Month: January 2019

London Unplugged

Posted on by victorfraga

It all begins in Stratford, past the East End, the West End, Chelsea, then it finally ends in Kew Gardens. London Unplugged is a film that “runs” past the life of ordinary Londoners. The film runs in more ways than one. Firstly, it runs through 1o different filmic sketches by various nascent filmmakers. Secondly, it runs past busy Londoners with no time for one another. London is not family and community orientated, we are told. We must run past each other without ever lending a helping hand because we are too busy making money in order to pay our bills. People obstruct you, and you must fight your way through the crowds. Thirdly, a jogger literally runs from Stratford to Kew Gardens throughout the film (following more of less the course of the Thames upstream), narrating her own experience as a Londoner, while also tying the 10 segments together.

These 10 short stories were mostly written and directed by females and deal mostly (but not exclusively) with the experience of being a female in the British capital. London itself is a female: sumptuous, complex, enigmatic and full of surprises. The tales include a random meet at night that culminates in a very unlikely dip, an elderly lady passionate about felines, an Iranian refugee seeking asylum and questioned the Home Office, a singer who dreams of performing Bizet’s L’Amour Est Un Oiseau Rebelle, a foreigner trying to hire a flat without references, and call centre worker cold-calling hostile consumers for marketing purposes, and more.

Immigration is a central pillar. The national identity of the characters is intricate and manifold. The narrator is a London-born black female, whose parents came from Ghana and Barbados. The Home Office interviews are some of the most extensive sequences of the movie, highlighting the callous nature of immigration policy. Characters have all sorts of foreign accent (which aren’t always possible to place), reminding us that almost 40% of the London population was born outside the UK. The 8.1-million-inhabitant metropolis isn’t just the British capital. It’s the capital of people from all over the world.

Solitude is another central topic. We are so busy earning our wages and staying alive that we often overlook the serendipities of urban life. Go on and talk to a stranger on the street, London Unplugged seems to encourage us. Be a little more adventurous, you could strike a new friendship, love or even gold.

The pieces are blended together seamlessly with the help of the running narrator, current and footage imagery of London and a very eclectic music score of dirty beats, electro-clash, Arabic strings, indie rock, opera and more. It works. This not a patchwork of random short films. It all gels together neatly. The films flow nicely, just like the River Thames. The outcome is a heartfelt, gentle and at times dour tribute to the razzmatazz of cultures, lifestyles and lonely existences in London.

London Unplugged is in selected cinemas across the UK from Friday, January 18th. will include special screenings with moderated filmmaker Q&As at Peckhamplex, Everyman Crystal Palace and Everyman Muswell Hill.

Mary Queen of Scots

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

This 16th century historical epic starts off promisingly enough in England with the imprisoned Queen Mary of Scotland (Saoirse Ronan) being taken out and beheaded. The rest of the film is a flashback covering events leading up to a rerun of this execution scene. Following the death of her 16-year-old royal husband the French Dauphin, 18 year old, Roman Catholic Mary comes to Scotland to rule as Queen surrounded by powerful male advisors, in which respect her position is not dissimilar to that of her Protestant counterpart Queen Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie) South of the border in England.

As Elizabeth is without heir to the English throne and showing no imminent sign of marrying, the English establishment fears Mary may remarry and produce a Catholic, Scottish heir to the Protestant, English throne. In the course of the narrative, Mary survives an ill-judged marriage to English nobleman Henry Stuart/Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden), the odd military uprising and various court intrigues before being captured and imprisoned by the English.

Unlike The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018), which wilfully and gleefully employed the merest bare bones of accepted historical fact as a springboard for compelling flights of fantasy and episodes of sexual intrigue, Mary Queen of Scots is much more po-faced even as it throws in, among other things, a gay affair between Darnley and a cross-dressing member of Mary’s court, an overwrought birthing scene with epic music to match and – moving towards the grimmer end of human behavioural excess – a marital rape scene. It also puts a couple of black actors into Mary’s and Elizabeth’s courts – the reign of Elizabeth I indeed saw Britain’s very first black community, yet there is no indication that they worked at court level.

In real life, the two Queens never actually met but the screenplay can’t resist having them do so – just like in Charles Jarrott’s rather more compelling 1971 version with Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth and Vanessa Redgrave as Mary. The relationship between the two women ruling the two neighbouring countries is however what drives the narrative, whether they actually meet or not. Mary is a creature of the heart, rejecting or accepting suitors for love (including pre-marital cunnilingus performed on her person by the persuasive Darnley) whereas Elizabeth advises admirer Robert Dudley (Joe Alwyn) as he tries to put his hand up her skirts that such things are not going to happen.

Elizabeth fights off the pox, which briefly threatens her life (and the succession) before coming to a realisation that, in a world of men, she needs to act like a man rather than a woman. To conceal the ravages of the disease after her recovery, the English queen regnant wears white face paint and sports a garish red wig, contrasting sharply with Mary’s unspoiled beauty – although of the two, it’s ultimately Elizabeth who survives. Mary gets far more screen time however.

The plethora of English and Scottish noblemen scarcely help make the convoluted plotting easy to follow while the script’s cramming of a considerable amount of material into its running length means that some promising elements race by without being given the necessary space to be explored, a cramping effect that also hampers the two lead actresses’ performances. That’s a pity, because the characters they play are truly fascinating historical figures who deserve better while the power play between them and the powerful men around each of them is rich material indeed which ought to be exploited much more effectively than it is here.

Mary, Queen of Scots is out in the UK on Friday, January 18th. On VoD on Monday, May 20th.

Stan & Ollie

Posted on by victorfraga

This is as profound and intimate as a professional relation gets. The comedic duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy enjoyed a special relationship (Stan was British and and Ollie was American). A bromance. An intense love and affection for each other. They were truly inseparable. Stan & Ollie follows the two artists on what would unwittingly become their swan song tour, as it’s loosely based on AJ. Marriott’s book Laurel and Hardy: The British Tours.

Nearly all the action takes place on this side of the pond, as the artists perform in medium-sized theatres across the UK and then Ireland (although we never see the Irish performances, just their arrival by boat and a rapturous welcome at the port). The world’s greatest comedy team were then both in their 60s, and the years have taken their toll on them. Particularly on Hardy (John C. Reilly), who’s obese and suffering from heart problems. Stan’s (Steve Coogan) health is far more robust, but it’s unlikely he could ever perform without his other half. Or could he?

Most people in Britain in 1953 (the year in which the film takes place) believed that the duo had already retired. Some fans are met with surprise upon finding out that the real Laurel & Hardy are touring the UK (they had assumed it was a tribute act). At first Stan and Ollie are disheartened at the half-empty theatres, but the number begin to soar as the tour gains visibility and momentum. Plus, there’s also a film on pipeline. Could this adventure culminate in yet another addition for their extensive portfolio of more than 250 films?

Stan & Ollie deserves credit for rescuing old-fashioned slapstick for modern audiences. Our humour has changed enormously since. Our jokes have become darker, more cynical and complex. Someone kicking someone in the buttocks or dropping a large suitcase down a flight of stairs is hardly funny these days. Yet the film renders the humour nostalgic and charming. You will catch yourself smiling throughout the film. Yet, you will never bawl your eyes out with laughter like audiences in the 1950s would have done. But that’s ok. Stan & Ollie is not intended to be a comedy, but instead a tribute to the comedies of yore.

It’s not easy adding colour (in both senses) to such a classic black and white act, often described as the biggest comedy duo of all times. Stan & Ollie has an effective colourful vintage feel. It never feels tawdry and cheap. I do, however, have an issue with Hardy’s make-up. Not only was it unnecessary (Reilly would spend on average four hours a day on the make-up chair), but it doesn’t look realistic. Reilly’s Hardy looks like Shrek or the fat guy from Monty Python. Why the insistence in using top-drawer cast? Couldn’t the role be given to someone slightly less famous and with a greater physical resemblance to Oliver Hardy?

Ultimately, Stan & Ollie is a film about ageing and camaraderie. The greatest testament of the indestructible bond between the two artists is the fact that Stan never performed with anyone else after Hardy became too ill to go on stage, and he continued to write sketches for the duo even after Hardy’s death.

While effective enough, Stan & Ollie also lacks a little spice and wit (aka. the dirty factor). It’s never a chore to sit through, but it’s never riveting, either. The strongest performance is delivered by Nina Arianda as Stan’s Russian wife Ida. She is bitchy, formidable, vaguely doting and also extremely charming. Plus, there are wonderful sights of Britain in the 1950s, including a fully operational Strand tube station. Overall, worth a visit to cinema.

Stan & Ollie is in cinemas across the UK from Friday, January 11th. On VoD Monday, June 3th

Colette

Posted on by victorfraga

We have already seen Keira Knightley in The Duchess (Raul Dibb, 2008) astutely depicting the real-life Duchess of Devonshire, who, in the 18th century had to struggle with and failed to escape the tutelage of her ghastly husband. Here the tale is happier. Originally coming as an innocent country girl from Burgundy on marrying Henri Gauthier-Villars, the titular protagonist arrives in the Paris of the Belle Époque and is expected to ghost her husband’s novels, which are published under his pen-name of “Willy”.

These books are entitled Claudine, and in truth they are Colette’s semi-biographical writings. No acknowledgement is made of her contribution. The first book Claudine at School is so well written that it immediately becomes a runaway bestseller. Her husband is played with convincing obtuseness by Dominic West. He believes that his wife is somehow his property and even locks her in a room, expecting her to get on with her writing. This topic will ring bells with those who recently saw The Wife (Bjorn Runge, 2018), starring Glenn Close.

Claudine eventually becomes a brand. Girls go around in France dressed like Claudine with bobbed hair, a white collar and schoolboy like black uniform. Meanwhile Willy is making a lot of money – or rather not – as he keeps spending it on all sorts of things and wasting it on mistresses. Colette is expected to put up with all this, but she doesn’t. Into her life comes Missy, skilfully played by Denise Gough, and they start a lesbian relationship. Eventually, she breaks free of Willy and leads her own successful life as one of France’s leading authors.

In addition to being a ghostwriter, Colette eventually becomes a burlesque dancer. She performs highly risqué lesbian acts with Missy at the Moulin Rouge, with her Willy as her business partner. He is not too concerned about his wife’s sexuality. Willy’s big problem is that in presenting shows featuring lesbianism and trying to make money out of it, he reinforces the sexual stereotypes that oppress his wife and other women, while she is liberating herself with calm self-assurance.

So far so very satisfactory and so very gender-bending but what makes this film so moving is Keira Knightley. She quietly grows from an innocent country girl to a calm, self-confident woman making her own decisions on her own terms without any reference to what others think. She slips into bed with other women (both Missy and an American lover) because it suits her, not because she has adopted a Lesbian identity.

The Belle Époque is extensively depicted throughout the film. This is the Paris of the Moulin Rouge, the cancan, the frou-frou skirts, Toulouse Lautrec and elegant gentlemen in morning suits and top hats. It is the world that Marcel Proust knew. That will attract people in its own right. But there is also a dark side of the Belle Époque: the constant availability of women to satisfy male desire, the hard work of entertaining, the constant dependence on the rich, privileged male.

This is an exquisitely crafted film, and the research has been done properly. Everything from wash basins, to exercise books, the cut of women’s clothes, the dark, wooden, heavy furniture, wall paper and lighting seems right. Colette is definitely worth a trip to the theatre. It’s both delightful to watch and also a mature tribute to feminism.

Colette is in cinemas across the UK from Wednesday, January 9th. On VoD on Monday, May 13th.

Newly Single

Posted on by victorfraga

This was a project worked through financial and societal uncertainty for the helmer-scribe-thespian. The outcome is an exciting film about the darker parts of the human desire, innuendo in every frame. Idiosyncratic prose populates the interior scenes, invariably quirky in their delivery.

Astor (played by the director Adam Christian Clark) has just been left by his girlfriend after getting too much on her nerves. He’s now back in the LA dating scene with his crass and unorthodox pulling technique. “Are you a feminist”, Astor asks a table of pub-goers, while a collective chuckle leads an embarrassed colleague to respond that this is “a sensitive man”. This is a very, very good script about a selfish character.

Eager to explore a new side to himself, Astor turns to sex as an engine to fuel his ego, congratulating himself after every conquest. One conquest queries Astor’s jealousy of her discussing other men. His response is negative and unconvincing.

The film veers violently for the viperous, penetrative in shot, penetrative in theme. Naked in shot, in front and behind the camera, it discusses the discarded psyche we keep cruelly within our bed sheets. The perceptions we keep hidden are revealed onscreen in the most wonderfully visceral fashion. Bedroom scenes evolve with the camera demonstrating the licentious limbs that seduce our lead. Astor’s conquests give Michael Caine’s lead role in Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966) a good run for his money, despite lacking the frisson and charm of the old-fashioned Lothario. His socially awkward behaviour is picked up as cute flirtation in many of the film’s steamier scenes.

Newly Single is reminiscent of Steve McQueen’s Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008), painting people who live and breathe for sex. Filmed naturalistically, the appetising bedroom scenes seem arcane in their depiction. Astor is unafraid to focus on his shortcomings. One shower scene is even more revealing than John Lennon’s conceptual debut with Yoko Ono!

As any film following Steve McQueen’s sexual milieu, there are provocative angles bringing the viewer into unusual positions. Lascivious legs are shot with tasteful decorum, naked in emotion and demons, the most startling scenes centre the sensual and the sexual. Discussing a personal matter with his sister, Astor’s stance changes from confused brother to predator, unsure of his dealings with the one woman he cannot sleep with. With only his second film, Clark’s made his visual mark. He sees the sense in sensual. Newly Single is provocative cinema au courant.

Newly Single is available on Amazon from December 7th and on Amazon Prime for Valentine’s Day February 14th.

The House By The Sea (La Villa)

Posted on by victorfraga

Relying heavily on conversations played out against the beauty of the Southern French coast, The House by the Sea functions as an intimate persona drama, while also setting us up to ponder larger questions about the human spirit. A quiet character piece that successfully relies almost entirely on the strength of the screenplay and Guédiguian’s usual coterie of experienced actors.

Maurice (Fred Ulysse) has a stroke while looking at the Mediterranean, prompting his three children to visit him and to agree on how his estate will be divided. They are Angèle (Ariane Ascaride), a jaded actress who cannot retain her former glory, Armand (Gérard Meylan), a cook in Paris, and Joseph (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), a disillusioned leftist professor. Joseph also brings along, by his own words, his “far too young fiancée” Bérangère (Anaïs Demoustier). Whether by tragedy or by personal failing, the lives of these characters are filled with disappointment. Will returning home heal these old wounds or make them even worse?

Using the death of a patriarch as a means to allow children to reevaluate the course of their lives into action is a common trope, especially in American indie cinema, yet Guédiguian finds a fresh angle by focusing on character first and situation second. All three children are in their 60s – too tired for bitter recriminations yet still relentlessly ironing out issues that have plagued them throughout their entire lives. Their love lives are a mess, yet they cannot help but to dive into questionable situations as a means to feel something new again.

Additionally, the Southern France they know has changed, as displayed by the army knocking on their doors asking them to keep an eye out for refugees. Can their father’s legacy – displayed by the once bustling restaurant he owned and the time he played Father Christmas and distributed presents to all the locals – still be upheld or is it too late for this fading coastal town?

Robert Guédiguian likes to cast the same actors over and over in his films, making the relationship between these characters feel naturalistic. One flashback to a more carefree past is extremely effective, as it simply recycles a clip from his own film Ki lo Sa? (1985) featuring the exact same actors over 30 years younger. This gives the film a stirring metafictional quality, as if Guédiguian himself is looking back over his own cinematic output and asking what good has it done.

Answers come via a feel-good ending. This final act conclusion –  which I will not ruin here – is the kind of thing that would occur around 25 minutes into regular films, yet is used here to finally prompt our previously lethargic characters into action. While a predictable plot development, it is handled with the kind of sensitivity that gives the film a wider, global resonance. After all, sometimes it takes something exterior to put one’s own life into proper perspective.

Allowing this abrupt turn to occur within what was previously a Rohmer-esque rumination on love and life, gives the film a deeper, more urgent meaning, turning a specific family drama into a universal call to action. It may not be handled with much subtlety, yet in today’s times, subtlety can only get you so far. This family knows that fact better than anyone.

The House By The Sea is out in selected cinemas in the UK from Friday, January 11th.

An Impossible Love (Un Amour Impossible)

Posted on by victorfraga

What starts off as an ordinary type romance turns into a tale of pronounced and propelled feminine empowerment. Two lovers share each other with the niceties of bedroom talk. However beautiful the encounter shared between the pair, it is Rachel (Virginie Efira) who must carry the bearings of parenthood on her own. Undeterred by their pregnancy, the more abstruse Philippe returns to his place in the world of bourgeois aristocracy.

Denying her time or their child his name, Philippe would prefer to remember his romance with office worker Rachel as a liaison. Class and societal expectations are common in many European films, but the combination of Corsini’s eye, Efira’s performance and Christine Angot’s base plot (she wrote the eponymous best-selling novel on which the film is based) turns this into an astute and auspicious tale of domestic suffering. At 129 minutes, these plot points become sedating by the end, but the film boasts a very impressive lead indeed.

Even without the substandard selection of make-up, Efira walks from blithe, petite girlfriend to domestic parent convincingly. She has a natural charm to her, likeable across all three of the actors who play her daughter Chantal. Jehnny Beth is the most recognisable face among the cast members playing her adult daughter (the actress is best known for singing with Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz) . Neils Schinder is debonair, charismatic and garrulous in the role of Philippe, fitting in his disapproval of her undistinguished class.

The chauvinistic undertones becomes apparent when Philippe decides not to marry a woman he has professed his love. Gone from his daughter’s sight for years, only through road trip and existential conversations does he re-gain his daughter’s trust. Rachel stands by Chantal both as a mother and friend. Despite her efforts, she is repeatedly informed that two people do not a family make. The latter half of the film is the more interesting half, as we see the consequences behind the passionate warmth a 20-something year old couple enjoy. Rachel loves Philippe unreservedly, despite his shabby treatment of her.

The film’s story belongs to Efira and she is remarkable here. It is Efira who will likely transcend the barriers from national to international delight on the strength of her acting. The postulated gaze she brings when she realises Philippe is leaving her is a particularly potent moment. Efira delivers an incredibly dignified performance, solemn in her role as mother, hurt in her role as a lover, feeling for the many women stuck in similar situation across the globe.

An Impossible Love is in cinemas across the UK from Friday, January 4th. On VoD Friday, February 1st.

The Favourite has Barry Lyndon written all over it

Posted on by victorfraga

Asking somebody to pick their favourite Kubrick film is like asking a parent to name their favourite child. The Kubrickian genetic code means you possess a strong affection for all of them but – let’s be honest – there are some films that give you more satisfaction than others. Barry Lyndon (1975) is the neglected child. The one most fans shove aside. In the playground line-up, Barry Lyndon is the thin, bespectacled kid who is only ever chosen when everyone else has already been picked.

Yet, Barry Lyndon‘s legacy is momentous, and not limited to its technical wizardry. Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film is an epic story, a profound character study and a razor-sharp satire of the British aristocracy. It has influenced many period dramas since. For example, the ornate, Carnivalesque atmosphere of Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1985; pictured below) echoes Barry Lyndon. Katherine (Florence Pugh) of Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd, 2017) has a predicament very similar to Barry’s, of a social climber entering the aristocracy. Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995) shares costume and locations that consistently remind me of the beautiful tableaux of the 1975 film. Martin Scorsese and David Chase (writer of television series The Sopranos) both single it out as a major inspiration.

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Lanthimos’s favourites

Yorgos Lanthimos, Greek auteur and figurehead of the weird wave of Greek cinema, has made a welcome addition to the list. The Favourite (which is out in cinemas right now) portrays a triadic power struggle in 18th Century England between Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and sycophantic Abigail and Sarah (Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, respectively). And it has Barry Lyndon written all over it, at least in my opinion. Even if Lanthimos doesn’t recognise it.

In a short YouTube video, the Greek director talks about some of the films that inspired The Favourite. They include Peter Greenway’s The Draughtman’s Contract (1982), Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (1972) and the aforementioned Amadeus. Lanthimos’s omission of Barry Lyndon is blatant and conspicuous. For starters, both films take place in 18th century Britain. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of similarities. Perhaps Lanthimos wanted to avoid the comparisons because the similarities are so glaring, and he could be branded unoriginal.

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Fish-eyes wide open

The boldest visual choice in The Favourite is Lanthimos’s liberal use of the fish-eye lens. The film is dotted with warped shots, giving the it a feeling of deformity and eccentricity. One such example is pictured above: Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult) tries to convince Sarah to grant him an audience with the Queen. The whole sequence has a humorous quality – including a duck in the middle of the table – that counters the sly political manoeuvring.

Barry Lyndon uses similar tricks. The best example is in a fist fight between Barry and a soldier. The camera rests above Barry’s shoulder but remains wide enough to make his opponent look at once imposing and ridiculous. This happens again during Lady Lyndon’s suicide attempt. Her grief-stricken convulsions are disturbing yet there is pitch-black humour to be found in her failing to take enough poison. We watch her flail about frantically, like a fish out of water. When Barry’s father is killed in a duel, the death is so distant that it’s almost insignificant. Kubrick starts small, and zooms out until the subject becomes a little detail on the silver screen (pictured below).

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Period laughs

Both The Favourite and Barry Lyndon are brimming with comedic elements, with ample opportunities to mock aristocratic rituals and sense of grandeur. In Barry Lyndon, John Quin makes faces to the camera as he marches. In The Favourite, Abigail (Stone) dances with her soon-to-be lover (pictured above). Both sequences are so absurd they border on parody.

Kubrick often mocks the perceived sense of superiority of the British aristocracy by placing people in the background, standing gallantly despite being completely redundant to the action. Lanthimos peppers his film with bizarre events such as duck racing and oranges being thrown at a naked, obese man. Both directors seek to criticise the aristocracy by parodying their inflated sense of self-righteousness. And both are equally successful.

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No mountain high enough

Perhaps more significantly, both films portray “common opportunists” who use their charms and wit in order to climb to the top of the aristocracy.

In Kubrik’s film, Barry is the sole social climber. He successfully climbs to the top of the aristocracy in the first half of the film, only to crash in the second part. In The Favourite, two characters split the social climbing functions. Abigail is equivalent to Barry during his rise, while Sarah is tantamount to Barry during his fall.

Both Barry and Abigail (pictured above) are underdogs in the beginning of the movies. Both of their fathers perished in a freak incident and both of them have our sympathy. Both have a large potential to cause harm and gradually lose our allegiance as they climb up the social ladder. Sarah’s eventual demise mirrors Barry. And they both meet a hapless ending.

Despite the Kubrickian influences, The Favourite remains a very original film. It adds new twists and flavours to many of the techniques Kubrick created, and the outcome is something entirely novel.

Coffee with Cinnamon (Café com Canela)

Posted on by victorfraga

It all starts with a very simple and effective device. The viewer is drawn into the central story through the home video of a child’s birthday, Margarida’s (Valdineia Soriano) son. We could be watching a little piece of our own family history. The sheer candidness brings us close to the story and the people that populate it. This flashback of memories is interwoven with the present day and we gradually discover that the young boy died a while ago and Margarida lives alone with only her grief as a companion.

Everyday tasks are an uphill struggle for a woman who has withdrawn to the four walls of her small house. She is unable to feed or nourish herself adequately and marks out time with cigarettes and coffee. The director Rosa and Nicacio use a range of slightly surreal imagery to paint the inner life of Margarida. The walls of her house appear to be closing in on her, tangled weeds grow up the walls, stifling the air and pressing in on this mournful woman. Blood runs down the walls and we hear one of the neighbours say “She died together with the boy”.

The spice in the tale is generously sprinkled as we dip in and out of social gatherings and see the larger than life Cida (Arlete Dias) holding court with her stories, full of life and possibly a little too much to drink. Violetta (Aline Brunne) is played with great range and sensitivity, her optimism in every situation that presents itself shines out from the screen. She makes money selling her home-made coxinhas, feeds and bathes her ailing grandmother and makes a life with her husband Paulo (Aldi Anunciacao). The couple provide comfort and care to those around them. Paulo movingly tells Viola’s Grandmother “I miss talking to you, you know” as her life draws to a close. They both provide shelter to Ivan (Babu Santana) and his partners Adopho’s dog at a critical moment. This is a community that lives and dies together in the small mundane moments and the huge tragedies of life.

One of the strongest visual moments in the film (and there are many) is the split screen depicting a morning in this neighbourhood as all the residents wake up and begin their rituals and habitual activities. We see each home from inside the main room looking through an open door onto the street. The wider population of this community are never far from the story.

The journey of Margarida’s grief comes full circle as Violetta recognises her as the teacher she once knew. A vibrant woman who is now a shadow of herself. Love is an active verb in the hands of Violetta as she assists Margarida to return to the land of the living by cleaning her house with her and sharing chocolate. The demonstration of love draws Margarida gradually back into the world. Before venturing outside she opens her son’s room and finds courage to pack away each of the objects that remind her of him, tenderly touching each one.

Margarida tells Violetta what she thinks is a good film. We have seen her earlier in the story sitting silently in a movie theatre by herself. This is meta-language, and description bodes well for Coffee And Cinnamon as a whole: “A good film is one that shows the weaknesses, the limitations and the anguishes that everyone has. A good movie wants to try you and be tried, and when that happens you lose your ground, lose your shame, lose the line and transcend.

“It’s in the dark and in front of the image and dominated by the sound that you can finally confront yourself and listen to that which you never had the courage to say to yourself. And at that moment you find yourself. You find yourself and lose yourself all at once, without a mask or a disguise and even if it is just for a few minutes. When the film ends and the lights go on, everything is different, empty. That person that sat in that seat will never get up. That person who gets up is new, different.”

Overall, Coffee and Cinnamon is a relatable film brimming with honesty, humanity, and humour. It will show in in London soon, and it will also be available on VoD. So stay tuned!

The 12th Man

Posted on by victorfraga

Despite the blockbusters of today often climaxing with fictional wars, the war genre itself is perhaps out of favour. Perhaps in our mollycoddling superhero culture, war movies seem too real. Well 12th Man is a film of fantasy and fervour that’s ultimately very accessible and as thrilling as anything that climbs the box office charts. Who would have thought then that the director of high-style kids films Agent Cody Banks and The Karate Kid (Harald Zwart, 2003 and 2010) would come through with a solid World War II thriller? Clearly, the Dutch director is happy to slip away from the frontline in order to deliver what the film needs. So it’s fascinating to see how he handles a more personal story.

Beginning with the claim that “the most incredible events are the ones which took place”, 12th Man is a survival epic about Jan Baalsrud, the one survivor of a Norwegian resistance boat sunk by a German warship, who begins a dramatic escape attempt from the Nazis in hopes of getting to neutral Sweden. As much as this is a historical reenactment, 12th Man takes joy in being a nostalgic boys own adventure, with ski chases, gunfights, and Baalsrud running from a fighter plane.

But Baalsrud is far from James Bond. Early on his gun is jammed by the frost and he sustains a horrendous injury that forces him to rely on the good-natured folk he meets. Thomas Gullestad as Baalsrud delivers a great, steely performance, showing the Leos of the world that you can depict determination and creeping madness without actually sleeping in an animal carcass . There’s a great scene where Baalsrud keeps waking up from nightmares, which turns into a horrifying dark night of the soul as he suffers from gangrene. His character reminded me of Boris Plotnikov’s hobbling martyr in Larissa Shepitko’s snowy resistance masterpiece The Ascent (1977). That film casts a long shadow over 12th Man, Zwart paying homage with a few visual nods. The atmosphere of the film strikes an icy tone that puts across the sub-zero temperatures. One early, extended shot has Baalsrud swimming away from camera and into the total darkness of the fjords, the water lit to convey sheer forbidding.

A surprise to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers showing up as the mad, vindictive SS officer Kurt Sage, who heading up the chase is timing himself in ice water. There’s no way anyone could have survived, he is told. But Sage hunts after the ghost anyway. This dynamic shows promise in the first act, but it never gets fully fleshed out. It’s a thankless role of a man who’s always a few steps behind. His inability to get up close to Baalsrud stops the men, from really learning about each other.

This is hardly the first Nazis in the snow movie to emerge from Norway (does anyone remember Tommy Wirkola’s 2009 Dead Snow?) and it’s one which uses Baalsrud’s perseverance as a national symbol. The northern lights are used in symbolic and literal ways as a sign for the characters, and there’s a real emphasis on members of the villagers and resistance fighters who helped Baalsrud on his journey.

Zwart lays on the inspirational messaging a little thick, the individual stories of the resistance fighters are probably the least interesting part of the film, because we’ve seen it all before. POWs singing in defiance, young children imparting wisdom beyond their years. The sentimentality really holds up the pace of the film, which, when it’s moving, has clear, motivated action that doesn’t let go of its audience. It’s a little too long to be a great action film, and isn’t quite bold enough to break free of its genre trappings. 12th Man remains a solid and well-told film with an action style movie.

The 12th Man is in selected cinemas across the UK and also on VoD on Friday, January 4th.

One Cut of the Dead (Kamera o Tomeru na!)

Posted on by victorfraga

Start your new year off right by seeking out this joyful, genuinely independent film from Japanese newcomer Shinichirou Ueda. This project, which came together though a workshop at Tokyo Film school Enbu Seminar, might be one of the great films about filmmaking, shining a light on just what keeps us watching horror films even when we’ve seen it all before.

When One Cut of the Dead begins its ambitious first shot, a 40-minute zombie movie that plays out in a single take, a low-budget film crew are desperately trying to get through a shoot that’s already approaching Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (Eleanor Coppola, George Hickenooper, 1991) insanity. As his actors mess up a 47th take, the abusive director Higurashi (Takayuki Hamatsu) loses his mind at the cast, slapping one and storming off set. “He seems better than usual,” someone comments. Utter cabin fever has already sunk in, and within minutes we learn that the set is an abandoned WWII experimentation camp. This is some disaster artist act, and when the zombies attack, Higurashi can’t believe his luck, ‘this is reality! We keep rolling!’ At one point he even becomes aware of the camera trained on him by Ueda, and encourages him too to film. Soon he’s setting zombies on his cast in order to get the best footage.

It’s amateurish, but delivered with a sense of play that suggests a movie very much in control of its creativity. Ueda squeezes the best out of his limited budget and location. When the production can’t handle the effects it lingers on a character reaction sometimes for two or three times as long as seems necessary. At one point the crew finds a dismembered hand which they mistake for a prop, and then play piggy in the middle with when the dismembered zombie comes looking. It’s such a slapstick moment that the filmmakers must be aware that it kills the tension, right?

Ueda withholds what he’s really up to as One Cut of the Dead goes through all the Zombie movie beats, from “I heard this place is haunted” to someone hiding their bite, to the crew turning on each other, but at such a pace that you can’t get bored. It’s so breathless that there is little time for character development. As a result, characters that are more like figures, running around the set. The camera gets dropped on the floor at one point, and of course there’s blood splattering on the lens, which we see the cameraman wiping off in another move that makes one question the film’s real viewpoint. It’s full of gestural blocking, the actors rushing to hit their marks. But that gives it a freshness, winking to the viewer of the entire rube goldberg machine that is filmmaking.

In one ingenious scene, the film’s lead, Chinatsu (Yuzuki Akiyama) nurses a zombie bite, which the audience can tell is a rather crudely applied make up effect. But after a moment she realises that it’s makeup from the film she was shooting and she peels it off of her leg. Simple moments play with our understanding of the various ‘films’ that are layered upon each other. Ueda is interested in the edges of films, the seems of artifice. Then halfway though, something even more meta- takes place , which is best un-spoiled but uses an inverse Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato, 1980) structure to broaden the film’s universe and brings genuine depth to the characters and points out its tropes in direct ways.

When we return in the second half to those amateur moments, like those overdrawn close ups, the hokey effects, the fourth-wall-breaking gestures, Ueda brings a whole new set of contexts and revelations which transform our entire experience with the film. One Cut of the Dead does so much to highlight the methods of its construction that its third act is brimming with corniness: a selection of contrived narratives and conflicts to illustrate its jokes about filmmaking, have already been lampshaded. It allows the movie to get away with pretty much whatever it wants. Such ingenuity shifts the meaning of the movie from horror-comedy into an inspirational ode to filmmaking and the film community. Call it Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1996) directed by Drew Goddard, this generous, effervescent film will delight horror nerds, serious cinephiles, and casual viewers alike.

One Cut of the Dead is out in selected cinemas across the UK on Friday, January 4th. It’s out on VoD, DVD and BD on Monday, January 28th.