Month: May 2019

Kind Hearts and Coronets

Posted on by victorfraga

Elegantly plotted, directed and acted, and wholly a product of its time, Kind Hearts and Coronets remains as current as when it was originally released, in the first half of the 20th century. It savagely questions why some people have it all by virtue of their birth while others endlessly struggle to make ends meet.

One of the biggest lies that members of the nobility tells itself is that their titles are unquestionable. As eight seasons of Game of Thrones has taught us, nobody who is born a Duke or Prince really garnered that title as a result of fine character, but rather as a result of their ancestors abolishing their challengers. Kind Hearts and Coronets examines this concept with brilliant rigour, charting Louis D’Ascoyne Mazzini’s (Dennis Price) dastardly rise to become the 10th Duke of Chalfont by eliminating the eight members of his family standing in his way.

With the “comic” serial killer movie back in the form of The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier, 2018), The Golden Glove (Fatih Akin, 2019) and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (Joe Berlinger, 2019), Kind Hearts and Coronets remains unimpeachable for its refinement of style as well as the utter savagery constantly lurking behind the surface. Mr Mazzini, robbed of any entitlements due to his mother marrying an Italian opera singer, is a gentle murderer. Ever-soft spoken, his murders are meticulously planned and executed, Price only ever revealing his complete bloodlust through the flickering of his eyes.

In one of the most famous examples of one character playing several roles, the eight people standing between him and the Dukedom are all played by Alec Guinness. There is more than simple comedy in this stunt casting. Guinness skilfully sinks into each role, giving them all distinct characteristics while cleverly stressing how each person has done nearly nothing to deserve their honours and titles.

Mazzini’s victims are a private banker, the private banker’s philandering son (occupation unknown), an Anglican priest, an Admiral, an army general, an amateur photographer, the Duke himself, and in one case of cross-dressing, a suffragette. With the exception of the reverend, these are all people who engage in activities that, at the time, could only be bestowed upon people with vast amounts of wealth. Together they represent the diverse spectrum of a “noble” British life. Mazzini realises very early on, in a precisely edited montage, that no matter how hard he works in a retail store, his salary could never produce a tenth of what these people earn simply by inheritance alone.

It is a movie that revels in ironies, piling them on top of one another with remarkable ease. The dialogue is rich in contradictions: In one of the most famous lines in the film, we learn that Mazzini — approaching his sixth murder — prefers not to go shooting due to his principled stance against “bloodsports”. The second irony is his manner of imprisonment. Only after a quarrel with his sweetheart and mistress Sibella (Joan Greenwood) — who of course didn’t want to marry him when he was married, but becomes uncommonly interested in him when he gets closer to the Dukedom — is he finally (but wrongfully) accused of murder. This is tied together by the central irony, that Mazzini, despite despising those who have wronged his mother and refused her burial in the Chalfont estate, aspires to be a Duke himself, thus becoming the kind of person that he truly hates. After all, there is no suggestion that once he becomes a Duke that he will turn into a kindly philanthropist.

It is the prime example of the Ealing Comedy. Produced at the Ealing Studios west of London between 1947-57, they were an exceptionally creative period for British Comic Cinema. The films stay relevant in British culture for the way they question common assumptions upon which society has been built. Take Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius, 1949) which imagines the borough of London suddenly becoming a breakaway state, thus challenging the basis of British law itself. Kind Hearts and Coronets is no exception. Supremely funny while maintaining a great calmness of tone, it exposes the rotten heart of entitlement with the utmost grace.

Nothing much has changed either. At first I was intrigued to learn from rewatching the film that peers were allowed to be tried in the House of Lords, a practice that was discontinued in the mid-twentieth century. It truly felt like something from a previous time. Then I remembered that the House of Lords, the upper chamber of British parliament, is still populated with unelected members from both the Church and gentry, and thought how much further we have to go before Britain can be considered a truly equal country.

The 70th anniversary edition of Kind Hearts and Coronets is out in cinemas across the UK from Friday, June 7th.

The Last Tree

Posted on by victorfraga

Eleven-year-old British Nigerian Olufemi (Tai Golding) lives his foster mother Mary (Denise Black) somewhere in rural Lincolnshire. He has a vibrant and peaceful infancy with white mother and school friends, as suggested in a cathartic opening scene. The young boy jumps and shouts with others around his age, the intensity of the moment emphasised by slow motion. One day, Olufemi’s biological mother Yinka (Gbemisola Ikumelo) decides to take him back to London.

Olufemi’s life changes overnight from a peaceful and unspoiled infancy in an idyllic middle-class environment to a rough and dysfunctional upbringing in a council flat in London. His mother regrets that Olufemi hasn’t embraced the traditions and values of Nigeria, which she claims to be his “spiritual home”. He doesn’t like his name, which means “God loves me” in Yoruba, instead preferring the shorter version “Femi”. She beats him up.

He also has a hard time at school, as the far more streetwise boys in his class (who also happen to be black) bully him, ridiculing his unusual and non-English sounding name. He challenges a black classmate with the very anglophone name Dean: “How would you feel if I mocked your name?”. He answers: “Well, my name name isn’t Olufemi”, exposing the sheer cruelty of his new environment.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Femi grows to become an introspective and insecure teen (now played by Sam Adewumi). His relationship to his mother has improved, and he now mingles with his previous bullies, who have become petty criminals. Male identity is often negotiated through violence and intimidation. He feels that his allegiances are very divided as his new associates bully a beautiful teenage girl with whom he’s infatuated. He bonds with her through music. They both love the The Cure, but they keep their “weird” taste to themselves, as their schoolmates seem to prefer Tupac.

Eventually, Femi gets into trouble. Could he become a revolving door criminal, another marginalised black youth? The school director Mr Williams (Nicholas Pinnock, pictured above) is determined to help Femi. He reveals that he too was a troubled teen, too, evoking both fury and affection from a confused Femi. They share an embrace. This is the film’s most powerful moment, when Femi attempts to reconcile his anger with his gentle humanity. Should he shed a tear, or should he heed the advice by his favourite band: “boy don’t cry”?

This semi-autobiographical film is a portrait of young black British whose allegiances are split between two countries and two races. He has fond memories of his infancy amongst white people, and he listens to “white” music. In the final third of this 100-minute movie, Femi travels to Nigeria in an attempt to reconcile his past with his present. He observes the chaotic streets of Lagos with awe. Perhaps after all this is his spiritual home. And his fatherland (in more ways than one). Or perhaps not. The final third of the movie also feels a little directionless, and I’m not entirely sure whether Femi managed to reunite his Britishness with his Nigerianness or not.

A heartfelt movie worth a watch, yet not without imperfections.

The Last Tree showed at the Sundance London Film Festival, when this review was originally written. It’s out in cinemas on Friday, September 27th. On VoD on Monday, January 27th (2020). On Netflix in October.

Late Night

Posted on by victorfraga

Katharine Newbury (Emma Thompson) is a temperamental talkshow host whose ratings are plummeting. She has been on air for nearly three decades, and her delivery has become tedious and repetitive. She takes matters into her own hands in order to avoid being replaced. She meets up with her writers for the very first time ever. She’s so formidable and arrogant that she doesn’t even bother to learn their names and instead calls them by numbers (one to eight). She’s shocked to find out that one of her writers whom she vaguely remembers died in 2013.

The team of writers and entirely male. Katherine decides to instil some freshness by hiring a female for the very first time. Factory worker Molly (Mindy Kaling) – who has no experience with comedy at all – becomes their new “diversity hire”, in a sheer gesture of tokenism. Ironically, Kaling herself wrote the film script herself. A very deft and nifty script, churning out a joke every minute or so – mostly to satisfactory results.

The film title has a double significance. It refers to both the name of the show hosted by Katherine (which looks suspiciously like Late Night with David Letterman) and her age, suggesting that a professional nearing the seventh decade of her life is in her twilight years. Or not.

The film script often touches on sexism in the comedy industry. Women carry the heavy burden of having to excel, to outperform their male counterparts, in order to prove that they were worth hiring. Over and over and over again. All eyes are on Molly. And not just on her performance. Some of her male colleagues want to bed her. The males carry on using the ladies’ toilet even after Molly is hired in order “to have a poo”. That’s because the facilities did not fulfil a purpose prior to Molly’s arrival (because no other woman works there). Slut-shaming becomes a powerful device to humiliate and disqualify women in the final quarter of this 102-minute feature (I can’t tell you more without spoiling the movie for you).

There are also plenty of hilarious jokes and sharp commentary about racism (Molly is Indian), ageism (Katherine is often slammed for being too old) and even about the bizarre and questionable efforts to counter discrimination (such as the “white saviour”). Katherine invites two black men to get into a cab, claiming that she wants to help them. They say that they don’t wish to go anywhere. She cunningly replies: “That doesn’t matter, that’s how white saviours work”, promptly pushing the two people into the car.

Predictably, Molly becomes a very prolific writer, with Katherine and her other seven writers increasingly reliant on her creative output. Yet the relationship between the two women is far from rosy. Catherine is casually cruel and unabashedly unscrupulous. A little bit like Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006). Gradually, Katherine’s layers of inviolable confidence begin to collapse one by one, revealing a frail and apprehensive woman grappling with a sexist and ageist industry, plus an ailing husband at home. She finds a very unexpected and scandalous venting outlet for her frustrations, which could precipitate her permanent demise. Thompson is outstanding, adroitly combining dramatic and comedic skills. The ending is rather moving, and I could see a few tears being shed.

Late Night premieres at Sundance London, which is taking place between May 30th and June 2nd. It is on general release on Friday, June 7th.

Mari

Posted on by victorfraga

This is a clarion call. Countering the stagnated notion that choreography and cinema rarely fit together, Mari opens on one continuous frame, spiralling violins silhouetting in a scenic serene set up with dancers pirouetting in visceral motion. Magnetic on feet, Charlotte (Bobbi Jene Smith) contemplates in circled fantasy the steps to her latest show. Aspiring in fantasy, inevitably reality beckons, a phone call takes her to her grandmother’s impending death, while an unexpected pregnancy opens her and her audience to the unvarnished truths of being a woman.

Startlingly honest, Mari walks the symmetry between the real and the hyperreal, confusion beckons the viewer over the genre they’re supposedly watching. Seconds after uncovering the pregnancy test, Charlotte hurdles aggressively and impassioned, berating the back-bones which make her gaping snaps so nauseatingly gruesome to listen to. Deafeningly, silent the sound changes to the powerful probing violins, segued from maternal drama to horror soundtrack (Peter Gregson’s violin centred score is excellent). The fusion, frustration, panic and perversion are embodied on the wooden dance floor that waits her audience. In the motion, there is an emotion so painfully expressed, reaping with the vigour words rarely express.

And yet there are moments of beautifully written dialogue. A poignant neon lit kitchen finds Charlotte discussing the trials and tasks motherhood entails with her sister (Madeleine Worrall). Subverting the Bechdel test, two sisters talk about a man, but of its dependency on women. In an era where Robin Wright sits as president, Phoebe Waller Bridge as writer extraordinaire, Mari fits nicely into the under-voiced pantheon.

Director Georgia Parris prescribes to this voiceless arena, etching a heap of choreographies, from the braced, bold banal bathrooms into a carousel of stormy flowers, figuratively festering under the feet of the dancers. Illuminating palettes potent, pastoral, piercing and plain, Smith’s body twirls thunderously before speaking to her family members solemnly. Choreographer Maxine Doyle delves into a series of technically adept scenes, surrounding the viewers with moments of solemn insular introspection (inviting Smith to exercise her enviable pose) or masquerading collected crowds in prodigious powerhouse moves. A festival of pious performance art, Parris wisely never indulges the physical at the expense of the narrative.

As it is a powerful one. Surrounding their matriarch, two generation of women envelope themselves in a family that might soon expect another member. There, by the confines of a hospital bed, life and death meet with the veracity of a dance hall. Neither movement nor words are needed to describe the tangible beauty of the feminine spirit.

Mari is in cinemas across the country from Friday, June 21st, and then on VoD the following Monday.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Warner Bros’ latest effort in their strategy to create a self-contained universe out of Toho’s Godzilla and his accompanying trademark monster characters to rival that of Disney’s popular Star Wars and Marvel cinematic universes is a mixed bag. On one level, it’s a hackneyed family story involving a couple splitting apart with their daughter caught in the middle, a plot not of the slightest interest to fans of Godzilla who aren’t paying to see a family drama. On another level, it’s a thinly veiled excuse to recreate Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mothra, Rodan and others with state-of-the-art, special effects technology and have them fighting against one another, at which aim it succeeds handsomely. In passing, it delivers facile, one-line ideas about nuclear war and global warming. Finally, it wants to explore the iconography of these extraordinary creatures, but scarcely knows where to begin. They are great properties, but you can’t help but wish it was directed and produced by people with a stronger visionary sense.

The family story concerns scientist Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) with her daughter Madison (Billie Bobby Brown) in tow. Her husband Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler), who when the film starts is out in the wilds studying wolf packs, is attempting to get back in touch with his daughter by email. Insofar as this family dynamic drives the characters, it feels pretty redundant. Farmiga upstages the rest of her onscreen family, investing her essentially cardboard character with pathos well beyond what the hackneyed script deserves. The presence of scientists played by oriental actors Ken Watanabe and Ziyi Zhang seems curiously peripheral, even though at one point the former plays a significant role in attempting to rejuvenate an apparently dead Godzilla.

Much more interesting is Emma’s use of a device she’s built called the Orca to produce sound frequencies mimicking those of Titans in order to make them behave in certain ways. Her falling in with crazed military type Jonah Allen (Charles Dance) suggests her as a megalomaniac determined to unleash the giant beasts and cause havoc on Earth, but then she presents an alternative scenario in which mankind has ruined the planet through global warming and the monsters are its way of getting out of control humankind back in its rightful ecological place thus saving the planet from extinction. Promising concepts, but sadly they’re never really developed into anything. The same is true of ideas about Godzilla absorbing radiation so that he can produce self-immolating blasts which nuke his one-on-one adversaries in battle while he survives.

Put aside the many shortcomings, however, and the recreations of giant radiation-breathing lizard from the sea Godzilla, flying creature Rodan, Mothra the giant moth and, most especially, three-headed King Ghidorah, greatly impress. The latter is the real star here, with his three heads swirling around menacingly on their long necks. Ghidorah possesses hydra-like qualities, but only once do we see a missing head regenerate, one of numerous elements on which the filmmakers fail to capitalise. A line of script somewhere posits him as a being from outer space who’s come to Earth and upset the balance of the monster ecosystem by displacing the ruling Godzilla, another idea which is nice as far as it goes, but doesn’t go very far. Kong is name-checked a few times and appears occasionally in static images to remind us that Godzilla vs. Kong is due out next year.

A mysterious organisation called Monarch, the corporate logo of which coincidentally resembles that of Extinction Rebellion turned on its side, has a series of numbered Outposts around the globe where various giant beasts are held in underground storage facilities. As titles such as ‘Monarch Outpost 61, Yunnan Forest, China’ appear on the screen, they create a believable sense of a covert, global network.

Yet in terms of developing an overall mythology, the whole is nowhere near as satisfying as the vision behind Warner Bros’ underrated kaiju (giant monster) movie Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro, 2013). Toho’s original Japanese Godzilla/Gojira (Ishiro Honda, 1954) and the more recent Shin Godzilla (Hideaki Anno, 2014) both proved the property capable of incisive socio-political comment even as its men-in-rubber-suit monsters of the fifties or their later computer-generated effects counterparts satisfyingly burned and stomped Tokyo. The new Godzilla: King Of The Monsters doesn’t really have anything like as much to say, preferring to trade in spectacle and fall back on monsters fighting each other, sending in troops with guns whenever the proceedings need another boost to keep the adrenaline up. In other directorial hands, it could have been very special indeed: on so many levels, a seriously wasted opportunity. That said, the creatures themselves are fabulous – and they get an awful lot of screen time.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters is out in the UK on Wednesday, May 29th. Watch the film trailer below:

The Brink

Posted on by victorfraga

In public, he’s charming and friendly, almost avuncular. He understands irony and self-deprecation. Talk show hosts love him. He claims to speak for the average American and to be fighting against the establishment. In private, however, he uses the f-word abundantly. “I’m going to f**k her”, he says in relation to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Perhaps this man isn’t as magnanimous and kind as he may first seem at first.

Stephen Bannon is largely credited with the election of Donald Trump, which he describes as “a divine intervention”. Bannon remained his chief strategist until August 2017, when the two men fell out. It’s not entirely clear how close the two are right now. Nevertheless, Bannon remains very loyal to Trump’s cause and ideology. He works closely to the Republican Party. He was devastated when the GOP lost control of the House of Representatives, after the 2018 midterm elections.

The controversial political figure has made very good friends in Europe, with whom she shares many affinities. We see him meet up with Nigel Farage. They a passionate conversation about nationalism. Bannon believes that Trump’s election was a direct consequence of the Brexit referendum. “Victory begets victory”, he sums it up. We also watch him meet up with smaller and less significant leaders from the European far-right, including countries such as Belgium and Sweden.

His Make American Great Again rhetoric – which he describes as “economic nationalism” – resonates very well very European far-right leaders such as Viktor Orban, Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen. Bannon and Le Pen deliver speeches that are virtually identical. They claim that people of any gender, race and sexuality can be American/French, as long as they put their country ahead of everything else. Conveniently, religion is left out of this bizarre “diversity” statement. That’s because Islamophobia is the central pillar of the far-right. It’s as if they were saying: “You can make up for being Black, female and gay as long as you too hate Muslims and immigrants”. The Brink reveals that Bannon is articulating a major far-right alliance in order to take control of the EU Parliament. The film title suggests that he’s on the cusp of a major international breakthrough. Thankfully, this did not materialise (something which the film does not address, as it was finished long before Sunday results were announced).

Despite denying any neo-Nazi tendencies, Bannon does not conceal his admiration for the Führer and some of his associates. The describes the “engineering excellence” of Birkenau with sheer awe. The book Hitler Sites sits on his desk. And he asks himself out loud “What would Leni Riefenstahl do?” when thinking strategically. He claims that propaganda is good thing.

He also denies his that his European friends are neo-fascists, despite being confronted with evidence from the horse’s mouth (an Italian associate who has repeatedly confirmed that he’s indeed a neo-fascist). The film director Alison Klayman never challenges Bannon, opting to keep a distance instead. Guardian journalist Paul Lewis who asks the most incendiary questions, exposing the dangerous nature of Stephen Bannon’s work. Klayman captures Lewis as he interviews Bannon, fly-on-the-wall style.

While insightful, The Brink is also a timid documentary. I would hazard a guess that Bannon influenced the final cut, or at least had a say on which images could be used. The conversations with the far-right are very superficial, with nothing controversial being said. Despite the expletive-laden outbursts and the Nazi inclinations, he still comes across as a likeable person. Ths documentary fails to expose his most inflammatory comments about Muslims, his claim that people should wear racism “as a badge of honour”, and his connections to white supremacists and the KKK.

The Brink showed at the Sheffield Doc Fest, when this piece was originally written. It’s in cinemas on Friday, July 12th.

Widow of Silence

Posted on by victorfraga

Aasia (Shilpi Marwaha), a mother of an 11-year-old girl who co-habits with her ailing mother-in-law, is a half widow: “married, but without a husband”. Her spouse found himself in the Indian army and has not been heard of since. She shares the same story with many women in her village. She has scoured each of the hospitals, morgues, locales for any word. None is given. The tale of the disappeared is one of universal horror and despondency. In this Urdu-language drama, director Praveen Morchhale details the system which dehumanises the many women within their community.

The film opens with the frame of an elderly woman, tied to her chair by a young woman. Bound in her chair, the old woman sits by a clandestine window, shadowing the nature which prohibits her freedom. It’s a telling metaphor by which the rest of the film follows. Though freedom and opportunity are within reach, there are material constraints that separate women from their destination.

It is her son who has gone missing. Her daughter-in-law Aasia must venture throughout the city, which one man describes as “God and Heaven on Earth”. Marwaha is staggering, delivering a motionless performance, internalising the pain she faces when she’s informed that her land can be sold off without her consent. Between frames, she lives in agonising purgatory, unable to re-marry, despite her obvious widowed state.

Finally, she plays to her strengths by asking the District Collector for her husband’s death certificate. He refuses, but later yields on condition she sleeps with him. The afflicted manner by which a human should live their life is filmed naturalistically, long takes displaying the everyday reality people around the world face in a continued, unresolved nightmare.

Shot in 17 days, there are some parallels to the #MeToo milieu. Though the topic matter is universal, this side comparison makes it more appetising for Western audiences to digest. Iranian cinematographer Mohammad Reza Jahanpanah paints the shots with a distant frame. The camera captures the surrounding events objectively and apolitically, with naturalistic display. Harrowing, heavy, haggard. A must-see!

Widow of Silence shows at the The Bagri Foundation London Film Festival. The event celebrates a decade of bringing the best new South Asian films to the UK, with 5 cities, 25 venues and 25 specially curated films. It starts on 20th June 2019 in London continues until 8th July 2019, at cinemas across the UK. For more information on the Festival just click here.

Freedom Fields

Posted on by victorfraga

Freedom is a very elusive concept. Progressive Westerners (myself included) use the term in order to describe the notions and principles that fit it with our diversity and equality ideals. In this case, the Libya’s Women’s National Football Team are fighting for their freedom to play and also to represent their country abroad. The country has just experienced a very sudden, violent and radical regime change. Freedom Fields is a documentary captured between the years of 2012 and 2016, immediately after the Libyan Civil War (Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power and killed in 2011). It celebrates “freedom” from a very Western perspective.

These empowered women are an affront’s to some of the country’s most orthodox elite. Such “Westernization” is heavily frowned upon. We see a religious leader express his ire on national television. God must be infuriated at the copious female legs exposed, he claims. Two years after the Civil War, the Team are told that they can not fight a tournament abroad due to their very own security. They abide, yet remain determined to change country’s attitude towards women’s football in the near future.

It’s remarkable that these women remain determined to achieve personal liberation and social transformation through football in such a conservative, patriarchal and also volatile society. There’s a lot of anger and frustration in the air. One of the females opens up her heart inside a car: “Women could play under the previous regime. They can play in Iran, Iraq and even places with Sharia law. Why can’t we play here?”. Perhaps the Civil War (described as the “Revolution” throughout this doc) wasn’t as liberating as many people expected.

The documentary provides some interesting yet partial insight into post-Gaddafi’s Lybia. The camerawork isn’t particularly impressive, but this is natural for a piece of guerrilla-like filmmaking with very limited resources. The biggest problem with Freedom Fields is that it’s clumsily edited and poorly contextualised. I struggled to follow the personal stories of the individual footballers. The narrative is often unintelligible. The political context is also muddled. We hear that Gaddafi’s supporters are still active and threatening to take back control, yet we never learn how their attitude towards women compares to the attitude of post-“Revolution” rulers.

At the end of the film, we find out about the fate of each individual woman. One of them becomes a doctor, another one sets up an NGO, while a third one is still fighting to return to her war-ridden native territory. Yet, we never find out about the fate of the National Football Team and the concrete achievements of the women’s rights agenda in Libya as a whole.

Overall, Freedom Fields is an inspiring yet sketchy piece of political documentary-making. It was in cinemas across the UK on Friday, May 31st, in the run up to the 2019 Women’s World Cup. On Mubi on Friday, July 31st (2021).

The Dead Don’t Die

Posted on by victorfraga

The inhabitants of the small American town Centerville are experiencing very strange incidents and changes. Farmer Miller’s chickens and cats have vanished. The cows have run into the woods. Days are longer than usual. Television informs the locals that the Earth has suddenly been thrown off its axis due to intensive fracking in the polar region, explaining these and the many more unusual events about to unfold.

A male and a female zombies come out of their grave. They look like rockers after a seven-day binge. The male is played by Iggy Pop (the subject of Jarmusch’s previous film Gimme Danger, from 2016). The ravenous marauding corpses proceed to kill and eat the flesh of two women at the local diner. Officers Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray), Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) and Minerva Morrison (Chloë Sevigny) arrive one by one at the “crime scene”, but they do little more than speculate that was done by “one wild animal, or maybe several wild animals”.

Tilda Swinton plays the eccentric Zelda Winston, who happens to be a funeral, a mortician and also a samurai. The officers describe her as “weird” because she has very strong Scottish accent (this is the character’s accent; Swindon is a Londoner). She’s very skilled with her sword, and she decapitates the many zombies that climb out of their resting place in the second part of the movie. The officers prefer to neutralise the zombies by blowing off their heads with their weapons. The important thing is “to kill the head”, we are told several times in the film. Soot – and not blood – gushes out every time one of the undead loses their head.

The director uses repetition abundantly for comedic purposes. Phrases such as “kill the head” and “one wild animal, maybe several wild animals” are repeated ad infinitum. Sturgill Simpson’s song The Dead Don’t Die (which also lends itself to the film title) is heard several times during the movie, and the characters constantly allude to it. Jim Jarmusch likes repetition, and not just for comic reasons.

The script of The Dead Don’t Die is purposely absurd. The end is magnificently preposterous, with an unlikely family reunion, a UFO and more. There are several references to George Romero, such a lonely car driving a quiet road in the opening sequence (similar to Night of the Living Dead, from 1968). The name of the director is mentioned in the middle of the of the movie.

The undead return to life seeking the things to which they were most attached. The constantly mumble: “coffee”, “candy” and “wifi”. Yet don’t expect any profound social connotations, allusions to racism and consumerism. It’s impossible to make such commentary better than Romero did it himself, so how about mocking… the filmmaking process itself? That’s why the characters talk about the creative process itself. Officer Ronnie (Driver) notes “that the film will end badly” because he read it on the script. Bill Murray’s character even discusses his relationship with Jarmusch.

Ultimately, this is not a criticism of capitalism, the American establishment, the American obsession with guns or anything also vaguely political. In reality, The Dead Don’t Die is a film about the futility of cinema. Movie stars are like zombies. They never die. They keep coming back to haunt us film after film.

The Dead Don’t Die premiered in competition at the 72nd Cannes International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. A refreshing pick from a selection that tends to reject more mainstream genre films. It’s out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, July 12th. On VoD on Monday, November 18th.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu)

Posted on by victorfraga

The story takes place in 1770 in rural Brittany. An Italian aristocrat (Valeria Golino) has found a wedding partner for her beautiful young daughter Heloise (Adele Haenel), who just returned from a convent to live with her mother is her enormous estate house. Her husband-to-be lives in Milan, and Heloise has never met him. Her mother commissions Marianne (Noemie Merlant) to paint her daughter in secret because Heloise would never consent to it (presumably because the picture will be sent to her prospective husband). Marianne pretends to be Heloise’s mere companion, working alongside the housemaid Sophie (Luana Bajrami). Heloise’s sister has recently committed suicide, likely due to the prospect of a similar marital arrangement. This means that the burden on Marianne is enormous. Could Heloise too attempt to take her own life?

This is a film almost entirely made by women. The writer director is female, and so is the cinematographer (Claire Mathion). Virtually all the characters are female, too. Men are only seen in the end of this 119-minute movie, in entirely secondary roles. Yet this is a film about men and the subtle ways that they oppress women. Heloise regrets having to marry a man whom she has never met. Marianne is not allowed to become a fully-fledged painter because the artistic establishment prohibits her from studying male anatomy. Her father signs some of her paintings. Sophie becomes pregnant and the burden of an abortion is entirely on her and other females supporting her. While men are nowhere to be seen, the tools of domination and despotism are very visible.

Interestingly, Heloise found freedom and equality in the most unlikely place: the convent. She wishes to return to the institution instead of marrying the Italian stranger. But she then finds exciting in yet another place devoid of males: in bed with Marianne. Marianne becomes increasingly infatuated with Marianne as she secretly observes her subject in order to paint her. She learns to read her every single gesture: a wink, a smile, a grimace, and so on. And vice-versa. Heloise too deciphers Marianne in more ways than one. Once Heloise’s mother goes away for just five day, the romantic liaison quickly morphs into a sexual one. The lovemaking sequences are subtle and sensual, as is most of the movie.

This is also a very erudite movie about the nature of painting and the relation between various types of arts. Marianne attempts to describe the sound of an orchestra to country girl Heloise, noting that it’s virtually impossible to translate music into words. A group of women chant as Sophie undergoes a very strange abortion procedure. The ancient literary legend of Orpheus and Eurydice is the subject of a night reading, and also of one of Marianne’s painting. Plus Marianne is not satisfied with her painting of Heloise, often questioning its connection to reality. Cinema, painting, music and literature complement and comment eloquently on each other.

My only reservation about Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that it gets a little lethargic and stern. The action is so quiet, subtle and observational that it becomes a little disengaging. It lacks the punch factor.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire premiered at the 72nd Cannes International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It won the Queer Palm and also the Best Screenplay Prize. It wasn’t the only award-winning film at the Festival this year reflecting on the impact of subtle male oppression. It’s out in the UK in October, as part of the Cambridge and the BFI London Film Festival. In cinemas on Friday, February 28th (2020). It can be viewed on MUBI for 30 days from April, 10th.

The Whistlers (La Gomera)

Posted on by victorfraga

Silbo Gomero is a whistled language used by the inhabitants of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, a community with no more than 20,000 inhabitants. It’s basically a transposition of Spanish from speech to whistling, but it can also be used with sounds from other languages. You stick a finger in your mouth, in a way very similar to wolf-whistling. It enables messages to be exchanged over a distance of up to five kilometres. The centuries-old language is extremely difficult to learn. The Whistlers doesn’t tell you any of this, but it’s useful to know just in case you decide to devout 97 minutes of your life to this film.

This Romanian crime thriller follows the footsteps of Romanian police officer Cristi (veteran actor Vlad Ivanov) as he arrives in La Gomera in order to infiltrate the mafia and recover €30 million concealed inside a mysterious mattress. He gains the trust of Gilda (Catrinel Marlon) and Kiko (Antonio Buil), who teach him the coded language (in Romanian) so that he can communicate efficiently with mobsters from a distance and without being caught. He miraculously learn it virtually overnight (which is very implausible, given the intricacy of the unusual language). Their objective is to release Zsolt (Sabin Tambrea) from prison back in Bucharest, as he’s the only person who knows where said mattress is hidden.

Cristi is overseen by police chief Magda (Rodica Lazar). She has installed surveillance cameras in his apartment so that her team can monitor his activities. She’s profoundly corrupt herself. After all, this is Romania. She’s prepared to plant drugs, to frame and and even poison those who stand on her way. She demands that Cristi engages in her unscrupulous practices, but he refuses. Cristi is the most morally ambiguous character, and for much of the film you will be trying to work out who his allegiance lies with (the corrupt police or the whistling criminals).

Romanian New Wave director Corneliu Porumboiu is best remembered for his more ruminative dramas, such as The Unsaved (2013) and Le Tresor (2015), yet this is not entirely new territory for him. He has previously directed Police, Adjective (2009), about a copper who refuses who to arrest a young man sharing drugs to his friends. The Whistlers, however, is far more violent and fast-faced than his previous films. It contains all the key ingredients of a crime thriller.

Unfortunately the film narrative is also a real mess. It moves back and forth between the Canary Islands and Spain, with a very bizarre ending in Singapore. It’s often difficult to work out exactly where the action is taking place. The action is roughly divided into chapters named after each one of the characters, yet these sections do not fit in together. In fact, I could only work out the film plot for this review after reading the synopsis. There are numerous twists and turns. Yet no reason and no rhyme. I simply couldn’t make head or tail of it.

The soundtrack is strangely hybrid. It opens up with Iggy Pop’s the Passenger as Cristi arrives on the island, moving on to Chavela Vargas, Maria Callas, classical music and even a quirky German song. I’m not sure how these tunes fit into the narrative. Their choice seems entirely random and idiosyncratic. This is a pretentious and incoherently-crafted piece of entertainment. Porumbuiu should have stuck to his more subtle and meditative dramas. Give it a miss.

The Whistlers showed in competition at the 72nd Cannes International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. On VoD on Friday, May 8th (2019). On Netflix from December (2020).