removed, the names of Trauner and Courant taken out from the credits). Later the film was completely banned, called “demoralising” and responsible for France defeat against the Germans (!). In 1947, RKO bought the rights to the film, Anatole Litvak’s remake was called “The long Night”, Henry Fonda starred. The contract entitled RKO to destroy all copies of LE JOUR SE LÈVE – luckily this never happened. AS
75TH ANNIVERSARY DIGITAL RESTORATION OF THIS CULT CLASSIC IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 3 OCTOBER AS WELL AS BLU-RAY AND DVD ON 27 OCTOBER 2014
Ten years after Mondovino, where he exposed the on-goings of the French vine industry, Jonathan Nossiter visits Italy to interview ‘resistance fighters’ of the same industry who have fallen foul of the DOC (Denominazione di origene contrallate) commission in their country because of their decision to go organic with their wines
To start with, it is ironic that after Mondovino, nearly all the talking heads in NATURAL RESISTANCE praise the French model of production; their critique of the Italian DOC commission always starting with “if this was France..”, implying a paradise for organic growers in their neighbouring country. The interviewees live and work in Tuscany or Piedmont, and the film open with sumptuous views of the Tuscan holiday homes of stars like Sting and Robert Zemeckis. To accompany this filmic tipple, Nossiter has invited Gianluca Farinelli, the director of the Bologna Cinemateque, who shows clips of Goldrush and some nifty black and white newsreels from the 50s, where soon to be famous directors like Mario Soldati and Cesare Zavattini (with music by the great Nino Rota), show the powerful force of agricultural workers from a time when 66% of the country worked on the land, compared with a mere three per cent today. Less connected to the topic seems to be W.H. Auden’s poem ‘Musee des Beaux Arts”, after a Breughel painting, about the fall of Icarus.
The tenor of the interviewees, Giovanna Tiezzi (who lives in a converted 11th century monastery), Corrado Dottori (who fled from the industrial Milan after he inherited his father’s farmstead), Elena Pantaloni (who also inherited her father’s vineyard) is unanimous: The DOC, instead of championing organic production, has made farmers and vine growers adhere to the use of pesticides and organic growing methods. In taking away their DOC label, the commission tries to stamp out any winemaking methods that do not conform with the supermarkets, who control the business.
On a basic level, we are shown the enormous difference between untreated soil and the one treated with pesticides: the noxious ingredients have totally destroyed the soil by making it solid and water impermeable leaving a unpalatable finish on our lips, before we have even sipped a glass of wine.
I spite of its goodwill, NATURAL RESISTANCE is slightly under-whelming in comparison with its predessessor – it is more an ad-hoc journey to some visit some friends with a good cause, than a structured documentary. Whilst numerous clips liven up the proceedings, the seriousness of the ‘rebels’ who are fighting for their livelihood is somewhat undermined. That the doc will be of interest to wine buffs and devoted connoisseurs. AS
Director: Christian Schwochow Writer: Heide Schwochow
Cast: Jordis Triebel, Tristan Gobel, Alexander Sheer, Jacky Ido, Anja Antonowicz, Ryszard Ronczewski,
102min Drama German with subtitles
Christian Schwochow’s escape drama WESTexplores the pursuit freedom. Suffused with themes of friendship, emigration and emotional trauma, this is a deeply affecting film that has much relevance still today, although it focuses on a woman’s escape from East Berlin in the late 70s.
Based on the novel Lagerfeuer (Campfire) by Julia Franck, WEST opens with a sunny romantic scene of Nelly Senff (a foxy Jördis Triebel) kissing goodbye to her lover, Wassilij (Carlo Ljubek) and father of her her nine-year-old son, Alexej (Tristan Göbel). Fast forward several years, and the tone shifts to a grim West German refugee camp, where the two soon realise that crossing the Wall does not lead to the freedom and prosperity they had expected. The Allied officials processing new arrivals in West Berlin’s Marienfelde Refugee Centre are no different from the those Nelly left behind.
Although Nelly strikes up immediate friendships with Polish inmate Krystyna (Anja Antonowicz) and the enigmatic Hans Pischke (a prickly Alexander Scheer), the ‘Westerners’ regard them with disdain and Alexej is increasingly bullied in the streets. Stripped and interrogated, Nelly is humiliated to discover that her bid to obtain her papers and find work as a professional chemist is being hampered by suspicions that Wassilij may still be alive and living as spy, and that the Stasi are watching her – a hunch on the part of CIA Agent, John Bird (Jacky Ido) – who plays on her emotional fragility and their potent sexual chemistry to probe Nelly further – in more ways than one.
Frank Lamm’s hand-held camera contrasts the bleak scenes in the camp with moments of emotional richness – seein in the torrid love scenes between Bird and Nelly and the moment where Nelly gets her working papers, where the camera offers soft-focussed visuals accompanied by Lorenz Dangel’s atmospheric score, as Nelly and Alexej frolic in the Autumn leaves.
However, the hypothetical but consistently taught conspiracy narrative remains sketchily in the background of this less intriguing immigration story. Much more play could be made of her relationship with Bird (a mesmerising Jacky Ido) and the effects this has on Nelly’s state of mind with relation to her still un-resolved emotional trauma with Wassilij. Heide Schwochow’s script is clearly seen from a woman’s perspective with her superbly fleshed-out charactisation. This a drama of of rich human dynamics: the relationship between Pishke and Alexej, who relates to him as a father; that of Nelly and Bird, on whom she projects her pent-up physical need; and the tender scenes she shares with her son, all feeling palpably authentic and appealing. As Nelly, Triebel brilliantly portrays a woman whose gradual paranoia starts to affect those closest to her, as her personality breaks down. Tristan Gobel’s turn as Alexej is remarkably nuanced and sensitive for an actor so young (11). Nelly is a woman who is desperate to move forward: from her physical prison of the past and the subjective paranoia that threatens to derail her future. Schwoschow, an GDR born director, clearly understands this and so does his cast. Although it has a message of hope, WESTexplores how a deeply yearned-for freedom has just as many complications as the restrictive prison of the past. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE ON 12TH JUNE 2015 AT THE FOLLOWING CINEMAS:
Curzon Mayfair 38 Curzon St London W1J 7TY 0330 500 1331 all week
Cine Lumiere Queensberry Place London SW7 020 7073 1350 all week
Curzon Bloomsbury Brunswick Square London WC1 0330 500 1331 all week
Ritzy Brixton Oval London SW2 1JG 0871 902 5739 all week
HOME 2 Tony Wilson Place
Manchester M15 4FN 0161 200 1500 all week
FACT 88 Wood St Liverpool L1 4DQ 0871 902 5737 all week
Showroom Paternoster Row Sheffield S1 2BX 0114 275 7727 all week
Watershed 1 Canon’s Road Bristol BS1 5TX 0117 927 5100 al week
Tyneside 10 Pilgrim St Newcastle NE1 6QG 0191 227 5500 all week
Little Theatre Cinema St Michael’s Place Bath BA1 1SG 0871 902 5735 all week
Arts Picturehouse 38/39 St Andrews Street Cambridge 0871 902 5720 all week
GFT 12 Rose St Glasgow G3 6RB 0141 332 6535 all week
DCA 152 Nethergate Dundee DD1 4DY 01382 909900 all week
Irish Film Institute 6 Eustace Street Dublin 2 01 679 5744 all week
Queens Film Theatre 20 University Square Belfast BT7 1PA 028 9097 1097 all week
MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVAL: WINNER – BEST ACTRESS, FIPRESCI PRIZE, GERMAN FILM PRIZE
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach, Estelle Winwood
125min Drama Romance Western US
The jury’s still out on posterity’s final verdict on the merits of this early road movie set in and around Reno. While it was in production a major event was anticipated: Pulitzer prizewinning playwright Arthur Miller’s script was his first original screenplay – written especially for his movie star wife Marilyn Monroe – and by the time it hit cinemas in early 1961 audiences also knew the film would mark the final screen appearance of Clark Gable. But no one could have dreamt that the film would turn out to be Monroe’s swansong too.
Miller continued ceaselessly to rewrite the script on location as his marriage to Monroe fell apart, and would later describe the shooting of THE MISFITS as a low point in his life. (The pair were divorced just before the film’s premiere). Doped up to the eyeballs, Monroe’s constant late arrivals on set – or complete no-shows – resulted in production relentlessly dragging on for months, and when Gable finally completed his scenes he sighed “Christ I’m glad this picture’s finished. She damn near gave me a heart attack. I’ve never been happier when a film ended”. Just two days afterwards Gable did suffer a heart attack, from which he died ten days later. Despite the massive advance publicity THE MISFITS received, the filmgoing public proved uninterested in the two-hour ramblings of a bunch of blue-collar losers and stayed away. The film continues to dismissed by some as a failure.
Yet from all this wreckage – aided by the immaculate location photography of Russell Metty (fresh from his Oscar-winning work on Spartacus) and the editing of Hitchcock’s regular collaborator George Tomasini (fresh from Psycho) – a beautiful and moving film somehow managed to emerge. While the fragile mental state of both Monroe and co-star Montgomery Clift are all-too apparent in the finished film, Monroe remains hauntingly beautiful in a role a million miles from the Hollywood glamour her name usually evokes. With the subsequent untimely loss first of Monroe and then of Clift the film’s morose self-pity began to mellow into melancholy (and it’s always wonderful to see Thelma Ritter again!).
Although making the film almost certainly killed him, THE MISFITShas ironically secured Clark Gable’s reputation with a younger generation that might otherwise know him only – if at all – as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind. Even those who know their old movies would be hard-pressed to name more than a couple of his post-war vehicles; and his name remains largely the property of those who cherish the classic Hollywood cinema of the thirties. (Gable himself once said that “The only thing that has kept me a big star has been revivals of Gone With the Wind“). Hence the glorious incongruity of his towering presence in this early example of independent US filmmaking; which in retrospect resembles the first of an unofficial trio of black-&-white early sixties contemporary anti-westerns, each dominated by a commanding male lead performance as a drifter in a stetson: the latter pair being Lonely Are the Brave with Kirk Douglas and Hud with Paul Newman. The late David Shipman described THE MISFITS as “an attempt by a New Yorker to come to terms with the West”. A precursor had been Nicholas Ray’s The Lusty Men (1952), whose star Robert Mitchum had also been John Huston’s intended lead for THE MISFITS. Mitchum however didn’t like Miller’s script (or the prospect of strenuous stunt work roping steers in the searing heat of the Nevada desert) and ironically turned it down; since the film is now unthinkable without Gable. He lost two and a half stone for the part, and at 14st looked trimmer than he had in years; and although looking every one of his fifty-nine years, the virility and charisma that nearly thirty years earlier had wowed Jean Harlow and Carole Lombard survives intact. After more than half a century THE MISFITScontinues to remind audiences just why Gable was known in his heyday as the King of Hollywood; and his closing speech (“Just head for that big star straight on. The highway’s under it. It’ll take us right home”) has long ago taken its place in film legend alongside Scarlett O’Hara’s “After all, tomorrow is another day”. Richard Chatten.
THE MISFITS IS ON LONG RELEASE AT THE BFI FOR THE MARILYN MONROE SEASON FROM 12 JUNE 2015
Cast: Harry Earles, Olga Baclanova, Daisy Earles, Henry Victor, Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams
USA 1932, 62 min. Dystopic Drama
After the success of Dracula (1930) MGM wanted something “even more horrible” from Browning. Shot in five weeks on the set of Susan Lennox: Her Fall and Rise, FREAKS was a flop at the box office and critics slaughtered it. MGM withdraw the film very quickly and it went into the history books as hard core horror. But nothing could be more far from the truth: FREAKS is humanistic, never exploiting the disabilities of the actors; just showing their need for love and solidarity.
In a circus, were the huge majority of the artists are severely disabled, the Lilliputian Hans (H. Eagles) is engaged with Frieda (D. Eagles), a fellow sufferer. But Hans falls in love with the attractive trapeze artist Cleopatra (Baclanova), a woman of normal height, whose boyfriend Hercules (Victor) is equally venomous in the way he treats the disabled members. But when Cleopatra learns that Hans is wealthy, she changes her mind and marries him only to poison him slowly afterwards. The disabled artists take terrible revenge on her: at the end Cleopatra is just head torso and has gone mad, the crowd proclaiming, “you are now one of us”.
Far more shocking than the disabilities of the majority, is the moral unattractiveness of Cleopatra. Her greed is far more ugly than the disfigurement of the others. The wedding feast is one of the high points of the film: Hans and his friends offering Cleopatra to “become one of them”, something she shrinks away from in horror, not knowing that this is exactly how she will end up.
Other great moments include a scene when Violet, a Siamese twin, feels the kiss a man plants on the lips of her sister Daisy. Browning also shows the ingenuity that the disabled artists develop to overcome their issues to solve practical problems: the armless Frances holds a goblet with one of her feet, and the limbless Prince Randian lights a cigarette, using only his mouth.
FREAKS is also a parable on Hollywood, where the studio system exploits popular notions of beauty for profit. For Browning (1880-19620, who had directed 57 films before Freaks, the film signalled the end of his career, he would only be at the helm on four other occasions, before his enforced retirement in 1939. The film theorist Andrew Sarris called Freaks rightly “one of the most compassionate films ever made.” It was banned in the UK until 1963. AS
Main Actors: Vajrasthira Koramit, Wanlop Rungkamjad
Length: 68mins Thailand Thai with English subtitles Drama
36 is an exquisite examination into memory and loss in the digital age. A startling debut from Thailand’s Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, the film takes its name from the number of frames found on a roll of 35mm film – and just like those remnants of our analogue past, 36 is divided into 36 frames, each one heralded by a poetic title and played in a single shot. If that sounds pretentious, it isn’t. Thamrongrattanarit’s film is genuinely thoughtful, managing to be both meaningful and meditative without become oblique.
A rumination tinged with melancholy, 36 begins with a location scout, Sai (Vajrasthira Koramit), taking photographs while on a recce. With her is an art director, Oom (Wanlop Rungkamjad), and as the two discuss the practicalities of filming within the location, we witness a bourgeoning friendship forming before our eyes. But then, after just 11 ‘frames’, the credits roll, and ‘frame’ 12 starts the story afresh: time has moved on, and so has Oom. And then Sai’s external hard drive goes down, taking a year’s worth of her location photographs with it. For Sai, “it’s like a whole year has died”.
As Sai begins the journey of attempting to recover the drive’s data, and with it her memories of Oom, the film becomes pervaded by a sense of loss and impermanence. Later, Sai talks to a director as he fingers a printed photograph, explaining that he wants to shoot in the pictured location because it has “a past” – but the building no longer exists and the photograph is all that remains. So photographs are not only memories, but histories too.
In an age when tourists and rock concert spectators seem more concerned with taking photographs than enjoying the moment, it seems the spectre of Baudrillard’s simulacra is never far away – and, 36 seems to suggest, we may be missing out on living life by living through unreliable technology. In other words, in the digital age, history is slipping away. One can only hope that the same fate doesn’t await this beautiful, haunting debut: as a film about photography, 36 is also a film about looking – so see it as soon as you can. Alex Barratt.
THE THAI INDIE FEST RUNS FROM 6 June to 6 July at Rich Mix and other London venues
Documentary; Australia/USA/Israel/UK 2014, 107 min.
Mark Hartley (Machete Maidens unleashed) is no stranger to the weirder aspects of film history at the lower end of the spectrum, and ELECTRIC BOOGALOO certainly dives deep into the underbelly of the film industry – but coming up with a few contradictory facts regarding our perception of exploitation film making.
Cannon Films was founded in 1967, and, until the arrival of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus in 1979, had produced mainly horror shockers like The Blood on Satan’s Claw. The cousins Golan and Globus would not change the contents of Cannon’s film slate very much (apart from a few exceptions mentioned later), but production values would compete, at certain times, with the ones of the major studios; whilst the duo’s production by numbers rose to eighteen in 1987, compared with the usual yearly output of the majors of six to eight.
Golan, who would direct some the films himself, was the artistic half, whilst Globus juggled the finances. Both had great success in Israel with Lemon Popsicle in 1978: produced for 10m Shekel, 1.3 million citizens (more than a third of the total population) watched the film, so did 2.7 million Germans. The teenage sex comedy was remade as a Cannon Film in 1982 with the title The Last American Virgin. The cousins were obviously led by the maxim that every film could only get better if naked women appeared frequently. With a few exceptions, these scenes were not offensively pornographic; more often than not, the nakedness was involuntarily funny. Lucinda Dickey and Bo Derek, commenting on their former selves in this documentary, can see the funny side of the embarrassing clips. Much more obscene were Michael Winner’s Death Wish sequels, which, so one observer, “simply served the purpose for Winner to be obnoxious”.
On the whole, Globus/Golan found work for stars whose career was on the downward trajectory: actors like Elliot Gould or Franco Nero, the latter having the honour to be first Ninja in Enter the Ninja (1980). Directors, who had seen better days included Justin Jacklin of ‘Emmanuelle’ fame, Barbet Schroeder (Barfly, 1987), John Frankenheimer (52 Pick Up, 1986) and Tobe Hooper, whose Lifeforce (1985) was the ultimate ‘zombie-vampire-end of the world-nude movie – starring a very young Mathilda May, a B-picture produced at the staggering cost of 25m $, easily 40 m in todays money. But it should be said, that some exceptions made these excesses easier to bear: Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear (1987), John Cassavates Love Streams (1984), Neil Jordan’s Company of Wolves (1985) and Andrei Konchalovski’s Runaway Train from the same year show a different side of Cannon. The same goes for Franco Zeffirelli’s Verdi opera Otello (1986), the director, not the easiest to work with, stating rather surprisingly, “that Golan and Globus were the best producers he ever worked for”.
What brought the end for the Golan/Globus reign at Cannon was the fact, that they grew too quickly. At one time, Golan/Globus had over 50% of the UK cinema market with their “Classic” and “ABC” chains; on top they had acquired EMI, with their library of over 2000 films, and the studios in Elstree. This was all sold, to make even bigger films, like Superman IV (1987), a disaster with the worst special effects possible. Cannon than paid Sylvester Stalone the unheard sum of 12 m in the same year, to appear in Over the Top, an arm wrestling (sic!) ‘action’ film, which bombed at the box office. At the same time, Cannon had a five year option with “marvel’ for Spiderman, the rights reverted after five years back to Marvel, later to be picked up by Columbia, But after his ‘divorce’ from Cannon and Globus in 1989, Menachem Golan produced Captain America for Marvel and his new company ’21 Century’ – alas, the ten million $ project went more or less straight to video.
The parting of Golan (who died in 2014 at the age of eighty five) and Globus was bitter; on March 16th, two Lambada films had their premiere in Hollywood, one produced by Globus for Cannon, the rival one by Golan for 21. Century. As somebody commented “this was even surreal for Hollywood standards”. And surreal is an apt description for the whole Cannon adventure, documented here informative, full of witty/bitchy remarks and clips which make you laugh in Hartley’s ELECTRIC BOOGALOO,the title of a1985 Cannon film, the sequel to another, rather successful, Cannon classic Breakin. AS
Cast: David Thewlis, Richard E Grant, Tamsin Egerton, Callum Turner, Percy Hapgood, Sinead Cusack, David Hayman.
UK Postwar Drama
John Boorman’s follow-up to his wartime drama Hope and Glory is a gently rousing and entertaining family drama which will please the arthouse crowd and mainstream audiences alike. It offers a rites of passage snapshot of a golden era that seemed so important then, but now is just a cherished memory of fifties England with pretty frocks, cream teas, ginger beer and walks into the sunset.
After a scary childhood in London’s Blitiz, it’s 1952 and Bill has reached the tender age of 19 and is discovering girls and the joys of National Service. Britain has survived the War but is now entering an age of enlightenment where the younger generation have put away their flags and are challenging the new order and starting to think for themselves, or trying to. With rebellion in the air, and a new Queen (almost) on the throne, Bill (Callum Turner) is starting to question his allegiance to the Army: he could be sent to Korea or Kenya or he could just end up in a quiet backwater managing civilians. So in the comfort of his Home Counties mock tudor family home, he is very much an innocent young guy who has no experience of the real world or, indeed, the opposite sex.
Boorman’s faintly autobiographical piece evokes this post-war atmosphere with the verve and whimsy of ‘Five Go Mad in Dorset’. Mum is lovingly played by Sinead Cusack (her previous ‘dalliance’ with a neighbour acknowledged only by a knowing wave), Dad is a ‘pipe and slippers’ David Hayman. Bill’s best friend Percy is a subversive Caleb Landry Jones and the Sergeant-Major in the Barracks is brilliantly fleshed out ‘Dad’s Army-style’ by the reliable David Thewlis. In the absence of any real action, and certainly no ‘active service’ Bill and Percy play the usual insubordinate pranks on the Sergeant-Majors. Bill’s new love, Ophelia, is the elegant and luminous Tamsin Egerton who manages both f’emme fatale’ and ‘girl next door’ charm and could even be the making of him. Queen And Country is a gloriously upbeat message of innocence echoing all the sentiment of the Empire! God Bless John Boorman. MT
QUEEN AND COUNTRY WAS REVIEWED AT CANNES 2014| ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY
Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Jonathan Price, Krysten Ritter
USA 2014, 108 min.
Philip (Schwartzman) is a promising young writer and emotional illiterate. To be precise, he not only champions the egocentrics of the (male) world, he is also a fierce misogynist who blames women for his self-destruction; sabotaging every relationship and feeling an enormous amount of self pity. In a word, he is a complete a..hole. An all-knowing voiceover recounts not only what’s going on, but also past and future pitfalls of this rather one-dimensional character.
The main recipient of Philip’s lust for alienating is his girlfriend Ashley (Moss), a professional photographer who has supported Philip during the many years of unpaid literary work. Now, with his second novel a success, Philip moves out, to live with his hero, the writer Ike Zimmerman (Pryce) in the countryside. The old man is a much further developed person-destroyer than Philip. The way he treats his daughter Melanie (Ritter), can only be described as serious psychological harm. Needless to say, Philip, a quick learner in these matters, soon treats the young woman the same way. After another failed relationship with a young French fellow college- lecturer, Philip runs home to Ashley in New York, like a naughty boy to his mother – only to be told, that the his ex is happy with a cat. The voice over tells us, needlessly, that Philip will not learn make any emotional progress in his life.
Alex Ross Perry’s narrative would have been successful for a thirty minute short film, but blown up to nearly two hours, it soon looses our interest in Philip and his rather predictable rants. It ceases to be funny, and with the voiceover taking away any possibility of surprise, we just wait for the words to end. Camera work is lacklustre and conventional, the actors have little scope to display any merit, being reduced to card-board cut-outs. LISTEN UP PHILIP is much closer to a radio play than a film. Somehow, writer/director Perry suffers from the same male hypertrophic beliefs his main protagonist, that great lines alone make a person. A regressive and awesomly repetitive outing. AS
Sean Harris, Sienna Guillory, Hannah Popplewell, Marama Corlett, Oliver Kennedy, Liam Walpole
Drama UK
In his enigmatic debut, Guy Myhill evokes the open spaces of the Norfolk countryside veiled in golden summer. This unsettling coming of age story pits a young man’s burgeoning sexuality against that of his mother’s boorish boyfriend – an avid stock-car racing champion and local grower.
Simon Tindall’s ethereal camera-work captures the rough and ready allure of this farming landscape and its gutsy inhabitants recalling that motorcycle opening sequence of Lawrence of Arabia with a soft-focus arthouse twist that contrasts well with a pumping score of hits that include Donna Summer. Bristling with sexual tension and dreamy awakenings from childhood to young adulthood in the Fens, it teases with an enigmatic storyline that weaves into focus then departs again in a different direction, never quite revealing itself but conjuring up a family in turmoil.
‘The Goob’ is newcomer Liam Walpole who lives with his single mother Janet (Sienna Guillory) and her vicious partner Gene (Sean Harris) in a run down shack of a roadside cafe. Gene Womack dislikes the boy and makes no bones about showing it. Matters worsen when the Goob and his brother crash Gene’s prize-winning car in a boy-racing moment, which results in forced labour on the beet farm for the Goob, threatening to curtail a potential relationship. He does however stoke up new friendships with gay farm-hand Elliott (a buzzy Oliver Kennedy) and Eva (Marama Corlett) another picker who takes a shine to him during an impromptu midnight party in one of Gene’s fields.
This is a story that brims with intrigue and erotic tension not only between the Goob and Eva, but also in enigmatic subplots where there’s a constant suggestion that Gene (a spiteful, mincing Harris) is drawn to the other female characters – but quite why Janet is involved with him remains a mystery. Guillory’s character remains unexplored – a shame for such a brilliant actress. The intensity of the racing fraternity adds a rough machismo to the narrative, adding grit and texture and placing it firmly in Swaffham and the locale. The cast is also almost entirely drawn from Norfolk. Liam Walpole has a gangly vulnerability about him which brings a unique appeal and gentleness and contrasts well with the otherwise hard-bitten, rough-edged masculinity of Sean Harris. This is a spectacular debut for Myhill with some great ideas that could be expanded upon in future. A really watchable indie Britflick. MT
THE GOOB – reviewed at VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 27 August – 6 September 2014 is coming to British screens from May 28, 2015.
BLACK COAL, THIN ICE, is an inventive thriller: touches of creative brilliance and caustic humour combine in a police inquiry into murder linked to a mysterious femme fatale. Set in a snowbound industrial wasteland, severed body parts regularly appear on asphalt trucks heading off to furnish the country’s burgeoning building boom in a bleak Northern China. A former policeman, Zhang Zili (Fan Liao, who won Best Actor at Berlinale 2014), turns vigilante in a bid to trace the perpetrator and make amends for previous misdemeanours in the force.
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Sean Harris, David Thewlis, Paddy Considine, David Hayman
113min |Drama l UK|Australia
Kurasawa, Polanski and Welles have all put their mark on Shakespeare’s Scottish play with its bloody imagery and regal treachery, not to mention the dreaded witches, who bring with them “the filthy air” of ineffable evil striking the tone of sinister foreboding from the outset. Set in a frighteningly bleak and hostile 16th century Scotland, Justin Kurzel’s glowering screen version is the follow-up to his 2011 debut thriller Snowtown, a breakout hit marking the Australian director as talent in the making. Kurzel retains the 9th Century feel of feudalism and danger here but adds some modern styling techniques to make this feel ‘de nos jours’. Judicious casting ensures a range of dynamite performances that, along with stylish sets and a really brooding tone, Kurzel’s version is a worthwhile addition to the Shakespeare film canon for the Scottish play.
A brilliant pairing of Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard ignites this production with a palpable onscreen chemistry; Cotillard’s Lady Macbeth controlling her lust for power both both sensually and emotionally, in a role infused with religious fervour, malicious intent, lustful longing and vulnerability: she appears to die of a broken heart, mourning her first child’s death and ruing the guilt of her treason. Kirzel crucially makes reference in the opening scene to the mossy funeral-byre of the Macbeth’s blue-tinged infant, laid to rest with shells placed over his eyes. The joint suffering permeates their relationship and they are seen as viscerally close: a sexual-charge always jolting their loving gaze.
Kurzel’s adaptation, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, stays fairly close the page with some exceptions – to be expected considering its less than two hour running time – although this is Shakespeare’s shortest play. The narrative consequently has a choppy feel but one omission in particular stands out, the scene with the drunken porter, that in the original play serves to inject much needed levity. This is the only criticism of Kurzel’s version: its monotone brooding which powers on relentlessly and without relief and the dramatic tension would certainly have benefited this light-hearted interlude, which Shakespeare introduced precisely for this reason.
That said, this sleek and pared-down adaptation with its modern sensibilities (Cotillard’s make-up brings to mind Bladerunner) also reflects a God-fearing nature of the era reflected in the religious motifs that run throughout and are shown in the costumes (Lady Macbeth wears shroud-like-calico and is decked in jewelled crosses) and are particularly resplendent in the interior castle scenes. The battle scenes are brutal and strikingly-evoked in slow-mo, to reflect a spectacular sense of place as haunting mists roll in and infiltrate the combat scenes, backlit with their crimson and lucozaid-tinged aesthetic.
The power-fuelled couple express every emotion with a full-throttled yet coldly-cloaked passion: Lady Macbeth is also seen as a religious woman who sets great store in the potent power of prayer. Fassbender grins seditiously and is encouraged by Cotillard’s sensual goading, bringing him to a climax of despotic fervour, as his sanity slowly evaporates despite occasional self-doubt “Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day”. Yet the pair retain a strange sense of their character’s humanity throughout. When Lady Macduff (Elizabeth Debicki) and her children are killed, we see them burning at the stake. Cotillard’s Lady Macbeth sheds a sympathetic tear in respect to her own bereavement and her own treachery. In the ghastly dagger scene, she holds court with a solomn soliloquy.
Sean Harris, is supremely sinister Macduff. David Thewlis, as good as ever, is a genuinely lordly Duncan, Paddy Considine superb as Banquo, all feel convincing characters rather than Shakespeare cut-outs. The whole thing reeks of fabulous negativity and regal evil. Thoroughly recommended. MT
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL RUNS UNTIL 24 MAY 2015 | IN COMPETITION | CANNES 2015 |
OUT ON DVD, BLU-RAY & LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY STEELBOOK | FEBRUARY 1st 2016 | STUDIOCANAL
100min Art Documentary | THE MAN WHO BOUGHT 1000 MONETS – PAUL DURAND-RUEL
Phil Grabsky is an award-winning filmmaker who has devised a successful and cinematic way of presenting art exhibitions as full length documentaries which he distributes to arthouse cinemas and television in over 100 countries. His latest such enterprise is THE IMPRESSIONISTS that explores the 19th century art movement through the story of the Frenchman who realised the potential of this group of young artists and created the modern art market in the process. Paul Durand Ruel nearly bankrupted himself twice, before successfully finding a way to market his artists’ paintings all over the World, making Impressionism the household name that stands today.
To make this documentary, Grabsky takes his crew to the Musee de Luxembourg in Paris, the National Gallery in London and the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art in Pennsylvania, where art curators, historians and the family of Durand-Ruel offer fascinating insights into the works of the Impressionist painters while we tour the extensive collections both on the widescreen and in close-ups to reveal the brushstrokes that the naked eye would not necessarily appreciate. There are also commentaries from Rachel Campbell Johnson, and two grand-daughters of M Durand-Ruel.
The mid-nineteenth century Paris of the Impressionists was fascinating. Sotheby’s director and author, Philip Hook explains the origins of the Art market and how the Parisians visited art exhibitions as if they were shops; often buying small painting or renting more expensive works of art to impress their guests at a soirée or to copy them for posterity. Paintings focused on religious or moral themes but by 1859, many people were growing bored and were desperate for something new and original.
Paul Durand-Ruel starting helping his father who ran an art gallery in Paris, where he began to add his own choices introducing works of lesser known artists such a Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Manet and soon, Camille Pissarro, who he met while in London. Against the tide of negative public opinion, Durand-Ruel paddled his canoe, often sailing close to bankruptcy in his efforts to energise the more traditional and tenets of academic paintings in the Salons. The invention of paint in tubes meant that artists could venture outside with the work, such as the Barbizon movement, that pioneered paintings based on realistic scenes of outdoor life, of farmers and country dwellers ‘en plein air’.
During the Franco-Prussian war, Durand-Ruel, like many Parisians, escaped to London and when he returned, the old order had fallen and there was a genuine feeling of change and revolution in the air. He continued to support the artists, despite being a single father with five children of his own. Impressionism was born out of a perjorative term used by the Press of the era but after the painters had organised their own collective in 1874 the term was in general use. Crucially, Durand-Ruel was the first dealer to offer monograph exhibitions which led to the expression: ‘marking the temperament’ of the individual artists. The well-crafted documentary ends on a positive note when Durand-Ruel, on the verge of financial ruin, travels to America with a selection of his paintings.
Grabsky’s film is brilliantly edited by Clive Mattock, consistently providing interest and commentary intercut with sweeping views of the collections in Paris, London and Philadelphia and accompanied by an atmospheric occasional piano score composed by Stephen Baysted. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 25 MAY 2015 AT CINEMAS AND ON DVD
Mystery crime writer Ruth Rendell has provided filmmakers with some plucky plot-linesl over the years: Claude Chabrol’s La Ceremonie starred Isabelle Huppert and La Demoiselle D’Honneur had Aurore Clémentwho also stars in Ozon’s 2014 adaptation of a Rendell short story, cheekily exploring the nature of desire.
There are shades of Almódovar too in this subversive domestic melodrama that takes place somewhere in suburbia in contemporary France. Ozon’s recent films have all dabbled in the sexual dynamics of their seemingly sorted protagonists. And he’s well known for his tongue in cheek approach to the narrative. The upshot is that sexuality can be a distinctly moveable feast that often takes us by surprise, with feelings of desire or even repulsion emerging, sometimes inconveniently and when we least expect it, and between the most unlikely suspects. In the House upturned smug coupledom with some surprising revelations and A New Girlfriend develops this further in a story that sees sudden tragedy rocking the status quo of an outwardly loved-up young married couple.
Wealthy and good-looking, Laura (Isild Le Besco) and David (Romain Duris in frisky form) start their new lives together in the faux splendour of a picture perfect housing estate, very similar to the one in Terrence Malick’s To The Wonder. But when Laura dies leaving baby girl Lucie, her best friend Claire (Demoustier) is naturally devastated, and drawn into the circle of grief as the godmother of the little girl. Clearly David must now be Lucie’s mother as well as her father, and it seems he’s taken the female role really seriously, as the heartbroken Claire soon finds out. For her part Claire, has also taken her grief to new heights to the detriment of her marriage to Gilles (Raphael Personnaz). But when her husbands’s sexual-healing fails to work, Claire takes compassionate leave and heads chez David for tea and sympathy.
Bereavement has brought out the feminine side of David and, to Claire’s surprise, she finds him dolled up in Laura’s clothes complete with a blond wig and saucy underwear. Unfortunately, Duris is one male actor whose strong masculine looks can never make him look feminine. He certainly has the chops but his heavy jawline and thick eyebrows are more suggestive of a pantomine dame than an androgynous siren in cross-dressing. There are plenty of guys out there who look pretty in long hair and eyeliner – but Duris is not one of them. So when he turns girlie, the look is weirdly grotesque and mildly frightening, rather than sexy and seductive. Maybe that’s was Ozon’s intention. As the saying goes “there’s nowt so queer as folk”
David suddenly develops a desire to go shopping and Claire, in an act of female solidarity indulges him in a date in the local shopping centre. Gradually Claire buys into David’s sexual awakening, sympathetically aiding and abetting him with make-up suggestions and underwear advice, eventually transforming him into her new best friend “Virginie”helping herself to get over the loss of Laura.
Although Oxon is clearly pushing the boundaries on heterosexuality and role-play he doesn’t denigrate David/Virginie, and there is nothing sexually provocative about this change in circumstances. With clever casting, he could certainly have pulled off something quite sensational between David/Virginie and Claire (and it wouldn’t have just have involved an Agent Provocateur thong).
Using a clever selection of songs from the archives, Ozon indulges David/Virginie’s desires to the limit and Duris certainly gives the role depth, clearly enjoying the thrill of his female guise and all that it entails. But Claire and Virginie’s sexual chemistry fails to materialise, remaining firmly in the ‘just good friends’ camp. A reference to Gilles and David’s sexual linking also fails to ignite, but there’s enough complexity at work in the performances to keep things fun and fluffy despite some longueurs. In this inspired new twist on bereavement therapy, Duris and Demoustier keep things tender rather than soppy in their mutual grief over Laura, and a surprisingly upbeat denouement makes for an entertaining watch. MT
Director/Writer: J C Chandor | Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Alessandro Nivola, Elyes Gabel, Albert Brooks | 125min US Crime Drama
The seventies was a dynamite decade for American crime drama: Chinatown, Taxi Driver, The French Connection, The Parallax View. A Most Violent Year wasn’t made in the seventies but it feels as if may have been. Writer, director J C Chandor’s third feature is a thriller, rich and redolent with promise: well-rounded characterisation; slow-burning narrative; subtle performances all topped with 21st century production values – and superb on the finish. From the opening titles, Chandor shows us that this is a film to be savoured; a grown-up film that will stand the test of time.
This superbly imagined drama takes place in 1981, according to Chandor, one of the most violent years for New York City crime. Like his previous drama ALL IS LOST, it takes its time to build a storyline but makes up for this with a sustained low-boil tension, gradually drawing us deeper into the intrigue and masterfully navigating towards a surprising denouement marking Chandor out to be a rare talent in the making. Oscar Isaac recalls Al Pacino’s performance in The Godfather: mesmerising, skilful and wonderful to look at. He inhabits his role, as decent businessman Abel Morales, with integrity and confidence. Endeavouring to stay on the straight and narrow as corruption seethes from every crack in the City’s pavements, Morales is an immigrant who started life as a truck-driver and married the boss’s daughter, Anna, (Jessica Chastain in a career-defining role) acquiring the gasoil importing business from her dodgy-dealing father, he has made a clean breast of the family business and intends to keep it that way.
Along the way, Chandor paints a picture of middle-class struggle, borrowing and risk-taking, building up relationships with clients and associates while keeping a beady eye on the competition. With Chastain’s Anna he crafts a credible chemistry: the two are partners and equals both in the sleeping and working sense. Sexuality frizzles in their every scene together. She is a woman who knows how to massage her man’s ego and when to up the ante, how to look attractive while keeping the books: but very much her father’s daughter, as we eventually discover. Theirs is an empowering partnership that would make any modern couple envious: the kids are well in the background, not pawns to be traded on the foreground of this marriage.
Abel prides himself on his upwardly mobile vision, still retaining the personal touches of his immigrant Latin background. Acquisitive, he has bought his family a “classy” mansion that would make any footballer envious of. His sales strategy is in line with Dale Carnegie’s: “Keep the eye contact for longer than it feels comfortable” his sales patter full of faux honesty “We’re never going to be the cheapest,” he advises, “so we have to be the best.”
But in this very violent year in NYC, his gasoil company is engulfed in a crime wave of its own: his drivers are being robbed at gunpoint and pistol-whipped. Even his family isn’t safe from a late-night armed prowler, whom Abel confronts with a baseball bat, in true macho style. This all puts in jeopardy his plans to borrow money to acquire a waterfront fuel terminal for easier delivery direct from barges (that can bring the gasoil straight from the offshore tanker) and give him a great profit margin. And the district attorney is fingering his business in a massive malpractice investigation.
Chandor manages this all masterfully with magnificent widescreen vistas of NYC and more intimate scenes that keep us in the picture, enjoying the moment, showcasing Chastain’s lush Armani fashions and Isaac’s exquisite tailoring, well-toned physique and quiet and authentic conviction while always maintaining an uncomfortable tension accompanied by Alex Ebert’s occasional organ score, then pumping up the adrenalin with shootouts and heart-stopping car chases. The scenes with his one of his threatened truck drivers, a fellow Hispanic ( Elyes Gabel) add a certain texture that is meant to add contrast to Abel’s success story, but instead feel slightly overplayed and melodramatic.
A Most Violent Year doesn’t tell us anything new, but what it does, it does extremely well and sets Isaac, Chastain and Chandor up there as artists at their peak. Ultimately this is a story about ‘the American Dream’. Support cast are also superb: there are interesting vignettes with Alessandro Nivola as a soigne Upper East Side competitor, Jerry Adler as an Orthodox Ashkenazi money lender and a world-weary Albert Brooks as his right-hand man. But most all this is a trip to New York at its best, the iconic skylines with the Twin Towers, the old-fashioned cadillacs, and streets deep in snow and a classic core from Marvin Gaye’s ‘Inner City Blues’. MT
Writer: Justin Benson, Caste: Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker, Vanessa Bednar, Shane Brady, Francesco Carnelutti
104mins US Horror/Sci-fi
You can run but you can’t hide, is the message that American Co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead deliver in this curio. Their low budget indie mix of mumblecore and mystery takes place in a picturesque seaside cove in Apulia (southern Italy) where a recently-bereaved American (Evan) has fetched up following his mother’s death and a string of bad luck back home. Almost at once he strikes up a relationship with a strange and sultry local girl whose enigmatic behaviour is the recipe for a ‘head over heels’ love affair.
Lou Taylor Pucci is compelling as the naive chancer who strays into Paradise and gets more than he bargained for. Finding a job and a billet with a local olive farmer (an unconvincing and poorly-drawn sketch of what Americans imagine Italian country life to be), Evan pursues his elusive paramour Louise with a vengeance. Meanwhile, she is struggling with a rare ‘skin disease’ that requires her to drink the blood of local cats and even her pet rabbits. As Louise, Nadia Hilker’s ill-pitched American twang and foxy confidence take a great deal away from her character’s potential mystique, making her feel more like the ubiquitous teen vampires of recent dramas rather than an intriguing European muse. What’s more, Evan is so lacking in any direction or judgement on this aimless jaunt, that he is prepared to tune out of reality and take Louise’s perpetual signals to back off (is she a ‘vampire, werewolf, zombie, witch or alien’): he just rolls over like a proverbial lamb to the slaughter.
Moorhead’s bleached out visuals contrast and alternate with occasional vibrant frames which, combined with shaky camerawork, are intended to create a sense of disorientation, but just feel ill-advised and slapdash and special effects echo Aliens. And despite a theme of recurring insect close-ups and a crypt vignette, the filmmakers disregarded the naturally sinister locale that could have added so much more by way of texture and atmosphere . Sharply-scripted early scenes give way to slackness in the later stages: conversations between Louise and Evan lose their acuity and pithiness, descending into endless ‘folkloric’ nonsense. All in all, this feels more like a teenage boys’s ‘wet dream’ territory with Sci-fi undertones than affectingly immersive and spooky Gothic horror. MT
THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 9-19 OCTOBER 2014
Dir.: Debbie Tucker Green; Cast: Nadine Marshall, Idris Elba, Kai Francis Lewis; UK 2014, 105 min.
First time writer/director Debbie Tucker Green, a successful playwright and theatre director, is asking the audience for too much patience and a huge leap of face regarding the solution of this moody family drama, which is uneasy mix of social realism, psychological drama and biblical allegories.
It takes SECOND COMING a long while to tell us its secrets – for a long time we are puzzled about the numbers coming up on the screen, before we learn that Jackie (Marshall), who works in a social security benefit office, is pregnant and the countdown figures are the weeks left to full term. Jackie is married to Mark (Elba), a brooding railway maintenance worker; their son Jerome (Lewis) is eleven, and Jackie has been told after his birth, that she will not be able to have any more children. Jackie confides in a co-worker and, without mentioning the word, discusses an abortion, since she has not slept with her husband for a long time, and has no lover. She than experiences hallucinations in the bathroom, involving nosebleeds. Finally, she confesses all to her husband and he takes it badly, making his son listen to his tirade. He drives his wife into a suicide attempt, but saves her life. On the first birthday of the child, we learn that it is indeed a ‘second coming’.
Whilst the scenes with the Jamaican families of the couple are very relevant and realistic, as is the trauma inflicted on Jerome by his parents (long shots of near-psychological torture), overall SECOND COMING lets us guess too much, and answers too little – particularly the ending forces us to make a huge leap of fate. One thought, that Jackie’s “visions” in the bathroom were psychotic episodes (that often occur in pregnancy), but a biblical explanation comes as a big surprise, considering the down to earth tone of the film.
The overall impression is a cryptic message, the dreamlike images are often elusive, the narrative opaque in the extreme. For example, when Jerome finds and tries to save an injured blackbird in the garden, we are reminded of the symbol of this bird in some cultures where it is a harbinger of major life changes. But again, we are left to wonder about the meaning which the film is unwilling to share. Marshall is the real star of the film, relegating Elba, despite of his physical dominance, to a clear second. She holds our interest in her sensibility with minimal but impressive gestures, as does Lewis, whose mature performance is simply marvellous. Luke Sutherland’s camera is tries to be inventive, but is too often simply pleasing, without helping the narrative along. SECOND COMING is a very ambitious failure, but a failure never the less. AS
Documentary with Jennifer Beals, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Constance Towers
USA 2013 , 80 min.
Samuel Fuller (1912-1997) was a true maverick, which is not only reflected in the 24 feature he shot, but also in his personal life that was at least as adventurous as the narratives of his films. His daughter Samantha uses excerpts from Fuller’s autobiography ‘A Third Face’, read by twelve directors and actors, as well as clips from his films, and recently discovered 16 mm films shot by her father, showing him at War, with his family and working on sets.
Growing up in the Upper West Side of New York, young Sam had to sell newspapers from an early age to support his family. A this is how journalism entered his life and became his first love – he literally bullied his way into becoming a crime reporter. His mentor, Gene Fowler, moved to Hollywood before him, where the two met up again; Fuller becoming a script writer, but soon finding out that directors did not stick to his scripts. Just before the USA entered WWII, Fuller’s novel ‘The Dark Page’ was published to great critical acclaim. Upon joining the army, he was offered a cushy desk job, but decided to join the infantry. He saw action in Africa, Sicily, Normandy on D-Day and finally during the liberation of Germany. In Aachen he met Marlene Dietrich, and persuaded her to give a message to his agent back in Hollywood (who happened to be also Dietrich’ agent), to send Fuller some cigars. Fuller was at the scene of the liberation of concentration camp in Falkenau, his 16mm films, showing the unimaginable horror. As a result, he experienced recurring nightmares when he returned to Hollywood, where he started his career as a director in 1949 with I Shot Jesse James, followed by Park Row (1952), about the newspaper business in New York. Whilst his unruly nature made him a committed anti-communist, he was equally critical of the McCarthy ‘witch hunts’ in Hollywood. When FBI director Hoover met Fuller after having seen the latter’s Pick Up on South Street, to complain about a scene in which a pick-pocket (played by Richard Widmark), makes fun of the hunt for the ‘Reds’, Fuller told Hoover to back off, telling him that “his characters say what they have to say”. Later, when the truth about Hoover’s private and professional life was uncovered, Fuller was proved right: “There was this guy, who wanted to shut me up, but used his office to cover up what he did”.But Fuller’s lack of obedience to authority made him an outsider in Hollywood. He was pushed into ‘poverty row’, directing B-pictures like Shock Corridor (1963) and Naked Kiss (1964), which were ground breaking, but marginalised the director at the time. After White Dog (1982), unjustly categorised as ‘racist’, his last two films, the David Goodis adaption Street of no Return (1989) and La Madonne et Le Dragon (1990), about the civil war in the Philippines, where produced in France.
A FULLER LIFE is a biography read in twelve segments by artists who either worked with Samuel Fuller like Jennifer Beals, Kelly Ward, Wim Wenders, Constance Towers (the latter starred in Shock Corridor and Naked Kiss), and admirers like directors Monte Hellmann and William Friedkin. The clips, showing Fuller at work on the set or at War, show a fearless person, who, while a committed American, was also a critic of his country, uncovering the activities of the ‘Ku Klux Klan’ in the press and on the screen, and being one of the first directors employing Afro-American actors in meaningful roles in his films. Whilst the readings sometimes ‘drown out’ the accompanying images, the pure wealth of the socio-political information make A FULLER LIFE a treasure trove not only for film buffs. AS
After Water Lilies and Tomboy, GIRLHOOD is Céline Sciamma’s third portrait of female adolescence. The heroine Marieme (Toure) lives on an estate in Saint-Dénis, a Parisian suburb – it being France this is not just an ‘estate’, but an HLM (Habitation è Loyer Modéré), or rent-controlled housing; but the high-rise blocks are just a dump for everyone who cannot pay the exorbitant Paris rentals. Her brother (Mendy) is a brute who pushes her around, and her mother, who works as a hotel cleaning lady, has dumped her youngest daughter on Marieme. No wonder that Marieme’s grades are not up to standard and she has to choose a vocational course – which she hates. Closed in on all sides, Marieme meets three older girls, who hang out and look rather menacing. Lady (Sylla) is the leader of the pack, Fily and Adiatou are her obedient sidekicks. The mini-gang has recently lost the forth member to motherhood, and Marieme joins, at first, rather reluctantly. But after a night in a hotel, gorging themselves on pizza and trying on all the beautiful clothes they have nicked in Paris, the quartet is reborn.
The strict hierarchy of the girls is threatened when Lady looses a fight with another girl, and Marieme takes the victor on and defeats her, cutting off her bra like a trophy. But Marieme’s life is still in limbo: her boyfriend Ismael (Diabate) wants to marry her – but early motherhood is not on Marieme’s agenda; the leader of a gang makes her sell drugs before she stops before getting caught – but any real professional outlook is dim. Sciamma leaves GIRLHOOD open-ended: Marieme wondering, like the audience, what to do with a life, which has dealt her such a hopeless starting position.
Violence dominates GIRLHOOD, mostly male-instigated, but Lady (whose real name is Sophia) and even Marieme herself, resort to it when pushed. And yes, they do enjoy it – at least a little. In the opening scene an all-female American Football match sets the tone for what is to follow: these girls and young women are no shrinking violets. Architecture too is brutalist: The high-rise blocks look like awesome spaceships, where aliens might lurk behind the often blacked-out windows. “You can kill people with housing as well as with an axe”, said the Berlin journalist Zille in the 1920s – and this was as true as it is today. The camera is vey innovative in finding new angles to follow the fast moving action, always contrasting with intimate close-ups. But most brilliant are the actors, particularly Karidja Toure, who carries the film, which sags a little bit here and there, not justifying a near two hours running time. AS
SCREENING DURING BFI FLARE 2015 and ON GENERAL RELEASE from 8 May 2015
Cast: Shiang-chiyi Chen, Kang-sheng Lee, Yi Cheng Lee,
138min Drama
GRAND JURY PRIZE WINNER | VENICE 2013
Taiwan’s building boom is displacing and disenfranchising the inhabitants of Taipei, who scratch around to make ends meet, according to Tsai Ming Liang’s drama which divided the critics at its Venice premiere. It went on to win the GRAND JURY PRIZE. Some hail it as a masterpiece of social realism – each frame a lingering study of formal mastery playing out in an extended series of static images of despair and poverty that go to make up this non-narrative study of a poor family eking out an existence on the margins of the capital.
The opening scene – that lasts for nearly four minutes – is of a woman languidly brushing her hair as she sits on the edge of a bed in a room where two children lie sleeping. This is their home and the walls are dripping with floodwater from recent downpours. As the film continues its 138 minute running time, some of these shots of stillness will last for up to ten minutes. Another depicts their father, a human signpost who works on a busy intersection advertising property developments, holds up his placard against the dismal drizzle of another Godforsaken day. What emerges is a tragedy: a dysfunctional father unable to offer his family anything but suffering in this detrimental environment where their only nourishment appears to come from cabbages.
A critics’ film – STRAY DOGS will certainly appeal to the most ardent arthouse devotees of long, lingering shots and close-up footage but, be warned, it is a drama that requires perseverance, and the only message of hope that you can take away is that of the resilience of children, adapting to such a life and making up the next generation. MT
REVIEWED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2013 | ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 8 MAY 2015
Cast: Wagner Moura, Clemens Schick, Jesuita Barbosa
106min Brazil | Germany Drama Subtitles in English
With some of the most captivating colour photography of Brazilian and Berlin skylines recently committed to film, Karim Ainouz’s leisurely-paced mood piece is sadly let down by a slim story and poorly fleshed-out characterisation of its three protagonists, who we hardly get to know at all. Appearances can be deceptive: after stunning opening sequences that generate a potent atmosphere, we discover that Praia do Futuro is one of the most beautiful but deadly beaches in Brazil. It also has the saltiest water, making it a hostile place to live. When his close friend is drowned in an accident, a Brazilian lifeguard follows his lover back to Berlin to discover a new life that’s both liberating and bewildering. Ainouz creates a palpable sense of place and identity in both cities but sadly the narrative floats around untethered in a sea of plotholes after a while, failing to generate enough momentum or feeling for his characters or their lives to carry it through to a meaningful conclusion. A missed opportunity to explore themes of isolation, adventure and migration. MT
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 7 MAY 2015 Reviewed during Berlinale 2014
A documentary about the World War II British Commando, Michael Burn MC
Truth is stranger than fiction and certainly so in the case of Michael (Micky) Burn a man whose life was full of serendipity. Olliver’s doc is based on Micky’s autobiography Turned Towards the Sun (now sadly out of print) that records a lifetime of experiences that are individually remarkable but, as a collective memoir, make for a fascinating few hours of viewing.
Micky lived for almost a century (1912-2010) during which he met Hitler, slept with Guy Burgess and Audrey Hepburn’s mother, became friends with the Mitford sisters, travelled with the King and Queen while writing for The Times, won the Military Cross for his part in a WWII raid on St Nazaire, broadcast a radio programme from Colditz Castle (while a prisoner of War) and attended a Nuremberg Rally before marrying the woman of his dreams, after selecting her from a photograph.
On a prosaic note, we first glimpse our hero being fitted with a hearing-aid in hospital. What emerges from this encounter is an amusing, quite voluble chap in his 90s, and we want to know more. What follows is a look round his elegant home in the magnificent Welsh countryside where he is planning (with Olliver) a trip to St Nazaire to re-visit his wartime derring-do. Despite his illustrious past and educated background, Micky is far from the pompous ‘War Hero’ you might imagine. Charming and down-to-earth with a ready wit and surprising vulnerability, he may have been a soldier but his courage came from being a gentle and decent man. Describing himself as an ‘Amateur’ in the true sense of the word, he puts his longevity down to “always being in love” – not just with a person, but with a life pursued with passionate engagement. He does consider himself a professional though, when it comes to his poetry because, in his own words, he did ‘the best he could’.
The re-enactement of the trip to St Nazaire takes the documentary out and about, meeting fellow war comrades – one is called “Tiger”. Clearly there is a great fondness between them all and Micky converses both in French and later in German during his trip to Colditz – during which he openly voices his disgust of the place, as he re-lives the past and his Radio broadcasts from a room high in the attic. There is an emotional reunion with the Duchess of Devonshire during which the couple chat light-heartedlly about their wartime meetings with Nazis, that seemed innocuous as the time, as were seen to be a patriot bunch doing a good job getting Germany off its knees. The pair collect eggs together in the grounds of the estate, and share a joke or two. Burn frequently mentions his wife, Mary Booker, whom he adored passionately, but who he never fancied sexually – much to his great regret – because the two were, quite clearly, happily married and devoted to one another for over twenty years until her death. In memory of his love for her, he actually wrote a book about her previous love affair with a pilot who was killed during the War. Burn is very candid about his bi-sexuality and sex in general – in the way that old people often are – having little to lose with these revelations now that the mystery of sex and love are finally over.
Whilst being a worthy and engaging tribute to an extraordinary man, the only criticism of Olliver’s doc is its rather structureless, fractured narrative which tumbles out like a stream of consciousness from this fascinating, sometimes eccentric and clearly still emotionally perplexed man who was full of love and strong feelings for life and the people he met on the way. The final moments are moving as his reads his poem: ‘Thine’. MT
TURNED TOWARD THE SUN IS AVAILABLE ON DVD FOR THE FIRST TIME FROM 4 MAY 2015 TO COINCIDE WITH THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF WWII
NOMINATED FOR THE GRIERSON AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY, BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL.
Co-writer: Harun Farocki From a novel “Le Retour des Cendres” by Hubert Monteilhet
Cast: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf, Michael Maertens
98min Thriller Germany
Postwar Berlin is the setting for PHOENIX, a noirish thriller and poignant love story from German auteur, Christian Petzold. Rising from the ashes of a devastated city that has nothing left to offer but memories of the past, it stars Nina Hoss (Barbara) as the soulful heroine in a starkly simple yet moving narrative, where less is very much, more. Her character, Nelly Lenz, displays the human face of wartime destruction, in the literal sense of the word: Nelly, a Jew, has survived Auschwitz, her face shattered beyond recognition but her spirit unbroken, held together by hope, a hope that her husband, Johnny, survived too.
Relying on the talents of his regular collaborators, Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld, and their earth-shattering chemistry, Petzold strings this smouldering story of desperation and faith towards a harrowing conclusion with co-writer Harun Forocki, cinematographer Hans Fromm and Jerichow production designer K.D. Gruber.
Before the war, we discover that Nelly worked as a nightclub singer, Johnny as pianist. Arriving back in Berlin thanks to her close friend, Lene (Nina Kunzendorf), Nelly is the sole survivor of her family and a large inheritance: enough money to start a new life in Palestine, where many Jews fled after the Balfour Treaty of 1917. Nelly was, clearly, a beautiful and statuesque woman and the loss of her looks not only knocks her confidence but robs her of her identity. Plastic surgery will not improve her – she only wants her past back, and her previous life in Berlin. Wrapped in her bandages, Nelly echoes the sinister mother in Veronika Franz’s Goodnight Mummy or even George Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, garnering pity and sympathy for this forlorn image of mental and physical fragility.
In a nearby cabaret (also The Phoenix) Nelly eventually finds Johnny (now Johannes) who is working as a part-time pianist and barman. The twist is that Johnny doesn’t recognise his wife due to her facial damage. But as the narrative develops, Lena reveals a twist in this tale:Johnny isn’t the man she thought he was, although he is the man she loved, and she is still in love.; wanting to melt into his arms, be protected by his strong and healthy physicality. He kisses and smells like Johnny, but he is now Johannes, a brutal stranger, both beckoning and repelling her.
When Johnny sees her, still believing his wife is dead, he seizes the moment in a ugly display of opportunism. Inveigling her into a plan of using her likeness to gain control of her family’s inheritance, he subjects her to a rigorous makeover regime. Nelly welcomes this chance to be with him again: after all she’s becoming herself again, just like the old days. There’s a comfort and an excitement here in this inventive yet devious scenario, tinged progressively with the bittersweet knowledge of what Johnny has done under pressure to survive arrest by the Nazis. Working on several levels, Petzold’s clever narrative also reflects the political deviousness of a nation that has tricked its own people to espouse Nazism and undergo years of hardship in the hope of a better and more prosperous future.
Dramatic tension simmers on a knife edge as these two perform a brilliant and subtle dance of wits and emotions: a tour de force of second-guessing. As Nelly’s physical wounds heal, her emotional wounds go deeper until finally she summons the strength to take back her power and re-emerge from the ashes of her past in the devastating finale. Nina Hoss singing Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low” is one of the highlights of the festival. There is no youtube trailer; you just have to see it. MT
With: Kit Lambert, Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey, Chris Stamp, Richard Barnes, Robert Fearnley Whittingstall
118min Music Documentary US
Kit Lambert and Christopher Stamp shaped the early years of one of England’s greatest rock bands that was The Who. James D. Cooper’s enjoyable documentary traces the partnership of this unlikely couple, who are no longer around but whose memory lives on, in this affectionate portrait featuring band members: Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey, and Stamp’s elder brother, the actor Terence. Chris also makes an expansive and charismatic appearance and it’s only later that you realise that he died in 2012. Clearly this well-researched film. with its superb editing by Christopher Tellefsen, has been a long time in the making.
Watching Lambert & Stamp the phrase “the past is a different country ” frequently springs to mind. Not only did they do things differently back in the Swinging Sixties, but life seemed simpler then and a great deal more fun. This heady conconction of black and white photos, archive footage and musical excerpts charts the days of the Mods and Rockers and Swinging London that formed the genesis in 1964 of The High Numbers, later known as The Who.
Lambert and Stamp were two highly unorthodox characters who together forged a relationship that was to make these media entrepreneurs into successful record producers in the world of Rock. Yet Kit Lambert couldn’t have come from a more illustrious and upmarket background. The son of classical composer Constant Lambert, he was born in Knightsbridge and educated at Lancing College and Oxford and spoke French and German – we see him conversing fluently in TV interviews. In contrast, Stamp grew up in the East End, one of five children whose father was a tugboat captain on the Thames. Meeting in Shepperton Studios, where they both fostered dreams of graduating from directing assistants to fully-fledged film directors, they were drawn together by a remarkable synergy, sharing an interest for French New Wave. Their original aim was make a film about a music band and were searching around with this idea that would provide them with an entrée into the film world as directors. Townshend reflects that “irreverence” is probably the wrong word to describe their approach to managing the band, since that would imply that they weren’t treating the endeavour seriously. But may be this laissez-faire style was just right in handling these young and rebellious men and moulding them into rocks stars. And although Lambert was frightfully classy his manner is described by all the band members as warm and approachable. Being gay, he was also unthreatening to the other men. Although Daltrey claims, jokingly, to have been slightly miffed that Lambert never made an approach, making him feeling “unattractive”. In another hilarious moment, Townsend’s school chum, Richard Barnes, claims that, Kit, a chain-smoker: “used one match in his whole life to light his first cigarette” which he was apparently offered at the age of 9 by one of his father’s friends. Kit had worked as a crew member on The Guns of Navarone, Tommy and To Russia With Love. Terence Stamp describes his brother as “a rough, tough fighting sort of spiv,” whose interest in girls was helped, undoubtedly, by his gift of the gab and unruly mop of dark hair. Even in his seventies, his hair turned white, he exudes a voluble appeal.
Cooper ‘s documentary is replete with nearly two hours of amusing anecdotes and moving moments that coalesce in this candid and fascinating exposé of the band, the personalities and the sixties .Although this era has already been well-documented (and dramatised in the 1979 film Quadrophenia), Cooper still finds something new and worthwhile to bring to the party of the sixties popular music revolution that also embraced The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. MT
LAMBERT AND STAMP IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 15 MAY 2015
Nickolas Rossi’s debut documentary, which he also co-photographed, is an earnest and very soulful insight into the life of singer and songwriter Elliott Smith (1969-2003), whose melancholic and often nihilistic ballads are played against a background of the places Smith inhabited, mainly Portland, Oregon. The greatest strengths of the film are the long shots of urban life, often at night, giving the documentary a noirish quality, quited suited to Smith’s personality and the unclear circumstances of his untimely death.
Elliott Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, his parents divorced when he was six month old and Elliott was raised in Duncanville, Texas. His childhood was very traumatic, he did not get on with his stepfather, and it emerges that music became an outlet for his psychological troubles. In Portland he was to become part of the punk rock scene in the early 1990s, culminating in him playing and singing for “Heatmiser”. But it soon became clear, that his talents were best served as a solo artist, and he was, at the beginning of his career, often compared to Paul Simon. His first release “Roman Candle” (1994), was followed two years later with his first film score for “Lucky Three: an Elliott Smith Portrait”. Smith’ next album “Either/Or” gave much insight into the psyche of the songwriter: the title is from a two part volume of the Danish philosopher Soren Kirkegard, an early existentialist, whose main topics were angst, death and the questionable existence of God.
His link with the film world came in 1997 when he wrote “Miss Misery” for Gus Van Sant’s movie Good Will Hunting, and was nominated for an Oscar. At the Oscar ceremony in March 1998, he played the song, finding the occasion very “absurd”, and not minding that he did not win. Further albums like “XO” and “Figure 8” (2000) established him as a star. Like many artists, Elliott Smith was a shy person who hated touring and interviews and after he moved to New York in 1998, his psychological problems worsened, as did his alcohol and drug dependency. In California, his condition deteriorated even more, though he wrote the song “Needle in the Hay” for Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tannenbaums (2001). On his 34th birthday on August the 6th 2003, he gave up drugs and alcohol after many failed treatments but, ironically, he was to die of two stab wounds in his chest, later that year and the inquest left an open verdict. At the time he was living with his partner Jennifer Chiba in Echo Park, California.
Song titles like “Everything Means Nothing To Me’ and “Ballad of Big Nothing” are not the only sign of Smith’ vulnerability: even though HEAVEN ADORES YOU interviewed many friends and musician (among them Joanna Bolme, for whom Smith wrote the ambivalent love song “Say Yes”), nobody seems to have known Elliott and he remains an enigma for everyone he met. The motifs of nomadic wandering, solitude and melancholia captured in the dark images of Portland, New York and Los Angeles are the nearest we will ever get to a man, whose introspective nature collided with his status: “I’m the wrong kind of person to be really big and famous”. AS
Director: Thomas Vinterberg Writer: David Nicholls
Cast: Matthias Schoenaerts, Carey Mulligan, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge,
119min GB/US Drama
John Schlesinger’s 1967 film of Hardy’s novel, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, was always going to be a hard act to follow. Nearly 50 years later. Thomas Vinterberg’s version of the tale of Bathsheba Everdene a “headstrong country girl” and her three suitors, has a distinctly European flavour. A Danish director and DoP; an English screenwriter (David Nicholls); a Belgian Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) and the occasional Welsh twang of Michael Sheen’s Mr Boldwood make up this neatly potted version, running at 40 minutes shorter than the original 1960s version.
Vinterberg’s focus here is on the intimacy between the central characters: particularly between Carey Mulligan who exudes a serene calm as Bathsheba. Her relationship with Gabriel – that starts as a proposal in the middle of a field – simmers away in the background as the two play a subtle and convincing game of interdependency that adds a sexual frisson to their working friendship – Oak is the only man who makes Bethesda smile broadly and shed a tear. After the reversal of fortune brought about by the loss of his sheep, he may have less to offer financially when she inherits her Uncle’s farm, but throughout he is his own man, and a good man at that, and not afraid to walk away – and that Hardy’s clincher at the end of the day. Schoenaerts evokes a powerful masculinity that is both physical and emotional, but he also a brings reliability – for as long as Bathsheba needs him – making it clear that he will one day walk away. Oaks not only becomes a confidante to Bathsheba but also to Boldwood, a middle-aged landowner whose senses are inflamed on receiving her casual Valentine with its throw-away message. But what Michael Sheen lacks the regal detachment of Peter Finch’s Boldwood, he makes up for in with the desperate, gnawing vulnerability he brings to the role; the only one of the trio who has as much to lose as to gain, as the eldest, if he fails to win Bathsheba’s hand. Sheen’s poignantly-tortured agony as he questions his chances, is one of the triumphs of the film.
But Vinterberg’s version has much less of the duplicitous chancer, Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge). In an underwritten role, that fails to conjure up his importance as the most manipulative and controlling of Bathsheba’s consorts, Sturridge is no match for the dashing blue-eyed charm or erotism of Terence Stamp – for one, he looks positively wet behind the ears (despite being exactly the same age as Stamp in the role – 29); for another, he emerges as even more the cad and less as the skilful seducer than Stamp did back in the sixties.
At the heart of Winterberg’s film is the subtle, slow-burn relationship between Mulligan’s Bathsheba and Schoenaerts’ Oak; which develops through the ups and downs of their farming challenges. The smouldering Schoenaerts has a difficult role as he is forced into underplaying his character, relying on a potent chemistry to attract Bathsheba. Carey Mulligan is elegantly attractive, her ladylike daintiness tempered by a shrewd sense-of-self and a maturity beyond her years; as against Julie Christie’s more ethereal light-hearted girliness.
What Vinterberg’s film lacks is Hardy’s (and Schlesinger’s) potent essence of 19th Dorset life – the vagaries of farming and animal husbandry and the way they drive the narrative forward, shaping the lives of this ‘madding crowd’ of rural countryfolk. MT
In the maximum security prison of Feltham Young Offenders, criminal Robert Stewart (Leeshon Alexander, who also wrote the script) shares a roomy cell with Zahid Mubarek (Aymen Hamdouchi), who is shortly to be released for petty crime, but is murdered by Stewart, hours away from his freedom.
Antony Petrou’s second feature is a slow-burning psychological affair with an incandescent glow to its prison interiors and a calmly sinister soundtrack that portends doom from the outset. Based on real events that took place in March 2000; Petrou skilfully conveys a climate of evil inside the institution, steered by Leeshon Alexander’s vehement imagining that fleshes out Stewart’s background of racial and parental hatred. The film flashes between the past and the present as a tandem narrative with Alexander’s voiceover, autobiographical-style, telling the story as he takes on both roles with increasing fervour (as a small child he’s played by newcomer, Niall Hayes).
Reflecting back on his childhood, Stewart’s alter ego explores episodes of his childhood where he was bullied at school, subjected to a diatribe of racial abuse from his father, failed to bond with his mother (we see him visiting a psychiatrist with her), all leading to incidents of self harm and mental anguish which culminate in his stalking an ex-girlfriend. Through this construct he attempts to illustrate how prison confinement can actively breed negativity and hothouse a climate of violent racism, xenophobia and misogyny in inmates from difficult or dysfunctional families.
The idea is a good one, but the problem lies in the lack of drama between the central characters: whereas Alexander is portrayed as an unpleasant and unremittingly bitter man (which he may well be), Hamdouchi’s Mubarek comes across as affable and appealingly passive which makes it almost impossible for us to understand why he would become an object of hatred; let alone the victim of a vicious killing, when there has been no apparent animosity between these cellmates. There are no undertones of racial unrest and little to instill a climate of personal fear surrounding Mubarek. The officers in charge appear stern but certainly not hostile. And Mubarek’s personality remains un-explored throughout. So apart from Alexander’s strong performance there is hardly any convincing hostile interaction with the other inmates (compared to A Prophet or Starred Up for example) making it feel very much like a one-handed monologue by Stewart, who without doubt, has a deeply disturbed personality. So after a positive start, interest starts to wane with the repetitiveness of Stewart’s vilification and the lack of dramatic punch with the others, and more importantly, Mubarek himself. Simon Richards’ cinematography gives the film a stylish feel and the support cast perform well especially Gethin Anthony as the Officer in charge. The filmmakers certainly had brave and honourable intentions with WE ARE MONSTER, but ultimately this terrible tragedy deserves a more radical approach rather than this simplistic treatment. MT
Robert Stewart was given life for murder. In 2006, a public inquiry found this tragic murder could have been prevented.
NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE
FIND OUR COVERAGE OF EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL 2014 HERE
After the success of La Dolce Vita, Fellini decided that the time had come to make films which relied less on a narrative structure, but more on an aesthetic concept. 8 ½ turned out to be a self-portrait of the director, played by his “Alter Ego” Mastroianni and combined favourite themes from his earlier films in a vivid collage of carnival-like picturesque settings, questioning not only beliefs but the form of film-making itself.
Middle-aged film director Guido Anselmi (Mastroianni) tries to escape from the self-inflicted pressures of his personal and professional life to the spa of Chianciano. But his “harem” as well as his problems with his next film compound to make his stay anything but relaxing. The original title of 8 ½ was La Bella Confusione (The beautiful Confusion), and Fellini literally throws everything into the mix: Anselmi’s dreams are interrupted by nightmarish visions from his childhood where he meets his dead parents on a cemetery and his guilty feelings towards Catholicism manifest themselves in scenes were he is haunted by clerics. His love life is equally bizarre: having invited his mistress Carla (Milo) to stay with him, he soon begs his long-suffering wife Luisa (Aimée) to join him in the circus which his life has become. His producer is very anxious that Anselmi starts shooting the film – instead of changing the script and having endless screen tests; the huge structure for an S-F film has been erected near the beach and the costs are mounting. But Anselmi is more interested in his past: he relives the dance of Saraghina, a frightening and alluring woman who chased the boys away. And whilst in reality he is ‘cheating’ both on his wife and his mistress, in his dreams he swings the whip, hoping to frighten them into submission. Enter Claudia (Cardinale), seemingly an innocent young girl, but really an opportunist, but Anselmi has retreated too far into himself to even try his vain charm on her. He dreams of suicide, before he turns the implosion into his only way out: he starts the film, incorporating actors and friends into a giant carnival of lost souls.
Fellini’s Anselmi is a sex maniac, a sadist, as well as a masochist, in love with myths (not real feelings), a coward, never having grown up from being a mother’s son, a fool, a phony and impostor. In one word, he is the archetypal Italian man of a certain class and education. In his review of the film, Alberto Moravia compares Anselmi with Leopold Bloom, the hero of James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: he is a neurotic, his failings make him withdraw more and more into an inner world where he tries to gain control. 8 ½ is a film, where reality intrudes into Anselmi’s nightmares and visions – not the other way round. Anselmi only seems to be in touch with his feelings as a young man – the images of the countryside in Emilia Romagna being the only peaceful ones in the whole film. AS
OPENING IN SELECTED CINEMAS NATIONWIDE FROM 1 MAY 2015
Cast: Ming Hwa Bai, Shiang-chyi Chen, Ming-hsiang Tung, Chen-Ling Wen
90min Taiwanese Drama
The menopause is a topic that rarely figures in modern drama. Certainly not a positive time in most most women’s lives – in the West it is viewed with a range of emotions ranging from mild pity to downright derogation. But in the Far East, where older people command respect and often admiration, the emotionally effects of the menopause are often milder both physically and mentally suggesting that positive societal attitudes can alleviate symptoms.
And there is something admirable about Hsiang Chienn’s gentle and sensitive handling of this theme that affects its central character Ling (a subtle and measured performance by Chen) a Taiwanese woman in her forties who is clearly suffering the effects brought on by this change of life .
Having just lost her job in a garment factory, Ling is preoccupied with the future, anxious for her mother-in-law in hospital and dealing with a troublesome and distant teenage daughter. Her husband is working abroad and never returns her calls so she appears to be isolated and lacking in any emotional support. Hsiang Chienn shows insight and understanding of her character’s anxiety. Though there are occasional longueurs and the classic Taiwanese static shots where Ling moves in and out of the frame, the narrative maintains a manageable pace, allowing us time out for contemplation.
In the same hospital ward lies Chang, a young man who has undergone eye surgery and in incredible pain. His suffering seems to suffuse the drama with added poignancy as Ling develops a strange and attachment to him and she starts to day-dream of romantic scenarios as she intimately tends Chang, possibly excited by his vulnerable and semi-naked, blindfolded state. Gradually she becomes more excited about her visits to the hospital as a unorthodox intimacy develops with this mysterious young stranger with beautiful feet.
With it soft-lensing and delicate aesthetic EXIT is a daintily-crafted piece with shades of Wong Ka Wai’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, the voyeuristic camera lingers on well-composed shots, drifting around, often out of focus. Summer Lei’s tango score ramps up the erotic expectancy surrounding the couple and soon Ling is undressing him to gently give him a bed bath, her touch increasing positive healing in them both, showing how physical re-connection can be therapeutic and emotionally affecting, even if the outcome is ultimately frustrating. A graceful and appealing drama. MT
Cast: Jenny Agutter, Dudley Sutton, Jason Squib, Dean Nolan, Ben Dyson, Benjamin Luxon.
94min Drama UK
Those captivated by the recent BBC version of Poldark will be disappointed by this rather twee Edwardian tale directed by Bill Scott and adapted from a stage production. In a small Cornish mining village where the tin reserves have been exhausted, the local mine falls silent and the owner, East (Benjamin Luxon) and local community face poverty and ruin.
Jenny Agutter bravely leads a lacklustre cast as vivacious soprano and opera buff, Mrs Dawson, whose arrival in the village with her travelling troupe promises to liven things up, especially as East’s daughter (Helen Bendell) is a keen singer. Scott also focuses his drama on a local banking swindle, attempting to gain broad appeal with contemporary audiences. TIN has the feel of a stodgy made for TV production, with the odd humorous moment thrown in. He does his best with a micro-budget to produce something stylish with green-screen technology but this ends up feeling flat and unengaging. MT
Director|Writer: Louise Ormond | 85min Documentary Drama UK
Director Louise Osmond is well-known for her topical documentaries that explore extraordinary events in history. She made Deep Water about the disastrous 1968 round-the-world yacht race and more recently Richard III: The King in the Car Park that examined events surrounding the discovery of the last Plantagenet King of England. Her Sundance audience award winner, Dark Horse, is a ‘rags to riches’ documentary Feelgood film, showing how love for an animal brought excitement, focus and income to a forgotten mining community deep in the Welsh Valleys, thanks to one woman.
It was all down to Jan Vokes, a bartender from Cefn Fforest. According to husband ‘Daisy’, if she put her mind to something she usually achieved it. Jan had lived an ‘insignificant’ life since childhood. Her hobby is breeding: after several children, she turned to dogs and budgies, very much following in the footsteps of her father, who was also keen on animals. In 200o, she got talking to local accountant and racing enthusiast, Howard Davies, and together they hatched a hair-brained scheme to breed a racehorse.
Naturally, money was key to the success of the plan and it was also in short supply in this former mining town. In order to achieve a positive outcome good breeding stock would be required and training fees of around £15,000 a year. Jan took on an extra shift at Asda and with her large circle of friends from the local pub, they clubbed together to raise finance in the form of shares for the proposed scheme to the tune of £10 a week..
Osmond’s tells the story through talking-head interviews with the villagers and trainers, illustrative photos from paintings and evocative images of the local countryside. A decision was taken to name the foal, born from a racing stallion, ‘Dream Alliance’, reflecting the hopes and aspirations of these close-knit Welsh neighbours. Dream Alliance grows up to be self-willed and competitive although not the fastest steed in the upmarket stable of where he underwent vigorous training. But the animal ignites a sense of genuine pride and positiveness that palpably generates a ‘feelgood’ factor all round. The owners embark on a busman’s holiday to each and every race track, cheering Dream Alliance to the finishing line. Like many animals lovers, Jan also claims that she has a secret bond with Dream, who gradually goes on to be the winner that they’d always hoped for, although disaster lies ahead on the surprising but entirely realistic path of fate.
Apart from the feel-good factor, what makes the film so joyful is the sheer love for this horse, that intoxicates villagers and viewers alike. Dark Horse delivers a message of hope: everyone can live their dream if they put their best horse forward and their mind to it. It is also story of female empowerment: of how Jan always felt she was living through the men in her family until the day that Dream Alliance came into her life. Dark Horse is a hands down winner that makes us care about a bunch of genuinely people who face up to life with humour and decency and a horse that triumphed against all odds. MT
Cast: Victor Mature, Richard Conte, Fred Clark, Shelley Winters, Betty Garde, Deborah Paget
USA 1948, 95 min.
Robert Siodmak made this noir thriller between THE KILLERS and CRISS CROSS, and although CRY OF THE CITY is not as spectacular, as a study of crime in the city – with the Little Italy being the real star – in all its brutality, photographed in grainy black and white by Lloyd Ahern, this is ultimately a superior film. It does not go for identification with the main protagonist as in THE KILLERS nor does it have the spectacular ending of CRISS CROSS. It is a noir in the true sense of the word, with no borders between police and criminals.
Martin Rome (Conte), a hardened criminal, is in hospital after a shoot-out. The police, led by Lt. Candella (Mature), wrongly suspect him of a jewellery heist where a woman was killed. Rome escapes, fearing rightly that Candella will frame him and his fiancée Teena (Paget) for the robbery. Candella and Rome grew up in the same neighbourhood and Siodmak shows that they are not very different. Rome is helped by his teenage brother Tony (Cook) and an old girlfriend Brenda (Winters in fine form). In spite of being chased by Candella, Rome finds the real mastermind of the jewellery heist, a murderous masseuse (a grotesque portrait by Hope Emerson). When Candella appears on the scene, he is wounded in a shoot-out. But, like Rome at the beginning, he leaves the hospital to hunt his prey, leaving Martin at the mercy of his brother.
The city is permanently present: its sounds, always important in Siodmak’s noir-films, accompany the action and showcase the vibrancy of New York’s Little Italy in the late forties. The clear images of the interaction are always framed by shadows of the environment. Doors in the background and side windows allow the replication of images: pictures of pictures. The cars and the huge crowds engulf the protagonists, very much like “Menschen am Sonntag”. A dominating city is shown in glamorous panorama shots. The narrative is not limited by an inner or outer world: violence is everywhere, and police violence is no exception. This is a cruel and callous environment, everything is played out with murderous hatred in front of witnesses. Italian emigrants in Martin Rome’s family home strive to replicate the emotional closeness and warmth of their homeland but there’s a bitter edge to their hospitality. Nothing escapes the beady eye of the voyeuristic camera, witnessing the action: even an emergency operation in car in the middle of the rush hour is witnessed, portraying a world of murkiness – with nowhere to hide adding texture to the narrative and placing it firmly in the historic context of post war New York. The psychology of ordinary life is subverted by the violence. The real, ordinary world has changed though, it loses its significance, not only for the protagonists, but also for the audience, who had submitted to the same violence of a society in crisis: the depression was not forgotten, and the Second World War had just ended. CRY OF THE CITYis dark and the camera penetrates this darkness – but what it shows is just a human twilight world – bordering on the psychotic. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE HEADLINING A RETROSPECTIVE OF ROBERT SIODMAK IN MARCH 2015 AT THE BFI
Based on a feature film of the same title directed in 1976 by Charles B. Pierce – based on real events in 1946 – this latest remake has nothing new to add. The only saving grace is the 40s hard core-retro aesthetic, which compensates (but not too much) for an otherwise really tedious double re-make, told in episodes that are sensational (and gruesome) in themselves, but lack any cohesion.
In Texarkana, a boarder town between Arkansas and Texas, we re-visit the so-called ‘moonlight murders’, where five people where killed by a masked killer in ten weeks – a culprit was never found. Starting again from reality, the story kicks off with a screening of the 1976 version in a drive-in cinema in Texarkana which happened, until recently, on Halloween. Jami (Timlin), a timid young woman whose parents died in a car crash when she was little, hates the movie and begs her boy-friend Corey to drive off. They do and find a secluded spot in the woods to make out, whereupon the bag-masked phantom strikes again, killing Corey, leaving Jami to spread the warning “that this is for Mary, make them remember”.
Whilst looking for the new and old murderer, the Police are having no joy and Jami’s grandmother (Cartwright) is killed at a petrol station, when the pair try to leave the town. The brutal “Trombone” murder of the original slaying is replayed, before a rather disappointing and hollow explanation. AS
Dir.: Christian Petzold | Cast: Julia Hummer, Barbara Auer, Richy Müller, Bilge Bingul | Germany 2000, 106 min.
Petzold’s debut feature, co-written with the filmmaker Harun Farocki, who was his lecturer at the Berlin Film and TV Academy, already shows a unique style and content, which would make him into one of the few German directors whose films have become cult classics outside Germany. Petzold avoids the ‘thesis’ approach of many of his compatriots, but tells a story from a personal viewpoint, leaving the audience guessing ’til the end.
THE STATE I AM IN could easily have been another dogmatic and sterile film about the anarchists of the Baader-Meinhof group; instead, Petzold shows a teenager struggling with adolescence, living with her parents, who are on the run from the police. Jeanne (Hummer) would love to be an ordinary teenager, but when we meet her for the first time in a costal resort in Portugal (Cascais), she is under constant surveillance from her parents, who are afraid that their daughter might accidentally blow their own cover. When Jeanne meets Hamburger, Heinrich (Bingul), in a café near the beach, she starts to fall in love with him – and his stories. Heinrich tells her that his mother committed suicide in the swimming pool of a villa, which he and his wealthy father abandon after her death. Jeanne’s parents Clara (Auer) and Hans (Müller) are planning to go to Brazil, to start a new life. But thieves rob their apartment and the key to a locker at the train station, where the money for their emigration is stored. The family travels to Hamburg to raise the money for flights to Brazil, meeting ex-members of their gang, who have since made their peace with the authorities. Jeanne leads her parents to Heinrich’s abandoned villa, where they take up resident. But Jeanne meets Heinrich again, by accident, living in a local hostel. Whilst they sees each other secretly, her parents plan to rob a bank. When her father is injured in a shootout, and Clara kills a guard, Jeanne finally tells Heinrich of her predicament, setting the cat amongst the pigeons in a tragic denoument.
In this moody thriller, Petzold engages in the state of mind of his protagonists, delivering a good analysis of the “Red Army Front”. The film successfully unravels an important part of West German history after WWII. Instead of taking sides, Petzold lets the audience discover the parallels between the make-believe world of Clara and Hans on one side of the narrative, and Heinrich on the other: both sides dream of a life in a different reality. Jeanne is caught between these two, unable to make sense of her parent’s bourgeois demands for a good education, and their status as criminals.
One of the most significant scenes of the film is a meeting between Jeanne’s parents and another ex-member of their group, where Jeanne is used as a go-between, carrying a copy of “Moby Dick” (Andreas Baader’s code name in the RAF was ‘Captain Ahab’) as a sign of identification. Here we see the dilemma of the members of the “Red Army Front” of the first and second generation, who usually came from middle class background and were well read’ believing in cultural values. These traits of their upbringing were fatal in their assessment of the political situation: they believed in the fictional world of books and films, and not in realistic power politics. It was a near psychotic delusion, to believe that a handful of middle-class dropouts could overturn a state security system with far superior manpower and technology.
The RAF’s argument – that Germany was still ruled by leading members of the Nazi Party – was absolute valid: Heinrich Erhardt, chancellor of West Germany from 1963-1966, was a member of the SS-Finance Organisation, his direct superior, Ohlendorf, was sentenced to death in Nuremberg; and Erhardt’s successor, Kiesinger, was a high-ranking member of Goebbel’s propaganda ministry – not a mention the huge number of civil servants and policemen of the old regime still in their posts – like the majority of the Berlin police force who beat up demonstrators in West Berlin on a regular basis, having served beforehand in the murderous repression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising..
But the RAF (and their sympathizers) did not acknowledge that this political status quo could only exist with the consent of the huge majority of the West German population, well-known for hiding war criminals for decades after WWII. The RAF’s failure was to see themselves as city-guerillas, supported by the majority of the population, whilst in reality they were a romantic sprinkling, turning to violence and being met by a much better prepared state force which crushed them to the applause of the huge majority. They left realistic opponents of the West German post-war system in a thankless position where they could defend the deeds of either side. Whilst the RAF’s violence was nothing compared with that of Nazism, the anarchists legitimised those in power in West Germany, who could rightly claim they upheld the peace against the ‘left wing’ perpetrators.
Apart from offering an entry into a wider political discussion there are some solid performances, particularly outstanding is Hummer’s Jeanne as a victim of parental delusions and neglect. Hans Fromm’s camera follows the trio, his shady visuals mirroring their paranoid view of the world, where everything could turn violently against them at any moment. Petzold’s debut is a convincing thriller with a cause, showing the sad state of mind of self-declared ‘liberators’ in this moving German-noir. AS
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON | along with BARBARA AND PHOENIX, AND JERICHOW
Cast: Tomasz Zietek, Marcel Sabat, Kamil Szeptycki
Poland 2014 | 111 min | Action drama
Robert Glinski’s drama, a remake of Jan Lomnicki’s Operation Arsenal from 1978 is based on the non-fiction novel by Aleksander Kaminski, first published underground in 1943 during the Nazi occupation of Poland, before it became a book on the curriculum of every Polish school after the war.
Kaminski based his chronicle on the clandestine fight of “Grey Rank” members, the equivalent of Poland’s Boy Scouts, who took up arms against the occupiers. Glinski positions his three heroes, Rudy (Zietek), Zoska (Sabat) and Alek (Szeptycki) in the centre of the action: first the three friends form their own “Grey Rank” unit, trying to sabotage the Germans, before they buy weapons and become part of the “Home-Front” Army, the official Polish resistance force, coordinated by the Government in Exile from London.
The main thrust ofSTONES FOR THE RAMPART is the liberation of their leader Rudy from the Gestapo. Whilst Rudy is tortured, Zoska and Alek make an exhaustive attempt to get permission from the Home Army to free him: the professional soldiers are not so keen to risk the lives of the resistance fighters. Finally, Rudy is sprung, but tragedy ensues for this brave trio.
Whilst the heroism of the young men deserves to be remembered, they also deserve a more subtle concept without so many clichés. Glinski’s all-out action approach gives too little room for the individuals and their rather complex family lives to be developed to their full potential. This ‘all-guns-blaring’ style with its bloody overkill in the torture scenes lacks subtlety and a decision to cast cute but histrionic girlfriends for our heroes, further trivialises the piece and leads to some prudish sex scenes. Glinski’s stone-age aesthetics together with over-simplistic dialogue, simply doesn’t do the real fighters any justice. AS
Cast: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Stanley Tucci, Hellen McCrory
116min UK Drama
A woman’s touch sweeps through the court of Versailles in Alan Rickman’s second feature in which he also stars as a stately Louis XIV. The green fingers in question belong to Madame Sabine De Barra (Kate Winslet) who is hired by an inspirational, André Le Nôtre, to help him add a flourish of herbaceous perennials to the design and landscaping of the formal 17th century Palace.
As Sabine De Barra, Winslet is a breath of fresh air in the stultifying artifice of court life, where acolytes fester under Louis’ strict regime as absolute monarch. In a performance of confident grace and gentle determination, Winslet not only charms the birds from the trees but also the recently bereaved King himself, and they bond during an impromptu a tête à tête in the potager. Matthias Schoenaerts oozes a brooding sensuality, and even sings, as the legendary landscape architect, lashed by the tongue of his vituperative wife, a foxy Helen McCrory.
Alan Rickman shines in a sardonic and thoughtful turn as the King who eventually moves from Paris to Versailles to oversee the completion of the works (“I felt I shouldn’t get the builders out, unless I moved in”). His sumptuously-crafted tale of intrigue and inventiveness is wittily scripted by newcomer Alison Deegan, who adds a contempo feel to the dialogue, makes this 17th century tale feel fresh and ‘de nos jours’: Molière would be proud. In a sterling cast of British acting talent Jennifer Ehle is luminous as Louis’ mistress, Madame de Montespan, Phyllida Law plays a warm and reassuring courtier, Steven Waddington adds ballast as a hard-landscaper and US actor, Stanley Tucci, adds a touch of class as a flamboyant roué.
A subplot concerning Sabine’s family life and the death of her daughter feels slightly superfluous and unconvincing but her onscreen chemistry with Schoenaerts’ Le Nôtre certainly isn’t and, in contrast to the tawdry world he inhabits with his wife at court, their budding romance blossoms naturally and freely in this glorious British production. MT
Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mikael Persbrandt, Douglas Henshall, Jonathan Pryce
92mins | Drama | Western | Denmark/US
I first discovered this burnished beauty smouldering in the out-of-competition section last year at Cannes: It’s always gratifying to see a great film that hasn’t had any buzz, pre-festival, and THE SALVATION was one of those outings – but with Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green what could possibly go wrong? Suffice to say, we’ve certainly found the next Clint Eastwood in Mads, who rocks a similar look in this Danish-styled Once Upon a Time in the West, from Dogma director, Kristian Levring. Mads plays Jon, a former soldier who immigrated to America after the Danish-German war in 1864. With his gung-ho swagger and just enough buttoned-up anger to keep the action taut and macho throughout. This glowering, sun-burnt saga also has echoes of High Noon, but was actually shot in South Africa by award-winning lenser Jens Schlosser.
When Jon’s wife and son are brutally killed on their arrival from Denmark; the modest, law-abiding outsider turns hurt into hatred, by taking the outlaw’s life in return, and in the process unleashed the fury of a notorious gang leader, Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), driving him to seek retribution. His own wife, Eva Green seethes in a stunning speechless part (as Princess), rendered mute by an Indian’s weapon. With a zippy running time of 92 minutes, this is a slick and enjoyable ride through the Wild West of the 1870s: The Danish angle works well with the xenophobic locals of that era, bringing a fresh new angle to the evergreen theme of transmigration. MT
Looking further into this year’s treasure trove of buzz-worthy titles, April 2015 is set to be a exciting month for indie film. Cannes is waiting in the wings and the Chelsea Flower Show is on its way. April also brings Alan Rickman’s second feature, A LITTLE CHAOS, a romantic drama set in the gardens of Versailles’ where famous landscape architect, André Le Nôtre, falls for the capable charms of Kate Winslet’s, Madame de Barra.. Matthias Schoenaerts oozes a brooding sensuality as Le Nôtre, and even sings, despite being lashed by the tongue of his vituperative wife, a foxy Helen McCrory. 17 April 2015
Hotly-anticipated by the arthouse crowd is FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. Carey Mulligan stars as Bathsheba Everdene in Thomas Vinterberg’s version ofHardy’s novel, breaking into song for the soundtrack and proving that acting is not her only skill. Joined by Matthias Schoenaerts in his second simmering male role of 2015, he competes for her hand alongside Tom Sturridge and Michael Sheen. David Nicholls handles the Hardy’s script. 1 May 2015
A burnished Danish Western with Mads Mikkelsen in the saddle and Eva Green as his love interest? Look no further than THE SALVATION. This simmering tale of xenophobia 1870s-style, sees outlaw Mads turn macho pride into full-blown anger when he reeks revenge on the outlaws who murder his family after arriving in the Midwest from his native Denmark. Out on 17 April 2015
Juliano Salgado’s brilliant biopic of his father, Sabastiao, starts as a harrowing and dramatic set of photographs from Africa and beyond and soon develops into a story with a heart-warming and inspiring conclusion, with touches of the late (and great) Michael Glawogger and Richard Attenborough thrown in. SALT OF THE EARTH will wow you with its warmth and concern for nature. Wim Wenders co-directs. 3 July 2015
At only 33 years old, Mia Hansen-Love has already directed four features, a considerable achievement for a woman director in France. EDEN shares with her last two outings, a central character who does not know when to give up. Set in the world of ‘French Garage’, chronicling the years from the late eighties to the current day, EDEN is a spell-binding tour de force of music and emotion, brilliantly performed by a cast of Felix de Givry, Arsinée Khanjian and Greta Gerwig. 24 July 2015.
In the backstreets of an Iranian industrial blackspot, a skate-boarding vampire preys on men who disrespect local women. A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT is Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut that won her the Gotham Independent Film Award for breakthrough director. A refreshing contrast to the ubiquitous theme of war in Middle-Eastern cinema, A GIRL.. is also a stylish departure from the current glut of teen vampire movies; making it a must-see for 2015. Crisp monochrome visuals and a beguiling, funky soundtrack lend a strangely retro feel. Out on 17th April 2015.
After the triumphant success of The Great Beauty that placed him in the firmament of indie directors, Paolo Sorentino again looks to the past in THE EARLY YEARS (La Giovanezza), his second English-language film. It focuses on the friendship of two creative forces, (a conductor and a film director played by Michael Caine and Paul Dano) who meet up on holiday in the Swiss Alps, where one receives a Royal invitation. With Luca Bigazzi behind the camera, this is set to be another visual masterpiece that will most likely grace the Red Carpet at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Also stars Harvey Keitel, Jane Fonda and Rachel Weisz.
Based on the book by Deborah Moggach, Justin Chadwick’s TULIP FEVER follows hotly on the heels of his previous film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. With a stellar cast of Christoph Waltz, Jack O’Connell, and Alicia Vikander and Dane DeHaan, this is set to be another fascinating historical drama. TULIP FEVER also has a rather rare quality: it is a film that not only matches the mood and atmosphere of the book, but creates its own emotional cosmos of big dreams, crashing down emotionally as well in financial terms.
Set in Denmark and Sweden and c0-scripted by Tobias Lindholm (The Hunt, A Hijacking) Thomas Vinterberg’s drama, THE COMMUNE (Kollektivet), was inspired by memories of his seventies childhood in Copenhagen. Denmark has always been a liberal country and in this ‘no holds barred’ account he pays tribute to that spirit of independence, exploring what happens when personal desires collide with the collective responsibility. Regular collaborators, Ulrich Thomsen and Trine Dyrholm star as academic couple at the centre of the story. On release in late 2015.
British indie THE GOOB founds its way from the England to Venice last summer where it premiered in the HORIZONS strand. Guy Myhill’s enigmatic directorial debut evokes the open spaces of the Norfolk countryside veiled in golden summer. An unsettling coming of age story, it pits a young man’s burgeoning sexuality against that of his mother’s boorish boyfriend – an avid stock-car racing champion and local grower played by Sean Harris. Sienna Guillory and Liam Walpole also star. May 28th release.
And last but not least: the film we’ve all been waiting for since Venice 2014 and looks as if it’s now bound for the Riviera at Cannes 2015: CAROL – Todd Haynes’ screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s lesbian-themed novel ‘The Price of Salt’, a fifties story of a New York shop-girl who falls for an older, married woman. With Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara starring in the leads, this is set to be another glamorous arthouse treat, with the sinister twist in the tale of the previous Highsmith screen outings, The Talented Mr Ripley and The Two Faces of January.
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Ghita Norby, Viilbjork Mallin Agger, Adrian Fondari
108min Argentina/Denmark and others | Danish with subtitles.
Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso has become synonymous with the ‘slow cinema’ movement. His previous works, though mysterious, have been anchored in realism but here he drifts into full-on fantasy, ‘creating an original imaginary world with a landscape of passion and inner truth’. And there is certainly something fantastic and otherworldly about JAUJA despite its elegant historical context. The film is also in Danish, Mortensen’s native language.
In 1882, Viggo Mortensen’s troubled Danish captain casts around wearily in a shifting seascape of Patagonia where he is leading an expedition to discover Jauja – an mythical Argentinian ‘El Dorado’. Dinesen is worried for the safety of his teenage daughter (Agger) amongst his troupe of randy South American soldiers and bewildered by the rumours of a savage local tribe of ‘Coconut Heads’ who are also looking for the ‘paradise’. Meanwhile his daughter has a mind of her own and abducts a young soldier who she later seduces in the long grass. After a long and poetic introductory sequence where the camera is mostly fixed on the vast and wild panorama, Dinesen wanders off on horseback across the wilderness with its magical starry skies and incandescent daylight. He loses his horse after a lethal encounter with the tribe and then discovers a wise old woman (Norby) in a cave by a salty spring who introduces a shift in register to folklore and legend which transports us gradually back to Europe for a startling denouement. MT
CANNES ‘Un Certain Regard’ 2014 REVIEW – JAUJA IS NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE
Dir: Ruben Östlund | Cast: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju, Clara Wettergren, Vincent Wettergren | 120mins Sweden/Drama
The working title for Ruben Östlund”s avalanche drama was originally Tourist but FORCE MAJEURE injects a more sinister and bewildering feeling into this cold-hearted psychological thriller that follows in the wake of an ‘act of God’. Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) is a family man on a skiing holiday with his wife and kids who puts his own safety before that of his vulnerable family when disaster strikes.
But luck saves the day (or fate, in his case) and once the threatening snow cloud has transformed into a harmless puff of ice, Tomas goes back to eat humble pie (or Baked Alaska?) having blown his marriage and betrayed his children. His ego gets in the way and he can’t admit his cowardice, even when good judgement prevails.
Ruben Östlund is a pastmaster of the moral drama. His previous film Play concerned a group of black immigrants who mugged some white kids while the disaffected adults looked on, afraid to report the crime lest being accused of racism. Here, Tomas puts his safety first, albeit in the heat of the moment. But this behaviour is not unusual in the scheme of things: Many men put their work or their own interests before those of their wives and families – it’s a natural human response to want to safeguard the ability to provide, after all. They often end up losing their marriages and sometimes their livelihoods as a result – Ostlund has cleverly transposed this situation into an exciting and tense tragedy reaping dramatic rewards – but the family survive. He shows how a wife can often get over cowardice or loss if they feel their husband’s remorse. Here, Tomas’s wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), could perhaps forgive if only Tomas could admit his human failing, but his pride stands in the way. Tomas is caught between the avalanche of his male ego – and that is what rampantly ends up destroying all he holds dear.
Fredrik Wenzel and Fred Arne Wergeland capture the magnificent natural landscape, both beautiful and hostile – showing the mountains as a fabulous natural force of nature and a dangerous, untamed wilderness, much the same as ‘male’ at its core. In Force Majeure, the real terror starts after nature has calmed down. Kristofer Hivju puts in a brave attempt to stick up for his friend but this all feels disingenuous in the scheme of things. It’s an uncomfortable film that forces us to contemplate our own behaviour. The children (newcomers Clara and Vincent Wettergren) watch silently as the family implodes. No justification can wash away this avalanche of guilt, no matter how strong the sun shines in the aftermath. MT
A RETROSPECTIVE of Ruben Östlund’s film archive is NOW SCREENING at SVANETI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024
Director: Manoel de Oliveira | Script: Manoel de Oliveira, Alberto Serpa, Joao Rodrigues de Freitas (novel) | Cast: Americo Botelho, Feliciano David, Nascimento Fernandes, Fernanda Matos, Rafael Mota, Antonio Palma | 71′ | Portugal | Drama
Manoel de Oliviera who died, aged 106, was an extraordinary man not least because in a career spanning over 80 years, he made 62 films and starred in 11; winning 47 awards along the way. Aniki-Bóbó, was his first film, the name coined from a Portuguese children’s rhyme similar to Eeny Meeny Miney Moe.
Carlitos is a shy, naïve boy, in love with Teresinha, but with a love rival in the shape of the charismatic, seemingly fearless bully Eduardinho. Despite the fact Teresinha spends her free time with Eduardinho, Carlitos knows she likes him, but how can he win her heart?
Based on Joao Rodrigues de Freitas’s short story “Little Millionaires’, Aniki-Bóbó was Olivieira’s bold, allegorical shot at dictator Antonio Salazar’s Portugal, which managed to slip through the net of the draconian regime. Only three films a year were being made during this ten-year period and all of them were under state control as war raged through the rest of Europe and the threat of Fascism was never more real.
Derided at the time of release for its depiction of childhood as a difficult and scary minefield to be negotiated: full of deceit, cruelty and manipulation. It is only in retrospect that the value of Aniki-Bóbó is being fully appreciated, and its place as a founding stone of the Italian Neo-Realist movement, is being recognized. Oliveira successfully managed to subvert his message – that figures of adult authority were not to be trusted, and were out of touch with what was really happening.
On the face of it then, Aniki-Bóbó is a straightforward ‘morality play’ with a cast of kids, many of whom were local friends of de Oliveira in his native city of Oporto. A fascinating film on many levels, its cast of children are engaging, but it bears all the hallmarks of a low-budget first feature, with an unevenness in continuity and performance. However, it is such an important film as well as a testament of the times, that its minor flaws can be ignored as being endearing glitches in the first steps of the director’s monumental career.
What sets it apart and the reason it has withstood the test of time, is how Oliveira made a film concerning adult problems and anxieties with a cast of children. In that place and time, with all the resources that he was lacking, Aniki-Bóbó is a stroke of genius. Oliveira had such a hard time bringing this first feature into being, that he didn’t make another film for 21 years. Eventually, it was to mark the light-footed beginning to a very sure-footed and magnificent body of films. MT
ALTMAN | Dir: Ron Man | Writer: Len Blum | Doc | with Robin Williams, Bruce Willis, Julianne Moore, James Caan, Paul Thomas Anderson
The career of Robert Altman is the subject of Ron Mann’s biopic that kicks off with the a chance meeting that changed the American director’s life. It all seemed so simple in those days, one lucky meeting leads to a career spanning 50 years. But you do need talent, of course; and perseverance, and Altman, we discover, had this in spades along with an ability to inspire and impress, and to re-invent himself in a career that led to prodigious TV work (with Bonanza) before he even started on the big screen.
The only filmmaker to win top prizes at three major European film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Venice), he was the first to pioneer concurrent dialogue in his films; developing a way of recording that allowed audiences to listen to several conversations, adding reality to his pithy dramas. He also invented the ‘portmanteau’ film (Short Cuts, The Player). Altman was the king of indie directors: The majority of his films were financed independently and box office standout Gosford Parkfound funding at the last minute through the UK Lottery: ironically it was also made after he received the heart of a young woman, from a transplant. Packed with fascinating detail, Mann’s doc is watchable, entertaining and enlightening. MT
THE BFI ARE SCREENING A RETROSPECTIVE OF ROBERT ALTMAN’S WORK TO CELEBRATE THE REOPENING OF SCREENS FROM MAY 17TH 2021
At the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, the German born philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “banality of evil” to describe the defendant. The subject of Vanessa Lapa’s documentary THE DECENT ONE is Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS and Eichmann’s direct superior, who fits the Arendt description even more aptly.
The film’s narrative is based on Himmler’s extensive diaries, photos and documents, which were found by soldiers of the US Army in Himmler’s house in Gmund, Bavaria in May 1945. In spite of orders, the soldiers never handed over the documents to the authorities. In 1960, the entire collection was owned by Chaim Rosenthal, who stored them under his bed in Tel-Aviv. The way he came into possession is worth another documentary film but the only clue given by Rosenthal is that he first discovered some of the documents at a neo-Nazi convention in Dallas, Texas, where they were offered by a man driving a car with Mexican number plates. Vanessa Lapa purchased the archive from Rosenthal (who died in 2012) after the news of its existence came to light in 2006.
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich in 1900. His father, a Catholic, was a senior teacher and his godfather was Prince Heinrich of Bavaria. Himmler enjoyed poor health as a child, missing school mainly because of a weak stomach, which would trouble him for the rest of his life. As a teenager, he was caught between the desire to participate in glorious active service during the War (he missed action in WWI), and depressing thoughts due to low self-esteem. At the Technical University of Munich he studied Agronomy, gaining an MA. He joined the Nazi party in 1923 and the SS in 1925. He was involved in Hitler’s “Beer Hall Putsch” and whilst Hitler served a prison sentence, Himmler helped Röhm, the leader of the powerful SA, to recruit members for both party and storm troopers. When Himmler joined the SS its main function was to guarantee the security of Hitler and the organisation of public meetings. Its membership was 290 in 1925, whilst the SA membership would rise to over three million. But in 1934, Hitler had Röhm shot because he feared the might of the SA, who wanted a “second revolution”. The SA lost all its power, and was not much more than a training academy. By contrast, the SS flourished under Himmler, achieving a membership of over a quarter million by 1929. After 1933 Himmler would control the whole of the German police, including the Gestapo and became the leading architect of “the Final Solution”. He was undoubtedly Hitler’s number two – called “boring and pedantic” by Hitler’s inner circle, he nevertheless accumulated much more power than any of his detractors.
THE DECENT ONE is told from the viewpoint of Himmler and his family; the affectionate letters between his wife Marga and daughter Gudrun, accompanied by archive films, newsreels and photos corresponding to the dates of the letters, but concealing the real, often sinister, nature of his activities under the regime. Heinrich met his wife Margarete Boden, a nurse who owned a share in a small private hospital in the 1930s. They had a daughter, Gudrun, whom Himmler called “Püppi” (“Dolly”), born in 1940 and later adopted a son. Himmler and his daughter were close, even though he was often away from home. The parents seemed to have indoctrinated her successfully: after Hitler’s coming to power in 1933, Margarete wrote to Himmler that Gudrun “had asked, if Uncle Hitler would have to die too”. After Margarete had agreed with Gudrun that Hitler would live at least 200 (sic!) years, the child went to sleep peacefully. When Gudrun visited Dachau concentration camp with her mother and family, the first one of its kind, planned and executed by her father, her report is that of a brilliant day-out. She talks about the good food and the presents they were given.
Gudrun would later marry the right-wing journalist Burwitz and became engaged in the “Stille Hilfe” in post-war West Germany, an organisation, which helped “persecuted” Nazis, like Klaus Barbie. She was called the “flamboyant Nazi Princess” and hid the chief of Theresienstadt Ghetto security service, Anton Malloth, in her home near Munich between 1988 and 2001, when he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Whilst Himmler usually tried to please his family, Margarete complained in a letter to her sister in the early 40s that her husband had visited the area of their home but had not come to see his family. The reason being that Himmler stayed with his young secretary, Hewdwig Bodhof (his mistress since 1938) with whom he had two children. Margarete was seven years older than Himmler and could not have any more children. The only reason given by Himmler for this relationship with Hedwig, was his own decree, stating that German parents should have at least four children.
Himmler’s deputy, Reinhard Heydrich (assassinated in Prague in 1942) knew Himmler better than anybody else and once told a friend “look at Himmler’s head. The upper half is the teacher, the lower half is the sadist”. Heydrich had chaired the “Wannsee Conference” to start the “Final Solution” and was honored by Himmler in a special way: the transport of the Jews to the death camps were called “Action Reinhard”. Apart from the six million Jews murdered, Himmler’s SS was responsible (with the active help of the Wehrmacht) for the murder of another five to eight million civilians, mainly in Poland and the Soviet Union. But when Himmler finally realised his dream of war leader, as commandant of the Upper Rhine Army and the Vistula Army, he failed miserably in 1944, and had to be replaced by an angry Hitler. In one of his last letters to his family, this “Schreibtisch Mörder” (Desk-murderer) who never laid a hand on anyone, proudly foretells “even in a thousand years’ time, everyone will say that all German soldiers, generals and SS men have behaved with decency”.
THE DECENT ONE is the most important documentary after SHOAH about the subject of Nazi criminals. It relies purely on documents, written, filmed and expertly edited, telling the story of a man who choose to be a mass murderer, not so much because of anger, but because he wanted to create a perfect world were humans where either ‘heroic and Nordic’ or ‘Sub-human’ and worse than animals – and had therefore to be exterminated. He was the architect of their demise, but he remained an ordinary man: not decent, as he hoped, but not much different from many of us – just in the right place at the right time, he managed to realise his dream of a perfect farm where only perfect specimens were allowed to survive. He committed suicide as a prisoner of the British Forces on 23.5.1945, forty-four years old. AS
Deep in the countryside, three ramblers cross paths with a strange and unworldly encounter in William Eubank’s slick indie that starts as an compelling weird Sci-FI mystery thriller but gradually joins the highway to mainstream city, veering off the path of arthouse intrigue.
Nic and Jonah (Brenton Thwaites and Beau Knapp) are MIT students who seem to be involved in a computer virus dispute with someone called Nomad. When Nic agrees to take his girlfriend Haley (Olivia Cooke) back to University across country, Jonah goes to share the driving because Nic seems to be on crutches. On their way they pick up intelligence that may lead them to Nomad’s whereabouts. Against their better judgement, they take a detour into the desert.
This takes them through some glorious widescreen visuals and a retro vibe as we cruise zen-like along in the fields of big mountain country, enjoying David Lanzenberg’s gorgeous cinematography until arriving at nightfall at an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. And this is where proceedings go pear-shaped as the mood becomes edgy and sinister. Haley is abducted by an alien-like being before and they all space out and loses control. Nic gradually comes to his senses in a space-age hospital staffed by men in white overalls. He can’t feel his legs.
The doctor in charge of Nic is Wallace Damon (Laurence Fishburne). Apparently Nic and his friends came across an “extraterrestrial biological entity,” and it is vital for Nic to remain within the confines of the hospital for his own safety. But Nic, in a performance of palpable paranoia (by Thwaites), is not convinced and desperately tries to escape the sinister surroundings and endless white corridors and weird doctors. In vain. Then after an eerie dreamlike sequence of events where he is unable to move and is pursued by a very spooky-looking Fishburne as the doctor, Nic takes charge and breaks away from the hospital along a series of narrow tunnels and finally to freedom. But his troubles are far from over. Despite a delightfully off the wall turn from Lin Shaye as a religious nutter, this Sci-fi mystery fails to deliver the satisfying denouement that we’re hoping for as our interest gradually wanes in the last half hour. It’s watchable and wacky all the same and Nima Fakhrara’s ethereal soundtrack lends a surreal atmosphere. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27 MARCH 2015 | DVD FROM 13 APRIL 2015
With Veronika Both, Ferencz Kósa, Rózalia Barabás, Jenõné Martin
70min Documentary Hungarian with subtitles
The ability to speak your mind, honestly and without guile is one of benefits of old age. The game of subterfuge is over. There is nothing left to hide. Writer and director, Ágnes Sós explores the simple way of life a remote rural community in Hungary, unchanged for nearly a hundred years. The villagers (aged 75 – 90+) share their stories without coyness or sentimentality; telling it like it is and calling a spade a spade. At least twenty five of them are widows. But of those still married, one woman confesses honestly of her husband: “Why didn’t God take the desire, when he took the ability.” Others are more appreciative and candid when they talk about their memories and experiences of past pleasures But one lonely man admits: “I can’t have a good one, But I don’t need a bad one.” Most of the revelations seem to revolve around sex or relationships but the villagers have all reached a stage in life where they are are grateful to be enjoy the simple daily routine and the rhythm of the seasons: Raising and tending the animals, kneading the bread, growing produce and preparing food. And one chap also adds: “I’ve been mad about love and kissing, all my life”.
Ágnes Sós filmed this endearing doc over a two-and-a-half-year period with the help of her cinematographer Zoltán Lovasi. In the quiet corner of rural Hungary, there is not a car, a modern building or or a ‘phone mast in sight and many of the villagers still ride around in horse-drawn carts including Ferenc, who still has an eye for the local ladies and often greets them with a pleasantry as he passes by. The women have the same desires as the men; one talks of being the most attractive and cleverest in the village, but also confesses to murder at the ago of 80. Another admits she didn’t enjoy an orgasm until she was well into her sixties, and by her own hand, while washing. She also adds that there is nothing better in life than being in love. Preferring the old ways of courting, the men are eager to insist that they still feel randy and can even still perform ‘but not one after the other!’ Clearly, this is a society where men have always been respected and obeyed yet one man does admit that he tolerated his wife’s infidelity, putting it down to her ‘unusual needs’. Strangely no one talks very much about their success in business or material wealth. The message is clear from these old folk: ‘enjoy love and sex while you’re still able’.
The most heartening aspect of this documentary is the not just the closeness of this strong community but the glorious natural beauty of the Hungarian countryside during the daisy-strewn Summer and in the glistening snow – the colour green dominates both outside in the grassy meadows and hills and inside where is seems to be the choice of wall-colouring or garments. The only sad memory we take away is of a trusting and faithful group of people whose way of life and fond attachment to the land will soon be gone forever . MT
STREAM OF LOVE is SCREENING AT BERTHA-DOCHOUSE at the newly refurbished CURZON BLOOMSBURY – from 28 March until 2 April 2015. Tickets HERE
Cast: Dasum Pathirana, Jehan Sri Kanth, Yasogha Rasaduni
90min Sri Lanka Drama Singhalese with Subtitles
The best thing about this debut drama, the first LGBT film to come out of Sri Lanka, is its simplicity and ravishing cinematography capturing the exuberant lushness of the island’s countryside, its vibrant colours and the exotic beauty of the frangipani blossom that is used to decorate the local temple. A straightforward narrative unfolds against the natural background of a traditional Sri Lankan village community and is told through expressive performances from a sensitive cast and minimal dialogue.
Chamath, a young Sri Lankan man makes a living by embroidering and designing saris. His dream is to escape to the city to look for a better life, but he is being hotly pursued by a wealthy local girl, Sarasi, who he meets while preparing a sari for her wedding. Sarasi fancies Chamath and wants him to rescue her from a traditional arranged marriage. But Chamath finds himself attracted to Nalin, a young welding mechanic who come to work in the Temple, and the two begin a physical relationship. Sarasi is determined to find love on her own terms, and when Chamath spurns her, she turns her affections to Nalin. The undeclared love triangle remains secret but gradually the two men are pressured by the local community into making a decision, despite their strong feelings for one another. Five years later they all meet again to question whether they’ve lost out on the chance to realise their true happiness or ruined their lives forever. A delicate ambient soundtrack of local birdsong accompanies Viksakesa Chandrasekaram’s tender and affecting love story. MT
BFI FLARE FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 19-29 MARCH 2015 AT LONDON’S BFI SOUTHBANK CENTRE SE1.
With Tomas Farina, Jorge Luis Medina, Gonzalo Peralta, Facundo Talin, Cristian Vergara
82min Documentary Argentina | Spanish with subtitles
FULBOY is the leisurely debut doc of Martin Farina, who offers commentary in an occasional voiceover as he films his younger brother, a professional footballer, during downtime in the locker rooms chattting to his teammates about the ups and downs of the beautiful game. Apart from offering an eyeful of tattooed and toned ‘pecs’ and thighs, it gets under the skin of these fit sportsmen to see how they think and feel in intimate close-up and on the wider screen. As they roam around like jaguars; styling their hair, showering and posing – they are constantly checking each other out, knowing that soon the TV camera will be scanning their every move during the Big Match.
Frequent glimpses of the Virgin Mary – even in their extensively tattooed bodies – reinforce Argentina as a matriarchal society; and talk of their mothers and wives crops up frequently during banter which covers anything from minor complaints about other players to the stresses and strains of the game, gruelling training sessions and a controlled diet that forbids alcohol. Rather than being a dream to play football for money, it often feels prison-like, when they are trapped in the confines of their hotel, during tough training for tournaments. Lacking a strong narrative as such, FULBOY is nonetheless a pleasurable watch, focusing on the fact that football is all about performing and being watched. But it’s also about making some money and investing it wisely, aware that by 45 these men will have to retire. While quietly monitoring each other, the players make sure that each pulls his weight during contests and that remuneration is fair. At the end of the day, football is a job they do for money and competition is fierce, they have to plan for transfers and make the most of their youthful years. Celebrity or stardom is not the goal, they want to work hard and looking after their families.
Dreamlike, the playful camera roves around in a langorous fashion, finding all sorts of creative angles to explore, in soft focus, both in the showers and outside in the sultry sunshine. A gentle ambient occasional score lulls the relaxed atmosphere or this voyeuristic piece that is underpinned by undercurrents of assured masculinity. MT
SCREENING DURING BFI FLARE AT THE SOUTHBANK 19 March
With: Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and others
102min Sport Documentary US
OUT TO WIN is a full on in ‘your face’ affair that focuses on LGBTQA World class athletes as they share their ‘coming out’ stories to the camera. There’s nothing new here revelation-wise, for most of us, but the combined force of these heartfelt stories serves as a full scale slap in the face of the anti-sentiment that traditionally spread through the heartlands of America’s sporting life. Sporting communities are not as enlightened or as accepting as the creative arenas of film, theatre and the Arts, and most are reinforced by diehard traditionalists and often dominated by a macho male following, who are, by definition gay-phobic – particularly when it comes to the locker-rooms.
One after the other, talking heads of famous Athletes pop-up ‘close and personal’, to share their emotions and often their tears about being gay in the world of Sport: Wade Davies, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Brittney Griner, David Kopay, Jason Collins, Charline Labonté, Conner Mertens, and John Amaechi to name but a few. It emerges, not surprisingly, that many were scared to reveal their true sexuality for fear of losing valuable sponsorship or community support.
Without doubt, it’s a crying shame that these talented individuals have had to suffer in the name of sexuality. Filmmaker Malcolm Ingram is known for his documentary award-winning doc: Small Town Gay Bar. Here he has assembled an impressive array of news stories and archive footage to serve his hard-hitting story that doesn’t even give lip service to creativity in its camerawork or style. Often, the film is edited to repeat soundbites, like an advertisement, blaring out and reinforcing his message, over and over again so it feels like a list of examples instead of a cogent narrative. Rather than appealing to our hearts and minds, we feel pistol-whipped into commiserating with these confessions, worthy though they undoubtedly are, in telling a story of pain and gradual acceptance has come about due to the trailblazing efforts of the early lesbian and gay sporting pioneers. MT
SCREENS DURING THE BFI FLARE FESTIVAL FROM 19-29 March 2015
Writers: Jakub Goldberg, Jerzy Skolimowski, Gerard Brach, Roman Polanski
Cast: Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz
Cinematography: Jerzy Lipman Score: Krzysztof Komeda
94min Drama Polish with subtitles
KNIFE IN THE WATER is a symphony in black and white, a perfectly performed ménage à trois between three scantily-clad adults that unspools over 94-minutes during a summer sailing trip. The threesome includes a married couple, Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) and Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka) who pick up a random 19-year-old hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz), and take him for a day out on their yacht. A simple and low-key invitation turns into a sexually-charged drama where one man triumphs.
Roman Polanski’s first feature is one of the most psychologically-powered debuts on the 2oth Century. What makes it superlative is, without doubt, what also made Last Day of Summer so redolent of the Polish Film School (which had a brief heyday in the late fifties) its triumph of simplicity and quality. Polanski was a perfectionist and chose as his cinematographer, Jerzy Lipman. Most cineastes regard this as his best film although Polanski himself is believed to regard his later work Cul de Sac (1966) as his personal favourite. The drama is shot through with compelling scenes of psychological tension and even the weather joins in to express menace and moments of relief as dark clouds move in or clear to reveal calmer skies.
Zygmunt Malanowicz plays the student although Polanski voiced his dialogue, unsurprisingly we know whose part he would have chosen has he not been concentrating on directing. Using his usual two lenses, the camerawork avoids close-ups in this rigorous portrayal of masculine oneupmanship.
Scripting was a collaborative affair with colleagues Gerard Brach and Jakub Goldberg. Skolimowski’s dialogue between the three is verbose and loquacious, almost nervously so in parts to cover up for the undertones of machismo rippling just below the surface of this overtly polite social day on the lake. The performances from Leon Niemczyk and Jolanta Umecka are subtle reflecting the social etiquette of their upwardly mobile coupledom in contrast to the raffishness of the student from the other side of the tracks. Polanski would continue to make it his stock in trade to focus on the outsider or the underdog (The Tenant, The Pianist) or the unstable marriage (Cul de Sac, Bitter Moon, Carnage). The mounting tension is superbly reflected in a jazzy seductive score by Polanski’s regular composer, Krzysztof Komeda, whose life was to be tragically cut short, seven years later. And like most of Polanski’s films, KNIFE IN THE WATER avoids a happy ending. MT
SCREENING AT PART OF KINOTEKA 2015 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS | POLISH MASTERPIECES
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick, Jacki Weaver
US Comedy Drama Thriller
This Dexter-inspired ‘serial killer pulp thriller’ is Marjane Satrapi’s imaginative follow-up to her breakout hits Persepolis and Chicken with Plums. There are some good ideas here, and her first film in English shows that quirky comedy can work across the cultural divide, although it’s not an outstanding success on all levels. Casting the superbly versatile Ryan Reynolds as the lead is an inspired choice: as disturbed warehouse stocker Jerry, Reynolds conveys normality with a dark side but, strangely, inspires our sympathy rather than dislike for his troubled character who is a sad victim of circumstance. Having been forced to kill his mother as a child, he wears his schizophrenic tendencies smartly tucked away behind the serene (almost autistic) gaze of an ordinary pleasant-looking guy next door. Respectably holding down his job and even volunteering to organise the entertainment at the office party; he drives a jeep and lives in a disused factory complete with pink cladding and neon signs. Not only that, he talks to his dog Bosco and cat Mr Whiskers and they talk back with accents (a Glaswegian cat and a dog with a Southern drawl are hilarious). Desperately keen to find a girlfriend, his forays with co-workers of the opposite sex, (superbly played by Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick) end in violent death for all concerned.
In Michael Perry’s screenplay, laughs are few but welcome in contrast to the highly inventive elements (Jerry stores the heads of his ‘dates’ in the fridge but they carry on talking) and brutal violence (stabbing his date to death by accident when pursuing her in the woods) that puncture Jerry’s volatile and psychopathic facade. THE VOICES is tonally out of kilter as an outright comedy or a horror outing; continually throwing us off-guard, not sure what to expect.- but somehow it’s an addictively watchable film with some unexpected moments of pure genius. Recommended. MT
REVIEWED DURING SUNDANCE UK WHERE WE TALKED TO MARJANE ABOUT DIRECTING RYAN REYNOLDS (below)| ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 23 MARCH 2015
Cast: Marie Bonnevie, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, May Anderson, Ulrich Thomsen
Susanne Bier is well known for her stylish if schematic melodramas – along the lines of BROTHERS and AFTER THE WEDDING.A SECOND CHANCEis another enjoyable, if cliched, collaboration with the dogma crew and regular scripter Anders Thomas Jensen (IN A BETTER WORLD).
The impossibly good-looking Nordic couple Andreas (Coster-Waldau) and Anne (Marie Bonnevie) share a designer beach house in the outskirts of Copenhagen with their new-born son Alexander. Meanwhile, Tristan (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his partner Sanne (May Anderson in debut) are slumming it up as intravenous drug abusers in an urban hovel with their neglected bab,y Sofus. However, it’s important at this stage not to draw too many conclusions on the perfect family versus the ‘lowlife’ one.
Police detective Andreas is on a drug-releated hunt for Tristan and is attempting to get Sofus into care, with the help of his partner Simon (Ulrich Thomsen). So far their attempts have proved unsuccessful but when tragedy intervenes, Andreas makes an error of judgement changing his life forever.
Motherhood and parenting are always at the heart of Bier’s narratives and A SECOND CHANCE is no different. There’s no harsher judge of women than a woman herself, as Bier proves one again by portraying her female characters as somehow lacking: Although Anne appears to be the perfect caring mother in her softly lit and freshly laundered surroundings, she is also neurotic, self-centred and suffering from postnatal depression and her mother (Ewa Frowling) is not much of a help on the childcare front. Sanne is so angel either, leaving Sofus rolling about in his own excrement as she catnaps through another dose of crystal meth or is it pethidine? Nikolaj Lie Kaas is powerful as an irresponsible dad but also a controlling, abusive husband.
The story really centres on Andreas and his integrity as a man of the law, versus his vulnerability as a new father, desperate to satisfy the woman he loves, his moral compass briefly skewed by the hormonally-charged state of becoming a new father. Strong performances are compelling and slightly manage to counterbalance the narrative’s slow crescendo of doom-laden melodrama, accompanied by a sinister score, gusty winds and the classic Nordic Noir negativity that increasingly threatens disaster in every rain-soaked frame. Even after the initial booboo made by Andreas, it’s clear that life will never be the same in this chilly tale of woe. MT
A SECOND CHANCE IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 20 MARCH 2015. SUSANNE BIER IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON AN ADAPTATION OF JOHN LE CARRE’S THE NIGHT MASTER WITH HUGH LAURIE AND TOM HIDDLESTON.
Animation with the voices of Aki Asakura, Takeo Chii, Nobuko Myamato
Japan 2013, 137 min.
Based on the oldest recorded Japanese narrative ‘Taketori Monogatari’, THE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYAis the swansong of Isao Takahata (GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES), co-founder of Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki. There are several screen adaptations of the story, the best known being Kon Ichikawa’s 1987 life version “THE PRINCESS FROM THE MOON”.
A bamboo cutter Okinia (Chii) finds a doll like girl sprouting from a bamboo shoot. He takes her home, but she is already growing in his hands. A few weeks later she is a young, wild teenager, running through the woods with the boys. Okina and his wife Ona (Myamato) call their foster daughter “Little Princess”, whilst the boys have named her “Little Bamboo”, because of her quick growth. The princess (Asakura) shows no signs of being different from her playmates, but when her foster father finds a cache of gold and fine, colourful garments in the wood, he realises that his foster daughter is destined to grow up a princess at court. The family moves, to the chagrin of Little Bamboo, who hates the court and her new teacher, who tries to turn her into a lady. She is even given a new name, Kaguya, meaning “creature of light”. Soon five famous suitors appear on the scene, all wanting to marry the enigmatic stranger. But Kaguya, who longs for a simple life in the woods with her friends, sets them all impossible targets, which they fail to achieve in different ways; a clever ruse to avoid marrying any of them. Finally, the emperor’s son makes a clumsy attempt to gain her love, and she prays to the forces which placed her in the bamboo sprout, to take her back to the moon. But as soon as she has asked to be taken back, she regrets it. Meeting her girlhood friend Satumaro again, they joyfully fly through the air, Satemaro promising to keep Kaguya safe. But the date of her return is fast approaching; Kaguya knows that back home she will loose all memory of her earthly stay.
THE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA is an emotional and visual tour-de-force, the main protagonist’s desires of a peaceful life in the countryside are thwarted by her materialistic parents who want to achive status in society. Kaguya tries her best to counter the desires of her parents, she even hallucinates the landscape of her childhood, whilst looking out of the window of her palace, trying to go back in time. The eastern brush painting helps to make the images dreamlike, everything is fluid and magical, the vibrant images wafting like flowers in the wind. The silk clothes of the princess give the images an even greater transcendency, culminating in the flight sequence with Satemaro. Kaguya is the epitome of grace, perfectly suiting her: she is a delicately fluttering creature, always on the move, her mood changes translated into colourful images. Some of the early scenes are redolent of an earlier Takahata animation film HEIDI, A GIRL OF THE ALPS. The ending is an array of lighting, where arrows turn into flowers, and the God of the Moon tries to persuade Kaguya to return to her anti-septic home, bereft of any emotional content. THE TALE OF PRNCESS KAGUYA is a wonderful synthesis of dreamlike images, a metaphor for the spiritual life in conflict with materialism and status. An expressionistic phantasy, rather like the paintings of Monet, Manet or Sisley coming to life. AS
Cast: Samuel Lange Zambrano, Samantha Castillo, Beto Benites, Nelly Ramos, Maria Emilia Sulbaran
93min Venezuela Drama
Joining the recent crop of gay interest films from South American comes Pelo Malo (Bad Hair). Themes of identity and nascent sexuality are sensitively but rigorously explored in this appealing Venezuelan arthouse gem which runs along similar lines as the award-winning Brazilian indie The Way He Looks. The star turn here is newcomer Samuel Lange (as Junior) whose fraught but loving single mother, Marta (Samantha Castillo), is anxious to suppress confusing sexual signals as she struggles to run home and family in the overpopulated city of Caracas. Meanwhile, Junior channels his childhood angst and burgeoning adolescence into taming his crop of afro curls. As the title suggests, he’s definitely having a ‘bad hair’ day, and it continues throughout the drama.
The barnet in question is the legacy of his black father, but Junior has more of a pop idol role model in mind as he desperately tries to straighten his unruly locks. As Marta, Samantha Castillo puts her foot down in a subtle performance of well-concealed irritation. She really needs a masculine man about the house to help her raise his baby brother, not a budding gay star with a eye for the boys, and particularly the local newspaper boy (Julio Mendez) who seems to be the object of Junior’s affections. As is often the case, Junior gets more leniency from his paternal grandma, Carmen (Nelly Ramos) but she has her own reasons for wanting to bring him up. Mariana Rondon crafts her narrative sparingly allowing us space to fill in the gaps and form our own conclusions in this nifty neorealist social drama that tackles the age old subject of oedipal love in a traditional matriarchal and Catholic environment, without resorting to sentimentalism. Micaela Cajahuaringa’s mobile camera evokes this nightmare of Caracas’s psychogeography with a vivid backdrop of traffic-choked streets and chaotic social housing that suffocate childhood dreams in a marasma of sombre daily reality. On a positive note, Camilo Froideval’s upbeat score suggests that Junior’s imagination may just win out in the end. MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 30 January 2015 | 30 March on DVD VOD with interviews with Mariana Rondon, featurettes, and trailers.
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Sally Hawkins, Rafe Spall, Eddie Marsan, Jo Yang
UK 2014, 111 min.
This first feature film by documentarian Morgan Matthews is loosely based on his 2007 doc Beautiful Young Minds with particular focus on the character of Daniel Lightwing.
Nathan Ellis, played brilliantly as a young boy by Edward Baker Close, is diagnosed early on with autism; he is mainly suffering from reduced emotional responses which cloud his relationships with others and anxiety about any form of bodily contact, His has a manic fear of change which manifests itself in an inability to eat a meal where the number pieces of meat (or ice cream scoops) does not represent a certain number, mainly seven, which happens to also be a prime number.
The only person who is able to get through Nathan’s defensive mechanisms is his father, who jokes Nathan’s fear away with a series of imaginative stunts. Unfortunately, the father is killed in a car crash whilst Nathan survives unharmed next to him. This traumatic experience leads to Nathan disappearing even more into the “safe” world of Mathematics, where the teenage Nathan (Asa Butterfield) is supported by his teacher Martin Humphreys (Spall), who is suffering from MS. The latter is starting a tentative relationship with Nathan’s long suffering Mum Julie (Hawkins), whilst Nathan is trying to qualify for the British team at the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) in Cambridge. The qualification tournament is held in Taipei, where Nathan is thrown into the orbit of a Zhang Mei (Yang), a member of the Chinese team, and the two gradually grow close.
It seems harsh to criticiseX + Yfor an overkill of extreme feelings, but Matthews does himself no favours by cranking up every scene for a maximum of emotional impact, ending it with a melodramatic exclamation mark. The accident, which kills Nathan’s father is traumatic enough, but Matthews has to top it with Julie running from the house, rushing to the wreck and finding her dead husband behind the wheel – even though the car travelled for a couple of minutes, making it rather improbable that she would have seen the crash. And Humphrey’s MS is torment enough in itself, there is no need to drag up his failure at a IMO long ago, to burden him on top with an emotional trauma of the past, totally apart from his inability to have an erection, which he confesses to Julie in a flippant manner. And before Nathan “falls” for Mei, he is attracted to Rebecca, the only female team member. When she is playing the piano, Nathan, who has never played, is able to play a romantic tune, just by mimicking Rebecca’s movements. Over-dramatising in this way, Matthews does not seem to acknowledge the fact that all autism sufferers like Nathan, who are in the medium of the spectrum, are just a step away from so-called normality, and do not need to be shown in a “tragic” light.
The acting is fabulous from a sterling British cast, including a cameo from Eddie Marsan’s British team leader at the IMO, who is treating his team very much like footballers – with a total lack of sensibility, just focused on winning. The camera work is rather conventional as far as the action in Britain is concerned, showing a rather cliché picture of Cambridge, but really comes alive in the streets of Taipei. That said, the general emotional overload leads to some rather cheesy scenes – overall a little less would have been so much more. AS
92 mins Languages: Gujarati/Switzerland, India, Documentary
An impressive if somewhat languid feature debut, My Name Is Salt details one of the thousands of families who head to the sparse deserts of Gujerat, India, every year to spend eight months extracting salt from the earth. As the film begins, the family unearths their equipment, left buried under the sand the previous year. At the end of the film, they will bury the equipment once more, their task complete. The monsoon season begins, and the family will wait to return the following year, ready to start the process all over again. The cylindrical cycle of their lives is highlighted by the film’s one opening title card, a quotation from Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus:‘The struggle towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart’. It’s a more than fitting epigraph for a film which is concerned wholeheartedly with just such a struggle.
If nothing else, this strikingly shot observational documentary gives a real sense of the hard physical work involved in extracting the salt, and also the strong resolve of the workers. Their task is carried out manually, often directly with their hands and feet, and the film highlights the physicality of this process. However, the lack of contextualisation to the work we observe means that nothing more than a superficial understanding of the process is gleaned. In fact, it’s only at the very end of the film that director Farida Pacha gives us any information regarding the situation and location of the workers – not necessarily a problem within itself, especially given the beauty of the images, but the film’s objective observation does lead to a rather detached viewing experience at times. Still, an understanding of the family’s tough economic and socio-political situation emerges through the constant phone calls from the salt merchant, deepening the personal story at the film’s centre.
The film went on to win the festival’s Best Documentary award and, though not a totally satisfying experience, it certainly does mark Pacha out as a director to watch.
MY NAME IS SALT WON BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD AT THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2014
Cast: Desiree Akhavan, Rebecca Henderson, Scott Adsit
90 min. US DRAMA
After being voted ‘the ugliest girl’ at her school when she was fourteen, first time writer/director Desirée Akhavan wrote a play about it and from then on found a way to cope with life’s setbacks: “Telling stories is how I process life”. Her first feature APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR shows that there is a great deal to process.
Shirin (Akhavan) is the daughter of upper-middle class Iranians in New York. Whilst her family display all the outward appearances of success, Shirin struggles with her bi-sexuality and keeps it a secret from them. This may be have been one of the reasons her relationship with Maxine (Henderson) came to an end, since her ex-partner tried to push Shirin to “come out”. Most of the film is dedicated to this relationship and its aftermath. Shirin’s hunger for sex leads her into awkward situations: picking up a rather compliant male, she demands to be dominated, and the man takes flight. On another occasion, she is picked up by a couple but the ménage-à-trois never gets going, the other woman suggesting they play “Monopoly” instead. Shirin’s professional life is equally in disarray: she is supposed to teach a group of six-year-old boys how to make a video, but is overwhelmed by their obstructive and chaotic energy – whilst next door the girls of the same age group are only too willing to stage a remake of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Not surprisingly, Shirin’s class finishing film is titled The Fart. The gags come fast and furious, but utter absurdity and old-fashioned melodrama don’t always go together. And when Akhavan finally takes a breather in the last scene, it feels like a cop-out.
Playing the lead in her own drama – far from being ugly and a brilliant actress to boot – Akhavan’s debut feature suffers mainly from its weak screenplay, which is rather unstructured and episodic, the numbers being often hilariously funny in themselves, but lacking any dramatic coherence: it is more a revue of the funniest/saddest moments in the life of Shirin. The rather clumsy and prudish sex scenes do not help. Overall Akhavan shows that her heart is in the right place, but that an emotional outcry is not enough to make a successful feature film. AS
LIFE OF RILEY | AIMER, BOIRE ET CHANTER | ALAIN RESNAIS | 2014 |
Cast: Sabine Azéma, Hippolyte Giradot, Caroline Sihol, Michel Vuillermoz, Sandrine Kiberlain, André Dussollier
108min | Comedy | French
For his 50th film, which also turned out to be his swan song, French Wave maverick and King of the fractured narrative, Alain Resnais offers up another Alan Ayckbourn adaptation with this reasonably straightforward, stylised comedyLIFE OF RILEY.
Some will find this utterly charming and idiosyncratic, others an irritating and rather twee affair with its garish theatrical sets and cutesy cardboard cut-out collages introducing the locales intercut with occasional glimpses of leafy countryside in the Yorkshire Dales. Starring the habitual Resnais collaborators: wife, Sabine Azéma, André Dussollier, Hyppolyte Girardot and Sandrine Kiberlain, it’s just the sort of thing that French audiences of a certain age will lap up but it does beg the question: ‘do we really need another stage adaptation (his third) of YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET?’
You know the story by now: George Riley, close friend of middle-aged, middle-class couple, Colin and Kathryn, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Or is he? What follows is a lively farce with highly mannered performances all round from a French cast at the height of their game playing English characters with a script translated from English into French and then conveyed (presumably by Americans) into English subtitles. All somewhat of a feat and one that required three script-writers to perfect with some degree of aplomb – somehow it works. It will certainly appeal to diehard devotees of the iconic French filmmaker whose endeavours started over 50 years ago with the sublime HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959) and end here with an Englishman’s work. A shame, then, that his sign-off film could not have been something as completely wonderful and unique as LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD but then, at 91, achieving anything is wonderful. MT
Dir.: Sergei Loznitsa; Documentary; Netherlands/Ukraine 2014, 133 min.
After his impressive feature films MY JOY and IN THE FOG Sergei Loznitsa returns to documentary filmmaking with MAIDAN. Even though he captures a historical event – the removal of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych from power – viewers might mistake MAIDAN for a well-directed feature, shot in the style of Eisenstein.
In November 2013 Yanukovych declined to sign an agreement for Ukraine’s associate membership with the European Union, obviously under pressure from Russia. Nationalist protesters started gathering around Maidan Square (Maidan roughly translates into “independence”). At first the mass meetings were peaceful but they escalated in January 2014 into fighting after the introduction of a law to curb the activities of the ever-growing number of protesters. Only one month later, after over hundred nationalist protesters had died, Yanukovych fled the country, leading the way to new elections. The rest is history still in the making.
MAIDAN is shot with a static camera (just one movement, caused by teargas, when the cameraman had to flee), a small number of inter-titles give sparse information, no interviews, just crowd scenes, and mostly off-screen speeches and poetry readings. Loznitsa really has taken his Eisenstein to heart: the crowd is everything. He frames their milling around; their running; the panic; the singing and the eating and drinking. The majority of them are middle-aged or even older citizens, grey is definitely the dominant hair colour. They sing anthems and other traditional songs with gusto, unashamed nationalism pores out. Somehow it feels like a delayed settlement with Russia because these men and women must have marched in countless Stalinist rituals on the same square. Yes, their nationalism is over-the-top, the involvement of the church leaders perhaps not that appropriate, the invocation of the “Cosack” nation leaves a rather nasty taste – but at no point does Loznitsa succumb to agitation: his painterly style shows us pure emotion whatever the historical background. In his detachment, Loznitsa iis more interested in small details of the ad-hoc organisation, in near still images of people gathering to eat, creating a commune-like feeling in the first part of the documentary.
MAIDAN is, ironically, a triumph of soviet documentary style. But this is not old-fashioned, because the protesters are, for the most part, not the young angry crowd of the Arab spring and other recent uprisings but citizens whose memories go back a long time, and their anger is not just a spur of the moment, but the result of decades of Russian domination. Their cringing nationalism and the huge presence of Russians in the Ukraine, which might lead to a partition of the country, is another issue. But, in the true style of Eisenstein, Loznitsa has captured the will of the people, with all their emotional might. We should not begrudge them this moment of triumph, because they might have to pay for it with the loss of large parts of their country. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 20 FEBRUARY 2015 | DVD | 13 APRIL
Dir.: Harry Macqueen; Cast: Harry Macqueen, Lori Campbell
UK 2014, 78 min.
Brilliant film debuts are rare: mostly we get to watch “calling-cards for Hollywood”; but British director/writer/actor Harry Macqueen’s HINTERLAND, produced on a shoestring (£8,000) is a film poem, realistic and magical with minimal dialogue, this two-hander delicately draws a picture of a young woman and her male friend set against the gentle Cornish landscape, to tell the story of a re-union which eventually becomes a homage to youth and its lost illusions.
When Harvey (Macqueen) fetches his friend Lola (Campbell) from her London flat to travel to Cornwall in an ancient Volvo – Lola greets the car enthusiastically with “Hello, old friend” – we know very little about them, apart from the fact that Lola has been away for a long time. The importance of her presence for Harvey lets us assume that he had not had the best of times during her absence. All this is relayed to the audience indirectly, sparing us long monologues and details. Instead we share their feeling of nostalgia as they set out to the Cornish seaside to visit a cottage where they had been close and happy together some time ago. Lola takes photos on the way, as if to prove to herself that the past is still alive.
In the cottage they revert to being young and silly, using walkie-talkies whilst evoking the past as if they were suddenly middle-aged. But the brittleness of both of them shows through: Harvey talks about a relationship with a certain Sarah, who wanted children and security, and found both with another man. Harvey’s professional life is equally unsatisfactory; he is re-writing his novels forever and the work in a publishing house is badly paid and boring – he “just tries to get noticed”. Lola, a musician, seems to have come to a sort of end-point too; she will try to support her mother, who has been left by a partner who had cheated on her for a long time. She complains: “What is it with middle aged-men, it’s like a switch is pulled and they are off and mess everything up”. Both Harvey and Lola swear never to become ‘mature” the way most people do: children and marriage after thirty. They’d rather hide forever in the illusionary world of their youth where everything is pure and noble, the grey of adulthood has no place in their wishful, independent world. There is a heavy languidness about them; a much too early resignation; an expense of spirit which leaves only place for nostalgia. Two wounded animals looking for cover in their past.
Macqueen and Campbell have a near telepathic understanding, they react to each other subtly, always emotionally alert. The camera captures the seaside imaginatively as a (lost) paradise, a dreamy, misty, fabled land from the past. Every object touched in the cottage is full of meaning and this is accentuated by a change of light. Finally, the music is unobtrusive but stays, like the whole film, for a long time with the viewer.
HINTERLAND’s uniqueness is perfectly captured by the mood of the first stanza of Verlaine’s poem, taking the name from its first line: “It’s Languorous ecstasy/It’s amorous syncope/It’s all the wood’s trembling/In the breeze’s embrace/It’s in branches grey/All the small voices singing. A poignant, magical debut. AS
IN CINEMAS FROM 27 FEBRUARY 2015
HINTERLAND is a carbon neutral film. www.hinterlandthefilm.com
Cast: Georgina Sutcliffe, Rita Ramnani, TJ Herbert, Nicolas Day, Mark Dymond, Stephen Tompkinson
UK 2014, 102 min DRAMA .
Tristan Loraine, ex-pilot turned filmmaker, tackles the dirty secrets of the aviation industry in A DARK REFLECTION,comparing the scandal surrounding the use of toxic organophosphates in all planes (with the exception of the Boeing 787) to the repression of medical facts by the tobacco industry for nearly half a century. The highly toxic tricresyl phosphate (TCP) is used in the oil which service the jet engines, which is then sent unfiltered as “bleed air” into the cockpit and the passenger section. The problem has been known to the airline industry since 1954, but only came to light fully after the smoking ban on flights, enforced in the 80s, when passengers started to complain about a certain smell in the cabins.
Unlike in his documentary WELCOME ABOARD: TOXIC AIRLINES (2007), Loraine, who lost his pilot license in 2006 due to inhaling TCP, has chosen a feature film structure for A DARK REFLECTION, in a bid to engage a wider audience in his struggle against the cover-up of the airline industry. After a traumatic experience in the Middle East where her cameraman was shot in her presence, investigating journalist Helen (Sutcliffe) takes it easy with a stint at a local home county newspaper. Her boyfriend Joe (Herbert) is a pilot who has been suspended after a near accident which be believes was caused by some toxic air. Helen, with the help of cub-reporter Natasha (Ramnani), investigates more cases regarding near misses and passenger complaints with “JaspAirlines”, whose founder and chairman puts pressure on his CEO Tyrell (Dymond), to shadow Helen and Natasha. But the testament of a pilot (Tompkinson), dying of brain cancer, connects the airline clearly with the use of the toxic TCP. After Helen takes probes from the aircraft’s cabin walls during a flight to Glasgow, the toxicology report is damming for “JaspAirlines”. Tyrell, the CEO, pressured by his wife, has to make a decision for the forth-coming shareholders meeting.
Whilst an Australian Senate investigation in 1999 found proof for the connection between TCP and the (mostly short term) sickness of passengers and the more long term affects for pilots and cabin crew in the USA, the Californian Senator Diane Feinstein (Dem), has taken on the case with Federal Aviation Authority since 2010, Here at home, Baroness Mare called the repressed scandals of the air liners “a dark reflection on the industry”, giving Loraine’s film its title.
Working with a rather awkward script and some pretty clunky dialogue – at one point a middle-aged newspaper editor (played by Paul Antonry-Barber) says “Hello, how are you hanging?” – the ensemble cast manage to hold out in convincing performances, especially from Mark Dymond and Georgina Sutcliffe although Nicolas Day is slightly hammy as Mr Jasper. The camera’s panoramic shots pick up the glorious, sprawling mansions of owner and CEO, showing what they have to loose. Ironically, Loraine, who has clocked up 16 films as a producer and director (mostly documentaries) since his retirement as a pilot, was asked as a young man by his father to visit a film school but his love of flying made him choose an aviation career. MT/AS
SCREENING DURING THE UK FILM FESTIVAL 2014 and ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27 FEBRUARY 2015
Cast: Sameena Jabeen Ahmed, Conor McCarron Garry Lewis
UK 2014, 111 min.
The debut film of the Wolfe brothers, Daniel and Matthew, can’t be faulted on any technical level: with Robbie Ryan’s stunning cinematography and an atmospheric soundtrack featuring music by Patti Smith, Tim Buckley and Nicki Minaj. However, their narrative of a damsel-in-distress (purportedly based on reality) raises so many personal and ideological questions which are never successfully explores make for a cliched chase thriller where type-cast cyphers are drowned out in a cacophony of perpetual motion on the Moors.
Laila (Ahmed), a teenager who has left her traditional British Pakistani family, is living with her out-of-work boyfriend Aaron (McCarron) in a trailer on the Yorkshire Moors. In a bid to track her down, her father sends out two groups of men: a Pakistani gang led by Laila’s brother Zaheer; the other by cocaine addict, Tony (Garry Lewis in fine form). Zaheer reaches the trailer first but is killed accidentally by Laila in a struggle. More struggles ensue followed by a long draw-out final scene where bitter vengeance is finally brought to bear.
The best thing about CATCH ME DADDY is its atmospheric setting on the windswept Yorkshire Moors where some night-time chase scenes are well-crafted and exhilarating. What pretends to be social realism here is hackneyed victimisation that only goes to re-inforce gender and racial stereotypes: the Pakistanis are all shown as fanatics, indulging in a senseless killing and Laila’s reason for leaving the family is never revealed but touched upon briefly and questionably when one of his group calls Zaheer a “sister fucker”.
CATCH ME DADDY, with its relentless, one-dimensional action mode, leaves no time for contemplation, throwing up so many important questions without ever trying to answer them. The theme of “honour killing” is used merely as background noise to this depressing boys-only action movie which reduces Laila to the usual ‘victim status’ of a female, totally lacking any respect or individuality. MT/AS
Cast: Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tcherina, Ann Ayars, Robert Rounseville, Leonide Massine
UK 1951, 138 min.
Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann was his last, unfinished work, his only serious opera. After the success of THE RED SHOES, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger looked for another ballet related project; in particular Pressburger, whose first love was music, wanted to realise the idea of “a composed film”. Whilst Moira Shearer, the star of THE RED SHOES had made clear, that she was never going to act in another film, Pressburger eventually talked her into appearing in THE TALES OF HOFFMANN, which was introduced as an ‘Archers’ production in October 1949; Alexander Korda’s ‘British Lion Film’ would distribute.
The poet Hoffmann (Rounseville) falls in love with Stella (Shearer), a ballerina. Watching her on stage, his leaves and wanders into a tavern, where a group of students ask him to tell them stories. His three stories are all connected by disappointed love: Olympia (Shearer) turns out to be a mechanical doll, Giuletta (Tcherina) wants to steal Hoffmann’s soul, and finally, Antonia (Ayars), a consumptive opera singer, dies whilst singing an aria. Hoffmann himself collapses at the end of his last story, just when Stella enters the tavern. She is lead away by Hoffmann’s eternal rival. But the muse of Poetry appears, and beckons Hoffmann to chose a life in the service of literature.
The film’s music is conducted by Sir Thomas Beeacham; of the cast, only Ayars and Rounseville sang. This was not a problem, since the film was shot entirely as a silent film (later to be dubbed in a studio), on the old silent stage at Shepperton studios, the largest in Europe, which had been constructed for THINGS TO COME in 1936. Shooting took place from July to the end of September 1950. When Korda was first approached by Pressburger and Powell about the project, he asked innocently, if any of the film makers had actually seen a stage version. Powell admitted that he never did, whilst Pressburger could claim to have played the second violin in the orchestra during performances in Prague, but “from where I sat, I could not see much”. Korda bought the duo tickets for a performance of he opera in Vienna, but their plane was delayed, they landed in the Russian zone, and had to wait for visas into the British zone, where the performance was held – they entered the theatre finally, when Antonia gave up her ghost.
The film was premiered on 1st April 1951 in New York, and seventeen days later in London, Queen Mary, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart being in the audience. Critical acclaim was great, but the film just recouped its production costs, being only shown in selected cinemas. On April 20th, the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won two awards. According to Powell, he had a fight with Korda and Pressburger, who both wanted to cut the third act of the picture, as to enhance its chances of winning the “Golden Palme”. This is highly unlikely, since there were only two days between the London and Cannes performance, hardly time for a recut – and Kevin Macdonald, who wrote Pressburger’s biography, claims, that “Powell wanted to see things as he saw them, not like they happened”. But THE TALES OF HOFFMANNwas the beginning of the end for the working relationship of the Powell/Pressburger duo, they seemed to have been a lack of trust, which resulted finally in them going their different professional ways. AS
A 4K RESTORATION WILL BE AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY/DVD FROM 23 MARCH 2015, AS PART OF THE STUDIOCANAL VINTAGE CLASSICS COLLECTION
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Guzman, Ian Nelson, John Corbett, Kristen Chinoweth, Lexi Atkins
USA 2015, 91 min.
Director Rob Cohen is a veteran. Best known for the THE FAST AND FURIOUS franchise, he has been active in TV with Miami Vice and Private Eye, as well as producing five episodes of Topless Prophet. There’s nothing new about the THE BOY NEXT DOOR, a tepid drama that allows him to show off all the qualities of his past endeavours with a riff on the ‘cougar’ theme.
High School teacher Claire Peterson (Lopez) lives alone with her son Kevin (Nelson), her husband having left her for another woman. When next-door neighbour Noah (Guzman) arrives, Claire falls for him even though he is of school age and will end up in her classics class. After a one-night stand, Claire returns to being a responsible adult but Noah does not take ‘no’ for an answer. His behaviour becomes more and more weird; making a video of their lovemaking and plastering her classroom with pornographic photos – which Claire miraculously removes before anyone notices. When she finds out that Noah’s father had a fatal “accident” with his mistress, she puts two and two together, since Kevin and his father Garrett (sensible Claire is now trying for a reconciliation), had an narrow escape when their car’s brakes failed. After Noah kills Claire’s best friend Vicky (Chinoweth), the scene is set for the family Peterson to face Noah in an old garage equipped with a range of lethal weapons.
THE BOY NEXT DOOR is a laughable affair – unfortunately not for the right reasons: at the beginning, we see the scantily-clad Claire peeping out of her window, enjoying the sight of Noah’s muscular backside as he ‘showers-up’, returning her glances. Their over-the-top love-making is equally hilarious, a fifth rate version of the Anne Bancroft/Dustin Hoffmann encounter. Another ‘highlight’ is Noah’s action between the sheets with Allie (Atkins), a student fancied by Kevin, watched from the same window as before with envy and disgust by Claire.THE BOY NEXT DOORis neither a full-blooded slasher or a soft porn affair, but an unimaginative try at lurid sensationalism, that succeeds in making FATAL ATTRACTION look like a art house movie. MT
Director: Walter Summers Screenwriter: Frank Bowden, John Buchan
With Roger Maxwell and Craighall Sherry
111mins Silent Historical Drama UK
Silent films rely heavily on facial expression, mood and musical score to convey their message in a meaningful and dramatic way, quite apart from their cinematography. Directed by Walter Summers, this exhilarating 1927 war film, restored by the BFI to celebrate the anniversary of the The Great War (1914-18), tells the story of a naval battle that ends in resounding victory for Britain against the Germans following on from the appalling British defeat at Coronel, off the Chilean coast, in 1914.
Summers’ epic conveys not only a sense of derring-do, but also of palpable terror evoked in the magnificent seascapes and roaring waves as big as mountains, as the enemy onslaught is depicted in mammoth ships seen on the attack in remarkable battle sequences. The courage of the soldiers and integrity of their leaders is the result of clever casting and masterful performances, making The British Navy something we can still be proud of to this day. A fitting tribute to our Naval forces. MT
Cast: John Lithgow, Alfred Molina, Darren E Burrows, Marisa Tomei, Charlie Tahan,
94min Drama US
Ira Sach’s previous feature Keep the Lights On was an exploration of gay love seen from the perspective of a young man in a troubled relationship. Fraught with despair and conflict it was a difficult film to watch. Here is something more gentle and kind about a couple who have been together for nearly forty years are appear to have found true love and contentment together.
Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) finally decide to formalise their relationship but scarcely have the champagne glasses been put away than outside influences put a strain on their their early days of marriage. George is fired from his job at the local church because his new status is not considered acceptable there. During an odd interlude with their their close family and neighbours the pair fail to raise enough capital to pay their bills so while selling their place and searching for new accommodation Ben moves in with his nephew Elliott (Darren E. Burrows), his wife Kate (Marisa Tomei) and their teenage son, Joey (Charlie Tahan). George manages to find a room with some neighbours.
Forced apart, their relationship comes under strain and this is where Love Is Strangegradually becomes unconvincing. For a start, it seems implausible that this affluent-looking and established couple in their sixties/seventies would prey upon their younger family for help with accommodation and then agree to living apart in a rather bogus set-up. Once Ben is established at his nephew’s place he becomes unbearably self-centred and particularly irritating in his insensitivity towards Kate; seemingly unable to understand how their family functions and lacking any graciousness in his status as a guest. Yet when he meets up with George in the evenings, he behaves in quite a different way: as a normally-adjusted and sympathetic adult. As a result we feel little for this rather spoilt old man whose only focus is to paint on the roof of his nephew’s apartment block in the afternoons. As George, Alfred Molina shines as the more mellow and appealing character of the couple. The fact that they are gay is incidental here as Sachs’s narrative focuses on love, coupledom and the nuclear and wider family dynamics. Whether Sachs is simply telling a story or whether he is trying to probe and explore the differences between the intimate love of two people (essentially coupledom ) and the love of a couple and their inherent responsibility to their kids and extended family network and community is unclear. However, the result is that we feel nothing for Ben and George as they simper over their cocktails but every sympathy for Kate and Elliott, who are holding their union together with the additional stress of kids, while trying to be supportive to their rather cantankerous uncle.
Make of it what you will. Ira Sachs and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias craft some interesting characters in this slim but engaging drama which has some wistfully dreamy moments (such as those when Ben is painting over the New York skyline) that allow space to drift and imagine the strangeness of love, responsibility and human dynamics to an appealing piano score. MT
In order to borrow the title of the Beatles song, All you need is Love, for her latest documentary, LOVE IS ALL, Kim Longinotto needed a lot more ‘tough’ love to make the project really succeed. This is a 70 minute collage of British social history concerned with our attitudes to love, dating and marriage. On paper it sounded fascinating. In practice it’s only intermittently so. Longinotto has said “the film explores love in a playful way.” Yet along with her kindly British/Yorkshire perspective of the sometimes pained joy of love, the ‘play’ needed to have a bit more edge.
LOVE IS ALL is a journey through the BFI and Yorkshire film archive. From the 1889 Kiss in a Tunnel (‘naughty’ straight couple kissing in a train carriage) right through to 2014’s Islington Wedding (one of the first gay marriages being applauded by an excited crowd), the most memorable clips are the most dramatic. A voyeuristic man spies, with binoculars on an amorous couple in the park. That’s in Peeping Tom (1905). The conflict between a mother and daughter over boyfriends in the 1927 silent Hindle Wakes. A public information film Don’t be like Brenda (1973), about an unwanted pregnancy. And,most strikingly, a tinted sequence from Piccadilly (1929) starring the exuberantly sexy Chinese actress Anna Mae Wong. Three great clips to die for, but not so the complete film. For Love is All is often in danger of losing itself in the generality of its big theme of LOVE.No commentary is supplied. Dialogue is minimal so music has to do the job. The songs are delivered by Richard Hawley and are ‘easy listening’ and tediously middle of the road; bland but inoffensive. His music never convincingly gelled with the image. Hawley’s folksy crooner voice tended to drift over the footage in a disembodied way. He wasn’t helped by lyrics that were too over/or under-romantic to really complement the power of the documentaries, home movies and feature films; avoiding irony and wit: pushing the film into sentimentality, when a genuine romantic affection was required.
None of LOVE IS ALL‘s clips were identified on screen. But maybe a film divided into chapters, with arresting titles, could have been attempted? To the film’s credit it is inclusive (gay experiences and multi-cultural experiences of love play alongside a white/straight view point). But where was the complexity of love? Not enough of love’s difficulties to contrast with its joys. So little was made of the mature love experience. And hardly any sex surfaces – though amongst the few scenes featuring physical aspect of love, the contrast of seduction moments in My Beautiful Launderette worked really well.
LOVE IS ALL is a lightweight pleasant Valentine’s Day card of a film that could have been a lot more passionate and playfully provocative. Alan Price
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 13 FEBRUARY 2015 COURTESY OF DOGWOOF
Cast: Frederick Schmidt, Martin Askew, David Spinx, Aymen Hamdouchi
118min UK Thriller
In Hoxton, two young men have formed a friendship across the cultural divide Dave (Frederick Schmidt) and his friend Tariq (Aymen Hamdouchi) are wide-boys on a small scale, working for Dave’s notorious East End family.
This gutsy gangland Britflick is the screen debut of Andrew Hulme, better known for his work editing Lucky Number Slevin, The American and The Imposter. SNOW IN PARADISEstands out for its portrayal of an increasingly gentrified East End where the old school crims are slowly being pushed aside by upmarket media types who would rather sip organic beer than chomp bacon sandwiches in the local greasy spoon and a Muslim ‘bruvverhood’ who spend their time preaching peace in the local Mosque.
The film is loosely based on the life of Martin Askew, who co-wrote the script and stars as arch villain “Uncle Jimmy”, a gangland hoodlum. Holding Dave in his thrall with a mesmerising presence, he offers Dave a chance to make some real money with a drug deal – a step up from his usual petty crime. Dave takes the unwitting Tariq along but events turn sour when Tariq goes missing causing Dave’s private demons, coke and crystal meth, to resurface in his life, clouding his vision as he gradually descends into a murky underworld caught between the false bonhommie of “Uncle Mickey” and his rival, the venal “Uncle Jimmy” (David Spinx). His desperate search for his friend eventually leads him to Tariq’s Mosque, where he is welcomed by the faux sincerity of Amjad (Ashley Chin).
As gangland Britflicks go, SNOW is a gripping and watchable thriller and certainly a cut above the rest but the problem lies with the character of Dave. Good-looking and cockily self-assured, he certainly cuts a confident dash in the opening sequences but then completely falls apart on Tariq’s disappearance, despite sexual and emotional support from his girlfriend Teresa, whom he openly adores despite her sideline in sexual favours. Sceptical and almost derisory at first about the power of Islam, Dave then appears to openly embrace the faith without a by-your-leave, making his character both implausible as a hardened petty criminal and a born-again, enlightened soul. All this is viewed through a trippy haze of stylised visual flourishes and a hypnotic soundtrack that occasionally serve to blunt the narrative rather than sharpen what could be a brilliantly hard-nosed thriller with some really first class acting, particularly from Askew, David Spinx and Frederick Schimidt in the volatile lead. With a little more focus on Dave’s religious conversion (be it to Islam, Buddism, Christianity or any Faith) and what it actually means and stands for in the scheme of things, this cracking debut could have been a good deal more convincing. As it stands, SNOW IN PARADISE is nevertheless a worthwhile contribution to the British gangland genre making Andrew Hulme a directing force to be reckoned with. MT
Shot on a micro-budget with handheld video cameras in the living room of first time writer/director James Ward Byrkit, this would-be “Twilight Zone” product is proof that nothing can replace talent.
Somewhere in North California, eight friends are meeting in a suburban house for a dinner party on the night a comet is in a unique constellation while passing The Earth. Fifteen minutes pass with nothing but small talk until Em (Baldoni) tells us a creepy story about the last time a comet appeared in this constellation in 1923. The lights fail and some of the group sets out to a neighbouring house, the only one left with electricity. Looking trough the windows from the outside, they see their own group dining in the stranger’s house. From then on the the story shifts into paranoia: personal and scientific. The “quantum de-coherence theory” is ‘explained’, but marital tensions interfere in the process of solving the mystery. Em, a ballet dancer who has suffered a professional setback, and her partner Kevin (Sterling) are somehow forced into the spotlight; their relationship is not helped by Kevins’s ex-girlfriend Laurie, who snogs Kevin. Not surprisingly, it is Em, who tracks down her double for a violent confrontation.
The clues are overwhelming but lead to nothing: photos of the eight, with numbers attached are found in the strange house, and their cars are attacked by strangers, glass shattered. Long lost objects are found and disappear again, and the camera tries to evoke a claustrophobic feeling, which never really materialises. Worst of all, the constant babble of conversation ruins any sense of developing fear since the protagonists are constantly analysing proceedings, any frightful occurrence is discussed and dissected in a lengthy group discussion, robbing the piece of any dramatic tension or mystery. The confrontations seem to be staged and, apart from Em, the characters are one-dimensional and to be pedestrian. COHERENCE is anything but the title suggests: a banal, overly wordy and utterly unchilling amateur production. AS
SO THE BRITISH NEVER WIN ANYTHING? – well we’re off to a good start in 2015. At Sundance, the US indie film festival that kicks off the cinema year, Louise Osmond’s documentary DARK HORSE about a local steed that gets up and finishes first, took the Audience Award. DREAMCATCHER a documentary about prostitution won seasoned UK documentarian, Kim Longinotto, Best Director in the World Cinema strand. Another Brit, Chad Garcia, took home the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for THE RUSSIAN WOODPECKER that sees a Ukrainian victim of Chernobyl tackling his dark secret during the revolution. And a UK/New Zealand- filmed Western SLOW WEST was awarded World Cinema Grand Jury Prize – it was directed by a Scotsman, John Maclean, and has Michael Fassbender in the lead role.
Meanwhile over at Rotterdam International Film Festival, filmmaker Debbie Tucker Green’s look at the life of a London family, SECOND COMING, with a sterling British cast including Idris Elba and Frederick Schmidt, won the Big Screen Award. And three women directors out of five, is certainly looking more promising for this year’s crop of indie films.
At BERLINALE, the major European festival held in February (5-15) each year, British filmmakers are set to fly the flag with 45 YEARS, a much-anticipated drama from Andrew Haigh (Weekend) and a starry cast of Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay who play a married couple hit by tragedy when they discover a skeleton in the cupboard, in the shape of a past lover. The legendary character of Sherlock Holmes is brought to life when Ian Mckellen plays the 93-year-old detective, looking back over his sleuthing past, in a drama loosely adapted from the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind.
Helen Mirren will also be in Berlin with her new wartime drama WOMAN IN GOLD. She plays a Jewish heiress embarking on a desperate search for a painting by Gustav Klimt. Directed by Simon Curtis, the drama also stars British veterans Jonathan Pryce and Charles Dance along with Ryan Reynolds. And last but not least, Berlinale will play out with Britbuster CINDERELLA ‘out of competition’. Filmed in the English countryside of Buckinghamshire, this is Kenneth Branagh’s new title for Disney and stars Brits, Derek Jacobi, Hayley Atwell, Helena Bonham Carter and Stellan Skarsgård.
BERLINALE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 5- 15 FEBRUARY 2015 – for all our coverage follow the link Berlinale2015
Dir: Hans Petter Moland | Writer: Kim Fupz Aakeson | Bruno Ganz, Stellan Skarsgard, Goren Navojec, Pal Sverre Hagen, Peter Andersson | 116min Action comedy Norway/Denmark
The late Bruno Ganz and Stellan Skarsgard star in Hans Petter Moland’s outrageously absurd follow-up to A Somewhat Gentle Man (2010). The film competed for the Berlinale Golden Bear in 2014 and went home empty-handed but its an honest and enjoyable crime caper and offers some of the best snowscapes of the year so far, and some arch political incorrectness.
Skarsgard plays Nils, a dour but appealing Swedish immigrant, who drives a snow plow and has just been awarded ‘Best Citizen’ by the local community. But when his son dies in a drug overdose, Nils turns vigilante to find out who is responsible. That said, the tone is light-hearted and upbeat: Moland wanted s narrative reflecting what happens when society’s attributes of decency get mixed up with the baser instincts that kick in when we are threatened: “Norway has a history of being generous to people in need, but now this is being challenged” he said at the press Berlinale conference. “The comedic style was the best way to deal with this theme positively: Violence lurks within us and occasionally erupts in normal, well-adjusted people like Stellan’s character.” What ensues is an unfeasibly violent chase to track down the two rival gangs of traffickers: one Serbian (lead by Ganz as Papa), one local (led by Pal Sverre at Greven). There are some great gags arising out of ‘ad-libbing’ rather than sticking rigidly to Kim Fupaz Aakeson’s script that give this piece a fresh and authentic feel, although 115mins is stretching it for a comedy caper. MT.
REUNION, Dir.: Simon Stone; AQUIFER, Dir.: Robert Connelly; ON HER KNEES Dir.: Ashlee Page; THE TURNING, Dir.: Claire McCarthy; LONG, CLEAR VIEW, Dir.: Mia Wasikowska; COMMISSION, Dir.: David Wenham ; COCKLESHELL, Dir.: Tony Ayres; BIG WORLD, Dir.: Warwick Thornton; SAND, Dir.: Stephen Page; Australia 2013,107min
Even though the original format of THE TURNING had 180 minutes of running time and seventeen episodes, this shorter version, featuring only nine segments of the book of the same title by the Australian writer Tim Winton and the brainchild of producer Robert Connelly, is still very impressive. Somehow one would have liked to watch the full version, where the central character of Vic Lang is played by eight different actors, of varying age groups – with his wife Gail and his father Bob represented also by different actors.
But we are still left with a convincing picture of the not-so-sunny-side of Australia, where the over-riding optimism and material indulgence is replaced by sorrow, guilt and alienation. In REUNION Gail (Cate Blanchett) and her husband Bob (Hugo Weaving) celebrate an awkward New Year: egged on by Bob’s mother, their search for a relative ends up in a stranger’s house, where the two women end up in the swimming pool, to the annoyance of Bob, a police officer. Somehow we get the feeling that this displacement is not the first – Gail and Bob’s relationship is more than fragile. When she congratulates herself “on the best new year’s party for years’, we know how bad things are in her marriage, in spite of the couple’s tentative tries at some reconciliation. A macabre version of a marriage on the rocks.
Actress Mia Wasikowski’s debut as a director, LONG, CLEAR VIEW is a sensitive observation piece of a teenager’s sexual awakening – even though the girl he is courting is much more experienced then him, he is stubborn in his attempts, and, in the end, overcomes his shyness in a dramatic finale. The coastal setting contributes very much to the success of the film: this is not a glorious beach bathed in sunshine, but a dreary, lonely place, where people make a living from fishing. Never sentimental, LONG CLEAR WAY is a fine character study.
Staying with youth, Warwick Thornton’s BIG WORLD is a portrait of two young men, Biggie and Davo, already disappointed with life after working in a meat factory after leaving school. Their unsatisfactory grades prevented them going to university, and what was once a Saturday job, has become their life. They pick up a young hitchhiker, Meg, who falls for Biggie, who has so far had no success with women. Davo, until now the more successful of the two, is extremely jealous. The last word goes to the narrator, foretelling Biggies demise in an accident, and Davo’s uneventful life. BIG WORLDshows a moody, pessimistic outlook, reality overtaking any dreams the protagonists ever had.
THE TURNING by Claire McCarthy is outstanding. Set in a dreary trailer park near the ocean, Raelene (Rose Byrne) tries to leave her violent husband Max (the same character already showing signs of violence as a child in the episode SAND). When Raelene meets Sherry (Miranda Otto), a born-again Christian, who is married to an ex-alcoholic, still fighting against a relapse, a whole new world opens to her: Sherry shows her an alternative world. Raelene is impressed, but a new, even more vicious attack by her husband, drives her not into leaving him, but leads to a tragic end. Atmospheric and impressively acted, THE TURNING is a little gem.
With most of the other episodes it shares a multitude of great camerawork, which leaves the audience with a rather harrowing vision of Australia, where most of the fragile protagonists seem to teeter on a brink, a step away from falling over the edge of the world. The narration helps to sustain a literacy quality throughout. MT
Dir.: Hilla Medalia; Documentary with Pierre Dulaine, Yvonne Marceau
USA 2013, 90 min.
Hilla Medalia, whose recent documentary THE GO-GO BOYS: THE INSIDE STORY OF CANON FILMS was well received at Cannes this year, has accomplished something very rare with DANCNG IN JAFFA: a fair and at the same hopeful documentary about Jews and Palestinians living together in Jaffa. Pierre Dulaine, a world-renown ballroom dancer, was born here in 1944 to an Irish mother and a Palestinian father. In 1948, after the partition of the then British protectorate into Palestine and Israel, Dulaine’s parents had to flee with their young son, whilst the Israeli army occupied the town. Nearly 70 years later, Dulaine returns to his birthplace to teach Arab and Israeli school children to dance – together in pairs.
Four schools in Jaffa are chosen, only one of them, the “Weizman” school is a “mixed” school. Needless to say, the parents are much more suspicious than the children (the only hindrance at the start of project on the student level is that neither Israeli or Arab boys want to dance with the other gender). Words like “dancing with the enemy” are muttered by an Arab parent – Palestinian parents in general are not very keen that boys and girls should touch – never mind religion or nationality. At first, Dulaine’s approach is rather heavy-handed, but after inviting Yvonne Marceau, his dancing partner of 35 years, Yvonne Marceau, to help him with the lessons, the project takes off.
The political divide is always virulent: an Israeli taxi driver tells Dulaine that four of his best friends have been killed in the army and that he will never trust any Arab. And on Independence Day Israel celebrates whilst Arab students also have the day off, whilst their teachers call the same day “Nakba” (Day of Catastrophe). One of the Arab woman, whose daughter is active in the dance project, is visiting her family in Gaza for the first time in ten years – she had to wait for a visa so long because last time around she overstayed her visit by a few days. But there is humour too: hen one Israeli child answered a question about her father with “Mum got me from the sperm bank”, followed by a detailed report on the procedure her mother went through. An Israeli girl is invited into a deprived area of the town to visit her Arab dancing partner – a first! And a typical Jewish mother reminds her daughter “make sure that you win the competition”, whilst her daughter, far more relaxed answers ”No Mum, winning is not all”. (For the record, “Weizman” School won the dancing tournament). Today, two years after Dulaine (who has since departed) started his work, over one thousand children have danced together, with the project still on going.
Daniel Kedem’s able camera follows the long and detailed shots of the students dancing together and they are a joy to behold. But let’s not also forget the divided city: a slum-like existence for the Arab population, middle class properness for the Israelis. And even though DANCING IN JAFFA ends with a very sweet and hopeful shot of one of the Arab/Israeli dancing pair in a boot, the mistrust on both sides remains – and we feel that only one small incident could cause an explosion. AS
The only reason to see SON OF A GUN is Ewan McGregor’s performance that sweeps this raunchy crime caper off its feet and wipes the floor with everyone else in the cast. McGregor plays Brendan, a venal gangster serving time, who befriends the new kid on the jail block, JR, (Brenton Thwaites) rescuing him from the clutches of a rival gang behind bars. But there’s no such thing as a free luncheon voucher, and once JR is out in the open again, he’s forced into a series of trials on behalf of Brendan, who keeps him firmly under the cosh to aide and abet his own escape and then compete in a complex gold heist. Despite providing beefy goodness and sultry arm candy for Alicia Vikander’s underwritten nubile Russian moll (Tasha), Thwaites is upstaged by Ewan McGregor at every turn as the plot finally melts to slurry in the Australian sun. McGregor emerges the victor on every level here. Well he would, wouldn’t he. MT
With James Dean Bradfield, Richey Edwards, Sean Moore, Nicky Wire
96min Biopic Documentary UK
Better known for her work behind the scenes in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 11, Elizabeth Marcus’s directorial debut, 12 years in the making, is a biopic of this popular Welsh band, whose original intention was to sell 16 million copies of their first album before splitting up. Of course this never happened and here Marcus tells their story from their 2005 ‘Past-Present-Future’ tour right through to the present day workings of the band.
Travelling from the Band’s hometown in South Glamorgan, the action travels to Europe and the US, consisting of a collage of interviews with band members James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore intercut with musical moments, live footage of rehearsals and impressions from enthusiastic fans. Those expecting a filmed concert such as we’ve seen recently with the biopics on Morrissey, Peter Gabriel and Duran, Duran, will be disappointed: the focus here is very much on the band members themselves as they share their thoughts, observations and hopes for the future and emphasis is put on the creative process with a ‘no holds barred’ approach. The band gave unprecedented access to Marcus and her crew and she offers up a fascinating and intimate insight that will appeal not only to fans but to anyone interested in popular music and the making of it. MT
No Manifesto will be released on 30 January with one night showings at Cardiff Chapter Cinema and Manchester Cornerhouse Cinema on January 30 and 31 respectively and at the Curzon cinemas London. A DVD release will follow in mid February 2015.
When Louis Malle returned from the USA to France in 1986, he was ready to start work on a project close to his heart since with he had become a filmmaker. AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS is a very autobiographical film, based on Malles’ experience in a Catholic boarding school in January 1944 when three Jewish boys, hiding with the consent of the padres, were denounced by a disgruntled kitchen help and sent to a concentration camp together with one of the teachers, Father Jean. None of them survived.
Malle had already tackled France under German occupation in 1974 with LACOMBE LUCIEN. But the role of French collaborators in the Holocaust, particularly the French police, is still a contentious issue today. When President Hollande recently commemorated the Round-Up of foreign Jews at the “Velodrome d’Hiver” in July 1942 and their subsequent deportation to the concentration camps, he mentioned –quiet accurately – that this was done by French men alone. The political storm was enormous – French history is full of praise for the Resistance, but the reality was that 99% of France collaborated with the Germans – closing their eyes to what was going on. Malle, very aware of the national repression of this period was adamant in an interview: “We all knew. And people who pretend that they didn’t know are just – well, we knew. I was not even twelve, and I knew. I remember my parents talking about it, how horrible it was.”
Similar to his narrative in LACOMBE LUCIEN, the traitor is a young boy with a grudge; somebody without a formed identity who could have equally ended up in the resistance but for circumstances and choice: Joseph is jealous of the privileged boys in the convent trying to be their friend and ally and helping them with their little black market deals. But when the teachers find out about their activities, Joseph, whose limp already makes him an outsider, receive the worse punishment: he is dismissed and informs the Gestapo.
Malle confessed that he only invented the character of Joseph. During his research for the project, he found out that such a person had actually existed at the time of the arrests. However, he may not have been the culprit as some say the denunciation came from neighbours and others that an ex-student who had joined the resistance confessed to the crime under torture. There were contradictions and discrepancies, but Malle stuck with the Joseph figure who seemed to ring true. At the end of film, we hear Malle’s voice, declaring “that this was the key memory of my life, I thought about this every day since then, I will never forget it.”
Set during a grim January in 1944, this exceptionally moving yet unsentimental personal masterpiece garnered much critical acclaim including The Golden Lion at Venice 1987, a BAFTA and several Césars. AS
ON RELEASE AT THE BFI FROM 30 JANUARY 2015 AT BFI SOUTHBANK, IFI DUBLIN AND SELECTED CINEMAS NATIONWIDE.
Stephen Daldry made a speculative trip to Brazil with a small film crew. Heading for Rio’s famous favelas, he came across a group of local kids living off the landfill sites. TRASH is their astonishing story.
After a sizzling chase sequence where a man chucks his wallet out of his window onto a skip before being captured and fatally beaten by the Police, we meet 14-year-old Raphael Fernandez (newcomer Rickson Tevez) who finds the wallet while foraging. It contains a wad of cash, a photo of a little girl and a locker key. Delighted, at such a scoop he hides the wallet when Police arrive next morning announcing a reward for its retrieval. Along with his best friend Gardo and a sewer boy called Rato, Raphael sets off to find the mystery behind the wallet’s contents and a set of figures written on the photo – are they lottery numbers or a secret code? Solving the riddle turns into a dangerous fight for survival as the boys discover the Police are prepared to kill them unless they give up the wallet and a ledger containing information about corrupt Government officials. Martin Sheen and Rooney Mara provide ballast as a couple of unconvincing local do-gooders (a Catholic priest and an aide-worker) who only serve to secure financing and distribution for this entertaining chase movie, which apparently works as comedy to Brazilian audiences – speaking volumes from a social point of view!
There are some similarities here with Slumdog Millionnaire and Ciudad de Dios but the best thing about Daldry’s well-made movie is the genuine appeal of the local boys – all untrained newcomers who can barely read or write in their native tongues let alone speak English. But Daldry has mastered the art of working with children, as we saw in Billy Elliott and although TRASH is a less-convincing outing, it nevertheless amuses with a fearsome pace for most of its run-time – although at nearly two hours, it occasionally feels as sprawling as the endless favelas themselves. The script is in the safe hands of Richard Curtis (Love, Actually) and loosely-based on Andy Mulligan 2010 novel.
Rickson Tevez (Raphael) is screen dynamite as the ‘heart of gold’ hero who triumphs through inventiveness and perseverance delivering a message of hope and serving as a fabulous role model for young kids of today. The other standout is Gabriel Weinstein, who plays the ‘sewer boy’ with charm and considerable aplomb. Selton Mello, the detective leading the chase, is consistently sinister while also portraying the modern face of the Brazilian middle class and there’s also a deftly-placed cameo from Christiane Amanpour to keep the whole thing tethered in the reality of this real human interest story which, despite its tragic backstory, ends on a positive note. MT
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev | Writers: Andrei Zvyagintsev, Oleg Negin | Cast: Aleksei Serebyakov, Elana Lyadova, Roman Madyanov, Vladimir Vdovichenkov | Russia Drama |141min
Small, large, small, large: that’s the pattern of canvas sizes on which Andrei Zvyagintsev seems to be working. The Russian filmmaker’s tight debut feature THE RETURN (2003) was followed by sprawling sophomore effort THE BANISHMENT (2007), while taut masterpiece ELENA (2011) is succeeded now by suitably named LEVIATHAN, his most ambitious work to date. Taking its inspiration from the Book of Job, Zvyagintsev and co-scriptwriter Oleg Negin’s big, bleak statement on contemporary Russia won the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes, and held a capacity audience rapt for its 141 minutes this week at the 14th edition of T-Mobile New Horizons in Wrocław, Poland.
Melding the domestic and the social, the personal and the political, LEVIATHAN tells the northwest Russia-set tale of vodka-swigging Kolya (Aleksei Serebryakov), whose beautiful inherited beachside home – shared with his younger wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova) and his son from a previous marriage Roma (Sergei Pokhodaev) – is under threat when the corrupt local mayor Vadim (Roman Madyanov) purchases the surrounding land. Kolya enlists good pal Dmitri (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), a lawyer from Moscow, who arrives in town to scare Vadim off with some canny research of his own, and to rekindle a sexual fling with Lilya.
To say any more is to ruin Zvyagintsev’s most narratively complex work to date. What makes this tremendous film so rewarding, however, is the director’s retention of previously employed ambiguities, which he puts to use in an unprecedently expansive storytelling style. As such, the Russian, who for many has been a kind of successor to Tarkovsky (claims and comparisons that appear now to be unhelpfully lazy), is pushing the boat out here into new territory not unlike how Nuri Bilge Ceylan did with ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA – which ranks alongside Zvyagintsev’s ELENA as one of this decade’s best films.
LEVIATHAN now surely joins such ranks. Before anything else are the familiar strengths. Regular cinematographer Mikhail Krichman shoots with a reliance on the natural light of northwest Russia’s late summer/early autumn, giving the whole thing a pallet at once unhealthily under-lit and richly blue. Elena Lyadova, a less central performer in ELENA, is here elevated to key player: in her, Zvyagintsev has found an actress whose hardened beauty betrays all the hurt and disappointment that an ordinary life down on the lower rungs can bring. In so much as a glance here, she conveys a woman caught between the rock of an unhappy marriage and the unbearably hard place of a doomed affair. Philip Glass’s music also returns: ‘The Ruins’, from his 1983 opera Akhnaten, bookends proceedings over sequences of harsh, foreboding cliff faces and crashing, ominous waves.
Does the film overreach? Though such passages as that just mentioned are vivid and gripping in themselves, they do suggest a director who’s possibly too eager to imbue his work with an air of thematic significance. All the more refreshing, then, that the film is also Zvyagintsev’s funniest by far. Never settling for any one simple tonal register, it at times reaching levels of black satire, most notably in its early depictions of Vadim the mayor, a shark in a small pond whose office boasts a framed portrait of Putin, to whose shady Machiavellianism he palpably aspires (other framed leaders, from Lenin to Gorbachev, feature in another scene). As Vadim, Madyanov steals the show, resembling a fluffy teddy bear dowsed in vodka one moment and a ruthless, no-nonsense brute the next.
In a key scene, this cartoonishly disgusting villain seeks sympathy from the church – and comes away with an unspoken blessing to destroy the lives of ordinary and largely decent folk. And, on the beach not far from the domestic space eventually demolished with brutally undiscerning abandon by a bulldozer, is to be found an avatar of Russia today: the sad, giant skeleton of a beached whale. MICHAEL PATTISON
Dir.: Nicolas Philibert; Documentary; France 2013, 103 min.
LA MAISON DE LA RADIO is a large, circular building in Paris’ 16th district, overlooking the Seine and housing seven state radio networks, among them the popular “France Info” and “France Inter”. Their budget is close to half a billion GBP a year, and during the early part of 2011, director Nicolas Philibert has filmed between the hectic and sometimes funny activities in this landmark building designed by the architect Henry Bernard.
This ‘fly on the wall’ documentary takes in twenty four hours in the life of ‘Radio France’ and we get to meet the producers, presenters, journalists and guests. But firstly we get a lightening course in news reading: this is one of the most difficult aspects of broadcasting and a task never given to beginners; only hardened professionals have the skills to engage the attention of the viewing public: lose them for a minute, and you’ve lost them for the duration. Moving on to the newsroom, we discover them desperately trying to find a “funny closer” for said news: a Justin Bieber story is mentioned. Interviews with politicians such as Martin Aubrey and Francois Fillon are mentioned. The recent Tsunami is also still very much in the news and we get to watch the painstaking recoding of a radio play, with all the ramifications of finding the right background noises like “walking on gravel”. The producer is strict: “We take this step by step, like with children”.
Philibert’s entertaining documentary leaves the building to cover sporting events like football and the Tour de France. The newsroom delivers some macabre humour: there is a forth body found in Deule, which the editors seems to strangely find hilarious. The importance of potatoes is mentioned at length: “Potatoes have saved far more lives than penicillin”. One sound engineer even went so far as to make a programme about the growing of what the French call “the apple of the earth”. In an interview with a lonely woman, we discover that there are two ways of talking to yourself: in anger or confession. The writer Umberto Eco talks about subjectivity in writing, explaining that even if he were to write about someone killing his grandmother – which he is not planning – the writing would have autobiographical features. He then claims to be a sort of “Madame Bovary” although this is never fully explained. Interviews with revolutionaries in Tunis are followed by the shipping news. And finally we witness a sound engineer re-creating the anarchic sound machines of his childhood.
Philibert creates immediacy, the audience shares the intimacy of the creative work. Katell Dijan’s camera is our curious eye, capturing the highs and lows of a day at the radio station. Perhaps the most important ingredient here is the underlying humour making LA MAISON DE LA RADIO a vivid and humanistic experience. AS
NICOLAS PHILIBERT’S DOCUMENTARY IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 23 JANUARY 2015 AND WILL HAVE A HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASE ON THE 23 March 2015
Clint Eastwood is no stranger to films portraying war, “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “Flags of our Fathers”, were lauded justifiably as projects trying to show the ambivalence of armed combat. Unfortunately, AMERICAN SNIPER, the portrait of Chris Kyle (1974-2013), a marine with the exclusive S.E.A.L. unit who had 160 kills as a sniper during his four tours during the Iraq war, is a one dimensional, patriotic hagiography relying for nearly all of its 132 minutes on combat scenes. Eastwood gives very little room here to explore Kyle himself, or his relationship with his wife Taya.
Kyle (Cooper) grew up in Texas, his father introducing a rigid, homespun philosophy of dominance by way of God, Country, Family; enlarging the concept by dividing humankind into three categories of sheep, wolves and sheepdogs. After buying his son a rifle at the age of three, Kyle senior remarks that his son has a “gift” for shooting after Chris killed his first deer. On finishing school, Kyle worked as a professional bronco rider before being invalided out due to injury. After enlisting with the SEALS in 1999, he serves on four tours in the Iraq war where his skills as a sniper earn him the name “The Devil of Ramadi”. The Iraqis put up a $ 80000 bounty on his head. Discharged in 2009, he published his autobiography “American Sniper” in 2012.
Kyle’s relationship with his wife Taya (Miller) is relegated to mere footnotes by Eastwood; the family scenes with their two children are clumsy and full of clichés. Instead of commenting on America’s passionate and deadly love affair with weapons – Kyle’s “American Gun: A history of the US in Ten Firearms” was published posthumously in 2013. AMERICAN SNIPER is dominated by endless combat scenes. Kyle’s comment to an army psychiatrist (another cardboard figure), when asked if he regrets any actions in the war is simple: “I only regret the people I did not save”; is one of many statements by Kyle, worthy of more exploration; after all he did lose his life in circumstances that question the overriding presence and use of weapons in American society.
Eastwood tried very hard to make Cooper into a second Kyle: the actor had to gain an enormous amount of weight and was coached to deliver the “Texan drawl”, which is vey hard to comprehend outside the state of Texas. But the director is unable or unwilling to discuss any concepts oitside those of naïve patriotism, ending AMERICAN SNIPER with a vast array of American flags, draped all over Texas on the final 200 mile journey of Kyle’s coffin to the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. AS
Dir.: Marshall Curry; Documentary with Matthew Vandyke, Marshall Curry
USA 2014, 83 min Documentary
In 2006, twenty-six year old Matthew Vandyke left Baltimore, Maryland bound for a “crash course in manhunt”. A ‘germophile’ Matthew was suffering from OCD and his journey would take him via Spain and West Africa to Afghanistan, filming himself on his motorcycle. After returning to Maryland, he made a second foray in 2011 accompanied by friends he made in Libya on his first visit. The purpose was to topple the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
Marshall Curry (STREET FIGHT) introduces us to Vandyke via childhood videos, showing an average kid wanting to be a hero. The adult Matthew, in contrast, is timid and fearful but gains an MA. When he goes on his first journey, he is supported in his action by his fiancée, who later brands him “a coward”, after he almost gives up his trip early on due to an accident. In Gibraltar we get the first inkling how POINT AND SHOOT will develop when we see him pointing at US soldiers, declaring “it was how I imagined it in a script”. During the whole film, Curry lets his protagonist get away with this ambivalent attitude: “I fight with two hands: gun and camera”.
When returning to Libya, Curry never mentions that Matthew’s complete lack of military training and inability to speak Arabic made him more of a burden than a help to his co-fighters – particularly since Matthew had overcome his OCD, but not his fear of hurting others. But instead of pointing this out to Vandyke in the talking-head interviews in Maryland, Curry falls for Matthews line: “The Arab spring challenged (my interpretation of) what it was to be a man”.
Captured by Gaddafi forces, Vandyke spent nearly six months in a gruesome prison. Instead of making this terrible experience the centre-point of this documentary, Curry uses animated flashbacks designed by Joe Posner, to portrait his hero’s suffering. The Arab world is shown exclusively out of Vandyke’s American perspective – making it an exotic place where Vandyke (calling himself for a while Max Hunter) is the intrepid explorer and adventurer – very much in the mould of Matthew’s role model, the Australian Alby Mangels, a second rate ‘Crocodile Dundee’ character. The crux of all this is summed up in a post-fighting scene when one of the Arabs tells Vandyke; “I send your body home in a posh coffin as a souvenir for your mother”. This is ‘Boys-Own’ talk, and has nothing to do with a serious quest for manhood. Time after time, Curry does not question Van Dyke letting him get away with the self-portrait of a “real man”.
Camera work is uneven, even during the second journey the audience is treated to a impressive travelogue. And nobody mentions that Libya today is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Instead we get the impression of a US version of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – liberating the Arabs from the front. AS
Based on Vera Brittain’s well-known wartime memoir of the name, TESTAMENT OF YOUTH is a study of loss and change. Not only the loss of a whole generation of young men in the First World War, but the loss of identity of the British middle classes and their sheltered existence of innocence and naivety. Standards, cultural ambitions and their belief in slow progress were rocked to the core and shattered in the trenches and mass slaughter in France. What arose, like a phoenix from the ashes, was the advent of feminism; the slow emancipation of women.
In James Kent’s excellent screen adaptation, Vera Brittain (a spirited Alicia Vikander) embodies both loss and change. We first see her in peace time, at the family home in Yorkshire. Her parents (Emily Watson and Dominic West) can hardly cope with their rebellious daughter, whose goal is to study literature in Oxford. Her father tries to placate her with the gift of a piano, but in vain, Vera wants it all. Supported by her brother Edward (Taron Egerton), and his friend Roland Leighton (Kit Harrington), she finally gets the parental consent and passes her entrance-examine at Somerville College Oxford. When war arrives, her father does not want Edward to serve, but Vera defends the right of her brother to fulfil his patriotic duty. Having fallen in love with Roland, who writes poetry like herself, Vera says goodbye twice. When the two men come home from the front for a short holiday, the strain is obvious. The difference between the war slogans and the traumatic reality in the trenches is enormous. Vera can’t stand the sedate life in Oxford anymore, and enrols as a nurse. In France, she saves the life of her brother, and after her mother has a nervous breakdown, she meets Roland again and they promise to marry when he comes home.
Being a BBC co-production, technical values, particularly production design and camera are in reliable hands. Yorkshire is as magnificent as the trenches are grim and the field hospitals are awash with the blood of carnage. Oxford looks spectacular with its dreamy spires gently tracing the skyline, and the Brittain’s mansion is exquisite. We have seen all this before but the reason to see this version is Alicia Vikander, who storms through the film like stick of dynamite, lifting the conventional goings to another level. Her resistance is as heartfelt as her mourning, her anger fired by indignance and ambition. She is well supported by Harington’s Roland Leighton, a sensitive poet and brave soldier, the epitome of the dashing hero of his era. Emily Watson is moving as the classic matriarch. TESTAMENT OF YOUTH is a true memoir of death on the battlefields and the last breath of an era. MT
In 1932 Paramount Pictures announced that Ernst Lubitsch would direct the next Marx Brothers film – in the end, after a long contractual fight between the Marx Brothers and the production company, Leo McCarey would be behind the camera for DUCK SOUPa year later. Unlike the successful Horse Feathers DUCK SOUP was not successful at the box-office, but the truth is far from it being the mythical flop: DUCK SOUP was still the six-highest grossing film of 1933.
Mrs. Teasdale (Dumont), a very rich woman, underwrites all the debts for the bankrupt state of Freedonia, which is threatened by the neighbouring country of Sylvania. But Mrs.Teasdale will only go on financing Freedonia if Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho), whom she wants to marry, becomes president and leads them into the war with Sylvania. Firefly is equally incompetent a leader as are the Sylvanian’ spies Pinky (Harpo) and Chicolino (Chico) in their metier, all three just causing mayhem, ending up pelting poor Mrs. Teasdale with fruit right at the end.
DUCK SOUP is famous for its mirror scene when Pinky, dressed as Firefly, imitates Groucho with identical movements. But the harmony is destroyed when Chicolini, also dressed as Firefly, bumps into the two and destroys the symmetry. There are polemic anti-war scenes, including a Mussolini send-off, which, to the great amusement of the Marx Brothers, led to the ban of the film in Italy. The scenes between the straight acting Dumont and the anarchic humour of the Marx Brothers are the highlights of a film, which somehow did not resonate with contemporary critics because, in their opinion, the ongoing Depression was asking for a less frivolous narrative. DUCK SOUP is essentially a surrealist comedy but this did not appeal to audiences at the time and resulted in them losing their contract with Paramount. Subsequent outings under the auspices of Irving Thalberg and MGM, considerably toned down the zany nature of their humour and sets but with Sam Wood directing their later outings (A Day at the Races, A Night at the Opera), the outrageous sending-up of everything sacred as the time including (and especially), Religion, gradually toned them down.
Today, DUCK SOUP is seen as the quintessential Marx Brothers film, and many contemporary directors are influenced by the film, including Woody Allen, whose character in “Hannah and her Sisters” regains his will to live, after watching DUCK SOUP by accident. AS
Duck Soup, which will have 34 screenings at BFI Southbank, is the highlight of The Best of the Marx Brothers season, running 14 – 31 January, which includes screenings of The Cocoanuts (1929), Animal Crackers (1930), Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), A Night at the Opera (1935), A Day at the Races (1937) and A Night in Casablanca (1946).
Cast: Helen McCrory, Jeremy Irvine, Phoebe Fox, Leanne Best, Ned Dennehy, Andrian Rawlins
98min UK Thriller
Tom Harper’s well-crafted adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel fails to inject any real fear into our hearts despite brave attempts and a sterling British cast of talent. True to the book, John Croker places his narrative in the midst of the Second World War and, in particular, the Blitz, a time when school children were being evacuated from London to the provinces. His select group of kiddies are led in their well-polished StartRight shoes to an abandoned mansion appropriately located in atmospheric marshland somewhere in East Anglia. But Eel Marsh House is already occupied dark presence far more disturbing than Germans Bombs. Placed in the care of a sensitive young student Eve (Phoebe Fox), who appears to have mental problems of her own, and a strict and uncompromising School Mistress, Jean Hogg (Helen McCrory), their new home is by no means the cosy bolthole they were hoping for.
Harper carefully contrives the cold and haunting ambience at Eel Marsh House with a series of appropriately ghoulish props and spooky sound effects that attempt to chill us to the bone at regular intervals. But gradually we become inured to the well-worn Gothic Horror tropes: creaking floorboards, howling winds and judiciously-placed shoes at the bottom of curtains. The marshy location of is wonderfully evocative and miserably melancholy and each characters’ fears are played upon to conjure up their own private Hell in on Earth here, evoking the presence of darkness embodied by the restless ghost of the house. Helen McCory produces another winning portrait of stiff-upper-lipped pragmatism as the hard-bitten School Mistress and Phoebe Fox, who starts as a gentle and calming presence for the children, gradually reveals her troubled side as she falls for Jeremy Irvine’s failed fighter pilot, Harry Burnstow, who have issues of his own to deal with. Irvine is convincing as the dashing young airman, broken and destroyed by the tough responsibilities of wartime leadership. But the story more or less ends there.
Ultimately Harper fails to bring any fresh spookiness to his film and the storyline has no real dramatic tension beyond the odd scary moment; the dramatic punch is derived more from the pathos and anguish we feel for the individuals and their plights and this does illicit a haunting feeling, in the true sense of the word. In fact, THE WOMAN IN BLACK works best as a tribute to those who suffered emotionally and mentally during wartime, as a contrast to the many stories of physical injuries and death that more often come to light in the War genre. As such, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is more of a psychological thriller than a true horror or ghost story.
That said, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is worth watching for its excellence performances from a solid British cast. A worthy tribute then to the Second World War and to the great British House of Hammer, the producer, being it’s first equel since Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974).
Cast: Jack O’Connell, Miyavi, Domhnah Gleeson, Finn Wittrock
USA 2014, 137 min.
After Land of Blood and Honey Angelina Jolie chooses another war theme for her second film as a director: UNBROKENis the biopic of Louie Zamperini, US long distance runner and celebrated survivor of a Japanese prison camp. In choosing war and sport, the two predominant interests in the American way of life, Jolie secures a wide audience together with her populist approach, assuring the title moderate box office success (at least in the country of origin).
The action opens in WWII when Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) is part of a bomber crew over Japan. Their first outing is succeeds by the skin of its teeth but on their next mission they have to crash-land in the ocean. Apart from Zamperini, only Phil (Gleeson) and Mac (Wittrock) survive. They have to tackle sharks, storms and hunger – in a pool, that has ‘studio’ written all over it . Before they are picked up by a Japanese vessel, we learn in flashbacks some of Zamperini’s life story: a youthful delinquent, he was told by his brothers to toe the line; they showed him how to put his unrest into a career as a long distance runner. He excelled and was on the US team for the Berlin Olympics in 1936, finishing third in the 5000 m race, but running the fastest last lap. This fame seems to work against him in the prison camp, where the commander Takamasha Ishihara (Miyavi), singles Zamperini out to degrade him in front of his fellow prisoners. Since we knew that our hero would live to be 97, little suspense is created.
To read in the end credits that Joel and Ethan Coen have co-scripted this overlong patriotic vehicle, seems absurd. UNBROKEN is the anti-Coen brothers film. Told at a snake’s pace, with lumbering action scenes and sentimental childhood memories of an America long gone (if it ever existed in the first place), this is aesthetically a throw back to Ben Hur,with which it shares some of the religious undertones. Jolie relies on her PD department (and the budget) to save anything worthwhile. Ideologies apart, this is one of the worst hagiographies in film history: every question asked is answered with the most simplistic solution. Jolie leads us back into a time, where men were simply good or bad (no prize for guessing which side wins in UNBROKEN), and their athletic prowess was the only criterion to be considered. In this context, the main leads succeed admirably, and the camera tries its best to recreate the best moments from past films. UNBROKEN is like a stodgy, overcooked and tasteless Christmas dinner and will be served to you ‘warmed through’ from Boxing Day. AS
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Melanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, Isabella Rosselini
Canada/Spain, 90 min.
Based on the novel “The Double” by Portuguese Nobel-Prize winning author Jose Saramago, ENEMY suffers greatly from its transfer from Portugal to the soulless concrete jungle of Toronto – Saramagos’ magic realism simply does not work well in a cold, detached and purely functional environment. Director Denis Villeneuve, whose films include the brilliant INCENDIES (2011), tried to counteract the atmospheric deficit by creating a mostly depopulated background, his protagonists seem to live in a vacuum, creating an eerie and enigmatic feeling – but it does not help the audience to grasp the undercurrents of the narrative.
University lecturer Adam (Gyllenhaal) and his girl friend Mary (Laurent) live out the last weeks of their relationship, Adam is getting more and more distant from her, their sex life is unsatisfactory. One day, Adam sees a feature film, and discovers, that one of the minor actors looks exactly like him. Intrigued, Adam tracks Anthony (played again by Gyllenhaal) down, who is living with his pregnant wife Helen (Gadon) in a high rise block. Their meeting is confrontational and Adam loses even more control of his life in spite of visiting his dominant mother (Rossellini), who simply tells him to forget all about his ‘Doppelgänger’. Finally, Anthony, who suspects that Adam has slept with his wife, put the pressure on Adam as a violent and bewildering denouement unspools.
Apart from the magic symbolism, which seems totally out of context with the rest of the rather banal realism of the narrative, Gyllenhaal is the main reason why ENEMY is far less effective than the original novel: he is simply unable to be authentic, particularly his portrait of the paranoid Adam, following his prey on a motorcycle with a visor reminiscent of “Spiderman”, is more caricature than anything else. Like the film itself, he does not convey the dark undercurrents of his personalities. Laurent’s Mary, and Gadon’s Helen are pushed aside to the margins, not much more than cyphers, the same goes for Rosselini. Whilst Nicolas Bolduc’s camerawork tries hard to make Toronto look like a background for Saramagos’ novel, it only succeeds somehow in misleading the audience: the ensuing drama is not rooted in outside oddities, but in the head of the main protagonist. ENEMY is serious and worthy, but it fails far more than the average literary adaptation to translate the page into an equally powerful cinema experience. AS
Director: Hans Werckmeister Writers: Hans Brennert, Friedel Köhne
Cast: Emil Jannings, John Gottowt, Hans Adalbert Schlettow, Hanna Ralph, Erna Morena
99min Fantasy | Sci-Fi
The intriguingly titled ‘Algol’ (1920) crops up occasionally in histories of silent cinema in general and sci-fi cinema in particular, but the excellent restoration – complete with a live musical accompaniment by the esteemed Stephen Horne – displayed at the Barbican, in the City of London, represented the first chance in Britain actually to see the film on a big screen in over 90 years. (The film can be viewed on YouTube, but untinted and with German titles only; and a DVD, also scored by Horne, may be in the pipeline).
Subtitled Tragödie der Macht (Tragedy of Power), the film provides a fascinating glimpse of a period when Germany’s fragile new postwar democracy seemed precariously poised on the brink of total political and economic collapse, yet was possessed of a film industry capable of producing an ambitious, lavishly mounted production such as this.
Emil Jannings – already a star of international stature on the strength of his roles for Lubitsch, and later the first actor to win an Oscar – plays Robert Herne, a coal miner presented by a mischievous alien called Algol (played by John Gottowt) with a machine that renders coal obsolete as a source of energy and thus gives Herne the financial clout to suck the rest of the world dry. (Sound familiar?) The action spans twenty years, during the course of which Herne loses his wife and ultimately his marbles before finally going up in smoke with his diabolical machine.
The histrionic plot combining both anti-capitalism and anti-technology provides a rather slender framework for such an opulent production, but Hans Werckmeister (a quantity otherwise totally unknown to film historians, who died in 1929) directs with a firm hand. The acting is generally good; far less like stereotypical ‘silent film’ acting than that in Fritz Lang’s later and much better-known Metropolis, while the superb photography and production design (the latter by Walter Reimann, fresh from working on The Cabinet of Dr Caligari) consistently provides something interesting to look at. All in all, a dynamic and enjoyable relic of an extraordinary era both in the history of the world and of the cinema. Richard Chatten.
Richard Chatten has written for Film Dope, The Independent, the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, The Encyclopedia of British Film, The Journal of Popular British Cinema and Cinema: The Whole Story. His favourite film is A Matter of Life and Death (1946).
Cast: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Krysten Ritter, Danny Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Terence Stamp
105min Biopic Drama US
Tim Burton’s latest film BIG EYES, is as weirdly kitsch as the paintings it features: they are the work of prolific artist Margaret Keane who enjoyed fenomenal success in the 1950s in California with her pictures of urchins with enormous, saucer–like eyes. Quite a departure from Burton’s usual work and particularly his last project Frankenweenie (a re-hash of an earlier outing), BIG EYES is a biopic, a psychological thriller and a portrait of narcissism which delivers a universal message to its 21st century audience.
With his regular collaborators, screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, BIG EYES also has echoes of Ed Wood (1994), Burton’s pic about a tortured artist. In California, we first meet Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), fleeing with her little daughter from the serene but sanitary housing estate outside San Francisco where she lives with her husband – who we never meet. Quite why she chooses to leave her marriage with no job or money in fifties America is never explained. Suffice to say, that Margaret lands on her feet and quite soon meets up with ‘fellow’ artist, Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), a successful realtor and “Sunday painter” of Parisian street scenes. As is often the case, Keane is a better businessman than a painter and he soon cottons on to Margaret’s value in the marketplace and decides to make her his wife, gradually taking credit for her work.
Margaret is a submissive woman who suffers from low self-esteem and is only happy to trust in her new husband’s confidence and considerable business acumen. Amy Adams is perfectly-cast in the role of Margaret, a typical fifties housewife and shrinking violet. Resembling a modern-day Doris Day, her delicate features and retroussé nose are just right for this highly-stylised drama with its technicolour palette of rich pastels and the usual Burton touches of early sixties high kitsch (Mood Indigo springs to mind here).
For his part, Christophe Waltz is also right for the role: his slightly unctuously manic demeanour and genial smile belie his credentials as a fully- blown abusive narcissist, as the story unfolds. Controlling and egocentric, he has tremendous appeal providing when getting his own way. Once thwarted, he transforms into a vicious monster with a ego the size of the turquoise blue swimming pool in the couple’s luxurious California villa. While Margaret slaves away at painting (the celebrated “Keane’s”) in a darkened studio, Walter is out there schmoozing and selling ‘his’ wares to the great and the good.
The reason to see BIG EYES is for its portrayal of female empowerment: woman artist finds the strength to confront her own demons in the male-orientated society of the sixties. Margaret must have had some ‘balls’ to walk out in the first place, but Burton never plummets the real character behind the facade so she remains largely a mysterious cypher as a character in a stylised construct. That said, BIG EYES also deals with contemporary issues of modern day fame and the abuse of power in a patriarchal society which, in the workplace and the boardroom, still exists today.
Burton’s drama is far from subtle with most of the characters blurting out their opinions raucously as exponents of ‘the male point of view’ rather than these attributes being skilfully woven into the narrative and script; although there are some moments of dark humour. Terence Stamp plays a strident New York Times’ art critic and Jason Schwartzman a bigoted gallery-owner. Amy Adams gives a moving performance although there’s little to enjoy in the dreadful paintings that are merely there to illustrate how easily money can be made for old rope. The main point here is that her joy at painting them was a therapy itself, proving that artistic endeavour can indeed save our souls. Danny Huston gets short shrift as Walter’s journalist buddy, and only appears in a few scenes. He could equally have played Walter, but Waltz is the bigger actor and so naturally the box office would demand him in the lead. All in all, BIG EYES presents an intriguing look at American social history of the sixites showcasing the birth of the American dream in all its sad tawdriness. Perfect Christmas fare!. MT
Cast: Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, Vivian Blaine
USA 1955, 150 min.
GUYS AND DOLLS had premiered on Broadway late in 1950, and was a great success. It was no great surprise then that MGM bought the rights but much controversy was to surround the casting. It was Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s first musical and Gene Kelly was the first choice for the role of Sky Masterson, but MGM refused to loan him to Samuel Goldwyn. And Frank Sinatra, who had coveted the role of Sky Masterson, had to give way to Marlon Brando, grudgingly accepting to play and sing Nathan Detroit. Mankiewiecz justified his selection, keeping the two head-strong stars apart during the shooting, no small feat considering the volatile temperaments of his two leading men.
GUYS AND DOLLS opens on a very busy day for gambling in New York with all the hot players in town. Nathan Detroit (Sinatra) has to come up with $1000 to find a suitable venue for a crap game which will bring him a very decent profit. But that’s not all: having promised Miss Adelaide, a show dancer and his fiancée of 14(!) years to marry her, he is supposed to keep his word the next day – and there will be no excuse, since Adelaide had invented not only a marriage but five children for her middle class family in Rhode Island. Enter Sky Masterson (Brando), a man who has never lost a bet. Nathan does not need much time to ensnare Sky when they meet: he bets Sky that he could not entice a certain young woman to follow him for a nightly trip to Havana. Sky accepts the $1000 wager, but is not so confident any more when Nathan points out the lady in question: Miss Sarah Brown (Simmons), a strident Salvation Army officer, hell bent on converting any person on earth to live a clean life. Needless to say Sky succeeds, but what kind of woman – even one as smitten by Sky as Sarah was – would like to be the wager in a bet?
Simmons and Brando developed a palpable chemistry on the set (they had worked together on DESIRE a year earlier), and whilst Brando’s voice was not in the same class as Sinatra, he still managed well enough. The Adelaide/Nathan relationship is equally believable, helped by the fact that Blaine had starred in the original Broadway production. But somehow the leads are sucked into the colourful and ever-moving production, which seemed never to stop. The audience is not allowed to rest for a second – very impressively, considering the running time: two and half hours flying by. Camera work is impressive, always finding new ways of showing off the magnificent set and the dancing crowds who mill in and out of the picture. Thanks to Harry Stradling Sr’s skilful cinematography the audience is unaware that GUYS AND DOLLS is actually played out on a giant studio set – a wonderful kaleidescope of colours and movement with quiet a few smouldering moments between Brando and Simmons. Costume designer, Irene Sharaff ‘makes great use of vibrant colours that complimenting the technicolour process and her innate understanding of movement in creating Sarah Brown’s costumes really showcase Jean Simmons’ superb figure and dance moves to great effect. The best Sachertorte with marshmallows you will ever get without putting on weight. AS
Documentary with Mosab Hassan Yousef, Gonen Ben Yitzhak
UK/USA/Israel/Germany 2014; 101 min.
Nadav Schirman, has already proved that he can fuse personal and political into a traumatic expose of tortured souls with his portrait of the wife and daughter of Carlos the Jackal: In the Dark Room”. In THE GREEN PRINCE, he has outdone himself with a story of Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of the “Hamas” founder and co-leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, who turned against his father’s organisation to become a spy for the Israeli security agency Shin Bet.
Whilst they gave him the glamorous code name ‘Green Prince’, his life becomes a hell of torn allegiances, a schizoid existence. For Mosab, born in 1978 in Palestinian Ramallah, Hamas was much more than an organisation: “it was a family business”, since the Israelis imprisoned his father for many years, leaving Mosab, the oldest of five children, to look after his siblings. It therefore came as no surprise that 17 year-old Yousef was arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli security forces himself, for smuggling weapons. In jail, he witnessed the brutal regime of Hamas, when suspected traitors were tortured by having plastic burned on their skins. It made him re-asses his loyalties to the political goals of his father, but not to the man: he became a Shin Bet agent, trying to stop the suicide bombings of Hamas, as well as keeping his father alive. Finally, he decided that an Israeli jail was the safest place for the Sheik, since the Israelis were killing Hamas operatives, on suspicion of terrorism. For ten years Mosab’s life was literally in the hands of his Shin Bet counterpart Gonen Ben IItzak, his ”handler”. The two men forged a fragile relationship, which became stronger, until after Mosab’s burnout and flight to the USA, when their relationship became much more personal.
Schirman interviews both men in medium/close up shots, concentrating on their body language. But their reflections are always underpinned by archive footage, surveillance footage and reconstructions of their various meetings. THE GREEN PRINCE is a rarity in its fly-on-the-wall ‘Spy-like’ approach of allowing the audience to follow the two men. In this way, we witness the brutality of the fighting from both sides: there are obviously rights and wrongs on both sides off the fence, but the only coherent conclusion is that the fighting and slaughter must stop. Palestinian is occupied by Israel, but a Hamas regime would be even more violent than the occupation.
It is a miracle that Mosab has survived the last ten years, permanently living in two worlds: the spy who saved his family, knowing very well that he is now seen by them as a traitor. This young man has lived his entire life with the daily threat of death, practically living in hiding with the knowledge that any chance meeting could give him away: Mosab Hassan Yousef has paid a high price for his conscience. THE GREEN PRINCE is his story: the son torn between two fathers. AS
Cast: Tim Roth, Terry Richards, Bill Stewart, Eric Richard, Sean Chapman
76min TV Crime Drama
“They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad” is the general theme of this made for TV Britflick by Liverpudlian filmmaker Alan Clarke, best known for his cinema verité features that erupted on the eighties film scene, focusing on a recalcitrant British Working class youth, particularly: SCUM; RITA, SUE AND BOB TOO and MADE IN BRITAINwhich launched the career of Tim Roth.
Roth plays Trevor, a disreputable teenage skinhead who scours the sink estate with a swastika emblazoned on his forehead, shouting ‘Wankers’ to any well-dressed walkers-by. Trevor has no truck for decorum of any kind and spews a livid anger on every aspect of his life. Very much a character piece, the trenchant narrative is jerked forward by Clarke’s peripatetic hand-held camera relying on Roth to deliver – and once he gets the bit between his teeth there’s no holding him back. Early eighties Britain under Thatcher is caricatured here as a soulless concrete industrial wasteland enmired by cuts in the public services and a faceless bureaucracy. Nigel Farage would be proud. MT
TO ACCOMPANY THE SCREENING CURATOR, TOBY MOTT and DITTO PRESS announce the launch of SKINHEAD – AN ARCHIVE, a landmark new publication and exhibition exploring one of the most controversial, misunderstood and radical subcultures. Designed by Jamie Reid and published by Ditto, with printed material curated by Toby Mott, the book examines this multi-faceted culture through the filter of printed material, zines, posters and films. The book is divided into sub-sections looking at the original iteration of skinhead, the fascist interpretation, the socialist counterpoint, queer skinhead culture, exploitation literature, skin girls, and everything in between.
SKINHEAD – AN ARCHIVE reflects the powerful aesthetic sensibility of the movement, featuring thoughtful use of Risograph and offset printing to reproduce the rough immediacy of the original material. The book features an exclusive font design, developed and adapted from a skinhead article in a 1980s issue of Penthouse, which will be available to download in the Ditto store. Alongside a wealth of unseen visual material, the book will contain texts from writers with unique experience of the culture, including Bruce LaBruce and Garry Bushell.
The exhibition to accompany the launch of the book will further bring these ideas to life, showcasing all the original source material from The Mott Collection. As a part of this exhibition, celebrated menswear designer Martine Rose will showcase new work responding to the subject material, helping to put skinhead culture into a contemporary context
MADE IN BRITAIN will be screening on 17th December 2014 7pm – 9pm, DITTO GALLERY, Ditto Press, N1 5TY LONDON
Dir.: Julie Bertucelli; Documentary; France 2014, 89 min.
Julie Bertucelli (SINCE OTTO LEFT) has filmed students at the special reception class of “La Grange aux Belles” Secondary School in Paris’ 10eme arrondissement for one year. All of the eleven to fifteen year olds have one common denominator: they come from four continents and have to learn French, before they are transferred into the normal school system.
Taught by Brigitte Cervoni (her last class, before she will exchange the care for 24 students to oversee 300 teachers in the Ministry of Education), the students bring not only the fears and traumas acquired in their homelands with them, they are isolated in France, because they speak French poorly. On top of it, adolescence is never easy, particularly when some of the students have to be the interpreters for their parents. Considering all this, clashes with teachers are relatively rare, most of the students see France as a stepping stone to a prosperous life – they try, with exceptions, much harder than English children in Secondary Schools, who on the whole, rely very much on their parents bailing them out with private tutors.
Rama, who comes from Senegal, is one of the exceptions. The young girl is lazy and unmotivated, even though she was beaten by male family members at home. Her older cousin, who is looking after her in Paris, tells her in front of Cervoni, that she will be send back home, if she is not more compliant. But at the end of the school year, Rama blames racism (unjustly) for her poor results.
Religion and fear of the future plays a major part in the life of the students. They discuss their upbringing under different religions; one girl grew up in a home split between a Muslim father and a Christian mother. A young Serbian boy had to flee with his family, because Neo-Nazis persecuted them in his homeland. Overall, they question the usefulness of religion, even quoting the troubles in Ireland, where one of the boys suffered.
The class competed in a school film festival, and won second price at the Festival in Chartres. The unbridled joy showed is proof, what this medium can do for students having to express themselves in their second language. The last day at school is very emotionally charged, many of the students will move on into Secondary schools, others will remain. But together with their equally teary teacher, they can celebrate a first, giant step into integration. SCHOOL OF BABEL is informative and very moving, a testament to creative schooling.
Cast: Vincent Lindon, Gilles Lellouche, Nadine Labaki, Max Baissette de Malglaive
France 2014, 90 min. Thriller
MEA CULPA runs on similar lines to his 2008 outing Anything for Her: Cavayé integrates the family of the main protagonist into the narrative, only this time the best buddy and his daughter are also part of the plot. These involvements are the saving grace of a film that relies heavily on action sequences, which often stretch reality far beyond breaking point.
We start on the beach, where the two cops Simon (Lindon) and Franck (Lellouche) are having a family holiday with Simon’s wife Alice (Labaki), their son Theo (de Malglaive) and Franck’s daughter, whose mother died at birth. The idyll is quickly shattered, when Simon, under the influence, crashes into a car, killing a family, including a child. He is dismissed from the police, sent to prison and after his release unable to care for his family. Fast forward six years: Simon is working as a security guard, neglecting his son, guilt ridden and full of self pity. Then Theo witnesses a game-changing event involving the Mafia which eventually leads to a grand finale on a the TGV, where not only the rather faceless gangsters are finished off for good, but we learn a secret that changes everything we have witnessed so far…
Set in Toulon, Cavayé endearingly evokes the closeness of the two families: the shattered existence of all protagonists after the car crash is painful to watch. When Simon re-establishes himself, we rout for him not only because he is the good guy, but we want him to succeed and overcome his trauma. Tension is ramped up in many chase scenes involving Theo which are shot in dimly-lit buildings and narrow streets, making for a very claustrophobic setting. Lindon, as usual, dominates the proceedings, whilst Lellouche is somehow relegated to second best. Labaki’s Alice is fragile but stands up to her husband, and de Malglaive’s Theo is perhaps a little too cute and precocious.
MEA CULPA has just enough emotional depth to qualify as a thriller, overall the sum is more than its, very well-executed, genre parts.
Cast: James Norton, Tessa Peake-Jones, Josie Lawrence, Will Tudor, Orlando Seale, Eleanor Wyld
83min Comedy Britflick UK
BONOBO’s great premise: that human conflict can be minimised through regular sexual activity is at best hopeful and, at worst, naive but let’s give it a spin round the block. Matthew Hammett Knott’s third feature, about a human community organised to mimic the lifestyle of the Bonobo apes – is set in Devon. To his credit he has a devised the piece based on predominantly female leads; to his detriment these characters are either sexually uptight or barking mad. What could have been the sinister story about a deliciously subversive cult or even a hilarious comedy with unusual characters instead turns out to be a trite drama that veers between the cringeworthy and the desperately weird.
That said, Hammett Knott’s has managed it all on a shoestring and with a very accomplished cast who really do their best in the circumstances despite having to play a string of boring stereotypes. The first is played by Tessa Peake-Jones as Judith, a well-meaning, intelligent woman in her late fifties who has single-handedly brought up her only daughter with the treasured hope of her becoming a successful lawyer with a ‘decent husband and a family’. Nothing wrong with that, so why make her feel like a boring failure to the rest of this talentless bunch of real losers ? Just because she’s not twenty something does it mean she can’t be portrayed as alluring, successful or elegant? (what about Mrs Robinson?). Her counterpart, the voluptuously endearing Anita (Josie Lawrence), who runs this community of “Bonobo humans” is depicted as some sort of sad nutter despite her attempts to run a business giving sanctuary to a community of young people who have somehow ‘lost their way’ their only redeeming feature being firm buttocks (the boys) and porky thighs (the girls).
So Judith must join the community in order to resolve the conflict between her and her daughter. Sadly this story goes nowhere fast. It’s not enough to show a motley crew of puerile characters indulging in free sex while ‘a parent’ (who has never had sex) looks on in horror – they have to have personalities and there has to be a narrative arc. The young ones in the assembled cast are composed of Ralph (James Norton) a bumptious yoga-practicing man-child: Malcolm (Orlando Seale) who’s only claim to fame is having impregnated his colourless girlfriend (Carolyn Pickles) and a couple of vapid gay men who just stroke each other and everybody else. This is a ‘drama’ with no dramatic punch, a ‘comedy’ with scant laughs; just a bunch of one-dimensional kids and clichéd adults (Judith’s character feels more in her eighties that her fifties). Even Judith’s lawyer graduate daughter Lily (Eleanor Wyld) is portrayed as a facile kid who only comes into her own when one of the men tries to bed her.
So if you’re looking for a light-hearted piece of comedy fluff to have on in the background on a stag night on a girls’ night in – BONOBO will do the trick. But if you’re expecting something more appealing or even funny give it a miss. MT
Cast: Charlie Cox, Annabelle Wallis, Jodie Whittaker, Paul Schneider, Judy Parfitt
80min Britflick comedy drama
Anthony Wilcox isn’t new to the world of film; working as the producer of Trishna and The Face of an Angel, he got to know Michael Winterbottom who has now helped finance this debut drama HELLO CARTER, a day-in-the life drama starring Charlie Cox. And this is the only reason to see it. Cox plays Carter, an upbeat and charmingly decent 30-year-old who, finding his feet socially and professionally in London, gets to know Jodie Whittaker’s flat and disillusioned Northern lass (through an interview). The two share a certain chemistry, more as a default position to survival rather than anything more meaningful as Charlie is still getting over strong feelings for his ex, who he tries to contact again through her irritating brother, Aaron (Paul Schneider). But Aaron wants a favour in return for new number and in trying to accomplish this Carter accidentally kidnaps a baby and manages to get locked out of his flat. For a film set in the present day, it all feels rather dated and dernière siècle but Charlie Cox remains watchable and appealing throughout.
HELLO CARTER is not without other charms: Judy Parfitt is superb as his warmly wise Aunt Miriam, who offers him board and lodging in her splendid house, but after a promising start the narrative goes off piste and never really delivers anything more meaningful. Despite its 80 minute running time, HELLO CARTER loses our interest midway and this is possibly due to it feeling like an extended short; and that is, indeed, how it started off. MT
HELLO CARTER IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 5th December 2014
Cast: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Ziyi Zhang, Chang Chen, Zhang
120min Drama Cantonese/Mandarin with subtitles
A debonair man in in a black trench and white fedora steps out into the rain-drenched night, all noirish shadows and gunmetal streets. Sauvely and sinuously, he rapidly sees off a twirling troup of assailants in Wang Kar Wai’s latest outing choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping in a dazzling opening sequence assisted by Philippe Le Sourd’s precision cinematography.
This is the story of two Kung Fu masters. Ip Man (Tony Leung) comes from China’s south and Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang) is his adversary from the north. Their paths cross and a elegant love story unfolds in Foshan on the eve of the Japanese invasion in 1936. Gong Er’s father is travelling to Foshan to visit the legendary brothel, The Golden Pavilion, where the country’s best martial artists come together for his retirement ceremony. This tale of betrayal, honour and love plays out against a war-torn backdrop that opens in 1936, as the martial arts community of the Southern China anticipates the imminent retirement of Master Gong Yutain (Wang Qingxiang).
Tony Leung trained to be a legendary Grandmaster for his role in the film Wong Kar-Wai’s highly anticipated, years-in-the-making, arthouse treasure and claims it has made him a better and more disciplined actor. The art involves physical training but, more importantly, mental exercise and adds qualities of unshakeable confidence, modesty and inner strength to his repertoire of talents, not least of which is star quality. At the press conference at Berlinale 2013, he claimed Ip Man is the the first character he’s actually enjoyed playing because of his supreme optimism in the face of the preternatural pressure faced by his slick protagonist as he undergoes a lifetime’s preparation, which sees him eventually training Bruce Lee.
The Grandmaster serves as both a biopic of the imagined kung-fu expert but also a tender love story, showing director Wong Kar Wai at the height of his technical skills and precision as a filmmaker with its sumptuous noirish look of richly lacquered hues of grey and green and snowy panoramic landscapes. But the director’s usually inspired and creaative storytelling occasionally feels difficult to follow and less immersive and despite its straightforward linear narrative structure. This current release has been edited down to 108 minutes from the original 120 minutes, tightening it slightly and including some helpful inter titles. Nevertheless, his latest film lacks both the heart and soul of In The Mood For Love and the edginess of Chungking Express or even the lush and dreamy imagination of 2046. Even Ashes of Time(1994), his other martial arts film, generates a more profound and authentic sense of place and power with its clashing swords and acrobatics. But The Grandmaster is a highly commercial film that places Wong Kar Wai firmly in blockbuster territory despite its Mandarin/Cantonese script. Sadly, despite its remarkable kung-fu credentials, there is little emotion here behind the motion. MT
THE GRANDMASTER HEADLINES THE KUNG FU FESTIVAL
MONDAY 1ST DECEMBER – ENTER THE DRAGON
TUESDAY 2ND DECEMBER – CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Set deep in the mountain region of Cappadocia in Anatolia, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Palme D’Or Winner is, in spite of its considerable length, a dense and often very confrontational portrait of human fallibility. Even though it takes place inside a claustrophobic hotel, the outdoor scenes are riveting, set against the background of the majestic mountains.
Men are usually out of touch in all of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films, and in WINTER SLEEP, his new anti-hero Aydin (Bilginer) is no exception. An ex-actor, he owns and runs a hotel, but his real (inherited) wealth is derived from rentals and businesses in the nearby villages. Aydin sees himself as an enlightened feudal lord; mostly spending his days in the hotel, where he writes a daily column for the local newspaper, leaving the dirty work to his right-hand man Hydayet, his lawyers and the bailiffs. He is therefore shocked, when Ilyas, a small boy, throws a stone into the side window of his jeep. It later emerges that his father, Ismail, has been visited by the bailiffs for unpaid rent. In an absurdly degrading scene, Hamdi, Ilyas’ uncle and the local iman, brings the child to Aydin’s hotel, were he has to kiss “the master’s” hand in the presence of Aydin’s much younger wife Nihal (Sözen).
At home, where Aydin lives with Nihal and his recently divorced sister Necla (Akbao), he again presents himself as somebody he is not: the tolerant intellectual, man of the world, writing an history of the Turkish theatre, and letting the women get on with their lives – which is obviously not as important or interesting as his. The reality is, that Nihal lived for many years in fear of him, and even now, he tries to interfere in her charity work, treating her like a teacher would treat a not particularly clever child. His passive-aggressive behaviour towards his sister, the only person brave enough to tell him the truth (“I wish my threshold of self-deception was as low as yours”), culminates in him accusing her of failing to prevent her ex-husband’s alcoholism. Whilst he is benevolent and generous to the few hotel guests, he treats the women with arrogance and utter impudence.
Doubtless, Ceylan pays homage to Bergman and Bresson: in the long, vicious arguments between Aydin and his wife/sister, the camera catches the protagonists in shot/contra-shot movement, the close-ups showing the hurt on the faces of the women, and Aydin’s sarcastic smile. In choosing Schubert’s piano sonata no. 20, which Bresson used in Au hazard Balthazar, Ceylan connects not only Nihal’s treatment by Aydin to the French master, but also shows the wild horses of the region; one of them, Aydin, in a more generous mood, frees, so it can return to the wild.
In the last hour, changes are signaled, when Aydin decides to go to Istanbul for the winter, only to change his mind, landing himself and his wife in unconnected situations, which serve as a showdown for both of them. The widescreen camera catches the wintry landscape in panorama shots, as well the equally cold relationships inside the hotel. Bilginer’s Aydin is a wonderful study of a heartless tyrant, who tries to fool everyone, but only succeeds in being more and more isolated. Sözen’s Nihal is vulnerable, but she tries to fight her husband, even if he just chuckles, when called “selfish and spiteful”. Akbao’s sister is angry and alone, since she does not take Nihals’ side, instead she starts longing for her ex-husband, even he seems to be agreeable than her brother. Ceylan’s intensity never lets up, leaving WINTER SLEEPas an unforgettable chronicle of human psychological warfare, in the midst of a magnificent winter landscape. AS
Cast: Mark Stanley, Malachi Kirby, David Elliot, Paul Luebke, Ali Cook; UK 2014, 108 min.
KAJAKI – the true story – is debut helmer Paul Katis’ account of an incident near the Kajaki dam in the southern Afghan province of Helmand in 2006, involving a group of British soldiers, when a routine mission turned into a nightmare.
One has to stress that there are two very different issues involved: the film itself, and the wider context of war films, particularly with the anniversary of WWI throwing up many issues.
KAJAKI is, in the strictest sense, not really a war film sincere does not involve enemy combat, even though the Taliban soldiers are shown as a threat. One member of the three-man patrol sent out, steps on an anti-personal mine, probably left there during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. His leg is blown up and his comrades send for help, which duly arrives. But there are more mines in the vicinity of the first explosion, and a series of gruesome explosions leave more soldiers seriously wounded before a helicopter finally arrives.
Shot in six weeks last summer in Jordan, no detail is spared in KAJAKI and one has to question the BBFC “15” certificate: the realism of the injuries shown is horrendous and demands an “18” rating. In the final credits we learn the fate of the real men involved, amongst them is one soldier who died in a subsequent tour in Afghanistan. Another is collecting money for a veteran’s charity, by parachuting, even though he is an amputee. Part of the proceeds from various pre-screenings is also going, deservedly, to a veteran’s charity. Well acted, photographed and directed, there is little criticism of the film on a pure professional level apart from the sometimes hard to understand dialects of some of the actors.
The real issue is that one cannot show any film about the Afghan war out of context: the Soviet Union was rightly condemned for its invasion of the country. But in spite of the action of the Taliban, the last Labour government’s decision to send British soldiers to Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter), is at best a grave error of judgement, at worst the condonement of mass slaughter. The lack of public support for the wars in this country does not seem to worry the MPs who voted for them (or the media who covered the campaign) but for the soldiers who were led to believe that there was a just war to be fought, it is a continuing tragedy. Returning, they feel totally unappreciated and lack even the basic funds for their re-integration into society. Therefore, one cannot deal with these complex issues with a straightforward, one-to-one account of individual heroism (however commendable), that obviates the fundamental questions regarding British involvement in this war. And on a very real and pragmatic level one does not need to be a clairvoyant to see that the military engagement had to end at some point – leaving the Taliban in charge. KAJAKI occasionally demonstrates the nobler side of soldiering, but that does not absolve politicians and parts of the media from their guilt.
Dietrich Bruggemann’s drama that won Ecumenical prize at the Berlinale this year, centres on fourteen-year-old Maria (Van Acken) who is soon to be confirmed into the Catholic Church. Neatly divided into 14 chapters, each representing a stop on Jesus’s way to Golgotha (based on the biblical text of the Crucifixion) Bruggemann tried not to fall into the same trap of dogmatic anti-pleasure, like the fanatics he attacks. But he only succeeds so far: his didactic way of wringing every ounce out of a scene soon grates in the same way as the long speeches of religious fanatics: not only do they want to do away with joy, they also hate anybody who doesnt agree with them – and are ready to fight every inch of the way.
Pater Weber, the priest instructing Maria and the small group of teenagers in a small German town, is not an ordinary priest but a member of a radical sect, which has split from the Catholic Church. There are claims that the Church itself has been taken over by Satan, since the Second Vatican Council has questioned the existence of the Evil One. Pater Weber wants his flock to follow in the footsteps of a Mexican group of children who fought the “Anti-Christian” government in Mexico a hundred years ago, and were all martyred. Since a contemporary Children’s Crusade is out of the questions, Maria wants to sacrifice herself, so that her mute little brother is given the power of speech. Driven into total isolation by her fanatical mother (Weisz), who teaches her relentlessly to repress any joy in life and to denounce contemporary books, clothes or music as works of the Devil, it seems Maria’s life is set in end in tragedy.
The only person really on Maria’s side is Bernadette (Aron), a French Au-pair, who tries in vain to intervene on her behalf, only to be told by her vicious mother “not to interfere with the education of my daughter”. Maria’s father is totally in the shadow of his wife. One can only wonder what Ulrich Seidl (Paradise:Faith) would have made of this, with his anarchic humour. But the director of STATIONS OF THE CROSS does not stray from the format of a seventies “Thesenfilm”, were everything has its place: the aesthetics are middle of the road, the images slightly bleached with the camera carefully restricted not to show off anything spectacular; everything is prim and minimalist. Words are the only domineering entity, nothing detracts from the verbal onslaught, and there is nothing to feast on visually. Still, one has to admire the rigour of the script, because this is not fiction. As we have discovered recently, Germany is not the only country with a lunatic fringe, always looking out for enemies and victimising even their own flesh and blood. AS
“STATIONS OF THE CROSS is in cinemas 28 November”
Award-winning film which won the Berlin Silver Bear for Best Script this year and the EIFF Student Jury Pri
Dir.: Greg Barker; Documentary, USA/UK 2014, 92 min.
The term of “The Arab Spring”, often used, but rarely defined, is given some human background by Greg Barker (MANHUNT) whose real life stories from Libya, Syria and Bahrain show the high cost of resistance amidst a stalling of the progressive movements. The raw footage is intercut with animated visuals about every modern revolution – whilst it gives a necessary background to the present proceedings, it somehow does not feel right because its slickness belongs to another world.
Osama ben-Sadik, who had homes In Virginia and Benghazi, lost his son Muhannad in the bloody fighting which toppled Muammar Gadafi in Libya. Osama recollects his ambivalent feelings about his son joining the armed struggle: “As a father, I would say, come home to Virginia, son, but as a man I had to support his struggle”. Nevertheless, Osma asked his son to return home, but Muhannad’s answer was the one of a very young man, short and simple: “If everyone leaves, who will fight for the revolution?” Whilst the media is usually full of horror stories about “seemingly innocent young men from middle-class backgrounds in the West turning into killing machines in the desert”, Muhannad, a boy scout in Virginia, is an example of a young Arab following his ideals to the bitter end. But when we see his father Osama at his grave, we tend to feel that the high price Muhannad (and his father) paid is just too much.
With the emergence of ISIS in Syria, the civil war has taken a new turn: opponents of president Bashar al-Assad find themselves in the middle between the hated regime, which stills kills mercilessly, and fundamentalist sections, whose aim and methods are no less violent than the ones of the Assad regime. Peace activists Motaz Murad and Ghassan Yassin would prefer a continuation of their “Flower movement”, but they have to admit, that they have come to an dead end: The Regime is killing any protesters, armed or not. The two rather sad men will have to make up their minds soon: will they take up arms and fight, or be killed protesting peacefully?
When his daughters Zaineb and Maryam were young, the human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who had to flee from Bahrain to Copenhagen with his family, told them a symbolic story: “We, the people, are the giant, and the little creatures who torture us, are like ants. Why do we let them get away with it? ” Today, al-Khawaja is serving a life sentence for “terrorism” in Bahrain, whilst his daughter Zaineb, mother of a one-year old baby, is in prison. From Copenhagen, her sister Maryam is fighting for their freedom by informin authorities, particularly the American ones, about the plight of her family. But she knows that as long as the Fifth American Fleet is stationed in Bahrain, human rights infractions by the Sultan’s unelected regime will just be punished by a slap on the wrist by the US Government. Zaineb was present when his father was beaten up and deported and one fears for her daughter’s future, hoping that history might not repeat itself.
WE ARE THE GIANT is sobering: there is Osama’s sadness, which will never go away; Murad’s and Yassin’s shattered dream about following in Ghandi’s footsteps, and a horrible family history in Bahrain about to be repeated – whilst the US government looks the other way. To quote the Chinese author Ying Chang Compostine: “The revolution is not a dinner party – the Arab spring is drowning in its blood.” AS
Cast: Dame Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas
107min US Comedy Drama
Israel Horovitz has written over 50 plays. He makes his directorial debut here with an adaptation of one of them, a wittily-observed comedy drama that explores the vagaries of family relationships through the joint ownership of an apartment in Paris. It stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and Kevin Kline as the family members.
As Mathias Gold, an impoverished New Yorker, Kline arrives in the French capital to claim an inherence from his father: a plush apartment in a chic part of centre Ville. Chipper at the thought of solving his financial problems, he lets himself in to discover the elderly occupant, an English woman in the shape of Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith): “I’m ninety, subtlety is not something that interests me”.
Mathilde explains that the apartment is a ‘viager’, which in French property terms means that his father has acquired it from Mathilde at a decreased value, subject to a monthly rental payable to her and allowing her secured tenancy until her death. In other words, the flat is a poisoned chalice. But providing she dies before Mathias does, it reverts to him, permitting a sale. So Mathias must pay 2,400 euros to Mathilde and her daughter, Chloe (Kristin Scott Thomas), who he later surprises in the unlocked lavatory. Mathias is forced on a steep learning curve to bone-up on the arcane laws of French property while ingratiating himself with his intransigent new landladies.
All very awkward but therein lies the edgy humour: Kevin Kline is forced to eat humble pie while still keeping his end up and his eye to the main chance. In a racy performance of suave aplomb, he manages to maintain control of his faculties, manoeuvring himself deftly towards a satisfactory modus vivendi while also hustling for the rent by discreetly selling some of the furniture. He makes a firm friend and ally of local estate agent, Monsieur Lefebvre (Dominique Pinon) and also keeps negotiations on the boil with a wealthy would-be buyer on his own account. Mathias is a character who is both flawed and pathetic yet strangely masterful in his manipulation of the two straight-laced Englishwomen, who are themselves no fools. Mathilde in particular, is shrewdly crafty and Maggie Smith portrays her with a touch of class and her usual hard-edged charm.
In a tricky role, Kristin Scott Thomas injects brittle unpleasantness into her frustrated middle-aged portrayal of Chloe, an English teacher who is physically attractive but emotionally flawed by Mathilde’s selfish form of motherhood. At times, the dynamic between Chloe and Mathias feels strained, but understandably so, given the circumstances of their past and as they move towards a deeper understanding of one another, a tragic secret is gradually revealed, amid much soul-bearing. What they achieve in this highly complex interaction is skilful and believable.
Throughout, the stoical Mathilde remains discretion personified despite emerging as rather a snake, although a charming one, nonetheless. Some poignant emotion seeps through the cracks of this enjoyable comedy drama that manages to retain an authentic feel, despite its slightly bizarre conceit, and never takes itself too seriously. MT
Dir.: Paul Haggis; Cast: Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Kim Basinger, Mila Kunis, James Franco, Adrien Brody, Moran Atias, Theresa Bello; USA/UK/Germany/Belgium 2013; 137 min.
Paul Haggis has worn the label “misunderstood Canadian maverick” for too long – THIRD PERSON is his coming-out into trash films. He wouldn’t have got away with it for so long had the “Oscar” jury in 2005 not shown utter cowardice in preferring Haggis’s Crashto “Brokeback Mountain”. But look at the rest of his writing CV: One speculative script after the next: the Bond franchise’s Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Eastwood’s racy Million Dollar Baby and his own directorial efforts with superficial actioner In the Valley of Elahand, more recently, the primitive French re-make The Next Three Days– the latter even seen as a coded metaphor for his break with Scientology.
But with THIRD PERSON Haggis does outdoes even himself, adding soft porn and an utterly misogynist script to his already long list of failures. Using a multi-stranded narrative as in Crash, he tries to tie together the stories of three couples whose life has been blighted by the loss (or near loss) of a child. In Paris, Michael (Neeson), a writer in his sixties and well past his creative height, is having it off with the fashion journalist Anna (Wilde), a twenty-something who also has another mysterious lover lurking – yes, you guessed right – in another luxury hotel. Anna gives us (and the taxi driver) a good preview of things to come, changing all her clothes for no apparent reason in the backseat, before arriving at her lover’s hotel. Soon we can see Anna and Michael in a rather cheesy sexual clinch, before the author returns to his laptop and his autobiographical novel, having criticised Anna’s own literally output rather harshly and sending her away in a strop. Later, he locks her out of his own room, and Anna has to scamper naked through the hotel (faithfully followed by the CCTV) to reach her own room. Enigmatic phone calls with his wife Elaine (Basinger) show Michael in a more sombre mood with a voiceover whispering “Watch Me” a few times. Finally, we learn the meaning of the title, when Anna reads what Michael really thinks about her, after having been told by his editor (another card-board character) “That women have the ability to deny reality”.
The two other, not really that interlocking, stories are treated with less time and effort: In Rome, fashion spy Scott (Brody) meets hot gypsy woman Monica (Atias) in a café, and follows her to Sicily, having to fork out more and more money to get Moncia’s daughter back from a Russian kidnapper, who threatens to sell her into prostitution. We are never sure if this is a con on Monica’s part, adding more mileage on the misogynist speedometer, which runs to new heights in story number three, where a tearful and utterly useless Julia (Kunis) misses her appointments in a case of child-visitation rights in New York. Julia, an ex-soap opera star, has voluntarily swapped her old job (totally unexplained) to work as an underpaid maid in a hotel. Her vengeful husband, a painter (Franco), accuses her of violence against their son, and Julia has – again – only tears as an answer, whilst his new partner looks on mournfully as the old couple fights.
Having re-established the age old male phantasy that twenty-year old women prefer to sleep with men in their sixties; that women in general are so stupid that they leave glamorous jobs in order to work as servants and are so greedy that they use their own daughters to extort money from strangers. Haggis’s images offer up the postcard idylls of all the famous places visited on this absurd merry-go-round: an in-flight soft porn movie indeed. AS
With its chipper introduction by the plummy V&A Museum tour guides, Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh, DAVID BOWIE ISplays like a glossy travelogue piece you might expect to see on the Heathrow Express or a London Hotel lobby, vaunting the attractions of cultural London. For those who express a passing interest in this iconic music man it provides some interesting background ephemera, over continental breakfast or a cursory glass of red. But for devotees ravenous and ready to chow down on a meaty chunk of the charismatic singer’s 40 year’s of life and works it’s nothing more than an amuse-gueule. So when does the real documentary arrive?.
Co-directors Hamish Hamilton and Katy Mullan lead us in by introducing chapters of this portmanteau affair with its arcane titles such as “David Bowie is blowing our minds”. This has the feel of a graduation show aimed at informing and updating elderly relatives from Utoxeter or sheltered out-of-towners from Stanmore who are more used to the Museum’s usual fare of pre-Raphaelite this and post-Impressionist that, and have come to see what all the fuss is about.
The camera feels rather awkward as it navigates the variety of different ‘installations’ but works better with the sequences shot in front of live audiences where the usual talking heads contribute their pennyworths on the subject of Bowie (pronounced Bowie as in showy – ‘after the Knife of the same name’). Jarvis Cocker says a few words and Kansai Yamamoto thrills at the memory of his designs being worn by “Ziggy Stardust”, especially being a woman’s designer. The film’s longueurs featuring only applause detract rather than add to the experience.
Apart from some photos and personal drawings, David Bowie’s evocative wardrobe is far the most exciting part of this filmed exhibition. Those legendary outfits are redolent of the seventies when Bowie’s burgeoning sexual ambiguity felt edgily provocative and thrilling for a generation brought up on the freshly-shampooed sentimentality of the Beatles or even the ‘cheeky’ Monkeys. This is an amusing outing for those wishing to tune-in and glide over the surface of the David Bowie machine and with any luck will whet the appetite for the making of real in-depth documentary. MT
DAVID BOWIE IS on general release from Monday 17th November 2014 in selected venues nationwide. The exhibition was on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2013.
Dir.: Jacques Tati; Cast: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, John Abbey; France 1967, 124 min.
When PLAYTIME was originally released in France it took a massive hit at the box office: Jacques Tati, had shot the film in 70mm and insisted, rather dogmatically, that it should only be shown in this format which many most cinemas couldn’t screen it. But watching it nearly sixty years later, you soon realise why it was such a big flop, regardless of the format.
Tati admitted he was disgruntled ‘his’ rather dorkish character, the Monsieur Hulot, who goes for a job interview in a modern high rise office block, gets lost, misses his appointment, and finally leaves the building through the wrong exit ending up in a trade fair featuring the latest gadgets. There he meets an American tourist (Dennek) visiting Paris with her group. She takes a liking for Hulot, but he manages to lose her in the crowd. Then, after bumping into a fellow soldier from WII, Hulot finally meets the young American again at a nightclub opening, where everything that could go wrong, does so. That said, a great time is had by all, and as a bonus, he meets the man who was supposed to interview him for the job that morning.
Hulot is his usual timid self, overcoming obstacles by chance rather than intent. One of the running gags involves a series of lookalike Hulots – actors smoking pipes and wearing hats – who are often mistaken for the man himself. The standout is a German salesman who starts off being polite and understanding, but soon looses his temper – and customers. In the nightclub sequence, there are some amusing scenes where the air conditioning gets out of control and part of the ceiling collapses, but the supposed anarchy comes across as rather muted and contrived.
Dennek feels anything but young, recalling the sort of teachers we had a crush on at school. The jokes about English infiltrating daily life are too obvious to be really stinging. And although the scenes in the nightclub are supposed to be mildly sexually-charged, all the characters come across as asexual, the women playing second fiddle to the men. Playtime seems tethered to the past: Hulot keeps meeting WWII soldiers everywhere – and considering how easily the Germans moved in and occupied France (supported by the huge majority of the French), this reflects the uncritical ideology of a feature which seems to be blithely rooted in some mythical past without any contradictions regarding race, class or gender.
1967 was a great year for the innovative French directors: Bresson (Mouchette), Robbe-Grillet (Trans-Europa Express),Demy (Les Demoiselles de Rochefort), Bunuel (Belle de Jour) to mention a few, and overshadowing everybody, JL Godard, with La Chinoise, Weekendand his very contemporary Paris version of 2 ou 3 Choses Que Je Sais d’Elle.
Playtime has its place as a charming document of film history, and fans will enjoy the nostalgic trip down memory lane, but it overstays its welcome at over two hours. . AS
Cast: Elijah Wood, Celyn Jones, Shirley Henderson, Steven Mackintosh
UK Drama 90mins
One of the very few non-dreadful UK productions to premiere at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, SET FIRE TO THE STARS is the debut feature of Andy Goddard, whose previous directorial work includes TV’s Torchwood, Doctor Who, The Bill and, most recently, four episodes of Downtown Abbey as well as that show’s 2012 Christmas Special. Depicting the volatile relationship between Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the American academic-cum-literary critic John Malcolm Brinnin, the film is a conceptually intriguing work whose chief strength is Chris Seager’s evocatively crisp monochrome digital cinematography.
Dylan Thomas (Celyn Jones) arrives in New York in 1950 with reputations preceding him: not only is he a much-lauded genius of poetry, he is also a drunken liability whose unfaltering approach to life is to enjoy it—to feel it and to sense it in all its excess. Drink now, worry later: Thomas is an unthinkably quick-witted partygoer who seemingly lacks an off-switch—though he arrives from Wales burdened with barely acknowledged psychological hang-ups and in palpable retreat from marital turmoil. Consequently, there’s a flipside never too far away. If he isn’t embarrassing himself before more attentive company by slurring his way through tortured, inebriated recitals, in private moments he stews in a debilitating swamp of depression.
Thomas is in America for a tour of performances organised by John Brinnin (Elijah Wood), who accompanies the poet after assuming responsibility for him and his behaviour. As one Yale academic puts it, Thomas is a “manchild… terrorising functions with his mischief.” Forever deflecting the serious professionalism required of him, the poet sends Brinnin out one night for milkshakes, candy and a comic book; when the latter returns, Thomas has disappeared. Before long, the hotel’s kicked the pair out, and they retreat to a picturesque country home in Fairfield County, Connecticut, where Brinnin feels better equipped to distract his visiting guest into something resembling a mental focus.
Thomas’ ceaseless antics not only test the patience of the more prudish Yanks around him, but also that of the film’s viewers. The dramatic crux of SET FIRE TO THE STARS is how far the man can go without confronting his alcoholism and apparently broken marriage—the sole reminding image of which is an unopened letter from his wife. While Thomas is the subject of Goddard and co-writer Jones’ script, it is through Brinnin’s perspective that the tale is framed. An obvious admirer of Thomas—perhaps beyond intellectual curiosity—Brinning asks the poet where he gets it all from: ‘it’ being his wit, his genius, his sensitivity and so on. Thomas snaps: “Why do you have to label it?” The film does little to demystify the poet.
Brinning is an unreliable narrator, and though telling their tale from his perspective facilitates an unusual narrative vantage point, the filmmakers don’t seem to know what precisely to do with it—beyond telling a tale about a tempestuous, uneasy relationship. Tellingly, STARS is at its best when its makers are compelled to explore the class tensions an appreciably popular working-class artist such as Dylan Thomas might stir. While earlier scenes—in which our temperamental but self-deprecating adult-baby outwits and outrages intellectual bowtie-wearing types while in full-on hedonistic pursuit of adoring babes—suggest a narrative pattern that may grow irritating rather quickly, the strongest (and funniest) sequence here involves deliberate crudity at Yale itself.
Obviously nervous about performing privately in front of the university’s higher ranks, Thomas takes a painful pause and many sips of water before beginning with a winningly stirring rendition of ‘And Death Shall Have No Dominion’. After, a more unbearable discomfort takes hold of the poet, as he finds himself at a formal dinner expected to keep up and hold court with the stiflingly snobby professors. As their highbrow pettiness leaks through, the Ivy Leaguers get their comeuppance when the Swansea-born writer deliberately lowers the tone by breaking into vulgar limericks. What better way to uproot the literary elite’s unflinchingly old-world views than by the evocative opening lines, “A whore from Timbuktu / Filled her vagina with glue”? Who said revolutions can’t start over dinner? MICHAEL PATTISON
Director/Writer: Craig Johnson Co-writer: Mark Heyman
Cast: Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Luke Wilson, Boyd Holbrook, Ty Burrell, Kathleen Rose Perkens
93min Comedy US
Comedic duo Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader originally found fame with ‘Saturday Night Live’. In this darkly humorous character study they star as estranged twins who are brought back together through fate. Milo (Hader) is recovering from a suicide attempt in LA after a break-up with his male partner and Maggie (Wiig) is trying to make her marriage to work, despite serious misgivings on the sexual front. So Maggie offers Milo a shoulder to cry on and her spare room in upstate New York.
After this rather tragic opening, writer/director Craig Johnson cleverly crafts an amusing storyline, teasing out the sibling’s dysfunction past to show how it inevitably impacts on their life and relationships in the present. And while Maggie’s husband Lance (Luke Wilson) is stable and honest ‘marriage material; she is forced to face their sad lack of sexual chemistry when she falls for her scuba diving instructor, Billy (Boyd Holbrook), and sparks fly. Milo, meanwhile, is trapped in an sexual obsession with a figure from his childhood (Ty Burrell).
Johnson skilfully evokes both the intense rivalry and the visceral closeness of the siblings with some laugh-out-loud moments and even a hilarious rendition of “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” and there is a brilliant vignette with their mother (Joanna Gleason) which perfectly portrays the reasons for their failure to find suitable relationships. There’s a great deal to be enjoyed is this watchable drama with its perceptive charm and superb performances from the leads. And even though Maggie’s dorky husband is unappealing on many levels, Luke Wilson manages to show us why Maggie, and women like her, end up with unsatisfactory partners when their biological clocks go off with the vital wake-up call that never goes off for men. So nothing ground-breaking here, but Hader and Wiig make The Skeleleton Twins solid and enjoyable entertainment for an easy Saturday night at the pictures. MT
Dir.: Gianfranco Rosi; Documentary: Italy 2013, 82 min.
Gianfranco Rosi’s SACRO GRA (“Holy Grail’) won the Golden Lion at Venice in 2013 – as surprising as undeserved. Rosi (Below Sea Level) has filmed and scouted over two years, followed by eight months of editing, to present diverse images of the “Grande Raccordo Anulare”, Rome’s ring road, all 43.5 km of it -akin to London’s North Circular. Apart from the traffic, we meet inhabitants living near the highway in soulless high-rise blocks, seedy caravans or mansions. Sheep and electricity pylons feature like rivers: a mixture of contrasting images. Rosi has been inspired by Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”, but unfortunately the structure of this novel is untranslatable to film.
We meet Francesco, a scientist, who creates computer generated sounds, to fight off the red palm weevil, who attacks palm trees in army like hordes. Then there is Roberto, an ambulance driver, whom we watch at work and caring for his mother. Cesare is one of the last fisherman on the Tiber river, talking about nature and life before the GRA was built. Filippo is the owner of a splendid home, with kitsch 80s furniture, rented out as a movie set or to B&B clients. And then there are Paolo and Amelia, father and daughter, living in a high-rise block: they have moved from the North to Rome, and feel somehow alienated. Rosi films them with a fixed camera through the window, showing their flat to be more like a prison than anything else. A couple of aging whores and two go-go dancers, a Virgin Mary gathering and the reburying of bodies from a cemetery make up the randomly assorted occurrences, before Sacro Gra suddenly ends: many parts of the ring road shown on hundred of surveillance TVs.
Rosi fails to show how this high road differs from any other in the world. There is nothing specific about this documentary, apart from a certain diversity, which is as unstructured as interchangeable. One could easily watch the film starting with the ending – the difference would be non-existent. The camera tries its best to focus, but whenever we are introduced to one of the participants, we loose them quickly, and when re-introduced, we learn not much more. There seems to be little engagement on behalf of the director for any of his interviewees, he is just overloading the film with everything he comes across. The jury of last year’s Mostra must have been really conflicted, going for lowest common denominator in its choice. AS
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Julanne Johnston, Anna May Wong, Sôjin Kamiyama
155min Silent Adventure Family Drama US
THE THIEF OF BAGDAD was Douglas Fairbank’s pet project after success with The Three Musketeers (1921), The Mark of Zorro (1920) and Robin Hood (1922) had cemented a Hollywood career. His powerful physique and athletic prowess that was later to make him the inspiration for Superman (despite being only 5.7”) fits well with this swashbuckling role that required him to scale walls stripped to the waist as the charismatic and infamous Arabic ‘Thief’ Ahmed. Based on one of the ‘1001 Nights’ tales, Ahmed uses his powers to win the heart of the Princess, but his father The Caliph (Brandon Hurst) forbids the marriage so the couple to embark on an exciting adventure involving a crystal ball, a magic apple, an invisibility cloak and, of course, a magic carpet. But vying for her hand is also the deceitful Mongol Prince (Sôjin Kamiyama) who also has a few more tricks up his sleeve. The first Chinese American star, Anna Way Wong has a role as the Mongol slave.
Under the direction of Raoul Walsh this is a dreamy and visually seductive fairytale affair that glistens with all the mystique of Araby and must have enchanted audiences young and old on its release in 1924. Today it’s still mesmerisingly beautiful to watch. and its silent format adds to its magnetic allure with Julanne Johnston as a simply luminous Princess. Her delicately romantic costumes were the creations of Mitchell Leisen, who was known for his elegant designs worn by Olivia de Havilland. After training under Cecil B De Mille he went on to work on The Thief. With its gorgeous technicolour sequences by Arthur Edeson and sumptuous sets by William Cameron Menzies transporting us to a distant world of make-believe, it was one of the costliest outings of the silent era and also the most lush, even by Hollywood standards. Carl Davies’ atmospheric score adds to the magic making this an ideal film for Christmas for all the family. MT
DUAL FORMAT DVD BLU RAY RELEASE AVAILABLE FROM EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT FROM 24 NOVEMBER 2014
Dir: Don Siegel | Wri: Daniel Mainwaring | Cast: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter | 90min Sci-Fi/Thriller US
Don Siegel’s sci-fi noir, based on Jack Finney’s novel, is one of the best screen metaphors for collective paranoia in fifties America, and possibly the most glamorous and well-dressed. Shot in pristine black and white, it showcases the creeping undercurrents of fear that permeated the anti-McCarthy era from a melodramatic opening sequence right through to a stunning denouement. Further adaptations followed on, from Philip Kaufman (1978), Abel Ferrara (1993) and Hirschbiegel & McTeigue (2007) but none match the edgy exhilaration of Siegel’s elegant outing.
Dr Miles Bennell investigates alien duplicates that surface to replace their real-life owners in the starchy, middle-class town of Santa Mera, California. The aliens are almost attractive in their surreal perfection, making them seem eerie rather than horrific, and their mysterious arrival feels otherworldly and serene, giving INVASION an unnerving and strangely magical feel. Well-paced and gripping, Siegel’s thriller also serves as a tender love story between Dr Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) and Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) who conform to the traditional macho male and submissive female roles consistent with the era.
An atmosphere of disorientation and fear pervades this cosy bourgeois corner as a gradual dehumanisation creeps into the ordered lives of a trusting close-knit community that gradually morphs into a climate of downright hostility and alienation. The “pod people” look and act the same, but progressively lose their emotional engagement. Crime novelist, Daniel Mainwaring, cleverly scripts the piece to reflect these subtle mood changes from slight cognitive dissonance through to full blown paranoia. Carmen Dragon’s moody score primps moments of romance with shrill melodrama to fabulous effect. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS not only reflects the socio-political zeitgeist of the era, it is a story that feels evermore timely in the middle America of today: When Dr Miles Bennell pleads with the police he could so easily be speaking to audiences here and now. MT.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) – first UK Blu-ray release, out for Halloween on 25 October
Cast: Tomasz Kot, Piotr Glowacki, S. Piotr Warszawski, Magdalena Czerwinska
120 min Polish with subtitles Drama
The ‘Gods’ of the title are three Polish heart surgeons who, under the leadership of maverick Dr. Zbigniew Religa (Kot), performed the first heart transplants in Poland in the mid-80s. Palkowski portrays Religa as a rebellious rock star rather than a stuffy medic; the unrelenting tempo of GODS matching Religa’s unrest.
We first meet our ‘hero’ in a Warsaw clinic hemmed in by bureaucracy and an entourage of flaccid colleagues, reminding us that medicine is run by traditionalists, whatever the country. When Religa saves the life of the son of a party official, on the pavement in front of the hospital (by extremely unorthodox means), he is given more freedom to flex his muscles. After loosing a teenage girl on the operating table, Religa and his colleagues Zembala (Glowacki) and Bochenek (Warszawski) re-locate to the provincial Silesian town of Zabrze where they are promised a ‘state of the art’ venue to perform heart transplants. But when they get there neither the operating theatres nor the funds are available. Religa doesn’t give up. Rather than returning to his long-suffering wife Anna (Czerwinska) in Warsaw, he commandeers a gang of new nurses to kick-start the building works; tricks the local party officials into giving him the grants; and performs in 1985 the first heart transplant on Polish soil.
Palkowski creates a sort of Wild-West atmosphere in Zabrze; everything seems possible for the chain-smoking Religa, who is as egoistical as he is daring. Driving like a bat out of hell through the countryside, he hires a dissident doctor and fights the secret police: he is an old-fashioned hero in the Errol Flynn mould: gung-ho and uncompromising; tough on himself and everyone around him; taking the medical establishment by storm; disregarding the rules and making his own.
The real Dr. Zbigniew Regila (1938-2009) went into politics, ran for president and was Minister for Health between 2005 and 2007. Whilst the laws of (political) reality are often stretched, the sheer panache of Regila and his crew keep us glued to the screen. Piotr Sobocinski’s camerawork is as vivid and innovative as the good doctor, and we’re rooting for him with bated breath as he overtakes everything on the road. The rest of the ensemble cast matches his manic enthusiasm, apart from Religa’s wife Anna (Magdalena Czerwinska) who sacrifices her career for her husband, in the only downside of this tour de force story. AS
Steve Coogan, Antonia Thomas, Elliot James Langridge, Jack Gordon, Lisa Stansfield, Ricky Tomlinson
102min UK Drama/music
I remember the Seventies, and so does photographer turned director Elaine Constantine. Evoking her version of ‘up North, her memories are of rowdy disco nights with ‘yer mates, tentative snogs on the dance floor, of ‘fuckin’ this and fuckin’ that. A time of power cuts and miners’ strikes , of T.S.O.P and Tamla Motown.
The narrative is linear and directionless, yet through it all emerges the essence of moody isolation and loneliness. A time when parents were angry and disciplinarian and kids felt fearful and frustrated. ‘Yer mum and dad’ weren’t you friends in those distant days, they’d sooner rap you on the back of head with a spoon and send you up to bed.
Elliot James Langridge is brilliantly cast as the lanky teenager John (he probably has acne but you can’t tell through the dim lighting), misunderstood by his parents and at logger heads with his teacher, Mr Banks, at the local Comp (although it’s unlikely he’d have given him the ‘f’ sign). Steve Coogan plays Mr Banks with swagger and savvy: he was there too and manages to rise above the teenage angst. When John meets Matt (Josh Whitehouse) down the ‘Youth Club’ they immediately bond and together discover a world of disco dancing, music gigs and girls – cue Antonia Thomas as ‘the nurse’. Although they all get on together superficially, there is little real camaraderie or chemistry between these underwritten characters, and this is where it all feels slightly unconvincing.
Where Northern Soul works best is in the club scenes where the old hits blare and the alchemy of the seventies gets a chance to percolate and produce a visceral kick that takes us straight back to our early teenage years. Originally intended as a musical documentary, it would certainly have worked better that way: Constantine certainly knows how to create a cult classic feel and mix the vibes that rocked those furtive pubescent years, wherever you were. MT
THE BERLIN PHILHARMONIC: Dir.: Wim Wenders; THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF RUSSIA: Dir.: Michael Glawogger; HALDEN PRISON: Dir.: Michael Madsen; THE SALK INSTITUTE: Dir.: Robert Redford; THE OSLO OPERA HOUSE: Dir.: Margreth Olin; CENTRE GEORGES POMPIDOU: Dir.: Karim Ainouz; Germany/Russian Fed./ Norway/USA/France; 165 min.
After directing Pina in 3D, Wim Wenders was the driving force behind this project about “the soul of buildings”. The six projects differ very much in their moods but, ultimately, the 3D does not enhance any of them, least of all Wenders own segment TheBERLIN PHILHARMONIC. Buidling work near the Potsdamer Platz started in 1960 but when it was finished in 1963, the project’s new neighbour was the Berlin Wall. Designed by Hans Scharoun (who also designed the nearby “National Bibliothek”), the Berlin Philharmonic is composed of intersecting pentangles covered by a circus tent with the music stage in the centre. Meret Becker’s narration is, like all the other building’s “voices” in the first person singular, and we learn a great deal of history behind the Philharmonic – while watching its current Chief conductor Sir Simon Rattle conducting Debussy. Wenders is proud of the progressive figures behind the construction of the building: Scharoun could not work under the Nazis, and Willy Brandt, the sixties mayor of West Berlin, would later become chancellor of the Republic, having emigrated during WWII.
Unfortunately, Wenders goes along with the official version of unqualified praise for Hebert von Karajan, who succeeded Furtwängler as Chief Conductor of the orchestra in 1953, and after whom a street near the Philharmony is named. But like Karajan himself, who refused all his life any comment regarding his past, Wenders does not mention the conductor’s collaboration with the Nazis. Karajan joined the Party in April 1933 in his native Austria, many years before the Austrian section of the NSDAP came to power – not a sign of opportunism, but political conviction. Karajan later conducted Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” on Hitler’s birthdays in 1935 and quiet often the “Horst Wessels Lied”, the anthem of the SA. After the war it took many years for him to be cleared to conduct unrestricted, and during a tour in the USA in 1955, there were protests against him at Carnegie Hall. The state of Israel only invited the Berlin Philharmonic after Karajan’s death in 1989. It is somehow disappointing that Wenders, born in 1945, helps to conceal the past of one of Germany’s cultural post-war icons.
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF RUSSIA is the last completed documentary by the Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger (Workingmen’s Death), who died in April 2014, at only 54 years old. His film is solemn, as befits a building housing so many books from so many different political periods. “Now the books can live in peace with each other”, says the ‘voice’ of the library in St. Petersburg, “but before the change of doctrines led to books being banished, or even destroyed”. The immensely huge building with its long corridors and endless basements, is like a labyrinth; a combination of Kafka and Dostoyevsky, with no escape possible. Dark and gloomy place, and one can feel the past weigh down at every step. It was after all, not only the books which were destroyed. All of Russia’s past and present history haunts this building, the shadows of gloom covering the books, their quotes recited out loud, giving us an idea of the greatness of Russian literature and the tortures its writers had to suffer too often.
The Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen (Into Eternity) has chosen HALDEN PRISON in Norway for his segment. Perhaps not an obvious choice in the context, but the voice of prison psychologist Benedicte C. Westin narrating the building’s text, explains how much cultural identity this high security prison, built in 2010, represents. She opens with a quote by Foucault about the sad similarities between prisons, factories and schools. There follows another seemingly bold statement: “Prisons are the flipside of society”. Looking at Halden Prison, this soon becomes obvious. Because the huge complex has everything a village might have – complete with a little shop; a multi congregational chapel; a library; sports facilities and little apartments where some of the prisoners are allowed to have a life with their families for a limited period. Over a thousand CCTV cameras observe the goings on – replacing bars, but allowing spectacular views into the forest through the plate windows. Halden is a place were the staff believe in therapy not punishment. “People who have done terrible things also have a bit of good in them”, ‘postulates’ the building. Needless to say, reactionary media outlets have called the place a “luxury accommodation”. Contradicting this view, we are shown the isolation cell, a grim place where a prisoner has written obscenities on the wall with his own excrement. Modern and clean it certainly looks, but somehow the huge walls surrounding the complex obliterate any illusions: this is place of utter segregation from the outside world. And because it resembles ordinary life, up to a point, it may be even more cruel than the old-fashioned correction facilities: In Halden, you are reminded permanently of a community many of the prisoners will never be released back into. It may be ironic, but the only documentary not covering a historical cultural building, has produced the most innovative debate about the meaning of culture.
Robert Redford’s THE SALK INSTITUTE is by far the most conventional segment. It is more a hymn to science than anything else, a programmatic film about the (very American) belief in progress through hard work and some imagination. Different voice-overs of current and ex-members of the Institute and the designing architect, Louis I. Kahn, come together like a prayer. But DOP Ed Lachmann saves this rather too strait-laced documentary with innovative shots of the building, as if it’s floating in the wind. Overall, THE SALK INSTITUTE lacks any of the subjectivity of the other documentaries, it simply has too many exclamation marks and too few question marks: the building in La Jolla is shown by numbers, revealing little of its soul.
THE OSLO OPERA HOUSE by Margreth Olin just goes the opposite way: her building at the waterfront of Oslo, housing the Norwegian State Opera and Ballet companies, speaks lyrically and with emotional gravity; which is quite the opposite of the way the building looks. Covered in ice, it emerges like a behemoth left behind by space travellers. And Olin, who narrates with quotes from Bjorn Olaf Johannessen’s poetry, reflects these impressions: “I am an immigrant, an intruder on the edge of your fjord.” But the building has very passionate feelings for the people who work within her walls. It ‘speaks’ of her pain, hoping to be remembered by the many who come through her doors. In spite of its frosty exterior, it is a very human building; longing for recognition; wanting the best for the artists and feeling a palpable sadness as time passes and old faces disappear. Olin has created an emotional portrait, in which the building’s soul is very much a human one, even though an idealised version.
Strangely enough, CENTRE GEORGES POMPIDOU by the Brazilian born film maker Karim Ainouz, is the opposite of everything we associate with France or the French. His documentary is a sober twenty-four hour tour-de-force: one day from dawn to dusk, in which the building reflects, rather coldly and distantly, about its past, the visitors and staff. The linear structure enhances this feeling of strained objectivity. The narrator calls ‘himself’ “a living, breathing culture machine”, and it is exactly the impression we are given. When feelings come into play, they are somehow derogative, like the self-description of “having the nostalgic charm of the steam engine”. It is also the only self-critical building: having lost the sensational value of its early days, it has seemingly not replaced this with any other critical appraisal. On the plus side, the rather cool approach shows how hard the staff work, and, how much – despite the self-criticism – the public, particularly the younger ones – love the CENTRE. Perhaps Ainouz went for an understated approach, only to sing the praise of the CGP indirectly. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE ON 10 NOVEMBER 2014 AT SELECTED CINEMAS
Dir: Nick Fenton, Peter Strickland. With Björk, Manu Delgado, Graduale Nobili, UK Filmed concert, 97min
Like most artists, Björk is uncompromising – you have to be, really, to preserve your creative control and vision in a highly competitive market where not only talent, innovation and self-belief are required, but also perseverance and downright doggedness. Björk is a singer who possesses all of these attributes and manages to be exotic and mysterious into the bargain. If her tonally tuneless droning appeals, then you will be there for this biopic in which her unique style is showcased during a concert at Alexandra Palace in 2013, featuring 10 new compositions. Made all the more ethereal and ‘out there’ by her judicious collaboration with Peter Strickland and Nick Fenton whose highly stylised and striking visuals compliment her performance to perfection, this is a vibrant and mesmerising experience: images from nature form the basis of a ‘multidimensional, multimedia’ project: opening with David Attenborough’s mellow voiceover, Björk and her largely girl band is accompanied by a psychedelic array of swirling images from starfish and jellyfish dancing over the sea bed, to lightning, lunar cycles and tectonic shifts. If Björk’s your bag, you’ll love it. MT
SCREENING ON 9/10 OCTOBER IN OWE2 AND SOHO and ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 17 OCTOBER
Dir.: Agnès Troublé; Cast: Lou-Lélia Demerliac, Sylvie Testud, Jacques Bonnaffe, Douglas Gordon
France 2013, 120 min.
In Je m’appelle Hmm… Agnès Troublé (aka agnès b) turns her considerable talents as a fashion designer to the big screen. Eleven-year-old Céline (Demerliac) is regularly sexually abused by her unemployed father (Bonnaffé), whilst the mother (Testud) is working long nights as a waitress. Feeling suicidal, Céline absconds during a school trip to the seaside, and hides in a truck. The Scottish driver Peter Ellis (Gordon), suffering from the loss of his family, lets her be, not asking much about her – even when he sees her photo on TV, he does not inform the authorities of the whereabouts of the missing child. The two bond without many words, but finally the police catch up with them. A medical examination of Céline shows that she is not a virgin anymore, and Peter is accused of statutory rape.
What could have been a low-key observation, is blown up into a pseudo-dramatic show-piece by its first time director. Experimenting wildly, from distorting the images by over or under-development, over or under-saturating the colours, to a sudden (and meaningless) monochrome sequence, she treats the film as an aesthetic test set, disregarding her serious nature of her material. Rather than trying her ideas out in short form, before embarking on a full-length feature, everything is thrown into the pot to ‘see what happens’. Characters are introduced, only to vanish without having served any purpose in the narrative. Rather disturbing dream-sequences with Japanese mimes undermine any clarity even further. The director simply uses every artistic trick in the book to show off. Because of her amateur status, she can’t judge what is important to the narrative, and so she overloads the film not only with an overkill of “special” images, but with narrative strains, which are superfluous or even detrimental to this serious subject. And just when Celine’s father promises on her return “not to bother her again”, Troublé uses intertitles in the calligraphy from her ‘agnes b’ range on the nearby wall “The wall of silence”. Product placing could not be more insensitive.
Great performances, particularly by Demerliac and Gordon, as well as the grim subject matter deserve a much more serious treatment – not one so flip and desperate for attention. Glamour has a place in the fashion world, but not when dealing with such delicate subjects as child abuse. AS
Dirr: Yann Demange | Writer: Gregory Burke | Cast: Jack O’Connell, Sam Reid, Sean Harris, Paul Popplewell, Charlie Murphy, Sam Hazeldine | 99min Action Drama UK
TV director Yann Demange (Top Boy) focuses on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland in his feature debut ’71, in a tightly-plotted narrative seen through the eyes of a young British soldier (Jack O’Connell) left behind by his unit following a street riot. For anyone alive during the early Seventies, Northern Ireland was like another ‘Brexit’ only far more deadly – constantly filling the airwaves, TV and radio, with horrors like ‘tarring and feathering’ and daily reports of deaths and bomb blasts ‘in the Bogside area’. The Troubles’ and the terrible internecine warring in Northern Ireland is brought back with visceral clarity, and ‘71contains some of the best street combat scenes ever committed to film. Demange has a masterful control of his subject-matter and delivers an utterly convincing and gripping thriller with a strong central performance from a young Jack Connell and a superb all-British cast including stalwarts of the genre Sean Harris, Sam Hazeldine and Paul Anderson. Gritty and unmissable. MT
Dir/Wri: Bruno Dumont | Cast: Juliette Binoche, Jean-Luc Vincent, Robert Leroy, Emmanuel Kauffman, Marion Keller | France Drama 97mins
An austere and pared down portrait, though nonetheless beautiful for its ascetic treatment, of a woman artist who is denied her creativity due to confinement in a mental institution by her family in 1915. She would remain there for the rest of her life (29 years).
This was Bruno Dumont’s first outing with an international star and Juliette Binoche dominates the screen with the mesmerising power of a real artist portraying another one. Commanding our attention with her myriad facial expressions that range from abject misery to joy and – even disdain, she has a tender and taciturn relationship with the deranged inmates who are her only companions.
It’s not an angry performance but more a vulnerable one, borne out of depression and despair at being abandoned by her resentful artist lover Auguste Rodin and her brother Paul, (Jean-Luc Vincent) who is going through a ‘religious re-birth’ inspired by Rimbaud’s poetry, and corresponds with her by letter. On hearing of his intention to visit, she is reduced to tears of joy.
Shot on the widescreen and within the confines of pale-stoned abbey near Avignon by Guillaume Deffontaines, the film is scored by a single classic Bach’s “Magnificat” that seems entirely appropriate for its Catholic moralism. This is an intellectually challenging piece and not for the faint-hearted but for those looking for arthouse excellence Camille Claudel 1915 will not disappoint. It brings Belgian director Bruno Dumont centre stage after abstract outings withHors Satan and Hadewijch. MT
Speaking from his sunny home of Majocar, Southern Spain, where he lives with his attractive young partner, a rather chipper Gordon Goody (85) attempts to ‘shed some light’ on his side of the robbery that netted the equivalent of £45 million in today’s money, from a Postal train at Sears Crossing, Buckinghamshire on 8th August 1963. He reveals that his collaborator Patrick McKenna (The Ulsterman”) was a Catholic postal worker who was never punished for his part in the crime and who died a decade ago leaving very little money (he purportedly left it to the Church). Goody is given a easy ride of things by director Chris Long who fails to prize anything really new from the lanky, dissipated thief who put his capture down to the fact that he “stood out in a crowd” (or, in the words of Paul Whitehouse “I’m a little but werrr, a little bit weyyy. I’m a geezer. I’ll nick anything”). The most interesting part is listening to the findings of erudite private investigator, Ariel Bruce, as she describes profiling McKenna. Goody served a 12-year prison sentence for his part in the robbery and it now looks rather like he is chuckling into his San Miguel beer and possibly all the way to bank as well. Twas ever thus. MT
The Great British Train Robbery: A Tale of Two Thieves is in cinemas on 3 October, on DVD, Blu-ray and Download 6 October at Amazon.
Cast: Dakota Fanning, Emma Thompson, Greg Wise, Julie Walters, John Suchet, Claudia Cardinale, Riccardo Scamarcio, Robbie Coltrane, Derek Jacobi
108min Drama UK
The name of John Ruskin is nowadays synonymous with socialist ideals and a College for educationally-challenged adults in Oxford. In Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner, Ruskin comes across as a sparky intellectual art critic but in Richard Laxton’s Effie Gray, he is something far more dark and sinister: a cowering narcissist with undercurrents of misogyny. Emma Thompson has written another winning script for this enjoyable slice of Victorian English social history, suffused with the intense colours, finely-detailed interiors and dramatic paintings of the pre-Raphaelite era. Dakota Fanning makes for a cool-headed and haunting heroine as Euphemia (Effie) Gray, a figure of purity and feminine empowerment. Betrothed in marriage to John Ruskin (Greg Wise) from an early age, she goes like a lamb to the slaughter from her impoverished Scottish home to Ruskins’ family villa in South London, presided over by his severe and suffocating mother (a beady-eyed Julie Walters) and draconian father (a saturnine John Suchet).
Despite her initial joy at joining a wealthy and respectable family, all is not well. Hothoused by his strict parents since childhood, Greg Wise’s Ruskin emerges an impotent loner, despite his affable public persona. After a disastrous wedding night, Effie descends into despair; emotionally sickened by the strictures of this tightly-regimented Victorian household. Emma Thompson steals the show as the elegant and vivacious patron of the Arts Lady Eastlake. With her handsome husband Sir Charles, she provides upbeat contrast to the deeply dysfunctional Ruskins, and a supportive shoulder to cry on for the beleaguered Effie.
The stifling scenes at the Ruskins are lightened by luminous appearances where Lady Eastwick lends maternal support and a magical trip to Venice where Claudia Cardinale and Riccardo Scarmarcio play host to the newlyweds, as Viscountess and Rafael, in a dreamlike sequence of masqued balls and midnight escapades. While Ruskin stays firmly behind closed doors in their Venetian Palazzo, Effie falls for Rafael’s sultry charms in an episode that sparks a growing sexual obsession in the young woman who is clearly desperate for some action between the sheets but also acutely aware of her social position, staying faithful to Ruskin despite the obvious temptations of the exotic interlude.
When pre-Raphaelite’s artist Everett Milais is commissioned to paint Ruskin, the trio head to the Highlands where Millais and Effie grow close as Ruskin recedes into his work in the croft, between sittings. As Millais, Tom Sturridge gives a gently stirring portrait of the tortured artist who reaches out to Effie’s plight. Best known for his TV work on Eastenders and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, director Richard Laxton’s grim portrait of Victorian England at the height of the Empire and the nadir of womens’ rights is watchable and immersive, probing Ruskin’s remarkable story with intelligence and insight. Dakota Fanning’s compelling performance as Effie shows a determination to overcome her desperate situation in this touching take on repression and redemption. MT
Dir: Yann Gonzalez Writers: Yann Gonzalez, Rebecca Zlotowski | Cast: Kate Moran, Niels Schneider, Nicolas Maury, Eric Cantona, Beatrice Dalle | 98min Comedy Drama
First films are rarely as self-assured as Yann Gonzalez’s LES RENCONTRES D’APRES MINUIT (YOU AND THE NIGHT). As always the case for French filmmakers, there is something to fall back on: in this case the surrealism of Robbe-Grillet or the poetic realism of Jean Cocteau. Gonzalez borrows heavily but puts his contemporary stamp on it.
Ali (Kate Moran) and Mathias (Niels Schneider) have been lovers for over hundred years. To celebrate, aptly supported by their bi-sexual Maid (Nicolas Maury, they give a party inviting the Stud (Eric Cantona), the Star (Fabienne Babe), the Slut (Julie Bremond) and the Teenager (Alain Fabian Delon). All play their roles against type, and lots of contradictory emotions emerge. But there is always enough wit, particularly from the Maid, to prevent it becoming too serious: this is after all a film about sexual hang-ups and how to deal with them.
In the end, Matthias opts out of eternal life but Ali and her Maid immediately recruit his successor: the angel faced Teenager. An entertaining cameo from Beatrice Dalle as the ‘male’ Police commissioner who tries to have his way with his prisoners, is also worth a mention.
What makes YOU AND THE NIGHTso entertaining (and that is its main objective), are the aesthetics that conjure up a nightly garden of rich dreamscapes in which the main characters act out their phantasies. True, surrealism and poetic realism play their part in the jamboree but the filmmaker makes it quite clear that this is the 21st Century, where everything is possible. Apart from the brilliant sets and the innovative camera-work, the ensemble work is outstanding, helping to cover some weaknesses in an uneven script. In many ways, a real eye opener. AS
Writers: Paolo Virzi, Francesco Bruni, Francesco Piccolo based on a novel by Stephen Amidon
Paolo Virzi is best known in Italy for his savvy comedies (Caterina In The Big City), but there’s nothing to laugh about in this slick character-driven whodunnit that brings the lives of two families into sharp focus after a tragic road accident in the affluent northern city of Como.
Based on Stephen Amidon’s novel, the main reason to see this intelligent and well-dressed thriller is Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s elegant turn as the wife of a wealthy hedge-funder experiencing heavy losses on the markets. Although she glides around in furs and stratospheric heels as Carla Bernaschi, she is also the vulnerable and appealing mother of spoilt son, Massimiliano, and demanding husband Giovanni (Fabrizio Gifuni) often finding it difficult it to decide between a manicure or a chauffeur-driven trip to Prada. But when ‘Giova’ gets involved with an unpleasant social climber, Dino Ossola, who mortgages his house to buy into the Bernaschi’s hedge fund, life becomes more complicated for everyone concerned. Dino’s wife, Roberta, (Valeria Golino) discovers she’s unexpectedly pregnant with twins causing Dino starts to try and extricate himself from increasing funds losses. Meanwhile his daughter Serena (Matildi Gioli) is dating Massimiliano but has recently fallen for another boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
One snowy night a complex mix-up in events leads to the fatal accident but the identity of the culprit is not revealed until the final denouement. Using a clever device of telling the film in four chapters, each from a different character’s point of view, Virzi’s tightly-plotted thriller works extremely well as a gripping drama and a treatise on social politics in contempo Italy. Looking back at the fateful night of the accident that takes place while the characters are sharing a table for the school awards ceremony, each character’s viewpoint cleverly reflects a different aspect of society; from the wealthy but sexually frustrated Carla, to the gauche and greedy Dino so obsessed with making money, he doesn’t realise how ridiculous he looks and his hard-working pregnant wife, The teenagers, meanwhile, give a more edgy insight into the street life and crumbling public face of Italy. Italians wear their money on their backs and social status is reflected here in this provincial dynastic community by displays of wealth in the form of chauffeured limos, uniformed domestic staff and the chic interiors of the Bernaschi home as they vy with other well-known local families to give a good impression, but their social etiquette and thinly-disguised manners soon give way to bitter exchanges when the chips are down. In contrast, the struggling middle-classes are desperately fighting for survival in the crumbling infrastructure of a country already on its knees. MT
The term “human capital” refers to an accident victim’s net worth in compensation claims.
On general release at selected cinemas from 26 September 2014 and dual format from 29 September courtesy of Arrow Films and Video
Dir.: Francesco Rosi; Cast: Frank Wolff, Salvo Randone, Frederico Zard;
Italy 1962, 123 min.
When the body of the bandit Salvatore Giuliano is found in the Sicilian market town of Castelvetrano (1950) we expect some sort of de-mystification of this legendary figure – a sort of CV with full explanation. But this vivid political masterpiece just offers the bare facts; the action is carried by his friends and enemies, the people of Sicily. In Rosi’s enigmatic treatment Giuliano is just a peripheral figure who appears fleetingly and, for the most part, in disguise. The Mafia, the Police and the Military all had a vital interest in Giuliano’s death – as they had in his murderous career.
After killing a policeman in the late 1930s, Giuliano is forced to flee into the mountains where he lives mainly from organised kidnappings and well executed robberies. After the Allies land in 1943, he supports their campaign and when the war is over, Giuliano supports the Sicialian independence movements of EVIS and MIS despite their low profile in the elections in 1946. The Mafia and local landowners recruited Salvatore to discourage the Popular Front from realising the land reforms they planned. At the Farmers’ May Day meeting of 1947, Giuliano and his men fired into the crowd at Portella della Ginestra, killing eleven, among them women and children. A year later, Salvatore “organised” the election against the Popular Front in Sicily, helping to “return” a two-thirds victory for Christian Democrats and their followers. Afterwards he returned to his usual business of kidnapping and robbery. But he was becoming an embarrassment for the Police and the military, which send 2000 men into the mountains to capture him – in vain. Finally the Police convinced Gaspare Pisciotta, a close ally of Salvatore, to kill him – in return for a pardon Pisciotta never got. He was poisoned 1954 while in jail, having threatened, like Giuliano before him, to reveal the men really responsible for the massacre of Portella della Ginestra.
Unlike Viscont’s colourful Il Gattopardo, which dealt with the Sicilian question at the time of Garibaldi’s unification campaign and produced around the same time as SALVATORE GIULIANO, this is a dark affair of conspiracies, murder and betrayal. Shot in grainy black and white by Gianni De Venanzo (who at the beginning of the 60s was DOP for Antonioni’s trilogy of bourgeois alienation), the factions who direct Giuliano and profit from him are shown as the main protagonists of the tragedy of this rather simple man, who was killed by the very forces he served so well. Therefore, Rosi’s decision to show him as a shadowy figure is the basis of his form of neo-realism. Rosi had worked with Antonioni and Visconti before and developed his own narrative style, away from the central characters of earlier films, who dominated the action, whilst Rosi developed a style away from the idealisation or vilification of characters, in favour of showing the role of protagonists acting for violent interest groups like the Police, the Military or the Mafia, who cooperate to subvert any form of democracy not only in Sicily, but in the whole of Italy. A year later, Rosi would surpass himself with Hands over the City. AS
OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE IN SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 26 September 2014
Dir.: Gracie Otto; Documentary; Australia/UK/USA/France 2013, 85 min.
For a person who has had a significant impact on UK theatre, little is known about the producer Michael White. Born in 1936 in Glasgow, he went to boarding school in Switzerland from the age of seven due to suffering from asthma. After studying at the Sorbonne, he worked as a Wall Street runner in New York, before becoming Sir Peter Daubeny’s assistant at the World Theatre in London. At the age of 24, White produced his first West End play “The Connection” by Jack Gelber, first produced by the “Living Theatre” in the USA. Centred round drugs and their use by jazz musicians, it brought White, not for the first time, into dispute with the Lord Chamberlain, who was the official censor for all theatre productions in the UK from 1737 until 1968.
His greatest hits transformed, usually accompanied by scandals, not only the London stage: “Oh! Calcutta!” (1970), “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1973”) and “Chorus Line” (1976) were performed successfully at New York’s Broadway. He later introduced Pina Bausch and John Cage, true revolutionaries in their fields, to the London audience. When he turned to film production in 1974, he again created a sensation with ”Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, and the second Python production “Jabberwocky” (1977). In the USA he produced Louis Malle’s “My Dinner with Andre”(1981); in the same year he produced John Waters’ “Polyester”, before returning home for the first episodes of the TV series “The Comic Strip presents” a year later. Rather more serious were “Heat and Dust” (James Ivory, 1983) and “The Ploughman’s Lunch” (Richard Eyre, 1983); followed by “Eat the Rich” (Peter Richardson,1987). Perhaps his most important production for the screen was “White Mischief” directed by Michael Radford in the same year.
We meet Michael White for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, were the director interviews the producer, suffering from speech and walking impairments after multiple strokes. Otto follows him to London, to unravel his long career, whilst White collects his memorabilia, to be auctioned off at Sotherby’s. Because in spite of all his great successes, White is broke – and it is not only his fault. Fox’ film version of “The Rocky Horror Picture” cost $1.4m, making a cool profit of £150m – but White had been more or less tricked out of his percentage. In the later years of his career, the “gambler” White (he still bets heavily on horses), with the profit margin getting narrower and narrower, did not put his money into mainstream musicals, but remained faithful to risky investments.
In Gracie Otto’s watchable debut biopic John Cleese, Greta Sacchi, John Waters and many others testify to White’s generosity, but also to his lifestyle, which always featured drugs and young women. Naomi Watts states that women loved him not because of his money, but because he liked them and he always wanted to stay young. And this seems to be the verdict most (including White himself) agree on: he is the eternal teenager, who did not want to grow up. He is the life and soul of the party at Cannes each year, partying every night.
Comparable in some ways to Mike Myers portrait of Shep Gordon in Supermensch, Otto fails to get behind White’s façade: she is not insistent enough, and lets the producer get away with little inter-titles, in which he dresses up banalities behind witticism. Whilst the amount of the material is staggering, Otto is neither analytic or probing enough, to show more about White than he allows her. The camera is sensitive, showing White in all his frailness, but always with great respect. AS
Documentary with Donald Trump, Alec Baldwin, Michael Forbes, Robert Kennedy jr.;
UK/Canada, 2014, 101 min.
It is rare to see a director making so much progress after his first film as Anthony Baxter has made with A DANGEROUS GAME, his follow-up to You’ve been Trumped (2011). The latter was a more of a personal vendetta against the Leisure Tycoon, who imposed himself on Aberdeenshire to build his newest golf course, trampling on the rights of local residents and destroying the wildlife in one of Scotland’s last untouched nature resorts. It was not surprising that the Aberdeenshire planning authority did not give Trump planning permission for his project (including 1500 villas), since the county already has a staggering figure of 70 golf courses, for a population of less than a million. But the Scottish Government overturned the decision – and surprisingly, First Minister Alex Salmond did not wanted to be interviewed for the follow-up film – obviously being too busy to campaign for Scottish Independence.
At least the mayor of Dubrovnik, Andro Vlahusic, talked to Baxter. The filmmaker has followed Trump around the world, visiting the sites of current, future or past golf courses in Dubrovnik, Dubai, Long Island, Las Vegas and China. The city of Dubrovnik is designated as a world Heritage Site by UNESCO, so the Greg Norman designed golf course (plus villas) would, like in Aberdeenshire, destroy much of the environment. The citizens of Dubrovnik collected signatures for a referendum against the project, and won the first ever referendum of this kind in Croatia by a whopping 85.5%.
Mayor Vlahusic was quick to point out that only a third of the electorate took part, whilst the law requires a 50% participation. They might rue the day they did not bother to vote, because the project will go ahead; even though the UNESCO asked that works on the golf course will only go ahead once the Monitoring Mission later this year determines if the project is likely to jeopardise the city’s World Heritage status.
In Long Island, the site of Trump’s celebrated flagship golf course, the water supply relies on an underground aquifer. The use of chemicals, to keep the golf course green all year long, have given fear, that this water supply is in danger. Actor Alec Baldwin is one of supporters, trying to keep the purity of the water. He further points out, that the residents pay 16 times as much for their water, than Trump.
Trump’s Lake Las Vegas project has died an early death in 2008, developers going bankrupt with debts of more than $500. In the same year it was reported, that Tiger Woods had designed a golf course in Dubai (fee around $55m). Worker’s were paid a daily average of £4 – the cost of a villa they were building would have been £5m. But by now the desert has reclaimed the precious turf – but Trump has not given up to build at least one of 40 courses planned in Dubai. And even in Montrose, Aberdeenshire, the news are not good for Donald Trump: plans for the second golf course have abandoned. Somehow, Trump, who has shouted at the film maker publicly, had him arrested and never granted him an interview, has come to recognise the power of public opinion (at least a little): after Baxter’s film was screened by the BBC, Trump invited Baxter to his HQ for an interview. But the fact remains, that the cost of golf courses world wide is staggering: The DAILY cost of irrigating the world’s golf courses is the same amount it would take to support 4.7 billion people world wide with the UN minimum of water ($2.5b).
With A DANGEROUS GAME Baxter has not only succeeded in taking You’ve been Trumped to an international level, but with the help of Baldwin and Robert Kennedy jr. he has instilled some much needed background to his attack on the Trumps of this world. On an aesthetic level, the changing backgrounds have managed not to made the chase for Trump (shades of Michael Moore in Roger and Me) the complete focus of this documentary, underlining furthermore that this is not Baxter vs. Trump anymore. The glorious panoramic shots of breath-taking wild landscapes, in danger of being made into utilitarian golf courses offer a welcome break for contemplation in between the arguments. AS
In this documentary equivalent to Billy Elliott, Kenneth Elvebakk explores the experience of three teenagers who follow their dream in Norway. Lukas, Syvert and Torgeir live in Oslo, finishing their last year at Secondary School and trying to get into the Oslo National Academy of Arts, to crown many years of training in classical ballet. Though close friends, they could not be more different: Lukas is the star of the trio, he even dreams of going to The Royal Ballet School in London, the most prestigious of its kind in Europe. Syvert, full name Syvert Lorenz Garcia, is the odd one out, his parents are from South East Asia, and he is very much aware of his special status: “Sometimes I only wish to be Norwegian, I mean white”. He drops out of Ballet School, but returns just in time, to train for the Entrance examination at the National Academy of Arts. Torgeir is quiet and unassuming sort of a middle-child position in the trio; he fits in easily and tries to succeed without much fuss.
Elvebakk follows his main protagonists in a sensitive, unpretentious but humanistic style. There is so much to take in for them: the struggle to do well at school and excel at time-consuming ballet lessons, leaving very little time for a social life: not to mention financial pressures. Two of the boys travel to France for a competition, without success. Lukas and Torgeir are dismayed at Syvert’s decision to quit, but equally joyful when he returns: they have been through thick and thin together. Finally, the big day of the entrance examination arrives…and with it the twist. BALLET BOYS works best when it focuses on the human angle. Far away from any gloss and glamour, it offers a sober look at this life, the camera work is intimate without being intrusive, yet, at just over an hour, it all feels quite rushed. Elvebakk is collaborative with his cast, friendly but always analytical. AS
ON RELEASE AS SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 12 September 2014
Al Pacino, Jessica Chastain, Roxane Hart, Kevin Anderson, Benoit Delhomme, Estelle Parsons
USA 2011, 95 min. Documentary
Fifteen years after “Looking for Richard” Al Pacino is looking to become Oscar Wilde. Not literally, of course, (even though for a moment he asks rhetorically ‘imagine me as Oscar Wilde’), but this documentary is a work of passion and obsession. Starting from Estelle Parsons’ production of “Salome” at the Wadsworth Theatre in Los Angeles (filmed in five days) with Pacino as Herod, Jessica Chastain as Salome and Roxane Hart as Herodias, Pacino than gathers speed and travels to New York, Dublin, London and Paris, to interview the likes of Gore Vidal, Bono and Tom Stoppard – then back to his dressing room in LA, to discuss matters with his French DOP Benoit Delhomme.
The breathtaking tour de force somehow always features Al Pacino as centre stage, not always of his own making, as in a scene in Ireland when a fan of his draws him into a mock-duel straight out of Scarface. But others have their amusing parts too, like Gore Vidal venturing into discussing the merits of Wilde’s favourite lover. But Pacino always returns to Wilde’s play, showing us his other side: the consummate actor: full of lust, despair and torment – a little bit like the playwright himself.
Wilde wrote “Salome” in his early twenties, in his second language, French. It was often banned because the censors did not allow biblical figures represented on stage – at least not the bad ones. Merlin Holland, Wilde’s grandson, tells Pacino that his grandfather wrote this play before his coming-out as a homosexual, his marriage to Constance Holland not being the cover-up people suspect. “Salome” is mainly about a girl becoming a woman: Jessica Chastain’s Salome is all about sexual awakening, coupled with a lust for power, splitting the already fragile alliance of her mother and stepfather. Not forgetting her ruthless side, asking for the head of John the Baptist, because he did not want to kiss her. Ch
Chastain is the star of the show and, to Pacino’s credit, he lets her have the limelight, even though she is not allowed to say very much about the production. Pacino has filmed it as a combination of three different settings: a read-through at the LA theatre before an audience, a re-creation on the sound-stage and a third version (a mock De-Mille production) in the desert, with a different cast, bringing out the showman in Pacino. The latter fits well in an often satirical production, in spite of Pacino’s obvious honesty. But he can’t help going over the top sometimes with a reckless over-ambition and his entertaining rollercoaster production sometimes just misses the label of mockumentary. AS
OUT ON RELEASE AS SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 12 SEPTEMBER 2014
Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Tim Robbins, Isla Fisher, Mos Def (as Yasiin Bey), John Hawkes, Will Forte
USA 2013, 94 min.
Based on the novel The Switch (1967) by Elmore Leonard, LIFE OF CRIME is set in Detroit in 1978, were two small time crooks Ordell (Bey) and Louis (Hawkes) are setting their minds on a million Dollar coup: they kidnap Mickey Dawson (Anniston), wife of the crooked property developer Frank (Robbins). But they have not bargained for Melanie (Fisher), Frank’s girlfriend, who has persuaded him to send his wife the divorce papers, which coincides with her kidnapping. And when Ordell phones Frank at Melanie’s at her place in Florida, Frank seems to be reluctant to come up with the one million Dollar ransom – particularly since Melanie is telling him how much he can save if his wife “disappears” for good.
Meanwhile, Ordell and Louis have trouble on their own: they have incarcerated Mickey in Richard’s flat, but the fat man is a crazed fascist and Hitler fan, who wants to rape Mickey. Louis saves her just in time, and takes her back to her home, where she finds the divorce papers. Meanwhile, Ordell has travelled to Miami, where he meets Melanie, to put the screws on. But after they got to get to know each other better, Melanie tells him that he is a great stud, but a lousy extortionist. She goes with him to Detroit, to take things into her own hands. But Louis and Mickey convince Ordell, that they have taken the wrong “Mrs” Dawson..
Schlechter stays very much with the style of Barry Sonnenfeld’s film of Leonard’s novel of the same name, Get Shorty, from 1995. Apart from the Richard character (who is later shot by the police) nobody is really dangerous, just misguided. Robbins is particularly convincing as the double-crossing husband, he is ice cold when he meets Mickey after her ordeal, just interested in how much the divorce will cost him. Fisher is slightly over the top in her utter superficiality, but Bey and Hawkes are brilliant at the two low-lives, being in over their heads. There is little to chuckle about, because everything is simply too lightweight to make any impact. Whilst everything, including the camera work, is very professional, LIFE OF CRIMEfeels like one of those slick but slightly anonymous pictures from the nineties. And there’s nothing wrong with that.. AS
Regular collaborators Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky made the environmental documentary Manufactured Landscapes (2006) and get together again here to produce this mesmerising meditation that explores the impact of the Worlds’ most important element: Water. Burtynsky’s images vibrate with a resonance that speaks for itself; often shocking and unsettling, sometimes peaceful and poetic, driving home a serious environmental message where words or interview footage seem to be redundant, beyond the obvious statement “How does water shape us; how do we shape water?” As the narrative progresses, we learn that Burtynsky’s photographs are being collated into a glossy volume called simply WATER. These powerful portraits visit mammoth dam constructions in China, the River Ganges in India during an inspiring religious festival and the arid Colorado River Delta in America, where a wizened old woman bears testament to the human face of drought, even before she tells us her story of how water, or the lack of it, completely changed her life. Words fall short of these harrowing images. But not every picture is doom-laden: the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas show the splendour and power of this precious element at its most magnificent, albeit in the middle of a Colorado desert. But the enjoyment of this spectacle seems to belie the serious and subtle message it attempts to convey. Can gallons of water used to satisfy man’s appetite for pleasure really be beautiful in this world of over-consumption? Giant aquifers in Texas demonstrate how water sustains us, helping us to grow food to feed populations but there’s something quite scary here in the wide plains of crops that voraciously soak up precious reserves of water – our relationship with this element seems to be battlefield. As much as humanity destroys precious water reserves, water can also be equally destructive towards mankind – floods wiping out towns and villages. DP Nicholas de Pencier adds another element to the images by setting them in motion, as in a massive building project in China. But intercut with the footage of Burtynsky’s book going to the press, this doc occasionally feels like an extended advertisement and here the film’s message seems equivocal – it is a serious attempt to raise the profile of an environmental issue or a fabulous trailer for a coffee-table tome? WATERMARK is certainly a lush and watchable arthouse documentary but its mission is sometimes muffled. MT OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 29 AUGUST 2014 [youtube id=”QpvarPeJpkM” width=”600″ height=”350″]
Writers: David Wain, Michael Showalter Cast: Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Melanie Lynskey, Jason Manzoukas
81mins US Comedy
They Came Together is a comedy from the school of ‘have a go humour’. You can imagine the scriptwriters getting together with a loose story of coupledom and just ‘going with the flow’ in a totally spontaneous way. What comes out is a cinematic version of comedy diahorhea. Directed by David Wain and co-written with Michael Showalter, this wild send-up of the romcom is so over the top it sometimes makes you laugh out of desperation and sheer disbelief.
The solid comedy cast includes the latest in American indie humour: Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler with a side serving of Melanie Lynskey and Jason Mantzoukas who feed them the lines. There are some laugh-out-loud moments and others that are just downright cringeworthy. Some of the gags are so unexpectedly weird, the laughter comes as a gag-reaction, rather that one of sheer pleasure.
The story centres on the relationship between Joel (Rudd) and Molly (Poehler). Over dinner with the other couple they discuss how they met, broke up and got back together, ad nauseam. Unstructured and rambling, They Came Together eventually descends into a series of jerky comedy vignettes, each one sillier than the last, as the storyline gradually loses control. Performances are strong across the board, but the narrative flow feels uneven and staccato rather than flowing and natural, abandoning any effort to provide a satisfying yarn or to flesh out an emotional arc or a for these characters by making them believable, interesting or moving.
There’s a great deal to be admired about the autistic bravado and sheer hung-ho attitude of Wain and Showater who are so hell bent on shocking and shaming us we end up not caring at all: and maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’ve reached romantic saturation point in the 21st century, preferring to just snatch moments of pleasure along with the weirdness and pain. So if you’re looking for the ultimate antidote to the ubiquitous romcom – this is surely it! And at a meagre running time of minutes it certainly won’t MT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 5TH SEPTEMBER 2014 IN SELECTED CINEMAS NATIONWIDE
Dir: Guy Myhill | Cast: Liam Walpole, Sienna Guillory, Oliver Kennedy | UK Drama | 90′
In this enigmatic debut, Guy Myhill evokes the open spaces of the Norfolk countryside veiled in golden summery softness -wild flowers, drifting corn – and steeped in a an unsettling coming of age story, that pits a young man’s burgeoning sexuality against that of his mother’s boorish boyfriend – an avid stock-car racing champion and local grower.
Simon Tindall’s ethereal camera-work captures the rough and ready allure of this farming landscape and the gutsy inhabitants recalling that motorcycle opening sequence of Lawrence of Arabia with soft-focus art house twist contrasted with a gutsy song selection including Donna Summer. This is social realism that bristles with sexual tension and dreamy awakenings from childhood to young adulthood in the Fens, teasing with an enigmatic storyline that weaves through the fields but then departs in a different direction through never quite reveals itself.
The Goob is newcomer Liam Walpole who lives with his single mother Janet (Sienna Guillory) and her vicious partner in a run down shack of a roadside cafe Gene Womack dislikes the boy and makes no bones about showing it. Matters worsen when the Goob and his brother right the car off in a boy-racing moment, resulting in forced labour on the beet farm that threatens to curtail his social life. He does however meet hired farm-hand Elliott (Oliver Kennedy) and Eva (Marama Corlett) another picker who takes a shine to him during an impromptu midnight party in one of Gene’s fields.
This is a story that brims with intrigue and erotic tension not only between the Goob and Eva, but also in other enigmatic subplots where there’s a constant suggestion that Gene (a spiteful, mincing Harris) is drawn to other female characters and quite why Janet is involved with him remains a mystery. The intensity of the racing fraternity adds a rough machismo to the narrative, placing it firmly in Swaffham and the locale and the cast is almost entirely drawn from Norfolk. Liam Walpole has a gangly vulnerability about him which brings a unique appeal and gentleness to the otherwise hard-bitten, rough-edged Harris. MT
Well-known, prolific documentary-maker Alex Gibney has recently given us Mea Maxima Culpa; Julian Assangein Wikileaks: We Steal Secretsand Lance Armstrong (The Armstrong Lie). This time he turns his camera on the Nigerian political activist and prolific musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
Born into a Nigeria’s elite in a wealthy and educated family in 1938, the enigmatic and colourful Kuti and his feared band, the Koola Lobitos, dominate the music scene in Nigeria in the 1970s and 80s with his self-styled ‘Afrobeat’ – music: a mélange of jazz, soul and funk beats, the best known of which is the album “Zombie”. Gibney scrabbles around piecing together patchy footage of this maverick music-maker, flitting between his political life and ‘art’. Often tuneless and meandering on for hours, the musical tracks and performances of this trance-like genre never really reach a climax yet somehow these rhythmic vibes lead listeners to the mysterious, exotic heart of deepest, darkest Africa conjuring up a world largely unknown to audiences in the sixties and seventies.
Gibney’s film takes on this meandering style, sprawling through the life of the man he calls ‘a visionary’ but also who appears sinister and dark. Told alongside excerpts from New York choreographer Bill T Jones’s lively Broadway musical ‘Fela!’, which offers much information about his band’s dance methods and style, Gibney fills in the gaps with archive footage and interviews (from Paul McCartney) which are more formal in nature, telling of his family background in Lagos (where he learnt to play classical piano) and subsequent performances at his ‘Shrine’ club in the capital, although there is scant information on his musical influences apart from a cursory mention of ‘Jay Z’ .
What emerges is a mercurial personality who seems rebellious and provocative by nature, highly duplicitous yet rather traditional; peddling an anti-establishment populist agenda for human rights in his country yet at the same time cutting a large swathe through Lagos’s nubile scene and marrying 27 women in one ceremony, behind the back of the woman he was already happily married to at the time (and father to her children). Yet women had a benign influence over him from early on: his strong mother (an feminist lawyer whom he worshipped) and his long-term lover Sandra Izsadore, an African-American Black Power campaigner, give interviews and seem to be articulate and highly appealing individuals. His academics brothers trained as doctors and seem very calm and serious. Gibney compares him to Bob Marley, but there is little of Bob Marley’s charm, infectious charisma and musical legacy to this figure, whose music seems largely unknown in the West for obvious reasons that will emerge: coming away you feel unengaged and slightly bemused in contrast to the positively uplifting experience of Marley (2013).
More than anything, Fela Kuti comes across as a confrontational figure who used music as a ‘weapon’ against the Government who reacted to him aggressively with frequent episodes of police harassment and violence – one of which left his 82-year-old mother fatally injured and many of his family members and acolytes hospitalised. After a brief exile in Ghana, he formed his own party “Movement of the People” he fail to gain election. Often arrested by Nigeria’s corrupt military government, he chose to remain in his native country. Dabbling in traditional ‘witchcraft’ and other arcane practices he later developed AIDS, dying in 1977. His funeral was attended by 1 million Nigerians. MT
Nikolaj Lie Kaas takes the leading role as a truculent Danish cop who re-opens the case of a female local councillor who allegedly committed suicide in this slick and gripping Nordic Noir outing based on a bestselling novel, and adapted here by award-winner scribe Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
Well-cast as Inspector Carl Morck, the central character of Jussi Adler-Olson’s Department Q books, Lie Kaas is suitably taciturn and withdrawn as a man who’s failed at marriage and is also recovering from the trauma of being shot during a bungled investigation in which one colleague was killed, the other paralysed. Re-assigned to Dept Q, where unsolved cases are re-examined, he gets an assistant in the shape of Assad (Fares Fares – Zero Dark Thirty).
Although the pair don’t automatically hit it off, his attention is immediately absorbed by the cold case of the appealing figure of Merete (Sonja Richter) who apparently drowned while on board a ferry with her brain-damaged brother Uffe (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard) who won best actor in A Royal Affair, and here again shines out in a skilful portrait of mental illness. Told in parallel narrative, the detectives start the investigation as Merete’s real story unfolds while suspense is cleverly maintained with vital clues withheld, continually keeping us guessing. It emerges that Merete was mysteriously kidnapped on board and held prisoner in a pressure tank while enduring gruesome torture.
Meanwhile, Kaas is suffering from depression over his broken marriage and enduring his stepson’s loud sex-life in the next door bedroom but remains stoic throughout in a dynamite performance as Mr Angry from Copenhagen. The film looks magnificent with widescreen cinematography courtesy of Eric Kress with its use of chiaroscuro combined with occasional inventive touches of chromatic brilliance during the scenes in the pressure tank. Although the climax drifts into clichéd-ground, this is an edgy and immersive drama. MT
Dir.: Stuart Murdoch; Cast: Emily Browning, Olly Alexander, Hannah Murray
111 min UK Drama
Best known as lead singer of the indie band ” Belle and Sebastian” Stuart Murdoch turns his talents here to filmmaking with a sparky little Britflick GOD HELP THE GIRL. Far from perfect, it’s a moving piece of drama, despite a slim storyline. Three young wannabe-be musicians spend a glorious summer in Glasgow, trying to fill in time before adulthood. This might seem unoriginal, but they sing and dance around the city in the spirit of a Jacques Demy film: his stories were never particularly original, but they also grabbed you by the heart, and his colourful city backgrounds of Cherbourg or Rochefort, were pure fantasy. Murdoch’s Glasgow evokes the same magic, but the charm lies in the details.
Eve (Browning), suffering from anorexia and depression, absconds from hospital at night and tries to kick-start her life as a musician. She meets the guitarist James (Alexander) at a concert, where he fights with the drummer. James introduces Eve to Cassie (Murray), a posh girl in whom he tries to instil the basics of music, but Cassie finds Eve much more interesting, and soon they roam the city on foot, bike or in a canoe. On forming a band, Eve has a relapse and has to go back to hospital, but finally success arrives (sort of). In the same style as Demy, Murdoch chooses a bitter-sweet ending.
Much of the success is down to the actors: Browning’s Eve hiding her rather steely interior behind a helpless-little-girl persona, but living by her wits. James is just the opposite: he seems to be the leader of the group, but it becomes soon clear that he is only too happy to stay in this in-between stage for the rest of his life. He is an avoid ant; fearful of testing himself, personally and professionally. No wonder Eve sleeps with Anton, a French singer, who turns out to be an arrogant bastard. Cassie is the most earthly: she knows that she can always fall back on family money and connections, and enjoys herself as much as she can: this is her gap year.
The camera creates a dream world in Glasgow: vibrant and colourful, glossy and full of surprises. And it’s a fantasy life the trio creates for themselves; a background invented to suit their needs: young and romantic, far away from the adulthood, which awaits them round the corner. And when Eve and Cassie perform a dance duel with umbrellas, you HAVE to fall in love with GOD HELP THE GIRL – for Demy’s sake. AS
Dir.: Satyajit Ray | Cast: Madhabi Mukherjee, Soumitra Chatterjee, Shailen Mukherjee | India 1964; 117 min.
Another story of female alienation, set in Kolkata in the early 1880s and based on the short story “The Broken Nest” by Rabindranath Tagore. Ray uses utmost candour in this screen version, without betraying any of Tagore’s intentions. Charulata (M. Mukerjee) is the wife of Bhupati (S Mukerjee), who publishes a newspaper “The Sentinel”.
Feeling that his well-educated and elegant wife is lonely, Bhupati invites his older brother Umapada and wife, Manda, to come and stay. But they fail to alleviate his wife’s boredom so he asks his younger cousin Amal (S Chatterjee) into the household. Both share a passion for literature and the relationship becomes more intimate. Bhupati, submerged in his masculine world of politics, is unaware of this relationship. Amal, feeling guilty and threatened by Charulata’s intellect and his feelings for her, abruptly breaks off his relationship with disastrous consequences.
Very much in the style of the Japanese director, Yasujiro Ozu (An Autumn Afternoon), this beautifully told domestic drama offers a pared-down, understated portrait of family life in nineteenth century India. Even in 1964, the role of the Indian woman of Charulata’s class, had not changed that much from the 1880s – many female viewers cried openly after the premiere and Ray was aware of the tension his film would create. Strangely, the Cannes Film Festival rejected the film but it was shown in the summer of 1965 at the Berlinale, were Ray won the “Silver Bear” for best director.
Despite the simplicity of the narrative, Charulata’s passion is still very much in evidence and Madhavii Mukherjee is still remembered today for her luminous performance. The monochrome camera glides through the big house with its imposing clocks and furniture as atmospheric sounds drift in from the street: the cries of street vendors and delicate birdsong from the garden.
Although surrounded by a legion of of capable servants, Charulata is isolated until Amal appears. But despite his artistic sensitivity and feelings for her, Ray illustrates how he is still a man in a man’s world – not so far removed from Bhupati – and when challenged he is surprised that Charulata’s opinions differ (understandably) from his views and literary taste.
Amal is shown as a coward with feet of clay, a traitor to his own ideas. Bhupati loves his politics and uses his power to exercise to , his ego rather than to understand people. In the end, the question of reconciliation is left open: and the final frame is illuminating.
Penelope Houston summed it up in 1965 when she wrote in ‘Sight and Sound’: “…the interplay of sophistication and simplicity is extraordinary”. And for Satyajit Ray this would remain the favourite of his film, “the one he would make again exactly the same”. Today, CHARULATA still feels modern. AS
SCREENING IN THE CLASSICS STRAND | CAIRO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024
Cast: Imogen Poots, Hayley Atwell, Andre Benjamin, Ruth Negga, Burn Gorman, Tom Dunlea
118 mins UK Biopic
Jimi Hendrix will go down in history as the legendary rock musician who died of a drugs overdose. John Ridley’s montage biopic was made without the consent of the family so it is, by nature, impressionistic and possibly a tad ill-judged but passionate, none the less.
Why make such a film about Hendrix without access to his music, his family? Well this is a drama based around his life from the imagined perspectives of various people in his coterie. Not every piece of art has to be fact-based and Ridley is entitled to give his version of the musician’s impact on the sixties music scene, from his own point of view. Whether it’s a cogent and valid piece of filmmaking is another matter.
Most noted for his screenplay of 12 Years A Slave, Ridley feels his way through this biopic with a judicious choice of acting talent and some interesting perceptions: some are engaging, some are crass. As Hendrix, André Benjamin evokes the gentle coltish physicality of the artist, playing him as a naive but wilful, free spirit. Imogen Poots is simply exultant as Linda Keith, the stabilising professional force in his career; a guiding light that showed him the way through sixties London from a balanced perspective, an intelligent girl who knew the ropes and was also Keith Richards’ girlfriend. And Hayley Atwell, sparkles as lover Kathy Echingham, who fought tooth and nail for Jimi’s attentions (in and out of bed) and became the inspiration for several classic hits. However, this is a callow depiction of the sixties which was a humorous upbeat time of new creative frontiers and artistic discovery, of fresh and fervent optimism untainted by greed, depravity or jadedness. Instead, what Ridley offers is a biopic about a slightly misguided loner who is indecisive in love and, for the most part, unremarkable as a rock musician. There are some disastrous, ill-judged moments where Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney are presented as laughable cardboard cut-outs via freeze-frame: an appalled device that pours derision on the film. Malcolm X is depicted as a benign uncle-like figure,
At nearly two hours All Is By My Side outstays its welcome, to say the least. Lacking in archive footage of the man himself performing his music, even diehard fans will fail to root for it, and as a testament to the swinging sixties it totally misses the beat. As a study of female adoration and groupiedom it hits the nail on the head. All Is By My Side may not be about the real Jimi Hendrix the rock musician, but through some strong performances, emerges the essence and charisma of a true artist and creative: who inspired strong feelings: to know him was to love him.
Cast: Mackenzie Davis, Jeremy Allen-White, Logan Huffman, William Devane, Mark Pelligrino
USA 2013, 90 min.
In this decent Southern Noir debut, first time directors Simon and Zeke Hawkins have learned a lot from the master of crime pulp fiction, Jim Thompson and the weak, sleazy characters, which populate his novels. To start with, the sheriff is bent, a hallmark of many Thompson plots. Then there are the small time criminals, ready to be gobbled up by the real professionals. And there is also the continued threat to woman by their male counterparts. The woman here is Sue and when we meet her with Bobby for the first time in the café, she tries to interest him in “South of Heaven”, a novel by Jim Thompson, set in 1927 in Texas, at the height of the depression.
Set in a small town in Texas, the film opens as one member of a teenage ménage-à-trois, carrying the narrative, takes part in a low-key robbery: B.J. (Huffman) empties the safe of his boss Giff (Pelligrino). He is going to spend the money with Sue (Davis) and Bobby (Allen-White), whom are then seen discussing their future at college in a greasy spoon café. Giff, ultra violent, beats his Mexican caretaker half to death in front of Bobby and B.J, wrongly suspecting him of the theft but when Bobby intervenes with his confession, B.J is only too happy to see somebody else taking the rap. But Giff shoots the caretaker, proclaiming him as the guilty party, since he was supposed to look after the funds. However, Giff is not done with the teenagers: they have to rob a depot to steal a much larger sum, so that Giff can pay back Big Red (Devane), a big time gangster, who owns his business. Bobby, being much more rational than the highly strung BJ, goes to the sheriff, to confess, but finds out, that the lawman is part of the Giff’s scheme.
Meanwhile Bobby and Sue have sex, overheard by a very jealous B.J., who left one of the walkie-talkies they are going to use in the robbery, with Sue, and has to listen in his car to the noisy lovemaking of his friends. B.J., who has an inferiority complex, since he will stay behind, not having got his college grades, is planning his revenge, but when Bobby and Sue find an empty safe and two dead people, we know that Giff had set the trio up. But Sue, much cleverer than the boys, has alarmed Big Red, and Giff has not only to face the teenagers in a bloody show down, but also a man much more ruthless and cleverer than himself.
The acting is convincing, and never over the top and the main trio, in particular, is restrained; showing their youthful vulnerability in a corrupt and violent adult world. The camera is particularly efficient in the night scenes, achieving a truly noir character of little light and many shadows. A small, but taut Southern-noir thriller, perfecly set in a time before mobiles and the internet. AS
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi, Amr Waked, Julian Rhind-Tutt
89min Fantasy Sci-Fi
One of the pivotal figures of the ‘Cinema du Look’ movement, giving his films a highly visual style, LUC BESSON is also fascinated by the human brain; so much so that he has funded research on the subject and made it the focus of his latest fantasy sci-fi LUCY.
It stars Scarlett Johansson as a woman who gains access to 100 percent of her brain’s potential (instead of the average mythical 10 percent) after being forced by to ingest a massive quantity of the naturally occurring human hormone CPH4 (produced by women during pregnancy). Don’t worry: LUCY doesn’t require any deep probing of your grey matter. Just sit back and enjoy a roller coaster ride and Johnsson’s dynamite performance as a velvet-voiced virago cutting a no-nonsense swathe through the all-male cast of baddies. As a plus point, her intellectual superiority has the vicarious effect of making women everywhere feel they too, for once, could rule the World.
Lucy’s story is quite simple: while trying to fit an early night and some studying in around her dodgy new boyfriend (a smarmy Julian Rhind-Tutt), she ends up as an unwilling drug-mule for gang-leader Jang (Choi Min-sik) when a bag of blue crystals (CPH4) is implanted in her stomach wall, after an impromptu ‘kidnap’. After a dust-up with Jang’s nasty security guards, CSI-style CGI footage kicks in to reveal the drugs entering her system, activating her brain cells to Einstein levels and beyond.
As luck would have it, Morgan Freeman happens to be lecturing over in Paris on the very subject of ‘brain access’. As visiting professor, Samuel Norman, Besson taps into his knowledge, illustrating the endless possibilities of Lucy’s enhanced human status and how ‘homo sapiens’ is linked to the Animal Kingdom – all illustrated in a glorious technicolor-style nature sequence. Lucy’s transformation from frightened student to powerful superwoman is impressive. She painlessly removes a bullet from her shoulder while scoffing a pile of sandwiches and struts into a local hospital, demanding that the bag be removed from her body, while telephoning her mother to describe the minutiae of events and emotions leading back to her birth. The effects of the drugs are increasingly transformative as Lucy’s physical movements and facial expressions reflect her bionic physicality and intellectual superiority. This is Johansson at the top of her game developing her skills not just a human actor but as a seriously impressive being without the assistance of make-up or special effects.
Even if your lip curls at the thought of sci-fi or CGI-enhanced visuals, Besson’s LUCY is a fun-filled joy ride with some worthwhile elements although it all gets rather silly in the end. Despite becoming less emotional and more analytical after absorbing the drug, Besson avoids transforming his heroine into the distant, psychopathic alien from Under The Skin: this is an upbeat and strangely empowering piece of filmmaking; and will have particular appeal for female audiences. Using her new-found powers, Lucy sets out to assist the police in rounding up batches of the drug, involving an enthralling car chase where she skilfully drives against oncoming traffic with a French detective Del Rio (Amr Waked) who asks her, desperately, if she normally adopts this strategy on the road : “I’ve never driven before”, is her candid response. So despite a rather over-excited denouement where Lucy’s capabilities involve time travel, as she wizzes ‘God-like’ backs through the centuries, waving the Taiwanese drug fiends away and locking them behind imaginary glass barriers. There’s an altruistic outcome for her drug-fuelled frenzy: eventually she finds a way of downloading her extensive knowledge and passing is on to future generations. The future’s bright – the future’s LUCY. MT
Cast: Alexandra Finder, David Zimmerschied, Chiara Kleemann, Pia Kleemann; Germany 2013, 175 min.
In 59 chapters, each divided by about 45 seconds intervals, Philip Gröning (Into Great Silence) tells the story of a nuclear family of today. In the opening sections all appears to be boringly normal as Mr and Mrs get to grips with child rearing in a small German town. Uwe (Zimmerschied) is a policeman who has to work long shifts to make ends meet. Nothing new there. His wife Christine (Finder) is often alone at home with their little daughter Clara (Chiara and Pia Kleemann) but seems content with motherhood.
Gradually Uwe turns from a doting father and husband into a vicious monster; beating his wife for no apparent reason. When his daughter sees the horrendous injuries, Uwe tries to cover things up: ‘Mummy is ill’. Jeopardising her own well-being, Christine wants to stay so that her daughter has a father. This is a realistic, everyday horror and yet it depicts a situation that’s alarmingly commonplace: a woman degrading herself by not leaving her abusive husband, in order to give her daughter a ‘normal’ family life.
Not an easy film to watch for obvious reasons, quite apart from the tedious “Chapter” breaks, Uwe’s violent outbursts, two work-related scenes and the enigmatic appearances of an old man, this small household feels increasingly filled with a claustrophobic menace. But the reasons for Uwe’s mental deterioration are never explored, leaving the viewer to ruminate and speculate: is he mentally ill, or just a sadist.? The narrative structure is also ambiguous: are we watching flash-backs, or following a straight-forward timeframe. This is real ‘fly on the wall’ stuff: information is so limited that we have no way of appraising or analysing the endless repetitiveness. Clearly Gröning wants us to draw our own conclusions, but we are given very little to work with in the process. Bombarded by the stringent quality of the individual chapters, the viewer starts to drown in nearly three hours of emotional warfare and very little narrative flow from chapter to chapter, let alone the entire film.
Performances and cinematography are superb, as the camera probes new angles of faces and objects, perfectly catching the emotional storm from every possible viewpoint. In spite of all this, the viewer feels excluded; as if Gröning is just out to prove a point, a relentless exercise in cruelty, without the slightest explanation for motives. Overlong and tedious, this is an exhausting dogmatic lesson in contemporary dysfunctional family life. AS
Venice Film Festival review. THE POLICEMAN’S WIFE IS OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 22 AUGUST 2014
Cast: Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Yvette Guilbert, William Dieterle
Germany 1926, 107 min.
Initially it was Ludwig Berger (The Thief of Baghdad) who was supposed to direct the 2M Reichsmark production (200 M in current currency), but Emil Jannings, who was cast as Mephisto, insisted on F.W. Murnau, the man who made him world famous in the The Last Man two years previously. It would be Murnau’s last German film, before he went to Hollywood, where he would direct Sunrise a year later.
Hans Kyser’s script for the film was based on texts by J.W. Goethe, Christopher Marlowe and an old German folk legend. Faust was already a favourite topic for film makers: Louis Lumière was first in 1896, Georges Melies followed a year later and the first American version of Faust was directed in 1900 by Edwin S. Porter. In Murnau’s version, the conflict is a straightforward fight for supremacy between God (represented by an archangel) and Mephisto (Jannings). Their wager is the first: if Satan could win the soul of one person, he would rule the earth. Mephisto chooses Faust (Ekman), an old alchemist, trying to make gold from metal. He lives in a small town, where a huge cloud turns everything into dark: Mephisto has arrived to punish the citizens with pestilence. Faust is unable to find a cure, and Mephisto seduces him into a bargain: he will grant Faust a cure in return for his soul, the original deal lasting a day. But whilst Faust succeeds at first, the citizens find out about his connection with Satan, and hound him out of town. After being promised eternal youth, wealth and power, Faust kidnaps the Duchess of Parma on her wedding day, and after returning to his home town, he seduces the virgin Gretchen (Horn). After Faust kills Gretchen’s brother, the pregnant woman is accused of being a whore and put to the stocks. Going mad, she mistakes a pile of snow for a cradle, killing her baby child. She is condemned to burn on the stake, but Faust at last sees his guilt, joining her in the flames, though loosing Mephisto’s wager.
In spite of the many aesthetic tricks Murnau used, he was very keen on realism: Horn, for whom Gretchen was her first main part, never stopped telling journalists how close she came to be really consumed by the fire. Dissolves are dominating the film, and dancing letters like in Caligari, help to create a super natural atmosphere. When Mephisto and Faust are flying over world on a carpet, Murnau uses a camera on a roller coaster. Faust’s change from an old to a young man (and vice versa) are impressive, and the riders of the apocalypse are truly frightening even today. Jannings dominates the film, his Mephisto is truly evil, but not in a superficial way – he really seduces Faust. Horn is very aptly cast, and Guilbert is a great Marthe Schwerdtlein. We also re-encounter the German expressionist design and architectural flourishes of Caligari with its spiky gables and narrow alleyways – unsurprisingly, since Walter Röhrig was again in charge of the design. A new harp score by Stan Ambrose (there is also an orchestral option) underlines the phantastic atmosphere, transcending images and words into a glorious poetic realism. This is an absolutely enchanting visual experience. AS
AVAILABLE AT MASTERS OF CINEMA FROM 18TH AUGUST 2014
COMPLETE WITH FULL-LENGTH AUDIO COMMENTARY BY CRITICS DAVID EHRENSTEIN AND BILL KROHN
40-PAGE BOOKLET WITH A ESSAY BY PETER SPOONER, WRITING ON THE FILM BY ERIC ROHMER, AND RARE ARCHIVAL IMAGERY.
With a modest budget, a respectable cast of minor British acting talent and a quaint Oxfordshire setting, Adam Wimpenny has made a piece of fantasy horror that looks rather good.
It has Ed Stoppard as Ben Marshall, a high-flying Oxford professor whose recent mental breakdown has forced him into a less pressurised role in a minor university. With his wife Rachel (Sophia Myles) and young son Harry (Isaac Andrews), he hopes the change will help him recover and save their marriage and family life. But their move to Blackwood, a deserted manor house deep in the English countryside, gets off to a inauspicious start after a series of unsettling things that go bump in the night, and during the daytime too.
Local vicar Father Patrick (Paul Kaye) doesn’t exactly calm Ben’s fears by suggesting that the house may indeed be haunted by the victim of an unsolved murder. Their neighbour Jack (Russell Tovey), an ex-soldier, doesn’t instil Ben’s confidence either: he too is suffering emotional trauma. But it’s the arrival of Rachel’s flirty ex, Dominic (Greg Wise), that finally sends Ben into turmoil- suggesting that he may be cracking up again.
Cinematographer Dale McReady does a brilliant job of lensing this good-looking Britflic with its Autumnal hues and lush countryside. Gorgeously shot on digital 35mm, Blackwoodhas the feel of a much more expensive production. Lorne Balfe’s atmospheric score also conjurs up some very unsettling vibes deep in the shires.
The problem is the story and characters feel very predictable, pushing all the right buttons, but staying in very safe territory narrative-wise: weird animal masks; lightening flashes; clocks that stop and start; mentally unstable loners: these cliches all are all textbook tropes in the horror arsenal, so Blackwooddoesn’t feel very scary. The cast perform their tricks well, but they are predominantly known for their TV work; making this feel very much like a decent episode of ‘Midsomer Murders’.
So, Blackwood is a reasonable and well-made debut but let’s hope that Adam Wimpenny will really set the night on fire with something really different next time around. MT
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, Joseph Mawle
Nigeria/UK 2013, 111 min.
Olanna (Newton) and her twin sister Kainene (Rose) celebrate Nigeria’s independence in October 1960 with their upper-class parents and a future minster of the government. They are expected by their parents to thrive in the new elite, but whilst Kainene stays with the family clan, British educated Olanna moves with her boyfriend Odenigbo (Ejiofor), a radical academic in the eastern city of Nsukka. Kainene falls in love with the British journalist Richard (Mawle). For all his revolutionary talk, Odenigbo is very much in thrall of his mother, who calls Olanna a witch and manipulates her maid into seducing her son while he’s drunk. Olanna, who beds Richard as revenge for this unfaithfulness, later forgives her boyfriend and adopts the baby resulting from Odenigbo’s one-night stand finally gaining the respect of her future mother-in-law. These domestic scenes have a soapy quality to them that feel at odds with the overall political context of the piece, and the ensuing shift to high melodrama when the couple’s wedding is interrupted by an air raid on the outbreak of civil war (which started in 1967) feels over-sensationalised compared with what has gone before, despite the intensity of feelings, which were understanding running high at the time. We are unprepared for this sudden shift in tone, which feels overly dramatic given the low-key amorous jostling and domestic ups and downs of the first half of this debut feature.
That said, Bandele is clearly at pains to reflect the fervour of the Igbo nation, that, feeling threatened by the central government in Lagos, eventually rises up to become the independent Republic of Biafra. During an extremely bitter, three-year war Olanna and her husband are forced to flee more than once from the advancing troops of the central government. In the last months of the war the sisters are reunited, but Kainene, who helps to run a refuge camp with her husband, is lost in the chaos of atrocities.
This is playwright Bandele’s screen debut. He has worked with the Royal Court and the RSC, and although he creates an intense melodrama reflecting the bitter feelings generating by colonialism set against the relationship of the two couples: Bandele seems to side with Kainene, who argues that the civil war is not a direct result of colonial repression, but a war of resources. But it is harrowing to see how helpless these people are in their individual ways: their education and intellect in creating a civilised society, negated and brushed aside by forces beyond their control. They belong viscerally to the Igbo nation yet intellectually to the past – the war has obliterated this past and everything everything that once had meaning. It is ironic to hear the voice of Biafra’s leader Odumegwu Ojukwu, an Oxford graduate, asking for “a fight to the last man” – just as many educated white men before and after him.
Thandie Newton dominates HALF OF A YELLOW SUN, somehow playing the rest of the quartet into the background. Her Olanna is the driving factor of the narrative, carrying it mesmerizingly forward. Whilst the action scenes are sufficiently brutal, they do not overshadow the political implications: this is not a simple anti-war film, but one that argues from a reasoning, as well as emotional perspective. The camera is not always as innovative as possible, but overall the film gives enough startling images, reflecting the vibrant landscape and creating a palpable sense of place and ample food for thought without degenerating into a didactic, sterile thesis.
Director: Michel Gondry | Writers: Michel Gondry, Boris Vian | Cast: Romain Duris, Audrey Tatou, | 131min French with subtitles Romantic Drama
Audrey Tatou and Romain Duris team up again for this surreal tale of emotional love. Sex and lust are replaced by the heartfelt tenderness of romantic devotion; better summed up by the title l’Ecume des Jours (Froth on a Daydream), Boris Vian’s cult novel, on which it was based. You will either totally buy into its poetic retro charm (which does rather overstay its welcome at over two hours), or find it tedious in the extreme.
A wealthy young man, Colin, (Romain Duris) falls head over heels for the delicately coy Chloé (Audrey Tatou). But after a mysterious floral growth in her lung requires her to be perpetually surrounded by fresh flowers in order to survive, Colin’s financial means comes under severe strain. An upbeat jazzy start sees Gondry’s stylistic fantasy slowly shift in tone from fluffy romcom to shades of mournful melodrama as sullen clouds darken the lovers’ world, turning their florid love-song into a faded and poignant elegy, strangled in bindweed.
This is not the first screen adaptation of the novel, Charles Belmont made the film in 1968, featuring Vian’s wife Ursula as a nun. Go Riju also crafted a Japanese version in 2001. But Gondry’s film feels typically French with its light-hearted whimsical approach evoking the Parisian outings of the fifties and sixties. Technical effects are superbly inventive and Duris and Tatou are perfectly cast for the fun-filled slapstickery, and equally good when it all darkens to cutesy pouting and tear-welling tristesse. You may even shed crocodile tears… MT
Cast: Wes Bentley, Stephen Lang, Aksel Hennie, Jonathan LaPaglia, Jorgen Langhelle, Andre Eriksen
111 min Thriller Norway
Erik Skoldbjaerg – best known for Insomnia (1997) delves back into Norwegian history here with a tense thriller that accurately reflects the gritty social realism of the seventies oil scene. Based on a conspiracy theory of sorts surrounding the American research projects that part-funded Norwegian upstream crude oil pipelines back in 1981, the action centres around three diving engineers working under pressure (both time-wise and in a tank) to prepare for construction to begin. They are brothers Petter (Aksel Hennie), Knut (Andre Eriksen) and colleague Jorgen (David Jorgensen). Tragically one of them will not emerge to tell the tale and the land-based team deny any responsibility on their part, implicating Jorgen who (conveniently) has a history of seizures. It is left to Petter to investigate his brother’s death and support the family while in a state of deep mourning. What emerges from his findings is that Jorgen’s illness stems from faulty gas supplies provided by (none other than) the Americans, but can he prove this? In a masterful and gripping performance, Aksel Hennie pits his wits against the weight of pressure from the American team and the slightly stiff handling of the narrative. At times confusingly teetering between Petter’s understandable mental instability and his increasingly distorted view of events. Pioneer cleverly explores the political conspiracy theory at work in this dour and suspenseful thriller that takes it time to convince but manages to surface in the end. MT
With its Belle Epoque overtones and hauntingly romantic retro feel A PROMISE is set in a German industrial town before the Great War. It stars Alan Richman as an ageing steel magnate whose refined and vivacious wife (Rebecca Hall) falls hopelessly in love with his young assistant engineer (Richard Madden) from a modest background. Based on a novella (Journey Into the Past) by Austrian Stefan Zweig, one of the most famous writers during the 1920s and 30s, it questions whether real love can last forever, when a young couple promise to continue their romantic liaison even after the privations of the First World War.
Written and directed by Patrice Leconte (The Hairdresser’s Husband) A PROMISE premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2013, where Leconte described his film as “an intimate, troubling and compelling love story that delves into the lasting power of passion”. Well, there’s nothing new about the idea of falling hopelessly in love, but this story champions romantic passion as apposed to the instant gratification of sex and physical chemistry that is now a more popular subject-matter: A PROMISE explores whether love can survive time, distance, betrayal or even War: or as Oscar Wilde put it, “Time nor Tide can never sever, those whom love has brought together”.
So, Romance, The Great War, magnificent costumes and an enchanting setting enhanced by Eduardo Serra’s elegant visuals – all perfect ingredients for a bodice-ripping ride – what could go wrong? Rebecca Hall is perfectly cast for the role of Lotte Hoffmeister and her feminine appeal as a woman receptive and ripe for passion is beguiling. As Karl Hoffmeister, Alan Richman’a masterful bearing and powerful personality shines through and despite suffering from a heart complaint and no longer (presumably) able to satisfy his wife in bed, his mental strength generates a strong presence of masculine integrity.
But Richard Madsen fails to convince as the young and vigorous lover in the throws of romantic turmoil. He pales into insignificance alongside this Victorian power couple, generating about as much sexual magnetism as a sick child. This is not helped by Gabriel Yared’s nervous score that irritates rather than anticipates the excitement of romantic undercurrents.
Leconte’s direction also wavers midway lacking much needed reference to salient socio-political developments of the era in contrast to the stifling potboiler with its occasional forays into the Hoffmeister factory. After being separated geographically and emotionally by a break-down in communications due to the war effort, the narrative recovers towards the end as the couple reunite against the grim reality of 20th Century Europe and the rise of Nazism. But this is not enough to set the night of fire as anticipated, and in the end Leconte delivers a stolid period drama that feels dated despite its potential for moving romantic impact and long-winded despite a running time of only 94 minutes. MT
Cast: Danny Horn, Charity Wakefield, Shaun Dingwall
UK 2014, 102 min.
Luke, an ordinary bloke, wakes up one morning and finds a mutilated corpse in his bathroom. He soon teams up with Sam Cross, a police detective on suspension, whose older sister was murdered by the serial killer Edward Jansen twenty years ago, before he was shot dead by police. But the corpse in Luke’s bathroom has Jansen’s DNA all over it, and soon more grisly murders happen all over London – always seemingly committed by serial killers; long dead. More and more sinister protagonists are introduced. It emerges that the government has cloned the killers to see if their “offspring” has signs of deviant DNA which could be eradicated in future in order to make this planet peaceful for good. Like all developments in this British thriller, the identity of the killer is “telegraphed” early on, simply by suddenly leaving him out of the storyline shortly after introduction.
Michell has plenty of seen enough B-movies, horror or otherwise. But instead of trying to find a variation of his own, he throws everything together into a gruesome mix. Yes, Dari Argento and Mario Bava are his idols, but apart from some visual creativeness, he offers nothing new, delivering just a structureless copy of everything he has seen. The sound level reaches “Transformers” heights, but SCAR TISSUE can’t even compete with the intellectual level of the car giant series. AS
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan, Gary Poulter, Adrien Mishler
US Southern Gothic Drama
In Joe, David Gordon Green’s bleak exploration of a macho community in hicksville, Nicolas Cage triumphs with a brilliant portrayal of a mercurial but likeable some-time crim who gambles and womanises his way through his days as a lumber merchant. In contrast to the upbeat and quirky Prince Avalanche, Joe is darker and low on narrative, driven forward by an atmosphere of brooding menace that seeps through the Southern town, keeping the suspense taut with unpredictable episodes of brutal violence.
Adapted from a 1991 novel by Larry Brown, Joeloosely echoes Undertow and tells how a young teenage Gary Jones (Tye Sheridan) manages to persuade the reluctant Joe (Cage) into employing him through sterling persistence and a stankovian work ethic. Once in the job, however, Joe becomes very protective of Gary, whose violent father (a superb Gary Poulter) steals his wages and abuses him.
Unfortunately Poulter never gets to see his debut as he died before the film was released. Womenfolk get short shrift in this neck of the woods, but Adrien Mishler does her best with a slim role as Joe’s on/off girlfriend, who tries to make something of their relationship competing against his regular bouts of drinking, gambling and the demands of his work. Tye Sheridan gives another really excellent performance as Joe’s employee forming a winning partnership with Nicolas Cage along similar lines to the one he successful forged with Matthew McConaughey in Mud. MT
Dir.: Marc Silver; Documentary with Gael Garcia Bernal; UK/Mexico 2013, 85 min.
In August 2010 a male body was discovered in the Sonora desert in Arizona. No clues to the identity of the corpse were found, apart from the name “Dayani Cristal” tattooed across the chest. It became soon clear, that “Dayani Crystal” is one victim of over two thousand would-be immigrants found dead in Southern Arizona in the last ten years, after the 389 miles “Border Wall” between Arizona and Mexico was erected. The total length of the Wall between the two countries is over 650 miles, the loss of life is calculated of over 5000 people in the last ten years alone. The USA government has so far spent billions of Dollars on the wall, with maintenance costs accumulating.
Marc Silver avoids a purely documentary structure and after showing the work of the Tucson police department in identifying the corpse and the joint efforts of the Honduran consulate, he makes the actor Gael Garcia Bernal as “Dayani Cristal” the focal point of this moving docudrama, tracing the steps of the dead man’s journey from a little village in Honduras. We learn that he was married with three children, once stricken with leukaemia, which explained the debts the family had, and motivated the husband to emigrate. The journey through Mexico, mainly by foot and train, is hazardous, border police and kidnappers feast on the victims. In the end, we learn the identity of the victim: Dilcy Yohan Sandres Martinez, father of a baby girl named Dayani Cristal. He was 29 when he died twenty minutes away from Tucson, begging his friends to leave him die alone in the freezing desert, so as not to endanger their own lives. Unlike others, whose identity is never discovered, he at least found a sort of peace: his body is flown to Honduras, his burial attended by his family and friends.
In putting a face to victim, the film personalises the argument in a positive and a negative way: the brilliant acting of Bernal makes us identify much more with the character of Martinez than would have been the case in a pure documentary film. At the same time, this personalisation (and yes, sometimes sentimentality creeps in with much wailing and gnashing of teeth), occasionally detracts from the overriding conflict, even though the straight documentary passages of the film speak for themselves and are enforced repetitively. In the end, the main argument is made by an American: Since it is proven, that (not only) the USA economy relies on low paid workers to do the jobs other Americans don’t want to do; would it not be more sane to invest in a proper immigration system, instead of this frontier of death. After all, weren’t we told that the Berlin Wall signified the superiority of capitalism over Communism? AS
Cast: Gustav Dyekjaer Giese, Oscar Dyekjaer Giese, Julifi Al-Jaburi, Roland Moller, Lena Maria Christensen
91min Danish with subtitles Crime Drama
Michael Noer explores the criminal underbelly of Copenhagen’s Nordvest district in his second feature, a gritty Noirish art house piece. In Nordvest, rival ethnic gangs compete for the lucrative business of stealing to order amongst the neighbourhood’s luxury modern houses where rich pickings of designer furnishings are to be had (Le Klint or Beovision anyone?). A specialist in this petty crime trade is Danish teenager Caspar (newcomer Gustav Dyekjaer Giese) who lives with his single mother (Lena Maria Christensen), brother Andy (real-life sibling Oscar Dyekjaer Giese) and little sister Freya. Although keen to protect his brother from his illicit activities, Caspar realises Andy has a yen to train as his accomplice rather than going to secondary school.
But Caspar is very much a bottom-feeder in the gangland scene and working hard to gain respect from ‘boss’ Jamal (Dulifi Al-Jaburi) when he runs into the venal Bjorn (Roland Moller) while ducking and diving for loot in the leafy avenues of the Danish suburb. The two hit it off and Bjorn offers him an entrée into his world of pimping Eastern European hookers and drug-trafficking, which has the added advantage of learning how to shoot a gun and earn better money. A turf war ensues between the rival gangs, as Jamal becomes territorial over Caspar.
There’s nothing particularly original about this Danish dogma-style tale of tawdry teenagers sinking into depravity (with its shades of Easymoney and Pusher) co-written by Rasmus Heisterberg (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). But what it offers is a compelling and tightly-plotted character study of how teens can fall between the cracks in the concrete in the petty criminal world. Fiercely protective of his family, Caspar has a decent heart and a keen sense of morality that doesn’t always serve him well in the world of criminal psychopaths. His arian looks and steely gaze make him perfect for the role of a fallen angel, Danish-style. Andy’s thuggishness and reduced sense of responsibility make him more of a daredevil, but also a self-seeking accomplice with an eye for the main change. Magnus Nordenhof Jonck (A Hijacking) brings a cool, creative vibe to his energetic cinematography. MT
Cast: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders
USA 1946/47, 87 min.
Shot between October 1946 and January 1947, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAIcost Columbia in the end two million dollars (200m by today’s standards), although it was scheduled to come in after 60 days of shooting, at a cost of 1.25m $. And if Columbia boss Harry Cohn would have had his way, it would have never been seen in cinemas at all (it has its first preview in April 1948). Having watched the finished film for the first time, he promised “the first person who can explain the plot to me’ a thousand dollars. The famous DOP Rudolph Mate had to do a great deal of re-shooting of Rita Hayworth close-ups at the Columbia studios. Welles seemed not be too sure himself, but later proclaimed the film (rightfully) a masterpiece. That did not stop it flopping at the box office. THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI was Welles’ last film as a director in Hollywood for ten years (he would shoot Touch of Evilin 1958). And it was his very last film with his wife Rita Hayworth: they were to divorce in November 1947. During the hearing Hayworth testified: “Mr. Welles showed no interest in establishing a home. Mr. Welles told me he should have never married in the first place, as it interfered with his freedom in his way of life.” Never mind that the couple had a three-year-old daughter, Rebecca. And whilst nobody can argue with Welles’ genius; his lifelong misogyny was something to behold, as he told the French film historian Maurice Bessy “Women are stupid; I have known some who are less stupid than others, but they’re are all stupid”.
And this opinion is written all over THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. To start with, Hayworth had to loose her long mane, her trademark. Welles and Cohn made it into a publicity show, ordering the hair-dresser Helen Hunt from her honeymoon, so that she could “perform” under the eyes of the press, Welles asking Hunt to cut ruthlessly. Hayworth, now a “topaz blond”, was cast as the most evil and stupid woman on the planet: Elsa is the young and alluring wife of the crippled defence lawyer Arthur Bannister. Holidaying on his yacht in the West Indies, Elsa meets the Irish sailor Michael O’Hara (Welles), and lures him on board. There, Bannister’s partner Grisby (Anders) dreams up a plot to kill Bannister, so he and Elsa can share the insurance money. They set O’Hara up as the fall-guy, but Grisby looses his nerve and kills Broome, a detective hired by Bannister to spy on Elsa. O’Hara is accused of murder and Bannister defends him, to make sure he is convicted. But O’Hara escapes from the court house, is captured by Elsa and her Chinese friends, and ends up in a closed fair ground where he watches Elsa and Bannister shoot each other to death in the hall of mirrors. Elsa begs Michael to save her life, but he wanders off declaring full of self-pity “that I might die trying to forget her”. Male paranoia of women has never been expressed more artfully. AS
ON RELEASE IN A STUNNING NEW 4K RESTORATION IN THE BIF SOUTHBANK AND SELECTED CINEMAS FROM 25TH JULY COURTESY OF PARK CIRCUS FILMS
Dir.: Mike Myers; Documentary; USA 2013, 91 min.
Mike Myers is a long-time Gordon admirer, since they pair met whilst working on WAYNE’S WORLD. This is a sensitive portrait and even though the interviews take up a little too much time, Myers offers up more than just a celebrity hero’s portrait.
It emerges that Shep Gordon’s success was born out of a very different career than originally intended. Finishing his BA in sociology in 1968 at the State University of New York in Buffalo, he wanted to save the under-privileged – so he set out “on a white horse” to LA, to become a mentor for juvenile offenders. Things didn’t work out and but swinging by the Landmark Motel in LA one night, he heard a young woman screams. Fearing that she might be raped, Gordon stepped in to save her – but got a punch in the face for his trouble. Later that same woman came to his room to apologise. This is how Gordon met Janis Joplin – next day she introduced him to Jimmy Hendrix, who asked him “Are you Jewish?”, and after Gordon nodded affirmative, Hendrix said “You should be a music manager”. Since he was out of a job, Gordon followed the advice and the rest, as they say, is history.
One would think that the career that followed was rather a let-down after this heady start: But on the contrary, the names he managed are legendary, starting with his first client a certain Vincent Furnier, who had just adopted his stage name Alice Cooper. In order to make his client a star, Gordon decided to launch a publicity stunt – bringing the traffic at Piccadilly Circus to a halt by dropping 18 000 pair of knickers from a helicopter over the audience while Cooper was performing at the Hollywood Bowl, and, most (in)famously, Cooper and his audience threw a chicken around.
Cooper was not the only mega-star (the two stayed very close) on Gordon’s book: Blondie, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, Raquel Welsh and Anne Murray, to name a few. But Gordon got tired (and too old) for the music business– you can only run around in a tea-shirt with the legend “No head – no stage pass” so long. An older and calmer Gordon was responsible for “inventing” the independent American cinema (”before the Weinsteins and Miramax”). Together with Carolyn Pfeiffer he produced Ridley’s Scott debut THE DUELLISTS which won the 1977 Jury price for best first film in Cannes (the Camera d’Or was born a year later). They produced STOP MAKING SENSE, the Alan Rudolph and Sam Shepard movies. And as a distributor with “Cinecom” Gordon brought KOYAANISQATSI” and NORTE to the USA. After meeting the Dalai Lama (and becoming a ‘Jew-Bu’), Shep was responsible for creating the success of ‘Master Chefs’, after meeting Roger Verge. Gordon was astonished to hear how little respect (and money) the Chef earned, and in Roger Verge he created the first TV master chef.
His personal relationships, are, alas, without their happy-endings. Whilst he has his own surrogate family, looking after four grandchildren of his ex-partner, his greatest wish to have a son, is still unfulfilled. A relationship with Sharon Stone lasted a few years, but petered out; a later marriage ended after three years. And after waking up from a life-threatening operation, his employee found The right words: ”There he was, waking up, only seeing me, a paid employee. He must have been very sad”. Then we see Gordon, wandering around on the island of Maui (Hawaii), where he has lived for the last decades, visited by all his famous friends he kept for life, like Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stalone and Willie Nelson, who appear in this film, singing his praise as a compassionate man. Shep Gordon, the man who had everything in his many incarnations – apart from lasting intimacy. AS
Cast: Louis Garrel, Anna Mouglalis, Ester Garrel, Rebecca Convenant, Olga Mishtein
77min Drama French with subtitles
Louis Garrel stars as….Louis Garrel in an out of love in this slim family drama which also stars Anna Mouglalis (as his lover) and was directed by his father Philippe Garrel. With its themes of infidelity and financial instability it is inspired by the auteur’s own childhood: his father Maurice Garrel also left his mother for another actress. Ester Garrel (Louis’ sister) also has a small supporting role as his screen sister. Shot in stylish black and white, the film is a dialogue heavy and the brooding Louis rarely smiles as he plays a married man who leaves his wife Clothilde and young child for a lover, emerging a troubled soul fraught with indecision and insecurity, obviously emotions that he experienced a great deal as a child.
Spying through the keyhole, Louis and Clothilde’s little daughter Charlotte witness her parents arguing and deciding to split up, against her mother’s wishes. Clearly unable to support his family through his acting career, Louis leaves to be with Claudia (Mouglalis) also an struggling actress but the couple are clearly no better off financially and argue over money in their tiny bedsit. Despite their obvious sexual attraction, the stresses and strains of impecunity very soon start to effect their relationship and further infidelities ensue. Claudia is the archetypal neurotic diva but strangely hits if off with Charlotte and the little girl conveys her delight to her mother know in no uncertain terms declaring Claudia “absolutely awesome”.
Claudia suggests the two of them move to a larger apartment given to her by an ex but Louis is naturally deeply jealous and attempts to take his own life. There’s a great deal of emotional to-ing and fro-ing with Claudia clearly the stronger of the couple and both give convincing performances. The story feels quite realistic as a retro mood piece nicely enhanced by Jean-Louis Aubert atmospheric score and Willy Kurant’s delightful visuals: Paris, romance, indecision, jealousy, betrayal, longing: all achingly believable but also predictably tedious. MT
Cast: Sid Lucero, Archie Alemania, Angeli Bayani, Mae Panes
Philippines 2013; 250 min.
For most filmmakers a 250 minutes opus like NORTE would be the exception in length, and this goes also for Philippine director Lav Diaz – only for him, four hours represent a compromise the other way round: compared with his seven and a half hour masterpiece Melancholia (2009), NORTE is just a short.
Lavrente Diaz was named by his parents after a character from a Dostojevsky novel, and NORTE is in its epic format and contents definitely comparable with ‘Guilt and Punishment’.
As always with Diaz, the harsh landscape of the Philippines is the background for a violent narrative, but Diaz rarely shows this violence: his aesthetics are puritanical like Bresson’s, with whom he also shares the transfiguration of his characters. Whilst being a realist, there is also some deeply felt spiritualism in Diaz films.
The first ‘shock’ for the Diaz enthusiast is that NORTE is his first film in colour for over eleven years. Being used to his grainy black/white images, one wonders, how this change will affect the film. Not to worry, Diaz uses colour to show the exterior even in even more dominant form: Long, panoramic shots, the camera panning above the fields, the light diffuse, the colours only vibrant at night, the stillness of the land, in contrast to the hectic, with which the protagonists move. A mixture of Cezanne and Monet.
The film gets under way as a discussion between law students in a café, one of them, Fabian, has left the course in spite of his talent and drifts from job to jop, always borrowing money from friends and the moneylender and pawnbroker, Miss Magda. She is a fat woman with bad manners and exploits everyone in need, like Joaquin and Eliza, who have two children. After Eliza had to pawn a ring, Joaquin threatens Magda and tries to strangle her, before running away. A few hours later at night, Fabian kills the pawnbroker and her teenage daughter (we only hear the killings behind doors), than runs off. Next day, Joaquin is arrested and later sentenced to lifelong prison. Years go by, Joaquin gives Eliza some money, which she uses to visit her husband, whose far away prison can only reached by plane. Being a guest at his sister’s house, Joaquin rapes her and than kills his favourite dog (again off scene). Then he hires a boat and drifts into the direction of the ocean. But the second to last scene shows the site of a plane crash, we mostly see the lamps, which Joaquin had made in prison for his family. The images of the crash side are one of the saddest moments in the history of film.
NORTE is delicate and at the same overwhelming, we learn so much about the characters, when watching them at work, or listening to their reflections. There is always enough time to observe, and one has the feeling of being a part of this film. Without sentimentality, Diaz shows the emotion, in peeling back layer after layer. A true masterpiece. AS
Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O’Brien
USA 1959, 121 min.
SOME LIKE IT HOT, the classic comedy and feel-good film about two musicians being chased by the mob, after having witnessed the Chicago Valentine’s Day Massacre, ending up in a all-girl-band in Florida dressed up in drags, should have been an enjoyable shoot. But far from it: tensions between director Billy Wilder and his star Marilyn Monroe led to bickering, and ultimately a catastrophe, when Monroe had a miscarriage a day after shooting ended.
Wilder complained about Monroe being ‘unreliable in her unreliability’: he went on “during the scene at the beach, when Monroe meets Curtis for the time, him pretending to be a ‘Shell’ heir, I expected trouble, since there was so much dialogue to go through. Further more, we shot the scene on a beach near San Diego, and nearby was a military airport, and we could only shoot between the jets staring with a lot of noise. I thought, that we would have to plan at least for four shooting days, considering Monroe’s lack of discipline and memory. But she was perfect, we finished after twenty minutes. But on another scene, much simpler, when Monroe storms into the room of Curtis and Lemmon, being disappointed and simply having to say one sentence; “Where is the Bourbon?”, we had 65 takes, it took us one and a half days”.
After the end of shooting, Wilder and Monroe’s husband Arthur Miller engaged in a bitter exchange of letters, after Wilder had told a reporter: “I can eat again. My back does not hurt any more. And I can look at my wife again, without wanting to beat her up, simply because she is a woman”. Asked by the same reporter, if he would shoot again with Monroe, Wilder answered: “I discussed this with my GP, my psychiatrist and my accountant; they all said I am too old and too wealthy to go through this all again”.
Wilder, not a friend of intellectuals or women, was piqued, because Miller could not see the “wonderful product” he had created against all odds and blamed the play write of being a snob, because he did not like comedies – even though Miller had just questioned if any film was worth the tragic consequence. Wilder could not stop complaining about Monroe, calling her “nasty”, and telling a story about the star shouting at a second assistant director “Go fuck yourself” after he had asked her to come to the set for the tenth time. But to be fair, Curtis too seemed to have had a rugged time with her, telling a reporter “that kissing Monroe was like kissing Hitler”. But Wilder, whose films very often feature “bad” women”, whose victims are helpless men, like Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, who seduces MacMurray’s Walter Neff to murder her husband. Whilst in the novel by James M. Cain, on which the film is based, Neff’s greed for an easy life is the catalyst for the murder. But Wilder’s negative obsession with Monroe continued even after her death. Landing at Paris airport on 4th of August 1962 to shoot Irma La Douce, he was, in his own words “insensitive and mean” about her, but he never the less did blame the journalists for not having told him, that Monroe was dead. Wilder’s humour was always double-edged, his final words on MM were ”There are more books about Marilyn Monroe that the Second World War. There is a certain resemblance: It was hell, but it was worth it”. AS
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY, 18TH JULY 2014 COURTESY OF PARK CIRCUS
When Rabha El Haimer was fourteen years old, she was forced into a marriage with her mother’s distant cousin. He raped her, beat her and eventually threw her out when she was pregnant with a daughter. Later Rabha, who is illiterate, discovered that her daughter Salma had no rights, since she herself had no official wedding, only a “Fatha” ceremony, which is common in rural communities. This meant that her daughter could not visit a school, one of many disadvantages of children born out of wedlock as regulated in the “Mudawana” code, an Islamic law which governs marriage and child custody among others. This law was reformed in 2004 by the Moroccan government, giving women more rights and gender equality.
With the help of social workers from “L’Association Solidarite Femine”, Rabha, who now lives with her daughter in the slums of Casablanca, went to court in Agadir to have her marriage acknowledged legally, so as to gain a birth certificate for her daughter. Her husband, a violent and duplicitous man (who has re-married), refuses to confirm marriage and fatherhood, claiming that Rabha was a whore who ran away. In a lengthy process, Rabha finally gains victory and a birth certificate for her daughter.
BASTARDS avoids being a hard-luck story. Whilst the process is slow and torturous, Rabha finally gains civil rights and a chance of education for her daughter, which were denied to her. In the final scene, when Salma is dancing the magnificent foyer of the court building in Agadir like a little princess, one is overwhelmed by the joyful emotions. But the social reality of Rabha’s life leaves an ambivalent feeling: she has to work from two to midnight in a restaurant, having to lock in her daughter, amidst fears that Salma might be abducted.
And not all the cases of “L’Association Solidarite Femine” end in triumph: there is a mistress of a rich man, who fights in vain for child maintenance and a young student cannot obtain a job he is qualified for, because he was born out of wedlock. Centuries of prejudice and ignorance cannot be overturned by a progressive law, even though Morocco’s role as a progressive force regarding human rights in the Islamic world should not be underestimated.
The film maker traces Rabha’s battle with the system meticulously, but the many journeys between the countryside, where her daughter lived with her parents during parts of the court case, Casablanca and Agadir are too repetitive in the end, giving the impression that the director tried too hard to achieve a ninety minute format. But fact and messages are strong enough, and do not need this effort: the emotional impact is this way rather diluted than enhanced. AS
Cast: F. Murray Abraham, Ramsey Nasr, Kate Moran, Giulio Berruti, Anne Louise Hassing;
UK/Netherlands/France/Croatia, 128 min.
In continuing his staged lectures about painting, theology, printing and everything else worth quoting, Peter Greenaway has turned to the Dutch printer and engraver Hendrik Goltzius, who between 1577 and 1617 was famous for his engravings of biblical and mythological scenes. Whilst the real Goltzius was travelling in 1590 from Italy via Germany, Greenaway imagines a visit to the court of the Margrave of Alsace (Abrahams), where Goltzius (Nasr) sells the wealthy patron of the art six tableaus of sexual perversions (voyeurism, adultery, child abuse, incest, prostitution and necrophilia), based on biblical themes, and staged by his printing company and their wives – plus a promised active participation of the permanently randy Margrave, who is also fond of taking a public shit every day.
What follows is the usual Greenaway treatment of digital trickery, particularly superimposed images of Goltzius, commenting on the actions like a second-class newsreader with a very fake French accent. The other actors follow his lead, they ham their way trough the proceedings, speaking their texts without any passion, like prompted. And yes, there is sex, actually lots of it, but it is mechanical like the rest of the proceedings. Greenaway throws in some theological debates between a Calvinist, a Roman Catholic and a Rabbi, succeeding in taking proceedings even further away from anything resembling a film. The schematic characters are as dead as wordy – emotionless and distant, they resemble very much the soul- and heartless director of this exercise, which (again) has only been undertaken, to show that Peter Greenaway is really the most cleverest person on earth.
The settings of Margrave’s court in a large industrial hanger work very well, as does the neo-baroque music, which helps to wile the time away, and the architectural drawings are (as usual) brilliant. Greenaway has even taken a step back from Nightwatching, totally falling back on a self-indulgent and pure sensationalist style. But his sex scenes, including gay rape, might have been challenging in the 70s, but today they are only proof of the director’s age. And no matter how impressive the sets, costumes, lighting and special effects are, they can never make up for the lack of any narrative. This is a peep-show, a row of cabaret numbers, staged for the benefit of the director alone, who tries in vain to come even near to his only true film, his debut The Draughtsman’s Contract. “Goltzius’” contract, in contrast, is just the work of a culture vulture. AS
Cast: Georgia Maguire, Royce Pierreson, Tim Plester
UK 2013, 89 min. Comedy drama
LOVE ME TILL MONDAY is very much like its lead Becky (Georgia Maguire): spirited, a little vague, not very focused but immensely likeable. Whilst all this is fine for Becky/Maguire, the floppy, episodic narrative and the lack of direction (never mind conclusion of anything) is often grating.
The film is set – refreshingly – in Reading, this British comedy is all about about growing up and knowing what you really want: unfortunately, twenty five year old Becky (Georgia Maguire in a very spirited debut) doesn’t really want the former and has no clue about the latter. She works in a dead-end office job, but her mind is mostly somewhere else. Because Becky is not alone in this limbo situation: everyone in the office (bar Steve) wants a good time, but seems not to care very much about the future – again the after-university symptom of lack of adjustment. This can be sweet – up to point, but when none of the protagonists seems to learn anything from their mistakes, one looses a little interest.
After her Mum dumps her younger brother Ollie on her, she lovingly neglects him. Becky has never adjusted to life after university, and she really just wants to be taken care of. Her first choice is ‘HIM’ (Pierreson), the office hunk. But because Becky hesitates, one of her co-workers picks him up – but not for long. Next in line is Steve (Plester), the much older office manager. He seems to fit the role of ‘boyfriend’, not only does he show Becky the finer points of life, he also helps looking after Ollie, introducing him to a museum and interesting him in the Battle of Hastings scenario. Becky seems to be overwhelmed, but when Steve does not want the office to know about their relationship, she bolts – straight back to HIM, but the one-night stand is unsatisfactory and HIM wants ‘time out’ from all relationships. Becky has a small nervous breakdown, asks Mum to come back and packs up: the last we see her of her is in the bus, eying the next man of her choice…
The tiny budget does not allow for much, but the aesthetics have not suffered: the acting is fresh and lively, the camera changes between loving close-ups and pleasant panorama shots of Reading, and the atmosphere created is one of bliss, with the occasional regrettable over the-top comedy elements. What is lacking is a structured script, which money can’t buy. Without it, LOVE ME TILL MONEY is just a small, fluffy film, carried (just) by Maguire’s Becky. AS
Initially beguiling but ultimately unwieldy, Pedro Pinho and Luísa Homem’s TRADING CITIES (AS CIDADES E AS TROCAS) offers a comprehensive, observational panorama of the changed and changing physical and economic landscape of Cape Verde, the former Portuguese colony off the West African coast. The film world-premiered to much applause in the International Competition at 25th edition of FIDMarseille.
Cape Verde might be most familiar to cinephiles through the work of Pinho and Homem’s countryman Pedro Costa, whose CASA DE LAVA (1994) was filmed there and whose other films often focus upon immigrants of Cape Verdean origin, living on the margins in Lisbon, with a distinctly idiosyncratic touch. No oblique techniques here, though: profitably limiting themselves to a strictly observational documentary style, the makers of TRADING CITIES paint an imagistically rich snapshot of the locale in an unfussy, down-to-earth manner that’s easygoing and uniformly intriguing even without a go-to protagonist to drive its narrative.
Indeed, this is a social fabric whose intricate makeup is enhanced by the film’s own sprawling canvas. Shooting on 16mm, the directors also assumed editorial duties for the film, and while the episodic nature allows space in which certain passages take on the qualities of a self-enclosed short in themselves, the sequences add up to a slightly repetitive whole. It’s possible that Homem and Pinho got too precious about the material, having evidently filmed a great deal and having formed an affinity to the landscape as a result.
Though the film would benefit from a trim, the temptations of an all-inclusive policy are relatable. As the opening images, of two cargo ships being systematically dismantled, show, this is to be a visually sterling work (disappointing, then, that its world-premiere screened digitally). As it unfolds, different traditions and economies are presented: farming, labouring, plastering; the sand trade, the tourist trade; a vibrant, striking street carnival. Some easy juxtapositions emerge: a thriving holiday-resort scene, as exemplified by a sequence at the local Riu complex, is followed immediately by the slums in which its employees reside.
Though never without interest—the images are certainly compelling enough, and local musicians add lively and sometimes poignant backing—such juxtapositions feel inevitable and familiar. At some point, the filmmakers need to intervene and ask: what of it? What of the tourist scene and its uneasy, problematic reinforcement of colonial relations? Such questions are most obviously absent during those scenes in which Cape Verdean dancers provide the nightly entertainment at the Riu, acting out a clichéd African-history scenario, complete with tribal body-paint and lion and leopard costumes, for the white westerners being waited upon with an endless stream of alcohol.
This isn’t to put blame on anyone, or point fingers. And, to its credit, the film itself refrains from such tones too—a rather inherently accusatory cutaway to one obese holidaymaker notwithstanding. But is TRADING CITIES meant to be a probing and investigative epic, or merely an epic tapestry? If the former, consider the nuance and complicated, no-easy-answers oomph of, say, Ulrich Seidl’s PARADISE: LOVE (2012). The holidaymaking protagonist of that film could be any one of those vacationers in Pinho and Homem’s documentary, laughing obliviously through their daily boredom-deferring water aerobics lesson. As crisp as the imagery may be, perhaps sometimes, observing isn’t enough. MICHAEL PATTISON
FID MARSEILLE RUNS FROM 1-7 JULY 2014 IN MARSEILLE, SOUTH OF FRANCE.
Fabrice Luchini has come to be associated with intelligent French drama and here, in one he devised himself, he plays a well-known thespian Serge Tanneur, who has retreated to a remote manoir on the Ile de Re to recover from a nervous breakdown. Essentially a three-hander, the premise revolves round a bid by successful TV star, Gauthier Valence, to lure him back to Paris to collaborate in his sparkling new production of Molière’s classic comedy of manners: ‘Le Misantrope’.
But Tanneur has a mind of his own, despite its fragility, and an ego that’s second to none in luvviedom. And so this elegant piece goes backwards and forwards as their egos vy for attention, and they embark on a two-week series of rehearsals and play readings in the rain-swept French countryside.
Cycling with Moliere works best during these witty exchanges and literary sorties into the works of Victor Hugo and Charles Baudelaire as Tanneur prepares for his definitive role as the outspoken and unpopular central character, Alceste. And Life starts to mirror Art as it emerges that, in real life, their relationship very much runs along the same lines as Moliere’s two 17th century protagonists Alceste and Philinte. When the love interest arrives in the shape of an Italian divorcee Francesca (Maya Sansa) the natural underlining comic pessimism of Moliere’s also plays out in the real life denouement. Despite some ill-judged episodes of slapstick humour and a lightweight support cast, Luchini and Wilson keep the show on the road in an entertaining drama that makes great use of its glorious island setting photographed by Jean-Claude Larrieu. MT
ON RELEASE FROM 4 JULY COURTESY OF CURZON WORLD CINEMA
Cast: Jack Laskey, Zhu Zhu, Leon Dai, Hsia Ching-Ting
103min Romantic thriller English and with English subtitles
Inspired by Joseph’s Conrad’s 1909 novella, SECRET SHARER sets sail full of ‘Eastern Promise’ and so it should. Filmed on the widescreen with magnificent visuals of the Gulf of Siam, the original is a story fraught with exotic intrigue that follows a young captain Konrad (Jack Laskey) on his maiden voyage with an unknown crew. But Peter Fudowski’s version is set in the present day and the mysterious swimmer who climbs on board the ship at night is a seductive Chinese girl (Zhu Zhu) – not a man, as in the novel. Konrad discovers she is married to the Captain (Leon Dai) of a nearby ship and wanted for the murder of one of his crew. And in a further twist, it appears that Konrad is being bribed to sink his vessel.
Directed, written and produced by Fudowski himself, this is a lavish voyage that rapidly sails into stormy waters as Fudowski attempts to fuse two films into one. As Konrad, Jack Laskey lacks screen presence and his crew are also a motley bunch who fail to redeem themselves due to poor characterisation and a drama with no dramatic punch whatsoever. From the start, we care nothing for these characters or what becomes of them, largely due to slack performances and a poor script that limps along in Mandarin and English. By supplanting a woman (instead of a man) as the strange floater who mysteriously boards the ship, Fudowski is hoping to inject some romance into his romantic thriller casting Zhu Zhu for her looks alone. While this may provide a shot of titillation for some viewers (as her bum cheeks protrude cheekily from under her shirt) it’s certainly not a relationship “Shot through with suspense and intense eroticism”. There is no chemistry between the leads who morph in a sterile brother/sister relationship early on (the boyish Captain may fantasise about her in his feverishly wet dreams but he doesn’t possess the “balls” to carry this through), spending the night sharing a bun,k but very much as friends rather than lovers. As a character Li has little to offer this turgid drama (apart from her pert bum) and although she is billed as being the link between the crew and Captain, there’s little evidence that they respect her enough to take her seriously either. MT
SECRET SHARER IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27 JUNE 2014
Cast: Tom Berninger, Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, Scott Devendorf
75min Musical Biopic US
An unexpected surprise is this quirky and endearing account of brotherly affection and pride from Tom Berninger on the subject of his older brother Matt, frontman of The National. They both grew up in a wealthy family but couldn’t be further apart in terms of success and sophistication. The suave and worldly Matt is under no delusions when he invites Tom to be part of the team on the 2010 World Tour; highly aware of his brother’s shortcomings. And Tom admits he’s no fan of the band. So sibling rivalry starts to rear its ugly head from the outset with hilarious and often poignant results, and therein lies the entertainment-value of this quirky documentary, even for those who’ve never heard of the band. This is, first and foremost, a study in self-sabotage (Tom’s) and family dynamics of the dysfunctional kind. If you are a fan of The National, don’t worry: you will be rewarded with plenty of great tour footage – this is a doc that very much cuts both ways with something for everyone.
Strangely Matt and Tom are not the only brothers on tour. Four of the bandmates are also brothered-up (not literally) so this also makes for an interesting comparison study with some rich psychological undertones. We discover the comfortably rotund, mop-haired Tom likes heavy metal and is still romantically unattached whereas Matt is a happily hitched family man with a sharp hair cut and tailoring that would do Tom Ford proud. And although the wheels occasionally threaten to come of the band-wagon, this is a tour with a upbeat vibe that never descends into the realms of bitterness or rancour.
When the band gets back on homeground, the camera starts to focus more on the family angle with Tom talking to his parents about their childhood and the large age gap between the brother (9 years). At this point, Matt’s wife, Carin Besser, is wheeled in to reveal the challenges of the band’s formative years. Well-paced and enjoyable throughout, Taken for Strangersis another successful music biopic that never outstays its welcome, ending on a positive and life-affirming note. MT
MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS IS SCREENING AT THE EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 2014
AND ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27 JUNE 2014 NATIONWIDE
Cast: Michael C. Hall, Don Johnson, Sam Shephard, Vinessa Shaw
USA 2014, 109 min.
Jim Mickle (We Are What We Are) is leading the audience more than once up the garden path in this clever and intense retro-noir. Whenever we feel safe about the narrative, Mickle changes gear introducing new characters who change everything as radically as possible. It begins, very much cliché, in a small Texas town in 1989: Richard Dane (Hall), a picture framer, is woken up one night by his wife Ann (Shaw), who has heard a noise in the house. Richard loads his revolver, searching his home for an intruder and duly shoots an unarmed man in the living room. Richard, very much on the sensitive side for an archetypal Texan male of that (or any) era, is distraught, but the local Sheriff consoles him: the intruder he shot was a wanted man, a certain Freddy Russell, and Richard acted in self-defence. Nevertheless, Richard doesn’t find solace, and goes to Freddy’s funeral, where he is seemingly the only attendant. But soon he encounters Russell senior: soft-spoken but menacing, Ben Russell (Sam Shephard) reminds Richard that he too has a young son, albeit of school age.
Ben begins a cat-and-mouse game with Richard’s family and the police, but in the end is taken into custody by the sheriff. By chance Richard witnesses the policemen dragging Ben onto a railway track, injecting him with an anaesthetic and leaving him on the track, with the train approaching. Richard has to make up his mind pretty quickly, but his good side wins over and he rescues the father of his victim. They both soon find out that Freddy is still very much alive: hiding under the shield of the witness protection scheme, after having agreed to testify against the mob, for whom he had worked. Ben enlists the help of a larger-than-life army buddy, Jim Bob (Don Johnson), who is as outspoken as ready for any action coming his way – the classic Texan man. The trio finds out the sad truth, that Freddy is taking part in snuff-movies, killing prostitutes. Father Ben compares his wayward son with a dog who has to be put down or chained for life – the latter clearly no alternative for Daddy and Jim, they drag Richard into an inferno….
Nothing seems to fit in this rollercoaster of a movie, starting with the middle-class couple, fighting a day after the shooting about the choice of a new sofa, to replace the blood-soaked one. Ann is prim and only too happy to be the bait for Ben Russell, while Richard is much more afraid for his son, wanting to send his family away, till the police has caught Ben. Richard than falls under he spell of Ben and Jim, seemingly permanent on the lookout for strong characters he can follow – not at all the leading man for a Texan movie, which is synonymous with violence, of which we are served up enough – even before the slaughter house of the grand finale. Hall is convincing as the man who has to act violently because he follows his conscience, whilst everybody around him just loves violence of any form – Johnson and Shephard are enjoying themselves mightily. The camera is versatile, resting lovingly on period details like Apple Mac classics or VHS recorders, but swinging wildly into action shots, tracking and panning vividly. COLD IN JULY is impressive, very much in the Jim Thompson mould, where rather weak men are tested in the violent environment of the American underbelly, where there’s no place for them. AS
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Favreau, Sophie Vergara, Emjay Anthony, Oliver Platt
114 min US Comedy
Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Swingers) returns to his indie roots with this lip-smacking romp around America that’s enjoyable and informative in content despite its predictable storyline. Did you know that there are 50 styles of barbecue; how to prepare Texas-style beef or make the best Cuban sandwich? Well in Chef you can find out. Wrapped inside the delicious gourmet coating is a tender-hearted rites of passage success story of how one man gets the show back on the road family-wise while kick-starting his career – most of all its about being true to yourself.
According to Jon Favreau, an affable bon viveur whose generous proportions and sunny personality light up every scene (as the chef in question) the script ‘wrote itself’. While not most inventive story but certainly one that guarantees a level of truth and authenticity mixed in with the enjoyment of the subject-matter and its dynamite delivery. Akin to chomping through the juiciest flame-grilled hamburger in the Ritz, it’s competent and enjoyable with no surprises.
His acting chops are unquestionable as Carl Casper, a respected head cook at a celebrity Los Angeles restaurant who starts to feel cheesed-off with the restrictive menu imposed on him by crusty owner Riva (Dustin Hoffmann). Despite the dulcet support of Scarlett Johansson’s luscious Maitre D Molly, Casper is unhappy and an unfulfilled man makes a bad partner. But when award-winning and influential restaurant critic Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt) openly lambasts his cooking as being tired and turgid, Caspar decides its time to make some creative changes. Luckily his intelligent 10-year-old Percy (newcomer Emjay Anthony ) discovers the power of the critic’s Twitter following (running into the thousands); he sets up an account for his father which proves disastrously counter-productive causing him to make a gracious yet powerful exit from the restaurant and out into the cold.
At this point it always helps to have a rich and beautiful ex-wife and the gorgeous Sofia Vergara is wheeled in as Inez to sooth the troubled waters by taking Percy and Caspar with her on a business trip to Miami. It feels like she still holds a candle for her ex and the ulterior motive is to oil the wheels of creativity and romance – a double-edged sword. And so begins a food-fueled road movie with overtones of boyish bonding and undertones of a flirty romance.
With its rousing soundtrack and magnificent views of California, Florida,Texas and Louisiana this is an indie film with big-hearted ambitions and some enjoyable performances from the star-thronged cast. Although Scarlett Johansson feels under-utilised in her small role, there’s something genuine and heartfelt at the core of Jon Favreau with its upbeat and universal message of hope that leaves the audience satisfied, yet raring to eat. MT
Cast: Romain Duris, Cecile de France, Audrey Tatou
117min French with subtitles Comedy Drama
A European version of Richard Linklater’s Midnight series, CHINESE PUZZLE wears its heart a little more lightly on its fashionable sleeve. The third part of Cedric Klapisch’s student story that kicked off in Barcelona with Pot Luck (2002) then St Petersburg with Russian Dolls, follows our freewheeling friends to New York. Now nearly forty, Xavier (Romain Duris) is a writer; father of two and newly divorced from his English wife Wendy (Kelly O’Reilly). Living in a Chinatown bedsit, he’s sired a child for lesbian best friend Isabelle (Cecile de France) and is being hotly pursued by ex-girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tatou). There’s never a dull moment in this feelgood frolic of mutual soul-bearing and farcical melodrama in the Big Apple. Although there are parts of this puzzle that fit a little too neatly, Romain Duris holds it all together with his genial good humour. For sheer upbeat entertainment value, this is well worth a watch. MT
Following a separation from his French wife, Ahmad (Ali Mostaffa) returns to Paris from Tehran to finalise the divorce and uncovers secrets from the past.
The French are famous for their ménages à trois and here in Cannes, Asghar Farhadi’s follow up to A Separation (2011) is sure to go down well. A richly-plotted, schematic affair that unravels gradually based on a complex web of relationships for a multi-cultural family living in Paris. Making a flying visit to Paris to sign papers for his divorce from Berenice Bejo’s Marie, Ahmad finds her living with a new love in the shape of Tahar Rahim as Samir. The fall-out of all this has naturally complicated the emotional lives of the three kids involved; two girls from Marie, and a son, Fouad, from Samir.
Marie has been busy on the romantic front: Ahmad was her second husband and she is now pregnant by Samir. Tahir’s Rahim gives a cool-headed performance as a dutiful family man, dedicated to his son and still confused emotionally about the strange circumstances of his current wife’s suicide attempt, visiting her bedside regularly, where is she lies in a coma. As the characters start to accommodate Ahmad’s arrival in the household, a new dynamic develops making the future relationships of those involved even more rocky, as the secrets of the past gradually unravel.
Ali Mosaffa’s Ahmad appears to exert a calming and stabilising influence on the proceedings, particularly on the kids, but he also shows signs of being a control freak in this complicated interplay between a complex web of personalities which is slow-burning and measured in tone rather than melodramatic (although Béjo occasionally overplays her role). The Past is immersive and well-acted throughout, although initial tension gradually subsides as the pace grows more ponderous, particularly towards the end. Intimate in feel,the action plays out like a more intense version of the After Midnight trilogy, and will appeal to those who enjoy dialogue-heavy, romantic dramas. And although it doesn’t quite scale the heights of A Separation this feels a more mainstream European story than an Iranian one. MT
Director/Writer: Marion Vernoux From a novel by Fanny Chesnel
Cast: Fanny Ardant, Patrick Chesnais, Laurent Lafitte
94min French with subtitles Drama
A classic ménage à trois is at the heart of this clever French drama. Director, Marion Vernoux, clearly appreciates and understands the intricacies of female sexuality and particularly those of a beautiful and intelligent woman who has been much admired and who, now in her sixties, still values her powers of attraction and is looking forward to the future. Loosely based on co-writer Fanny Chesnel’s book “Une Jeune Fille aux Cheveux Blancs” the film title has a dual meaning: as the ‘sixties plus’ retirement club in a small French seaside town and the positive outlook of their latest member Caroline (a fabulously luminescent Fanny Ardant) who has recently hung up her dentist’s drill but still has a twinkle in her eye and an upbeat frame of mind. Her family are less confident in her social abilities, projecting onto her their own clichéd ideas of retirement as a time of dusting down the zimmer frame, knitting and looking after grand-children. But the languidly sensual Caroline is having none of it: she casts a quietly disdainly eye over her fellow retirees and patronising instructors and makes a beeline for the door. But when the dishy 30-something computer teacher Julien (Laurent Lafitte) gives her some encouragement, and not just with her keyboard skills, she decides that Les Beaux Jours is a club where she definitely wants to be a member.
The appeal of this story lies in the authenticity of the telling. Like most affairs, the success of this one is based on initial spontaneity and chemistry but this is no ‘cougar’ story: although it just so happens that there is a large age-gap between them. Caroline is not looking for a younger man, or any man, for that matter: she’s contentedly married to Philippe (an amusingly laconic Patrick Chesnais) and content to see where her feelings take her. Julien just loves women; he’s not obsessed with older women but at nearly 40 is also at a vulnerable turning-point in his life, where he’s no longer necessarily seen as marriage material but equally wants to have a relationship rather than just endless conquests. The sex they enjoy is languorously romantic, not desperate or needy. There are some amusing moments when Caroline attempts to hide the romance from members and her local friends, but when Philippe finds out he’s not devastated just resigned, disappointed and ready to discuss the future. The denouement is not earth-shattering but completely plausible, reflecting the subtle intricacies of emotion, long-term love and marriage and the realities of life . But there is also wit and warmth here and some really poignant moments that show that, in the end, no matter how experienced we think we are, love still has some surprises in store. MT
The latest from Amélie director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, is an adaptation of Reif Larsen’s illustrated novel about the life of a child prodigy TS Spivet. Traumatised by the violent death of his twin, Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet (aged 12) slips away unnoticed from his Montana home to collect an award from the Smithsonian Institute in DC and follow his dream to work in the field of map-making. Told in glorious 3D, this is a spectacular-looking film that plays out like a pop-up comic book with whimsical echoes of the recent Moonshine Kingdom and the same child-like charm.
Helena Bonham-Carter is superb and witty as his scientist mother, Dr Clair, who clearly had things mapped out for her son from an early age, once conversation dried up with her hunky, monosyllabic husband (Calllum Keith Rennie). Disappearing into a glorious bucolic landscape of honeyed Autumnal hues, newcomer Kyle Catlett excels as TS, finally reaching the City where his mother catches up with him and the action morphs into a game-show spectacular. The only blot on the landscape is Judy Davis overplaying her blue-stocking role. MT
Cast: Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson, Charlotte Boving, Helgi Bjornsson
81mins Drama Comedy
Horses are the stars of Benedikt Erlingsson’s raw and startling debut which was Iceland’s submission to the 2014 Academy Awards. In a remote Icelandic location, a community of earthy horse-breeders live hand in glove with their beasts, attuned to the animals’ needs that often mirror their own physical urges and desires. This is illustrated in darkly amusing episodes: a man (Ingvar Sigurdsson) decides to pay a courting visit to his female neighbour (Charlotte Boving) riding his perfectly trained white mare. The woman’s frisky stallion pre-empts matters in a way that’s both hilarious and deeply embarrassing for all concerned. Another man (Steinn Armann Magnusson) rides his horse into the sea where they both boldly swim out to a Russian trawler, begging the captain for vodka. There’s a raw savageness to these staggering events which feel natural yet strangely bizarre; taking us by surprise.
Of Horses and Men captures the sensitive but feral nature of the horses living in symbiosis with their (at times) equally wild owners in this remote and magnificent landscape. Even the minimal dialogue seems redundant in a narrative told expressively through lenser Bergsteinn Bjoergulfsson’s extraordinary images: each vignette is introduced in the close-up of a horse’s eye. Erlingsson never loses his sense of humour in conveying the quirkiness of his Icelandic characters who perform with consummate ease and gracefulness in complete harmony with the animals they train and nurture.
David Thor Jonsson’s rousing original score is played on traditional European instruments. MT
Writer/Director: Ti West | Cast: Amy Seimetz, Joe Swanberg, A J Bowen, Gene Jones | US Found Footage Indie Thriller
The Sacrament came into being when the ‘found-footage’ era was in full swing with its bid to import serious thrills to contemporary audiences, that started with The Blair Witch Project. Ti West’s thriller certainly succeeds in purveying an ambience of genuine and sustained terror, but since then the genre has increasingly required the kind of suspension of disbelief akin to that of the second coming of Jesus.
Back in the day my belief was suspended – not out of shock or horror – but out of genuine incredulity that an audience would find this sort of nonsense believable, in any shape or form. The mere fact that the footage is ‘found’ intact and undamaged surely means that the collaborators are alive and well and enjoying the fruits of their labours so, by its very nature, this presents a foregone conclusion to the intelligent art house cinema-goer.
In The Sacrament three New York documentary makers become embroiled when they explore a ‘Moonie’ style ‘religious’ commune where the egregious presence of Father (Gene Jones) holds omnipotent sway over the proceedings. But the problem here is that West’s signature slow-burning narrative skills start to wear thin once its dawns that this is just another cliché-ridden swamp of ‘what-ifs’, albeit one filmed in the remote and atmospheric reaches of sweltering Savannah, Georgia by an excellent ensemble cast. MT
ROAD is a documentary about successful – but tragic – Northern Irish motorcycle racer brothers Joey and Robert Dunlop and Robert’s sons William and Michael, who are following in the footsteps of their father and uncle, both killed in their late forties whilst racing.
Narrated by Liam Neeson, this production is faithful to the events and the intricacies of this intrepid sport, but leaves too many questions unanswered. Joey (1952-2000) was eight years older than his brother Robert, who quite obviously hero-worshiped his older brother, who, was a five-times TT Formula One World champion and celebrity in Northern Ireland. The brothers grew up in Ballymoney, County Antrim, where road racing was very popular. Seeing the rather doleful landscape, the popularity of this dangerous sport seems obvious: racing on a motor cycle at 200 miles an hour makes you forget everything, the effect is much more powerful than a drug, and one understands somehow why the brothers continued racing into late middle age; whilst motor cycling, like most sports, is the prerogative of the young man.
The images of the landscape flying by – the camera fixed to the helmet of the driver – are intoxicating, but the danger is clearly underlined when one of the drivers crashes violently, and the screen suddenly turns black. This imminent danger of death has to be overcome by every driver, not only for the races themselves, but the countless practice runs (Robert Dunlop was killed during practice for the 2008 North West 200 Race). It takes a very special person to handle this pressure, particularly when racing for nearly three decades, as Joey and Robert Dunlop did.
In its reluctance to research anything substantive about the brothers, or at least trying to, lays the fundamental weakness of this film. We learn nothing about the society in which the Dunlop’s lived: politics, culture and religion are never mentioned. Considering the continuous tensions in Northern Ireland this is a stark omission. Family life is hardly mentioned, only in passing, and when related to the racing activities. But it is obvious, that the women of the clan had to bear the burden of the upheaval of racing and deaths. Whilst even Joey and Robert talk about their “selfishness” – the sport taking them away from their families – but the filmmakers never question this side of the biography. In concentrating nearly exclusively on their sporting achievements, they short-change the brothers and their sons. Whilst we see Michael and William forcefully getting into the starting line of the 2008 North West Race, only days after their father Robert was killed (they were both banned because of their emotional state, Michael would eventually win this race), we hear hardly anything about their feelings. And Joey’s charity work for Romanian orphans in the 80ies and 90ies, for which he was awarded the OBE in 1996, is mentioned like a footnote. But, we ask ourselves, why did he undertake these expeditions alone – again, why did he leave his family behind, why was he such a loner? The way the film is structured, we conclude that the Dunlop’s are either heroes or suicidal maniacs – both of which they are obviously not. Simply too much is left out for us to make up our minds – a shame, because they deserve that we know more about their tortured souls. AS
Cast: Pat Healy, Ethan Embry, Sara Paxton, David Koechner
89min US Thriller
There’s something utterly despicable about E. I. Katz’s indie thriller CHEAP THRILLS. Its message is nothing new -that money talks; but it’s method: – just how powerfully it talks; takes the genre to a new low. And don’t take that in a negative way: the unmitigated mood of depravity will certainly devide audiences but the performances, script and direction are admirable. Indeed, the film won both the SXSW’s Audience Award and the Best First Feature prize at the festival, leaving viewers speechless or appalled. But the content is more suggestively violent and cruel than abjectly blood-soaked: although we do have to experience some bloody noses and a severed finger. It may even garner cult appeal amongst arthouse audiences who admired the recent films of Lars Von Trier. It even has shades of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games: Katz’s version is cruder and more basic, but has the same psychological implications and mind-games.
Pat Healy stars as Craig, a wannabe writer, who is made redundant from his job as a mechanic just as his wife loses her job and the rent is due. With a young baby to support, Craig is desperate. While drowning his sorrows over a drink in the local, he bumps into an old friend in the shape of Ethan Embry (as Vince). The drinking buddies are then befriended by a married couple who are celebrating a birthday. They have admired the bored-looking wife Violet (Sara Paxton) but the husband Colin (David Koechner) seems to have money to burn, and is keen to impress his wife and new pals with a $300 bottle of Tequila. Colin then starts a game of ‘dare’. He offers the men $500 dollars to get a woman at the bar to slap them – Vince duly wins the game – but it doesn’t end there. Soon the foursome find themselves at Colin’s ‘crib’ and the dares escalates out of all proportion. But this is where it also turns nasty. Soon, the old friends are pitted against each other, exposing their worst defects in a dehumanising psychological battle of wills, as petty grievances and feelings from the past laid bare. Both men are down on their luck and willing to do almost anything for money. But Craig seems prepared to sacrifice a friendship for the sake of his wife and child. Vince is more loyal as a friend: although he resents Craig’s better start in life, he ultimately appears to value his relationship with Craig above money when the chips are down. Craig has his family to think of, but conversely, some men will kill their wives for money too. Koechner is magnificent as the coaxing psychopath: calm and collected as he bribes the men dispassionately to the last. Sara Paxton is a cypher – morally ambivalent and emotionally vacant, complicit with her husband in some sort of private sexual game. And this is a game that proves to be dangerously addictive for all concerned. MT
CHEAP THRILLS IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 6 JUNE 2014
Cast: Michael Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz, Ahna O’Reilly, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray
90min US Drama
The towering presence of Michael Jordan dominates this rousing, rose-tinted tribute to 22-year-old Oscar Grant who lost his life during an incident on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) during the festivities in San Francisco on New Year 2009. Ryan Coogler’s debut drama so impressed both audience and jury, it won three top awards at Sundance 2013, echoing the sentiment surrounding the tragedy of an ordinary man who falls victim to unfortunate circumstances and is shot by the Police.
Ryan Coogler puts a relentlessly positive spin on this ‘paean to a victim’ ex-con man-child who is surrounded by strong, female support in his life from his sympathetic mother (Octavia Spencer), his hispanic lover Sophina (on whom he cheats) and healthy young daughter (Ariana Neal). But his explosive temper is never far below the surface as evidenced during his time in prison (we never find out why) and with his ex-employer, who sacked him for bad time-keeping. So he spends his time cruising around with friends and goofing with his daughter while his partner holds down a demanding job. And while this is a loving portrait of a black family who care for each other, the drama also aggrandises Grant, and in so doing, builds an unrealistic portrait of innocence before it milks the audience for sympathy and opprobrium.
Although Grant consistently comes up ‘smelling of roses’ in life, he did not deserve to die and Michael Jordan honours the memory of the man with a charismatic performance that convinces us of his good intentions going forward, particularly when we see him rescuing an injured dog by the roadside and bribing a store-owner to allow his female friends to use the bathroom during New Year’s Eve festivities. Grant’s death was outrageous and to deny this would be unconscionable but the disingenuous way Coogler handles the narrative sets Grant up as a martyr, in a way he does not really deserve. MT
The Policeman who shot Grant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter eventually served 18 months in prison.
FRUITVALE STATION screens during Sundance Film Festival from 25-27 April 2014
Cast: Mahmoud Asfa, Ruba Blal, Saleh Bakri, Ali Elayan, Anas Algaralleh
93min Drama Arabic with subtitles
A sweet-hearted coming of age drama that explores a young boy’s life in a Palestinian refugee camp in sixties Jordan. Palestinian writer-director Annemarie Jacir uses a tender and playful approach to what could easily have been a traumatic and violent story: her elegant pacing and Hélène Louvart’s painterly visuals make this story appealing for children and adult art house audiences alike.
Tarek (Asfa), is a cheeky and endearing Jordanian boy who lives with his mother Ghaydaa (Blal) in the pre-fab camp; the two of them hoping that one day his father with take them back home. Tarek’s intelligence alienates him from the rest of the school kids and he gravitates towards the older men, and in particular, a soldier called Layth (Bakri) who is a member of a paramilitary group stationed locally. Soon he’s joining in with training activities under the watchful eye of the draconian commander Abu Akram (Elayan), who injects a more aggressive political tone to the proceedings, keeping Tarek on the straight and narrow.
With his big brown eyes and floppy hair Tarek is the main focus of Jacir’s camera for most of the story and his enthusiasm and brio sometimes threatens to overpower the serious message of the story which is the plight of two helpless refugees in a war torn country. That said, it’s a soft-natured affair and Blal’s austere performance as his mother provides a suitable ballast to Tarek’s antics, reining in any over-exuberance successfully, while he keeps an eye out for any unwanted male interest on her part. The final moments of the film give a message of hope to the ongoing narrative of displacement and strife in the Middle East. Sad to think that 50 years later, not much has changed. MT
The director Shin Suwon was a teacher at a middle school before turning to filmmaking. Her valuable working knowledge of the system makes this film even more depressing than it already is and proves that truth is sometimes than fiction.
Kim June gets transferred to an elite school where the top 10 students form a clique and engage in acts of rape, murder, bomb-making in a bid to eliminate their fellow students, ensuring that they maintain top grades eventually allowing exclusive access to the revered Seoul National University.
In contrast to the other, wealthy students, June is from an underprivileged background with a mother who financing the family by selling insurance. June takes the place of a girl who has killed herself; and after his roommate Jujin Taylor is murdered by masked students, June becomes the main suspect with the local police.
Another pupil Sujin, then hacks into the activities of the group via the internet, trying to find out more about the suicide of her friend Eun-Joo. This psycho-drama culminates, with June committing further atrocities in a bid to discover the truth. The action takes place in the cellar of the school building, which was once the site of a CIA torture chamber.
Despite a rather bewildering script, PLUTO succeeds in being frightening with its frosty, wintry, blue and white aesthetic. These characters are like sharks in an aquarium. June is shown as an hopeless opportunist, unable to solve anything without resorting to violence. But at least he is aware of his nefarious actions. The rest of the group is busy trying to keep the exclusivity of their elite intact, for fear they may threaten their status. Random acts of physical and psychological violence are an everyday occurrence, and never questioned, in their quest to achieve their goals: a place at the National University. The use of surveillance equipment is logical, it gives the film an extra layer of emotional fascism.
With this immersive study of evil, Shin Suwon demonstrates how the environment of the school prepares these young, well-heeled psychopaths for their future leading roles in society. AS
Dir.: Jamie Adams; Cast: Craig Roberts, Charlotte Ritchie, Rosamund Hanson,Tom Rosenthal, Dolly Wells; UK 2013, 80 min.
Benny and Jolene are a folk-duo who fall into the hands of the music industry whose incompetence is even worse than the songs of their charges. In a caravan on tour in Wales, followed by Joelene’s biological mum and her partner in their car, the two teenagers have to confront their feelings for each other, and their aborted trip into stardom.
One knows exactly what writer/director/producer/editor Adams had in mind: a British comedy on the lines of SIGHTSEERS (2012). Here the leading duo was out of cinch with reality and the humour developed because they literally get away with murder. But Benny, Jolene and their helpers are just incompetent, and all their faux-pas’ are hardly funny – just stupid and incompetent. You can’t laugh when the cover of the duo’s CD shows a big tree instead of Benny, or when Joelene’s mum and her argumentative friend fail to put up a tent – it’s something we have seen too often and in much funnier ways. The duo and the rest of the cast act clumsy ‘on purpose’, but since they have only random contact with reality, there is no confrontation and the little comedy there is targets only the clumsiness of the characters. Why give away the ending at the beginning?, so that we cannot expect a single surprise. Everything is miles over the top, but never in a funny way. The camera only excels in the road externals, and the actors stand no chance with the script. An unstructured narrative stumbles from one episode to the next.
Even today the ‘CARRY ON’ comedies have more bite than BENNY & JOLENE, let alone a professional standard, which Adam and his team can only dream of. Even after only eighty minutes one can only feel relief when it’s all over. AS
éDirector: Jean-Marc Valleé Script: Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner, Denis O’Hare and Steve Zahn
117min US Biographical Drama
Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee’s last film Cafe de Flore was a vibrant musical love story with an intriguing psychic twist. Dallas Buyers Club couldn’t be more different in theme but still has the same energetic gusto. It’s based on the true story of Ron Woodruff, a macho homophobe with a side-line in cattle-trading who lived hard and partied long until he found himself HIV-positive. Set in the mid-eighties at the height of the AIDS crisis (with an atmospheric soundtrack featuring the music of Marc Bolan), the narrative kicks off in a rodeo, with a focus on Woodruff’s inveterate womanising and drinking ways. Scriptwriters Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack’s angle is to tell an entertaining story of redemption where tragic circumstances in life bring out the best in their central character, rather than just focused purely on AIDS. And it works. Avoiding any kind of tear-jerking sentimentality or ‘why me’ negativity, it shows how Ron Woodruff’s ‘death sentence’ causes him to take life by the scruff of the neck and search for a means to survive. By refusing to give in to the doctor’s prognosis – that he has only 30 days to live, he grabs those days by the scruff of the neck and sets out to defy death.
Dallas Buyers Club is very much about living rather than dying and Matthew McConaughey’s performance is exultant in every sense of the word. Kicking against the system, and doing battle with the medical authorities (the FDA and large pharmaceutical companies) he sets out to turn his life around. Transforming from a drinking, whoring, gambler to a clean-living seeker of ‘snake oil’ he teams up with Jared Leto’s rampant transexual Rayon, a person who previously he wouldn’t have given the time of day to, let alone worked with, to help other AIDS sufferers. Both leads throw themselves into their performances (there was no time for rehearsal in a shoot that lasted less than 45 days) McConaughey losing nearly three stone for the role and delivering an Oscar-worthy performance. He commented in the press conference: “It made me smarter. I lost 40 percent of my strength but added 40 percent to my brain power”.
The film follows a straightforward, almost documentary-style format, avoiding melodrama and taking an elliptical approach to the lives of its protagonists. Where it works best is in portraying McConaughey as a gutsy hero with human failings who challenges authority and refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer, even when on death’s door in hospital with after a heart-attack and physical exhaustion. In seeking alternative methods to fight the medical system, Ron Woodruff actually created his a “medical club” to help other AIDS victims: the ‘illegal’ provision of unregistered drugs to patients who had been failed by the American health system was thus made possible via membership of the club. Woodruff goes from a simple country red-neck cattle-trader to a slick international jet setter who negotiates drug provision from doctors in Mexico, Israel and Japan.
Despite his sleazy former self, which would make any normal woman run a mile, McConaughey’s Woodruff is at his most appealing and sympathetic in his relationship with a compassionate hospital doctor (Jennifer Garner) who he comes across through his initial hospital trial with AZT, and which almost turns into an unlikely romantic fling but then flatlines rather disappointingly.
As Rayon, Jared Leto makes a remarkably vulnerable yet streetwise transvestite and Denis O’Hare (as Dr Seward) and Steve Zahn (as Tucker) provide great support. But at the end of the day, the Oscar should go to McConaughey for sheer indomitable dynamism in bringing the remarkable life of Ron Woodruff to the international stage. MT
It is difficult to imagine that Seth MacFarlane could have made TED look like a masterpiece, but with A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST he has easily succeeded in this task. Whereas TED had at least some sparks and original ideas (the humour was already off), A MILLION is an absolute disaster. It is difficult to find something that worked, but a short synopsis might give you an idea: MacFarlene himself is a very weak lead as Albert, the sheep farmer, who is left by his girlfriend Louise (Seyfried) for Edward, the moustache merchant. Liam Neeson is the mean gangster Clinch, whose beautiful wife Anna (Theron) falls in love with the pathetic Albert, who eventually kills Clinch in a shoot-out with the help of a poisoned bullet. Add Sarah Silverman as Ruth, the whore with a golden heart, (who doesn’t want to sleep with her boyfriend because she doesn’t believe in pre-marital sex), and then douse it all with a horrendous amount of toilet-humour for two very long hours and you are there.
Everything is always topped by something worse: the cardboard characters are played by so-called stars whose limp performances suggest that their minds where light years away from the film set. And if there would have been something like a cliché-counter, the machine would have imploded midway through the film. To give you an example: when Seyfried’s Louise rejects Albert, looking at him with her big eyes, Anna puts her down with “how can you have so big eyes and be so blind”. But MacFarlane is not finished; in a later scene, when Albert has a nightmarish, drug- induced dream with the Indians, Louise reappears, her eyes big as saucers.
Any comparison with Mel Brooks BLAZING SADDLES (1974) derisory and akin to comparing the work of a very capable artisan with that of a dilettante. Whatever the critical value of the early “Family Guy” and “American Dad” TV comic-strips, MacFarlane has lost any right to be taken seriously any more. In one of the flashbacks in A MILLION, young Albert is seen putting a tooth under his pillow, expecting the tooth fairy to reward him. But by next morning, he finds horse shit under his pillow, his father triumphantly announcing that fairies don’t exist. This shows that MacFarlane in his demise has sunk so far as to make fun at the expense of the weak, the worst sort of humour possible. AS
Director: James Rouse Writers: Torben Betts/James Rouse
Cast: Ned Donnehy, Richard Lumsden, Jeremy Swift, Karl Theobold, Emma Pierson, Katie Lyons
98min UK Comedy/Drama
Men and midlife crisis in all their glory are the themes of this hilarious and sometimes poignant ‘road movie on foot’ from commercials director James Rouse and playwright Torben Betts.
When four old school friends get together to walk coast to coast from the North Sea to the Irish Sea they also embark on a journey into themselves exposing insecurities and often tortured relationships. Fraught with setbacks and unexpected developments but always with a genial sense of the ridiculous, this is a passionate blend of well-judged wit and wisdom from a well-known cast of Richard Lumsden (Sense and Sensibility); Jeremy Swift (Gosford Park); Ned Dennehy (Sherlock Homes) and Karl Theobold (TwentyTwelve). A thoroughly enjoyable romp through the English countryside. MT
Cast: Ralph Steadman, Johnny Depp, Terry Gilliam, Richard E Grant, Jann Wenner
90mins UK Documentary
Through his Hunter S. Thompson connection, Depp visits Ralph Steadman’s lair and gets him to open up about his work and major playmates, including the genesis of his Hunter S. Thompson collaboration, William S. Burrows and his decision to try and change the world through art; or satirical cartoons, in his case.
What follows is a hugely enjoyable ramble through some historical landmarks, but what is even more enjoyable is watching the man himself at work in his studio. The concept that one can start with a blank piece of paper and not even know what the picture is going to become even as it is being painted, is all but mythical unicorn in todays environment, run as it is by accountants; number-crunchers who need it all nailed down before anything is even started.
With todays politics all careers and showboating, rather than change for the good of the people, there remains a generation now wondering what they did it all for, with agitprop theatre, demonstrating and political movement all but consigned to the folder marked Antiquity. It’s easy to understand why Johnny Depp fell in love with this corner of history, where people were angry and fought for what they believed, puncturing any pomposity as they saw it or lampooning the warmongers. How sorely we miss those men now.
Charlie Paul has dedicated fifteen years documenting and filming Steadman’s work-desk and has some excellent sequences showing artwork from start to finish. And Steadman’s is a remarkable journey, from London to ‘Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas’, to The Rumble In The Jungle and charting the rise and fall of presidents and politicians alike. For those of you familiar with his work this is a rare treat and for those that know next to nothing, a poignant education. One of a kind. AR.
Cast: Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Philips
88min US War Drama.
Boy meet girl in Frank Borzage’s sublime thirties wartime romance, that stars Gary Cooper as Henry, a volunteer in the Italian medical services, and Catherine Barkley (Helen Hays), an pure English rose working in the British hospital in Italy during WW1. Although Gary Cooper is in ‘playboy’ mode at first, he soon realises that this English woman is to be taken seriously and a passionate affair soon develops. Although the couple are supposedly in their early twenties, they appear much older, as is often the case in Hollywood outings of the era and their chemistry sparkles incandescently in Charles Lang’s glorious black and white setting, winning him an Oscar for Best Cinematography.
When Henry is wounded in battle, Catherine gets a chance to nurse him and work her wonders on his vulnerable state but tragedy soon follows. Frank Borzage’s adaptation is the first and best of the original Hemingway novel and the full glory of romantic tragedy is enhanced by Wagner’s Liesbestod score, making this a rousing tribute to this year’s Centenary Celebrations. MT
A FAREWELL TO ARMS IN ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 30 MAY 2014 AT THE BFI AND SELECTED CINEMAS
Cast: Adam Bakri, Samer Bisharat, Ehab Hourani, Leem Lubany, Waleed F Zuaiter
97min Palestinian Drama Arabic with subtitles
Hany Abu-Assad’s vibrant portraits of the conflict in his country make a worthwhile contribution to Arabic history, first with Paradise Now (2005) and most recently OMAR, an intense Middle Eastern twist on ‘Othello’, that carries a powerful sting in its tale forcing us to reflect on the endless violence and retaliation in the occupied territories. Abu-Assad’s not judgmental approach maintains distance but with his cinematographer Ehab Assal he manages to convey powerful emotion.
Adam Bakri gives a standout turn as the rebellious Omar of the title, a decent young baker in love with Nadia (Leem Lubany). But in order to marry her, he needs to gain the respect of her brother Tarek (Ehab Hourani), a senior militant, and this involves accompanying him on a mission to kill an Israeli soldier, along with mutual friend Amjad (Samer Bisharat). But Omar is captured and tortured by the Israelis, who attempt to force him into collaboration. Omar has other ideas.
Both films have won him Academy Award nominations with OMAR.
Directors: Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani Writers: Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet
Cast: Klaus Tange, Ursula Bedena, Joe Koener
102 mins French, Dutch Origin: Belgium, France, Luxembourg Colour and Black and White Thriller
In their new film The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, co-directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani build upon the giallo-inflected style and themes of their previous work, considerably upping the ante to create an even headier mix of colour, sound, sex, fetish and murder. To some it will be intoxicating, to others nauseating. This is cinema as visceral experience. The enigmatic story at its centre concerns Dan Kristensen (a blank but effective Klaus Tange) and his attempts to discover the whereabouts of his missing wife. As the film begins, we witness Dan asleep on an airplane, the camera creeping slowly towards his eyes. Is everything that follows a dream? It certainly feels like a nightmare made flesh.
The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears is horror by way of the avant-garde, a spell of uneasy atmosphere, a vision full of Anger. The frame of the screen dissects alongside the (often sexualised) bodies it shows us, the split-screen images becoming mirrored, kaleidoscopic, double exposed. New faces form out of extreme close-ups of multiple actors, and strong colours mix with negative images and black and white stills brought to life through stop motion pixilation. Combining, as they do, such a breath-taking barrage of visual tricks with an equally active soundtrack, Cattet and Forzani certainly risk overloading their viewers. But the effect also imbues the film with a dense dreamlike atmosphere, mirrored in the fractured intensity and surrealist logic of the narrative itself. At one point, Dan becomes trapped in a loop of false awakenings, the visuals repeating, making us feel his pain: just as he is trapped, so are we. There are hints elsewhere that maybe his wife too felt trapped – in her marriage to Dan – and the film can perhaps be taken as a metaphorical examination of entrapment, with us, as viewers, also trapped within the confines of the screen.
But this is storytelling placed through a Surrealist blender. Narratives within narratives begin to form, and it seems storytelling itself might be the subject. The walls – of the apartment and of the cinema – come alive with the sounds of heavy breathing. People hold stethoscopes against ceilings and peer through holes they have drilled. Voyeurism, yes, but perhaps also watching and listening, trying to make sense of the stories forming around them. One story, told to Dan by a detective, is pointedly cut short by Dan asking ‘What does that have to do with my wife?’ It seems there is a dark humour at play here too. The film may be a game. Certainly, it is a challenge. Events are fractured and told in close up, so even the screen space isn’t clear. Faced with such an onslaught, how are we, as viewers, meant to decode it? Or aren’t we? Multiple meanings proliferate, but perhaps we are simply meant to experience it.
But as the rich, layered and decadent experience continues, a new question arises: what is it all amounting to? And then the film begins to drag, and the feeling increases. Another iris dilates in close-up, and the effect slips towards the comical (and the tedious). Interpretation slides further away from us. But, nevertheless, the overall experience remains visceral, exciting and experimental. Coming at us in a world (and a genre) where the same old clichés are thrown out time and time again, The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears is, ultimately, refreshing and invigorating filmmaking. ALEX BARRETT
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 11 APRIL 2014 and during the EEFF 2014
Director: Roman Polanski Writers: Polanski and David Ives
Cast: Emanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric
96min Drama
Roman Polanski’s long-awaited VENUS IN FUR, is another New York stage hit to add his successful collection of play adaptations along with CARNAGE and DEATH AND THE MAIDEN.
Emmanuelle Seigner (Vanda) and Mathieu Amalric (Thomas) play the leads in this two-handed chamber piece. And this is not the first time he has cast his wife as a sexually suggestive role in one of his films. In BITTER MOON, she plays Mimi, the young wife of Peter Coyote’s crippled lothario, Oscar. Here Vanda is an older but equally seductive and larger than life character who brings passion and delicious wit to this demanding role as an actress who arrives late for her audition for a part in a play. The action takes place in an empty theatre where Thomas, a listless writer and theatre director is exhausted after a day of futile auditions and on the verge of going home, when she finally arrives.
David Ives’ original stage version was based on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 VENUS IN FURS and originally adapted from a book in which the protagonist, Severin, is a sexually submissive man who offers himself as a love slave to a woman who he is obsessed with. Polanski has collaborated with Ives on this screenplay of this two-handed chamber piece entirely built on the clever dialogue between the actress and writer as she engages every trick in her armoury of seductive techniques to secure an opportunity to read.
Emmanuelle Seigner gives a skilful performance as Vanda, adopting an array of foxy voices, sexy accoutrements and alluring postures until she convinces Thomas, despite the fact of her initially unsuitability for the role, that she is the embodiment of Vanda. So persuasive are her acting skills that by the end we are not sure whether she is playing the role or the role within the role. For his part, Amalric offers stalwart resistance to her charms, eventually being overcome by her playful persistence.
This is the first of Polanski’s films shot with digital and regular cinematographer Pawel Edelman successfully manages to give the piece a more open feel to the traditionally claustrophobic ambience of some earlier chamber pieces such as CARNAGE. With Alexandre Desplat’s perfectly-pitched score reflecting the ambience of enigma and intrigue, this is a really entertaining piece of filmmaking. MT
Jessica Oreck’s simple visuals capture the staggering natural beauty of Northern Finland and the reindeer herds that roam these Arctic snowscapes throughout the changing seasons. Unflinching in its depiction of routines such as slaughter as well as the gentle rhythms of the countryside and herdsman that make their livelihood in this polar wilderness, this is a documentary of astounding presence, guaranteed to soothe the soul of the more stressed urban ‘worrier’..MT
This is part two of a documentary showing the soldiers of the Second Platoon of Battle Company fighting in Korengal valley in the Nuristan province in north-east Afghanistan. After Restrepo (2010), director Sebastian Junger sets out to show coverage of their fortified retreat up in the mountains, shooting proud with their high-tech weapons, on the Taliban down in the valley. They go and visit the village elders during daytime, very much aware of the fact, that the same men will entertain the Taliban at night. Apart from the bitter fighting, we see the men trying to come to terms with their mission – hoping against hope “that we can bring the villagers into the 21st Century. When we go home, we have done something good”.
They mourn their fallen comrades, amongst whom are Juan Restrepo, a medic who emigrated from Columbia to the USA. They feel bound to scarify themselves for their fellow soldiers even though they admit to feeling desperately needed by their families and unprepared for just how much adjustment they will need back home. Only one of the men is honest enough to confess, that it was his decision to fight this war, “people at home will say ‘you did what you had to do’. But it is not true, I chose to fight here”. The overall impression is that these are grown-up boy-scouts with suicidal tendencies; not adults who made an informed choice about their profession.
The allied war against the Taliban in Afghanistan has created a new sub-genre of war film: the fascination with the wild-romantic setting and the brutal fighting has produced a slew of cinema-verite documentaries; brilliant on details and spectacular to watch – but never asking the most important question: if this was an un-winnable war from the beginning, why are we still fighting? Because the soldiers are well aware, that when they leave for home, the Taliban will take over, and the corrupt government in Kabul, made up of Warlords, who fought the Taliban in a civil war costing over a million civilian lives, will have not much control outside the cities. And whilst the Taliban are repulsive fundamentalist, they at least stopped the production of opium when they were in power. Little is to choose between the two sides violently hell bent either to make profits from Opium, or keeping the population, particular women, in the middle-ages. And what chance for the naïve (to put it mildly) teenagers from Oregon, Kansas or California to make any sense out of this situation, their only chance to survive is to follow the orders of their senior commanders, and relay on each other. Yes, they love their weapons, but with the fervour of boys they really are.
Because of its overall aesthetic brilliance and daring photography, KORENGAL, like most films of this genre in the last 20 years, feels like an awful piece of voyeurism. AS
Cast: John Turturro, Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vergara, Vanessa Paradis, Liev Schreiber
USA 2013, 98 min.
After his excursion into musical films (Romance and Cigarettes and Passione), the director Turturro has returned to the theme of his debut film Mac (1992): the human male torn between lust and ideal, laziness and honest self respect. Murray (Allen) and Fioravante (Turturro) are nearly down and out: the much older Murray has just lost his second-hand bookshop, and Fioravante, a shy dreamer, is even worst off: he only works two days in a florist shop and has to borrow his rent money from Murray. After a visit to his dermatologist, the attractive Dr. Parker (Stone), Murray comes up with a solution: he will pimp Fioravante – for a hefty “agents” fee – to Dr. Parker, who wants to have a stud for a threesome with her equally stunning girl friend Selima (Vergara). Fioravante is not too eager, but the bills accumulate, and he gives into the Faustian bargain offered by his “friend”. Murray is much more eager than his younger friend, he finds another “client” for him: Avigal, a widow of a Chasidic Rabbi, who has been kept away from the outside world for twenty years by the strict laws of her religion. Fioravante, himself a non-observant Jew like Murray, falls in love with the shy mother of six, – in spite, or rather because of their relationship being rather chaste – but the Jewish vigilante Dovi (Schreiber), who himself is in love with Avigal, follows Murray and Avigal, suspecting “indecencies”. He finally kidnaps Murray with his fellow-vigilantes to get to the bottom of things. Meanwhile, Fioravante fails miserably in his task to satisfy Dr. Parker and Selima, who guess immediately that he is love…..
It is quiet clear from the beginning, which choices Murray makes: he is an old, sleazy, mean and totally corrupt man, whose greed for easy money is only superseded by his hypocrisy. Fioravante on the other hand, wants to do right, but he is too weak and malleable – the perfect victim for Murray’s scheming. Parker and Selima are at least honest in their quest for lust, whilst Avigal takes her time to develop a sense for right and wrong – no wonder after twenty years of “imprisonment”. Dovi is the self-appointed leader of an ultra-orthodox Jewish neighbourhood watch, a sort of misogynist mind police. Cruising along in his car all day, he is as lazy and hypocritical as Murray, the irony being that the kidnapper and his victim are the different side of the same coin. When Dovi asks Fioravante towards the end of the film “are you really a Jew?” the latter answers “I don’t know”. Because labels of identity have lost their meaning: there is no common ground between Dovi and Fioravante – apart from the fact that they love the same woman.
Turturro gently unmasks his characters, never judgemental, but painting a rather sad picture of human nature – apart from Avigal, everybody seems to have become a consumer, be it money, emotions or ideals. The camera elegises New York, the panorama shots are wistful, sometimes doleful, the tracking shots keep everybody distanced, there are few close ups: intimacy has ben lost. Allen’s viciousness is near psychotic; Turturro is mournful, with a permanent low-level depression; Stone and Vergara are slightly over the top in their total abandonment, with Paradis’ Avigal full of dignity, bravery and restraint – an outsider in this world of total sell out. AS
Cast: Rosemarie DeWitt, Ellen Page, Alison Janney, Josh Pais, Scoot McNairy, Rod Livingston
90min US Drama
Lynn Shelton last outing was a wittily-observed and insightful rites of passage drama about a modern love triange: Your Sister’s Sister. With it’s loosely improvised script it had a fresh and flowing feel and great performances from its leads Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt.
DeWitt joins the cast again here for Touchy Feely which also has the excellent Canadian actress Ellen Page and is set in a dull and rainy Seattle.
The story revolves around a close family whose dynamic suddenly shifts leaving each member feeling out of sorts but unable to really understand why. It opens as a brisk drama with the genial and effervescent Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt) and her introspective partner Jesse turning up for dinner at her brother Paul’s (Josh Pais) house he shares with his daughter Jenny (Ellen Page). They are a medical family with Abby working as a therapeutic masseuse with her own practice and Paul a dentist, with Jenny as his reluctant dental nurse. The plot develops rather vaguely but seems to hinge upon Abby gradually losing her touch and drive to massage, while Paul seems to be developing healing hands: the only contributory factor seems to be their love lives, or lack of them in Paul’s case.
DeWitt gives a typically fascinating turn here as an appealing character whose problematic relationship with partner Jesse indicates strongly that she would rather avoid commitment and this manifests as a physically block to her skill.
Paul on the other hand is diffident and shy and Pais conjures up his persona with a subtlety of facial expressions, almost like a mime artist, but gives little insight into the emotional side of his character and, in a drama that’s all about depth of emotion and personality, he doesn’t possess the same acting style as the others in a drama that’s all about engaging and expressing emotion. Ellen Page is natural and believable as Jenny, a likeable and sympathetic girl in the wrong career (as a dental nurse) and yet frozen in her negative life and desperately looking for a connection. Alison Janney is mellow, masterful and convincing as Bronwyn but almost possesses too much gravitas to really be considered an just an aromatherapist, coming across more as a heavyweight psychiatrist.
This is an watchable drama carried along by the strength of its performances rather than its engaging storyline. On the whole, spectacular and well-executed, the acting manages to lift what feels like a turgid narrative towards a conclusion that’s just about plausible but doesn’t always ring true. MT
Writer/Director: Jia Zhangke | Cast: Zhao Tao, Jiang Wu, Wang Baoqian, Luo Lanshan | 133’ | Drama | Mandarin/Cantonese/English
A TOUCH OF SIN has more than a touch of anger and a sneering contempt for modern China’s moral bankruptcy brought on by rapid urbanisation. More visually stylish than the director’s naturalist forerunners, and more appealing to Western audiences, this eventful wuxia road movie threads together four real stories from the pages of the contemporary Chinese press. Vibrant and glistening with vehemence for the splashy affluence of contemporary China, it satirises a country where donkeys, oxen and even tigers now jostle with migrants, Western cars and state of the art modernity.
The story opens in the Northern agricultural province of Shanxi, where a simple man called Dahai, (Jiang) is understandably put out by the sudden opulent wealth and new-found kudos of the town’s mayor – who has recently trousered profits from the sale of a local coal mine. This unleashes an angry backlash of brutality that runs from North to South, expressed by ordinary people smarting from the rape of their country: a migrant worker coming home for New Year; a receptionist at a sauna who is attacked by a rich client; a factory worker who finds himself out of work. Representing the decent values of traditional China, this army of resentment fights a losing battle against the inexorable march of capitalism in modern China. MT
Dir.: Charlie Stratton; Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Oscar Isaac, Tom Felton, Jessica Lange
USA 2013, 107 min Drama
Based on Zola’s novel “Thérèse Raquin”, written in 1867, this is a surprisingly faithful adaption. Stratton captures the contradictory longings of these members of the petite bourgeoisie: to achieve power and control in their family circle by whatever means, while appearing serene and impressive to the outside world.
After the death of her mother, young Thérèse (Lily Laight) is farmed out to the country residence of her brother’s sister, Madame Raquin an impressively stern Jessica Lange. Thérèse’s only function in the household is to look after Madame and her sickly son Camille: The whole film echoes of “Thérèse, I need you”. When the children are grown up, Madame moves to Paris to run a small fashion shop, and the obedient Thérèse marries Camille: a loveless and sexless marriage leaves her even more depressed. But when she meets Camille’s friend, a painter called Laurent (Oscar Isacc) who has been disinherited by his father for studying Art instead of Law, and who works in the same dreary office as Laurent, her life changes. She falls for the handsome Laurent, who is in love with life and women, slightly shallow, but a great improvement on Camille, who they decide to kill. But after the deed is done, the couple’s love turns into contempt and hate for each other. Madame Raquin gives in under the pressure of her friends to allow Thérèse to marry Laurent, and the couple hopes to get rid of her to inherit the shop and a decent amount of money. But Madame suffers a stroke, leaving her incapacitated and unable to speak, but she learns of the murder of her son. Ingeniously she finds a way to communicate with her friends, and Thérèse and Laurent see only one way out.
Thérèse, the wallflower and Laurent the pseudo-artist, seem to be outsiders, but when they mistake their lust for love, they don’t just elope, but become scheming murderers with the intention to inherit and so to join the petite bourgeoisie. IN SECRETshares much which “Carrie”, William Whyler’s film from 1952, based on Theodore Dreiser’s novel “Sister Carrie”, written only 23 years after Zola’s Thérèse Raquin. Shot in black and white, “Carrie” tells the story of a married man, trying to live with a younger woman, but his jealous wife destroys his career, and his young lover leaves him when he is unemployed. Both films explore the’ love versus bourgeoisie’ adjustment conflict, without being judgemental.
Jessica Lange dominates the rest of the cast, her bitter, resentful and ultimately vengeful matriarch is a great character study, as the mature Thérèse, Elizabeth Olsen is believable as a repressed “little girl”, who suddenly wants it all. The men are, on purpose, rather weak: Isaac’s Laurent is easy going but without scruples and Felton’s Camille is just a mousy mother’s son, ordering his wife about, when he wants to go back to the live in the countryside. The film was shot in Belgrade, where the small, darkened alleys with their miniscule shops, still exist today; the camera makes good use of them to express this grim and miserable story. Overall IN SECRET is a traditional, but well-crafted narrative exploring the contradictions of love and material ambitions in historical settings, but with very contemporary parallels. AS
Cast: Pierre Deladonchamps, Christophe Paou, Patrick d’Assumcao, Jerome Chapatte
100min French with subtitles Thriller
Alain Guiraudie’s STRANGER BY THE LAKE is one of the year that has really made a lasting impression. Disturbing and utterly absorbing right up until its enigmatic showdown, it may at first appear to have little to offer mainstream audiences. But what develops is a gripping psychodrama with naturalistic performances that just feels ‘real’. Stranger is set in a naturist cruising spot for gay men by a lakeside in southern France. Stripping off on arrival, they swim and bond with each other; occasionally indulging in explicit sex in the lush vegetation nearby. Guiraudie has captured the sensuality of these torrid encounters enhanced by the natural ambient sounds of nature and sparky, realistic dialogue and simple narrative structure. The lakeside setting provides an ideal ‘stage’ for the sinister events that gradually emerge.
Handsomely-built but hard-edged Michel (Christophe Paou) is a regular to the hedonistic idyll; parking in the clearing, he swims each day and cruises for casual pick-ups. Is he a homosexual predator or a homophobe exacting revenge on his fellow men for their putative sins of the flesh.? Guiraudie ramps up the tension by making us rely on body language and only patchy dialogue, leaving us intrigued to know what’s going on. Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) is attracted to Michel like a moth to a flame. An easy-going and pleasant-looking gay, Franck is open and honest; emotionally quite vulnerable. As Michel has a regular hook-up, Franck strikes up a chatty friendship with Henri (Patrick D’Assumcao), a portly straight guy who is newly single and depressed at spending the August holidays alone. Henri appears dismissive but also fascinated by the cruising activity on the beach. While Franck enjoys the beauty of the sunset one evening, he witnesses Michel drowning a boyfriend, after horseplay in the lake. Rather than quelling Franck’s desire for Michel, the murder seems to enhance his sexual attraction. Guiraudie captures this essence of danger that spikes when strong attraction overrides the rational brain. In the quite calm of the lakeside, a simmering and palpable tension builds from Franck ‘s attraction to Michel’s sexual allure. Michel is clearly tricky; dangerous, but he fancies him to the point where seduction blocks out reason: offering the ultimate in escapism and the thrill of the unknown.
Guiraudie’s wanted to create a drama that evoked the strong emotion of falling in love passionately, not just having casual sex. His drama is thrilling; leavened by quirky almost humorous moments that prey upon the subconscious. The characters just happen to be gay rather than heterosexual and the sex feels natural and totally without sensationalism, just as any encounter may feel, irrespective of the sexual persuasion it entails. The police inspector remarks are the casual disregard that the gay community by the lakeside seem to feel for one another. The overall tone is one of intensity and the undercurrent as unsettling as the individuals involved, but the everyday conversations they indulge add intelligent and thought-provoking texture to the story. The cast all give performances that feel spontaneous and believable. By turns provocative and sinister, STRANGER meditates on the nature of sexuality, solitude and the power of seduction
The Lakeside setting feels like a jungle where animals prowl around quietly, engaging in atavistic power-play: some hoping to conquer, some hoping to be conquered, some simply enjoying the ritual. Enigmatic, amusing and mesmerising to watch, STRANGER BY THE LAKE will remain with you long after the sun has set. MT
SCREENED DURING BFI FLARE 20-30 MARCH 2014 | NOW OUT ON DVD FROM 12 MAY 2014
Featuring: Jay-Z, Kanye West, Gary Clark Jr, Passion Pit, Janelle Monae, Skrillex, Pearl Jam, Rita Ora, D’Angelo, Janelle Monae, SantiGold
Ron Howard is the director behind Frost/Nixon and A Beautiful Mind. That his next project should involve (and be financed by) the hip-hop artist Jay-Z may at first seem strange but actually the two get on like a house on fire in Made In America, a documentary that looks at how Jay-Z set up a two-day concert in Philadelphia (2012).
Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Brooklyn, NY, we learn how Jay-Z used his musical talent as a way not only to carve out a future for himself but also to help others and ended up married to superstar Beyoncé Knowles. Howard illustrates, by way of participant interviews and some really entertaining and inspiring musical vignettes with the artists, how the concert has injected a upbeat vibe into the local community, re-energising the work ethic in a positive way. However, not everyone approves of his efforts: local resident Lillian Howard voices her strong disapproval of the ‘bang-bang’ music which, she claims brings an undesirable element into her neighbourhood; illustrating that you can’t please all of the people, all of the time!
We hear about Jay-Z’ political visions for the future of his multi-racial America with its black president who has, in his opinion been a cohesive force in bringing the country together. But, like so many hugely-talented creatives, Jay-Z remains a cypher; locked behind his facade of fame, unreachable despite Howard’s efforts to get beneath his skin MT
MADE IN AMERICA IS AVAILABLE ON VOD AND DVD: 19 MAY 2014
Former SUPER FURRY ANIMALS frontman Gruff Rhys is on a mission to push the boundaries beyond music and into the realms of multimedia with this project entitled AMERICAN INTERIOR that unites literature, film and technology to create a trailblazing multi-sensory experience. And he succeeds with this magnificently quirky magical mystery tour that fetches up in the lunar landscape of North Dakota, were he meets the Native American Mandan Tribe and bonds with them over their struggle to keep their native language alive (as he does with the Gaelic tongue) in a fascinating road trip of discovery in more ways than one.
Obviously a man called Rhys is bound to have Welsh forebears and here he traces his ancestry back to a modest farmhand called John Evans who tried to establish the veracity of an 18th Century Native American Tribe called “Madogwys”. Evans lost his parents at a young age and, according to a Welsh psychiatrist, this was the reason for his intrepid mission into what was then considered a trip to the Moon. Rhys makes this film all the more fun and at times poignantly moving, by taking with him a miniature model of Evans complete with soulful eyes, an incipient beard and clothes reconstructed from records of the time (remember the effect of Wilson in Cast Away?). With his tongue firmly in his cheek and a catchy selection of ballads, he then sets forth with his ‘mate’ to trace the adventurous exploits of the real Mr Evans, that involved wrestling various furry and unfurry animals amongst other feats of derring-do and establishing a real map of the Mississippi.
Taking place during the summer of 2012, the documentary is inventively filmed by Ryan Owen Eddleston and features monochrome camerawork with salient objects highlighted in fluorescent colours sometimes to comic effect. The result is inventive, fun and filmic as he takes us through the real-life paces of Mr Evans in this foreign land. Thoroughly enjoyable even if you’ve never heard of the ‘Furry Animals’: Gruff Rhys is a chatty, offbeat character who oozes silliness and seriousness in equal measure (whether this is crafty or unwitting it certainly makes him engaging company on this documentary road-trip not to be missed.MT
Cast: Lindsay Lohan, James Deen, Nolan Gerard Funk, Gus Van Sant, Amanda Brooks, Tenille Houston
A great director and writer doesn’t necessarily guarantee a good film: such is definitely the case for THE CANYONS, Paul Schrader’s much-anticipated ‘erotic’ thriller described as “Youth, glamour, sex and Los Angeles 2012”. Really?.
Matters got off to an unpromising start when it was reported that Leslie Coutterand had been on call throughout the entire filming process due to Lindsay Lohan’s repeated absences and feuds with the director, who had been forced to direct a scene naked just to placate her (?). Finance was raised through a Kickstarter campaign, and the resulting film was rejected from Sundance and SXSW. I was determined to give it a chance being a fan of Schrader’s earlier work, though not, I hasten to add, of Lohan.
As it is, she appears vaguely unhinged and physically bloated during her performance as young actress, Tara. This is supposed to be a soft porn movie, so why is Lohan wearing a pair of Bridget Jones-style knickers under her leatherette treggings for an evening out with a girlfriend?. One can only assume it was to rein in her midriff from too much booze and cigarettes (consumed during the shoot). Sexy or what?
As suggested by the title, Tara is living with her producer boyfriend Christian (porn star James Deen) in a rather glamorous modernist house on the edge of the hillside, overlooking the ocean. Theirs is not an easy relationship with Christian being a control-freak and demanding to know her schedule as he swings in from the studios to find her poolside. He cleverly swaps her phone to discover text messages showing that she’s cheating on him with a pretty young actor called Ryan (Nolan Gerard Funk). When the camera starts zooming in on mobile phone screens, and relying on text messages to drive the narrative forward, one realises the whole story is doomed.
The strange thing about ‘soft porn movie’ The Canyons is that it’s possibly the least sexual film of the entire festival (apart from the Andrea Segre’s La Prima Neve). There are no real sex scenes to speak of but a great of deal of glowering, posturing and pouting goes on, largely between Lohan and Deen. It transpires that Ryan, who is straight, has his own cross to bear: he is up for a juicy acting role, but to seal his success he may have to sleep with the gay head of the studios and is forced to receive oral sex with him just for starters.
What follows is a predictably troubled but unremarkable voyage through the seamier side of dysfunctional relationships. It almost feels like one of those ‘made for TV’ soaps you catch in a hotel room in Spain or Italy when surfing through the options looking for News. In a cameo, Gus Van Sant plays Christian’s shrink, and it’s the best thing about the whole affair. Brett Easton Ellis’s script is appalling with cardboard dialogue along the following lines: “Are you cheating on me? What d’you mean by cheating? Well cheating, with another guy….
Please Mr Schrader, you’re such a talented man. When you next make a film, make it with proper actors and a decent storyline. MT
An effecting debut drama from this Singaporean filmmaker, sees a couple struggling to make ends meet during the economic crisis of the late nineties. Their troublesome ten-year-old son Jiale (Koh Jia Ler) is a handful and the Filipina nanny hired to take care of him makes matters worse. Chen cleverly crafts his characters making them believable and authentic but not always appealing: Jiale and his mother (Hwee Leng) are strong-willed but Chen makes no attempt gloss over their defects, whilst allowing us to see their humanity. Moments of warm humour and compassion peep through the stresses and strains of normal family life in a story with universal appeal. MT
REVIEWED DURING DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT AT CANNES 2013- ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 2 MAY 2014
Director: Erik Poppe Writer: Harald Rosenlow Cinematographer: John Christian Rosenlund
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, Maria Doyle, Larry Mullen, Lauren Canny
117min Drama
Juliette Binoche plays a war photographer whose relationship unravels when she escapes death in Afghanistan. Norwegian director Erik Poppe (Hawaii, Oslo) sets this absorbing story in a glorious seascape near Dublin and vibrant locations in the Middle East, cleverly casting Binoche in the lead role of a strong but feminine Rebecca. Clearly the main bread-winner, she’s married to Marcus (Danish actor, Coster-Waldnau) a teacher who looks after their two girls during her frequent trips to the war zones. Rebecca freely admits “I don’t do normal”, finding it hard to engage with the local mums in provincial life back in Dublin. But after returning home to nurse her physical and emotional wounds inflicted during a female suicide bomb blast in Kabul, she starts to reassess her life.
Erik Poppe’s work in the eighties as a war photographer makes this intense drama emotionally more resonant, and particularly because his protagonist is female – it’s fascinating how the tables are turned when a woman has the dangerous job. Vilified by her Marcus and her kids for ‘torturing’ them emotionally, Isabelle remains steadfast in her commitment to her chosen vocation despite constantly risking her life to bring worthy causes to the public domain: and there’s nothing more evocative than pictures in telling a moving story. There would be no question about a man working in a dangerous field, so why should a woman evoke a different response?. Binoche is so masterfully convincing here that we totally buy into her dilemma in a role that she handles without resorting to sentimentality; retaining her female qualities of compassion and affection. Her relationship with Marcus is less convincing from his point of view: Coster-Walnau switches a little too abruptly from coldness to acceptance and back to resentment in his portrayal of the aggrieved partner. But this is very much Binoche’s film; she radiates calm capability outshining the support cast, ably assisted by Lauren Canny who makes a promising debut as her daughter.
Dir: Paolo Sorrentino | Cast: Toni Servillo, Anna Bonaiuto, Giulio Bosetti, Flavio Bucci | 110min Italian with subtitles Drama
After successes with the small but perfectly formed Consequences of Love and The Family Friend, Il Divo bursts on to the screen in a baptism of fire that marks Paolo Sorrentino as a filmmaker of considerable talent in winning collaboration with much loved actor Toni Servillo. He plays Giulio Andreotti, the enigmatic leader of the Italian Christian Democrats who haunted the face of Italian politics like an enigmatic smile for nearly forty years and was seven times prime minister.
Mesmerising filmmaking takes over the first twenty minutes as the camera cuts and thrusts from every angle and Sorrentino’s signature soundtracks punctuate the action often to comical and contradictory effect. The story focuses on Andreotti’s last term in office and manages in nearly two hours to fast forward through complex political intrigue interweaving the mafia, corruption and the Catholic Church in a vast tapestry of Italian affairs at the end of the last century while creating an intimate portrait of a rather inaccessible and self-contained man.
Understanding such an ambitious and complex subject is quite a challenge for any audience and there’s a danger of being submerged by the complexity, and bowled over by the visual treatment of this fascinating story and, to some extent, this is where the film falls down. That said, Sorrentino’s lively and accomplished film reflects the tenaciousness of a significant statesman and Toni Servillo is magnificent as Andreotti in one of the best performances of his career so far. A masterful tribute to one of Italy’s most signicant historical moments. MT
Dir.: Kaspar Munk Writers: Kaspar Munk, Jannik Tai Mosholt
Cast: Julie Andersen, Frederikke Dahl Hansen, Emilie Kruse, Benjamin Wandschenider
Denmark 2012, 82 min. Drama
Kaspar Munk’s coming-of-age drama looks at teenage friendship. Laura and Christine have been friends forever, but when you are only sixteen everything suddenly changes. When Laura meets Maria she’s awestruck by this new sophisticated girl who puts her down: ‘You are boring, but have nice eyes” and has lived in New York. Hesitantly she follows her into the world of parties, drugs and drinking. But when it comes to sex, she is diffident about Maria’s experience with boys, especially Jonas, who lives in a condemned building and seems suicidal. But when Maria pays a boy to sleep with Laura for 500 kroner, she is forced to evaluate not only her new friendship but also her own sexuality.
Munk revolutionises the genre with his subtle approach in this well-paced drama with its stand-out performance from Julie Andersen as the melancholic Laura, who seems unable to make up her mind about anything, particularly when it comes to her own life. A dreamer, she’s held back by doting parents who panic at the slightest threat of their daughter becoming independent. Laura dreams her way through life and she is drawn to Maria (Frederikke Dahl Hansen) as the polar opposite to her. Maria plays the adult, it’s an strong and alluring performance – but when it comes to the crunch, she’s very much a teenager: promising a couple of boys a blow job if they pay for a taxi, but running away with the overwhelmed Laura in tow and the money – then missing the last train. Laura puts herself out for Maria – whose response to boys is always “don’t touch me”. Maria makes the mistake of using money to soften-up Laura.
A “Sturm und Drang” feel dominates permeates this dark and downbeat piece with lightning, storms and heavy rain predominating. The murky interiors are never fully lit, going in tandem with Laura’s dreamy demeanour. The strongest scenes are close-ups between the three girls: Christine pleading in vain, Laura evasive at the beginning, than alienating her childhood friend; whilst Maria stays in the background, pretending to be the adult. Laura captures the imagination of the viewer because she is living in slow-motion, dragged forward by Maria, but never loosing her subdued hesitancy. Andersen’s Laura is moody, evoking insecurity and self-doubt, yet carrying the film with consummate ease. AS
YOU AND ME FOREVER is on general release in selected cinemas from 25 April 2014
Writers: Angel de la Cruz, Paco Roca, Ignacio Ferreras, Rosanna Cecchini
Voices of Matthew Modine, Martin Sheen, George Coe
89min Animated drama
One day, we will all have empathy for Ignacio Ferreras’ characters shuffling towards death in his brilliantly-bleak animated feature set in a retirement home. Based on a comic by Paco Roca, the tragic inmates compete to survive against the odds: bereft of dignity, bewildered and beset by Alzheimer’s, incontinence, drug regimes and each other. As they regress into a childlike state of helplessness, an ill-judged bid for freedom results in a comic tragedy. WRINKLES is a film that bravely says “Do not go gentle into that dark night!”
Cast: Miranda Otto, Gloria Peres, Tracy Middendorf
Brazil 2013, 118 min.
In 1951, the poet Elisabeth Bishop (1911-1979), suffering from writer’s block, travels from New York to Rio de Janiero, on the advice of fellow poet Robert Lowell. There she visits her college friend Mary, who lives with the architect Lota de Macedo Soares (1910-1967) in an idyllic retreat in the countryside. Soares, an imposing, strong willed woman, clashes immediately with the fragile, introvert and shy Bishop, who wants to leave but food poisoning intervenes and she stays – for another 14 years.
Barreto (Four Days in September) tries successfully to avoid a melodrama and succeeds in a character study of the three leads. Bishop, not surprisingly extremely neurotic after the loss of her father before her first birthday and the institutionalising of her mother when she was five, uses alcohol to dampen her fear of losing people close to her again. She says to Soares “I am not drinking only because things go wrong, I am drinking when I am happy too, because I am afraid to lose you”.
Winning the Pulitzer creates even more fear for Bishop, because the expectations are raised. Paris-born Soares, on the other hand. acts when challenged. Self-confident, she survives in a world ruled by men – no mean feat, considering the balance of power between the sexes – particularly in South America during the fifties and sixties. She rules both Bishop and Mary, lovingly, but with a strong hand. Mary is by far the more socially responsible, compared with the self-obsessed Bishop, more attractive too – but Soares wants what she can’t get: the opposite of herself. In the end, her unsuccessful quest destroys her.
Gloria Peres is a brilliant Soares, vibrant and full of life’s optimism, whilst Otto is just right as the simpering, but sly Bishop. Middendorf’s Mary copes well with being “pig in the middle” in this tug of love and war. Camera work is lush and sumptuous, full of original angles and tracking shots. The music is staying well in the background, helping to bring a clearer understanding for the viewer, instead of drowning out all the nuances. But the greatest success for Barreto is that REACHING FOR THE MOON is neither a case celebre or a lesbian drama. AS
IN CINEMAS FROM 18 APRIL (ICA LONDON + BRIGHTON
DVD ON DEMAND FROM 28 APRIL 2014 WITH INTERVIEW AND FEATURETTE
Cast: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne, Johan Liljemark, Matthias Wiberg
102min Sweden Drama
Lukas Moodysson moves away from his more serious fare with this upbeat celebration of teenage girlhood set in eighties Stockholm and based on a graphic novel by his wife, Coco. Refusing to believe that punk is dead; rebellious, rank outsiders Bobo (Mira Barkhammer) and Klara (Mira Grosin) get together to form a girl-band. The only trouble is, they can’t play any instruments. Enter the unlikely figure of Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne), a committed Christian and classical guitar player, who is persuaded to join the fun and frolics and, voilà, the band is born. The tone turns more serious when the girls join forces with a boy band and competitiveness enters the arena but their strong friendship conquers all in the end. The music may be outdated but it’s their natural performances as actors that really win the day as they embark on unexpected stardom in a confident and fun-filled way. Brim-full of irreverence and teenage angst as well as exuberant charm, We Are The Best, has appeal for all age-groups with its superb sense of place and infectious joie de vivre that captures the era and guarantees some out loud moments. MT
Dir.: Mohammad-Ali Talebi Writer: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Hadi Alipour, Amir Janfada, Majid Alipour
Iran/Japan 1999, 81 min.
WILLOW AND WINDheadlines a touring film season exploring and celebrating rare film classics about children “Cinema of Childhood”. The season launches this week with Mohammad-Ali Talebi’s film that poetically mirrors the political unrest in Iran at the beginning of this century and, in particular, the concerns surrounding artistic censorship.
A young schoolboy in a primary school in the Iranian mountains is threatened by his teacher with immediate expulsion, if he does not repair a broken window, which he smashed whilst playing football days ago. The boy’s father has no time or inclination to help him, and so he has to turn to his new friend, who has recently joined the class. Together they somehow manage to get the funds, but the glass merchant lives miles away from the school. Our hero stumbles with the big plate of glass through the wild landscape, but arrives with the window plane intact at his destination. Just when he seems to be successful against all odds, the gathering storm finally brings his odyssey to an unfortunate end.
Based on a script by Abbas Kiarostami, director Mohammad-Ali Talebi (Bag of Rice, 1998) has painted more than filmed this poem about loneliness in childhood. Ozu and Bresson immediately spring to mind, their fragile child characters in a world of insensitive adults are very much related to all the children in this film. But, surprisingly too, there are also echoes of early Hitchcock films, where children are the victims of the adult world. Talebi starts his discourse in poetic realism right at the beginning of the film, when the newcomer to the class, coming from an Iranian region where it hardly rains, is naturally more fascinated by the rain than the lesson. The weather plays a central role in the film, nearly always having a negative influence on the hero’s struggle. Adults are shown as remote: even when they want to help, they are unable and sometimes unwilling to engage with the childrens’ problems. Modes of transport are archaic and unreliable, not helping the quest of the boy, which is thwarted at every turn. Talebi’s narrative, fraught with incidents, is always second to his lyricism; dialogue is minimal and feels redundant, since the tortured look of the main character tells the story on his own. The howling wind and wild landscape is integrated beautifully, always playing a main role in the proceedings.
The camera is very mobile: panning and tracking vigorously, panoramic shots of the mountains are breathtaking. The young boys Razam and Kuchakpourso give convincing performances as they form a bond of friendship, their vigour contrasted (rightfully) with the adults, who seem either subdued or pedantic. Merhad Jenabi’s intense original score underlines the enfolding drama without intruding. Willow and Wind successful creates a world of childhood, full of passionate dreams and, at the same time, rejection by an adult world – the boy’s imagination – which drives him on, so much superior to the dreary world of the adults. In this atmospheric mood piece, Talebi shows us, that in the process of growing up, we loose often much more than we gain. AS
Director: Nicholas Ray Writer: Stewart Stern Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran 111min
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE gets a sparkling makeover as a tribute to the actor James Dean’s major films. It features his definitive role and goes down in history as one of the iconic movies of the 1950s. As Jim Stark, the archetypal troubled teenager from a dysfunctional family, arriving in a new town and falling in with the wrong crowd and Natalie Wood’s fresh-faced girl next door, it captured the zeitgeist of the powerful cultural changes of the era and immortalised Dean as the all American hero, earning him a posthumous Oscar nomination for this mesmerising portrait.
EAST OF EDEN***
Director: Elia Kazan, Writers: Paul Osborn Cast: James Dean, Raymond Massey, Julia Harris, Richard Davalos 115min
Another dysfunctional family drama this time set in the lush landscape of California where Dean stars in his debut as Cal Trask, a man in turmoil competing with his brother, Abra (Richard Davalos) for the attention of his parents and the shared affections of their sweetheart in the shape of Julie Harris. Elia Kazan’s epic adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic novel (Cain and Abel) benefits from the atmospheric score of Leonard Rosenman and was the only film of the three to be released before Dean’s death. The exchanges between Dean and Raymond Massey as his father Adam add a vibrancy to the otherwise slow-burning potboiler: it is said James Dean deliberately provoked Massey off-set to get him into character.
GIANT ***
Director: George Stevens, Writer Edna Ferber, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Carroll Baker, Jane Withers 201mins
Set to Dimitri Tiomkin’s rousing score, another love triangle this time based in the wide open spaces of a cattle ranch in Texas where James Dean plays Jett Rink, an embittered oil prospector set on destroying the family who has never welcomed him. Despite the dynamite leads (Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor became lifetime friends after starring as, Leslie Benedict and Jordan), the film feels stolid and self-important. Nevertheless, GIANT was the highest grossing film in Warner Bros. history until the release of SUPERMAN (1978).
AN ICON RESTORED – JAMES DEAN’S MAJOR FILMS ARE SHOWING AT THE BFI AND NATIONWIDE FROM 18 APRIL 2014
HONOUR is one of those rare things – a meaningful thriller: whilst all the classic elements of the genre are aptly fulfilled, director/writer Khan never looses the moral thread of the story. Mona, a young Pakistani Muslim woman, is working as an estate agent in London. She falls in love with Tanvir, a young Punjabi man, who is working for a rival company. Mona was promised in marriage to a man in Pakistan at the age of three, and her family is desperate that she should stay a virgin. Encouraged by their two-faced mother, Kasim strangles Mona, just as Adel (who betrays the trust of his sister) in arriving home. But she miraculously survives and goes into hiding. Her family then hires a British contract killer (Considine), himself a racist, to track her down and kill her. But instead of killing her, he turns against her family. Kasim uses his powers a policeman to track them down, and corner them on a rooftop for a shoot out.
Khan’s male characters are all accurately portrayed and believable: Kasim is a British Muslim hypocrite, who uses his role as a policeman in a western country to hunt down his sister in the name of a religion, who’s rules he does not follow himself. His younger brother Adel is not much better, he too enjoys the benefits of western youth culture, but is quick to scarify his sister, when his brother puts pressure on him. The contract killer (without a name), has been abandoned by his mother, his tattoos shows racial hatred, but he is taken in by Mona’s fragility and when he learns that she is also pregnant, his own personal issues surrounding abandonment kick in, and he encourages her to keep the baby. Of the two women, the mother is most straightforward in her hatred of her own gender, her belief in male superiority and her pride that singles out one son (her eldest) but denigrates her others children; whereas Mona is a classical victim turned survivor model. Whilst being unrelenting on the religious fanatics that exist in British society, Khan also shows racial prejudice by the certain factions of the white population. But overall his attack on the perpetrators of honour killings is the driving force behind his film.
The film’s narrative is not linear, the flashbacks increase the suspense, and none of the characters is allowed to maintain a stable relationship with each other: alliances are shifting permanently, and Khan makes it clear that everyone has a choice in the end, whatever their past, beliefs or prejudice may be. The acting is convincing, and the classical film score helps to propel the narrative forward. Unusually, it is the cinematography which lets the piece down, shot mainly in the Glasgow rain: Whilst an action film obviously requires a certain tempo, the camera overdoes the hectic panning; there are few moments of calm where we might learn more about the protagonists. In falling victim to its own pace, the images of this film are often too fleeting to be impressive. But overall, HONOUR is a unique, ambitious achievement. AS
Making a funny horror movie is quite a feat but Elliot Goldner has pulled it off in his debut Britflic, The Borderlands. After The Blair Witch Project, found footage films are always going to raise an eyebrow of contempt, but here the crackling chemistry of the leads and the well-paced sparky narrative never take the ghoulish theme too seriously, until the horrific finale eventually bites back with a nasty sting in the tail.
Made on a shoestring budget, but none the worse for it, The Borderlands stars TV regular Gordon Kennedy and Robin Hill (of Ben Wheatley fame) as spirited sparring partners: a Vatican investigator and a recording technician, who fetch up in a remote West Country village to explore the truth behind suspected paranormal activity in the medieval Parish Church, as reported by the disturbed and deeply sinister vicar Father Crellick (Luke Neil). Combining a strong sense of place in the lush English countryside with some genuinely spooky happenings, this is a film that cleverly keeps us sceptical yet on the edge of our seats right up to its devastating denouement. MT
THE BORDERLANDS IN ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 28 MARCH 2014.
Dir: Mikkel Nørgaard | Cast: Frank Hvam, Casper Christiansen, Mia Lyhne, Iben Hjelje, Marcus Jess Petersen| Denmark, 89min Comedy
Dont’ listen to the po-faced critics who tell you this is ‘crass, unfunny or outrageous’ – it’s a bit of adult fun, even Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian’s trusty critic, was seen laughing out loud. You might think this Danish road comedy is going to be dire, then you’ll start to enjoy the ludicrous humour that touches on The Hangover – but much more ridiculous and real: A trip into strictly grown-up territory – so don’t take the kids – for once they can stay at home!
Frank (Frank Hyam) makes a geeky and unfanciable boyfriend for Mia (Mia Lyhne), prancing around in his y-fronts and a baseball cap. But when she discovers she’s pregnant, the time has come to settle down. Before making the final commitment, Frank plans a boys’ weekend of fun with his womanising married friend Caspar (Caspar Christiansen): A spot of canoeing and then canoodling with the local talent at a music festival and, to round off the trip, a visit to a friend’s upmarket brothel located in a fairytale castle. The only problem is that Frank has been left in charge of Bo, Mia’s 12-year-old nephew. This may be a chance to prove his fatherhood potential, or it could be a complete disaster. No prizes for guessing which one it turns out to be.
Apart from the totally inane humour, Klown is imaginatively set in the idyllic Danish summer countryside and there are some gloriously cinematic moments as they navigate the waterways of this beautiful part of Scandinavia. The brothel setting is like something out of Festen – location-wise, promising an evening of upmarket naughtiness and nastiness too. It’s watchable and convincing, written by Hyam and Christiansen: two of Denmark’s most popular stand-up comedians.
So off they go with one mishap leading to another. There’s not much of a storyline but instead you get a good hour of politically incorrect shenanigans and arch ribaldry on the river. With themes of male-bonding and female-bonding, the only bonding that doesn’t feature is bondage itself but there is a little scene that really hits the spot – you’ll either love it or hate it – but see it before the Hollywood re-make! MT
Having defied the odds and beaten the clear favourite The Act of Killingto the Best Documentary accolade at this year’s Academy Awards, it’s clear to see why Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet From Stardom was triumphant, as a compelling, heartwarming and unaffected exploration into the fascinating world of backing singers.
From the contentiously salacious vocals on Ray Charles What’d I Say, to the graceful arrangement of Lean on Me by Bill Withers, backing vocals are an integral part to our enjoyment of music across the decades. Having spent years in the shadows of some of the finest, most prominent recording artists of all time, now the likes of Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer and Darlene Love are given the platform to shine, and showcase their unique, and somewhat breathtaking abilities.
There is something so unmistakeably emotional about this production, as we candidly delve into a world behind the scenes, where broken dreams and empty promises remain a prevalent theme. Nostalgia is equally as important to this picture, and scenes such as Clayton returning to the recording studio where she provided vocals on The Rolling Stone’s Gimme Shelter is enough to bring a tear to your eye. Neville masterfully intertwines personal anecdotes from the likes of Clayton herself to Mick Jagger, as we learn of how she came to be involved – dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, heavily pregnant, and with curlers still attached to her hair. An intimacy of sorts, and a human element is brought to these songs, as we are taken behind the track and explore the mechanics of how it came to be, and the personalities involved.
Jagger is one of many fine talking head appearances, with Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen also featuring, amongst others, to pay homage to the hard work and incredible talent of these gifted musicians. Neville seamlessly drifts between the various different singers, succinctly and efficiently, as we’re given a flavour for each of their personalities and their own unique situations, ranging from those who rose to prominence in the 60s, to current singers such as Judith Hill. This works as a catalyst for a series of other themes to be explored, as race and inequality are covered, dressed up in a rich socio-political context, while the more intimate, human themes such as the lust for fame are equally imperative.
That said, Neville can be accused of merely brushing the edges of a few issues, not truly offering enough depth – however it’s a small blemish on an otherwise accomplished piece of filmmaking. It’s just intriguing to see the faces behind the voices we’ve heard a million times over, voices that define and complete some of the most renowned records ever created. You’ll forever listen to these songs in a different way from hereon, and believe me, that’s by no means a bad thing. Stefan Pape.
Cast: Martin Freeman, Vicky McClure, Michael Socha, Maxine Peake, Matt Berry, Morwena Banks
93min Comedy UK
The premise whereby impassioned, eternally optimistic rockers attempt to spread the sweet sound of music to the unsuspecting public, has been covered in British cinema this past year in the likes of Good Vibrations and Vinyl. Though there are shades of the intrinsic charm of the former, John Hardwick’s Svengali is regrettably more in tune with the latter, in what is ultimately an unfulfilling comedy picture.
Our eternal optimist, in this instance, is Dixie, played by Jonny Owen – who also penned the screenplay. Bored in his monotonous livelihood in a small town in Wales, he sets off for London with his girlfriend Shell (Vicky McClure) by his side, and plastic bag in tow, hoping to become the manager of an unsigned band he heard online. Though triumphant in his quest, and attracting interest from the likes of renowned record label owner Alan McGee (playing himself), it seems he may eventually have to choose between the band, or his girlfriend; as the two aren’t quite as compatible as he had initially envisaged.
The overstated narrative can be somewhat frustrating, and though inevitable (this is cinema, after all), it can prove difficult to believe in the band’s increasing popularity. It doesn’t help that we don’t ever hear them play, but that issue is key to how absurd and fantastical is all turns out to be: as even for an industry that is notoriously impulsive, this band are ‘the next big thing’ before anyone has even heard them play. That said, Hardwick does a fine job in capturing the essence and anarchic spirit of a fresh new indie band in the early stages of their career, with a nod to the likes of The Libertines, and the movement that followed them at the turn of the Millennium.
Talking of spirit, Dixie is a wonderful creation, with an infectious optimism and outlook in life. His happy-go-lucky persona and ability to find the good in everyone is an endearing quality, and the audience wish him all the best as a result. It also means that when he’s upset about something, or annoyed with somebody, we completely adhere to it given it’s such a rarity. He has a great image too, reminiscent of Irish comedian Michael Redmond, always with his trusty plastic bag in hand. He collects things as a child would, and it’s this blissfully naïve quality we like about him. Meanwhile, he shares a great chemistry with McClure – hardly surprising as they’re an item in real life – though the actress is better than this film. There are some great cameos to be noted too, such as Martin Freeman and Maxine Peake, though conversely, you can see why Alan McGee didn’t ever pursue a career in acting.
Svengalisuffers most in the flat comedy, as a film that succeeds more when it’s heartfelt and poignant with a well-handled romantic narrative. It begs the question why the film can’t drop the pointless gags that pollute the production and detract from the one key thing that makes this film a worthwhile endeavour – its sincerity. Stefan Pape.
SVENGALI IS OUT ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 21 MARCH 2014
BAFTA winner Hamish Hamilton’s concert film opens with an intimate confession from the Genesis frontman: behind the flamboyant mask, there lurks a timid soul. On stage Gabriel emits a calm magnetism, singing his songs with the ease of a true professional. At 63, he doesn’t particularly ‘wear it well’, by his own admission. Scuttling around like a stout beetle in battledress, he claims to have perfected the art of ‘dad dancing’ even before fatherhood although in the London’s massive 02 Arena, gone are the daredevil stunts of jumping into the crowd. But how can a man with so much musical talent, move with so little rhythm? Is this all part of his unique brand of idiosyncratic charm as a performer; a way of reaching out to his fans, most of whom are middle-aged (in ‘country casuals’) and have stuck with him from his early days in the art rock band which he left in 1975 to embark on a successful career as an inventive singer-songwriter, visual presenter and humanitarian human being.
His breakthrough album was SO (1986) and spearheaded a future in visual presenting, digital recording and distribution. Strong visuals are the centrepiece to this BACK TO FRONT World Tour. Hamilton’s pin-sharp high tech resolution at 4k contrasts with some very low tech filming and a slow pull that takes the image from being out of focus, slowly towards deeper and deeper degrees of resolution and focus.
Joined by a talented selection of session musicians (also in black): drummer Manu Katché; bassist Tony Levin; guitarist David Rhodes and multi-instrumentalist David Sancious. Jenni Abrahamson is the voice of Kate Bush without her lithe, pre-raffaelite lissomeness and there are some giant camera cranes writhing like giant octopuses. In this monochrome affair the only colour comes from guitars gleaming like drops of blood on the stage, backlit by panels of lights; red-bathed for RED RAIN and vibrant primaries for SLEDGEHAMMER and NO SELF CONTROL. The band run through the entire SO album and include some of Gabriel’s latest numbers (Digging in the Dirt, The Tower that Ate People). Somehow it all seems so slick and commercial in comparison to the uneasy poetic edginess of the early days. With his fatherly stolidness, the music feels safe and dumbed-down rather than fresh and innovative and the vastness of the O2 drains intimacy from songs such as DON’T GIVE UP, In YOUR EYES and MERCY STREET. Peter Gabriel is an artist and musician who has repackaged himself for the digital age and the 21st century: he knows where his bread is buttered. MT
FILMED LIVE AT THE 02, LONDON ON 21 7 22 OCTOBER 2013 – PETER GABRIEL BACK TO FRONT will be screening at Cineworld, Odeon, Vue, Showcase and other indie cinemas nationwide on 20 March 2014 with further screenings from Sunday 23 March 2014 at selected locations.
Cast: Sergei Chadov, Ian Kelly, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Sergei Bodrov, Giorgi Gurgalia, Evklid Kyurdzidis
120min Russian with English subtitles Drama
There is an upbeat cynicism to Aleksei Balabanov’s tale of Chechen gangsters that feels bracingly authentic and unashamedly pragmatic. Tightly-plotted yet unpredictable, the story unfolds from the interrogation cell of Ivan Yermakov (Sergei Chadov), a Russian soldier who has returned from a mission to release English and Russian hostages taken by Chechen rebels in the aftermath of the fall of Grozny in 2000.
Amongst the captives is John Boyle (Ian Kelly), an effete, almost comical, whingeing British actor (think a ginger John Cleese), who has been touring with a Shakespeare play and his girlfriend Margaret (a fabulously stoical Ingeborga Dapkunallit); Russian, Captain Medvedev (Sergei Bodrov) and a Jewish businessman.
After the ritual decapitation of an unnamed Russian soldier (to cries of “Allah Akhbar” and actual audio footage from a internet video), the hostages are finally taken away and holed up in a remote mountain enclave. But the gangster leader, Aslan Gugayev (a fiercely convincing Giorgi Gurgulia), wants money from the West and so releases John, sending him off to London to raise the ransom of £2 million. Failure will result in Margaret’s death although once in Whitehall, John predictably draws a blank with the ‘powers that be’, both Russian and British. Then an executive from Channel 4 offers to put up £200K in return for John’s video footage of the mission. A further £400k comes from John’s own coffers.
Sergei Chadov’s debut is a quietly stunning portrayal of Sergeant Ivan: canny, sardonic and impeccably organised with a cigarette rarely out of his mouth, he leaves a grim postwar future in his home town of Tobolsk, but his decision to accompany John back to Chechnya is swayed more by a sense of national duty to Captain Ruslan and his family than the prospect of being compensated for his efforts by a slice of John’s cash. And although John appears weak and ineffectual, when the chips are down he makes a wise choice in hiring the honest and reliable Ivan, who emerges a figure worthy of national pride and heroism. Through shrewd decision-making and gung-ho aplomb, the pair make their way back via Vladikavkaz (for equipment), later enlisting the help of Chechen shepherd Ruslan (Evklid Kyurdzidis), a rival of Aslan’s tribe, who is kept under the cosh by Ivan but whose knowledge of Chechen mores proves invaluable on their final leg of the journey back to the Chechen camp to do business with the gangster rebels.
Dark humour seeps through the stark realism of this satisfying story; well-told, brilliantly put together and easy to follow in its straightforward narrative structure. The only sadness is that Aleksei Balabanov won’t be telling anymore stories from the rich and eventful history of his native Russia. MT
WAR IS PART OF THE ALEKSEI BALABANOV SERIES AT THE SLOVO FESTIVAL, WHICH RUNS COURTESY OF ACADEMIA ROSSICA DURING FEBRUARY AND MARCH 2014. FOR THE FULL PROGRAMME VISIT the Website
Dir: Jalil Lespert | Wri: Laurence Benaiim, Jacques Fieschi, Marie-Pierre Huster, Jalil Lespert | Cast: Pierre Niney, Guillaume Gallienne, Charlotte Le Bon, Laura Smet, Marie de Villepin, Nikolai Kinski, Marianne Basler | France, Biopic drama 104′
The legendary designer and couturier, Yves Saint Laurent, had two biopics dedicated to him in 2014. The first is this one from actor turned director Jalil Lespert, the second is Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent.which won the Palme Dog at Cannes for Best Doggy Death scene played by pooch Moujik.
For fifty years YSL was the creative force that shaped the International fashion scene with designs celebrating haute couture and paving the way for prêt-à-porter to gain respectability for those with more dash than cash.
Lespert takes the first (and most significant) part of YSL’s career, which deals with his rise to fame; his significant relationship with his business partner, Pierre Bergé, and his emotional decline. This biopic is meticulously-crafted in conveying the importance of style and correct dressing, epitomising French style through wearable elegance. The film features his immaculate designs and particularly his appreciation of the female body in celebrating voluptuous curves and waists (his sister and mother modelled for him in the early days) unlike Chanel whose boxy designs focused on a more gamine look, highlighted by Audrey Hepburn.
After a childhood in Algeria, then a French colony, Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent moved to Paris to study fashion design. The film opens in 1953, as Christian Dior appoints him in-house designer. After a dalliance with one of the favourite in-house models (Charlotte Le Bon), he falls for Pierre Bergé (Guillaume Gallienne), who is to become his business partner and the love of his life.
On Dior’s sudden death, he is drafted into the army but escapes conscription in Algeria, on emotional grounds. The House of Dior then sacks him and YSL takes them to court, and wins. Lespert’s film works best in these early years when it deals with YSL’s perfectionist nature and his appreciation of the impeccable professionalism surrounding French design standards, and the seriousness with which the French treat the industry.
Lespert is also at pains to flesh-out his struggle with homosexuality in fifties France, and illustrates how Pierre Bergé was such a vital partner, providing a business brain and an emotional anchor due to their strong chemistry; showing how this was a compatible love match not just a sexual exploit, and also how the two strayed from their relationship, eventually making it stronger.
After they form their own fashion house, YSL moves with the times developing a groundbreaking prét-a-porter collection that responded to a new generation with sportier and more sexy, shape-flattering clothes for women such as the ‘Le Smoking’, thigh boots, tight trousers and swaggeringly sophisticated trouser suits.
Stylish to look at, the film follows the couture shows on the catwalk, charting how the collections developed creatively demonstrating the importance of business acumen in the face of growing competition from the likes of Courrèges in the late sixties. As the brand grows in profile, the couple consort with the Jet Set, moving between Paris and Marrakech where the drama loosens up as an exotic twist tracks Saint-Laurent’s louche descent into drugs and alcohol – a reaction to his stiff upbringing and Bergen’s controlling influence. This segment also deals with Yves’ friendships with Loulou de la Falaise and Nicole Dorier and also his pioneering fascination with non-white models and ethnic designs, and this is accompanied by an eclectic soundtrack of hits from the era. The narrative then wanders into more predictable ’sex, drugs and rock-roll’ territory rather than exploring Saint Laurent’s more personal love life.
Guillaume Gallienne is spectacular as Pierre Bergé, evoking not only his acute business and PR skill and in-depth understanding of Saint-Laurent, but also his aching desire to be seen as more than just a business man; and this shows through in Marrakech when his stiff style is at odds with the other relaxed creatives hanging out there. Pierre Niney physically inhabits the role of Yves-Saint-Laurent. Not only does he look like the designer but he also embodies his volatility to perfection: his acute shyness in myriad expressions of painful anguish, mercurial anger and also his dignified restraint.
The film ends abruptly but perhaps at best the possible juncture for Saint Laurent as the later years of his life were less ground-breaking than his rise to fame. On reflection, a more in-depth examination of the earlier years would have made more fascinating viewing from a fashion point of view, with less of the repetitive drug-fuelled years which reveal nothing out of the ordinary, but create dramatic heft. Lespert’s film is at its best when charting the fashion scene of the fifties and early sixties and his family influences. Watching Pierre Niney, though, you cannot help but feel you’re in the presence of the great designer himself. MT
SALVO wastes no time in getting down to the gritty business of assassination. Hit man Saleh Bakri (Salvo) kills his rival, Renato, in the stunning opening of this action thriller which then rams on the breaks and becomes a slow-burning story of redemption (five years in the making). The scorching Sicilian heat permeates every frame of Grassadonia and Piazza’s intense debut that turns its attention to the dead man’s visually-challenged sister, Rita (Sara Serraiocco), who is quietly awaiting his return at home.
Daniele Cipri (It Was the Son) is behind the lens of an exquisitely-executed long-take, ratcheting up the tension as it watches Rita going about her duties inside the darkened house as Salvo breaks in and tracks her down. Holding her hostage in a disused lock-up, he transforms her life into a bewildering nightmare of vaguely moving shapes. Has the trauma caused to her to regain sight or did she simply have extremely poor vision?: this is sadly unclear but Salvo becomes obsessed with his helpless captive gradually mending his former ways, as if out of respect for suffering. In a quirky twist, he also becomes the focus of an eccentric couple (Giuditta Perriera and Luigi Lo Cascio) who give him board and lodging in a seedy side of town, injecting texture and offbeat humour.
With a judicious use of silence and limited dialogue, SALVO has some clever ideas and a brilliant starting point, but the narrative flatlines in the second half and never really peaks again despite some interesting twists and turns. Bakri is superb as Salvo, a criminal with a fascinating modus operandi, and Daniele Cipri’s cinematography is a joy to behold. MT
SALVO IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 21 MARCH 2014 THROUGH PECCADILLO PICTURES.
Cast: Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton, David Thewlis, Melanie Thierry, Matt Damon, Lucas Hodges
107min Fantasy Drama UK
Terry Gilliam is back with a psychedelic mish-mash of mysogyny and male musings: THE ZERO THEORUM is a mathematical formula that seeks to determine whether life has meaning, as seen through the eyes of Christophe Waltz’s middle-aged geek in a dystopian town of the future. Waltz is both perplexed and benign in the role as he’s badgered to settle down and marry by Melanie Thierry’s blonde piece of fluff who taunts him to commit in various states of undress (a typical male fantasy from the warped mind of a commitment-phobe). Gilliam’s fantasy drama explores the nightmare of online, corporate Hell so just hope that we never get there. Despite some creative flourishes in the Art department THE ZERO THEORUM is puerile, repetitive and overlong. An acquired taste that will divide audiences: I’d give it a miss unless you love his films. MT
In this well-constructed and fascinating documentary, Kirby Dick exposes rape in the US Military: and not just rape of women but men as well. Rape is not a one-off occurrence but a regular part of army life for most recruits: it’s part of the territory: an occupational hazard.
An endless deluge of tearful soldiers talk about their experiences on camera. They are living testament to a system that knows no shame; young people who dreamt of serving their country only to fall victim to a military hierarchy who considers it their right to receive sexual favours from subordinates whose lives and relationships end in ruin due to their callousness. It’s a fact that sexual predators migrate towards ‘the safety’ of army service, knowing their proclivities will be well-catered for in a system that operates outside the normal judiciary framework: In the Military, the first line of contact is with the Officer in command and this officer is, for the most part, the perpetrator of the crime. There is no way out, in short.
There’s nothing worthy about Kate Dick’s well-paced treatment of her subject-matter – but the sobering facts are that one in five serving female officers has been sexually assaulted (500,000 since records began). The male victim rate is unclear but nevertheless significant. Women are made aware that any complaint will be met by a humiliating and futile procedure that knows no positive conclusion. To add insult to injury, a poster campaign aimed at Army men: “Ask Her When She’s Sober” is the only measure in place to tackle the issue.
A chilling documentary that offers grim viewing, but is worth a watch for its sheer incredibility. MT
THE INVISIBLE WAR IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 14 MARCH 2014
Director: Roberto Rossellini
Script: Sergio Amidei, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini
Producers: Guiseppe Amato, Ferrucio De Martino, Rod E Geiger, Roberto Rossellini
Cast: Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani, Marcelo Pagliero, Vito Annichiarico, Nando Bruno, Harry Feist, Giovanna Galletti
103mins War film Italian with subtitles
In 1944 Italy there was, understandably, no film industry or indeed any money. Despite this, Roberto Rossellini had persuaded a wealthy woman to finance a documentary about a priest who had helped with the resistance. She was also interested in telling another story of the children who fought for the resistance.
Rossellini approached Fellini with the ambition of casting Fabrizi for the role of the priest, but Fellini came up with the idea of combining these two documentary strands into one fictional movie and they set about writing the piece with Amidei, just two months after the Germans vacated Italy.
Based on factual events of 1944 and filmed in Rome directly after the war, Roberto Rossellini’s masterpiece stands as one of the greatest war films ever made. Handheld camera, shot almost entirely on location: Rome, Open City is another superb offering from the Italian Neo-Realist stable. The hatred of the Germans and the freshness of the atrocities is palpable in all of the non-professional actors serving justice to this story; where one is never in any doubt about the authenticity of the mise en scene. Presumably a cathartic experience for all involved.
As the Nazi net closes in, more by luck than judgement, resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is forced into hiding, entirely dependent on the kindness and assistance of friends and colleagues. However, the stresses and strains on the whole community inevitably begin to show, where what normally might be seen as easy neighbourliness, during wartime becomes a matter of life and death.
One of the things that is remarkable here is Rossellini’s ability to find sublime humour in the darkest of moments. And there’s nothing quite like a war movie, with Nazis as the baddies exerting unbearable pressure, to extract the most extreme jeopardy and distress. The human condition is under the microscope and with this kind of duress, everyone’s character and resolve is forced to the fore; the subjugator as much as the subjugated.
Anna Magnani has a quite wonderful role as the feisty pregnant Pina, who lives life with a passionate vibrancy that seems to epitomise Italy. But it’s interesting to note that both she and Fabrizi, the only professionals in the film, were, up to that time, well known only for their comedy, this being their first foray into serious drama.
Rossellini was a trailblazer in a great many ways, not only in the casting, but also in the manner in which he ignored the script that the financiers had agreed to and simply went out and shot the film he wanted to make. Rossellini had had terrible trouble financing it; the money he already had from his initial investor wasn’t sufficient to cover the whole budget, but other potential investors shied away from a film with scenes of torture, wondering who in their right minds would go and see it, so it was shot on the hoof very much out of necessity than design.
Upon its completion, Paris lauded the film, but the premier in Italy was a catastrophe, audiences perhaps understandably wanting more escapism than the grim realities of what they had just been through. US soldier Rod Geiger then took it to the US, where the film made a fortune for the distributor and also opened American doors to Italian Neo-Realist films. It was only by gaining a reputation abroad, winning the Grand Prix at Cannes, that Rome, Open City gained more acceptance at home.
A massive achievement and a landmark film, that, like so many recognised classics, gained its reputation in the years long after a less than stellar launch. But even if you disregard its significance as a piece of cinematic history, or the innovations on filmmaking, just see this film as a truly amazing and passionate piece of storytelling. It’s got all you could wish for: Nazis, suave resistance fighters, beautiful women, plucky kids, homemade bombs, espionage, religion and Rome. You cannot fail to be moved. Andrew Rajan.
THE 4K RESTORATION OF ROME, OPEN CITY OPENS ON 7 MARCH 2014 AT THE BFI, CURZON MAYFAIR, IFI DUBLIN AND SELECTED CINEMAS NATIONWIDE.
Two events are celebrating Derek Jarman in London in 2014. “Pandemonium” Exhibition at Somerset House, WC2 and a Retrospective at the BFI 5.2. – 31.3.)
Derek Jarman died twenty years ago at the age of 52 but was undoubtedly the most innovative director of the British cinema in the second half of the 20th century and arguably the greatest visionary since Michael Powell. His films are always the opposite of the traditional English ‘masterpieces’ featuring the heroes of the past – he turned the glorious history into a macabre sideshow. And he was obsessed with death, from the very beginning. And death never comes easy to Jarman’s heroes: SEBASTIANE, the title hero of his first feature (co-directed by Paul Humfress in 1976), dies a slow, agonising death, bound to face the penetrating arrows of his torturers. Needless to say, that for Jarman, Sebastiane was not a Christian martyr, but a gay anti-hero. Ten years later it is the turn of another title hero, the painter CARAVAGGIO to die a horrible fever death in black and blue. The youthful hero in THE LAST OF ENGLAND(1987) dies a small, dirty little death. And death rules the WAR REQUIEM (1988), this time in glowing pink. Laurence Olivier in a wheelchair, as a war hero in his last film role. And in between shots of bombing raids by Jarman’s pilot-father, which he took with his camera in WWII.
In EDWARD II(1991) the title hero perishes with a red hot poker in his rectum – in the arms of his tender murderer, whilst Annie Lennox sings Cole Porter’s “Every time we say goodbye, we die a little”. Jarman always re-mastered the originals of the classics into something demonic, obscene and really evil: He transformed the magic island from Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST (1979) into an labyrinth of terror, and the Sonnets of the Bard into a witch’s Sabbath in THE ANGELIC CONVERSATIONS (1985). And he shows contemporary England – JUBILEE(1977 and the aptly titled THE LAST OF ENGLAND – as an island out of hell – just the opposite of what Margaret Thatcher, with her ideas of a strong, back-to-the-Empire orientated country, had in mind. And Jarman’s own death, foretold with BLUE a year before he died, blind from the medications which did not cure Aids, but a peaceful BLUE nevertheless: a final work without pictures, just words. It is the viewer, who projects his pictures on this film – not uncommon for Jarman’s work, since he was always more interested in the creative process than the result: “The end-product is not important, it is only the witness of a creative process”.
Jarman studied painting at the Slade School in London, but his interest in stage design made him collaborate with the Royal Ballet and the ENO. His first work for the cinema was the Production Design for Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS (1970). Then he wandered around London with his ‘Super 8” camera – home movies, but also first documents of the gay community. The difference between fiction and documentation did not exist for Jarman. “Life is Art”, the title of a documentary about Jarman by Andy Klimpton (they met first in the early 80s) is by far the best description of Jarman’s life and work. His garden and wooden cottage near Dungeness was his last refuge, much more than a hobby. Four years after being diagnosed with aids in 1986 THE GARDEN shows a gay couple, being seemingly senseless tortured and murdered, whilst a Madonna (Tilda Swinton) is harassed by paparazzis, Jesus looks on painfully and Judas’ death is exploited as an advertisement for credit cards.
THE LAST OF ENGLAND is perhaps the best example of Jarman’s work, because it is as personal as it is political. The ‘home movie’ fragments, which his father and grandfather shot, show the small world from which Derek was going to escape. We see innocence, but it is only superficial – the “Kodak” family always smiles. But behind the smiles is the soldier father, who repressed his children. When we see little Derek playing ball, the innocence is undercut by the security fences, and we also hear the noise of the war planes in background. Cut to the scenes in Brixton, where police and demonstrators show a new meaning of war: the total civil war. It is a dark portrait of a nation rotting away. If one thinks of an equivalent in literature, one would choose Baudrillard’s “Kool killer”. The apocalypse is already here, it is happening before our very eyes. The present as future, Science Fiction as the new reality. As proven in JUBILEE, where Elizabeth I asks her court magician to show her the future of her domain, 400 years on, during the reign of Elizabeth II.
In DEREK(2008) a homage to Jarman, by Isaac Julien and Bernhard Rose, Jarman’s muse, the actress Tilda Swinton (‘Caravaggio’, The last of England’, War Requiem’, ‘The Garden’, Edward II’ and ‘Blue’) reads her ‘letter’ to Jarman ‘in the sky’. She misses his contra-poison to the disco-light of a culture where everything is for sale. And: “Derek, this is what made you a real artist – you worked from your ‘soup kitchen’, which was your life” And in this ‘soup kitchen’ the private, the intimate and the public life touched each other, present and history. Jarman never wanted to build borders between these spheres. Like the painter Caravaggio, who painted a Madonna like a prostitute, and holy men as rent boys.
Derek Jarman was not only a leading figure of the independent British film but also of the gay movement. He fought energetically against Thatcher’s anti-gay policies, like the Paragraph 28, which forbade any information in schools about homosexuality. He was a creative figure, a dreamer, an eccentric and a militant poet with his brush and his Super 8 camera. He was a minimalist too, his WITTGENSTEIN(1993) was shot against a black background. And it is no accident, that the philosopher Wittgenstein, one of Jarman’s heroes, said “that philosophy ought to be written as if it was poetry.” Derek Jarman’s films were always poems, close to the heart. AS
Directors/Writers: Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland From a novel by Lisa Genova
Cast: Julianne Moore, Alex Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish
99min US Drama
In an extraordinary year for films about dread diseases, we’ve seen some superb performances so far: Agyness Deyn plays an epilepsy sufferer in ELECTRICITY, and Eddie Redmayne is heading for an Oscar with his portrait of Motor Neurone Disease in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. Now along come Julianne Moore, with another winning performance to add to her growing list of best actress gongs.
As a fifty-year-old university professor diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in STILL ALICE, Moore is superb. Cleverly, the film incorporates a generalised and gnawing sense of dread throughout the rest of the cast when we learn that isn’t just early onset, it’s a rare genetic type with a 50/50 chance it will be passed to her children. With a daughter undergoing fertility treatment, which successfully leads to twins, Alice’s affliction leads to a wider sense of dread as the narrative unspools; pulling each member of the family into its web of fear and anxiety. Ironically, Alice and her husband, Dr John Howland (Alex Baldwin), are neuroscientists who specialise in the study of memory. So Alice has the added insight into her condition as it slowly develops.
Alzheimer’s is a condition that everyone fears and part of that fear lies in the loss of control it entails. From being responsible and free individuals we are gradually forced to rely more heavily on our families and, for many of us, this is an added aspect for concern in this world of family dysfunction. STILL ALICE ramps up these fears in quite a sinister way by also exploring how Alzheimer’s is worse when it effects the intellectual mind. These are facts that make the film much more depressing than it needs to be but strangely it fails to be move in the same way as THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, and for most of the time, it comes across as a film that been made for the Alzheimer’s Society or some Government body.
Undoubtedly, we feel for Alice – it would be inhuman not too, and Julianne Moore depicts her decline in a sensitive and gentle way: where she could have been more angry and bitter, she comes across as appealingly vulnerable. Yet the other characters feels vapid and rather formulaic and the film’s straightforward linear narrative fails to contrast its central story with other engaging narrative strands, making it ultimately feel one dimensional. Alex Baldwin, as her husband is simply terrible. Not only is he weirdly wooden, but it also feels like he’s actually acting in another film (Sleeping With the Enemy) as a break-out psychopath control freak. As her youngest daughter (Lydia) Kristen Stewart is cold-eyed and awkward throughout – and totally lacking in the empathy that you would expect from her character’s role as a budding actress. Kate Bosworth, her eldest daughter, feels flat and uninteresting. Unlike her intellectual parents she behaves like a woman who spends most of her days shopping and reading magazines and this feels totally unauthentic, in the circumstances. So Moore is left to carry the film entirely on her own shoulders, surrounded by a support cast who are, at best, vapid cyphers, and at worst, unappealing. STILL ALICE fills you with a sense of unremittingly gloom throughout; totally unleavened by humour or even pathos.
Alzheimer’s disease currently effects around a million people in the UK. Little is still known about its aetiology and care facilities are poor and underdeveloped. When it strikes, it gradually obliterates our personalities and woe betide those who lack a significant other to look after them as they become increasingly difficult to handle: and they will be. Here we see a woman who has had a successful life and is surrounded by a loving and supportive family. But it totally lacks any humour or, indeed, drama, concentrating on the romantic cheesiness of Alice and her husband and the worthiness of her ‘close’ family., none of which feels particularly believable. As an American film, it may well be that care is fare superior in the States than in Britain. But here the standard of treatment and care is currently pitiful. Where STILL ALICE succeeds is in showing how the individual can cope with the slow decline by taking some early precautions. Alice writes notes to herself on her computer desk top – to be opened when things eventually get worse. It also offers the idea of memory tests: we see Alice performing these exercises daily; keeping her cognitive impairment from going downhill too rapidly. Expounding the benefits of diet and exercise which can nourish the brain.
So, apart from Julianne Moore’s breakout performance, which won her the Best Actress at the 87th Academy Awards, and bringing the plight of sufferers to the international stage, STILL ALICE is otherwise a lacklustre drama which fails to convince, largely down to the unconvincing performances of the support cast. Alzheimer’s is one of the most devastating afflictions of our times and it would churlish to deprecate a film that aims sensitively to raise awareness of its the tragic effects it wreaks on the individual and those that care for them. Nonetheless this is a film that feels worthy and earnest and fails to deliver any great dramatic punch. But it’s nt a film to go and watch when you’re feeling low or lonely or in need of entertainment. It will bring you down, so be warned. MT
DIRECTOR: ALFONSO CUARON WRITERS; ALFONSO AND JONAS CUARON
Cast: George Clooney, Sandra Bullock
USA 90min Thriller
2014 OSCAR FOR BEST DIRECTING; FILM EDITING; ORIGINAL SCORE; SOUND MIXING; SOUND-EDITING; VISUAL EFFECTS
Seven years after Children of Men, Mexican Director Alfonso Cuarón’s GRAVITY 3D swirled silently into Venice with a distant murmur of astronauts talking via satellite in space. George Clooney (Matt Kowalksy) gradually floats into view, as sauve in a space-suit as he is in Gucci tailoring. With his co-pilot Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), he injects much-needed humour into this claustrophobic but technically brilliant sci-fi drama that follows a stricken space-ship as it floats towards the Earth’s orbit with its surviving astronauts. The pair float helplessly amid a welter of emotionally-charged memories of the World they left behind. A pithy script and Emmanuel Lubezki’s ethereal visuals make this a worthwhile experience for the art house crowd and well as blockbuster fans and Sandra Bullock is surprisingly moving as a co-pilot who has nothing left to live for but every reason to survive.. MT
Based on a story by John W Richardson and Chris Roach.
Probably not a film to see before a flight or evening during one, NON-STOP is one of those ‘what happens when’ films that, if nothing else, takes you through the paces of an emergency crash landing from 40,000 feet. You have been warned. Fans of Liam Neeson’s particular brand of gentle giant physicality will see him turning cold-blooded killer in this claustrophobic whodunit from Jaume Collet-Serra and Joel Silver (of Matrix and House of Wax fame). He plays Bill Marks, a whisky-swilling, bleary-eyed air marshall, tortured by an unhappy personal life and an uncertain future. Travelling ‘undercover’ on a plane to London from New York, he’s faced with the unenviable task of dealing with a series of menacing and mysterious text messages effectively blackmailing him to organise, with the airline, a transfer of USD150 million into a bank account or risk having a passenger killed, every twenty minutes.
Not a bad premise thus far, although the cliche’d dialogue hardly sets the night-flight on fire: “I hate flying; the lines; the crowds; the delays”: Does anyone actually find these exciting? But some appealing characters and witty repartee could still make this a journey with some thrills. No chance there either. After a cheesy bit of bonding with a little girl on her maiden solo flight, Bill finally settles down with a neurotic passenger Jen (Julianne Moore). She plays one of those irritating people who desperately wants the window seat and won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, making you wish you could upgrade to club class. A few rows down sits a deeply unlikeable NYPD Officer (Corey Stoll); a devout Muslim doctor complete with skullcap (Omar Metwally), and a mousy stewardess (Michelle Dockery) who’s pale and shaky from a vegetable fast. Great. In lieu of some edgy interrogations with potential suspects, the dialogue is driven forward by text messages between Neeson and the mystery ‘perp’ on a special intranet. None of this throws up any tangible clues and soon everyone on the plane is a potential culprit, and Neeson gets heavy with his uncooperative colleague, Hammond (Anson Mount) in the loo, breaking his neck in a surprisingly violent altercation. Push follows shove, none of it very edifying although there are plenty of bland, red herrings in the inflight catering, and a pilot who pops his clogs mysteriously (Linus Roche).
Jaume Collet-Serra, who also made the impressive Orphan,House Of Wax and the awful Unknown, tries to keep his vehicle buoyant with frequent fisticuffs and eventually stages a dramatic CGI-enhanced landing sequence, which is more fascinating than frightening (oxygen masks DO fall down as promised, and people DO faithfully adopt the brace position). But this is a flight that even Julianne Moore can’t save, and Liam Neeson’s closing moments (where he tries to inject a scintilla of romance into the equation) will have you rushing for the sick bag. MT
Cast: Aidan Gillen, Claire Keelan, Zoe Tay, Michael Thomas
95 mins English UK Drama
In their acclaimed debut Helen (2008), writer-directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy probed into the mind of a passive protagonist whose desire to reinvent her life slowly manifested itself as she took part in a police re-enactment of the last known movements of Joy, a college classmate gone missing. In their follow up, Mister John, another passive protagonist (Gerry, played by Aidan Gillen) travels to Singapore after the death of his brother (the eponymous John). Upon landing, Gerry finds that his luggage has been lost, and John’s widow later lends him one of John’s shirts to wear – and, much like Joy’s distinctive yellow jacket does for Helen, John’s shirt seems to offer Gerry the first step towards a possible reinvention of the self. However, despite the many similarities between the two projects, Mister John never feels like a repetition: a continuation, perhaps, or a development (both of style and of themes), but never a repeat. If anything, the similarities could be offered as proof of the distinct, singular vision of the directing duo.
With its lush images, languid pacing and heavy, brooding soundtrack, Mister John is a film thick on atmosphere, and relatively thin on plot. At times, its dialogue feels clipped and overly minimal, and there are occasional slips into cliché – Gerry sitting on his bed, rubbing his face in his hands; a frustrated woman cutting up her lover’s clothes – but none of this detracts from the alluring, beguiling success of the film. In fact, it all feels like a part of the overall design, a deliberate play with convention on the part of the filmmakers. The film is, after all, a kind of anti-thriller (in this there is, perhaps, an obvious comparison to be made to The Passenger, Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic identity-swap anti-thriller – but the similarities feel superficial. The tone, the mood and the ideas all seem different here, even if the filmmakers have publicly acknowledged Antonioni’s influence).
Another element of Mister John which shouldn’t go overlooked is the rich vein of humour which runs throughout. That the film’s scariest moment leads to one of its funniest, shows again the mastery of Lawlor and Molloy’s control of the medium. If Helen was, as many claimed, an outstanding debut, Mister John is most certainly a worthy follow-up. ALEX BARRETT
MISTER JOHN IS OUT ON DVD FROM FEBRUARY 24 2014 COURTESY OF CURZON ARTIFICIAL EYE
Director/Writer: Jim Jarmusch | Cast: Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska
Jim Jarmusch adds another dimension to the vampire genre with this quirky tale of centuries-old lovers Adam (Hiddleston) and Eve (Swinton). Still blissfully inseparable despite living in different corners of the globe; Eve is in exoticly bohemian Tangiers, Adam in rain-washed mo-town Detroit. Their long lives and artistic leanings have allowed them acquaintances from Pythagoras to Bryon and Shelley and they share an intimate command of literature, science and music while taking pleasure in daintily imbibing the purest blood (sourced through medical contacts) from cut-crystal glasses.
There is nothing sinister or threatening about Jarmusch’s light-hearted luvvies in this droll comedy of social mores with its langorous pacing: These are elegant, uber-vampires of considerable finesse whose own artistic endeavours have been the inspiration for Schubert and Shakespeare: Eve is still on personal terms with Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt) who lives nearby. Despite their rather ridiculous names they are coltish, cool and extremely cultured. While visiting Detroit (on a first-class night flight from Tangiers, naturally) Eve dreams of her sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) who then blows from LA to disturb their loved- up twilight reverie with her intrusive irritating chatter. After threatening to empty their coffers of precious supplies of pristine blood, she queers the pitch with Adam’s assistant ‘zombie’ (Anton Yelchin).
Eventually, the runs out of steam. Jarmusch attempts to inject a serious twist to proceedings as it bleeds to death but by this stage our exhausted protagonists are finding (as we are) the going rather hard: the two-hour running time feels far longer. The lovers offer a fascinating perspective on the last thousand year captured in widescreen cityscapes, an atmospheric soundtrack of electronic and Renaissance lute music and the captivating performances of the gently-spoken leads. MT
This celebration of the life of Fellini (1920-1993) is put together in an atmospheric collage by his best friend, the director Ettore Scola. The two not only shared a passion for life and film, but also a friendship and regular collaboration with the actor Marcello Mastroiani, who joined them in their nightly excursions of Rome – Fellini being an extreme insomniac. It is no accident that the only feature film Fellini starred in was Scola’s aptly titled WE ALL LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH (1974), the story of a friendship, mainly shot on the road. Fellini also acted in Rossellini’s short The Miracle opposite Anna Magnani.
Frederico Fellini came to Rome from his hometown of Rimini in 1939, promising to attend university to please his parents – but no record of attendance has ever been found. Instead the future director earned his living with sketches and short texts for the theatre, before joining the satirical magazine “Marc’ Aurelio” in the early forties, when the magazine was controlled by the Fascist censors. Scola, still at High School, would join Fellini there a decade later. In Scola’s film much fun is made about life under Mussolini, but for the outspoken Fellini it could not have been easy despite his political disinterest After the liberation he started script writing for Rosselini (ROME, OPEN CITY/1945 and PAISAN/1946) as well as other established directors like Alberto Lattuada (FLESH WILL SURRENDER/1947) and Pietro Germi (THEPAST OF HOPE/1950). In the same year he directed his feature debut LIGHTS OF VARIETY (1950), followed by THE WHITE SHEIKH(1952) and his first masterpiece I VITELLONI 1953). Whilst one could easily call these films neo-realistic, Fellini already tries his own take on reality: away from social realism to a more personal approach of the oppressed. LA STRADA (1954) starring his wife Giulietta Masina (who acted in seven of his films), was a kind of summing up of his first five years as a director, it won him the first of five “Oscars”. LA DOLCE VITA (1960) which made Mastroiani into a star, was the turning point: even though the city of Rome was the real star of the film, Fellini achieved his artistic dream of life as theatre captured on film. Or as he put it “Life is a party”. From FELLINI SATYRICON(1969), via CASANOVA (1976) to the LA CITTA DELLE DONNE (1980) he celebrated this maxim, “never becoming a good little boy” as Scola remarked.
HOW STRANGE TO BE CALLED FEDERICO is centred around the car rides of the trio (both Fellini and Scola hated any physical exercise) in Rome, picking up painters and prostitutes alike, always on the outlook for ideas for their films. In one scene, Mastroiani’s mother complains bitterly to Scola “you always show the ugly side of my son in your films, but Fellini only shows his beauty”. And there is always Fellini, in his coat and long scarf, getting away from reality into his dream world – even after his funeral, eluding the soldiers who stood at the side of his coffin, running through the streets of his beloved Rome, sitting down in a car on a carousel, where extracts of his films close this beautiful homage of a friend and fellow artist for the man who called himself “a born liar”, but who only used lies to make reality colourful and exciting with playfulness and passion. AS
SCREENING AS PART OF CINEMA MADE IN ITALY WHICH RUNS FROM 5-9 MARCH AT THE CINE LUMIERE LONDON SW7
Director: George Clooney Writer: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Robert M Edsel
Cast: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville, Dimitri Leonidas
Original score: Alexandre Desplat 118min US Drama based on the novel by Bret Witter
George Clooney has made a brave and enterprising bid to shine a light on one of the most important episodes of Art history – the looting of paintings and artworks by the Nazis during their retreat in the Second World War. The resulting historical drama, in which he also stars as art historian Frank Stokes, (a fictionalised version of George Stout) along with a fine cast of Matt Damon, Jean Dujardin, Bill Murray, and High Bonneville, is rather too worthy for its own good. This is Clooney’s 5th big screen outing and sees him and his colleagues setting out to France in 1944 where they discover the Russians are also hot on the trail and intend to keep to uncovered treasure as spoils. Cate Blanchett is magnificent as a bluestocking curator under the Nazis, who at first is unwilling to cooperate but finally falls for Damon’s charms and gives access to the archives. The search goes underground and there is much ranting and raving in rhetoric about the supreme value of Art, driving home the salient points with vehemence, as if Clooney underestimates the intelligence of his audience, although naturally he has the best orating. Production values are slick and strong and Alexandre Desplat’s score is well-pitched and surprisingly moving, but ultimately this is a rather artless drama that sacrifices suspense for altruism. Possibly a documentary would have been a better way to raise the profile of this injustice. MT, 120mins US IN COMPETITION
THE MONUMENTS MEN IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 14TH FEBRUARY 2014 NATIONWIDE.
With the release of THE MONUMENTS MEN, Alex Barrett looks back at the Directing career of George Clooney
The story, such as it is, goes something like this: George Clooney never wanted to become a director. The script that was to become his debut feature, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), was due to be directed by, variously, Curtis Hanson, P. J. Hogan, David Fincher, Brian De Palma and Bryan Singer, with Clooney attached to act in a supporting role. When Singer departed, and the film collapsed once more, Clooney stepped up: the script, he said, was simply too great to be left languishing in development hell. So Clooney got to work, called in some favours, made the film, and bet Chuck Barris (on whose memoir Confessions is based) $10,000 that he wouldn’t make another film in the next five years – it really was, Clooney said, only the great script that made him want to direct the film.
But the truth, perhaps, is a little more complicated. Charlie Kaufman, the writer of that ‘great script’, has publicly denounced the finished film, stating that Clooney ‘took’ the project from him and made something that little resembled the original screenplay.
Such stories are not unique to Kaufman and Confessions – five years later, Clooney would resign from the “Writers Guild of America” after the Guild refused to allow him a writing credit on his screwball sports comedy Leatherheads (2008), for which he claimed to have so significantly reworked the original screenplay that only two scenes remained intact. Also significantly changed was Beau Willimon’s Farragut North, which Clooney and his producing partner Grant Heslov brought to the screen as The Ides of March (2011) – though this time seemingly with the writer’s full collaboration and endorsement (Willimon shares the screenplay credit with Clooney and Heslov on the final film).
If Clooney’s reworking of scripts is far from the only constant that runs across his directorial work, it may well be a contributing factor to the other consistencies. The protagonists of his first four features, and his television series Unscripted (2005), are all driven individuals who wish to succeed at any cost, most of whom are seeking love, fame and fortune of some kind, and who have a reluctance to play by the rules. There is also a recurrence of characters who work in the media, television and journalism – often allowing for themes of integrity and honesty to emerge. If it’s possible to reduce this to biography (Clooney’s father, Nick Clooney, was a journalist, game show host and news reader), it’s also possible to see it as a tribute to the cinema of the past – for, lest we forget, it was ex-newspapermen like Ben Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz who wrote the films of Hollywood’s Golden Age, often placing reporters at the centre of their stories. Indeed, Clooney’s films exhibit a surprisingly level of cine-literacy, and in his audio commentaries he often talks openly about his references, and about ‘stealing’ ideas from other filmmakers.
To put all this another way: for someone who ‘never wanted to direct’, Clooney’s films display a surprising degree of consistency, despite their seemingly disparate genres and styles – and, in this, one can’t help but be reminded of Steven Soderbergh. One of Hollywood’s greatest polymaths and an acknowledged influence on Clooney’s direction, Soderbergh is, of course, also a close friend and frequent collaborator of both Clooney-the-actor and Clooney-the-director (Soderbergh served as Executive Producer on Confessions, Unscripted and Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)). But if Soderbergh’s influence is often felt in Clooney-the-director’s work, it’s far from the only discernible impression left by those that have worked with Clooney-the-actor. The tone of Leatherheads, for instance, owes something to the work of the Coen Brothers, and it’s interesting to note that Clooney was working on the film’s script during the making of Intolerable Cruelty (2003), and was shooting the pickups while starring in Burn After Reading (2008). If nothing else, such impressions of influence remind us that Clooney has worked with, and learnt from, the best.
Although a notorious prankster, those who have worked with Clooney-the-director have commented on his focus and intelligence, and he is known for meticulously planning and storyboarding his films in advance. As a debut, Confessions was startlingly accomplished, already displaying an excellent grasp of four fundamental tenets of filmmaking: camera, story, sound and performance. An anarchic play with the conventions and tropes of biopics, the film finds a fascinating form for exploring an ambiguous mind. If that makes it sound like Clooney-the-director sprung fully formed from Clooney-the-actor, the looseness of Confessions nevertheless makes it feel like a film made by a director still finding his feet – which didn’t take long. With his second film, Good Night, and Good Luck.,Clooney-the-director truly came into his own.
A riveting, claustrophobic account of broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow’s outspoken reportage of Senator McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunts, the film almost plays like an inverse of Confessions: where Confessions told of a globe-trotting anti-communist agent, Good Night is almost entirely confined to the studio in which Murrow railed against those combating the ‘red threat’; where Confessions was about a figure considered to be responsible for the decline of American television, Good Night is about a bastion of quality television. As if in recognition of his more serious, sombre subject, Clooney replaces the showy style of his debut with a calmer, more lyrical beauty (roaming, long-lens, shallow-depth photography may be a cliché of modern cinema, but rarely – if ever – has it been used so well). If it’s true that the film is undoubtedly in thrall to its subject, and no less editorialised than Murrow’s own work, it seems Clooney is taking a leaf from Murrow’s book, following his dictum that not every story has two sides: sometimes we must choose. McCarthy is left to defend himself in his own words, now as he did then, and the choice to use only real footage of McCarthy, rather than have an actor portray him, lends the film the authentic air of reportage. But there is real drama here too, and the film remains Clooney’s masterpiece. Simply put, it is in a different league from Confessions, and from the film that Clooney made next: Leatherheads.
But Leatherheads itself is no slouch, and certainly much better than its lacklustre reception suggests. Though it’s true that the speed and charm of its one liners never reaches screwball at its best, and that the film is occasionally derailed by moments of outright silliness, there are also moments of real beauty, and it’s never less than amusing and heartfelt. Clooney shot the film with no handheld camerawork, no steadicams, and nothing else that he considered stylistically ‘contemporary’. It’s an unashamed throwback, and one that is surprisingly dense and endearing.
For his forth film, The Ides of March, Clooney returned to the more serious, political register of Good Night. A tale of loyalty and betrayal set against the backdrop of a (fictional) Democratic primary election, the film takes its title from the day that Julius Caesar was murdered – and in doing so invokes Shakespeare. If the invocation feels like a stretch, it’s far from unwarranted: there’s no denying the power of Clooney’s terse and tense examination of political skulduggery. Moreover, Clooney should be commended both for once again daring to make a small-scale drama, and for once again showing how thrilling they can be (dramas, filmmakers are constantly told, don’t sell). So far, Clooney has alternated his dramas with comedies (his films neatly follow a comedy – serious – comedy – serious pattern, as if aping the classic ‘one for me, one for them’ formula), and this looks set to continue with the forthcoming release of his new comedy-drama The Monuments Men (2014).
Comedy was also a big part of his seemingly little seen and underappreciated HBO series Unscripted (Clooney directed five episodes of the ten-part series, the other five being helmed by Grant Heslov). Less broad than his other forays into comedy, the series fuses fact and fiction to present a quick-moving, naturalistic tapestry of the lives of three actors – Bryan Greenberg, Krista Allen and Jennifer Hall – who all play versions of themselves. Thrown into the mix is a superb Frank Langella as acting teacher Goddard Fulton – a pretentious, sleazy sage, if ever there was one. Shot in a low-fi, mumblecore-esque aesthetic, the series boasts cameos from a whole host of celebrities playing themselves, including Noah Wyle, Akiva Goldsman, Doug Liman, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Hank Azaria, Sam Mendes, Francis Lawrence, Shia LaBeouf, Danny Trejo, Brittany Murphy, Sam Rockwell, Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman, amongst others. As this roll-call perhaps suggests, there’s an impish mischievousness to the proceedings, and the end result is both a hilarious satire on the entrainment industry, and an engaging and addictive portrayal of the lives of actors, both struggling and successful. In fact, the show’s lack of wider recognition may be the biggest mystery of Clooney’s career, and while his continued interest in directing may have lost him his bet with Barris, it certainly feels like the world of modern Hollywood filmmaking is all the richer for it. ALEX BARRETT
THE MONUMENTS MEN IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 14TH FEBRUARY 2014 NATIONWIDE
Dir: Roger Michell Wri: Hanif Kureishi | Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Goldblum, Olly Alexander, Brice Beaugier | UK Comedy Drama 93min
Hanif Kureishi and Roger Michell were regular collaborators on the subject of mature adult love (Venus, The Mother). LE WEEK-END sees a teaching couple from Birmingham in their sixties (well-known British thesps: Lindsay Duncan and Jim Broadbent), embark on a second honeymoon to Paris in a bid to spice up their tired marriage. Predictable premise: yes, but don’t let this put you off. The city of love is always a welcome setting for any romantic drama and Paris doesn’t disappoint as we hurtle down open boulevards and swing by Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur. But time doesn’t stand still and Meg and Nick discover the hotel of their honeymoon has rather gone downhill. In a moment of pure madness, they head for the Georges V and find themselves in the Presidential Suite.
Hanif Kureishi reflects their well-worn resentments, hopes and idiosyncracies in his sharp and well-judged script that sails close to the wind with bittersweet and laugh-out-loud authenticity appealing to art house and mature sensibilities.
As Nick, Broadbent’s keen attempts on the physical front are met will derision from Meg who feels sexual but not sexy despite her Laboutin stilettos and black lacy dress. They resurrect the vamp in her and excite Nick’s dormant libido; still alive but flailing desperately in search of encouragement.
Both nurse secret agendas as they chomp their way through gastronomic blow-outs: Nick has bad news on the work front and Meg feels restless and unchallenged by her job, fearing the future. There’s a feistiness to this relationship that, despite its bickering, feels so much more upbeat than the tawdry sniping of Before Midnight. We actually feel for them both and want things to work out.
A chance meeting with an ex-student of Nick’s (Jeff Goldblum) throws up an invitation to a soirée the next day. Full of false bonhomie and pretentiousness, it’s an evening of self-gratification for a group of minor intellectuals but brings Nick’s sincerity and openness into sharp-relief amid a barage of boastful toadying. Here Broadbent is unexpectedly moving in a performance that breathes honesty from every pore. Lindsay Duncan too is surprisingly touching and believable in one of her best turns so far. There’s a gung-ho attitude to these two that feels both appealing and genuine and very much buys into the theory that you only live once and life is not a rehearsal. Refreshing, fun and everything that Blue Jasmine was cracked up to be and wasn’t. MT
In celebration of late and great Alexei Balabanov, Russky London KinoKlub are running through the major works of one of Russia’s most incredible and uncompromising cult directors Between 1 February and 25 May, this retrospective will chart the director’s work, from the darkly comic to the shockingly caustic –BROTHER, BROTHER 2, OF FREAKS AND MEN, WAR, MORPHINE, IT DOESN’T HURT ME, CARGO 2000, STOKER and ME TOO.
Cast: Sergei Bodrov Jr, Viktor Suhorukov, Svetlana Pismichenko, Mariya Zhukova, Yuri Kuznetsov, Slava Butusov
93min Crime Drama Russian with subtitles
Balabanov’s light-hearted but caustically realistic BROTHER portrays gangster-ridden post communist St Petersburg where young soldier Danila has returned home to his mother’s poverty-ridden hovel.
Played by fresh-faced James Dean lookalike, Sergei Bodrov Jr, Danila is then dispatched to his elder brother, the chillingly venal Viktor (Viktor Suhorukov), a freelance hit-man in the local mafia, called ‘The Tatar’ by his rivals. Beaten-down and derelict, St Petersburg is years away from architectural makeover for its tercentenary. It appears the poor relation of Moscow; a provincial backwater with vast open boulevards echoing skeletons of past glory, its down-at heel-denizens peddling their black-market goods at gun-point from mafiosi attempting to extort their own cut of the paltry earnings as protection money.
In return for temporary board and lodgings, Danila is tasked with taking out the local Chechyen warlord who roams the farmers’ market (and there’s nothing twee about this market) competing with the ethnic Russians and proving, at the end of the day, that everyone’s a racist when the chips are down. But there’s a cheerful brassiness to this hard-boiled portrait of poverty and power-play. Very much champion of the people, Danila’s her0-worship of his older brother is sadly misguided and despite being a killer crim of the deadliest type, he enjoys petty acts of local heroism, such as forcing money at gunpoint out of some cripples who refuse to pay their bus fare home. He moves in briefly with a trailer-trash love-interest Sveta (Mariya Zhukova) who will do anything for money while her husband is doing time and also hooks up with Kat, who peddles drugs and hangs out in MacDonalds.
With it’s late eighties soundtrack and bronze-tinged cinematography, it all feels very dated but in a way that make this thoroughly enjoyable and authentic-feeling outing a cult classic in its own right. Despite his soft features, Danila emerges a real cynical operator in the style of Scorsese’s Goodfellas, cutting a swathe through the local crime community like a knife through butter and soon St Petersburg is severely cramping his style and he’s flexing his muscles for a move to Moscow. MT.
BROTHER IS THE FIRST IN THE KINO KLUB’S BALABANOV RETROSPECTIVE THAT TAKES PLACE IN THE MAYFAIR HOTEL FROM FEBRUARY THROUGH TO 25 MAY 2014, COURTESY OF ACADEMIA ROSSICA.
The title of this informative and innovative documentary is a little misleading: whilst we see and witness Raymond Depardon travelling through provincial France with his old-fashioned view camera, filming buildings which look right out of the fifties. We also see his work as a documentary filmmaker, shooting conflicts worldwide. Depardon and Nougaret have lived and worked together for over 25 years, and this is also a homage to their work. We first meet Depardon in Nevers where he is taking a photo of a tobacconist shop, unchanged for over fifty years. Depardon”s explanation for his journey through France is that he needs “silence after having listened to others for such a long time”.In 1962 Depardon, who grew up on a farm, went to Paris to become a photographer. The following year he was sent to Venezuela to photograph the civil war – completing the coverage single-handedly after the director and sound recorder quit. A year later he was in the Belgian Congo, Brazzaville, where a new president was being sworn in –none other than Bokassa, the infamous dictator, who then came across as rather a civilised, well-intentioned human being.
In 1967 Depardon founded with others the agency “Gamma”, in his own words “not for money, but to make us free”. He then set off to Biafra to witness the slaughter of the civil war – and also to the ones who caused it: the French mercenaries, who were self-satisfied and proclaimed that “there will be also well-paid work for us”. A year later he visited Prague, after the suicide of Jan Pallach, as a reaction to the Soviet invasion. Depardon was put in prison for three days before being expelled.
All this is fascinating background detail is skilfully intercut with footage of the tranquil French countryside, Depardon explains “I am in an orbit, my camper van is my capsule”. In 1974 he filmed the presidential election campaign of Giscard, the then finance minister of France. In a meeting before the decisive second round of voting (Giscard would beat Mitterand by 0.8%), the future president proclaims proudly, that they would need not to do anything, since “Le Pen’s National Front followers will vote for us”. When in office, Giscard blocked the release of the film. This is followed by a heart-breaking interview with the kidnapped French ethnologist Françoise Claustre in Chad.
Depardon lived two years with the rebels, and was instrumental in her release, after three years captivity. That same year he shot a depressing film about mental patients in Italy, who lived under scandalous conditions; an anti-psychiatric movement was founded, and conditions changed.Depardon raison d’etre was to make documentaries about people in confrontation with the authorities. His films about the Justice System in France or his observations in an ambulance (1982) when the driver innocently “wished that he also could find a hanging case, like his friend had the other day”. In 1993 Nougaret developed a direct sound system for “Paris”, where the filmmaker couple shot people in the Paris streets.
One highlight of his long career is doubtless an interview with Nelson Mandela just after the release from prison in 1993.So much more is showed and mentioned in this remarkable doc – JOURNAL DE FRANCE is a kaleidoscope of the bloody and the ordinary struggles of men, in France and worldwide – shot by a couple who stayed together, in spite “of constant bickering” on one of their first joint adventures in “Captive of the Desert” (1990), when they got completely lost. AS
JOURNAL DE FRANCE IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 31 JANUARY 2014
Song Kang-ho, Ko Asung, John Hurt and Tilda Swinton and comic author Jean-Marc Rochette
South Korea
When Bong Joon Ho first opened Jean-Marc Rochette’s comic “Snowpiercer” in a Seoul bookshop, he supposedly devoured all three volumes on the spot. Eight years later, the French comic has been made into the most lavish Korean film of all time. Seolguk-yeolcha (Snowpiercer) describes an impending ice age caused by human hand, whose last survivors are left circling the earth in a non-stop express train. The rich are in the front carriages and the poor ¬– from whose perspective the story is told – at the back.
Cast: Dougray Scott, Kara Tointon, Iddo Goldberg, David Schofield, Lindsay Duncan, Joshua Kaynama
90 mins Thriller UK
This Britflic is part drama, part thriller with a touch of horror thrown in. It’s also the debut feature of shorts director Omid Nooshin and a technically ambitious one that he surprisingly pulls off with some success.
Set in the confines of a commuter train from Victoria, it ambles along uneventfully for the first 40 minutes where we meet a crew of cut-out characters who fail to engage our interest further than an average trip on the Gatwick Express. A jowly, knackered Dougray Scott is believable as the stressed Dr Lewis Skolar heading to an A&E emergency with his cute little boy (not unlike Danny from The Shining). Flirting with Kara Tointon’s chirpily flirty events manager; he locks horns with a taciturn accountant played by Brian Schofield in his usual sinister style, but here with no real depth. Then there is a caricature Polish LT worker (Iddo Goldberg) who turns nasty and threatens the guard (as if: Poles are disciplined and respectful of authority?). Meanwhile, Lindsay Duncan plays the ‘token’ older woman sitting winsomely with her knitting, the epitome of the smug grandma.
But the real baddie appears to be the mysterious driver who seems to be sealed into his carriage; never to appear. And as the train gathers breakneck momentum, the passengers are unable to work out what’s going on. LAST PASSENGER is a well-meaning thriller that lives up to its tagline: One Train. Six Passengers. No Chance. It tantalises us with some scary moments and the promise of exciting things to come, but then fails to deliver its goods. Ultimately this vehicle that has momentum but never really takes off. British Rail: eat your heart out. MT
Based on a true incident in 1862 during the American Civil War, THE GENERAL stars Keaton as Johnny Gray, a train driver who tries to enlist in the Confederate Army, mainly to impress his sweetheart Annabelle Lee, whose father and brother enlist immediately. But Gray is more useful to the Southern cause as a train driver than a soldier, and he is rejected in spite of many (comical) efforts. Annabelle, a proud Southern woman is enraged: She will only talk to him again when he is uniform. Soon the dastardly Yankees kidnap the two things Gray loves most: Annabelle and his locomotive ‘ The General’. He swiftly steals another steam engine and pursues the enemy, eventually freeing Annabelle and his locomotive.
THE GENERAL is not a comedy, it is an adventure film with comical features, which might explain its lack of success at the box office since the audience expected a traditional Keaton comedy. Another reason for the classic’s poor box office on its original release may be the fact that the film shows the Southern cause favourably, which will have alienated audiences in the North and East of the USA. But it is Keaton’s work as his own stuntman that’s the most admirable feature of the outing. Whilst wearing his famous poker face bereft of any emotions, he jumps onto driving locomotives, crawls over the roofs of carriages and lumbers wood from carriages into the furnace, whilst the train drives at top speed. He does all this not in a very heroic manner, on the contrary, all his actions teeter always on the brink of failure. Sometimes they even go wrong, for reasons of oversight or clumsiness. Most of the film was shot outdoors in Oregon because the narrow-gauge railroad tacks that were able to accommodate antique locomotives were still in use at the time. It is a miracle that the Keaton/Gray venture succeeds in the end – against all odds of the situations and his own capabilities. He is ‘everyman’s’ hero, triumphing mainly because he expects even worse obstacles on the way ahead.
THE GENERAL was a turning point for Keaton, because it lost him much creative control over his career due to the film’s financial failure and resulting in him having to move to MGM. During filming costs kept rocketing. One scene alone (when the Yankee train drives over a burning bridge, which collapses, sinking the train in the water below) cost 42, 000 dollars at the time of production – we can easily add two zeros at today’s cost. The train was actually left in the water, becoming a tourist attraction.
Adapted from William Pittenger’s book “Daring and Suffering: A History of the Great Railroad Adventure” and subsequent memoirs, THE GENERAL has a narrative that keeps the audience engaged all the time and there is always something happening in a tempo that is relentless, even by today’s standard: ‘Action packed’ is not an overstatement. The camera is very mobile, integrating the landscape at all times, and showing Keaton as a small but resilient character, turning the role of prey into hunter. In spite of context of war, the directors never glamourise the army, but make fun of its structures and hierarchies. A visually stunning achievement, with a magnificent musical score by Carl Davis, that remains entertaining nearly 90 years after its creation. AS
Restored by The Cohen Film Collection, THE GENERAL is back in cinemas from 24 January 2014, opening at BFI Southbank, as part of a larger Keaton retrospective, and selected cinemas nationwide.
Cast: Michael Cera, Gaby Hoffmann, Juan Andres Silva, Agustin Silva, Sebastian Silva
98min Adventure/Comedy Spanish with subtitles
You can’t be blamed for feeling distinctly apprehensive towards a film called Crystal Fairy, which stars US indie-chic sensation Michael Cera. It’s only natural to anticipate a forcefully quirky production, and one that has a contrived whimsicality running right through the middle of it. However any such trepidation is extinguished almost instantaneously, as Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva’s first English language film handles dialogue in a more naturalistic, compelling way than many of those in their native tongue would manage.
Cera plays Jamie, a narrow-minded, inherently naïve tourist, travelling in Chile, and staying at Champa’s (Juan Andrés Silva) apartment, a receptive and equable twenty-something. The pair – along with the latter’s brothers Pilo (Agustín Silva) and Lel (José Miguel Silva) – decide to take a trip to the coast, on a quest to get their hands on a fabled hallucinogenic derived from cooking a rare cactus plant. However, whilst high on cocaine at a party the evening before the trip, Jamie invites the eccentric, offbeat bohemian Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann) along for the ride – an invitation he certainly lives to regret, as the adventure takes something of a wild turn when she arrives the following morning.
Silva has created a world that seems entirely naturalistic, and yet he offers an almost heightened take on reality. Life seems exaggerated and overstated for comic purposes, yet nothing is actually too far out of the ordinary, as he plays on the quirks and spontaneity of everyday life. Crystal epitomises this notion, appearing as a caricature of the archetypal hippie, cliched and comedic – and yet there are people like this, they genuinely exist. In fact, they’re probably backpacking their way across Chile right now as we speak. In spite of the humorous elements to this film, some scenes are uncomfortable, as an awkward social dynamic is explored, particularly so when Jamie responds with vitriol towards Crystal to make a point that he’s not happy that she took him up on his invitation.
Cera turns in one of his most mature performances to date, but he is blessed with a well fleshed out character, portraying somebody we all have the displeasure of knowing in real life. Though certainly flawed, Cera uses the vulnerability and naivety for which he has become so renowned to ensure we stay on his side. He has a physical fragility as well, and an awkward demeanour that puts him on the back foot somewhat, reminiscent of Woody Allen, and in many regards it enhances the immaturity of the character at hand. Meanwhile the three Chilean brothers – who are genuine siblings off camera – are our entries into this somewhat absurd world. Usually you’d take the perspective of the tourist in this situation, peering into a society and culture somewhat unknown, and yet we relate more to the pragmatic, placid nature of the brothers, causing us to feel rather embarrassed for the Americans and their cliched, almost patronising take towards this foreign land.
Silva portrays his homeland with a beautiful serenity, creating a picturesque film that truly takes you to the heart of the environment. However, despite all of the positives that exist, the unfulfilling finale does leave a sour taste in the mouth, with a ‘revelation’ that seems out of place, taking you away from the story at the very point you’re most engaged. Nonetheless, expectations have been suitably raised as we approach Silva’s next project, which also happens to be set in Chile and also features Michael Cera in a leading role. An idea that now seems somewhat more inviting. Stefan Pape.
CRYSTAL FAIRY IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 17 JANUARY 2014
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, Billy Chaplin, Sally Jane Bruce, Evelyn Varden, Don Beddoe, James Gleeson
Cinematographer: Stanley Cortez
93min US Film Noir/Southern Gothic from the novel by Davis Grubb
Back in the fifties, Charles Laughton’s reputation as a flamboyant actor on stage and screen totally eclipsed THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, his only outing as a director. This magical piece of ‘Southern Gothic’ was America’s answer to German Expressionism. Dark themes of religious fervour, sexual tension and fear strike terror into the subconscious. Coalescing with dreamlike set pieces rendered exquisitely in black and white, this masterpiece of chiaroscuro lighting has the ability to shock and enthral. The image of Willa’s corpse in her white winceyette nightie, languishing underwater in the Bayou, is one of the creepiest sequences in Gothic cinema.
However, the film was not a commercial or critical success at the time. James Agee, scripter of The African Queen, was the brains behind the screenplay, based on the novel by Davis Grubb. He offered up the idea to Laughton providing the Britsh thesp with a ideal framework on which to unleash his creative genius on the silver screen.
The setting is the Christian bedrock of West Virginia during the Depression years, a time of hardship and male chauvinism in the Deep South where Shelley Winter’s ‘Willa’ is left widowed after her husband, Ben Harper, receives the ultimate punishment of execution, having left the secret of the stolen loot with their two young children. Posing as a man of God, Robert Mitchum plays psychopath Harry Powell who prays upon such widows, marrying them and stealing their money, he tracks Willa down through the criminal network. She is persuaded by the local matron, Evelyn Varden, that in their God-fearing community a widow is more respectable if she re-marries, particularly to a respectable man of the cloth. So Willa marries Harry, who only really worships himself. On their wedding night, he makes it clear that sex in not on the agenda and he has no desire for progeny and so Willa’s dreams are shattered and her sexual energies are subverted into religious fervour. Joining Harry on a mission to prosceletize through fire and brimstone sermons, the piece is chockfull of religious motifs and sensationalism with its well-crafted Gothic art and set direction, redolent of the Silent Era.
Shelley Winter plays a similar role to that of Alice Tripp in A Place in the Sun (1951): a gullible, disillusioned romantic, down on her luck and disappointed with life. Cowering under the dominating figure of Icey Spoon (Evelyn Varden) she brings a subversive quality to the role of a young and vulnerable mother who eventually becomes a victim.
After the children evade Powell in a rowing-boat, the film takes on a fairytale feel as the fast-moving Mississippi carries them on a nightmarish journey through starlit countryside: Stanley Cortez’s magical cinematography zooms in on all manner of local flora and fauna: a white owl swooping down on a baby rabbit is a metaphor for Powell threatening his step-children: “It’s a hard World for little ones”.
As Powell, Robert Mitchum gives one of his most innovative performances: menacing, cruel and demonic, as his black figure rides on horseback silhouetted against the sunset, whistling religious hymns. Well-known for his langorous looks and lazy drawl in Noir classics such as Out of the Past(1947) and His Kind of Woman (1951), here he plays a more sinister role as a magnetic charmer who is a figure of fear to children but one of sexual allure to women, with his tattooed fingers and rakish respectability. Purportedly, it was his favourite role in a film.
Lillian Gish gives an exultant turn as a winsome carer with attitude. Taking in the Harper children, she styles herself as a soft earth mother who is later to produce a rifle and to actually use it. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is one of the most mesmerisingly horrific arthouse films of all time. Worthy of its re-mastering and ripe for a re-viewing. MT
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER completes GOTHIC: THE DARK HEART OF FILM series at the BFI, Southbank and selected cinemas nationwide from 17th January 2014
Dir.: Carl Froelich, William Wauer; Cast: Giuseppe Becce, Olga Engl, Manny Ziener, Ernst Reicher, Miriam Horowitz: Germany 1913, 96 min.
Whilst this newly restored version of the silent film was accompanied at the piano with a new score by the composer Jean Hasse, the original production had no music by Wagner at all: Cosima Wagner, still alive in 1913, wanted the princely sum of half a million Reichsmark if she allowed her husband’s music to be played. But the directors got lucky: the main actor, Giuseppe Becce, who bore an astonishing resemblance to the real Wagner, happened also to be a gifted composer. The narrative shows Wagner as the victim of circumstance, mainly his debtors and other, jealous composers, like the Jew, Giacomo Meyerbeer, who is shown as dubious and without any real influence. Wagner’s womanising is romanticised, everything is motivated by his art. There is an involuntary funny appearance of the Russian anarchist Bakunin, who looks more like Rasputin than a revolutionary. The film relies mainly on excerpts of Wagner’s work, which is not very surprising, since film was at the time before WW1 mainly filmed theatre. The production design (by Wauer) is highly imaginative and the camera tries to be as mobile as possible. Performances are over-dramatic and histrionic, but again totally in harmony with the practice of the era. Overall, this very sanitized version of Wagner’s life is often monotonous, showing no ambivalence, reducing the film to a hero’s portrait.
Richard Wagner will always be a controversial figure – not so much because of his music, which is after all a matter of taste, but because of his virulent anti-Semitism, making Adolf Hitler (“You can’t understand National Socialism without understanding Wagner”) his number one admirer. When Hitler saw Wagner’s first opera “Rienzi” (which ends with the total distraction of the hero’s world) he exclaimed “Exactly, how it should be, never give in, better to die than to survive”, expressing his fatal ‘all or nothing’ attitude, which saw any compromise as weakness.
It is ironic that one of the directors, Carl Froehlich, (WAGNER being his debut), ended up as the leader of the “Reichsfilmkammer”, where he controlled the German film industry between 1939 and 1945, not only being the chief censor, but deciding who could work and who not. His co-director of 1913, William Wauer, fell into the latter category: he was forbidden to work. Froehlich was later imprisoned by the Allies, and was second only to the infamous Veit Harlan in the numbers of films the directed or produced which could not be shown during the first years after the war (with West Germany being ‘needed’ to fight communism, ‘cleaned up’ versions of these “Verbotsfilme” were shown later to full houses). Froehlich was also the producer of “The Choral von Leuthen”, a pro-German propaganda film, which was produced in 1932, but had his celebrated premiere in 1933, attended by Hitler, after he became Chancellor. But Froehlich also produced “Mädchen in Uniform” (1931), a very progressive film. Equally strange, his “It was a gay ball night” was premiered in the USA in November 1939, two years into the war. AS
THE LIFE AND WORKS OF RICHARD WAGNER IS AT THE BARBICAN DURING A SEASON OF MUSIC-THEMED FILM EVENTS DURING JANUARY 2014
American filmmaker Eric Steel describes his documentary Kiss the Water as an ‘invitation to a fairytale’. And it certainly is. Set in Scotland, it tells the story of Megan Boyd, an artist based deep in the Highlands, who was enchanted by the brightly coloured and intricate pictures she found in a book about fly-fishing when she was a little girl. A lonely outsider, she taught herself to make these delicate objects using the finest feathers known to humanity. Their vibrant colours and delicate shapes are certainly the stuff of dreams and carry names redolent of the rich and regal heritage of the British Isles.
Even if you have no interest in fishing or Scotland, this beautifully-crafted film will enchant you with its cleverly-animated sequences featuring impressionist-style paintings of swirling underwater wildlife that conjure up a world of mystery and intrigue, perfected pained with dreamy photography of the glorious Highland countryside. Even though Megan Boyd never married and appeared to be an outsider, working away devotedly in her workshop, it is clear that she possessed a richly emotional and romantic soul that is cleverly evoked by Eric Steel’s imaginative rendering in animated mixed media. Working exclusively during daylight hours and eventually losing her sight, Megan perfected her skills and worked on into her eighties.
Despite the ultimate (rather crass) revelation that one of her flys actually fetched thousands of pounds, it is fair to mention that Boyd was a humble creature who never intended to capitalise over her skill and never actually charged more than a few pounds for her wares. Naturally, among her customers was Prince Charles, who grew so fond of her that he actually invited her down to London to collect her OBE award. Such was her modesty that she declined the invitation and the Prince duly delivered the award personally to her Scottish abode. MT
Main Actors: Daniel Brühl, Chris Hemsworth, Olivia Wilde
123mins English USA, Germany, UK Biopic, Drama, Sport
There’s a moment near the beginning of Rush, Ron Howard and Peter Morgan’s new biopic of racing drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda, when the owner of Hunt’s Formula Three racing team proclaims: ‘Men love women, but even more than that, they love cars’. Coming, as it does, after a loud opening sequence featuring extreme close ups of engines, tyres and grass being torn in two by the speed of racing cars, and a scene in which Hunt swiftly seduces a nurse, it would seem that the filmmakers also revel in these same objects of desire. Thankfully for those who want for more than female nudity and fast cars from films, their interests don’t end there.
As the Rush progresses, it builds a detailed and engrossing portrait of two men connected by an obsessional, almost self-destructive need to drive (and, one could say, to perform – and, in this, the film traces a cinematic vein harking back to Raging Bull and The Red Shoes). As the filmcharts the parallel rise of Hunt and Lauda to the Formula One big-time, it often seems atpains to point out the connections between the two men (not least the fact that their parents each wanted more ‘respectable’ careers for them). But the film also delights in highlighting their differences: where Hunt is an impulsive hot-head, Lauda is a cool, methodological thinker. This may be the story of a so-bitter-its-a-friendship rivalry between two sporting legends, but it’s also an exploration of the dual nature of being, of the Apollonian and the Dionysian tendencies that dwell within us all. And, in fact, the associations that notion brings with it resonate further through the film: at times, Rush almost feelslike a myth of fearless heroes who face death in pursuit of the higher glories of fame and fortune.
It’s something of a shame, then, that Lauda is never really made to be likeable. We’re constantly reminded that other drivers, even his own teammates, think he’s an arsehole. At one point, he’s even shown looking like the devil incarnate – as reflected flames lick up and down his body he complains: ‘Happiness is the enemy. It weakens you…Suddenly you have something to lose’. While Lauda ultimately becomes a sympathetic figure, one can’t help but feel that a more nuanced characterisation throughout might have been beneficial. In a sense, the story is Lauda’s tragedy, but it is presented as Hunt’s victory. The filmmakers, it would seem, favour the Dionysian – even if the factual coda perhaps shows fate leans otherwise. This isn’t the film’s only misstep (there’s a questionable use of voiceover, and a final scene which feels the need to spell out the film’s subtext in case the audience missed it), but ultimately it feels a little churlish to dwell on the negative. Taken as a whole, Rush succeeds in being an intelligent, entertaining and exciting ride. Alex Barrett.
RUSH IS ON DVD from 27 January 2014 COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL.
Dir: Andrew Bujalski, Cast: Patrick Riester, Wiley Wiggins, Myles Paige, Robin Schwartz | USA 2013, 92 min. Comedy
Andrew Bujalski’s latest film COMPUTER CHESS defies any genre classification: sounding a death knell for human discourse as we know it, this is simply on its own. Set in a sleazy, low class hotel in Texas at the beginning of the 80s, it features two group of humans (the computer chess group of the title and a New-Age cult meeting) and an overwhelming horde of Persian cats who seem to take over the hotel; at least at night. Whilst all the humans are awkward and geeky, the cats are full of themselves marauding the place in a quest for domination.
The fuzzy black and white of the 4:3 format (shot with a Sony video camera from the 1960s, but not in a gimmicky way, gives the film its sci-fi element: pioneers from another world, creating a an almost surreal otherworldly atmosphere in which all three tribes vy for supremacy is both absurd and unsettling. The unintended ludicrousness of the situation engenders an atmosphere of alienation, the participants existing in their own bubbles, where words are lost as a means of communication, and emotions have yet to be invented.
The annual chess meeting has a long tradition and the winner wears a glittering crown at the end and takes on the chess Grand Master Paul Henderson, who has met a bet that he will successfully beat all computers until 1984. The players – in their thirties – are humourless and emotionally inhibited (the only female competitor, Shelly, is no different), the term ‘nerd’ could have been invented for them. The youngest of them Peter (Riester), is oblivious of Shelly, even though she gives him tame encouragement. Peter wanders into the next emotional trap when he visits an older couple in their room: they want to seduce him into a ménage-a-trois, but he literally runs away, like the frightened boy he is.
One of the programmers, Papageorge (Paige) roams the hotel at night, trying to find a room to sleep in. He is brazen in his attempts, but everyone is too polite to point this out to him. The New Age group members are very accommodating to start with (putting their fingers in freshly baked loaves of bread and “replaying” their birth to re-engage with their inner beings), but when the chess congress overruns into Monday, they insist on sharing the meeting room with them, in spite of Henderson’s loud protests: he senses their intrusion may disrupt his concentration. A unique, enigmatic, unique and innovative masterpiece. AS
COMPUTER CHESS IS on DUAL FORMAT BLU-RAY ON 20 courtesy of www.eurekavideo.co.uk | and also on MUBI
Dir: Andrzej Wajda; Cast: Robert Wieckiewicz, Agnieszka Grouchowska
Poland 2013, 127 min. Drama
One of the Polish ‘greats’, Andrzej Wajda ends his trilogy of Man of Iron with his latest film Walesa, Man of Hope. Like the first two films, Walesa is set as an epic, Wajda being perhaps the last European director capable of this form. Whilst the politics of the film are obvious; being a staunch anti-Stalinist, he has avoided showing Walesa as a hero: actually in this film he is not a particularly likeable person at all. He succeeds in spite of his personal faults (womanising, a short temper, egoistical tantrums and narcissism).
The film covers the years between the mid 70s and 1989, leaving out Walesa’s years as president of Poland and his loss of power. Wajda uses the city of Gdansk as a vibrant background, the camera always mobile in his signature style, tries to show (sometimes) too much of everything. Shot through with a palette of ashen-grey, it never gets really light, even in moments of triumph for the Solidarnosc movement. The mass scenes are directed masterfully, and the emotions are always overwhelming. What is ironic, is that the film’s aesthetics are very much like soviet films, with the camera following the hero at the top of a movement who directs the masses; who follow him faithful.
The private scenes between Walesa (Robert Wieckiewicz bears a remarkable resemblance) and his wife Danuta (Agnieszka Grouchowska) are the weak points of the film. Whilst Wajda shows the male chauvinism of the main protagonist, he never really explores the personality of the woman, leaving her clearly in the shadow of her husband, an appendix. The same could be said for the portrayal of the children who are only shown as a troublesome group, functionless and anonym. Somehow the private and political never meet to become a unit.
In spite of these reservations WALESA. MAN OF HOPE a major achievement of a veteran film maker, who shows on a purely technical level that he can still teach the younger generation of film makers a great deal.
Director: Paolo Sorrentino | Writers: Paolo Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello | Cast: Sean Penn, Frances McDormand, Harry Dean Stanton, David Byrne (as himself) Judd Hirsch, Dorothy Shore, Eve Hewson | English Cert 15 113mins Comedy Drama
Retired rock star Chayenne (Sean Penn) swaggers around his Irish mansion like a soulful red-lipped raven in doc martens. Bored since retirement from the music world he plays the stock market and pilote in an empty swimming pool and loves his wife Jane.(Frances McDormand). But something’s not right. And then his father dies.
Paolo Sorrentino’s latest feature starts in seaside Dublin then relocates to rural New York where a weird and wacky road movie begins. His mission to revenge his father’s humiliation by a Nazi war commander ends up as a fascinating journey into himself.
Sorrentino’s style is playful and visually exciting as he whips through middle America with an energetic slide show of holiday-style snap shots punctuated by the music of David Byrne who performs the title song live. Chayenne is a gentle and intuitive soul refusing to be phased by the intense characters he meets along the way on his quest to find clues: relative Mordechai Midler (Judd Hirsch); Harry Dean Stanton as Utah Business man Robert Plath and his childhood history mistress (Joyce Van Patten). He offers up inconsequential aphorisms to an imaginary audience: “Have you noticed how nobody works anymore but everyone does something artistic?”
Cast: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Kathryn Hahn, Shirley MacLaine, Sean Penn, Adam Scott
USA 2013, 114 min. Comedy Drama
First thought: Do we really need a remake of Norman Z. MacLeod’s classic from 1947, with Danny Kaye as the superhero of his own dreams? Thirty minutes into Ben Stiller’s remake (in which he also stars) we probably think: not really. In Stiller’s version, Walter is a photographic archivist at ‘Life’, which will close down in a few weeks after a takeover and go exclusively online.
Down in his basement office, Walter is meticulously preserving all the negatives, particularly those sent in in by Sean O’Connell, an elusive war and wild life photographer (Sean Penn) who embodies Walter’s romantic dream of an action hero (and also happens to be Stiller’s ideal actor for the part). But the cover photo for the last edition of the magazine is missing – and Walter is to blame. Cue cringeworthy company liquidator played by Adam Scott in a performance epitomising glibness and corporate sleaze.
The only problem is that Walter – true to his legend – can only imagine his ideal life in “zoning out” experiences, where he becomes the romantic superhero, make his bland life bearable. During these episodes he saves humans and animals from great peril, and even getting the girl of his dreams, co-worker Sheryl Melhoff (Wiig), a single mum whom he is unsuccessfully trying to dating ‘in reality’ and on the e-harmony website. At this point the film, having shown off his big budget in special effects, changes gear.His desire to capture Sheryl’s heart is the kicker that spurs him on to realise his full potential.
Embarking on a quirky and action-packed mission to find O’Connell (and the photo), all the way through Iceland, Greenland up to the Himalayas. his dream is tethered now to reality and this is where the narrative becomes both engaging and plausible despite the hysterical shenanigans that ensure. Walter embodies you and I – his ‘Superman’ is a disorientated character, buffeted by external forces, running for his life in a hostile land/seascape, forced on by his obsession for Cheryl – Walter becomes a metaphor for ‘everyman’. He is really a blob on the landscape. And how magnificent is this landscape: huge panoramic shots of great beauty, but not in the way of a postcard idyll, but retaining all the rough edges, which threaten Walter’s pursuit of his goal. Not to mention the humans he encounters: a drunken helicopter pilot in Iceland, who drops him into the sea instead onto a vessel, where he narrowly misses being a shark’s breakfast. And the perils of the English language, when Walter has to be saved from a volcano eruption in Iceland – he interprets the warning, Freudian slip-wise, as ‘erection’.
In his least cynical film (his own words) Stiller directs himself not as the slap-stick hero he normally portrays, but as (at least in the second half) the lonely, shy man Walter really is. Having been traumatised as a teenager by the death of his father (and supporting his family), he is still in the clutches of his mother Edna (MacLaine) and sister (Kathryn Hahn/Afternoon Delight). Cheryl is as many light years away from him as his fantasies, and he only makes contact with her via her son and a common love of skateboarding. In sympathy with many guys, Walter is not good at communication with women of his age; he feels a longing, but can’t articulate those urges in a coherent way. He’s much more able to react angrily to men, like the corporate baddy (Adam Scott). But he is not yet fine-tuned for a real partnership, because he has to embrace the Jungian concept of finding an adult version of himself, away from the stifling closeness of his mother and the hero-worshipping for O’Connell.
Stiller has presents a well-crafted film – the dissolves are stunning and he matches the narrative with a suitably emblematic score, always finding the right song for a particular moment, like the ‘fantasy’ Cheryl who morphs into his muse, singing “Major Tom” in a pub in Iceland, encouraging his to follow his ‘star’. The message overall is humanistic and anti-corporate – not without good reason, because the online version of ‘Life’ closed down for real in 2012, having lasted a fraction of the time of the newspaper. Stiller’s MITTY takes its time to find his human feet, but it deserves our attention like Walter his happy-end. AS
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 26 DECEMBER 2013.
If easily digestible stories are really what the audience wants from cinema, and if reality doesn’t offer this to us, then why have films ‘based on’ a true story at all? says Alex Barrett..
In 1944, while still a freshmen at Columbia University, a young Allen Ginsberg became friends with his dashing and rambunctious classmate, Lucien Carr. They met during an introductory tour of the library, in which Carr danced on tables while reading the forbidden texts of Henry Miller. Later, Carr introduced Ginsberg to William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and David Kammerer – a creepy older man with a heavy infatuation for Carr. When this infatuation escalated, Carr murdered Kammerer. After the murder, Carr visited Kerouac, and then Burroughs. Subsequently, Ginsberg was expelled from Colombia after refusing to withdraw a risqué piece of coursework.
At least, that’s the way John Krokidas’ feature debut KILL YOUR DARLINGS tells it. Spend a few minutes online, however, and you’ll find out that: Ginsberg met Carr by knocking on his dormitory door to find out who was playing a Brahms trio; Ginsberg actually really liked Kammerer and went on record to say he was ‘not a creep!’; Carr (rather importantly) visited Burroughs and then Kerouac after the murder; Ginsberg actually got expelled from Colombia after a college dean found Kerouac in Ginsberg’s room one early morning, both men wearing nothing but their underwear. Amongst a multitude of further inaccuracies and distortions, Kill Your Darlings also paints Kerouac’s lively and wild girlfriend Edie as tame and mild, and fails to mention the important fact that Lucien had a long-term girlfriend at the time. In all, it’s enough to make you wonder what kind of research the filmmakers were doing during the ten years they spent in development.
Of course, in reality, such ‘inaccuracies and distortions’ are unlikely to be down to lack of research, with deliberate creative decisions being a more likely cause. Recently David Cox wrote about a similarly loose use of history in SAVING MR BANKS(2013), arguing that such falsifications are actually a necessity, needed to make a dramatically palatable story out of a ‘messy, shapeless and ethically ambiguous’ reality. But if easily digestible stories are really what the audience wants from cinema, and if reality doesn’t offer this to us, then why have films ‘based on’ a true story at all? For Cox, having a factual basis ‘performs a vital function’, helping to reassure us ‘that the narratives that comfort us are actually true’. In other words, it’s a symptom of the trend novelist Douglas Coupland has written about so eloquently: the need to turn our lives into a story, and to know that our own lives will ultimately conform to a conventional three-act structure.
However, moving beyond this idea of ‘narration’ in life – and the inherent psychological dangers that subscribing to such a notion can bring – a darker undercurrent of the trend for ‘inaccuracies and distortions’ emerges. Even Cox admits that: ‘Because they have been made so palatable, they are eagerly swallowed. The big-screen lie becomes the world’s definitive truth’. To put this another way: an unsuspecting audience, believing they are witnessing factual history, is actually being fed historical untruths. When a falsification unfolds onscreen, it bleeds into the ether, destined to emerge as fact or confusion in the public consciousness. This is not a case of a gullible public who believe everything they see, but a testament to the power of cinema upon the collective unconscious. Filmmakers working from reality, then, surely need to acknowledge the moral responsibility that the words ‘Based on a True Story’ bring with them.
For Cox, filmmakers who ignore story in favour of cleaving to the truth produce nothing but ‘arthouse fare for audiences numbered in dozens’. Even if, for the sake of argument, we accept this questionable notion as true, the work of Gus Van Sant, which has oscillated between the commercial and the arthouse, seems to offer another alternative.
Leaving aside questions of veracity in his crowd-pleasing, Oscar winning biopic of the politician Harvey Milk (MILK, 2008), more pertinent points are posed by his so-called ‘Death Trilogy’: GERRY (2002), ELEPHANT (2003) and LAST DAYS(2005). Each of these films was inspired by a real-life death, but portrayed as fiction. Take, for instance, Blake, the introspective rock star at the centre of LAST DAYS: even from the film’s poster, he is heavily signalled as being the deceased Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain – and yet he isn’t. He is Blake, a fictional creation – and thus the moral dilemma is neatly sidestepped, because reality has been wholly subsumed in fiction.
While it’s true that LAST DAYS ultimately eschews conventional narrative storytelling, there’s no reason why Van Sant’s ‘fictionalising’ couldn’t be fused to a more conventional approach. Would Kill Your Darlings have been any less interesting as a cinematic experience if the names had been changed and it had been presented as a work of fiction? If we’re approaching the film as a piece of narrative storytelling, then the answer must be no, because the story itself would remain unchanged. The only thing that would change is our perception of the film: we would no longer be able to see the film as a way of finding out the true story behind the murder of David Kammerer. It would lose the ‘I didn’t know that’ aspect of its appeal. But, as we’ve seen, if the truth of the presented history has been creatively reworked, then this aspect becomes irrelevant – perhaps even dangerous.
In documentary, truth is seen as tantamount: but there too it remains a slippery term. When one learns, for instance, of Michael Moore’s heavy manipulation of footage – and therefore of reality – in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (2002), one begins to feel used and abused as a viewer (and, once again, Van Sant’s approach appears preferable – cf. his treatment of the Columbine massacre in Elephant). People expect, and hope for, a certain level of truth in investigative journalism, but should they not expect the same from a fiction film which bears the words ‘Based on a True Story’? Is not the same authenticity required? Or, on the flipside, is it actually permissible for documentaries to bend the truth if it shapes the material into a more consoling ‘story’? Surely not.
In some senses, the key to the filmmaker’s moral dilemma – and responsibility – lies in perception. While Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) may have been criticised from some quarters for making light of the true horrors of the Second World War, I suspect there were few who worried seriously that it would rewrite the public consciousness of Hitler’s history – partly because the film in no way presents itself as factual. In saying this, then, the moral emphasis can be shifted away from a need for strict historical fidelity, and towards a need for openness about the distortions, falsifications and alterations made within a given text. It’s therefore possible, perhaps, to identify the source of the problem in the very words ‘Based on a True Story’ (in the case of KILL YOUR DARLINGS, perhaps ‘Loosely Inspired by Real Events’ may have been a more fitting tagline than ‘A True Story of Obsession and Murder’).
History may be written by the victors, and historians may be led by their own biases – but in academia, the moral issue is more widely acknowledged (as it also is in journalism). Similarly, issues of morality, reality and fidelity in film are complex issues – and when public knowledge is at stake, it cannot be so readily subordinated to the importance of (commercial) storytelling. Surely it isn’t good enough to simply say, as Cox does, that we can pillage and slander the legacy of history so we can reassure ourselves with comforting stories? Film is a powerful medium, and as Uncle Ben famously said to a young Peter Parker: with great power comes great responsibility. Alex Barrett
96min French with English Subtitles Documentary Animation
The serene and gentle voice of award-winning director Rithy Panh narrates this tragic and heartfelt memoir of the invasion of Cambodia on April 17th, which has helped him come to terms with the terrible losses he suffered during the time of his adolescence, when over 2 million people died during the regime.
Using a collage of bleached-out black and white footage and finely-rendered clay figurines (symbolising stultifying control) set to a weirdly sinister score. What emerges is a a non-confrontational animated memoir of the hostilities, as individuals became a collective of meaningless numbers imprisioned by the Khmer Rouge to become Democratic Kampuchea. There were no more lovers, friends, mothers, fathers or even personal possessions as a revolutionary sea of equality washed over a society cleansed of class division – the past had to be internalised so that it could be hidden from view and retained in a secure place.
Pol Pot strides confidently through the crowds amid idolatrous applause proceeded by pictures of tortured dissidents and those that kicked against the crushing power of communism. In a regime (similar Nazism and Stalinism) characterised by hunger, torture and emotional cruelty and lack of respect or compassion for the individual, Panh tells how his father was denied a decent burial. Schools became detention centres reflecting a ‘perfect society’ where Marxist ideology reigned as revolutionary winds wafted through the paddy fields heralding ideals of creating an agrarian socialist economy which failed incontrovertibly leading to the deaths (from hunger) of millions of its inhabitants. The mantra – “Whoever apposes, is a corpse” indeed became a reality.
Footage of Neil Armstrong’s moon landing provides a contemporary counterpoint reflecting advancement and freedom in the US as Cambodia’s people drown in the mud. While he lost his entire family during his teenage years from 1975-79, the Khmer Rouge was destroying everything outside their central control; forbidding fishing and any kind of attempt to grow private foodstuffs and demolishing hospitals, while simultaneously rejecting offers of outside humanitarian aide.
Panh was inspired to channel his energies and creative impulses into filmmaking during this time of loss, working quietly in an agrarian cooperative work camp, lit by neon at night. His serene depiction of pure evil is made all the more effective by its peaceful approach and intricately delicate treatment. MT
“UN CERTAIN REGARD” WINNER AT CANNES 2013 and HAS BEEN SHORTLISTED FOR THE ACADEMY AWARDS FOREIGN LANGUAGE SECTION IN 2014.
THE MISSING PICTURE IS SHOWING FROM FRIDAY, 3 JANUARY 2013 AT SELECTED CINEMAS
Heinrich von Kleist’s 1811 novella has been adapted a number of times for the Big Screen and TV capturing the imagination of various filmmakers with its rich cultural background. In 1937, Max Haufler (The Trail) took this tale of a 16th Century horse-trader and produced a black and white version. More recently Volker Schlondorff cast David Warner and Michael Gothard (The Devils) in the leads in Michael Kohlhaas: Der Rebell. The only reason to see this slim and overlong version is for the magnificent locations and magnetic central presence of Mads Mikkelsen in the title role. That said, it’s possibly not his most resounding performance to date although it captivated the jury at the Brussels film festival this year, where the film won the top award.
Themes of justice and revenge are tossed around in the windswept widescreen wilderness untethered by any real historical or political reference to the social upheaval of the Peasant’s Revolt and the Protestant Catholic conflict – massive elements of political change with rocked the 16th century Europe and made the original work so resonant. And despite judicious castings of Denis Lavant (as the theologist), Bruno Ganz (as the Governor) and Sergi Lopez all lending their heavyweight support, it all feels rather hollow and underwritten. To confuse matters, des Pallieres has transposed the drama from Germany to France, for some unknown reason, leaving Mikkelsen with the task of having to speak French and master horse-husbandry. That said he does his best, giving a haughty and charismatic thrust to his portrayal of a loving family man eaking out an existence on the land.
But when the landowner, the arrogant Baron (Swann Arlaud) thwarts and humiliates him by suddenly introduces a tollgate on Kohlhaas’s regular route to sell his lovingly-reared steers events take a sinister turn made worse by the discovery that his prized horses are being brutalised by the Baron’s henchmen. To top it all, his wife Judith (Delphine Chuillot) is tragically murdered on her way to gain support from a timid Princesse d’Angouleme (Roxane Duran). Kohlhaas strikes out for justice, raising a rebel army of supporters (among whom are a one-armed Sergi Lopez and a typically subversive Denis Lavant) who rather wish they had stayed at home quietly by the fire when push comes to shove. At this point, they try to persuade Kohlhaas to trust the outcome of his brave stand for the common man, to God’s Will.
So Arnaud des Pallieres offers us a magnificent visual spectacle of Mad’s cinematically-chiselled features set against the lichen-covered wilds of the Rhone and Languedoc locations taking in the Chartreuse Pierre-Chatet (Ain), the Chateau du Cheylard, (Gard) and dominated by Martin Wheeler’s resounding original soundtrack. MT
Muscle Shoals is a town in Alabama where a particularly magical alchemy is at play. In the ambience, the soil and the river there’s an magic ingredient that allows for some of America’s most creative and defiant music to be made and recorded in the internationally acclaimed ‘Fame’ recording studio.
Greg “Freddy” Camalier’s passionate documentary charts the success of the studios and the artists who have recorded there seen through a tale of one man, Rick Hall. His determination and sheer dogged perserverance in the face of his tragic family background, got the whole phenomenon off the ground. Despite setbacks, he placed the studio squarely in the firmament of stars of popular musical history as a haven for Black and White musicians to come together and make original music, backed by The Swampers, a caucasian band with a Black sound (“There was a misnomer that they were all Black, but they weren’t”). This helped to sooth racial hostilities in a time where working together was considered unthinkable with ‘Blacks and Whites’ being segregated in the community.
Rick Hall started as a musician who was rejected by his band for being an “all work and no play” type of guy. So he set up FAME in the late 1950s and hit the jackpot over night with the success of breakout hit “You Better Move On”. As a music producer, he’s the equivalent of Stanley Kubrick: his thoroughness, inscrutable attention to detail and meticulous editing skills are at the heart of his success but occasionally make working with him a difficult process: “I thrived on rejection”, “I know that if they put the phone down unimpressed, they would never take another call from me.”
Combining startling original footage, intercut with candid commentary from the likes of the ubiquitous Bono, Clarence Carter, Aretha Franklin, Mick Jagger, a particularly engaging Keith Richards, Candi Staton and Steve Winwood and legendary producer Jerry Wexler. This is a thoroughly enjoyable music documentary and Anthony Arendt’s photography conjures up a real feeling for the natural beauty of the place set quietly on the Alabama River, Tennessee. Called the “Singing River” by Native Americans and it’s easy to imagine how this soothing setting can induce a positive effect on all who visit. He is also responsible for the visuals in Avatar, Larry Crowne and music vids for Lenny Kravitz and Elton John.
Camalier has never attended film school so Muscle Schoals is born from is own instinct and visual sensibilities as well as from an appreciation for the art form.
So enthused is he with his theme (he spent four years on this project) that he occasionally gets over-excited and introduces inappropriate forays into Hall’s ersonal life which, while adding insight, feel rather maudlin and incongruous with the otherwise upbeat tone of the piece. The last half hour or is a tad repetitive as he literally runs through a litany of artists who’ve recorded there.
That said, this debut doc is so brimful with effervescence and charm it seems churlish to to criticise Camalier’s endeavour which brings storytelling and music together in a cogent and informative piece of filmmaking that charts iconic sounds of R&B, Pop and Rock from the fifties right up to the present day with classic hits such as “Brown Sugar”, “Mainstreet” and “When A Man Loves A Woman”. MT
Cast: Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline, Mary Steenburgen, Bre Blair
105min US Comedy
A stellar cast of real pros makes this trip to Las Vegas a worthwhile bet. When Robert de Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline head off on a ‘boys’ weekend’, it’s bound to be gold-plated especially when the destination is Vegas and they are clearly out to have fun. Schematic and corny it may sound but this certainly hits the jackpot comedy-wise, offering moving moments and valuable insight into mature dating and life-long friendship.
A glitzy get-together is the clearly the order of the day before Billy, 69, finally decides to tie the knot with a girl who could be his grand-daughter (Bre Blair). And where better than the Nevada gambling haven?. Michael Douglas is a natural charmer as Billy, the oldest swinger in town, with his biscuit tan and ‘stay-pressed ‘slacks. His bitter love-rival Paddy (De Niro) is still mourning his beloved wife who Billy once dated (seen in flashback to their youth). Sam (Kevin Kline) is hoping for a late leg-over too (with his wife’s blessing) and 76 year-old Archie (Morgan Freeman) is desperate to escape house arrest at his son’s, after suffering a stroke.
Dan Fogelman’s sparky script ensures cut and thrust with events taking an unexpected turn for Billy when he bonds with a sophisticated cabaret singer Diana, (Mary Steenburgen) on arrival. In Vegas to revitalise her career and not afraid to push the love boat out, Diana proves a mellow counterpoint to his young and brittle fiance, Lisa (Bre Blair) who never really convinces but certainly looks the part. In a strange twist, Sam gets embroiled with a drag queen (Roger Bart) who takes the wind out of his sails, while Archie hits the jackpot and is upgraded to the hotel’s presidential suite, providing the venue for an impromptu knees-up and attracting the resort’s most alluring eye candy, allowing him to kick back from his more worthy roles of late.
Naturally, these actors are at the top of their game when dealing with the ups and downs that predictably ensue as the veterans are let lose to explore their interpersonal dynamics (both social and erotic). The sparkling results feel plausible, farcical and charismatic. De Niro is on form as the grizzled old love victim. Kevin Kline, the youngest and most insecure as Sam, also gets the roughest deal and the leanest character arc – but with his comic genius makes of it what he can. He really needs another film like The Ice Storm to give this brilliance another chance.
Mary Steenburgen’s musical role is the icing on the cake and one delivered with charm and mature assurance that makes her delightful to listen and popular with the flirty foursome. The bets are off on who finally wins her hand. MT
LAST VEGAS IS ON GENERAL RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 3RD JANUARY 2013.
Cast: Marco Leonardi, Salvatore Cascio, Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Isa Danieli
171mins Italian with English subtitles Drama
This cute cult classic from memory lane was garlanded with awards including an Oscar back in 1990. Now celebrating its 25th Anniversary with a sparkling re-master and back on our screens for more cinematic indulgence. Nostalgia and sentimentality aside, we see Salvatore (Marco Leonardi), now a famous auteur, transported to his childhood Sicily when he hears of the death of his cinema mentor, Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), the village projectionist. As a young ‘Toto’, (Salvatore Cascio), he had been inspired to follow his star thanks to Alfredo’s fatherly inspiration. Now the world has changed and there’s no going back. That said, the drama made Marco Leonardi an international star. A romantic tribute to the love of film and the love of life. MT
CINEMA PARADISO (RE-MASTERED) IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 13 DECEMBER 2013
Directors: Lucien Castaing Taylor and Verena Paravel
87min Documentary
Visceral and frightening: Watching LEVIATHAN feels like witnessing some kind of public execution – for fish. Bleak but also beautiful in parts, this debut documentary from Canadian helmets Lucien Castaing Taylor and Verena Paravel evokes the vast and terrifying world of the deep-sea commercial fishing industry, from the perspective of the victims – fish. Submerged in darkness with a clanging, mechanical score and the distant sound of voices, gradually in the gloom the camera pans over the deck on board a gigantic trawler where shoals of fish are sucked into their deaths in a gigantic steel slaughterhouse of the trawlers and spat out again into their watery graves by some anonymous force, if they’re not suitable for the the insatiable mouths of a mammoth human predator.
Face to face with floundering fish, molluscs and the watery blood of slaughter, their camera takes no prisoners or feels no pity for the fate of these poor creatures. Exhilterating and horrifying in equal measure, the fear of execution becomes palpable (although thankfully not to us as we are swept along mercilessly in this cruel sea of shameless killing spree. Fast-moving and fickle, we watch helpless as fish are gored and gutted and spewed out in a hellish brew of blooded scales and staring eyes.
The diurnal battle rages but by the end even the fishermen are exhausted by their fresh-air and ozone overload, gently nodding off in the warmth of the hold, preparing for the next onslaught. This is a job, like any other for them. But for the animals, from whose perspective the camera fight in an unfair war MT
LEVIATHAN was shot in North Atlantic. The doc is on general release from 29 November 2013 nationwide.
Director/Writer: Tomas Wasilewski | Cast: Mateusz Banasiuk, Katarzyna Herman, Marta Nieradkiewicz, Bartosz Gelner | Poland 93’
Hailed as ‘Poland’s first LGBT film’, Tomasz Wasilewski’s striking drama follows a champion swimmer whose gay relationship causes ripples.
It forms part of an erotically-charged series of films from a new wave of Polish filmmakers and follows on from the director’s affecting debut In A Bedroom, once again starring In A Bedroom’sKatarzyna Herman.
The central character in Floating Skyscrapers has a dilemma: is he heterosexual, gay or just a highly-sexed bi? Played with emotional and physical gusto by Mateusz Banasiuk, Kuba is a professional swimmer whose honed physique and competitive-edge belies his shaky sexual identity.
Living with his mother, Ewa (Katarzyna Herman) and girlfriend Sylwia (Marta Nieradkiewicz), makes matters worse as the two women compete for his attention when he is not poolside. It’s clear that his sporting prowess does little to curb his sexual appetite which is further stimulated by the athletic bodies of his fellow swimmers until he’s drawn to the charismatic Michal (Bartosz Gelner) who he meets one evening with Ewa. The men’s attraction becomes palpable during unspoken gestures and eye-contact during dinner and Ewa picks up on this. Ewa is dismayed the two have met not least because her sexual relationship with Kuba is adversely affected as the unresolved tension in Kuba slowly becomes apparent.
Gelner and Banasiuk give utterly convincing performances as they gradually become closer, beautifully filmed by cinematographer Kuba Kijowski in neutral tones of silvery beige and acqua echoing the water motif. A judicious use of silence accentuates the tension throughout. Michal is an interesting thoughtful character, appearing more urbane and sensitive as a counterpoint to Kuba’s tough macho quality that gradually melts away as the narrative unfolds. Katarzyna Herman’s turn as Ewa evokes a subtle and deep-understanding of her son. Thomas Wasilewski is a promising filmmaker and storyteller with an excellent vision for both creative widescreen visuals and for detailed camerawork marking him out as an exciting talent in recent Polish cinema who has since directed United States of Love and Fools. MT
Sharing a dp (Ed Rutherford) with Joanna Hogg doesn’t guarantee the end result will produce her subtle brand of middle-class English drama. That said, this sun-filled story of elderly Brits in the South of France is not without merit, although dark clouds do occasionally appear. Watchable and appealing, it successfully evokes the heady summer atmosphere of Languedoc-Roussillon with stunning visuals.
It also has the suave acting talents of James Fox as Joseph, a debonair gent in his early seventies who’s enjoying a leisurely but aimless retirement in Nîmes with his motherly Irish wife (Brenda Fricker) scrabbling about on the foothills of senility. At dinner one night they meet a young couple on holiday – Suzanne (Nathalie Dormer/The Tudors) and Mark (Paul Nicholls/Life Just Is). The pretty blond makes a palpable impression on Joseph, with her perfectly blow-dried hair and delightful smile.
At first this feels like an upmarket version of Bergerac, with equally inane dialogue, but then a tragic accident proves Brenda to be worth her weight in gold and the narrative gains momentum. The following day Joseph meets the couple again and they head off to the vineyards in Joseph’s car – cue idle banter about their respective relationships. Nathalie Dormer manages to be sexy and sensitive as Suzanne but Paul Nicholls is slightly miscast: he does his best to play a slightly vulnerable geezer but this role would have been perfect for someone like Jack Davenport who was wasted recently in the (dreadful) Mother’s Milk. Joseph and Suzanne grow closer while Mark proves to be a bit of a lad, chumming up with a local wine-maker Robert, on a business venture.
Virginia Gilbert’s well-paced and convincing drama offers an insight into male sexuality and feels authentic and heartfelt (with echoes of the more robust Le Weekend). James Fox gives a poignant performance as Joseph; clearly smitten by a “late-life crisis” – his dormant libido flickering at Suzanne’s frisky sexuality but his bittersweet voyeuristic moments (when he sees the couple later in the village) feeling sad and rueful rather than raunchy. Ultimately, this is a story about revisiting the past with regret, about the quiet desperation of old age for those whose pleasure is not tethered to their family but to their cherished and much enjoyed sexuality. A la recherche du temps perdu. MT
A LONG WAY FROM HOME RELEASES ON THE 6TH DECEMBER 2013
Dir: John Krokidas; Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane de Haan, Ben Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh
USA 2013, 104 min. Drama
The first feature film of scriptwriter John Krokidas (Being John Malkovich) takes Daniel Radcliffe in the role of young Allen Ginsberg to Columbia University in the autumn of 1943. There he meets future stars of the literary anti-establishment like Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), Lucien Carr (Dane de Haan) and William Burroughs (Ben Foster). Ginsberg, the shy Jewish boy, suffering from the breakup of his parent’s marriage, falls madly in love with Carr, who is still seeing his ex-lover David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), who a year ago saved his life in Chicago when Carr tried to commit suicide.
The fading College running back Kerouac (who could now imagine him playing American football!) is also part of the group, though he seems the only heterosexual in the posse of rebels. The lads get up to pranks, some more serious than others, but a certain bookish tranquility holds sway until Carr kills Kammerer sadisticly, without an apparent motive. Thanks to Ginsberg, who finds an escape route for him in an old law book (if attacked by an homosexual, the straight man can claim self-defence), Carr gets off with 18 month in prison, but rejects Ginsberg, who is heart broken.
Krokadis film is uneven, too often episodically, and its straight linear narrative and mostly conventional aesthetics make the end product much less than it could have been. Radclliffe excels in the frank sex scenes and it is the ensemble acting, which saves the film in the end. Dane de Haan’s Carr is particularly menacing, the boy-man with the face of an angel, who can’t stand any rejection, and plays off all his lovers against each other. Like a little vampire, he sucks all the good out of people; his golden looks masking his exploitative nature. Surprisingly, the real Carr stayed with one publishing house until his death in 2005: twice married with two children.
In spite of its shortcomings, KILL YOUR DARLINGS delivers some fascinating background about the cradle of the Un-American dream. AS
Student prostitution has come under the spotlight recently with dazzling insight from Emmanuelle Bercot’s edgy Parisian drama Student Services (2012) to Malgorzata Szumovska’s intimate look at female grads on the game, Elles (2011). Here the prolific and provocative French auteur, Francois Ozon, offers up his sultry and mischievous story of Isabelle.
Once again the setting is Paris butJEUNE ET JOLIE (YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL) is a coming-of-age drama with a twist. Avoiding winsome innocence, it focuses on a very confident, hard-edged 17-year-old from an educated background, played vampishly by French model Marine Vacth.
As the title suggests, Isabelle is a good-looking young woman who’s comfortable with her nascent sexuality and the power it enables her to wield, not least in flirtations with her mother’s partner who shares their Parisian home. Unmoved by her first sexual encounter Isabelle realises how to turn this disaffection to her advantage in financing her studies. Nothing new there. But Ozon cleverly keep us guessing about the power that women hold in the sexual arena. And although it appears that Isabelle is fearless and calculating, he shrouds her emotions in mystery leaving us to wonder whether this girl is really in control of her life and her relationships as much as she would have us believe. Sexually available and canny she may be, but she is still immature emotionally and this comes across in Vacth’s subtle performance.
Ozon provocatively portrays the upmarket setting with its glossy visuals as being quite normal but then he blows apart this facade slowly teasing us with glimpses of reality as the drama unfolds. Isabelle’s dynamic with her mother (Isabelle Paihas) is a fascinating one. Initially the daughter appears to have the power but eventually emerges as the weaker of the pair, accurately reflecting the inner turmoil of adolescence but also examining the fading power of female sexuality as we saw before with in Juliette Binoche’s clever performance as Anne in ELLES.
Well-crafted and competent, this is a challenging film that asks questions, leaving the viewer open to doubt about the normality of a situation that on the surface feels straightforward but on reflection starts to raise complex questions about the nature of adolescence, innocence and female desire. MT
Dir: Nicolas Winding Refyn | Cast: Kristen Scott Thomas, Ryan Gosling, Vithaya Pansringarm, Rhatha Phongam, Gordon Brown, Tom Burke | 90mins Denmark/France
For sheer cinematic brilliance and artistic style, Nicolas Winding Refyn’s Bangkok-set revenge tale really set the night on fire at its Cannes premiere back in 2013, dividing critics and polarising opinion. Some derided it for its cold brutality and lack of emotion but Heli was equally violent, gratuitously so, and won an award.
Only God Forgives is all about controlled emotion, seething under the surface of Refyn’s glittering jewel-box of visual tricks: brooding resentment, latent anger, moody scorn and dysfunctional lust also join the party in a thriller seething with a pervasive sense of dread, heightened by a dynamite score.
The performances are stylised, mannered and supremely elegant: Ryan Gosling, who runs a Thai boxing club, very much serves the film rather than stars in it, wearing a sharp suit and the expression of a frightened rabbit as the submissively loyal son of Kristen Scott Thomas’s vampish mother and drug baroness, Crystal. She’s a woman at the top of her game, her two sons are trophies she toys with dispassionately.
We first see her arriving in Bangkok to demand retribution for the murder of her ‘first son’ Billy (Tom Burke) on the grounds of his raping and killing a local teenager. “I’m sure he had his reasons” she claims, very much her own woman. It’s a superbly entertaining performance and one which should have won her Best Actress. Sporting a long blond wig and killer heals, she is every bit as sexy, poised and alluring as any actress half her age, or less.
Against advice, she hires a hit man to take out Chang (Pansringarm), the local police chief responsible for the killing of her son Billy. But the plan backfires and Chang turns the tables on Crystal and her agent (Gordon Brown) who is tortured and killed in possibly one of the most inventive and exquisitely painful deaths in cinema history, all playing against a glimmering back-drop of the lacquered night club interior. Glamorous hostesses look on motionless and expressionless in compliance with their oriental culture of self control.
Only God Forgives glides gracefully along, each frame an expertly composed, perfectly balanced, a shimming masterpiece. Punctuated by brusque episodes of savage violence, it epitomises a world of clandestine doings and shady characters suggested but not fully fleshed-out, adding an exotic mystique to the piece rather than detracting from it, leaving room for the imagination to wander, to speculate and to dream. It’s a world where evil meets evil and no one is up to any good.
Nicolas Winding Refyn’s points out “We must not forget that the second enemy of creativity, after having ‘good taste’ is being safe”. This is not a safe film, it’s a daring, exciting and malevolent. MT
It is not so much the premise of this film – namely that Harvey Lee Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy, but was merely the executioner in a conspiracy – but the material surrounding the life of Oswald, that makes this documentary well worth watching, although a tightening up of the edit would have been welcome.
Told collage-style with archive interviews, intercut original photos, helmer O’Sullivan names George De Mohrenschildt and David Atlee-Phillips as two of Oswald’s CIA handlers. But the most damming statement is Oswald’s own admission in a radio interview, when he talks about his time in the USSR, stating “that he was under the protection of the US government” before correcting himself. Equally revealing is a remark by Bannister, a CIA operator in Dallas, who when asked, on which side Oswald was fighting in the battle of the Castro/Anti-Castro movements, answered that “Oswald is one of us”.
Actors play the Oswald part and some other participants, which makes it slightly more difficult to follow the already enough protracted narrative, but with the help of excellent documentary footage one just gains enough insight into the life of a man, who ironically was diagnosed as a juvenile of having “a vivid fantasy life”.
Born in 1939 in New Orleans, he never knew his father, though it is of interest to know, that he had strong connections with the mob. When he entered the Marine Corps in 1956, he had visited 12 different schools with out gaining a high school diploma. In the Marines he worked as a radar operator; at the height of the U2 Spy missions, when the US planes flew over the USSR. Here Oswald’s story becomes curiously interesting because in 1959 he was discharged from active service, but was travelling to Russia a month later, a trip planned well ahead. We really have to ask the question why the US security agencies would have allowed a member of the army, who was connected with security operations like U2, to leave for the USSR at the height of Cold War paranoia.
Oswald denounced his US citizenship and was sent to Minsk to work at an Electronic factory. In March 1961, Oswald married Marina Prusakova, a 19 year old student. But in letters home Oswald wrote that he was bored in Russia and wanted to return to the USA, which he did in June 1962, settling in Dallas/Fort Worth. Again one must ask the question, why he was allowed home without any questions – surely the FBI/CIA would have had a say in this?. In March 1963 Oswald was photographed holding a rifle and some Trotskyist newspapers. A month later he ‘attempted to kill’ the retired US Major General Walker, a well known right wing agitator, who was in a feud with the Kennedy brothers, in his home. Oswald missed from 30 m out, shooting through the window. The police found no suspects. Oswald returned to New Orleans in the same month, posing alternatively as a Castro supporter for ‘Fair Play for Cuba’ and a member of the anti-Castro organisation ‘Crusade to Free Cuba Committee’. He continued this charade until September, when he arrived in Mexico City, to ask for a visa to Cuba and the USSR – claiming that he again had changed his mind and wanted to live in the USSR. Unfortunately for Oswald CIA handlers, Oswald never made it to the embassy, and the CIA had to sent another agent, who did not resemble Oswald to the embassy – a fact which FBI director Hoover had to admit to President Johnson after the Kennedy assassination. In October Oswald returned to Dallas, working for the Texas School Book Depository, from its sixth floor the shots killing Kennedy were supposedly fired.
Oswald’s CIA file was flushed down the toilet in Dallas by the agency.
Director: Margarethe von Trotta Writers: Pam Katz and Margarethe von Trotta
Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Axel Milberg, Janet McTeer
103 mins Germany Drama German/English
Hannah Arendt, the eponymous real-life subject of this well-meaning biopic, was a political theorist who studied under a series a great twentieth century philosophers, including Jaspers, Husserl and Heidegger. Born in Germany in 1906, the Jewish Arendt fled her home country amidst the rise of pre-war anti-Semitism, finally settling in America. Among the many important works Arendt would go on to produce were The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, about the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a lieutenant colonel in the Nazi HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel” \o “Schutzstaffel” SS who oversaw the deportation of Jews from Germany. It is Arendt writing the latter work which forms the basis of Hannah Arendt.
After persuading The New Yorker to send her to Jerusalem to cover Eichmann’s trial, Arendt is overcome by Eichmann’s sheer ‘mediocrity’, and unable to reconcile this with the ‘greatness’ of his crimes – thus leading her to develop her concept of ‘the banality of evil’. Expressing the concept in her New Yorker piece, alongside some ambiguous comments about the conduct of Jewish leaders during the war, Arendt unwittingly unleashed a tidal wave of controversy. As her friend Hans Jonas says in the film, Arendt turned the trial into a philosophy lesson, using it to raise important questions about the nature of evil. In reliving the story and controversy behind Arendt’s piece, Hannah Arendt shares these preoccupations, transferring Arendt’s ideas from the page to the screen.
The film’s key themes are neatly summarised by the darkness of the film’s opening, which shows Eichmann’s capture followed by a scene of Arendt smoking and thinking, lying alone in darkness – an apt visual metaphor for what’s to follow. And in perusing Arendt’s thoughts, the film seems to posit that her attempts to understand Eichmann were at least in part also an attempt to understand how Heidegger, her former mentor and lover, could have likewise become a member of the Nazi party.
It’s a very human motivation for a woman who was criticised for being ‘all arrogance and no feeling’, as one character says here. In attempting to try and show us Arendt’s mind at work, it could be argued that Hannah Arendt likewise fails to truly engage feelings. There are attempts: quickly sketched friendships and romantic exchanges, and yet when health troubles strike for both her husband and an old friend, neither moment carries the necessary dramatic impact. We’re constantly told how great Arendt is (students fawn over her, the editor of the New Yorker claims ‘she wrote one of the most important books of the twentieth century’) – and yet, as portrayed in the film, her humble, human side never feels truly exposed. Though we see her criticised and hounded, it feels like the film presupposes our sympathy, assuming Arendt’s likeability without the need to actually show it to us.
Thankfully, the power of the story, and the ideas ultimately win out, the film becoming powerful, gripping and thought-provoking. But it’s a shame that the film never engages emotions quite as successfully as it does the intellect. Alex Barrett.
HANNAH ARENDT IS SHOW AT THE EVERYMAN HAMPSTEAD, TRICYCLE KILBURN. WATERMANS ART CENTRE BRENTFORD, CURZON RENOIR and IS NOW OUT ON DVD
Dir.: Peter Landesman; Cast: Zac Efron, Paul Giamatti, Colin Hanks, Mark Duplass, Marcia Gay Harden, Jacki Weaver, USA 2013, 93 min.
The only thing PARKLAND gets right is its timing: the 50th anniversary year of JFK’s assassination. But it is nearly impossible to imagine such a dull realisation of one of history’s most dramatic moments. To start with, the acting is wooden, with everyone is hamming it up, like they think it should have looked on November 22nd 1963. So we see Jackie clutching skull and brain parts of her husband, eyes wild. The trauma surgeon hammering away on JFK’s chest like a drummer; the nurse fetching a cross from the cupboard with all the solemnity of a papal ceremony; the CIA man dragging the coffin with the corpse through the plane door with the violence associated with American football players, just to underline their unwillingness for an autopsy.
But worst of all is the total lack of standpoint – Landesman declared in the press conference, that he just wanted to show the emotional impact of the tragedy on the main participants but not touch on the question of who shot the president. How anybody can be so wilfully naïve is hard to understand. To make a point, the filmmaker mentions none of 18 material witnesses of the shooting who died: six were shot, 3 died in car accidents, 2 committed suicide, 3 died of heart-attacks, just two from natural causes. Did the shooting not impact emotionally on their lives and those of their loved ones? And how can we judge the impact on Harvey Oswald, when Landesman leaves it open as to if he was the assassin or not – even though the Abraham Zapruder film (which is used in PARKLAND) shows clearly that JFK was shot from the grass hill and not from the fourth floor of the library, where Oswald was supposed to be.
PARKLAND’s film aesthetics top the list of conventional boredom and its supposedly naïve a-political message is disingenuous. Paul Giamatti convinces as Zapruder in a fine performance. Otherwise, this is one of the few films that can compete with any propaganda film – just by leaving out the truth. Make up your own mind. If you’re looking for more on the Lee Harvey Oswald story, KILLING OSWALD makes the intellectual argument and works an interesting companion piece to this dumbed-down Hollywood pap. ANDRE SIMONOWEICZ.
PARKLAND IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 22 NOVEMBER 22 NOVEMBER 2013
Dir: Daniel Espinosa | Original novel: Jens Lapidus | Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic, Lisa Henni,
Mahmut Suvakci | 124min Crime Drama
Joel Kinnaman found fame in the US version of The Killing. Here, as JW, he plays a hard-edged working-class economics student and drug-dealer, living a double life amongst the elite of Swedish society who hang out in parties like the one in Festen.
Originally called Snabba Cash, this is actually a screen adaptation of the best-selling ‘Stockholm Noir Trilogy’ by a Swedish novelist, Jens Lapidus. For some reason, the film has taken a while to come to the mainstream but you may have caught it at the London Film Festival back in 2012, in the aptly named “Thrill” section.
To fund his lifestyle JW finds a way to earn ‘easy money’ through a cocaine ring headed up by the nefarious hitman Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic, a real-life crim). His fate is inextricably linked with Jorge, a drug dealer who we meet escaping from prison in the exhilarating opening sequence.
Stylish and gripping with a dynamite score, Easy Money successfully blends edgy Nordic Noir with upmarket glamour. JW is persuasive and slick as a Swedish sociopath slipping easily between romantic dates with his chic blond girlfriend and the gritty millieu of Serbian and Spanish low-life in a thriller that blends tension, brutal violence and sympathetic characterisation to produce a winning combination that makes compelling viewing. If you only see one film this weekend, make it Easy Money. MT
Eighteen years after Lieutenant James Cook had claimed Australia for the Crown in 1870, the British government started to colonise the fifth continent. Since then, Australia has been named the ‘lucky’ country, even though it was first used as a penal colony for misfits from the United Kingdom. But their plight is nothing compared with the fate of the indigenous population, the Aboriginals, of which around one million lived in their own country at the time of the British invasion.
Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, who has worked since 1962 in the UK, has returned to his homeland to see the current plight of the earth loving Aboriginals, who are the victims of an ongoing genocide. UTOPIA takes its name from an aboriginal village of the same name in the Northern Territories, where Pilger’s peripatetic journey begins combining widescreen visuals with close-up interviews of locals and archive footage. We see shacks and other provisional housing, and the house of the government rep, which has no less than 18 ventilators, keeping the heat at bay. These living (?) conditions for Aboriginals are repeated throughout the film: the lack of functioning toilets and other sanitary installations, overcrowding, water pumps outside the buildings, asbestos poisoning, lack of basic health care – the list is endless. No wonder that most of the children suffer from deafness and blindness – they are permanently dehydrated, loosing 30% of their body fluid. A third of the aboriginals die before they reach the age of 45.
The abuse of the Aboriginals by countless governments seems endless and provides a startling contrast to the plush lives of ordinary citizens pictured: Prime Minister Barton stated in 1901 that the equality act would only include the white and British citizen. Sterilisation was another way to reduce the indigenous population, since the white population believed “that they themselves were civilised –but they are not”. In the 60s TV programs proclaimed “that they have to show that they want to be one of us”, and talking about the poverty of the Aboriginals the announcer’s voice proclaimed “That’s what they want”. (‘They’ having replaced the original names of the victims). Thousands of children were literally stolen from parents, and given to white families for ‘integration’. And today’s prisons are overcrowded with victims of the race injustice, the perpetrators speak freely of “stacking and racking” and “warehousing”.
Death in police custody is not a rarity, the case of Eddie Murray, who died in prison in 1987 of a broken sternum is only an exception in so far that he was the son of Arthur Murray, who led a strike of Aboriginal workers in the early 60s, when the conditions were not unlike slave labour. He is rightly convinced that the death of his son was a revenge act. In 2006 the TV show “Lateline” interviewed a “frightened” youth worker (his face blacked out), who claimed that Aboriginals were using their children as sex slaves. Police action was swift, but it turned out that the “whistleblower” was Greg Andrews, working for the Minister of Indigenous Affairs. This case is particularly ironic, since white men have sexually abused Aboriginal women and children for a century without prosecution.
Perhaps symbolic for the continuous plight of the Aboriginals is Rottnest: a former concentration camp (minus gas chambers) it is today a luxury Spa, costing 240 Australian Dollar per night. The roads are build over the mass graves of the Aboriginal prisoners. Pilger visits Rottness with one of the survivors, who shows us that 51 prisoners lived in the space of one hotel room. The prisoners had to build the gallows for their own people.
Aboriginals are “Refugees in their own country”, and as long as the Australian Government is unwilling to pay any compensation and better their living conditions, it should be treated like the Apartheid regime of South Africa: with economic sanctions.
The “lucky” country? More likely the “lying one”. This well-paced and immersive documentary is well worth watching both from an historical viewpoint and a cinematic one. AS
UTOPIA IS ON GENERAL RELEASE ACROSS THE UK FROM FRIDAY, 15TH NOVEMBER 2013
The title says it all: James Toback’s doc filmed during 2012 in Cannes, tantalises us with talk of cinema, art, death and the glamour of it all. In reality it offers little insight into the nuts and bolts of film financing despite Baldwin’s flirty poolside badinage with film financiers as he prepares to fund a ‘soft porn film’ featuring himself and Neave Campbell.
But as a peek inside the psyches of the powers that be it’s highly entertaining stuff; chock-full with witty interviews and footage of luminaries such as Roman Polanski, Bernardo Bertolucci, Martin Scorsese, James Caan and Francis Ford Coppola who talk candidly and amusingly about the bad times and the good times on their road to success as they reach the twilight zone. Voyeuristic, funny and fascinating – a must-see for all film fanatics MT
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 8TH NOVEMBER 2013
Cast: Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, Yaphet Kotto, Julius Harris.
95mins US Drama ***
First released in 1964, Nothing But A Man appears to have suffered the fate shared by so many low-budget independent films: festival success and critical acclaim, followed by a small release and a sink into relative obscurity. However, in 1993 the Library of Congress declared the film ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’ and selected the film for preservation, leading to a successful re-release in the US. Now, 20 years later, comes the film’s first-ever UK cinema release, courtesy of the BFI.
The film depicts life among the black community in a small town in 1960s Alabama, focusing upon the burgeoning romance between section hand Duff (Ivan Dixon) and local schoolteacher and preacher’s daughter Josie (Abbey Lincoln). If the romance itself follows a somewhat predictable narrative arc, the film makes up for it with its searing examination of the town’s racism, and the myriad of relationships surrounding the protagonists. In its detailed exploration of the life of Duff and Josie, and the various prejudices and troubles they face, the film questions not only the relationships between blacks and whites, but also between men and women, parents and children, friends and co-workers, and middle-class and working-class citizens. The fact that the film is able to fluidly and cohesively incorporate such a large canvas, and do so with so much wit, style and compassion, is testament to the deft hand of (white Jewish) director Michael Roemer (there’s only one sequence, towards the end of the film, which seems to ring false).
Roemer, alongside his unusually hyphenated cowriter–cinematographer Robert Young, frames the action in stark black and white images, punctuating the drama by filming the characters’ frank exchanges in powerful close ups. The film is permeated with a sense of neorealistic naturalism, its nuances and textures coalescing into a vivid portrait of 1960s Alabamian life. For all its scope, the film is tied together by Dixon’s transfixing charisma, which imbues the film with a level of charm which could easily have been absent with a lesser presence playing the protagonist. Dixon’s wry smile lends an air of charm to the proceedings, and grounds the film in a gentle, engrossing humanism. Add to this the film’s interestingly open ending and its scrupulous examination of social mores, and it’s easy to understand why the film was dubbed ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’. ALEX BARRETT
Dir: Sebastian Lelio | Cast: Paulina Garcia, Sergio Hernandez | 110min Drama Chile/Spain
Paulina Garcia won Best Actress at Berlin for her sunny portrayal of a mid-lifer who hasn’t reached old age but is contemplating the future and starting to see the long shadows of her mortality slowly edging into sight.
Sebastian Lelio’s third feature opens with a palm-fringed panorama of Santiago de Chile, the sophisticated capital of his thrusting South American homeland. Gloria, in her fifties, is a positive and happy divorcee looking love.
Lelio’s crisp, clear direction and a wealth of glossy locations and interiors, make this a mature and insightful drama for a director in his late thirties. Gloria offers gives plenty of positive food for thought without a touch negativity or self-doubt: a refreshing look at second-time love for the older generation. Gloria examines her hopes and reassesses her life through the encounters she experiences. Sebastian Lelio shows us the positives of his Latin culture without being judgemental or maudlin: strong family links, dancing, music and laughter, Chilean wine and socialising are the keynotes. There’s a touchingly romantic vignette of a man and woman singing a Brazilian love song round the piano. The dating scene throws up rich pickings most of which are rotten and a graduall realisation that life is good and there is future for Gloria and for Chile set against a background of political uncertainty and forty years of strife and unrest. MT
GLORIA IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 1 NOVEMBER 2013 IN SELECTED CINEMAS
Child’s Pose is a portrait of female power and Luminita Gheorghiu’s multi-layered performance as Cornelia, a wealthy, overprotective mother whose unconditional love for her hot-housed, despondent son Barbu (Bogdan Dumistrache) knows no limits.
An age-old theme, then, but one that Netzer tackles here with brilliance and insight: this is not a film about love but about control and manipulation and ultimately about dominance. And Barbu is simply a tool in his mother’s trick box enabling her to endorse her privileged place in local society, ‘Romanian-style’.
Calin Peter Netzer is a filmmaker of undoubtable talent. His previous films of note: Medal of Honour and Maria are certainly worth watching for their fascinating stories of Romania and its customs and character, often seen with black humour. Ably assisted here by the writing talents of Razvan Radulescu (The Death of Mr Lazarescu) Child’s Pose is a weightier and more demanding beast that may not appeal to everyone with its jerky hand-held camera technique and emotional overkill.
Naturally there’s a girlfriend involved (Carmen, played by Ilinca Goia) and naturally she is to blame for Barbu’s distant attitude towards his mother. But when Barbu has a car accident killing a child, Cornelia swings back into favour, springing into action on her mobile phone, dominating the criminal procedure, pulling strings in the local community with the great and the good and shining like a beacon of salvation for her desperate son, as if this was the moment she’d been waiting for all her life and his too.
Once again the theme of Romania’s intricate and unwieldy red tape is called in to question. We’ve seen this all before in Medal of Honour, AuroraandThe Death of Mr Lazarescu. But here the camera tracks the action with intrusive immediacy; transmitting expressions of anguish and a palpable and claustrophobic sense of fear and tragedy: the effect is almost nauseating. Cornelia is a woman to dread. You certainly wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of her. Having riden roughshod over her husband, Luminita Gheorghiu’s Cornelia is a frustrated, scheming demon; all dressed up with nowhere to go but the corridors of corruption (which are filled with Bucharest’s society elite) and nothing left to live for but her sad, emasculated son. MT
CHILD’S POSE WON THE GOLDEN BEAR AT BERLINALE 2013
Cast: Shaun Thomas, Sean Gilder, Steve Evets. Lorraine Ashbourne, Conner Chapman
93min Drama UK
The gently rolling countryside of Yorkshire is the setting for Clio Barnard’s contemporary coming of age fable of under-privilege seen through the eyes of two young lads, Arbor and Swifty. Played with extraordinary sensitivity by newcomers Connor Chapman and Shaun Thomas, these boys have similar family problems and difficulties at school that help them forge a close and compatible friendship. Arbor is the less likeable of the two, with a soft spot for his mum, rather like the Kray Twins. When they meet scrap metal dealer, Kitten, Arbor discovers his knack for dealing and with Swifty’s riding skills the pair start scavenging with the help of Kitten’s shire pony, Diesel.
Barnard’s linear narrative echoes the social realism of many current British Films but here Barnard tempers the harshness of Hudderfield’s scrapyards with enchanting images of starry skies and nature. Swifty has a way with animals and develops a strong attachment to Diesel, handling him with skill and compassion and gaining credibility with Kitten who favours him in contrast to the cocky Arbor. Clio Barnard handles the direction with great skill, evoking an unsettling underlying tension in these social dynamics that make it clear that this is a journey that will end in tears. MT
THE SELFISH GIANT SCREENS AT THE 57TH BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL ON 14 OCTOBER AND 16 OCTOBER AT THE OWE2 AND CURZON MAYFAIR COURTESY OF ARTIFICIAL EYE AND now OUT ON DVD/BLU-RAY from 27 JANUARY 2014
Saul Williams plays Satche in this hauntingly bittersweet drama from French Senegalese director, Alain Gomis. A fit and well-educated man wakes up in his mother’s house near Dakar and knows instinctively that this day he will die. Friends and family gather round and share their candid thoughts about his life. And it’s not all good. Some are far from complimentary but given with grace and a sincerity leavened with tolerance and good humour of their long associations with him. Anger and bitterness are expressed and released naturally for all to hear in the warm sunshine of this final day in his life.
As Satche drifts seamlessly through the pastel-coloured streets of his neighbourhood friends rush to greet him laughing and joking. He’s popular and good-natured. There’s a sense of spiritual acceptance tinged with dread about his impending fate. Will it be shocking or painful? Will he just serenely slip away? These thoughts swirl round like the empty paper cups in the local town square where a ceremony to celebrate his life has already taken place – without him. After breakfast with his best friend Sele (Djolof Mbengue) he visits an elegant ex-girlfriend (Aissa Maiga) who tries to in vain seduce him for the last time.
There is a silent scene spent in languorous love-making with his partner Rama and they relax in harmony as the sun goes down. His mind jumps forward in future reverie to see the kids grown-up in a wonderfully shot sequence. This is a surreal but quietly contemplative study embued by Crystel Fournier’s cinematography that makes great use of the unique light and gentleness of this French-flavoured West African country where everyone wears their heart on their sleeve and lives in harmony with the rhythm of nature.
Director: Felix Van Groeningen Adaptation: Carl Joos/Felix Van Groeningen
Cast: Veerle Baetens, Johan Heldenbergh, Neil Cattrysse, Geert Van Rampelberg
The Broken Circle Breakdown is a musical love story. Inspired by Johan Heldenbergh (one of the stars of “The Misfortunates”) and Mieke Dobbels, it’s cleverly brought to life by Van Groeningen in fractured narrative form, captured on the widescreen in the lush, bucolic countryside around Bruges, Belgium.
Didier (Heldenbergh), a singer and musician and his partner Elise (Veerle Baetens), a tattooist discover during a hospital visit in Ghent that their 6-year-old daughter, Maybelle (Nell Cattrysse), has leukaemia.
Flashing back to the moment they first met, the chemistry is ardent and their affair takes off as they instantly bond through music. Life takes its natural course, as the narrative dances back and forwards dipping into their lives in a way that feels natural and easy to follow. They move into Didier’s restored barn and create a life together. There’s a vibrant energy to Moving Circle that echoes that of Cafe de Flore (2011). Heldenbergh and Baetens attraction feels real in moments of elation and sadness and they give passionate performances especially between the sheets, and when they perform with the Didier’s local ‘Blue-grass’ Band.
As the narrative develops, the storytelling becomes more erratic and a sudden shot of Elise in a ambulance fighting for her life, feels abrupt and disorientating, as if we’ve missed a vital clue. What follows is heartbreaking and the tone becomes increasingly sinister switching from melodrama to something darker and more muffled. Didier becomes unbalanced, ranting at the television in an unmoving outburst that attempts unsuccessfully to add a political dimension to proceedings. His touching sensitivity, previously anchored by Elise’s practical nature, transforms into the realms of psychosis and she also starts to lose the plot in a personality change that lacks believability as Broken Circle finally goes into meltdown in a dispiriting denoument to a promising start. MT
Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Lindsay Lohan, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, MarisaTomei, Evan Rachel Wood,
107min USA 2012
One can say without hype that Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) is one of the most exploited women in our media age. After her mother, a cutter at RKO, could not look after her anymore due to mental health problems, Norma Jean Mortenson was bounced around between orphanages and foster parents. At the age of 16, working in an aircraft factory, she married a man whom she called “Daddy; they divorced in 1946. Her acting career started the following year as an un-credited voice of a telephone operator. Fox, who let her first contract expire, re-signed her, and she had small parts in the 1950 films Asphalt Jungle and All about Eve. But nothing prepared her or the media world for her status as sex symbol, which she cemented with Niagara in 1953.
Here in Love, Marilyn, a documentary-style biopic, Liz Garbus tries to give the late idol a voice based on diaries and personal letters previously published as ‘fragments’ in 2010 (as discovered in Marilyn’s house in Brentwood by Anna Strasberg, daughter of Lee, her acting coach). It goes without saying that the subject-matter is gold-dust, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee top marks for Love, Marilyn as a successful piece of filmmaking. Liz Garbus falls on the first hurdle in her decision to cast a selection of contemporary Hollywood actresses to recite the “different voices” of Marilyn (rather than just one lead), giving the piece a slightly disorientating feel at first as we grapple with trying to identify who’s being whom. Clearly it’s impossible to find an actress that evokes Marilyn’s multi-faceted persona, so casting a variety of actresses seemed a stroke of genius but actually it’s rather a flawed one. These moments are, however, successfully inter-cut with archive newsreel and private footage which are always going to be endlessly fascinating, no matter which filmmaker wields them. And the camera obviously loved Marilyn: possibly one of the most expressive and charismatic of all the actresses of her era. The most appealing aspect of this doc are the endless stills of her looking devastatingly beautiful, touchingly naive; endlessly sexy; happily ‘in love’ and tellingly lost; disappointed and broken.
We learn nothing really new, only snippets like Jean Russell mentioning that Monroe was frightened to leave her dressing room during the shooting of Gentlemen prefer Blondes (1953). Or the scene Monroe’s husband Joe DiMaggio made in 1954, when director Billy Wilder shot the famous subway footage over and over again, while 1500 hooting men stood by, asking for more. The same Wilder, who would call Monroe later “the mad person on the plane” during a troubled shooting schedule. Or her brave engagement for her soon-to-be husband Arthur Miller in 1956, when he was hunted down by the HUAC committee and could not get a passport (Fox told Monroe, she would be finished, if she supported Miller); the same Miller who wrote the script to Misfits, her and Gable’s last film, in which Monroe played a role she felt degraded by, whilst her husband met his next wife, Inge Morath, on location.
No wonder she was so disturbed that she agree to enter Payne Whiting Psychiatric Hospital voluntarily in February 1961, a month after her divorce from Miller. Mistreated and cut off from her friends, she smuggled a note to DiMaggio, who got her out, threatening to tear “the building down brick by brick”. Her relationship to her psychotherapist Ralph Greenson (she moved closed to his home in LA) was ambivalent too, since the doctor prescribed her in the end more or less anything having grown distant from his star patient. In May 1962, whilst on the set of the troubled Something Has To Give, she flew to Washington to sing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” for JFK; Fox sacked her for breaking contractual obligations, only to re-instate her days before her death on 5 August 1962.
Garbus saves us from all the theories regarding the Kennedy brothers, but the earnest declamations of the Hollywood stars do not make up for the fact that this, too, is just another vehicle on the exploitation bandwagon circling a troubled woman who was unable to put the many fragments of her life together and who wrote in her diary shortly before her death: “Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone”. AS
LOVE, MARILYN IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 18TH OCTOBER AND ON DVD 28TH OCTOBER
Cast: Min-soo Jo, Jeong-jin Lee, Ki-Hong Woo, Eunjin Kang, Jae-ryong Cho
104mins Drama
Pietá means mercy in Italian. And mercy is very much the central theme in Kim Ki-duk’s Golden Lion Winner that muses on the lack of this inherently human quality in the daily life of a sadistic Korean loan-shark, Gang-do (Lee Jung-jin).
Each day after devouring hand-slaughtered animals, he emerges from a bare apartment in a poverty-ridden district of Seoul, a vengeful and mercenary creature who exacts crippling injuries on his hapless debtors usually by forcing their limbs into their own machine tools, cashing in the insurance claims they’ve signed before their painful fate.
An fervent and anti-capitalist drama, Kim Ki-duk’s 18th outing is well-served by disenfranchised characters who are sinking below the poverty line at the mercy of encroaching urban development and economic hardship. Ming-Soo Jo stands out in a superlative tour de force as stranger Mi-sun, who arrives at Gang-do’s place one day purporting to be the mother who abandoned him but her enigmatic agenda offers a lethal cocktail of redemption, remorse and retribution . MT
PIETA IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 6TH SEPTEMBER AND ON DVD FROM 14 OCTOBER 2013
Dir. Hong Sang-soo, Cast: Jung Eunchae, Lee Sunkyun
South Korea 87 min. Drama
South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo (Hahaha)) shows in his latest film NOBODY’S DAUGHTER HAEWON the unravelling of a personality: aspiring actress Haewon, played by a very impressive Jung Eunchae, has an on/off relationship with an older, married professor (Lee Sunkyn), who is the father of a recently born baby.
After her mother leaves Seoul for Canada, Haewon looses her last ‘anchor’ in life. Her personality fragments, she sleeps at day time, loses more and more contact with her acting school, drinks too much and flees into a parallel universe, in which she ‘directs’ life via a permanent inner monologue. She can’t differentiate any more between important and unimportant events and wanders off into a vacuum that only her inner voice can fill. Her often hysterical laughter is the only obvious sign of her psychological deterioration, so that her friends find her rather ‘odd’, because they are too self-centred to help and unable to commit to anything but the acute present.
The narrative develops in episodic format, so as to underline the lack of continuity in Haewon’s life. She always visits certain places: mainly a park, a motel and an old fort, as if trying to re-connect with the past, even though it is exactly this past with has thrown her life into disarray. But she is unable to find a solution,because she can’t connect the important points in her life any more and it becomes totally structureless as she drifts more and more away from herself. She wanders often and long, particularly in the rain, as if trying to purify herself. But since she can’t ask the right questions, or even worse, can’t remember what to ask, all her physical exercises take her even more away from herself.
Her relationship with the professor has issues, so does her relationship with an fellow student: everything is in flux. Haewon is the object rather than the subject of Sang-soo’s film – even though paradoxically both men in her life believe her to be strong. She drifts along in a way that makes her loose more and more of her personality. Sang-soo has selected a muted palette here and most of the drama takes place outside, with a few claustrophobic indoor shots): everything is murky and somehow diffuse, just like Haewon. There is a timeless feel to the narrative which could be set anytime between the 70s and today.
The sensation here is one of being dragged along on a slow-moving river, not unpleasantly, but somehow disturbingly. There are no dramatic incidents, everything is more or less of the same colourless grey: a permanent misunderstanding on the part of Haewon, who is floating away into near oblivion. Unable to read her own (or anybody else’) real intentions, she relies only on her internal world to direct herself. She does not say it, but one expects her at any moment to voice the obvious: “I don’t know why I am doing this”.
Hong Sang-soo’s latest treat IN ANOTHER COUNTRY is a quirky comedy drama starring Isabelle Huppert is yet to hit our screens but in the meantime this well-observed portrait of a young women fragmenting under the pressure of her loneliness, low-key but with extreme sensitivity is something worth discovering. A little gem. Andre Simonoviescz
ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 11TH OCTOBER 2013 IN SELECTED LONDON CINEMAS
Are we inured to the atrocities of death camps? Do they become less horrific the more we are exposed to their heinous crimes upon humanity? Here a South Korean escapee of Kaechon’s repressive North Korean ‘Camp 14’ tells his true story. Shin Dong-Huyk was born to prisoners in the camp; his first memory is of a public execution, aged 4. From that point he is subjected to starvation, forced labour, torture and deprivation. From this early age, lies and murder were just as common to him as love and affection are to most other children. Deceit and hatred became the norm. With no conception of family life, how can Shin become a decent human being having been dehumanised?
With its sombre visuals and ambient soundtrack of wind and rain, Wiese’s documentary makes depressing and unsettling viewing. Based on Shin’s commentary intercut with animated sequences created by Ali Soozandeh (The Green Wave), Shin comes across as a reasonable man as he chats to young people in the Human Rights group ‘Link’, occasionally losing his nerve. But, like most children subjected to emotional hardship at an early age, Shin is damaged and the only place he can really fit in is the camp.
Camp 14’s unspeakable environment can only breed sociopaths, witnessed in interviews with former guards who talk candidly of their crimes: rape, torture, cruelty, calling to mind Joshua Oppenheimer’s recent doc: The Act of Killing. But what is missing here is the reasons for these guard’s defections and tangible facts. History can never forgive what went on in Camp 14, and this remarkable story gives further evidence of the capacity for evil present in a human nation. A valuable piece of filmmaking that warrants a viewing; if you feel strong enough. MT
CAMP 14: TOTAL CONTROL ZONE IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY, 4TH OCTOBER AT RICH MIX CINEMA BETHNAL GREEN
Director: Fabien Constant | With: Carine Roitfeld, Tom Ford, Donatella Versace, Karl Lagerfeld | France, Doc 90′
Let’s face it. the French and Italians still dominate the world stage when it comes to effortless chic and natural style. Carine Roitfeld is the juicy subject-matter of Fabien Constant’s behind the scenes documentary. After a long career, we discover the story of legendary editor-in-chief of French Vogue, who has finally laid down her crown to set up her own title.
Fabien Constant’s entertaining documentary is an upbeat and cinematic affair following her through a glitzy, globe-trotting year taking in Paris, New York, Moscow and Tokyo showing the hectic schedule required to construct and capture the vapid dream that is fashion. Buzzy and fascinating, Constant’s biopic is like a well-edited glossy mag: complete with visual allure, intriguing facts and well-researched and intelligent material. Just what a successful documentary should be.
Unsurprisingly, what emerges here is a world of artifice and image underpinned by gruelling planning, explosive temperaments and highly creative and volatile personalities. We meet Carine’s new creative team, all long-time supporters who sing her praises as they fawn and air-kiss their way through busy roundtable meetings to thrash out a new look for the project. Tom Ford says she brings out the best in him as they share the same visual background and taste, possessing an unique ability to empower whoever she works with.
Carine comes across as a highly-sensitive but grounded person who, like many successful people, thrives in adversity and conflict, constantly striving for a new twist and an edgy update on her classic background of innate style. Her aim is to create an offbeat look based on top-drawer erotic chic (not porno chic, she is at pains to point out). Her photo-shoots involve a mixture of paper-thin and pallid models with skyscraper bone-structures. Some even have noticeable breasts.
As you might have guessed, the chicest accessory to have here seems to be a new-born babe strapped to your hip, even if you’re emaciated from a diet of carrot tops. The granddaddy of fashion, Karl Lagerfeld is keen to be seen pushing the chic, black pram of Carine’s grand-daughter, in a skilful bid at personal rejuvenation. But it’s clear that Carine’s success is due to her personality not just her talent in making everyone feel very special from the doorman to the top photographer. And behind every successful woman, there’s always a man: Her husband has been her emotional centre, providing the bedrock of her world and a font of advice and support on the home front.
Talking candidly in dulcet tones, Carine lights up every frame; impeccably soigné in the latest Balmain jacket or Celine shirt, and posing delicately on a designer chair. A gamine figure with coal black eyes and slightly dishevelled tresses, she’s more accessible (and appealing) than Anna Wintour, and has a girlish touch that belies her tough Russian Jewish roots and fierce determination to climb the lacquered ladder to the stars. And like its star, Fabien Constant’s documentary is engaging and well-put-together. Mademoimoiselle C is a must see for anyone interested in fashion, style and luxury high-end publishing. MT
DIRECTOR: STUART BLUMBERG WRITERS: STUART BLUMBERG, MATT WINSTON
CAST: Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins, Joely Richardson, Patrick Fugit
112min US Romcom
Following on from Steve McQueen’s Shame, this is not the first time sex addiction has been explored in contemporary cinema. However, although Stuart Blumberg’s Thanks for Sharing is not quite as intense or dark as the former – tackling the subject matter in a far more jovial manner; the The Kids Are All Rightwriter offers a picture equally as poignant with his directorial debut.
We follow three friends who meet at 12-step meetings to help combat their unhealthy addictions to sex. At the heart of our story is Adam (Mark Ruffalo) who is five years ‘sober’ and now feeling ready to meet women again and attempt to strike up a relationship. However when he meets Phoebe (Gwyneth Paltrow) he falls in love, but struggles to overcome his previous habits. He seeks help from his mentor Mike (Tim Robbins), who has problems of his own, as his drug-addicted son (Patrick Fugit) has just shown up out of the blue. To complete the cycle, Adam himself is also a mentor, but to a young man named Neil (Josh Gad), who is desperately seeking help, as his sexual deviance has landed him in trouble on several occasions. We intertwine between these three corresponding lives, and see how each individual relies heavily on the next to get through this challenging treatment.
Thanks for Sharing treads the line between comedy and drama masterfully, portraying sex addiction sincerely, giving it the gravitas it deserves and considering it as a genuine disease. However the often frivolous nature to the film allows for us to see the humorous elements too, easing us into understanding and appreciating the true severity of the condition. That said, Blumberg can be accused of being overly lighthearted at points, particularly at the start when introduced to Neil. He is the comedic figure of the piece, providing the film with the vast majority of its witty one liners – but he is actually a sexual predator with a dangerously perverse outlook on life, and the sexual abuse he carries out is inappropriately depicted as humorous. Though jokes are a necessity within Thanks for Sharing, sometimes they are implemented in the wrong places.
Nonetheless, the story is structured ingeniously, as we weave in and out of our lead characters’ lives effortlessly, each individual story being substantially told. We care enough about each and every character and their own personal journeys, enough so that at the end we are intrigued to see how each one will conclude. Blumberg must be commended for this, as many ensemble pieces fall at this very hurdle. Much of why we are so empathetic to the characters is as a result of the screenplay, with each role crafted beautifully and the dynamics between each varying relationship perfectly judged. There are several themes at play too, such as romance, friendship, addiction and family matters – and these are all dealt with well, with every plot-point being given enough screen-time for us to invest emotionally in each one.
Thanks for Sharing is a picture that could so easily be underwhelming, dealing with various themes we have seen done to death in Hollywood – yet this avoids cliches. It may be overly melodramatic at times, yet Blumberg manages to steer away from ever feeling mawkish or over-indulgent in the slightest. He may have crafted a reputation for himself as a valuable screenwriter, but now it seems that he is equally as adept at directing, with a bright future certainly beckoning. STEFAN PAPE
THANKS FOR SHARING IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 4TH OCTOBER 2013 at Vue Cinemas, Odeon Cinemas Cineworld and Shortwave Bermondsey
The story of snowboarders Kevin Pearce and Shaun White has an unexpected outcome.
Lucy Walker’s adreniline-fuelled, action-packed sports doc is a visual feast of panoramic time-lapse sequences in the snowbound landscapes of Canada and Colorado, set to an exhilarating soundtrack. But this snowboarding doc soon develops into something far more fascinating and meaningful. Meaningful, that is, even if you’re not a fan of the sport or of any sport, for that matter. The Crash Reel is really about the nature of risk, of human frailty and how the support of a loving family can enable us to reach our full potential, whatever life throws our way.
Kevin Pearce and Shaun White are highly competitive World champions and arch rivals in the extreme sport of snow-boarding. We see them competing here for the Vancouver Olympics but when Pearce suffers a tragic accident, White goes on to take the Gold medal. The story then turns the spotlight on Pearce, following him in the aftermath and recovery process. Examining at close quarters his will to survive and sheer conviction that one day he will return to the slopes and beat Shaun White are extraordinary. But his medics and family fear that this may cost him his life.
Growing up with a close family in an upmarket part of Vermont, Kevin Pearce and his three brothers (one of them with Down’s Syndrome) had every possible advantage in life. But he’s a reckless individual who develops into a risk-taker whose will to win becomes paramount. In this climate of industry pressure and lack of regulations, extreme sports people will push themselves to the preternatural extremes, risking life, limb and family loyalty to meet the expecations of their public. Lucy Walker shows how ultimately greater awareness of our own boundaries can actually help us develop greater spiritual awareness and that evolvement of the mind rather than the body is the real key to human success. MT
THE CRASH REEL IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 27TH SEPTEMBER 2013 AT THE CURZON SOHO AND THE ICA LONDON
Director: Malgoska Szumowska Writers: Malgoska Szumowska and Michal Englert
Cast: Andrzej Chyra, Mateusz Kosciukieiwcz, Lukasz Simlat, Maja Ostaszewska
Malgoska Szumowska’s second outing after the acclaimed Elles centres onAdam, a celibate Catholic priest who works with delinquent teenagers in a village in rural Poland.
As Adam, Andrzej Chyra is well cast and generates a profound benevolence and warmth that’s the nearest feeling to true goodness that one can possibly imagine. He embodies unselfishness, empathy and kindness but also commands respect and authority in a really moving performance. Michal Englert’s soft summery visuals heavily mingled with striking imagery from Christ’s Passion render the hazy bucolic setting in a powerful yet soothing way as Adam’s calming presence gradually deepens into something more heavy and unsettling.
Despite sharing a resonating chemistry with one of the inmates Lukasz, a young simple country lad, Adam rejects his advances and also those of Ewa a blonde alcoholic, stating that he’s already spoken for (by Jesus). But he also experiences moments of despair, repression and lonliness in this moving portrait of confused emotions and abstinence and the journey towards self-discovery and self-acceptance.
With its atmospheric soundtrack this is an absorbing and emotional drama that echoes Brokeback Mountain in its intense and delicate subject-matter. MT
IN THE NAME OF is on general release from 27TH September 2013 AT THE CURZON SOHO AND THE ODEON PANTON STREET.
IN THE NAME OF WON THE TEDDY AWARD AT BERLINALE IN 2013
Cast: Mary Margaret O’Hara, Bobby Sommer, Ela Piplits
107min Documentary/Drama
After a misspent youth travelling with rock bands, Johann (played by a quaintly appealing Bobby Sommer) has come to spend his days in the quiet splendour of the Bruegel rooms. Every picture tells a story and he is particularly captivated by the sumptuous detail of 16th century life, depicted in all its graphic gore and glory until one day the lost and diffident figure of Anne appears on the scene. Played by Canadian singer Mary Margaret O’Hara, a stranger to the city, she has come to comfort a dying relative.
Exploring the city together, Johann acts a guide as the two introverts grow close in a tentative and respectful meeting of minds in everyday surroundings. Against the bleak and wintery Viennese backdrop, the friendship is kindled by the warmth of human kindness and decency as Johann even accompanies Anne on visits to the nearby medical centre. Gem Cohen juxtaposes the complex splendour of baroque art against the rank and random simplicity of everyday objects allowing the viewer to contemplate and meditate on the wonder of art treasures, the nature of friendship and loss, the kindness of strangers and random acts of human generosity in this world of lost and lonely souls.
Museum Hours was a film I nearly didn’t see, tucked away in the industry screenings at the London Film Festival last year. Please don’t let it pass you by. MT
Shane Caruth is a director of sci-fi films and Upstream Color is his second feature. He produces, lenses, scores (highly originally) and also acts here as Jeff, a man whose loose connection to a woman called Kris (Amy Seimetz) arises after they are both seemingly the victims of a radical medical experiment.
Technically brilliant and boldly photographed, Upstream Color follows an arcane narrative that has you back-footed and bewildered for most of its 96 minutes. It’s also a challenging and hypnotic piece of experimental filmmaking, the like of which you probably won’t experience again in 2013.
Many may even call it a love story between two people so linked and drawn together by a damaging past that they are destined to spend the future together, eventually accepting one another through force of circumstance.
There’s also an animal testing element to the film, that’s less appealing, involving what appears to be a piglet whose reproduce organs are removed and replaced with those of Kris, so it appears to gestate a piglet derived from her own genetic material.
The story sounds bizarre with the telling in a vacuum without the benefit of its dazzlingly edited images but, suffice to say, this is a film to experience and one which you will either embrace or reject due to its unorthodox nature.
Loosely, Kris finds herself the unwitting subject of a strange medical experiment at the hands of a thief (Thiago Martins) and is forced to eat a strange bug which then grows inside her and robs her of her mind. After losing all her savings, she then undergoes further intervention involving a pig owned by ‘the man’ (Andrew Sensenig). Eventually she meets Caruth, who appears to be connected to her through experiencing a similar trauma in the past. They share a visceral relationship that makes no sense to the outsider, communicating in a disconnected dialogue but remain bonded closely for the remainder of the film, possibly through a human need to make order out of chaos and to relate to each other in what is otherwise a lonely and isolating situation.
The leads gives strong performances expressing the deep trauma they have gone through but this is not in any way an emotionally affecting film nor does it make a strong dramatic impact. The only feeling it illicits is one of perplexity. Upstream Color actually makes haunting, soulless and rather uncomfortable viewing despite its potent visual appeal and imposing metallic score. It is nevertheless required viewing. MT
UPSTREAM COLOR IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 28TH AUGUST 2013
A refreshingly funny rites of passage tale and first feature for Jordan Vogt-Roberts who takes a simple teenage male-bonding outing in the woods and gives it universal appeal. Anyone can remember a time when parents seemed totally ‘uncool’ and the desire to break free from their clutches was the most natural and grown-up thing to do, especially if it involved leaving home for a camping expedition in a hidden location with a group of friends, in a bid to exert some authority and independence.
Here the friends are a motley threesome and well-played by: Joe (Nick Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso) joined by hanger-on and all-round weirdo Biaggio (Moises Arias). What starts as a breezy summer experience soons turns wintry as the dynamic shifts dramatically between the trio due to a unexpected turn of events. Cracks starts appear not only in their relationship but also in the cabin they excitedly build together.
Chris Galletta’s hilarious script and Vogt-Roberts’ skillful direction make this feelgood summer outing, shot through with touches of angst, a winner for all audiences. MT
Director James Russell’s passion for music and multi-camera flair is showcased here in this close-up and personal experience of Morrissey performing live in the confines of the Hollywood High School arena in March 2013. Serving it up straight and simple, topped and tailed with idolatrous vox-pops from the visiting fans, James Russell does not try to put his own creative spin on the proceedings or to compete with the iconic star. This is Morrissey’s show marking 25 years of a solo career for the enigmatic English singer and lyricist, who has risen considerably in stature since the days of The Smiths when he rose to fame in 1984 with the words: “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”.
Thirty years later at this intimate gathering he gives the impression of still being pretty miserable. But he’s made his fans extremely happy and they all tell him so in mass hysteria grabbing the microphone when he asks in between songs “Do you want to talk?”. He certainly knows how to connect with his audience without giving away anything of himself, retaining an aura of alluring disdain that occasionally belies the revealingly emotional but candid content of his lyrics, delivered in a strong voice, mournful and mostly off-key.
Running through a range of new material and classics from “Alma Matters”, “Let Me Kiss You”, “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore”, “Please let me get what I want” and “The Boy With the Thorn in His Side”, Morrissey has an impressive and powerful animal physicality about him. Moving about the stage with relaxed ease, his blue eyes, broad shoulders and beautifully delicate hands sporting yellow-varnished nails, He’s a man in control of his own destiny but he has no illusions about where that may be.
The camera loves him but he’s oblivious to the filming process focussing firmly on his musical performance and his fans and treating them to regular handouts of his sweat-drenched designer shirts and handshakes as he bends forward into the crowd with impressive athleticism. By the end, fans are climbing onto the stage to embrace him before being carried away by security guards. Mystique, charisma, the ability to connect on a deep level: whatever it is, Morrissey has it in spades and James Russell’s film has captured it for posterity. It’s a wonderful thing. MT
MORRISSEY 25: LIVE IS A ONE-OFF EVENT ON 24TH AUGUST 2013 AT CURZON, VUE AND ODEON CINEMAS.
Dir: René Clément | Cast: Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet, Marie Leforêt, Erno Crisa | 118mins | France, Thriller
Writer: Patricia Highsmith
When it comes to style, no one does it better than the French and Italians. PLEIN SOLEIL, René Clément’s adaptation of ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, perfectly epitomises the laid-back sixties summer of a group of friends holidaying on the Italian riviera and slipping easily from French to Italian to English.
While retaining the sinister edginess of Highsmith’s novel, Clément floods the screen with a sunny Mediterranean vibe, skilfully directing his largely debut cast to produce a thriller embued with the insouciant glamour of the era and superbly performed by these three beautiful young French actors.
Alain Delon stars as a rather feline Ripley, moving sinuously across the screen-his physique honed from an early career as a paratrooper in the Marines, he’s a French version of Dirk Bogarde (or American, James Dean) both in style and background and, like Bogarde, fell into acting in the late fifties after a series of odd jobs, eventually becoming a star in Plein Soleil. Delon went on to find international success in Visconti’s ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (1960), he came to represent the ideal young male of the Nouvelle Vague: energetic, good-looking and rakish. He was perfect for the role of Ripley; a charming sociopath with murderous intent.
Marie Laforêt plays Marge Duval, in a sultry turn that exudes nonchalent sex appeal and Maurice Ronet, who had already made his name in LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD, is another genius piece of casting as her suave boyfriend Philippe Greenleaf.
The ending is a shocking departure from that of the original novel and displeased Highsmith on the grounds of its “indictment of public morality”. But although the more recent Anthony Minghella version starring Matt Damon clings more faithfully to her storyline, this by far exceeds the latter in style and execution and was to set the tone for the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut to usher in the French New Wave. MT
Heading up to Finland this summer? Then why not visit Espoo, just west of Helsinki. Apart from being the home of Nokia and EMMA (Espoo Museum of Modern Art), it also hosts the ESPOO CINÉ FILM FESTIVAL which takes place from 16th – 28th August 2013.
Premièring this year, there are number of the coming season’s FINNISH films: the long-awaited Princess of Egypt, (Silmäterä) the debut feature directed by Jan Forsström, one of Finland’s foremost young screenwriters today. Taru Mäkelä makes a return to fiction features with the satiric comedy August Fools (Mieletön elokuu), starring Laura Birn and Kati Outinen in a completely original role. Ulrika Bengts presents her latest outing, The Disciple (Lärjungen), a powerful drama about the difficult choices made by a lighthouse keeper’s apprentice in the summer of 1939.
The parade of new Finnish films is rounded off by a German-Argentinian-Finnish co-production Midsommer Night Tango (Mittsommernachtstango), directed by the German filmmaker Viviane Blumenschein which sees three Argentinian tango musicians travel to the land of the midnight sun to investigate the claim made by Aki Kaurismäki that tango music was actually born in Finland.
Espoo Ciné in co-operation with Helsinki Festival will also be screening a live film Kiss & Cry by Belgian film director Jaco Van Dormael and choreographer Michele-Anne De Mey.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gna_V9qgppk
The festival kicks off with Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra and the closing film this year will be Baltasar Kormákur’s Icelandic drama, The Deep, based on a true story of survival surrounding a fishing disaster. The line-up includes Woody Allen’s latest: Blue Jasmine starring Kate Blanchett and Alex Baldwin. Further highlights of the festival: The Best Offer starring Geoffrey Rush, Dormant Beauty with Isabelle Huppert and this year’s Golden Bear winner from the Berlinale Child’s Pose by Calin Peter Netzer.
ESPOO FILM FESTIVAL 16-28 August 2013 www.espoocine.fi
Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhride, Hilary O’Shaughnessy, Andrew Bennett, Marie Coyne,
Silence is golden. But a growing number of us in this fast-moving, computer-driven, noise-laden world increasingly value the stillness it brings. Sit in total tranquillity away from it all and notice the calming affect on the psyche and the deep inner calm and healing that come from silence.
Irish director Pat Collins has done just that in this part-documentary, part-drama that has professional sound recordist, Eoghan, attempting to discover a totally noise-free environment in the environs of rural Berlin. Taking his recording equipment into the surrounding forest, he hears the distant sound of rock-breakers at work puncturing the natural ambience with a dull and continuous thud. So, after a final meeting with his girlfriend, significantly drowned-out by a passing train, he returns to his native Ireland and sets off into the depth of the countryside on Bullock Island off the coast of Donegal hoping to find an environment away from man-made sound.
Richard Kendrick’s softly atmospheric visuals accompany this voyage of discovery to find peace and desolation, interweaved with footage from the past. As Eoghan finds peace, a strand of childhood memories gradually start to surface, fleshing out the enigmatic narrative with fleeting but tangible reference to events that occurred in these remote, enchanted islands set in the emerald sea. MT
SILENCE IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 9TH AUGUST 2013 AT CURZON RENOIR, ICA CINEMA, THE BARBICAN CINEMA AND BFI SOUTHBANK.
Jonathan Holiff’s difficult childhood with his absent father Saul permeates this rather cryptic, meandering but heartfelt documentary on the man who dedicated his whole life to creating and managing the musical icon that was Johnny Cash.
After Saul’s suicide in 2005, Jonathan discovers a cache of letters, photos and audio diaries in the family home that unlock undiscovered memoirs from the legendary singer’s long career, helping him to understand and bring closure to his troubled relationship with his own father.
Fascinating if you are a fan; this documentary will also engage those will difficult or unresolved parental issues. MT
After football, Brazil’s second biggest export is music. Gilberto Gil’s eclectic style is showcased here in this colourful and entertaining documentary examining his life as an internationally revered bossa nova expert and musical ambassador who returned to the country to serve as Minister of Culture after a spell in exile as a political prisoner.
Now 71 but still radiating a gentle laid-back charm and modesty, we follow Gil, guitar in hand, on a musical journey of discovery from his native roots to other communities, examining the influence that his musical talent and charity work has and continues to have on the lives of ordinary people.
From the streets of Soweto to the shores of the Amazon and sweeping through Austrialian palm-fringed beaches the colour of icing sugar, this documentary serves as a calling card to the universal power of music and its ability to unite across cultures. MT
VIRAMUNDO IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 26TH JULY 2013 AT THE BARBICAN, LONDON EC2
Student Services joins the recent slew of dramas surrounding student prostitution along with François Ozon’s Jeune et Jolie and Malgorzata Szumowska’s Elles.
Probably the least glamorous and certainly the most sexually graphic of the three, it is also the most disturbingly real thanks to a convincing turn from Belgian actress Déborah François (Populaire) who plays 19-year-old Laura.
Dating fellow student Manu (Benjamin Siksou) but desperately strapped for cash, she hooks up with an online site offering cash for bedroom services, and soon she’s earning good money from a variety of pervy men.
Although Student Services is slightly underwritten in character development, what makes it ultimately so appealing is the fabulous chemistry François develops with one of the punters, Mathieu Demy (as Benjamin) who gives a performance of considerable depth and allure as the two fall in love.
Student Services reveals the unexpected side of student prostitution and the fragility and vulnerability of teenage prostitutes is subtlely evoked here by François as she gradually becomes submerged in a low-life existence so distant from the one she hoped for. With an atmospheric soundtrack from artists The Walkmen and Soap&Skin, Student Services is a moving and engaging drama.
The Director Emmanuelle Bercot originally came to fame when her directorial debut Clément, in which she also starred, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2001. Her most recent film Elle S’En Va, starring Cathérine Deneuve premiered at Berlin 2013. MT
STUDENT SERVICES IS OUT ON DVD ON THE 8TH JULY 2013 COURTESY OF AXIOM FILMS complete with interviews and casting sessions.
In this compelling account of how a vulnerable young woman becomes the porn star Linda Lovelace, there are a some dynamite performances. Amanda Seyfried takes centre stage as the delicately elfin Linda with her mop of tousled curls. The product of a dysfunctional home-life that distances her from parents (Sharon Stone is suberb as her buttoned-up, embittered mother), she is thrown into the arms of Peter Sarsgaard’s disarmingly sexy but sleazy hustler and manager, Chuck Traynor. Taking her to New York as his wife, he then peddles her legendary ‘bedroom skills’ to porn directors Gerard Damiano (Hank Azaria and Butchie Peraino (Bobby Carnevale) to create the phenomenon Deep Throat (1972): a money-spinning film that created a career for both of them and launched the era of ‘Porno Chic’, bringing pornography into mainstream popular culture.
Through a clever narrative structure, the truth behind the porn legend is gradually revealed in the second half of the film where the tone shifts from light-hearted comedy to disturbing and moving drama. We discover the extent of the abuse that Linda suffered to achieve this financial dream for all those involved (accept herself) and how she eventually manages to move on with courage and dignity. A really entertaining piece of filmmaking that really captures the spirit of the seventies made all the more memorable by its upbeat score featuring hits from T.S.O.P. and George McCrae’s ‘Rock Your Baby’ (1974). MT
LOVELACE IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM 19TH JULY 2013
Script: Dalton Trumbo, Ian Mclellan Hunter, John Dighton
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert, Margaret Rawlings, Harcourt Williams, Hartley Power
125mins Comedy Romance US
DIGITALLY RESTORED IN CELEBRATION OF ITS 60TH ANNIVERSARY
Stylish, poignant and perfectly performed by Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday is a Frank Capra-style fifties fable that delivers on many levels: as a coming of age story; an upstairs, downstairs romance; and moral tale of responsibility over recklessness set in an era when the media still had a sense of fair play and decorum.
Audrey Hepburn plays a British Princess called Ann in a perfectly-timed story that captured the imagination of the public due to a general fascination with the real life romance between Princess Margaret and non-royal Peter Townsend. The idea of a ‘Royal’ slipping away for a day of fun and frolics during an official tour is the stuff of fantasy and escapism but works here in a fifties setting where security was far less tight than nowadays.
That a press hack would respect such a valuable scoop and be so utterly entranced is testament to the power of love and is a theme that gives Roman Holiday its enduring and universal appeal setting it as a sparkling jewel in the Hollywood firmament. Under the inspired direction of Wiliam Wyler, Gregory Peck emerges as cool as a cucumber with the relaxed demeanour and calm integrity of a real hero and gentleman to Audrey Hepburn’s naive but dignified Princess.
For her part, Audrey Hepburn is the epitome of poise in a role for which she won 1953 Best Actress Oscar. Delicate and elfin-like, she graces every frame with her elegant diction (quoting Shelley) and wearing outfits inspired by fifties “New Look” designers such as Dior and Jean-Louis Scherrer, who created soft feminine silhouettes, luxuriating in haute couture after the austerity of the war years. Costumier Edith Head had designed costumers for the Hitchcock films of the era Vertigo, Rear Window and worked up until the eighties with Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.
Frank Capra was originally optioned for the film and had hoped to cast Elizabeth Taylor and Cary Grant as the leads. But due to financial difficulties with his production company, Liberty Films, and problems working with the blacklisted Oscar-winning legendary screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (a victim of McCarthyism), he was forced to sell it to Paramount. So William Wyler eventually came on board to work his magic, fresh from directing The Heiress (1949) with Monty Clift and Elizabeth Taylor.
The project was a natural fit for Wyler and allowed him to turn his talents back to light romantic comedy, his first since The Good Fairy (1935) and also to benefit from tax concessions: Roman Holiday was the first American film made entirely abroad. MT
ROMAN HOLIDAY IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM JULY 19TH 2013
A hit at Venice 2012, Wadjda is a jewel in the crown of contemporary Middle Eastern film. The first full-length feature to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, it’s also directed by a woman. Despite the wealth of that country, one can only imagine how difficult it would be to raise the finance for such a venture and it was. So the funds came from Europe and the feature was backed by the Sundance Institute.
There’s nothing worthy about Wadjda. She’s a fiercely independent ten-year-old, as bright as a button and way ahead of her time. Living with her mother in a dusty suburb of Riyadh, she goes to school but sees her studies as a means to an end: to win the school prize so she can buy a bike and race the boys instead of taking the taxi provided by her father. He visits occasionally but has another ‘wife-in-waiting’, hoping that this one will provide him with the prize of a son. But Wadjda would rather be making wristbands and recording music discs and selling them for a profit than waiting to be married off to a local man.
Al Mansour’s clever script reflects every subtle nuance of Muslim society and Waad Mohammed’s charismatic turn as Wadjda is full of insight, wit and cheekiness marking her out to be a talent in the making. Supported by a cast of newcomers and seasoned actors: her onscreen mother Reem Abdullah and Ahd as headmistress Ms Hussa give performances of considerable allure. Lutz Reitemeier’s cinematography brings clarity and precision to the visuals.
The story is set against the backdrop of a society where women are the isolated chattels of men and merely exist to provide offspring. Woman are highly competitive with each other, gossiping and policing the sisterhood’s moral and r
eligious probity with an eagle eye and a sharp tongue. And whereas in Western society women compete in a machiavellian way for desirable males, in Saudi society this competition is right out there in the open and their only raison d’être in life.
Wadjda is a touching and playful portrait of a spunky little girl but more than that it’s a fascinating insight into a society with medieval values in the 21st century, and not all are to be dismissed as outdated. But even after all the dust has settled on its novelty value, this is a drama to be reckoned with on the international arthouse scene. MT
WADJDA is on general release from 19th July 2013. Haifaa Al Mansour will head the Dino De Laurentis Jury at VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2013
NOW OUT ON DVD/BLU-RAY FROM 8TH JULY 2013 including INTERVIEWS WITH CAST AND CREW
Director: Rufus Norris Script: Mark O’Rowe Novel: Daniel Clay,
Prod: Dixie Linder
90mins Drama UK
Cast: Tim Roth, Roy Kinnear, Cillian Murphy, Zana Marjanovic, Bill Milner, Robert Emms, Clare Burt, Denis Lawson.
“Thoughtlessness and unnecessary cruelty always catch my mind” Daniel Clay, author, Broken
Broken is a contemporary tale of class warfare set in North London. But is it only a London story?. Once you scratch beneath the surface of our ‘Great Britain’ with its recent Olympic success and ‘caring’ society, repercussions of the 2011 riots and social turmoil seep through. And it’s from this stark reality that Broken emerges.
In the shires and suburbs you’ll come up against the characters of this smart debut from theatre director Rufus Norris. It has Mark O’Rowe’s sparkling script adapted from the original novel and presents the lives of three neighbouring families seen through the eyes of a diabetic 11 year-old called Skunk. She’s quite an old-fashioned little girl and played endearingly here by Eloise Laurence. With an upbeat soundtrack and touches of wit that lift it out of its gloomy premise, Broken kicks around themes of single parenting, the class system, teenage pregnancy, care in the community and bullying.
Skunk and her brother Stephen are the products of a middle class family. Their dad Archie is a local family solicitor and Kasia (Zana Marjanovic) is their Polish nanny. Although Norris had originally intended Roth for another character, once Tim read the script he was determined to play Archie and has really made the part his own. As Archie, he represents the positive attributes of decent citizen, ideal parent and loving partner all rolled into one, and does so sensitively and with humanity.
Neighbours Mr and Mrs Oswald are sadly in denial of their mentally disturbed son Rick (Robert Emms). The Buckleys also inhabit the J B Priestley-esque cup-de-sac. As Mr Buckley, Rory Kinnear gives a perfectly pitched performance as a foul-mouthed but misunderstood father of three horrible girls, one of whom accuses Rick of rape. In a dynamite opening sequence Shunk witnesses Mr Buckley giving Rick a thorough drubbing and this violence seems to take away her childhood innocence setting the scene for a story that’s authentic and newsworthy.
Cillian Murphy is convincing in an amusing side plot as Skunk’s teacher and Kasia’s sometime boyfriend. But Skunk’s budding love interest although cute, doesn’t quite ring true..
Despite tonal differences which shift from social realism to raging melodrama by the end, Broken is a gripping piece of social satire not be missed. Ingenious, unexpected and absolutely on the button of Britain today. MT
When done right, music and film will forever make perfect bedfellows. Concerning Brazil, 1967-1969, but a music documentary about far more than just another band or style, here the music was a vehicle for something much bigger.
‘Tropicália’ was the name attributed to a Liberalist artistic movement that came into being in 1967, in reaction to the dictatorship that came into force in 1964. Encompassing not only music but poetry theatre and film, it was a movement created by the young, fusing together traditional Folk with Rock and Roll, Pop, foreign influences and the avant-garde. It hit the choked populace of martial Brazil like a blast of oxygen. It spoke of freedom; freedom of thought and freedom of expression which to a Brazilian in the late Sixties was either stunningly, bravely, liberatingly beautiful, or a ridiculously dangerous arrestable offence.
Without knowing a great deal of the circumstances prevailing in Brazil at the time, either politically or indeed, musically, some viewers may not grasp the full import of what it is they are watching. It’s difficult in this day and age to comprehend the notion of a song capable of changing the course of history, or influencing an entire country. What Rodriguez managed in total ignorance in Apartheid South Africa, Caetano et al did with full cognizance in Brazil.
This film chooses to concentrate more on the music aspect of the movement, rather than the theatre and poetry, although there is some film. It follows the stories of the main protagonists of the music and how their influence spread extraordinarily quickly and widely through the nascent medium of television; it’s wonderful that so much original footage, both tape and film, still exists of the singers back when it was all going down.
Filmmaker Machado has also gone to great lengths to make what few grainy black and white still photographs survive of some of the events of the time interesting using various tricks, but this is more than compensated for by the amazing music from the likes of Os Mutantes and Caetano Veloso.
Tropicália explores what the movement was and what the music signified to the people of Brazil, culminating in an album of the films title, employing all the singers and songwriters of the day creating what was effectively, a political manifesto in song. How Rock n Roll is that? Dynamite.
TROPICALIA IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 5TH JULY AT CURZON SOHO PLUS PANEL DISCUSSION AND RICH MIX ON SUNDAY, 7TH JULY 2013
Cast: David Gulpilil, Cameron Wallaby, Joseph Pedley, Rohanna Angus, Dean Daley-Jones
Australia 2012; 90 min English Genre: Drama
Catriona McKenzie’s feature debut, Satellite Boy, is a fine addition to the canon of Australian films and, like so many, showcases the enduringly magnetic presence of David Gulpilil. She has made several short films and indeed, directed serial television in Australia prior to this but took a while before deciding to make her feature debut.
Gulpilil came to prominence in Nic Roeg’s 1970 classic Walkabout and here, 42 years later, he passes the baton in another coming of age story, Aboriginal style. 12-year-old Cameron Wallaby was a boy playing in the road before this, his acting inauguration, and brings with him a naturalism and a very real sense of where Aborigines are now in their relation to ‘civilisation’.
Satellite Boy is a sensitively drawn depiction of something that could so easily have tipped over into mawkish or derivative fodder. The two young leads are engaging and their motivations and actions certainly believable in this rite of passage, à la Rob Reiner’s excellent 1986 Stand by Me. Where it differs though and, to the writer/director’s credit, travels in a different direction, is that her film is not only about the brotherhood of boyhood friendship, but about real traditions, about the land and our immutable connection to it and the danger to us of losing sight of that.
Catriona describes the film as a love letter to her father, now passed away; an effort to explain that she now understands his process and what it was he was wishing to pass onto her, too young as she was to grasp it at the time. I would say she succeeded. AT
SATELLITE BOY IS SCREENING AT THE BARBICAN CENTRE FROM 5TH JULY 2013
When businessman Richard Williams bought a manual on teaching tennis there was no doubt in his mind. His aim was to hothouse his little daughters to success on the international tennis circuit.
Today Venus and Serena Williams are the first African Americans to have won the World Finals Championships at Wimbledon. Maiken Baird and Michelle Major’s cinéma vérité piece follows the pair through the 2011 tennis season. Alex Gibney, the director of MeaMaxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God has also backed the project which combines early childhood footage of the girls, interviews with family and tennis luminaries such as John ‘You Cannot Be Serious’ McEnroe, together with top moments from the world of tennis.
The Williams sisters share a similar background to that of Michael Jackson: a controlling, even draconian father figure; a gruelling training lifestyle that precludes any childhood pleasure and, above all, a commitment to God. A self-made man with thriving business interests, Mr Williams was determined that Venus and her younger sister, Serena, would both follow his path to success. But they took things one step further, overcoming countless setbacks along the way due to their unique bond with each other.
Fascinating and fact-filled; Venus and Serena is an absorbing watch, catching the superhuman quality of the girls with their amazonian physiques (and rock-hard thighs). Focusing on their positivity and total lack of self-doubt, it charts their glittering successes and, what is more surprising, their total respect for their father. At one point Serena calls him ‘Sir’, despite his philandering ways: Williams is on his second marriage. They also discover some astounding home truths about their large family and reveal to us the secrets of their own brand of success which now extends beyond the tennis courts.
Venus and Serena is a well put-together documentary. With moments of triumph and dark humour, it provides an absorbing account of this classic ‘rags to riches’ story and will appeal to sports fanatics and tennis lovers everywhere, particularly in the run-up to Wimbledon. MT.
Cast: Matahi, Matahi Hitu, Jules, Kong Ah, Anna Chevalier, Jean Jules
80min German Adventure Drama
[youtube id=”BmHQjE_YCGw” width=”600″ height=”350″]
The south sea Island paradise of Bora Bora is the setting for this picturesque lyrical love story of a Polynesian legend. F.W. Murnau invited leading documentarist Robert Flaherty (Man of Aran) to collaborate on an experiment featuring a cast of island natives (“and a few half-castes and Chinese”!!!). It won an Oscar for Best Cinematography thanks to the efforts of Floyd Crosby who delicately captures the exotic and untouched feel of this untainted territory in black and white. It turned out to be a labour of love for the director as well as those depicted in the film. In a weird twist of fate, F W Murnau was killed in a car accident before the film premiered having financed it himself and fallen out with Flaherty over script issues.
Bathed in sunshine under the sheltering palms, TABU plays like an exotic thirties travelogue with its lilting Hollywood soundtrack composed by Hugo Riesenfeld. A sultry native girl, Reri, (Chevalier) is declared ‘tabu’ and untouchable by her fellow tribespeople and promised to the local deity. But a pearl fisherman, Matahi, falls for her charms and they escape to a nearby French colony where they are forced to adapt to Western life with tragic consequences. ‘Tapu’ is a Polynesian word from which we get the English ‘Taboo”.
In 1994 The film was declared “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Scenes of nudity that had been previously banned by Paramount were reinstated in the DVD transfer which includes:
– Commentary with R Dixon Smith and Brad Stevens;
– 15-minute Germany documentary about TABU by Luciano Berriatua;
– Newly presented outtakes from the original shoot;
– An interview with Floyd Crosby;
The original story treatments written by Murnau and Flaherty for TABU
RELEASED ON DVD AND BLU-RAY FROM 24TH JUNE 2013 AT MASTERS OF CINEMA
Shameless is director Filip Marczewski’s feature debut and quite a debut it is too.
Mateusz Kosciukiewicz plays Tadek, an 18 year old holding an unhealthy infatuation with his beautiful and sexually active older sister Anka. She however, has the hots for Andrzej an ambitious would-be neo-Nazi politician.
Into this already complicated mix comes Irmina, a feisty young gypsy who takes one look at Tadek and knows he is destined to be hers, if she can but break the ties that bind…
Of the many things that are refreshing about European films, one is sex. The Polish Film Festival is already yielding more than one title with not only a preoccupation with the subject but also a fascinated portrayal. No prudish, suppressed toothless American ideology here, but all the mess, the complexity, the darkness and the desperation spread out for all to feel.
This isn’t to say that Shameless is at all pornographic or gratuitous. It isn’t. In fact the sex is muted in comparison to some other films in the festival, but the adult way in which the topic is tackled is a breath of fresh air in comparison to the spotty teenage boys that rule Hollywood shenanigans.
Mateusz Kosciukiewicz is a real find and I’m sure a career beckons for his understated handsome charm coupled with juvenile Jagger-esque looks. The two women, Prochniak and Grochowska are also compelling and the supporting cast are excellent, adding a weight and authenticity to the piece.
Award-winning writer Grzegorz Loszewski has come up through television writing, but it is pleasing to see that the transition to film has not been at all difficult or lumpy. He has written a well-tuned, mature and balanced piece; a meditation on love, need and desire, with Romeo & Juliet overtones and that time worn but no less valid sentiment that you always want what you can’t have… tonally, it’s spot on.
Another strong offering from the Kinoteka then, leaving me hungry for more from this hugely exciting and so far captivating festival. Seek it out. AT
Dir: Gabriel Axel | Cast: Stéphane Audran, Bodil Kjer, Birgitte Federspiel, Jarl Kulle, Bibi Andersson | Denmark Drama | 102mins
Based on Karen Blixen’s 1950 short story, originally set in Norway, but here transposed to 19th Century Jutland by Franco-Danish director Gabriel Axel, the project initially struggled to launch. For 14 years, Danish producers proved somewhat recalcitrant. Babette’s Feast finally received finance from the Danish Film Institute, a funding body actively encouraging independent productions. A remarkable tale in itself, when one considers the films enduring worldwide appeal, amply illustrated by wins including Cannes and BAFTA, topped off with a Best Foreign Film Oscar. But, notably, nothing in Denmark. Interesting.
Broadly then, a film about the relationship between spirituality and sensuality, translated here to the microcosm of a small, windswept coastal village, governed in totality by a stern Lutheran pastor and father to two beautiful women; the quintessence of stifled austerity.
Upon the original release, Axel was interviewed by Sight & Sound and, when quizzed upon the finer details of the film, he responded: “I was asked recently if I was a believer, if I thought the Church has a role. All I can say is that in Babette’s Feast, there’s a minister, but it’s not a film about religion. There’s a General, but it’s not a film about the army. There’s a cook, but it’s not a film about cooking. It’s a fairy tale and if you try to over explain it, you destroy it”.
It is so often evident, especially with period dramas, when it was made. A 1940s version of Sense and Sensibility is markedly different from one made in the 1970s, and all are watermarked indelibly with their decade; by the production and prevailing style of the day. But Axel’s austere, minimalist, piece, set in a time and a place where there was little to get excited about- even if you well went out and looked for it- has aged tremendously well; the human, nuanced performances timeless depictions of… well, humans through the Ages. The responses and reactions feel real. Nothing is forced by plot. It all just unfolds naturally and unhurriedly, but so lucidly. It’s basically the epitome of what you go to the movies for and now available on Bfiplayer from a new digital transfer. AT
Dir Joachim Trier | Wri: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt | Cast: Anders Danielsen Lie, Hans Olav Brenner, Ingrid Olava, Anders Borchgrevink, Andreas Braaten, Malin Crepin, Petter Width Kristiansen | Norway 2011 95mins Drama
August 31st; the day they empty the outdoor City pools, denoting the end of Summer. A variation on a theme of the 1931 novel Feu Follet by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, previously dramatized by one Louis Malle.
This is the second collaboration between filmmaker Trier and the sublime Anders Danielsen Lie, playing the lead in the story of a 34 year old man allowed out of rehab two weeks before he completes his course to go for a job interview, thereby helping facilitate his path back to normality.
Anders is a handsome, erudite, educated, middleclass man who by succumbing to addiction, lost five years of his life to drugs. His day out allows him to consider his life, revisit fractured friendships and wander the vibrant streets of sunny Oslo with new eyes.
Oslo is a quiet, powerful and profound meditation on what it means not just to be an addict, but upon the burden of adulthood and the facing of one’s own mortality. The disparity between ones hopes and dreams, one’s ignorant optimism as a child and the burgeoning reality of existing in the modern Western world.
It’s for this reason that the film elevates itself beyond drama, to the level of a poem, an ode to life, through this very personal journey of just one. The stand out central performance by Anders a study in pain, frustration, anger and self-loathing never overplayed, nor false note hit.. AT
Cast: Saïd Taghmaoui, James Floyd, Fady Elsayed, Letitia Wright
111mins Drama UK
Sally El Hosaini won critical acclaim at Berlin, Sundance and London this year for her debut feature that has newcomer Fady Elsayed in a cracking turn as Mo, a teenager growing up in a traditional Arabic household.
Beyond the front door of the family’s modest London flat is a completely different world: the streets of Hackney. The impressionable Mo idolizes his handsome and charismatic older brother Rashid (James Floyd) and wants to follow in his footsteps. However, Rashid wants a different life for his younger brother and will do whatever it takes to send him to college. Desperate to be seen as cool, Mo takes a job that triggers a fateful turn of events and forces both brothers to confront their inner demons.
David Raedeker’s cinematography and Sally El Hosaini’s sensitive direction brings a fresh and poetic feel to this sink estate story of two young men on the crossroads to criminality who find redemption through their brotherly love for one another. Saïd Taghmaoul adds a touch of class to the proceedings as an urbane Franco Egyptian photographer who plays the pivotal role that lifts the story above familiar territory without sacrificing its believability; reinforced by a script reflecting street patois and jargon. The superb production values and subtle performances particularly from James Floyd and Letitia Wright as his girlfriend Vanessa, make this a distinctive and memorable drama marking El Hosaini out as a striking new talent. MT
Dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev | Cast: Nadezhda Markina, Andrey Smimov, Elena Lyadova, Alexey Rozin | 109′ Russia | Russian with subtitles
The mystery is…why has it taken so long for this to be released in the UK? Elena won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section in 2011. With a magnificent central performance and excellent cinematography this somewhat slow film holds the attention of its audience from start to finish.
Elena (Nadezhda Markina) is married to her former patient Vladimir (Andrey Smimov) who she met 10 years previously. He is extremely wealthy and the couple, who are in their sixties, live together in harmony in his well-equipped Moscow apartment. Although they do not share a bedroom, he is still keen to invite her to bed after breakfast before he makes his way to the gym in his own car. During the day they pursue different activities.
Both have children from their previous marriages. Elena’s son, Sergey (Alexey Rozin) is lazy. He has no job and sits around at home with his wife, Tanya, and their children. His teenage son runs with a gang, but also enjoys sitting around at home playing videogames. Elena travels by bus to her son’s dilapidated flat, taking him food and money. Sergey keeps asking his mother to get money from her husband in order to pay his son’s University fees. The lad wants to go to College not because he is so keen to study, but to avoid military service. Vladimir has become estranged from his only daughter, Katerina. While not an easy man, he seems genuinely keen on Elena. He considers her son a scrounger, who does nothing to support his own family. In turn Elena believes Vladimir’s daughter has been given everything she needs, but shows no affection towards her father. When Vladimir suffers a heart attack, Elena faces a difficult decision regarding her own future and that of her son.
Everything is understated in the film, helped by the cinematography ((Michail Krichman), who manages to reveal the luxurious world Elena inhabits contrasting with the run-down block of flats where her son lives. Writer director, Andrey Zvyagintsev has complete command of the film from the casting of a look-alike son and father to the atmospheric slow, almost lyrical depiction of Elena’s emotions as she looks at herself in the mirror. Above all his choice of actors is absolutely right and the uptight Vladimir and useless Sergey are portrayed with consummate skill by Andrey Smirnov and Alexey Rozin respectively. Elena Lyadova’s interpretation of the egotistical Katerina is spot-on and the development of a kind of love between her and her father in hospital is handled with sensitivity. Nadezhda Markina gives us a luminous portrait of the plain Russian woman, Elena. Her conflicts become apparent without over dramatisation. Carlie Newman.
Directors: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi | Cast: Emad Burnat and family, the village of Bil’in and Nil’in, the soldiers and residents of Israel and occupied territories | 90 mins Doc Palestine, Israel, France
In 2005, Emad Burnat, Palestinian resident of the town of Bil’in, bought a camera to document the birth of his fourth son Gibreel. Just as he did so the Israeli army moved in and took his villagers land, so he spontaneously chose to document what happened, politically, geographically, but also the impact to his villagers and the next generation growing up with the conflict.
Five Broken Cameras swept up festival awards across the world, from Sundance to Sheffield, Durban to Jerusalem. It is a film that could not have been made by anyone other than a local, living through it as it happened. The footage is amazing. There is no reconstruction, nothing staged. It is completely different to footage one might witness on the news or a news of the self-same struggle, where M16 sub-machine guns, Humvees and tear gas come up against peaceful demonstrations, orchestrated with courage, heart and even humour.
Burnat, armed with nothing more than his camera and a deluded sense that it gives him immunity from the injustice and carnage around him, continues to film in ever escalating, ever more difficult circumstances. This documentary evolved of it’s own accord, as Burnat began to think only in hindsight of the images that he had; the story that lay in the footage he had gained and at such cost.
This is an astonishing and humbling film throwing into sharp relief the everyday fortitude of a people connected for thousands of years to the land where they live in occupying Israel. There is a sense of disbelief that this can actually be happening and is allowed to continue unabated by the watching world. One cannot help but be moved by these two extraordinary, intertwined stories; that of a man trying to do the right thing under extreme provocation and with such a love for humanity in an environment devoid of so much with beside a fence where antagonism is an everyday occurrence, and death a daily possibility. If you get a chance, see it. AT
Producers: Michel Franco, Marco Polo Constandse, Elias Menasse, Fernando Rovzar
Cast: Tessa Ia, Tamara Yazbek, Hernan Mendoza, Gonzalo Vega Sisto, Francisco Rueda, Paloma Cervantes, Juan Carlos Berruecos, Diego Canale
Mexico/France 99mins Drama
Winner in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes this year, Franco’s second feature film is a slow burner, but certainly packs a punch. Tackling similar themes to his first feature, Daniel And Ana, although very different, Franco has an unflinching and economical methodology of storytelling, which goes on to add great weight and authenticity to his films.
The central performances from Tessa Ia and Hernan Mendoza are excellent. There is a slow build up throughout the film where you may be left guessing as to what exactly the film is about; I hope you manage to dodge any reviews that give away too much of the plot. Make no mistake, this is a dark tale concerning the less attractive side of human nature, but it is delivered with such economy, truth and commitment from cast and creative alike, that it’s easy to understand why it beat off the competition at Cannes.
There is something reminiscent of Michael Haneke in the manner of Franco’s storytelling. An austerity and an attrition, which is definitely attractive to an arthouse audience tired of Hollywood wool and blurred edges. It is one of those films that is incredibly difficult and yet increasingly compelling to watch.
The characters are very finely considered and depicted with great confidence by both filmmaker and cast. The ensemble work is impeccable throughout and I believe this is some auteur at work. Nit-pickers may point to a stretching of belief that the story would unfold quite as it does, as extremely as it does, but I remain a believer. Worse stories have been thrown up in the news. Hopefully this film gets an airing beyond the festival circuit in this country. AT
In a remote part of the Bayou cut off by time and tide lives Hushpuppy a tiny Southern Belle..except her ‘big hair’ is a thatch of Afro curls and on her feet are dirty wellies. All cute and petulant, she clambers amongst the rubbish dumps and make-shift dwellings called the Bathtub, tending her garden of driftwood and her baby farmyard animals in a place where fantasy and reality seem to co-exist in a bubble.
You’re going to fall in love with her: she’s an adorable kid who doesn’t need to act; she just plays herself. her daddy Wink, a loose-limbed masculine dude who doesn’t seem to give a damn about the authorities or the tropical storms is well played by Dwight Henry. Theirs is a love hate relationship bound by blood ties and the memory of a mum who is deeply missed. The local community of lushes and lost souls is a strong and resilient one borne out of self-sufficiency: suffering but proud and resistant to chance threatened by the guys on the mainland who think they know better. Hushpuppy is played by local school girl Quvenzhane Wallis and her dad is Dwight Henry another non-actor. Based on a play by Lucy Alibar who wrote the screenplay with young director Benh Zeitlin this film is nothing short of magical. Gorgeous visuals and its imaginative setting also make a winner. It took the Sutherland prize at London zfilm Festival 2012. MT
Dir: Luis Prieto | Cast: Richard Coyle, Agyness Deyn, Zlatco Buric, Neil Maskell, Bronson Webb | UK Drama 87mins
Quite why Luis Prieto decided on this remake of the far superior original remains a mystery. Usually, it is either because the previous version was in another language and the story needs must be shared to a wider audience, as in The Departed or Matchstick Men or, it’s an oldie that someone in their wisdom feels can be improved upon, such as the forthcoming Carrie and recent Total Recall.
However, in all instances, there is a substantial boost to the budget to make it all worthwhile. However, in this instance, what was originally a low-budget Danish affair becomes a low-budget British one, to no discernable improvement.
Richard Coyle is perhaps best known, in the UK at least, for his broad comedy in the sitcom Coupling. However, here he turns on the masterfully brutal and with great aplomb. He is coupled this time with erstwhile top model, Agyness Deyn, who also acquits herself very well, although one suspects that she will be hard pressed to find many lead roles; her looks I fear, will do her few favours in this industry. There are some nice turns by Zlatco Buric and Neil Maskell, but also some very ill-judged ones too and the dialogue is oddly stilted in the opening scenes. The writer, Matthew Read is Producer on a prodigious quantity of TV drama, but has written very little and it shows in his adaptation of Nicolas Winding Refn’s original script.
The original 1996 Pusher, which had real verve, energy and menace, is this time directed by relative newcomer, Luis Prieto; Refn credited solely as Executive Producer on an oddity. As intimated, it isn’t quite the same story, there are several deviations as the end credits verify, but it still doesn’t make for a better film. My favourite shot of the original is missing, as is the very real inbuilt claustrophobia and Prieto makes a great many of what one can only assume are ‘homages’ to films like Taxi Driver, Trainspotting and Requiem For A Dream.
It’s all very well borrowing from the best, but one could at least disguise, subvert, or even add to those masters that have gone before and thus create the New. The storyline; of a man needing money to pay off bad men who might otherwise do mischief with his limbs/life/girlfriend if he doesn’t find cash, like, ‘yesterday’, is a very well-trodden one, so it really needed to have something exceptional done with it to make the pay off… pay off. It hasn’t (up)dated well. AT.
A documentary portrait of maverick and socialite Diana Vreeland (1903-89), who through her insight, sense of style and over-riding self-belief helped to influence the world of 20th century fashion and beauty during her 50-year at the helm of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. She “discovered” Twiggy and Lauren Bacall and hung out with the likes of Cole Porter and Cecil Beaton amongst other luminaries of the last century. Directed by her niece and brought to life with a dazzling array of archive material and interviews with her family, former colleagues and key figures such as David Bailey, it keeps its wry perspective throughout never losing sight of the fickle and ephemeral nature of the fashion world that is all about attitude, trend-forecasting and self-promotion. A fascinating film for fashionistas everywhere. MT.
Dir: Malik Bendjelloul | Starring: Rodriquez, Malik Bendjelloul | 87mins Music documentary UK/SWEDEN
Searching for Sugarman is the true story of little-known Mexican-American pop singer, Sexto Rodriguez, who sadly died on August 8th, 2023, aged 81.
Unfurling languorously, like the artist himself, this slow-burning and intriguing story from Malik Bendjelloul, tells how his music was likened to Bob Dylan and worked alongside some of Tamla Motown’s best known session musicians. His first album flopped when released in the early ’70s and he disappeared in a mystery suicide story. So what made Bendjelloul take this story further? Well, thousands of miles away in South Africa, Rodriquez’s sexually implicit lyrics had captured the imagination of two men living under the ultra repressive aparteid regime. Inflamed by curiosity, Stephen Segerman and his journalist friend Craig Bartholomew decided to track down the elusive troubadour whose salacious tracks were being corrupted by the censors further making him the stuff of legend. By the mid nineties Rodriquez had sold more records over there than Elvis. So Malik Bendjelloul set out to discover the real facts behind the white noise and find out what really happened to this elusive man.
SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN was awarded a BAFTA for Best Documentary 2013, a Dragon Award at GIFF 2013 for Best Documentary, The Special Jury and the Audience Award at SUNDANCE 2013 among many others. Now on PRIME | Sixto Rodriquez 1943-2023
‘Felt’, ‘Denim’ and ‘Go-Kart Mozart’ were British alternative rock bands in the 1980s and Lawrence was their charismatic frontman. On indie labels ‘Felt’ alone released ten albums and ten singles – one for each year of that decade, and it’s difficult not to be caught up in the optimism of this quirky biopic that charts Lawrence’s rise to fame; a fame that never quite happened in the way that he hoped it would. There’s little chance that his dreams of money, mainstream success and ‘never having to ride the tube’ will ever happen but this disappointment seems secondary to Lawrence’s sheer enjoyment of his music.
From the opening titles we are drawn to this rock star manqué with his wry lyrics and air of self-deprecation. Maverick, loner and trailblazer, he admits to putting money before friendship yet there is something undeniably appealing and gentle about Lawrence that makes him likeable just the same. For most of the film he wanders around looking dishevelled with his plastic bags and wistful take on life, and never taking himself too seriously is probably his greatest asset.
Musician turned filmmaker Paul Kelly captures his essence in this idiosyncratic biopic, one of a clutch of documentary London-focused features in a career that started in 2003 with Finisterre – a psychogeographical study about the capital’s effect on the musicians who live there, namely the band members of St Etienne; This is Tomorrow (2008) a tribute to the South Bank’s cultural centre; and Monty the Lamb, a short film about Hendon Football Club narrated by its mascot Monty.
Dir: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Fantasy Horror | 83 mins
Deep, dark and undeniably disturbing Carl Dreyer’s 1932 experimental feature based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘In A Glass Darkly’ was actually financed by the main actor, Baron Gunzberg.
As young traveller Allan Grey, he comes across an old castle in the village of Courtempierre and decides to stay there, entranced by a series of weird and inexplicable events that capture his imagination or is it his imagination?: A grim figure carrying a scythe, a ghastly landlady who appears at nightfall, shadowy figures flitting across walls, revolving sculls and a nightmare where he is buried alive. Events come to a head when the elderly squire of the village voices his fears for the safety of his young daughters and gives him a strange parcel to be opened after his impending death. According to local folklore, souls of the unscrupulous haunt the village as vampires, preying upon young people in their endless thirst for blood.
Dreyer evokes an eerie and supernatural beauty to all this as the camera sweeps gracefully across luminously-lit rooms and chiaroscuro passages in the ancient castle. Curiously disembodied shadows counterbalanced by a soundtrack of strange voices, primal screams and periods of unsettling silence add to the feeling of otherwordliness. To create the curious half-light, filming took place during the early hours of misty dawn with a lens black cloth.
The performances are really strong considering the only professional involved was a household servant. Sybille Schmitz as daughter Leone, gives a bloodcurdling series of expressions when she realises her vampire fate ranging from abject fear and misery through to madness and finally menace (see clip). Grey’s burial scene is also eerily evocative as he looks up through wild and staring eyes as the lid is screwed down on his coffin and a candle is lit on the small window above and he is carried through the streets looking up at the drifting clouds and lacy treescapes on the way to his macabre interment. This is a film that stays to haunt you a long time after the Gothic titles have rolled. MT
90th Anniversary Blu-ray release through www.mastersofcinema.com
Dir: Michael Hanneke | Christian Friedel, Ulrich Tukur, Burghart Klaussner, Germany, Drama 145min
Michael Hanneke’s won his first Palme D’Or at Cannes for this sombre cinematic study of social subversion in small-town Germany in the prelude to the First World War.
Hypnotic and carefully measured the drama tracks the life of a rural Protestant community many of whom are still dependent on the local Baron for their livelihoods.
As we meet the various villagers, the Doctor, the Priest – a series of random and mysterious accidents occur that lead us to realise that all is not as gemütlich as we first imagined in a community where the weak and powerless are constantly engaged in acts of petty rebellion or protest against their controlling elders.
This study of love and faith seen through the eyes of Julie, a French actress visiting Lisbon to shoot a film, is both a tribute to Portuguese cinema and an eulogy to the mist-laden Atlantic port.
Catherine Breillat’s latest film isn’t for everyone. Some may see this over-stylized and stagey costume drama of medieval misogyny as a poke in the eye for female supremacy in the boudoir. Others will find it about as exciting as an evening out with the man himself. Either way it’s certainly not the spine-chilling tale that springs to mind when Bluebeard is mentioned. You could even call it weird.
The story comes in two layers. The first features two little sisters and is set in an attic. The youngest and funniest one (Marilou Lopes-Benites) loves frightening the older by reading the story of Bluebeard with her own cheeky interpretations of marriage and love thrown in. This is actually very appealing. As she does so a series of set pieces filmed in 16-century garb plays out featuring Lola Creton as Marie-Christine, better known as Bluebeard’s last wife, or the one that got away and her recently bereaved mother and older sister. This strand is not dissimilar in setting to one of those medieval banquets with sixteen removes you may have once attended where your mother run you up an outfit in green chintz brocade, and a ‘town cryer’ kept saying Oye Oye and everyone looked slightly ridiculous.
Here Marie-Christine skilfully deals with the death of her father, impending family poverty and the realization that local bore and wife-killer Bluebeard might not be such a bad catch after all while she thinks about Plan B and saves the family from financial ruin.
The Crowhurst story has spawned various theatrical and literary adaptations, and even a chamber opera: The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst. Eric Colvin plays him in Simon Rumley’s upcoming low budget indie thriller Crowhurst which purportedly features the actual vessel that set sail in the endeavour.
Firth is brilliantly cast as Crowhurst – blending just the right amount of pathos and self-belief in his portrait of an unsatisfactory businessman of a rather nervous disposition who can’t take pressure and lacks personal conviction (possibly due to his mother dressing him as a much wanted girl until the age of 17). His marriage is clearly happy and Rachel Weisz plays his wife as a typically supportive English rose, stalwart in her affections and a brilliant mum but rather passive and naive in a commercial sense, as most women were in the those days.
