Tyler (Kevin Harrison Jr.) is going to be the best at wrestling. His father Ronald (Sterling K. Brown) says so. He orders it, mercilessly training him every day in their own improvised gym at the top of their splendid middle-class house. Ronald is a successful businessman. He worked hard to get there. He tells his son that there is no option for an African-American to be “average” at anything. He must excel. Such is to be black in America.
Tyler has other problems. His girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie) is pregnant. They go to an abortion clinic in order to get the pregnancy terminated and encounter some very vocal anti-abortion protestors. One used the n-word on Tyler. Tyler is desperate to get the pregnancy ended. Alexis decides to keep the baby. In a frantic couple of hours, Tyler smashes up his room, rushes out of the parental home, goes to a party where Alexis is and in a fatal argument causes her to fall on the kitchen floor where she dies. He ends up the local “reform” facility with a life sentence. There is the possibility of parole after 30 years. The judge describes this a provision for “mercy”. The state of Florida has indeed a very odd notion of “mercy”.
The film then switches to the predicament of Tyler’s sister Emily (Taylor Russell). Isolated at High School and harassed on social media because of what her brother has done, she is befriended by a kind boy called Luke (Lucas Hedges and becomes his girlfriend. Luke has problems of his own. His father is dying of cancer in a hospital in Missouri and Luke cannot forgive him for what he put his mother and Luke through when Luke was young. Emily persuades him to visit his father and the father eventually dies amid forgiveness and reconciliation.
This film is about forgiveness. It is about how decent and well-meaning people screw up their lives because they lose their temper too much, because they are trying too hard, because they need to hang on to those they love. As such, it is winning and moving. The camera work is inventive. The music is compelling, particularly Dinah Washington’s What a Difference a Day Makes. Some, however, may feel the camerawork too dramatic, the emotional underscoring too obvious. Even the most innovative of Hollywood films can’t stop telling you what you ought to be feeling at any given moment. A good weekend weepy!
Waves is in cinemas on Friday, January 17th. On VoD in June.
We first meet the Fazili family in Tajikistan, where they have been rejected for asylum. Hassan and his wife Fatma are both filmmakers on the run from the Taliban, who have a price on his head due to a documentary he made about one of their leaders. Their application to Australia, a thick wad of files numbering hundreds, perhaps thousands of pages, is also unsuccessful. Returning to Afghanistan, they decide that legal means will no longer suffice; they will make the journey to Germany over land.
Filmed over the course of three years with three phone cameras as the family travel through car, train and foot across the perilous Balkan smuggling route, Midnight Traveller is both a testament to the resilience of refugees and the power of filmmaking to effect real change. With narration from mother, father and eldest daughter, Midnight Traveller is a truly communal effort. Featuring personal touches such as Hassan and Fatma arguing about the value of morality in cinema, or discussing with their daughter about whether she wants to wear a headscarf (she doesn’t), the film is a deeply touching experience, making you root for the Fazili family to finally find peace.
There are two montages in Midnight Traveller that aim straight for the heart. One occurs about halfway through the film: a rush of snatched images such as playing in the park, riding in a fairground and rushing through dense thickets, a collection of moments to both hold onto and to overcome. The second, coming near the end is relatively similar, but this time uses memory to project a future of safety and peace. Brief yet effective, they elevate the movie from mere documentation into an embracing work of art, a homage to the idea of home and happiness, brutally rent by the barbaric concept of borders.
With a fleet 90 minute run-time, it does feel like Midnight Traveller has been neatly packaged as if to be played in front of a court tribunal. The movie could have benefited from a heftier length, as that could really bring to bear just how difficult the journey really is. Despite effective editing, more of the story could’ve and should’ve been told.
Yet perhaps it needed to be made quickly, this film perhaps the only thing that gives the Fazili family a fighting chance of staying in Europe; their filmmaking talent bearing witness to their struggle and the difficulties they have been through. They are the lucky ones. They have money to pay smugglers and the keen sense to document their story to drum up international attention. Others from poorer backgrounds make the journey with less than nothing, relying only on the kindness of strangers in search of a better world.
There can never be too many documentaries about the migrant crisis because every single story deserves to heard. Every single story should play in a continuous loop somewhere until the leaders of Europe, from Russia to Serbia, UK to Germany, Hungary to Turkey, finally sit down together and make constructive efforts to build a better world. I welcome each of these films until this moment occurs.
Midnight Traveller is in cinemas across the UK on Friday, January 17th.
Sixteen-year-old Noor (Zara Webb) is in Kashmir for the very first time in her life. This is where she meets her grandparents, and attempts to create a connection with a region that was hitherto entirely foreign to her. The adolescent is British/Western in every way: her accent, her attire, her obsession with taking selfies and publishing on social media.
She meets the local village boy Majid (Shivam Raina), who is of the same age, and they immediately bond. There’s a touch of teen love, nothing too graphic and extreme, palatable for a more conservative Indian audience. They find out that their respective fathers were very good friends as young men. It’s not entirely clear what happened to the men since. Most assume that they died in the violent conflict that has plagued the contested region for decades. Because of uncertainty of their real fate, their wives are often described as “half-widows”. The only one who seems to know the truth is Arshid (played by the director Ashvin Kumar), who was a close friend of the two men. But Arshid refuses to disclose any information. So Noor and Majid set themselves on a mission to uncover the truth.
The two teens get lost in a dense forest as they search for the answers about their elusive family history. But they soon get in trouble, being arrested by patrol soldiers. This is war-ridden region with little regard for their adolescent adventure. Being British-born gives Noor an advantage over Majid, and she’s soon released. But what about the village boy, who enjoys far less rights and protections than his foreign friend?
This is a tender coming-of-age story set against a very tragic backdrop. Noor’s freedoms and joie-de-vivre are contrasted against the far less peaceful and civilised existence that the Kashmiris have to lead. The performances are strong enough to keep you hooked throughout the 108 minutes of the story. Most characters are rather flat and their psychology is easy to understand, making the narrative straightforward and borderline didactic. The only exception is Arshid, the most psychologically complex and ambiguous personage. It’s never clear what his secrets and motives are. Until he unexpectedly takes justice into his own hands…
The contextualisation of the conflict, on the other hand, is far less clear. You won’t find out, for instance, that both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in its entirety, and that the Indian government recently revoked the special status accorded to the region in its constitution, the most controversial political move in nearly 70 years. They sent thousands of troops , thereby imposed a curfew, shut down telecommunications and arrested political leaders. It will help if you have some understanding of the conflict before you watch the movie.
No Fathers in Kashmir is in cinemas on Friday, January 24th.
American marijuana kingpin Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConnaughey) has made a legendary name for himself in London. Looking to sail out from the life he’s made for himself, Pearson involves himself with Matthew Berger (Jeremy Strong). Investments come at a price in this “Mockney” caper, as the criminal underbelly side with the upper classes of British Establishment.
After 10 years directing the more cordial Sherlock Holmes (2009), King Arthur (2017) and Disney’s Aladdin (2019),Guy Ritchie´s returned to the very genre that made his name in the first place. Maybe he shouldn’t have bothered. Those East End tropes had tired as early as Rocknrolla (2008). There’s an arrogance to the film that won’t win him any favours with audiences and critics, though I suspect he already knows that; it might explain why a character rubbishes The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) as a cheap throwaway line!
Ritchie was never a critical darling, unlike Snatch (2000) producer Matthew Vaughn, and The Gentlemen shares a glaring resemblance in palette, colour, design and costume to Kingsman: The Secret Service (directed by Vaughn in 2014). Jokes about ´Jewish gangsters´ and ´Irish boxers´ are one thing, but when Dry Eye (Henry Golding), a “Chinese James Bond”, is said to possess a “ricence to kill”; there’s a genuine six-letter word for it beginning with ´r´!
So no, this is not a good film. But thanks to one character actor, playing beautifully against type, it’s not entirely an inessential one. Since weathering in age and appearance, Hugh Grant has re-emerged in recent years as one of Britain’s most enjoyable actors. He works as the film’s narrator, spurning the narrative turns with broad Michael Caine like glee. He’s revelling onscreen with panto like glee, walking across the screen with broad, fulsome strides. It’s a testament to his ever-growing “Grantnaissance”, while McConnaughey´s Pearson adds little of value to his supposed “McConaissance”. He looks tired, bored even, in a script of Class B Hollywood material. But Colin Farrell’s a blast, revelling onscreen as a charming boxing instructor, while Eddie Marsan enjoys himself as ´The Daily Print´s Editor-in-Chief. It’s nice to see Grant, Farrell and Marsan having so much fun. Shame they forgot to include the audience!
The Gentlemen is in cinemas on Wednesday, January 1st.
We’ve all had that friend, that one person who looks in every direction for an answer to their life. Lou Farnt (Katie Brayben) is that 30-year -old, surrounding her life in self-coach tapes and books, desperate for a life away from her controlling, self-satisfying mother. When Val (Poppy Roe), a precocious life coach brimming with worldly ambition, arrives in her hometown, Lou decides to travel with her. On the surface, it seems like a deal from heaven, Lou escaping the confines of her lowly town for a high-octane journey across Britain’s alternative therapy camps. Yet it’s apparent to everyone that Val hasn’t told Lou everything, as bodies start lining outside the tents the women share. It’s the kookiest script Simon Pegg never wrote, a bloody delicious one at that!
The one-liners slash through the proceedings like sharp, gut-throbbing belly laughs. Arriving at their premier camp, Lou packs the duos bags unwittingly on top of a pallid, pale corpse that sits in their boot. Their varied meditative coaches (one of them Fleabag’s Sian Clifford, discussing the horrific serenity of childbirth with a sharp Scottish accent), aroused as they are by life, are only moments, dalliances and knife cuts away from death. Together, the pair find themselves growing more and more attached to the art of killing. “You’re my best life coach” Lou attests, her mouth free from the vomit she’s just spewed. “You might be my best client” Val replies, leading her comrade to their next victim. Wicked stuff!
There’s a point being addressed behind all the choking and beatings. Ben Lloyd-Hughes stars as Chuck Knoah, an oily haired coach who addresses the needs of his customers with monetary, instead of medicinal, interest. Faced with the two assailants, Knoah sees the value in crime, offering his kidnappers the chance to co-author their work. In a world of Netflix serials situated on serialkillers, internet videos intoxicatexd with violence and sex and family comedies that names their characters after the insidious Doctor Harold Shipman, the film addresses the sick fantasies audiences expect from the real world. Lloyd-Hughes is excellent as a scenery chewing theorist, but Roe is the real star, discussing the starved needs of Sudanese babies with the same decided measures she brings to bashing a hostess’ head with a wooden bread roller. Feisty eyed, lasso-haired and tight-lipped, Val makes one of the most exciting villains of the last 20 years. Dirtylicious!
A Serial Killer’s Guide to Life is on VoD on Monday, January 13th.
R[/dropcapey (Daisy Ridley) is the last of sea of Jedi, focusing her energies, powers and stances on her work as a swordsmith. Away from her, missionaries Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) follow a lead sent by erstwhile Jedi master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), as Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) encounters a force even more evil than General Snoke.
It’s a by-the-numbers Star Wars entry, all very ordinary rather than extraordinary. And there’s something very, very wrong with that. Starting in 1977, the Star Wars episodes boasted themselves on their unpredictability, instability and irregularity awash among the many laser effects and Wookie costumes. At their best, the Star Wars series opened a number of aliens experiencing the most inhumane of human feelings. Empire Strikes Back (Irvin, Kershner, 1980) ended with an amputee agonising over his learned parentage. Revenge of The Sith (George Lucasm 2005) watched the impeccable Anakin racked with guilt over the failings of the Jedi he so blindly followed. Then there’s the excellent The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2005), an elegiac painting which showed that the universe isn’t a chamber piece of good and evil characters, but an orchestra of emotions swimming inside the varied territory lines. Even the risible Attack of The Clones (George Lucas) showcased a glorious gladiatorial fight which climaxed the 2002 flick with gun heaving gusto. This puts The Rise of Skywalker in pole position as the most unoriginal, the most boring and also the weakest film.
It has many, many things wrong with it. Watching the re-used Carrie Fisher footage from 2015, I felt a nauseating sense of deja vu for the Pink Panther films Blake Edwards churned out in the 1980s. This was supposed to Fisher’s entry, as The Last Jedi was Hamill’s and The Force Awakens‘ (J. J. Abrams, 2015) Harrison Ford’s. Fate played a different card, as the film changed direction as early as 2016. The 2017 dismissal of director Colin Trevorrow furthered the distance from original idea to fan-servicing, with Abrams’s reinstatement as director the final whistle to that particular tolling bell. Unlike Rian Johnson’s more measured approach, Abrams’ is frequently overshadowed, rather than guided, by his inner fanboy. His re-introduction of Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) comes shimmering in solely for the cheering salute of the fans who recalled the ship steering hero in 1986.
Nothing in the film feels subtle, an unusual thing to criticise a sci-fi film, but there’s little of substance to the proceedings. When Rey finally discovers her heritage, after three films of searching, the answer feels anticlimactic, unfeasible and insultingly predictable. Returning Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDirmid) is fan servicing at its worst, although credit to McDirmid, he gives a steely performance absent from Driver’s flatter portrayal.
This feels like a formulaic movie, the collective fingerprints of committee members, accountants and pie-charts holding up what could be a genuinely affecting piece of art. But it does have a genuinely affecting final scene. Rey, standing on her own two feet, feels comfortably at home in a series that feels like a stranger to its own series.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is in cinemas Friday, December 20th. On VoD in March.
Ballerina Victoria (Francesca Hayward) leads a troupe of feline singers, dancers and acerbic entertainers through a ceaseless song selection, paraded over a series of matchless designs and acrobatics. Whatever plot the Jellicle Cats face is hard to decipher (the story more or less revolves around a tribe of cats who must decide which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life), but that’s a small matter in a kaleidoscopic spectacle, detailed in one long dance through the Edward Hopper tinted town streets and skyscrapers.
Catsmight be the bravest, boldest and battiest picture that’s come this barmy year, and the kinkiest too! Everywhere, latex linen suits wade in the viewer’s eyesight, crotch capers carrying the eye-line of the camera’s attention. Sleek, the myriad dancers parade with gutty gymnastic poses, throwing each of their bodies into the multi-colored routines. The songs come interchangeably, frivolously feasting on their nonsensical verse and costumes. Exquisitely produced, the song’s take a sombre, affecting turn during Grizabella’s (Jennifer Hudson’s) Memories, an ageing elegy sung as the spinning camera eyes the falling debris that surround the commune of cats. This is visual art, shades of Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) and Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) hanging on the architectural designs.
It’s an impressive cast listing, venerable custodians of the stage (Ian McKellen and Judi Dench) parading with the prescient pop artists of the millennial world (Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo and James Corden among the cast list). Parading in delightful nonsense, the catchy collection of cats emerge in the linen gutter filled paths, as others dine with cutlery items larger than the diners themselves. It’s utterly, joyfully offbeat, an illustrated adaptation of the wackiness T.S. Elliot intended for his creations. Behind the furry felines sits Idris Elba’s Macavity, purring in his criminal ambition. Elba’s resume has rarely shown such propensity for pantomime, eager in clawed posts to wander the variegated set pieces with playful rigor.
Through a Camp collection of colourful cuts comes the most exciting and invigorating of dance set pieces. In its own way, it’s the purest translation of musical theatre, expressing the animal atmosphere both the West End and Broadway productions produce. The costumes take centre stage, an overture of textures, colours, carousels and captures, a vehicle of fur for its centre cast. Clandestine changes of colour and choreography take precedence over semblance of plot. Instead, its the glorious engagement of vaudevillian value in all of its seductive permutation. Slick, shiny, sexy, colourful, creative and camp!
Afghanistan, 1989. The Soviet army is on the verge of withdrawing from the country when a bomber is shot down. A literal Chekhov’s gun is confiscated from the pilot, who turns out to be the son of General Vasilev. Thus, an operation is set in motion to rescue him from Mujahideen captivity. The typical band of misfits are gathered, and have to deal with rebels, smugglers, traitors, translators and an increasing lack of purpose.
A film of many names and based on actual events, Brotherhood (aka Leaving Afghanistan) can be seen as Russia’s first Vietnam movie (Kevin Reynolds’s solid Soviet-Afghan themed tank 1988 film The Beast was an American production). Bucking the last years’ trend of flag-waving films – such as Stalingrad (Fyodor Bondarchuk, 2014), Tankers (Konstantin Maximov, 2018) and T-34 (Aleksei Sidorov, 2019) – set during the Great Patriotic War, Brotherhood quickly ran into trouble in Putin’s Russia by instead dealing with the Soviet Union’s forgotten war in Afghanistan.
Some veterans were incensed at the unconventional portrayal of Soviet soldiers. And clearly the protagonists in the Soviet military are not presented as paragons of virtue. They are guzzling vodka and looting ’80s artifacts like ghettoblasters and the Sony Walkman.
But perhaps surprisingly, the film is rather even-handed in its portrayal of the Mujahideen enemy (who of course history would later see morph into warlord factions and eventually the Taliban). The other are given a voice in the form of an erudite leader figure and are seen as more than faceless fundamentalists. I would have wished for more depth to the Afghani liaison, representing the Afghanistan government. In the few scenes he features, it is mostly to beg for harder Soviet measures against the rebels. But that a multifaceted look at the deep complexities of the Soviet-Afghan War lies beyond what can be expected of one film.
Brotherhood only grants a minimum of exposition in the form of overheard TV spots of the Soviet withdrawal, and to get the most out of the film the average Western viewer would do well to at least visit Wikipedia for a history refresher.
Even with accounting for some beautiful mountain scenery (shot in the Caucasus rather than on-location, naturally), the film remains gritty rather than visually sumptuous. Despite the controversial subject matter, the director did have enough support from higher-up veterans in the Russian military that it was possible to shoot scenes with authentic APCs and Mi-24 attack helicopters, which adds a lot to the sense of realism. Special mention must go to some thoroughly disturbing sound effects. Never has the horror of trying to breathe with knife and gunshot wounds been better portrayed.
The war sadly remains topical, with the ongoing Western engagement in Afghanistan’s war without end. The competent Brotherhood is a must for anyone interested in the subject matter. A rare opportunity to see Russian cinema deal with its very own Vietnam.
Brotherhood is based on the memoirs of Afghan war veteran turned FSB spy chief Nikolai Kovalyov. Itscreened at the Russian Film Week in December, a month which also saw a French DVD and Blu-ray release. Streaming rights yet to be determined.
M[/dropcap[ikhail Borisovich Khordorkovsky is charming, well-educated, self-confident and highly intelligent. He has suffered imprisonment twice for standing up to Vladimir Putin and his power apparatus in Russia. He runs a platform for genuine (as opposed to state) information about Russia (“Open Russia”). He is a major philanthropist and has the support of leading politicians in the West for his work defending human rights. Yet he is one of the notorious oligarchs. Like many of his kind, he bought up shares in defunct state concerns after the collapse of the Soviet Union, making millions in the process. He was appointed head of Yukos, a hugely successful oil company, which made him the richest man in Russia. He is still worth millions today.
The oligarchs controlled the Russian regime that emerged under Boris Yeltsin. It was the era of gangster capitalism. Much of Russia’s wealth was controlled by criminal gangs. Shootings and murders were common in Russia’s cities. With the collapse of the Russian economy, much of Russia’s population were impoverished and forced to sell prized possessions in the streets just to buy enough food. Boris Yeltsin, although he stood for democracy, was controlled by the oligarchs and had great difficulty in running the country. During this time, Khordorkovsky was suspected of arranging the murder of the Mayor of Nefteyugansk, Vladimir Petukhov, who stood in the way of the expansion of Yukos.
It comes as no surprise, then, that when Vladimir Putin, originally an obscure operative in the KGB, became president and started to challenge the oligarchs, arresting many and taking over their assets, his actions were immensely popular with many Russians. Indeed, Putin used this initiative to lay down the foundations of his control of Russia.
What is so useful about this documentary about the ambiguous figure of Khordokovsky is that it clarifies the reality in Russia. A simplistic Western view of Russia is that Russia is reactionary, backward and likes autocracy and is reverting to form. Putin is anti-liberal, anti-democratic and wants Russia to be “great” again. This is only half true. Putin inherited a situation of gangsterism. What he did was seize control of this gangsterism and use it for his own purposes. Russia was suffering disorder and poverty. He restored “order” and thinks he is building up respect for Russia. The concept of control is the key to understanding Putin. This is well illustrated in this documentary which shows the episode in which the relatives of the sailors of the submarine Kursk, that sank tragically in the Barents Sea, scream at officials for their dishonesty and inaction. One woman, particularly effective in her criticisms, suddenly has a syringe put in her arm and is “calmed down”. She is brought under control. What Putin wants is control.
Anything that threatens that control is dealt with. That was why Russian dissidents are not safe abroad, why the media is ruthlessly supervised, why interference goes on with foreign governments. Putin wants nothing that will call him to account. He wants to mess around with the processes of democratic governments because under their systems he would be called to account. He indulges in dog-whistle politics – rage against “filthy practices” coming in from the West (such as homosexuality), expansion abroad, paranoia about the “persecution” of Russia – because these themes are part of the Russian tradition. It is not that Russia is inherently reactionary. Many of the middle class in Moscow and Saint Petersburg loathe him. It is that many Russians are reactionary, and he wants to establish his base, in the same way that Trump wants to cultivate his base in Mid-America, and Brexiteers want to call up the prejudices and illusions of Middle England to establish their case.
The strange control of Putin is illustrated not just with the chilling events in Salisbury but also with the course of Khordorkovsky’s second trial. At the trial, after being previously convicted for embezzlement of Yukos’s money, in a contradictory way, he is then accused of not paying tax on the money he stole. This was so absurd that Khordorkovsky and his defence team in the court start laughing out aloud and mocking the inept Chief Prosecutor. This was captured on television and has made many Russians sympathetic to Khordorkovsky because it unmasks so well the injustices and pretences of Putin’s regime.
This documentary is a solid and efficient exposé of Putin’s regime. By concentrating on someone who is not entirely guiltless but seems to have been improved by his sufferings, it portrays the contradictions and tragedy of the modern Russian state. It won’t have the general public queuing round the block but catch it if you can. You will learn a lot.
There’s one word you never hear in documentary The Kingmaker: “sorry”. Profiling the rise and fall and potential rise again of Imelda Marcos — former First Lady to the brutal dictator Ferdinand Marcos — it’s quite extraordinary that she still can’t see the consequences of her actions. This is a woman who assumes that she has done nothing wrong, determined to restore her family to their former glory.
Lauren Greenfield follows her for three years, providing a mixture of historical footage, talking heads and fly-on-the-wall campaigning as her son Bong Bong runs for Vice President. The result is truly compelling; kind of like The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2013) without the catharsis, a deadly warning that vast amounts of money has the ability to wipe away the sins of the past.
It begins with Imelda driving around the slums of Manila, handing out wads of cash to begging children and mothers. They know her by name, suggesting that this is a common occurrence. She later visits a children’s hospital built during her husband’s administration and complains that it looks nothing like it used to be. She hands out more money to mothers with dying children. The self-proclaimed “mother” of the Philippines and the world, the late octogenarian wants to be in charge of the country again. The question is how much cash should be handed out to make this a reality.
You’d think she’d know when to shy away from the limelight. Ferdinand established a deadly coup in the early 70s to consolidate power, killing thousands of people and torturing thousands more. Meanwhile, the family plundered the wealth of the country, holding the Guinness World Record for Greatest Robbery of a Government. She was a great believer in beautiful things, dubbed the “Marie Antoinette” of the Philippines due to her love of extravagant jewellery and her collection of over 3,000 shoes. Still, if you have vast wealth, anything can be possible. With the Marcos’ fortune estimated to be around $30 billion, and many in the country nostalgic for Ferdinand’s administration, they still possess the immense power to get things done.
Lauren Greenfield has scored a real coup here. Simply put, you’re unlikely to see a more fascinating subject interviewed all year. She would be a sympathetic figure if all you heard was her side of the story, yet Greenfield needfully speaks truth to power: she allows Marcos to say what she pleases, undercutting her lies by bringing in the testimony of activists, journalists and opposing politicians. It is the very opposite of Oliver Stone’s The Putin Interviews (2017), which albeit fascinating in their own way, inadvertently made the Russian leader seem even stronger. The depressing part is that nothing in this film will actually make a difference; it only lets us observe as the country struggles in vain to stop history from repeating itself.
And it probably will: Bong Bong narrowly missed the Vice Presidency in 2016 by just 0.64% of the vote to Leni Robredo. He appears to be a nice man, but he still cannot find a way to apologise for his father’s actions, even venerating him as a great figure. Yet they have an ace in their pocket with strongman Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency, which was partly funded by their money. Duterte and his Vice President Rebredo — who was elected separately — do not get on, with him stating that he wants Bong Bong to be Vice President with the expectation he will step down and let Bong Bong replace him. In The Kingmaker, the raw power of money has rarely looked so strong.
The Kingmaker is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, December 13th. On VoD in March.
Fellini’s eighth feature film has passed into the English language as a synonym for Italian exuberance, style and the ability to enjoy life without apology. No film has ever had such an ironic title as La Dolce Vita (“The Sweet Life”, had the film title ever been translated). In the film that made his international reputation, the Italian filmmaker pours cold water over the whole concept of a treacly existence. Instead, he reveals his home country as shallow, vacant and cruel. Indeed, he is not just depicting Italy but the whole era of the 1960s, which is the beginning of our own era, and all that he shows is still relevant and deeply prophetic.
The ennui of is emphasised by the fact there is in this film there is no very obvious narrative. The story consists basically of a reporter named Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni) drifting through of the streets of Rome, and contending with a number of events. His girlfriend takes an overdose, he encounter an heiress, a movie star, and so on. Each scene is a series of episodes, in night clubs, at parties, in restaurants, etc.
This is a movie built upon imagery and symbolism. The flying Christ scene mimics the idea of the Second Coming of Christ. Christ flies over his “eternal” city and what does he find? He finds paparazzi in the Via Veneto with rich, aimless people, he finds two children in a field pretending to have visions of the Virgin Mary, and a beautiful woman in a clinging dress climbing up the steps of the cupola of St. Peter’s, wearing what looks like a cardinal’s hat. The images of La Dolce Vita linger in the mind long after you have seen it.
The secular world he depicts is just as ridiculous and, perhaps, crueller. The one person who has any pretensions to intellectual insight is Steiner (Alain Cluny) and he shoots himself and his two children. The paparazzi wait until his wife gets off a bus and is told that her husband and children are dead and hope to photograph her reaction. The paparazzi are quite happy to run around a field in a downpour while two children pretend to have visions. It doesn’t matter to them. It’s all news. If it’s fake news, it doesn’t matter. It still sells. Even glamorous Rome is not that glamorous. The down at heel prostitute Maddalena (Anouk Aimée) whose flat Marcello Rubini stays at with a girlfriend lives in a depressing housing estate on the edge of Rome. You can’t get into her sitting room or bedroom except by walking over planks because the floor is flooded, and no one has come to do the repairs.
This film heralded the beginning of the 1960’s. Besides its teasing of Catholicism, it also featured openly gay characters. It was the beginning of the modern age which is still very much with us. It is a world of trivia, diversion and pointless celebrities. It believes nothing and knows nothing. The great fish that ends up on the beach right at the end of the film with its huge vacant eyes symbolises this. It could well be a metaphor for modern life, large, bloated and meaningless. The only aspect of today it lacks is poisonous politics.
The only people who seem to do an honest day’s work are the police and a beautiful young girl running a beachside restaurant and her busy, little brother laying out the plates on the tables. At the end of the film the girl tries desperately to communicate with Marcello, but she cannot be understood because the gap between her world and the world of the rich and spoilt people Marcello inhabits is too vast.
The film was loathed by many at its first screening in Milan. The Vatican hated the film and it was banned in several Catholic countries. Yet abroad it was immediately greeted as a masterpiece.
The 4k restoration of La Dolce Vitta was in cinemas across the UK on Friday, January 3rd. The BFI are holding a centennial celebration of Fellini’s work in 2020. On Mubi in June.
