LLGFF 1: Simply Divine

The British Film Institute's 27th London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival kicked off Thursday night with the international premiere of Jeffrey Schwarz's documentary I Am Divine, celebrating the unforgettable star of Pink Flamingoes and Hairspray. Jeffrey was on hand to introduce the film and answer questions afterwards at BFI Southbank, then mix with the opening night crowd at the big party on HMS President, just down the river. The festival is one of the biggest in the UK, and the next 10 days promise a wide range of fascinating films addressing issues of diversity, gender and sexuality from every conceivable angle. Here are a couple of highlights from the first few days, including revivals of two recent releases for appreciative audiences...

I Am Divine
dir Jeffrey Schwarz; with John Waters, Ricki Lake 13/US ****
This fast-paced documentary tells the story of an important artist who changed cinema, music and the theatre forever, but died far too early at age 42 in 1988. Divine (aka Harris Glenn Milstead) was a childhood friend of filmmaker John Waters in Baltimore, and together they took the underground cinema world by storm. As his career grew, Divine's work as an actor became increasingly sophisticated, with breakout roles in Alan Rudolph's Trouble in Mind before the crossover success of Hairspray. Schwarz documents this with energy and plenty of trashy style, interviewing family, friends and costars while also letting us see lots of fabulous film clips, glimpses behind the scenes, archive interviews and never-before-seen performance footage. It's an engaging, funny and surprisingly moving doc that never tries to be anything more than the celebration of an icon.

White Night
dir-scr Leesong Hee-il; with Won Tae-hee, Lee Li-kyung12/Kor ***.
With minimal dialog, this is a film about feelings, focussing intently on its central character's dark reckoning with his own vengeful soul. Wongyu (Won) is a flight attendant based in Germany who returns home to Seoul for the first time in two years to see his ex-boyfriend. But their meeting doesn't go as planned, leaving Won to stew alone over a violent homophobic attack they experienced years earlier. While he plots revenge against the thugs, who have just been released from prison, he has an anonymous sexual encounter with Taejun (Lee) that takes a series of surprising twists over one long night. The film is beautifully shot and edited to force us inside the minds of the characters. This makes the story strongly evocative as these two young men bristle against each other, bringing up sharp, painful memories as well as some tenderness and hope. It's the kind of film that isn't too obsessed with plotting, instead letting the story meander in ways that leave us thinking.

Laurence Anyways
dir Xavier Dolan; with Melvil Poupaud, Suzanne Clement 12/Can ***. 
With each feature, 23-year-old Dolan gets more ambitious. This third time out, the unusually gifted filmmaker pushes things just over the edge into self-parody, but still tells a powerfully provocative story with a strong emotional undercurrent... REVIEW >

Keep the Lights On
dir Ira Sachs; with Thure Lindhardt, Zachary Booth 12/US ****
This gorgeously shot and edited film is an incisive exploration of two people struggling to make a relationship work over nearly a decade. Its honest perspective makes it thoroughly involving, even if it turns dreary in the final act... REVIEW >

LFF 6: Beard vs beard

Today at the 56th BFI London Film Festival, the red carpet paved the way for filmmakers Ben Affleck (with Argo, above), Michael Winterbottom (Every Day) and Ben Lewin (The Sessions), who were accompanied by their cast members. Oddly, I read about these big gala events, but don't actually get to experience them myself, as I am sitting in press screenings all day, plus the occasional press conference when I have the time. In other words, for most journalists the LFF isn't very festive. But then we do have the films. Here are some more highlights...

Argo
dir Ben Affleck; with Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston 12/US ****
Based on an unbelievable true story, this entertaining thriller uses declassified documents to recount a news story from an angle never heard before. Both funny and thrillingly nerve-wracking, it also cements Affleck's status as an A-list director... REVIEW >

Keep the Lights On
dir Ira Sachs; with Thure Lindhardt, Zachary Booth 12/US ****
This gorgeously shot and edited film is an incisive exploration of two people struggling to make a relationship work over nearly a decade. Its honest perspective makes it thoroughly involving, even if it turns dreary in the final act... REVIEW >

The Sessions
dir Ben Lewin; with John Hawkes, Helen Hunt 12/US ****
Based on a true story, this quietly honest film manages to avoid sentimentality with startlingly earthy performances. And the straightforward filmmaking captures the inner life of the characters without becoming gimmicky... REVIEW >

Every Day
dir Michael Winterbottom; with Shirley Henderson, Jon Simm 12/UK ***
In the style of a fly-on-the-wall doc, this movie traces fictional events over a five-year period. And since it was actually shot over five years, it's a significant cinematic experiment. It's also moving story with very strong performances, although it's limited by the scale of the narrative as it follows a mother (Henderson) in Norfolk, coping with four precocious children on her own while her husband (Simm) serves a prison term. Over the years they learn to live without him, and enjoy being with him when they can. And that's about all there is to the film, which stirs in a few contrived events to liven things up. Without a more compelling plot, the movie is most notable for the fact that we watch the children grow up on screen in 94 minutes. Shot on grainy, hand-held video it looks like a TV doc, but Michael Nyman's surging score makes to feel more like a kitchen sink drama. It's a cool experiment, but it makes you wish more attention was paid to the story.

The Comedian
dir Tom Shkolnik; with Edward Hogg, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett 12/UK ***
This low-key improvised drama has a rather misleading title. Writer-director Shkolnik astutely explores the bleak aimlessness of his central character, drawing knowing performances from the cast. But it's so gloomy that it's difficult to connect emotionally... REVIEW >

EIFF 5: Flower power

The EIFF is a rare festival that embraces animated films - it's closing with Pixar's Brave this year - and the programmers have also managed to hold up the release of Dr Seuss' The Lorax in Britain so it can premiere here first. Meanwhile, rainy, grey weather in Edinburgh have sent audiences into cinemas, where they've had a chance to explore films that are far more interesting than the blockbusters showing everywhere else. And festival delegates are a bit tender after last night's high-spirited ceilidh, which was attended by jurors Elliott Gould and Jim Broadbent and featured haggis, fresh Lochfyne oysters, neeps and tatties, whisky and some hilarious moves on the dance floor by delegates struggling to remember the steps.

The Lorax
dir Chris Renaud; voices Danny DeVito, Ed Helms 12/UK **
Dr Seuss' eco-fable is transformed into a raucous adventure comedy in this colourful animated feature. And it's a little embarrassing really. Not only has the story been padded out with lame jokes and unnecessary side plots, but the film's pacing is all over the place, leaving both kids and their parents bored... FULL REVIEW

Unconditional
dir Bryn Higgins; with Christian Cooke, Harry McEntire 12/UK ****
With a break-out performance from rising star McEntire, this engaging but increasingly creepy British drama really gets under the skin as it explores issues of attraction and identity in some pretty challenging ways. In Newcastle, 17-year-old twins Kristen and Harry (Melanie Hill and McEntire) both fall for the charming fast-talker Liam (Cooke), and when Liam latches onto Owen, all three find themselves in a mind-bending situation. The characters are grappling with power, sexuality, gender and desire in startlingly complex ways that get under our skin. Some of the scripting is a bit pushy, and it kind of wallows in Owen's struggle to decide what he wants, but the naturalistic, internalised performances bring it to life, especially as events twist in unexpected directions.

Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal
dir Boris Rodriguez; with Thure Lindhardt, Dylan Smith 11/Can ***.
Only the black senses of humour of both Denmark and Canada could have produced a film like this one, which is so deranged that we feel a bit guilty about laughing at it. The plot is very silly: young, famed painter Lars (Lindhardt) moves to rural Canada to escape the pressure of artists' block. Working in a struggling art college, he's asked to take care of the gentle giant Eddie (Smith), whose nocturnal activities spark Lars' creative juices in increasingly grisly ways. Moral messiness aside, the film is gleefully deranged, never remotely trying to balance the characters with complexity of thought or feeling. But there are some nicely subtle touches about bullying and artistic snobbery. And even if it's ultimately rather slight, it's also hilariously grisly.

Black's Game
dir Oskar Thor Axelsson; with Thorvaldur David Kristjansson, Johannes Haukur Johannesson 11/Ice ***.
Owing rather a lot to Guy Ritchie's flashy, kinetic filmmaking style (specifically Snatch), this black comedy gradually shifts from goofy comedy to very dark drama as it progresses through a story of violence and drugs. At the centre is Stebbi (Kristjansson), a young guy in trouble with the law who is straightened out by his childhood pal Toti (Johannesson), who's now a drug dealer. So "straightened out" perhaps isn't the right term. Together they launch a massive drug import network to challenge the current mob boss, and things get very, very messy. Oddly, the film starts as a freewheeling romp, with Stebbi's ascent into the high life as a dream come true. Director Axelsson stages all of this with energy and style, holding our interest through sheer personality and keeping our sympathies with Stebbi even as things turn intensely nasty.