The Natural History of Destruction asks a simple question: is bombing civilian populations justified in the name of war? It seems to be the only question in the film, asked again and again and again, as Sergei Loznitsa shows us endless images of the mechanics, banality and brutality of war: leaving endless, merciless destruction in its wake in search of a bigger cause. Ostensibly about the allied bombing of Germany — which is estimated to have killed between 350,000 to 635,000 people while crippling the country’s armaments production — the film’s timely premiere resonates in the current moment, with Russia’s campaign of terror demolishing cities in Ukraine as this review is being written.
Created exclusively with archive footage courtesy of both British and German collections, Loznitsa’s latest is a WW2 film that feels contemporaneous, mixing black-and-white observationalfootage with painstaking re-recordings to show us the total dehumanisation of war.
We start with sketches of everyday German life, people out and about in town, heading to biergartens and cafes, singing songs and going to work. Evening arrives, the picture zooms out and these scenes are reduced to momentary lights in the ground, strikingly light up by the advent of cluster-bombs.
I didn’t just see Rostock, Lübeck, Cologne and Berlin while watching this film. I saw Mariupol, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. Further back, it evokes NATO campaigns in Baghdad and Belgrade, or Putin’s levelling of Grozny, all committed in the name of the “greater good”. No matter who is waging war and who is on the so-called right side of history, the final effects are the same: dead people, flattened buildings, the complete vanquishing of hope and humanity.
Occasionally the silent-film-like images are punctuated by speeches. One British army official asks the German population to simply leave the cities and camp out in the countryside, a simplistic solution that betrays the reality of living in a country during the war. He goes on to say that although a campaign of bombing on this scale has never been tried before, it will make an “interesting experiment.”
And while war historians might agree that the bombing itself was justified in that it ground German production to its knees, allowing Soviet Union and American forces to sweep in and take Berlin, absolutists can claim the moral high ground: no victory could possibly be worth this much death and destruction. But Loznitsa avoids any editorial process — no talking heads, no narration, no moral grandstanding — and allows us to come to our own conclusions; starting debates instead of finishing them.
It’s this complexity, as well as seeking the humanity in a people that overwhelmingly supported the Nazis, that make him a complex figure. Only recently was he kicked out of the Ukrainian film academy for his ties to Russia and for speaking out against a widespread boycott, while at the same time, many of his fiction films have also been accused of Russophobia. In my view, this controversy is probably the sign of an independent filmmaker.
One thing you can say about Loznitsa is that he’s both a deep thinker and a prolific filmmaker (this is his third documentary in two years). Nonetheless, clocking in at just under 110 minutes long, his images are exhaustive and enervating, at once deeply terrifying and rather monotonous. His documentaries, like Victory Day, which stretched to over an hour despite only having enough material to justify a 20-minute short, has the habit of just making the same point over and over again. While the intention is to conclusively batter home the horrors of aerial warfare, the length and duration of certain images, which repeat themselves without revealing any new layers, struck me as unnecessary. The deeply-felt moral question the film raises is a highly important one, making it even more disappointing the finished product makes this such an alienating picture to sit through.
The Natural History of Destruction plays in the Official Selection as a Special Screening at Cannes. No UK release date yet.
To all lovers of European film: ArteKino is back for the 6th consecutive year, with yet another incredible selection of 12 European films entirely free to watch (up from 10 movies in the previous years). The online Festival is aimed at cinephiles from all over Europe who are seeking original, innovative and thought-provoking European productions. You can watch films on ArteKino’s dedicated website and also on ArteKino iOS and Android app (developed in conjunction with Festival Scope). Subtitles are available in various different languages.
And what’s more: not only you can watch great European cinema from the comfort of your home, but you can also win one of the three incredible prizes below simply by voting for your favourite movie (for the ArteKino European Audience Award).
A trip to the Cannes Film Festival;
A trip to the Berlin Film Festival; or
An Angell/S smart bike.
The Cannes Film Festival takes place in May 2022. The Berlin International Film Festival takes place in February 2022. The prize includes transport by plane, train, bus, etc. from the place of residence, accreditation and accommodation for two nights on site, for one person. This stay will be organised by the BLEU BUSINESS agency in Clermont-Ferrand.
Winners of the competition will be chosen by a random draw from among the persons who have correctly completed the entry form. The draw will take place on 7/01/2021 and will be carried out by ARTE GEIE. The draw will be carried out by ARTE G.E.I.E. manually. ARTE France will inform the Winners by e-mail no later than 17/01/2022, using the information that they provided in their entry form.
Well then. Come prepared with a cast-iron stomach as Titane can veer into tough watch territory at any moment. Blood, sweat and tears and oil lubricate scenes of murder, gore, body dysmorphia and psychoerotica throughout. It is somewhat relieving when the brakes are applied and the violent staccato of the first act twists into a strangely heartwarming, filial odd couple fantasy that has to be experienced firsthand.
As a child, Alexia is subject to a car accident due to driving errors from her negligent (abusive?) father. Emergency surgery leaves her with a visible disfigurement, extensive titanium reinforcements under the hood and an unhealthy affinity for all things metallic. We next see her as androgynous adult (starkly impressive Agathe Rousselle), enjoying minor celebrity as a sexy dancer in the seedy, underground world of hotrod car shows in southern France. Just go with it. Scars both physical and emotional entrap Alexia into addictive pattern behaviours that spiral out of control, forcing a change of scenery and identity.
For a film with a body count, there is surprisingly little dwelling on root cause trauma and the why of things. The focus is instead on the healing process and the catharsis of finally having someone who understands how to interact with you on your own damaged level. This is catalysed by the introduction of beefy, sad, surrogate dad Vincent (Vincent Lindon), who struggles with his own past failings as commandant of a local fire brigade. Vincent brings Alexia into his home and uses extreme patience and compassion to temper the temper of brittle Alexia.
Here, these mirrored protagonists are used to illustrate the central theses of the film: Freudian psychodynamics of trauma imprinting and repeating; shortcomings of binary genderization; the isolation from transhuman augmentation along either chemical or mechanical avenues. I do wonder if there is a singularly French predilection for identity fraud à la 2012’s The Imposter (Bart Layton), one of the more entertaining pieces out of a strong decade for filmic documentaries.
There is considerable interest around the film, having been awarded the Palme d’Or at the 2021 edition of the Cannes Film Festival. It is only the second feature film from director Julia Ducournau, following her acclaimed 2016 debut Raw and some television work along similar lines. With Titane, Ducournau is clearly welding herself into the pole position of her own grimy body horror genre. Some of the schlockier elements evoke Jim Hosking’s The Greasy Strangler (2016), but with more arthouse sensibility and less popcorn-chucking daftness. Titane is a more powerful alloy forged from Almodóvar masterpiece The Skin I Live In (2011) and some of Stephen King’s worse short stories, where hand-operated mangles and trucks come to life. Rare musical cues are bangers and show the oddly sweet preference of a fire brigade to celebrate their jobs well done by dancing together in pastel-lit rooms.
The end product is more startling than perfect, with some plot and thematic elements not quite cohering. Indeed, the ending could have gone more all out weird as the rest of the piece demands, instead showing some late game restraint. Ultimately, the film is much more profound and interesting than ‘Raw’, whilst retaining the viscerality of the newly minted Ducournau experience. Here’s to the next cinematic brainchild of this emerging althorror master.
Titane premiered and won the Cannes Film Festival. It also showed at the BFI London Film Festival. On all major platforms on Monday, February 7th.
Before his death at the age of 37, Fassbinder directed more than 40 films, as well as producing several plays and TV shows. His cocaine and sex-fuelled career made him the true provocateur of German Cinema, helping to give birth to a New Wave of cinema while challenging cinematic conventions and German’s collective national shame. But you don’t get to make that many films in such a short space of time without being a unique type of character: Fassbinder worked because he couldn’t think of doing anything else, making his entire life a type of film.
Director Oskar Roehler shoots his biopic Enfant Terrible in a Brechtian style, with deliberately artificial lighting, mannered acting and painted-on props and sets. This is a particularly clever method for a biopic of a filmmaker, as it shows little difference between the world around Fassbinder and the films he is trying to shoot, giving a great demonstration of how life and art can so easily blend into one another.
Oliver Masucci plays the late German director. The actor is 51 years old, three decades older than the German filmmaker in the 1960s. There is no de-aging in sight. Masucci embodies the director’s intense physicality, strength and outspoken nature. In an early scene in Enfant Terrible, he sprays the audience with a hose, claiming that it’s the only way to make them experience the real world. Almost immediately he lights up the Munich theatre scene, bringing in an entourage who will follow him through initial bemusement at his Berlin Film Festival debut through to his eventual international success with masterpieces such as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978).
Despite all the stylistic window-dressing, this is a very conventional biopic in terms of narrative, covering Fassbinder’s career from his first film, Love is Colder Than Death in 1969, to his cocaine and barbiturate-filled death in 1982. This is a long and piteous look at his failed relationships, mostly with foreign men, touching on themes of homophobia and racist attitudes, as well his controversial, physically abusive behaviour on set, which would never hold up today. Masucci provides a truly boisterous performance, showing us the complexity of a man who hits people on set but cries after sex, is cruel and dismissive of his lovers one moment, and desperately pleading for them in another.
For those new to Fassbinder’s work and unacquainted with this particularly artificial strain of German theatre-inspired filmmaking, they may find themselves a little lost. But for Fassbinder fans this film is a fascinating look into arguably Germany’s greatest ever director, a wunderkind so inspired he makes Xavier Dolan look like Ron Howard. For the average person, maintaining such a prolific career while rarely sacrificing quality is simply a cinematic miracle that cannot just be chalked down to cocaine use. And while Enfant Terrible can’t quite unravel what made Fassbinder live in such a constant state of inspiration, it serves as a fine portrait of a man who never left the set, even when he stopped filming.
Enfant Terrible opened the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in November 2020,when this piece was originally written. It had been originally selected to show at this year’s Festival de Cannes (which was cancelled). It premieres in the UK in March 2021, as part of the virtual edition of BFI Flare. On BFI Player on Friday, April 2nd.
Mandy wakes up on her front lawn. She doesn’t remember what happened. The next day, her friends send her a video of her unconscious body on the floor surrounded by a group of males teens in a party. They joke about her being dead, challenge each other to have coitus, and even question whether “sex with a dead person” indeed counts as sex. Then the video ends, leaving Mandy to put the puzzle pieces together and work out what happened to her. She has a large bruise of her back. She fears the worse: that she has been violated.
At first, her schoolmates ask her not to take it serious. It was just a prank, and she should just forget the whole thing. A friend reminds her “you found it funny when duct taped Craig naked”. Her parents eventually find out and persuade Mandy to report the incident to the police. She hesitates at first, but finally agrees to open up. The problem is that she can’t remember anything. The police investigates and charges one of the teens, a male called AJ (Nicolas Galitzine). But they don’t have enough evidence to prosecute him. Mandy and her parents are told that a criminal prosecution is very onerous, and that a civil case could take years.
It’s often suggested – if in subtle ways – that Mandy is responsible for being abused. After all, she wilfully intoxicated herself with alcohol. At times, she feels guilty and just wishes to forget everything. At other times, she wants to find out more, despite fearing the worse. Although the word “rape” is never used in the film (the likely violation is instead described euphemistically), there is little doubt that Mandy may have been molested. The male teens involved hesitate to discuss the evening in detail, suggesting that they are indeed hiding something.
Pippa Bianco’s first feature film raises a lot of ethical, moral and even legal questions. Are you responsible for your actions when you are drunk? When is drunk consent acceptable? Is it ok to forgive and forget, dismissing teenage misconduct as a mere “silly mistake”, or does that equate to complacence? I think we all know the answers. However, the fact that Mandy herself feels ashamed is a testament that our society isn’t entirely ready to hear the voice of oppressed females.
While its premise is interesting and thought-provoking (and guaranteed to please the #MeToo movement), Share isn’t entirely accomplished from a cinematographic perspective. The camerawork is rather uninspired and the performances lack vigour. And the music score is a little irritating, with the same suspenseful chord repeated ad infinitum. Bianco made an interesting topic choice for her debut feature, but she still needs to overcome some teething problems.
Share is showing the the 72nd Cannes International Film Festival, which is taking place right now. It premiered in Sundance earlier this year.
Ricky (Kris Hitchen) is a building worker with an impeccable CV, living with his family somewhere in suburban Newcastle. He persuades his wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) to sell off her car in order to raise £1,000 so that he can buy a van and move into the delivery industry. A franchise owner promises Ricky that he’ll be independent and “own his own business”, and earn up to £1,200 a week.
The reality couldn’t be more different. Ricky ends up working up to 14 hours a day six days a week. He literally has no time to pee, and instead urinates in a bottle inside him own vehicle (I would hazard a guess that Amazon’s infamous practices inspired scriptwriter Paul Laverty). His draconian delivery targets and inflexible ETAs (estimated time of arrival) turn him into a delivery robot. A small handheld delivery device containing delivery instructions virtually controls his life. Ricky has been conned. His “independence” is but an illusion. He might own his car, his company and his insurance, yet he’s entirely at the mercy of his franchiser.
Abbie is a carer for the elderly and disabled, and having sold off her car she now has to travel by bus in order to see her clients. She’s the epitome of selflessness. She is prepared to visit a client on a Saturday night if necessary, despite not being paid extra hours and travel time. She finds strength in helping these extremely vulnerable people. She tells one of her clients, an old lady unable to control her bladder, clean up and look after herself: “I get from you as much as you get from me”. She seems honest. This is a very short yet deeply touching conversation. The entire movie is dotted with small yet very powerful gestures of humanity and altruism.
Despite the illusion of independence, both Ricky and Abbie work on zero-hour contracts. They are left with virtually no time for their two children, Seb and Lisa Jane. Seb turns violent and shoplifts. He does not wish to go to university because he’s afraid that he’ll end up with a huge pile of debts (he mentions a depressed friend who owes £57,000 in university fees). Lisa Jane internalises her anxiety, until it comes out in a shocking manner.
The pain and the helplessness of the entire family are very palpable. How long will it be before either Ricky or Abbie breaks down and snaps out of sanity? The entire film narrative is built upon such tension, similarly to Loach’s previous feature I, Daniel Blake (2016), which won the Palme d’Or just three years ago. Will Ricky and Abbie have their cathartic moment, the equivalent to Daniel Blake’s outrageous graffiti gesture, or will they continue to internalise their suffering until their financial condition improves?
In reality, Ricky and Abbie are trapped in the wrong end of capitalism. They work in conditions analogue to slavery. There is no way out, no matter how hard they work. They must carry on working without challenging the system and the rules, otherwise they could end up on the streets. They are not the only ones. Around four million people in the UK are now working while living in poverty thanks to slow wage growth and cuts to in-work benefits. Sorry We Missed You is not a melodramatic take on reality. Sorry We Missed You is reality.
Ken Loach and Paul Laverty reveal that Britain has consistently failed the working class through a succession of events. It all started with the nationalisation of Northern Rock in 2008 and the subsequent mortgage crisis, which left Ricky and Abbie unable to get into the much coveted property ladder. Then came the widespread dissemination of zero-hour contracts (such working arrangement were initially intended for casual workers), leaving people destitute of labour rights and entirely at the mercy of greedy bosses. Then came university fees, leaving many young people hopeless.
The film also reveals that capitalism pits people against each other. Ricky gets a more profitable driving rota because another worker facing personal problems has failed to meet his targets. The dismissed driver becomes very angry at Ricky. Soon Ricky too fails to meet his targets, and his boss quickly threatens to dismiss him. The ruthless corporate environment in prepared to replace drivers at the blink of an eye. People are treated like disposable robots programmed to compete against each other.
The film title has a double significance. Firstly, it refers to the message on the paper card left in the mailbox of people who are not at home at the time of the delivery. Secondly, it refers to people like Ricky and Abbie, and every single person who has been marginalised and failed by the establishment. Sorry Britain failed you! You have to fend for yourselves. Tough.
Sorry We Missed You premiered at the 72 Cannes International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It moved me profoundly. I feel like giving the next Amazon delivery guy a big hug. It shows at the Cambridge Film Festival, which takes place between October 17th and 24th, and it’s out in cinemas on Friday, November 1st. Out on VoD on Monday, March 9th.
This a gay film in every conceivable way: the director, the story, the soundtrack, the sensuality and the sensibility. Christophe Honoré has a crafted what’s perhaps his most personal movie to date, and the action takes place in 1993. While realistic and convincing enough, the story also gets too idiosyncratic. Honoré was 23 years of age at the time that the film takes place. So I would hazard a guess that the film contains a lot of biographical elements. The reviewer writing this piece also happens to be a gay man who began experimenting with his sexuality in the 1990s, and this is a movie that didn’t move too much.
Sorry, Angel (a very free translation of a film title that actually means roughly “pleasing, loving and running fast”) Jacques (Pierre de Deladonchamps, which was catapulted to fame with Alain Guiraudie’s LGBT sexual thriller Stranger by the Lake, 2013) is a famous gay writer in his mid 30s. He has so many lovers that at first I thought that the actor was playing multiple characters. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that. As a 39-year-old gay man, I’ve also been around the block. The problem is that the stories don’t really fit together, and the film at times feels a little disjointed. Jacques also has a child, a boy called Loulou. Loulou’s mother, who is also a close friend, explains why Jacques has so many narrative strands in his life: “he keeps it all compartmentalised”.
His lovers are all young and good-looking, and the film has plenty of eye-candy and sensual moments. These sequences feel neither vulgar nor exploitative. HIV is also a central topic. Jacques carries the virus, and we witness the tragic death of one of his lovers to then almost invariably deadly bug. Activist group ACT UP is mentioned a couple of times, which may ring bells with those who recently watched 120 BPM (Robin Campillo, 2017). Some of scenes are awkwardly touching, as the director successfully blends sex and convalescence. In two central sequences, a healthy lover seeks to give pleasure to his dying partner.
Another problem is that the film gets a little diluted in the intertext. There are way too many references to other films and French literature. Jacques allocates his various lovers to categories named after French writers, but I doubt that anyone will be able to follow this bizarre taxonomy. You might feel a little lost in translation.
The soundtrack is perhaps the most upbeat and effective element. Most of the diegetic and the non-diegetic tracks were taken from the 1990s. Lovely songs punctuate the narrative and provide a very nice perfect touch to some of the most important moments. Characters connect with their inner selves and others around them with music: in bed, dancing in the neighbour’s lounge or inside the car. Highlights include Massive Attack, the Cocteau Twins, Astrud Gilberto singing The Shadow of Your Smile, and a couple of chanson songs I couldn’t recognise.
Sorry Angel was in the Official Competition of the 71st Cannes Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, March 22nd. Out on VoD on Sunday, March 31st.
The 71st annual Cannes International Film Festival starts on May 8th for 12 days, and the programme has already been announced. The event continues as auteur-driven, internationalist, prestigious, innovative and, of course, anti-Netflix as ever. The Festival demands that all films in the programme get a theatrical distribution in French cinemas, which caused the streaming giant to pull out last minute, just before the programme was announced.
The list is teeming with big director names from all parts of the planet, and the Competition alone includes eight newcomers, from a total of 21 films selected. A jury under the presidency of Cate Blanchett will announce the winner. A grand total of 1,906 feature films were viewed by the various selection committees. At least 100 movies have been announced for the various sections of the Festival so far: Un Certain Regard, Director’s Fortnight, Critic’s Week, Classics, Special Screenings, etc. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s psychological thriller Everybody Knows will open the Festival. The Official festival poster (pictured above) features Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 film Pierrot le Fou. It is the second time festival poster was inspired by Godard’s film after his 1963 film Contempt just two years ago.
Below is just the the tip of the iceberg. Our very dirty picks, films that we think you should be looking out for. Don’t forget to follow us for live updates at the event, as we watch the films below and reveal they were worth the wait.
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1. Climax (Gaspar Noe):
The Argentinean provocateur, who has worked most of his life in France, returns three years after the 3D explicit sex romance Love. which saw an actor ejaculate on the audience and the camera assume the penis perspective as it enters a vagina. Everyone is curious what antics the enfant terrible has under his sleeve the time, and whether audiences will leave the cinema feeling orgasmic. The movie is in the Director’s Fortnight section,
2. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Terry Gilliam):
Terry Gilliam’s long-delayed feature will be the Festival’s closing film. Production began exactly 20 years ago (!!!). And yet the film encountered new problems, and a legal challenge almost prevented it from being shown this year. The movie is a blend of fantasy, adventure and comedy loosely based on the Spanish super-novel Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. The film, which is pictured below is in the Competition.
3. Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (Wim Wenders):
The 72-year-old German filmmaker has largely focused on producing and directing documentaries in the past couple of decades, including the iconic Buena Vista Social Club (1996) and Our Last Tango (2017, directed by German Kral). This time he has created what looks like a romantic portrait of the current Pope, in which he speaks directly to the people. The film is also in the Competition. Let’s just be grateful he didn’t do a film about his countrysake and previous pope, aka God’s Rottweiler. Meanwhile, Wenders has a feature film coming out in cinemas later this year.
4. Donbass (Sergei Loznitza):
The Ukrainian director’s previous film, a creepy tribute portrayal of Russia, A Gentle Creatureis showing in cinemas across the UK right, and one of the dirtiest films you could catch right now. The film was in the Festival’s Competition last year. This year, the director returns with a film named after the region of the Ukraine that Russia recently attempted to annex (although Putin will dispute this). We would hazard a guess that the new film, which is in the Un Certain Regard section, will be no more sympathetic of the largest country in the world.
5. Three faces (Jafar Panahi):
The Iranian director of The Mirror (1997), Offside (2006) and Taxi Tehran (2015) started his career in the 1990s as the assistant director of the late Abbas Kiarostami. His films often dealt with controversial and fiery topics (such as women attending football matches in Offside), and the director himself was arrested in 2010. Three Faces is described as a “mountain travel” film, and it’s in the Festival’s Competition
6. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Koreeda):
Firmly established as one of the most prolific and creative voices of Japanese cinema, the director of the dirty gems After The Storm and The Third Murder(both released last year) returns with Shoplifters (pictured below). The film, similarly to After The Storm, focuses on a dysfunctional “family”, as a group of petty criminals and crooks take in a child from the street.
7. At War (Stephane Brize):
Perrin industries decide to shut down a factory and fire 1,100 employees, despite record profits and huge financial sacrifices on the part of the lower employees. The 52-year-old French helmer once again exposes the ugly face of capitalism, corporate values and labour rights in Europe, after dealing with the subject two years ago in The Measure of a Man. Also in the Competition.
8. Everybody Knows (Asghar Fahradi):
This psychological thriller will open the 2018 Festival, and it features Spanish actors Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Argentinian Ricardo Darín. The double-Oscar winner refused to travel to the US last year in order to collect his statuette for The Salesman, in retaliation to Trump’s racist and Islamophobic government. The new drama Everybody Knows, which we expected to be as profound and multi-threaded as his previous films, the first time the director works in Spanish language, and it’s also only the second time a Spanish language movie opens the Festival.
9. BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee):
Spike Lee is back, and he’s ready to set fire to his increasingly racist and reactionary homeland. The film follows the first African-American police officer to infiltrate the KKK, back in 1979. The urgency of the movie cannot be overstated. Hopefully Lee will not slip into platitudes and sexist cliches, unlike two years ago with Chi-Raq. In the Competition.
10. The House that Jack Built(Lars von Trier):
The staunch persona-non-grata has now made piece with the Festival, after being banned “for life” in 2011 following some controversial remarks about Hitler’s good qualities. His new film, which is named after an English nursery rhyme, stars Matt Dillon and follows with a highly intelligent serial killer. Von Trier described the film as celebrating “the idea that life is evil and soulless”. The film is running our of the Competition.
Mother Russia has failed her children. It has neglected and relegated them to a life without hope and love. The latest movie by Andrey Zvyagintsev, possibly the biggest exponent in Russia cinema right now, is a bleak allegory of life in Russia. People carry on with their existences in a robotic and dehumanised fashion, without any regard for their neighbours, family and other citizens. Not even their own offspring. Yet, who’s to blame them? They are too busy searching for a purpose and a solution for their very own loveless predicament.
Zhenya (Mariana Spivak) is estranged from her husband Boris (Alexey Rozin), and they are now seeking a divorce. She’s very busy with her newly-found wealthy affair, while he is catering for his heavily pregnant new girlfriend. Their son Alexey (Matvey Novikov) feels entirely ignored, and his lack of friends and anhedonic life are obviously a reflection of the no-love and attention that he receives from his parents. The situation is remarkably similar to the Angela’s in Fassbinder’s Chinese Roulette (1976), who blames her disability on her parents ,who are too busy with their respective lovers. The difference is that the German girl creates a trap for her folks, while the Russian boy simply vanishes without leaving a trace.
Some of the moments in the film will leave you astonished. The fear on Alexey’s face hiding behind the bathroom door while Zhenya henpecks and abuses her husband would make Edvard Munch jealous. And Zhenya’s description of motherhood and hate for her own son is shocking. She despises him for nearly cleaving her in twain at birth, and she simply cannot stand his very sight.
It is no exaggeration to claim that Loveless is a metaphor of a failed Mother Russia. Andrey Zvyagintsev has dotted the film with political reports coming from the radio, conveniently reminding viewers that our private life is an extension of the public sphere. This is a film about the failure of the traditional nuclear family, and Russia’s failure to accept such changes. Divorce can lead to joblessness. Gay marriage can… well, let’s not even go there (Zvyagintsev didn’t).
The Russian state is also collapsing. There’s talk of social apocalypse. Boris and Zhenya have to deal with a incompetent police unprepared to support them in their search for their son. The subject of failed government institutions is a recurring theme in Zvyagintsev’s films, particularly in the superb Leviathan (2014).
Loveless is a gripping and disturbing film, but it’s not a perfect one. It lacks the lyrical excellence of Leviathan, and it feels a little too long at 120 minutes. The second half of the film doesn’t have the emotional depth of the first half, focusing too much on the search efforts to locate Alexey. On the other hand, the ending of the film is very powerful, and it will leave a bitter taste of ambiguity in your mouth. Fassbinder ended Chinese Roulette with a gunshot, without revealing who the victim was. Zvyagintsev wraps up Loveless with a scream, but I can’t reveal what the ambiguous event is without spoiling the film. You will just have to wait a few months when the film comes to a cinema near you and see.
The Russian film title Нелюбов is a made-up word meaning “no-love”, just like Serge Gainsbourg’s song L’Anamour (also a made-up word meaning “no-love”). Perhaps the French and the Russian Soul have more in common than previously thought.
The movie probably deserves a higher rating, as this is a dirty film guaranteed to haunt you for a long time. The problem is that Andrey Zvyagintsev set the bar so high with Leviathan, that I felt compelled to give Loveless a lower mark. This is one of the problems with being a film genius!
Loveless showed at the last Cannes Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It then won the BFI London Film festival in October. It is out in UK cinemas on February 9th (2018) and on all major VoD platforms in June.
Kleber Mendonça Filho gained worldwide notoriety last year for conducting a very timely protest on a star-studded platform. The filmmaker and the crew of his latest movie Aquarius held signs on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival in May last year denouncing the coup d’état, which was taking place in Brazil then. Images of the unusual gesture (pictured below) circulated the world, stamping the cover of many international newspapers (including The Guardian). The action coincided with start of coup process in Brazil, and the opening of the film months later (in August) took place at exactly the same time as the illegitimate ousting of President Dilma Rousseff.
But Kleber isn’t just a sexy moustached face on the red carpet. At present, he is the most commercially and critically acclaimed filmmaker in Brazil, with just two feature films under his belt. The outstanding Neighbouring Sounds (2011) explores the dull urban cacophony that ties together middle-class neighbours in the Brazilian city of Recife (Kleber’s hometown). It was elected by the New York Times as one of the best films of the past 10 years– click here for our exclusive review of the movie. Last year’s Aquarius tells the story of Clara, played by the legendary Sônia Braga, a woman who resists property developers who want to knock down the building where she has lived all of her life. She uses nostalgia as a shield against her fast-changing and deeply corrupt society, as well as an instrument for both physical and emotional survival – click here for our review of the equally splendid movie.
After showing at the BFI London Film Festival last year, Aquarius will be released in theatres all around the country on Friday, March 24th. Kleber traveled to the UK specially for the occasion, and DMovies‘ editor Victor Fraga met up with him for a dirty talk. We chatted the commercial success, prestige, democracy, the future of Brazilian cinema, Recife, Robocop, happy umbrellas and much more!
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Victor Fraga – Brazil is still a very exotic country in Britain, and most people would know neither where Recife is located nor that there was a coup d’état last year. How do you think people will relate to your film here?
Kleber Mendonça Filho – When I make a film I ask myself: will anybody see it, will it make any sense, will anyone care? I think every filmmaker should bear that in mind. I have been very lucky since I started making short films because they seem to travel quite well. All of my films did very well both in Brazil and internationally. In Neighbouring Sounds, I shot the film on the street where I live, it’s almost like a home movie, and made with just under $1 million, and it went to countries I never imagined it would.
With Aquarius, it’s even bigger. And the same story seems to take place everywhere. I’m convinced that people will relate to my film wherever there’s money and real estate. The main conflict is well understood by people everywhere. Of course you might miss out on a few details if you are not Brazilian. There are certain flavours that were built into the film which are naturally local. But I don’t think this will prevent Brits from understanding the film.
Kleber and his crew let the world know about the coup d’état in Brazil on the red carpet of Cannes
VF – So, Brits don’t need to know where Recife is in order to understand your film?
KMF – No. I grew up watching films from all over the world, as I’m sure you have. When I was at university I realised that American films were very good at presenting something that doesn’t belong to a specific culture. I love when films have a certain title which refers to a place. Such as Brighton Beach Memoirs [Gene Saks, 1986], The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [Jacques Demy, 1964], Woody Allen’s Manhattan [1979] and so on. I never knew where Cherbourg was until I watched the movie.
VF – But the Umbrellas of Cherbourg doesn’t mention Cherbourg in Brazilian title of the movie! [the film is called Os Guarda-Chuvas do Amor in Brazil, Portuguese for “The Umbrellas of Love”]
KMF – [sniggers] That’s true, oh well. Still, It was because of this film that I learnt where Cherbourg is. I love this mystifying power of cinema. I’m happy to report that the same is happening to my films in relation to Recife. This building here [he shows a picture of the eponymous Aquarius Building in Recife], they want to list it, to make it into a World Heritage Site, and my film can take the credit for that. Cinema has such power, and I’m glad that my film is doing it to this beautiful building.
VF – This is a very good moment for Brazilian cinema, 12 films at the last Berlin Film Festival, seven in Rotterdam, and the organisation Cinema do Brasil has more than 150 films in their catalogue. Are you concerned that the current coup-mongering government of Brazil will destroy this incredible momentum?
The Aquarius building in Recife, where Clara dwells and which she also cherishes so much
KMF – That’s the big question that everyone in the Brazilian film industry is asking right now. A lot of what we are seeing today, such as the films in Berlin and Rotterdam, the international acclaim of Neon Bull (Gabriel Mascaro, 2015) and The Second Mother (Anna Muylaert, 2015), this is all the result of years of investment and policy development supporting Brazilian film.
On one hand, we have a bunch of commercial films doing very well in Brazilian theatres. People think I’m against commercial movies, and that’s ridiculous. I just happen to belong to the other side, where we get more prestige than money. Although Aquarius had box office earnings which are not typical of a 150-minute film shot in Recife with a 65-year-old female protagonist [Clara, played by Sônia Braga]. So my film was both commercially successful and prestigious. And a lot of that came from the policies implemented by Lula from 2003. This is the incontestable truth. Some people might dislike the previous left-wing government of Brazil, but they can’t challenge this reality, which started with Lula and continued with Dilma. And now we have a completely different government, which is systematically destroying many public policies, there’s a grey cloud hanging over Brazilian cinema.
VF – Yourself, Cláudio Assis, Gabriel Mascaro, Marcelo Gomes, some of the Brazil’s most creative filmmakers are all from Recife. What is it with cinema from Pernambuco [the state where Recife is located]. Is it something in the water?
KMF – That’s a very tough question. Recife seems to be some sort of breeding ground, and not just for cinema. It is in literature, in the arts, in music. That was particularly true of the 1990s with the Mangue Beat movement in the music scene. And now we have the film scene, which is very strong! My theory is that after 400 years of sugarcane monoculture, when we were only known for sugarcane plantations and nothing else, things changed. This generated some inside mechanism forcing us to think “multi” instead of “mono”. With the presence of the Dutch invaders, combined with the distance from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, which were quite far away, we ended up with this very interesting breeding ground for culture.
Your question is asked every day in Brazil, particularly by cariocas as paulistas [people from Rio and São Paulo, respectively], and everybody is trying to understand how such cultural strength came to being.
VF – Globo is everywhere in Brazil: on print, the Internet, television and also in cinema, including your film [which was produced by Globo Filmes]. Do you think that it’s healthy for cinema, television and so on to be under purview of one single, extremely powerful organisation?
KMF – It’s not healthy at all. This is a huge discussion in Brazil right now. We need diversity of criticism and of points-of-view. Globo has historically, since the 1960s, dominated the media in Brazil, particularly in television. They have found ways of becoming even more diverse with the Internet and cable television. Now the power of Globo is being questioned through the Internet and social media, Netflix, Facebook and YouTube. At least now we can see some change in Globo’s outreach.
VF – What kind of changes?
KMF – People attention is being diverted to YouTube, Netflix (which is incredibly strong in Brazil) and so on. Plus people make their own programming.
VF – And how does that affect the film industry?
KMF – We have an interesting relation with Globo Filmes because I have always been their vocal critic. At the time of Neighbouring Sounds, I had a major fall out with their president Cadu Rodrigues. But now they have a completely new way of looking at Brazilian film, not just in relation to the “commercial side” but also to the “prestigious side”. It was very interesting that we got them to support Aquarius, you know why?
VF – No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me!
KMF – Aquarius is going to show on prime time Brazilian television, on Globo’s open channel. This is unheard of for such a long and non-commercial movie. For me that’s diversity.
Kleber Mendonça Filho and Victor Fraga from DMovies meet in London: they both believe that cinema is a weapon for change
VF – Film is a weapon for change, for denunciation, and you made good use of that in Cannes, when you held signs denouncing the Brazilian coup d’état on the famous red carpet. Can you tell us a little bit about the retaliation you have experienced since? And would you do it again?
KMF – If I had a time machine I could go back to May last year, I would have done exactly what we did. We as Brazilian citizens just did a very simple protest expressing our opinion about what was happening in Brazil: the democratic process in that very month [May 2016], and the result is what we see now. We were thinking of what’s happening right now back then. We has no choice but to quietly say: “this is wrong!”. And that what we did.
We had a lot of support for what we did, but also a lot of attacks, particularly on social media. And these attacks can be quite ravenous. Drunk and lonely guys on a Friday night go online and post some crazy shit about the film and about you. But this also brought attention to my movie. They tried to boycott it, which made it even bigger. It was just a crazy time when the film opened in Brazil, with the official ousting of Dilma Rousseff taking place then, in August, at the weekend of our release.
VF – The biggest Brazilian filmmakers of the past 20 years have all embraced an international career, including Sales with Motorcycle Diaries (2004), Fernando Meirelles with The Constant Gardener (2005) and José Padilha with RoboCop (2014). Will you be doing the same?
KMF – I’m open to possibilities, but it’s not like I dream of making a film in Hollywood.
VF – So you won’t be remaking RoboCop yet again for us then?
KMF – I would never in my life remake a film that I love, I just don’t see the point. And I absolutely love RoboCop [the 1987 original by Paul Verhoven] But, you know, good luck to… well, you know what I’m talking about! [at this stage, it’s worthwhile pointing out that José Padilha, who remade RoboCop, is one of the very few filmmakers in Brazil who supported the 2016 coup d’état].
If I make an interesting discovery in a book or a script then of course I would consider making a film abroad. But I would never make a film for some big shot just for the sake of making money. I wouldn’t do something that’s purely industrial, and not personal at all.
More than 2,300 people in the UK died between December 2011 and February 2014 after they were deemed fit to work, according to figures published by the DWP in August 2015. The current government seems very insensitive to the urgent needs of many working-class people facing difficulties, and it’s only natural that the master of British realism made a film denouncing the incongruities of the benefit system. I, Daniel Blake won the Palm D’Or in Cannes earlier this year, and it could easily become the British film of the year.
Fifty-nine-year-old Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) is a widower and a carpenter living in Newcastle. He recently had a heart attack and his GP and physiotherapist will not allow him to go back to work. Despite the medical evidence, the government suspends his Employment and Support Allowance, based an assessment of very questionable credibility. A very unsympathetic healthcare professional without any medical qualifications asks Daniel ludicrous questions such as “are you able to walk 50 metres unaided?” and “are you able to put on a hat” before deciding that he should be in employment. Meanwhile, the young single mum Katie (Hayley Squires) also struggles to provide for her two small children. Daniel and Katie meet in a Job Centre and immediately strike an unlikely and yet very profound friendship.
The system that the two friends encounter is rigid, cold and calculating. The red tape is both incomprehensible and insurmountable. The agents (or coachs, as they are often called) at the Job Centre lack any type of humanity, and instead act like callous bureaucrats. There is no regard for the special requirements and limitations of claimants. Daniel is forced to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance online at the local library, despite the fact that he has never used a computer in his life. At one point, he’s told that his computer froze, and he promptly asks to desfrost it (!!!). The system is so broken and that it elicits a tragic laughter.
By the time someone at the Job Centre breaks the protocol and displays a scyntilla of compassion towards Daniel, it’s already too late. By then, he has already lost his self-respect (as he describes it himself) and resorted to a very Draconian measure in order to survive. Katie comes to his rescue and provides her unwavering support, but she too has already succumbed to despair and chosen a very difficult path in order to make ends meet.
I, Daniel Blake is a tearjerker, but not because it relies on forlumaic devices – such as melodramatic music, plot ruses and unexpected twists. It is not exploitative and it never evokes extravagant emotions. The film is so effective because it’s is extremely accurate in its realism, a quality virtually absent in the British mainstream media and cinema. While the story is fictional, the plot is entirely based on real horror stories from people on benefits interviewed by Ken Loach and his long-time scripwriter Paul Laverty.
The dramatic vigour of the movie lies in the absurdities that benefit claimants have to face, supported by cogent and astute performances. Both the filmmaker and the actors and in sync with the plight of the people they depict. The film is also a reminder that a honest and trustworthy person could eventually stumble into such horrible predicament, and so we should always exercise solidarity.
DMovies asked Ken Loach whether British working-class people are likely to lose their dignity and self-respect even more in the next couple of years, given our Theresa May’s rabid rhetoric against people on benefit and the new rules being implemented. Ken seemed to agree: “With Brexit comes economic collapse, lower wages, more unemployment, and the government will likely make it harder for people on benefits”. He also noted that new rules have already been put in place: “now the Job Centre can’t even tell you what jobs are available, even if they have it in the computer in front of them. They are there to punish, and not to help people”. He finished off his answer with a very political statement: “for the first time we have a socialist at the top of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. Not even Clement Attlee was a socialist; he sent troops to fight. We have to seize this unique opportunity.”
I, Daniel Blake was out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, October 21st (2016). It’s available on BBC iPlayer from January 14th to February 4th (2019), just click here for more information. On Disney+ UK on March 4th, 2022.
We strongly recommend that you watch it, whether you agree with Ken’s political convictions or not. Ultimately, this is a film about human dignity.
