GFF Reviews

Author: gffreviews

  • The Cured

    A zombie allegory for the release of political and paramilitary prisoners and their reintegration back into their community after the end of The Troubles. To hammer it home, the zombie virus is called the Maze virus (Maze Prison, Maze virus, gedit?) It’s one of those films where I actually would have preferred to read as a book. There’s a lot of really interesting ideas, but the actual characters feel more vehicles for that than real, lived in people. It’s also one of those horror films that confuses loud for scary. But it does have plenty of good zombie shit so I was still happy.

  • Sweet Country

    An Australian film about a black guy who shoots a white guy in self-defence. And if a story starts like that, you know how it’s gonna end. Visually, this film conveys the awe of the Australian landscape, following Sam as he goes on the run. Despite the fact he could kill his pursuers numerous times, he is only interested in getting away, and even stops to save the life of one. A story that remains unfortunately relevant.

  • The Swan

    A film about a girl that gets sent to live with her relatives in rural Iceland. And that’s about it.

  • Mobile Homes

    A film about homelessness and parenthood. A woman tries to provide what life she can for her son while they flit between motel and squat, selling fighting cocks with her violent boyfriend.

    What I liked about this was its portrayal of neglect and abuse as not necessarily the product of people but of the practicalities of poverty. Of course the boy’s gonna be left all day alone, who has money to pay for childcare? When the boy accidentally lets one of the birds out and catches a nasty cut from its talon trying to retrieve it, what are you gonna do, attend to the boy or catch the bird? The bird’s worth 3000 dollars. The cut will heal. Want me to tell you that that’s not the way things are?

    The mother struggles to negotiate the inescapable truths of their lives while attempting to leave a crack open for hope to enter through. Solid film.

  • 120 BPM

    A love story set among the Parisian branch of Act Up, the AIDS activism group. It has a very naturalistic style to it. It is the first time I’ve seen a political activism meeting look like a real political activism meeting, boring and with agendas and petty bickering and menial practicalities and clash of personalities. Despite its serious subject, it’s a film with a lot of humour and warmth. Recommend.

  • Pin Cushion

    A British Mean Girls with no jokes. Played straight down the line, this is a tale of female loneliness. With echoes of the start of Carrie, this is a film about the outsider, what it’s like to be permanently locked out of the society the rest of us seem to share in with ease. It’s also about mother-daughter relationships, and how we can need them most at the times we have pull away from them to grow. The ending is horrendous and brought me to sudden, stinging tears.

  • Zama

    A film which starts out a Kafkaesque drama about an early coloniser of South America trying to get sent back home to Spain, and then descends into the Heart of Darkness, searching for a mythical Kurtz figure called Vicuna Porto. The sound and visuals in this film are great, really giving off a sweat and a smell. There is a mix of dreaminess and absurdity that turns from ludicrous and amusing to a horrifying nightmare.

  • Another News Story

    A documentary about the refugee crisis and its media coverage. Really difficult in places, had me in tears, watching people desperately trying to throw their children across police lines, lifting them up and on to trains, trying in any way to save them. This is juxtaposed with the omnipresent media contingent, who maintain an invisibility in their reports but are very much there and part of this situation.

    There’s a discussion throughout the film of the media’s role in all this, to what extent it is a noble throwing of light on an issue that needs public attention, and to what extent it is an exploitative business feeding the news cycle churn. As one reporter says, “It’s news. It’s TV. You’re not meant to think about it.” It called to mind the line from Natural Born Killers, “Media is weather, but it’s man-made weather.”

    Some of the younger, newer reporters talk about how hard the stories hit and the responsibility they feel about making sure the story is heard. The older ones are more cynical, to them its a job. They are shooting all this horror, but they’re thinking about what they’re gonna have for tea, when they’re gonna get home tonight. Most acknowledge that what they are in is a business, and so exploitation will always be an issue, but what you bring to the table does not disappear because of that, your sincerity, your integrity, your desire to help.

    In many ways this is a story about what you choose to do, help or hinder. This matters whether you’re reporting or policing or voting or simply speaking out for those in need.

  • A Fantastic Woman

    A movie about a Chilean woman whose partner dies suddenly and who is forbidden from his funeral because his first family are a bunch of transphobic cunts. This movie is visually beautiful and the music is great. One thing I liked is that Marina is full of a quiet inner strength. She is neither a fragile, shattering victim, nor the snap-back cutting queer trope that is found so entertaining. She is simply a woman trying to survive her pain with as much dignity as she can muster. Good film.

  • This Is Congo

    A beautiful, vibrant, colourful documentary on the armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    I didn’t realise this, but a lot of these rebellions are just a grift for soldiers to raise their wages. If you’re sick of shit at your work, you go, “I want a raise or I’m leaving”. In the army, your employer’s got a monopoly on hiring soldiers, so they’re like, “Where ya gonna go?” So you set a rebellion faction, make yourself a pain in the arse, and then make it a demand of any ceasefire that you get your old job back with a higher wage, or with a promotion. A lot of this shit is a lot less ideologically motivated than you would assume.

    However they all have a valid point to hang their hat on, which is that the president is corrupt, and the people of the country are not benefitting from the wealth of the country. There does need to be reform.

    Into this morass steps Mamadou Ngela, a man so incredibly earnest and sincere he feels like he’s wandered into this documentary from a fable. He is a commander in the Congalese army, trying to maintain the country’s stability and security in the face of these numerous uprisings. He has such a profound degree of naiveity about the army and the government and how this game all works, that you assume he must be new to all this, but no, he’s been at this so long he has 16 bullet wounds across his body. He has the honest open manner of a child, still believing that it is his honoured duty to protect the people of the Congo from those that would drag it into war for their own personal gain. He is what he should be, unlike so many of us.

    Yet he seems oblivious to the fact that the army is incredibly corrupt, that the army is as much the problem as the rebels, and that they are one and the same much of the time. He doesn’t seem to be living in the same reality where Congolese army soldiers rape women, massacre whole villages and contribute to the cycle of neverending misery in the country.

    And watching Mamadou, you can understand how people come to follow and believe in a man like that, whose sincerity shines out him and whose devotion is mapped on his body in a series of scars. Over the course of the film you see Mamadou be appointed to the division in North Kivu, reform it to a much more professional body, lead the frontline attack on the local rebel group, and get a hero’s welcome from the townspeople who revere him as having saved their home. Then. What happens always happens. You can guess, or watch it for yourself.

    But it is an excellent essay on how the richest resource a country has is its people, and how all and any solutions must come from them. If peace will happen, it will be because Congolese people make it happen.

    P.S. Made me think I might see if I can’t get a job as an international peace keeper. It seems like a cushy job that mostly involves wearing a blue hat.