Month: October 2019

A Bump Along the Way

Posted on by victorfraga

Thankfully, this isn’t a Northern Irish film about a girl growing up in The Troubles. Instead,this is a Northern Irish film about a girl growing up through her very own and personal troubles. Allegra (Lola Petticrew), a dewy-eyed teenager, walks through the streets that fought for identity in a way not dissimilar to how she fights for her identity. As she struggles through school, Allegra puts up with taunts mocking her Italian name and her care free mothers’ insouciant lifestyle. Described by her mother as 15-going-on-50, Allegra feels the burden of adulthood. As she fights for her coming-of-age, her mother Pamela (Bronagh Gallagher) admits to her of an impending birth, given to her by a man she barely knows anything about.

Gallagher is brilliant, but Petticrew is the real star of the piece. She walks by the water, wading the puddles her mother will soon face in a maternity ward. The silence works on Petticrew, starry-eyed as she looks to the beauty her best friends’ boyfriend holds. This silent discretion becomes one of public indiscretion as the cruel effects of alcohol loosen her tight-lipped tongue. Faced with her own embarrassment to match her mother’s, Allegra screams at her parent, agreeing with her dead grandmother that Pamela is an embarrassment.

Like most mothers do, Pamela takes the laceration from daughter by reminding herself of the struggles adolescence holds. Crueller lacerations come from the two men who gifted/burdened her with pregnancies, one reluctant to open his chequebook, the other flatly refusing to do so. The father of her unborn child pushes by her on pathways, her anxiety and discomfort rewarded neither by pardon nor apology. The father of her teenage daughter is a little better. Busying himself in Belfast, he boasts about his considerable success, yet finds little reason to visit Allegra on her 16th birthday. What starts off as a sickly sweet Richard Curtis affair soon turns into a feisty, fiery feminist movie with some dirtylicious pearls of wisdom about fatherhood.

And yet the film never veers from the dysfunctional into the disturbing. Between the two women, there is great love felt, not least when Allegra asks her mother the joys and trials pregnancy provides. Beautiful.

A Bump Along the Way is in cinemas Friday, October 11th.

Ed Wood

Posted on by victorfraga

After making two big studio films, in 1994 Tim Burton opted for a change of pace with the real-life story of one of Hollywood’s most notorious directors in Ed Wood. The film, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2019, is a loving recreation of 1950s Hollywood – but it’s not the glamorous town we’re used to seeing in fare like Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly/ Stanley Donen, 1952) but instead the more drab and desperate workplace of the struggling filmmaker.

That filmmaker is Edward D. Wood Jr, said by some to be the worst to ever pick up a director’s megaphone. Played by Johnny Depp, Wood’s perception of his work is clouded by unflappable enthusiasm and determination. He is a man who is able to turn set-backs into opportunities: “Worst movie you ever saw?” he says in an exchange with a studio chief, “Well, my next one will be better!”

A failed theatre director and studio lot worker, Wood’s dreams one day of making his own films finally come to fruition after a chance encounter with one of his childhood idols, the Universal horror star Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), who has hit one of the lowest points in his life.

Though Wood is overjoyed to have Lugosi in his corner, he is not as big a pull in the film world as he once was. Many in the industry think only of him as a has-been, others are surprised that he isn’t dead. At first Lugosi is in it for the money and the chance to work again, but he soon comes to see Wood as a friend. Landau’s scenes are among the most effective in the film, powerfully showing the tragedy of a faded film star.

Much of Ed Wood’s remainder follows the making of the director’s three-peat: Glenn or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), as well as the bizarre and hilarious behind-the-scenes incidents that went on during their production.

Wood uses his first script to come out as transvestite, steals a giant model octopus in the dead of night and persuades the entire Plan 9 crew to be baptised in order to secure the funding of a church group – and all of this actually happened!

This is one of those films where you can feel the passion and enthusiasm just coming off the screen. It’s easy to see why Tim Burton responded to the project and directs it with such vigour: the story of a filmmaker, who befriended ageing film stars (Burton himself was friends with Vincent Price late in his life), breaking away from studios after bad experiences (Burton had previously been fired by Disney and Warner Bros.), determined to see out his vision.

Burton isn’t the only one who is on form here; Stefan Czapsky’s black-and-white photography is impressive to marvel at and there’s a well-crafted screenplay from the ever-dependable screenwriting duo of Scott Alexander and Larry Karazewski.

As Wood, Johnny Depp is full of fervour and energy and has no hang-ups in the cross-dressing scenes, which help him create a well rounded and thoroughly convincing character. The supporting cast, including Patricia Arquette, Bill Murray and Jeffrey Jones, also give their all.

What makes Ed Wood unique is that it isn’t the normal biographical film that follows its subject from their early struggles to their later superstardom, as Wood does not become the renowned director he aspires to be. Instead the film follows him from struggle to struggle until he reaches what would have been the happiest point in his life – somewhat cruelly, it then ends without showing his later years, which weren’t quite so happy.

On original release it was critically acclaimed but was not a financial success – a real injustice but one befitting its subject matter. Burton continued this B-movie inspired streak with his next film, Mars Attacks! (1996). Later, he returned to the hyper-stylised gothic fare he made his name with.

Even with some aspersions that have been cast over its historical accuracy, Ed Wood remains a boundlessly entertaining film made with true passion and expertise, and a quarter century later it remains one of the best and most overlooked films of the 1990s.

This review was written to coincide with the film’s 25th anniversary in October 2019. No re-release has been planned, but the film is widely available on various VoD platforms.

Monos

Posted on by victorfraga

Growing up is never easy – but it is even tougher if you’re a member of a member of a paramilitary squad in the remote and wild countryside. Winner of the top prize on both the international fiction competition at this year’s Sundance, where it premiered, and the official competition at the London Film Festival earlier this month, the production follows the titular people – a group of youngsters who are part of a shadowy entity known only as The Organisation. When not receiving an intensive and vaguely ritualistic physical training, they are responsible for guarding one of its prisoners as well as a milking cow.

One day, trouble besets the group. First, one of them accidentally kills the cow, with the subsequent cover-up operation disrupting their sense of mutual trust. Then, in this agitated state of mind, a military advance from the Organisation’s adversaries forces them to abandon their usual post and hide in the dense jungle. From this point on, tensions escalate and, soon enough, allegiances are put to the test.

Away from society, their only link to the outside world is their American hostage, with whom they don’t speak much due to a language barrier. In the wilderness, galvanised by their belief system of their superiors, they make up their own social behaviour, sometimes defying gender norms and allowing for a free exploration of their sexuality. For all his masculinity and bravado, Bigfoot (Moisés Arias) is shown wearing fishnet stockings during a party. There’s enough to suggest that young lad Rambo (Sofia Buenaventura) has a crush on fellow squad member Wolf (Julián Giraldo) and some sexual tension runs in the interactions between Swede (Laura Castrillón) and Doctor.

All of this takes a back seat when their relationship with each other starts to crumble. With the pulsating score by composer Mica Levi setting the tone, the fallout of the group brings to mind William Goulding’s novel Lord of the Flies with, with the individual needs of each member overshadowing collective goal. Bigfoot clearly wants power, Swede wants attention, Rambo wants comfort, and so on. Severed from everyone, including their military leaders, they dive into anarchy.

At turns, the feature resembles a less operatic Latin American answer to Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979). However, the way Landes uses the jungle as a major visual component in his protagonists’s psychological breakdown shares a lot more with fellow Colombian Ciro Guerra’s trippy Embrace of the Serpent (2016) than with Francis Ford Coppola’s classic.

Ultimately, Monos uses the growing pains of the group as a backdrop to an intense thriller that leaves a lasting impression. It is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, October 25th. On VoD on Monday, February 17th.

Black And Blue

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Right at the start of this, Naomie Harris is walking along a New Orleans street when she’s stopped and harassed by two cops. For no reason. Well, there is a reason: she’s black and the cops are white. Except that, as she points out, she herself is a cop too. She’s blue. So reluctantly they have to let her go.

Alicia West (Harris) may be a rookie in her first weeks as a cop, but she’s hardly inexperienced, having served as a soldier in Afghanistan’s Kandahar. She’s joined the police at the same time as officers are being required to wear body cams and thinks these a good idea. However she underestimates the levels of violence meted out by police to members of the public and, conversely, by members of the public to police. Covering for her partner cop Kevin Jennings (Reid Scott) who had planned an evening with his wife before being asked to do a night shift at short notice, she finds herself working alongside grizzled veteran Deacon Brown (James Moses Black) and is shocked to see him use what she thinks is excessive force on a man outside a nightclub. It turns out, however, that the man had a gun and wouldn’t have hesitated to use it on her.

Later on their shift, Brown gets a call which leads them to a warehouse in a derelict urban wasteland. He tells her to stay in the car while he goes inside, but after hearing gunshots she goes in after him . The scene that comes next is the one upon which the film pivots. She sees someone shot – indeed, executed is not too strong a word – by a police officer before the gun is turned on her person and she falls several storeys. Worse, the bent cops have seen her body cam.

From here on in it’s a game of cat and mouse as witness rookie cop attempts to get cam and footage back to headquarters to upload it to the system while a combination of corrupt cops and criminals will stop at nothing to prevent her doing so. Shooter Terry Malone (Frank Grillo) informs the intimidating Darius (Mike Colter) that Alicia West shot Darius’ nephew Zero, so Darius puts the word out by mobile phone. So Alicia finds that not only the bad guys but the entire local community are after her as well. That includes the standoffish Missy (Nafessa Williams), the friend she couldn’t persuade to leave town with her all those years ago.

The film has a further ace up its sleeve in the form of Milo ‘Mouse’ Jackson (a memorable Tyrese Gibson) in whose general store West hides from the cops after every domestic door upon which she knocks refuses her entry. He calls the cops and consequently finds himself on the receiving end of racist abuse. Later, he turns out to be the one friend West has in her quest to deliver the footage and see justice done.

The tense action scenes which follow are skilfully choreographed and photographed and will keep you on the edge of your seat. As a gritty, cops and robbers film, this consequently does everything that’s required of it – and on one level, that ought to be enough. However, the indictment of racism underpinning the whole, with its privileged white cops and its ordinary black locals who don’t trust them because they simply can’t afford to is part of what raises the film to a whole other level. The urban deprivation of post-Katrina New Orleans further underscores all this. And better still, it’s not trying to make a Big Worthy Statement about the US and racism – the racism is simply there as an undercurrent of everything else that’s going on, a far more effective way of highlighting the issue.

Terrific performances by all concerned help no end. Naomie Harris completely convinces as the blue caught between the white privilege of her profession and the black community in which she grew up. Harris has never had a role quite like this – and what she puts on the screen is a revelation.

Finally, be advised that the trailer sells the film as a solid action film. In one sense, that’s true, that’s exactly what it is. However, churning out a run of the mill, bog standard industry trailer does the film a terrible disservice, implying it’s little more than Studio multiplex filler. Yet it’s so much more. This is a dirtylicious gem where you were expecting a mere, by-the-numbers action movie. Don’t miss.

Black And Blue is out in the UK on Friday, October 25th. Available on VoD in March. Watch the film trailer below:

A Rainy Day in New York

Posted on by victorfraga

Two young adults from wealthy backgrounds are in their formative years at a liberal arts school. Timotee Chalamet’s ‘Gatsby Welles’ is a sensitive, intellectual type; a rudderless chancer, content with a demimonde of high stakes poker games and dive bar pianists. His college paramour Ashley Enreight has adjacent sentiments and harbours journalistic ambitions (Elle Fanning, playing the Arizona country girl). These differences in temperament are smoothed by earnest youth and a mutual love of North American cinema classics – a passion that leads the pair to finally take a much discussed romantic weekend in New York as Ashley is tasked with interviewing Liev Schreiber’s arthouse director for their local newspaper.

This premise sets the scene for odysseys through two distinct NYCs as the characters are soon separated, plans gone awry. Gatsby hails from Old Money circles of New York and is desperate to demonstrate his authentic New Yorker credentials through a tour of hotel piano bars and Central Park brooding spots. All whilst unsuccessfully avoiding his commitment to attend his mother’s ‘autumn ball’ with likewise wealthy friends. This cloistered, chandaliered world is played in stark contrast to the quickly escalating silver screen adventures of Ashley. Screenwriters, film stars and paparazzi move across a different stage of modern split-floor apartments and trendy parties, with the frenetic neuroticism of the newly minted. Together, both settings are distinctly unrelatable to an average viewer and I was left wondering who exactly this film was made for, if not solely Woody Allen. The story of a developing college romance is more relatable but kept at a physical remove by the separation of the principals.

A similarly self-indulgent meta-referential thread runs through the film. Characters discuss New York movie clichés whilst living New York movie clichés. There is a sense that these scenes are played tongue-in-cheek but the distinct lack of irony belies this purpose. Likewise, dialogue is ropy with the vast majority of punchlines falling flat. The filmmaking setting gives room for parody and practically every male figure can be construed as a reflection of Allen and his insecurities.

There is an attempt to deconstruct the idea of the ‘muse’ as the somewhat pathetic older male figures are shown to fawn over the not-so-naïve Ashley, claiming that her voice is the only thing to get through to them whilst pushing for a more physical intimacy. This makes for uncomfortable viewing, considering the acknowledged female inspirations throughout Allen’s ouvre against the backdrop of his own sexual conduct. It feels a defense of sorts – as if by highlighting the absurdity of the lecherous filmmakers he can absolve his own allegations. It is as transparent as the Catcher In the Rye references. Less an homage and more a direct trasnposition, one scene even has Gastby lamenting the ‘phonies’ of his mother’s acquaintance in a bar scene that could have been ripped from the novel.

At least performances are strong, with both Chalamet and Fanning adding youthful charisma to the otherwise tepid script. A turn by Selena Gomez as the younger sister of Gatsby’s high school beau is also integral, though more unconvincing. However, the question remains, are journeyman acting and muddled themes enough to justify this film’s existence? There is a maelstrom of issues surrounding Allen and the release of this film that have been covered elsewhere. Suffice to say, should we be bending ethics backwards to ‘separate art from artist’ when the creative output is this stale or is his time truly up?

Charles Williams is a British-born writer based in San Sebastian, Spain, where A Rainy Day in New York has seen a theatrical release. The movie is out on VoD in the UK on Friday, June 5th (2020)

Ladyworld

Posted on by victorfraga

Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015) resembled something more of a play than a film. Set in the wooden confines that a stagecoach lodge sheltered eight strangers, the indulgent run time devalued a compelling premise which otherwise could have granted Tarantino a winner. That’s where Ladyworld comes in, composing an eerily similar premise, but mindfully keeps the viewers attention long enough to enjoy the stellar powerhouse ensemble.

This is a film by women, about women and for women. It understands them in an unconstrained way. The characters, not a man among them, find themselves in various points of dress, undress and duress as they try to navigate themselves in a situation which has literally locked them into the party. Between them, they fight to see who should lead the group to safety. Piper (Annalise Basso) with all her Machiavellian qualities, finds the more grounded Olivia (Ariela Barer) a competitor for the title, while the others struggle with the natural fears of adolescence and the will to survive.

Amanda Kramer has a theatrical background, easily discernible in her style of filmmaking. Characters are more important than the camera. The director does, however, offer moments of directorial inventiveness, not least with some slow Gilliam style close-ups detailing the mass claustrophobia settling in.

Through a thick impasto of cuts, we watch the heroines huddle from doorways to hallways before perching in a tautened, orderly nest on the cupboards. There is an unnerving acidity at play as viewers and actors nestle in the hurried house, with food, nerves and water on short supply. This is trick of discomfort has been traditionally kept for the theatre stage, as actors and punters join each other in gaped breath as they ask of each other their will to survive.

And then there’s that gut punch of an ending as we watch the characters wade in the bathed sunlight of fiery despair. Silently, the credits roll over the tattered leads as the single moment induces the varied tear filled responses each of us finds on our life’s journey.

If Quentin Tarantino isn’t green with envy, he should be! Ladyworld is in cinemas on Friday, October 18th. On VoD Monday, October 28th.

Tell Me Who I Am

Posted on by victorfraga

Seventeen-year-old Alex Lewis suffered a near-fatal motorcycle accident in 1982, which left him in a profound comma. Upon waking up, he immediately recognised his identical twin Marcus, who was on his bedside. However, he failed to identify his mother and his very own identity. He also forgot everything that he had experienced up to that date. It was like being born again. Marcus had to remind him of his past, and to teach him the most menial tasks, such as operating household devices.

Alex gradually realised that there was something unusual about his aristocratic upbringing. His mother was caring and yet very distant. His stepfather was entirely emotionally absent. He learnt that the brothers only went on holidays with friends, and never with their own parents. Fifteen years later, their mother passed away, and Alex came across come unsettling evidence that something very untoward and non-motherly had taken place throughout their youth. He confronts Marcus, but his brother is simply too scared, and refuses to open up.

More than two decades later, Oscar-nominated Ed Perkins interviews both brothers separately in the first two acts of the movie. They are now married men in the fifties with children of their own. They are given the opportunity to open up and to face the demons that have tormented them for so long. At one point, a teary Marcus reveals the morbid details of what had happened in their youth. It wasn’t just an isolated event, but instead a harrowing and yet normalised pattern. His confession is recorded and played back to his brother, who is perplexed to learn the truth. In the third and final act, the two brothers meet up and finally talk about the unspeakable, in an attempt to reconcile their differences and leave the horrific past behind.

The gigantic mansion where the family lived (located somewhere in rural England) is constantly featured in the film, from both inside and outside. It gives the film a sombre and mysterious tone. The old-fashioned timber frame house has a dark driveway and a creepy pearly gate – the stuff of horror movies. The naked tree branches cast a shadow over the dwelling and the existence of the two adults. The photographs from a disturbing past in the attic provide the final touch to this sinister story.

But this is not a horror film. It’s not exploitative, either. The brothers open up at their own pace, and the director seems to respect their wishes and fears. This is a movie about reconciliation. It’s also a very brave endeavour, which will encourage other males who have suffered a similar ordeal to come forward and heal their very own wounds. There is a taboo associated with masculinity that makes this story very painful and embarrassing. Horrific things can happen to people regardless of class, gender and nationality.

Tell me Who I am is in UK cinemas and also on Netflix on Friday, October 18th.

Suzi Q

Posted on by victorfraga

Before Madonna preached to her father, before Stevie Nicks rocked for Rhiannon, before Chrissie Hynde used her imagination, Suzi Quatro was already plucking her bass guitar. Laced in leather, the Detroit singer-songwriter was one of the spiciest rock stars of the seventies, straddled behind her bass, voice belting out the beefy glam rock singles with thunderous punch. Her fans wheeled from the alternative spectrums of rock (Tina Weymouth) to the three chord roughness of the virile Runaways. And you don’t need to take my word for it; they’ll tell you themselves in this documentary!

Unabashedly self-aggrandising , the film showcases the electricity of her performances, each of them committed in their ambition. The cluster of interviewees here have it right when they say Quatro locked an infectious sound both on stage and on record. Alice Cooper effuses: “Suzi is an innovator”, detailing the highs the 69-year-old rocker achieved in her ever-growing career. Hardened Quatro fan Joan Jett was mistaken for the songwriting bass player after many Happy Days fans zoned in for the musical segments just as Debbie Harry’s voice was mistaken for Suzi’s. But for Quatro, it was a struggle to achieve this success, belting her voice out in a male dominated genre to male buying cartels.

In this unrestrained, unexpurgated account of her career, Quatro lists the frustrations levelled against her based on her gender alone; one choice clipping shows the youthful artist enduring a smacked bottom as she walked on a late night chat show. The film coyly avoids making a contemporary gendered commentary amongst the new wave of rock stars, instead, focus is placed on this rocker’s life, of which Quatro is the most thoughtful declaimer. Through it all, Quatro played with integrity and reason, a stage performance that not only embraced her gender, but transcended it. Her music had cross sex-appeal as Quatro recalls that women considered her their hero, men held her picture on their bedroom walls.

Quatro does impart admiration for the younger generation through her offspring. The documentary ends with a look at her newest album – her 24th at that – a guitar heavy work which showcases her son’s six-string prowess. Greyer in appearance, Quatro still exudes an enthusiasm for the rock genre, leathered coats calling her attendees’ attention with the lyrical observance they offer her songs. Wryly, Quatro proudly admits she’s done what she was born to do. Much like the portrait it paints, the film is for those seeking a chest punching good night out.

Suzi Q is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, October 11th. On VoD in March.

The making-of of the Cambridge Film Festival

Posted on by victorfraga

The 39th edition of the Cambridge Film Festival starts this week. This year’s diverse programme includes over 150 titles from 30 countries from all continents. They range thrillers and dramas to comedies and documentaries created by the very best of both established (such as Ken Loach, Francois Ozon and Werner Herzog) and emerging filmmakers (such as Mati Diop and Aaron Schimberg).

We asked a few questions to the Stella Frangleton, who is currently the Festival’s Marketing Coordinator. She previously reviewed submissions for the event. She also runs a Young Film Programmers Group at The Abbeygate Cinema in Bury St Edmunds, and holds a degree in English and Film from King’s College London.

The Cambridge Film Festival takes place between October 17th and 24th. Click here for our top 10 picks from this year’s event, and here for the Festival’s full programme (and also in order to book your tickets now).

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Victor Fraga – You are the third-longest running film festival in the UK, and you are now in your 39th edition. Please tell us a little about the relationship between city of Cambridge and film.

Stella Frangleton – Cambridge is a very cinematic city with well known films and series such as The Theory of Everything (James Marsh, 2015), the Netflix drama series The Crown and ITV’s Grantchester being filmed in and around Cambridge. The Cambridge Film Festival has been a staple of the Cambridge cultural scene since 1977 and has been joined by other film festivals such as the Cambridge African Film Festival in 2002 and the Watersprite Student Film Festival in 2010. We have a vibrant community of film students at both Anglia Ruskin and Cambridge University, many of whom go on to work at the city’s various film events. Boasting three cinemas, this city is certainly one of film lovers.

VF – This year you are screening more than 150 titles from 30 countries. How many people are involved in the curatorial process, and do they work throughout the entire year?

SF – We have a pool of around 10 programmers who select films in a variety of ways. Some attend film festivals all year round to discover the latest and most inspiring films from around the world, whereas others create very specific programmes and are only with us for a small portion of the year. By having a variety of programmers who work in very different ways, our programme achieves an extremely high quality of content across the board and you’ll notice the high level of curation involved. We are well known for our strands such as Camera Catalonia, the Cambridge African Film Festival and the Family Film Festival as well as the great selection of previews and premieres on offer every year.

VF – Are there anecdotes from the past few years that you would like to share?

SF – We have had some very acclaimed directors submit short films to the festival in their fledgling years. Christopher Nolan had a short film accepted in the festival in 1996 and has gone on to become one of the best-known directors in the world having directed such films as Dunkirk (2017), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Inception (2010), Memento (2000), and his films have gone on to gross over $4.7 billion worldwide. Likewise, acclaimed British directors Andrea Arnold (2016′ American Honey, 2009’s Fish Tank) and Shane Meadows (This Is England, 2007) also had shorts screened at the festival before going on to have massively acclaimed careers.

VF – The Festival is run by the Cambridge Film Trust. Could Please tell us about the Trust activities outside the Festival?

SF – At Cambridge Film Trust we believe passionately about great cinema and making it accessible to all. We really feel that cinema can expose people to new perspectives and ideas, aiding cross-cultural understanding and contributing to community engagement and well being. To that end we have lots of events outside the festival throughout the year. Our most well known is Movie on the Meadows, one of the biggest outdoor cinema events in the UK which takes place every August and sees around 3,000 people enjoy amazing cinema in the picturesque location of the Grantchester Meadows. We run a large amount of free community screenings around Cambridge where we bring the latest blockbusters in the heart of communities for people who may not be able to access cinemas due to money, mobility or other social factors. We have brought in a Pay What You Can Afford scheme to our “A Film I Love” seasons at the Arts Picturehouse. We invite special guests to choose a film close to their heart and audiences can choose how much they pay. We are very proud of our year round activities and hope to continue to make greats films available to all.

VF – You have given out an Audience Award since 2015. Are there any plans to expand this, and to include, for example, a jury award?

SF – We are very proud of our Audience Award and have expanded to have a Youth Jury award as well. We recruit a jury of young people who learn about all different aspects of the film industry and watch and critique the film of the festival. We think these awards make the community feel included and we hope the Youth Jury award fosters future film talent.

VF – What’s your advice to both emerging and established filmmakers who want their work showcased at the Cambridge Film Festival?

SF – It may sound obvious but we really are excited about bringing the best cinema we can to our audiences. We welcome submissions from filmmakers at any stage in their career and our submissions team works through the massive amount of submissions rigorously from around March until September. We show submissions from student filmmakers, big name directors, with tiny budgets and with big ones. We just love great film and we feel that shows in our programme and the reputation the festival has for always having such a strong film selection.

All the images on this article are property of the Cambridge Film Festival.

White Snake (Baishe: Yuanqi)

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Conceived as a prequel to China’s White Snake legend which has spawned numerous adaptations including Green Snake / Ching se (Tsui Hark, 1993), this computer animated Chinese epic concerns demon sisters Blanca and Verta (voiced by Zhang Zhe and Tang Xiaoxi) who look to all intents and purposes like beautiful women but are actually demon snakes in disguise – a white snake and a green snake as you might guess from their names. With her power and form enhanced by her sister’s gift of a green hairpin, Blanca leaves the demon world and visits ours for a showdown with a human General trying to prove his worth to the Emperor by dabbling in occult rituals involving snakes. When the showdown doesn’t go as planned, Blanca finds herself alone and suffering a complete loss of memory as to who (and indeed what) she is.

She awakes in a small, human, rural village where the local economy is built on catching snakes for the General. Local boy Sean (Yang Tianxiang) has no interest in catching snakes, spending his time instead sourcing toys for the local children or inventing things. Smitten with the amnesiac Blanca, Sean is astonished when by magic she rescues his dog Dudou from falling off a mountain ledge and by further magic gives the animal a human voice. Sean eagerly scrambles after Blanca as she flies up perilous mountain terrain, trying hard to look beyond her growing a snake’s tail when she does so, preferring to think of her as a woman rather than a demon.

It’s a strange and somehow very Chinese combination of creature feature, mythology and full on romance with the girl torn between the human and demon realms and the boy trying to justify his feelings for her. The physical effects work that Hong Kong would have been used 25 years ago is replaced by CGI which is generally of a higher standard than you would expect. As well as the two sisters, the snakes include a whole army of snake people whose cinematic origins go right back to Ray Harryhausen’s human-torsoed, snake-tailed Medusa in Clash Of The Titans (1981) and his similarly built, dancing girl in The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (1958). The snake people’s leader, much like the two sisters, switches between woman and snake, in her case an ethereal, yellow fire snake.

Equally inventive is the creature that pulls the General’s chariot, which looks like a crane with three heads. Other highlights include a spectacular firebird and malevolent black manifestations of the General’s dark magic. When Sean and Blanca reach the forge where the green hairpin was made, they meet another demon in the form of a woman with two faces, one human and, when she turns round, one fox.

The whole thing is beautifully paced with never a dull moment. Full blooded romantics will be struck by a memorable ending which throws into the mix Chinese concepts of reincarnation. Anyone who enjoyed the action movies coming out of Hong Kong in their halcyon days of the eighties and nineties prior to Hollywood’s co-opting such stunts for The Matrix (The Wachowski Brothers, 1999) will love this. Hong Kong did some amazing stunts using aerial wire work back then, but that will only get you so far and White Snake puts CGI to full and highly effective use, getting the most out of the medium and achieving things that would be near impossible in live action. So, to all intents and purposes an old school Hong Kong action fantasy redone as computer animation – and it works wonderfully. A joy.

White Snake played in the BFI London Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. On Amazon Prime from February (2021).

Mystify: Michael Hutchence

Posted on by victorfraga

The famous statement of Socrates that the unconsidered life is not worth living had a terrible and poignant relevance to the life of Michael Hutchence. The saying is usually made in reference to the intellectual life but there is no reason why it cannot be applied psychologically. Michael Hutchence lived a doomed life because he did not understand what drove him and, coupled with a disastrous accident, ended up in depression, drug abuse, tangled relationships, despair and suicide. None of this was necessarily his fault.

He was brought up in a strange, dysfunctional way by parents who sincerely loved their children but treated them more like accessories, subjecting them to long periods of abandonment and separation. At one stage, Michael was separated from his brother Rhett by his mother for no other reason than she wanted to live in another place temporarily and wanted Rhett to be with her. He, his sister Tina and Rhett must have felt like the children of some divorced parents, who do not know whether they are really loved for themselves or are just a nuisance.

Consequently, he longed for love and appreciation, which he found only too successfully in huge rock concerts throughout the world. He was a brilliant performer (although strangely, not especially musically talented) and gave his all at concerts, driven by his inner needs but also devoured by his adoring audiences and, most notoriously, by certain women. He was, like many who are cursed by the gods, very beautiful, both as a boy and a man. He traded on this but, like Marilyn Monroe, was consumed by others in his beauty.

The worst offender in this was Paula Yates, who in the extraordinary interview she conducted with him on a bed on live TV, seemingly seduced him in public without actually taking her or his clothes off. Paula Yates was the worst person he could have run into. Completely without boundaries and a victim herself of a strange upbringing, she messed up completely a very vulnerable man. All this was compounded by an accident in Copenhagen, where he was struck by a boorish taxi driver, hit his head severely on the pavement and, undoubtedly, suffered brain damage, which altered his personality and caused him to lose his sense of smell and greatly heightened his aggressiveness.

The movie also investigates his far less dysfunctional relationship to Kylie Minogue.

Richard Lowenstein’s documentary outlines this sad story. This is not necessarily a film about the wicked rock business swallowing a man up and spitting him out again. Michael Hutchence eagerly embraced the business and gave it everything he had. On one level, he had everything you could have asked for, beautiful women, money, fame, luxury and adoration, yet it was all prompted by an inner emptiness.

My only reservation about Mystify is its lack of talking heads. Instead, one gets a lot of voiceover from recovered filming. Many people do not like the talking heads documentary as they feel it tends to drown out the viewer’s judgments and produces an unnecessarily pretentious and academic tone. Yet talking heads would have helped here as I was not informed beforehand by Michael Hutchence’s life. This is a tale that deserves to be told well beyond the rock milieu. It is a cautionary tale that could be told of any one of us who could be described as “driven”.

Mystify: Michael Hutchence is in cinemas Friday, October 18th. On VoD on Monday, November 9th.