This year’s Transylvania Film Festival, the biggest film festival in Romania, comes with a challenge: “make films, not war.” Representing a country that borders both war-torn Ukraine and close-friends Moldova — also under threat from Russian aggression — TIFF is deeply committed to showing off the best of cinema in extremely troubled times.
While cinema itself cannot offer the vaccine, it might be able to offer a balm; as shown by their prior success in putting on in-person events in 2020 and 2021 while other summer festivals switched to digital-only editions. Set in Cluj-Napoca — known as Romania’s second city after Bucharest, and often touted as its creative centre and an LGBT hub — the 21st edition of the festival switches its attention to the war in Ukraine, not through furthering division but by allowing the power of cinema to show off our common humanity.
Therefore, while Ukrainian refugees and citizens are given free access to films at the festival, and Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s Ukrainian Pamfir (pictured above) is a hotly anticipated title, Russian films aren’t completely cut off either. Kirill Serebrennikov’s 2021 Cannes film Petrov’s Flu plays, as well as Lado Kvataniya’s serial killer drama The Execution. The latter plays as part of the competition series, which focuses on first and second features, and has counted films such as Babyteeth (Shannon Murphy, 2020), Oslo 31st August (Joachim Trier, 2012) and Cristian Mungiu’s debut Occident (2002) among its previous winners.
In fact, TIFF’s success has helped to put Romanian cinema on the map, often starting as a launching pad for its belated 00s New Wave, a movement that’s still going strong and situates Romanian filmmakers among some of the best in the world. It makes me particularly excited for Romanian competition entries A Higher Law (Octav Chelaru) and Mikado (Emanuel Pârvu). Over four days I’ll be digging into what the festival has to offer, providing dispatches from the front-line of cutting-edge world cinema. Follow our coverage on Dmovies
TIFF Official Competition 2022
A Higher Law (Romania, Germany, Serbia, Octav Chelaru)
Babysitter (Canada, Monia Chokri)
Beautiful Beings (Iceland, Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson)
Feature Film About Life (Lithuania, Dovile Sarutyte)
Gentle (Hungary, László Csuja, Anna Nemes)
Mikado (Czech Republic, Romania, Emanuel Pârvu)
Magnetic Beats (France, Germany, Vincent Maël Cardona)
The Last Execution (Germany, Franziska Stünkel)
The Night Belongs To Lovers (France, Julien Hilmoine)
The Execution (Russia, Lado Kvantaniya)
Utama (Bolivia, Uruguay, France, Alejandro Loayza Grisi)
Pamfir (Ukraine, France, Poland, Chile, Germany, Luxemburg, Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk)
Documentary Competition
You Are Ceaușescu to Me (Romania, Sebastian Mihăilescu)
Bucolic (Poland,Karol Pałka)
Excess Will Save Us (Sweden, Morgane Dziurla-Petit)
Chanel 54 (Argentina, Lucas Larriera)
Brotherhood (Italy, Czech Republic, Francesco Montagner)
Mother Lode (Switzerland, France, Italy, Matteo Tortone)
Ostrov (Switzerland, Svetlana Rodina and Laurent Stoop)
The Plains (Australia, David Easteal)
Atlantide (Italy, Yuri Ancarani)
For A Fistful Of Fries (Belgium, France, Jean Libon and Yves Hinant)
My first encounter with the films of Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky was a complete accident. Stumbling around Bestival on the Isle of Wight as a young and impressionable teenager, I walked into a tent at midnight just as The Holy Mountain (1973) was about to begin. I had absolutely no idea what to make of the movie; all I knew was that I was in the presence of something completely unique and utterly brilliant. The random nature of this encounter felt Jodorowskian in and of itself, a bizarre coincidence that later left a huge filmmaking impression.
The deranged nature of Jodorowky’s films almost invites the viewer to be somewhat under the influence (like I was then, although just rum and not psychedelics!) when watching them. His breakthrough hit, El Topo, is no exception, a bizarre romp through the Mexican desert that shocks and beguiles in equal measure. Filled to the brim with endless rituals, symbols, animals, dwarfs, deformed people and highly mannered performances, it can be a difficult film to interpret. Seen with an open mindset however and El Topo is a highly cathartic experience, an expiation of sin through brutal violence.
Jodorowsky stars at the eponymous hero, a black-clad gunfighter wandering the desert with his naked son (played by Jodorowsky’s own son Brontis Jodorowsky). He is on a mission to defeat four gun masters to become the finest fighter in the land. With just this basic description El Topo sounds like a traditional Western, or at least a Spaghetti Western — violent deconstructions of the genre filmed by Italians directors like Sergio Corbucci or Sergio Leone — yet Jodorowsky has a completely different aim in mind, using the power of the desert’s almost endless plains to investigate the nature of human morality.
It’s ultimately a deeply religious film, albeit one that explores ideas of spiritually and faith through extreme violence. El Topo can easily be read, like the star of The Holy Mountain, as a type of Jesus-like figure, especially when he finds himself in a cave filled with outcasts who have become deformed through incest. He even quotes New Testament scripture when he asks “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” right before his hands are shot, forming wounds like that of the stigmata. Both blasphemous yet oddly affecting, it foreshadows the intense exploration of Christianity found in the films of Martin Scorsese, especially The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
Yet the film cannot easily be interpreted as a one-for-one Christ allegory. As Roger Ebert mentions: “He makes not the slightest attempt to use them so they sort out into a single logical significance.” Unlike the similarly mannered films of Sergei Parajanov, which can probably be interpreted correctly with a degree in Eastern European studies or specialist knowledge of pre-Soviet Ukrainian, Georgian and Armenian culture, Jodorowsky’s films cannot be solved through specialist knowledge as many of the symbols more or less contradict each other. This is the key pleasure of Jodorowsky’s films and what makes them such iconic Midnight Movies. You just simply have to go with the flow, bring your own perspective to what they offer, and enjoy the experience. Intoxicants are optional.
A restoration of El Topo is in selected cinemas across the UK on Friday, January 10th.
Thirza Jean Cuthand was born in Saskatchewan and grew up in Saskatoon, and she is of Cree origin. Starting in 1995, Cuthand began exploring short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, youth, love, and race, using national, sexual and Indigenous experiences to showcase in unfiltered raw exteriors.
Make no mistake, there is purity at play here. Collecting the confines, conditions and contractions of Cuthand’s milieu, the varied works slip together into one continuous narrative written years, even decades, apart. More to the point, the essays cross genres from the pointedly visual into the realms of performance arts.
In a life’s work, we are testimonies to a great becoming of life, love and failings, fearlessly guiding the wills and witnesses of expectations over a twenty four year story. The feelings, frailities and failures are true of all our lives, but Cuthand has the courage and power to be real about them. In a peerless recall of honesty, the collected works speak so mournfully with a communal power absent even in Richard Linklater’s extraordinary Boyhood (2014). Though they could be easily overlooked, the works radically question the everyday division between the artful and the mundane. In an art form traditionally more recondite than visual, Cuthand’s work sprawls through ages, genres and documentaries.
Early clips use archive footage of films and puppetry, playfully positing the questions of truthfulness from the companionship Disney princesses traditionally have provided women. Detailed in black and white, Helpless Maiden Makes an ‘I’ Statement (1999) finds a subject discussing the frustrations of a bottom position. Bravely opening the chartered path of self discovery, the narrative continues in the striking Just Dandy (2013), an essay of entrapment read through a diary. Performances play with ease, ebullient in energised ease as the author describes her innermost thoughts at a talk more potently lit in colour.
Then there’s 2 Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com (2017), opening and centred on the butch director in the flirtatious pose which too often stamps itself on pornographic websites. From the confines of these video-confessionals, the films progress narratively and thematically in evolving the woman’s body from the shaded to the candid. In its own way, it’s a riff on the inhibitions a person feels in their comfort’s both in their naked thoughts and naked bodies. In their way, the audience grows in confidence with the naked exteriors with the subjects. Reclamation (2018, pictured at the top), the fieriest entry, imagines a dystopic future in Canada after massive climate change, wars, pollution, and the palpable consequences of the large scale colonial project which has now destroyed the land. Visually inventive, the majority of the short films focus mostly on the experiences which the audience members find themselves longing to hear.
Topics and themes also explore the sadomasochistic lesboerotic subtexts in children’s entertainments, the temporal horrors migraine blindness inflicts and the dismal loneliness a young lesbian must endure in a Canadian school. Added to that the realities of an everyday struggle, the essays explore the different worlds an Indigenous person must walk. It’s not so different, yet completely different, to the worlds everyone else inhabits. A revelation of a series.
In addition to the short films listed above, the Thirza Cuthand Retrospective also includes the following pieces: Lessons in Baby Dyke Theory (1995), Sight (2012), 2 Spirit Introductory Special $19.99 (2015), Thirza Cuthand is an Indian Within the Meaning of the Indian Act (2017) and the more recent Less Lethal Fetishes (2019). The event takes place on October 13th at the Horse Hospital as part of the 13th Native Spirit Festival. Just click here for more information, and in order to get your tickets now!
Plenty of films have violent content, that’s easy. Fewer possess a genuinely visceral quality that, for better or worse, leaves a lasting impression on you. But fewer still are actually about violence, about how it feels and what it means for victims, perpetrators and wider society. Here are 10 examples of where cinema has broached this darkly compelling subject, listed in chronological order.
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1. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971):
Kubrick’s idiosyncratic masterpiece begins with Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his droogs beating, raping and stealing their way through dystopian Britain in one of the most electrifying – and objectionable – opening sequences in cinema history. It is a stunning synthesis of Kubrick’s wired, aberrant vision and McDowell’s supremely confident performance, creating a spectacle of the most indulgent amorality that draws the viewer in, almost making them the fifth droog.
Alex’s run is short-lived, however, and he finds himself locked up, with his only ticket to freedom being the revolutionary ‘Ludovico technique’. This turns out to be every Libertarian’s worst nightmare – a neurological procedure resembling abject torture that brainwashes its patient (or victim?) to hate whatever they are being forced to watch or listen to. In Alex’s case, he is programmed to hate – be physically reviled by – sex, violence and, as an unfortunate by–product, his beloved Beethoven.
Now, this treatment certainly stops little Alex from tolchocking and doing the old ‘in-out in-out’, but whose idea of justice is this? Certainly not the prison chaplain’s (Godfrey Quigley), who remarks indignantly:
‘Choice! The boy has no real choice, has he? He ceases to be a wrongdoer… he ceases also to be a creature of moral choice.’
This is the dilemma at the centre of A Clockwork Orange. Could we afford the state this power, ostensibly for the greater good? Where would it start, where would it end? Would the treatment be extended to petty criminals? How many brains and lives would be ruined? Kubrick’s film posits many questions but provides no easy answers.
Much like Deliverance, Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs mires an ordinary (and slightly effete) man in a situation of animal violence. Anyone who’s been in a playground will recognise the bullyboy behaviour – the leering glances, hostile posturing, mocking remarks. All are designed to push the boundaries until all pretences are fatally dropped. This toxic dynamic looms over the film, giving it a nasty, foreboding dread.
Most unsettling is Amy’s (Susan George) relationship with Charlie (Del Henney), her broad, masculine old flame. Her persistent attraction to him – despite being married to David (Dustin Hoffman), an academic – represents the idea of women being attracted to dominant and potentially violent male behaviour.
This notion becomes particularly direct and controversial in two moments – a rape that becomes consensual and the manner in which David asserts his dominance over Amy in the violent climax, slapping her face, pulling her hair and orderingher to ‘stay there and do as you’retold, or I’ll break your neck.’ Although the film tells us little about the future of their relationship, there can be no doubt that David’s aggression gets both her attention and her respect. It is part of the toxic message that runs through Straw Dogs – violence, even sexual violence, can bea viable option.
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3. Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971):
Dirty Harry’s lowbrowappeal – and aestheticisation of violence – disguises a film that asks hard, dangerous questions about crime and punishment. It seems almost risible now, but long before Inspector Harry Callahan became the proverbial anti-hero stock character, critics took Dirty Harry really rather seriously, with some even labelling it “fascist”.
If you enter this film addled with political notions then perhaps you could see it as fascist. After all, Eastwood’s eponymous supercop plays fast and loose with the law – breaking and entering, torturing a suspect and ultimately becoming something of a free agent in the film’s denouement. But the question at the heart of Dirty Harry is an uncomfortable one. If you were the powerless victim of an unhinged and uncaught criminal, who would you want in your corner – the desk-bound bureaucrat or the ballsy, hard-nosed Inspector?
Ultimately, Callahan serves justice in his signature style, goading the snivelling, hateful Scorpio into retrieving his dropped P38 with the famed ‘Do I feel lucky?’ line. As he picks it up, Callahan delivers the last .44 round straight through his heart, blowing him off the jetty and into the quarry lake. Yet, as Callahan watches Scorpio’s twisted face submerge into the murky water, there is little catharsis. To the score of Lalo Schifrin’s haunting End Titles, Callahan detaches his seven-point star and throws it into the lake, utterly disillusioned with everything his profession stands for.
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4. Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972):
This timeless survival thriller places the viewer in the proverbial ‘what-if?’ situation. What would you do in the face of such rapidly escalating danger, where initiative and ruthlessness are the deciders of life and death? This is the situation faced by Lewis (Burt Reynolds), Ed (Jon Voight), Drew (Ronny Cox) and Bobby (Ned Beatty), four ‘city boys’ from Atlanta venturing into the wilderness of northern Georgia.
The infamous rape sequence – which has lost none of its ugliness – is cut short by Lewis’s broadhead arrow, which thuds through the chest of the mountain man in an agonisingly protracted death scene. What follows is a desperate argument over their plan of action –what are we going to do… do we get the authorities…have we done anything wrong… what’s our story… who’s still out there?
Alas, their situation goes from bad to worse as bones are broken, Drew goes missing and Ed is tasked with a cliff face and a mountain man who’s looking to finish what he started. It is a brutish, dog-eat-dog story that makes one appreciate every pedestrian comfort and societal institution they’ve ever taken for granted.
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5. A Short Film About Killing (Kristok Kieslowski, 1988):
This fatally bleak realist drama is about the use of violence. After an aimless young man wantonly murders a taxi driver, he is executed by the Polish state in an act that some would argue is equally senseless. The dilemma of this film, delivered with unremitting miserablism by Kryzstof Kieslowski, made such an impression that it shaped both public opinion and political persuasion in the twilight years of communist Poland.
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6. Elephant (Alan Clarke, 1989)
The most direct and unusual film on this list, Alan Clarke’s Elephant is quite simply 39 minutes of men walking up to other men and shooting them dead. Here Clarke uses his noted penchant for Steadicam shots to comment on the cyclical nature of the Northern Irish conflict and the wider issue of how violence begets violence.
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7. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992):
Clint Eastwood’s metafictional revisionist Western examines the jarring disparity between real and romanticised violence, between the myth of the Old West and the cruel, ugly reality. Much of the savagery of its central character, William Munny, is depicted not with explosive bloodletting but with sparse, disturbing dialogue that gives an authentic weight to his character.
Of course, the metafictional element is deeply personal to Eastwood, who had spent the preceding 30 years shooting dozens of outlaws with preternatural accuracy, often with little to no blood. There’s a scene in Unforgiven, however, that depicts the real suffering inflicted by a bullet to the gut, as well as the wrenching shame of the perpetrators, especially Ned (Morgan Freeman), who passes the rifle to Munny, unable to finish the job.
Towards the film’s end, as Munny stands in a barren, windswept scene, he summarises the terrible loss of killing better than any other film in this list – “It’s a hell of thing killing a man. You take away all he’s got, and all he’s gonna have”.
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8. Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999):
Central to Fight Club’s nihilist cry against consumer culture is bone-crunching, face-smashing violence. For the Narrator (Edward Norton), nothing else matters after Fight Club; the rush of pummelling or being pummelled into the concrete negates every banal concern. His rudderless existence is given meaning and vitality by pain and sacrifice. However, his rejection of society’s material narrative in favour of this savage masculinity proves to be a doomed rabbit hole of toxic nihilism.
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9. No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers, 2007):
Old men – and old women – have lamented the state of society since time immemorial. In the fourth century BC, Plato remarked: ‘What is happening to our young people? They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying.’
No Country for Old Men opens with a similar sentiment, only it’s delivered in the world-weary drawl of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). His fear of society’s mores slipping into a violent abyss, which is reactionary yet resonant, is set against one of cinema’s greatest cat-and-mouse thrillers, which bursts with tension and pitiless violence. And once it’s over – just another episode of conflict and misery in Bell’s long career –he sits at the kitchen table, retired yet dejected, unsure of the world and his place in it.
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10. Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014):
Nightcrawler is a Schraderesque character study of a man far more dangerous than Travis Bickle. Utterly opportunistic and completely without a moral compass, Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is introduced as a drifter with a creepy flair for dogged self-promotion.He has scraped a nomadic existence of skulduggery and crime – some petty, some definitely not –but the film’s events begin as he finally stumbles upon his life’s calling – paparazzi photojournalism.
In this field, Lou provides what so many of us can’t look away from. Road accidents, home invasions, carjackings gone wrong – anything that involves blood, gore and misery is good for business. After all, who hasn’t looked when they’ve passed a traffic accident, a fight, or someone in the throes of cardiac arrest? We know it’s in poor taste but we just can’t help ourselves. For people like Lou, however, it’s positively thrilling.
Nightcrawler is a satire of this tasteless voyeurism – content that’s perhaps interesting for the public but decidedly not in the public interest, a distinction that is gleefully ignored in favour of lucrative morbidity and cynical scare mongering.
The Cambridge Film Festival is now nearly four decades old, making it the third longest-running film festival in the country!
At this historical juncture in the UK’s relationship with Europe, the Festival strives to reflect the vast diversity and richness of European filmmaking. With 57 features (two thirds of the programme) from 19 different European countries, the selection affords fascinating insights into cultures which tend to be less familiar to us. Look out for Austrian Focus, Catalan sidebar and ‘Eye on Films’, a special showcase of emerging talent from countries such as Kosovo, Belgium and Macedonia.
Looking not only at Europe but also beyond, the Festival is to open up windows on the wider world, with features and documentaries addressing such urgent themes as the plight of migrants seeking a better future, the rise of artificial intelligence, the need to combat prejudice in all its forms, and the struggles of those trapped in repressive regimes. Even our ‘classics strand’, with its tales of US presidents in crisis, is full of contemporary resonance.
Because it’s always to decide where to begin in such a large film event, we have decided to lend you a little helping hand. Below are our top 10 dirty picks from the Festival, chosen exclusively for you. Don’t forget to click on the film title in order to accede to exclusive dirty reviews (where available). These are listed in no particular order.
An inhabitant of Istanbul claims: “in a way, street animals are our cultural symbol”. Roaming the urban streets, Istanbul’s cats live a life away from the veiled domesticated environments associated to them in the West. Cared for by the inhabitants of the city, these animals are never far from adoration. However, the community’s attention towards such cats runs deeper than simply feeding them; it exposes Istanbul’s deep understanding of nature and its historicity. Directed by Ceyda Torun, who grew up in Istanbul in the 1980s, ths documentary flows poetically and reminds one of such ‘city symphonies’ as Mark Cousin’s I Am Belfast (2015) and Terence Davis’ Of Time and the City (2008).
Set in present-day Prishtina (the capital of Kosovo), The Marriage (also pictured at the top of this article) is the story of an impossible love. It’s also the very first LGBT film from Kosovo ever. Anita (Adriana Matoshi) and Bekim (Alban Ukaj) are adding the final touches to their wedding. Their preparations are almost complete and they will tie the knot in just two weeks. Anita has been living with the trauma of her missing parents during the Kosovo War of 1999, while Bekim is very much an established man in the city. In the course of their wedding-planning, Bekim’s secret ex-lover from the past, Nol (Genc Salihu), returns from France. His return changes course of events and establishes a new connection between characters.
Terry Gilliam’s intended magnum opus is a very divisive film. DMovies’ editor Victor Fraga wasn’t particularly keen on it. He wrote: “It’s gooey inside, deflated and burnt. Its texture isn’t consistent. But it’s still digestible with some very tasty bits“.
Ian Schultz begs to differ. He travelled all the way to Paris in order to watch the movie. He wrote: “Like all of Gilliam’s films, despite being grand, it’s intensely personal. Toby and Quixote portray the director’s two sides: Toby personifies the deeply frustrated would-be artist whose passion and determination have been channelled into commerce, while Quixote is the dreamer whose life was enriched and yet damaged by the story”. Read his article by clicking here.
Now it’s your turn to make up your mind and decide whether you like it or not!
It’s big clit vs small dick energy in Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Suspiria, an aesthetic update of the original by turns confounding and magical – that neon soaked Argento look is replaced by the muted palette and instagram friendly architectural design/framing of Guadagnino. There’s enough glass brick on display to make you think twice about throwing stones, and enough conflicting, contradictory messages by this movie to have you frustrated, stupefied and eager to come back for more.
But there’s fairly little DNA shared with the Argento original. A fondness for split-focus dioptre shots aside, the closer comparative point is Possession, that masterpiece of writhing bodies in Berlin. That’s because Suspiria is far less interested in copying the emotions of the original than it is with taking a few of the themes and ideas (particularly that of displacement and cultism) through a modern lens.
How far would you go for your green card? How much is the American dream worth? Romanian nurse Mara (Mălina Manovici) wants to settle in the US because she feels that the country could offer her and her 10-year-old child Dragos more opportunities than her homeland. She isn’t fleeing poverty or war. She came to the US in a work placement for six months, and then succeed to marry one of her patients. She’s well trained and educated. But she’s soon to discover that the “Land of the Free” isn’t quite ready to welcome her with open arms.
The story starts in the impoverished and aptly-named rural town of Inviolata (Italian for “inviolable”), where a group a group of peasants work as sharecroppers in conditions analogue to slavery for the pompous Marquise De La Luna and her son the eccentric Marquis De La Luna. The decrepit buildings and working conditions suggest that the town is in the South of Italy, although its exact location is never revealed. Lazzaro helps both the peasants and the bosses without drawing much attention to himself. He’s prepared to do anything for this people. He will offer his very blood is asked to do it.
Suddenly, De La Luna’s “great swindle” is uncovered. She’s arrested and the farm abandoned. The peasants move to the city in search of pastures green. Then the film moves forward several years. The actress Alba Rohrwacher, who happens to be the director’s elder sister, plays different characters at the different times. Everyone ages. Except for Lazzaro. He looks exactly the same; even his plain clothes remain unchanged.
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7. If (Lindsay Anderson, 1968):
Lindsay Anderson’s biting satire on public school life and the British establishment is generally reckoned as one of the best – and most subversive – British films ever made. The mesmerising Malcolm McDowell plays the leader of a group of disaffected sixth-formers who plot to bring armed revolution to their school Founders Day. A brilliant distillation of the spirit of 1968, a legend of popular culture, and a must for anyone who has ever felt stifled in school uniform.
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8. Malcolm is a Little Unwell (Malcolm Brabant/ Trine Villemann, 2018):
This film chronicles the descent into madness of award-winning BBC foreign correspondent Malcolm Brabant after he receives a routine yellow fever vaccine required for an assignment in Africa. He begins hallucinating and starts to believe he is the new Messiah, being directed by the ghosts of dead friends who, like him, covered the siege of Sarajevo. Brabant suffers several relapses, psychotic episodes and bouts of treatment in psychiatric hospital. He captures one episode on camera himself, while his wife Trine Villemann keeps video diaries in order to document his transformation…
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9. Roobha (Lenin M. Sivam, 2018):
A unique romantic tale that deals with the complexities of gender identity. Roobha, a trans-woman, struggles to find her place after being ostracized by her family. Her chance encounter with a family man, Anthony, leads to a beautiful romance. But their blissful relationship soon comes crashing down for reasons not their own. Roobha is a beautiful film that confronts the transgender stigma and biases that exist within the Tamil community. Although revered in ancient times as incarnates of the Mohini, transgender members of the community now often find themselves ridiculed and stigmatised.
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10. Miss Dali (Ventura Pons, 2018):
Salvador Dalí’s complex personality is thoroughly explored in Ventura Pons’s luminous biopic. Based on the memories of Dalí’s sister, who studied for some years in Cambridge, she recounts her life with the famous painter with her British friend. Ventura Pons met Dalí on many occasions as they both admired the Catalan village of Cadaqués, background to many of Dalí’s paintings and to Pons’s beautiful film.
A lot of British people would rather forget the oppressive history of the British Empire, and instead bask in the glorious notion of British self-determination, all blended with a tacit sense of racial and cultural superiority. These people are not interested in historical balance and revisionism, and will dismiss Britain’s dark past with a succinct “no country is perfect”. Nationalists will also denounce those asking for a broader and more critical historical debate as anti-patriotic. Why should anyone get these ugly skeletons out of the closet? A lot of really interesting historical facts we miss because of the accumulation of assignments. But you can take advantage of a website that help do your homework, which will significantly increase your free time to study what really interests you.
Two years ago, the emblematic Ken Loach told us in an exclusive interview: “Gordon Brown once said that we need to stop apologising about the British Empire, but I don’t recall there ever being an apology. The British Empire was founded on land conquests, enslaving people, transporting them to other countries, stealing people’s natural resources, exploitation, brutality, concentration camps. We do need to tell the truth about that. I’m not saying we should wallow in guilt. This is what happened and we need to know our history, that’s all. The fake patriotism of Britannia rules the waves is nonsense.”
There are a countless British films celebrating British history and nationalism, particularly on the topic of WW2 and its aftermath. DMovies‘ editor Victor Fraga argues that films such as Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, released this January, “have a subliminal message of tub-thumping nationalism and anti-German resentment (and, by extension, anti-European) in common, which resonates with Brexiters.” He concludes: “These movies instill a sense of self-righteousness and moral superiority in the British people.”
On the other hand, movies dealing with the atrocities of the British Empire – such as the Bengal famine of 1943 (pictured above), the concentration camps of the Second Boer War and destructive meddling in nearly every corner of the planet – remain rare as a hen’s tooth. That’s why we decided to compile this little list for you. The films are listed backwards in chronological order. Click on the film title in order to accede to our exclusive dirty review (where available).
This 50-minute featurette is a extremely succinct and clear lesson on the causes of said famine. You will learn that the British wilfully crippled Bengal and Orissa (in what’s now Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal) in order to prevent the Japanese from occupying the region. They burned the harvest (in what is described as the “scorched earth policy”) and sank the boats in an attempt to render the land unusable. Churchill simply wasn’t interested in the “collateral damage”: up to five million deaths (three million according to questionable figures from the British Empire). The mere redistribution of food from places of abundance to places of scarcity would have solved the problem. That could have been easily done had Churchill been a “nice man”, the film claims. There was no shortage of food, and the 2.5 million Indian soldiers fighting for the British Empire were well fed. To add insult to injury, Britain was importing grain from Australia and the ships would stop at India, before the staple was stored in the Middle East for future consumption in Europe.
asking a coloniser with organising the independence of its colony is the equivalent to assigning Josef Fritzl with the social reintegration of his kids. The outcome is inevitably disastrous, yet the captor will never cease to believe that his victims are to blame. The British-born film director of Punjabi Sikh Kenyan Asian origin Gurinder Chadha opens her film with a quote from Walter Benjamin: “history is written by the victors”, gently reminding British viewers that they must rewrite they history in order to acknowledge the gargantuan atrocities of the past.
The importance of Viceroy’s House as a historical register cannot overstated. It effectively busts the myth that the Partition of India was necessary in order to prevent a bloodshed, instead revealing that it was established as convenient tool for hegemonic and oil interests in the Middle East. It would be much easier to exert control over a small and conservative Pakistan than over a socialist-leaning India, the movie reveals.
Let’s talk about Iraq: “We promised an Arab government with British advisors and delivered it the other way around. We tried to govern and failed. In my opinion, we tried to govern too much”. Does this sound familiar, like these words were uttered last decade? In reality they are from Gertrude Bell in the early 20th century. This British woman, often nicknamed the “the female Lawrence of Arabia” is considered one of the champions of Iraq independence, if often overlooked. The irony that her commentary remains so current a century on suggests that British meddling in the Middle East hasn’t changed so much, perhaps just reinvented itself.
This documentary made out of black and white photographs and moving images, some reenacted and some original, contains so much historical information that you will either need a pen or a prodigy’s brain to in order to retain most of it. With Tilda Swindon as the voice of Gertrude Bell, the movie will take you on a journey and history lesson of British Imperialism, vested interests and female representation.
This is a film highly celebratory of the British monarchy, but not without criticism of the British Empire and British colonial mindset in the late 19th century. The movie tells the story of the deeply affectionate relationship between Queen Victoria (with the usually impeccable performance by Dame Judi Dench, a film royalty herself) and her Indian spiritual guide (munshi) Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal). They first met as Abdul travelled to the UK in order to hand a present to Her Majesty, who was also the Empress of India at the time. He broke protocol by making eye contact, and Queen Victoria immediately became very fond of the tall and attractive young man.
Victoria and Abdul is a very funny and witty film, with plenty of subtle comments on tolerance (or rather on the British inability to embrace it at the time). The court’s reaction to Abdul’s burka-clad wife and mother-in-law arriving in the UK are particularly amusing and symbolic of the British failure to embrace tolerance.
This film is both extremely personal and extremely universal. Personal because Canada-based Tamil-born documentarist Jude Ratnam travels back to his homeland Sri Lanka, which he fled decades earlier as a refugee, and opens up profound wounds of the past. And universal because it’s borderline impossible not to relate to his tragic personal history.
Demons in Paradise explores the Civil War between the dominant Sinhalese and the abject Tamil, which has ravaged the country since its independence from the UK. The demons in the title are the ghosts of an irresponsible handover from the British colonisers to the Sinhalese in 1948, the director clarifies very early on in the movie. This conflict remains largely unknown or ignored in the West, making this documentary an extremely urgent denunciation tool and piece of filmmaking.
Another film about the largest forced displacement of people in the history of mankind, the Partition of India. The joy of independence in India didn’t last long: it was closely followed by the pains and the jolt of the Partition. On the 14 of August 1947 two twin nations were born, covered in blood and hatred: India and Pakistan. Toba Tek Singh, directed by the commercially and critically acclaimed Indian filmmaker Ketan Mehta, utilises a lunatic asylum – the common name for psychiatric institutions back then – as a metaphor of the madness, division and turmoil that the region experienced back then.
The institution is located in Lahore, then part of India and now firmly in Pakistan. Its inmates are almost entirely young men, with the exception of Bishen Singh (played by Pankaj Kapur, pictured above), a mostly silent old Sikh man who allegedly hasn’t slept in 15 years. Perhaps his self-imposed insomnia is a prescient sign of impending fate of his homeland. The Partition was very violent, with notions of national identity torn to pieces, family and friends divided.
This one isn’t directly aimed at the British Empire, but it reveals how it lent a helping hand to its murderous associates in Italy, ensuring that war criminals remain unpunished. After all, what are friends for?
The movie investigates the most recent symbol of the Italian colonial past, the 2012 monument in Affile (a commune in Rome) dedicated to Rodolfo Graziani, a prominent military officer who acted as Mussolini’s viceroy in Ethiopia. The erection sparked an uproar, voiced by left-wing politicians and national commentators, such as Igiaba Scego, an Italian writer and activist born to Somali parents in Rome, and the collective of Bologna-based writers Wu-Ming. Scego even launched a petition. This monument stands at the centre of Ciriaci’s documentary as Graziani himself; unlike their German and Japanese counterparts, Italian war criminals never faced trial.
For many years, Ethiopia tried to put the officer on trial, but these efforts were halted by Italian and British authorities, despite the fact that his name was on the UN list of war criminals. The British Foreign Office vehemently opposed Ethiopia’s inclusion in the UN War Crimes Commission and the trial on Italian crimes committed during the 1935/36 invasion.
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8. White Mischief (Richard Radford, 1987):
A number of wealthy British aristocrats fled Britain during WW2 for Kenya, seeking refuge and a safe haven. They indulged in a debauched and hedonistic life, with little regard for locals and local customs. This film dramatises the events of the Happy Valley murder case in Kenya in 1941, when Sir Henry “Jock” Delves Broughton was tried for the murder of Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll.
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9. Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982):
This epic historical drama is based on the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the leader of India’s non-violent, non-cooperative independence struggle against the United Kingdom’s rule of India. It covers his life from the late 19th century to his assassination in 1948. Key moments include Gandhi for being on a “white” carriage of a train in South Africa and the Sal March, against the British-imposed tax on salt. The film also deals with violence against independence protesters and Gandhi’s occasional imprisonment, both perpetrated by the British colonisers.
Ok, we have cheated. And we love cheating on our Top 10 lists, as long as there’s a very good reason for that. Poor Cow isn’t a film about the British Empire, about how ugly life inside Britain can be. It’s a film about how our motherland can mistreat and abuse not just those outside our small island, but also those inside it. The film is authored by Ken Loach, the loudest voice of British social and political consciousness.
Based on the eponymous novel by Nell Dunn, Ken Loach’s debut drama follows the life of a young working-class mother in all of her traumas and tribulations. The beautiful Joy (Carol White) is married to Tom (John Bindon), a physically and emotionally abusive criminal who ends up in prison. She is left alone bringing up her son, and soon finds comfort with Tom’s associate Dave (a very cocky, charming any playful Terence Stamp). But he too ends up incarcerated, and Joy is once again left to fend for herself. She has to work in a pub, to do erotic modelling and to engage with richer boyfriends in order to make ends meet.
The living conditions were squalid, there was hardly any cultural diversity, the job market was scarce and as a consequence many people opted for a criminal life. This is a very powerful reminder of the conditions of the British working class five decades ago. This is not to say that everything has changed since then.
Another year has gone by, and DMovies is now nearly two years old. We were launched in February 2016, which makes 2017 our first year fully operational (from January to December). In the past 12 months, we have published more than 200 reviews, 40 articles and held eight screenings of our favourite dirty movies across London. Plus, we have attended the three major film festivals in Europe: Cannes, Berlin and Venice, plus Sundance and Tribeca across the pond. To boot, we have partnered with ArteKino and with The Film Agency/ Under the Milky Way in order to promote the best films on VoD in the UK, Europe and beyond.
This means that we have been extremely busy unearthing the dirtiest gems of cinema being made in all corners of the planet. It was extremely difficult to selected the dirtiest films from such an extensive pool, so we asked our top six contributors to cherry-pick their dirty favourites of the year. Each contributor picked one. That’s six films. The other four films were selected by our readers – they are the most read reviews between January and now.
These 10 films are from countries as diverse as Syria, Brazil, France, Israel, Italy and Germany/Australia. Sadly no British film made it to the list this year. These movies with deal complex and profound topics such as war (Foxtrot and Insyriated are very anti-war), sexuality (the twisted The Double Lover and the LGBT romance Call me by Your Name), misogyny (Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story), but also more lighthearted, puerile issues (The Florida Project and My Life as a Courgette). What all of these films have in common is that they will hit you like a ton of bricks, and cause you to reflect about your own life!
Check out the full list below, which is sorted in no specific order. Just don’t forget to click on the film titles in order to accede to our exclusive dirty review!
Get ready for a feast for the eyes. A visual orgasm conceived by DOP Giora Bejach. The creativity shows in every single frame, with a variety of angles, lighting and textures.Foxtrot is both a beautiful film and a piece of art, plus an incendiary anti-war statement. The visual ballet divided in three acts: Michael Feldman (Lior Ashkenazi) is informed that his son Jonathan (Yonatan Sharay), a conscript in the Israeli Army, has died; Jonathan’s days of military service in the Israeli Defense Forces, and; a long conversation between Michael and Jonathan’s mother, Dafna (Sarah Adler). Each act has a distinctive touch, and all three are strangely pleasant to watch.
For 85 minutes you will have to wear the shoes of Oum Yazan (in a rivetting performance delivered by the Palestinian actress and film director Hiam Abbass), as she does everything within reach in order to protect her family inside her flat in Damascus, as the Syrian War is just beginning to loom. You will be locked with Oum and seven other people in the relative safety of her middle-class dwelling, while a cannonade of bombs and machine gun fire explodes outside.
Urgent in its simplicity, the effective Insyriated will haunt you for some time. It’s a painful reminder that tragedy can strike at anytime, and that there is no such thing as a safe home. It’s also a call for action: every country should open their doors to Oum, Halima and their families.
We regret to inform you that Pennywise has been uncrowned and also stripped of his title as the dirtiest clown ever. The accolade has been rightly claimed by Brazilian Bingo. The difference is that instead of scaring and killing children, his South American counterpart subverts childhood in a very unusual way. He infuses it with swagger, malice, sensuality and a dash of naughty humour. And he’s also a little Camp. Most Americans and Europeans would cringe at the teachings of this very unusual prankster.
The character is in based on the real story of Arlindo Barreto, the first Bozo (The American clown character, which never featured on British media) on Brazilian television, back in the 1980s – his name was changed to Bingo on the movie in order to avoid legal trademark issues, and also for the sake of more artistic freedom.
Bingo: The King of the Mornings was released just last week, and it’s in cinemas now. Its immediate popularity with our readers catapulted it to our top 10.
Simply orgasmic. Ozon’s latest film is an incredibly arresting, sexy and funny study of love, sexuality and emotional breakdown. Chloé (Marine Vatch) begins an affair with her psychologist Paul (Jérémier Renier), after she has recovered from anxiety and some apparently psychosomatic stomach pains. Paul is strong and confident, while Chloé is frail and insecure. Her looks and vulnerability, plus some of the sex scenes, reminded me a lot of Mia Farrow of Polanski 1968 classic Rosemary’s Baby – minus the blond hair. Like Rosemary, she begins to suspect that her husband is concealing something from her and – despite her insecurities – she begins to investigate his life. She soon discovers that he changed his surname, but that’s just the beginning.
The Double Lover, which is also pictured at the top of this article, was selected by our readers. It was by far the most read review of the year, suggesting that our dirty readers love a little twisted randy action! It’s yet to hot UK cinemas, so stay tuned!
This modern take on Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971) is an emotional, rapturous and sensual queer love story taking place in northern Italy, and it will immediately steak your heart.
In the summer of 1983 in northern Italy, Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a 17-year-old boy, is about to receive a guest in his aristocratic house. He is lending his bed to Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old American scholar who has some work to do with Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor specialising in Greco-Roman culture. Elio and Oliver will share the same toilet as well as a desire for each other.
Call me by Your Name was selected by Maysa Monção.
The streets will feel boring and dim after you’ve watched Good Time. Working with Robert Pattinson in a role written specifically for him after seeing the brothers’ previous film Heaven Knows What (2014) – a bleak examination of a young woman’s addiction to heroin – the narrative follows Connie Nikas’ (Pattinson) quest to get his mental disabled brother, Nick, out of jail before anything life-threatening happens to him. Even before the retro Good Time title appears on screen, accompanied by a heavenly synth based score, you gain an intimate understanding of both brothers and their relationship.
As the manipulative Connie, Pattinson manages to create a human who produces both disgusts and sympathy; he is a natural-born saviour who has rejected the only paternal figure in his life. His ability to be whoever whenever is undoubtedly a gift. Acting up to police officers in lies that flow effortlessly from his mouth, Pattinson is effectively acting within acting. To Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh) he is her affectionate toy boy. Yet, Connie only sees her as a spare credit card for Nick’s bail money and a free ride around town.
The Florida Project is “a loving look at the innocence of childhood”, as announced in the film trailer. Everything the camera captures is from the point of view of three children. Sean Baker is best known for his dirty Christmas film Tangerine (2015).
Baker represents the lives of marginalised Americans. The director uses photography in order to tell a story. Mooney and Jacey want to get to the pot of gold at end of the rainbow. The colourful rainbow is a symbol of the journey the kids are about to start. They desire to get out of the margins of society. The photography is not only beautiful, but it is a meaningful part of the story.
Unlike so many mainstream children’s films which are designed to capture young minds by throwing relentless, rapid fire sounds and images at them, this one concentrates on the plight of its characters and how they deal with deep-seated social issues confronting them. A wry observational humour underscores the whole thing, as when Simon explains to the others that the final point of “doing it” is that “the man’s willy explodes”.
This is a striking script adaptation of a book realised with a real love for the craft of the stop frame animation process. Yet it’s much more than that, too: tackling difficult social issues head on whilst delivering convincing child (and adult) characters with lots of rough edges in a simple story which holds the viewer’s attention throughout.
My Life as a Courgette was selected by Jeremy Clarke.
She was just 16 and she was a natural born star. She was the first woman who simulated an orgasm in cinema. Hedy Lamarr could have stopped her career soon after she appeared in the film Ecstasy (Machaty, 1933), but she didn’t. The feature contains nudity. What a bold woman! Beautiful and twisted face,. But she wanted more than a quick and fake pleasure. She wanted to be recognised as a clever woman. So she devised a secret communication system to help the Allies to beat the Nazis. Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is a historical doc that inspires us not to be defined by the labels that other people stick on us without asking.
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story was selected by our readers. It’s one of the most read pieces of the year, despite seeing no theatrical distribution in the UK, and just a couple of ad hoc screenings. Time to fix that and place Hedy where she truly belongs, in front of huge audiences, recognised for both her looks and her skills.
Clare (Teresa Palmer) is an Australian photojournalist visiting Berlin and trying to capture some of the city’s essence with her camera. As both a female and a foreigner who doesn’t speak the language, the actress conveys a sense of extreme vulnerability without coming across as clueless and stupid. There’s lingering fear in her eyes, even in the most trivial actions such as having a glass of wine or crossing the street. She soon falls for the handsome and charming local lecturer Andi, who eventually locks her up and turns her into some sort of sex slave.
The dirtiest aspect of Berlin Syndrome is that, unlike in the syndrome named after the Swedish capital, the victim here does not gradually begin to identify with her kidnapper. The frail and vulnerable foreigner here defies all expectations and instead morphs into a headstrong escapee. It’s remarkable that female directors are embracing the male-dominated field of suspense and horror, and to dirtylicious results.
This December you have an extra reason to stay at home. Even better: you have 10 reasons to stay at home. As if you needed yet more encouragement to trade the freezing temperatures outside for the comfort of your sofa and the company of dirty European film. The online platform for independent films Festival Scope has teamed up with the European culture channel ARTE and come up with ArteKino, a unique online film festival featuring 10 carefully selected films not available anywhere else for a limited period only. And it’s entirely free: there are to hidden catches and credit card numbers to be given out!
Each film can be viewed by 5,000 people between December 1st and December 17th on a first-come-first-saved basis, and they are available everywhere in Europe unless stated otherwise (see exceptions below). All films area available in the UK and Ireland, except for Chevalier.
These gems were carefully handpicked by Olivier Père, Director of Film at ARTE France and Artistic Director at ArteKino Festival. He explains “ArteKino is designed to be a 100% free digital event, the festival was born out of ARTE’s desire to strengthen its support for modern European arthouse films in an original manner by giving yet them greater visibility and wider distribution.”
He went on to explain how the event is curated: ” we have selected 10 films that represent the eclectic and daring trend sweeping across modern European film productions. Alongside the latest work from renowned filmmakers, we have decided to showcase new talent, with some directors’ first ambitious feature-length films that demonstrate the outstanding creative ability of the new generation from countries such as Romania, Greece and Poland.”
The amazing selection includes a Bulgarian story of lovelessness, corruption and addiction, with a twist, a Portuguese tale of sorrow and nostalgia, the life of controversial Polish surrealist painter ZdzisławBeksiński, before he rose to fame, and also a very dysfunctional macho game in Greece (pictured above), plus much much more. Check the full list just below, and visit ArteKino’s portal in order to view them RIGHT NOW!
Berlin-based engineer Michael must travel to Norway for his father‘s funeral. His sister is unwilling to go, and Michael is left alone with his 14-year-old son Luis, with whom he has always had minimal contact. Michael tries to bond with Luis while exploring the remote region of northern Norway for a few days. But their first trip together is much more difficult than expected. Daily interaction is unfamiliar territory to both, and Luis obviously holds a grudge because of his father‘s negligence. But during these longest days of summer, Michael is determined to break a bittersweet father-son pattern.
The film showed at the following festivals (and it took home the prize between brackets): Berlin (Silver Bear for Best Actor), Hong Kong, Buenos Aires and Taipei Golden Horse. It is not available for viewing in the following countries:Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Austria and Norway.
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2. Scarred Hearts (Radu Jude, Romania/ Germany):
During the summer of 1937, Emanuel, a young man in his early 20s, is committed to a sanatorium on the Black Sea coast for treatment of his bone tuberculosis. The treatment consists of painful spine punctures that confine him to a plaster on a stretcher-bed. Little by little, as Emanuel gets accustomed to the sadness of his new life, he discovers that inside the sanatorium there is still a life to be lived to the fullest. He makes friends and engages in conversations, he reads, he writes, he smokes and drinks, interacts with doctors, nurses and stretcher-bearers. Meanwhile, outside Romania doesn‘t have much to offer him, as it turn into an extreme right-wing society.
It showed at the following festivals (having snatched the accolades between brackets): Locarno Festival (Special Jury Prize), BFI London, Hamburg (Hamburg Producers Award), Haifa (Special Mention), Busan, Gothenburg and 11 more. Not available in: Romania, France, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.
The image at the top of the article was taken from Scarred Hearts.
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3. Chevalier (Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece):
In the middle of the Aegean Sea, on a luxury yacht, six men on a fishing trip decide to play a game. During this game, things will be compared. Things will be measured. Songs will be butchered, and blood will be tested. Friends will become rivals and rivals will become hungry. But at the end of the voyage, when the game is over, the man who wins will be the best man. And he will wear upon his little finger the victorious signet ring: the “Chevalier.”
The movie showed at nearly 50 festivals (having won the following prizes), including: Locarno Festival, Toronto, IFF Rotterdam, SXSW, BFI London (Best Film), Sarajevo (Best Film), Gothenburg, Cartagena (Best Film), Thessaloniki (Audience Award), Goteborg, New York, Hamburg, San Francisco and 30 more. Not available for viewing in: Greece, United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Poland, Cyprus, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Estonia and Lithuania.
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4. Frost (SharunasBartas, Lithuania/Ukraine):
Rokas and Inga, a couple of young Lithuanians, volunteer to drive a cargo van of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. When plans change and they find themselves left to their own devices, they cross the vast snowy lands of the Donbass region in search of allies and shelter, drifting into the lives of those affected by the war. They approach the frontline in spite of the danger, all the while growing closer to each other as they begin to understand life during wartime.
Festivals where the movie showed include (having won the following prize between brackets): Cannes (Director’s Fortnight), Locarno Festival, Transylvania, Odessa, New Horizons, Haifa, Busan. Not available for viewing in: France, Portugal, Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania.
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5. Colo (Teresa Villaverde, Portugal):
Struggling against the crisis in Portugal a mother doubles up jobs to pay the bills since her husband is unemployed. Their teenage daughter tries to keep living her everyday life even if the money’s running short and makes everything uneasy. Escaping from their common reality, they slowly become strangers to one another, as the tension grows in silence and in guilt.
This Portuguese film showed at the following festivals (having won the following prize between brackets): Berlin, Uruguay, Hong Kong, Indie Lisbon, Melbourne, Scanorama Vilnius and the BildrauschFilmfest Basel (Best Film). It is not available for viewing in the following countries: Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Portugal and France.
In a remote Bulgarian town, Gana looks after the elderly with dementia, while trafficking their ID cards on the black market of identity theft. At home, she provides for her jobless mother, with whom she hardly speaks. Her relationship with her car-mechanic boyfriend is no shelter for love either – with sexual attraction vanished, intimacy is reduced to an addiction to morphine. Things start to shake up, when Gana hears the music of Yoan, a new patient, whose ID card she has trafficked. A growing empathy for the old man unlocks Gana’s conscience. But when Yoan is arrested for fraud, she learns that doing ‘the right thing’ comes at a high price.
It showed at the following festivals (having snatched the accolades between brackets): Locarno (Best Film, Best Actress), Sarajevo IFF (Special Jury Prize), CPH PIX (Best Film), Reykjavik (Best Film), Toronto, Turin, Black Nights, Hamburg FF and 14 more. Not available for viewing in the following countries: Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway.
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7. Living and Other Fictions (Jo Sol, Spain):
The desire to have a full sex life becomes a vital, political option when Antonio, a tetraplegic writer, decides to set up a space offering sexual assistance in his own home. He who wants to live ends up having problems with life.
The Spanish drama Living and Other Fictions showed at the following film festivals (and won the following prizes): San Sebastian, Gothenburg, Munich, D’A Film Festival, Queer Lisbon (Jury Prize) and also Toulouse Cinespaña (Violette d’Or).
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8. The Last Family (Jan P. Matuszyński, Poland):
ZdzisławBeksiński, a Polish surrealist painter, is a cult artist who has portrayed decaying bodies and fantasised of hard core sadomasochistic sexual experiences. Known for his keen sense of humour, he is also scared of spiders and tending to his sick mother. His neurotic, suicidal son, Tomasz, is a cult radio DJ and translator, responsible for the Polish versions of Monty Python films. His wife, ZofiaBeksińska, a devout Catholic, endures these two eccentrics and glues the family together. As the parents try to prevent their son from hurting himself, their lives are defined by painting, a series of near-death experiences, funerals and changing trends in dance music.
The Last Family showed at the following festivals (having snatched the following prizes, between brackets): Cameraimage (Best Film), Locarno Festival (Best Actor), Molodist IFF (Best Fim), Sofia (Special try Award), CPH PIX, Reykjavik IFF (Best Film), Black Nights, Hamburg and 10 more. It’s not available for viewing in Poland, France and Monaco.
9. Soleil Battant (Clara and Laura Laperrousaz, France/ Portugal):
For the holidays, Gabriel and Iris return to a family house in Portugal with their daughters Emma and Zoe, irresistible six-year-old twins. In the heart of a solar landscape, between bathing in the river and their kids’ laughter, the couple’s past resurfaces.
The festivals where Soleil Battant showed include: Black Nights, Bordeaux, Arras FF, GardanneAutumn and the Auch Festival. The film is available for viewing everywhere except France and Portugal.
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10. The Giant (Johannes Nyholm, Sweden/ Denmark):
Rikard is an autistic and severely deformed man who tries to find his way back to his long lost mother through the game of pétanque (a form of boules) and using the help of a 200 foot giant. His fragile physique and a harsh judging environment makes everyday life tough for him. Convinced that his mum will take him back if only he wins the Nordic championship of petanque, Rikard tries to do the impossible.
The Swedish-Danish production showed at the following fests (and won the following prizes): San Sebastian (Special Jury Prize), Reykjavik (Special Mention), Warsaw (Free Spirit Award), Rotterdam, BFI London, CPH PIX and GardenCity. The movie is nort available for viewing in the following countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
Next time you go to the cinema be careful. The outcome could be far from rosy. Some films are just so powerful that they can trigger the most violent and unexpected physical reactions from viewers. That apparently innocent and innocuous movie could have a devastating impact on your mortal body. And I’m not talking about sobbing and crying: that’s very vanilla. These films have made people vomit, urinate, ejaculate, have a heart attack, commit suicide and much more. Cinema can have incendiary and deadly implications to your health.
Of course we are not asking you to stop going to the cinema or to shudder in fear every time you press “Play” on your DVD or Blu-ray. We just want you to be aware that it’s never “just a film”! And sometimes your body has very strange ways of telling you something just isn’t right! So be prepared!
By the way, the picture at the top of this article at the top is not from a hysterical and bedazzled moviegoer reacting to a film. That’s instead Isabelle Adjani in the dirty 1981 classic Possession (Andrzej Żuławski). She’s expelling bodily fluids from pretty much every orifice of her body, as she has an alien miscarriage in a Berlin subway. Her reaction is not very different from some you are about read, so we thought this was a good way to start our discussion!
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1. Vomiting during Raw (Julia Ducounau, 2017)
Raw tells the story of 16-year-old Justine (Garance Marillier), who arrives for her first year in veterinary school somewhere in provincial France. She comes from a family of strict vegetarians, and she has never eaten meat herself, but she’s then forced to consume rabbits kidneys during an initiation ritual. She’s goaded by her upperclass sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) to engage in the bizarre procedure for sake of acceptance. Soon after, a very bizarre accident happens, causing Justine to have her first contact with raw human flesh and to develop a taste for cannibalism. Click here for our review of the film.
2. Explosion of bodily fluids during 50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015):
The infamous 2015 American erotic romantic drama stirred a lot of controversy, churned plenty of stomachs and also, of course, aroused many viewers. Despite receiving generally negative reviews as well as winning six nominations at the 36th Golden Raspberry Awards, it was an immediate box office hit. The film is based on the eponymous 2011 novel by British writer E. L. James and stars Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele, a college graduate who begins a sadomasochistic relationship with young business magnate Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan.
A female at a packed showing of the film at the Cineworld Milton Keynes caused the entire audience to be evacuated after losing control of her bodily fluids. The woman, believed to be under the influence of alcohol, started vomiting. But then things got even worse when she lost control of all her bodily fluids, including her bladder and bowels. It’s not entirely clear which part of the film triggered such extreme physical reactions. She certain to make Isabelle Adjani jealous, and would be at the front of the queue for a remake of Possession!
3. Mass ejaculation, also during 50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015)*:
In New Zealand, Matthew Garelli, general manager of Hoyts Cinemas New Zealand, told media today that he “understands fully” just how exciting the film will be “for some,” but asked viewers to please respect cinemas’ private property, and try not to leave “too much of a mess”. Moviegoers were kindly requested not to ejaculate on their seats or on each other, and instead to use specially designated cups handed out with their tickets.
4. Seizures while watching Twilight: Breaking Dawn (Bill Condon, 2011)
This apparently harmless romantic fantasy film is based on the eponymous novel by Stephenie Meyer, and it is the first part of a two-part film, and it also forms the fourth and penultimate installment in The Twilight Saga film series. All three main cast members, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner, reprised their roles.
The unexpected problem with this film is a birthing scene, which could have triggered episodes of photosensitive epilepsy, according to medical experts in the US. A California man named Brandon Gephart, was reportedly rushed to hospital after getting sick while watching the sequence. He started convulsing, snorting and trying to breathe, and the screening had to be stopped when the paramedics arrived. Not quite the jolly experience you’d expect from a fantasy movie!
5. Heart attack while watching porn:
Be thrilled: we’re now back on British soil! Back in 2010, authorities found the seminaked body of Nicola Paginton with a sex toy and porn. The nanny was found in her bed by her employer after she did not turn up for work and police were called to investigate. She was without pants and had a pornographic movie on her laptop. A sex toy was found under the covers near her body. A subsequent pathologist’s report determined that she likely suffered a heart attack as a result of sexual arousal. Gloucestershire coroner Alan Crickmore had determined that her “sexual activity” triggered a heart attack.
6. Miscarriage during Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932):
Carnival sideshow performers with real deformities and medical conditions are the stars of the controversial Freaks. They includesthe Bearded Lady, the Stork Woman, the Half-Boy Johnny Eck, the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet, the Human Torso, the Armless Wonder as well as various sufferers of the Virchow-Seckel Syndrome (which gives humans a bird-like appearance with a narrow face and pointy nose). The central plot is around an able-bodied trapeze artist called Cleopatra, who deduces and marries the sideshow midget Hans upon finding out about his large inheritance.
The film was so shocking that it was heavily edited down to just 62 minutes (from the original 98 minutes). Still, viewers convulsed, vomited and left the cinema in droves. And a woman allegedly had a miscarriage while watching it. Just click here in order to find out more about Freaksand its impact on the people’s lives and the cinema industry as a whole.
7. Suicide after watching Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977):
Ok, we’ve cheated. Suicide isn’t exactly a physical reaction. But the implications for your body are immediate, and so we decided that it was just too closely associated.
A lot of people know that Joy Division’s lead singer Ian Curtis listened to Iggy Pop’s album The Idiot shortly before he committed suicide in 1980. But what a lot people don’t know is that he also watched the bleak Stroszek, by the German enfant terrible Werner Herzog.
The film follows the footsteps of Bruno Stroszek, an alcoholic recently released from prison in Berlin. He joins his elderly friend and a prostitute in a determined dream to leave Germany and seek a better life in Wisconsin. This is some sort of twisted American Dream, which obviously never comes to fruition. In fact, the characters excel in aimlessness, selfishness and scrupulousness. So much that Curtis decided it was no longer worth being part of this world!
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This is not the first time that we’ve discussed the effects of cinema on people. Last year we wrote about the top 10 films in which the character eventually found their way into the real world, often to catastrophic results. Real life imitates fiction, quite literally. Don’t be scared, click here for our very dirty list of films that became a tragic reality.
* Since the publication of this article, we have been reliably informed by a reader with a sharp eye for detail that the “mass ejaculation” source was a satire website. Blimey, why did it have to be the most fun of the physical reactions on the list?
First and foremost: cinema is universal. This means that you don’t have to be LGBT in order to appreciate and be impact by an LGBT movie. That’s why we have decided to ask some of our dirty writers and contributors – regardless of their gender and sexuality – to pick they favourite LGBT film of all times. Film sensibility transcends all barriers.
The label LGBT can, of course be problematic. First of all, there is a flirting “Q” for “queer” and sometimes a flirting “I” for intersex”, which some people like to add to the end of the acronym, making it very difficult to memorise and borderline impossible to pronounce. But the biggest issue is in the fact that many LGBT(Q)(I) peopl prefer to shun the label in its entirety because they find it too limiting. They believe that distinguishing LGBT films from non-LGBT films can tokenise gay culture. We can see the rationale behind that.
Yet, at a time when discrimination and even criminalisation of LGBT people still prevails in many parts of the globe, it still makes sense to fly the flag, and to classify films as such. Hopefully this won’t be necessary in 50 years, but sadly right it is very much so. LGBT identity is still a major issue, and you need to break some eggs in order to make an equality omelette. Thankfully these dirty movies are here in order to help us in the fight against bigotry and intolerance.
These films have touched and moved our dirty boys and girls in more than one way. They have helped to change their lives, personality and, in some cases, revisit their identity. Maybe they could do the same to you! So read our heartfelt list of LGBT films and watch their respective trailers with an open mind. You too might become surprised!
Our dirty team has been sorted alphabetically (click on their names in order to accede to their dirty profile). We acknowledge that there is a shortage of ladies! Women – gay and straight, trans and cis, plus everything in between – please get in touch with us and make your dirty thoughts known. We need you on board!
His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Women in Revolt (Andy Warhol, 1972):
“A deliciously filthy 1972 satire still extremely current at present days. Jackie Curtis is superb but Candy Darling stole the scene with her arrogant yet adorable posh housewife living in Central Park West : ‘Coming to me for money? Go out and earn it!’ ”
His favourite dirty LGBT film is Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005):
“A movie that changed my life. Not only the cast is incredible – Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams are outstandin – but also the direction is very impressive. It’s such an emotional and gripping story. The bond between the protagonists is both tender and complex connection. Love here is equal and universal, a timely achievement for LGBTQI rights. A film impossible to forget.”
“After becoming an admirer of Todd Haynes’ work through Poison (1991) and his Douglas Sirk homage, Far From Heaven (2002) I became a true lover of his work through Carol. Capturing love in a form that very few can on screen, Haynes and his two female leads, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett, evoke all forms of this deeply human emotion in their relationship that the 1950s’ society seeks to reject. Melancholy, desire, longing and solace are all exhibited. Adapting the Patricia Highsmith The Price of Salt, Haynes’ film captures the era of Highsmith in steamy 1950s’ New York streets and a distorted 35mm print. Lastly, the lulling score of Carter Burwell adds a deeper compassionate edge to the piece.”
“Intense and intimate, strong, tough but also delicate. The movie explores the major challenge of being gay and part of a minority that so many face, and it also shows some of the brutal aspects of patriarchal masculinity. The influence of Wong Kar Wai’ s work can be strongly seen, and the cast shines in leading the viewer through a complicated story. Moonlight is a pure jewel on black male identity, homosexuality and about love and how much we all need it.“
His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Happy Together (Wong Kar Wai, 1997):
“A study of an on-off relationship of two Chinese men travelling in Buenos Aires, which is as far away on the planet from their Hong Kong hometown as you can get. The relationship functions as an uneasy metaphor for the then British Crown dependency Hong Kong’s uneasy relationship to mainland China. Hong Kong was handed back from British to Chinese rule in 1997.”
His favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Bitters Tears of Petra von Kant (RW Fassbinder, 1972)
“Fassbinder’s Lesbian love triangle isn’t just my favourite LGBT movie; it’s also my favourite movie of all times. The film title is even tattooed across my chest. Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen) is a domineering fashion designer who preaches free love, and yet is unable to do as she says. She demands TLC from her lover Karen (Hannah Schygullah), and yet humiliates her sycophantic maid Marlene (Irm Hermann), who is profoundly infatuated with her boss.
I love The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant because it’s subversive on so many levels. Petra is the epitome of emotional incongruity, and she fully deserves the crocodile tears that she sheds. The film is based on a gay love triangle between Fassbinder and two of his associates, translated into a lesbian story. The controversial director had an amorous relationship with most people he worked with (men and women), and so the boundaries between fiction and reality and deeply twisted, just like Petra’s sentiments. Fassbinder is Petra. I am Petra. And this film is bigger than life.”
The image at the top of this article is also taken from The Bitters Tears of Petra von Kant.
Her favourite LGBT dirty movie is My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985):
“Easily one of the most iconic British films of the 1980s, set against the background of Thatcherite greed and race riots, My Beautiful Launderette came crashing onto our screen with a bang. Adapted from Hanif Kureishi’s book of the same name, and directed by the great Stephen Frears, the films mixes poetic realism with gritty social drama to bring B. Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) and Omar (Gordon Warnecke) are the two star crossed lovers from either side of the divide who must overcome their insurmountable differences in the hope that love will one day conquer all.”
His favourite dirty LGBT film is To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues, 2009):
“One of those movies I need to revisit every other year, as painful as the experience might be. Like a fist to the heart, everything is very grim and violent (if not borderline depressing). And yet, these characters have led me to their world, and have given me much needed perspective in times of fear of becoming too deeply aware of myself – something crushingly familiar to any member of the LGBT community.
It was Tónia’s (Fernando Santos) loneliness that made fall in love with this jarringly beautiful portrait. She finds solace in the midst of her daily turmoil by doing mundane tasks like feeding her dog. A veteran drag queen at a Lisbon gay club during the 1980s, clouded with a well-known fear of growing old in an unforgiving scene, she rolls with the punches of a toxic relationship with a much younger lover named Rosário (Alexander David) and an estranged son (Chandra Malatitch) who, like all the other men in her life, takes advantage of her.
She’s extremely devoted to her faith, and has learned to dismiss her desire to go through gender reassignment surgery. Suspended in space and time, the film drastically changes its pace to a dreamlike state: an unexpected red saturates the scene now, as they wander in the shade of the flora of their backyard, and chant. A funeral march, one might even say.”
Her favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)
“This is a tender and strong story about two women that express their love for each other in a way that only females can do. In reality, it is the oppressed partner that wears the trousers. The title also refers to a butterfly, a animal that represents change. Every girl becomes a woman, just like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Your body changes, and then you must fly!
Plus the cinematography is absolutely mesmerising! The details and the research for the right lenses to reveal each colour is fantastic. I wish every man I ever loved had the same sensibility that Peter has it.”
His favourite dirty LGBT film is Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991):
“It may not appear, at least on the surface that Point Break offers a homoerotic experience. But as Anthony Manzi discusses in his excellent essay ‘Point “Heart” Break, or: Why Bodhi and Johnny Utah Just Want to Bang Each Other’ you have to peel back the layers to reveal a sexual chemistry that is always on the verge of boiling over. Manzi explains that ‘The relationship between Johnny Utah and Bodhi is full of complexity and passion. They excite each other, they infuriate each other, and they respect each other. But most of all… they love each other.’ This chemistry drives the entire plot of the movie to its conclusion.
Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), the hotshot rookie FBI agent is sent undercover to investigate a gang of bank robbers, known as the Ex-Presidents, whom the bureau believe might be surfers. When Utah befriends the cool and enigmatic Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) he finds his spiritual partner, a free and easy soul who compliments Utah’s more conservative drive. It’s Utah who sees Bodhi first and stops in his tracks as he watches him glide and strut across the waves. The film eases into slow motion. Are we lead to believe that time has also slowed for Utah as well? They become friends, and Bodhi allows Utah into his circle, he even gives permission for Utah to hook-up with an old girlfriend.
When it’s later discovered Bodhi is leader of the Ex-Presidents, Utah is torn between his duty as a law officer and his desires that have been awakened by Bodhi. In the mid-point of the film, Bodhi makes Utah chase him. Even though he has Bodhi in his sights, Utah can’t bring himself to shoot him, and instead, as Manzi puts is, ejaculates “his rounds into the air in frustration. His sexual desire has reached a tipping point, and his repressed frustration is released through firing his weapon.” During the final moments of the film, as Bodhi is about to jump from an airplane and finally escape, he screams at Utah “I know you want me Johnny. You want be so bad it’s like acid in your mouth.” And he does, Utah wants Bodhi so bad that he jumps out of the plane after him, with no parachute.
The more obvious this unspoken desire becomes the more it bubbles to the surface of the film itself. Both Reeves and Swayze had entered into their physical peak in terms of looks, bone structure and chiseled pecks. This wasn’t the hideous mutated form of Stallone or Schwarzenegger, which was popular among male audiences of the 1980s. Reeves and Swayze’s were both thin, muscular for sure, but soft and hairless, their faces almost feminine. Schwarzenegger might have referred to them as “girly men”. It’s not just Reeves and Swayze, Point Break offers a phantasmagoria of male Adonis bodies that are just as toned and tanned. As the slow motion surfer porn fills the frame these bodies barely ripple, it’s as if they are all made of stone. Thus, the scenes in which Reeves and Swayze stand shirtless and wet in close proximity become revealing of a suppressed sexual longing for one another.”
His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994):
“Priscilla is the type of film that seems to please older and younger generations. It’s got Terrence Stamp in drag and, if that’s not enough reason for you to watch it, it’s got Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce in the same fashion. It introduced CeCePenninston’s Finally to a lot of people during one of the best lip-sync performances ever filmed.
It put three very different people in the LGBT spectrum in an adventure through the Australian landscape in which they feel hurt and joy, as in life. Priscilla Queen of the Desert is the rare film dealing with these subject that allows its characters the will to be happy. Finally, indeed”
His favourite dirty LGBT film is Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971):
“The experience of Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice has remained with me. From the self-sufficient image to the intertwined voyeuristic gaze of Dirk Bogarde and Visconti’s camera, the film is a beguiling example of sensory filmmaking. And any film that introduces one to the symphonic genius of Gustav Mahler should be remembered with emotional affection.”
“As a trans woman it’s very refreshing to see another trans woman on the silver screen, particularly if she’s in a large group of cis women without being singled out. Nevermind that this was directed by a cis and pendulous human being. The transcendent sensitivity is there, with plenty of wit and humour. Plus a splash or blood, a dash of sex and a squeeze of violence. This is visceral cinema.”
Turn on the fan on and grab yourself an ice-cold drink. As they always say: “if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the cinema!” Oh, isn’t that what they say? Well, nevermind, my brains are frying and I can’t think straight.
Regardless of how the saying goes, we have picked 10 films set during very hot weather (mostly heatwaves) across all parts of the world for you to enjoy with a big jar of Pimm’s. Or perhaps just wait until the weather has cooled down so you can reminisce about the scorching good moments while looking at these people loving, fighting and also being tortured under the heat!
There are rabid rodents on fire in Brazil, Austrians running amok, separatist Brits dying with thirst, black New Yorkers sizzling on the pavement and even a sadist German torturing his spouse who’s suffering from insolation. These are the top 10 heatwave movies, exclusive for the June 2017 UK heatwave!
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1. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
How do you add a touch of tension to one of the biggest murder movies of all times, which spawned an entirely new voyeur/binoculars subgenre? What about turning the temperature up by a notch or two? Jeff (James Stewart) is very nervous at having juggle a likely murder across the street with his stormy relationship to Lisa (Grace Kelly). Hitchcock suddenly cuts to a close-up shot of a thermometer revealing a very hot temperature, which is backed up by the sweat on the face of Stewart’s character.
2. Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius, 1949)
This Ealing comedy is probably one of funniest films you will see in your life. The residents of Pimlico find an ancient parchment revealing that their London district has been ceded to the Duchy of Burgundy in the 15th century. As a consequence, they become a sovereign state. Independence occurs in the middle of an unseasonably hot summer, and the former subjects of the King immediately indulge in late night drinking and eating – as they ditch rationing and pub closing hours. The problem is that the British soon begin to boycott them, and they have to rely on international cooperation so they don’t die of thirst or starvation.
3. Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl, 2001)
Historically, the title of this extremely disturbing Austrian film refers to the period of Greek and Roman astrology connected with heat, drought, lethargy, fever, mad dogs and bad luck. In Europe, these days are now taken to be the hottest, most uncomfortable part of summer. Ulrich Seidl, one of DMovies’ favourite directors alive, translated this into euphoria strangely blended with insanity. Vienna is the backdrop to six anecdotal tales of twisted sexuality, scorching obsession and bizarre compulsion. The picture illustrating this article at the top is also a still from Dog Days.
4. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
Both temperature and racial tensions quickly rise in what’s widely considered Spike Lee’s most iconic and emblematic movie. Salvadore (Danny Aiello) is the Italian owner of a very traditional pizza restaurant in Brooklyn. One day he is confronted by the local Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) because his Wall of Fame does not include any black actors. The sweltering sun is the perfect catalyst for this incendiary racial argument, which incenses the entire neighbourhood.
5. Rio 40C (Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1955)
This highly neglected dirty gem of Brazilian cinema is a semi-documentary of the people of Rio de Janeiro, particularly the poor boys selling peanuts on the sultry beaches of the city. The movie doesn’t have a protagonist, but instead a number of subplots that are sometimes intertwined. The oppressive heat is the common theme across the movie: it both connects and sustains the characters. Significantly, Brazil’s former president Lula used to sell peanuts as a child.
It’s not just Europeans that go mad under the heat of the sun. Similarly to the expression “dog days”, “rat fever” here denotes a delirious state of mind exuding hedonism. This also Brazilian movie depicts the lifestyle of an artistic community living in tropical city of Recife. The small group lives without laws, without rules and yet there’s no shortage of hot sex, poetry and inebriation.
7. Martha (RW Fassbinder, 1974)
During holidays in Italy, Martha (Margit Carstensen) falls asleep on the beach while sunbathing, despite asking her husband Helmut (Karlheiz Böhm, who British eyes might recognise from Michael Powell’s 1960’s classic Peeping Tom) to prevent her from doing so. In reality, Helmut is a sadist, and he forces himself upon Martha while he’s fully clothed with a suit (pictured below) and she is in profound agony from likely insolation or sun stroke. Will make you want to avoid the beach for the rest of your days.
8. Coup de Chaud (Raphaël Jacoulot, 2015)
Life ain’t easy in a small village in the south of France struck by a heatwave, and where water becomes increasingly scarce. Residents and farmers begin to quarrel over the precious liquid, and their conviviality quickly flies out of the window. Nothing can calm them down, and even a mentally disabled man is soon victim of the hostility. Is water indeed the only way of cooling these people down?
9. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
This historical epic was nominated for 10 Oscars in 1963, and it snatched seven in total. It’s often considered the greatest British movie of all times, if not a very dirty one. It depicts Lawrence’s predicament in the Arabian peninsula during WWI, dealing with inflammatory and fiery themes such British imperialism, national identity and split allegiances at war. The scorching sun is central to the movie, particularly as Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) crosses the Nefud Desert in search of water.
10. My Summer of Love (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2004)
Enough doom and gloom. We have decided to wrap up our list with a bright and glistening Lesbian love story set in the idyllic Yorkshire countryside, and directed by Polish-British filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski. Working-class Mona (Natalie Press) meets the wealthy Tamsin, who’s far more used to a mollycoddled lifestyle. Their romance is soon ignited, in a feelgood and yet realistic enough picture which will not fade away from your mind, unlike your summer bronze glow.
