Month: June 2017

Just HOW HOT can you handle it?

Posted on by victorfraga

Turn on the fan on and grab yourself an ice-cold drink. As they always say: “if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the cinema!” Oh, isn’t that what they say? Well, nevermind, my brains are frying and I can’t think straight.

Regardless of how the saying goes, we have picked 10 films set during very hot weather (mostly heatwaves) across all parts of the world for you to enjoy with a big jar of Pimm’s. Or perhaps just wait until the weather has cooled down so you can reminisce about the scorching good moments while looking at these people loving, fighting and also being tortured under the heat!

There are rabid rodents on fire in Brazil, Austrians running amok, separatist Brits dying with thirst, black New Yorkers sizzling on the pavement and even a sadist German torturing his spouse who’s suffering from insolation. These are the top 10 heatwave movies, exclusive for the June 2017 UK heatwave!

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1. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)

How do you add a touch of tension to one of the biggest murder movies of all times, which spawned an entirely new voyeur/binoculars subgenre? What about turning the temperature up by a notch or two? Jeff (James Stewart) is very nervous at having juggle a likely murder across the street with his stormy relationship to Lisa (Grace Kelly). Hitchcock suddenly cuts to a close-up shot of a thermometer revealing a very hot temperature, which is backed up by the sweat on the face of Stewart’s character.

2. Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius, 1949)

This Ealing comedy is probably one of funniest films you will see in your life. The residents of Pimlico find an ancient parchment revealing that their London district has been ceded to the Duchy of Burgundy in the 15th century. As a consequence, they become a sovereign state. Independence occurs in the middle of an unseasonably hot summer, and the former subjects of the King immediately indulge in late night drinking and eating – as they ditch rationing and pub closing hours. The problem is that the British soon begin to boycott them, and they have to rely on international cooperation so they don’t die of thirst or starvation.

3. Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl, 2001)

Historically, the title of this extremely disturbing Austrian film refers to the period of Greek and Roman astrology connected with heat, drought, lethargy, fever, mad dogs and bad luck. In Europe, these days are now taken to be the hottest, most uncomfortable part of summer. Ulrich Seidl, one of DMovies’ favourite directors alive, translated this into euphoria strangely blended with insanity. Vienna is the backdrop to six anecdotal tales of twisted sexuality, scorching obsession and bizarre compulsion. The picture illustrating this article at the top is also a still from Dog Days.

4. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)

Both temperature and racial tensions quickly rise in what’s widely considered Spike Lee’s most iconic and emblematic movie. Salvadore (Danny Aiello) is the Italian owner of a very traditional pizza restaurant in Brooklyn. One day he is confronted by the local Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) because his Wall of Fame does not include any black actors. The sweltering sun is the perfect catalyst for this incendiary racial argument, which incenses the entire neighbourhood.

5. Rio 40C (Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1955)

This highly neglected dirty gem of Brazilian cinema is a semi-documentary of the people of Rio de Janeiro, particularly the poor boys selling peanuts on the sultry beaches of the city. The movie doesn’t have a protagonist, but instead a number of subplots that are sometimes intertwined. The oppressive heat is the common theme across the movie: it both connects and sustains the characters. Significantly, Brazil’s former president Lula used to sell peanuts as a child.

6. Rat Fever (Cláudio Assis, 2011)

It’s not just Europeans that go mad under the heat of the sun. Similarly to the expression “dog days”, “rat fever” here denotes a delirious state of mind exuding hedonism. This also Brazilian movie depicts the lifestyle of an artistic community living in tropical city of Recife. The small group lives without laws, without rules and yet there’s no shortage of hot sex, poetry and inebriation.

7. Martha (RW Fassbinder, 1974)

During holidays in Italy, Martha (Margit Carstensen) falls asleep on the beach while sunbathing, despite asking her husband Helmut (Karlheiz Böhm, who British eyes might recognise from Michael Powell’s 1960’s classic Peeping Tom) to prevent her from doing so. In reality, Helmut is a sadist, and he forces himself upon Martha while he’s fully clothed with a suit (pictured below) and she is in profound agony from likely insolation or sun stroke. Will make you want to avoid the beach for the rest of your days.

8. Coup de Chaud (Raphaël Jacoulot, 2015)

Life ain’t easy in a small village in the south of France struck by a heatwave, and where water becomes increasingly scarce. Residents and farmers begin to quarrel over the precious liquid, and their conviviality quickly flies out of the window. Nothing can calm them down, and even a mentally disabled man is soon victim of the hostility. Is water indeed the only way of cooling these people down?

9. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

This historical epic was nominated for 10 Oscars in 1963, and it snatched seven in total. It’s often considered the greatest British movie of all times, if not a very dirty one. It depicts Lawrence’s predicament in the Arabian peninsula during WWI, dealing with inflammatory and fiery themes such British imperialism, national identity and split allegiances at war. The scorching sun is central to the movie, particularly as Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) crosses the Nefud Desert in search of water.

10. My Summer of Love (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2004)

Enough doom and gloom. We have decided to wrap up our list with a bright and glistening Lesbian love story set in the idyllic Yorkshire countryside, and directed by Polish-British filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski. Working-class Mona (Natalie Press) meets the wealthy Tamsin, who’s far more used to a mollycoddled lifestyle. Their romance is soon ignited, in a feelgood and yet realistic enough picture which will not fade away from your mind, unlike your summer bronze glow.

Lost in Vagueness

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It’s that time of the year again, in which a muddy field attracts all sorts of people looking for fun. The Glastonbury Festival started in 1970, on the day after Jimi Hendrix died. The price ticket was just £1.00 back then and it included free milk from the farm. Has Glastonbury now become way too commercial, too middle-class, and has it forsaken its hippy roots and alternative spirit?

No. DMovies found the man who reinvigorated the Festival for ten years (from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s) and his story is told in the documentary Lost in Vagueness. If you think mud is the dirtiest thing you’ll come across in Glastonbury, think again. Roy Gurvitz’s tale of self-deprecation and self-destruction is filthier than anything you could imagine!

Lost in Vagueness was a festival within the Festival that gave the country a sense of freedom. Gurvitz was the founder of Lost in Vagueness, a vaudeville consisting of a string of subversive acts. The edgy experimental performances included cabaret acts, freak shows, anarchy and misbehaviour. While it’s very unfair to cherry pick one of the acts (they are magnificently dirty on their own), let me just give you a taster of what it was all about. In The Dog Show, a female artist performed a live reincarnation of Iggy Pop’s I Wanna Be Your Dog and the climax of her act was eating dog food (I did promise you a taster, didn’t I?). Her persona reminded me a lot of this filthy and vile bitch from Scotland.

With time, it all became progressively wilder, and a little out of control. As a manager, Gurvitz had 500 people to manage and eventually he lost his grip. Lost in Vagueness, the documentary, follows Gurvitz’s attempts to resist the “dirty business” and to remain loyal to his artistic ideology. Gurvitz is a tough guy. He forbade BBC, the Glastonbury official sponsor, to film Lost in Vagueness. In a conversation with writer Maysa Monção, Gurvitz explained: “I don’t work for Michael Eavis [Glastonbury founder] and I don’t need the BBC crew here.”

Filmmaker Sofia Olins did a remarkable job, rescuing Gurvitz’s contribution and preventing it from becoming lost in the past. Olins has worked on the doc for well more than a decade. The last Lost in Vagueness took place in the year of 2008. Olins talks to other artists, who wanted to split and perform separately elsewhere, as well as other co-organisers. She also tries to understand why Gurvitz’s had a mental breakdown, revealing his traumas from his childhood.

Gurvitz is like the Phoenix. He sets himself on fire and then spontaneously rises from the ashes, with a renewed sense youth and prepared to go yet through another cycle. His new cycle starts this week. Lost in Vagueness premiered in June 2017 at the Shangri-la Glastonbury Festival, when this piece was originally written. The film is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, June 1st (2018).

Churchill

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Just how strong is the “most important Briton of all times”? The unofficial accolade was bestowed upon the Prime Minister that successfully led the country through the biggest and most murderous war of all times. The title seems only fair. This must have been a superhuman, someone with qualities superior to all of us, who never hesitated at decisions, and whose instincts were faultless! Right? Obviously not, such person doesn’t exist.

The historical drama Churchill reveals a fragile and insecure side of the glorious Prime Minister of the UNited Kingdom. Under the façade of the unshakable war hero lay a human being riddled with doubts and with a body already showing strong signs of defeat: his gait wobbly, cane always in hand jaw shaky, cigar almost invariably attached to the hand and whisky within reach. His temperament was very unpredictable, anywhere from sloppy and sycophantic to tyrannical and demeaning. There’s nothing strong and stable about this prime minister. Despite being the head of government, many decisions were met without his approval, such as the go-ahead for D-Day (in fact, the entire film takes place during the days preceding the watershed event for Allies).

The movie is not dissimilar to The Iron Lady (Phyllida Lloyd, 2011) in the sense that it portrays the fallible side of a British Prime-Minister hitherto considered indomitable and obstinate. The difference is that 2012 film does not have an underlying message of military belligerence, and it didn’t come out at a time of reactionary politics, such as now.

Brian Cox does a tremendous job delivering a man full of hope and ambition and yet infested with fear and delusion. His wife Clementine is played by Miranda Richardson (pictured above). She’s much more balanced, firm and solid than her husband, and also 11 years his junior. She is the epitome the controversial phrase “behind every great man there`s always a great woman”.

The problem is with Churchill that every one already knew this. Every person who’s even seen a image of Winston Churchill at the time would know that he was not quite the picture of health, and it’s a safe assumption that he was supported in his decision-making, and that his temper was volatile – given the enormous pressure to which he was subject. Plus the statement about the strong first lady is hardly a feminist one. Successful women don’t crave to be behind anyone.

In other words, the shortcomings of the Prime Minister, such as the fiery temperament and the alcoholism, seem justifiable by a greater purpose: guiding a winning nation through. And under the veneer of humanist film, lies a narrative of national identify tightly sewn together with military belligerence. This subliminal message is bursting at the seems and ready to pop out at any moment.

The central moments of the film are the Churchill’s dialogue and particularly the monologues, in which he expresses his desire to lead the country through the War. He has a deep concern: “what will I be when I’m not fighting?” It’s as if the mere existence of the UK was contingent on war, a view that still prevails in some conservative segments of our society. The terminology of superiority is also everywhere in the movie: courage, valour, nobility, foolhardiness and anything else you can think of in order to describe the British unshakable qualities at war.

Churchill’s boundless altruism is also constructed in the film. He has the most profound and genuine concern for the lives of the British soldiers, and he’s even willing to make the wrong decision in order to spare human lives. The film conveniently forgets that Churchill wasn’t such a pure and kind human being, and that his altruism was highly selective. This is the same Winston Churchill that played a leading role in the Partition of India, which claimed approximately one million lives just a few years. The tragic event and Churchill’s role is denounced in Gurinder Chadha’s Viceroy’s House, from earlier this year. The film also revealed that Churchill was profoundly racist, and viewed Indians as inferior, which might explain the lives of British soldiers were more valuable to him.

Churchill’s religious faith (he prays loudly with a glass of whisky in his left hand) and unwavering devotion to his monarch (it’s George VI who dissuades him from joining his forces on D-Day) were also the driving forces in his decision-making, it’s also revealed in Churchill. Hardly the values of modern Britain. I’d like to think that the decisions made by our current Prime Minister are influenced neither by the Bible nor the Queen.

In terms of message, Churchill is not too different from your average BBC period drama, or a film you’d catch on the History Channel. It celebrates British superiority ad infinitum, normally with WWII as the backdrop. This one comes under the disguise of exposing the frail and errant side of a mighty leader, but ultimately the message is quite straight forward: “the greatest Briton of all times may have been a little shaky and moody, but he cared about our soldiers and knew how to win the War. Great lad! Britain rules!”

There is absolutely nothing wrong about celebrating British achievements, and there is not doubt that the British played a noble and resilient role in defeating the Germans. Yet we need to acknowledge the other side of British history. Jeremy Corbyn stated that our children should be taught about suffering under British imperialism in school, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m not suggesting we should hate our history and ourselves. What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t continue to bask in our military glory for the rest of our days without making concessions.

Ken Loach recently said about such movies in an interview with DMovies: “It’s a fake patriotism. There’s always exceptions, but by and large the traditional Sunday night television period dramas are nostalgic, like a Christmas card. People walking through snow and not getting damp.” The difference here is that Churchill walks on a beach without getting wet.

While not a badly-made movie, Churchill is not the kind of film that we need to see right now, particularly given the wave of exacerbated nationalism brought in by Brexit. Perhaps a broader film about Churchill would be more interesting, including his controversial racist tendencies and also his internationalist and pro-European views. He’s the man who once claimed that need a “United States of Europe” – I would hazard a guess that he too would be disappointed at Brexit.

Churchill is out in cinemas across the UK from Friday, June 16th. Is you go to see it, you won’t need to wear any special protective wear. There’s no chance you`re going to get dirty.

Is this the year of “minority” horror?

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We’re not even halfway through the year and we have already seen a significant number of horror movies either directed by women or dealing with the subject of racism, both of which are rather uncommon phenomena. Is this a one-off, a random coincidence or is the horror genre beginning to morph into something else, and tread into new territories?

First of all, allow me excuse myself for calling women a “minority”. While I recognise that the ladies outnumber the gents both in the UK and worldwide, I need to point out that sadly they are still a minority when it comes to filmmaking. A study commissioned by the professional association Directors UK last year revealed that only 13.6% of film directors working in the UK are women. There are no worldwide figures, but I would hazard a guess based on my very own anecdotal observation that the overall percentage of female directors across the globe is still single-digit. That’s why it’s not irrelevant that three of dirtiest horror films made this year were directed by very talented and young ladies.

There are also two dirty movies this year dealing with the subject of racism, and drawing direct comparisons between evil and bigotry – also mostly uncharted territory in the cinema world. Typically in horror, black people are either the first victim or the villain. Or both – such as Geretta Geretta’s character Rosemary (pictured at the top) in Lamberto Bava’s Demons (1985).

I remember George A. Romero’s 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead making a subtle yet very poignant statement against racial discrimination when at the very end of the movie the only non-infected human, who also happens to be black (played by Duane Jones, pictured above), is unexpectedly killed by military forces in some sort of preventative measure. It’s as if Romero was telling us that our society was not ready to embrace a black hero. I can’t remember any other films since making a similar statement. Until these two movies this year decided to portray black people as victims of racism, and to use horror as an allegory of the prejudice that they face.

My memory and my knowledge might be failing me, so please feel free to add more to the list. And let’s all hope that horror is breaking away from dungeons of formulaic and conventional filmmaking, that new subgenres are being established and that these “minorities” are finally being given the opportunity to scream out their anguish and their tortured thoughts!

Either way, let’s remember these five “minority” horror movies made in 2017. Just click on the film titles in order to accede to our dirty movie review!

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1. Prevenge (Alice Lowe)

British filmmaker Alice Lowe popped out a strange blend of comedy and slasher dealing with pregnancy and a bloodthirsty unborn child. Her directorial and writing debut uses the horror genre as a vice to explore femininity and isolation. Unlike numerous egotistical star driven directorial debuts, Prevenge is a strange concoction of the slasher horror and comedy genres – making for a truly original recipe of British independent filmmaking.

Lowe’s straight-faced performance is all the more impressive when considering the actress was seven months pregnant when filming the role. Her ability to create awkwardness in a scene lends itself well to her script-writing.

2. Raw (Julia Ducournau)

Raw tells the story of 16-year-old Justine (Garance Marillier), who arrives for her first year in veterinary school somewhere in provincial France. She comes from a family of strict vegetarians, and she has never eaten meat herself, but she’s then forced to consume rabbits kidneys during an initiation ritual.

You will soon realise that this is not a male-made film. Justine is, in fact, quite sweet and likable; she’s no rabid beast. Plus the female gaze behind the camera makes this a less exploitative and voyeuristic movie.

3. Berlin Syndrome (Cate Shortland)

This is like Roman Polanski from a female gaze. Australian director Cate Shortland director one of dirtiest and most arresting films of the year. It will keep you on the edge of your seat for about two thirds of the action. A truly disturbing tale of male obsession and violence towards women (in the shape of a kidnap), and the the disturbing façade of normality attached to it, set in the trendy and yet bleak and cold German capital.

The dirtiest aspect of Berlin Syndrome is that, unlike in the syndrome named after the Swedish capital, the victim here does not gradually begin to identify with her kidnapper. The frail and vulnerable female portrayed by Teresa Palmer here defies all expectations and instead morphs into a headstrong escapee.

4. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

She’s white, he’s black, they’re urban, he needs to meet her parents who live in a house on a huge estate out of town. His question: are her folks racist? The mixed-race couple 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.

It’s a very good cast, particularly British-born Daniel Kaluuya as the male lead and veteran actress Catherine Keener as the mother. The film does have its shortcomings, but the message is loud and clear: racism is just plain horrific!

5. The Transfiguration (Michael O’Shea)

American filmmaker Michael O’Shea, who’s not black, created an extraordinary portrait of teen angst, framed by the character of a boy obsessed in a bleak and soulless housing estate in New York. Milo (Eric Ruffin) is a young teenager living at a bottom of the social ladder on a housing estate in New York. He’s obsessed with vampires. He kills people and drinks their blood. He’s also a loner taunted by a gang of bullies. Sizing up likely prey, he makes friends with potential victim Sophie (Chloe Levine).

The film deals with race in the sense that many of the housing estate residents including Milo and his family are black, and white people visit thinking they can buy drugs off dealers on the estate. But equally, Sophie is white: perhaps this is a consideration when Milo first stalks her, but it quickly becomes apparent to both him and us that she’s just as much an unloved and struggling teenager as he is.

Nails

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What if you wanted to scream but a machine prevented you from doing so? Dana (Shauna Macdonald) is paralysed on a hospital bed connected to a respirator, following a very tragic hit-and-run car accident. She can only communicate through a computer-synthesised voice (more or less à la Stephen Hawking, minus the metallic tones) generated by words she types on a keyboard. There’s a ghost haunting Dana, but no one believes it. Her doctors and family instead think that she is going insane. She is voiceless, both in the literal and the connotative sense of the word.

The first feature by the Irish filmmaker Dennis Bartok has all the ingredients of a good and conventional horror movie: a vulnerable victim who no one takes seriously, a sense of entrapment (on a bed in this case), empty corridors, plenty of blood and so on. The story development is also quite conventional: those who doubted Dana will inevitably pay a very high price.

The outcome is very effective: the suspenseful pace holds the film together throughout, and the jump scares and gruesome images progressively build up to great results. The director deftly makes use of various media (CCTV, computer cameras, etc), also a very common horror device nowadays. Some images from the film will likely materialise in front of you once you close your eyes, which is more or less what a horror movie is intended to do.

But Nails isn’t a perfect movie. The first problem is that the climax at the end of the movie has too many loose ends, and many of the narrative threads (such as infanticide and a visit to the hospital during Dana’s childhood) never weave together even into a vaguely coherent plot. And while Shauna Macdonald is very good, some of supporting actors are a bit iffy: sometimes it feels like they are a little late delivering their lines.

Nails is out in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on Friday, June 16th.

Click here for our review of A Dark Song (Liam Gavin), another Irish horror out this year and worth watching out for.

Hounds of Love

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A very twisted couple is the centrepiece of this brand new Australian feature, which has left critics around the world raving. John and his wife Evelyn (Stephen Curry and Emma Booth, pictured below) enjoy abducting young girls, hiding them in their home, torturing and sadistically killing them. Welcome to the strange world of Hounds of Love.

The film opens in slow motion with young girls playing netball, while John and Evelyn watch them from inside their car in a distance. After the game ends, the couple stops vehicle car close to a teenager who is walking alone. Evelyn convinces her to get inside and soon after we watch the girl being murdered. Meanwhile, we are introduced to Vicki Maloney (Ashleigh Cummings, pictured at the top), who has a very strange relationship with her mother (Susie Porter). She’s on the way to see her mother as she is offered a lift by John and Evelyn.

Ashleigh Cummings’s terrific performance is the film’s highlight, and it will keep haunting you throughout. Her chemistry with other characters, her physical aura, and her delivery of lines are simply superb. Susie Porter is also outstanding. The frustration at not being able to find her daughter, the realisation of her mistakes, the refusal to go back to her husband: she conveys every emotion with perfection. Her scream at the end of the movie will leave you shell shocked.

Stephen Curry and Emma Booth as the murderous couple are good performers, too. The problem is that their motif is missing, and so it is very difficult to grasp their relationship. She’s a failed mother, a possessive spouse, and yet she doesn’t want her husband to kill Vicki. I fail to understand whether she’s meant to be a strong character or not

The cinematography is effective and it gives you a very good feel of 1980s. The production design and the music score are convincing enough, but the duration of the movie at nearly 110 minutes feels a bit long. The screenplay is tense and edgy – but only until the climax, which is a little disappointing. Overall, this is a dirty and disturbing movie, the problem is that you have probably seen it all before.

Hounds of Love opens on Friday July 7th in cinemas across the UK.

Click here for our review of another film directed by an Australian and about the subject or kidnap, and out in UK cinemas right now.

Destination Unknown

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Time doesn’t always heal, particularly when the wound is way too profound. The inability to forget sometimes prevails in one’s life. And the inability to express their suffering can haunt and torture the victims until the end of their days, however long they live. Thankfully cinema is here in order to speak up for people. And that’s precisely what Destination Unknown does: it gives voice to Holocaust survivors still alive seven decades later after their ordeal came to an end.

The film by Claire Ferguson, who is no stranger to the subject of mass murder (she edited Nick Broomsfield’s 2003 doc Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer), is a remarkable and intimate portrait of the few who dodged almost-certain death under the Nazi regime and lived to tell their story at old age. Some made it it by working for Oskar Schindler, others in hiding and a few defied all odds and survived the horrors inside the concentration camps. To this day, they still have nightmares that they are drowning or walking on corpses.

The coloured talking heads testimonies are contrasted against black and white footage from the war (particularly from the Soviet Liberation Army), as well as images of these people visiting the places of horror at present time (including the camps of Plaszów and Auschwitz). The colour of the latter is very faint, lifeless and dull, as if the filmmaker wanted to remind us that these places are no longer functional, and they can no longer kill people. The colour red is nowhere to be seen now. Nor is blood. Nor is death.

The movie also investigates the immense altruism of German industrialist Oskar Schindler as well as the extreme sadism of Commandant Amon Goeth. While the factory-owner spent all of his fortune saving his Jewish workers, the military officer entertained himself by shooting Jews with his rifle from his balcony. He even smile at his own trial after the War. The survivors speak of both the absurd monstrosity (which Hannah Arendt famously described as “the banality of evil”) and the sheer humanity that they encountered along their way, particularly in the figure of these two very different men, both members of the Nazi Party.

While poignant and sobering, Destination Unknown probably won’t tell you anything you don’t already know, specially if you’ve seen Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. The 1993 classic also portrays Schindler and Goeth, played by Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes. It’s a still valuable historical register.

Destination Unknown is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, June 16th.

Click here for our review of Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt (Ada Ushpitz), one of our Top 10 Dirtiest films of 2016.

Dying Laughing

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Comedy is a basic part of the human experience. Finding its origins in the works of Aristotle and ancient Greek society, according to theorist William Hazlitt in On Wit and Humour, “the nature of laughter and tears, is to account for the condition of human life; for it is in a manner compounded of these two! It is a tragedy or a comedy — sad or merry, as it happens.”

The new documentary Dying Laughing, co-directed by Lloyd Stanton and Paul Toogood, explores Hazlitt’s profound notion in specific reference to stand-up comedy. Akin to an ensemble of comedic avengers, Stanton and Toogood’s talking heads interviewees include a wealth of American stand-up talent such as Kevin Hart (pictured at the top), Jerry Seinfeld (pictured below), Jerry Lewis, Amy Schumer and Chris Rock. Closer to British waters, icons as Steve Coogan and Billy Connolly are also utilised in order to explore comedians and their obsession towards stand-up comedy.

Filmed in monochrome, all the comedians are a juxtaposition to colourful footage of the real world, stand-up stages and audiences laughing. Together, the conversations of Seinfeld et al and Stanton and Toogood’s footage interpolates the viewer into the head becoming a party of this discussion on the essence of stand-up comedy. In this arrangement of interviews and footage, the documentary and its anecdotal nature could have meant a repetition of funny stories from some of the biggest names in comedy.

Stanton and Toogood succeed in creating a documentary with a clear narrative focus on ‘this group of nutters’, as Connolly himself states. The director’s creative decision to film some of the world’s most enigmatic and colourful personalities in black and white underlines the harsh realities of their stories, unlike the colourful reality.

Gripping you into a state of curiosity, initial probing questions such as “Do you remember an early time when things went really well?” establish a base for the documentarians to build upon in terms of drawing out every comedian’s specific response to stand-up and its strange attraction. Continually, inside information is given on the motivations, techniques and focal topics. For any aspiring comedian, consider this film your bible, dictionary and dummies guide. Though you gain the sense that such questions are part of the overall script, they don’t feel repetitive or mundane in the uniqueness of their answers. Probing the comedians to their deepest roots, the film asks such people to scrutinise their own lives and professions – not an easy task for anybody.

The stillness of interviewing is not normally associated towards cinematic panache or nuance. Yet, in occasionally shooting the interviewee with a wider lens, the filmmakers achieve a tactile sense of the real world. Situated to the left or right of the large blank canvas behind a comedian, their house’s skirting boards or hallways are positioned in the frame. Reiterating their position as human beings, just like the audience, their privileged position in creating laughter for a living is never exalted.

Like William Hazlitt’s theories, Dying Laughing uncovers the fundamental truths of stand-up comedians and their obsessions with performing, regardless of its impact upon their physical or mental state. The loneliness of travelling between difference venues over weeks and months aptly underscores Hazlitt’s “It is a tragedy or a comedy — sad or merry, as it happens.” Nonetheless, asking an audience to have, as Paul Provenza states, “an involuntary physical response… simultaneously – it’s fucking weird” perfectly encapsulates what is so great about stand-up comedy. Instead of reading Hazlitt’s theories on comedy, watch this documentary for a genuine reflection upon this splendidly peculiar set of people and their relationship with stand-up.

Dying Laughing is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, June 16th.

Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans

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A story about obsession, backstabbing and fast cars. Steve Mc Queen: The Man & Le Mans has all the ingredients of a melodrama. Instead, we’re presented a classic tragedy. The elements, such as the daunting task and the counterforces preventing it from happening, are all here and they play out neatly.

One key factor, the “hero” is missing, though. McQueen was a man who lived in the constant mission of bridging the gap between himself and his onscreen persona. In this process, people got hurt, especially so during the making of his 1971 picture Le Mans (Lee H. Katzin), documented here. The film, envisioned to be the ultimate racing picture, ended up marred by production conflicts and ignored by mainstream audiences.

Hollywood has a penchant for mythmaking and the documentary brings forward quite a Tinseltown story. It shows how McQueen, one of the most bankable film stars of the late 1960s and a gearhead, set himself on a path towards failure. During filming, the actor ruined his marriage and ended the partnership with his most trusted writer, for example.

The most interesting aspect of the film, however, is the myth-busting. For contemporary eyes, it reveals one of the symbols of extreme counterculture masculinity. The “King of Cool” was a persona doused in blasé, womanising and elitist qualities that eventually took over his life. In an interview, he relates his passion for racing to a pleasure of being in position of power. To listen to him say that with that clarity shows how much masculinity has played a part in pop culture.

Not that everything onscreen feels vintage. Compared to today’s superhero blockbusters and endless remakes, the production seemed refreshing. By 1970, the New Hollywood movement was in full swing. It allowed for studios to take risks with original material that would be unthinkable nowadays.

Of course, this came with a price tag, both literally and metaphorically. The sheer confidence of the studio in McQueen’s star power lead them to greenlight a project without a script. That, combined with the actor’s obsession to racing details and inexperience with production, became a recipe for disaster.

Helmers Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna do a good job re-enacting this drama. Instead of relying just on interviews with key people (though there are plenty), they go somewhere else. Many sequences are deliberately sensory, such as the retelling of car crashes. Others, like in-set conflicts, seem to come straight from the radioplay transition, to astonishing results.

By design, Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans may resonate louder with fans of the actor and of racing. But every member of the public can understand the significance of a fall from grace. It’s one of mankind’s most enduring narrative threads, after all.

Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans has been made available on DVD, Blu-ray, as well as VoD on Amazon, Google Play and iTunes.

Click here for our review of another film that conveys a very different sense of extreme masculinity.

Destiny (Der Müde Tod)

Posted on by victorfraga

A setup. A restraint. A promise. That’s all we’ve got to know to embark on Fritz Lang’s Destiny, which is returning now to British cinemas. Premiered in last year’s Berlinale, this restored version updates the 1921 German production’s color and soundtrack. Its core, however, still shivers with the fears of the Weimar Republic. It also reflects some of modern angst, which we experience nowadays.

Despite that, Lang’s production is, first and foremost, an expressionistic fairy tale with a healthy dose of ambition. Starting off with the introductory titles “some place, some time”, we’re presented to two unnamed lovers. They give a ride to a mysterious man in black into town.

At the local joint, the three of them reunite and a little bit of supernatural activity comes into play. The lady goes to the toilet and returns to find that both of them are missing. The tragic reality suddenly surfaces: that tall dark stranger was the Grim Reaper and her lover’s now dead. Some suicidal thoughts later, the lady begs Death for his return and he appeases her with a bet. He shows her three lives in danger and, should she save one of them, he’ll grant her wish.

The prologue acts as a frame story for three fables set in, sequentially: an Arab country, Italy and China. They all involve doomed couples and, though simplistic, come in beautifully-rendered Expressionist flair. Their common denominator is even reinforced by the same actors (Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen and Bernhard Goetzke) appearing in all stories. That ends up being the film’s most compelling quality.

The turbulent post-WWI Germany was, not unlike today, ripe for the us vs. them narrative in politics. Considering that, it speaks volumes that Lang wanted his meditation on death to show how mortality unites mankind. By setting his picture in three very different countries and times, he brings our shared fear to the forefront. Love and death, the two big motifs in the film, play out the same for Germans, as well as Arabs, Italians and the Chinese. His beliefs (and Jewish heritage) caused him to flee the country as the Nazi rose to power.

It also shouldn’t be missed by the attentive viewer the critic the filmmaker makes of systems of power. In the fables, the tragedies that befalls our characters always come from a powerful source, usually corrupt to some degree. In the first story, we see the dangers of power becoming entwined with religious fundamentalism (sounds familiar?). In the second, we’re spectators to the good old jealous ruler. And in the third, a sheer demonstration of totalitarian force goes awry. In Lang’s legendarium, death comes to us, but we, as a society, do provoke it with a passion.

Despite the gloomy subject, the tone of Destiny is strangely upbeat, with a brave heroine (Dagover) echoing the wishes of the audience. The most obvious counterpoint to that is Death itself, portrayed with perfection by Goetzke. Grim Reaper is as tired as any worker stuck in London traffic at rush hour, and you can feel his misery. When confronted with the affection, his response is a void look on his face – the modern of expression of indifference we all recognise. It’s as if his heart was screaming: “Nothing matters at all!!!”.

On the other hand, Destiny mattered a lot, particularly to Lang’s career . It was his first international hit and granted him the necessary status to make Metropolis (1927) and M (1931) afterwards. It reportedly inspired Luis Bunuel to make films and once impressed Alfred Hitchcock. Ingmar Bergman also seems to have taken cues from the Death character in The Seventh Seal (1957). But, underneath its artistic importance, there lies a film that dares to tell us that, even in the most difficult times, we all bleed and are faced with mortality in very similar ways.

Der Müde Tod in being released in selected cinemas across the UK and Ireland on June 9th, and it’s also available on digital HD on the same date.

Click here for another film classic taking place during the Weimar Republic, and also dealing with the subject of death – which is also showing in cinemas.

The Freedom to Marry

Posted on by victorfraga

Rewind two years and follow the lead up to the Supreme Court of the United States ruling that legalised gay marriage in all American states – that very moment was the pinnacle of the struggle of the organisation that lends its name to the film title. Plus follow the life and work of activists during more than 30 years. The Freedom to Marry looks into political and social process of lawmaking rather than the subject of the legislation and implementation.

One of the interviewees is Evan Wolfson, president of the Freedom to Marry and a lawyer at the forefront of the gay marriage issue in a America for the past three decades. An eloquent and knowledgeable speaker, he explains to the viewer, at a certain point, the wordy root of what the movement he presides fights for: “By claiming this vocabulary of marriage, we would be achieving an engine of transformation that would help change non-gay people’s understanding of who gay people are”.

Unfortunately, as much as it is refreshing to meet about who struggled for so long for this achievement, a lot of what could’ve been a really deeply analysis gets too narrowed down. A chronology on the important events that happened before Freedom to Marry was founded, such as the Stonewall riots and the Aids crisis, is presented briefly, which leaves the fight for same-sex marriage devoid of a broader context. This could distort the full picture for those not familiar with the subject.

Of the couples that went to the US Supreme Court to settle the legitimacy of their union, we just really get to know one (April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, from Michigan), with the rest of the screen time devoted to the planning of demonstrations and media outings done in the organisation headquarters, which sometimes feels bit anticlimactic.

In one scene, we see a female activist confronted by religious fundamentalists who. After arguing with passion for her cause, she breaks down and cries in frustration. The woman is then interviewed, and the impact is analysed in retrospect, which takes way the heartfelt spontaneity of the action. The film makes a case for the devotion and hard work of people in PR campaigns. Overall, it comes across as a little esoteric.

The Freedom to Marry. In terms of an assessment of LGBT history, this does not have the incendiary diversity message of Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990), but ultimately it succeeds in being a useful PR case study for the dotcom era. The movie was released in the US and Canada via Ro*Co Films on June 6th on VOD and across digital platforms including iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play.

Click here for another documentary on gay marriage, from another large country across the pond from the UK.