Month: July 2018

Iceman (Der Mann aus dem Eis)

Posted on by victorfraga

This fiction film tells the story of a neolithic man called Kelab, who is pursuing a mission to avenge his settlement. It takes inspiration from the discovery of Ötzi The Iceman, the oldest known human mummy found in 1991, approximately 5300 years after his death. Ötzi was found on 19 September 1991 by two German tourists in Ötztal Alps on the Austrian–Italian border.

The German film is led by Juergen Vogel, a German chameleonis actor whose past performances in The Phantom (Denis Gansel, 2000) and Sources of Life (Oskar Roehler, 2013), and he delivers a compelling performance, echoing pain, disdain and ennui. It’s largely a silent performance, magnetic in his rage. The film is spoken in early Rhaetian, a long extinct dialect, and while the filmmaker makes the questionable choice to release the film devoid of subtitles (pretentious in all the wrong manners), Vogel is immersive in his nuance and self-belief that it doesn’t matter as long as he remains on screen.

Randau follows Kelab on his long battle after the murderers on what turns into a grand odyssey where he must fight constantly. In essence, it’s a story about a man against his environment, as arduous hills await him, a tumultuous walk of Neolithic cascades. Historians be warned, this is a work of complete fiction (naturally) and an early scene by which a fire is built and assembled with little to no fanfare in the settlement at the film’s opening is likely to raise more than one or two eyebrows for the lack of historicity. But as an epic of fantastic escapism, there are plenty of visceral and esoteric battle scenes, bloodied in red rooted vengeance with the vigorous pulp sadism that only a prehistoric film could get away.

The Italian actor Franco Nero also deserves a mention. He features in his most interesting short film appearance since Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012). This is pertinent, as this is the second time the enigmatic 1960s’ superstar appears in a film about a man seeking vengeance and catharsis in his own personal odyssey. And while Randau’s Neolithic epic isn’t quite in the same league as Tarantino’s subversive Western, it is another compelling tale of human survival.

All in all, Randau has a very clever eye for storytelling. A particularly powerful image emerges as a snow-covered Kelab turns his back to the camera marching and struggling with the torrent weather. It’s a chilling depiction of the vile and violent journey awaiting him in a film that – despite a few shortcomings – manages to maintain a compelling sense of journey and acceptance similarly to the spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s. No wonder Nero feels very much at home!

Iceman is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, July 27th, and then on VoD the following week.

The Nun (La Religieuse)

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Being a nun means being doubly oppressed, by both gender and religious doctrine. The Nun is a film mostly about religious oppression, based on the eponymous 18th century book by Denis Diderot. The French writer and philosopher was primarily preoccupied with the topic of forced nunhood, but it’s very easy for modern eyes to discern female oppression in this 140-minute Nouvelle Vague classic.

Suzanne Simonin (Anna Karina) is locked in a convent against her will. That’s because she’s the byproduct of her mother’s extramarital affair, and therefore less deserving of inheritance and dowry money than her half-sisters. After a shocking refusal to take the religious vow at the beginning of the film, she is finally persuaded that life is a convent might be better than outside, where she may end up begging. At first, Suzanne enjoys life in the convent, but her predicament quickly morphs into a nightmare as the loving and kind Mother Superior dies and is replaced by a sadistic and authoritarian female. Suzanne suffers every type of humiliation conceivable: moral, spiritual and physical. She attempts to buy her freedom with a lawyer, but she’s instead relocated to a different convent. This is where she encounters a very different threat: the affection and sexual advances of the super friendly and permissive Mother Superior.

Jacques Rivette’s second film is a journey into the hellish existence of an 18th century female. Suzanne faces an uphill struggle first against her family, then against the Catholic Church and finally against human sexuality. She is always at a position of disadvantage for being a woman. She’s expected to remain demure and obedient, and she’s urged never to question her fate. But her oppressors and tormentors aren’t always male. Other women also exercise their power over the hapless and vulnerable young woman. Despite being a free thinker at the beginning of the movie, Suzanne is left deeply confused as her notions of freedom are torn apart towards the end of the film. She’s driven to a very surprising gesture of escapism. Anna Karina is magnificent with her usual ultra-sad self, with her infinitely profound and melancholic gaze, combined with an intense yet fragile beauty.

The Nun is a technically accomplished film, with superb lighting and photography. On the other hand and despite the ban, The Nun is not a very dirty film. It lacks the shocking sexuality and violence of Ken Russell’s The Devils and Pasolini’s Decameron, both made five years later and dealing with very unorthodox and twisted nuns. It’s not an impeccable movie either: there are problems with the narrative stream. The middle of the film feels a little protracted, while the ending is a somewhat confusing, as the director attempts to pack too many events in the last five minutes.

The Nun hits UK cinemas for the second time in five decades on July 27th, 2018. Available on DVD, Blu-ray and EST (electronic sell-through) on Monday, September 24th. The film was originally made in 1966, but it was only released a year later after a government ban both in France and for export was lifted.

Dance me to the end of love!

Posted on by victorfraga

Cinema and music are the two biggest passions of my life. Put the two of them together and the combination is explosive. Below is a very small list of five diegetic songs that make characters dance (“diegetic” is a very academic word meaning that the song is played within the film, and that it’s audible to the characters). But it isn’t just the characters that these songs have affected. They have literally changed my life.

These are not mainstream movies, and you may have not even heard of some of them. What they have in common is that they got me straight to the music shop to investigate and to buy the record. These films and songs have since become an integral part of my life.

This is a very personal list, which I’m honoured and thrilled to share with our amazing dirty readers. They are intense moments of catharsis and bonding. Either the characters connect with their inner selves or with other characters through music. Compiling this list and rewatching these vids was an extremely emotional experience to me. These songs are so deeply ingrained in my mind and heart that they came back to me almost instantly as soon as I decided to write this piece. I suggest that you turn the volume up and glue your eyes to the screen while you watch them!

What about you? Are there songs that had a similar effect on you?

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1. My Summer of Love (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2004):

I remember watching this at the Curzon Soho when it came out nearly 15 years ago. I always liked Edith Piaf, but La Foule was never amongst my favourite songs. This changed immediately after watching Pawel Pawlikowski’s very British and Lesbian romance My Summer of Love, where the two lovers divided by class finally bond in a very personal dance. Another key moment of the film includes Goldfrapp’s Lovely Head in a disco dance. Truly dizzying stuff. The Polish born and London-based director Pawlikowski has since a become a wizard of film music. His latest feature Cold War (2018) is almost entirely constructed around music. To astounding results.

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2. Beautiful Thing (Hettie MacDonald, 1996):

I was 19 years of age when I watched the British movie Beautiful Thing. I was still living in Brazil, and I had never been to the UK. It made me want to be 15 years of age and experience love for the first time again, but obviously that wasn’t possible: I was already a rather “experienced” gay man at the time. This tale of young homossexual love is a small masterpiece of LGBT cinema, and it catapulted many young actors to fame (including Tameka Empson). It made me run to the shop the next day in order to buy Mama Cass’s greatest hits (the film soundtrack consists almost exclusively of Mama Cass songs). The very public gay dance to the sound of Dream a Little Dream of Me at the end of the film became synonymous with unabashed coming-out (also pictured at the top of this article).

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3. Our Children (Joachim Lafosse, 2012):

This is a far less rosy film. This French-Belgian production is based on a real-life incident involving a woman (Genevieve Lhermitte), who killed her five children. It is impossible not to be moved by Émilie Dequenne playing the film protagonist (here called Murielle), as she cries, moans and sings along to Julien Clerc’s Femmes, Je Vous Aime inside her car. After this sequence, she proceeds to kill her offspring, one by one and at home. Her motive is never entirely clear, which makes the sequence far more ambiguous and powerful, as audiences attempt to decipher what’s going though the mind of the deranged lady about to commit such an unthinkable crime.

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4. Cría Cuervos (Carlos Saura, 1976):

Carlos Saura’s masterpiece is also the Spanish film that most accurately translates the transition back to democracy immediately after Francisco Franco’s death, and all from the perspective of a child. Eight-year-old, stoic and stern Ana observes the fast changing family and nation around her in 1976. But she’s no innocent child. She believes that she has psychic powers and can kill those around her with her thoughts. Ultimately, this is a film about suspicion and lack mutual trust at such turbulent times of fast change. The most striking moment of the film is when Ana dances with other children to the sound of Jeanette’s Por que Te Vas – this is probably the most puerile moment of authentic bonding in the film. The song became a hit in Spain, catapulting Jeanette’s vulnerable and frail voice with a slight British accent to fame (Jeanette was born and raised in London). Since watching Cría Cuervos, Carlos Saura became my favourite Spanish filmmaker and Jeanette a recurring guest in my lounge, my car and my earphones.

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5. Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999):

Claire Denis will be forever remembered for penetrating an all-male military world with an acute sensibility. Beau Travail is loosely based on Herman Melville’s lesser-known 1888 short novel Billy Budd. The action takes place in the tiny African nation of Djibouti (between Eritrea and Somalia), where French Foreign Legion soldiers are stationed. Parts of the film soundtrack are from Benjamin Britten’s opera based on Herman Melville’s novel. But the most beautiful and cathartic moment comes at the end when masculinity is expressed in a very solitary dance in front of the mirror. This happens to the sound of the well-known hit The Rhythm of the Night, performed by Italian eurodance act Corona. Simply unforgettable.

Apostasy

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This is as close as you will probably ever get to the heart of a Jehovah’s Witness (unless you are a Jehovah’s Witness yourself). Apostasy offers the opportunity to wear the trousers and the shoes of a Jehovah’s Witness mother as she is forced decide between her faith and her daughters. Sounds clichéd? Well, it isn’t. The realistic and non-judgemental tone of Dan Kokotajlo’s first feature film ensures for a heart wrenching ride entirely devoid of stereotypes. It’s sobering and enlightening without resorting to saccharine and exploitative devices. The British director is a defector of the Christian sect himself, so this is undoubtedly also a very personal endeavour.

Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran, whose performance must be strongly commended) and her two daughters Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) and Alex (Molly Wright) live somewhere in suburban Manchester, and they are devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, bonded by “The Truth”. Being a Jehovah Witness means that you are entirely devout to your faith. There is no in-between.

The religion demands integral adherence to its principles, which includes the virtual disconnection to those unfamiliar with “The Truth” (their doctrine), and also the prohibition of blood transfusion. The problem is that Alex is anaemic and requires a transfusion, while Luisa becomes infatuated with a non-believer. Will Ivanna end up on her own, or are there ways of reconciling her strict faith with the “tragic” predicament of the two young girls?

Made on a budget of just £500,000, Apostasy is an extremely austere film, and not just in the financial sense. The tone is extremely somber, harsh and stern. The performances are stoical, the camera movements are scarce and sparse. The locations are bleak and soulless, including the church on a desolate roadside, persistently filmed from exactly the same angle. This is by no means a criticism of the film. This is a very conscious and appropriate creative choice. Apostasy is a masterpiece of acerbity and austerity. Dan Kokotajlo feels like some sort of British version of Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl – minus the sexually deviant element. To me, this is no mean feat: Seidl is the most important living movie director in the world.

One of the moments in the film a lot of people might recognise is when the two girls wear a hijab and knock at the neighbours’ door speaking Urdu, having somehow found out that they come from Pakistan. Proselytism is key to the survival of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and so followers are constantly in the active search of new converts. Who hasn’t had a Jehovah Witness knocking on their door on a Sunday morning? I remember when they came to my place a few years ago preaching about paradise and eternal life in broken Portuguese. Somehow (and only Jehovah knows how) they found out that I come from Brazil, and wanted to seduce me into their cult by speaking my mother tongue.

The film also includes many nuggets of knowledge about the ultra insular religion, which also makes it for very informative viewing. You will learn that Jesus was killed on an upright wooden stick, making the cross a pagan symbol, that eternal life and paradise are only available to those who follows “The Truth”, and that Disfellowshipment is synonymous with immediate and total rupture with followers. The preachers (known as “Elders”, and always male) chastise followers for voicing own opinions. The “New System” is depicted in a puerile television representation, which brings Ivanna to tears: jolly people mingle with animals in verdant hills, just like the images you might recognise from brochures.

Apostasy is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, July 27th. Not to be missed – whether you are profoundly religious or a staunch sceptic like myself. This is universal cinema at its best.

Another film about Jehovah Witness faith and blood transfusion is coming up in September. Stay tuned for our dirty review of Children Act (Richard Eyre), starring Emma Thompson.

I dream of a Black Europe!

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The symbolism of the latest World Cup win couldn’t be clearer. Nineteen out of 23 players of the French football team are either immigrants or children of immigrants. The majority of those are of Black heritage, either from Africa and the Caribbean. Steve Mandanda, Alphonse Areola, Presnel Kimpembe, Rafael Xavier Varane, Samuel Umitite, Djibril Sidibe, Benjamin Mendy, Paul Pogba, Corentin Tolisso, N’Golo Kante, Blaise Matuidi, Steven Nzonzi, Thomas Lemar, Ousmane Dembele are amongst those. And the big revelation of the world Kylian Mbappe is entirely of African descent. Mbappe became so successful and synonymous with his home nation that the French newspapers twisted the French national motto to include the 19-year-old player “Liberté, Egalité, Mbappé”.

This is wonderful news. Even the most ardent bigots and xenophobes had to recognise and to face a multicultural and diverse Europe. But is the same phenomenon reflected in cinema? Unfortunately the answer is a resounding NO. Black Europeans are yet to leave their mark on European cinema. The number of Black European filmmakers remains extremely low, and the names are scarce, particularly outside Britain. This is in contrast to the US, where established Black filmmakers of both sexes have been challenged the racial orthodoxy of the film industry for quite some time, including extremely dirty names such as Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Dee Rees and Gina Prince-bythewoods, to name just a few.

Well, it’s about time that the UK embraces the Windrush generation (pictured above) and Black Brits more wholeheartedly in the film industry. Likewise for the rest of Europe. We need more “Afropean” helmers, who can show us Europe from a Black perspective. We’ve had enough whitewashing in the film industry.

Below is a list with some of the most promising black talent behind the camera in Europe. We hope that these talented artists will continue to flourish with many more films to come, and also that the list will grow massively in the years to come. Alongside “Liberté, Egalité, Mbappé”, let’s also sing “God Save our glorious (Steve) McQueen” in the very near future. We want Black Europeans to shine on the football field, behind the film lenses and everywhere else.

You might also want to check out the Women of the Lens for Black female talent in film in the UK and beyond. Also, don’t forget to click on the film titles below in order to accede to our exclusive dirty review (where available).

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1. Steve McQueen (United Kingdom, pictured below):

McQueen is the most successful black European filmmaker at present. The London-born and Amsterdam-based helmer has directed the critically acclaimed Hunger (2008), Shame (2011) and the multiple Academy Award winner 12 Years a Slave (2013).

2. Damani Baker (United Kingdom):

This British cinematographer and filmmaker is best known for his feature The House of Coco Road (2017), a tribute to Caribbean women in the UK (more specifically, the director’s mother.

3. Amma Asante (United Kingdom):

Amma Asante is also British, and she is a screenwriter, a film director and also a former actress. Her filmography includes Belle (2013) and A United Kingdom (2016).

4. Isabelle Boni-Claverie (Switzerland/France):

Originally born in the Ivory Coast, this author, screenwriter and film director moved to Switzerland when was just a few months ago, and she now lives in France. She directs mostly documentaries, and her best known title is Too Black To Be French? (2015).

5. Amandine Gay (France, pictured below):

This French feminist, filmmaker and actress is just 33 years old. Her documentary Ouvrir la Voix (2015) was made by the means of crowdfunding, and includes interviews with 24 Black women in France.

6 – Mo Asumang (Germany):

This 54-year-old filmmaker was born in the former German capital, Bonn. He has already directed seven featurettes on various topics including race and veganism.

7 – Oliver Hardt (Germany):

This filmmaker is based in Frankfurt am Main. His portfolio consists of award-winning documentaries and high-profile corporate films for firms and institutions such as Mercedes Benz, Lufthansa, the German Design Council and the Art Institute of Chicago.

8 – Sally Fenaux Barleycorn (Spain):

Sally is based in Barcelona. Her first fiction short film Skinhearts, premiered in Amsterdam in 2015. She has now directed her first two adult films with XConfessions as a Guest director, Touch Crimes (2016) and Tinder Taxi (2017).

9 – Fred Kudjo Kworno (Italy, pictured above):

This activist-producer-writer-director, was born and raised in Italy and now based in New York (US). He directed the brilliant Blaxploitalian: 100 Years of Blackness in Italian Cinema (2015).

10 – Bibi Fadlalla (the Netherlands):

Bibi Fadlalla is a filmmaker based in Rotterdam. Bibi has worked for several Dutch television programmes and has directed several documentaries.

Racer and the Jailbird (Le Fidèle)

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After making his English language debut feature The Drop (2014) with Tom Hardy, Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam returns to his native country with Racer and The Jailbird. Evidently failing to make an impact with English speaking audiences, The Drop operates in a sphere of thrillers and muted colour palettes. Bringing a European sensibility to Brooklyn gangster narratives, it’s a film that scratches away at the surface of the vulnerability of criminality. Much of the same in some regards, this French, Belgian and Dutch co-production fails to provide any remote feeling of the titular genre even through its broad running time.

Before a single scene has unfolded, the stark opening title cards act as a precursor to the ‘gritty’ story that will unfold. Swiftly cutting to the titular ‘Racer’, Bénédicte (Adele Exarchopoulos) steps out of a Porsche after just winning a race. Greeted with an array of male gazes who are surprised at her sexuality and ability to successfully drive a car, she is instantly positioned as an object of desire. Holding an instant urge towards her, as all the other men in the cockpits do, Gigi (Matthias Schoenaerts) confidently approaches her and asks her out for a date. Failing to stop the charming advances of Gigi, all signified by his lavish pink sweater around his shoulders, the two instantly strike a cord and the filmmakers are keen to display this in an erotic fashion.

Proposing himself as a foreign car dealer Gigi is actually a gangster who robs banks and convoys for a living. Surrounded by his loud and abrasive crew, no personality is created in any of the minor characters. After being introduced to his world, Bénédicte and Gigi magically fall in love. Yet, when a bank job goes south, the two must face the repercussions on a personal and political level.

Blurring the lines between thriller and melodrama, the couple’s relationship is void of true feeling or emotive qualities. Absent is a sense of what makes them or each other tick away from sex. Their somewhat lavish lives fail to morph into a tangible sense of emotion in each structure, labelled ‘Bibi’ and ‘No Flowers’. Roskam so desperately uses every trope in the book, as illness and death, to provoke sadness or melancholy.

Collaborating with his leading man again, Matthias Schoenaerts is clearly committed to Gigi’s austere charisma around the crew and soft tender nature around Bénédicte. Showcasing the vulnerability to which the actor can portray in 2015’s Disorder, Schoenaerts when dealing with the right material can cut to the heart of masculinity’s fragility. Sadly, this is well absent here.

Bénédicte is written to corroborate with the follies of her partner. When his mission goes south, writers Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré and Roskam suppress her under the grips of patriarchy and unnecessary melodrama. Rarely is she given true autonomy or any awareness to leave this toxic relationship. To Gigi’s King, she is his pawn on the chess board. Exarchopoulos’ acting exudes a lot of his oppression and sadness too. Nevertheless, this specific use of femininity, which has to sacrifice its livelihood for a seemingly cool suave man, feels as though it should be a narrative element as extinct as the dinosaurs by now.

Cinematically speaking, Nicolas Karakatsanis’ muted cinematography is swift to heighten the genre with low-key lighting. After swooshing and sweeping his camera around Margot Robbie in I, Tonya (Craid Gillespie, 2018), his work here feels imitative. Accompanied by one big set piece which so badly wants to become Michael Mann’s Heat (1995), comparable to its use of female characters, Racer and The Jailbird, feels extremely old in its lack of imagination of new settings, characters or blocking.

Finishing on a note that desperately tries to develop into a profoundly emotional final note, through replaying previous dialogue shared between Bénédicte and Gigi and a PoV shot of a car racing through the streets, the long 130 minutes running time drains the life out of this feature. In an alternative reality, one would hope the titular racer would zooms off into the distant away from the claws of the mundane jailbird…

Racer and Jailbird is out in cinemas on Friday, July 13th, and then on VoD the following Monday (the 16th). Run away from it as fast as you can!

Summer 1993 (Estiu 1993)

Posted on by victorfraga

HIV first appeared in Spain in 1981. The virus – primarily spread by needle-sharing among drug users in the nascent democracy – peaked in 1997, when there were around 120,000 diagnoses of HIV/AIDS in the adult population. Catalan filmmaker Carla Simón was born in 1986 and is one of many orphans whose parents died from HIV when she was a child. Her debut feature film Summer 1993 is a biographical piece directly inspired by her experiences as a newly-motherless six-year-old girl during a balmy summer in 1990s Catalonia.

The film opens with six-year-old Frida (Laia Artigas) leaving her mother’s apartment in Barcelona to stay in the countryside with maternal uncle Esteve (David Verdaguer), aunt Marga (Bruna Cusí) and four-year-old cousin Anna (Paula Robles). Under the instruction of her grandmother Maria (Isabel Rocatti), Frida regularly leaves offerings and repeats the Lord’s Prayer at a woodside Virgin Mary shrine. All the while, the young girl is trying to make sense of her situation and the multitude of emotions it entails – confusion, grief, anger, to name a few. Equally, her surrogate parents are doing their best to balance sympathy, a fair upbringing, and grandma and grandpa’s regular visits to their bereaved granddaughter.

The narrative unfolds entirely from the perspective of Frida, as hushed fragments of adult conversations are picked up for both her and our dissection. For example, it’s not ever entirely clear that HIV catalysed her mother’s death from pneumonia; this can only be pieced together with a mature understanding of the adult’s behaviour. Cinematographer Santiago Racaj’s camera often assumes the level of Frida and occasionally replicates her point of view. When it frames Frida herself, she is often isolated, whether through her own volition or because of the avoidant actions of those around her. Longer shots are accompanied by handheld moments; altogether, this is a camera that lives in and observes the painstaking realities of its child subject’s world.

Summer 1993 burns slowly across the screen, subtly peeling back the complex and conflicting layers of grief in all their human totality. It never shies away from the more difficult manifestations of family bereavement – the selfishness and spitefulness that can emerge as a way of coping with the sheer injustice of having your life-giver and protector torn away. It lays out an honestly brutal array of emotions, without any place for sentimentality or idealistic happy-endings. The relationship between Frida and her younger cousin Anna provides a perfect example. They play with each other in a recognisably child-like way, yet the power relations between the older and younger girl are omnipresent, sometimes escalating with quite serious consequences.

Simón has spoken about her surprise at the universal appeal of the film, that a story set in Catalonia has led to messages from other people across the globe who were also orphaned after HIV/AIDS-related parental deaths. I would go further and suggest that Summer 1993 captures grief precisely, regardless of age or culture. In fact, to see it depicted through a child’s eyes allows just the right distance to analyse one’s own emotions around death (or those of someone close to you). It’s a fantastic debut and well-deserving of its film festival success.

Summer 1993 is on Mubi on Thursday, January 5th (2023). Also available on other platforms.

The Butterfly Tree

Posted on by victorfraga

This is the first full-length feature film by director-writer Priscilla Cameron, following on from a series of shorts. Cameron took inspiration from a chance observation of a boy waiting on a Sydney doorstep, as well as her last short film Beetle Feeders (2011) and a close friend’s terminal illness. The result is an enjoyable (and often bizarre) blend of magical realism and male grief that – when it’s on form – dances with the beautiful mystique of a hundred butterfly wings.

The plot revolves around the relationship between father Al (Ewen Leslie) and son Fin (Ed Oxenbould), who have respectively lost a wife and mother in the not-so-distant past. Al, who teaches creative writing in a local community college, appears to be working through his grief by indulging in a romantic relationship with one of his students. Fin, a gentle boy of mid-adolescence, is still in awe of his mother, bringing butterflies that they used to collect together to a shrine-cum-retreat built inside a bug net under the titular garden tree. One day, the mysterious Evelyn (Melissa George) floats into town with a burlesque past and a delicious greenhouse forest of a florist’s shop.

Evelyn catches the attention of both males, becoming a surrogate mother and object of Freudian desire for Fin. His dreamlike fantasies (or are they really happening?) play out with the burgeoning erotic splendour of the teenage mind and place Fin centre-stage with his willing muse. These otherworldly shifts are fantastically choreographed, as surreal splashes of steamy sensuality are offset with the ever-present metaphors of cocoon and butterfly. Fantasy and flashback sequences are low-lit with the thick blue and red hues of a Wong Kar Wai bedroom, while in the real world, garish pinks and teals worthy of The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017) erupt across the screen against a backdrop of lush green flora. The film is also blessed with a superbly selected score that draws on trip-hop, alt-pop and Caitlin Yeo’s suitably emotional classical composition.

When fantasy, colour and music combine – notably in a rollerblading fantasy sequence set in Evelyn’s greenhouse – the film is at its best. It’s an intoxicating cocktail of surrealism and adolescent imagination, shot with music video sensibilities on a surprisingly low budget.

The film’s greatest absence is that of a solid narrative. The plot often jumps in and out of extreme melodrama, reminiscent of the sort of television soap opera (Home and Away) that Melissa George got her early break on. Nonetheless, each actor is entirely convincing in their role – it’s not that The Butterfly Tree acting is of poor quality, but that strands about teacher-pupil affairs, threatening ex-husbands and Oedipal longings appear and then disappear in a hyper-dramatised and subsequently rather improbable way. This is all well and good. For a large part of the film, I had the feeling that this was simply ironic fun from Cameron, a bit of self-aware filler in between Fin’s lucid visions. However, two final act revelations are of a much more serious manner, meaning that the tone of the film is ultimately difficult to judge.

The oddly-realised plot is definitely bearable, but proves a boring distraction from the director’s mesmerising creative flair. The Butterfly Tree is a visual and aural feast that I’m sure will sate the appetite of a cult following. Just don’t expect to grasp the story.

The Butterfly Tree is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, July 13th.

Path of Blood

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In amongst the Manchester Arena bombing and the Parliament bridge knife attack in London (both last year), the media took a vested interest into the personal lives and previous events surrounding the terrorists involved. What was uncovered, as a result, was lengths to which terrorists’ groups meticulously plan their attacks, whilst submerging their jihadists into Western society. Adopting precisely this ethos, stark new documentary Path of Blood takes the viewer into a world that feels the reverse side of Four Lions (Chris Morris, 2010). Yet, the antithesis to this comedy, the film’s Al Qaeda home-movie footage offers a disturbing revel of the method, tactics and relationships held by Al Qaeda terrorists on their way to an idealised martyrdom.

Directed by Jonathan Hacker, the documentary uses zero subjective talking heads which could alter the narrative away from purely focusing upon Al Qaeda’s jihadists. Having previously worked with similarly material but on in Britain’s First Suicide Bombers for BBC2, one feels the imprint of previous features on this one by playing on Hacker’s objectivity when approaching the material. As the time old phrase goes, always play to your strengths.

Gaining access to this unique footage, Hacker and his team set about creating a narrative out this exclusive collection of images. Commencing with the plot to overthrow the Saudi Government in 2003, the destructive landscape of the Middle East is swiftly introduced, chiefly due to avoiding unnecessary introductions to further talking heads interviewees.

Notably, the perspective given in Path of Blood recalls imagery of Last Men in Aleppo (Feras Fayyad, 2017) in the specificity of its central focus on Middle Eastern events. Though terrorism impacts the whole world, both these films are unique to one geo-political landscape and not multiple.

Establishing a conflict of the Saudi’s vs Al-Qaeda primarily works as a timeless narrative element of protagonist and antagonist. Nevertheless, the lengths to which the filmmakers go to not filter or tone down the footage through editing leaves an ominous tone throughout the feature. Heightened by the swift cuts to black after a specific event, scrambled radio and video sound design, along with actor Tom Hollander’s role as ‘The Voice of Jihad’- transcribing dialogue in the terrorist organization – the footage takes on a new darker and sinister symbol when merged with cinematic elements.

Hacker’s latest film re-establishes themes and ideas that absorb the filmmaker. Re-treading old ground is not necessarily a bad thing, but I imagine similar issues are raised in his acclaimed features. Path of Blood is a challenging watch. It is an eye-opening tight 91-minute experience for those willing to confront the horrors of radicalism and terrorism.

Path of Blood is out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 13th. It’s out on DVD on Monday, November 26th.

Resolution

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Michael (Peter Cilella) drops in on his old friend Chris (Vinny Curran) who has become a crack addict and is living in an abandoned house in the middle of some scrub wasteland. Chris thinks Mike wants to join him but Mike has another idea in mind. He wants to force Chris to go cold turkey so he cuffs his friend to some wall piping and gets rid of the drug.

Now the long wait beings. And a series of messages recorded on all manner of media begin arriving: an LP, a VHS videotape, wall carvings and more. Someone – or something – is recording them. But who. Or what? And why?

Resolution is the auspicious debut feature of independents Benson & Moorhead who went on to make Spring (2014) and The Endless (2017). Boasting a wickedly clever script by Benson and shot by Moorhead, it’s not only a textbook example of how to make a low budget feature and launch a film career but also a terrific and dirty little movie.

It’s basically a two-hander – two people alone in and around a room together. Other characters appear intermittently – two addicts at the door who want to buy from their dealer Chris, the Red Indian owner of the house who understandably wants them gone, three whiter than white shirted religious types (Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead and producer David Lawson Jr.) and a few others. There are also a few locations outside the house. A character called Shitty Carl gets mentioned in a line of dialogue.

If you’ve been lucky enough to have seen the duo’s recent The Endless, you’ll immediately recognise the two main characters from one of that film’s subplots. Both films are self-contained, yet they very cleverly link up. Whichever way round you see them, you’ll make the connections when you see the second film and go back to thinking about the first.

The Endless is a bigger film. Like Spring, it has a wider set of locations than Resolution. Unlike Spring, it boasts considerably more characters than Resolution. Yet Resolution remains highly effective: beautifully written, directed, shot and edited (yep, the editing is also by Benson & Moorhead) on a tiny budget.

As a Blu-ray and DVD release, Resolution includes a massive amount of extras, among them a deleted scene taken out because it didn’t really add anything – watching that scene you’re likely to agree. The real treat, though, is having Resolution on a two-disc set alongside an equally extras-laden disc of The Endless, the film to which it’s a welcome precursor. Resolution may not quite as good as that, but for a first feature it’s still pretty impressive.

Resolution constitutes the second disc in the UK Blu-ray and DVD releases of The Endless, out now. Watch the film trailer below:

Father-Son Bootcamp (Père Fils Thérapie)

Posted on by victorfraga

Being a good father to a son is not an easy task. And neither is being a good son to a father. The bizarre and grotesque societal connotations of masculinity will often stand on the way of what should be a beautiful and tender relationship. As a result, fatherly love is often murky, sons are traumatised and whole notion of affection is mired in mud. Thankfully someone in France invented a father-son bootcamp where the two generations can reconnect through group therapy and bizarre activities. Well, actually the outcome isn’t as rosy as many would hope!

The plot of Father-Son Bootcamp is as twisted as the relationships it portrays. Jacques (Richard Berry) and his son Marc (Waly Dia) are police investigators seeking a a gangster called Claude Bracci. Jacques regrets that Marc – who happens to be black thanks to his mother’s genes – does not resemble him, and the two are constantly bickering. They join the bootcamp not because they are seeking to bury the hatchet, but instead because they want to get close to Bracci’s lawyer Charles (Jacques Gamblin), and obtain more information about the criminal. On the other hand, Charles is nin the therapy group for very genuine reasons: he wants communicate with his estranged son Fabrice (Baptiste Lorbel). He’s extremely violent and passionately hates his father. Top it all up with a very insecure female shrink, who’s in charge of the entire therapeutic experiment/adventure.

Participants are forbidden from using their mobile phones, as they seek to forge a very different “connection” with those who they’re supposed to love. Father-Son Therapy finds humour in very strange situations. The father-son mud-wrestling will elicit some awkward laughter. Likewise the image of a father trying to bond with his grown-up son through breastfeeding. And a joke about the amount of sushi consumed being the ultimate gaydar (the more fish and rice you eat, the gayer you are). But Father-Son Therapy is not set out to be a comedy. Instead, it’s a film intended to challenge our shallow and orthodox notions of virility. It’s intended to make us feel uncomfortable about our notions of masculinity. And it does it extremely well.

Halfway through the therapy, it becomes clear that very little is being achieved. Instead of love and tenderness, the males dsiplay mostly callousness and competitiveness. Some decide to stay not because they want to achieve reconciliation but because they cause further inflammation, and to humiliate their own “bloodsake”. At one point, the participants are asked to pick an object to represent their father/son. Fabrice chooses a turd to symbolise Charles. He explains that the little M&M-looking bits in the faeces represent the drugs that Charles takes. Not quite a beautiful moment of compromise and harmony.

Ultimately, Father-Son Bootcamp is anything but therapy for fathers and sons. It’s a dirty and caustic reminder of the our restrictive masculinity requirements, which often prevents males from communications with each other and displaying affection. Surprisingly, some sort of redemption is achieved in the end of the film, if in a very dark and twisted way. A happy ending, in very dirty European fashion.

Father-Son Bootcamp is out on all major VoD platforms on Monday, July 9th, as part of Walk This Way. Click here in order to view it in the UK, or here for information about how to view it in other countries.