As Britain continues to strain against the ongoing lockdown restrictions, it seems like all of my friends have already had the vaccine, but I'm still waiting. It's now looking like cinemas won't open until mid-May at the earliest, so these online screenings will just have to do for now. Another film that really should have been seen on the big screen was Disney's animated adventure
Raya and the Last Dragon, which looks breathtaking however you see it as it spins an energetic, involving and ever-so-familiar tale. Less successful is the strained attempt to "update"
Tom and Jerry with a half-hearted human-based plot. Sticking to what made the cartoons work might have been a good idea, but what do I know?
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BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Notturno • Moxie • Justine
The Truffle Hunters
White Colour Black
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More grown-up films this week included the legal drama
Foster Boy, a rather formulaic film with Matthew Modine based on a powerful true story; the bonkers French mystery
Keep an Eye Out, a police pastiche with a hilariously black sense of humour; the true-life disaster epic
Fukushima 50, chronicling Japan's near catastrophe in the wake of the 2011 earthquake/tsunami; and the artfully involving odyssey
White Colour Black, in which a British photographer explores his roots in Senegal. There was also this virtual screening as part of the London Indian Film Festival...
Evening Shadows
dir Sridhar Rangayan; scr Saagar Gupta, Sridhar Rangayan; with Mona Ambegaonkar, Devansh Doshi, Ananth Mahadevan, Arpit Chaudhary, Sushant Divgikar 19/India 1h42 ****The standard coming-out story is given a nice spin in this warm-hearted Indian drama, which centres on a mother-son relationship. It's a strong depiction of how a conservative culture piles expectations on young people and accepts endemic sexism and homophobia. Filmmaker Sridhar Rangayan carefully reveals compassion under the cruelly bigoted surfaces, creating a vivid portrait of the enormous issues that face women and queer young people in communities that are ruled by hatred.
After four years away, Kartik (Doshi) returns home for a family event, then is surprised by his harshly controlling father Damodar (Mahadevan) with a prospective bride and more criticism about his career as a photographer. No wonder he chooses to live in Mumbai and keeps his boyfriend Aman (Chaudhary) a secret. When he comes out to his loving mother Vasudha (Ambegaonkar), she struggles with what to do with this information in such a close-minded corner of India and with such a dogmatic husband.
The actors are terrific even if the characters are a bit schematic: Kartik is relentlessly smiley, while Damodar shouts angrily at everyone and rails against news stories of the Supreme Court's imminent ruling on whether homosexuality should remain criminalised (under a law brought in by British colonialists). In the middle, Ambegaonkar shines as a woman working through her feelings. The coming-out sequence is beautifully played with honest big emotions. So even if the film sometimes feels rather melodramatic, it touches on some real nerves and grapples with darker, often unmentioned issues in society. And it leads to a staggeringly strong confrontation.
LONDON INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL • 28.Feb.21
Coming up this next week, I have the British immigrant romance
The Drifters, the dark American romance
Luz, the Australian drama
Sequin in a Blue Room and the German fantasy
Undine.
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