Following the jump to the Podcast form, the team at DMovies have been waiting for the right moment to strike again! Thankfully, the BFI Flare: LGBT Film Festival 2018 proved too good an opportunity to pass up on covering for all our dirty new listeners! Seeing an array of films, from investigatory documentaries on America’s Southern LGBT community to a biopic on the Queer icon Oscar Wilde, BFI Flare’s programme had it all this year. In amongst the walls of the Southbank’s iconic building, Alasdair Bayman went on a quest to interview the very best filmmakers who attended the festival.
Following Scott Jones, the victim of a horrendous hate crime in Canada, Love, Scott (Laura Marie Wayne, 2018; pictured below) is a kaleidoscopic investigation of trauma and perseverance in a world filled with oppression. As you will hear in the podcast, both Scott and Laura were in fine form as they delved deeper in the essence of their friendship and film. Nonetheless, what is not revealed in the audio is the touching emotion apparent on the faces of the both the director and subject matter.
Secondly on the podcast, Mario’s (Marcel Gisler, 2018; pictured below) director and co-star, Aaron Altaras feature. The titular character is an U21 football player for Swiss side BSC Young Boys. Consequentially a result of Leon’s (Altaras) arrival at the club, the two strike a prolific on field relationship. Spiralling towards away from the field of play, both Mario and Leon must face the penalties ensued by being LGBT in a hyperactive masculine environment.
As Alasdair sat down with Aaron, awaiting the arrival of Marcel, our dirty writer was informed of the actor’s supporting of Arsenal. An aside anecdote, at the international premiere of the film at the BFI the previous night, Aaron was sequentially approached by a member of The Gay Gooners – an LGBT supporters group at the football club. Praising the film for its power, the member then proceeded to offer Aaron free tickets for their game against Stoke City. Underlining the welcoming environment instilled by all those working and participating in the festival, this small gesture shows that film is an international and free medium, touching all those participating.
To round off the podcast, Malcom Ingram, the director of Southern Pride, speaks upon his film’s post-Trump setting. Vocal and opinionated, Ingram evidently projects his political views into the film in an unobtrusive manner, resulting in the final Pride sequence being some poignant filmmaking.
Opening their doors to all cinephiles, BFI Flare: LGBT Film Festival 2018 highlights the cultural and socio-political change cinema can yield. In this regard, one would be amiss to not be encouraged for a brighter, fairer cinematic and political future. Don’t forget to subscribe to our MixCloud channel and keep your eyes peeled as we will be hitting iTunes soon! As always, watch this space for filthier content in the future!
In 2011, Mike Day made his directorial debut with The Guga Hunters of Ness, a documentary that followed the gannet hunters of the Scottish Outer Hebrides and allowed viewers a glimpse into a secretive island tradition that hadn’t been filmed for 50 years. For his follow-up film The Island and The Whales, Day headed a further 330km north to another windswept island community – the Faroe Islands – and spent five years documenting the islanders’ local whaling tradition.
The Islands And The Whales focuses on the Faroese tradition of hunting pilot whales that swim near the islands, an event known as “the grind”. As soon as pilot whales are spotted, a team of fishermen sail out and nudge the whales towards the island shore. On the shore, the whales are met by local men and boys, who effortlessly kill them with spinal-cord lances. The slaughtered whales are divided among the community, for whom whale blubber is considered an essential part of the diet. Interestingly, the grind plays no commercial purpose – it’s simply an exercise in communal bonding, as old as the first Faroese islanders.
However, upholding tradition comes with its pitfalls. Images of fisherman striding dead whales in red waters don’t make for excellent global publicity. More worryingly, the chief Faroese public health doctor, Pál Weihe, has been involved in long-term research indicating that pilot whale blubber carries high levels of mercury. This mercury ends up in human bodies when blubber is consumed and has been linked with developmental issues and Parkinson’s disease. Day’s documentary sets out to examine these public health concerns against the Faroe Island’s landscape backdrop of sheer rugged beauty.
The film quickly unfolds into a fascinating study of the ebb of tradition versus the flow of modernity. The insular history of the Faroe Islands has led to a multitude of traditions, from the centuries-old grind to the mystical belief in elven huldufólk, first developed by early Nordic settlers. Most importantly, these traditions have enabled the tight community that Day so expertly presents in the film. Traditional dress, local festivals and religious singing bring entire towns together. Although many Faroese acknowledge the grind’s public health and ethical issues, community forms an essential part of their identity. Thus, an attack on the grind is an attack on who the islanders are. When Pamela Anderson arrives with a gang of Sea Shepherds, it’s easy enough to empathise with the man who claims that they’re cultural imperialists.
Of course, the signs of modern society are increasingly prevalent as Day’s camera surveys the Faroe Islands’ vast Viking plains. One elderly islander can still remember the days when there were few roads and no electricity. On the other hand, the younger generation of Faroese go fishing by day and attend hip electropop concerts by night. Once, the incoming grind was announced to the community by shouting house-to-house. Now, everyone jumps on their smartphones at the smallest utterance of a pilot whale. The spectre of globalisation may be a familiar foe, yet the The Islands And The Whales brings a fresh perspective by placing its simultaneous appeal and contradictions in a largely under-explored setting.
The documentary is at its best when Day observes the casual chit-chat between Faroese friends and family. One of the prominent figures in the film – a fisherman and seabird hunter with a big appetite for whale blubber – regularly discusses the grind with his wife. His wife is a nurse who is working on the mercury study, yet is still able to rationalise feeding blubber to her two toddler daughters and newborn baby. One of the most likeable characters is a younger fisherman who we see out on his boat and packaging his fish and blubber hauls. His everyday musings reveal a complex consideration of the pros and the cons of the grind, as well as a tenderness for animals. If the world outside of the islands thinks that its townspeople are brutal heathens, these fly-on-the-wall moments suggest quite the opposite: the Faroese have a considered and constant engagement with the grind controversy.
Day has crafted a fantastic documentary that informs a broad audience about a genuinely interesting issue without being one-sided or judgemental. The topic of the documentary may appear niche, but ultimately The Islands And The Whales is about more than the grind; it’s about the searing rumble of globalisation across a traditional community. It feels particularly relevant in our increasingly insular times.
The Island and the Whales is out in cinemas across the UK on Thursday, March 29th.
Back in 2010, Germany striker Mario Gomez urged footballers who were homosexual to come out as they “would play as if they had been liberated.” Cut to 2018 and this call to arms from Gomez, who has since never stated if he is gay or not, the situation is as dire as ever. Being the only football player who has played in an array of Europe’s top five leagues to come out, former Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger felt “he wanted to tell the world he was gay while he was still playing in Germany for Wolfsburg, but was advised against it” – according to an interview with German journalist Raphael Honigstein in 2014.
The overtly masculine and competitive nature of the sport means that any small piece of humanity or personality shown by a player results in ridicule by the press and opposing fans. Touching on Hitzlsperger’s experience of being a gay man in the blatantly heterosexual world of football – with its oppressions – Mario (Marcel Gisler, 2018) focuses acutely on the blossoming career of the titular Mario Lüthi (Max Hubacher). Whilst in the U21 squad of Swiss giants BSC Young Boys, he falls in love with their latest signing, Leon Saldo (Aaron Altaras). Complicating matters further, Mario and Leon both play in offensive positions and the pathway into the first team is only for a select few. Merging career ambition with a formative love relationship, this Swiss-Germanic production eventually conjures up some pathos after a slow start.
Shy and timid, Mario’s life is conjoined to the hip with football. In early pre-season where a professional focus is needed, the club transfer in Leon Saldo from Hannover 96’s U21 Academy. Strong, athletic and good-looking, Leon appears the perfect fit to be nurtured into the first team. Competing for the same spot, the two eventually form a prolific on-field relationship, leading the U21 squad towards league glory. Seeing the prospect held by both players, the Swiss club decide to room the two boys together, in an attempt to strengthen their on the field chemistry further. Consequentially, their off-field understanding grows into a shared love and understanding of one another. Seen by another team member kissing when away travelling to a game, the two must thus face the costs of sharing this twofold relationship.
Bringing a delicate edge to Mario, Max Hubacher, in moments, achieves a tenderness that feels fully realised. Contrasted against the confidence of Leon, the two work hold chemistry in periodic moments. Such instances occur after a long period of the film establishing its characters and mood. A juxtaposition of the dazzling heights of Goal! The Dream Begins (Danny Cannon, 2005), the world of a young upcoming footballer includes moments of loneliness, anxiety and resolve. Throughout its lengthy running time, the glamorous lives of Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic seem like galaxies away from the hard demands of continuous physical exercise and intense periods of nothingness. Talent is one thing, but the drive to succeed in a competitive environment is another aspect.
From the moment that rumours surrounding their relationship get out into the internal system at BSC Young Boys, Leon and Mario’s lives change forever. The clean almost corporate-like qualities possessed in the environments of the training ground work against the deeply personable relationships held between the two lovers. Accompanied by a shockingly suppressive meeting between the manager and club representative, Mario is informed that it would be best for him to be seen with a woman to suppress the rumours around him and Leon. This particular scene, alongside the final moments of the film, does unearth a sensitive soul to Mario. Regardless, the journey to these two specific moments lacks the eloquence apparent in other young LGBT tales as Maurice (James Ivory, 1987).
Addressing a key social and sporting subject that does not appear to be high on the agenda of Fifa or Uefa, Mario, through all this, is tragic in its few shining scenes. It is appropriate to suggest that the professionalism that radiates from its lead character impacts its stirring core. Credit where credit is due, however, I am sure solace and inspiration will be found from audience members and professional athletes who hold their sexuality as a closely guarded secret. Gisler and his team thankfully do not park the bus and come out against their subject matter in an assertive attacking manner. Still, it is void of the masterstroke that would be deployed by Pep Guardiola in footballing masterclass against Jose Mourinho.
Mario premiered at BFI Flare: LGBT Film Festival 2018 in March, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in cinemas on Friday, July 13th. It’s available on VoD and DVD from Friday, August 17th.
One veteran said: “a number of us in my age group spent quite a number of years fighting dictatorships”, before reinforcing that “dictatorship was a nasty word to us!”. And they made sure it remained a pejorative, as four engineers at an East Kilbride Rolls-Royce factory pointedly refused to repair four military jets wayward for General Pinochet’s murderous regime. So began a four-year boycott for John Keenan, Bob Fulton, Stuart Barrie and Robert Sommerville, four out of 3,000 workers, as they ensured such jets were left unfixed, a stance that risked each of their livelihoods, but one that was backed by both their Trade Unions and members of Chilean refugees.
Felipe Bustos Sierra has delivered an empowering documentary, interwoven and intercut between Scotland and Chile. Nae Pasaran began as a short in 2013, though the subject proved too vast and timely for such a short running time. A passion project for Sierra (he is a working director in Scotland, though a Belgian born son of a Chilean refugee), he delivers some indelible and enviable interviews from Chilean people who were personally involved in the events. Inspired by the power and veracity of the televised Hawker Hunter air raid in 1973, Sierra highlights how the power of an image can ignite the political and social spark in any worker.
Produced in conjunction with the Scottish Documentary Institute and BBC Scotland, with parts of the project aided by Kickstarter donations, this is the perfect documentary for these post-Brexit times, though the primary intended audience is undeniably a Scottish one, there is enough heart and cheer here to merit essential viewing for anyone around the world as a timely reminder of the international stance even a small group can produce. The Scottish workers were duly recognised for their work in 2015, when the Chilean ambassador awarded them the titles of Commanders of the Republic of Chile.
Cinematographer Peter Keith keeps his camera’s focus on the subjects themselves, but the real highlight comes from the archived filmed material, whether displaying the East Kilbride factory opening and closing their widened white gates, or the torrent of bombs serially dropped, sobering for viewers to remind themselves the consequences of each and every time a war begins. Keith refrains from pictorial flair, and wisely so, the painstaking detail the four interviewees give is worth the cinematic admission itself.
The film may lack some perspective from other Rolls Royce employees and yes, there are points that the film could criticise the British and American arms policies in greater detail. But in many ways that’s beside the point. It’s not meant as a political statement, this is the story of how four men did everything they could in the name of what they felt was just and right. And if they can, so can many others.
Nae Pasaran showed at the Glasgow Film Festival on tour in March, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in cinemas on Friday, November 2nd. The team are hosting a watch party on Sunday, April 5th (click here for more information).
Appearing in a diverse array of acting roles in films from the likes of Submarine (Richard Ayoade, 2011) to Dead Man’s Shoes (Shane Meadows, 2004), Paddy Considine’s acting career is malleable to different moods and tones. After making the step up to director with the social realist Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011), to which gained BAFTA’S 2012 ‘Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer’, he returns with a harder hitting piece, Journeyman.
A juxtaposition to atypical boxing films, Considine’s second feature as director, as well as writing and starring, goes past the point of a climactic fight. Selecting to focus his narrative towards the after effects of his fight with a younger, more arrogant fighter, Andre ‘The Future’ Bryte (Anthony Welsh), after retaining his title, Matty Burton collapses at home, thus suffering speech and motor impairment. Fighting to return to a healthy state for the sake of his loving wife Emma (Jodie Whittaker) and his baby girl Mia, Matty faces much more than having to deal with physical punches.
Embracing a similar colour palette and mood to Tyrannosaur, Considine, with the help of the innovative cinematographer Laurie Rose, tightens the emotional strands of his narrative in the initial scenes through mobile phone footage. Occurring just after his win for the world middleweight title, the expressions on Emma, Matty and his team are ones filled with pure delight. Absorbed in happiness, Matty poses for photos with his elderly father, who before his fight with Andre ‘The Future’ Bryte, passes away.
In the clean aesthetic of their house in Yorkshire, Emma and Matty’s relationship is as strong as his left-hand hook. Shining in the early moments, Considine’s script offers little flourishes of love between the couple, heightened by the two actor’s performances. Pivotal to believing in this world, the peak physical condition of the character, through the physique of the actor, was achieved through ‘’Dominic Ingle training me, who trains Kell Brook and Kid Galahad. It was a 10-12 week training camp, and I trained five times a week, sometimes six.’’
From the point Matty sustains his injuries, the glowing personality that the actor imbues into his protagonist disappears into thin air; only a shadow remains. The antithesis to Eddie Redmayne’s performance in The Theory of Everything (James Marsh, 2015), the impaired acting recalls the humility displayed by Benny Safdie in the kaleidoscopic Good Time (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2017). Aside from the magnetic performances given from Jodie Whittaker and Paddy Considine, the middle section of the script feels weighed down by the inevitable re-emergence of Matty’s friends and boxing team. Yielding a redemptive quality, the resurrection of his friendship with Jackie (Paul Popplewell) and Richie (Tony Pitts) feels too fictional, away from the veracity initially created.
Journeyman may leave you knocked out by its emotional weight or left standing after sucking up its emotive punches. Void of the magic touch present in Tyrannosaur, the film is a solid enough second hit for the directorial career of the writer and actor. Amongst audience and critics alike, it may float like a butterfly but lack the sting of a bee.
Journeyman was out in UK cinemas on March 30th. It’s out on VoD on Monday, July 23rd.
The worlds of Wes Anderson are heartfelt places that have their own delightful little charms. Steadily building these environments, alongside unique aesthetics, characters, mise-en-scene and poignant writing, an Anderson film is a vivid trip into colourful tweeds or vistas- whilst expressing genuine human emotion. Following in the animated footsteps of Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009), Isle of Dogs progresses his distinctive tone with further emotive filmmaking – a form only achievable by a select few creatives. Working in this mould, it cements the auteur’s capacity to speak to profound human truths through beautifully realised moods. This Eastern futuristic land yields tenderness that swiftly transcends the stationary nature of its canine characters.
Taking place 20 years into the future in the Japanese megacity of Megasaki City, all dogs have been banished from society by the executive decision of Major Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura). Infecting their immune systems with flu to cause mass hysteria, it is a political move that symmetrically reflects Putin’s Russia. Predating the action with a quaint flashback to the centuries of fighting between the cat-loving Kobayashi family and free dog loving people of Japan, it is an approach that foregrounds the cyclical presence of fairy-tales in global storytelling. Executed with nuance, it’s an example of how to approach short retrospective narrative, recently evident in Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018), though exempt from praise of a similar approach in Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow, 2017).
Part of an Alpha pack of dogs, Chief (Byran Cranston), Rex (Edward Norton), Boss (Bill Murray), King (Bob Balaban) and Duke (Jeff Goldblum) are all stranded on Trash Island due to Major Kobayashi’s punishment. Living off scraps and fighting other packs to win the garbage, their domesticated lives are sorely missed. Unlike his fellow dogs, Chief is a stray who was raised in the streets, away from the luxuries of dog food and pedicures. Crashing on the island in the attempt to find his lost dog Spots (Liev Schreiber), Atari (Koyu Rankin) finds solace in the pack and their unanimous decision to help the 12-year-old boy. Journeying to the ends of Trash Island, the narrative maintains a classical edge.
Spawned by the power of the internet, the social media posts of ‘Accidentally Wes Anderson’ corroborate the captivating designs that the director and his creative team conjure. Created by Mackinnon and Saunders, a Manchester-based Puppeteer company, the dogs are bespoke intricate creations. Infused with fur that sways in the wind, accompanied by little ticks, the stop-motion moves as though it was digitalised, not handmade. This slight of hand leads to the creatures being anthropomorphic in movement and feeling. Fusing together with the talent of the voice cast, featuring the likes of Greta Gerwig’s Tracy Walker to Frances McDormand’s Interpreter Nelson, the ensemble cast intertwine with their puppets to an idiosyncratic affect.
Transitioning through the world with clean whips and pans, Tristan Oliver’s camera merges with the editing of trio Edward Bursch, Ralph Foster and Andrew Weisblum to extend the sharp script’s humorous and tender moments. Flowing, these two factors help the film’s visual language be a kaleidoscopic affair. Behind the images, the script of Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and Kunichi Nomura absorbs itself in an abundance of dog related puns. Blending the comedic with some tragic, the screenplay is finely poised being which leaves a glowing presence of elation.
In his recent review for the Los Angeles Times, the critic Justin Chang suggested that ‘Anderson, a stickler for verisimilitude even in the weirdest situations, has the human residents of Megasaki City speak their native Japanese, a choice that would seem respectful enough except for the conspicuous absence of English subtitles.’’ To this end, the critic constructs a point well worth noting. Still, one cannot outright claim this is total ‘cultural appropriate’ as all of the tones of the film come from a place of love, not ridicule. Anderson does allow his film to be entered into the age-old debate of appropriation vs appreciation, however. Flourished with odes to Japanese culture, specifically Seven Samurai’s (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) Fumio Hayasaka’s score, there is an omnipresent ubiquitous devotion towards Eastern culture. Heightened in a comical dog-related take on Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the appreciation outweighs the appropriation in my book. In his later work, Kurosawa explored the very nature of grand tales in Ran(Akira Kurosawa, 1985) and Dreams (Akira Kurosawa, 1990), resonating to the core of Anderson’s newest feature.
Aside from any supposed acts of cultural misappropriation that Isle of Dogs may uncover, Anderson writes a love letter to man and his best friend that unexpectedly hits a deeply profound level. Enwrapped in the form of endearing puppeteer characters, one could be mistaken to think its sweet nature is only for aesthetic purposes. Great things truly do come in small boxes.
Isle of Dogs is out on Friday, 30th March. It’s available on VoD from Monday, August 6th.
Spielberg has long been happy to move between big-budget spectaculars like Jurassic Park (1993) which push the boundaries of what’s possible in film and culturally significant stories like Schindler’s List (1993) which rely less on special effects or reshaping the blockbuster medium. Following Bridge Of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017), Spielberg now brings audiences Ready Player One which represents something he’s been trying to make for years – a movie which gets into the heads of gamers.
Among his earlier forays, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) felt like a funny mixture of a sequel and an attempt at realising the gamer world (think: racing through fields in vehicles surrounded by numerous running dinosaurs). Subsequent films A.I. (2001) and Minority Report (2002) both boast futuristic environments that might not look out of place in a state of the art video game. Further, the experience of watching The Adventures Of Tintin (2011) recalls the process of actually playing a computer game.Ready Player One is, however, Spielberg’s first film to use gaming and Virtual Reality as its primary subject matter. Here, he finally puts his long-gestating gamer flirtation onto the big screen in all its virtual glory.
Ready Player One opens in 2045 in the futuristic environment of the rapidly developing and overcrowded Columbus, Ohio where trailer park meets high-rise architecture. These strange structures literally stack caravans on top of one another recalling Brazilian favelas. Inside the caravans, people eke out their days playing in a virtual world on headsets to escape the horrors of the real world. What people do inside the virtual world known as The OASIS determines their wealth in coin; a bad move can cost them everything they’ve worked for up ‘til then.
The OASIS’ late designer Halliday (Mark Rylance) decides prior to his death to issue a challenge to his gamers, hiding an Easter egg inside his creation. The finder of the egg will inherit The OASIS to do with as he or she chooses. Ordinary teenager Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan from Detour, effectively Spielberg’s avatar here) is determined to win this contest to escape the oppression of his life. His own avatar Parzival who drives the Delorean from Back To The Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985) faces friendly competition from the beautiful Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) who rides the bike from Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988). More perilously perhaps, ruthless antagonist Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) runs the Innovative Online Industries (IOI) corporation which will stop at nothing to beat all other players and win control of The OASIS. Their evil plan involves monetizing and privatizing the system for political gain.
Borrowing the iconography of the blue creatures from Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), Spielberg introduces Wade firstly as a real-world person, then as an avatar. Wade/Parzival’s friends are, however, introduced primarily as avatars so that you don’t know who they are in the real world – their avatar could be concealing an entirely different age or gender in real life. Some characters do indeed turn out to be very different from their online profiles.
There are some dirty settings in the real world too. Aside from Columbus’ seeming attempt to cram as many people as possible into small living spaces, IOI offers a corporate headquarters populated with helmeted minion employees known as Sixers – denoted by six-digit numbers and not names – where gamers work not for their own enjoyment but to increase the company’s profits. IOI’s Loyalty Centre provides the equivalent of a debtor’s prison wherein individuals are incarcerated and shackled. Locked into parts of The OASIS where they must work off their debt, being charged for the privilege of being housed there so that they can never break the cycle.
Captured and held in the Loyalty Centre, Art3mis finds herself forced together with other unfortunates to plant explosives at regular intervals within a section of The OASIS. People are expendable in IOI’s plan: witness the queue in a frozen wasteland of hopefuls required one by one to play an Atari game on an old-fashioned TV only to descend through breaking ice into the freezing depths below when they lose (as they invariably do).
The majority of the action takes place inside The OASIS where Spielberg stuffs his film full of multiple, largely 80s cultural references from King Kong and, yes, Jurassic Park’s T.Rex to The Iron Giant, MechaGodzilla and Mobile Suit Gundam. Many of these characters live and breath on the screen as impressively as elsewhere in pop culture or moviedom, if not more so. One sequence even enters the world of The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980), which one of Wade’s friends has never seen and thus falls prey to both the flooding blood outside of the lifts and the woman in Room 237. On one level all this is very playful, yet the whole has a deep mythological underpinning as the tale’s lone everyman, helped by an underground resistance movement of like-minded individuals, takes on a vast, profit-oriented organisation.
While it’s hard to believe 2045 will actually look and feel like this, Ready Player One is undeniably timely with the world of Virtual Reality just around the technological corner. It’s a film to see on as big a screen as you possibly can with as much digital detail as that screen will allow thanks to breathtaking, rapid-fire visuals. It’s loud, flashy and moves along at an incredible pace. Still, while that could simply denote the latest vacuous Hollywood blockbuster, there is a lot more going on here beneath the slick and frenetic surface. Moreover, once the narrative leaves the impressive enough futuristic real world for the virtual gaming environment, Spielberg finally pulls off that movie which he has been trying to make for years. Welcome to The OASIS, truly.
Ready Player One is out in the UK on Thursday, March 29th. It’s available on digital streaming on Monday, August 6th. On Netflix in October (2020).
Springing up idyllic appearing super 16mm footage of Canadian wilderness, Love, Scott (Laura Marie Wayne, 2018) does not start off as a regular documentary on an inspirational figure for the LGBT community. The victim of a horrible hate crime, committed against him in New Glasgow in 2013, Scott Jones, in the film’s brisk 76- minutes running time, confronts the ramifications of his attach head on.
Equipped with a feminine melancholic poetical voiceover- all from the perspective of Scott’s best friend- the slow tone induces one into a contemplative state of thinking. Recalling the process of cutting in the editing room, the footage is spliced together hastily. Intersected into three sections, the episodes lack any true clarity, effectively serving little purse other than for the narrator to describe. Photogenic, whilst all natural archive footage, the cinematography, merging with the voice over, sustains this lulling tone.
Swiftly cutting to its subject matter, Scott Jones, around his home in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, the free-flowing camera copiously lingers on his bearded face. As Scott finishes his opening discussion upon ‘the attack’, which occurred when returning home from Korea, the camera zooms out to reveal the fact he is wheelchair bound. Viewing it from both sides, the filmmakers could possibly be inserting a startling expose to shock the audience in its early stages. On the reverse side of the argument, it’s hard to ignore that the slow exposure of such a key element does not glamorise or idealise his recent disability. Occurring moments after referring to the hate crime committed against him, which is not legally recognized by the state, its a documentary with a tight focus on this heinous act committed upon Scott.
Absorbed in the natural beauty around him, Scott is constantly filmed immersed in such surroundings. Alongside his sister, they perform a Christian song of praise to oneself on a rock overlooking a tranquil river. The repetition of water imagery elicits the constant flow of life- regardless of good or bad periods. Emerging as a pivotal part of his life, his faith in choir propels him forward through the darkness of his disability. Interacting with the filmmaker in a form that feels as though it is just two friends talking, the personal stories told to the camera throughout its brief running time never feel stretched out or overly long. The latter impression is prominent in the final third act where Scott contemplates forgiving his attacker. Situating the camera far away during moments of him choral directing, the utilization of zoom adds a voyeuristic element to proceedings. In these flourishing moments of happiness for Scott, we see how the human spirit prevails over dark times.
Adding to the natural ability of Scott to directly talk to the camera, unbroken takes accompany the deeply personal tales. Working as the antithesis to the narrative archive footage that is asserted in a brisk manner, Wayne’s takes create verisimilitude. Occasional shooting out of focus shots varies the cinematic language of Love, Scott. Typical of independent filmmaking, it only truly lands a blow in one engaging nighttime drive filming. Aiding his continual presence in the film, surprisingly for a documentary subject, Scott has an alluring on-screen presence. Combined with his occasionally charming nature, Love, Scott is fortunate to have a focus who feels so natural around camera equipment.
The result of its accumulative emotive story, Laura Marie Wayne’s first full-length feature documentary certainly has its cinematic and affecting moments. Still, with a final act that feels out of place against the initial two acts, Love, Scott has enough impactful embellishments to produce a redeeming quality. What is undeniable, however, is that Scott Jones is a beacon of hope to us, LGBT or not, to keep the faith and endure the worst life has to offer.
Love, Scott is showing at BFI Flare: LGBT Film Festival 2018.
F ollowing his captivating examination of the family in After the Storm (2016), Hirokazu Koreeda continues his prolific form of one-film-a-year and delivers a multi-layered emotional tapestry in The Third Murder. Pre-dating the appearance of the title on screen, Misumi (Kôji Yakusho) commits the titular cardinal sin, whilst stealing the dead man’s wallet. Charged on the account of murder and robbery, his fate looks sealed until the prudent lawyer Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) seeks to add truth to the matter. Retaining the familial themes that have imbued his works with a vibrant quality, whilst venturing to pastures green, Koreeda entrances you into the seams of his narrative; leaving one emotionally charged and contained.
Throughout, the murder which Misumi has committed only has one valid piece of evidence; his confession. Apart from the fact he worked at a canning factory owned by the man he killed, there is actually very little hard evidence to support Misumi committing murder. Shigemori is all too aware of this and proceeds to look beyond Misumi’s confession and study the actual narrative of the killing. Previous to Shigemori’s involvement, his father examined the case but was all too swift to jump towards the conclusion that the murder was all down to Misumi.
Working in a small team of four, Shigemori’s work relationship is imbued with a tender stroke by Koreeda. Replicating the narrative bonding act of eating noodles, which is so fundamental to the relationships in After the Storm, ingrains a delicate characteristic to the lead.Acting as a cathartic escape from the stresses of the murder case, such senses add levity towards the Noirish elements of Misumi’s brutal act of murder. The fine balance between light and dark tones is an artistic stroke of virtuosity from the director, resulting in a deep emotion investment to all the characters, regardless if they are criminals or not.
Similar to Our Little Sister (Hirokazu Koreeda,2015) an exploration of young femininity is unearthed in Sakie (Suzu Hirose). The daughter of the man Misumi killed-or seemingly so- she is a vulnerable tender being. Operating to a level of secrecy towards Shigemori, the secrets of her father are uncovered through her. Hirose’s graceful pale faces furthers the progress of her character’s tenderness too.
Matching Misumi and Shigemori, Mikiya Takimoto’s CinemaScope camera fills their claustrophobic encounters in the holding cell with peculiar angles, occasionally merging the two men’s faces together or intimately. Recalling the aesthetics of Robby Müller’s cinematography in Wim Wender’s essential Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984), it is absorbing to witness.
Adding to an already impressive and varied filmography, Koreeda serves up a delightful slice of enthralling cinema. Akin to the varying genres explored by Francois Ozon from 8 Women (2002) to Frantz (2016) knows what field the Japanese director will operate in next. This interchangeable form of filmmaking is as good as it gets.
The Third Murder was out in UK cinemas in March. It’s out on VoD on Monday, July 16th. The director won the Palme d’Or in Cannes for his latest film Shoplifters, yet to be released in the UK and elsewhere.
In an ever-changing world, the documentary film helps us comprehend things greater than our simple daily lives. Owing a debt to the pioneering work Nanook of the North (Robert J. Flaherty, 1922), Walk this Way follow in the footsteps of that film in delivering cutting-edge documentaries about topics that really matter to humanity.
Partnering with DMovies this year, The Film Agency, in association with Under The Milky Way, are combining forces again in the Docs from around the World Collection. A means of this, all parties plan to shine light upon films from across the globe which might have escaped audiences upon their initial release. All from a very European perspective (all films are co-productions from the Old Continent).
By using the power of the medium, as well as VoD, DMovies, The Film Agency and Under The Milky Way seek to support true independent filmmaking. In our shared targets, we sat down with Walk this Way Coordinator Nolwenn Luca to discuss this particular collection further.
DMovies – Why documentaries? Are people more likely to watch docs on VoD than the cinema? Is this an opportunity to catch the hidden gems of European documentary-making?
Nolwenn Luca – The Docs from around the World Collection take the main stage, inviting the audience to travel around the world and discover how complex and rich current societies are. The documentary is the place of new interrogations of the man by the man. Not to establish certainties but to reformulate on the scale of human microcosms the essential questions of life.
Walk this Way defends the diversity of European documentary works. The public thanks to the programme have the chance to have access to films that they would not have been able to discover otherwise if they were not available in VoD. The idea is to give a second chance to the movies to meet their audience. If the film has not had the opportunity to have a theatrical release in a country we propose it in VoD as an alternative. In recent years, the VoD offer for documentaries has grown considerably, giving viewers a wide choice to watch quality movies from home.
DM – What is it that these films have in common? Perhaps a desire to reveal the dirty truth, to deep-dive into controversial topics, etc, or something along the lines?
NL – The Collection will take the public through intense investigations from characters going around the world to find answers. Whether they address our love of nature and art, our fascination for criminal minds or our eating habits, these movies will definitely give to the audience food for thought. These films tackle fascinating and relevant thematic with broad interest and are therefore marketable on VoD to several niches.
DM – Can you please tell us a little bit about the curatorship? Roughly how many docs are made for cinema each year in Europe, and how many did you have access to? Any nice figures to give the initiative a grounded aspect!
NL– The documentary is a format that is growing rapidly. Documentary production in Europe has almost doubled over the 2015-2016 period, reaching 698 films in 2016, or about a third of the films of the year in Europe. On average over the period 2007-2016, documentary films represent 1.4% tickets to all genres. In general, feature-length documentaries have a lifetime in room superior to that of all the films.
Documentary is a genre that can easily reach a large audience beyond their country of origin. In general terms, documentaries perform relatively well on international VoD distribution channels partly because they do not request a high level of marketing and promotional expenditure to find their audiences. Already 26 documentaries released in VoD around the world since 2015 with Walk this Way.
What will happen when the food runs out of food? Well, in his 2015 documentary Valentin Thurn places this very notion front and centre!
Exploring the scientific, agricultural and environmental ways we can prevent global food shortages, all due to global warming, it’s not a feature filled with bias but educated solutions to an impending world problem. Globe jumping from India to England then Germany, the multifaceted nature of its tone makes the issues it is dealing with a tangible reality for the viewer.
Part of Europe’s natural beauty, The Alps are towering force over every country they touch. Approaching the scope of the natural phenomena in a highly cinematic manner, directors Peter Bardehle and Sebastian Lindemann deploy a cineflex camera to capture every inch of its beauty in filmic splendour. Telling the tale of its history, socio-political and geographical story, the sweeping shots of the snow-tipped mountains interpolate you into its vistas. Accompanied by the Germanic tones of Emily Clarke-Brandt, man and nature are combined into one form.
This Spanish documentary explores Tomeu L’Amo’s maverick purchase of surrealist artist, Salvador Dali’s, first work for a cut-price 25,000 Spanish pesetas in 1988 (£132 in today’s money). Scratching away at the persona of L’Amo, scenes from the documentary allude towards a recent trend of re-creating history or pastness through a post-modern reimagination. Though the elaborate nature of the man could shadow the work, what emerges is a contemporary discussion on elitism, to which is unearthed in many aspects of society. Unlike the recent retelling of the life of Van Gough in Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, 2017) it is undeniable that The Key to Dali is grounded in the real world, opening pathways for art fans or not into the world of painting.
Adopting the same global view as 10Billion (Valentin Thurn, 2015), Barbara Eder’s hard-hitting work on the men and women whose job it is to investigate killers does not any soft punches. Intertextually referencing The Silence Of The Lambs, (Jonathan Demme, 1991) in numerous conversations, the grotesque nature of the classic is expressed as a means of the verbal descriptions. Not venturing into sadistic footage of murders etc, it holds respect for the victims. A natural intuition, we as humans constantly seek to explain the un-explainable and Eder’s film elicits this notion poignantly..
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5. Free Lunch Society (Christian Tod, 2017):
What would you do if your income were taken care of? Just a few years ago, an unconditional basic income was considered a pipe dream. Today, this utopia is more imaginable than ever before – intense discussions are taking place in all political and scientific camps. Free Lunch Society provides background information about this idea and searches for explanations, possibilities and experiences regarding its implementation.
17-year-old Kevin, sentenced for violent behaviour, is just let out of prison. To start anew, he moves in with his aunt and her family and begins an apprenticeship at her store. Quickly he adapts to his new home and gets along well with his cousin Sammy, in his last year of high school. Through Sammy and his friends, Kevin meets John. Upon discovering John’s unbearable situation with his mother, Kevin feels the urge to help his new friend. One evening fate intervenes and questions of betrayal, trust and loyalty start to direct their daily lives more than ever.
Loneliness, disillusionment and the experience of first love reveal the character of Raya, a 17-year-old living in rural Latvia with her grandmother and her little brother Robis. A staggering turn of events shakes up their lives, and the young girl must come to decisions that even a grown woman would find difficult to make.
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8. Quiet Bliss (Edoardo Winspeare, 2014):
Three generations of a family have to move back to their picturesque coastal town of their family’s origin and survive off the family farm after their family company goes bankrupt. A feel-good drama about possibilities after a crisis.
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9. Fair Play (Andrea Sedlácková, 2014):
Set in Czechoslovakia in the 1980, young and talented sprinter Anna (Judit Bárdos) is selected for the national team and starts training to qualify for the Olympic Games. As a part of the preparation she is placed in a secret “medical programme” where they begin dopeing her with anabolic steroids. Her performance improves, but after she collapses at training, she learns the truth. Anna decides to continue training without the steroids even though her mother (Anna Geislerova) is worried that she won’t be able to keep up with other athletes and might not qualify for the Olympics, which she sees as the only chance for her daughter to escape from behind the Iron Curtain. After Anna ends last in the indoor race, her mother informs the coach (Roman Luknar) that Anna is no longer using steroids. Together they decide to inject steroids to Anna in secret, pretending it’s nothing but harmless vitamins.
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10.God Willing (Edoardo Maria Falcone, 2015):
A young man’s decision to become a priest affects his whole family, especially his father.
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11.I Can Quit Whenever I Want (Sydney Sibilia, 2014):
A university researcher is fired because of the cuts to university. To earn a living he decides to produce drugs recruiting his former colleagues, who despite their skills are living at the margins of society.
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12. One Wild Moment (Jean-François Richet, 2015):
Two friends bring their daughters with them on a beach vacation and find themselves in an awkward situation. A remake of In a Wild Moment (Claude Berri, 1977).
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14. Heart of Glass (Jérôme de Gerlache, 2016):
Heart of Glass is a journey. A road trip through several countries on two continents in pursuit of a story. The story of a young glass blower with a singular talent: Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert. The film follows him in his daily life working in the studio and on the road. Jeremy recounts growing up in Africa, where he drew inspiration for his first pieces. He speaks of his family of Franco-American origin, difficult events he faced, the challenges of returning to Europe. He speaks of his first encounter with glass at age 19. The first time he saw the hot glass moving at the end of a blow pipe was his seminal moment. The way the glass, fluid, delicate and mysterious, danced that day has forever changed him. The film reveals how passion can undo a tragic fate and is sadly not a Blondie documentary.
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14. Step Up to the Plate (Paul Lacoste, 2012):
In 2009, the three-Michelin-stars French chef Michel Bras decides to hand his restaurant over to his son Sebastien. Between Jonathan Nossiter’s Mondovino (2004) and Raymond Depardon’s La Vie Moderne (2008), this documentary draws a moving and joyful portrait of this outstanding family devoted to the haute cuisine for three generations…
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15. Santa Claus (Alexandre Coffre, 2014):
One night, a burglar in a Santa Claus costume is surprised by Victor, a young boy who believes he is the real Santa Claus. Victor then follows him, and they embark on an unexpected adventure that will change their lives.
Dramatising grief, depression and self-harm requires a steady and empathetic eye. If applied well, then it can be deeply affecting. Done poorly, it can slide a film into completely maudlin territory.The Bachelors wants to be a hard-hitting and topical mental health drama, but the tropes are so overdone it becomes almost insufferable to watch. It isn’t so much a real movie as opposed to a collection of groan-worthy clichés that are only enjoyable in the way one can guess everything that will happen well ahead of time.
The film starts with Bill Palet (J.K. Simmons) waking up his son Wes (Josh Wiggins) and telling him that they are moving away from their old home. Both of them are still reeling from the death of the boy’s mother, something that we are reminded of every time the two of them speak. Thanks to a favour from a friend, Bill gets a job as a maths teacher at a private school, where Wes also studies. Here the depression drama is joined by the school intrigue drama, replete with privileged bullies, beautiful but inaccessible girls and endless, gruelling sports. Almost immediately Wes falls in love with Lacy Westman, who studies in his French Class, taught by Carine (Julie Delpy). Thankfully for him, the two of them are forced to study together. Meanwhile, Bill and Carine get closer, but he is finding it extremely hard to get over the death of his late wife. Things develop exactly as you’d expect.
It’s a film with a classical plot and subplot, featuring sad men and (also sad) dreamy women to whom they can air their grievances. This doubling-up technique, where women are only seen in relation to the men, is particularly tiresome. It really could’ve done with making the women a little more dynamic. Instead they also suffer from buzzword problems instead of real conflicts. This speaks to the movie as a whole, replete with big moments that are completely unearned and attempt to resolve all dramatic conflict by means of inspirational montages. It fundamentally misunderstands how young people talk about their issues (firstly, they never talk this much) and how elders intervene. For anyone suffering with mental health issues, I think this film would probably make them feel worse.
It is strange to see so many talented actors wasted in the service of so little. J.K. Simmons plays the diametric opposite of his controlling character in Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014g),a man completely walled in by his grief and depression. Representing this is a difficult task, and Simmons doesn’t do enough to make it come to life. Likewise, Julie Delpy is one of the all-time great French actresses, turning in memorable roles in films by directors as diverse as Kieslowski, Linklater, Carax and Schlöndorff. Here Delpy tries her best to elevate the material, and gives one of the most natural performances in the movie, but is let down by the trite dialogue. Additionally, Odeya Rush would prove to be one of the best teenagers around in Lady Bird straight after this film, but she is nonetheless weighed down by self-hatred clichés here.
Compared to the rest of the cast, however, these performances are worthy of Shakespeare. The thing that the aforementioned Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2018) did so well is make every single characterin the movie feel like a real, hurting person. Here the supporting cast are reduced to the most tedious archetypes imaginable. There’s the bickering parents, the faceless jock, the stern sports coach, the lecherous older teacher, and so on. This lack of effort to shade the characters out beyond the bare absolute minimum contradicts the theme of the movie that everyone is special if only they truly confront their problems. In reality, not everyone is worth saving.
It’s a nobly-intended film that could’ve been a sobering depiction of mental health issues, but ends up being rather trivial instead. It has to be commended for trying, but ultimately, all of its sentiments could fit inside of a consolation card.
