A film about two people’s stories linked by a heart transplant. Lovely.
Author: gffreviews
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Paradise
Still shaking and crying from Paradise. Had to go wash my face. It’s the story of a Russian princess who is sent to the concentration camps for hiding Jewish children from the Nazis. It’s about how she manages to keep her strength of spirit throughout her ordeal, and the impact that has on the lives of others around her. Powerful.
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Mindhorn
A sort of Galaxy Quest meets Hot Fuzz. A washed up actor reprises his role from his ’80s tv cop show to help police solve a murder on the Isle of Man. Julien Barratt is great as this sort of BoJack Horseman-esque character, stumbling with delusional optimism around the wreckage of his old life. It’s good fun, packed with ridiculous action, funny and warm.
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Across The Waters
A solid but ultimately unremarkable escape from the Nazis movie.
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Clash
Whoa. Just came out of Clash, a film about the 2013 Egyptian riots following the military overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood presidency installed after the fall of Mubarak, but shot entirely within the back of one police van. It basically spans a day and a night all within one claustrophobic location, as supporters of the army, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, journalists, bystanders and police all struggle to survive til dawn.
It leaves you breathless. It is really, really well crafted. This is the best film I’ve seen at the festival so far.
It would be very easy, in a film with a dozen characters, to make them very two-dimensional. Everybody have their “thing”. But both the writing and the acting make them feel very real and natural. Even the guy who’s obviously comic relief feels believable as a person.
The film’s not really there to make a political statement, but to show the absolute madness of one night. How real people’s lives were pulled and in some cases destroyed in this battle of them versus us. In such a setup, it’d be easy to go after-school special, make it a Breakfast Club on wheels, in which people start very invested in their labels, then realised they’ve both got an uncle with alopecia or whatever and gradually come to understand that the differences they have between them are far smaller than the similarities that unite them, and kumbaya. But it’s much more complex than that. It’s about a succession of moments in which you find commonalities or conflicts, a unity in one context and division in another. Life is a succession of these moments and it’s highly circumstantial who you call your “tribe”.
I also like how they showed the police. Folk out protesting in support of the army are among the first thrown in the van. Watching folk chanting, “The people and the police are united” as they get whacked and thrown in the back of a van. That’s what ye get, son. The police are the “villains” of the piece for the first half of the film, chucking folk in this van and leaving them to faint in what essentially is a tin can sat out in the midday sun. They don’t give them water, don’t give them medical aid, and let an old man die at one point. But as the day goes on, it shows the police losing control of the situation more and more, and you see them as frightened people, having their pals hurt and killed and not knowing where the next attack is coming from, seeing everyone as the enemy. At one point, one cop does try to help the people in the back of the van and only backs off when a gun is held to his head by his commanding officer, reminding him he is disobeying orders during what is essentially war, and he is committing treason. One soldier points out he’s only there because of conscription, and he was afraid to refuse and be sent to jail. Ultimately no one has any control on this night, no allegiance or badge or party or status is going to protect anybody.
The film is just relentless and I left feeling like I’d had my legs kicked out from under me. Definitely one to watch.
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The Chamber
A movie about a poor Swedish bastard who gets press-ganged by the US military into taking their operatives down in a sub to the floor of the North Korean sea. Unsurprisingly, things do not go well.
I would rate this movie as ok. I’ve seen this kinda thing done before and better in movies like Das Boot and Pressure. For me, it was too chatty, there was too much dialogue, it never really gave space for the sense of dread to set in. I think it could have swapped some of the back and forth for shots of them just sitting there, listening to the submersible creak with pressure as they desperately tried to think of a way to save themselves.
There seems to be some last-minute romantic overture put in between the two main characters, which I didn’t like because I felt it unnecessarily sexualised the only female character in a situation that was the furthest thing from sexy. The score was good, Carpenteresque.
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In The Radiant City
A film in which a prodigal son returns to a family blown apart when he testified against his brother in a murder trial years before. Excellent performances, everyone serving time for one person’s act, lives irrevocably changed, struggling to reconcile even for a moment. Solid film.
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Louise By The Shore
A beautiful animation about an elderly woman who spends a year living in a shack on the beach, and finds nourishment in solitude.
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Werewolf
A film about a couple of junkies trying to come clean, and the struggle as they sabotage themselves and each other. Opens with a suicide, so you know it’s gonna be cheery.
I liked that the film was beautiful and humanising while not sugar-coating the characters, not making them super-likable or cast as martyrs. They’re in a shit situation, they shouldn’t have to be saints just to offset the stigma of being substance-addicted.
Also that it focused on how boring addiction is, instead of the dramatic sexy capers they get in to feed their habit, it’s two people trying to put right a very fucked up life with no tools – no support, no home, no income, no dignity.
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The Chocolate Case
A documentary about a Dutch satirical sketch on slavery in chocolate production which develops into the creation of a global ethical chocolate company.
It’s bizarre because what starts out as anti-commercialist comedy ends with a commercial entity. It’s a bit like the weird trajectory of Bob Geldof’s life which was to be a rock star that at one point organised a charity single but developed into someone who is now far more closely associated with charity work than music. The whole thing really grows arms and legs and walks all over the people who created it. One thing I took away from it is I am incredibly naive about FairTrade certification.