Critical Week: It wasn't me

It's been a momentous week in the UK, with a general election on Thursday that delivered on its expectations to completely upend the nation's government. On the 4th of July, no less. Meanwhile in the movies, Eddie Murphy returned for a fourth time for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, an overly retro sequel that feels like a movie we saw 40 years ago (we did). But Murphy is still great on-screen in this role. Also on Netflix, Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron reteamed for A Family Affair, which is as silly as it looks, and also an amusing guilty pleasure.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Kill • The Conversation
Orlando, My Political Biography
Unicorns • The Nature of Love
ALL REVIEWS >

I saw two horror creep-outs: Mia Goth is back for MaXXXine, the third film in Ti West's series about young women seeking fame, this time a pornstar going mainstream while yucky violence breaks out all around her. Also very yucky, Longlegs stars Nicolas Cage in perhaps his most bonkers role yet (which is saying a lot). It's a relentlessly unsettling freak-out. And I was also delightful stressed out revisiting one of the finest thrillers ever made, Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 gem The Conversation, followed by a terrific Q&A with legendary sound and film editor Walter Murch.

Three films use surrealism to address big themes: Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars in the eerie dark drama Tuesday, as a mother confronting death (in the form of a parrot) about her daughter's life. Ewan McGregor and Ellen Burstyn lead the offbeat and intense Mother Couch, about a woman who forces her adult children to grapple with her mortality. And Paul Raci is a guru teaching The Secret Art of Human Flight in an quirky comedy-drama that's bleakly emotive. And then there were father and son Stellan and Gustaf Skarsgard teaming up for the gloomy and haunting Scandinavian mystery What Remains, and fiercely inventive Chinese drama Black Dog, which deservedly won a couple of prizes at Cannes. I also attended Carlos Acosta's breathtaking stage production of Carmen at Sadler's Wells.

This coming week isn't looking quite as crazy as this one was. I'll be watching Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in Fly Me to the Moon, Sandra Huller in Sisi & I, Korean thriller Sleep, Iranian drama My Favourite Cake and the British animated adventure Kensuke's Kingdom. In live theatre, I'm attending Dorian: The Musical and the opening cabaret for Soho Theatre's Clown Festival.

Dance: Raging bull

Acosta Danza
Carlos Acosta’s Carmen
choreography Carlos Acosta • music Georges Bizet
with Laura Rodríguez, Alejandro Silva, Enrique Corrales, Carlos Acosta, Denzel Francis, Raúl Reinoso,
Zeleidy Crespo, Patricia Torres, Daniela Francia, Adria Díaz, Jennifer Suárez, Amisaday Naara, Frank Isaac,
Leandro Fernández, Brandy Martinez, Elizabeth Tablada,
Brian Ernesto, Chay Deivis, Liana Taly
sets and costumes Tim Hatley • lighting Peter Mumford
Sadler's Wells, London • 2-6.Jul.24 ★★★★★

Expanding on his one-act production, Carlos Acosta creates a full-length ballet based on Georges Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen, infusing the action with Cuban flavours to create a thoroughly mesmerising romantic thriller. Inventive and colourful, this is the story told with humour, intensity and big emotions. And it's also very, very sexy thanks to the talented young performers, Acosta's expressively physical choreography and Tim Hatley's terrific costumes.

After a prologue introduces a demonic bull (Acosta) who is pulling the strings and recounting the story, things kick off with a flurry of burlesque in a bar, as dancing soldiers strip down to their underpants, much to the delight of the women around them. Carmen (Laura Rodriguez) engages in a witty to and fro with officer Don José (Alejandro Silva), which escalates to passion after Carmen is arrested and put under José's watch. Her skills at seduction allow her to escape, and then her head is turned by handsome toreador Escamillo (Enrique Corrales), although she rejects his advances. Carmen is just playing with both José and Escamillo, but they clash over their infatuation with her.

Each element works together gorgeously to convey this narrative and the internal wranglings of the characters. The costumes are particularly vivid, catching colours and lights in striking ways that wash the stage in shades of red and black. With clever touches, the set is dominated by an enormous circle in which video projections create both earthy backdrops and otherworldly glimpses of what beyond. And Acosta's bull towers over everything.

The dancing itself is simply transcendent, performed to perfection by gifted dancers who infuse personality and passion into each movement. Soaring, spinning and striking spine-tingling poses, this multi-ethnic cast has real power, bringing each encounter to life with an earthy honesty that extends from fingers to toes. As a result, the intense internal battles going on within each of the characters is clearly visible, expressed with a lyrical fluidity that rattles our bones.

Bizet's familiar music is given a Latin twist that adds a wonderful spark of additional energy. Delicate ballet numbers morph into brutal fights, as a series of solos and duets allow the dancers to deploy their physical strength in ways that reveal deep yearnings and intentions. This is hugely involving theatre, haunting and moving as the feisty Carmen and her besotted men circle around each other, unaware that there's a menacing force beyond them controlling their destiny. Essential.

For more info, SADLER'S WELLS >

photos by Johan Persson & Cristina Lanandez • 2.Jul.24

Critical Week: Fly away

I'm getting ready to get on a plane today and head off to Los Angeles. With this timing, it probably sounds like a glamorous Oscar trip, but actually I'll be there to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday! And as a side benefit I get to watch the Oscars during the day time, instead of staying up all night in London.

This week's screenings included Willem Dafoe's Venice Best Actor winning role as Vincent van Gogh in At Eternity's Gate, Julian Schnabel's beautifully artful biopic. The awesome Florence Pugh holds her own opposite Dwayne Johnson (grandstanding as himself) in the quirky British comedy-drama Fighting With My Family, based on the true story of a young woman from Norwich who became a WWE champion. Rebel Wilson has a lot of fun in the romcom pastiche Isn't It Romantic, although the lazy script almost scuppers her chances. Still, it's mindless good fun.

What They Had is a dark drama with a powerhouse cast including Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Robert Forster and Blythe Danner. It's a bit heavy, but also moving as it explores a family dealing with ageing parents and Alzheimer's. Under the Silver Lake stars Andrew Garfield as a slacker in Los Angeles who gets caught up in an absolutely bonkers mystery. And the Carlos Acosta biopic Yuli is a sweepingly artful exploration of Cuba an dance, with Acosta playing himself in the framing scenes.

Sunday night's Bafta ceremony (or to give it its proper title: The British Academy Film Awards) continues to ripple, with people wondering how it might impact Oscar in just over a week's time. The wild cards now are Rami Malek and Mahershala Ali, clearly loved by their peers as they upset the favourites in their categories (Christian Bale and Richard E Grant). The other question is whether Roma can walk off with the big title, or if they'll go for something more mainstream. No one seems to have a clue, which makes this year's show more interesting than usual.

I have no idea if I'll see any films while I'm away. I have a few streaming links I need to watch, but if past trips are anything to go by, those are doubtful (if I could stream on the plane it would be perfect!). There's nothing in American cinemas I particularly want to catch up with - perhaps Miss Bala or What Men Want.

EIFF 7: Into the woods

Monday was a busy day here at the EIFF, with four movies plus interviews with two sets of actors. First I spoke with rising stars Cristian Cooke and Harry McEntire about their film Unconditional, and then I interviewed Eva Birthistle, Carlos Acosta and Christopher Simpson (plus director John Roberts and producer Jonathan Rae) from Day of the Flowers. The latter had its world premiere here last night, followed by a Cuban-themed party at The Caves. Meanwhile it's yet another sunny day in Edinburgh - I've only used my umbrella once in the past week...

Home for the Weekend
dir Hans-Christian Schmid; with Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch 12/Ger ****
When a family reunites for a weekend, everyone is hiding a secret, trying to protect their mentally unstable mother (Harfouch), who is feeling great and has decided to go off her meds. And for her husband, their two sons and their partners, there will be serious ground-shifting consequences. Schmid directs this with an easy touch that never feels too heavy even though the themes are rather intense. Each character is going through some sort of major transition, and it doesn't go as expected for any of them. Along the way, the cast's fine performances and Schmid's stylish direction reveal all kinds of details, most notably in the interaction between these family members. They fully recognise each others' flaws, but love each other anyway.

Life Just Is
dir Alex Barrett; with Paul Nicholls, Jayne Wisener 12/UK **.
Filmmaker Barrett ambitiously tackles some enormous themes in this very low-budget debut. We may be distracted by the simplistic sets and inexperienced writing and acting, but if we pay attention, there's plenty going on to engage us as a group of five London friends in their mid-20s grapple with their mortality, faith and purpose. Each is a specific type of person, which makes their close friendship a little unlikely, but the core question is a strong one: when do we have to stop looking to the future for our identity and realise that we are already who we are? Yes, this means that the film is packed with conversation, often extremely awkward and strained. And while Barrett may shy away from gritty reality and the potent force of sexuality, he at least gets us thing about things in ways few films ever do.

Sun Don't Shine
dir Amy Seimetz; with Kate Lynn Shell, Kentucker Audley 12/US ***
With a fiercely inventive experimental style, Seimetz tells a story of two young lovers on the run across sun-bleached Florida. Soaked in sweat, this isn't the likeliest couple: Crystal (Shell) is a purely emotional woman who reacts wildly to everything that happens, while Leo (Audley) is rational to the point that we wonder if he really cares for her at all. The reason for their frantic road trip are a bit murky, but there's a gun in the glovebox and a body in the boot, and Crystal is certainly not happy that they're visiting Leo's ex along the way to get an alibi. Seimetz shoots this in grainy, blinding light, with sparse, softly spoken dialog and vivid physicality that lets the actors create memorable archetypes who clash so regularly that we know this can't possibly end well for them. But their odyssey is compelling to watch, especially since it's probably impossible not to take sides in every argument.

Rose
dir Wojclech Smarzowski; with Marcin Dorocinski, Agata Kulesza 11/Pol ****
There's a beautifully affirming story lurking inside this brutal, grim movie set at the end of WWII, when the fate of Poland's German-speaking Masurian region hung in the balance. At the centre is ex-soldier Tadek (Dorocinski), who decides to stay and help shattered Masurian widow Rose (Kulesza) on her pillaged farm. After the brutality of the Soviet army, Rose is now being persecuted by the Poles, and Tadek is drawn into her struggle, which is often hideously violent. Shot in near monochrome, the film looks almost as bleak as Rose's life, which seems to go from one awful event to something even worse, engulfing Tadek and her neighbours. It's pretty relentless, and the glimmers of happiness along the way only make the next horror that much worse. But at its centre this finely crafted and acted film has a real humanity to it.

EIFF 6: Watching for sharks

The Edinburgh Film Festival is usually drenched in rain, although this year there have only been a couple of proper showers. But the movies have been packed with seaside stories, perhaps because in these austere times the ocean is a rather spectacular, and cheap, visual effect! Or maybe it reflects the spectre of global warming, which has also been mentioned on-screen in festival films this year, often in a joking way. Anyway, two of the films below are set on islands (the photo above is from the Chilean drama The Lifeguard, which I'm seeing later in the week).

Day of the Flowers
dir John Roberts; with Eva Birthistle, Carlos Acosta 12/UK ***
A solid cast and picturesque locations make this film thoroughly watchable even as the screenplay grows contrived. It follows two estranged sisters (Birthistle and Charity Wakefield) who travel from Glasgow to Cuba with a friend (the superb Bryan Dick) to deliver their father's ashes to the spot where their parents fell in love. But if course nothing goes to plan as they travel across country, having a variety of encounters along the way. Intriguingly, the two sisters' disparate personalities provide the film with a some clever twists. And even if the two Cuban men they encounter (Acosta and Christopher Simpson) simplistically encapsulate all of the culture's good and bad elements, they're very well played and the actors both have strong chemistry with Birthistle. In the end, the plot resolutely refuses to hold water, but there's enough resonance to keep us emotionally involved.

Grabbers
dir Jon Wright; with Richard Coyle, Ruth Bradley 12/UK ****
A riotous collision of a British rural comedy and a freaky monster movie, this hilariously inventive Northern Irish film isn't perhaps what you expect to see at a festival, but it's a welcome respite from indie/foreign navel-gazing gloom. In a nutshell, alien squid-like beasts are terrorising a tiny Irish island community, where two cops (Coyle and Bradley) team up with a scientist (Russell Tovey) and a few lively locals to fend them off. The film gleefully plays with the genres, populating the film with riotously funny characters and situations that keep us both laughing and cringing from the screen. Indeed, some of this is startlingly scary, even though director Wright never stops poking fun at the situation. It's also cleverly played by actors who only rarely drift into goofy slapstick mode, against a seriously stunning landscape and tweaked with some inventive effects. But best of all is the way the film continues to develop the relationships right into the chaotic final act.

One 2 One
dir Mania Akbari; with Neda Amiri, Payam Dehkordi 11/Irn ***
This mannered experimental film from Iran explores the collapse of a relationship through a variety of isolated scenes, each shot in long takes that are centred closely on the faces of the people involved. These encounters take place in waiting areas, prison meeting rooms, on public transport, in a psychologist's office and at a fortune teller, and through conversations and voiceovers we begin to piece together the story of a love triangle in a society in which a woman's beauty is her most valuable asset, but men play all the cards. The harrowing events that drive the plot are all off-screen, but we relive them in the faces of the actors and the shifting layers of trust between the characters. It's pretty powerful stuff, even if the filmmaking style keeps us at arm's length, unable to emotionally identify with the characters. But it's an ambitious way to tell a story from a variety of perspectives, letting the nuances of modern-day Iranian culture come out in ways that are provocative and a bit chilling.