BFI Flare: Get the party started

The 39th BFI Flare kicked off last night on the Southbank, with the international premiere of the Sundance hit The Wedding Banquet, with the entire cast and crew on stage for an intro, then back for a hilarious Q&A. I also got a chance to talk to director Andrew Ahn at the party, which was nice. The next 10 days will be a flurry of excellent LGBTQIA+ films from all over the world. Here are comments on three films - full reviews will be posted on the site soon. And Critical Week is below...

The Wedding Banquet
dir Andrew Ahn; with Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone 25US ****
In reimagining of Ang Lee's breakthrough 1993 comedy, director-cowriter Andrew Ahn cleverly updates the topicality while also playing up the plot's farcical entanglements. The resulting film often feels very silly, but it is continually underscored by resonant themes and involving emotions. It's also thoroughly entertaining, with seven complex central characters who are beautifully played by an ensemble cast that's heavily stacked with adept scene-stealers.

Really Happy Someday
dir J Stevens; with Breton Lalama, Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah 24/Can ****
Quietly observational, this warm drama follows a young trans man who is struggling to redefine both himself and who he wants to be. Director J Stevens takes an offhanded approach, shooting scenes like a fly-on-the-wall documentary to add a striking sense of authenticity. It's also infused with Broadway songs that contain huge emotionality, allowing us to see into the soul of the lead character, who is played beautifully by cowriter Breton Lalama.

We Are Faheem & Karun
dir Onir; with Tawseef Mir, Akash Unnimenon 25/Ind ****
From India, this is the first Kashmiri film to openly explore sexuality. As with his 2023 drama Pine Cone, filmmaker Onir uses a gently understated tone to focus on the internalised thoughts and feelings the characters are grappling with. The film is strikingly well shot in spectacular locations, while the actors deliver warm, honest performances. So without overstating anything, the film creates a vivid sense of how a culture can sometimes feel like a prison.

Full reviews will be linked on Shadows' BFI Flare page when published.

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C R I T I C A L  W E E K

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Aside from Flare, this past week featured screenings of two films with Pedro Pascal. The multi-strand adventure Freaky Tales is clever and offbeat, while the comedy-drama The Uninvited is intriguing like an ensemble play. Disney's live-action Snow White was better than expected, although the animated dwarfs are all wrong. Robert De Niro gives two solid performances in The Alto Knights, which is otherwise a bit unremarkable. Alain Guiraudie's superb French drama Misericordia is complex and challenging. And the artificial intelligence doc The Thinking Game is brisk and eye-opening.

This coming week I'll be watching Jack Quaid in Novocaine, Jason Statham in A Working Man, Jason Isaacs in The Salt Path, the wartime drama Irena's Vow, the Andy Kaufman doc Thank You Very Much, and a lot more films at BFI Flare. Plus a few live stage performances.

A visit to Twin Peaks

Extended until 21st November, The Owls Are Not What They Seem is a Twin Peaks fan experience in Central London that plays on the 25-year-old TV series' now iconic imagery and characters. It's interactive and immersive, with a terrific cast of characters and a range of food and drink inspired by the show.

On arrival, you're given an identity. I had come as my Twin Peaks alter-ego One-eyed Jack, and there I was told I was a "self-medicating divorcee" with a small task to carry out. Ushered into a diner, we were given what looked like a cup of coffee but what actually a coffee cocktail, followed by three courses of rather witty food - from another coffee-themed bowl of soup (with savoury dipping donuts) to a breakfast-style main course and of course cherry pie with a caraway twist at the end.

The inventive food is provided by Blanch & Shock, while the entire experience is created by Lemonade and Laughing Gas. Actors playing variations on the series' characters continually appear to improvise some riotously funny drama, leading us into other areas of the sprawling site, including a cocktail bar with some rather seedy rooms off to the side, and a road house with a live show (including a fire eater). Along the way I was arrested by a thug who had been deputised. And I had several hand-made cocktails courtesy of the sponsor Wild Turkey Bourbon.

While this installation isn't officially linked to Twin Peaks or David Lynch, it's packed with references that will send chills up fans' spines. I particularly enjoyed the long red-curtained corridor, in which I of course had to do a little dwarf dance of joy.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must confess that I was a huge fan of the show in 1990-1991. I first saw the pilot as a movie projected in a vast cinema at the Miami Film Festival, and was glued to the series as it unfolded. In the summer of 1991, I visited relatives in Seattle and took a drive to Snoqualmie, where the show was filmed, seeing that sinister waterfall first hand and having some damn fine pie and coffee at the real Double-R diner. I was also a card-carrying member of Operation Pine Weasel, writing letters and campaigning to save the show from cancellation. We were successful after the first season, but when the show became more obtuse in the second year, nothing we could do would save it.

And now David Lynch is reassembling the cast for a new season that is scheduled to be broadcast in 2017. To prepare for this evening, I binge watched 15 of the 30 shows that were made - and I had forgotten that the red curtained room scenes were set "25 years later", which is now. 

For details: THE OWLS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM