A forest in winter. Deer. Freedom. The natural world. Untrammelled. Now on to another world. A contrast. Cow feet on a muddy, industrial floor. Animals in an abattoir. They will be killed and become meat for human consumption. This is the contrast underlying On Body and Soul.
Human beings must work in this environment. They must do this job, action this process. Endre (Géza Morcsányi) is the abattoir’s manager. He has a few friends among his colleagues, but he’s basically an introvert happy in his own company and well respected in his job. The company has just taken on a new quality controller in the form of Mária (Alexandra Borbély) and she’s a stickler for following company regulations to the letter. Her inflexible attitude is going to make the business’ financial viability harder and the workforce’s lives more difficult. She isn’t going to be popular.
By contrast, one of the shopfloor workers is a bit of a lad and always larking around with some of his female colleagues. But then, some animal aphrodisiac goes missing and although this particular worker is the main suspect, a psychologist is brought in to interview and profile everyone working in the plant. She thinks someone is taking the mick when, in the course of separately asking both Endre and Mária about their dreams, they both give the same answers. She doesn’t believe it – and neither do they. But it seems the two have been dreaming the very same dream as each other. Dreams of a deer and a doe wandering together in an unspoiled, snow covered forest. Those images we saw at the start and which are developed periodically throughout the film.
Thus the stage is set for an unusual, awkward romance. While others in the slaughterhouse seem to have no problem engaging with members of the opposite sex, Endre would prefer to keep himself to himself. He has a medical condition in one arm, which doesn’t help. Mária is even more isolated: she can cope with cut and dried rules and regulations and make production procedures fit them, but she really doesn’t know how to talk with other people. Both actors deliver extraordinary, compelling performances which suck you into the drama.
Once it gets going, the pair’s painfully slow attempt at a relationship plays out against the cold, industrial, life into lifeless meat work environment on the one hand and the cool, wintry forest-scape with its relaxed, fulfilled deer on the other. Are these misfit lovers something much healthier in their dreams? Or is the waking world in which they live and move deeply out of joint?
An extraordinary, poetic fable set in a world of modern, industrialised, controlled death.
On Body And Soul won the Golden Bear for Best Film earlier this year at the Berlin Film Festival. It is out in the UK on Friday, September 22nd. It is available on Mubi from mid-November.
The largest platform for the exhibition of independent cinema in the UK starts this week, for 12 days. The Raindance Film Festival is now on its 25th edition, and it’s hoping to welcome up to 20,000 visitors. It includes a vast selection of features, shorts, documentaries as well as industry events, talks and even a marketplace for industry pundits.
The Festival was established in 1992 by Elliot Grove, the immediately recognisable face running the event to this date. He’s pictured here with his usual silverfox and dark shades look, alongside DMovies’s director Victor Fraga.
Click on the film titles in order to accede to our exclusive review of each dirty gem (well, at least the ones we’ve already seen) And don’t forget to click visit the Festival’s website for more information about the event, and in order to guarantee your ticket or Festival pass right now!
We unearthed this dirtylicious gem of transgressive-queer cinema earlier this film, when the film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Not since Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) and Patty Jenkins’s Monster (2003) have you seen such rabid females repulsed by man. They despise their odour, their presence, their proximity and their existence. They refuse to live in a phallocentric society. What’s more, they do not strive for equality, as they don’t want to mirror themselves against what they see as a corrupt establishment.
Bruce LaBruce’s latest film is a return to the politics of sex, which he explored in minute detail in Rapsberry Reich (2004), plus a commentary on extreme feminism. The female characters here seek “to reconcile the revolutionary need with sexual politics” by rejecting men and setting up their Female Liberation Army (FLA) in an unidentified remote location.
We uncovered this dirty gem at Tribeca (in New York), also earlier this year. It’s fair to say that the title film title has become far more accurate since Johnny expressed his support for Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Brexit earlier this year. We just don’t know whether he has lost his grip on sanity or is simply infested with ego!
Filmmaker Tabbert Fiiller has worked together with Lydon for four and a half years in order to tell the story of one of the most influential lead singers of all times. Shortly after the Sex Pistols broke up, Lydon travelled to Jamaica. He was in search of who he could become as an artist on his own. But the truth is that John Lydon can never be a solo artist.
The documentary mentions PIL’s first concert in Brussels in 1978. It tells about the many problems John had because there wasn’t enough money to pay for the musicians. Some of his collaborators sampled some PIL’s songs in their own records. Fiiller shows statements and recollections from the past and current band members in order to fill in the gaps and add their own perspectives. Strangely, no film trailer is available.
This one comes from last year in Venice, where it snatched the Critic’s Week prize. Shot in black and white and full of heavy metal songs and attitude, The Nobodies centres its narrative on a group of street artists planning to embark on a runaway road trip, leaving behind their tedious lives. The lyrics of the heavy metal tunes played by Pipa and his band elucidate their frustration. The system oppresses them, capitalism sucks, and so it’s time for a revolution, a new solution.
The film investigates the personal stories of the five young people (pictured above), and what triggered their revolt. Medellín is shining with activity, and yet their future does not look very promising. Some of them work as street artists in order to make pocket money. And somehow they feel that they don’t belong in their own homes.
4. Cahier Africain (Heidi Specogna):
This is one we haven’t seen (yet), but have reliably advised of its explosive content. Filmed over 7 years the film bears witness to the collapse of order and civilization in the Central African Republic, a country torn apart by civil war and coup d’états.
The filmmaker explains: “This is a very personal film. On a research trip and by chance, I came upon this book, which led me to seven years of filming. We visited and accompanied the people who described their suffering and shame in the book. Today, the book – along with thousands of other pieces of evidence of war crimes – is locked in the vault at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The fate of the women and their children begotten by force is a tragedy the world turns a blind eye on.
“It’s estimated that, alone in the Central African region in recent years, more than 100,000 women have been violated during armed conflict. After the Rwandan genocide, approximately 20,000 children were brought to life with this background. The film was originally dedicated to the difficult attempts of women to regain a foothold after experiencing violence. However, the renewed outbreak of war in the Central African Republic abruptly rewrote the script”
5. Barrage (Laura Schroeder):
We haven’t seen this one either, but we can’t wait to witness Isabelle Huppert play the mother of her real-life daughter. Barrage is a Luxembourgian film selected for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards. It’s not often that the small country draws attention at the event.
It goes like this: “Catherine (Lolita Chammah), a young mother struggling with substance abuse, is determined to rekindle her relationship with her estranged daughter, Alba, who has been in the care of Catherine’s strict and at times overbearing mother, Elisabeth (Isabelle Huppert), since she was two years old. Elisabeth is wary of allowing Catherine back into their lives but reluctantly allows Catherine to spend an afternoon with Alba. She has her own doubts about her unruly mother as their personalities clash.”
Russia is a country neither for beginners nor for the faint-hearted. And the Russian roads are perhaps one of the most accurate expressions of a wild and abrupt society with a taste for speed and danger, and very little time for altruism. The Road Movie is a collage of very short videos recorded with the dashboard cameras of vehicles across the nation.
There are buses on fire, lorries flipping over and smashing all the cars on their way, airplanes collapsing from the sky (or is it a comet?), a vehicle falling into a river and car crashes of all types (many of which fatal, I would hazard a guess). There is also salacious negotiation with a prostitute, crazed pedestrians attacking cars, overbearing police action, a vehicle being burglarised and much, much more. You will jump from seat every minute or so, and you will probably scream along with many of the terrified passengers.
The moments you will never forget include a deranged man with a pistol shooting the tires and running with an axe after the driver of the car from which the action is being captured, and another one jumping like an ape on top of the car hood, for some unexplained reason (pictured at the top of the article). There’s also a car driving through a burning forest, and you will feel like you are right in the middle of a satanic ritual (pictured below). This is genuinely nightmarish stuff, straight from a very twisted book by Stephen King. Jaw-dropping: you might even get mandibular pain.
This may sound a sadistic exercise of voyeurism and bad taste, but in reality it’s far more than that. Unlike the police chase TV shows late on British television, there is no voiceover, no sense of closure and justice. Instead, we are left to imagine what the outcome is, and the thoughts that will cross your mind won’t be very pretty. There’s only crudeness and hopelessness, all to the sound of cheesy Russian pop music. This is an ironic and chilling allegory of Mother Russia.
The irresponsibility of drivers is pervasive. Many oare dismissive of the gravity of their predicament, even laughing at the face of tragedy. One of them places the onus of accountability on the Guy above: “God will protect me”. The lack of solidarity is far more conspicuous. A driver sees another car running over a cow and then says: “I don’t give a shit about them”. Another one watches woman accidentally set fire to her car in a petrol station, possibly killing herself; he then calmly drives away saying “stupid bitch”.
Perhaps one sequence sums up the movie very succinctly: two men engage in an erratic brawl while the voice from the car radio says: “we need more education, we are an ignorant country”.
Strangely, the film photography is fascinating. The glass, the rain and the snow distort the images in a very eerie way. Some sort of morbid and accidental Tarkovsky. You will see the wintery white roads in the country and the urban landscape of cities such as Moscow and Ekaterinburg both at day and at night. That’s a ride from hell through Russia. There’s a even a red Lada being chased towards the Kremlin. How much more Russian can you possibly get?
The Road Movie showed on September 24th as part of Hot Docs London, when this piece was originally written. The film has been already acquired for distribution in the US and we would hazard a guess that the same will probably happen in the UK soon. In any case, don’t miss the screening this month. It’s out in cinemas across the US on January 19th.
Just don’t watch this if you are squeamish or an easily impressionable driver.
There are so many films to pick from that it’s difficult to decide where to begin. In total, there are 242 feature films from both established and emerging directors from every corner of the planet. This year, the festival, which takes place from October 4th to the 15th will host 28 world premieres, nine international premieres and 34 European premieres, plus a top-drawer line-up of cast and supporting events. The feature programme includes 46 documentaries, six animations, 14 archive restorations and 16 artists’ moving image features.
Click on the film titles in order to accede to our exclusive reviews (of the film that we have already seen). Of course this is only the tip of tip of the iceberg, and our live coverage will bring plenty of dirty gems firsthand to you. And you can click here in order to buy your tickets right now!
This is absolutely unmissable. Our editor Victor Fraga saw this earlier this year in Cannes and was left ecstatic. The film on psych-sexual thriller on a par with his own masterpiece Swimming Pool (2003).
Amand Double is an incredibly arresting, sexy and funny study of love, sexuality and emotional breakdown. Chloé (Marine Vatch) begins an affair with her psychologist Paul (Jérémier Renier), after she has recovered from anxiety and some apparently psychosomatic stomach pains. Paul is strong and confident, while Chloé is frail and insecure. Her looks and vulnerability, plus some of the sex scenes, reminded me a lot of Mia Farrow of Polanski 1968 classic Rosemary’s Baby – minus the blond hair. Like Rosemary, she begins to suspect that her husband is concealing something from her and – despite her insecurities – she begins to investigate his life. She soon discovers that he changed his surname, but that’s just the beginning.
2. A Fantastic Woman (Sebastián Lello):
This Chilean film – produced by one of our very favourite and dirty directors Pablo Larraín (who made Jackie, The Club and Neruda in the past two years) – was selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. It was selected as the Chilean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards. We haven’t seen it yet but we have every reason to believe it’s going to be very dirty.
When her lover Orlando dies suddenly one night, Marina (Daniela Vega) is left in a state of shock. But nothing can prepare her for what follows. Still raw with grief, the singer and waitress must navigate the horrors of recounting the night to Orlando’s family, whose responses to the fact that she’s a transwoman range from frosty to scabrous and even hostile. It seems love and cohabitation count for little and Marina must fight for her rights, her home and even custody of her dog, while the police only offer a new set of humiliations.
Our dirty girl caught this one earlier this year across the pond, at Sundance. This modern take on Death in Venice is an emotional, rapturous and sensual queer love story taking place in northern Italy, and it will rapture your heart immediately, whether you are gay or not!
In the summer of 1983 in northern Italy, Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a 17-year-old boy, is about to receive a guest in his aristocratic house. He is lending his bed to Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old American scholar who has some work to do with Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor specialising in Greco-Roman culture. Elio and Oliver will share the same toilet as well as a desire for each other.
Just like in Visconti’s masterpiece, the story begins when a foreigner comes to the Italian territory. In Call me By Your Name, though, it is the young guy who invests in the more mature gay professor. A very modern and dirty twist on a unforgettable classic.
4. The Florida Project (Sean Baker):
This is another one that we haven’t seen but it’s on our agenda. The pressure is on. Sean Baker authored one the dirtiest and most innovative film created in the past few years, on an iPhone and a shoestring budget: the hilarious and profoundly moving tranny Christmas tale Tangerine.
Six-year-old Moonee (the astonishingly good Brooklynn Kimberly Prince) lives with her mother and other castaways from the American dream in a candy-floss-coloured roadside motel in Orlando. Disney World is just up the road, but their budget dayglow home is no plush hotel resort. Halley, Moonee’s mother, is only just an adult herself. More of an incorrigible older sister than a parent, she gets a kick out of juvenile hijinks, with utter disregard for their consequences.
According to LFF: “the genius of Baker’s film is how it runs along two parallel tracks. Narrated from a child’s-eye view, this is a marvellous world of play and possibility. But adult viewers witnessing Halley’s life will suspect what’s coming for Moonee. That this dazzling, precocious girl is a lightning rod of wayward charm makes the inevitable so much harder to bear. The Florida Project is an ingenious, instant classic about childhood innocence.”
This was our editor’s favourite in the Competition of the Berlinale earlier this year. Dilapidated buildings, cracked walls, chipped doors, neglected railway tracks, shabby cars, mangy dogs, plenty of rain and blood: this is more or less the filthy image of China that will you see in this highly imaginative animation and black comedy from the People’s Republic.
The movie looks almost like a rotoscope animation due to the realism of faces of places, but a few dissonant elements effectively cater for the more ingenious and resourceful side of the endeavour. There’s a thin line of smoke coming up undisturbed from a cigarette, there are paintings with a very different texture and there’s a very plush allegorical montage blending dreams with symbols of pop culture (from which the image above was taken). And there’s cheesy Chinese music to top it all up, sometimes coming from bad quality speakers, as if you were in a student’s room.
Our correspondent Tiago Di Mauro picked the Mexican director’s latest flick last month live from Venice, and the movie also happened to snatch the Golden Lion for best film. It all starts out as your standard blockbuster, but suddenly the dirty elements come in: there’s plenty of nudity, female masturbation, sex with a monster and a very wet and messy orgasm. Nothing is toned down or hidden, like you would expect from your average Hollywood flick. It’s like watching a Disney film in which Lilo shags Stitch. You will eventually get hooked and excited about The Shape of Water. Or maybe even aroused.
The mute protagonist Elisa is played by superb Sally Hawkins, and she might get an Oscar nomination for this role. During the Cold War era Elisa is trapped in a life of silence and isolation with many other people. One day she discovers a classified secret experiment in the high-security laboratory where she works: an aquatic monster from the Amazon, fully alive. In a way, this is a subtle denunciation of Operation Condor and US meddling in Latin America during the Cold War.
Don’t put your pen in the office inkpot, your friends may have advised you. Yet it seems that no one warned María Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes of the old adage. The two, who are perhaps the most famous tango dancers in history, unabashedly mixed work and personal life. The outcome was explosive, as you will see in Our Last Tango.
This doc investigates the career of the two artists, who are now both octogenarians. They worked and slept together for about five decades, from their teenage years all the way into the 21st century. But not without many interruptions: they argued and separated several times. I would hazard a guess that they transposed all the love and anger that they experienced in their personal life into their extremely supple, swift and elegant tango moves. The final personal and professional separation came at a very advanced age, and the latter was far more painful – according to Nieves.
Talking heads interviews with Nieves and Copes are combined with images of young dancers reenacting their past, plus actual footage from their youth. It all wraps up, as the film title suggests, with their last tango. Nieves regrets having to stop dancing, but the years on her back leave her no other choice. The elegantly-shot choreographies, with a coloured vintage feel, complement the soul-searching interviews. Overall, the cinematography is dark with a hint of hot colours: fiery dusk, Nieves’s flaming hair, the red curtains, the yellow cabs on the streets and the maroon buildings of Buenos Aires, plus the warm spotlights on stage. It all feels very appropriate for a movie about tango.
Nieves is far more prominent in the doc. She epitomises the emotional paradoxes with far more clarity than Copes. The male is stoic and frugal with words. The female is feisty and emotional, occasionally breaking down when asked about her past, particularly when recalling that Copes married and had children with another woman. She finally cries out: “who the fuck is Copes???” I found this a tad bit exploitative, but thankfully the anger-eliciting technique wasn’t used repeatedly. Also, Nieves is fascinating. She has a confident grin supported pearly white teeth and eyes that look like headlights. She’s got Bette Davis eyes. She’s certain to hypnotise you. In fact, firm eye contact is central to tango dancing, she reveals. It’s like a spontaneous electric discharge through the window of the soul.
The sound score is predictably effective, given the subject of the movie. The strings are dramatic and emotionally-laden, the fast-changing arrangements are tense and climactic – much like the lives of the two dancers. Ultimately, this is a film about the desire to carry on working and dancing for as long as you can, and also about Nieves’s realisation very late at life that one can be happy on their own.
The German executive producer Wim Wenders plus the director’s name German Kral suggest a very European, Germanic feel to the film. In, fact, German is an Argentinean man, born and raised in Buenos Aires, so it’s fair to say that his gaze isn’t very foreign at all.
Our Last Tango is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, September 22nd.
Humanising a character sounds almost like a redundancy, after all we are all human beings. All seven billion of us even. Yet when it comes to a British monarch, humanisation does not happen by default. A British monarch is unelected, above the law and protocol mandates that poor mortals like you and me should not even to touch their body. Plus, they are the head of the Church of England, bestowing upon them some divine-like quality. The biggest achievement of Stephen Frears’s Victoria & Abdul is to humanise a borderline godlike figurehead like Queen Victoria, and in a very credible way.
The film opens up with a cheeky “based on real events… mostly“, giving away the film’s poetical licence straight away. No one knows how much of that really happened and how much was concocted by Stephen Frears. And that’s ok because he’s not purporting to rewrite history. Instead, he intends to convey a message of kindness and racial tolerance, devoid of imperialistic undertones. To boot, he does not celebrate a belligerent British establishment like other films such as this one do. Frears is not nostalgic of imperialism. Instead, Abdul’s father cries out loud: “take your British Empire and stick it up your stinky bottoms”.
The movie tells the story of the deeply affectionate relationship between Queen Victoria (with the usually impeccable performance by Dame Judi Dench, a film royalty herself) and her Indian spiritual guide (munshi) Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal). They first met as Abdul travelled to the UK in order to hand a present to Her Majesty, who was also the Empress of India at the time. He broke protocol by making eye contact, and Queen Victoria immediately became very fond of the tall and attractive young man. By the way: protocol has since been relaxed and if you ever meet Queen Elizabeth it’s deemed as acceptable to make eye contact – phew!!!.
Abdul first arrived in the UK in 1887 and remained extremely close to the Queen until her death in the turn of the century. His mere presence was a transgression in so many levels. Firstly, he was a commoner (which is only revealed at a later stage to the Queen, who initially believed that he came from a noble background). Secondly, he was a Muslim (at first, the Queen believed that Muslims were very sympathetic to the British Empire, and she was horrified to find out that a fatwa for her very own head had been issued). Thirdly, and far more seriously: he was BROWN. To the dismay of her eldest son Bertie (who later became King Edward VII) and her entire court, whom Queen Victoria described as “racialists”.
Queen Victoria is the least formal person in Buckingham Palace, it’s soon clear. She eats with her hands, sleeps halfway through official ceremonies. She is also very uneducated, with a very limited knowledge of British history (she knew almost nothing about the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58). And now, to top it all up, she has an brown spiritual guide by her side almost full time, who is also teaching her the exotic Urdu language and manuscripts. In many ways, this Queen Victoria is the antithesis of what a British monarch should be. And it’s very touching to see her behaving so humanly. After all, British monarchs are not meant to behave like normal human beings.
Victoria and Abdul is also a very funny and witty film, with plenty of subtle comments on tolerance (or rather on the British inability to embrace it at the time). The court’s reaction to Abdul’s burka-clad wife and mother-in-law arriving in the UK are particularly amusing and symbolic of such failure (to embrace tolerance). And the moment Victoria asks his wife to remove the burka only to reveal a chubby and good-looking woman with a coy smile and beautiful ornaments (including a nose ring) debunks myths surrounding the controversial garment.
Judi Dench’s performance combined with excellent make-up also help to make this a very effective film. We see an increasingly frail and vulnerable human succumbing to senescence. Queen Victoria regrets her longevity, which she perceives as a curse. I wonder whether Queen Elizabeth feels the same.
Victoria and Abdul is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, September 15th. Not to be missed by both monarchists and republicans alike (I belong to the latter category). On Netflix on January 21st, 2023. Also available on other platforms.
A dark and somber photography combined with a borderline ironic “relax, enjoy the experience” set the tone for the trailer of the upcoming sci-fi Flatliners. Heavy breathing and croaking add a very eerie feeling to the atmosphere. The movie intends to be, quite literally a breathtaking sci-fi. It will also raise existential and scientific questions about the blurry line between life and death, and give us a prescient warning not to toy with our very existence.
The story is described more or less like this: five medical students, obsessed by the mystery of what lies beyond the confines of life, embark on a daring and dangerous experiment: by stopping their hearts for short periods of time, each triggers a near-death experience – giving them a firsthand account of the afterlife. But as their experiments become increasingly dangerous, they are each haunted by the sins of their pasts, brought on by the paranormal consequences of trespassing to the other side.
The Danish is best known for the 2009 movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on the romance by the same name. The film became an instant classic immediately, and it spawned as remake by David Fincher just two years later. The Scandinavian filmmaker has made four films since, but none has enjoyed as much commercial and critical acclaim. Let’s hope he’s willing to get dirty and turns things around this time!
Flatliners will be released worldwide on Friday, September 29th.
A trash can in Baltimore is 34 inches tall. How is that relevant to our readers except for the fact that we call such recipients are called “garbage bins” instead here in the UK? Well, a rat can only jump 32 inches high, meaning that it will get stuck in one of these cans. Now you know! Rat Film is dotted with random pieces of information about rodents such as this one. This is an interesting and audacious piece of filmmaking about our tiny friends (or enemies!), with a very unusual structure.
Baltimore, the largest city in the American state of Maryland, is a very dirty city. And not just because our much cherished and ultra-dirty filmmaker John Waters was born and made literally all of his films there. Baltimore is also full of filthy Norway rats (also known as brown rats or sewer rats, which are far more descriptive of their appearance and lifestyle than the idyllic Scandinavian countries). And Baltimore also suffers from another toxic plague, far more contagious: racial segregation. Novice helmer Theo Anthony attempts to draw a parallel between the two vermins: rats and racism (John Waters is not discussed in this unusual doc, and it’s not something we’d like to get rid of)!
The filmmaker collates pieces of information about rats in order to create a very hybrid movie. He talks about the fear that rats could be used as biological weapons, how rat poison is not intended to kill humans, and how the tiny creatures evoke much less sympathy than our canine and feline fellows. He then investigates the skills of domesticated rats, noting that they have smaller organs and that they get infirm far more easily than their feral counterparts. He finally draws the conclusion, and thereby a speculative parallel to humans: the fact that domesticated rats are more vulnerable to diseases is indicative that modern life has crippled our (human) biological skills.
Racism is the other pillar of the movie. The filmmaker reveals that the rat-infested slums were historically populated by black Americans, and he uses several maps in order to corroborate his theories (including ordinance surveys from the beginning of the 20th century). The Pied Piper of Hamelin and even a diorama also become tools in this bold investigation. He finally concludes: “if your sense of direction in the dark is not as good as a rat in a sewer, you might get lost!”
The aesthetics of the movie are very creative: there are plenty of unusual angles, sounds, sudden cuts, a few faux raccords and a little bit of cacophony. The narrative devices are eerie, disturbing and unpredictable, just like the tiny mammals in question.
Rats Film has a very interesting premise, but the film is by no means perfect. At times it feels random and disjointed, and the filmmaker fails to wrap it all up in the end, and the final message of feels a little bit fuzzy. It’s almost as if a pack of rodents had bitten off big chunks of the storyline. Plus the voiceover is sometimes a little laborious. This is a very ambitious and innovative project, but it also gets a little lost in its own audacity.
The doc is out in cinemas in Baltimore, New York, Chicago and Vancouver on September 15th. A nationwide theatrical release will follow shortly after, and possibly a UK launch.
The 69-year American writer from Portland, Maine is one of the world’s most prolific and best loved authors. His stories have been adapted to screen numerous times and many of the films have become classics in their own right. There is no shortage of Stephen King adaptations to cinema, with It being just the tip of the iceberg. This year alone, there are four films: It, Dark Tower (Nikolaj Arcel), Gerald’s Game (Mike Flanagan) and 1922 (Zaqk Hilditch). Plus several more are in the oven, including another adaptation of the horrific 1983 book Pet Sematary.
In this article we look at the five dirtiest StephenKing adaptations to the silver screen. Oh, and before we forget: Stephen King turns 70 next week on September 21st – just in case you needed yet another reason to remember and to discover some of his work!
1. The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994):
Often considered the best film adaptation of Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption is a modern classic. Adapted from the StephenKing novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Frank Darabont, the film is a thought-provoking look at integrity, friendship and belief. The two central performances from Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman provide the core of the film. There are few scenes more satisfying in cinema than the slow reveal of Andy Dufresne’s escape. Speaking about the effect the story had on people, King told an amusing story to fellow novelist Neil Gaiman. King recounted how an old woman, who clearly recognised him, asked why he couldn’t write things “like that Shawshank Redemption.” When King replied that he had in fact written the original story, she refused to believe him.
2. Stand By Me (Rob Reiner, 1986):
Stand By Me is not only one of the dirtiest films based on King’s work, it is also a story that many wouldn’t automatically associate with the horror writer. Directed by Rob Reiner the film tells the story of a group of friends who go on an adventure to find the body of a local boy who went missing. The film is a beautiful exploration of childhood friendship that captures the strong bond children have during certain moments of their lives. StephenKing praised the film and called it “the best film out of anything I’ve written.”
3. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980):
The Shining holds an interesting position in the canon of StephenKing adaptations. On the one hand it is considered to be a cinematic classic and one of the most revered films in the horror genre, on the other StephenKing hated it. King has publicly spoken out against The Shining, criticising the casting of Jack Nicholson and Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of the story (particularly the lack of one of the novel’s key themes – alcoholism).
While King may not be overly pleased with the film there is no argument that it is one of the most influential horror films in film history. Kubrick’s slow build up of dread and suspense along with some of the most iconic horror scenes in cinema make it a masterpiece. Like all pop culture greats the film’s success can be measured by how often it is parodied. The sinister twins scene in particular has been the subject of much imitation with Uproxx noting that everyone from Family Guy to the British cult classic Space have done a version of the scene. Family Guy in particular is famous for lampooning pop culture and has achieved worldwide acclaim for its satirical edge. The Family Guy game on Slingo who also reference a lot of pop culture in their slot games demonstrates how far the show is engrained into the public conscious. When players play the Family Guy game there is a strong chance that they will recall the famous scenes the show parodies especially if they are as iconic as the scene from The Shining. Other horror games on the site that have the ‘ghost’ of King hovering above them including Dracula (Salem’s Lot), Frankenstein (Revival), and Lost Vegas (The Stand). The genius of King is that no matter what scares you he will have likely written his own horrifying version.
4. The Green Mile (Frank Darabont, 1999):
Thus is the second of three Frank Darabont films on this list and one of the most memorable StephenKing adaptations. Leading the film is Tom Hanks as a prison officer in charge of death row. His slow turn from cynicism to belief is a masterful performance. The film combines the best of StephenKing’s tropes, realism and the supernatural, in a deeply moving film. The standout performance of the film is Michael Clark Duncan’s gentle giant whose abilities question not only the characters belief but also ask the audience to question their own faith.
5. The Mist (Frank Darabont, 2007):
The best King books are about normal people caught in extraordinary circumstances. The Mist was once again directed by StephenKing regular Frank Darabont and follows the story of a group of people trapped in a supermarket following a supernatural thunderstorm. The film follows one of King’s most enduring and important themes: people are real monsters. Despite the horror outside of the supermarket the real terror is happening inside as the humans struggle to survive and start to turn on each other. By looking at the unreal, the film explores the very real consequences of people under pressure.
The image at the top of this article is taken from The Mist‘s alternative version in black and white.
Get ready for a feast for the eyes. A visual orgasm conceived by DOP Giora Bejach. The creativity shows in every single frame, with a variety of angles, lighting and textures. Foxtrot is both a beautiful film and a piece of art. In fact, the sales company The Match Factory is marketing it as an arthouse piece. The company’s portfolio already includes dirty gems such as Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008), Hannah Arendt (Margarethe von Trotta, 2012) and The Second Mother (Anna Muylaert, 2015). Foxtrot is a welcome addition, and it’s certain to help the company to conquer foreign markets.
This Israeli movie is a visual ballet divided in three acts: Michael Feldman (Lior Ashkenazi) is informed that his son Jonathan (Yonatan Sharay), a conscript in the Israeli Army, has died; Jonathan’s days of military service in the Israeli Defense Forces, and; a long conversation between Michael and Jonathan’s mother, Dafna (Sarah Adler). Each act has a distinctive touch, and all three are strangely pleasant to watch.
The art direction is impeccable, often resembling cartoons. In fact, it turns out that Jonathan is a cartoon artist, and he spends most of his time making drawings while in the line of duty. The music score also helps to engage audiences from the beginning to the very end.
The relationship between the drawings and reality help to tie the narrative together. Michael’s experiences look like they have been taken out of his son’s drawings. And vice-versa. This is a deft device representing the bond between father and son. The two men are very far from each other, yet they are connected through their longing as well as the film’s cinematography. The revelation of Jonathan’s death and Michael’s decision to “dance” through his new reality are the central pillars of the movie.
A sequence to the sound of Gustaf Mahler’s Adagietto is one of the highlights of the movie – is this perhaps a tribute to Luchino Visconti, who famously used the song in his 1971 classic Death in Venice? Oh, and be prepared for a very unexpected twist, which intentionally renders the movie ambiguous and surreal.
The fact that the Feldmans are atheist is not irrelevant – the director explores a different facet of Israel, detached from the Jewish establishment. This is also a fiercely anti-war movie, about the catastrophic consequences of army duty for those who have no choice but to enlist (military service is compulsory in Israel). This is a mind-blowing film, likely to become both critically acclaimed and commercially profitable.
Foxtrot was the grand jury runner-up at the 74th Venice International Film Festival in September 2017, when this piece was originally written. The filmmaker had previously won the Golden Lion for Best Picture (the Festival’s top prize) eight years ago with Lebanon. It’s out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, March 1st (2019)
Eighteen years after Crane World – the movie that catapulted Argentinian filmmaker Pablo Trapero to fame – snatched two major prizes, the South American country triumphs again at the Festival. Hunting Season has just won the prestigious Audience Award of the 32nd Venice Critics’ Week. The Argentinean filmmaker is no stranger to European festivals: her short film Yeguas y Cotorras premiered at the Critic’s Week of Cannes five years ago.
The female director tells the story of a father and a son, plus the obstacles that they have to overcome in order to fix their broken relationship during a hunting season in the remote and wild areas of Patagonia. She’s a filmmaker sensitive enough to dive into the world of male relationships and to portray how men deal with loss, rage and detachment.
Nahuel (Lautaro Betton) just lost his mother to cancer. His stepfather Bautista (Boy Olmi) is not able to help him to deal with his loss. Nahuel is angry, aggressive and somehow is projecting his pain onto the world through a burst of rage. After a serious fight during a football match, Nahuel is expelled from school and decides to take some time off by moving to the South of Argentina in order to stay with his absent father Ernesto (Germán Palacios). Ernesto is a respected hunting guide in Patagonia living a very humble life with his wife and four children.
Their meeting brings out feelings buried deep inside both males. Ernesto doesn’t know his own son enough and Nahuel doesn’t feel respect for his own biological father. The cold and astonishing mountains of Patagonia are the background to these emotional conflicts. The days ahead don’t look very promising as the father and son soon explode into fiery arguments.
Garagiola’s talent shows as she gradually polishes Nahuel’s character into emotional maturity. At first, characters are trapped inside their feelings, but they slowly set themselves free. Many Argentinean films rely on a straightforward script laced with complex sentiments instead of a large budget and they are very successful in their endeavour.
Female characters are secondary, as Garagiola concentrates instead on building two very similar male characters from different generations. At first, they don’t recognise these similarities because they have lived apart for such a long time. Nahuel and Ernesto mirror each other in their discomfort, in their emotional outbursts and also in their subtle joy at the opportunity to reconnect. The filmmaker deep-dives into the masculine universe without resorting to clichés. A man couldn’t have done the same in such a distant and yet candid way.
Hunting Season showed at the 74th Venice International Film Festival, which ends this weekend. It won the Audience Award of the 32nd Venice Critics’ Week.
