Month: August 2018

The Man From Mo’ Wax

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

This is a highly personal and idiosyncratic look at the music career of James Lavelle. Derided by some as no more than an A&R (Artists and Repertoire) man, he was – as the film title suggests – the creative genius behind the record label Mo Wax and the ‘group’ UNKLE. Mo Wax started as a distributor of music James loved later morphing into a vehicle for his own creative endeavours as the person who put things together and made music and records happen such as huge selling UNKLE 1998 debut LP Psyence Fiction. UNKLE was a vehicle for him to expose, collaborate with and produce musical talents, often under the moniker ‘UNKLE feat. so-and-so’. On the one hand he is intensely creative and thinks big. On the other, he’s incapable of thinking like a businessman or holding relationships together.

Fairly early on, a young James is interviewed at the height of his Mo’ Wax success when everything seems to be going swimmingly – he can do no wrong and the money just keeps on rolling in. He loves surrounding his record company premises with merchandise – paintings, clothes & footwear and customised toys. Towards the end. in a 20-minute finale devoted to his curating of the 21st Meltdown Festival at London’s SouthBank in 2014, we see that most of these objects along with his sizeable record collection, have been packed into cardboard boxes in a large warehouse. He seems to spend money like water regardless of whether he’s financially successful (as he clearly has been at certain times of his life) and the word “debt” comes up a lot. His obsessive record collector aspect reminded me of a similarly visible trait in Eric Clapton in the documentary Life In 12 Bars (Lili Fini Zanuck) which came out earlier this year.

What helps The Man from Mo’ Wax considerably is the access secured by director Matthew Jones to over 700 hours worth of “never before seen” archive footage showing Lavelle at both work and play. This coupled with numerous interviews with collaborators, friends and Lavelle’s mum (who turns out to be interview gold!) is inventively edited. For example, the interview with successful, young Mo’ Wax period James keeps on delivering more and more material like the gift that keeps on giving as the film progresses.

Lavelle is clearly a talented hustler, someone who if he wanted to work with a seemingly unreachable big name like, say, The Beastie Boys would simply call them up for a project. But at the other end of the scale, in 2009 long after the collapse of Mo’ Wax records when making his album Where Did The Night Fall for his All Surrender records company, he and then collaborator Pablo Clements overshot a deadline by six months and ploughed their own funds into completing their album. Space is also given to earlier collaborators DJ Shadow (who drops out of Lavelle’s life after collaborating on Psyence Fiction) and Richard File, among others.

If you’re not that familiar with Lavelle/UNKLE’s career and music, the whole plays out like a rollercoaster ride. This geeky kid was obsessed with collecting records and DJ-ing, started his own record label in North London and made a heap of money. It all seems terribly easy, although for every James Lavelle who made it big there must be hundreds of wannabes for whom it never came together. Such is showbiz. That isn’t to downplay his considerable talent in any way, which comes across loud and clear.

The word ‘hubris’ also springs to mind: James doesn’t seem to understand why his first album should have been so huge and highly regarded while later efforts achieved neither the sales nor the acclaim. From his point of view, though, to end on his 2014 Meltdown curation – to date the most successful of the annual event in terms of box office – lends him a certain artistic validation.

To the newcomer, The Man from Mo’ Wax is an arresting introduction to Lavelle’s work and often messy life although it could do with a stronger sense of timeline, which records and labels came when, to help lay out events more clearly. One of the reasons no subsequent UNKLE LP sold as much as Psyence Fiction is the rise of the illegal mp3 download format, but while this is mentioned more than once in passing it’s not gone into in any depth. Also alluded to is a life of excess, booze and drugs, but again this is never more than an implied hint at the very edges of the film.

Yet it’s hard to dislike a music documentary where the end credits are artfully composed as a series of record covers piled one after another on top of each other. Plus, the music – and there’s lots of it here – is fabulous.

The Man from Mo’ Wax was out in cinemas on Friday, August 31st. It’s available on VoD on Monday, October 15th.

Sonic Cinema screening at BFI Southbank on Thursday, August 30th at 8.30pm. James Lavelle and the filmmakers will take part in a Q&A afterwards, broadcast via Facebook Live from the BFI.

Further information and details of screenings from Friday, August 31st here.

Released on BD/DVD on Monday, September 10th. Watch a short promo for the set, revealing the packaging, below:

A 2-disc DVD ‘Psy-Fi Edition’ (titled in recognition of the 20th anniversary of UNKLE’s seminal album) will be available exclusively from HMV in-store and online, also on Monday, September 10th.

The film’s soundtrack is released by Island Records/UMC on 2LP coloured vinyl and CD and is available for download and streaming.

Winter Ridge

Posted on by victorfraga

Tragedy strikes somewhere in dark and quiet rural Britain. And it’s a double whammy for detective Ryan Barnes (Matt Hookings). His wife is in a comma following a major car accident. On top of that, he has to investigate an increasingly sinister murder spree, in which the victims seem to have one common trait: they are old and vulnerable. Not even the idyllic backdrop can offset the toxic mix of personal drama and professional test than has befallen the young and good-looking Ryan.

It’s hard to avoid clichés in a detective and serial killer thriller, yet Winter Ridge carefully dodges all predictable twists and empty platitudes. This isn’t your average adrenaline-inducing action indie. This is a multilayered and profound endeavour dealing with a very serious and complex condition: Alzheimer’s Disease.

It turns out that all the murder victims suffer from some degree of dementia, and the quality of their lives is increasingly precarious. This raises a lot of questions. why would anyone target such vulnerable people? Are these mercy killings? Or are there pecuniary interests? Is someone playing God? Or is there a far more sinister explanation?

The doctor caring for the Alzheimer’s patients Joanne Hill (Hannah Waddington) has a succinct explanation for their affliction: “when the sun dims so too can consciousness; that’s an evolutionary trait we’ve all inherited but for Alzheimers patients it’s far more heightened”. The fallibility of memory is a recurring theme throughout the movie. Alan Ford (who is beginning to look a lot like Lord Heseltine) delivers an outstanding performance as Dales Jacobs, whose advanced condition means that he’s constantly and desperately searching for his long-gone wife, and often fails to recognise his own granddaughter. He confesses to Ryan that he can remember what he read on a pebble years ago, yet often forgets far more recent and significant events. “It’s the small things that we remember”, he sums it up. Dales’s awareness of his condition and the inescapable prospect of deterioration make his predicament far more harrowing. And it isn’t just his mind that doesn’t work properly. His shaky fingers no longer allow him to paint the impressive countryside.

The action/drama takes place in the fictitious town of Black Rock. In reality, Winter Ridge is filmed in the North Devon. The dramatic coast is the perfect backdrop to these psychological thriller. The “ridge” in the movie title is a film character per se. The mountain range is a watershed, in both the metaphorical and the literal sense. The craggy geography of Southwest England will help to decide the fate of the most important characters. But that’s all I can tell you without spoiling the film.

The final sequence recycles a trope you will recognise from many mainstream movies, yet it very original in its execution, and the denouement is entirely unpredictable.

This is a filmic study of grief, loneliness, altruism, self-pity, accountability and the very meaning of life. These complex topics are delivered all with a small dose of adrenaline injected directly into your veins. In other words, Winter Ridge is good fun that’s not empty on the inside.

Winter Ridge is out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, September 5th. The movie was self-distributed by Camelot Productions, and it’s showing in more than 25 locations across the country – a remarkable achievement in terms of independent theatrical distribution.

Baronesa

Posted on by victorfraga

Leid Ferreira and Andreia Pereira de Sousa, two young women in the suburban shanty towns of Belo Horizonte, exude a certain joie de vivre. They dance, they date, they talk candidly about their sex lives and the pleasures of masturbation (their five fingers are sex professionals, they reveal). But they also have to confront the harsh reality of an environment where poverty, violence and lawlessness prevail.

Leid raises her small children on her own while her husband serves a jail sentence. She can be kind and maternal, but also dire and formidable. At times, mother and children have emotional conversations reminiscing about the imprisoned father, and they struggle to decide who’s the biggest “crybaby”. Other times, Leid “educates” her children with verbal threats of violence: “I’m gonna cut off your willy and spread chilly on the wound”.

Meanwhile, Andreia dreams of moving to a less dangerous neighbourhood. The violence and 22:00 curfew seem to have taken their toll on the young and beautiful woman. She now longs for peace and quiet. In one of the most poignant moments of the film, she reads a letter from a lover who has already moved to the safer district, with the promise that “their paths will cross again”

The film title has a double connotation. Baronesa is the name the much coveted and far less violent neighbourhood where Andreia longs to live. And it is also Portuguese for “baroness”, and these women are Brazilian royalties in their small suburban dwellings. The film opens with one of females exhibiting her swing and swagger at full throttle to a Brazilian funk song. Brazilians exhibit their majesty through their movements, it’s instantly clear.

This is an insider’s view into a very perilous and inhumane facet of Brazil. Paradoxically, this environment is also teeming with beauty and optimism. This is not poverty porn. This is the fly-on-the-wall type of documentary-making, with a very feminine gaze. The filmmaker Juliana Antunes and her entirely female crew spent five years in the company of these women and their close associates, often sleeping in their impoverished and dangerous dwellings. The walls lack windows, doors and even plastering. Only bricks, cement and an asbestos roof protect these women. A bill of R$3,287 (about £500) for home improvements is just too much for them to foot. Their biggest source of relaxation is a water tank converted into an ofuro tub.

The film is punctuated with some very powerful conversations, and we are left to concoct the graphic details in our imagination. At one point, we learn how to smuggle weed into a prison inside the vagina. In another key moment, we find out that one of our protagonists survived and attempted rape and likely committed manslaughter in self-defence by stabbing the man in the neck. All in all, Baronesa is a rough yet tender ride. “You have to grow hard without ever losing tenderness”, as Che Guevara once famously had.

Baronesa is the opening film at the next Open City Documentary Film Festival taking place in London from September 4th to 9th.

The Gospel According to André

Posted on by victorfraga

What’s the difference between style and fashion? According to 69-year-old fashion journalist and former editor-at-large at Vogue André Leon Talley, “fashion is fleeting, while style remains”. The iconic fashion guru, who is described as the “Mandela of couture” and the “Kofi Annan of what you are going to put on”, believes that style must prevail above fashion. The doc The Gospel According to André investigates his fluid definition of style, and how the audacity of his work hasn’t always been on a par with his far less fiery lifestyle and political stance.

André was born in Washington DC in 1949, and grew up in the neighbouring state of North Carolina at a time racial segregation was still prominent. He explains that back then black culture was expressed primarily through church (hence the film title), and he took a lot of inspiration from the hats that his mother and her elegant friends wore for Sunday Service.

Yet race was never a central topic in André’s work, and he was never an outspoken equality champion. There were, however, a few provocative pieces, such as 1996 Vanity Fair shoot (pictured below), where he inverted the race roles in Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1940): Naomi Campbell posed as Scarlett O’Hara, while John Galliano and Manolo Blahnik (both white) played the servants. On the other hand, André was mostly catatonic when Trump gets elected; he even complimented Melania’s outfit at his inauguration. While his work was very subversive, his personality was far less abrasive and confrontational. He internalised his personal conflicts for a long time, the films suggests. At one point, André breaks down while remembering being called a “black buck” and “queen kong”, in a doubly offensive display of racism and homophobia. He confesses that he never responded to the insults and just sulked instead. This is by far the most powerful moment of the film.

He’s nearly 6’7″ and also overweight, making him bigger than life in more ways than one. He’s not embarrassed of his dimensions, and uses a regal kaftan and capes in order to emphasise his majestic nature, bolstered by his physique. A friend describes him as a “towering pine tree”. To me, he looks like Buddha of fashion: always affable and expansive, never smug. But he’s also aware of the health implications of his obesity, and a weight loss diet is featured in the movie. The low-carb food isn’t as luxurious and extravagant as the rest of his life, and André is not impressed!

All in all, this is a doc that does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s didactic and interesting enough even for those (like myself) who had never heard of André before. Talking heads interviews with his celebrity friends provide the final touch to a romantic and yet critical portrayal of a singular and peculiar artist. Isabella Rosselini, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford and others have interesting anecdotes and opinions to share about a fascinating individual.

The Gospel According to André is available in cinemas and also on demand on Friday, September 28th.

The Breadwinner

Posted on by victorfraga

It’s Angelina Jolie’s name that’s splashed and emblazoned across the posters and all marketing collateral of The Breadwinner. The American actor-turned-director-turned-producer often associates herself with conflict-ridden parts of the planet, such as in her directorial debut A Place in Time (2007) and the subsequent In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011). Jolie now signs the production and lends credence to a highly politically-engaged animation set in Afghanistan. While Jolie’s name is a welcome addition, the film would also function perfectly well without the super star trademark.

Directed by Irish filmmaker Nora Twomey, penned by Ukrainian scriptwriter Anita Doron and based on a children’s novel by Canadian author Deborah Ellis, The Breadwinner is a delightful treat. It has a Western feminine sensibility, but plenty of Eastern colours, textures, flavours and sounds.

Eleven-year-old Parvana (voiced by Saara Chaudry) helps her father Nurullah (Ali Badshah) on the streets on Kabul to sell basic staples and make ends meet. He lost a leg in the Russian war, and he’s now a quiet advocate for gender equality. He encourages both of his daughters to be strong and fend for themselves. But they live under the purview of the Taliban, and such liberating views are deemed unacceptable. He’s consequently arrested.

Parvana’s family are left entirely destitute and facing possible starvation. So Parvana does the unthinkable. She cuts her hair short and puts on the clothes of her dead brother and becomes a street trader for the family. Cross-dressing is an extremely subversive act in such a conservative environment, and the consequences of being uncovered could include severe physical punishment and even death. Well, at least Parvana isn’t the first person to embrace the opposite gender in a Muslim country for practical reasons, rather than sexual or biological requirements.

The animation is extremely plush and vibrant. Red and brown hues of arid land contrasted against soothing and yet vaguely intimidating night blue. Parvina’s eyes are enormous and expressive (a little bit like the film producer Angelina Jolie!). The variety of colours and textures look like they came from a pop-up book, yet they are never cheap and tasteless. The entire film feels a little oneiric and a little puerile. Like a child’s vivid imagination. The soundtrack includes both Eastern and Western sounds, such as Toronto vocalist Felicity Williams and the Nahid Women Choir of Afghanistan.

Ultimately, this is a film about being forced to grow up prematurely and also fending for yourself as a female in a ultra-reactionary society. Parvana is warned: “don’t be in such a hurry to grow up. It might not be what you expect”. Yet there is little she can do in order to stop herself from engaging in an adult role in such a young age. This is a deeply riveting and educational film for the whole family. It’s a pity it only received a 12 certificate because of “threats” and “violence” in the film.

The Breadwinner is out on VoD (digital download) on Monday, September 17th, and on DVD/Blu-ray the following Monday.

Flight of a Bullet

Posted on by victorfraga

This is a single-take film, but nothing like Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002) and Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria (2016). There were no actors, no rehearsals and no preparation of any sort. This is a completely spontaneous documentary. Similar to what would happen if you turned on the camera on your phone and followed those around you for about 80 minutes. Except that this is 2015, in the middle of the Donbass conflict.

The film opens with a black screen populated with the sentence: “Life lasted only while camera was on, so I kept it rolling”. This suggests that the filmmaker’s life was endangered. A bridge has been blown open by separatists, and a heavy lorry has nearly collapsed into the river. It’s unclear whether there were any casualties. A man called Maxim films the dramatic event with his own telephone. A bullet is heard, balaclava-clad policemen demand to see everyone’s papers. They arrest Maxim for interrogation on suspicion of separatism. The filmmaker Beata jumps in the car with the police.

The second half of the film is far less dramatic, as the police reach the conclusion that the man is not engaged in separatism. The interrogation becomes far more friendly, as Maxim provides them with useful strategic and geographic information about the region. He draws a map and diagram on a chalk board hardly discernible to viewers. He is then released and Beata is left to film the young soldiers in the now disbanded military base of Aidar, a voluntary military defense battalion. About a third of the film consists of Beata filming a half-naked soldier having a mundane talk to a friend on the telephone. Not particularly thrilling.

Flight of a Bullet is a marketed as “provocative study of how the violence of conflict permeates into the mundanity of the everyday”. But this is only a study of violence as far as watching strangers talk on the street is a study of mankind. There is limited elicitation technique, little technical wizardry and absolutely no artistic merit. Beata remains behind the camera and hardly speaks, except for a few moments when her motives a questioned and a very creepy sexual proposition, suggesting that she could be raped.

Ultimately, this is a piece of guerrilla filmmaking, and a very random fragment of a very complex conflict. The film is not contextualised at all, so it’s up to viewers to put the pieces together.

Flight of a Bullet + Q&A with the director Beata Bubenec takes place as part of the Open City Documentary Film Festival in London between September 4th and 9th. This is the type of movie that could be fascinating and generate a very thought-provoking debate in the presence of the director, or if you are very familiar with Ukrainian lifestyle and parlance – but almost entirely meaningless otherwise.

The separatist question has not been resolved, and the armed struggle in Donbass is still ongoing to this date. There have been reports that one of the film subjects is now dead, which has raised many eyebrows and brought the accountability of the filmmaker into question.

Yardie

Posted on by victorfraga

It’s the first time that Idris Elba gets behind the camera. And it’s only natural that cinema-lovers are very curious to see what he makes of the eponymous novel by the Jamaica-born British writer Victor Headley, published by X Press in 1992. The Hackney-born actor-turned-director transports us to 1973 in Jamaica in order to follow the story of a young man called D (Dennis), played by Camden-born Aml Ameen (from Menhaj Huda’s 2006 Kidulthood), who grows up at the time of brutal gangs fights in Kingston, the Jamaican capital. D’s present and future perspectives lead the viewer through the story.

Luckily for him, D lives outside the ultra-violent inner town. His Rastafarian brother Jerry (Everaldo Creary), who conveys a message of peace through music, and his childhood sweetheart Yvonne (Shantol Jackson) are his pole stars. Jerry’s tragic and brutal murder is the catalyst for the boy’s descent into crime. He becomes the pupil of music producer-gangster King Fox (Sheldon Shepherd). Soon, something tragic happens, leaving D traumatised and scarred for life.

King Fox sends D to London in order to deliver a package of cocaine to Rico (Stephen Graham), a white Jamaican gangster ruling over the Hackney crime and music scene in 1983. The actor embraces the role through his own heritage (his paternal grandftather was Jamaican) and portrays another iconic short-tempered crime-lord, reminiscent of his role as Al Capone in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.

The music scene is an actual film character per se. The vibes of Carlton and the Shoes, Winston Francis, Yellowman, Dennis Brown, The Isley Brothers and many others lead the viewer into the story’s development and will make those who grew up in East London in the 1970s and 1980s feel extremely nostalgic.

In Hackney, D does not seek Rico. Instead, he reunites with Yvonne and meet their daughter for the very first time. Yvonne had earlier moved to London in order to escape a life of violence in Kingston. Yvonne represents the archetype of the Windrush generation: a strong woman, a hard-working nurse and a doting mother who puts the welfare and future of her daughter above everything else. She is also the moral compass to D, whose good nature of the youth has mostly morphed into trauma, brutality and the desire for revenge. These portrayals are particularly powerful and meaningful following the Windrush scandal, and the denunciation of decades of institutional racism in Britain.

In a nutshell, Yardie is a gangster movie with a touch of comic relief, and also a story of tormented love, affection and regret. To boot, this is a film about British-Jamaican relations and cultural exchange. It reveals how much Jamaicans and West Indians contributed to the progress and development of Britain. It should resonate with people on both sides of the Atlantic.

Yardie is out in UK theatres on Friday, August the 31st. Out on VoD in December. It might become the first installment of a trilogy of movies, just like Headley’s novels. Fingers crossed!

Nureyev

Posted on by victorfraga

Rudolf Nureyev was born in 1938 in the remote and impoverised Russian city of Irkutsk, just north of Mongolia. So poor that people had stripped the trees naked in order to eat the bark. He was raised as the only son with three older sisters in a Tatar Muslim family. He became “The Lord of the Dance” as an adult, and is regarded as the greatest male ballet dancer ever to walk the Earth. Now his journey from abject poverty in an extremely oppressive regime to stardom in the West has become the subject of a documentary.

Rudolf Nureyev was a deeply subversive character. He insisted in dancing despite strong opposition from his father, a Communist party member who thought ballet was “for sissies”. The very existence of ballet had been threatened in the Soviet Union, as the performance dance is often associated with the bourgeoisie. Against all odds, both ballet and Nureyev thrived in the Soviet Union. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was far more permissive than his predecessors. He used ballet as a hegemonic and propaganda tool. That’s when Nureyev moved to Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad) and was quickly catapulted to fame. He toured to West in order to showcase the more elegant and affable face of communism.

But in 1961 at the age of just 33, Nureyev defected to the West. This was a huge humiliation for the USSR, and the ultimate gesture of treason. He would not return home to see his mother until shortly before their deaths in the late 1980s (hers to old age and his to Aids-related causes), under the far more lenient and conciliatory Gorbatchev regime. Nureyev did not identify as Russian. His identity was very blurry, as were his language skills. He explains: “I speak badly English, French, Italian, Russian and I have almost forgotten my mother tongue Tatar”.

Nureyev is a fascinating journey through the life a very talented dancer who lived a life full of tribulations and contradictions. The montage is superb: the two directors blend and juxtapose archive footage against a modern ballet act staged on mock ruins in the woods. Nimble moves from the past are contrasted against current-day performances. Airplanes and trains are deftly inserted into these multilayered creations. Soviet aesthetics are used for the intertitles and quotes from WB Yeats, Albert Camus, Picasso, Bob Dylan and Queen Elizabeth II. The film soundtrack also deserves praise, with songs by Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, the Beatles. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is a central piece, and we learn that the song is normally used in order to illustrate political debacles and crises.

Footage from an interview with Nureyev on American television is used throughout the film. His extra broad smile combined with his cocky, Camp and vaguely perfidious attitude will captivate you. His naughty eyes are constantly sniggering. And there is also a dash of self-deprecation. Nureyev is magnificent and magnetic to watch, both dancing and talking.

Overall, this is a very well-crafted and enlightening film, even for those (like myself) with a limited knowledge of ballet. It’s entertaining enough even at nearly 110 minutes (a relatively long duration for a documentary). There are virtually no talking heads. The pace is very balanced and visuals are just right. Nureyev, however, does have at least one big problem.

The movie almost entirely avoids the subject of sexuality, and almost seems to suggest that Nureyev was heterosexual and in a relationship with his long-time work partner Margot Fonteyn, the prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Ballet of Britain. Nureyev, as we all know, was a homossexual. Nureyev sets out to be a political documentary (it investigates the relationship between culture and politics in its very first minutes), but strangely it entirely ignores the fact that sexuality is also a political instrument. And even if Nureyev was evasive about his sexuality, it’s this film’s duty to explore it. Particularly now that Russia has virtually outlawed the (homo)sexual revolution debate by establishing the Kafka-esque “gay propaganda” law.

Strangely, Aids is a central topic. Some sequences are very moving, if not entirely relevant to the movie. We see Lady Di shake hands with 10 HIV patients without wearing gloves in a hospital. And the very last message before the credits roll is that people infected with HIV are not getting adequate treatment in the least developed parts of the globe. Important message, but it doesn’t quite fit into the narrative.The film blames Reagan for Aids crisis because he didn’t even mention the word “Aids” for eight years. Paradoxically, the film seems to have the same attitude the in relation to Nureyev’s sexuality. The word “gay” is only briefly mentioned, and not even in direct connection to the Russian ballet dancer. I don’t understand why the directors failed to join the dots.

Nureyev is out in cinemas across the UK on Tuesday, September 25th.

Down to Earth

Posted on by victorfraga

Marketed as “one family’s journey in search of the Keepers of Earth”, this presumably self-financed and self-distributed doc is directed by the Dutch couple Rolf Winters and Renata Heinen as they travel across the planet with their children for five years. They are “searching for a new perspective in life” by making a film that “reveals the deep wisdom that they found and its power to transform life”. They left the rat race behind in order to connect with nature, other peoples and cultures. The whole experience sounds very cathartic for urbanites like myself, who can hardly stay away from their desk for a week (let alone years).

Rolf and Renata are seeking some sort of healing, and they encounter a patchwork of spiritualities along their journey. They think that the word “connection” has been hijacked by technology, and now they wish to reclaim it. “Let’s connect to each other”, they urged people in a Q&A after the film. And they were not referring to Facebook and Instagram.

The two directors travel to virtually all corners of the planet and meet the indigenous populations. They call these people “the Earth Keepers”, as described on their website. They also meet a “Wisdom Keeper”, a native American shaman called Nowaten. Most of the time, the exact year and the locations aren’t identified – perhaps because the directors intended to make a “timeless” movie and also to emphasise that the Earth is a single place (and we are all brothers and sisters). There are beautiful images of the savanna, the rainforest, the desert as well as the modest dwelling of said Earth and Wisdom keepers. They visit the Saan people of Namibia, which they describe as “the oldest community in the world”

On one hand, Down to Earth fits in extremely well with our vision of cinema as a tool for personal liberation. On the other hand, I must confess, I found the message of spiritual healing a little clichéd. Perhaps I just too cynical and sceptical. One way or the other, I struggled to connect with the film. The notions of spiritual healing, connection with nature and longing for the ancient came across as empty platitudes to me. They are repeated ad infinitum throughout the film, yet never elucidated in more detail. What’s this much-coveted “ancient”, and what sort of modern malaise are they trying to heal? What’s the problem with the world, is it capitalism, is it consumerism, or something else? None of these questions are answered. Plus, Rolf and Renata’s interaction with locals often feels contrived.

Rolf and Renate are very ambitious. They have self-distributed the film in several European countries, and they have urged people to come up with their own distribution model for their film. In addition, they have set up a social enterprise in order “to ignite and enable people-powered change towards a more sustainable world”. All very well intentioned. I’m just not convinced that the film has such potential. Down to Earth is promoted as some sort of panacea, but I’m not even sure what the diagnosis is.

All in all, Down to Earth has limited artistic, anthropological and epistemological value. But it must have been an incredible adventure and privilege for their three children. And the longest sabbatical ever for mum and dad. Also, the two directors raise important questions about distribution models, interactive cinema experience and create a call to action, which are by no means insignificant.

Down to Earth is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, September 14th.

Humberto Mauro

Posted on by victorfraga

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM VENICE

Humberto Mauro is the father of the Brazilian Cinema and the first Brazilian filmmaker to visit the Venice Film Festival exactly 80 years ago. The Festival – which is also known as La Biennale and is now on its 75th edition – celebrates his legacy by showcasing a documentary directed by his grandson André Di Mauro. Brazil has just suffered a massive cultural loss with the National Museum fire. Humberto Mauro is therefore a timely and pertinent reminder that culture can be reborn, and that cinema functions as a powerful catalyst.

Humberto Mauro used to describe cinema as a “waterfall”. He praised filmmaking as the practice of beauty, continuity, flux and eternity. The poetic tropes are imprinted throughout his extensive filmography. Nature was his favourite subject. And he was also a political artist. The history of Brazil in central to his nearly five decades of filmmaking (from 1925 to 1974). His life and his work are virtually synonymous with Brazilianness.

Born in 1897, Humberto Mauro is contemporary to the Polish filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who was born just a year earlier. He was also born virtually at the same time as cinema itself. The first cinema exhibition by the Lumiere brothers at Salon Indien du Grande Café in Paris in 1895. He passed away in 1893.

André Di Mauro’s aesthetic choices for this documentary are a bit unusual, yet very effective. He spent nearly 20 years researching his grandfather’s films (almost 300 in total) and created what he describes as a “Vertovian doc” with the footage available. His inspiration came from Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929), combined with interviews with his grandfather. He recreates Humberto’s life from his youth in a small town called Cataguases (in the landlocked state of Minas Gerais) in the 1900s all the way to old age and his death. From the early days of Brazilian cinema, through his years as head of the government office for educational and propaganda film (INCE), all the way to the Cinema Novo movement of the 1970s. It’s as if he was passing the stick to a brand new, very transgressive generation. A masterclass of Brazilian cinema history.

Footage from classics such as Brutal Gang (1933) and The Discovery of Brazil (1936) are a central part of the film. They help audiences to understand how Brazil moved from a rural, agricultural economy into an urban, industrialised one. Humberto Mauro explains it himself in a voice over: “This is the universalisation of Brazilian regionalism to the world”. The images show a very precarious Brazil, and they hopefully raise awareness of Brazilian culture and heritage, in a country that knows so little about its past. Let’s just hope this knowledge doesn’t burn down, just like the tragic museum.

Humberto Mauro is showing at the 75th Venice International Film Festival, which is taking place right now.

Our dirty questions to Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Posted on by victorfraga

The occasion is the restoration of the poetic trilogy, which includes Gabbeh (1996), The Silence (1998) and The Gardener (2012). But to me, this moment wasn’t just about another commercial launch. It wasn’t about Mohsen Makhmalbaf, either. This interview was about myself. That’s because Mohsen Makhmalbaf is one of my biggest idols, and it was his 1995 film Hello Cinema that made me study cinema. So much so that I even tattooed the movie film title on my right thigh. They say you should never meet your idols. But somehow I doubted that I was in for a disappointment. Makhmalbaf has such a profound sensibility that I was convinced that we would get on just fine. I was right.

We met in one of those verdant and plush parks near his house in London. He has spent most of his time in the British capital since he defected from Iran in 2005, following the election of the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has directed more than 20 features (including 2001’s Kandahar, which made it to Time’s All-Time 100 movies) in the past 35 years, and he catapulted Iranian film to the forefront of world cinema. I felt privileged to talk to him in such a pleasant environment. After the interview, she invited me to his place, where we had coffee and scrumptious Persian pistachios. He showered me with DVDs, and shared intimate details of his career and personal life that surprised, shocked and – above everything else – moved me profoundly. But it wouldn’t be appropriate to publish those!

Below is our conversation in the park. We talked about the failure of capitalism, the role of the artist in the modern world, Trump, Iranian politics, Ken Loach, Joshua Oppenheimer and much more. Oh, and I did show him my tattoo (pictured at the bottom of this article). I was very hesitant because I knew Islam forbids tattoos. Read on and find out what Mohsen Makhmalbaf thought of the dirty scribble on my leg!

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Victor Fraga – To me, your films are timeless. Still, could you please talk about the relevance of your poetic trilogy in 2018, almost 25 years after the first film (Gabbeh, pictured below) was completed?

Mohsen Makhmalbaf – Cinema is sound, image and concept. Gabbeh is about image. The Silence is about sound. And The Gardener is about concept. All three films have a sense of colour. Plus they are full of nature. They are a combination of colour, nature and poetry. As you pointed out yourself, they don’t relate to any specific time. You could watch them 20 years ago or in 20 years from now. There is no political and social issue attached.

If you look at the history of painting, from Van Gogh and Impressionism to Fauvism, that’s in these three films. What was Impressionism? The painter brought their frame from their room and put it outdoors, where they tried to capture nature. But nature was moving. The blue had a certain colour in the morning and another one in the afternoon. They wanted to capture reality, but reality was moving fast. So they got fast, too. It wasn’t real. It was a sort of magic realism. The three films in my trilogy have a sense of both reality and magic.

You should go and experience these films. Each person can create their own meaning.

VF – Were the three films initially intended as a trilogy?

MM – It took a long time to find a subject for the third one (The Gardener). First I made Gabbeh and then I made The Silence just two years later. They were like twins. But I always knew that they needed a third piece to complete them. That has happened with other films. For example, Hello Cinema and A Moment of Innocence (1996), they are like twins and I am still seeking a further piece to complete them as a trilogy. The President (2014), Marriage of the Blessed (1989) and Kandahar are a trilogy of political cinema.

I don’t have one style. I choose a style for each film, and sometimes for two or three films. It depends on the subject, and on my mood.

VF – Let’s go back in time. You became a filmmaker in 1983, shortly after the Revolution. Was making films under such strict censorship a handicap or was it liberating in any way?

MM – Censorship has always existed throughout the history of cinema. Even the first Iranian movie ever made 80 years ago was about censorship. It was called The Religious Man Becomes a Film Actor in English, or something like that. It was about a man who hated cinema, but then a filmmaker made a film about him so that he (the man) could see himself. In the end, the man became friends with cinema. We have cultural censorship because Iran is a very religious country. Painting, sculpture and music were forbidden because of religion. Censorship existed before the Revolution.

At least two good things came from the Revolution. Firstly, we stopped showing Hollywood films. Two years earlier, Hollywood cinema had killed the Iranian film industry. Secondly, people became more curious about reality. The New Wave of Iranian cinema created realism. Like holding a mirror to society. Television was full of lies, but cinema was honest. So people came to the theatre in order to watch honest films.

There was political, religious and cultural censorship. I made a film called Time of Love (1990) about a married woman who fell in love with another man. That was a huge taboo. But somehow we tricked the censors. For example, we gave them a specific script and we made a different film. We gave them a cut, and showed a different cut in cinemas. A few days later, they would remove the film. Same if we wanted to export a film. They put a stamp on something, and we would send out a different film. We had a lot of problems.

VF – How do feel about the episode where Asghar Fahradi refused to attend the Oscars in retaliation against Trump’s racist policies? Would you ever work or accept a prize in the US, under such horrific conditions?

MM – I don’t like Trump. To me, Trump is the worst person in the world. A dictator ruling a democratic country. You always get anxiety what will happen the next day. And I don’t like Hollywood cinema. For The Silence, we had two offers. One from Hollywood of U$4 million and another one for just U$200,000 from France. We took the low-budget option from Europe because we wanted to do the film our way. Hollywood insisted that we put a lot of music and big actors, and wanted to change the script, so I just said no. I just don’t like Hollywood. I don’t like Bollywood, either.

I don’t want to compare my work to Fahradi. We have very different styles.

VF – Many Iranian filmmakers including Jafar Panahi and yourself have been arrested. Do you think that you could return to Iran now and work there, since Ahmadinejad is no longer in power?

MM – It’s not about Ahmadinejad. The problem is our supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad was just his spokesperson. Like an assistant director of a dictator. People vote for the assistant. In this sense, Brazil is far better than Iran [alluding to the fact that I am Brazilian] because you vote for your president. We vote for the assistant. Khamenei is still alive and controls the country. Neither myself nor anyone in my family can go back to Iran. Worse still. They send out terrorists to kill me. They threw hand grenades when we were shooting in Northwest Afghanistan. Many people got injured. In Paris, I was under police protection because I was being chased by African terrorists. That’s why we moved to the UK.

Even Kiarostami couldn’t make his films in Iran, so the last two were in Italy and Japan instead. That’s why Iran is good and bad for cinema. There’s a sense of energy and reality in cinema. Everyone loves cinema. It’s like paradise to them. Comparable to Indians. On the other hand, censorship is bad.

VF – Do you anticipate that this could change. Earlier this week I watched Rudolf Nureyev’s latest biopic, who also defected (from the Soviet Union) and was persecuted abroad. But he did return bhome efore he died, and was briefly reunited with his mother. Do you think the same could happen to you?

MM – No, not at all. My mother dreamt of hugging me before her death. Sadly she passed away 40 days ago without doing it. That’s the disaster of living in exile. When our loves ones die, we are not near them. I don’t know whether they’ll ever let me back in Iran, or kill me. They are crazy, they are just way too scared of cinema. Because they think that cinema can create a movement against them.

VF – Let’s talk about a major loss we all experienced two years ago, when Kiarostami passed away. Could you please talk about your relationship to him?

MM – He was one of the greatest Iranian directors ever. We helped to create the New Wave. Kiarostami made Close-Up (1990), about a man who fell in love with cinema and with my name. Kiarostami went to his house claiming he was me. The purpose of the film was to show how much Iranian people love cinema. It was one of his best films. That’s when we worked together. His death was a tragedy. He went to hospital for a very simple reason and the surgery went wrong. He passed away for no reason. When I heard it, it was like a knife in my heart! It took me many days to get rid of this unbearable pain.

I heard that people were forbidden from gathering around his graveyard in Tehran one year after his death. They couldn’t attend the ceremony. The government are afraid that a public gathering could turn into another revolution.

VF – Let’s talk about the UK. Do you think that it’s becoming increasingly hostile to Arabs and Persians, like the US? Or is it better?

MM – Actually, I don’t have a home here. I’m my son’s guest. My daughter Samira also lives here. Our base is here, but we travel a lot. There’s nationalism, religion and corruption everywhere. It’s a new type of racism. Capitalism puts everyone in competition. We compete against each other for nothing. Everyone is a loser. Everyone feels that they failed. They get depressed. Even the supposed winners have anxiety that they could lose next time. This type of world is not healthy for our brains. We lose nature, we lose relationships, we become a part of the industry of capitalism. We become poorer. For example, in my childhood, just one diploma meant you were safe for life. Nowadays, even if you have three PhDs, you are not entirely safe. Your job is not safe. You are not safe in your border, because the next day you might be told to leave the country. Because the soul of capitalism has conquered this planet. We need Marx more than ever!

Google and Amazon have destroyed a lot of small businesses. The writer has no rights. The small shop in a village disappears, and people lose their job. In a way it’s good, because people serve each other. But it’s also bad, because people lose their jobs, their home. It’s a very crazy moment.

VF – Is there a relationship between this extreme capitalism and racism/xenophobia?

MM – I think that cinema is the art that could break the border. That could unite us though one single language. In a good way. I know you through Brazilian movies. You know me through Iranian cinema. And when we look at each other’s movies, we feel that we are the same. We fall in love in the same way. We get sad in the same way. On the other hand, in capitalism, there is no border. Capitalism unites us through nothing. We are customers. We have to pay tax for nothing.

Psychology is very important because we have become crazy! We don’t feel safe, we don’t trust each other, everyone is always trying to cheat. I don’t like this kind of life. We are not born to face such conditions. We are both to be healthy and happy. We are not born to compete and to achieve one million things.

Look at the UK, a lot of of people are living on the streets, and the NHS are failing many of us. I love the film I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach, 2016; pictured below) because it’s the voice of British people. Cinema is the voice of the people who have no voice.

VF – Other than Ken Loach, which other filmmakers give voice to British people?

MM – I love Ken Loach and Joshua Oppenheimer. They are not about money, about profit. There’s a responsibility in being a filmmaker. It’s like being Che Guevara or Gandhi, but in an artistic way.

Last week an Iranian mother asked me for help because I know a little psychology. She said: “Mohsen, my son goes out on the streets every day so that he can have an accident and claim the insurance money for food. He has now lost a part of his body. Please talk to him. We need money for food, but I don’t want him hurt”. You see, cinema should be the voice of this kind of people! How can we remain silent when people are in prison, when half a million people die in Syria? The Iranian government, alongside with Russia, are responsible for this mess because they supported Assad.

VF – Can you please give us any clues about upcoming projects?

MM – When I look at the younger generation, I see that they have lost their hope for the future. They have lost their job and don’t trust the future. That’s why they move abroad. Also, we have a lot of sex nowadays, we are customers of each other, yet we have no real love. In my generation, when we fell in love with someone we trusted it was for life. Nowadays, people don’t trust each other. The children born under these conditions don’t have real families. Capitalism affects our morality. Each one of us, even the poorest people, have a strong sense of capitalism. Where do we go from here?

I think that this problem is not country-related. It’s universal. That’s why cinema is a messenger. Not from God. A messenger from the soul of humanity. It’s just like a horse that can sense an earthquake before it happens. The artist has an antenna, and he can feel that something is wrong. The artist is not a scientist, an analyst or a party activist. The artist has a certain sensibility, and can offer hope for the future.

VF – I have a very personal question and also a confession. When I watched Hello Cinema two decades ago, it changed my life. To me, your films epitomises the will to make cinema. And I wanted to make cinema. So I tattooed the film title on my right leg as a testament of my commitment to cinema (pictured below). Yet, I know that Islam forbids tattoos. Do you like my very personal tribute to your film, or do you feel offended?

MM – Oh my God, can I please see it [so I roll up my shorts]. Oh my God, can I please take a picture [proceeds to snap my leg with his phone]? A lot of things are forbidden under Islam. I’m not offended at all. I like it a lot. I’m shocked.

VF – When I made this tattoo I still dreamt of making cinema. And it’s only now that I’m directing my first movie, a documentary about media bia and the coup d’etat in Brazil two years. So both the tattoo and being here with you have a very special significance in my life.

MM – When did you get your tattoo done?

VF – I think it was 18 years ago, in the year 2000.

MM – Did you know that Joshua Oppenheimer also loved Hello Cinema? He told me in front of a large audience that it inspired The Act of Killing (2102).

VF – You inspired a lot of people, you see???

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At this stage, Mohsen invited me back to his place (or rather, his son’s place, as he clarified earlier) and we talked for nearly two hours about the UK, Iran, Brazil, racism and shared our love for Tarkosvky. He specifically mentioned Mirror, and I explained to him that the 1975 film inspired me to create DMovies. The synergy was remarkable. As were his sensibility, his kindness, his generosity and sheer simplicity. This is an afternoon I will never forget!