Category: Review

The Peasants

Posted on by victorfraga

It’s a story as old as time: A young woman of child-bearing age must decide whether she wants to marry for love or for for security. And in this case, the young woman is Jagna, a beguiling blond beauty her mother boasts is the “pick” of the village. Jagna’s mother has promised her to Maciej Boryna, a farmer with large tracts of land that grow tremendous amounts of grain. But Jagna, sweet and innocent, thirsts for Maciej’s son Antek, whose passion for poetry matches his desire to prosper as a worker. He’s uncommonly attractive, and compares her to the land that grows his crops, but bowing to social conventions, Jagna agrees to wed the older Boryna.

Furious, Antek vacates himself from the village, only to return for a village dance. There he spots Jagna in an elegant red dress, which prompts him to dance with her in front of his disgraced father. Excited by the embrace, Jagna rediscovers her love for Antek, and vows to meet up with him whenever he calls for her. Maciej, suspicious of his son’s intentions, spots them mid coitus in a barn, and threatens to burn them alive. Worried for his life, Antek hides in a forest, only for Jagna’s reputation to sink. Within months, rumours spread that she has slept with the local mayor, and will spread her legs to any man who takes her fancy. In a delicious twist of irony, Antek has to answer the same question his beloved asked at the start of the film: Should he follow his heart and publicly support Jagna, or should he bow to the conventions of his country, and move on?

Considering the density of the book, it’s no surprise to hear that DK and Hugh Welchman have distilled the narrative for a palatable runtime, but what they’ve delivered captures both the aesthetic elements and the emotional undercurrents of the Nobel Prize winner. Using a painted animation technique, the Welchman’s unveil a Polish village drowning under snow during Winter, and suffocating under hot flames in Summer. Jagna is the most beautiful person in the village, and offers the elderly women a subject that amuses and horrifies them in equal measure. Part of it is jealousy, but Jagna’s headstrong nature does her little favours in an era when Catholicism governed its subjects with an iron fist. It’s her dangerous qualities that attracts Antek to her, despite being happily married himself, and fittingly he lies with her in the countryside, free from squabble and strife.

Visually, the paintings – carefully applied over 200,000 hours of filming – are spectacular, emulating every season with careful attention and acumen. Out of the four, the village looks prettiest during Spring, which might explain why the younger generation walk around with fewer outfits. While the majority of villagers make do with what they have, Jagna walks freely in the dresses her husband has spoiled her with. Naturally, it causes resentment, and in one almost blinding moment, she has to face the wrath of a horde of angry villagers who detest her entitlement and free-spirited nature.

The film makes terrific use of colour, paying particularly attention to the outfits worn by the high-profile wives who walk the town streets. There are flashes of blues, greens, yellows – but nothing tops the red dress Jagna wears. It’s almost dripping with blood, as if recalling the hard labour that went into crafting such a tender painting by hand. Stylistically, The Peasants holds up well, but the passion that cements the four disparate chapters together (each named after a Season of the year) that makes for compelling viewing.

Whether it’s that first kiss, or the purging sex they enjoy under an abandoned shed, there’s no denying the chemistry that exists between Jagna and Antek. In some ways, their love recalls the weather outside: When it’s snowy, they hold each other close, in an effort to contain what little warmth is in their graps, but when it’s warmer, they walk by a river, the storks exhibiting the freedom that exists in their hearts. But unlike the birds, the pair are duty bound to live out their lives in the village that has wronged them. No wings can carry them onward. Like the crops that keeps Poland fed, Jagna and Antek must contain their love buried beneath the soil.

The Peasants just premiered in the Baltic Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. In UK cinemas on Friday, December 8th. On VoD on Monday, March 25th

Dilli Dark

Posted on by victorfraga

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This is a sprawling comedy that paints a complicated picture of New Delhi, a city polluted by inherent racism and British imperialism.

Michael is a Nigerian man who loves and hates the city he now calls home. He’s determined to make something of himself, but his struggles are palpable, and spends his nights selling cocaine to up-market customers who make jokes about his other “package.” Aching to be recognised for who he truly is, he takes refuge in an ashram, where he engages with the spiritual practices that are available to him. He grows more and more attracted to his spiritual guru (who is played by Geetika Vidya Ohlyan), but when he realises that she wants him for his “powder”, he grows more dubious, and returns to the streets.

No, Dilli Dark is not a subtle film: Much of the film is about centred on the differences between “white powder” and “black skies”. Michael (played rather effectively by Samuel Abiola Robinson) is a man of contrasting identities: By day, he’s a precocious student who enjoys studying for his bright future – he’s even recorded saying that on camera. By night, by contrast, he’s a criminal who is subject to racial prejudice, although he’s danger – not forgetting his exotic nature – draws him to single women in search of a lay. It’s on this odyssey (yes, yes), he realises that he will always be a stranger, despite the myriad African people who populate the street.

But it’s not a ponderous watch. The film has many comedic moments, and although everyone gets to utter a gag or two, Ohlyan is the one with the best comic timing. She flits between spiritual Queen and fashion Queen, selling her mantras on a television, enjoying the arched eyebrows as she does so. In one hilarious setpiece, she starts a fight with a burly man in the hope of picking up the cocaine that will help her sell her “guidance”.

It helps that Ohlyan is a woman of rare beauty, and you could believe why a young man could fall so heavily for her. In another interesting comparison to Ulysses, Michael spends much of the time deep in thought, fantasising about another realm where he has influence far beyond the tawdry. Drawn to an Indian myth, Michael sees his betrothed as Razia Sultan, a Queen who enjoyed a sexual relationship with a black man before he was killed by the jealous villagers.

Dilli Dark is an impressively inventive work, one that reveres and chastises India in equal measure. It just premiered at the First Feature Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Inpaintings

Posted on by victorfraga

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Defne (Ahsen Eroğlu) is in a bit of a pickle. Her mother criticises her bohemian, freewheeling lifestyle; her friends chastise her tardiness and selfishness; and her grandfather – one of a select few who has been nothing but generous to her throughout her life – is dying from cancer. Worse, she’s dropped out of her studies, only to use her talent to restore a painting from the Ottoman Empire. Reluctant to take to the task, Defne finds it strangely therapeutic, and it gives her a purpose that is sorely missing from the cigarettes, cocktails and one night stands that keeps her going. Within weeks, she’s back on track to complete her studies – and more importantly, her life’s mission.

Inpaintings is a quietly beautiful affair, bolstered a fractured lead performance. In Defne, audiences witness the hedonism and withdrawal of a woman entering into her 30s. But there’s a sadness to Defne: The more she dedicates her creative and intellectual energy to restoring a painting, the less she gets to see her grandparents, who are fading away, bit by bit. She’s keenly aware of the irony that her dedication to history is what is preventing her from enjoying new memories. And yet her family recognise a change in her, sensing that she seems happier than she has been in some time. In one insightful phone call, she calls up her French professor to ask for guidance, awakening an interest in turning something archaic into something long-lasting.

Director Ozan Yoleri lets the Turkish star do much of the heavy lifting, leaving the camera to document the events as naturalistically as possible. The actor slips up only once in the film, throwing her paints over a canvas with the might of a Kardashian in mid strop, but for the most part, Eroğlu is strong, silent and stubborn – everything a woman on a quest to self fulfilment would be. What’s more, her scenes with her Grandfather have genuine character, and you can sense that the tears shed come from a real event in Eroğlu’s life.

Whether she’s intentionally going down the method route, I can’t be certain at this time of writing, but there’s definitely an authenticity to the lead role, whether it’s her use of cigarettes to reflect her frustration, or taking the time to iron out the ebbs that have entered the antique painting. One senses that the film could do with a higher budget, although the urgency adds another flavour to the finished product.

Watching it, the film could work pretty well as a play, although theatre audiences would miss out on the beach scenes, which are sepia coloured and genuinely gorgeous in their exhibition. There’s no co-star per se, but Zeynep Dinsel acquits herself nicely to the role of the mother. In one of the film’s sadder moments, Dinsel reveals the extent of her father’s illness, conjuring a pain that’s all too relatable for many people in the audience. If there’s an overriding message to the film it’s this: Do what you need to do in life, but always remember to lean on your family when needed.

Inpaintings just premiered at the First Feature Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Bad Actor (Un Actor Malo)

Posted on by victorfraga

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Mexican thespian Daniel Zavala (Alfonso Dosal) seems to have it all. He has a gorgeous wife, a baby he adores, and Robert Rodriguez wants him for his next film. Daniel seems to be enjoying his job as an actor, and is working with Sandra (Fiona Palmo) on an erotic thriller where they play stepchild and stepparent. Their chemistry is infectious, and they joke about filming the sex scenes “for real”. Things seem to be going well on the shoot, but the director notices a subtle change in Sandra’s expression during an intimate scene. Sandra seems bothered, and won’t speak to anyone. It’s only when the crew leaves the set that Sandra confesses her discontentment to two co-workers. She’s been raped by her co-star.

Daniel is furious to hear the accusation – he is, he insists, a happily married man. He calls in his lawyer, who questions the legitimacy of the evidence; a tape of a simulated love scene. The director is dubious too: why didn’t Sandra scream during the take? Things take a dicier turn when it’s discovered that someone has leaked the footage of the supposed rape online, and Daniel fears for the safety of his wife and child.

The movie does not use suspense as a device. That’s because we know from the outset that Daniel is guilty of assault. Nobody, not even Daniel’s lawyer, is convinced by his version of the events, which is a crying shame because the film definitely tries to sell himself off as a victim of an unjust accusation. Director Jorge Cuchi makes a curious decision to shift gears during the final third, throwing in a car chase that closes with vehicular carnage. At one point Daniel tries to herd off a gang of angry female protestors who are out for his blood, a complete tonal shift from what has been a compelling and fairly adult lo-fi drama.

Palmo, understandably, has the toughest gig of the cast. She has to play an abused woman who has her integrity questioned by not one, but two, lawyers. The questions are pointed: “Why didn’t you say something?” “Why didn’t you object?” “Ask for help…” The stress is palpable, and Palmo is brilliant. Yes, she spends the majority of the film in floods of tears, but we never get the sense that Fiona is weak or unsure of herself. From the beginning she insists that it is her solemn duty to report Daniel to the local authorities – for no one’s elses piece of mind but her own.

Dosal isn’t so lucky with the script.There’s no denying his talent (pleasantly reminiscent of a young Robert De Niro in Martin Scosese’s Taxi Driver, 1976, at times), but as the reveal is pulled almost immediately, it makes it harder to believe the sincerity of his statements. The director makes the curious decision to produce a film without a soundtrack, in an effort to bring viewers closer to the heart of the film. But a score would help illustrate some of the themes of the movie, offering viewers a gateway into the drama. More jarringly, the camera work is often pedestrian.There’s a lot of close-ups and fade-outs, but very few wide angles. If the intention was to film the work in a naturalistic setting, it falls far short of the holistic mark. Dosal, thrown into the middle of the camera lens, is regularly forced to throw out a series of garbled facial expressions, in a last ditch effort to muster some sympathy from the viewers.

But he too gets his moment to shine. It’s when Daniel meets Sandra, on the pretence that no lawyer or audio interfere with their conversation. He reminds her of the vulnerable child he holds, asking her to absolve them both in the name of the younger generation. It’s a powerhouse moment from Dosal, who really delivers here as a man drowning under the weight of his shame.

Bad Actor just premiered in the Official Selection of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Mr and Mrs Stodola

Posted on by victorfraga

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Petr Hátle’s third feature film is based on a couple who went on a killing spree across the Czech Republic in the early 2000s. They primarily targeted retired pensioners, and were eventually convicted of committing of 17 crimes. As of the time of writing, both Jaroslav and Dana Stodola are still serving life sentences; less surprisingly, their marriage ended in divorce shortly after their arrest. Dana was the mastermind behind the majority of the killings: Lucie Žáčková plays the part with an exaltedness that reminded me of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth.

And then there’s Jan Hájek, who plays the muscular husband. Hájek admitted that it took him a night of soul searching before he finally agreed to the role. His fears are there in some instances, not least in an early sequence where Jaroslav agrees to murder an elderly man on the grounds that he called her a “whore”. In almost blinding second, you can see Hájek’s eyes twitching to the beat of his apprehension.

Žáčková, by contrast, is mesmerising as Dana. She’s gleeful, masterful and unrepenting: everything a person with a penchant for violence would have. It also helps that Žáčková is naturally stylish, which makes some of her whimsical confessions seem apposite. The film implies that she met up with another man in the hope of stealing some of his personal fortune. When Dana meets Hájek, she insists it was a merely a business arrangement, but Žáčková is so subterranean that it’s difficult to ascertain whether she was lying to him, to the audience or to herself. Probably the last one, come to think of it.

Hátle’s background is in documentary filming. His urgent, rapid fire camera work and editing style actually adds to the tension. The grizzliest kills are saved for the end of the film, which is a curious decision from a narrative point of view. One strangulation had particularly strong emotional resonances. The director offered some background information about Jana. Born in Slovakia, she spent much of her early life suffering from psychological trauma due to rape and a failed pregnancy. He said that he thinks someone could make a film about her. Well, why didn’t Hátle? It would have made a much more engaging story, particularly since it concerned the stronger actor of the two. Tidbits: the film nonetheless manages to make an engaging tale of a true-life tragedy, and does in a manner that’s tight and full of tension.

A Czech man asked Hátle during the Q&A after the film premiere: could he send a copy to the real life couple? Hátle indulged the question, but his eyes demonstrated a fear to engage with the killers on an intimate level. Who could blame him?

Mr and Mrs Stodola just premiered at the First Feature Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Mars Express

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

The difference between humans and machines is one of the great themes of science fiction from Blade Runner to Ghost in the Shell. Mars Express takes its name from an Earth-Mars shuttle which, following a bravura action / chase sequence early on, not unlike the one at the start of Ghost in the Shell, is used by private investigator Aline Ruby (voice: Léa Drucker) and her assistant Carlos Rivera (voice: Daniel Njo Lobé) to transport a captured suspect from Earth to Mars where, it transpires on arrival, the relevant paperwork to detain their prisoner has been wiped from their on-person devices and internet-accessible office, meaning they are forced to release their prisoner. The narrative is littered with cleverly thought out ideas like this.

The setting is the 23rd century and mostly Mars, where the pair are hired to search for a second year cybernetics student who has gone missing. This is a world where humans and android robots co-exist side by side, and although the latter are generally constructed to obey various laws of robotics which will prevent them harming humans (Asimov’s three laws are implied but not specifically named), there are various android states in which this prevention no longer applies, for instance robots which have been jailbroken. There are also robots which are cloned copies of human beings, able to live on with those humans’ consciousness after the original humans have died.

Carlos is one of these clones, he himself having been killed in battle as a soldier, and is subject to periodic immobilisation to accept downloads as and when new software upgrades become available. Clearly, no-one thought to give him the ability to switch this facility off until times when it’s convenient – immobilisation can take place when he’s grasped a suspect by the wrist, leaving them trapped in his grip and unable to move while his frozen body’s technology takes the time to do its thing.

He’s also a father who never came to terms with the collapse of his marriage and his ex-wife’s separation in his lifetime, and now periodically visits her when she and her cop husband don’t want him anywhere near them or his daughter. In a similarly well-developed piece of characterisation, the human Aline is a former alcoholic counting the number of days she’s stayed dry who hits the nearest bar when things suddenly go off the rails.

The fairly complex plot, which implicates the well-off Chris Royjacker (voice: Mathieu Almaric) in a conspiracy, is likely to be repaid by multiple viewings, as are the superb art direction and visuals. Like Blade Runner, it marries the aesthetics of film noir with science fiction, but unlike that film it’s realised not in live action but in animation, owing a heavy debt to Ghost in the Shell in particular. The opening action, robots and a giant insectoid tank later on have that film written all over them.

However, the animation is directed with a complete grasp of certain stylistic tricks the Japanese have successfully used for years, for instance scenes or elements within shots which are completely static where they don’t need to move (compared to the Western tendency to fully animate everything, whether or not it contributes to the drive or arc of the narrative).

Yet, even if in places it looks a lot like Ghost in the Shell, the Japaneseness has been replaced by a completely French aesthetic. France is the land which developed the bande dessinée, after all, as well as being one of the small number of countries that, like the US, Japan, Canada and the Czech Republic, can truly be said to possess an indigenous animation industry.

Detail on the twin levels of script and design are extremely well-thought-out or worked through, so that you really believe and feel immersed in the human and robot-populated Martian world into which the filmmakers want to plunge you.

In short, this is a real treat for science fiction devotees, animation buffs and anime fans. Groundbreaking stuff.

Mars Express premiered ion the Main programme of Kinoff and Midnight Shivers sections of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. Also showing at the 3rd Red Sea International Film Festival, and at the 53rd Rotterdam International Film Festival

The Moon is Upside Down

Posted on by victorfraga

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The execution – a quirky, almost Coen-esque interpretation of Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours – is brilliant. The casting – which ranges from director Loren Taylor to Flight of The Conchords mainstay Jemaine Clement – is ‘how has this not happened before’ excellent. And the locations are exquisite, portraying New Zealand with quietly beautiful rural tones and backdrops. Yet The Moon Is Upside Down never delivers on its potential, feeling tired and long-winded, instead of exhibiting the gallows humour Taylor, the cast and New Zealand are more than capable of.

The film centres on three women: There’s Briar (played by Taylor herself), a doctor who has started an online relationship with her sister’s ex; there’s Faith (Elizabeth Hawthorne), a property owner who communicates with her husband through emails and phone calls; and then there’s Natalia (Victoria Haralabidou), a Siberian mail-order bride struggling with her husband’s sexual frigidity and impending blindness – not forgetting his overbearing sister who walks into her room without so much as a courtesy knock. The end product tries to tie their loneliness together, as they search for a connection outside of the city, and beside the wildlife and hills that decorate the country.

The desolation is palpable, sure, but in these straitened times, it feels more provincial than pain-inducing. Clement is dotty as Sean Macintosh, but not exceptionally so, and while his lack of sexual appetite seems charming, I never genuinely felt his character felt bothered by it. The plot hints at an emotional coda when the three women find themselves at a literal crossroads, but like so much in the film, the closure falls far short of the intended target. One wonders if the project would be better served as a tv serial, which would give the three actresses more room to hit their marks.

It might be too little run time (the film is little more than an hour and a half), and too much story to decorate in that frame. Weirdly, Taylor’s character comes off worst, and I wonder if there was more to her arc that was left on the cutting room floor. Of the three narratives, Natalia’s feels the most complete, and fittingly she closes the film with a happier smile to the strained grimace she offers the agency at the beginning of the work. Incidentally, and not encouragingly, the film doesn’t do much to flesh out the male characters, who are either too anxious to have sex, or too eager to finish the act. (Premature ejaculation is a common theme found in the film.)

Each of the three actresses lands a laugh or three, and one running joke about a Beatle (yup, George Harrison) was met with belly laughs at the screening I attended. Mercifully, the moment when a hawk is run down by a vehicle is played with the stillness it requires, filmed against the backdrop of the genuinely exquisite New Zealand countryside. I would watch a television series with the three women in New Zealand – a Netflix project, perhaps?

The Moon is Upside Down just premiered at the First Feature Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Falling Into Place

Posted on by victorfraga

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The film opens up in Skye, where a young German lady Kira (Aylin Tezel, incidentally the director of the film) bumps into Scottish-born Ian (Chris Fulton) at a local pub. Their eyes meet, and the chemistry is infectious. He asks her if she is a “runaway”, sensing that she is a kindred spirit, and tells her he’s fancied her since the start of the evening. Kira is hesitant: Ian reminds her of his ex, and she’s startled to hear he’s already taken. But she’s attracted to his innate danger, sensing that there’s a fragile side to him that remains unblemished even from a family scarred by a heritage of mental health illness.

Falling Into Place avoids the most everyday clichés to demonstrate a love story based on guilt and unfulfilled desire. The audience knows more about these characters than they do, which might explain why they spend so much of the film apart. When Kira returns to London, she catches up with her Irish ex-boyfriend, hoping to rekindle the memories they shared. She’s open and honest in all the ways Ian – a struggling musician desperate to catch a break – is not. His seclusion likely stems from his father’s ill health – not forgetting his sister, who is situated in a hospital to cure her manic depression. They find other loves, but none of their partners seem to reignite the spark they enjoyed on that cold night in Skye. The question remains: Is it better to confine love to memory, or should you break free from the shackles of convention, and “take a risk”?

So, what seems a modest little story at first turns into something more ambitious and exquisitely well realised. It calls to mind Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms in the way that the dissertation at hand is the love that makes the mighties impact is not necessarily the love you need to spend the rest of your life with. Under Ian’s influence, Kira blossoms as an artist, piecing together a body of work that speaks of adventure, turmoil, grief and eccentricity. She takes a position as a set designer, channelling her grief to create columns that are soaked with authenticity and individuality. Ian, unbenowst to her living in London, struggles to bring his reality into his music, partially because it is so painful, but mostly because he doesn’t have the encouragement from his partner. Desperate for some closure, he walks into an art gallery, only to see himself reflected in the paintings around him – and he is struck by the memories he left behind almost a decade earlier.

It’s an accomplished work from Tezel, who delivers both as an actor and, more crucially, as a director. Fittingly, she has the knack of showing the love without pushing it down the viewer’s throat: a whimsical race through the Scottish hills says more about their kinship than a five minute dialogue could possibly convey. What’s more, Tezel doesn’t discriminate on her character, because Kira’s relationship with her parents is as spiky as Ian’s. She’s also brave to embark in a sex scene that shows her desolation in a city that’s brimming with endless possibility.

If that’s her rawest moment, then Fulton’s comes later in the film when Ian comes face to face with a sibling he neglected to focus on his music career. Without asking for absolution, he brings her a box of jellies, reminding them of the sweets they shared together as children. Like much of the film, the power stems from the little gestures humans share on a day to day basis, whether it’s in the countryside or the urban city streets.

Falling Into Place just premiered at the First Feature Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Mo Mamma

Posted on by victorfraga

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While it’s hardly a horror film by the Hammer standard, Mo Mamma nevertheless develops a hypnotic rhythm that feels like it was cut out of a slasher film. And like the best of horror, it stems from the most human of emotions: love, and the imminent loss of it. Indeed, it centres on a family relationship, that between a parent and her child – actors Eva Koldits and Helena Lotman are credited as “mother” and “daughter” respectively – which only helps to accentuate the horrific elements when they arrive. The story feels like a modern day adaptation of a Samuel Beckett play, although it stems from a place much closer to the director’s heart. During the Q&A, director/writer Eeva Mägi stated that the film was inspired in part by her reaction to her grandmother’s death, before pointing to her own mother sitting two rows behind me.

Koldits and Lotman cement the film almost entirely on their own, portraying two gatekeepers who spend their days gardening, swimming and crying as they wait for the eponymous “Mamma” to return home. The “Mamma” in question is the matriach of the family, but her days are numbered, leaving the two to wonder what will become of them when she departs. They flirt with mutilation, exasperation and potential suicide, but love inevitably wins out, and the two women make up to the songs that they learned when they were very young.

The film begins mysteriously, portentously, with the two seated in a vehicle. The “daughter” inquires about her “mother”‘s love life, which leads to the elder leaving the car. “Mother” walks towards a blood-red sky, the colour reflecting the lipstick that hangs on her mouth. She is no doubt aware of the significance, stating that she thinks about “Mamma” – now bed ridden, and frail – all the time. The younger girl whiles the nights away in a dress that was meant for her teenage self, throwing herself headfirst into the green grass surrounding her house. The “daughter” is desperately lonely, and possibly bored, despite the incredible beauty that surrounds her. What she needs is a friendship, one she enjoyed with a cat whose remains both lead and haunt the two women.

Impressively, the film was shot in a week, but the urgency adds a dimension to the feature. The characters are erratic, piroutting around the surface of a swimming pool, before plunging themselves headfirst into the water. One suspects that if either lady were alone she would take that next step, but bound by their commitment to the family structure, they opt to wait. The lawn needs to be properly trimmed for ‘Mamma’s return, after all.

Composer Alessandro Malcangi performs much of the score on a piano, the chords crashing and plummeting like the demons swimming in their head. It doesn’t take a masters in Freudian studies to understand that this is a family in desperate need of outside guidance and counselling. Come to think of it, isn’t that every family? Glib jokes aside, the two actresses are wonderful, and bear something of a resemblance. In one of the film’s most astonishing shots, the pair stand side by side in a window.

Reflected in the lens, the “mother” sees her younger self, while the “daughter” witnesses the person she could well grow up to become. I reckon that this shot demonstrates the central themes of the film, capturing the imagination, despair, yearning and love that emanates from every family unit. Love might tear us apart, but it also builds us back up from the grave when it needs to. A must watch.

Mo Mamma just premiered at the First Feature Competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White

Posted on by Eoghan Lyng

We take queer relations for granted in Europe. People of all persuasions can walk hand in hand across the streets of Madrid, Manchester and Dublin, and although they may encounter some aggression from passersby, gay couples know that the law is on their side. How very different it is in Nigeria, where acts of homosexuality are punishable by “caning of 100 lashes.” And in a film based on two gay men in Lagos, European audiences come face to face with an altogether different perspective on homosexuality.

The film centres on Bambino and Bawa, two men who meet in Lagos, and develop a friendship. Straight away, they detect a tension between them, but given their heritage and upbringing, are too reluctant to do anything about it. The rest of All The Colours of the World are between Black and White centre on their feelings, dipping in and out of the scenery with the fervour of a hunting eyeing up its prey. As plots go, it’s fairly paper thin, but the two men make it worthwhile, committing themselves to their geography, as well as their carnal desires.

Of the two actors, Tope Tedela (Bambino) is the more relatable, peering into the environment, as if praying for a God he knows won’t hear from him. Bambino is a delivery man who rides around the city on his motorbike, who stumbles into Bawa (played with mercurial restraint by Riyo David), almost by chance. It would be wrong to call the film “magic realism”, but there’s something deeply spiritual about the work, tying these wayward men together. Separately, they see Lagos in one way, but together, they view it as a form of paradise for their needs and personal affectations.

Bambino’s life experiences another hurdle: His friend Ifeynwa (Martha Ehinone Orhiere) asks him to fellate her before she enters into an arranged marriage, putting him an awkward position. When Bambino and Ifeynwa engage in the sexual act, it is done as an act of labour, not lust. Bambino plays the lover, but his eyes belong to another.

What director Babatunde Apalowo Apalowo provides is context. By the time the film has closed, we are left with a character study that highlights the struggles that exist across the seas. The forbidden love presented in the film is one that is carried with great shame and great pathos. Without positing a spoiler, it doesn’t end with a happy ending, or close out with some aphorism that the viewer can take home with him. Instead, like life itself, it simply focuses on the events itself. All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White is a work of understated beauty.

All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White premieres at the 31st edition of Raindance.

Miúcha, the Voice of Bossa Nova

Posted on by Eoghan Lyng

Miúcha, néée Heloísa Maria Buarque de Hollanda, was a singer of tremendous form and energy, boasting a free-spirited nature to her voice. But like a lot of women of her generation, it was her association to men that seemed to interest people more than her singular accomplishments, varied as they were. She was a sibling (Chico Buarque’s sister), a spouse (João Gilberto’s second wife), a collaborator (Antônio Carlos Jobim’s partner) and a disciple (Vinicius de Moraes’ pupil), but never a woman, an artist or a spokesperson. She was an attachment, rather than an entity. And this is something Miúcha, The Voice of Bossa Nova sets out to correct through a collection of personal letters, audio diaries and home movies.

One suspects that Miúcha might have handled things differently, but the 1970s was a male-dominated decade, and the fact that she sounded as vital as she did says a great deal about her character in a music industry that wasn’t as understanding as it might have been in later years. Feminism forms the film’s central dissertation, but Miúcha fans will be impressed by the throve of photos that are displayed onscreen, many of them taken in the studio. There, the singer can be caught in the middle of her process, unhindered by expectations or gender norms. There’s just her, a guitar player and a microphone.

The film also boasts an impressive watercolour sequence of a guitar floating away. Animated especially for the film, it encapsulates many of the documentary’s more pertinent themes: freedom, fantasy and a desire to let loose. It’s a beautifully produced sequence, yet the film never escapes the feeling that it could have been produced as a television programme. There’s nothing cinematic about the film: It’s centred on archival footage, voiceover work, and an absence of contemporary hook makes it an occasionally boring watch.

The soundtrack features a rousing version of ‘Samba de uma Nota Só (One Note Samba)’, demonstrating that bossa nova in its purest form is as exciting and as powerful as it must have sounded in the 1960s and 1970s when it was produced for the first time in Brazil. Music, like cinema, needs great resolve to realise it’s potential. Miucha’s documentary had some potential,but her voice was suffused with it.

The archived footage is fascinating, but the documentary does not entirely take off. Although the genre of bossa nova started off in Brazil, it later seeped into the rock lexis, and could be heard on some of The Beatles and The Doors most expressive work. Like many genres, bossa nova can be heard on modern day hip-hop, but you won’t find that information out in this documentary. It’s more the pity because when it works, the documentary really works, peeking right inside the eyes of the artist who spent her life (literally) fighting the man. “I was a lot less feminist than I should have been”, the artist says in a voiceover that’s laced in equal parts disappointment and acknowledgement.

Miúcha, The Voice of Bossa Nova premieres at the 10th Doc’n’ Roll Film Festival. Just click here for more information.