MFKZ (international title: Mutafukaz)

Firstly, Mutafukaz (as MFKZ was originally named) is a Japanese animated feature made by the French for the French market utilising Japanese animation expertise (the version playing at the London Film Festival is French with subtitles, though the end credits suggest there might also be an English language version), secondly a very French, lowlife, dystopian action movie to rank alongside the live action likes of Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990) and, particularly, District 13 (Pierre Morel, 2004) and thirdly an adaptation of a French bande dessinée, the director Guillaume Renard having penned the original in comic book form under the name Run.

The animation medium allows the piece to completely design its images and environment from, as it were, the blank page/empty screen upwards and the results are fabulous. Japanimation company Studio 4°C previously worked on such high profile anime productions as SF portmanteau Memories (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1995), avant garde pop video Noiseman Sound Insect (Koji Morimoto, 1997) and fan favourite Spriggan (Hirotsugu Kawasaki, 1998) to name but three (others are name dropped in the trailer) and pull out all the stops here.

(Ange)lino is a small, young, black guy vaguely resembling Marvin Martian without the helmet and struggling to survive the mean streets of Dark Meat City (“DMC, as in Desperate, Miserable, Crap”) where he rents a roach-infested apartment with his mate Vinz whose head resembles a human skull, bare bone, no flesh, column of fire permanently burning on top. Lino can barely hold down a job for more than a few days.

We first meet Lino on a pizza delivery boy gig which falls apart when the sight of a pretty girl causes him to have a bike accident. Unemployed, Lino and Vinz are visited by their nervous liability of a friend Willy. As the three cruise around in a car, Lino notices a strange phenomenon inspired by They Live (John Carpenter, 1988): people who cast shadows belonging to creatures not of this Earth. Meanwhile, a mother with her baby in her arms is being hunted by mysterious, gun-toting men in black suits led by one wearing a white suit. Before long, they’ll be after Lino and Vinz too.

The film rattles along at a rapid pace through urban malaise, gangland shoot-outs and conspiracy theories, in passing presenting a squalid environment that could stand in for the seamier side of any number of real life cities. Designed in glorious, eye-popping colour and with a hip hop sensibility referencing Grand Theft Auto and more, it never lets up for a moment.

Although the production values have anime written all over them, with key fight scenes shots sporting familiar tropes of that medium, Renard’s Francophile sensibilities inject a whole other aesthetic and indeed feel to the proceedings. It’ll no doubt be huge in France, but it’s an impressive work which transcends its national culture and deserves to see a UK distributor taking a chance and giving it a proper release here too. I could never imagine London Transport accepting posters bearing the film’s international title, though. Which is why the new English language title MFKZ makes a lot of sense.

MFKZ played at BFI London Film Festival 2017 as Mutafukaz. It’s released in the UK on October 11th. Watch the 2017 international film trailer and the new 2018 English language film trailer below:

Brimstone

The wild wild west is an unforgiving place, especially in the New World during the 16th century. Dutch filmmaker Martin Koolhoven’s English language debut, Brimstone, is especially quick to spell out such a value. Following the story of Liz (Dakota Fanning) over numerous points of her life, the narrative is separated into four chapters; Revelation, Exodus, Genius and Retribution. Simply viewing these four sections, one does not need a PhD in Religious Studies to see the themes which Koolhoven is keen to discuss. Featuring Guy Pearce as an evil Dutch Priest, who also happens to be a paedophile with assassin abilities, Brimstone’s feminist core is destroyed by gratuitous violence towards women, peculiar plotting and an over reliance on style over substance. Having taken him years to write, if this world was a perfect one Koolhoven would never have bothered to pick up pen and paper.

Revelation opens with Liz serving as a midwife to the small farm town in America’s mid-west. She is mute, yet we do not know how or why she came into such a state. Married to Frank (Paul Anderson) with one child born by him and another other Frank’s deceased wife, life is fairly uneventful, that’s until the new Reverend (Guy Pearce) enters their routine Sunday service stating that ‘we have all sinned and damned to hell’. Sporting a Dutch accent and a long scar on his left eye, Pearce is clearly having some fun in the role; if only that was applicable to the audience.

Shot with a keen eye, Koolhoven clearly knows how to shoot film. Varied with over the head shots, vast long frames and blacks that draw the eye in, the film isn’t boring to look at. The mid-west is captured with a clarity similarly seen in Slow West. However, unlike John Maclean, the narrative is convoluted to the point of confusion. After Revelation, Joanna (Emilia Jones) is introduced in Exodus out of left field and the narrative pieces have to be unnecessarily moved by the viewer, not the filmmakers.

Female violence on screen is precarious. Though the horror of giallo’s such as Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977) appear sadistic and through the male gaze, its violence serves a a greater purpose; genre and auteur theory. The complete antithesis to this sub-genre of horror, Brimstone’s extreme violence towards women is grotesque and unnecessary. The film’s violent edge is introduced early enough to know this world is unforgiving and does not need repetition or revisiting. From whippings, to attempted rape and inevitably death, the violence never serves a greater purse, for example character.

Though readers and the general public may think critics go into films looking to destroy them, I want every film I watch the be brilliant. Sadly, in this case, one must avoid it at all costs. The wild wild west provokes to be a dismal experience in Brimstone’s instance. It’s sure dirty, just the type of filth we don’t like.

Brimstone is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, September 29th.

I am not a Witch

To laugh or not to laugh, that is the question! I went to the press screening of I am not a Witch and a film critic left the cinema halfway through boiling with rage. I later found out that this critic, who I happens to know very well, left because she was angered at the laughter coming from some members of the audience. Many people, including myself, were laughing at the predicament of eight-year-old Shula (Maggie Mulubwa), who is accused of witchcraft and is forced to live with other “witches”, in Zambia. Were we being entirely insensitive to the plight of women?

I thought about it and I decided that the answer is no. I wasn’t laughing at Shula, and I don’t think others were, either. In reality we were laughing at the absurdity of a society that still oppresses and punishes women in such a primitive way. The accusations are absurd (locals claim that Shula interfered with the weather), the exorcism is clownish (the priest looks like Stephen King’s It meets Carmen Miranda), the trial is ludicrous, and so on.

The witches are forced to wear a white ribbon in order to prevent them from escaping. This ribbon is hundreds of metres long, and they carry a giant spool for winding it. They are assured that they will turn into a goat if they cut such ribbon. It’s not these women that are ridiculous, but instead the patriarchal society that created these rules.

The belief is witches in conspicuous throughout the movie, and no one dares to challenge the tradition. Forget Carl Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (1943) and any film about the Salem’s trials. In I am not a Witch, the women too are convinced that they are witches, and it only takes a white ribbon in order to prevent them from running away. In fact they are fully functional and even integrated into society. They dream of redemption, and not acquittal. A profoundly lyrical and yet sordid reminder of the gripping power of cultural superstitions.

Rungano Nyoni’s first film is a mockery of cultural traditions vestigial of very primitive practices, which should belong nowhere in the modern world. The symbolism of the white ribbon is very significant: instead of adorning the hair or the body, here it imprisons females. Ultimately, I am not a Witch is a denunciation of a very serious issue, all with an artistic streak and a lighthearted touch, yet never complacent. The mostly static camera work and talking heads interviews might remind of the Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl. The photography is extremely bright, just like the arid landscape, with very few trees to block the sun. The colours oscillate between beige and light grey.

I am not a Witch is showing at the BFI London Film Festival taking place between October 5th and 15th, and it’s out in UK cinemas the following week (on Friday, October 20th). Not to be missed. I am not a Witch is one of these films that reminds you how deliciously dirty cinema can be. It’s out on all major VoD platforms in February 2018. On BritBox on Monday, March 17th (2021).

On the Road

The Lancashire director of the music films 24 Hour Party People (2002) and Nine Songs (2004) returns to one of the themes for which is most acclaimed for: British indie and rock. This time his subject is the North London band Wolf Alice. All very familiar territory for Michael Winterbottom. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, in reality. On the Road is guaranteed to get positive reviews in many of the specialised media, but in reality it is rather mediocre.

Winterbottom does succeed to capture the intimacy and relaxed moments of the band and crew as they tour of the UK. There is plenty of tender backstage interaction and friendly banter. There are also intimate moments in bed, but these are staged by actors who blend seamlessly into the story – these are the most profound and touching scenes of the movie, and they may remind you of Nine Songs. But that’s about it. The film feels extremely long at 121 minutes, and unless you are a die-hard fan you will probably get very bored. It’s almost as if the director felt lazy and switched off his creativity. He’s extremely prolific, often making more than one a film a year, which may explain why he doesn’t always succeed to come up with a masterpiece.

Wolf Alice is not the problem. The band is indeed very young: they formed in 2011 and only became more widely noticed a couple of years ago. They are all in their 20s. But they are not without talent and depth. The distorted riffs are easily blended with the screechy vocals, with a vaguely ethereal feel in the background. They reminded a little of the American alternative rock band The Breeders, whom I adore.

The problem is that the film banalises their tour rather than celebrates it. There is no contextualisation whatsoever (except for the intertitles with the names of the cities), no storyline, no narrative, no character development. You don’t even get a feel for the cities they are visiting, and instead it feels like they are in the same place during the two hours of the doc. The film is just a collage of images of a tour, and the coach is the binding agent. It feels distant and gloomy.

The imagery is dark and cold, and the teal-hued spotlights render the action a bit ghostly. This is by no means ugly, just not engaging enough. It will be extremely difficult to make out the details on a television screen, so if you are keen to see this movie make sure you go to the cinema. Sadly this film is unlikely to convert new fans. Unless you are a big admirer, it will not make u get up and dance. Says someone who likes indie rock a lot.

On the Road is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, October 5th.

Let the Corpses Tan (Laissez Bronzer les Cadavres)

Blood is red, the sky is blue and gold is yellow. All are plush and violent. The colours here are so bold that they will enthrall you from the very first minute. Aesthetically, this is a fascinating and audacious experiment. It will probably remind you of Dario Argento, giallo films and European caper thrillers from half a century ago (such as Jacques Deray’s Borsalino & Co, from 1974). In fact, Let the Corpses Tan is probably a tribute to all of them.

The movie opens up with bullets being shot on paint on canvas, on top of what looks like the semi-arid Mediterranean coast (despite this being a Belgian film, and the country being nowhere near the Med). The artificial colour palette neatly complements the natural hues and shades. Plus the montage is rather inventive, with fast editing, jump cuts and intertitles in very vivid red.

The story goes more or less like this: a small group of gangsters finds refuge (or perhaps they are just holidaying?) in a forlorn and near-ruined building complex overlooking the sea, where they also harbour a large amount of stolen bars of gold. These people include the middle-aged and sexy Luce (Elina Lowensohn), her younger lawyer-lover (Michelangelo Marchese), the alcoholic Bernier (Marc Barbe) and their big boss Rhino (Stephane Ferrara). Soon they are joined by Bernier’s beautiful Black wife, son and maid, who are blithely unaware of their criminal activities. The police shows up, and that’s when the bloodshed infused with a very dirty libido begins to unravel

This is also a vintage sexploitation movie. The violence is unabashedly extreme, and sex is almost invariably associated with the male gaze and rape. Both sex and violence are highly fetishised. Some people will undoubtedly find this a gratuitous and poor choice, particularly a shooting rape fantasy sequence. Yet this is not a vulgar movie, and I don’t think it’s an ironic tribute to bad taste, either. The portrayal of sex and violence is so exaggerated and caricatural that the movie even feels a little camp, in the Susan Sontag sense. In another context, this would come across as a sexist and cheap movie. But here it feels like a lavish and dirtylicious twist of the sexploitation genre.

Let the Corpses Tan is showing at the 61st BFI London Film festival taking place from October 5th to 15th.

Mudbound

A black woman has a lot to say when she gets behind the camera. And she likes to say it out loud, particularly at times when intolerance and bigotry are seething everywhere. Dee Rees is the director of Pariah (2011), about a 17-year-old African-American embracing her identity as a lesbian – it won the Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Breakthrough Director (in the US). Now she returns to tell the story of a friendship between two WW2 veterans.

This is no ordinary friendship. Two Americans return to Mississippi after the Great War, but they encounter prejudice and segregation in their own homeland. White farmer Jamie McAllan (Garrett Hedlund) leases a land lot to Afro-American Ronsel (Jason Mitchell). To his family, Ronsel is a war hero. To everyone else, he’s a second-class citizen. Jamie, on the other hand, faces family problems with his brother and his father.

Mudbound exposes the roots of racism in the US. Racial segregation is almost invariably associated with violence and poverty. The film narrative is linear, but still infused with some lyricism. Women are very significant, not mere supporting roles. Ronsel’s mother, Florence (Mary J. Blige), delivers a cracking performance as the matriarch and a sharecropper. Jamie’s sister-in-law, Laura (Carey Mulligan) is infatuated with a man other than her husband.

This time, Dee Rees didn’t tackle a feminist theme, but indeed it is clear how much her narrative differs from a male filmmaker’s story. She explained in an interview earlier this year during Sundance Film Festival: “It’s like a film by an independent black director gets talked about for who made it, not for what the film is”.

All the male and female characters are equally prominent in Mudbound, not just the two men. Every performance is excellent and yet balanced, and so no individual actor steals the scene. Even when Jamie’s father (Johathan Banks) erupts into violence à la Charlotteville, we can see that he is not alone on the scene. The feature alludes to comradeship not only in the script but also in the dynamic between the actors.

But it is not in the violent scenes of intolerance that Mudbound excels. There is no gratuitous blood. Mudbound differs profoundly from Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012). Tension subtly build up with the support of the boggy Mississippi landscape and the terse Black music. The screen is filled with mud, storms, tanks, nightmares and heavy drinking. Only an honest friendship can help to overcome he feeling of post-war maladjustment.

Mudbound played BFI London Film Festival in October 2017, when this piece was originally written. It opens in cinemas on Friday, November 17th.

Pecking Order

With New Zealand’s National Poultry Show coming up in July, the race is on to produce the perfect specimen and scoop the Show’s coveted first prize. For the competitors this is a lifelong obsession. “It’s like alcoholism”, says one of them: “you can’t give it up.” Indeed, if this documentary is anything to go by, these people spend their entire lives in pursuit of breeding bantams. In the doc Pecking Order, they farm dozens of birds in the hope that among their number will be that one creature that meets the textbook criteria and knocks the other contenders from their perches.

Meet a cast of extraordinary, real life characters who you really couldn’t make up. Their names come at you thick and fast as the film starts and it’s hard to keep up. Doug Bain washes a chicken in a grubby sink then puts it in a cage with a heater to dry it off. On another farm, his acolyte Mark Lilley and Mark’s pre-teen son Rhys discuss competing and winning. Elsewhere, young adult Sarah Bunton admits to dressing up chickens as a child and demonstrates the perils of getting a wing-flapping bird into a cardboard box for the night. And Graham Bessey, with a few missing teeth and a twinkle in his eye, proudly shows off his Barred Rock (a particular species) to camera.

However all is not well in the Christchurch Poultry And Bantam Club. Doug is currently in charge following the death of its much loved president but some members who are less than satisfied with his leadership are plotting to unseat him. The fearsome Marina Steinke is pushing Mark towards taking over, but having taken some potentially prize winning birds from Doug in the past, Mark is less than willing to go through with this unless Doug voluntarily steps down.

As the documentary switches between these two parallel main stories, red headings stamped on crate wood backgrounds demarcate certain sections of the intertwined stories within the whole. These comprise legends like “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched” and “You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette”. What’s fascinating is that while to an outsider the chicken breeding game seems parochial and inward-looking, to those involved it eclipses all else. As a study of obsessives who take their bizarre subculture very seriously indeed, it makes for compelling viewing even if you don’t think you’ve the slightest interest in its subject.

It helps that director Slavko Martinov injects the proceedings with just the right amount of wit to make you marvel at the ubiquity of human foibles, as prevalent here was in any other area of human endeavour. While the film is warm-hearted and loves its subjects, it doesn’t shy away from portraying the venomous sentiment lurking behind the attempt to unseat club leader Doug. You’ll be completely hooked by this strange world, its characters’ assorted antics and how everything turns out in the end. Without in any way demeaning its subjects, this film is an absolute hoot. You’ll leave the cinema with a wry smile on your face.

Pecking Order is out in the UK on Friday, September 29th.

The Road to Mandalay

Being smuggled illegally into a country is hardly a romantic situation. Yet this is how Lianqing and Guo meet, and they develop profound fondness of each other, despite their very different personalities and the hardship of their predicament. The two Burmese citizens eventually find a job in their chosen destination of Thailand: Lianqing works as a dishwasher in a second-class restaurant, while her male dalliance works long hours in a textile factory.

The Road to Mandalay is not a movie pleasant to watch. It’s willfully bleak and dreary. It’s dark and harsh, much like the lives of these two illegal aliens (and many others around them). Darkness is central in every sense: spiritual, legal and physical. This darkness suffocates them, but in a way it also serves as a disguise, as a means of protecting them from the police. Such people must keep a low profile in order to avoid deportation, and their fear is is constant.

Lianqing is the more ambitious of the two, and she sets herself on an ambitious task: getting a fake ID. This would enable her to find a better job, away from the filthy walls of the fetid and dismal kitchen where she works. Guo is more indolent, and so the friction between the two begins to escalate.

At one point Guo gives Lianqing a piece of jewelry but he soon has to reveal that it’s fake. This comes as a major relief to Lianqing: she would perceive a real piece of jewelry as unnecessary squandering. She wants to waste no money until she has the much-coveted phony document. It costs 300,000 Thai Bahts (roughly £6,000). A large fortune for people in their condition. Will Lianqing have to engage in the sex industry in order to get this sum? This thought is at the forefront of Guo’s mind.

The camera is almost entirely static throughout the film, conveying a sense of stillness and even imprisonment. This is combined with humble and derelict settings. There’s some awkward beauty in the subtle details: a sticker behind a ceiling fan rotating very slowly, Lianqing changing behind a translucent white curtain, and so on. Overall, this is still a very gloomy and even laborious movie. But do stick to the end for a real punch-in-the-face moment, a sordid reminder of the harsh and desperate choices illegal immigrants often have to make.

What’s clear from The Road to Mandalay is that the legal status of human beings is almost always contingent on money. Immigrants are entirely dehumanised by the economic argument. There is no room for tolerance and altruism. You are worth what you have in your pocket.

Watch The Road to Mandalay just below:

Good Time

New York’s long association with the crime film is as old as cinema itself. From film noir to The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971) and obviously to Martin Scorsese, the city’s mesmeric and glamorous qualities have served as poignant antithesis against a character’s base desires, involving gloomy streets filled with mafia, guns and et al. Although not as ridged as these formerly mentioned New York stories, a fresh and innovative addition to the canon is Good Time, directed by the Safdie Brothers (Josh and Bennie). Holding a greater contemporary twist over the likes of Scorsese et al, in terms of its cinematic panache, the co-directors arrange a kaleidoscopic thriller that is as tight and lean as its captivating lead, Robert Pattinson.

Working with Robert Pattinson in a role written specifically for him after seeing the brothers’ previous film Heaven Knows What (2014) – a bleak examination of a young woman’s addiction to heroin – the narrative follows Connie Nikas’ (Pattinson) quest to get his mental disabled brother, Nick, out of jail before anything life-threatening happens to him. Even before the retro Good Time title appears on screen, accompanied by a heavenly synth based score, you gain an intimate understanding of both brothers and their relationship. Connie is charming and manipulative, whilst Nick, played by co director Bennie Safdie, has a constant expression of agony and helplessness.

It is in Nick’s physicality and willingness to do whatever his brother says that lands him in prison after a bank robbery, masterminded by Connie, goes south. From this point onwards, the plot is focused on one specific element; get Nick out of jail. Still, a mission with this much personal investment takes Connie on a roller coaster ride through Queens over the course of an evening. With a hint of the evocative real life filming of Victoria and a reference to the grimy streets of NY, as depicted in Sopranos et al, Good Time is a high octane cinematic ride that will leave you with your mouth wide opening- truly questioning whether you will ever see a better film all year long.

Credited in front and behind the camera, Bennie Safdie excels in an unobtrusive performance as Nick. The emotional complexity in his facial performance is held in close takes by cinematographer Sean Price Williams. Opening in such a close up is a signifier of the film’s attentions upon such a tight camera angle. Similarly, using such a technique focuses the audience’s gaze towards the minutest detail in performance, whilst drawing one further inwards of the narrative. With this extreme close up technique characteristic of the Safdie’s filmmaking, brightly light neon frames accentuate these intimate shots. Varying from all colours of the spectrum, the artistry in the lighting heightens all the cinematic elements of the mise-en-scene. Such visceral lighting charms the brain and upon leaving the cinema, the normal world will be mundane and beige.

Naturally working within the thriller/ crime genre, a certain gratuitous element seems inevitable. Apart from one or two beatings, Good Time is not sadistic or masochistic. Violence, if any, derives from the tension built in abidance. Without a single gun fired, it’s a tightly woven piece of filmic tapestry, not an arrangement of blood, smoke and viciousness.

As the manipulative Connie, Pattinson manages to create a human who produces both disgusts and sympathy; he is a natural-born saviour who has rejected the only paternal figure in his life. His ability to be whoever whenever is undoubtedly a gift. Acting up to police officers in lies that flow effortlessly from his mouth, Pattinson is effectively acting within acting. To Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh) he is her affectionate toy boy. Yet, Connie only sees her as a spare credit card for Nick’s bail money and a free ride around town. In Pattinson’s ability to portray a character so invested in acting and ‘not in his own body at all’, as he told Film Comment in a recent interview, the actor transcends his charming star persona. If his supporting performance in Childhood of a Leader (Brady Corbet, 2017) and James Gray’s The Lost City of Z (2017) illustrated his keen eye for a good, innovative project, then Good Time marks a career-defining moment.

In Good Time, the Safdie’s create something unique, something audacious enough to have your pulse at its mercy. As the credits roll, the brotherly duo chose to let the final scene play out, complemented by Iggy Pop’s The Pure and The Damned. Flowing to a natural conclusion, a moment of poignancy lingers over the final moments. The stillness produced proves a soothing antidote after a ride through the vivid streets of Queens. As I walked out of the cinema, the streets felt boring and dim, Good Time’s visceral charm lingered over me. My only thought was to immediately turn round and experience that filmic trip all over again; sadly I regret not acting upon that thought.

Good Time showed in October at the BFI London Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It is out in cinemas on Friday, November 17th.

Good Time is in out top 10 films of 2017.

The Florida Project

The ultra-dirty Tangerine (2015) is one of our favourite Christmas movies of all times. It is a twisted fable of love and solidarity set in the outskirts of Los Angeles, and starred by transsexuals, hookers and immigrants. One of the most touching tributes to the marginalised people of Hollywood you will ever see. And also hilarious. Plus filmed with an iPhone.

The 46-year-old American filmmaker Sean Baker is now back, and his latest movie once again takes place in the outskirts of a very mainstream place. He has moved across the US from California to Florida. From the vicinity’s of cinema’s dream world of Hollywood to the dingy hotels of Orlando, just outside Disney’s Magic Kingdom. The director once again wants to portray the life of the outsiders living a stone’s throw from “the dream”, it seems.

The trailer of new movie, which features William Dafoe, markets it as “a movie destined to be remembered as one of the greatest films about childhood ever” and “a loving look at the innocence of childhood”. Sean will attempt to reconcile social exclusion with tenderness, with a funny and subversive streak. A puerile and yet critical look at American society. The child actors look very realistic, as do the settings. The judgmental look at those who haven’t experienced adult life yet feels like a gauge of American values. Likely another masterpiece, we would hazard a guess.

The Florida Project will premiere in the UK during the 61st BFI London Film Festival, which is taking place this October in the British capital. Stay tuned for our exclusive review, which will follow very soon.

In the Crosswind (Risttuules)

Get prepared to watch a film like no other. But before you do it, make sure the lights are off and you won’t get interrupted throughout this experience. Also ensure your mind isn’t anywhere else. This is as close as you will get to hypnotic cinema. And like any hypnosis, In the Crosswind must not be disrupted halfway throughout, otherwise it won’t work properly.

This Estonian film is based on the letters of Estonian mother and wife Erna (played here by Laura Peterson), and her predicament in a labour camp in Siberia. Stalin forcibly removed Erna and her daughter from their homeland on June 14th 1941, thereby separating them from their husband/father. More than 40,000 people in the small Baltic nation had a very similar fate, the film elucidates.

Martti Helde’s first film is magnificently audacious and innovative. It’s entirely shot in black and white, and there is no dialogue. And the big chunk in the middle – the forced exile in Siberia – uses the tableaux vivants tecnique. Actors stand still as if frozen in time. Some sort of Pompeii except people are neither dead nor covered in ashes. The only movement comes from a gush of wind gently combing a woman’s hair or shaking the occasional branch. More than 400 actors congeal their body language and facial expressions while the camera waltzes around them. It’s as if people refused to live when they were in exile. This is mere survival, this is not living.

The sounds, however, are not still. You can hear bones crushing, a distant thumping, some subtle, rattling the wind howling, a faint mumbling in both Estonian and Russian and even a little music. The outcome is stern, silent, eerie and even funereal, and the message of “frozen despair” is profoundly moving. It reminded me of the statue with a still beating heart at the Marcel Carné’s Les Visiteur du Soir (1942). Both represent a people frozen in time and yet not dead. The stillness is also reminiscent of Tarkosvky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962) and Stalker (1979; incidentally also filmed in Estonia).

The film is also a very deft and lyrical reminder of the irreversibility of history, and of our inability to freeze time in real life. Plus a superb tribute to a people who experienced horrific oppression. Erna’s husband was a victim of genocide, and she only found out about the tragic outcome in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed. My only criticism of the movie is that the titles providing background information are hardly readable, and the story is a sometimes a little difficult to follow, even if you pay very close attention.

In the Crosswind in now available for purchase as part of the Walk This Way Collection.