LFF 9: No sudden movements

The 60th London Film Festival heads into its final day with a flurry of starry red carpets, interview events and rather a lot of challenging movies (that's Dog Eat Dog above). The festival awards were handed out tonight to films I was unable to see, simply because of the sheer number of movies showing (it's been impossible to see about a third of my want-to-see list). Certain Women took the competition award, Julia Ducournau won the Sutherland Award (first feature) for her film Raw, the Grierson Award (documentary) went to Starless Dreams, and Steve McQueen was awarded the BFI Fellowship. Some highlights from Saturday...

Dog Eat Dog
dir Paul Schrader; with Nicolas Cage, Willem Dafoe 16/US ***
Paul Schrader goes all John Waters on us with this super-trashy crime comedy populated by a bunch of trigger-happy knuckleheads. It's violent and utterly absurd, and yet every scene is quietly saying something important about America's badly dysfunctional justice system. Still, the message isn't particularly easy to hear over the gunfire.

Snowden
dir Oliver Stone; with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley 16/US ****
Oliver Stone tackles another iconic figure in this urgent, robust biopic, which skilfully maintains an even keel while digging into a touchy political subject. Was Edward Snowden a patriot or a traitor? That's the question that haunts every frame of this film, and Stone does his best to let the audience make up its own mind.

Staying Vertical [Rester Vertical]
dir-scr Alain Guiraudie; with Damien Bonnard, India Hair 16/Fr ***.
Bold and full-on, this parable from Alain Giraudie has a wilfully absurd story that gets increasingly symbolic as it goes along. This is a provocative exploration of the creative process, likening it to giving birth and nurturing a particularly fussy infant while threatened from various sides. And it's underscored with a jaded sense of humour that keeps things lively, plus a central character who is oddly sympathetic.

La Noche 
dir-scr Edgardo Castro; with Edgardo Castro, Dolores Guadalupe Olivares  16/Arg ***.
An experimental drama set on the dark side of Buenos Aires, Edgardo Castro's debut film is audacious and challenging in just about every way. But while the lack of a proper narrative structure will leave many viewers lost, there's a raw honesty to the movie that carries an unexpected emotional punch. And he also has some important things to say about a generation of people whose lives have been derailed by a new economic and political reality.

And another film I saw in Venice that's part of the LFF programme is Emir Kusturica's nutty Bosnian War comedy-drama On the Milky Road, costarring Monica Bellucci.

Venezia 73: Far from home on day 9

The 73rd Venice Film Festival is entering its final days, so talk is turning to who will scoop up the awards? Will it be an old favourite filmmaker or a rising star? Will a known name like Timothy Spall or Natalie Portman take an acting prize over someone unknown and devastating? Everyone has an opinion. And the first flurry of jury prizes will be handed out tonight, while the rest come tomorrow. Here's what I've seen in the last day or two (that's Charo Santos above)...

The Woman Who Left [Ang Babaeng Humayo]
dir-scr Lav Diaz; with Charo Santos, John Lloyd Cruz 16/Ph ****.
At nearly four hours long, you'd think this Filipino epic would try the patience. But you'd be wrong. This is a riveting odyssey that tells a straightforward story of revenge and redemption with strong echoes of life anywhere on earth. It may feel a bit like binge-watching an entire miniseries, but Lav Diaz's filmmaking is worth experiencing on a big screen, as he shoots in a style that's deceptively rough and old-fashioned, but is packed with skill, wit and some big surprises.

Planetarium
dir Rebecca Zlotowski; with Natalie Portman, Lily-Rose Depp 16/Fr **
A baffling story set just before WWII broke out, this lavishly produced film looks great, and has a lovely central performance by Natalie Portman. Alas, the plot simply never comes into focus, veering all over the place, complicated by flashbacks, framing scenes, dreams and visions, plus a film-within-a-film motif. but none of this resolves itself into anything terribly coherent.

On the Milky Road
dir-scr Emir Kusturica; with Monica Bellucci, Emir Kusturica 16/Ser ***
Veteran Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica is back with another lively, cacophonous romp through his nation's history, this time centring on the 1990s war. The film's first half is a joyous depiction of the experiences of a rather wacky group of characters, including several animals. Then the film takes a hard swerve into violence and fantasy that may gel for Serbian viewers, but leaves everyone else in the dark.

These Days [Questi giorni]
dir Giuseppe Piccioni; with Maria Roveran, Marta Gastini 16/It **
It's not easy to work out what this Italian comedy-drama is all about. It's a road movie that neglects to show us the journey, following a group of lively characters who never do or say anything amusing. Romances are thin and unfocussed, and the plot itself is only a hint. There are some intriguing ideas swirling around, but over two long hours filmmaker Giuseppe Piccioni never quite finds anything to make the movie either meaningful or entertaining.

Only a few films to go now, including Denzel Washington in The Magnificent Seven, Mathieu Amalric in Never Ever and the Aussie drama Boys in the Trees.