Tag: London Film Festival

Our top 10 dirty picks from the BFI London Film Festival

Posted on by victorfraga

As we gradually resume some semblance of normality, as do film festivals. The BFI London Film Festival (LFF), which was held almost entirely online in 2020, has firmly returned to its physical format. A programme of 159 feature films from around the world (including 21 world premieres) will screen to audiences in cinemas across London. There will also be UK-wide screenings through LFF partner cinemas and virtual premieres on BFI Player. The Festival takes place between October 6th and 17th.

Below are our top 10 picks from the programme. They are dirty movies that we watched late last year and earlier this year at the Tallinn Black Nights, Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Locarno and the San Sebastian International Film Festival. They are some of the most innovative, provocative and downright filthy that we have seen this year. Of course we haven’t covered every single film in the LFF programme, so stay tuned for more dirty gems throughout the British Festival!

The 10 dirty movies below are listed in alphabetical order. Just click on the film title in order to accede to each individual review:

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1. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude):

Romanian director Radu Jude holds a mirror up to the audience, and they might not like what they see, in the film that won the Golden Bear this February. We start with a fairly explicit sex scene, as middle-school teacher Emilia (Katia Pascariu) is in bed with husband Eugen (porn actor Ştefan Steel) doing, well, pretty much what anyone who enjoys sex would do in bed. Marius Panduru’s camera doesn’t shy away, and we would say that the audience won’t avert their eyes from the screen either, although it is rare to see something so graphic, both in terms of the imagery and the lines in Jude’s screenplay.

Jude divides his film into several parts, putting the viewers in Emilia’s shoes and then, in the final part, practically forcing them to become jurors in an obscene tribunal.

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2. Between Two Worlds (Emmanuel Carrere):

A famous writer seeking inspiration starts a new life as a cleaner in Normandy, in this auspicious little drama starring Juliette Binoche. Binoche delivers a very convincing performance as a character who acts (pretends to be someone else). The French actress is no stranger to such roles.

French director Emmanuel Carrère director examines the very nature of the creative process: is it OK for the artist to lie to their subjects? Is art intrinsically exploitative? Is acting synonymous with pretending?

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3. The Box (Lorenzo Vigas):

Abandoning his native Venezuela for Mexico, Golden Lion winner Vigas has created a fascinating story of lost families and secret histories, which also premiered in Venice just last month. Hatzin (Hatzin Navarrete) is a orphaned teenager, who already feels at odds with the world. We first see him kicking the wall of a train toilet cubicle until the pounding on the door finally gets him to relent. It is a neat sign that some inarticulate rage burns inside the kid though, for the moment, he will take heed of the outside world.

Vigas’s film, co-scripted by Paula Markovitch, suggests that the moral vacuum at the heart of capitalist exploitation makes it indistinguishable from the drug trade, destroys families and corrodes the society from within.

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4. Earwig (Lucile Hadzihalilovic):

The French director Lucile Hadzihalilovic is best remembered for her 2004 debut feature Innocence, a highly poetic film following the lives of girls in a gloomy, mysterious and highly secluded boarding school. In her latest feature, just the third one in her career, she remains firmly on feminine, dark and secluded territory, and becomes even further detached to reality.

The story takes place in an undisclosed place and undisclosed time. The clothes and an ancient telephone suggest the early 20th century. A man called Albert (Paul Hilton) cares for a girl called Mia (Romane Hemelears) in a very large house not too different from the boarding school in Hadzihalilovic’s first film. Mia is entirely silent, with strange braces attached to her teeth, and various dentures that demand constant attention. At times, it looks like she is an a torture chamber. She has teeth made of glass.

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5. The Grandmother (Paco Plaza):

Old woman left catatonic by a devastating stroke terrifies her doting granddaughter, in this brilliantly subtle and beautifully elegant horror from Spain. Twenty-five-year old Susanne (Almudena Amor) enjoys a stylish lifestyle as a publicity model in Paris. One evening, just as she is about to start a new gig, she receives a phone call informing her that her grandmother Pilar (Vera Valdez) has suffered a brain hemorrhage. Susanne is Pilar’s only living relative, her parents having passed away in a car crash years earlier. She is urged to fly back to her native Madrid in order to care for the older lady, who is left completely silent and unable to look after herself.

Pilar’s figure is the subject of nightmares: her body is scrawny and wrinkly, her face demonic, with pearly black eyes, shrunken lips and mouth wide open most of the time. Her gaze is completely empty. A frustrated Susanne tells her: “you are no longer there, are you?” The old lazy does however walk around the house unaided, often appearing in very unexpected places.

6. The Hand of God (Paolo Sorrentino):

In England, Diego Maradona’s goal in the 1986 World Cup semi-final against England was the epitome of foreign cheating, Latin untrustworthiness and a moment that still gets Peter Shelton shirty. In the rest of the world, it was greeted with a wave of schadenfreude. Maradona’s goal was a plucky finger in the eye against the old empire, an act of revenge for the conquest of the Falklands/Maldives – or as old uncle Alfredo in Paolo Sorrentino’s new film The Hand of God calls it: “a revolutionary act”.

The Hand of God is head and shoulders better than Sorrentino’s most recent films – especially the barely released Loro and the arthritic Youth – and Sorrentino fans will find a lot to enjoy.

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7. Juju Stories (Xxx):

One we saw in Locarno earlier this year. This collection of magical tales shows off the breadth, humour and vitality of African. cinema. Three shorts from Nigeria, all based on the concepts of magic and madness. Told in Pidgin English, it’s a bold collection of films examining the ways man can be deceived and the difficulties of establishing personal relationships. Funny, sometimes profound and differing wildly in quality and tone, it acts as a neat West African counterpart to Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021), leaning heavy on the mystical parts of everyday life. Spanning from the snooty upper-classes to the hustlers of Lagos to college students and businesspeople, it also provides a solid panorama of Nigerian identity.

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8. The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal):

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut is a mature and fascinating meditation on motherhood, adapted from Elena Ferrante’s novel. It tells the story of Leda (Olivia Colman), a middle-aged woman holidaying on her own on a Greek island. She’s supposed to be working, but though she’s on her own she finds herself increasingly involved with a family of American Greeks. At first, she is repulsed by them. They’re very noisy and rude, and when she is asked if she can move her beach umbrella she obstinately refuses. However, she is drawn to the young mother Nina (Dakota Johnson), whose daughter Elena goes briefly missing. The relationship gets closer as Leda finds the young girl and returns her to her parents.

Gyllenhaal, who also wrote the screenplay, skilfully moves between two timelines, gradually revealing more information and removing layers to reveal emotional strata. Her camera is frequently close to the faces and bodies, watching intently and intimately at people in their most unguarded moments. It has the urgency of a John Cassavetes film, sensitive and alert to the changing weather of the human face.

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9. The Souvenir: Part II (Joanna Hogg):

Joanna Hogg continues her highly autobiographical meditation on filmmaking and grief to outstanding results. She has crafted yet another highly personal and lyrical tribute to filmmaking. When Lucie explains to her tutors that lack of titles and the unusual structure of her graduation film liberate her as an artist, it is obvious that the comment extends to the director Joanna Hogg. They proposed that the young woman abandons her audacious project it in favour of a more formulaic and commercially viable approach. Fortunately for us, neither Lucie nor Joanna heeded their advice. The Souvenir is also a commendable exercise of metalanguage. The vast studio settings appear on television monitors. The very house where Julie lives with her mother resemble her film school. Filmmaking and reality blend seamlessly.

The Souvenir is also pictured at the top of this article.

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10. The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryusuke Hamaguchi):

Making its debut at Berlinale is Japanese drama Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, a triptych of stories about people who meet through remarkable twists of fate. In Episode 1: Magic (or Something Less Assuring), a model named Meiko (Kotone Furukawa) deduces that her best friend’s new lover is an ex-boyfriend. In Episode 2: Door Wide Open, a bitter student blackmails his friend-with-benefits Nao (Katsuki Mori) into seducing a celebrated professor (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) as an act of revenge. Finally, Chapter 3: Once Again introduces us to Moka (Fusako Urabe), a middle-aged woman who meets a face from the past after travelling to a school reunion.

The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize this February in Berlin.

Our top 10 dirty picks from the BFI London Film Festival 2020

Posted on by victorfraga

The year of 2020 has been like no other, and every single film event had to adapt. The BFI London Film Festival (LFF) is no exception, as the British capital (and the rest of the nation) grapples with the new lockdown rules and restrictions, which have either prevented or discouraged people from leaving their homes in order to go to the cinema. Of course every cloud has its silver lining, and the good news is that all films are now within reach of anyone in the UK, not just the country’s capital.

Throughout the course of 12 days, 14 feature films and a featurette (Almodovar’s The Human Voice) will available to watch in cinemas, namely the three cosy theatres of the BFI Southbank. Plus 59 feature movies are available on BFI Player at specific time slots (which range from a few days to a few hours). They include 50 virtual premieres. You can see the full list and book your tickets by clicking here. In addition, there is also a short film, XR, immersive art and an augmented reality installation – just click here for more information.

Below are our top 10 picks from the programme. They are dirty movies that we watched earlier this year at the Berlin, the Venice and the San Sebastian International Film Festival (the Spanish festival embraced the entire selection from the cancelled edition of Cannes). They are some of the most innovative, provocative and downright filthy that we have seen this year. Of course we haven’t covered every single film in the LFF programme, so stay tuned for more dirty gems throughout the British Festival!

The 10 dirty movies below are listed in alphabetical order. Just click on the film title in order to accede to each individual review:

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1. 200 Meters (Ameen Nayfeh):

Mustafa (Ali Suliman) and his wife Salwa (Lama Zreik) live 200 meters apart in villages separated by the West Bank Wall. When he receives a call from his wife saying his son has been rushed to hospital, he’s denied access at the Israeli checkpoint on a technicality. Leaving him with no choice, he pays a driver to smuggle him to the other side of the wall. Mustafa alongside a small group of strangers come to depend on one another, as they undertake the dangerous 200 kilometre odyssey.

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2. Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg):

A history professor, a school music director, a children sports coach and a psychology teacher walk into a bar. They’ve decided to test the theory that mankind should maintain a 0.05% blood alcohol concentration in order to maximise their potential and achieve greatness. Two glasses of wine for kick-off and then top it up throughout the day. You already know where this is going but it’s an intoxicating ride through Sazerac-sodden highs before the crashing hangover sets in. The four male protagonists won the Best Actor prize at San Sebastian. Another Round is also pictured at the top of this article.

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3. Days (Tsai Ming-liang):

The king of slow cinema is back, and he’s in great shape. In his latest movie, two men carry on with their lives as normal on the streets of Taipei. One of them (Anong Houngheuangsy) is young and poor, and prepares a meal in his humble dwelling. The other one (Lee Kang) is a little older and seemingly wealthy, judging by the hotel room that he hires. This is where they meet. The conversations are sparse and wilfully “unsubtitled”. The younger man gives the older man a sensual massage, which gradually develops into full-on sex. The action is delicate and sensual, with a palpable sense of intimacy. The two characters develop a bond, helped by the quietly effervescent chemistry between the two actors. There’s also a touch of tenderness. The older man gives a tiny music box to the young one, which appears again in the end of the movie. The two men are inextricably linked through their memories, embodied by the unusual trinket.

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4. The Human Voice (Pedro Almodovar):

Breaking up with your ex is never an easy task, particularly when he’s already found a new companion. He hasn’t returned home for three days, in a rather unambiguous sign that he has now left for good. You experience a lot of feelings: despondency, jealousy, hate and – first and foremost – rage. You want to stab his chest. You want to cut him up with an axe. You want to set fire to what once was your love nest.

Can you live out these things for real? Probably not a good idea. So the 70-year-old Spanish filmmaker found a cunning solution. He staged the entire action. He built a mock home inside a large warehouse and hired Tilda Swinton to play the jilted lover. She is supported by her doting pooch Dash, dazzling costumes and a jaunty music score by Alberto Iglesias. Almodovar’s latest movie places a 1928 play by Jean Cocteau in a modern context.

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5. Never Gonna Snow Again (Malgorzata Szumowska/ Michal Englert):

Zenia (played by British Ukrainian actor Alec Utgoff) heals the pains and afflictions of the bored and sick Polish bourgeoisie. He lives in a small flat in town, and spends most of his time – massage-bed under his arm – on an upper class district, visiting very different clients. A woman struggles with an unsatisfactory sex life and an unruly daughter. A man is dying of cancer. An old lady is very sad and lonely, in the company of her three bulldogs. And so on. The young and attractive foreigner is a masseur, a healer, a hypnotherapist, a dancer, a friend and a lover, sometimes all at once.

Never Gonna Snow Again is a highly elliptical film. It’s a collection of allegories, some perfectly intelligible, some deeply personal and moot to interpretation. There is a apparent reference to last sequence of Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), as a young Zenya uses telekinesis in order to move a glass across the table. Some sequences feel very creepy/ Lynchian, such as an exotic peep show dance (watched by Zenya) and a magic trick on stage (inexplicably performed by Zenya alongside one of his clients). All strangely delectable.

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6. New Order (Michel Franco):

What was intended to be an ostentatious celebration soon turns into a bloodbath, in the movie that won the Silver Lion of Venice. Twenty-five-year-old, pretty and Nordic-looking Marianne (Naian González Norvind) is getting married to the handsome, Italian-looking Alan (Dario Yasbek Bernal). Both families and their rich friends have united at her family’s spectacular dwelling, somewhere in Mexico City. Everyone is dressed to kill, and food and drink are abundant at the extravagant party. Until their conspiring employees open the house gates to trigger-happy, ruthless rioters.

This is no Marxist revolution. The rebels are profoundly consumerist, wide-eyed with greed, as they steal the expensive electronics, jewels and other valuables from their hapless victims. They take enormous pleasure in vandalising the property. They are not concerned about equality. Instead they work in cahoots with local authorities and other groups. Their allegiance is as fragile as the champagne glasses at the wedding party. Nihilism and factionalism prevail. There is no concern for social justice. They are prepared to betray and to kill their associates without hesitation. They just want money. As much money as possible.

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7. Nomadland (Chloe Zhao):

Fern (Frances McDonald) is a beautiful and intelligent middle-aged woman. She is very unusually charming, with her quiet and stern smile. She is also in perfect good health. Someone who could be working in Wall Street. Instead she lives in poverty in the back of her van (not a camper van, but a regular size one), travelling across her large nation in search of temporary employment in fast-food restaurants, factories and so on. She literally has to “handle her own shit”, in reference to the bucket that she uses as a toilet. The movie that won the Silver Lion at Venice is based on Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, a non-fiction work penned three years ago by Jessica Bruder.

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8. Shirley (Josephine Decker):

In the year of 1964, the highly reclusive horror writer Shirley Jackson (Elizabeth Moss) and her husband Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg) “welcome” two graduate students into their Vermont mansion, Rose (Odessa Young) and her spouse Fred (Logan Lerman). Rose and Fred are vibrant, optimistic and full of life. Shirley are cruel and offensive misanthropes. Shirley will attempt to hurt and humiliate the naive couple at every opportunity. Her equally unpleasant husband will support her in the very questionable endeavour.

Shirley wasn’t just a reclusive, who rarely ever left her large estate. She was also a sociopath. In the few occasions when she ventured out of her property, she helped to ensure that everyone in her surroundings felt threatened and mortified. Her actions included the the sharpest and meanest remarks, pulling scary faces and spilling wine on the sofa. Her gaze overflowing with hate and envy. She has Bette Davies eyes, complete with the bitchiness of Margo Channing in All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950). The difference between between Davis’s character and Shirley is that the latter is genuinely cold-blooded and brutal.

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9. Supernova (Harry Macqueen):

Tusker (Stanley Tucci) has received a diagnosis of dementia, causes and stage unknown. Things are definitely worsening, however, this simply won’t do for author Tusker, renowned for his intellectualism and lively personality. Concert pianist partner Sam (Colin Firth) is stoically resigned to tackle the coming challenges and is considering easy access bungalows or outside help. His heart is completely dedicated towards this new goal to spend their remaining time together. “Every moment”. The two are not entirely on the same page, with the sentimentality of Sam’s approach rubbing against the more clinical outlook of Tusker, railing at the inevitability of becoming a passenger in his own body. The diametrically opposed personal introspection of the writer against the sensitivity of an outwardly performative musician has until now defined their relationship, now causing friction.

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10. Undine (Christian Petzold):

Undine (Paula Beer) is an eloquent historian. She teaches tourists about the architectural history of Berlin in a local museum. She shows them a giant model of the city as it currently is and another one of what it would look like now had the GDR not unexpectedly collapsed 30 years earlier. Her life is also seeing a very abrupt change: her lover Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) is about to dump her. The nonchalant yet assertive female has threatened to kill him in case he proceeds with his plans. She does not wish to see their romance confined to the past, just like urbanistic plans for the defunct communist state.

She then meets the handsome Christoph (Franz Rogowski), a diver familiar with the underwater secrets of the German capital. The grounded lady and submarine gentleman complement each other. They meet entirely by accident (literally), in one of these rare occasions when the underwater world comes crashing into the surface. Undine was unwittingly waiting to submerge into Christoph’s world for some time. Her name is a reference to a 200-year-old German novella about a water spirit.

Our top 10 dirty picks from the 2019 BFI London Film Festival

Posted on by victorfraga

The 63rd BFI London Film Festival, the biggest and the oldest film festival in the UK, takes place between October 2nd and 13th in a number of prestigious venues in Central London. The event will showcase 225 films from both established and emerging talent from every corner of the planet. This year, the Festival will host 21 world premieres, nine international premieres and 29 European premieres. In total, there will be 46 documentaries, four animations, 18 archive restorations and seven artists’ moving image features.

So where to begin? Below is a list of 10 dirty movies that you shouldn’t miss. We have seen the majority of these films (as they premiered in Berlin, Cannes and Locarno earlier this year), so we can vouch for our list, which is teeming with thought-provoking, innovative and downright filthy gems. Don’t forget to click on the film title in order to accede to our exclusive dirty review (where available). The films are sorted alphabetically.

You can click here in order to purchase your ticket now!

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1. Adolescents (Sébastian Lifshitz):

Charting the lives of two girls from thirteen to eighteen, Adolescentes is an immersive documentary depicting the vicissitudes of youth. Five years in the making, filmed twenty-four days a year and composed from 500 hours of rushes, it has the flow of a fine naturalist drama, standing nicely alongside Young Solitude (Claire Simon, 2018) and Belinda (Marie Dumora, 2017) as yet another brilliant French documentary about the complexity of growing older.

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2. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho, Juliano Dornelles):

The little town of Bacurau has been erased from the map. Literally. Locals can no longer locate it on the various online applications. Someone (or something?) is killing the locals. There have been seven murders in one day. Small UFOs monitor the town from above. The locals are prepared to fight back for their survival. They also wish to protect their their identity and cultural heritage. They cherish the Bacurau Museum, a small building where town’s invaluable artifacts are stored. The local doctor Domingas (Sonia Braga) is some sort of matriarch. Men, women and children are ready to take arms. Bacurau is a resistance movie against the rise of fascism in Brazil.

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3. By the Grace of God (Francois Ozon):

Francois Ozon is best remembered for his psychological dramas, psychosexual thrillers and twisted comedies. He has now moved into an almost entirely new territory: Catholic faith and paedophilia. The outcome is nothing short of magnificent. The director paints a profoundly humanistic portrayal of the sexual abuse victims of real-life priest Father Bernard Preynat (Bernard Verley), thereby denouncing the silence and the complacence of the Catholic hierarchy.

By the Grace of God follows the steps of 40-year-old father-of-five and respectable professional Alexandre (Melvil Poupard). He decides to confront Father Preynat, who abused him 30 years earlier, upon finding out in 2014 that the priest still working closely with children. The problem is that the crime took place in 1991 and it has now prescribed (exceeding the 20-year threshold for legal action), and so Alexandre searches for more recent victims of Father Preynat, in a Goliath versus David battle against the extremely powerful and millenary Catholic Church.

By The Grace of God won the Silver Bear prize for Best Film in Berlin earlier this year. It shows in a thrill gala as part of the BFI London Film Festival.

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4. Ema (Pablo Larrain):

“Every new Pablo Larraín film is a miracle of imagination, invention and insight into human behaviour. And Ema may be his most lyrical and poetic yet – a character study of a beguiling woman who is ruled by heart and impulse. In a vivid collage of scenes shot by Sergio Armstrong, with an expressive score from Nicolas Jaar, Larraín paints a picture of talented contemporary street/reggaeton dancer and teacher Ema. We learn of a recent trauma and her fiery relationship with her slightly older husband (Gael García Bernal), who is both a choreographer and her creative collaborator. Their recent adoption of a troubled child has gone badly, for which they are harshly judged. They, in turn, blame one another. Writing with Guillermo Calderón and Alejandro Moreno, Larraín’s film intersperses explosive, intoxicating scenes of dance within dramatic moments that are fractured in time.” (Tricia Tuttle)

Ema shows in strand gala section of the BFI London Film Festival.

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5. The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao (Karim Ainouz):

This is as close as you will ever get to a tropical Douglas Sirk. Karim Ainouz’s eighth feature film and the second one to premiere in Cannes (after Madame Satain 2001) has all the ingredients of a melodrama. The 145-minute movie – based on the eponymous novel by Martha Batalha – is punctuated with tragic relationships, epic misfortunes, fortuitous separations and untimely deaths. All skilfully wrapped together by an entirely instrumental and magnificent music score.

The film, which is also pictured at the top of this article, won the Un Certain Regard award for Best Film in Cannes earlier this year.

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6. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese):

In Martin Scorses’s latest movie and ninth collaboration with Robert de Niro, a labour leader and the infamous head of the Teamsters union, whose connections with organised crime were wide ranging, his career ended with a conviction for jury tampering, attempted bribery and fraud, but he was pardoned by President Nixon in 1971. Not long after, he disappeared. Declared legally dead in 1982, various theories have circulated as to what happened to him. Few are as convincing as that told by Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran.

Written by Gangs of New York collaborator Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List), Scorsese’s The Irishman weaves an engrossing and intricate web of connected events, audaciously cutting back and forth across decades. It is the closing film at the BFI London Film Festival.

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7. Maternal (Maura Delpero):

hat constitutes motherhood? Is it something that is hereditary or something that can be earned? This is the question wrestled with in Maternal, which slyly reimagines the story of the Virgin Mary for modern times. A deeply Christian tale, both in its sense of empathy and its themes, Maternal is a precise chamber Italian-Argentinean co-production that wrestles with the meaning of motherhood, finding no easy answers yet imploring the viewer to bring their own faith and meaning to each scene.

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8. Piranhas (Claudio Giavannesi):

Adapted from the eponymous novel by Neapolitan writer and Camorra expert Roberto Saviani (who also wrote the screenplay), Piranhas follows 10 adolescents in Naples who set up a gang in order to make money and enjoy an unbounded and hedonistic example.

Fifteen-year-old Nicola (Francesco di Napoli) is the gang leader. He convey a very disturbing type of masculinity at a very young age. He takes “protection” money from locals in order to buy drugs, attend expensive clubs, buy branded clothes and posh furniture. Thousands of euros flow like water. He smokes marijuana and snorts cocaine, and circulates locally with the confidence of an adult. He loves to show off his newly found power and wealth. He has a beautiful girlfriend called Letizia, and he also hire prostitutes. He terrorises the narrow alleyways on his scooter.

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7. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma):

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

This is a film almost entirely made by women. The writer director is female, and so is the cinematographer (Claire Mathion). Virtually all the characters are female, too. Men are only seen in the end of this 119-minute movie, in entirely secondary roles. Yet this is a film about men and the subtle ways that they oppress women. Heloise regrets having to marry a man whom she has never met, while Marianne is not allowed to become a fully-fledged painter because the artistic establishment prohibits her from studying male anatomy.

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10. So Long, My Son (Wang Xiaoshuai):

Across four decades of turbulent Chinese society, Wang studies a married couple, using the death of their son as a focal point around which to subtly explore the single-child policy and the impact of the Cultural Revolution.

The unconventional structure zips back and forth through different time frames, gradually moving along a central timeline. The story occurs in episodes which each have the feel of their own short story, but which fill in the details of the other things we have seen. Wang leans heavily on dramatic irony, raising the tension as we wait for truths to emerge. One wonders if he couldn’t have found a way to cut 15 minutes or so from the run time, so languid are the first two hours. It isn’t until the final 50 minutes that So Long My Son really pays off every beat he’s set up. Like a Koreeda film, revelation is piled upon revelation, disarming you with one bombshell and then slapping you with another. Wang even uses the flashbacks to abet this by undercutting the outcome of one scene with the reality of the past or present.

Our 10 mega-filthy picks for the BFI London Film Festival 2018

Posted on by victorfraga

The largest film festival in the UK is about to begin. The event programme has already been announced. There are 225 feature films from 77 countries being shown in 14 cinemas across the British capital in just 12 days (from October 10th to October 21st). It’s difficult to decide where to begin. That’s why we have done the homework for you, and unearthed the top 10 dirtiest gems. That’s because we caught these films earlier this year in Berlin, Cannes and Venice, and so we can recommend them to you with confidence!

Don’t forget to click on the film title in order to accede to the review of each individual dirty gem on the list below:

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1. Touch Me Not (Adina Pintilie, 2018):

his is as close to a tactile experience as you will ever get from a moving picture. Touch Me Not starts with the extreme close-up of a male body, so close you could even count the body hairs. The camera navigates through the unidentified entity: legs, penis, stomach and nipple. This is a suitable taster of incredibly intimate and human film that will follow for the next 125 minutes.

Romanian director Adina Pintilie establishes a dialogue with several real-life characters, in what can be described as a documentary with flavours of fiction, in a roughly congruent arc. Laura, Tómas, Christian and Hanna and Hanna have a very different relation to their sexuality and bodies, and they are all working together in order to overcome their fears and and claim control of their lives.

Touch Me Not premieres in the Festival and it’s out in UK cinemas immediately after on Friday, October 19th.

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2. U: July 22nd (Erik Poppe, 2018):

On July 22nd 2011 500 young people attending a summer camp in the idyllic island of Utøya, near Oslo, were attacked by 34-year-old right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. The attack claimed the lives of 77 people, left 99 severely injured and a further 300 profoundly traumatised. It shocked a nation not used to crimes of such dimension. It was the deadliest event in the wealthy and pacific Scandinavian country since WW2.

You would be forgiven for thinking this is an exploitative film trying to reopen painful wounds and to capitalise on fetishised violence. But it’s not. This is an overtly political film, and the Norwegian director Erik Poppe sets the tone in the very beginning on the movie. Kaja talks with her friends, immediately before the shooting begins, and after they hear about the explosion in Oslo. They speculate that the bomb may have been planted by al-Qaeda in response to Norway’s involvement in Afghanistan. They have no idea that the attack is in fact being conducted by a white Norwegian man.

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3. What You Gonna Do When The World’s On Fire (Roberto Minervini, 2018):

They have been neglected and abused throughout the past five centuries. They are men and women of various generations and with all types of professions, and they share the same burden. The government and the society intended to protect them instead scorns them. They have been hunted down by neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists. Their walls have been graffitied with the N-word, swastikas and calls for ethnic cleansing. But they’re still alive! Italian filmmaker Roberto Minervini captures the apocalyptic scenario that many Afro-Americans from the Deep South have to confront daily.

What you Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? is shot in black and white using with an Arri Alexa camera with a large depth of field (deep focus). In other words, the images in the foreground, middle-ground and background are all in focus. In a way, this is reminiscent and nostalgic of the neo-Realism aesthetics.

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4. Yomeddine (Abu Bakr Shawdry, 2018):

This is probably as close as you will ever get to a leper. Leprosy has been eradicated in most parts of the planet, but still persists in some of the most impoverished countries. The highly contagious disease is immediately associated with removal from society and seclusion. Yet you won’t regret you came into contact with these adorable human beings. Yomeddine gives you the opportunity to embrace, look into the eyes and deep dive into the hearts of these outcasts.

The story starts out in a colony of lepers somewhere in South of Egypt, where Beshay (Rady Gamal) was abandoned 30 years earlier as a child by his father. He has a wife and lives happily with the other members of the colony. There is a real sense of community, and they seem to lead a relatively peaceful existence despite their condition and the abject poverty. Their main source of work and entertainment is a nearby landfill, which they nicknamed Garbage Mountain. Just like the contents of the site, these people have been discarded by society.

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5. Daughter of Mine (Laura Bispuri, 2018):

Vittoria (Sara Casu) is about to turn 10, and she lives with her doting mother Tina (Valeria Golino) in a happy and and stable household. She befriends Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher), a dysfunctional and promiscuous alcoholic who’s about to be evicted from her own house unless she can raise 27,000 to pay off her debts. At first, it’s not entirely clear what bonds the adult and the child. They seem to have very little in common except for a vague physical resemblance.

Daughter of Mine is set in the barren and oppressively hot Summer of Sardinia, one of the poorest and most remote areas of Italy. Their fishing village looks very precarious and primitive, and untouched by tourists. The houses are old and most of the buildings are derelict, few roads have been paved, and a heavy and brown cloud of dust is lifted by passing cars and motorcycles. The landscape is very arid and golden-hued, just like Vittoria’s hair. This is a sight many people would not associate with a European country, but instead with a developing nation in Africa or South America.

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6. Pixote (Hector Babenco, 1980):

Possibly the dirtiest Brazilian film ever made, Pixote is now nearly 40 years old.

Pixote isn’t just a denunciation of poverty. It goes much deeper, revealing the sheer cruelty of a system that legitimates and perpetuates violence. Drug lords hired minors to sell drugs or rob banks because they would not face criminal action. If caught, they would spend some time in a police or a Febem reformatory, being freed at the age of 18 without a criminal record.

Pixote opens with intense music and no imagery. The symbolism of darkness continues throughout the film. Nothing is lighthearted: boy rapes boy, prison wards are corrupt, Pixote smokes, sniffs glue and kills. The colours of life in the margin are not bright. Even the brothels are somber. There are no red neon lights. The prostitutes Silvia and Debora are unstylish and downtrodden. They are cheap.

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7. The Image Book (Jean-Luc Goddard, 2018):

The Image Book was shot for almost two years in various Arab countries, and it is being marketed as “an examination of the Arab world”. In reality, the film is a collage of film and political references, some easily recognisable and others completely random and bizarre, with some voice-over. You will see extracts from Todd Browning’s Freaks (1932), Pasolini’s Salò (1975), familiar faces such as Joan Crawford and Gérard Depardieu, allusions to the Bolshevik Revolution, to Rosa Luxembourg, and so on – all in line with the director’s left wing convictions. There is no narrative whatsoever, and the Arab theme is only addressed in the final third of this 82-minute movie.

The jump cuts, the faux raccords, the cacophony and the many other devices crafted by the director himself half a century ago are used in abundance. English subtitles suddenly disappear, and often don’t even entirely match the original in French. Dialogues in German, English and Italian are entirely devoid of subtitles. Text on the screen is illegible, very much à la David Carson. Colours are inverted, and negative footage is conspicuous. The image size switches back and forth to various shapes and formats. The French film itself (“Le Livre d’Image”) is a pun suggesting that the image is free. It all makes Alexander Kluge seem square and boring. Exactly as you would expect from Godard.

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8. Happy as Lazzaro (Alba Rohrwacher, 2018):

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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9. The Angel (Luis Ortega, 2018):

Carlitos (Lorenzo Ferro) has the face of Macaulay Culkin, the lips of Angelina Jolie and the hair of an angel. Yet he epitomises evil. He’s a staunch robber and serial killer. He doesn’t believe in ownership of goods, and so he will steal anything that comes his way, ranging from cars and posh mansions to a gun store. He also has a profound disregard for life, and so he will kill just about anyone who stands in his way. The action takes place in 1971.

Carlitos befriends the dark-haired and also extremely good-looking Ramon (played by Chino Darin, son of Argentinian über-actor Ricardo Darin), who soon becomes his partner in crime. Ramon’s parents also become enthusiastic accomplices. Angel’s parents Aurora (Cecilia Roth) and Hector (Luis Gnecco), on the other hand, suspect that their son is up to no good, and do not approve of his behaviour. But there’s little they can do in order to stop their deviant and untrammelled angel.

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10. Dogman (Matteo Garrone, 2018):

In some unnamed and extremely impoverished coastal town in the South of Italy, Marcello (Marcello Fonte; pictured at the top of this article) runs a small dog grooming business aptly named Dogman. He is also a part time coke dealer. He befriends a Neanderthal thug called Antonio (Edoardo Pesce). Together they engage in a life of petty crimes and nights out. They seem to complement each other in s very strange way: Marcello is puny, ugly, calm and with a squeaky voice, while Simone is bulky, considerably better-looking, extremely irascible and with a hoarse voice.

Dogman is in cinemas on Friday, October 19th, immediately after its premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.

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and a last minute addition to our list, no less dirty:

11. Mandy (Panos Cosmatos):

Mandy exists as a headfuck, a hallucinatory trip, but it’s one worth taking and experiencing in all its lucid glory. The action takes place in 1983 in the Pacific Northwest of America that seems devoid of people, at least normal people. But we know this is no alternate reality, however much Mandy believes in the supernatural or the otherworldly. President Ronald Reagan appears on the radio rallying against drugs and pornography. If Mandy had been released at the time of Reagan, the moral majority would have flipped at its bent vision of religion and God. Still, the woods, mountains, and lakes are bathed in a fog of dreamy light and aura that offers a sense that weirdness is a norm in these parts.

Six dirty picks from the London Film Festival

Posted on by victorfraga

There are so many films to pick from that it’s difficult to decide where to begin. In total, there are 242 feature films from both established and emerging directors from every corner of the planet. This year, the festival, which takes place from October 4th to the 15th will host 28 world premieres, nine international premieres and 34 European premieres, plus a top-drawer line-up of cast and supporting events. The feature programme includes 46 documentaries, six animations, 14 archive restorations and 16 artists’ moving image features.

Click on the film titles in order to accede to our exclusive reviews (of the film that we have already seen). Of course this is only the tip of tip of the iceberg, and our live coverage will bring plenty of dirty gems firsthand to you. And you can click here in order to buy your tickets right now!

1. Amant Double (François Ozon):

This is absolutely unmissable. Our editor Victor Fraga saw this earlier this year in Cannes and was left ecstatic. The film on psych-sexual thriller on a par with his own masterpiece Swimming Pool (2003).

Amand Double 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.

2. A Fantastic Woman (Sebastián Lello):

This Chilean film – produced by one of our very favourite and dirty directors Pablo Larraín (who made Jackie, The Club and Neruda in the past two years) – was selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. It was selected as the Chilean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards. We haven’t seen it yet but we have every reason to believe it’s going to be very dirty.

When her lover Orlando dies suddenly one night, Marina (Daniela Vega) is left in a state of shock. But nothing can prepare her for what follows. Still raw with grief, the singer and waitress must navigate the horrors of recounting the night to Orlando’s family, whose responses to the fact that she’s a transwoman range from frosty to scabrous and even hostile. It seems love and cohabitation count for little and Marina must fight for her rights, her home and even custody of her dog, while the police only offer a new set of humiliations.

3. Call me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino):

Our dirty girl caught this one earlier this year across the pond, at Sundance. This modern take on Death in Venice is an emotional, rapturous and sensual queer love story taking place in northern Italy, and it will rapture your heart immediately, whether you are gay or not!

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.

Just like in Visconti’s masterpiece, the story begins when a foreigner comes to the Italian territory. In Call me By Your Name, though, it is the young guy who invests in the more mature gay professor. A very modern and dirty twist on a unforgettable classic.

4. The Florida Project (Sean Baker):

This is another one that we haven’t seen but it’s on our agenda. The pressure is on. Sean Baker authored one the dirtiest and most innovative film created in the past few years, on an iPhone and a shoestring budget: the hilarious and profoundly moving tranny Christmas tale Tangerine.

Six-year-old Moonee (the astonishingly good Brooklynn Kimberly Prince) lives with her mother and other castaways from the American dream in a candy-floss-coloured roadside motel in Orlando. Disney World is just up the road, but their budget dayglow home is no plush hotel resort. Halley, Moonee’s mother, is only just an adult herself. More of an incorrigible older sister than a parent, she gets a kick out of juvenile hijinks, with utter disregard for their consequences.

According to LFF: “the genius of Baker’s film is how it runs along two parallel tracks. Narrated from a child’s-eye view, this is a marvellous world of play and possibility. But adult viewers witnessing Halley’s life will suspect what’s coming for Moonee. That this dazzling, precocious girl is a lightning rod of wayward charm makes the inevitable so much harder to bear. The Florida Project is an ingenious, instant classic about childhood innocence.”

5. Have a Nice Day (Liu Jian):

This was our editor’s favourite in the Competition of the Berlinale earlier this year. Dilapidated buildings, cracked walls, chipped doors, neglected railway tracks, shabby cars, mangy dogs, plenty of rain and blood: this is more or less the filthy image of China that will you see in this highly imaginative animation and black comedy from the People’s Republic.

The movie looks almost like a rotoscope animation due to the realism of faces of places, but a few dissonant elements effectively cater for the more ingenious and resourceful side of the endeavour. There’s a thin line of smoke coming up undisturbed from a cigarette, there are paintings with a very different texture and there’s a very plush allegorical montage blending dreams with symbols of pop culture (from which the image above was taken). And there’s cheesy Chinese music to top it all up, sometimes coming from bad quality speakers, as if you were in a student’s room.

6. Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro):

Our correspondent Tiago Di Mauro picked the Mexican director’s latest flick last month live from Venice, and the movie also happened to snatch the Golden Lion for best film. It all starts out as your standard blockbuster, but suddenly the dirty elements come in: there’s plenty of nudity, female masturbation, sex with a monster and a very wet and messy orgasm. Nothing is toned down or hidden, like you would expect from your average Hollywood flick. It’s like watching a Disney film in which Lilo shags Stitch. You will eventually get hooked and excited about The Shape of Water. Or maybe even aroused.

The mute protagonist Elisa is played by superb Sally Hawkins, and she might get an Oscar nomination for this role. During the Cold War era Elisa is trapped in a life of silence and isolation with many other people. One day she discovers a classified secret experiment in the high-security laboratory where she works: an aquatic monster from the Amazon, fully alive. In a way, this is a subtle denunciation of Operation Condor and US meddling in Latin America during the Cold War.