Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a getaway driver so good that criminal mastermind Doc (Kevin Spacey) uses him every time even though Doc never uses the same crew twice. Baby doesn’t listen to instructions. He listens to music 24/7 on his iPod. This includes when he’s at work. He doesn’t need to listen to orders, either. He can lip read. He has to, because he and his cherished, ageing, deaf foster father (CJ Jones) communicate in sign language.
This is a character and indeed a film driven – no pun intended – by music. Far from being an empty exercise in style, Baby Driver is about a damaged loner’s interior world. Baby knows exactly how long is each piece of music on his iPod. So he uses (for example) The Damned’s song Neat Neat Neat as a template around which he synchronises to the second his meticulously planned automotive getaway journeys.
When the sync is disrupted, he stops his iPod, rewinds a few bars of music and presses play to carry on the fully choreographed getaway. As the narrative proceeds and the world around Baby starts to spiral out of control, his music library remains his one constant until that, too, is taken from him.
Many elements threaten to disrupt Baby’s can’t-put-a-foot-wrong existence. The bad ones all seem to relate to cars. His childhood involved his parents in a car crash. Doc observed Baby stealing Doc’s car, which is why Baby is now working for Doc (in order to repay the debt). One last job and everything’s repaid. But Doc isn’t going to let go his regular driver so easily. He insists Baby take more jobs, further breaking Doc’s own rules to reunite his driver with his former crew of Buddy (Jon Hamm), Darling (Eiza González) and Bats (Jamie Foxx). Bats has a nasty habit of killing people and Buddy and Darling plan to kill Bats once the job is over.
To muck the situation out still further, enter Debora (Lily James), the diner waitress whose dream is to drive across the country listening to music without looking back. Baby wants to help her live that dream, but if the others find out he’s sweet on her, the whole thing will turn into a nightmare.
Playing fast and loose with every cliché you’ve ever seen in a gangster or a heist movie, the piece turns those genres on their head as stunt choreography, violent shoot-outs and breakneck car chases are upstaged by a boy meets girl romance and back again. And all edited to die for to the strains of a well thought out music soundtrack. Writer-director Wright fully understands the many genres with which he’s playing in order to deliver far-beyond expectations in all of them.
It’s a movie which looks shiny and clean on the surface, just like a fast car. But lift the lid of the bonnet and you’ll find dirty Baby sitting there like an overly powerful, supercharged motor fitted in the wrong vehicle. Should he find himself or his newfound lady love on the bad side of his fellow gang members, you know there will be trouble. Behind its facade of escapist entertainment, Baby Driver deals, on a near subliminal level, in dirt. A thoroughly subversive vision.
Baby Driver is out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, June 28th (2017). On Netflix on January 1st (2023).
An inhabitant of Istanbul claims: “in a way, street animals are our cultural symbol”. Roaming the urban streets, Istanbul’s cats live a life away from the veiled domesticated environments associated to them in the West. Cared for by the inhabitants of the city, these animals are never far from adoration. However, the community’s attention towards such cats runs deeper than simply feeding them; it exposes Istanbul’s deep understanding of nature and its historicity. Directed by Ceyda Torun, who grew up in Istanbul in the 1980s, ths documentary flows poetically and reminds one of such ‘city symphonies’ as Mark Cousin’s I Am Belfast (2015) and Terence Davis’ Of Time and the City (2008).
Exhibiting his lyrical narrative through the story of seven cats, – Sari (aka The Hustler), Bengü (The Lover), Aslan Parçasi (The Hunter), Psikopat (The Psycho), Deniz (The Social Butterfly), Duman (The Gentleman) and Gamsiz (The Player), Torun in these instances elicits the animals’ innate human nature. Some are rude, others are kind and some simply want to catch mice and fish all day.
Openly discussing their association towards the cats, the community are not interviewed in a room, yet in the natural environments of the Crossroads of the World – as the city has been dubbed over the centuries. Their profound understanding for these felines place in society aligns itself towards more spiritual thinking and understanding of nature in Eastern religions and superstitions. Referenced copiously in stories surrounding the prophet Mohammed, no wonder such animals are cherished so highly.
Capturing the cats’ lives, Charlie Wuppermann’s cameras track their every movements over rooftops, down onto street level and into their dens. When following Aslan Parçası (The Hunter), the cinematographer uses on the shoulder PoV shots in order to position the spectator right with Aslan’s hunt for mice. The filmmaker’s dedication to filming the felines day after day genuinely captures their habits, personalities and majestic sophisticated qualities. The variety of shots from air via drone, eye line views and the formerly mentioned street level perspectives adds a weight to the cat’s position and sheer presence in Istanbul.
Due to the film’s deep focus upon sight and anecdote, Kira Fontana Turkish percussions yields, with Wupperman’s shots, a variegated quality. Transporting the viewer to the dwellings of this community, akin the images on screen, the music flows rhythmically from one story to another.
To the people of Istanbul, cats are not just animals – they epitomise a virtuous way of living and respect. Ceyda Torun’s clear admiration for the city and its feline residents shines through and captivates the viewer, regardless if a lover of that other major pet… Kediwill leave you longing to hear that famous ‘meow’, to look down and feel its warmth, love and craving for a treat.
Kedi is out in selected cinemas across the UK on June 30th. It also shows at the Cambridge Film Festival taking place between October 25th and December 1st.
First and foremost: cinema is universal. This means that you don’t have to be LGBT in order to appreciate and be impact by an LGBT movie. That’s why we have decided to ask some of our dirty writers and contributors – regardless of their gender and sexuality – to pick they favourite LGBT film of all times. Film sensibility transcends all barriers.
The label LGBT can, of course be problematic. First of all, there is a flirting “Q” for “queer” and sometimes a flirting “I” for intersex”, which some people like to add to the end of the acronym, making it very difficult to memorise and borderline impossible to pronounce. But the biggest issue is in the fact that many LGBT(Q)(I) peopl prefer to shun the label in its entirety because they find it too limiting. They believe that distinguishing LGBT films from non-LGBT films can tokenise gay culture. We can see the rationale behind that.
Yet, at a time when discrimination and even criminalisation of LGBT people still prevails in many parts of the globe, it still makes sense to fly the flag, and to classify films as such. Hopefully this won’t be necessary in 50 years, but sadly right it is very much so. LGBT identity is still a major issue, and you need to break some eggs in order to make an equality omelette. Thankfully these dirty movies are here in order to help us in the fight against bigotry and intolerance.
These films have touched and moved our dirty boys and girls in more than one way. They have helped to change their lives, personality and, in some cases, revisit their identity. Maybe they could do the same to you! So read our heartfelt list of LGBT films and watch their respective trailers with an open mind. You too might become surprised!
Our dirty team has been sorted alphabetically (click on their names in order to accede to their dirty profile). We acknowledge that there is a shortage of ladies! Women – gay and straight, trans and cis, plus everything in between – please get in touch with us and make your dirty thoughts known. We need you on board!
His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Women in Revolt (Andy Warhol, 1972):
“A deliciously filthy 1972 satire still extremely current at present days. Jackie Curtis is superb but Candy Darling stole the scene with her arrogant yet adorable posh housewife living in Central Park West : ‘Coming to me for money? Go out and earn it!’ ”
His favourite dirty LGBT film is Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005):
“A movie that changed my life. Not only the cast is incredible – Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams are outstandin – but also the direction is very impressive. It’s such an emotional and gripping story. The bond between the protagonists is both tender and complex connection. Love here is equal and universal, a timely achievement for LGBTQI rights. A film impossible to forget.”
“After becoming an admirer of Todd Haynes’ work through Poison (1991) and his Douglas Sirk homage, Far From Heaven (2002) I became a true lover of his work through Carol. Capturing love in a form that very few can on screen, Haynes and his two female leads, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett, evoke all forms of this deeply human emotion in their relationship that the 1950s’ society seeks to reject. Melancholy, desire, longing and solace are all exhibited. Adapting the Patricia Highsmith The Price of Salt, Haynes’ film captures the era of Highsmith in steamy 1950s’ New York streets and a distorted 35mm print. Lastly, the lulling score of Carter Burwell adds a deeper compassionate edge to the piece.”
“Intense and intimate, strong, tough but also delicate. The movie explores the major challenge of being gay and part of a minority that so many face, and it also shows some of the brutal aspects of patriarchal masculinity. The influence of Wong Kar Wai’ s work can be strongly seen, and the cast shines in leading the viewer through a complicated story. Moonlight is a pure jewel on black male identity, homosexuality and about love and how much we all need it.“
His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Happy Together (Wong Kar Wai, 1997):
“A study of an on-off relationship of two Chinese men travelling in Buenos Aires, which is as far away on the planet from their Hong Kong hometown as you can get. The relationship functions as an uneasy metaphor for the then British Crown dependency Hong Kong’s uneasy relationship to mainland China. Hong Kong was handed back from British to Chinese rule in 1997.”
His favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Bitters Tears of Petra von Kant (RW Fassbinder, 1972)
“Fassbinder’s Lesbian love triangle isn’t just my favourite LGBT movie; it’s also my favourite movie of all times. The film title is even tattooed across my chest. Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen) is a domineering fashion designer who preaches free love, and yet is unable to do as she says. She demands TLC from her lover Karen (Hannah Schygullah), and yet humiliates her sycophantic maid Marlene (Irm Hermann), who is profoundly infatuated with her boss.
I love The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant because it’s subversive on so many levels. Petra is the epitome of emotional incongruity, and she fully deserves the crocodile tears that she sheds. The film is based on a gay love triangle between Fassbinder and two of his associates, translated into a lesbian story. The controversial director had an amorous relationship with most people he worked with (men and women), and so the boundaries between fiction and reality and deeply twisted, just like Petra’s sentiments. Fassbinder is Petra. I am Petra. And this film is bigger than life.”
The image at the top of this article is also taken from The Bitters Tears of Petra von Kant.
Her favourite LGBT dirty movie is My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985):
“Easily one of the most iconic British films of the 1980s, set against the background of Thatcherite greed and race riots, My Beautiful Launderette came crashing onto our screen with a bang. Adapted from Hanif Kureishi’s book of the same name, and directed by the great Stephen Frears, the films mixes poetic realism with gritty social drama to bring B. Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) and Omar (Gordon Warnecke) are the two star crossed lovers from either side of the divide who must overcome their insurmountable differences in the hope that love will one day conquer all.”
His favourite dirty LGBT film is To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues, 2009):
“One of those movies I need to revisit every other year, as painful as the experience might be. Like a fist to the heart, everything is very grim and violent (if not borderline depressing). And yet, these characters have led me to their world, and have given me much needed perspective in times of fear of becoming too deeply aware of myself – something crushingly familiar to any member of the LGBT community.
It was Tónia’s (Fernando Santos) loneliness that made fall in love with this jarringly beautiful portrait. She finds solace in the midst of her daily turmoil by doing mundane tasks like feeding her dog. A veteran drag queen at a Lisbon gay club during the 1980s, clouded with a well-known fear of growing old in an unforgiving scene, she rolls with the punches of a toxic relationship with a much younger lover named Rosário (Alexander David) and an estranged son (Chandra Malatitch) who, like all the other men in her life, takes advantage of her.
She’s extremely devoted to her faith, and has learned to dismiss her desire to go through gender reassignment surgery. Suspended in space and time, the film drastically changes its pace to a dreamlike state: an unexpected red saturates the scene now, as they wander in the shade of the flora of their backyard, and chant. A funeral march, one might even say.”
Her favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)
“This is a tender and strong story about two women that express their love for each other in a way that only females can do. In reality, it is the oppressed partner that wears the trousers. The title also refers to a butterfly, a animal that represents change. Every girl becomes a woman, just like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Your body changes, and then you must fly!
Plus the cinematography is absolutely mesmerising! The details and the research for the right lenses to reveal each colour is fantastic. I wish every man I ever loved had the same sensibility that Peter has it.”
His favourite dirty LGBT film is Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991):
“It may not appear, at least on the surface that Point Break offers a homoerotic experience. But as Anthony Manzi discusses in his excellent essay ‘Point “Heart” Break, or: Why Bodhi and Johnny Utah Just Want to Bang Each Other’ you have to peel back the layers to reveal a sexual chemistry that is always on the verge of boiling over. Manzi explains that ‘The relationship between Johnny Utah and Bodhi is full of complexity and passion. They excite each other, they infuriate each other, and they respect each other. But most of all… they love each other.’ This chemistry drives the entire plot of the movie to its conclusion.
Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), the hotshot rookie FBI agent is sent undercover to investigate a gang of bank robbers, known as the Ex-Presidents, whom the bureau believe might be surfers. When Utah befriends the cool and enigmatic Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) he finds his spiritual partner, a free and easy soul who compliments Utah’s more conservative drive. It’s Utah who sees Bodhi first and stops in his tracks as he watches him glide and strut across the waves. The film eases into slow motion. Are we lead to believe that time has also slowed for Utah as well? They become friends, and Bodhi allows Utah into his circle, he even gives permission for Utah to hook-up with an old girlfriend.
When it’s later discovered Bodhi is leader of the Ex-Presidents, Utah is torn between his duty as a law officer and his desires that have been awakened by Bodhi. In the mid-point of the film, Bodhi makes Utah chase him. Even though he has Bodhi in his sights, Utah can’t bring himself to shoot him, and instead, as Manzi puts is, ejaculates “his rounds into the air in frustration. His sexual desire has reached a tipping point, and his repressed frustration is released through firing his weapon.” During the final moments of the film, as Bodhi is about to jump from an airplane and finally escape, he screams at Utah “I know you want me Johnny. You want be so bad it’s like acid in your mouth.” And he does, Utah wants Bodhi so bad that he jumps out of the plane after him, with no parachute.
The more obvious this unspoken desire becomes the more it bubbles to the surface of the film itself. Both Reeves and Swayze had entered into their physical peak in terms of looks, bone structure and chiseled pecks. This wasn’t the hideous mutated form of Stallone or Schwarzenegger, which was popular among male audiences of the 1980s. Reeves and Swayze’s were both thin, muscular for sure, but soft and hairless, their faces almost feminine. Schwarzenegger might have referred to them as “girly men”. It’s not just Reeves and Swayze, Point Break offers a phantasmagoria of male Adonis bodies that are just as toned and tanned. As the slow motion surfer porn fills the frame these bodies barely ripple, it’s as if they are all made of stone. Thus, the scenes in which Reeves and Swayze stand shirtless and wet in close proximity become revealing of a suppressed sexual longing for one another.”
His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994):
“Priscilla is the type of film that seems to please older and younger generations. It’s got Terrence Stamp in drag and, if that’s not enough reason for you to watch it, it’s got Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce in the same fashion. It introduced CeCePenninston’s Finally to a lot of people during one of the best lip-sync performances ever filmed.
It put three very different people in the LGBT spectrum in an adventure through the Australian landscape in which they feel hurt and joy, as in life. Priscilla Queen of the Desert is the rare film dealing with these subject that allows its characters the will to be happy. Finally, indeed”
His favourite dirty LGBT film is Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971):
“The experience of Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice has remained with me. From the self-sufficient image to the intertwined voyeuristic gaze of Dirk Bogarde and Visconti’s camera, the film is a beguiling example of sensory filmmaking. And any film that introduces one to the symphonic genius of Gustav Mahler should be remembered with emotional affection.”
“As a trans woman it’s very refreshing to see another trans woman on the silver screen, particularly if she’s in a large group of cis women without being singled out. Nevermind that this was directed by a cis and pendulous human being. The transcendent sensitivity is there, with plenty of wit and humour. Plus a splash or blood, a dash of sex and a squeeze of violence. This is visceral cinema.”
Pigs might fly. And so Brexit might happen. Soon we will be getting our milk from hoses hanging down from helicopters, our potatoes thrown out of moving trains, and we will have to steal our potable water from the neighbouring countries, plus rely on international solidarity for tinned food. Sounds bizarre? Well, Brexit is bizarre. And this is my very own personal analogy between post-Brexit Britain and an independent Pimlico.
Ok, let me explain myself. This may sound a little confusing if you haven’t seen the 1949 Ealing Studios comedy Passport to Pimlico (directed by Henry Cornelius, at a time the director wasn’t too prominent). In this classic movie, a mixture of slapstick and sociopolitical satire, a street of Pimlico (now a posh London neighbourhood, not far from Buckingham Palace) becomes an independent state following the discovery of a medieval document buried underground.
The newly-formed sovereign state calls itself Burgundy, and soon “Burgundians” are basking in the perks of independence. They shun unwanted British laws (such as drinking regulations) and establish themselves as a smuggler’s paradise where “foreigners” can buy rationed goods without restrictions. A jolly good future lies ahead, it seems.
Well, not quite. Almighty Britain retaliates by shutting the frontiers and establishing border control, with passport et al. They also embargo the new sovereign state, which in turn runs out of food and water. It’s a sultry summer and a heatwave castigates Burgundians, and so they soon have to rob British water. The various London districts (Camden, Ealing and so on) join forces with the international community in order to demonstrate their solidarity with Burgundy. They literally throw and fly goods into the new state. Burgundians collect their milk from a hose hanging down from a helicopter (pictured above), a pig is flown in (below) and so on. The bizarre world that I described in the first paragraph of this article materialises.
And so the penny began to drop: Burgundy is but an illusion.
.
The “independence” that never was
Passport to Pimlico isn’t just a hilarious movie. It’s the greatest mockery of independence ever made on film. It’s the perfect allegory of how enticing and yet deceitful rushed “sovereignty” can be. The lesson learnt is that a chop-chop separation is both unfeasible and undesirable. Particularly because there was never a requirement for a breakaway, and the whole process was short-sighted, driven by whimsical personal ambitions and a delusional notion of self-sufficiency. Just like Brexit.
At first, “Burgundexiteers” wallow in their newfound citizenship. “Blimey, I’m a foreigner”, cries out one of them. They can drink as much as they wish, they can eat whatever they like, they can trade as they wish, they can live as they desire, plus they can proudly boast their new national identity. But not for long. They are about to find out that such “freedom” is, in reality, a handicap. Once open borders and free movement cease the country begins to collapse. Does this sound prescient?
Very Brexit problems
The 1949 movie illustrates a very modern issue: how do you stop your “independent” country from becoming a deregulated paradise and trading mess? Brits flock to Burgundy in search of cheap rationed goods. Is this a harbinger of the post-Brexit risks? Could the UK become a fiscal paradise where foreigners come in search of lax regulations?
Just like with Brexit, the national newspapers help to drive the narrative of Burgundian independence. The headlines will ring bells to anyone vaguely familiar with the vocabulary used to describe the Brexit talks taking place right now with the EU: “door not yet closed”, “door still open, no quarrel with Britain” “talks: deadlock complete”, “Burgundy issue splits Britain” and “Burgundy bullied into submission” (see carousel above for these headlines and more). There’s even a touch of xenophobia, as the Daily Express mandates that its readers “stay out of Burgundy”. The flames of division are towering high into the air. The heat is on.
Burgundy finally realises that they are not in the position to call the shots. Instead they are vulnerable, and they have become the laughing stock of the world. A Home Office envoy warns them: “I trust you understand that the alternative is complete isolation. I do hope that moderation will prevail”. And so they begin to crush under the weight of the real decider. The final outcome is inevitable: Burgundy rejoins the UK. Is this an augury of Brexit?
Passport to Pimlico is available for viewing online on Google Play and YouTube.
This tale of life on the Japanese home front during WW2 is set in the major shipbuilding port of Kure in the Hiroshima Prefecture. The nearest city to Kure is Hiroshima: once you know that, you know the story isn’t going to end well. Welcome to In this Corner of the World.
Heroine Suzu Urano must leave the small fishing village where she grew up and move to Kure to marry a low level naval clerk. Living with his family brings its own challenges, such as getting on with her new husband’s sharp-tongued sister. These characters accept that not only does their government know best but also the War is an historical inevitability that must be endured for the greater good. Yet although there are sacrifices to be made, the War itself mostly seems an abstract, distant event which for most of its five years doesn’t really intrude that much upon everyday life.
Suzu loves to paint and draw and often has her sketchbook with her. Occasionally she finds herself in trouble when officials catch her sketching things they don’t want anyone depicting in wartime. But mostly, she delights in nature and the world around her. Director Katabuchi similarly delights in the medium of hand drawn animation.
Fumiyo Kouno’s manga, originally serialised in Manga Action magazine between 2007 and 2009, went through a lot of trouble to research the long vanished environments of Hiroshima and Kure and in the film Katabuchi expends similar effort. The result is that the drama plays out in convincing settings which go some way to draw the viewer in. Alas, much of the meandering domestic narrative counteracts the undeniably impressive visuals.
The final reel is another story, however. As American bombing raids reach Kure, the frightening realities of international warfare finally impose themselves on the civilian population. In something of a visual and emotional tour de force, Suzu and her small niece Harumi are caught in a blast in which Suzu suffers the loss of a limb. Suddenly it feels like we’re in a different movie, yet afterwards Suzu struggles resolutely to carry on and help others.
Worse is to come, though, in the form of a flash as the atomic bomb is dropped on the neighbouring city of Hiroshima. Initially no-one quite knows what has happened, although the full horror of the situation becomes clear to Suzu when she visits the area. Finding a small child wandering alone in the ruins, she and her husband adopt the girl who can be seen growing up in their post-war home as the credits roll. If the film ends on this optimistic note, its briefly seen, latter images of ordinary people affected by the harsh realities of conventional and nuclear warfare overshadow everything else.
In This Corner Of The Worldis out in the UK on Wednesday, June 28th.
Documentary-making sits somewhere between fiction and truth. A doc is not a sheer reflection of reality, because such feature is impossible. The eye of the documentarist is always somewhere in the middle distorting reality, regardless of how impartial and distant the filmmaker endeavours to be. In Risk, American director Laura Poitras attempts to remain equitable and detached from her subject, but she soon realises that this isn’t feasible.
The Academy Award winning director of Citizenfour (2014), a documentary concerning Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal, returns to the subject of information activism, this time focusing on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his associates Jacob Appelbaum and Sarah Harrison. The film follows the footsteps of the Australian computer programmer from 2006 to present days. Poitras first approached Wikileaks in 2010, meaning that the earlier footage (between 2006 and 2010) wasn’t made by her.
The film captures some very powerful moments, such as when Assange calls Hillary Clinton in order to warn her about a major impending leak, or when Appelbaum confronts the Egyptian government on the subject of censorship in the middle of a very tense press conference (pre-Arab Spring, still under Mubarak). This is a real inside’s view into the dangerous world of Wikileaks. A bumpy ride without seat belt.
If this was a espionage film, it would come across as too absurd and implausible. An international fugitive being harboured in a small embassy for years, his shaving cream and deodorant on bookshelves, a pop star called Lady Gaga shows up one day in order to conduct an interview, while a whole police battalion keeps guard outside 24×7. There’s even Assange disguising himself by dying his hair and wearing contact lenses (pictured below) in order to move into the Ecuadorian Embassy, thereby avoid extradition to Sweden and likely imprisonment in the US. Reality is indeed bizarre.
Poitras deserves credit for providing us with valuable insight into such a dangerous and volatile environment. This insider’s view makes the film extremely engaging, but it also prevents Laura from detaching herself from the story being told. In fact, she becomes an integral part of the saga. She’s exposing the exposer, conspiring against the conspirator, or whistle-blowing the whistle-blower – whichever terminology you find most appropriate. Poitras is doubly subversive in her role, and she confesses at the end of the movie that Assange wasn’t pleased with the film being released. It’s never entirely clear why he let Laura film him at all. She thinks he doesn’t even like her. Assange’s motives are very ambiguous.
Ultimately, Risk is indeed a risky film. It could compromise the security of both filmmaker and the subjects of the film. Assange and Appelbaum are both accused of sexual misconduct, while Sarah could faces terrorism charges. These three controversial individuals already face a life of restrictions and possible jail sentences. Risk could work as a denunciation tool in their favour but also as an exposé of their shortcomings. It’s time you go to the cinema and decide for yourself.
If you’re searching for a feel-good movie that’s somehow supposed to make you believe in love again, look no further. With a sheer dose of talent of the performers, Souvenir, the new film by French Bavo Defurne, opening in British cinemas, might just do the trick.
As far as screenplays go, we’ve got a pretty traditional one. Liliane (Isabelle Huppert) works in a paté factory who incidentally bumps upon Jean (Kevin Azais), a boxed with a passion for French chanson. He recognises her as Laura, a chanteuse that finished second in 1974 Eurovision Contest, and who fell into oblivion shortly after. He says he’s a fan and wants her to sing again, which she declines at first. She ends up singing in his boxing club and, despite the age gap, they form a relationship. Together, they decide to get her on top of the game again.
If it sounds like a typical boy-meets-girl with some age issues as dramatic seasoning, it’s because it is. The script doesn’t say anything new and it’s not purporting to, either. What eventually sells the piece is the ability of the filmmakers to tell its story in an efficient and believable way.
Just like in Elle (Paul Verhoeven, 2016), the significance of Huppert here cannot be overstated. She takes the beaten material to a new level, showing us a little of her rarely seen lighter side in the process. Known internationally for her portrait of steely French women, the actress gives a very moving carefree performance. He’s less likely to get any credit for it, but Azaïs doesn’t disappoint either, scoring points for making us root for a very naive character.
This very naïveté gives makes Souvenir charming. The protagonists fall for each other through the sound of their voices and in the delightful sequences when Jean finds himself in Liliane’s place.
What a coincidence that it hits British cinemas at exactly the same time as The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) celebrates its 50th anniversary with a new release in cinemas. Where Nichols portrays a very cynical and predatory relationship between a young man and an older woman, Souvenir shows pretty much the opposite. Liliane might be as desperate as Ms. Robinson, but she’s hurt in a way that sex alone won’t fix her.
We can look for things beyond the romance, if we want to. There’s a lot of humour in the generation gap between the characters and a commentary on the sexism in the entertainment industry. When Liliane goes to her ex-husband and manager, Tony (Johan Leysen) for help, we see that he’s aged too, the difference is that he is wealthier and more successful at work.
People say that she stopped singing because of their divorce, something she even agrees with in public. Alone with Jean, however, she confesses that she didn’t stop and implies that people just didn’t care for her anymore. That such confession comes from the lips of Huppert, a steadily good actress with more than 40 years in the field, adds an extra dimension and taste to the movie. Souvenir is not about that, though. It’s about attraction and relationships that defy logic, and the personal growth that comes with them. Just like falling in love with an old tune for the first time.
Souvenir is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, June 23rd.
Sometimes a medieval love story, sometimes a historical reconstruction, Andrew Kötting’s new film, like its protagonist, meanders about. Edith Walks is a tribute to Edith Swan Neck (or Edith the Fair), “handfast” wife of King Harold II. She became a fixture of English folklore because she traveled 108 miles on foot from Waltham Abbey to St Leonard’s-on-Sea in order to meet her husband’s body, who was killed during the Battle of Hastings – a journey which the film attempts to recreate.
To be honest, she does walk. Despite being dead for almost a millennium, she also speaks. Unfortunately, despite the filmmakers’ best intentions, she neither goes far nor says words of profound wisdom. Instead, our trip into a emblematic historical event becomes, unlike the real Edith, a bit aimless.
The film borrows much from the oral history format, based on interviews with those familiar Edith’s story. The English writer Alan Moore is one of the most knowledgeable interviewees, and he talks at length about her journey. The project’s insistence on serendipity, however, doesn’t spawn exciting scenes, unlike masterpieces such as Visages Villages (Agnès Varda, 2017). Varda’s film made full use of the characters found along the way in order to touch the viewer. Here, it just feels like we’re eavesdropping.
Claudia Barton functions well as the protagonist Edith, always fully-clad in medieval attire. She refers to the real Edith in the third person, thereby stripping the historical figure of a voice. While willfully done, this comes across somewhat clumsy. Nevertheless, Barton manages to sing a few medieval ballads to keep thing going.
The poor quality of the images doesn’t help either. Many scenes are so distorted that we can only see blobs vaguely resembling human beings. This is Kötting’s style though, and fans of no-budget and highly experimental cinema may be pleased with this. Others, however, may find that such aesthetics render the film a little amateurish, almost video art or home video feel. At a frugal duration of just 61 minutes, Edith Walks never feels like a conventional feature film.
In a given moment, death is defined as “just your length in time”. That notion implies that the dead and the living are forever intertwined and affecting each other. It’s a fine concept and very much present in art, as we keep seeing works that reference deceased individuals. Unfortunately Edith Walks got a bit lost midway while hurtling towards a more in-depth philosophical analysis.
Edith Walks is showing in selected cinemas across the UK from Friday, June 23rd.
Loneliness, isolation and crisis of one’s own place in society are not normally synonymous with life after graduating university (or ‘college’, in the US). Such meditative themes are central to Mike Nichol’s 1967’s ground-breaking piece of New Hollywood film, The Graduate. Celebrating its 50th birthday this year, the film is being re-released in a crispy 4k restoration by Studiocanal in the UK. However, as a newly titled ‘Graduate’ myself, the themes in the film are not hyperbolic or especially fictional, yet nuanced and appropriate to finishing higher education. The insulation which university and education has provided over your formative years is suddenly striped away and the ominous working world comes to bare its imprint upon your daily life and thought process.
Returning home to Beverly Hills, California, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffmann) is greeted by sunny skies and an abundance of wealth, but underneath he is cold and none the wiser to his future. Bathing by the pool, boredom creeps in. Forced to socialise with his parent’s friends, conversation is tedious. That is until the seductive Mrs. Robinson (the late Anne Bancroft), a family friend, charms him into a sexual relationship that distracts him from his former solitude. All comes undone when Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross) steps into the fold. Explaining on plot on a literal level does an injustice to the film’s innovative use of cinematography, soundtrack and dichotomous presentation of love. Elaine and Mrs. Robinson are two sides of the same coin: one is sexual fulfilment, the other one is spiritual through true love.
Behind Mrs. Robinson’s flirtatious act, however, she is just as lonely as Benjamin – two lonesome souls drifting together. The balance of a shy reserved character in Hoffmann’s performance is juxtaposed against the mesmeric quality to which Bancroft delivers her lines. This binary serves to initially create comedic moments, such as the iconic ‘Mrs Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?”, though its creation would not be possible without either actor. The difference in age between the two in front of the camera underscores both actor’s elegance as Hoffmann was Bancroft’s junior by just six years (she was 35, while he was 29). Originally casting Robert Redford and Jeanne Moreau in the roles, the whole piece would have read differently if such a creative decision was followed through by Nichols & Co.
The enduring legacy of The Graduate is testament to its director, Mike Nichols. Gaining an Academy Award for his skills, the variations of shots in the film serve to reflect Benjamin’s isolation from society. Varying from a POV diving sequence which uses the diegetic sounds of Benjamin’s breathing against the excessive laughs of his parents and latter driving sequences across the Golden Gate Bridge deserve to be witnessed and heard on the big screen.
The influence of the New Hollywood, as pioneered by Nichol’s film, Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969), does not only implement itself in the use of performance or cinematography, but soundtrack. Created by folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel especially for the film, The Graduate’s use of music set in place a template which has been adopted ever since from the likes of Tarantino to Edgar Wright. Still, focusing upon the composition of such songs, S&G’s sounds are reflective of Benjamin’s emotions, none more so than the song The Sound of Silence. Merging the music of this duo and a character’s feelings positions the audience right alongside Benjamin.
Strangely comic in places yet with an emotional core, The Graduate rightly so deserves such a stunning re-release in cinema’s nationwide this summer. With its messages of isolation so vivid in an age of rising tuition fees, expectations upon younger people and similarly a 70% rise in rates of depression and anxiety among adolescents in the past 25 years, Nichol’s et al offer a liberating message of embracing love and pursuing it at all costs. Tainted with an admirably bold final shot on the back of a bus, it’s a film that’s not afraid to illicit questions in the mind of its audience upon the very nature of a messy mature world.
The Graduate is out in cinemas across the world on Friday, June 23rd in order to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Marketed as “inspired in true events”, this very unusual Indian horror movie takes place entirely in an isolated house in the middle of fields. There are spooky children, infanticide, murder, apparitions and much more. Think Children of the Corn (Fritz Kiersch, 1984; based on the eponymous Stephen King book), replacing the cornfields with sugarcane ones, add a few Indian twists, an “evil” female touch and you are halfway there.
Eight-months-pregnant Neha and her husband Tushar flee the big city in order to avoid some thugs, which are after them for some unexplained reason. They find shelter in Tulsi’s house, an old woman living with her catatonic daughter-in-law Laxmi. It’s revealed in the very beginning of the movie that Laxmi was forced to remove with baby from her own belly with a dagger, and she now has a horrendous scar. So it’s very clear from the start on that something isn’t right with Tulsi and her house.
Neha soon realises that she’s in danger and attempts to run away, only to be locked up and apparently drugged. What follows is a number of a hallucinations and illusions blended with reality. She will constantly see creepy children running around, and she will also witness several murders. She now has to work out how much of that is real, and what she needs to do in order to stay alive and save her own baby. The pace of the film is tense and the scares are spaced out enough to keep you hooked and give you a few jump scares.
The movie delves with a number of social woes afflicting Indian women. In this old-fashioned rural environment, females address their husbands by their last names, and they only begin eating when their husbands are finished. But there’s a much more dangerous and deadly tradition that could destroy Neha’s nad her baby’s life; the infinite twists in the film will keep you guessing what this is until the final 20 minutes of the movie. There’s a strong image inside a well which will both shock and open your eyes to this old-fashioned tradition, that’s still very much alive.
Neha and films like Hide and Seek are a testament that Indian women are beginning to raise their voice and to face up an extremely conservative establishment, often entirely on their own and without even their husbands to support them. Male filmmaker Vishal Furia has provided them with a very powerful tool. Let’s hope that Indian women will also step behind the camera show us the world from their gaze. We want to listen, but we also wish to see what these oppressed ladies are seeing.
Hide and Seek is showing as part of the 2017 London Indian Film Festival, which takes places in London and Birmingham from June 22nd to July 3rd. Due to its industry format (the film is made for an Indian market, with an interval in the middle et al), you may not be able to catch it anywhere else after the event – which would be a pity. Let’s hope that I’m wrong and that Indian women can raise their voice for the entire world to see, and that cinema provides them with a suitable platform.
The teaser below gives you an idea of the movie feel, but it doesn’t do it justice in its entirety. This is definitely one to watch, so get your ticket now!
This is probably of the most predictable and brazenly syrupy rom-com you will see this year. Take a little Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979), add a pinch of Notting Hill (Roger Michell), the toss in a few more decades and a lot of grey hairs. And this is not a dirty movie; in fact the Hampstead you will see is very much sanitised. I had every reason to dislike this movie, as I’m a filthy boy always looking for the dirty side of cinema. Yet I have to confess: I very much enjoyed Hampstead. This is indeed my guilty pleasure.
The movie in very loosely inspired on the life of Harry Hallowes, the Hampstead Heath squatter, who was eventually made the sole proprietor of his land piece and became a millionaire by selling it. British filmmaker Joel Hopkins concocted a love affair for the grumpy old man, impersonated here by Diane Keaton (the same actress as in Manhattan, nearly 40 years older). Harry is now called Donald (affectionately nicknamed “Donald Tramp”, and played by Brendan Gleeson), while Diane’s character is the American widow Emily.
The plot goes more or less like this: Emily can’t her handle expenses since her husband’s death a year earlier, and she could face potential eviction from her luxury flat overlooking Hampstead Heath. Her posh neighbours step in in order to help, and they try to hook her up with slimy financial advisor James (Jason Watkins), whose smile looks a lot like Austin Powers’s. She begins to peek on her eccentric hermit neighbour Donald Tramp with her binoculars, the two eventually meet, fall in love, but then Donald is facing eviction. To her neighbours’ despair, Emily joins forces with Donald in a legal battle against a powerful real estate establishment and, against all odds, they win it.
Those familiar with Hampstead will realise that the district depicted is hardly plausible. While shot in location with the numerous rhododendra and holly bushes that make up the park, any local will know that access to Highgate Cemetery is highly restricted and no one would dream of having a picnic on the Circle of Lebanon. And the 24 bus doesn’t go anywhere near Regent Street and East Heath Road. But that’s ok, that’s just a fable and none of this matters at all. What did bother me a little if the fact that their intimacy is pretty much sexless – I’d like to think that old people get very cheeky and naughty like most of us do. Well, this is a cheesy and commercial rom-com, so Joel Hopkins opted not to show aging bodies that do not abide to our strict beauty demands.
The Guardian accused the “grey pound” of ruining British cinema, and Hampstead promptly received a guilty verdict. Well, despite having a few grey hairs on my moustache, I do not belong to this statistic and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. This is lighthearted fun devoid of dark subliminal connotations and with a message of reconciliation of classes, effective in its unabashed sloppiness. Go see it regardless of your age, just don’t expect an innovative and subversive piece of filmmaking!
Hampstead is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, June 23rd (2017). On BritBox on Thursday, April 1st.
