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| One Floor Below |
You can listen to the show in the player below or download it HERE.
Sep 30, 2015
The Picture Show @ LFF 2015: Episode 3
24FPS @ LFF: Roundup 2
A Nazi Legacy
Dir: David Evans
The subject matter is interesting enough. The film focuses on two men whose fathers were high ranking members of the Nazi party and their polar opposite views of their lineage. Niklas Frank, son of Hans Frank – one of the men tried and executed at Nuremburg – condemns his father at his every opportunity and even carries the last picture ever taken of him, just after his hanging. On the other hand Horst Von Wachter, son of Otto Von Wachter, continually minimises his father's role (Otto was in charge of the Warsaw ghetto), insisting that he would never have signed off on the worst atrocities as if this is a defence. Presented with evidence of his father's culpability, Horst still minimises everything.
The different ways these men process the legacies of their fathers and their strained friendship with each other and with human rights lawyer Phillipe Sands is fascinating, but the flatly shot interviews, very basic presentational style of both Sands (who serves as guide and narrator) and director David Evans. The film's simple structure, imagery, and editing do little to transform it from a very basic, if well made, piece of TV into anything that will benefit in any way, in terms of presentation or audience size, from being on a cinema screen.
There are some impactful scenes here, especially in the last twenty minutes, as Sands takes the two men to a field where 3000 people, including his own family, were murdered, on orders that both their fathers had a hand in, challenging Horst with this fact. This, however, doesn't make A Nazi Legacy cinema. It's worthwhile, if schematically presented, television, it just doesn't belong in a film festival.
★★
★★
Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg?
Dir: Tim Clague /Danny Stack
The premise is fun. In what seems to be a rather low budget seaside holiday resort a group of kids led by 12 year old Billie (Loretta Walsh) begin investigating when they believe the park's mascot has been murdered. Their chief suspect is the new manager Diane (Bonnie Wright). What the film is going for seems to be a cross between a low budget take on The Goonies and Enid Blyton's Secret Seven books. The simple clues and broadly played villains could well have worked in that context, but the film just falls down on too many other levels.
The script is a bit clunky. It plays very much to a young crowd (6+, says the LFF programme), but the jokes, juvenile or not, just aren't that funny and those that might have played well on the page aren't very well delivered. For instance, there are some potentially funny moments when the gang begin investigating and interrogate other kids, but the acting from these featured extras is so flat and devoid of comic timing that otherwise decent jokes flounder. It's perhaps no coincidence that some of the best gags are silently delivered, such as the brief glimpse of 'The Colonel' (Hattie Gotobed, as a tough, smart 12 year old girl who usually dresses in camouflage gear) competing in a princess pageant.
Loretta Walsh and Hattie Gotobed give the best performances among the young cast, they're both variable, but Walsh carries the action capably and the relationship between Billie and The Colonel is nicely played. Unfortunately most of the other performances, child and adult, are quite monotonous. This is a problem because, outlandish as something like The Goonies was, you always felt like you were along for that ride with these kids on an adventure. That should be easier to pull off here, with a more down to earth story, but it doesn't happen. The sense of watching a group of actors run through scenes never goes away.
What is unlikely to shift with any changes still to be made before release is the overall televisual look. Despite a smattering of effects, Nelson Nutmeg resembles nothing quite so much as the low budget British kids shows I watched on late 80's CBBC. Even without massive financial resources, digital can be beautiful, but Nelson Nutmeg veers between looking flat and (in the handful of night time scenes) looking murky.
My love of cinema was born at roughly the age this film is pitching to, and I still have images from those films stuck in my head more than 25 years on. I'd be surprised if kids get a frame of this film stuck in their minds for 25 minutes. I admire the ambition of Tim Clague, Danny Stack and their team, and it would be great to see more British films aimed at forging the next generation of film buffs, but if that's the intent then the films need to be better than Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg?
★★
Blood Of My Blood
Dir: Marco Bellochio
In the first story, set in the 1700s in a small Italian town called Bobbio, a young woman named Benedetta (Lidiya Liberman) is on trial in a convent, accused of seducing a priest whose suicide now means that he will be buried in a donkey cemetery and thus condemned to hell. The priest's brother, Federico (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) is attending the trial, though, despite what he tells the priests it isn't always clear what he wants the outcome to be. We then cut to the present day. The convent in Bobbio may soon be sold to a Russian billionaire (Ivan Franek), which would greatly inconvenience the Count (Roberto Herlitzka), the self-described vampire who lives there in secret.
This is easily the most schizophrenic film of LFF so far. It begins soberly, the plot looks to history, such as the story of Joan of Arc, but it also has echoes - largely in subject rather than specifics - of Mother Joan of the Angels, Bresson's Trial of Joan of Arc and of the likes of The Devils and Mark of the Devil. The imagery is lush but not lurid, the aesthetic digital, yet still beautiful, even painterly at times (see the images of Federico standing at the bank of a river, seeing what seems to be his doppelganger silhouetted on the other side). It's a supremely controlled piece of direction, with plot, imagery, and music – the stunning use of Scala and Kolachny Brothers' choral cover of Metallica's Nothing Else Matters stands out – all coming together to create a tense and otherworldly feel.
There is also an eroticism that runs subtly through this section of the film, as if it is a spell cast on the convent by Federico and perhaps, in the past, by his brother. We see this most clearly in the scenes of Federico returning to the guest house where he is staying with two presumably virginal sisters (Alba Rohrwacher and Federica Fracassi). One night when he comes home the sisters get into bed with him and all three begin kissing, we never see whether things go further than this, but there is the unmistakable sense of a force, whether it is under anyone's control or not, drawing these three together.
It is, then, baffling when, roughly 45 minutes in, Bellochio appears to decide he's sick of making that film. He dumps the tension, throws out the eroticism, and replaces it with unfunny farce and a sub Only Lovers Left Alive depiction of the lives of vampires in the contemporary world.
There is also an eroticism that runs subtly through this section of the film, as if it is a spell cast on the convent by Federico and perhaps, in the past, by his brother. We see this most clearly in the scenes of Federico returning to the guest house where he is staying with two presumably virginal sisters (Alba Rohrwacher and Federica Fracassi). One night when he comes home the sisters get into bed with him and all three begin kissing, we never see whether things go further than this, but there is the unmistakable sense of a force, whether it is under anyone's control or not, drawing these three together.
It is, then, baffling when, roughly 45 minutes in, Bellochio appears to decide he's sick of making that film. He dumps the tension, throws out the eroticism, and replaces it with unfunny farce and a sub Only Lovers Left Alive depiction of the lives of vampires in the contemporary world.
The entire texture of the film changes at this point. If you strain to look for it you can perhaps see Bellochio reaching to say something about the regimentation of the society of the church in the first section of the film set against the more chaotic modern world, in which that structure has had to adapt. Honestly though, I think that's more likely to be something I've made up in order to try and find some rationale for why the film so radically and suddenly changes tack. I'm not convinced it's actually in the film.
The acting is strong all round, the slightly sinister Pier Giorgio Bellocchio contributes hugely to the strange atmosphere of the period section as Federico and a haunted looking Roberto Herlitzka as The Count manages to add a little poignancy to the modern set story. The female roles are thinner, but Alba Rohrwacher and Federica Fracassi bring ethereal presence to the sisters and striking newcomer Lidiya Liberman is by turns stoical and tragic as Benedetta.
The modern set section of the film serves a narrative purpose, it provides distance between the film's first segment and its closing images, which revisit the ending of the period section of the film in a haunting closing moment. That, however, doesn't explain the wild tonal detour that Bellochio takes, most gratingly with a small but infinitely irritating role for Filippo Timi. There is plenty of potential for this modern section to resonate, to rhyme with what's come before, but the sharp left turn into comedy completely undermines that possibility. 50 years into his career, Bellochio must know what he's doing, but he certainly doesn't communicate it well.
Overall, Blood Of My Blood is paradoxical. The first 45 minutes are probably the best I've seen at LFF so far this year, but they are fatally undermined by the second story, which seems to either not understand or flatly reject the spell cast by the first half of the film. And yet, for those 45 minutes, and for the last five minutes, I would still recommend Blood Of My Blood. I just can't do so as wholeheartedly as I'd like.
★★★
The modern set section of the film serves a narrative purpose, it provides distance between the film's first segment and its closing images, which revisit the ending of the period section of the film in a haunting closing moment. That, however, doesn't explain the wild tonal detour that Bellochio takes, most gratingly with a small but infinitely irritating role for Filippo Timi. There is plenty of potential for this modern section to resonate, to rhyme with what's come before, but the sharp left turn into comedy completely undermines that possibility. 50 years into his career, Bellochio must know what he's doing, but he certainly doesn't communicate it well.
Overall, Blood Of My Blood is paradoxical. The first 45 minutes are probably the best I've seen at LFF so far this year, but they are fatally undermined by the second story, which seems to either not understand or flatly reject the spell cast by the first half of the film. And yet, for those 45 minutes, and for the last five minutes, I would still recommend Blood Of My Blood. I just can't do so as wholeheartedly as I'd like.
★★★
Sep 25, 2015
24FPS @ LFF: Roundup 1
Live From New York
Dir: Bao Nguyen
The problem with Bao Nguyen's film is less what it is than what it isn't. It dwells largely on the show's origins, before moving on to cover several broad subjects, some behind the scenes (writing, design), others more directly tied to the sketches (the effect the show has had on politics and vice versa). The problem is that with such limited screen time and so much to cover, everything the film does engage with ends up being looked at in a rushed and rather prosaic fashion.
The interviews aren't bad, with some big names along to be talking heads (notably Lorne Michaels), but again what is problematic is the sense of what's missing. The lack of Bill Murray isn't a surprise, but no Aykroyd, no Eddie Murphy, the almost complete brushing under the rug of the 1990s. This also extends to the clips, Murphy is glimpsed briefly in two clips, the Blues Brothers appear in one (count 'em) shot, Adam Sandler is totally absent. Big parts of the story seem to be left untold and what has replaced those things is a pretty perfunctory flip through the SNL scrapbook, one that skips over many of the pages you'd most want to look at.
Ultimately you can probably get a better and more engaging survey of the show in 90 minutes of digging for sketches on youtube.
★★
★★
Flocking
Dir: Beata Gardeler
Flocking is a film of quiet, well placed, anger. For much of its running time, it refuses to confirm what actually happened between Jennifer and Alex, leaving us to draw our own conclusions, as details seep out first in Jennifer's police interview and then in her court testimony, as to whether we trust her account. The film's sympathies are clear, but the facts are never cut and dried until late in the third act.
Fatime Azemi is excellent as Jennifer, tough on the outside but betraying a deeply wounded and vulnerable inside, especially as even her own family struggle to always be sympathetic, as the case begins to impact on their lives in the community. Azemi is best in small moments; portraying the hurt she feels when the local priest, clearly not believing her, tells her how vital it is that she tells the truth or the desperation of the film's last moments. Throughout there's a sense that she's always carrying hurt just under the surface, like a fresh bruise she's trying to hide.
Some of the other performances, especially towards the end of the film as the atmosphere in the town gets ever worse, become a little broad, and both they and the script feel like they are hammering rather too hard on a nail that has already been effectively driven home. This is especially true of a sermon at a school graduation ceremony and the film's final scene, which could easily make the same point without going into such detail as it does.
It's a shame that certain aspects of the film seem to slip from director Beata Gardeler's grasp in the last half hour as, up until then, she has a firm grip of story, performance and chilly, sometimes Haneke-esque, visuals. The problems first become visible when two characters kiss, in a moment that seems to come from nowhere and feels completely out of character for both of them, even in this context. However, Gardeler also delivers some gripping and upsetting character driven scenes. The courtroom scene is remarkable; totally matter of fact but also unbearably difficult to listen to, as is a scene between Alex and his mother late in the film.
Flocking doesn't quite sustain the tense credibility it begins with, but it has interesting and impactful things to say about issues that are as current and as pressing as any that cinema is addressing, that's worth forgiving a flawed third act.
★★★
★★★
24FPS @ LFF: The Corpse of Anna Fritz
Dir: Hector Hernandez Vicens
I was hoping for so much more from this film; a tense thriller mixed with body horror themes that could easily lead into a subtext about the degree to which we, as an audience, consider that we own celebrities, whether in life or in death. If those ideas exist in The Corpse of Anna Fritz then they are buried deep, hidden beneath one of the most by the numbers, predictable so-called horror films I've seen for some time. If I just meant that the plot was predictable, that wouldn't be so bad (after all, we can all guess that Anna has to wake up at some point). The problem is that the predictability extends so far; to every detail of the progression of the story, to the shape of individual scenes, right down to specific shots and edits.
Even at 75 minutes, the film feels brutally stretched out. The ideas here could just about justify a 20 minute short, but to eke a feature out everything is extended and much ground is trodden many times over. The extended moments can occasionally work for the film. When Pau is raping Anna we are forced to watch in a long and disturbing sequence, knowing that it's almost inevitable that she is going to wake up. For a couple of minutes, the largely static camerawork and cold atmosphere work well, but the film has nowhere to go from this apex of horror (which happens barely 20 minutes in).
Characterisation is incredibly broad. Ivan is a basic monster "just pretend she's drunk", he tells Javi, trying to talk him into joining in the 'fun' he's having with Anna, implying that he's probably a date rapist on top of everything he does here. Javi isn't exactly a saint, but his character arc is cut short early, which is a pity because his mounting guilt is not badly played and could serve as an effective source of tension for much longer than it does. Pau's arc could come across as complex; he's as bad as Ivan in some ways, but also has some of Javi's guilt, but the shifts in his character seem haphazard and dictated by the plot. The performances aren't bad, given what the actors have to work with, but there is never enough depth for anyone to truly impress.
This is especially true for Alba Ribas. You have to wonder what attracts an actress to this part. Ribas' main job here is to lie still, frequently while naked. Once she wakes up you would expect her part to become more dynamic but, for no reason that seems medically explicable, she is still unable to move and barely able to talk for the great bulk of the running time. This is problematic on several levels; first it reduces Ribas, for about 75% of her screentime, to a nude or scantily clad prop, secondly, it robs the film of more variety in its setpieces. One setpiece, a slow chase towards the end of the film, makes what could be an effective use of Anna's inexplicable paralysis, but it is undermined by the grindingly predictable direction and editing, which robs the sequence of the suspense it's trying to generate. For instance, the second Anna crawled into a lift at the end of this sequence I knew exactly what the next cut and shot would be, and so do you.
Ultimately we've seen everything in this film done better many, many times. If there is even an attempt at commentary on celebrity then it pales next to Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral, the moral implications and horror of the basic premise are far more interestingly explored in Deadgirl and the character dynamics are infinitely more interesting in any number of locked room thrillers. The Corpse of Anna Fritz is a missed opportunity on every level; a grindingly dull and emptily shocking misfire that feels much, much longer than 75 minutes. It is, sad to say, dead on arrival.
★
★
Sep 24, 2015
24FPS @ LFF 2015: Days 1 and 2
This year, much of my LFF coverage is going to come in special as live episodes of The Picture Show, recorded directly after each day of screenings (some at the festival, some at home via digital screeners). Here are the first two episodes, each about 35 minutes long.
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| Cronies |
In the first episode I'm joined by my regular co-host Mike Ewins and by Timothy E. Raw, formerly of Verite Magazine, now of Slant Magazine, to discuss Cronies, Virgin Mountain and Madame Courage.
In the second episode Mike and I are joined by filmmaker Matt Cruse to discuss Grandma, The Corpse of Anna Fritz and The Here After.
These shows were recorded outside in a relatively busy area, so audio quality is a little raw. That said, I got a very good new mic, so the quality is much better than I had anticipated.
Enjoy the shows, I'll be back with more audio coverage and some written reviews.
Episode 1
In the second episode Mike and I are joined by filmmaker Matt Cruse to discuss Grandma, The Corpse of Anna Fritz and The Here After.
These shows were recorded outside in a relatively busy area, so audio quality is a little raw. That said, I got a very good new mic, so the quality is much better than I had anticipated.
Enjoy the shows, I'll be back with more audio coverage and some written reviews.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Sep 11, 2015
Girlhood [15]
Note: This review was written for the now defunct Verité Magazine. Thanks to them for letting me use it here.
About half an hour into Girlhood, Céline Sciamma visualises the moment that 16-year-old protagonist Marieme (Karidja Touré) finds a temporary sense of belonging. Hanging out for a few weeks with a bad girl posse led by Lady (Assa Sylla), Marieme finds herself in the group but not quite one of the gang, always off to one side while being auditioned as the potential fourth member. In a hotel room, the girls have booked for a party, Marieme lies back as the others lipsync to Rhianna's 'Diamonds'. Halfway through the song, Marieme joins them. The lipsyncing stops and the girls, united, sing out loud. At that moment they're a group that Marieme is now fully part of. A moment that Marieme herself may not consciously recognise, but it's one of many that's powerfully and cinematically communicated in Girlhood.
The film's effective title is more striking than a direct translation of the French 'Bande De Filles', but coming so soon after Richard Linklater's Oscar-winner, it somewhat mis-advertises Marieme's story as a feminised take on Boyhood. Both are epic coming of age stories that span time with long running times, but Marieme's experience couldn't be more different from Linklater's 12-years-in-the-life of the suburban every boy. Set in the black community of the Paris banlieues, Marieme falls in with these troublesome teens, largely to get away from a troubled home life with her younger sisters, a single mother, and an abusive older brother. Some of the narrative incidents as she drifts towards and away from the gang, and a boyfriend she has to keep secret from her brother, are familiar, but Sciamma's perceptive screenplay has a sensitive and deep understanding of growing pains, beautifully borne out by the first-time performances of her cast.
This is Sciamma's third film, and it seems to mark a growth in confidence. It still finds the writer-director tackling the subject of a young woman coming of age, but here she engages with a different community and sets aside the LGBT issues confronted by characters in 2008's Water Lilies and 2011's Tomboy. Girlhood retains the intimacy of the previous films, but feels like a larger and more cinematic work, from the very first sequence of an American football game between Marieme and her friends and another local team. It's a high energy opening, powered by the ground level visuals and the choice of Light Asylum's 'Dark Allies' on the soundtrack. It also feels like the end of a chapter of Marieme's life - one we've not seen - as the lights go out in the stadium and the title appears against a black screen, signaling a new phase.
This idea of phases beginning and ending is key to the film, which unfolds in five acts, each bracketed with a recurring motif. Sciamma ends the first three acts with a shot of Marieme's back, showing her literally turning it on a part of her past. The last two acts make subtle shifts in this pattern, but the lighting and framing is identifiably recurrent, with the camera always settled on Marieme's face in the first frame of each new act. These progressions feel like importantly demarcated chapters in Marieme's life, as Para One's score rises and a black screen marks a definitive act break, allowing a breather from the various anxieties of adolescence and a moment for the audience to reflect on the hard road of maturation for the life unfolding before them.
Marieme's experiences with Lady and their friends Adiatou (Lindsay Karamoh) and Fily (Mariétou Touré) form the bulk of the film. Not all are positive; the girls intimidate other pupils at Marieme's school for money and there are fights between gangs, but Sciamma refrains from judging, simply presenting these events as part of a complex social picture. Set almost entirely within the black communities of the banlieus, racism only occasionally rears its head, but there are notable incidents. As the girls browse in the mall, a white employee keeps a not too subtle eye on Marieme, assuming she might be out to steal. It's an uncomfortable scene, but one the young cast have said rings true in their own lives.
Despite going to some dark places, Girlhood does find moments of levity. The girls may appear fierce when facing down another gang in an argument across the platforms of a metro station, but they're also silly, funny, immature teenagers. And as much as the Diamonds singalong is about Marieme becoming fully part of the group, it's also a pure moment of escape, of girls simply being girls together. In the lighter-hearted scenes, there are even flashes of broader comedy, such as when the girls go to play crazy golf and Fily gets upset when Adiatou does better than her.
It's rare that these moments of escape have such an uncomplicated purity to them. Sciamma allows the real world to frequently intrude most notably when the girls, minus Lady, run into an old member of their gang, now a parent to a small child. In this interaction, a glimpse of the likely future; that the gang will break up and that the girls will almost certainly end up in some sort of depressing domesticity, replaced by a younger generation. This is something seen beginning, when Marieme - now as much a leader of the pack as Lady - has to drag her sister away from a younger gang.
Much like a mixed up teen, Girlhood has many mood swings, sulky one minute and jubilant the next, but these are knitted together in a way that feels like life itself by the completely natural performances of the four girls, all of them non-actors prior to shooting. Fily and Adiatou are less defined, but Lindsay Karamoh and Mariétou Touré each have their memorable moments. Assa Sylla as Lady and Karidja Touré as Marieme make indelible impressions. Sylla is hugely charismatic, drawing the camera with just a hard stare, and a presence and attitude that marks her out as a natural leader. Initially all front, Lady is confrontational even when she invites Marieme to join the girls on an afternoon in town, but hidden behind that pose is a vulnerability that becomes visible, the more Marieme begins to understand and imitate Lady.
Karidja Touré has the hardest job in the film, mapping Marieme's maturation in the way her persona changes through subtle shifts of confidence; none more so than when Lady renames her 'Vic' (for Victory). Slowly 'Vic' assumes some of Lady's dominance, even fighting battles for her. At other times those internal changes are signaled by external appearance, particularly Marieme's hair. At first, her long, childlike braids are removed and her hair straightened to make her seem womanly and chic before she starts dealing drugs and changing her hair to a harder look that enables her to cope better in that environment. Toure's performance is all the more moving for the emotional details she puts into her many changes of 'costume' that are worn like a girl trying on a new identity.
Girlhood doesn't suggest that growing up is easy, and Sciamma never tries to assure the viewer that everything is going to work out for Marieme, leaving us to make up our own minds about the ending. Karidja Touré has said that she sees Marieme going off into a successful life, but even if one were to feel as hopeful about her future, it's clear that achieving this will be far from simple. Whatever the challenges, based on what we've already seen her go through, Marieme seems ready to step up and meet them, and it's through these experiences, that when the film goes to black for the last time, it feels like she's finally found an identity with which to do just that.
★★★★★
★★★★★
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl [15]
Dir: Alfonso Gomez Rejon
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is basically a slightly less hideous version of the utterly insufferable The Fault In Our Stars, with characters it wants you to be fooled into thinking have more personality than the empty shells that made out in the Anne Frank house in the most staggeringly misjudged scene of the last several years. It has a small measure of mercy in that it doesn't force a romance between the leads, but don't take too much heart from that, it's not as if the film doesn't spend long passages of its running time trying to bully unearned tears out of us.
The Me of the title is Greg (Thomas Mann), a high school senior who doesn't think much of himself and spends most of his time trying to blend in, thinking that if he can get out of high school unnoticed at leas the won't have to be beaten up. Greg's only real friend is Earl (RJ Kyler), with whom he makes punny remakes of arthouse movies called things like A Sockwork Orange, Monorash and 2:38pm Cowboy (to be fair the last of those titles did make me laugh). Earl is… black and appears to like titties, by this film's standards he's a rounded character. The Dying Girl is Rachel (Olivia Cooke), when Greg's mother finds out Rachel has cancer she makes Greg go and hang out with her, inevitably a friendship blossoms. Now, fill in the blanks.
Fill in the blanks would be fine advice for screenwriter Jesse Andrews (adapting his own novel). Rachel in particular is almost entirely empty as a character. Early in the film we see that she has a room that indicates that she likes pillows and has a slightly snarky sense of humour. Beyond that? She's got cancer, and that must serve as a personality substitute. What's really insulting about this that what little personality Rachel does have (which is, for the most part, revealed in the last ten minutes of the film) exists only to facilitate the personal journey of Greg's character.
Greg is more developed, he almost has to be, because despite the title the film's focus is at least 75% on him. Unfortunately, Greg develops from being kind of anonymous into a pretty huge asshole. This journey seems to arrive at its destination in a hideous scene in which he berates Rachel for 'giving up' when, with stage 4 cancer, she elects to stop treatment. Except that's not his worst moment, it's after that scene, as he refuses to see Rachel's side of things, brooding instead on his own hurt feelings. Even if I'd liked the guy before, that alienated me from the character pretty severely.
Of course, you might excuse Greg at this point; it's emotional when your friend is dying, and 17 year olds don't always have the most well thought out reactions to events, but he never seems like much of a friend. He treats being friends with Rachel as a job, an often onerous one at that, which means that the friendship never feels very deep or convincing, certainly not to a degree that justifies the emotional knife twisting of the dreadful final scenes.
Earl seems even more of an afterthought than Rachel. This is a shame because RJ Cutler, for all the weakness of his part, makes an impression. He gets the lion's share of the funny lines (as opposed to Greg's weak sarcastic humour) and shares the films only truly charming scene with Olivia Cooke. This moment, in which the guys, stoned on pot cookies, take Rachel for ice cream, is what the whole film should be. I never felt much connection between Greg and Rachel, but in a couple of minutes of screen time we, and Greg, can see that there is a little spark - platonic at this stage - between Rachel and Earl. Sure, the film would be more conventional if it pursued this line, probably ending up in jealousy between Greg and Earl, but at least it might have had some life in it.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl may spare us the mawkish funeral speeches of The Fault In Our Stars, but it's no less manipulative. In one respect it even fails in its attempts to be manipulative. Greg's narration informs us in the first minute that he 'made a film so bad it literally killed someone', but the same narration then spends much of the rest of the running time trying to tell us that Rachel isn't going to die. Greg, I heard you in the first minute (and have seen a movie before), I know where this is going.
On the other hand, the film's last ten minutes are genuinely sad. However, they're not honestly sad. They're sad in the way that any sense of loss is sad, but what tears we shed, if any, are being beaten out of us. They aren't coming from our sense of loss, because what have we lost? A narrative cipher who is given cancer and a pretty face instead of a personality. It's not sad as in, say, Bridge to Terabithia, because we miss that character and can see and feel the sense of personal loss that the main character is supposed to feel, it's sad because cancer is a cruel bastard and that's inherently sad. It's sad, but it doesn't last and it doesn't resonate.
Ultimately, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is twee, trite and empty. It bends over backwards to charm and to move you, but ends up failing at both precisely because it is trying so hard. Still, at least the characters don't go and make out in the Anne Frank house. Small mercies.
★
★
Sep 2, 2015
The London Film Festival Programme 2015: Top 10 Picks and Hitlist
It's movie nerd Christmas again and the rules state that I must write a preview piece, picking the highlights of the LFF programme. The thing is... I don't want to do that. It's not that I'm lazy. Okay, it's not just that I'm lazy. What I want from LFF is to be surprised, it's about the only time of year that I can walk into a film and not know what I'm about to see, so rather than go in depth and research the films so I can write several paragraphs on each, I'm going to do what I did when I went to the festival as a punter; go with my gut, look at the blurb, the still, and allow myself to take a punt on things. This is why I love festival time.
These are the 10 films I most want to see from the selection at the festival, some may have distribution in place (which would generally place them lower on my list), but these are the films I'm champing at the bit to see. NOW.
Some of these are based on the fact I'm a fan of the directors, some of the film's genre, a few simply intrigued me from the little information we have to go on in the brochure.
After my 10 picks you'll find, divided by programme section and in alphabetical order, my intended hitlist for the festival. I won't be able to see all of these films, as ever there are just too many exciting sounding things, but I'll try to cover as many of them as I can. Throughout, titles without UK distribution in place (which I will prioritise whenever possible) appear in italics.
The Assassin
As a martial arts movie fan, I feel a certain giddy joy when festivals give over even a little of their programme to films about people kicking each other (even in an artsy way). I'm not usually much for the Journey programme, for which The Assassin is the gala screening, but I've heard such great things about this. Plus, you know, kicking.
Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)
Controversial cinema and coming of age movies are two of my main areas of interest, so of course this is near the top of my list. The blurb mentions Larry Clark as a touchstone, which could point the way to either something great or something awful. The premise is interesting, it's whether the film can deliver something beyond controversy.
The Boy and the Beast
This is Mamoru Hosoda's fourth film as a solo director. His first three were The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars and Wolf Children. For my money he's one of the best and most consistent directors not just in anime but in world cinema right now and among my Top 3 favourite working filmmakers (another will crop up later in this list). This may be my number one pick for this year's LFF.
Chevalier
Six men on a boat, directed by Athina Rachel Tsangarai. Frankly, I only needed the second half of that sentence to get me into this film. Tsangarai's Attenberg and her short follow up The Capsule are both brilliant, darkly funny pieces focused on women. I was in for whatever she did next, but I can't wait to see her dig into some male characters.
The Corpse of Anna Fritz
The title alone suggests a disturbing time with some body horror leanings, which are both things I'm all for. I'm expecting something along the lines of the underseen Deadgirl here. If it delivers, this should be one of the most fucked up films at LFF. Again, this is something I'm all for.
Evolution
I was surprised, but not at all disappointed, to find Gaspar Noe's Love missing from the LFF line up. I was also surprised, to say nothing of delighted, to find that his wife Lucile Hadžihalilović has finally made a second film, following the beguiling Innocence. The stills look stunning, but I want to know nothing more about this until I sit down and watch it, which is just how I saw Innocence and how it completely captured me.
The Lobster
Yorgos Lanthimos second film, Dogtooth, slapped me round the face at LFF 2009, and I really don't think I've recovered even now. I don't believe I've seen a better new film since (though Lanthimos' third film, Alps, also got 5 stars and topped my list of the best films of its year). The Lobster is his English language début, and I can not wait to see it.
Love and Peace
To call Sion Sono prolific would be to understate things somewhat. Not only is this the third year running that he's had a new film in the festival, but Love and Peace is one of seven – yes, SEVEN – films he's made for release in 2015. Sono is a wildly unpredictable filmmaker, and this looks both from its stills and its plot description, like another bonkers opus from one of the most reliably offbeat and interesting auteurs around.
Petting Zoo
We're in the midst of an interesting period in American coming of age cinema. The mainstream side of the genre has largely been surrendered to adaptations of dystopian YA series, but the indie scene is booming, threatening a new golden age in the genre. Petting Zoo looks like it will have a harder edge than many of its contemporaries, and promises a challenging central role. Stills suggest a stylishly down to earth feel. There is an strong looking crop of teen and coming of age films at the festival this year, I'm hoping Petting Zoo will continue to deliver on the promise recently shown by the indie side of the genre.
The Witch
I
have heard nothing but praise for this Salem set psychological horror
film. The subject is one that fascinates and frightens almost by
default. The way that people can be driven by belief to such
extremes, it's also a subject that, sadly, retains great contemporary
relevance, though whether that's what The Witch is reaching for is
something I don't yet know. Whether it goes strongly for metaphor or
simply wants to be seen as a straight up piece of psychological
horror, I'm in.
Galas
Bone Tomahawk
Brooklyn
Carol
High Rise
Official Competition
The Daughter
Desierto
Office
Room
Tangerine
First Feature Competition
3000 Nights
Lamb
Light Years
Partisan
Paula
Tanna
The Wait
Wedding Doll
Documentary Competition
The Fear of 13
Frame By Frame
In Jackson Heights
Something Better To Come
Love
An
Box
Gayby Baby
Hitchcock / Truffaut
In The Room
Ingrid Bergman - In Her Own Words
My Skinny Sister
The Romantic Exiles
A Tale of Three Cities
Valley of Love
Viaje
Debate
Aligarh
The Apostate
Arianna
Chronic
Mediterranea
The Memory of Justice
Much Loved
Paulina
(T)error
Dare
Blood of my Blood
The Chosen Ones
Closet Monster
Father
Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere
Flocking
Homesick
Lucifer
Madonna
A Monster With a Thousand Heads
One Floor Below
Parabellum
Take Me To The River
Laugh
21 Nights With Pattie
The Brand New Testament
Burn Burn Burn
The Garbage Helicopter
Live From New York!
Thrill
Assassination
Guilty
Rattle The Cage
Retribution
The Survivalist
Victoria
The Wave
Cult
The Boy
Don't Grow Up
Elstree 1976
Green Room
The Invitation
Observance
Ratter
What We Become
Yakuza Apocalypse
Journey
Ixanul
King Jack
Land of Mine
Murmur of the Hearts
Necktie Youth
Right Now, Wrong Then
Sembene
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Sworn Virgin
Sonic
The American Epic Sessions
Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll
Fresh Dressed
Janis: Little Girl Blue
Family
Adama
The Invisible Boy
When Marnie Was There
Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg?
Brooklyn
Carol
High Rise
Official Competition
The Daughter
Desierto
Office
Room
Tangerine
First Feature Competition
3000 Nights
Lamb
Light Years
Partisan
Paula
Tanna
The Wait
Wedding Doll
Documentary Competition
The Fear of 13
Frame By Frame
In Jackson Heights
Something Better To Come
Love
An
Box
Gayby Baby
Hitchcock / Truffaut
In The Room
Ingrid Bergman - In Her Own Words
My Skinny Sister
The Romantic Exiles
A Tale of Three Cities
Valley of Love
Viaje
Debate
Aligarh
The Apostate
Arianna
Chronic
Mediterranea
The Memory of Justice
Much Loved
Paulina
(T)error
Dare
Blood of my Blood
The Chosen Ones
Closet Monster
Father
Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere
Flocking
Homesick
Lucifer
Madonna
A Monster With a Thousand Heads
One Floor Below
Parabellum
Take Me To The River
Laugh
21 Nights With Pattie
The Brand New Testament
Burn Burn Burn
The Garbage Helicopter
Live From New York!
Thrill
Assassination
Guilty
Rattle The Cage
Retribution
The Survivalist
Victoria
The Wave
Cult
The Boy
Don't Grow Up
Elstree 1976
Green Room
The Invitation
Observance
Ratter
What We Become
Yakuza Apocalypse
Journey
Ixanul
King Jack
Land of Mine
Murmur of the Hearts
Necktie Youth
Right Now, Wrong Then
Sembene
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Sworn Virgin
Sonic
The American Epic Sessions
Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll
Fresh Dressed
Janis: Little Girl Blue
Family
Adama
The Invisible Boy
When Marnie Was There
Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg?
Sep 1, 2015
A Month In Movies: August 2015
It's been a long time since I've done one of these, but I thought I ought to get back to it, hopefully to start kicking my writing (which has been sporadic lately for a lot of different reasons) back into gear.
As ever, everything mentioned in one of the awards categories below is a first viewing.
FILM(S) OF THE MONTH
The Birds / Full Moon In Paris
WORST FILM(S)
Terminator Genisys / Mistress America
Best Actor: Jack Nicholson: Five Easy Pieces / Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator
Best Actress: Sarah Hagan: Jess + Moss / Sarah Snook: Predestination / Bel Powley: The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Best Director: Alfred Hitchcock: The Birds / The Trouble With Harry
Best Screenplay: Eric Rohmer: Full Moon In Paris
Biggest Surprise: Jess + Moss / Predestination
Biggest Disappointment: Marnie
Most Fucked Up Movie: The Visitor
I'm Pretty Sure No One Else Has Seen This: Jess + Moss / AfterDeath
Character I Never Want to Meet: Any of the insufferable fuckers in Mistress America, but especially Brooke (Greta Gerwig)
Why is He/She Still in Movies: Charisma vacuum Jai Courtney: Terminator Genisys
Movie I Finally Got to See: The Birds / Full Moon In Paris / Five Easy Pieces / The Great Dictator
Coolest Title: Class of Nuke 'Em High
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