Critical Week: Under pressure

It's been another lightish week film-wise, and we have three big weekends up ahead. First is the May Day holiday, followed by the three-day Coronation weekend, and then there's Eurovision, which Liverpool is hosting on Ukraine's behalf. Meanwhile, I've been watching movies and writing about them this week. Filmmaker Ari Aster is back with Beau Is Afraid, an unhinged three-hour odyssey starring an astonishing Joaquin Phoenix. It's ambitious, indulgent and fairly impenetrable, and its packed with moments of genius. Big George Foreman is a by-the-numbers biopic about the great boxer. Its sanitised, anecdotal, relentlessly inspiring approach is frustrating, but Foreman's story is riveting. And Khris Davis is solid in the demanding role.

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And then there's Last Sentinel, a nicely contained thriller set in 2063 on an isolated outpost where Kate Bosworth and three men grapple with paranoia and other dangers. It's engaging but a bit thin. From Greece, the drama Broadway looks great, and has a fascinating premise that involves quirky outcasts surviving with a performance art/crime scam. But it's superficial and aimless. For contrast, there was dancer-choreographer Siobhan Davies' mesmerising autobiographical film Transparent, which screened at the Lillian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Wells, followed by a terrific Q&A with Davies. Also at Sadler's Wells, I covered this spring's stunning performance by the exceptionally talented Nederlands Dans Theater.

This next week, aside from enjoying some downtime over the three-day weekend, I'll be watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, Jim Parsons in Spoiler Alert, the small-town comedy-drama 5-25-77, Irish drama Lakelands, French drama Mother and Son and Tunisian drama Harka. And there's also the stage show Supernova at the Clapham Omnibus (review here soon).

Dance & Film: Juxtapositions

Transparent
dir-scr Siobhan Davies
in collaboration with David Hinton, Hugo Glendinning
with Siobhan Davies, Andrea Buckley, Lindsey Butcher, Charlie Morrissey, Annie Pui Ling Lok, Paul Douglas, Linda Gibbs, Jeremy James, Lucy Suggate, Marina Collard, Matthias Sperling, Laurent Cavanna
prd Pinky Ghundale
22/UK 35m 
Lillian Baylis Studio, Sadler's Wells, London • 20.Apr.23

In this biographical film, Siobhan Davies examines her life over the past 50 years as a dancer, choreographer and artist. Her approach is insightful and observant, so rather than tracing details, she explores thoughts and feelings. What emerges is a revelatory look at the experience of a dancer that will resonate for anyone who has ever considered what it means to be human.

The film unfolds in three chapters. Animal Origins uses still images to consider raw physicality, especially where Davies sees similarities between herself and other creatures. A Lived In Circle brings movement into the picture, as four dancers walk in concentric rings that echo throughout nature and art. And Transparency reflects the way Davies prefers to work using acetate and tissue paper, so she can overlay images with each other to find commonality, which helps her further understand her own connection with people, places and history.

"Dance involves movement and constant change," Davies says, "and the see-through nature of my note-taking helped me to experience ideas and images as less fixed in time or place but rather on the way to becoming something else or emerging out of what came before."

The film is a kaleidoscopic collection of images intriguingly juxtaposed with each other. It features artwork, antiquities, sketches and photographs, including a series of striking pictures of the young Davies in a dance studio. She also appears in new video sequences as she discusses how all of this has fed into her career as a dancer and choreographer. And the ideas lead to observations about her young granddaughter's pure relationship with her body, a feeling Davies only recalls experiencing once as an adult.

Davies is encouraging the viewer to explore what it means to move, to be part of the world and to create shapes and possibilities with our bodies every day. It's a mesmerising collision of images, words, music and sound. And it leaves us looking at our own movements through a new perspective.

For details, visit TRANSPARENT FILM >

photos by Siobhan Davies Studios • 20.Apr.23

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