Category: GFF strand – Local Heroes/Great Scots

Just out of Beast, which I really loved. Its the story of a woman who escapes her domineering family when she meets and falls in love with a man several rungs below her on the social ladder. So far so good, until he becomes the prime suspect in a series of child murders. What I loved about this film is how many twists and turns it went through, how you are constantly left questioning what actually happened and where all this is actually going.

The film starts with almost a twee drama in comparison to the very dark route it ends up taking. The first act is the main character Moll being swept off her feet by the dashing Pascale and escaping the clutches of her controlling mother who is played to absolute perfection by Geraldine James. Some of the professions of love border heavily on the melodramatic which only lulls you into a false sense of security for what’s to come.

The second act is when Pascale is taken into custody, and the false alibi that she glibly gave him, when the suspicions seemed to be nothing more than the work of her mother to disrupt her happy relationship through her friend in the police force, suddenly becomes the only thing standing between him being charged and her entire life coming crashing down around her ears. With shades of Maxine Carr, you understand how this lassie could have gotten herself into such a deep hole without even realising it. By the time she understands the severity of the situation, it’s already too late.

And it’s here the film really starts. This dark rollercoaster where you begin to question if she’s lying because she believes he’s innocent, or if she’s trapped in her lie even though she’s beginning to believe he’s guilty, or if she’s lying to protect him because she believes he’s guilty even though he is innocent. And all this opens up a door in her that cannot be closed, that protecting a potential child-murderer makes her fearful about what other things she might be capable of.

I loved Beast. It is definitely a slow starter but with definite pay-off by the end.

A biopic of Emily Dickinson. This could focus on a number of aspects of Dickinson’s life but focuses on her spirituality and solitary inner life. Because she lived her entire life more or less in her family home, the whole film is basically Cynthia Nixon wandering round a house, greeting in every room.

The cast is excellent. Keith Carradine in his Victorian get-up – BANKED. Jennifer Ehle remains utterly beautiful, and risks outshining Nixon. All the events are small, tremulous and mundane, all the emotion is cacophonous and ecstatic. Lovely film.

A film in which a prodigal daughter returns to the family farm following the suicide of her brother. Ellie Kendrick (Meera from Game of Thrones) is excellent as the main character, going through all these shades of grief.

A film about a man trying to break away from his father who would rather see him dead than “go gorgi”.

During the Q&A discovered that everything in the film is based on a real family called the Johnsons, who are semi-outcasts in the travelling community in Gloucester for being such mad bastard rip-and-run fiends. They spent 12 years working with the Johnsons to show the story fairly and they apparently are really supportive of the film.

The film’s really good for showing the good and bad in both ways of life. Equally it shows the limitations for someone wanting to change when they’re an illiterate adult with a long arrest record and whose main skill set is being a legendary thief.

What I found really interesting was the language, which is really authentic and full of playful expressive vocab. It’s a voice you don’t often get to hear.

The cast were of course amazing, with Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson and Lindsey Marshal and Sean Harris. For being a movie that’s kinda focused on the main character’s introspection about his life choices, it’s actually action-packed and never lets up. Good movie. 

A documentary about a vegan filmmaker following a 73-year-old ex-colonial soldier on one last big game hunt.

I enjoyed it overall, the main character is definitely a compelling and intriguing anachronism, but the narration by the filmmaker is unnecessary, and in some ways detracts from the film overall. It needlessly underlines the obvious, and his voice is irritating. It’s not the tone, it’s that he comes off as a nyaff. It’s difficult in a film with a racist, homophobic, rabbit-killing, buffalo-shooting old bastard to come off as the unlikable one, but he somehow manages it. It’s like, mate, you’re in the right, just do nothing and people’ll be one your side. Don’t show folk photos of you bravely sitting alone eating a virtuous vegan dinner on Christmas to get our sympathies, you come off as a wank.

Surprisingly, despite being made by someone with vegan values, there’s no attempts in the film to counterpoint or correct some of the absolute tosh spouted in the film about the hunting being vital to conservation. It’s fine for the film to be a character study of this very funny old man without need to constantly call him out on his opinions, but to allow it to become a vehicle for bullshit pro-hunting arguments really shouldn’t go unchallenged.

Overall good but there’s a lot of footage of animals being skinned and gutted, so if that’s not your thing, maybe gie it a by.

When I was about to go into the movie, this loud obnoxious twat in a tweed jacket came up and started rabbiting on at the GFF volunteers on the doors. As I studiously avoided eye contact, I thought, maybe this is the eccentric old hunter the movie’s about. Then we got in and he was introduced as the director! He proceeded to say he found the small size of the audience “mortifying” and explained how little money he’d been given to promote the film. It’s like, mate, don’t berate people who’ve paid good money to see your film for not being more people. As the film started up he announced, “I’m going to hang about and check out the sound levels. I used to be a projectionist.” He gave the impression of being a consummate wank.

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.

Little does the main male character know when the mistress of the house walks in on him carrying out a sexual assault, she’ll be the scary one in their relationship. A violent sexual period drama, about life lived on nail ends and viscera, suffocated beneath the silence and subservience of Victorian decorum.

The casting of Anna, the maid who is the nearest thing her mistress has to a friend and unwilling witness to all her crimes, with the outstanding black actress Naomi Ackie adds another level to the arc of the story. The mistress’s initial sympathetic struggle against the patriarchal system unravels into a self-serving reinforcement of class and colour as she sacrifices Anna’s sanity and life for her own comfort and well-being.

Excellent film, Spartan told with certitude that no shot or line of dialogue is extraneous or delivered without purpose. Go see.

Couple in a Hole is about a couple who live in self-imposed exile in a hovel in the forest where their son died. Paul Higgins and Kate Dickie (Jamie from The Thick of It and Lysa Aryn from Game of Thrones) give absolutely heartbreaking performances as this deeply loving couple trying to survive the unspeakable power of grief. 

A horror film about a teacher who snaps and finally decides to teach his lesson in the only language his pupils understand. A bleeding-heart lefty’s rage fantasy, implicating the audience in their own desire to see the unpleasant main characters brought to heel.

Kinda reminiscent of Funny Games, Clockwork Orange, Misery and (also by Stephen King) Rage.

Never have I been so aware of my body settling, fluid puddling in my swelling feet, my aching arse, as I was watching The Devil’s Plantation. A sort of Wisconsin Death Trip-esque film set in Glasgow, entirely composing of black and white shots of the city’s urban and rural landscapes while two voices narrate two unconnected strands of story that go nowhere. How I longed for a ned to headbutt the camera and put an end to it.