Raindance: Hang on tight

As usual with film festivals, I came to the end of the 33rd Raindance with a backlog of movies to watch and write about. But here's my post from the festival, which wrapped up last night with a screening of The Academy followed by a party - neither of which I was invited to, but that was fine. I needed the rest. I managed to catch 12 films at this year's Raindance, and the quality was uniformly strong. Here are the final four...

The Lonely Musketeer
dir-scr Nicolai Schumann; with Edward Hogg, Richard Glover 24/UK ***.
Featuring a single person in a small room, this experimental drama is shot in black and white and edited with restless energy that keeps the pace moving. Writer-director Nicolai Schumann relies heavily on the exceptional skills of audacious actor Edward Hogg to bring the surreal set-up to vivid life, creating a riveting one-man show. As the narrative unpicks the mystery, the film becomes increasingly murky and darkly disturbing.

Breakwater
dir-scr Max Morgan; with Daniel McNamee, Shaun Paul McGrath 25/UK ***
From the start, this British drama evokes a tone that hints at intrigue with tiny glances and brief cutaways. Writer-director Max Morgan uses eye-catching widescreen cinematography to create a strong sense of the settings and characters. Although these people speak in hesitant fragments, as if they're always hiding something. So while everything seems to move at a maddeningly underpowered pace the subtle performances bring out deeper feelings.

Beam Me Up Sulu
dir Timour Gregory, Sasha Schneider; with Stan Woo, George Takei 25/US ***.
Briskly traces the production of a Star Trek fan movie, this scrappy documentary uses terrific behind-the-scenes footage and extensive clips and interviews, plus some witty animation. Warm-hearted and engaging, it's a lovely depiction of one man's passion alongside remarkable explorations of US cultural history. Yes, the film goes down several sideroads, not all of them relevant. But everything feeds into a strongly entertaining portrait of a dedicated fanbase.

The Dark Fantastic
dir-scr Lg White; with Simon Boswell, Alejandro Jodorowsky 25/UK ****
Tracing the career of British film composer Simon Boswell, this punchy documentary deploys a flurry of split-screen and overlapping imagery to mix clips and interviews alongside a thunderous rock-n-roll sound mix. Filmmaker Lg White's whizzy editing style may play colourfully with images and text, but the focus remains tightly on the music. It's a sharply well-made movie that beautifully depicts the career of an inventive and prolific artist.

Full reviews of festival films will be linked here in due course: SHADOWS @ RAINDANCE >

Critical Week: I'm kinda busy

It was a relatively slow week for film screenings - and a short one after the Easter Monday holiday. Although I did have a couple of stage productions to cover, which is always a nice switch-up from being in a cinema. As for the films, there were two thoroughly unimpressive American independent productions. The starriest was Unplugging, with Eva Longoria and Matt Walsh (plus Lea Thompson and Keith David in scene-stealing roles). It's a corny romcom that hinges on technology addiction. Equally undercooked was the existential comedy I, Challenger, starring James Duval as a stoner trying to improve his luck with an absurd stunt. Neither film is very good, but they kill the time amiably enough.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Playground • Petite Maman
Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Hit the Road • The Northman
PERHAPS AVOID:
Unplugging • I, Challenger
ALL REVIEWS >

Much better, and far more challenging, is Gaspar Noe's inventive drama Vortex, which follows an elderly couple (Dario Argento and Francoise Lebrun) as they grapple with ageing, mortality and memory. And Kota Yoshida's unhinged Japanese triptych Sexual Drive is packed with warped humour and clever insight into the nature of attraction and desire. Finally, I had Upon Her Lips: Butterflies, a collection of five short films looking at female identity from intriguing angles.

Coming up this next week, we have the entire cast back on the big screen for Downton Abbey: A New Era, Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once, the mystery thriller Escape the Field, the French-Moroccan drama Casablanca Beats, the Nick Cave/Warren Ellis documentary This Much I Know to Be True and a screening of the restored 1959 Robert Bresson classic Pickpocket.