Wednesday, 7 April 2021
BFI Flare 2021: the stats
Saturday, 27 March 2021
Cowboys (Anna Kerrigan, 2020)
Thursday, 25 March 2021
Sublet (Eytan Fox, 2020)
Tuesday, 23 March 2021
Dramarama (Jonathan Wysocki, 2020)
Sunday, 21 March 2021
Tove (Zaida Bergroth, 2020)
Although not exactly a writer who shunned all publicity à la J. D. Salinger, it is fair to say that the Moomins were always the public face of Jansson, but as Tove—which screens at BFI Flare until March 28—proves, she led an interesting, full life, one that was by no means lacking in drama. The film begins as WW2 is drawing to a close; once the conflict ends, Tove, now in her early thirties, is swept up in the new sense of optimism and freedom that is swirling through society, and she sets up in her own place where she spends her days honing her skills as a painter. Tove's stern sculptor father is critical of his daughter, not so much because of the paintings she produces, but rather because of her unconventional approach to both life and work; her mother, on the other hand, is far more sympathetic. Tove mixes with a bohemian circle, and open relationships are quite common among those she socialises with; it's not long before she enters into such an arrangement with Atos, a prominent member of parliament. While both Tove and Atos seem quite content with this setup, a complication soon arrives in the form of the aristocratic Vivica, a theatre director who quickly captures Tove's heart.
Tove is a stylish and engaging work, one which features a superb turn from Alma Pöysti as the title character. Pösyti, in her first starring role, delivers a well-judged performance as she deftly wraps the clearly sensitive (and occasionally troubled) Jansson in a puckish exterior. It is hard not to feel the jolt of pain Tove experiences as she unexpectedly catches a glimpse of Vivica across a crowded Parisian café, especially when we can clearly see that she has far better options than chasing after the fickle theatre director. Yet it is from her personal relationships—with friends, family, lovers—that we discover the inspiration for the various Moomin characters; like so many authors, Jansson used real-life encounters as part of the basis for her fiction. With Tove, it feels as if numerous blanks have been filled in regarding the author—assuming we've ever given much thought to the Moomins' creator; for so many of us, this engrossing, intelligent film tells a story we didn't know we were waiting to hear.
Darren Arnold
Images: kallerna [CC BY-SA 3.0], BFI
Friday, 19 March 2021
My First Summer (Katie Found, 2020)
16-year-old Claudia (Markella Kavenagh) is suddenly orphaned when her mother Veronica (Edwina Wren) drowns in a reservoir close to their home. Claudia has led what is, quite literally, a very sheltered life, as reclusive author Veronica opted to completely shield her daughter from the ills of the world; as such, Claudia has spent her whole life in the remote home she shared with her mum and the outrageously cute Tilly, the family dog. While it seems that Claudia received an education, she knows very little of the world and its ways; so successful was her mother's cocooning, it appears that no-one is even aware that Veronica had a child. Therefore, when the writer's body is found, nothing is done in the way of checking up on the stranded teen. But Claudia and Tilly aren't on their own for long, as another local 16-year-old, Grace (Maiah Stewardson), stumbles into their lives. It transpires that Grace witnessed Veronica's death and spotted Claudia nearby; although Grace reports these details to two local police officers (Steve Mouzakis, Harvey Zielinski), she later recants. The streetwise Grace, who favours cheerful dayglo clothing and shocking pink accessories, brings some much-needed colour into Claudia's rather beige existence, and as Grace befriends the jumpy, cautious Claudia, she is able to get some welcome relief from her own unhappy home life.
As Grace and Claudia grow closer, there is a cumulative sense that their sun-basked idyll can't last, and the dreaded day comes when the same two detectives come to poke around Claudia's house; although Claudia manages to hide from the police, the officers discover the friendly Tilly and take her to be rehomed, much to Claudia's distress. Thankfully, Grace is able to intervene and ensures that Tilly returns to Claudia; much like when she persuaded the police that she hadn't seen a girl at the scene of the drowning, Grace manages to convince the officers that Tilly is her own dog. Luckily for Grace (and Claudia), these bumbling cops are neither very bright nor competent: shouldn't they have investigated Veronica's home immediately after her death, and/or carried out a simple records search that would have revealed Claudia's existence? In any case, the threat to Grace and Claudia's magical world has been alleviated—at least for now.
Wednesday, 17 March 2021
Enfant Terrible (Oskar Roehler, 2020)
Wednesday, 10 February 2021
Bigfoot Family (Ben Stassen / Jeremy Degruson, 2020)
Bigfoot Family made its debut at last year's Annecy IAFF, and it's a pity that such a great effort from nWave was denied a clear run at the box office; while the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a situation that everyone in the filmmaking world has had to adapt to - numerous films that were intended for theatrical distribution have plunged straight to VOD - it seems a great pity that what may well be the jewel in nWave's crown has bypassed so many cinemas. The film, like the rest of the studio's feature output, was made to be shown in 3D, and it is quite possible that this expense would have been spared had Stassen and his colleagues known what was in store for the film industry. However, you can - and should - support the film now that it's out on home video, and you can even watch it in 3D if you have the required setup at home. Bigfoot Family is easily nWave's best film since The House of Magic, and it provides some much-needed fun in these troubled times.
Darren Arnold
Images: nWave
Tuesday, 2 February 2021
Lux Æterna (Gaspar Noé, 2019)
Amazingly, the last Cannes Film Festival took place way back in 2019, and it was during this edition that Gaspar Noé's Lux Æterna was first unleashed; in September 2020, during a welcome if brief window in which cinemas were permitted to reopen, the film received a theatrical release in France. For those of us who didn't manage to catch the film on the big screen, it's been an extremely long wait, but last month Lux Æterna began to surface on several VOD platforms; while consuming the film in this manner isn't exactly ideal, your eyeballs will probably thank you by the time you reach the end of the mild-mannered Noé's latest visual assault on audiences. In all seriousness, Lux Æterna is a film that fully warrants its epilepsy warning, so please keep this in mind before viewing. When the film received its French premiere, it was preceded by a Noé short titled The Art of Filmmaking, a stroboscopic essay film that is borderline unwatchable, and I do wonder what condition the audience were in when they braced themselves for the main feature.
Yet to refer to Lux Æterna as a feature is slightly misleading, as it runs to a little over fifty minutes. Noé initially received funding from Saint Laurent to shoot an advert for the luxury fashion house, but came up with something that was much longer than, and some way from, what was ordered; luckily, YSL were very happy with what their money had been spent on. Noé actually shot enough footage to make a feature film of typical length, but Lux Æterna's liberal use of split-screen effectively halves the film's runtime. As such, the film is closer in length to Noé's uncompromising Carne - a work that's now a full thirty years old - than it is to any of his five full-length films from I Stand Alone through Climax. While the addition of The Art of Filmmaking would have allowed the programme to be classified as a feature film in France, the short isn't included in the version currently streaming, so we are best to consider Lux Æterna to be a medium-length work, albeit one that proves to be way more interesting than many films twice the length. While its fierce strobe effects prove to be something of an endurance test, Lux Æterna stands as Noé's tamest film (it's all relative), as it eschews both the juddering violence and sexually explicit material we've largely come to expect from his work.
As with every Noé film from 2002's Irreversible on, Lux Æterna features the work of expert cinematographer Benoit Debie, and the brilliant Belgian's work here provides yet further proof of both his extraordinary ability and the essential part he plays in forming Noé's now-trademark aesthetic. Lux Æterna, like Irreversible - which was recently re-edited into a chronological version that is now available on Blu-ray - culminates in a sensory overload, but at least this time around the audience doesn't face the challenge while still fresh from a pummelling by two of the most brutal sequences in modern mainstream cinema; Lux Æterna, despite instilling the rising sense of unease we've long since come to associate with Noé's films, is at its heart a warm, rather playful affair, one in which all of the cast and crew are credited by just their first names, which stands is sharp contrast to Irreversible's opening (closing?) credits, wherein those on both sides of the camera were coldly, simply denoted by their surnames.
Lux Æterna is a meta-movie in which actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle play themselves; Dalle is directing a film about witch trials, and Gainsbourg is the star. Yet Dalle is faced with many obstacles, ranging from meddling producers to a highly subversive cinematographer, plus there's Karl Glusman, from Noé's 3D movie Love, as a rather desperate type who's apparently flown in from LA just to pitch his new project to the put-upon Gainsbourg. For the climactic witch-burning scene of Dalle's film, models Abbey Lee and Mica Argañaraz flank Gainsbourg as the three are tied to stakes in front of a green screen. But a strange lighting glitch occurs, and Lux Æterna winds to its fiery conclusion via a full-bore RGB nightmare. These closing moments are really the film's raison d'être, and they deliver exactly what we've come to expect from Noé, which is a real experience; he's a filmmaker who's always determined to evoke a visceral response from his audience. While Noé always appears chiefly interested in what his viewers think - or, more accurately, feel - when they're caught up in watching his work, his prior films are all extremely memorable, and the infernal, invigorating Lux Æterna, in which Noé delivers his thrills with typical aplomb, is thankfully no different.
Darren Arnold
Images: UFO Distribution
Friday, 15 January 2021
Frames of Representation (27/11/20–13/12/20)
Frames of Representation (FoR), the ICA film festival, returned for its fifth edition last month. A showcase for the ‘cinema of the real’, the 2020 festival presented 20 films that offered aesthetic and political resistances to cinematic categorisations.
Emerging from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America, the new films that screened at FoR 2020 engaged with multi-layered ethical and political concerns, experimental filmmaking practices and the development of new modes of language.
In this edition, the festival’s thematic focus encapsulated notions of the role of spectatorship. Alongside the films, a programme of workshops, discussion and performance interrogated the relationship between knowledge, engagement and the act of viewing. FoR 2020 challenged the relationship between viewing and action by bringing to the fore the space that comes after watching a film. The festival foregrounded the idea of the image as a moving proposal for the renegotiation and redistribution of positions of reception and activity, providing a space for fluid dynamics rather than rigid dichotomies.
Highlights included The Earth Is Blue as an Orange, the first feature by Iryna Tsilyk and the winner of the Best Directing Award for World Cinema Documentary at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, which offers cinematic and cultural resistance to Ukraine’s tumultuous relationship with Russia; and the Hong Kong/China co-production The Cloud in Her Room, a personal and generational story by Zheng Lu Xinyuan that won the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020. FoR 2020 also dedicated days to explore the works of filmmakers from Eastern Europe and Latin America, including Los conductos by Camilo Restrepo, winner of the Best First Feature Award at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. The festival’s opening and closing night films were Panquiaco, the first feature by Panamanian artist and filmmaker Ana Elena Tejera, and Air Conditioner, by Angolan collective Fradique.
Source: ICA
Image: IFFR