Films, films...
Sorry no book meme this week as I had to go round to my mother's to wait for some fish (don't ask). Have my promised films we saw at the London Film Festival list instead. As they are mostly quite obscure (can't afford the big gala film showings) this is probably only of interest to me so behind the cut they go.
I Can Quit Whenever I Want (Smetto Quando Voglio)
Funny and sweet Italian film with shades of Breaking Bad as a cash-strapped university researcher realises he can make more money creating a drug from legal substances than he can from his research. He recruits fellow hard up university researchers to help him and their individual expertise pays dividends as they make enormous sums of money. The jokes come thick and fast but the director doesn’t forget that what they are doing is wrong and there is an eventual price to pay, though even that has a humorous twist. Very assured for a first feature by the director who has a lovely light touch and a neat satirical edge. He revealed in the Q&A afterwards that he was inspired by a newspaper article about highly educated dustmen and some of his research on the subject couldn’t be used as it was too surreal (a mathematician who became a stand-up comedian). I hope the film gets a wider distribution than seems likely at the moment and Sydney Sibelia could be a name to watch (also very cute).
Night Bus
An independent British film directed by Simon Baker. Brave attempt at a portrayal of multi-cultural London through the interaction of characters on a night bus. The improvised nature of the material works very well and the character voices are wonderfully authentic but the fragmented nature of the storylines means the film doesn’t have enough narrative drive to sustain its length. The voiceover near the end was a horrendous mistake but overall it was an enjoyable film.
The Keeping Room
Two women and their black slave struggle to stay alive at the end of the American Civil War. No, not the story of Scarlett, Melanie and Prissy but of sisters Augusta (Brit Marling) and Louise (Hailee Steinfeld) and their slave Mad (Muna Otaru). In contrast to “Gone With the Wind” this is a low budget film by British director Daniel Barber, with Roumania doubling as the American South, but it really packed a punch. At times the tension was so unbearable that I had to look away and the sense of threat and danger was palpable throughout. It was great to see a film which featured women so strongly and the relationships between the three of them were nicely done. Good performances all round including from Sam Worthington as their chief antagonist. In the strange almost intimacy that grew up between him and Augusta it was possible to see that he might once have been a good man and was just as much a victim of the time as the women were. I can’t say any more for fear of spoiling some of the twists, turns and shocks but it was a good, if exhausting, film to watch.
The Salvation
A Danish Western by Danish director Kristian Levring and starring Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green. A riveting and interesting opening turns into a more conventional Western on the theme of revenge as the personal gives way to the mythic. After the tense early scenes the film becomes much more predictable as many familiar Western tropes are touched on deliberately but it is filmed beautifully with South Africa standing in for the West of the U.S. The mixture of languages felt very authentic to a land filling with immigrants and the use of oil and big business were some more modern twists to the story, though the main drive was revenge. Mads Mikkelsen seems perfect for the Western genre and Eva Green is beautiful and intriguing though I would have liked to know far more of her story than we were shown. As I love Westerns I very much enjoyed this despite the predictability of the ending.
Betibu
Well made Argentinian film. A jaded older crime reporter and the younger man who replaced him investigate a murder and a former crime novelist is recruited to provide mood pieces. All have something to prove and solving the crime provides them with a means to do that. The two journalists are fairly clichéd but I did enjoy seeing this disparate group turn into a team. The most interesting character was Nurit (aka Betibu), the crime novelist, lured back to work by the newspaper editor who was her ex-lover and who can’t believe she has completely lost her inspiration for fiction. The quite leisurely pace of the film allowed us to see endearing aspects of her life, such as her friends trying to prevent her from going to lunch with an ex-boyfriend, but the main focus is on her growing interest in solving the crime. I’m not sure the surprising ending totally worked as though hints had been dropped it left questions and felt a bit tacked on. Good to see the title character of the film played by an older woman. Not as good as The Secrets in their Eyes, but very watchable.
War Book
Based on a situation that did occur in the 1950s present day British civil servants role play a nuclear crisis scenario closeted in a meeting room. Doesn’t sound particularly promising but this was as tense and terrifying as The Keeping Room, though in a completely different way. Utterly disturbing to think this might easily be a reality and how similar characters and their relationships in a room would affect all our lives. Fantastic performances all round though Sophie Okonedo and Shaun Evans really shine as does Ben Chaplin as a sleazy assistant to the PM. I presume this is based on a stage play as the setting is very static, but it leads to an intense focus on faces and small details. Still very unsettled by this one.
The Face of an Angel
A film director (Daniel Brühl) investigates the story of the murder of an English student in Italy (so obviously based on the Meredith Kircher case that only the names have been changed) and tries to find a way to film it. A very meta film as we see the director, who has his own issues, investigate all the different possible ways into a story where truth is now impossible. From the author of a book on the case to the journalists covering the story and finally, as his coke habit takes hold, to hallucinatory musings on Dante he tries different takes on the story and ultimately cannot find one, though he does realise that in all the media hoopla about the alleged perpetrators the story of the victim has been lost and at the end the film does focus on that. I’m pretty sure this one will divide the critics as it could be seen as a total mess, which it certainly was in parts, but I thought it was a brave and potentially interesting view of a very difficult story but in the end it failed to hold together, which may perhaps have been the point. I think it’s the only film where I’ve ever spent time trying to remember who Dante’s guide through Purgatory was!
We really had a good time watching all these films and it was very interesting to go and see films with very few preconceptions about them. It was also great to see large cinemas so well attended by audiences of all ages. Even with no gala showings it was still an exciting and enjoyable experience.
I Can Quit Whenever I Want (Smetto Quando Voglio)
Funny and sweet Italian film with shades of Breaking Bad as a cash-strapped university researcher realises he can make more money creating a drug from legal substances than he can from his research. He recruits fellow hard up university researchers to help him and their individual expertise pays dividends as they make enormous sums of money. The jokes come thick and fast but the director doesn’t forget that what they are doing is wrong and there is an eventual price to pay, though even that has a humorous twist. Very assured for a first feature by the director who has a lovely light touch and a neat satirical edge. He revealed in the Q&A afterwards that he was inspired by a newspaper article about highly educated dustmen and some of his research on the subject couldn’t be used as it was too surreal (a mathematician who became a stand-up comedian). I hope the film gets a wider distribution than seems likely at the moment and Sydney Sibelia could be a name to watch (also very cute).
Night Bus
An independent British film directed by Simon Baker. Brave attempt at a portrayal of multi-cultural London through the interaction of characters on a night bus. The improvised nature of the material works very well and the character voices are wonderfully authentic but the fragmented nature of the storylines means the film doesn’t have enough narrative drive to sustain its length. The voiceover near the end was a horrendous mistake but overall it was an enjoyable film.
The Keeping Room
Two women and their black slave struggle to stay alive at the end of the American Civil War. No, not the story of Scarlett, Melanie and Prissy but of sisters Augusta (Brit Marling) and Louise (Hailee Steinfeld) and their slave Mad (Muna Otaru). In contrast to “Gone With the Wind” this is a low budget film by British director Daniel Barber, with Roumania doubling as the American South, but it really packed a punch. At times the tension was so unbearable that I had to look away and the sense of threat and danger was palpable throughout. It was great to see a film which featured women so strongly and the relationships between the three of them were nicely done. Good performances all round including from Sam Worthington as their chief antagonist. In the strange almost intimacy that grew up between him and Augusta it was possible to see that he might once have been a good man and was just as much a victim of the time as the women were. I can’t say any more for fear of spoiling some of the twists, turns and shocks but it was a good, if exhausting, film to watch.
The Salvation
A Danish Western by Danish director Kristian Levring and starring Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green. A riveting and interesting opening turns into a more conventional Western on the theme of revenge as the personal gives way to the mythic. After the tense early scenes the film becomes much more predictable as many familiar Western tropes are touched on deliberately but it is filmed beautifully with South Africa standing in for the West of the U.S. The mixture of languages felt very authentic to a land filling with immigrants and the use of oil and big business were some more modern twists to the story, though the main drive was revenge. Mads Mikkelsen seems perfect for the Western genre and Eva Green is beautiful and intriguing though I would have liked to know far more of her story than we were shown. As I love Westerns I very much enjoyed this despite the predictability of the ending.
Betibu
Well made Argentinian film. A jaded older crime reporter and the younger man who replaced him investigate a murder and a former crime novelist is recruited to provide mood pieces. All have something to prove and solving the crime provides them with a means to do that. The two journalists are fairly clichéd but I did enjoy seeing this disparate group turn into a team. The most interesting character was Nurit (aka Betibu), the crime novelist, lured back to work by the newspaper editor who was her ex-lover and who can’t believe she has completely lost her inspiration for fiction. The quite leisurely pace of the film allowed us to see endearing aspects of her life, such as her friends trying to prevent her from going to lunch with an ex-boyfriend, but the main focus is on her growing interest in solving the crime. I’m not sure the surprising ending totally worked as though hints had been dropped it left questions and felt a bit tacked on. Good to see the title character of the film played by an older woman. Not as good as The Secrets in their Eyes, but very watchable.
War Book
Based on a situation that did occur in the 1950s present day British civil servants role play a nuclear crisis scenario closeted in a meeting room. Doesn’t sound particularly promising but this was as tense and terrifying as The Keeping Room, though in a completely different way. Utterly disturbing to think this might easily be a reality and how similar characters and their relationships in a room would affect all our lives. Fantastic performances all round though Sophie Okonedo and Shaun Evans really shine as does Ben Chaplin as a sleazy assistant to the PM. I presume this is based on a stage play as the setting is very static, but it leads to an intense focus on faces and small details. Still very unsettled by this one.
The Face of an Angel
A film director (Daniel Brühl) investigates the story of the murder of an English student in Italy (so obviously based on the Meredith Kircher case that only the names have been changed) and tries to find a way to film it. A very meta film as we see the director, who has his own issues, investigate all the different possible ways into a story where truth is now impossible. From the author of a book on the case to the journalists covering the story and finally, as his coke habit takes hold, to hallucinatory musings on Dante he tries different takes on the story and ultimately cannot find one, though he does realise that in all the media hoopla about the alleged perpetrators the story of the victim has been lost and at the end the film does focus on that. I’m pretty sure this one will divide the critics as it could be seen as a total mess, which it certainly was in parts, but I thought it was a brave and potentially interesting view of a very difficult story but in the end it failed to hold together, which may perhaps have been the point. I think it’s the only film where I’ve ever spent time trying to remember who Dante’s guide through Purgatory was!
We really had a good time watching all these films and it was very interesting to go and see films with very few preconceptions about them. It was also great to see large cinemas so well attended by audiences of all ages. Even with no gala showings it was still an exciting and enjoyable experience.