Fucking fantastic! This is gonna come out at the cinema after the festival and you should all go see it. It’s about Swiss women lobbying for the vote in 1970. Yeah, you heard me, Swiss women didn’t get the vote until the 70s.
The movie is warm, funny, moving. I wasn’t all that excited going in because I thought a movie about why women should get the vote would be a bit like preaching to the choir, I wasn’t about to see much that surprised me. But it was so good and so affirming.
For me, it was a nourishing reminder that the revolution is not in a ballot box, or the right to work, or the right to fuck, but in speaking up out with your own voice and insisting upon your own worth.
P.S. Totally worth it to see wee auld wimmin in pleated skirts and pinnies, that look like your gran, being given a mirror and told to look at their fanny.
A film about a guy coming to terms with his autism when he meets and falls in love with a girl with autism. I’ve seen this story before and there’s not much new here in terms of plot, but it is good to see it being portrayed using actors with disabilities instead of just being another able-bodied award-fodder churn.
A Garden State-esque film about a smartphone-free, crocheting, modernist architecture fanatic who wants to go to college but has to stay home and look after her meth mum. She meets a dude with a distant dad, and together they discuss the healing power of art, and when to hold on and when to let go of the parental tie. If that sounds like hot wank, it is somewhat mitigated by a soft, quiet, peaceful and contented tone throughout. I thought it was ok.
A film about two men who agreed to transport the body of a sheikh to his homeland for burial. They are accompanied on this journey by a Clarence-esque angel-fool. The film is slow and silent, like the uncompromising landscape. The vistas are beautiful but I felt like it lost its way a wee bit.
A documentary about the treasure seekers scouring the Rockies for Forrest Finn’s hidden million-dollar treasure. There’s a computer programmer-turned-cowboy, a retired cop, a guy getting chemo, all tramping over the wilderness. The film kinda examines what each of them is looking for and how this treasure hunt provides them with an opportunity to find it. As for Forrest Finn who hid the treasure, he seems to view this as his way of becoming part of America, by becoming part of American legend, part of the story of its landscape and folktale. Good movie, lovely feeling and mood.
A film about a Swedish man with autism, several disabilities, facial deformity and a recent head injury who goes on to compete in the Nordic boules championship. The start’s a bit slow but it’s good once it gets going.
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.
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.
Fucking hilarious! Laughed my ass off! Such a feel good movie, you should definitely go see it. Has the kind of life-affirming vibe as something like Muriel’s Wedding. Highly recommend!
Also like it for showing hipsters positively. Instead of wheeling out the lazy trope of cynicism and hyper-clique-iness, they’re people with passions and creativity and a culture welcoming the odd and discarded. They might seem ridiculous to others, but newsflash! we’re all ridiculous to others.
