Hexham Heads (Mattijs Driesen / Chloë Delanghe, 2024)

As far as northern English Forteana is concerned, the case of the Hexham Heads is right up there with that of the Solway Firth Spaceman; barely 40 miles separate the sites of these bizarre events, which occurred in 1971 and 1964 respectively.  While the Solway Firth incident focused on a picture of what may or may not have been a photobombing alien, the Hexham affair involved something more tangible, namely a pair of stone heads that were unearthed by young brothers Colin and Leslie Robson.  Following the boys' discovery in the back garden of their home, a series of strange goings-on affected both the Robson household and the neighbouring Dodd family; this continued until the heads were offloaded.

While the heads' next custodian, Dr Anne Ross, was able to bring an academic's eye to the party—she was of the opinion that they were artefacts of ancient Celtic origin—her family also experienced the joys of residual haunting; as was the case with the Robsons, domestic order was restored upon the jettisoning of the creepy crania.  The heads' whereabouts are currently unknown, which only elevates a mystery that is now explored in Belgian-British experimental effort Hexham Heads.  Screening today as part of the BFI London Film Festival programme Right in the Substance of Them a Trace of What Happened, this curious, striking work plays like a folk horror run through a filter of stone tape theory.

The medium-length Hexham Heads starts out as a fairly linear endeavour, with co-director Chloë Delanghe's measured voiceover guiding us through the story of the heads' excavation—and subsequent eventful stay—at 3 Rede Avenue, the Hexham property where the Robsons lived; it's a fine précis, one that appears to be setting things up for an investigation into the various paranormal phenomena associated with the noggins.  What follows, however, is a haptic, fragmented piece that conjures a needling atmosphere worthy of such a juicy slice of oddball folklore.  Via an eerie succession of 16mm, VHS and still images, all set to Sam Comerford's unsettling score, the film achieves a cumulative, nightmarish quality.

While the movie's title is undoubtedly prosaic, Delanghe and Mattijs Driesen's treatment of the subject matter is anything but.  Hexham Heads drinks from the same well as Mark Jenkin's Enys Men and Kyle Edward Ball's Skinamarink—arguably the two most prominent examples of experimental horror in recent years—and like the latter work, it contains a top-class jump scare.  As the film draws to a close, it takes us back to a near-deserted cement plant that was glimpsed fleetingly in the opening scenes, the implication being that there's a pretty mundane explanation for all this.  Still, such airy reassurances count for little in the preceding half-hour, when the fever dream that is Hexham Heads exerts its clammy grip.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI 

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Soundtrack to a Coup d'État (Johan Grimonprez, 2024)

Dag Hammarskjöld, the erudite Swedish diplomat and economist who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, was catapulted into global politics during a turbulent period of cold war tensions and decolonisation struggles.  Hammarskjöld established the first UN peacekeeping forces during the Congo Crisis, a proxy conflict that forms the basis of Belgian-Dutch-French documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'État.  While Dag Hammarskjöld is indeed a key player in the film, the main focus of this highly compelling work is Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese leader who was assassinated in January 1961 (Hammarskjöld's own premature demise came a mere eight months later).

Curiously, the Swede's suspicious death in a plane crash isn't covered here, perhaps because that knotty subject is worthy of a film of its own.  Soundtrack to a Coup d'État—which screens today at the BFI London Film Festival—emerges as a thorough exploration of the complex relationship between jazz music and the political turmoil of the cold war, with particular emphasis on the events surrounding Congo's independence from Belgium.  Directed by the Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez (Double Take, Shadow World), the documentary is bookended by the moment when jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach gatecrashed the UN Security Council in order to protest the killing of Lumumba.

Grimonprez's essay film isn't simply a dry retelling of historical events, but rather presents a narrative that splices the genre of jazz with anticolonialism.  It portrays how the music became a medium for expressing solidarity with the oppressed; the soundtrack, which features numerous legendary jazzmen and women (Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk), encapsulates both the spirit of resistance and the thirst for change.  The film also considers the roles of the US, the UN and others during the decolonisation process, noting the vagaries of geopolitics and the fight for control over the mineral-rich Belgian Congo—a country that supplied most of the uranium for the Manhattan Project.

The film includes fine archival footage of US jazz icons, and highlights how some of these artists were used as unwitting decoys as the CIA set about meddling in post-colonial Africa.  Perhaps the most infamous of these episodes, detailed here, saw "jazz ambassador" Louis Armstrong visit the African continent, where his performance in Léopoldville provided a smokescreen that allowed for intelligence to be gathered on Lumumba; while Satchmo was still on his tour, the man who had served as the DR Congo's first prime minister was killed by firing squad.  Soundtrack to a Coup d'État isn't always entirely successful in its attempts to conflate jazz with politics, but it is immaculately assembled and thoroughly absorbing.

Darren Arnold

Images: Flanders Image

When the Light Breaks (Rúnar Rúnarsson, 2024)

Directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson (Volcano, Echo), Dutch co-production When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot)—which received financial backing from Revolver Amsterdam and the Netherlands Film Fund's Production Incentive—screens tomorrow as part of this year's BFI London Film Festival.  The film explores the complex theme of bereavement as it follows young art student Una (Elín Hall), who struggles to come to terms with the sudden death of her bandmate Diddi (Baldur Einarsson)—one of many people confirmed as killed in a catastrophic road tunnel fire (an agonising wait in a Red Cross centre precedes this news).

Bookended by sunrise and sunset—both of which are captured, quite beautifully, by Swedish cinematographer Sophia Olsson—the story unfolds over the course of a single day, one that marks a turning point in Una's life.  The film's striking opening sequence features late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's (Sicario, Mandy) haunting "Odi et Amo", which promptly establishes the tone for the tale of love and loss that follows (while one of the film's main characters wears a t-shirt sporting the logo of Jóhannsson's compatriots Nyrst, the black metal band are not heard on a soundtrack that tends to remain on the mellow side).

As the film progresses, we witness Una's battle to internalise much of her grief; unbeknown to anyone else, she and Diddi were much more than just bandmates.  This internal conflict is exacerbated by Una's incipient friendship with the openly bereft Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir), Diddi's long-distance girlfriend.  Given the knotty situation, Una sees her mourning reduced—at least in public—to a form of secondhand grief, as she attempts to downgrade her sadness so it appears to be roughly equivalent to that of Diddi's platonic friends, all of whom are navigating these choppy waters with the help of shots, pints, and old home videos.

Yet Una and Klara do form a real connection, with the former relating a thinly coded story about her most recent boyfriend; has Klara understood?  In any case, Una implicitly elevates her status to a level where both women experience a shared sense of loss.  Rúnarsson deftly avoids both melodrama and the obvious, preferring to focus on the fact that a day that began with Diddi in this world will now end without him; the finality of death is conveyed, most poignantly, in the setting sun.  The ending reminded me of that of Éric Rohmer's 1986 masterpiece The Green Ray, which, like this tactile film, was also shot on 16mm stock.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI