Month: October 2017

The Fortress (Nam Han San Seong)

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

From its title you might assume that this big budget Korean offering was primarily a period war action epic more interested in spectacle and entertainment than anything else. In fact it’s an adaptation of contemporary writer Kim Hoon’s latest bestseller which explores a specific episode of history. The Fortress takes place in 1636, when King Injo of the Joseon Dynasty (Park Hae-il from The Host/Bong Joon-ho, 2006) was trapped in the mountain fortress of Namhan along with his ministers and court. It was winter and his army was suffering from exposure. To the South was the expansionist enemy Qing army advancing into territory hitherto under the protection of the Ming Empire.

At the start Kim Sang-hun (Kim Yun-seok), later revealed as Injo’s Minister of Rites, has a ferryman take him safely across the frozen river which is the route to Namhan. The old man bemoans his lack of payment for guiding others along the same route and wonders if the Qing will pay any better. After Kim kills him to safeguard the route from the enemy, the man’s blood seeps out slowly over the solid ice. This act will later come back to haunt Kim when he takes in a small refugee girl who turns out to be the dead man’s granddaughter, a child character given a fair amount of screen time and whose plight is heartbreaking.

In the meantime, there are more pressing political and military matters. The King must listen to his ministerial advisers before making decisions. Minister of the Interior Choi Myung-kil (Lee Byung-hun from The Age Of Shadows/Kim Jee-woon, 2016 and The Magnificent Seven/Antoine Fuqua, 2016) urges negotiation for peace with the enemy who outnumber them ten to one in marked contrast to Kim’s belief that they should stand and fight. The Prime Minister shares Kim’s belief, but is out of touch with the common people whereas Kim takes the trouble to talk and listen to the troops on the ground, represented primarily by the character of savvy, local blacksmith Seol Nal-soi (Go Soo). Thus, when the latter suggests the men be supplied with straw bags as protection against the cold, Kim is able to raise this idea in court and get the King to agree to it. The Prime Minister is disgusted with this since he thinks soldiers should simply endure the cold.

As they speak, ministers frequently suggest that if their suggestions are unworthy, their heads should be separated from their bodies. The Fortress has its share of beheadings, but it never seems to be the politicians who suffer this fate – it’s rather the enemy, one or two of whose heads are displayed to remind the troops of victory, or a hapless Lieutenant who is being punished for the failures of his political masters. The times may have been more violent and barbaric, but politicians have scarcely changed.

The machinations of the ministers and the court and the weight of office upon the King as he seeks their counsel before taking important decisions are compellingly portrayed with a real attempt at conveying all sides. Less effective is the portrayal of the common people who are pretty much reduced to blacksmith Nal-soi, his country bumpkin brother Chil-bok and the young girl in Kim’s charge. There are enough well-staged scenes of big battles or incidents such as Nal-soi travelling cross country through enemy lines to deliver a message to friendly forces to make you buy this as a big budget, period war spectacular, yet the core of the proceedings takes place in the King’s court.

The Fortress sets itself some very difficult tasks and for the most part pulls them off effectively. The central theme of a country trapped between two rival empires undoubtedly strikes a chord for contemporary Korean audiences given their country finds itself trapped between China to the North and U.S. forces to the South. The film also boasts an impressive Ryuichi Sakamoto score although many of the court scenes work very well indeed without any music at all. Highly satisfying film making. This excellent choice of opening film bodes well for London East Asian Film Festival 2017.

The Fortress opened the London East Asia Film Festival 2017, which runs from 19-29 October 2017.

The King of Belgians

Posted on by victorfraga

Being able to laugh at oneself is a skill not everyone possesses. Political self-deprecation goes even a step further: it mocks an entire nation, society or institution. Belgian filmmakers Peter Brosens and Jessica Hope Woodworth have done a very convincing (and funny) job at deriding their own nation, their monarchy, the EU and, in a broader sense, all types of nationalism. King of Belgians is a mockumentary about the fictitious Belgian monarch Nicholas III (played by Peter van den Begin, who does look a little like the country’s real monarch Philippe) who becomes stranded in Turkey while Wallonia, the French-speaking half of the country, secedes.

He must return home in order to prevent the breakdown of his nation, but a bizarre natural phenomenon akin to Eyjafjallajökull, the infamous Icelandic volcano that ground Europe to a halt, has wreaked havoc in the region. Both the airspace and communications have been shut down, and the King is ordered to stay in the hotel complex. Despite the warnings, the King, the Queen and their small entourage decide to flee via bus and boat through the Balkans, before a diplomatic crisis erupts.

The King of Belgians mocks all sorts of institutions and regimes. It’s likely to please people across the political spectrum precisely because it does not fail to discriminate against anyone. Everyone is game. The “independence” of Wallonia is often questioned and described as unfeasible. “Why split a peanut?”, one of the King’s associates puts it bluntly. The country is also described as a button that “holds together the two sides of a t-shirt” (in reference to the EU). The differences between the two halves of the country – the warm people of the South (Wallonia) versus innovative people of the North (Flanders) – epitomises the cultural differences between Northern and Southern Europe, the film deftly notes. The movie also questions how Belgium can be the heart of Europe if they can’t even keep their “mini-country” country together.

The humour sounds very nordic, almost deadpan. The jokes are bleak and subtle, and yet very effective. It’s dirtylicious to see a monarch looking so un-regal, disguising himself in drag, and having to cross into the EU in a dinghy similarly to what refugees often have to do. Perhaps the most emotional moment of the movie is when the King and his entourage have to leave a miniature version of Atomium (the atom sculpture emblematic of Brussels) behind because it’s too large to conceal while traveling undercover. What a heartbreak!!!

They travel through Bulgaria, then Serbia, then… well, I can’t spoil it for you. Be prepared to end up where you never expected. The fact that their journey takes place in the Balkans is not irrelevant. The Balkans are symbolic of fragmentation – the term “Balkanisation” is now present in most dictionaries. That’s precisely the antithesis of what Belgium and the EU want to become. Their interaction with the local is also hilarious, with bits and bobs of cultural differences suddenly surfacing. At one point a Bulgarian woman tells the undercover King: “we have two French words in Bulgarian: elevator and bidet”. Such wonderful inventions!

This is a very clever piece of cinema presumably made on a budget as small as Belgium (given the mockumentary, handheld nature of the film). The two directors Peter also penned the fabulous script. Not be missed, regardless of whether you like the EU or not!

The King of Belgians premieres at the Cambridge Film Festival taking place between October 19th and October 26th.

Dina

Posted on by victorfraga

It’s easy to argue that people with mental health conditions deserve a fulfilling existence, a happy relationship and even a sex life. But it’s far more difficult to demonstrate it in a convincing and realistic manner. Filmmakers Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles did just that, creating a very tender and touching doc about two people suffering from various mental health disorders, and who you wouldn’t normally expect to tie the knot.

Dina Buno is 49 years old, and she suffers from a “smorgasbord” of mental health conditions, as her mother puts it. She has profound psychological and physical scars from past relationship and she survived a shocking episode of domestic abuse (you will only find out the details in the end of the movie). She’s determined to marry her boyfriend Scott Levin, a Walmart door greeter who suffers from Asperger Syndrome (one of the conditions she also has). She wants to start afresh, despite her painful past and her complex medical issues.

What’s remarkable about Dina is that it doesn’t focus on Dina and Scott’s limitations and problems. Instead, this doc fully enables them. Dina and Scott are not human beings despite their mental health conditions. And they are not defined by their limitations, either. They are just two loving people, and we have every reason to believe that their relationship is feasible and profound enough to survive. There’s an enormous amount of tenderness in a little peck on the lips, in an insightful conversation about sexual fetishes and in a walk on the beach looking at the sunshine and listening to the seagulls squawk. There’s a sense of urgency in their candidness and simplicity.

Documentaries such as Dina, LoveTrue (Alma Har’el) and Quest (Jonathan Olshefsky), all three made this year and distributed by Dogwoof, provide us opportunity to look at the unconventional and marginalised American family in a way very different to reality shows on television. These films are far more sensitive and less manipulative. Dina even has a touch of cinéma vérité, or a home video feel – except that the audio is impeccable. The camera gets very intimate without being invasive.

We live in such a busy world, and we rarely take the time to meet real people, to talk to the eccentric couple living next door, to look them in the eyes and even join their wedding. Films like Dina offer you the chance to do so. It is out in cinemas across the UK from Friday, October 20th.

ManHunt (Zhui bu)

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

The late Japanese actor Ken Takakura who died in 2014 appeared in more than 200 films and made his name playing ex-cons and gangsters for Toei studios between the mid-fifties and mid-seventies. He was a major inspiration for Hong Kong director John Woo who here remakes the 1976 Takakura vehicle Manhunt.

Du Qiu (Chinese actor Zhang Hanyu) finds himself in a Japanese bar swapping notes on movies with the mama-san Rain (Korea’s Ha Ji-won). Almost immediately, a loutish group of men in suits storm into the same bar to demand he leaves so she can give them her full attention. Once he’s gone, Rain and her partner Dawn (the director’s daughter Angeles Woo) proceed to gun down the suits, the camera whirling around them as Woo choreographs the mayhem.

Du is a lawyer working for a pharma company. The morning after a huge corporate event he wakes up to find a dead woman (Tao Okamoto) lying next to him in his bed. Implicated in her murder, he goes on the run. A cop Yamura (Fukuyama Masaharu from Like Father, Like Son, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2013) is assigned to catch him. Eventually after a series of pursuits and confrontations, the fugitive convinces the cop of his innocence and the two men join forces to clear Du’s name. As well as the two female assassins, they must contend with the villainous corporate head Sakai Yoshihiro (Kunimura Jun) and his insecure son Sakai Hiroshi (Ikeuchi Hiroyuki) plus the vengeful widow (Qi Wei) of a deceased research scientist.

Woo builds one incredible action set piece upon another which he perfectly integrates into his visual storytelling and bravura cinematic style. Numerous eye-popping fights, car chases and shoot outs pepper the thrilling proceedings while a sniper sequence and speedboat chase recall similar scenes from his masterpiece The Killer (1989). The contemporary Japanese backdrop, players and crew give the whole thing a clean, high tech feel and it’s refreshing to see female as well as male characters participate equally in the action: a shift in mores since the more male-oriented days of A Better Tomorrow (1986) or Hard Boiled (1992) twenty-five years ago.

In the end though, action and character are the thing. Holding to the maxim that action is character, Woo defines his protagonists by the way they look at each other, handle a gun or leap through the air, refining his directorial delivery via every tool at his disposal in his cinematic arsenal. The acting required on a John Woo production might be a lot more full on and physical than that demanded by most other directors, but the cast here rise to the considerable challenge thrown at them and acquit themselves well. It’s been a long time since John Woo has made anything like this: the result is a most welcome return to form.

ManHunt was a late addition to the BFI London Film Festival. Hopefully some enterprising UK distributor will snap it up and get it out there on screens before long. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook, and we’ll keep you posted!

The Death of Stalin

Posted on by victorfraga

The British and the French have joined efforts! Not a headline you’d come across very often nowadays, is it? But it has happened. It must be for a good cause, mustn’t it? Did they get together in the fight against LGBT hatred? Or are they making a joint statement against xenophobia? Perhaps they got together in order to slam the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief across the pond? But no. Instead the two countries joined efforts in order to mock and slander the Russians, creating an international co-production just so full of ignorance and prejudices that it’s hardly bearable to watch.

I’m not an unconditional russophile. I have severe reservations about the country and its history isn’t without very serious oppression. Films exposing the horrors of Stalin’s regime are very necessary. I recently wrote about the outstanding Estonian In the Crosswinds (Martti Helde, 2015), which reveals that Stalin removed 40,000 people from the tiny Baltic nation into forced labour camps and exile in Siberia. But The Death of Stalin isn’t a a denunciation film. It’s simply an exercise of bad taste (and not the type of bad taste that we like at DMovies).

Adapted from a French graphic novel, The Death of Stalin is not a mockery of Stalin. In fact, the Soviet tyrant hardly appears in the movie. He dies in the very beginning. The Death of Stalin is a mockery of every Russian: every single character here is portrayed as imbecile, selfish and incompetent. The film, launched to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, is a profoundly inaccurate, disrespectful and insensitive representation of the largest nation on Earth. It’s the testament that anti-Russian sentiment, resentment and propaganda are well alive in Western Europe almost three decades after the end of the Cold War.

The movie revolves more or less around the immediate aftermath of Stalin’s death (played by Adrian McLoufghlin), as his body lies in a pool of urine and his associates squabble endlessly over what to do with it. His successors Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Krushchev are played by Jeffrey Tambor and Steve Buscemi, respectively. Michael Palin plays his protégé Vyacheslav Molotov, while Andrea Riseborough and Rupert Friend play his children Svetlana and Vasily. A wealth of actors whose combined market value is probably enough to buy you a whole village in the South of France, somewhere near Nice.

Everything about the film is very un-Russian. Not only everyone speaks English and even the signs are in the language of Shakespeare, plus also the actors don’t look particularly Russian. The round Slavonic faces are fairly absent. The body language isn’t Russian, either. Russian are mostly stern and stoic, not the goofy scoundrels created by the Scottish satirist Armando Iannucci, who directed the film. The f-word is used abundantly throughout, as are jokes about “kicking the arse” and “sticking a crucifix…”, yes the very same orifice. How witty.

Blimey, but this is a comedy, isn’t it? This is a mockery and so it’s intended to be barbaric and exaggerated, right? Well, comedy is not a carte blanche for bigotry. There are limits of what’s acceptable. We have grown to dismiss blackface and exaggerated representations of homosexuals as a no-go. The humour of The Death of Stalin is plainly founded on xenophobia and prejudices, and so it belongs in a very similar category. This is not black humour, this is blackface. Laughing at someone dead on a pool of piss is neither funny nor subversive. It’s simply silly and vulgar. Despite the presence of Michael Palin, The Death of Stalin simply isn’t The Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979).

By comparison, how would people in the UK feel about a film mocking Churchill? My comparison is neither frivolous nor untimely. Firstly, Churchill and Stalin ruled at roughly the same time. And a film about Churchill was made earlier this year, which did little but to celebrate the resilience of the British leader. Plus another one is being released in a couple of months, and it looks like it’s going to be just as celebratory of the “greatest British person ever”. Can you imagine if either of these films laughed at Churchill’s dead body, his alcoholism, his racism or his gassing of people in Mesopotamia? It would cause an outrage. Well, I think that people in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones. That’s why I recommend that you don’t watch The Death of Stalin. That is, unless you simply love to hate Russia, and have no interest in their culture.

Cinema isn’t alone in its biased portrayal of Russian history. The BBC documentary Russia 1917: Countdown to the Revolution paints Soviet leaders and foible and hesitant, and it even questions whether the Russian Revolution – as grassroots as a revolution can be – was in fact a coup d’état. You can watch it (or not) by clicking here.

The Death of Stalin is showing in cinemas across the UK on Friday October 20th. It’s out on all major VoD platforms in April 2018. On Netflix on Wednesday, April 28th (2021).

2017 is a VERY BAD year for motherhood… well, at least in cinema!

Posted on by victorfraga

The largest film festival in the UK has finally drawn to a close, and we have unearthed nearly 40 dirty gems exclusively for you. They are guaranteed to keep your film schedule busy for the next 12 months or so. Just make sure you follow us on Twitter or Facebook for the latest updates, theatrical releases and of course… the dirtiest thoughts on what’s happening in the cinema world in the UK and elsewhere.

Andrey Zvyagentsyev’s tender and yet extremely disturbing drama Loveless has just snatched the top prize at the BFI London Film Festival. Our editor Victor Fraga thought that the film was an allegory of modern Russia, a country that does not look after its own children. His previous films The Return (2003) and Leviathan (2014) achieve a similarly bleak result, although the use the subjects of corruption and of fatherhood (respectively) in order to do so.

We soon realised that a number of films released in 2017 painted a very strange portrait of motherhood, even if their language was entirely different and so were their objectives. There were bloodthirsty unborn babies in at least two films, two stolen children and plenty of comparisons to Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968). What connects all of these films is an unusual pregnancy and a very unorthodox motherly bond. You might want to avoid this list in case you are feeling a little broody this year!

Don’t forget to click on the film titles in order to accede to its respective dirty review.

1. Loveless (Andrey Zvyagentsev):

Mother Russia has failed it children. It has neglected and relegated them to a life without hope and love. The latest movie by Andrey Zvyagintsev, possibly the biggest exponent in Russia cinema right now, is a bleak allegory of life in Russia. People carry on with their existences in a robotic and dehumanised fashion, without any regard for their neighbours, family and other citizens. Not even their own offspring. Yet, who’s to blame them? They are too busy searching for a purpose and a solution for their very own loveless predicament.

And Zhenya’s description of motherhood and hate for her own son is shocking. She despises him for nearly cleaving her in twain at birth, and she simply cannot stand his very sight. It is no exaggeration to claim that Loveless is a metaphor of a failed Mother Russia. Andrey Zvyagintsev has dotted the film with political reports coming from the radio, conveniently reminding viewers that our private life is an extension of the public sphere.

2. mother! (Darren Aronofsky):

Maverick visionary Aronofsky’s psychological horror has a spoonful of Polanski, a dash of Hitchcock, a pinch of Kubrick and even a squeeze of Ken Russell, all topped with a sterling cast. His house burned up in a fire. Then he (Javier Bardem) found her (Jennifer Lawrence) and as he began to rebuild his life, so she began to rebuild the house. Her work is well on its way to completion. Outside the house lie tranquil, golden fields. He is an acclaimed poet and hasn’t written anything for a long time. The couple live in an hermetic bubble. At least she does.

The film divides neatly into three acts which could be labelled: home building, pregnancy, motherhood. Yet each section follows roughly the same path: her idyllic existence is upset as more and more people arrive and she becomes more and more agitated. This very creative cinematic experiment has been very divisive: many simply loved it, and others found it entirely pointless.

3. Prevenge (Alice Lowe):

The female experience of pregnancy in film is something not known for its jovial depictions. Simply viewing Rosemary Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) one can see that child bearing is a painful endeavour, regardless of whether it’s the Devil’s child or not. Akin to Polanski’s film, Alice Lowe’s 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 – making for a truly original recipe of British independent filmmaking.

Notably Lowe’s breakout performance came in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers (2012) and her comic chops are again discovered in her debut. Yet, behind this comedic veneer, the film revels in its sadistic presentations of gore. Although not overt in its comedic tone, the film and Lowe’s performance are highly deadpan. Comparable to the films of Wheatley, Lowe’s debut is chilling and ruthless in its execution (no pun intended).

Surprisingly filmed over a tight 11-day schedule, Prevenge does not fail on its innovative title and narrative. Its focus on femininity and pregnancy’s isolation are relatively untested waters when it comes British cinema.

4. The Eyes of my Mother (Nicolas Pesce):

A mother (Diana Agostini), who was previously an eye surgeon in Portugal, lives with her husband and their young daughter Francisca (Kika Magalhães) in a secluded farm somewhere in the remote American countryside. She gives her daughter anatomy lessons from a very young age, probably unaware that Francisca would soon use her acquired skills in the most unorthodox ways imaginable. One day an intruder named Charlie breaks into their house and kills her mother, but the criminal is soon subdued and becomes a prisoner and guinea pig for the little girl’s morbid experiments. Francisca soon grows up, and the intensity of the anatomic and psychological escalates to the highest level imaginable, as she recruits new victims to submit to her sadistic ordeals.

The Eyes of my Mother skillfully blends interrupted motherhood (twice, but you must watch the film in order to understand why), female psychosis, isolation and religion in one big pan. The sharp black and white photography renders the grueling scenes more watchable and gives the film an eerie veneer, in a way similar to Hitchcock Psycho(1960) – the director opted for black and white because he wanted to spare audiences from the violence of the colour red in the famous shower sequence.

5. Good Manners (Marco Dutra/Juliana Rojas):

This dirtylicious Brazilian horror also premiered during the BFI London Film Festival.

It starts out as an awkward domestic drama, as the gorgeous, upper-class, white and pregnant Ana (Marjorie Estiano) hires the black babysitter Clara (Isabél Zuaa). At first, Ana is reluctant to take Clara on board because she lacks credentials: she did not finish nursing school and she has never looked after babies. To boot, one of her referees doesn’t quite sing her praises. Yet, there is something soothing and comforting about the very beautiful and polite stranger. The Black Portuguese actress (Zuaa was born in Lisbon, yet she has a perfect Brazilian accent in the movie) exudes charm, talent and charisma, and I have absolutely no doubt that she has a bright future ahead.

The subject of interrupted motherhood and isolation from society become central to the story, which takes a very unexpected twist roughly in the middle of the 127-minute narrative. Good Manners then incorporates easily recognisable devices from a number of horror films, such as Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968), Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979), Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981) and the more recent French cannibal flick Raw (Julia Ducournau, 2017). Oh, and there is a giant creature that looks a lot like a meerkat. Derivative elements are deftly combined in order to create a film with a singular identity, extraordinarily original in its format. Violence here acquires a fantastic dimension. Blood isn’t repulsive; it’s instead the ultimate maternal link. Meet is not murder.

The Florida Project

Posted on by victorfraga

One of the good aspects of Sean Baker’s work is that he considers his audience clever people. By clever, I don’t mean he wants us to solve a mystery. His films are not thrillers. You don’t need to pay attention to every detail in order to find out who’s the murderer. I am talking about another kind of intelligence and sensitivity.

The Florida Project is “a loving look at the innocence of childhood”, as announced in the film trailer. Everything the camera captures is from the point of view of three children, Moone (Brooklynn Prince, perhaps the new Drew Barrymore, who was also first cast for a movie at the age of 6); Jancey (Valeria Cotto) and Scotty (Christopher Rivera). That means that when those children are on screen, the camera mostly remains at their height. We mostly see a world through their eyes and lenses. We cannot see what solely to the “adult world”. When Brooklynn’s mother has sex in her room, we don’t see the man’s face.

The story takes place in a motel in Florida, just outside Disney World, during the school break during American Independence Day. So the film is a series of children’s holiday adventures. They spend their time playing pranks, which can annoy the audience too. Kids are noisy and naughty. They beg for free ice-cream, they do spitting competitions from the second floor of the motel, they set fire on an abandoned building, they cut off the power of the entire motel. Independence Day is particularly “magical” in Orlando. The Magic Kingdom and Epcot Center each have dedicated fireworks on July 4th. Disney spends from $41,000-$55,000 a night on fireworks. The whole set of adventures the kids take part in culminates in the last scene. The children finally celebrate their own independence.

The film has an astonishing photography. Likewise Tangerine (2015), colours are saturated. Instead of predominantly orange of the previous film, The Florida Project is mainly purple and green, just like the walls on Miami International Airport. With The Florida Project, Sean Baker consolidates his style, also evident in his short movie Snowbird, 2016 (which can be watched here) – these films do not have a plot. The narrative heavily relies on the work of non-actors, on their spontaneity and commitment to reality. Baker represents the lives of marginalised Americans. The director uses photography in order to tell a story. Mooney and Jacey want to get to the pot of gold at end of the rainbow. The colourful rainbow is a symbol of the journey the kids are about to start. They desire to get out of the margins of society. The photography is not only beautiful, but it is a meaningful part of the story.

Baker’s strongest characters are not men. In Tangerine, the main characters are two transsexuals. Here, they are children and single mothers, who bend over backwards in order to survive. Many cinema lovers are tired of the mass representation of men. We don’t want to see aggressive males prancing around. At the same time, we can’t banish men from movies. Baker nailed it. Here comes Willem Dafoe as you have never seen before. Dafoe does not play a tortured man as in Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986); or a stereotypical villain as in Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002). Here he is simply Bobby, the motel manager, and most importantly, an adorable father figure to all those children whose fathers left them behind.

On the other hand, The Florida Project lacks twists and surprises. By consolidating his style, Baker surrendered the deeply subversive streak of Tangerine. Here he plays safe and he doesn’t innovate.

The Florida Project showed at the 61st BFI London Film festival in October. It’s out in cinemas on Friday, November 10th. It’s out on all major VoD platforms in April 2018

This film is in our top 10 films of 2017.

The Ritual

Posted on by victorfraga

What’s the best way to honour the memory of a dead friend? Take a hiking trip deep into the dark and creepy woods of Sweden! This is more of less how four old college friends from Britain decide to reminisce and to commemorate their mate, who was the fatal victim of an extremely violent assault in an an off-licence somewhere in London (pictured below).

Luke (Rafe Spall), Hutch (Robert James-Collier), Phil (Arsher Ali) and Dom (Sam Troughton) make a clumsy and cumbersome foursome. They argue and quarrel constantly during a trip. Luke feels guilty because he did not help his late friend while he was being attacked, and Dom is never hesitant to point out his friend’s failure. The friends soon begin to collapse both physically and emotionally, and they become too tired to return to civilisation on the same day. They take refuge overnight inside a mysterious and apparently abandoned hut, and that’s when it all begins to go awry.

Blending element from The Blair Witch Project (Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick, 1999) and The Hill Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977) in the first half, The Ritual suddenly turns into a completely different beast in the second part. I can’t say too much without spoiling it. All you need to know is that elements of alleged Scandinavian superstition are suddenly thrown in, as well as a device which you might recognise from the emblematic British horror Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973).

The visuals deserve a special mention: the CGI creations at the very end of the movie are quite fascinating. Plus there are some good scares. The problem is that the plot becomes too ambitious and eventually goes entirely off-rail. I think it tries to convey some message of failed camaraderie, but I’m not entirely sure what it’s trying to say. The bits and bobs just don’t gel together at the end. In a nutshell: not a terrible film at all, but the “huh?” feeling might linger with you as you walk out of the cinema.

The Ritual is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, the 13th. On Netflix in March 2o20. On Shudder on Monday, March 7th (2022). Also available on other platforms.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Posted on by victorfraga

Without a shadow of a doubt, The Killing of A Sacred Deer is one of the most anticipated films of the hunting season of cinema. Curzon Artificial Eye had postponed its UK release date, only to make us salivate like a famished dog in front of a juicy bowl of food. That said, I will do my best to write a review without offering you any spoiler. If you are into zoology, then you are in for a treat. There is no shortage of animals in the world of the Greek filmmaker, who also made Dogtooth (2009) and The Lobster (2015). The Killing of A Sacred Deer is even wilder than his previous films. In case you have never watched his films, you might want to take a tranquiliser before heading to the cinema.

Lanthimos cast Colin Farrell in the main role again (after Lobster). The Irish actor looks comfortable in his absurdist universe. This time he is a successful cardiac surgeon called Stephen Murphy, happily married to Anna (Nicole Kidman), also a doctor. They have two children and balance their working life with their parental duties quite well. Both kids have tasks at home: the girl walks the dog and the boy waters the plants.

Farrell has a secret friend, a 16-year-old boy. They meet very often at popular diner, located at Sickamore Street. (The name of the street is not gratuitous, there’s an onomatopoeic value central to the plot). But it is not clear what is this relation all about. Farrell is neither gay nor into young lovers, it seems. On one of these occasions, the teen foresees a tragic sequence of events in Farrell’s family. The boy says that Farrell’s children and wife will die one by one.

This is pretty much what I can tell without ruining your desire to watch the film. I can also suggest that you read a classic Greek tragedy such as Iphigenia (which is mentioned in the movie). The Killing of a Sacred Deer is nothing but a staging of a Greek sacrifice. In Ancient Greece, sacrifice meant killing a domestic animal and offering part of it to the gods, while eating the rest yourself. The Greeks hunted and killed animals for sacrificial purposes, including deer, fish and goats. The problem was that people felt uncomfortable and guilty about killing animals which they reared themselves.

There’s a lot of eating in the film. And guilt and denial too. At one point, Kidman asks Farrell how he is able to enjoy a meal while his kids are sick. Farrell is not a bad father. He tries hard to avoid the tragedy, but that works out just like in the Greek myths. The harder he tries to avoid his fate, the closer he sees it coming.

Although the feature is disturbing as hell, Lanthimos keep reminding us that this is just fiction. Actors are quite distant and even robotic, in good Brechtian style. Lathimos’s style relies on the audience’s reflective detachment rather than emotional involvement. The detachment technique is particularly evident when the daughter sings at the choir, another element of the Greek plays. Music does not cause audience to the daughter; on the contrary, it pushes the audience away from the characters. This is a very dirty and subversive movie.

The Killing of A Sacred Deer is showing at the BFI London Film Festival taking place between October 5th and 15th, and a week later at the Cambridge Film Festival. Theatrical release date is on Friday, November 3rd.

A Fantastic Woman (Una Mujer Fantástica)

Posted on by victorfraga

Marina Vidal (Daniela Vega) is simply a woman. And she happens to be transsexual. The only way she ascertains her gender is by living her life like any other woman would: she works in a restaurant, she has a partner and she also has a hobby: she sings (extremely well). There’s nothing unusual about her lifestyle. The fact that her gender identity is not aligned with her biological sex neither defines nor limits her life. There is no gender “dysphoria”, as the medical establishment puts it. Marina is just another human being living in Santiago, the capital of Chile.

Marina is infatuated with 57-year-old cisgender Orlando (Francisco Reyes). It’s not entirely clear how they met; the film suggests that this may have happened during one of her performances as a singer, but this is never confirmed. What is unquestionable is that they have a tender and genuine bond, and they love each other. Marina slowly begins to move into Orlando’s upper class flat, and they are planning a romantic trip to the Iguazu Falls. Until disaster strikes: Orlando feels dizzy and has a very unfortunate accident. Marina rushes him to hospital but it’s too late.

The fatality forces Marina to confront the police, Orlando’s ex-wife Sonia and children. She has prove her innocence, and she also has to arrange the handover of the car and the flat in which she has just settled. And there’s also the funeral: Sonia and her son Bruno adamant that she should not attend the event. At first they are friendly, but the thin veneer of cordiality is soon scratched to reveal deeply ingrained prejudice. The only exception is Orlando’s brother Gabo, who seems genuinely caring and tolerant of Marina – maybe because he was close enough to his sibling to know how profound and genuine the relationship wass

Marina is often laconic and stoic. Her piercing gaze says far more than the frugal amount of words coming out of her mouth. Her unapologetic and determined attitude is sometimes mistaken for deceit, but Marina is as integral and honest as one can be. Yet Orlando’s family and the establishment try to humiliate, to disarm and literally to disrobe Marina. They address her with an inconvenient “he” and even with her birth name “Daniel”, they make ugly faces of disapproval, they taunt her. Sonia dubs her “a chimera”, a fire-breathing female monstrosity from Greek mithology (with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpenet’s tail).

But that’s just the beginning, and she soon realises that the ordeal could escalate much further. Her eventual presence at the funeral (in front of Orlando’s child descendants) could represent the ultimate transgression for a society liberal on the surface but still grappling furiously with bigotry.

Argentinian-born filmmaker Sebastián Lelio created a film that’s both realistic and respectful of transsexual women. He opted for a real transsexual actor and a real singer, shunning the morally questionable practices of transface and ghost-singing. Daniela Vega is an outstanding talent and a much needed voice in the trans community. Both her eyes and her warble will go straight into your heart.

It’s also remarkable that Daniela does not have the “perfect” curvaceous and feminine body. Her breasts are small, her shoulders and her waist are broad, hinting that one day she was a person of the opposite sex. This does not diminish her. She is not embarrassed or her physique in any way. She’s is a transwoman in all of her magnificence. There’s no gender dysphoria. Only euphoria. The film never reveals whether she has had a phalloplasty. “You don’t ask these questions”, Marina explains. Such curiosity is obtuse and intrusive, something the filmmaker Lelio isn’t.

The film is dotted with emotional allegories, and two of those deserve a special mention. Firstly, the moment is walking against the wind with a flurry of leaves preventing her from moving on. Secondly, when Marina is lying naked in bed with a mirror covering her genitalia, her face reflected on it. I think you can work out what they mean!

A Fantastic Woman is showing as part of the BFI London Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. The film was produced by Pablo Larraín, one of the most creative and prolific filmmakers in South America at present. It is out in cinemas on Friday, March 2nd. On VoD in 2019 on various platforms, including BFI Player and Amazon Prime. On Mubi on Saturday, July 4th (2022).

School Life

Posted on by victorfraga

Voyeurism has always been a pivotal part of spectatorship; it’s what gives documentary films their pleasures. Observing school life, through voyeurism, has become a modern viewing phenomenon, starting with Channel Four’s Educating Yorkshire in 2013 and continuing with Sky 1’s Harrow: A Very British School. The rationale behind audiences connecting so deeply with school students is rooted in emotional development. The viewer gains gratification in seeing such young pupils develop and achieve their dream academic positions in colleges and universities across the country.

Unlike these formerly referenced TV shows, School Life utilises its documentary style to look further up the school system at two long-serving teachers at Headfort School, a boarding school for 3- to 13-year-olds in Kells, Ireland. They are called Amanda and John Leyden, and they have been married for 45 years. Unlike the lyrics of The Smiths and Morrissey in The Headmaster Ritual, these teachers do not thwack, elbow or knee their students, but help them mature and grow into creative, independent and engaging young people.

Living in an old idyllic cottage inside the school grounds, both Amanda and John appear relaxed and calm ahead of the start of the new school year. Having a cigarette in his mouth whilst observing their jovial Labradors, the two discuss growing older and what their lives would be without teaching. Cutting to an outside drone shot of their cottage after this brief conversation, the camera follows the two’s car to their work, Headfort School. The luscious greener surrounding the school feels typical of any boarding school in the UK, yet as the film depicts, the tenderness and passion that is deployed by Amanda, John and all the teaching staff at the school results in a loving and free atmosphere for the children.

As an English teacher, Amanda engages the children in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five and Shakespeare plays. As the headmaster walks in to check upon her class, he claims to the students that it was Mrs. Leyden’s teaching of the novel that got him into reading, many moons ago. Though a natural piece of information, given by the headmaster in a passing comment, directors Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane allow the story of the school’s history and community to flow naturally.

Something similar is not only done with Amanda but John likewise. Lurking in an older part of the school, he dwells in a space painted with bright colours and with an array of musical instruments. Creating the school band, he is not as eccentric as Jack Black’s Dewey Finn in School of Rock (Mike White, 2004), still he encourages the children to perform to the highest level. Without informative talking heads and a historical fact, the film lacks information; a welcoming gift to allow the audience to gain an authentic sense of the school and Amanda and John.

With a selection of children from Spain, France, Russia and other countries across the world, one of most tender moments in the film comes when John imitates an Olympic commentator, whilst the kids hold their nation’s flags and walk around the playing fields for the school sports day. The scene encapsulates everything that makes the film tick: the personalities of John and Amanda, their fine dry wit and unobtrusive gaze.

The two are the focus of the piece, however, with the narrative being invested in a school term, certain children come to the forefront. As a very intelligent girl with some problems communicating with others, Eliza takes comfort in Amanda. The filmmakers are sensitive enough to not focus on the girl and other pupils too much. A slight emotion connect is there, but thankfully deep attention is absent, as the main objective in Educating Yorkshire et al.

Observing the surrounding area from a window, alongside a cigarette, the two ponder ‘”What would we do all day? Just sit around doing less and less, and getting more and more decrepit” John suggests. Crafted with love, the two’s relationship and attention towards their pupils are conjoined. Their vows ‘to death do us part’ could not reflect the couple more. Nurturing these kids into young analytical, imaginative and driven people, the school life at Headfort is a special education with John and Amanda central to this.

School Life is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, October 13th.