Tag / London Film Festival

by hutchwp

Film review – Frantz (François Ozon, 2016)

Set primarily in Germany in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, François Ozon’s latest film is an emotional story portrayed almost entirely in black and white. It revolves around Anna (Paula Beer), a woman who is living with the parents of her lost lover and supporting each other in their collective grief. That man is the titular Frantz (Anton von Lucke), who we learn has lost his life in battle during the war. When a Frenchman by the name of Adrien (Pierre Niney) shows up at Frantz’s grave to give his respects, he tells them of his close friendship to their mutually lost friend.

Adrien (Niney) and Anna (Beer)

Ozon is something of a prolific filmmaker on almost the same level as Woody Allen. Since his celebrated debut feature length film Sitcom in 1998, he has written and directed sixteen films, amongst them the critically acclaimed Swimming Pool and the highly successful Potiche. Yet Frantz is, by all accounts, a departure in style for him and sees him in relatively unfamiliar territory with a historical war drama.

It is based on the play ‘L’homme que j’ai tué’ by Maurice Rostand. Before writing his script, Ozon was unaware that the play had already been adapted by legendary filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch as the film Broken Lullaby in 1931, though when he watched the film he realised that it was a completely different treatment to the direction he wanted to go with Frantz. He wanted to give the focus of the film to Anna, who was on the losing side of the war, providing more empathy to her as the central character.

There is an interesting chemistry between Beer and Niney, both of whom are playing extremely complex characters. They share this individual that has had a huge affect on their respective lives and begin to grow closer. Providing convincing characterisations of such  conflicting emotions is a challenge both rise to and it is this that elevates the film above being a wartime drama.

It was amazing to learn that this was Beer’s first performance acting as a French-language character. Many successful actresses couldn’t achieve what she has here in their first language let alone their second one. She revealed in a post-screening discussion that she had to learn and develop the script twice. Initially she developed the emotional responses to the words in her native German, before relearning the entire segments in French to ensure her delivery wasn’t lacklustre.

This is a truly moving film that gives an interesting point of view to the fallout from war that hasn’t often been explored before. Superb delivery from the two complex central characters means this comes highly recommended.

by hutchwp

Film review – La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)

WARNING: This review is effusively positive. If you’re a misery-guts then please look away now.

Every once in a while you will go into a film knowing almost nothing about what you’re going to see and get absolutely blown away by a surprisingly perfect masterpiece. As you get further into your film-watching life, enjoying these moments becomes increasingly rare, so when a film like ‘La La Land’ comes along, you can’t help but be overcome by giddy excitement.

Damien Chazelle shot to fame in 2014 with his critically acclaimed and rather special jazz-bully drama ‘Whiplash’. ‘La La Land’ shares very few similarities with it, bar an affinity to jazz that also featured prominently in his debut feature ‘Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench’. It does expand on a topic explored in ‘Whiplash’: the ongoing internal conflict of artists pursuing their dream at the expense of every other aspect of their life.

If you enjoyed his first two feature films but thought he couldn’t “do” mainstream, then prepare to be proven absolutely wrong seconds into the start. It opens with an over-the-top musical song and dance number set amidst a traffic jam. It’s an explosive one-shot (though there may have been some clever linking between extended shots) that received a round of applause at the end from an appreciative audience. Rightly so – it was jaw-dropping.

‘La La Land’ is, at heart, a homage to traditional musicals, with a joyful soundtrack matched by a couple of mesmerising performances from the lead performers Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Gosling stars as Sebastian, a struggling jazz pianist going from poor gig to poor gig in LA, with dreams of owning his own jazz club to fend off the death of jazz. Stone is Mia, a young actress moonlighting as a barista at the Warner Brothers Studio sets who can’t get a break she deserves in the film industry. After a number of serendipitous meets, Seb and Mia start to fall for each other and, with both a figurative and a literal song and a dance, their romance explodes.

With Seb being a jazz expert/enthusiast/nerd and them both being performers, Chazelle has given himself the platform on which to produce a naturalistic musical that will doubtless make it more acceptable to those who don’t normally class themselves as musical fans. There is also evidence of a significant amount of effort put in by Gosling to perfect the piano shots, which were impressively all performed by him.


It’s a film so visually stunning it’s hard to take your eyes away from it. There is, however, never a risk that it was simply a platform to reference more familiar films of old. In a breathtaking final segment, we take a walk through memory lane with nods to a number of classic musicals, but they are simply nods in what amounts to one of the most perfectly-balanced final sequences I’ve seen in cinema. Gasps were audible around the auditorium.

The soundtrack is destined to stick around for years to come. Gosling/Stone duets “City of Stars” and “A Lovely Night” are both standouts, but it will be “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” that will be vying for an Oscar early next year. A beautiful number written by Justin Harwitz, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, it is left to Emma Stone to deliver an emotionally raw live performance.

The only downside for me is that I have to wait for another two months to see it again. A must see.

by hutchwp

Film review – 偽りの隣人 / Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2016)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s latest release Creepy received its U.K. premiere tonight as part of the London Film Festival. It blends elements of police drama, suspense and mild horror to create an intriguing film that achieves much but ultimately falls down due to a lack of ruthlessness in editing that would have helped the pacing.

Set in approximately 2009, it tells the story of a retired policeman Takakura (Hidetoshi Nishijima) who has changed careers to work as a criminology professor at a local university. Having moved to a new part of town with his wife Yasuko (Yūko Takeuchi) and dog Max, they begin to become suspicious of the titular creepy neighbour Nishino (Teruyuki Kagawa) and his daughter Mio (Ryoko Fujino), whilst Takakura attempts to solve an old case that has come out of the woodwork.

Creepy Nishino

The casting of the genuinely creepy Kagawa is a solid choice. Director Kurosawa is on familiar ground, having worked with him on 2009’s Tokyo Sonata, though this role is very much a departure from the jobless family man we saw previously. When the results are this good there’s no need to change.

Kurosawa, working again with cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa, achieves a lot with natural lighting to create darkness for the lead characters as they delve into their inner-most thoughts. This was an effective technique used previously by the pair in Journey To The Shore and is mined more subtly here to arguably better effect, especially in one particular witness interrogation scene.

However, there are flaws. The ending could genuinely have happened about twenty minutes prior to when it finally occurs, and when the story is finally resolved the relief I felt wasn’t for any of the particular characters but more for the fact it signalled the end was in sight. It’s unfortunate that the ending is so shocking and powerful with some great acting that was undermined by the preceding needless plot extension.

There were a few ideas throughout the film that seemed to fizzle out. Saki (Haruna Kawaguchi) was really prominent for a good portion of the film but was clumsily written out before the resolution of her storyline; her family went missing but she doesn’t seem to care why in the end. A police chief is written into the key part of the story to get Takakura out of a dead end in the plot. There’s a mind control element to the story that isn’t ever fully explained, instead expecting the viewer to just go with it. 

After a long setup, this film is genuinely exhilarating for about an hour. With a shorter ending and a little more clarity, it could have been much better than the final result. For me, it is a missed opportunity.

by hutchwp

BFI London Film Festival 2016 – Preview

I’ll be heading down to the BFI London Film Festival this weekend to catch a handful of films. I’ve picked a broad range, from headline galas to complete leftfield choices that may be my only chance to see a film on the big screen.

Here’s what I’ll be catching:

– La La Land (Damien Chazelle, US)
– Frantz (François Ozon, Germany)
– Dancer (Steven Cantor, UK)
– Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan)
– Paul Verhoeven in conversation
– Psychonauts, The Forgotten Children (Pedro Rivero, Alberto Vázquez, Spain)
– Queen of Katwe (Mira Nair, US)

I’m most excited about the Queen of Katwe red carpet premiere that I’ll be lucky enough to attend, and Frantz will be screening at the specially-created Embankment Garden Cinema. 

I’ll be firing out reviews of each as I get the chance over the weekend. Maybe I’ll see one or two of you down there!

by hutchwp

Film review – A United Kingdom (Amma Asante, 2016)

Kicking off the 2016 BFI London Film Festival in style tonight was Amma Asante’s triumphant ‘A United Kingdom’. After the glitz and glamour of the red carpet, the film’s central themes proved to be an apt starting point for a programme that festival director Clare Stewart claims will focus on diversity.

The film tells the true story of Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo). Khama is the King of Bechuanaland (the country now known as Botswana) and in 1948 he marries London girl Williams amid opposition from their families and countries, sparking a political debate that led to the country’s independence movement.

Asante is the first black woman ever to direct an opening night film at the London Film Festival, and she was keen to point out the relevance of her being the person at the helm telling this important story.

“[The Botswanians] were comforted that it was going to be told through the gaze of a woman of colour… There was relief, and of course a curiosity, as to how their country, and they as a people, would be reflected on screen.”

Pike and Oyelowo

The resulting picture is a moving portrayal of a changing time in two countries with a message that is as valid today as it was then. True, there has been much progress in the world since 1948, but looking back at the changes in the past 70 years should give humanity hope that as much progress can be made again in the next 70 years. Indeed, many comments from the stars on the red carpet referenced that there is still much wrong with the world and a film like ‘A United Kingdom’ serves to highlight that we should never give up the fight. This is a fact not lost on Asante, especially given the marginal bandwidth available in the film industry to both people of colour and women – something that should be considered one of the big talking points of this year’s festival.

Oyelowo and Pike work together perfectly, each delivering powerful performances worthy of the story they are telling. The film’s genesis lies with Oyelowo, who started writing the script six years ago after reading the Susan Williams book Colour Bar, and his passion for the story seeps into his emotional delivery.

The film perhaps suffers from appearing saccharine, with the story telling us that their love was so strong it overcame political opposition and brought a continent together. The truth is that the film isn’t too far from being perfectly accurate, with only a couple of timeline changes for the benefit of pacing.

This is a story that is one piece of a much larger puzzle that can be filled in with what can be seen as companion films: Mandela – Long Walk To Freedom (2013) and Hotel Rwanda (2011) are two good recent examples. There is a rich history that is still being written in Africa, from which deeply moving stories continue to be drawn in both film and literature.

It is remarkable that the actors and actresses involved knew little of the source material before receiving the script. It is likely that the same can be said of the many viewers this film will eventually reach – I have to admit that I was also blissfully unaware of the history of Botswana before seeing this film. Khama’s story isn’t one that has been well-documented and that is something that Oyelowo and Asante will be more than happy to rectify.

A truly important story told in such a captivating manner deserves to be seen. A wonderful start to the festival.

 

by hutchwp

Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle, 2015)

The 2015 BFI London Film Festival came to a close this evening with the European Premiere of Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs. With all the stars out on the red carpet, it had all the hallmarks of a blockbuster finale on the scale of any of the Apple product launches we’ve become so accustomed to.

The biopic plays out in three distinct acts, all during iconic Jobs-headed product launches: the 1984 launch of the first Macintosh home computer; the 1988 launch of the NeXT Computer for NeXT Inc. (the company Jobs set up after being forced out of Apple); and ending with the 1998 launch of the first iMac computer.

Jobs worth

Jobs worth

Whilst it may risk being a big advert for Apple, the poor picture painted of the figurehead of the company throughout ensures that is never the case. The Steve Jobs we get to know over the course of the three acts, which play out in real time in the lead up to each of the presentations Jobs is giving, is narcissistic and self-centred, only relenting from the power trip when he finally achieves the success he has been driving for. It shows softer sides of his personality and attempts to justify his unique traits but the focus on his tempestuous relationship with his ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan and their child Lisa ensures his best side is never seen.

It is actually a difficult watch throughout. It is basically two hours of arguments, eventually becoming tiring. It does successfully portray the frantic and intense atmosphere of a huge-scale product launch in a very real manner. It fails, however, to convince that this is a good platform for great cinema.

Michael Fassbender plays the Steve Jobs we see here to perfection, capturing the nuances required of someone who is heartless to the extent of being cruel. Kate Winslet’s turn as Joanna Hoffman is steadier than her accent, and Seth Roger puts in an adequate performance as Steve Wozniak. The standout performance is quite minor but nontheless critical: Michael Stuhbarg is exceptional as the bullied inventor Andy Hertzfield.

The biggest success is the genius move to film the picture on era-appropriate equipment. The three scenes were each filmed using totally different techniques: 1984 was captured on beautiful 16mm film, 1988 on 35mm film and 1998 on digital film. The evolution of technology is reflected in the format change and portrays each era in a manner that would have been impossible with digital post-production.

Whilst it isn’t a let down, it will be difficult to find a sustainable market for this film. It’s not a straight biopic, it isn’t hugely in favour of Apple, nor is it against it. It’s a struggle to watch and is unlikely to have people raving about its successes as they leave the cinema. 

It could be Danny Boyle’s Newton moment.

Steve Jobs is released in cinemas in the UK in November.

Further Viewing

If you enjoyed the film so much you’re interested in some further viewing, then check out the below videos. In the film you see the 40 minutes building up to the release of three products, but never get to see the keynotes themselves.

1984 – Original Macintosh home computer

The original keynote:

The Superbowl “1984” advert:

1988 – NeXT

The 1988 keynote speech isn’t available on YouTube, but this ABC news segment is a close fit:

1998 – iMac

The full video in all its glory:

by hutchwp

Suffragette (Sarah Gavron, 2015)

Suffragette opened the London Film Festival in some style tonight, with the stars out in force at the Vue in Leicester Square to bring their film to crowds in what was also the European premiere. The London Film Festival director Clare Stewart said prior to the screening that it was an “urgent and compelling film, made by British women, about British women who changed the course of history.” How right she was.

Carey Mulligan puts in an excellent performance.

The film, directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan, tracks the true story of the early suffragette movements of the late 19th and early 20th century and how their struggles against increasing opposition from all around them got harder as their prominence rose. The focal point is the fictional Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), a working class washerwoman who gets slowly drawn into the fight for power and ends up losing everything to fight for her equality. She joins the local branch of the suffragette movement after a chance encounter in the West End, and quickly finds her feet alongside Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter, incidentally the great-granddaughter of H. H. Asquith who was Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916), Violet Miller (a standout performance from Anne-Marie Duff) and Emily Wilding Davidson (Natalie Press), a woman whose life is worthy of a film in her own right.

Just as important to the dynamics of this story are the men. Maud’s husband Sonny Watts is an extremely complex character portrayed magnificently by Ben Whishaw. As Whishaw discussed prior to the screening, Sonny is conflicted by the desire to protect and provide for the family he loves and doesn’t understand the importance of his wife’s involvement. However, as the plot progresses he makes some unforgivable decisions that further drive Maud’s determination. Brendan Gleeson provides depth to the role of Inspector Arthur Steed, a man of authority who is investigating the movement.

However, this is a film about women and made by women. It is extremely refreshing to see a film where the women take centre stage and it isn’t about how in love they may or may not be with a man. Screenwriter Abi Morgan said prior to the premiere that “a film that is fronted by an ensemble of women, and they are not being funny or romantic, is hard. That became a huge obstacle.” It didn’t feel like there were any obstacles in the final product, though the story is a tough one to discover if your only experience is the sanitised version of the suffragettes where everyone sits around drinking tea and waving flags that is much easier to tell and even easier to digest.

Meryl Streep appears as British suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst. It is a positive move to use her in the advertising and posters as her popularity will bring punters to this important piece of cinema. However, it will be a great shame if she ends up being overly celebrated for her appearance, especially given it is so brief. There are at least three actresses in this film more deserving of accolades for their supporting roles.

In 2015 34% of women eligible to vote in the United Kingdom failed to vote in the general election. This figure rises to 56% for the under 25s. Overall that’s almost ten million women. So was the suffragette’s fight in vain? For the most part, no. However, these stats do underline that the right the UK has to vote is now taken for granted. As such, the release of Suffragette is as poignant now as it ever could have been.

A postscript identifies the years in which women were given the vote in various countries around the world. It is not surprising to see that several countries are still lagging on this front, though perhaps the popularity of this film will help rectify these issues ever so slightly.

This is a powerful piece of cinema and a relevant work of art. It is essential viewing for all women, any of the 33.9% of the UK public who decided not to vote in the 2015 general election, and anyone with a passion for excellent cinema.

Suffragette will be released in UK cinemas on 12 October 2015.

by hutchwp

X+Y (Morgan Matthews, 2014)

X+Y is a British film from BBC Films that follows the story of Nathan (Asa Butterfield), a teenage mathematics prodigy who is more comfortable dealing with numbers than he is with people. When he is selected to represent Great Britain on the International Mathematical Olympiad, he is forced to travel to Taiwan. As pressure to perform in the tournament grows and he finds an unlikely source of romance in Zhang Mai (Jo Yang), he soon finds that being out of his comfort zone is the starting point for a challenging journey of self-realisation.

One thing I was worried about as I sat there in the cinema waiting for it to start, was how they were going to portray autism. Inevitably we’re going to compare lead character Nathan to Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man or Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, probably the two most iconic on-screen portrayals of people on the autistic spectrum. Unfortunately for sufferers of autism, this drastically sells the condition short to people who aren’t overly aware of it. Autism is a condition that affects those close to someone on the spectrum as much as the person themselves, and to assume that they will simply be a bit awkward around people and good at maths is doing it a misjustice. Many sufferers find comfort in the strict rules set out in maths – it’s an emotionless interest. However, others find the same solace in a regimented interpretation of music, with its repetitive patterns and melodies and set mathematics behind complimentary frequencies of notes. Others become obsessive over lists and facts, whatever the topic might be. Others just don’t. There are mild forms of autism and severe forms, which is why diagnosis can be tricky as early signs can’t be placed on the spectrum by someone unfamiliar with the condition. 

So it’s unfortunate that autism has been portrayed on screen by means of a maths genius yet again, even though the director has previous work on autism (2008’s Beautiful Young Minds), which covers it in a more factual manner. However, X+Y is by no means just a light-hearted walk in the park and I enjoyed the fact a lot of time was spent with Nathan’s mother Julie (Sally Hawkins) as she came to terms with the loss of a close relative with no emotional support from her son. This was an important portion of the film that gave the right emphasis to the right areas and should be applauded.



I felt Butterfield’s portrayal of a child suffering from autism was very accurate, and I felt the frustration seeping through his inability to understand others. He has become a very accomplished actor throughout the three or four major films he has been part of so far, and as long as he keeps his feet on the ground for a couple more years he will continue to be successful for a long time.

Another great performance was from Jake Davies as Luke, whose character was a much more acute sufferer of autism. One scene involving a dead prawn stuck out for me and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more from him in the future.

The comradery of the maths students didn’t ring true for me. From first hand experience (I partook in mathematics competitions as a child, to some success), these competitions are far from a sociable affair, with most children very much “in the zone” and either unable or unwilling to communicate with their peers. It was a case of get in, do maths, win. Anything else was just unneccesary. So when there’s laughing and joking and, most notably, a cringeworthy rap session (including an awful rhymical recitation of Pi), I just thought back to the suits and classical music I had to endure and wondered how much it really could have changed.

I felt let down by the end. I’m not going to go into details as the film is yet to be released, but it just didn’t ring true to me and seemed to undo a lot of hard work they’d put in earlier in the film in a manner that suggests to me they got lost with the message they wanted to send out. I’ll let you make your own mind up on that one.

Overall it’s a very accomplished film and has many enjoyable points, but I didn’t feel it quite fulfilled its potential.

X+Y is released at UK cinemas on 13th March 2015.

by hutchwp

’71 (Yann Demange, 2014)

Screened as part of the First Feature competition at the London Film Festival, Yann Demange’s ’71 is an accomplished action thriller that serves as yet another reminder of the supreme talents of Jack O’Connell.

Set during The Troubles in 1971, the story follows Derbyshire soldier Gary Hook (O’Connell) who has been sent on his first mission with the Armed Forces to Belfast. His first call out, to quell some disturbances in a housing estate dubbed as “the front line” near the Falls Road, goes wrong fairly quickly and he is thrust into a man-in-hiding situation, on the run from the locals who believe the British Armed Forces have no place in their conflict. In danger and in isolation, the story becomes an cross-analysis of one man desperate to survive and return to his base safely.

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What I found interesting was how similar this plays out to other recent films set in more modern wars. One that immediately springs to mind is the Mark Wahlberg-starring Lone Survivor, which was set in Afghanistan. Of course the two films are as far apart as you could get in terms of style, but it serves as a reminder of how extreme the conflicts had got in the early 1970s.

Despite his frequenting of the tabloids, Jack O’Connell keeps on proving himself to be an actor with plenty of natural talent and it’s fantastic to see him building on his excellent performance in last year’s Starred Up (also reviewed here).

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There are moments of real tensions and shock along the way. I think it would be unfair of me to discuss them in great detail as I might ruin a great film that needs to be seen first-hand.

With a fantastic support cast (Sean Harris stands out as Captain Sandy Browning), this is a solid film worthy of your attention. Seek it out.

’71 is released in cinemas across the UK on 10th October.

by hutchwp

The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)

Peter Strickland’s latest film, The Duke of Burgundy, is an interesting one. Screened in competition at the British Film Festival under a wave of great reviews, it is a film very hard to categorise. I’ve seen it described as an erotic drama. It’s also been referred to as a sexual romance. I’ve a tendency to go with a black romantic comedy, albeit based on the sexual fetishes of a lesbian couple.

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On the face of it, it concerns a sadomasochistic relationship between a dominant woman and her submissive lover. They live in a small community populated exclusively by women, who we are led to believe share similar sexual tendencies. They are all clearly well off, and none appear to work outside a few butterfly lectures here and there.

To label it as a film simply about fetish sex is to do it a disservice. Actually by the end of the film it is clearly more about the demands made by the desires of one person in a relationship, and the effect that has on the second party, especially as they grow distant from these demands and find them less appealing.

The soundtrack, provided by Cat’s Eyes, tweely pitches somewhere between Goldfrapp and Belle and Sebastian. With the constant references to butterflies I was repeatedly reminded of early 00s band Misty Dixon. This juxtaposition between what we see and what we hear is quite intelligent: it underlines the innocence of one party and her belief that this is normal behaviour, even though it is clearly a strain on her besotted lover. She is living in a dream world and the music, in that sense, is perfectly pitched. Plus it’s really lovely music, which helps.

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The whole nature of the relationship is completely flipped from its initial portrayal, and by the end we see the surprising reality. This about-turn makes for some hilarious and at times heartbreaking scenes. Indeed, such is the detail in which we see the emotions and pain seen by one party, we barely see a glimpse of any of the sexual acts, usually having them implied behind closed doors or inferred from showing us the before and after shots. In this way, Strickland managed to avoid it becoming all about the sex and makes it a much greater film as a result.

In a post-50-Shades era the subject matter will no doubt turn a few heads. In many ways I hope readers of the 50 Shades series seek it out and are either disappointed or, more likely, pleasantly surprised.

Whilst it didn’t have the impact of Strickland’s previous film Berbarian Sound Studio, it was a highly satisfying, twisting and twisted tale that deserves a wide audience.

The Duke of Burgundy is released in UK cinemas in 2015.