Month: March 2017

Get Out

Posted on by mjbstaging

First things first: this Hollywood movie has an amazing trailer and a very powerful black and white poster image. It would be nice to think that cinemas fill up for films that are of themselves excellent, perhaps because they get great reviews, but trailer and poster probably account for more bums on seats. Sadly.

You can probably see where this is going. Get Out isn’t a bad film. But it’s nowhere near as good as the trailer. Basically, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve more or less seen the film.

The real problem is that it’s got a really great underlying and, as luck would have it, timely idea which would probably have made an astonishing 35 minute short. But it’s been padded out to feature length by falling back on horror movie clichés and homages. It seems that ‘homage’ is an intellectual word for ‘rip-off’.

So, the great and timely idea. She’s white, he’s black, they go out to meet her parents and find a pleasant white couple with black servants. The black servants appear to under some sort of mind control to make them more palatable to white people. That’s all in the trailer along with a few other, nightmarish bits and pieces.

Oh, and the weekend they’ve picked is the one where annually all the parents’ friends gather at the family residence for a get together. So far, so good. And given that white America has just elected Trump as its president, very timely.

There is more here that’s good, actually. It’s a very good cast, particularly British-born Daniel Kaluuya as the male lead and veteran actress Catherine Keener as the mother. The mother’s role is one of the better things in the script, a very clever portrait of a hypnotist plus some smart filmic sleight of hand and Keener rises brilliantly to the challenge. The film’s other ace is the lead’s best mate played by LilRel Howery, who seems to have wandered in from a comedy and whose scenes light up the film whenever he appears. Indeed, although promoted as a horror film, it’s a moot point as to what Get Out actually is. A horror film? A comedy? A horror comedy? Maybe one shouldn’t try to pin it down to a genre.

There is an extraordinary and beautifully handled moment early on the when the young couple’s car hits a deer on the way to her parents’ house.

Where Get Out falls apart, though, is in its pilfering of ideas and tropes from other sources whilst hoping that no one will notice. Sadly, we’ve seen The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975) so to rework that as The Stepford Blacks smacks of plagiarism. As the plot progresses, you start to notice other borrowings – a man sinking in to black darkness from Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014), a man bound to a chair and watching a TV out of Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983) a surgeon’s home operating theatre taken from French classic Eyes Without A Face (Georges Franju, 1960). And a particularly silly sequence towards the end has one character attack or kill several others in an attempt to escape which has appeared in countless horror films.

That said, there are still some clever moments, such as the plot’s resolution for which producer-writer-director Peele pulls an unexpectedly neat trick out of his bag. Overall, though, this writer was disappointed. Peele is clearly a talent to watch, but first time out he doesn’t quite cut it. Mind you, the trailer and the poster deserve Oscars.

Get Out was out in UK cinemas in March, when this piece was originally written. It is out on DVD, Blu-ray and all good DoD platforms on July 24th.

Carol is a great film, just not a very dirty one

Posted on by victorfraga

One year ago, on March 15th, about 100 film experts elected Todd Haynes’s Carol (2015) the greatest LGBT film of all times. The movie topped a list of 30 films that stretches back to the beginning of the last century and includes dirty pearls from all corners of the world. It was compiled in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the BFI Flare London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival last year. This year’s edition of the Festival is starting this week – just click here for more information.

I absolutely love Carol, and I have watched it twice with my eyes glued to the screen and my heart pounding with emotions. The movie is thoroughly delectable, and indeed an impeccable masterpiece. But something inside me also found this immaculacy a little awkward. How can a film be so perfect? So I decided to watch it yet again and concluded: Carol is a very clean film, and it does not fit in very well with our concept of a dirty movie.

This is by no means a bad achievement. It’s a natural step in the ascension of a previously marginalised culture within a capitalistic society. The incredibly beautiful Cate Blanchett’s impeccable clothes, hairdo and lifestyle are, in many ways, the epitome of the LGBT bourgeois ideal. The American conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg described this as “a concept subversive to both liberals and conservatives” in his LA Times column in 2010. But a lot has changed since, and LGBT culture has become so pervasive that it’s no longer subversive. In other words, Carol has pushed LGBT culture into the mainstream. Or the other way around (it pushed the mainstream into LGBT culture).

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Carol and Therese’s beauty is very mainstream, and not a departure from Hollywood’s strict standards

Despite the fact that Carol suffers with discrimination and sees her life turned upside down, she still comes across as enviable sample of a human being – from both an attitude and an aesthetical perspective. Plus she’s modelled after the great Hollywood actresses, a very conventional beauty standard. She therefore represents the replication and the perpetuation of long-established role models and ideals: very feminine, plush and preened. And this is not subversive. The same applies to her lover Therese, delivered by Rooney Mara.

The aspiration to live a high life in New York is also central to the movie. There is no doubt that the American metropolis is a mecca for gay people, and a hub for LGBT activism, but also a very mainstream one. In many ways, the shop where Therese works, the restaurants that the lovers visit and even their dwellings represent the concretisation of the American dream. A dream that has now become broader and more inclusive of various sexualities, but which remains extremely restrictive from an economic perspective. A dream that is either unattainable or undesired by the majority of LGBT people around the globe.

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Victor Fraga believes that Fassbinder’s LGBT The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is more subversive than Carol

What’s happening to LGBT culture?

The bourgeiosation of LGBT culture of course doesn’t happen exclusively in cinema. Transgressive LGBT filmmaker Bruce LaBruce recently told DMovies in an interview: “I sense a certain moralism in the gay world, too. That’s because of the assimilation movement: gay marriage, kids, the military, even transsexuals colluding with the medical establishment. For me things haven’t changed much”. That’s not necessarily a bad trend, but we must be cautious of some possible negative consequences. Pinkwashing can be conveniently used as a lame excuse to cover up and even to justify certain atrocities, such as military action. I wouldn’t like to think that the commoditisation of gay culture cinema will culminate in gay soldiers killing “evil” Arabs and other obnoxious enemies.

Let me emphasise once again that I do like Carol, and that I think it’s an urgent step in the history of LGBT activism. But I don’t think that it’s the greatest LGBT film of all times because it lacks subversive elements. It doesn’t have the controversial streak of Fassbinder, the provocative genius of John Waters or even the shocking antics of Todd Haynes himself in his early films. Carol is not Pink Flamingos (1972), the Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1974) and Poison (1991), respectively by the three aforementioned filmmakers.

A champion of change in cinema has to punch viewers in the face, as that’s the only way of cracking the pink glass ceiling. In Carol, Haynes instead gently caresses audiences. Fortunately, other films have previously shattered this glass ceiling. The repressive structure of discrimination just needs a gentle shake before it collapses – and this is what Carol and also this year’s the Best Picture Award winner Moonlight (by Barry Jenkins) are doing right now. The glass ceiling isn’t gone yet, but we are certainly moving in the right direction.

‘Tis time to Camp it up – with a capital C!!!

Posted on by victorfraga

In 1964 late American writer, filmmaker, teacher, and political activist Susan Sontag wrote her seminal article on camp, simply called ‘Notes On Camp’. Sontag was the first intellectual to explore this cultural phenomenon, crafting a novel theory for it. Until then, camp had remained a cult “sensibility”, as she called it, cutting across several sections of life, from design to films, from fashion to human behaviour, to name but a few. The beauty of the article was that, besides hauling camp out of obscurity, it featured some of Sontag’s style hallmarks: direct prose, the ability to bottle complex concepts with uncluttered, sophisticated turns of phrase, a smart way to deliver cultural theory with the reader in mind.

Sontag was very perceptive when she forwent a classic essay style for a list format, in a way foreshadowing the trend that would go mainstream in the Internet age, fuelling popular websites like Buzzfeed. She justified her choice by explaining that “the form of jottings, rather than an essay (with its claim to a linear, consecutive argument), seemed more appropriate for getting down something of this particular fugitive sensibility. It’s embarrassing to be solemn and treatise-like about Camp. One runs the risk of having, oneself, produced a very inferior piece of Camp.” Sontag capitalises “Camp” throughout

It’s not my intention to go through each one of the 58 sketches Sontag made in her essay, although some of them are worth mentioning. Sontag rightly observed that Camp is the ultimate manifestation of the idea of life as theatre. Perhaps for that reason it is closely associated with gay culture and its self-conscious embracing of drama, humour and artifice. Camp has been used by gay people as a strategy of resistance, a weapon to undermine prejudice, to laugh in the face of adversity. Camp is empowering; it’s a way of turning the tables on an oppressive system. It is a form of intelligent taste, even when it falls into the “deliberate bad taste” category.

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Susan Sontag relaxes in a not-so-Camp position, surrounded by vinyls

The flickering lights of Camp

When it comes to ‘deliberate bad taste’, one of the filmmakers that should be honoured for his services to screen camp is John Waters. Waters has been a force to be reckoned with since he launched his infamous film career with Multiple Maniacs (1970) and Pink Flamingos (1972) – the former has just been rereleased in the UK (click here for our review and more information). Since then, his films have benefited from higher production values, but Waters manages to retain the camp edge and sleaze that are two of his trademarks. Cecil B. Demented (2000) is a particularly good example of how his camp strategy is used to poke fun at serious art, with a riotous and almost apocalyptic grand finale.

Camp can also be read as a kind of Esperanto understood by any person anywhere in the world. Camp neutralises pomposity and adds a touch of cozy familiarity to an image, object or act because its parlance is universal. The scene in the movie Priscilla, the Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994), when the aboriginals join the drag act to the sound of the gay anthem ‘I Will Survive’, illustrates this point. When the aboriginals join the lip-syncing act, all cultural differences are erased, and only the most profoundly human qualities remain.

Another camp favourite, which is back in the spotlight thanks to the TV series Feud, is the classic film Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (Robert Aldrich, 1962). The TV series illustrates the classic feud between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. Both actresses are firmly established in the gay camp icon pantheon and the film is a kind of a battle of camp mammoths, each one trying to outcamp each other in this claustrophobic tale of sibling rivalry, faded glory and nostalgic isolation.

The cinema of Pedro Almodóvar is also a great destination for screen camp, as the iconic Spanish maverick turns up the volume on the less savory elements of the human psyche and the theatricality of human relations. Films like High Heels (1991), Kika (1993), All About My Mother (1999), and virtually every other film he has made, employ camp as an aesthetic strategy to create the style and mise-en-scène he is known for, abundant with flair and colour.

Paul Morrissey’s films made with Andy Warhol are another great example of camp. Trash (1970), in particular, stands out for the unforgettable performance given by Holly Woodlawn. The transsexual actress’s histrionic and absurd delivery as the frustrated wife of an impotent junkie played by Warhol’s Factory hunk Joe Dalessandro is one of the highlights of camp in the history of cinema.

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Jane Fonda is a very plush and boisterous Barbarella!

Among other examples of screen camp worth noting are Muriel’s Wedding (P. J. Hogan, 1994), Barbarella (Roger Vadim, 1968), Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959), all Russ Meyer’s films (particularly Faster, Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill, from 1965 and pictured at the top), Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), Bruce LaBruce’s punk porn Hustler White (1996), Cecil B. de Mille epics, Busby Berkeley’s extravagant musicals and many other old movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood, a treasure trove of camp gems.

In this age of extreme opinions, economic and environmental crisis and apocalyptic feelings, Camp can provide a cheerful note amid the doom and gloom. To quote Sontag for the last time, “Camp is a tender feeling”. In this hardened and saturated world, we can all do with a little tenderness to get us through the day.

The Chamber

Posted on by victorfraga

For many decades the Germans were the evil guys. Then came the deceitful and sneaky Russians, which always had a trick up their sleeve. But now we live in a fair less polarised world, and these countries are not as feared as they used to be. So what do you do if you want to make a thriller in a dangerous and forbidden location run by a maniacal and unpredictable government? Well, try North Korea! No one would want to be trapped in their land. Or even worse, in the dark depths of their seas. Get ready for a 80-minute deeply claustrophobic experience in a horrific place.

Swedish submarine pilot Mats (Johannes Kuhnke) is ordered to descend to the bottom of North Korean Yellow Sea with American covert ops specialist Red (Charlotte Salt) and two crew (Elliot Levey, James McArdle). Unbeknown to Mats, Red intends to set off a bomb in order to destroy an unmanned aircraft resting on the sea bed. He resists the bossy and manipulative woman because their very own hulk may not resist the explosion. Fear and egos begin to battle, and soon violence prevails amongst the four desperate people.

The submarine is ironically named Aurora (Latin for “dawn”). It seems increasingly that the craft will ever surface again. Likewise, it nevers dawns on Red that her mission is dangerous and foolish, and will almost in inevitably culminate in the deaths of everyone on board.

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The four crew members pictured here are their very own enemies

The Chamber is a film to be watched at the cinema, where you too will feel trapped in a dark and confined space. The sounds are very important here: the constant humming, thudding, eerie screeching, fiddling and sudden klaxons will help to create a sense of fear, anguish and helplessness that will envelope audiences. Interestingly, the North Koreans are never part of the movie. The enemy here is inside the very chamber in which the characters are confined. And it’s not a slimy alien creature, either. These four people instead have to battle each other, while juggling their precarious survival instincts. There’s plenty of drama, bleeding and cracking bones to keep you hooked, while the water leaks inside the submarine and tempers begin to fray and flare up.

Of course this is not the first submarine movie to be made, and the idea of being trapped underwater was the subject of films such as the British-American blockbuster Black Sea (Kevin MacDonald, 2015) and the spionage classic The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan, 1990). What’s interesting here is that virtually all the action takes place inside the confined space, and that the exotic enemy is nowhere to be seen. Made on a low-budget, The Chamber will give you some good thrills, and it’s a convincing piece for a debuting helmer – who’s more than likely to snatch future gigs.

The Chamber is out in cinemas on Friday March 10th.

The Creeping Garden

Posted on by victorfraga

Plasmodial slime mould. I have to confess that before this film came along, I’d never even heard of it. The Creeping Garden gives me the impression that I am not alone in this, since within the confines of biology, few researchers have paid much attention to the phenomenon. However, those few who have done so and are featured here – plus an artist – are clearly smitten.

To the naked eye, plasmodial slime mould is similar to fungus. There is one huge difference between the two: slime mould moves. Purposefully. Not that you’d notice in passing because it moves very, very slowly. In one of many fascinating detours, The Creeping Garden takes a look not only at early cinema but also at pre-cinema in the form of a triple magic lantern, a Victorian device for projecting pictures which you might imagine would be still. But just as today’s cinemas attempt to enhance the moving image with digital projection, increasingly complex sound systems and IMAX and/or 3D visuals, so these 19th century efforts attempted to make their still pictures move in a variety of ways. One of these was to put live insects into glass slides so that their living shadows would be projected onto a wall.

Fast-forward to the early 20th century and British amateur naturalist Percy Smith constructs his own complex camera rigs to shoot microscopic, time-lapse films such as Magic Mixes (1931) in his back garden and greenhouse to provide an early glimpse into the slime mould’s hitherto unseen world.

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The subject theme of The Creeping Garden is deemed very repulsive

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Slime mould was once though to be animal in nature on account of its ability to make decisions. But it’s actually a series of little organisms which function together as a coherent whole, not unlike a colony of ants. No brain is involved. Time-lapse imagery shows it, for example, navigating a maze or reacting to poison by recoiling from it. Artist Heather Barnett rigs up an experiment in a museum to get a group of human participants to behave like slime mould in order to better understand how it works and does what it does. People rope and clip themselves together before being required to follow, en masse, a person carrying a picture of an oat flake (representing a common form of slime mould food). Despite all their communication being limited to movement, touch and physicality, the group is able to communicate within itself for the purpose of going through a door or dealing with three separate persons carrying oat flake pictures who threaten to pull the group in different directions.

The film alternates between breathtaking time-lapse visuals accompanied by strangely compelling and otherworldly music by renowned composer and music producer Jim O’Rourke and passages following the activities of various weird and wonderful obsessives who one way or another work with slime mould on a daily basis. They wander in woodlands collecting it, they catalogue and perform experiments on it, they rig up machines with it to make music come out of a piano. It’s not hard to see why they fall in love with the stuff. By the end, you will have done so too.

The Creeping Garden is out in the UK on Friday, March 10th and on Dual Format BD/DVD from March 13th. If you opt to pick up the film on Dual Format (and why wouldn’t you?) it has some worthwhile disc extras, plus the first pressing also comes with an excellent CD of the soundtrack and an illustrated booklet on the film with writing about it by co-director Sharp.

The Love Witch

Posted on by victorfraga

Elaine (Samantha Robinson) is a husky-voiced modern-day witch who leaves San Francisco after the mysterious death of her husband Jerry (Stephen Wozniak). As she rides on her car to California – blue eye shadow, winged eyeliner, jet black hair – she has an inner monologue: ‘I’m starting a new life’. She arrives at a large Victorian house where she practices witchcraft and dabbles in some very unusual painting. She soon discovers her niche within the community and finds herself reborn within an underground coven. Very quickly she becomes self-absorbed on her quest: the search for true love.

She relives her ex-husband’s death with every man she encounters, whether he’s taken or not. Grabbing every opportunity to wield her power and control, making love potions and casting spells on men seems to be her primal focus. But new friend and neighbour Trish (Laura Waddell) warns Elaine that she’s a mere victim of the patriarchy. This doesn’t stop her from finding her first victim while out for a stroll in a park: Wayne (Jeffrey Vincent Parise), a university teacher. Elaine sees her first opportunity to shine: she makes him dinner, intoxicates him with love, dances and seduces him. Emotions begin to flow out of him, which she sees as a petty ordeal. ‘All the women that I’m attracted to physically are never bright enough. And all the bright ones are homely and don’t arouse me’, Wayne says. ‘That seems like quite a problem’, she whispers, pouting and holding him. ‘It is’, he cries.

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A sassy and retro feel is pervasive throughout the movie

What happens here is an entertaining reversal of gender roles. But she still wants to cater for her man’s needs, and so she cooks for him while he watches her. This self-objectification and no-strings-attached attitude represent the femme fatale archetype. Samantha has an extreme poise and a certain je ne sais quoi about her, and it all works out perfectly. Despite the erotic retro look, the movie is not a cheap copy of B-flicks from the ’50s and ’60s (apart from the remarkable styling and clothing). Specific techniques (such as dim and colourful lighting) combined with highly stylised and melodramatic dialogue work to build a heightened reality for these characters.

Stylistically, classics like Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) or Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain (1973) will spring to mind. Whether we’re on a pink tearoom with a harp player on the background, or a Burlesque club with drunken men and showgirls, or under a moonlight ritual with dancing naked bodies, or even a Renaissance fair with random kooky troupes… Biller’s vision never falters.

The Love Witch gives us the female experience with a mythic approach. It feels very familiar and well attuned to today’s chaos. But eventually, it’s safe to say that the hunter gets captured by the game. Ultimately, the film is both humorous and politically-charged. It will evoke a sneaky smile on the face of privilege and sexism.

The Love Witch is out in cinemas on Friday March 10th, and don’t forget to watch the film trailer before heading to the theatre:

Burning Sands

Posted on by victorfraga

“It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men” – that’s the message inside Burning Sands, feature film by Gerard McMurray, who was raised in New Orleans. The film has Trevante Rhodes from the Best Picture Oscar winner Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016) as a supporting actor, and this is not the only similarity between the two films. Burning Sands is a hazing drama almost entirely formed by black actors.

Zurich (Trevor Jackson) is one of the most popular freshmen at Frederick Douglass University, in Pennsylvania. He has joined a prominent and traditional fraternity on campus, seeking brotherhood and compassion. Just like in the film Goat (Andrew Neel, 2016), it is clear that the physical and emotional struggle implied in belonging to a fraternity will end in a tragedy. In this case, it is even stronger, as the violent images reveal some notion of twisted control system where black people abuse black people.

The film is divided in the days of the week culminating at Hell Night, in which freshmen undertake the last task so that they finally are “accepted” within the fraternity. Throughout the week, Zurich is tested to the limits of his sanity. It is imperative for him not to quit – that would be a dishonour. Even the university dean (Steve Harris, also in Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, 2015) trusts Zurich will get “to the other side”. The dean believes that “humiliation builds humility”.

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Hazing rituals range from the ludicrous to the extreme

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Some innovative aspects of the film include the use of voiceover as a clear expression of Zurich’s thoughts. While his body is failing – he is wounded, probably with a broken rib, and short of breath – his mind is telling him to go on. For him, struggle stands for progress.

There is also a wise and meaningful camera move during Hell Night. Zurich and other four freshmen are in a car waiting for the oppressive senior students to lead them to the last task. It is a thrilling moment. Whilst the freshmen leave the car, the camera stays inside, revealing a sense of vulnerability. The same feeling is pervasive throughout Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, 2015), which was produced by McMurray.

Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick, 1987) is also a big influence for the filmmaker. The opening scene in Kubrick’s cult movie shows the young soldiers having their heads shaven under the sound of “Hello Vietnam” by Johnnie Wright. Kubrick opted not to show the barbers, only the soldiers. In Burning Sands, black seniors are cutting the hair of the black freshmen under the sound of a rap music. McMurray chose to portray the barbers and the boys on the same take. The black rhythm speaks up for the code of silence that those boys share.

Burning Sands is out at Netflix on Friday, March 10th. Don’t forget to watch the film trailer below:

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500 Years

Posted on by victorfraga

“There is not a single indigenous family that doesn’t carry memories of the atrocities they have suffered in their lives.” This is how 500 Years sets out to retell the traumatic story of the Mayan people througout the centuries. This fascinating and moving documentary exposes the genocide of the Mayans that took place in 1982, while revealing the tremendous resistance of the indigenous people. It is directed by Pamela Yates and made by Skylight, a filmmaking collective dedicated to producing films that raise awareness of human rights.

Divided into three parts, The Trial, Defending the Land and The Uprising, 500 Years takes us on a journey throughout the recent history of Guatemala. Starting from the trial of the dictator Efraín Ríos Montt in 2013, responsible for the Mayan genocide, the narrative takes us back to the dark days of the 1980s, when around 200,000 indigenous were massacred and 45,000 artists, students and activists went missing.

Since then, thousands of Mayans have lost their land, which has made room for very large construction projects, such as hydroelectric dams and open pit mining. The leader of Guatemala’s largest indigenous peasant movement Daniel Pascual comments: “The genocide takes many forms. It is a spiritual genocide, a genocide of historical memory, a cultural genocide. This is a slow genocide”.

The documentary reflects the troubled history of Guatemala – a country that has suffered from a long period of civil war, US imperialism, massacres, injustice and impunity. The democratic government of Jacobo Árbenz, who favoured the indigenous populations with his agrarian reform, was overthrown by a CIA coup in 1954, leading to decades of military rule.

The documentary gives us an insight of the Mayan culture, portraying the dignity, purity and kindness of the people. Yates captures the dynamism and the psychological strength of this ancient people, who manage to unite, raise their voices and fight for justice against all odds. Two years after the trial of Ríos Montt, in the spring of 2015, the Mayan populations have become a major force in the protests against the corrupt government of the President Otto Pérez Molina. The Citizen Uprising, formed by thousands of Guatemalans, asks for complete transformation of the political system.

The camera captures the beautiful nature and the magnificent and wild landscapes of the country, which haven’t yet been exploited and damaged. The Mayan resistance for justice and protection of their lands and homes evokes admiration and respect. As the journalist and anthropologist Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj comments: “This is the struggle for memory, a struggle to rewrite our long history.” Without a doubt, the Mayan struggle in one of the most inspiring and respectful resistance for justice and equality, and brilliantly captured in 500 Years.

500 Years is showing at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which runs across various London cinemas for 12 days from March 6th – click here for more information about the event.

Plus, watch the filmmaker Pamela Yates talk about her film here:

Saving Banksy

Posted on by victorfraga

Banksy’s graffiti pieces remain the most instantly recognisable in the world. On the other hand, the artist remains as mysterious than ever, and his face and identity have never been identified in the media. In the UK, many people believe that he is a male from Weston-super-Mare, where his controversial dystopian amusement park Dismaland was built two years ago. The new doc Saving Banksy sheds new light on Banksy’s as well as other graffiti artists’ stormy relation with the art industry, but not on the British artist’s deceptive persona.

San Francisco-based photographer and filmmaker Colin Day has crafted an insightful film about the journey that Banksy’s pieces take from their mysterious moment of conception, through the negotiations with property owners on how to cut off a chunk of their wall, all the way to dealing with arts collectors and museums. The movie reveals that Banksy’s pieces often snatch six- or even seven-figure sums, but that the artists never makes a single penny from those, and that he vehemently condemns such transactions through his official website (just click here in order accede to his official page).

The film is also populated with some Banksy’s witty claims revealing the subversive nature of his work. He puts it succinctly: “If you are dirty, insignificant and unloved, then rats are your ultimate role model”.

Several graffiti artists including Ben Eine and Blek Le Rat are interviewed, plus the work of many others such as Herakut (from Germany) and Os Gêmeos (from Brazil) is quickly displayed. They all seem to agree that graffiti belongs in the street, and that a piece of a graffiti inside an art gallery is like “the head of a deer on a wall”. They refuse the money-making apparatus in the name of democratic street art. The festering inadequacy of the art industry is wholly incompatible with the ideology of these artists.

But exceptions can be made. Banksy is happy to authenticate his work, as long as the exhibition is entirely free. He does that through his website, which seems to be his only way of communicating with the world.

Previously dismissed as vandalism, graffiti has now become a big industry – to the dismay of ferociously anti-capitalistic and anti-establishment artists. The doc also interviews the biggest Banksy art dealer in the world Stephan Keszler, and he purports to be Banksy’s greatest fan. When questioned about the fact that he sells Banksy’s pieces without the artist’s permission, he replies: how can Banksy challenge the nature of his job when when his work too is non-consensual (ie Banksy never talks to building owners before spraying their wall)?

All in all, graffiti artists refuse the futile and risible attempt to immortalise their work, which they perceive as a fleeting gesture, or a temporary intervention. Nothing is meant to last forever. And Banksy himself mocks the ephemerality of his work in a piece entitled “Erasing History”, in which a man appears to be cleaning previously existing graffiti with a high-pressure cleaner.

Many people (including myself) have questioned Banksy’s anonymous condition, suspicious that this is but a marketing ruse. Art dealers, museums, private collectors, police and media, which one of these are Banky’s accomplices, and which ones are being conned? Either way, and regardless of the size of his pool of accomplices, Banksy remains deeply inspiring and fascinating, an extremely necessary artist. Our inability to answer these questions just lends an extra layer of wit and complexity to his work, but the disappointingly the film does not address this issue.

No matter how much Banksy emphasises his anti-capitalistic values and credentials, doubts regarding his level of complicity with the many stakeholders in the art industry will continue to exist. One way or the other, one thing is certain: Banksy is laughing at us right now!

The exorbitant prices charged for pieces which are intended as an anti-capitalistic statement is not the only irony of the film. Saving Banksy is being made available on iTunes, and you have to pay a hefty viewing fee for watching the movie. In a way, Apple is cheating Banksy and monetising his work in a way not too different from Stephan Keszlar.

Saving Banksy was made two years ago, but it has only now been made available for viewing. You can buy it now by clicking here.

Here’s film trailer, which is entirely FREE to watch!

I am not your Negro

Posted on by victorfraga

That inconvenient nigger is here to wreak havoc to your shady American freedom – I am not your Negro is a very provocative piece that uses incendiary language in order to inflame a deeply unequal, biased, hypocritical and racist society: the United States of America. The film will burst every myth of racial equality and democracy in the most powerful country in the world, and it’s an indispensable watch to all nationalities, races and creeds. Needless to say, the movie has acquired an extra dimension and significance since the toxic wave of reactionary politics brought in by Donald Trump swallowed the nation.

This documentary film by Raoul Peck is based on James Baldwin’s (pictured above) unfinished manuscript Remember This House and narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson. It explores the history of racism in the US through Baldwin’s memories of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr, as well as their tragic and untimely death.

By the means of historical interviews, footage and photographs, Peck creates a poignant portrait of racism in the US, revealing that equality has always been but an illusion. He also uses excerpts from historical movies with racist content such as Uncle Tom’s Boat (Harry A. Pollard, 1927) and Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) as well as films that deal with the subject of racism, such as Imitation of Life (John M. Stahl, 1934) and The Defiant Ones (Stanley Kramer, 1958). Many activists disliked the latter for its complacent tone: Sidney Poitier’s character reconciles with his white nemesis despite the oppression he suffered. Incidentally, the legendary black actor turned 90 yesterday.

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It’s that black and white: the US are a racist nation!

But it’s the clever montage that makes I am not your Negro so provocative and explosive. The director cleverly contrasts a 1960 US government advert promoting “freedom” against images of police oppression made at the same time. If the film was made now, Peck would probably contrast Donald Trump’s ridiculous America First speech – which the entire world has been mocking – against the Ferguson riots. In another key moment, the director boldly claims that “America is not the land of the free, but it’s sometimes the land of the brave”, followed by images from Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003). In other words, America’s braveness expresses itself through a school massacre. Finally, he places images of a jolly Doris Day prancing around against Black people hung in trees – the significance of this montage does not require a written description.

James Baldwin’s vigour and intelligence help to sustain what’s already a very convincing piece of documentary-making. The unapologetic, unabashed and confrontational demeanour of late American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic is a leitmotif in the film, as well as in the history of the US. He has no qualms at challenging the establishment, and the director supports him in his courageous endeavour. Quotes and titles appear throughout the movie on a black and white screen, with a twist of red. It’s almost as if both the writer and the filmmaker were saying: “yes, it’s that black and white: the US is a racist society. Now move your ass and do something about it“.

I am not your Negro was directed by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, and the nationality of the director here is very significant. Haiti saw the most successful anti-slavery and anti-colonial insurrection in the Americas, shortly after American Independence. The event shocked the US, which responded with continuous repression and boycotting of the newly-formed democracy. This theme is not addressed in the movie, but the irony of history is pervasive to those who know the origin of the filmmaker and a little bit about Haiti’s history.

This piece was originally published during the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, when the film premiered in the UK. It is out in cinemas on Friday, April 7th (2017), and it’s out on all major VoD platforms in April 2018.

Uncertain

Posted on by victorfraga

The most certain thing about this doc is that you will have never heard and will never visit the town where it takes place. Uncertain, Texas has a population of just 94, and it is located literally in the middle of nowhere. And conveniently so: it’s a hot spot for criminals evading justice or those just retiring from the world one way of another.

The movie is a triptych of Bs very familiar to Americans: bullet, bible and beer. The three people depicted in this doc come from very dysfunctional backgrounds, and their existence is mostly founded upon guns, religious faith and alcohol. Zach Warren is only 21 years old, which he describes as the typical “retirement age” in Uncertain. After that, you have little more to do than visit the local bar and drink, he claims. He has severe diabetes, apparently caused by the alcohol, and an insulin pump is permanently attached to his body. Despite being informed by his doctor that he’ll likely be on dialysis by 30 and dead by 35 if he doesn’t change his habits, he continues to drink undaunted.

The second peculiar character is 74-year-old Black American Henry Lewis, who works as a tour guide and a fisherman. The man is a tourist attraction himself, complete with a hardly intelligible Southern drawl (his dialogue is supported by subtitles) and a wild life story filled with racial tension, prison stints and even a murder. The third person in the film Wayne Smith is also no stranger to violence: he is a recovering addict obsessed with guns and hunting, and who killed a young man in a drunken driving incident decades earlier. He cherishes living in Texas because the gun laws are far more relaxed than in neighbouring Louisiana.

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Wayne is very fond of his gun and of hunting animals in the evening

Think of the imagery in Ulrich Seidl bleak and raw docs In the Basement (2014) and Safari (2016), add a pitch of hope and positivity and you are partway there. Despite the fact that the three characters find redemption in the three Bs (bullet, bible and beer), barely an enviable predicament, the two directors Anna Sandilands/ Ewan McNicol evoke sympathy, beauty and light from these stories (unlike the aforementioned Austrian director, who does not empathise with his characters at all). You will be unexpectedly engrossed by the strange humanity of these three man. The ugly and dirty surroundings, including the boggy wetlands which Henry constantly navigate provide the film with an eerie and yet strangely charming finishing touch. The outcome is quite impressive, particularly for two first-time helmers.

Uncertain is out in cinemas in the UK on March 10th and on VoD a week later. DMovies recommends that you get the full experience on the silver screen, where the exotic vegetation acquire a more profound dimension. But you could also watch it from home, where you are less likely to drown in the troubled waters of of the Deep South. Just click here for more information.

Meanwhile, immerse yourself in the film trailer:

We recommend that you also watch the American doc Lovetrue (Alma Har’el, 2017) a very touching and visually astounding portrait of three dysfunctional American who find redemption through love (instead of bible, bullet and beer) – just click here for our exclusive review.