LFF: Take a break

I feel like I hit a wall today at the 65th BFI London Film Festival, as my wall-to-wall schedule finally overwhelmed me. So I'll be skipping a couple of movies tomorrow just to regain my equilibrium. It's difficult to miss films at the festival, as I'm already only seeing about a third of the movies I really want to see. But something had to give, and I'll be slowing things down a bit over the final four days just so I survive until the end! Here are some more highlights...

The Lost Daughter
dir-scr Maggie Gyllenhaal; with Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson 21/Gr ***.
As an exploration of motherhood, this film has a remarkable complexity that sets it apart, especially since it centres around yet another mesmerising performance from Olivia Colman. Writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal takes an internalised approach that's engaging even it if sometimes feels meandering and indulgent. It also taps into sharply resonant themes using a range of interconnected mothers, fathers, daughters, sons and lovers. And it finds truth in contradictions.

A Hero
dir-scr Asghar Farhadi; with Amir Jadidi, Sahar Goldust 21/Irn ****
Iranian master Asghar Farhadi continues to take a nuanced approach toward morality with this striking drama about justice. It's a hugely involving story that quickly gets under the skin, then takes a series of twists and turns that challenge perceptions of the characters and situations. In his usual earthy, unflashy style, Farhadi makes bold comments about how difficult it is to do the right thing in an unfair society.

Luzzu
dir-scr Alex Camilleri; with Jesmark Scicluna, Michela Farrugia 21/Mlt ****
The title of this Maltese film is a type of traditional fishing boat locals use to maintain traditions. Writer-director Alex Camilleri creates a documentary-style realism that's instantly involving, following earthy, likeable people through everyday highs and lows. This is captured with a sharp eye by cinematographer Leo Lefevre, both in the sun-drenched seaside scenes and some colourful nighttime sequences. And the complex narrative takes a series of unpredictable turns... FULL REVIEW >

Natural Light
dir-scr Denes Nagy; with Ferenc Szabo, Laszlo Bajko 21/Hun ***.
With a documentary approach to realism and minimal dialog, this gritty World War II drama relies on the moral dilemmas faced by a central character who gives little away to the audience. Writer-director Denes Nagy creates beautiful imagery in a cold, muddy place while exploring complexities of wartime interaction. So its slow pace is strikingly involving, although the icy approach to emotion leaves it more academic than moving... FULL REVIEW >

Full reviews of festival films will be published as possible and linked at Shadows' LFF HOMEPAGE 
For full information, visit BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 

 

Critical Week: Teacher's pet

This week's line-up of press screenings was refreshingly female-oriented, offering a respite from the usual masculine bravado that's trumpeted on the big screen. Maggie Gyllenhaal is terrific in the understated drama The Kindergarten Teacher, which is remarkably sympathetic for how creepy the story turns. Brie Larson storms the superhero genre in Captain Marvel, an unusually engaging character-based action thriller with a cool 1990s vibe. Keira Knightley is at the centre of The Aftermath, a post-war romantic melodrama that's finely shot and acted but let down by a drippy script. And the bracingly original Icelandic comedy-thriller Woman at War focusses on a mother-to-be trying to protect the planet from abuse.

The rest of the week's movies were just as eclectic. The futuristic comedy-drama 2050 is witty and stylish as it explores falling in love with sexbots. Set in a foreboding forest, Devil's Path is a creepy thriller following two men who seem to be hiding secrets. An inventively intense drama from Portugal, Sunburn features four friends on holiday struggling to deal with repressed 10-year-old emotions. Peccadillo's short film collection No Ordinary Boy: Boys on Film 19 is another set of skilfully made mini-dramas exploring, this time, a darker angle on sexuality. And on my flight back to London I revisited the 1976 version of A Star Is Born, starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. It's a far more female-oriented version of this story than last year's hit remake, which makes it even more strongly involving and ultimately much more moving. I'm not sure I'd seen it since watching it as a young teen on its original release (I loved it back then too).

Screenings this coming week include Julia Roberts in Ben Is Back, Jessie Buckley in Wild Rose, Paolo Sorrentino's Loro, the black comedy Bruce!!!, the caveman thriller Iceman, and two documentaries: Last Breath, about a stranded deep-sea diver, and Silvana, about the Swedish hip-hop artist.

Critical Week: A song for Frank

London critics got a chance to catch up with this year's Sundance sensation, Lenny Abrahamson's Frank, starring Michael Fassbender wearing a giant papier-mache head. Yes, it's as offbeat and arty as it sounds, but also surprisingly warm and endearing, with terrific performances from Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Scoot McNairy. The other big movie was Hossein Amini's subtly involving and very twisty thriller  The Two Faces of January, starring Viggo Mortensen, Kristin Dunst and Oscar Isaac, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel.

Only slightly further afield, C.O.G. is a dark, introspective drama starring Looking's Jonathan Goff as a guy trying to run from his own shadow. Khumba is an engaging, colourfully animated South African feature, with a somewhat compromised plot about a geeky zebra. Cheap Thrills is an escalating exercise in finding the audience's breaking point - a very clever, hard-to-watch black comedy. Awful Nice is an awkwardly written comedy with some telling observations. And The Punk Singer is a lively, insightful doc about feminist punk, centring on the iconic Kathleen Hanna.

The big films screening this coming week are the Marvel sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the TV show reunion Veronica Mars and the black comedy A Long Way Down. There are two Irish films - Brendan Gleeson in Calvary and Andrew Scott in The Stag; the Indonesian action-sequel The Raid 2; Chiwetel Ejiofor in Half of a Yellow Sun; the black comedy How to Be a Man; the animated adventure Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return; and something called Patema Inverted.

Critical Week: Meryl's sex tips

UK critics were screened quite a sequence of big name movies over the past week (comments are embargoed on most of them), including Meryl Streep's post-Oscar role in Hope Springs, about a middle aged couple (she's married to Tommy Lee Jones) trying to put the zing back in their wedding. It's nice to see Hollywood dealing with the sexuality of characters who are over 50 for a change. Also on the sex theme, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy star in Hysteria, a livelier, sillier comedy about the development of the vibrator in Victorian England. And a much more serious romance was Now Is Good, with Jeremy Irvine and Dakota Fanning.

Action-wise, we were finally screened Chris Nolan's trilogy closer The Dark Knight Returns, an epic novel of a movie that takes awhile to sink in. It's certainly not a fluffy, fun summer blockbuster! But it's an amazing film that will no doubt dominate box offices for months to come. We also caught up with another Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie, Premium Rush, in which he plays a bike messenger caught up in a whizzy series of action set pieces. More independently, I saw the micro-budget British ensemble comedy Turbulence, a charming film about struggling musicians trying to save their local pub. And I caught the small, uneven American drama La Mission, starring Benjamin Bratt as a macho homophobe who simply can't cope with his son's sexuality.

This coming week, we'll be seeing the Sundance winner Beasts of the Southern Wild, the British brotherly WWI drama Private Peaceful,the ghostly British horror When the Lights Went Out, the Jurassic Park-alike The Dinosaur Project, and the cooking doc El Bulli: Cooking in Progress. And of course it's only 10 days until the Olympics!