BFI Flare: Cherub (Devin Shears, 2024) / Gender Reveal

Devin Shears' virtually dialogue-free Cherub, which screens on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as part of this year's BFI Flare, is a poignant study in loneliness.  This Canadian feature, which served as Shears' thesis at Toronto's York University, centres on Harvey (Benjamin Turnbull), a shy, overweight lab technician who embarks on a journey of self-discovery after finding a copy of the eponymous magazine, which celebrates larger men (90s Belgian publication The Fat Angel Times inspired both this fictional magazine and the film itself).  Turnbull delivers a brave, touching performance as Harvey, capturing the character's hopeful longing for connection in a world in which he's more or less invisible.  

The project began as a short—the initial script ran to just eight pages—but soon reached a running time that saw it morph into a feature-length endeavour.  On occasion, Cherub does feel a little like a padded-out short, but such moments are fleeting.  Boxed into a 4:3 aspect ratio, Harvey goes about the daily drudge sans complaint, and Turnbull, without the luxury of dialogue, skilfully conveys the character's keen sense of isolation.  Many other Harveys in many other films have been reduced to mere objects of ridicule, but while Shears' film is not without humour, it never stoops to making fun of its wistful protagonist.  This is a moving and wonderfully empathetic work, and a fine example of low-to-no-budget filmmaking.

Another Canadian title showing at Flare is Mo Matton's amusing Gender Reveal, which plays alongside Dutch filmmaker Jop Leuven's Marleen in Sunday's shorts programme I Like Who I Like.  Matton is better known for their work as an intimacy coordinator on films such as Close to You (Flare 2024), but has already directed a couple of shorts prior to Gender Reveal.  Their latest effort follows three flamboyant housemates—Rhys (Ayo Tsalithaba), Ting (Ke Xin Li) and Mati (Alex Miron Dauphin)—who attend a dull, squirm-inducing gender reveal party hosted by Rhys' boss Marc (Alexandre Bacon) and his wife Chloë (Lauren Beatty).  The uneasy trio, who are in a three-way relationship, try to grimace their way through the event.

Being a Canadian production, it shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that a smattering of Gender Reveal's dialogue is en québécois, but even the well-meaning if clumsy small talk of Marc, who is also the father-to-be, does little to assuage these guests' discomfort—irrespective of the language employed.  But it isn't long before all this cringing gives way to something more sanguineous, as Matton gleefully orchestrates a riotously gory finale.  If there's a complaint to be made here, it's that Gender Reveal ends too soon; perhaps it should have spent a bit longer in the oven, à la Cherub, and you can't help but feel that there's a potential feature in there.  But even as it is, Matton's impish film is tremendously good fun.

Darren Arnold

Images: Festival Scope

BFI Flare: Sad Jokes (Fabian Stumm, 2024)

Sad Jokes, directed by and starring Fabian Stumm (Bones and Names, Bruxelles), screens tomorrow and on Sunday as part of this year's BFI Flare.  The story follows Stumm's Joseph, a filmmaker who lives with his close friend Sonya (Haley Louise Jones), who also happens to be the mother of his child.  Sonya is struggling with her mental health and has spent the last few months in and out of a clinic, from which she tends to discharge herself before her treatment is complete.  As Sonya attempts to get her life back on track, Joseph becomes the primary caregiver to their son, Pino (Justus Meyer), while working on various film projects.

Joseph has recently completed one film, which is about to premiere, and is preparing to shoot another, an absurdist comedy whose script is currently failing to convince producer Gero (Godehard Giese).  Given his work commitments and parenting duties, it is mildly surprising to learn that Joseph has the time to attend life-drawing classes, but it is there that he persuades his sunny, likeable teacher Elin (Ulrica Flach) to work on his new film.  Elin is tasked with moulding a ridiculously outsized head based on Joseph, which perhaps tells us something about his ego—although he generally comes across as a fairly grounded sort.

One of Sad Jokes' early scenes (pictured top) sees Joseph playing shopkeepers with Pino.  Perhaps inevitably, the goods involved are DVDs from Joseph's own collection, and this interaction plays out against a backdrop of a bookcase crammed with an extensive range of films, many of which are from UK label Artificial Eye.  The titles that find their way into Pino's bag include an Éric Rohmer box set, which underlines what one of Sad Jokes' key cinematic reference points is.  With this in mind, it would be easy to dismiss the film as a Rohmer pastiche, but Stumm injects enough of his own distinct style into proceedings.

The director is good value in the lead role, but although Joseph is the main character, Fabian Stumm generously makes room for others to shine: Jones doesn't get a great deal of screen time, but nevertheless impresses as the troubled Sonya, while the excellent Flach—a Swedish theatre veteran who here makes her feature debut—provides a genuinely showstopping moment with her superb delivery of a Joan of Arc speech.  The beautifully photographed Sad Jokes is a solid, assured piece of work, one that demonstrates real progress on the part of its talented writer-director, whose next film will be set in Belgium.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

Get Away (Steffen Haars, 2024)

Dutch filmmaker Steffen Haars' sophomore picture Get Away sees the North Brabant native reunite with Nick Frost, who starred in Haars' feature debut Krazy House.  Frost—who also penned the script—and Aisling Bea play Richard and Susan Smith, an Anglo-Irish couple who embark on a Swedish summer holiday with their reluctant teenage children, Sam (Sebastian Croft) and Jessie (Maisie Ayres).  After an unnerving encounter at a café on the mainland, the family head to the island of Svälta, which is chiefly known for a 19th-century episode of cannibalism; an ominous title card denoting the other meaning of Svälta— "to starve, to famish"—sets the stage for the mock-sinister atmosphere that permeates the film.

The family's visit coincides with the annual Karantan festival, which has as its centrepiece a performance of a bum-numbing eight-hour play based on the island's bleak history of survival during a flu-induced quarantine.  As expected, the island's inhabitants are less than hospitable and do their best to encourage the Smiths to leave on the next available ferry.  Undeterred, the family head to their holiday rental, which is owned by the rather more welcoming—if decidedly creepy—Mats (Eero Milonoff), who informs the guests that his mother met her grisly end in the house's living room.  Not long after they've settled in, the Smiths receive a threatening nocturnal visit from a mob of torch-wielding locals.

Despite the ongoing spoiler tactics of Svälta's permanent population, the family doggedly persist with their holiday and plan to attend the production of the mysterious play; as in The Wicker Man—in which an island visitor becomes an unwilling participant in esoteric May Day celebrations—there are strong hints that these guests are destined to be more than mere spectators of this lengthy performance-cum-ritual.  As a comic riff on Ari Aster's Midsommar—by far the most obvious reference point here—Get Away possesses a ragged charm, and for the most part it's generally watchable, if a bit undercooked.  But at around the two-thirds mark there's a quite brilliant twist that sets things up for a riotously gory finale.

Any horror comedy—Krazy House also falls under the same subgenre—starring Nick Frost is going to contend with unfavourable comparisons to Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, and Get Away is no exception.  Like Shaun, Get Away explicitly references more than one straight horror film as it goes about its business, and there is a sense here that Frost actively embraces his legacy as part of Wright's fondly remembered cult movie; he's a likeable presence, but Aisling Bea, herself better known as a comedian, gives the most eye-catching turn in the film as the cheerful, witty Susan.  The uneven Get Away largely treads water for its first hour, but the mayhem that unfolds in the final stretch is worth sticking around for.

Darren Arnold

Images: IFFR