Sight and Sound - April 2020 PDF

APRIL 2020 VOLUME 30 ISSUE 4
THE
T HE INTERNATIONAL
INTER
TERNATIONAL
TER NATION L F
FILM
ILM
MMMAGAZ
MAGAZINE
AZINE
AZINE
E
THE PASSIONS OF
TILDA
SWINTON
Fantasy, identity
& ‘the wild wide screen’
PLUS
RICHARD STANLEY
SUNDANCE 2020
ROGER DEAKINS
CARY FUKUNAGA
£5.95
Contents
April 2020
FEATURES
34
Blood lands
Václav Marhoul’s The Painted Bird, a
searing portrait of a boy trapped in the
violence of Eastern Europe during World
War II, joins a brave lineage of films
exploring the experience of conflict
in the region, from Ivan’s Childhood to
Come and See. By Michael Brooke
40
Stepping out
Levan Akin’s tender love story And
Then We Danced offers an intoxicating
celebration of Georgian culture, presenting
a defiant challenge to homophobia in the
country. Alex Davidson traces its place
within a small but significant tradition
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATERINA JEBB

of queer films from the former USSR
44
Space invader 24
Almost 25 years after his career hit the
skids, cult director Richard Stanley is
back with Color out of Space, a sci-fi horror Tilda Swinton: Smoke and mirrors and make-believe
tale based on a story by horror writer
H.P. Lovecraft. He talks to Michael Blyth
Tilda Swinton’s remarkable screen presence has been
PLUS Roger Luckhurst explores how the engine behind a dizzying variety of films, from
Lovecraft’s tales of metaphysical dread early collaborations with Derek Jarman to new work by
have found increasing favour with
a new generation of filmmakers Pedro Almodóvar and Wes Anderson. She talks to Isabel
Stevens about Buster Keaton, sharing Tarkovsky’s dreams and
50
Remain in light: Roger why the greatest performance in cinema history is by a donkey
Deakins in ten shots
Roger Deakins’s Oscar wins have only REGULARS
confirmed what people already knew: 5 Editorial Lady Stardust 16 The Numbers: Charles Gant looks
that the British cinematographer is one beyond the awards films and discovers
of the greatest artists of light and shade Rushes a thriving anime scene in the UK
in movie history. Joshua Rothkopf picks 7 Ela Bittencourt, Anjana Janardhan
ten shots that show off his genius and Joshua Rothkopf report on Wide Angle
the highlights from Sundance 19 Preview: Erika Balsom on how Frank
10 Interview: James Bell talks to Beauvais’s Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream
Cary Fukunaga about updating uses images torn from a mammoth film
Bond for the Brexit era binge to evoke our present maladies
12 Campaign: Ben Walters heads to 20 Kim Newman celebrates the beyond
Dungeness to report on the appeal to terrible but strangely brilliant films
save Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage of trash auteur Andy Milligan
13 Soundtracks: Leonie Cooper on
Gwenno’s new live score for Bait 95 Letters
14 Dream Palaces: Iranian director Marjane
Satrapi on the cinema that inducted Endings
her into French cinephile culture 96 Ben Walters watches a new self
15 Interview: Kieron Corless talks to quietly being born at the end of John
34 Todd Haynes about Dark Waters and Cameron Mitchell’s delightfully
his love of whistleblower films transgressive Hedwig and the Angry Inch
April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 1
OFFICIAL SELECTION
BFI LONDON
Locarno Film Festival 2019 FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2019
Winner: Best Film TORONTO INTERNATIONAL
FILM FESTIVAL 2019
Winner: Best Actress
“We were all stunned, overwhelmed, by h,OOKSANDFEELS

THISlLMAMAJORlLMINTHEHISTORYOF like nothing else
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Second Run presents
Vitalina Varela !FILMBYPEDRO COSTA
IN UK CINEMAS NOW
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Coming soon: Albert Serra’s LIBERTÉ, Gabriel Mascaro’s DIVINE LOVE

EDITORIAL
Editor-in-chief
Mike Williams
Editorial Mike Williams
Deputy editor
Kieron Corless
Features editor
James Bell
Web editor
Nick Bradshaw
Production editor
Isabel Stevens
LADY STARDUST
Chief sub-editor
Jamie McLeish
Sub-editors
Robert Hanks
Jane Lamacraft
Researchers
Mar Diestro-Dópido
Nicholas Kouhi
Credits supervisor Four years ago almost to the day as I write, pretty much
Patrick Fahy exactly a month after David Bowie’s death, Tilda Swinton
Credits associates
Kevin Lyons stood on stage at the 66th Berlinale and introduced him
James Piers Taylor
Design and art direction
in his most celebrated acting role, the alien Thomas
chrisbrawndesign.com Jerome Newton in Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 masterpiece The
Origination
Rhapsody
Man Who Fell to Earth. Describing herself as “a fanboy”
Printer and Bowie as “the leader of our tribe”, she tempered her
Walstead UK
grief with hope and celebration. “Look what he’s left us
BUSINESS with,” she said. “Acres and acres of sound and vision.”
Publishing coordinator
Brenda Fernandes
It’s not unusual to hear a child of the 1960s and 70s
Advertising consultant talk about an obsession with David Bowie; how his look,
Ronnie Hackston
T: 020 7957 8916
sound and sensibilities liberated some hitherto repressed
E: ronnie.hackston@bfi.org.uk understanding of their own self. GQ editor Dylan
Newsstand distribution Jones, born in the same year as Tilda Swinton, wrote
Seymour
T: 020 7429 4000 an entire book about the four minutes of Top of the Pops
E: [email protected] on Thursday, 6 July 1972 when Bowie played ‘Starman’
Bookshop distribution in the guise of Ziggy Stardust, which many of this
Central Books
T: 020 8525 8800 generation cite as a pivotal moment of their childhoods.
E: [email protected]
Jones writes: “When he appeared on Top of the Pops
Sight & Sound is a member of the that night he would help nudge a culture of adoration
Independent Press Standards
Organisation (which regulates the UK’s that would be incubated in housing estates, garden It’s not unusual to hear a child of the
magazine and newspaper industry).
We abide by the Editors’ Code of
Practice and are committed to
suburbs and bedsits all over the country. In short 1960s and 70s talk about an obsession
Ziggy Stardust caused a tectonic shift in pop culture,
upholding the highest standards of
journalism. If you think that we have
providing, in the words of Rolling Stone, ‘a model of
with David Bowie; how his look, sound
not met those standards and want to
make a complaint please contact mike.
williams@bfi.org.uk. If we are unable to
courage to millions who had never been embraced by and sensibilities liberated some hitherto
a popular culture before.’” This is the impact David
resolve your complaint, or if you would
like more information about IPSO or the
Editors’ Code, contact IPSO on 0300 Bowie had on Tilda Swinton. What makes it unusual
repressed understanding of their own self
123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk
is the connection that developed between them. Tilda Swinton evolved from Bowie fanboy to Bowie
Sight & Sound (ISSN 0037-4806)
is published monthly by British Film Unrelated but interesting nonetheless, four collaborator when she starred alongside him in his
Institute, 21 Stephen Street, London
W1T 1LN and distributed in the USA months before Bowie’s Top of the Pops appearance, 2013 video for ‘The Stars (Are out Tonight)’, directed
by UKP Worldwide, 3390 Rand Road,
South Plainfield, NJ 07080
The Godfather was released in the US. The following by Floria Sigismondi (best known for her underrated
Periodicals Postage Paid at South year it would win Best Picture at the 45th Academy 2010 film The Runaways, in which Dakota Fanning
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their own leader of the tribe, Francis Ford Coppola. album The Next Day, a less than subtle callback to his
Subscription office:
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Sight & Sound
Abacus Bowie’s relationship with Berlin ran deep, a more than a passing resemblance to her hero. Since
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London WC1B 5HA
connection that gave Tilda’s 2016 tribute added power Bowie’s death Tilda has repeatedly been rumoured to
and meaning. Bowie had met Iggy Pop in 1971 and be playing him in a biopic, but she’s always denied it.
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E: [email protected] produced The Stooges’ third album, Raw Power. The I bumped into David Bowie’s publicist, who I know
Annual subscription rates:
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band didn’t much like Bowie’s work on the record, and from a previous life, at an event the other night. We passed
15% discount for BFI members the collaboration would have been largely forgotten the usual pleasantries and talked about what we were
Copyright © BFI, 2020 were it not for the fact that it cemented Bowie and each working on right now. Telling him about this Tilda
The views and opinions expressed
in the pages of this magazine or on Iggy’s friendship, which would see them land in Swinton issue, his eyes sparkled and a fleeting memory
its website are those of the author(s)
and are not necessarily those of the
Berlin together in ’76 and spawn five of the most whistled between us. “Oh, Bowie loved her,” he said, and
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of this magazine may not be used
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Bowie found solace and anonymity in Berlin. coming full circle: the fanboy of the fanboy of the fanboy.
number 287780), registered at “For many years Berlin had appealed to me as a Imagine teenage Tilda, her unlistened-to copy
21 Stephen St, London, W1T 1LN
sort of sanctuary-like situation,” he said. “Berliners of Aladdin Sane tucked under her arm, the seeds of
just didn’t care. Well, not about an English rock her androgyny and otherworldliness beginning to
singer, anyway.” I get what he was trying to say – germinate, an awkwardness not yet overcome by
they weren’t intrusive. But they did care. They do confidence, not yet knowing that one day she could be
care. He’s one of their own, and will be forever. a hero too, and not just for one day. Enjoy the issue!

Catherine -XOLHΓH Ethan
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In Cinemas & On Curzon Home Cinema μ March

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NEWS AND VIEWS
Cuba, sí: Hubert Sauper explores the legacy of colonialism in his affectionate portrait of Cuba and its people, Epicentro
REALITIES,
By Ela Bittencourt – Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s stunning This
This year’s edition of the Sundance Film Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection in the Dramatic
Festival confirmed it as a hotbed for American Competition, and Hubert Sauper’s Epicentro in
VIRTUAL AND documentaries, while both fiction and
nonfiction films conveyed dread in an era of
the documentary programme. Set respectively
in Lesotho and Cuba, these films stood out
OTHERWISE global populism. From Jesse Moss and Amanda

McBaine’s excellent Boys State, to Elyse Steinberg,
Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres’s The Fight, Kim
for their narrative and visual richness.
It was disappointing to see ambitious art films
buried in ill-defined sections. Sky Hopinka’s
Sundance threw up a fine batch A. Snyder’s Us Kids, and Shalini Kantayya’s evocative małni – towards the ocean, towards the
of docs on the dismal state of the Coded Bias, the US Documentary Competition shore, in which his Ho-Chunk Native American
reflected alarm in a country where the far right friends contemplate their identity, and Miwa
world – but do we really need so is poised to throttle reproductive, immigration Matreyek’s ecological animation and pantomime
much virtual reality? Plus, overleaf, and voting rights, where gun manufacturers Infinitely Yours both played in the New Frontier
rule, and big tech perpetuates racist bias. Still section, alongside flawed films by renowned
we choose ten festival highlights others, such as Kirsten Johnson’s darkly comic international artists: Ai Weiwei’s Vivos and Francis
Dick Johnson Is Dead, which imagines her ailing Alÿs’s Sandlines. There was too much emphasis
father’s demise, and the Ross brothers’ ecstatic on Virtual Reality (experiences I had included
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, about a bar in Las exploring fungus and watching my breath
Vegas, showed the documentary form can be materialise as colourful dots). Experimental
fertile ground for ingenious auto-fictions. cinema was sorely missed. The challenge is
It was a strong year for female directors, not balancing the push for new technologies with
just in documentaries, with Josephine Decker’s an all-encompassing perspective of the avant-
Shirley, Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes garde. Barbara Hammer, who was on this year’s
Always and Miranda July’s Kajillionaire – three in memoriam list at the Oscars, showed Nitrate
gorgeous fictions exploring nonconformity. The Kisses at Sundance in 1993: to maintain its edge,
World Cinema competitions featured at least the festival needs to embrace experimental
two films bound to pique cinephiles’ interests directors who follow in her footsteps.

RUSHES TEN HIGHLIGHTS FROM SUNDANCE
1. The Mole Agent influx of so-called illegal visitors, but rarely is the
Maite Alberdi, Chile curtain lifted on the personal stories of those left
Directed by Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi, behind. In her debut feature Mexican director
this documentary follows the exploits of unlikely Fernanda Valadez employs fiction to illustrate the
spy-in-the-making Sergio, an 83-year-old dark realities of the perilous journeys undertaken.
retiree hired by a detective agency to infiltrate Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández) is at the
a retirement home in Chile’s capital, Santiago. police station to report her son missing after
Prompted by concerns of possible abuse and leaving home to make his way towards the
neglect, a resident’s daughter has called upon US border. Pressured into declaring him dead
the services of the agency to uncover the truth. after his belongings are found, she embarks
After being trained in the art of operating a on a journey to retrace his steps and discover
smartphone and issued with strict instructions the truth. She meets Miguel (David Illescas), a
for regular dispatches from the inside, Sergio recent deportee from the US, and together they
is unleashed into the wild. As one of the few 1 make their way across Mexico avoiding the
male residents, Sergio, with his dapper style and dangers – seen and unseen – along the way. Valdez
attentive manner, swiftly becomes a favourite combines stunning cinematography, evocative
among the elderly female residents. But as he 83-year-old Sergio, with his sound design and hints of magic realism to
gets to know his new friends better, it appears create a visionary work of devastating power.
the truth may be more mundane and more bitter dapper style and attentive Anjana Janardhan
than meets the eye. The 007 franchise might have
glamorised the secret agent tale with mechanical
manner, soon becomes a favourite 6. Dick Johnson Is Dead
efficiency, but this OAP spy story has a real heart. among the elderly female residents Kirsten Johnson, US
Anjana Janardhan Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson has been
Instead, we attune our senses to subtler virtues: shooting documentaries for more than 25 years.
2. Kajillionaire the indefinable companionship between man And yet, by her own admission, she’s never
Miranda July, US and beast, and the mystical quiet of the forest. encountered a subject as difficult as the one she
After a nine-year absence from making features, Joshua Rothkopf chose for her directorial follow-up to Cameraperson:
Miranda July, the director of The Future (2011) to document her 82-year-old father’s decline
and Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), is 4. Minari after he has been diagnosed with dementia.
back with a bracingly strange and sweet indie: Lee Isaac Chung, US Equipped with experience – her late mother
a comedy that recasts parenting as a Michael Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari draws upon his had Alzheimer’s – Johnson sets out to make
Mann-style criminal enterprise until romance memories of growing up in the 1980s. Named a double-portrait. One is fictive, as her father
interrupts, distracting all involved. Living on after a lush perennial herb found in East Asia, enacts his death many times over. Hit by a falling
the poverty line, middle-age schemers Robert Minari is the tale of a Korean-American family air-conditioning unit, falling down the stairs,
(Richard Jenkins) and Theresa (Debra Winger) who move from California to rural Arkansas, stabbed: Dick Johnson gleefully anticipates
have trained their mirthless, ultra-competent led by Jacob (Steven Yeun), who seeks a better his own demise, crowned with vaudevillian
grown-up daughter (a revelatory Evan Rachel life for his wife Monica (Han Yeri) and children biblical fantasies. But the other part is completely
Wood) to be a master thief. The clan’s two-bit cons, Anne (Noel Cho) and David (Alan Kim). true and its agony will wreck you: Johnson
like the movie itself, are just this side of ridiculous. Seen through the eyes of its youngest reminiscing with her father, and the growing
Not ridiculous at all, however, is the arrival protagonist, the film is a moving reflection awareness of all the Johnson siblings that their
of Melanie (Jane the Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez), on the struggles of new beginnings and the happiest moments are rapidly fading from his
a garrulous stranger who’s on to them – and exquisite pain of familial love. When David’s mind. It’s a film about dying that profoundly
wants in on the action. July used to traffic in grandmother arrives from Korea, it appears manifests one man’s unbounded desire to live.
pure uncut quirkiness; Kajillionaire sees her as if her irreverent presence might be just the Ela Bittencourt
exploring welcome new registers of euphoria, glue needed to strengthen the bonds between
sincerity, cynicism and even metaphysical this family in flux. Imbued with rich detail 7. The Fight
awakening. Her latest could, in time, join the and delightfully mischievous humour, this Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman
likes of The Big Lebowski (1998) and Inherent Vice is a film whose emotional undercurrents and Eli Despres, US
(2014) as an off-the-grid, only-in-LA treasure. sweep over you when you least expect it. The documentary The Fight focuses on the fierce
Joshua Rothkopf Anjana Janardhan assault on civil liberties in Donald Trump’s
America. In the film, four lawyers from the
3. The Truffle Hunters 5. Identifying Features American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) take on
Michael Dweck and Gregory Fernanda Valadez, Mexico/Spain the current government by filing immigration,
Kershaw, Italy/US/Greece The media is awash with stories about census, LGBT+ and reproductive-rights cases.
Opening a window on an aromatic trade that’s immigration, expressing nascent fears about the A briskly paced celebration of unsung heroes,
dying off, this lovely, bittersweet documentary The Fight begins as a high-spirited behind-the-
– directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory scenes tale, offering a peek at the ACLU offices,
Kershaw, the inspired team behind The Last with jokes about unwieldy gadgets and small
Race (2018) – is an introduction to the art of talk about the pressures on family time. But the
truffle-hunting, practised by a cadre of greying humour is soon overshadowed by the suffering in
northern Italians and the dogs they treat like the cases themselves: a trans war veteran denied
lucky charms. These human-canine teams go the ability to serve; a young rape victim fighting
into the woods to their secret spots, and dig up ultra-conservatives for an abortion; a mother and
clods of heavenly stink that end up selling for child forcibly separated at the border; and a plan to
thousands of euros. (To watch a week’s harvest include a citizenship question on the census, seen as
being hyped up by a whispering merchant an insidious attempt to intimidate non-citizens. It’s
in an alley, you’d think you were watching a impossible not to tear up during The Fight, whose
drug deal go down – and, in a way, you are.) message is not so much that each era calls for new
Formally reserved and composed of medium- 7 heroes, but that ours are very dark times indeed.
to-long shots, the film doesn’t trade in foodie porn. Ela Bittencourt
8 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

SUNDANCE SPOTLIGHT
CRIP CAMP
A joyful portrait of a 70s summer

camp for disabled teens reveals a
community ahead of its time that
was a catalyst for disability rights
By Sophie Monks Kaufman
Crip Camp co-director Jim LeBrecht was born
in New York in the 1950s with spina bifida
and a lust for life. His debut documentary,
executive-produced by Barack and Michelle
Obama, is a vital and joyful work that puts
a lesser-known part of American civil rights
history on the map using archive footage of a
summer camp for disabled teens unearthed
by LeBrecht and co-director Nicole Newnham.
Crip Camp introduces LeBrecht before diving
back to the summer of 1971 when he visited
8 Camp Jened, a hippie utopia in the Catskill
Mountains in New York State designed to
provide disabled teenagers with games, music,
8. Never Rarely 9. Shirley make-out sessions and cheerful community.
Sometimes Always Josephine Decker, USA In the film, subjects behave freely before the
Eliza Hittman, US/UK It’s hard to capture what writers do without camera, speaking with humour and acuity
American director Eliza Hittman has a being a bore. Josephine Decker’s seductive about navigating a world built to exclude them.
knack for portraying the pains and cruelty and intelligent new film Shirley, based on The documentary goes on to show how the
as well as the uncanny grace of teenagehood. the life of the horror and mystery writer disability rights movement in 1970s California
In both her accomplished debut It Felt like Shirley Jackson, draws a portrait of a brilliant was powered by attendees from the camp, who
Love (2013) and her second feature Beach woman not just hunched over her typewriter went on to set up the Center for Independent
Rats (2017), photographed by the French but also immersed in the thick of life. Living and organise a 28-day federal building
cinematographer Hélène Louvart, Hittman has Elisabeth Moss plays the abrasive Jackson sit-in over the lacklustre enforcement of key
told nuanced, visceral coming-of-age stories. – author of The Haunting of Hill House (1959) disability rights legislation. Internationally
Hittman and Louvart have paired up again for – whose seclusion is fuelled by agoraphobia renowned activist Judy Heumann, a counsellor
Never Rarely Sometimes Always, in which 17-year- and alcoholism. Shirley’s open marriage to the at Camp Jened, emerges as a rallying force,
old Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), unable to get an Bennington College professor Stanley (Michael rousing disabled teens to fight for their rights
abortion in her native Pennsylvania, travels to Stuhlbarg) is her lifeline, but also her cross to bear. in an atmosphere of practical kindness.
New York. Sidney’s anger at not being loved or Needing academic help, Stanley offers lodging to Before Crip Camp, LeBrecht worked as a
heard spills over as she navigates the treacherous a young man and his pregnant wife Rose (Odessa sound mixer and designer; when he told his
metropolis with her cousin (Talia Ryder). Young). Soon Jackson’s feverish imagination regular collaborator Newnham about the camp,
As always, Hittman keeps her script casts Rose as the heroine of her latest novel – a they tracked down the radical video collective
attuned to the slightest drops in emotional lonely girl whose illicit affair leads to her death. who shot there in 1971. In a Deadline interview,
temperature – a boy’s vulgar disdain, a father’s Decker uses handheld camera to fabulous the pair talk with wonder about a hard-drive
suave chauvinism or a pious doctor’s wilful effect in this unlikely tale of passion, in which that was a time-capsule with hours of digitised
ignorance. In Hittman’s taciturn jewel of a film, the creative process emerges as a bit of witchery, footage of people Jim once knew and loved.
youth isn’t a wasteland that precedes adulthood; and Jackson’s residence as a haunted house. “We don’t see things about teenagers with
on the contrary, it’s the gateway to maturity. Ela Bittencourt disabilities,” said LeBrecht. “And here we are
Ela Bittencourt just playing around... The naturalness of all
10. Boys State that, because of what we don’t see in the
It starts as sublime comedy, but Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, US media, was quite vivid and amazing.”
This engrossing documentary looks at a youth Crip Camp screens on 17, 18, 20 March at
infighting, zealous party-line camp in Texas, where 17-year-old boys gather to the Human Rights Watch Festival in London
adherence and manipulation of debate politics and run in mock elections. The
film watches them hone their messages, canvass
and will stream on Netflix from 25 March
public opinion soon trump ideals teenage constituents, and face victory or crushing
defeat. Moss and McBaine keep the pace brisk, and
focus on charismatic candidates: plucky Texan
Robert, whose cynical pro-gun, anti-abortion
platform plays to his base (he even tries secession);
Steven, an erudite Chicagoan with a centrist
agenda; and Ben, a spirited advocate for people
with disabilities and a calculated social media wiz.
It starts as sublime comedy: squirrels rampage
in the garbage, boys propose silly bills to
ban pineapple pizza. But infighting, zealous
party-line adherence and manipulation of
public opinion soon trump lofty ideals. And
if it seems like a harmless charade, we must
10 remember that boys become men fast.
Ela Bittencourt Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham’s Crip Camp

RUSHES INTERVIEW
BOND AMBITION
No Time to Die director Cary
Fukunaga talks about bringing 007
into the Brexit era and working
with Phoebe Waller-Bridge
By James Bell
Cary Fukunaga’s filmography didn’t immediately
suggest an appetite to wrangle the behemoth
that is a Bond production. His debut feature
Sin nombre (2008) was about migrants from
Central America trying to cross into the US; he
followed that with a fine adaptation of Jane Eyre
in 2011, then Beasts of No Nation (2015), a drama
about child soldiers in Africa. He has also been
behind two long-form TV shows – the original
True Detective (2014) and Maniac (2018).
But when Danny Boyle departed as director
from the 25th Bond film in 2017, citing that
old chestnut ‘creative differences’, Fukunaga
was brought in by Bond producers Barbara And the Bond played on: Daniel Craig in No Time to Die
Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson as both
writer and director – with a little help on JB: Presumably you immersed yourself JB: Neal Purvis has said that every Bond
the script from Phoebe Waller-Bridge. in the previous 24 Bond films. Were film reflects Britain’s position in the
Few plot details about No Time to Die – there particular ones you looked to? world at the time. So what does No Time
apparently Daniel Craig’s final outing in the CF: There’s a lot of You Only Live Twice [1967], to Die reflect about Britain today?
role – were known when I spoke to Fukunaga On Her Majesty’s Secret Service [1969], and CF: It’s difficult to ignore Brexit. It’s sort of been
in early February, beyond the fact that when probably a bit of GoldenEye [1995] in there. an unspoken rule of the Bond universe that
the film opens Bond is in retirement, living in They might sound pretty disparate [laughs], but you don’t directly reflect the times too much.
Jamaica. But he is brought back into the fold once when you see the film it will make sense. Part of that is the escapist necessity. There’s a lot
a new villain, played by Rami Malek, emerges JB: Ben Whishaw [who plays ‘Q’] said of uncertainty about the future, especially for
to threaten the world order. A regular day at that at times it felt like working on an the British place in the world; but we tried to
the office then, only now there is a new ‘00’ independent film, in that you allowed nod to that rather than get too muddled in it.
for this quintessential white male dinosaur to improvisation, used few takes… JB: There’s been much attention on there being
contend with – and a black, female one at that. CF: Well, it’s definitely not an independent a black woman ‘double 0’ agent in the film, and
James Bell: Incredibly, you’re the first director film! What he may have meant is that there that being a response to calls for diversity.
of a Bond film to also have a writing credit. Was are certain principles to filmmaking that, no CF: There was no race or ethnic requirement
having that input an important condition? matter how big a film gets, once you get on for these roles. It was more about a legacy to
Cary Fukunaga: I’m not sure if it was an issue of to set and it’s just you, and the actors, and the the next generation of Bonds. For Barbara it
importance or of necessity. There was a very short sound boom, the cameraman, and the focus was a necessity in terms of starting a new story
period of time to come up with a story, execute a puller… you’re in this room together. For that – Bond is very much a male-driven story, but
screenplay and pre-produce. The writing was going brief moment, it feels just like an indie film. who are the women within these stories who
all the way through production, which I don’t can start having a voice that isn’t just there
think could have happened unless it was inside my ‘No matter how big a film as a device or as a bit of sexual eye-candy?
brain. There were times when production needed JB: This is the first Bond to be shot using Imax
answers to things when there was no script yet. gets, once you get on to set… cameras, and you also shot on film, not digitally.
CF: Linus [Sandgren, the film’s cinematographer]
JB: So did the script from the Danny
Boyle project change fundamentally?
for that brief moment, it feels used Imax as a bargaining chip to get them to
CF: The original script was completely thrown just like an indie film’ shoot on film, and they said yes to Imax! I hope
away. It was important to Barbara [Broccoli] and this will be considered one of the more beautifully
Michael [G. Wilson] to start from scratch. It felt shot Bonds. Linus was really in my corner fighting
almost in the classic ‘artist-for-hire’ sense. I sat for creative integrity. Even now I’m getting texts
down with Barbara, and Michael, and Daniel, and from him about shots that have been taken out
they explained what they wanted. I went away that he wants to fight to have put back in.
and worked with two writers [Neal Purvis and JB: How much of an artistic challenge
Robert Wade, who have co-written every Bond did you find the action sequences?
since 1999’s The World Is Not Enough] for a couple CF: I’d never worked with second unit before, and
of weeks, and I then wrote for the rest of the I found that challenging. The hardest part was
year through production – with Phoebe [Waller- keeping clarity of vision when there are so many
Bridge] coming on board for some punch-ups. voices involved. It’s difficult for that vision not to
JB: How extensive was her involvement? go off rails by the time it gets down to execution. I
CF: I wish it had been deeper, because she talked to Ryan Coogler before starting, and I asked
is brilliant. We worked from afar. A lot of it him, “On Black Panther, what was the hardest
was conversation-based, and then she had a thing?” He said, “Having the same meeting, over
bunch of passes on scenes, but those scenes and over again!” The amount you have to explain
also got rewritten. She brings a feeling for the things before the image you have in your head
imperfections of humanity that make us all is somehow transferred to someone else’s!
interesting and unique. It’s great to bring that No Time to Die is released in UK cinemas on
sort of imperfection into the world of Bond. Daniel Craig, Cary Fukunaga and Lashana Lynch 2 April and will be reviewed in our next issue

“A LUMI N OU S TOU R DE FOR C E”
INDIEWIRE
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“A SENSUAL TALE “UTTERLY ORIGINAL

OF IDENTITY AND DESIRE”
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AND FULL OF FEELING” TOTAL FILM
IN CINEMAS MARCH 13
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RUSHES CAMPAIGN
A ROOM WITH A VIEW

A new campaign hopes to preserve
Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage
in Kent as both a memorial
and an inspiration to artists
By Ben Walters
Prospect Cottage, the filmmaker, artist and activist
Derek Jarman wrote, was “the last of a long line
of ‘escape houses’ I started building as a child” –
improvised bolt-holes of grass and sand, metal and
wood, spaces at once found and made, enabling
refuge from the existing and creation of the new.
Prospect Cottage was the end of this line; it
could also feel like the end of the world. Tar-
black with bright yellow windows, this hardy
wooden fisherman’s hut was built in 1900 on the
sprawling, spare shingle expanse of Dungeness,
on the Kent coast. Across the shingle, to the
east, it faces a band of road and a ribbon of sea;
to the south, the nuclear power plant lowers
on the horizon. This spur of England gets more
wind and sun than the rest and when buffeted
by a hurricane or an explosion at the plant –
both of which happened soon after Jarman
bought the place in 1986 and moved in – it felt
apocalyptic. There were other inauspicious
intimations at the time: homophobia and
philistinism were ascendant and Jarman Shingle-minded dedication: Prospect Cottage
had recently been diagnosed with HIV.
The beauty he accomplished in Dungeness, terrain was also some place like home. It’s where To spend time there is an extraordinary
then, was remarkable. He stripped out the chintz Jarman prepared and made work, entertained privilege. It’s quite spacious, sturdily insulated
and added warm, chunky brutalist furniture, a friends and lovers, surveyed, plotted, dreamed against the wind, brimming with beauty,
sun-room extension and a Donne poem on the and despaired. It’s where his companion and life, wit and learning. Light pours in. Art is
cottage’s north face, letters in Jarman’s hand collaborator Keith Collins cared intimately for everywhere, not least Jarman’s own: anguished,
rendered in plywood. And, preposterously, he him and where, when he was allowed out of Barts violently coloured paintings against bigotry;
started making a garden there, out of dog rose hospital in the months before his death in 1994, captivating installations of weathered wood,
and gorse and opium poppies, driftwood and he tried to be. Following Collins’s own passing smooth stone and aged metal; playfully placed
lichen and foot-high hunks of flint. The front in 2018, this fragile and unlikely site became fairy guardians and buzzsaw crucifixions.
garden was ordered and geometric, circles and newly precarious, at risk of sale, dismemberment An assemblage of He-Man going down on
squares; the back was scattered and wild, rusted and erasure. A new campaign by Art Fund, Venus sits on a medieval-panelled dresser; a worn
metal jags and stubbornly spreading bushes. Creative Folkestone and Tate aims to raise £3.5 sage-green sofa looks on to an inadvertently
Jarman adored its resinous, honeyed and acrid million to bring the site into public ownership. homoerotic poster pilfered from the Rome
scents and its summer colours, “like a packet of subway. On the walls are pieces by Maggi
liquorice all sorts”. The place was a surprise but It’s where Jarman prepared Hambling, John Maybury, Angus McBean, Gus
not a miracle: it didn’t deny its harsh conditions Van Sant, Richard Hamilton, Robert Medley.
but revealed their potential. “So many weeds,” and made work, entertained The painting room still has its pots of brushes.
Jarman observed, “are spectacular flowers.”
Prospect Cottage, he thought, was like
friends and lovers, surveyed, Props and awards sit next to metal cocks and
tiaras, volumes on magick near a Ladybird book
Dorothy’s house dropped in Oz. But its alien plotted, dreamed and despaired of nuclear power. It feels lived-in, comfortable,
APPEAL
RISING PROSPECTS
A new campaign – launched at the Slade art members of the public to look inside the cottage
school in London on 22 January by Art Fund, for the first time. Major grants have already
Creative Folkestone and Tate – aims to raise raised more than £1.5 million; a crowdfunding
£3.5 million by 31 March to secure the site campaign seeking the rest offers rewards for
of Prospect Cottage and, crucially, support donations, ranging from a badge-and-sticker
its productive powers. As well as archiving set by Jeremy Deller for £25 to a set of prints by
Dungeness-related materials and works, the Isaac Julien for £1,250. Other prints come from
scheme will bring the cottage and garden into Michael Craig-Martin, Tacita Dean, Howard
public ownership, secure their restoration and Sooley and Wolfgang Tillmans, while costume
upkeep, and support residencies by artists, designer Sandy Powell is planning to auction the
filmmakers, writers, gardeners, academics, outfit she wore to this year’s Baftas and Oscars,
activists and others. The scheme will also enable signed by a host of A-list awards nominees.

SOUNDTRACKS
CORNISH RHAPSODY
powerful. The garden, iron grey and glaucous Thanks to a collaboration with bit of singing and a bit of playing”, she utilised
green in January, mesmerises. It’s like being in records already in her collection to create
a kaleidoscope, every step or turn of the head the musician Gwenno, Mark an atmospheric take on Cornish coastal life.
affording new aspects and alignments of plants, Jenkin’s acclaimed fishing drama These included a rare 1970 collection called
rocks, sculptures, cottage and landscape. Sounds Like West Cornwall: “I was going to go
Indeed, Prospect Cottage was a confluent Bait has achieved a new depth down to Newlyn fish market to record all the
place in Jarman’s life, channelling many streams. sounds, but it turns out that’s on the record!”
It was a home and refuge, a place of solace and By Leonie Cooper As well as adding delay and effects to
fortification with friends, but also a site requiring When Mark Jenkin, director of last year’s 50-year-old soundscapes, she reimagined an
occasional defence against prurient press, blackly comic DIY Cornish fishing drama old fishing-chant, making it the backbone of
over-ardent fans or cheeky pruners. It was the Bait, was asked by the BFI if he would be up for one of the songs she wrote for the project. She
main location for The Garden (1990), Jarman’s recreating his self-composed score live at a special created a song for the end of the film, in Cornish,
Super 8 reverie on religion, media, politics screening, his response was an immediate no. with a title that translates as ‘Waves’. “There’s
and persecution, and features prominently in But he knew a woman who could: electronic- a spiritual depth to people’s relationship with
his journals (published as Modern Nature and pop singer-songwriter Gwenno. “The idea of the sea in Cornwall and I was trying to evoke a
Smiling in Slow Motion) and the 1995 book Derek being up there trying to recreate it gives me a sort of sea goddess, really.” That song also took
Jarman’s Garden, alongside Howard Sooley’s panic attack,” he says while introducing the inspiration from one of movie music’s greats:
photographs. The garden was a serious thing, Gwenno-assisted version of the film on a chilly Ennio Morricone and his sweeping, symphonic
attracting the attention of English Nature and January evening at BFI Southbank in London. soundtrack for Franco Rubartelli’s 1971 Veruschka,
the Royal Horticultural Society and connecting Gwenno was Jenkin’s first and only choice a documentary about the titular German model.
Jarman to historical lineages of both garden- to take on the challenge, not least because Though she tried to not veer too far from
and art-making, from Tudor to Fluxus. It also her acclaimed 2018 album Le Kov was written Jenkin’s original drone-heavy, minimalist
evoked his own experiences with planted entirely in Cornish. It seemed to mirror score, one of Gwenno’s main aims was to
land, from his earliest memories to romantic Bait’s narrative about a traditional heritage try to emphasise the stories of the women
interludes to intimations of mortality. at odds with an influx of tone-deaf English in the film. “Because it’s a very masculine
“My garden is a memorial,” he wrote, “each tourists who neither understand nor care film, I was quite interested in trying to
circular bed and dial a true lover’s knot.” Here about local customs or the community of the find the feminine energy,” she says.
is the garden as affective archive, but also as small fishing village where they holiday. One of those female characters, the defiant
part of an organic line whose tendrils stretch “I had a real sense of what Mark was going teenager Katie, is played by Georgia Ellery, who
from Eden to Hampstead Heath. “The alfresco for,” Gwenno says. “It didn’t feel like something is also a member of London indie bands Black
fuck is the original fuck,” Jarman observed. alien or being commissioned to do something Country New Road and Jockstrap; she joined
Prospect Cottage was a site of queer being and you have to learn about.” She was asked to take Gwenno on stage for the performance to play
becoming, community and care – and Jarman part only six weeks before the event, but was violin and sing harmonies. Since they had
was active in reclaiming ‘queer’ as a word and more prepared than she realised. For a score had only two rehearsals, Ellery and Gwenno’s
a position against a normative gay identity he she describes as “a mixture of a DJ set with a performance involved a lot of improvisation.
disdained. On Dungeness beach, he was canonised “It’s different every time – there’s a freedom
by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in “high ‘There’s a spiritual depth to to it,” Gwenno says. “That’s more fun too,
palare”, wearing the coronation gown from because you’re responding to each other.”
Edward II (1991), gold sparkling on the shingle. people’s relationship with the sea The Southbank screening was a one-off,
Prospect Cottage links to other instances
of the queer bucolic: the floral fantasia of Jean
in Cornwall and I was trying but Gwenno thinks the chances of further
outings for her score are high. “I’m definitely
Genet’s film Un chant d’amour (1950), or the cross- to evoke a sort of sea goddess’ looking forward to playing more shows…”
dressing idyll of Casa Susanna in upstate New
York, a haven for transvestites and transwomen
seeking weekends away in the 1950s and 60s.
We talk often, and rightly, of the significance
of urban nightlife spaces to queer living but
here is another kind of lineage written in
material space. Such sites are important not
only as relics but as resources: they are queer
engines, powerful, sophisticated and generative
technologies of difference and creation.
This is why the new campaign’s most
exciting aspect might be its planned residency
programme, enabling the place to be lived
in again. At the Slade launch event, Tilda
Swinton pointed out that what is at stake
is not merely the preservation of beauty for
posterity but the imperative “to resuscitate and
ensure the continued vibrational existence
of a living battery”. A saved Prospect Cottage
will be a site not only of loving pilgrimage
but of utopian production – an escape
PHOTOGRAPHY © HOWARD SOOLEY
house for the future, a hope machine.

“My mind keeps floating back to
Dungeness,” Jarman once wrote from his
hospital bed. “There are no walls or fences.
My garden’s boundaries are the horizon.”
Find out about the campaign to save
Prospect Cottage at artfund.org/prospect Catchy hooks: Gwenno and Georgia Ellery performing the score for Bait at BFI Southbank

DREAM PALACES
LE GRAND ACTION, PARIS
The Iranian director Marjane Satrapi on the cinema where she discovered
French cinephile culture and Pasolini, and developed a Borat habit
The first cinema that five times in a row. And each time I laughed
instilled a cinephile more, bringing new people to each screening.
devotion in me was Le In Tehran, I went to the cinema as a child. My
Grand Action in Paris. dad was a cinephile. Any film from the 1950s
I discovered it in the and 60s he had probably seen. I saw all of
early 1990s through Bruce Lee’s films and King Kong [1976] and The
this paper booklet Towering Inferno [1974]. But when I was nine,
called L’Officiel des the revolution happened, and with it came the
spectacles – which still exists, thank God. It war. I didn’t go to the cinema as frequently until I
lists all the films that are shown weekly in moved to Austria, and even then, I’d go once in a
the city. Each time there was a film I wanted while to a film that all the kids would see, like Top
to watch it was screening in Le Grand Action. Gun [1986], 9 ½ Weeks [1986] or Angel Heart RISING STAR
So, I went there, and soon enough it became [1987]. When I came back to Iran, I saw some of LUCIA GARIBALDI
my favourite place to go. I remember seeing Abbas Kiarostami’s films, but most other movies
Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers showing were propaganda features. A lot of Who is she? The 34-year-old filmmaker made
[1960] there. I loved the film before, but it was what I watched came from a guy who brought history when, in 2019, her feature debut The
even more heartbreaking seeing it on the big us films. He was like a drug dealer, carrying Sharks (Los tiburones) became the first Uruguayan
screen, and my love became an obsession. a suitcase full of forbidden works on VHS. film to screen in Sundance, where she won the
Le Grand Action has two screens [one Le Grand Action was the first real love of my World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award. The
named after the film archivist and co-founder movie-going life. The French have retained this film has since travelled the global festival circuit.
of the Cinémathèque française Henri Langlois] cinephile culture, even in the age of Netflix, Her background: Garibaldi graduated from the
with around 320 seats, all in the heart of the which I must confess I have never watched. The Uruguay Film School (ECU) in Montevideo in
Quartier latin, on the rue des Écoles near the same goes for any television series. I remember 2010 with her short film Mattresses (Colchones). She
Sorbonne. Naturally, many students go there, trying to get into True Detective and giving up wrote the script for The Sharks in 2012 and spent
and the audience is not only diverse, spanning after two episodes because I was bored with it. two years developing the film with her lead actress,
all ages, but deeply passionate. When the Watching films at home is great, but I believe newcomer Romina Bentancur, before shooting it.
cinema opens at nine in the morning, you seeing a film for the first time should be a Her films: The Sharks is the blackly comic
already have five people inside. A crowd of 40 cinematic experience. You’re in a black room. chronicle of aloof 14-year-old Rosina (Bentancur)
for a Pier Paolo Pasolini film is not uncommon. You’re focused and cut off from your life. It’s who sends a coastal tourist town into a panic
They show a mix of old and new films. You will a trip. I remember, in my great arrogance, I with her claim that she saw a shark. She develops
never see a Batman movie there, but I saw thought that I knew Citizen Kane [1941] after a crush on older teen Joselo (Federico Morosini),
both Borat [2006] and Brüno [2009] about seeing it twice on VHS. I thought it was too and her attempts to woo him gradually shift
hectic. Then I went to see it at Le Grand Action. from awkward to disquieting. The film expresses
‘Seeing a film for the first Everything took on another dimension and then Garibaldi’s fascination with “characters who
you understand this is why it’s so great. To truly are attracted to doing the wrong thing”. In
time should be a cinematic discover a film, you have to go to the cinema. Screen International, Wendy Ide remarked that it
experience. You’re focused and Marjane Satrapi was talking to Nicholas
Kouhi. Radioactive is released in UK cinemas
“provides a transgressive twist on the coming
of age picture” and “shares something of the
cut off from your life. It’s a trip’ on 20 March and is reviewed on page 73 inchoate unease of early Lucrecia Martel”.
While Martel’s influence is incontestable,
Garibaldi distinguishes herself with a knack for
uncompromisingly unsentimental portraits of
female adolescence. Her latest project, The Last
Queen, leaves teens behind to focus on a mother
and her adult daughter in a dystopian present-day
where women are inexplicably disappearing.
Where to watch: Colchones can be viewed
on the ECUcinemateca YouTube page.
Nicholas Kouhi
ILLUSTRATION BY LUCINDA ROGERS
A finny thing happened: The Sharks

INTERVIEW
TOXIC AVENGER
Dark Waters is a lot more
morally straightforward than
the average Todd Haynes film
– but no more reassuring
By Kieron Corless
The genesis of Todd Haynes’s new film Dark
Waters went something like this. In January
2016 the New York Times published an article by
Nathaniel Rich chronicling the Cincinnati lawyer
Rob Bilott’s punishing crusade against the US
corporation DuPont. After painstaking, years-
long investigation, Bilott was able to prove that
not only had DuPont been contaminating land
and water in West Virginia for several decades
with waste containing the chemical PFOA, but
it had also attempted to deny and cover up the
severely detrimental effects on public health.
This was no localised case, it transpired. PFOA
usage for a variety of purposes pre-dated US
regulatory tightening in 1970 and had thereby
slipped the net (it was used in Teflon products
until relatively recently), meaning that an
estimated 99 per cent of the world’s population
has been exposed to it. The local lawsuits that
ensued saw DuPont paying out colossal sums.
A classic David vs Goliath narrative, in other Thinking outside the box: Mark Ruffalo and Todd Haynes, making Dark Waters
words, and something of a gift to Hollywood.
That the director who took it on turned out a way they were the lone soldiers at certain times,
to be Todd Haynes seems a little surprising, at
‘There was something muddled standing up in favour of taking the firm in this
least on first inspection. Dark Waters stars Mark and grown-up about this movie direction and risking its reputation as they did.”
Ruffalo who, in his twin role as a producer, Part of the fascination of Dark Waters is being
was the one who initially approached Haynes. in an era I find increasingly ushered deep into Republican country, a place
“What Mark wouldn’t have known at that infantile and disturbing’ you don’t see so often in Hollywood cinema.
point is how much l absolutely love the great West Virginian farmers like Wilbur Tennant
whistleblower films,” Haynes told me on a touches some chord in Bilott and sets in train his and his brother Jim, and the other local people
recent trip to London. “The ‘paranoia trilogy’ own dark reckoning with corporate malfeasance. affected by the toxic mess DuPont created, are
by director Alan J. Pakula and cinematographer Remarkably, Tom Turp (Tim Robbins), his boss forced to kick back against a system they’ve
Gordon Willis in the 70s, for example – The at Taft, lets him proceed with the investigation previously endorsed. “These are not bleeding-
Parallax View, Klute, All the President’s Men: these into DuPont, despite the fact that the company heart liberals, not Democrats, not activists,
are films that in various ways riffed on a post-60s is one of the firm’s biggest corporate clients. not Mark Ruffalos,” says Haynes. “They’re
sense of alienation and systemic corruption.” “I love the class distinctions that describe unlikely candidates to take on what they did,
That serendipitous aesthetic attachment plus the film,” explains Haynes. “That sense of to learn what they did. They shared so much,
Haynes’s own political instincts made the project Rob not fitting in to the Taft pedigree, of not they see the world utterly differently now,
hard to resist. But since we already know the having attended Yale or Harvard but Ohio State but it doesn’t really bring them together.”
outcome with whistleblower films based on true University; that meant something there, acutely. That sense of disunity and disillusionment, of
stories, what other forms of viewer investment It still blows my mind to this day, after all of this coming unmoored from a system you believed
are being mobilised? “It’s very much about this and after Hollywood has come in and made a film would protect you, is beautifully expressed in
focus on the present tense of a narrative, about about Rob’s life, that the real Tom Turp has never Haynes’s regular director of photography Ed
following the creation of a story,” Haynes suggests. once asked Rob out to a drink or a meal. And yet in Lachman’s wintry images, which capture a
“And the cost felt by the individuals who uncover sense of pervasive rot and creeping disquiet.
stories of this magnitude and start to experience For all its bleakness, reviews of Dark Waters in
the consequences. It’s also about being inside NEXT UP: THE VELVET the US have been mostly positive. Haynes seems
these locked-off corporate spaces and getting this
sense of the pervasive powers of the world.”
UNDERGROUND more resolutely, explicitly activist with this film,
aiming at parts of the cinematic landscape where
All those elements are certainly present in Dark he may not have figured hitherto. “There was
Waters, but as a director long attuned to individual Haynes’s first documentary feature will be something very muddled and grown-up about
unease and isolation, and the subtle markers of about The Velvet Underground. The interview this movie in an era that I find to be increasingly
class identity, Haynes brings his own emphases. subjects, around 20 in total, range from infantile and disturbing, particularly so in
At Taft, the well-heeled Cincinnati law firm where surviving members of the band, John Cale and the media culture and the franchise movies
Bilott diligently plies his trade, you get the sense Moe Tucker, to those who personally knew the that have dominated entertainment. I didn’t
from the off that he isn’t altogether comfortable, musicians, including the actor Mary Woronov know if this movie would connect to those
his family’s rural origins in West Virginia making and the late Jonas Mekas (see page 91). The audiences and those expectations, and there are
him prone to what Haynes calls “perpetual newly recorded interviews will be interspersed undoubtedly some people out there who don’t
instability”. A plea for help from a farmer, Wilbur with a wide array of archival footage, much of it want to watch something like this. But there are
Tennant (Bill Camp), who lives close to Bilott’s never seen before. The film is due to be released a lot of people who really need it right now.”
grandmother and whose sheep have been dying theatrically and on Apple’s streaming platform. Dark Waters is out now in UK cinemas
by the dozen owing to the poisoned local waters, and was reviewed in our last issue

RUSHES INDUSTRY
THE NUMBERS: WEATHERING WITH YOU

In a competitive month, Shinkai Box office had reached £538,000 after 31 days
(roughly 65 per cent from the subtitled version,
Makoto’s romantic fantasy has 35 per cent dubbed). In Japan, Weathering with You
shown just how firmly anime’s
£538,000
grossed $126 million – sensational, but still a long
way short of the $235 million Your Name made.
popularity is established in the UK National Amusements may face competition
UK box office total for from other anime distributors – particularly as
By Charles Gant Weathering with You Sony now owns Manga. Its trump card is that it
National Amusements never intended to be a only acquires theatrical rights, leaving its licensers
film distributor. The Massachusetts-based cinema to control ancillary platforms, including digital
owner, which operates as Showcase in the UK, and Blu-ray. Dobbin says that with anime “the
became a distributor by default when it agreed 65% from 35% from margin isn’t great” and may not be worth it for a
to show a selection of Laurel and Hardy double subtitled dubbed company that doesn’t also own cinemas. “This is
version version
bills in its UK cinemas in June 2015, coinciding really interesting for us in terms of bringing more
with Stan Laurel’s 125th birthday. With very diverse product into our cinemas,” he says. “And
limited release costs, the operator saw a way to particularly bringing in a younger audience.”
extend audience choice and turn a modest profit.
Meanwhile, James Dobbin, the chain’s Killer Parasite
director of event cinema, spotted an opportunity. With a UK debut of £1.09 million – £1.40 million
Japanese anime Dragon Ball Z was doing including previews – Parasite is the first foreign-
“amazing numbers” in the company’s cinemas language film to earn more than £1 million in its
in Argentina, but no distributor was offering it opening weekend since Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto in
for the UK. Dobbin licensed the title and released January 2007. After ten days, Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-
it in October 2015, grossing a nifty £196,000. winner had amassed £5.09 million in the UK,
National Amusements is now the UK’s leading overtaking Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie (2001, £5.02
distributor of anime titles, licensing product from million) to become the third-biggest foreign-
two suppliers: Manga Entertainment, based in language film of all time at the UK box office,
London, supplies franchise films, such as Dragon behind only The Passion of the Christ (2004, £11.1
Ball and My Hero Academia; All the Anime, million) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001,
based in Glasgow, supplies original content £9.37 million). A huge total beckons.
from signature directors. National Amusements
relies on the expertise of these two companies JAPANESE ANIME TITLES AT THE UK BOX OFFICE
to decide which titles to show in cinemas.
While National Amusements scored its best
ever result with a franchise title, Dragon Ball Film Year Gross
Super: Broly (2018), the release of Your Name in Spirited Away £1.10m 2003
November 2016 was a breakthrough. An original
conception by Shinkai Makoto, Your Name Dragon Ball Super: Broly £1.01m 2019
grossed £611,000 in UK cinemas – at the time, the
biggest ever total for a non-Studio Ghibli anime. Howl’s Moving Castle £852,000 2005
For Shinkai’s follow-up, Weathering with You,
Dobbin expected an inherited audience. But Ponyo £772,000 2010
the licenser insisted National Amusements The Wind Rises £753,000 2014
match the US release date, 17 January; and in
January, British cinemas are traditionally full Your Name £611,000 2016
of upscale dramas chasing Bafta and Oscar
glory. National Amusements has allowed Weathering with You £538,000 2020
cinemas to book Weathering with You whenever
it could be slotted in – Dobbin says that Vue, Arrietty £421,000 2011
which uses an algorithm booking system When Marnie Was There £308,000 2016
called Opera to help programme its cinemas,
has done especially well at finding slots for Mary and the Witch’s Flower £290,000 2018
the title, and delivering an audience – one
Includes Ireland. Source: Comscore
that skews strongly 18-24 and in London.
IN PRODUCTION
» The first film from Terence Davies since feature

featu – A Manual for Cleaning Women, journey from a luxury yacht to a deserted
his 2016 Emily Dickinson biopic A Quiet
uiet based
base on American writer Lucia Berlin’s island where all hierarchies are upturned.
ct.
Passion also takes a poet as its subject. posth
posthumously published collection of 43 short Woody Harrelson will star alongside newcomers
Benediction will chronicle the life of stories
storie loosely inspired by her itinerant life. Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean.
Siegfried Sassoon, whose poems »R Ruben Ostlund’s follow-up to his 2017 » After an intense bidding war at Sundance,
so vividly captured the hell of the Palme d’Or-winning satire of the art world
Pa Netflix has acquired Ava DuVernay’s
trenches in World War I. Dunkirk’s Th Square will be Triangle of Sadness.
The forthcoming documentary on the rapper Nipsey
Jack Lowden is lined up to star and Th time the fashion world and the super-
This Hussle, who was murdered last year. DuVernay
shooting will commence in the spring. g. ric are the objects of his lampooning
rich is also developing a big-screen adaptation
» Pedro Almodóvar (pictured) is ga His first English-language feature
gaze. of the DC comic-book series New Gods.
making his first English-language wi focus on a pair of models and their
will Compiled by Nicholas Kouhi

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Wide Angle
EXPLORING THE BIGGER PICTURE
Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream: Frank Beauvais draws on a vast, obscure body of movies to create a sombre film for sombre times
PREVIEW By Erika Balsom “How to avoid them?” But already in this first
Frank Beauvais’s Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream gesture, he has begun to provide an answer. To
JUST DON’T (2019) opens with a photograph of a man’s face
in close-up. A cigarette burns through its centre,
communicate the experience of all those blank
days, the weight of so much sadness and anger,
THINK I’LL obliterating eyes, nose and mouth. Like every

image in the 75 minutes that follow, this one has
been torn from another movie to appear here
the problem of being “too old for revolution, too
young for resignation”, Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream
(original title: Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle)
SCREAM for just a flash. Speaking with quiet intensity in
voiceover, Beauvais begins: “I’m 45 years old.”
takes a detour beyond the self. It moves from
the outside in. To provide an account of one life,
Frank Beauvais’s feature uses As images unfurl, he relates the basics of his it travels through some 400 films watched over
existence. He is alone, following a break-up, in a seven months, as well as through the horror of
images torn from a mammoth village in Alsace that is a stronghold of the right, current events and the sustaining comforts of
film binge to evoke our present suffering, watching three to five films per day as friendship – all things that, in different ways,
France rattles through a state of emergency and shatter solipsism, exposing the individual to the
maladies, and hint at their cure the world at large seems to grow ever darker. chafing of the world as it exists beyond them.
The intimate voiceover grounds the film I could give the name of the film from which
immediately in personal experience. The opening the shot of the defaced photograph is taken; all
image of the ruined face, meanwhile, moves sources are listed in the closing credits, including
in another direction. First of all, it does not the inspiration for the title, the East German
belong to he who says ‘I’. What’s more, this face drama Denk bloß nicht, ich heule (1965). But pinning
is no face – the iconoclastic burning is already down such references feels against the spirit
underway when the image appears. Individuality of this magnificent film. In recent years, many
is voided. From the very start of this diaristic engagements with found footage have sought
chronicle of depression, cinephilia and solitude, to exploit the recognisability of recycled images,
the self is in jeopardy, sapped and splintered. staging a memory game, relying on the viewer’s
Later Beauvais will list the pitfalls of knowledge of the original to generate meaning.
autobiographical expression – “platitude, Beauvais takes another path. The corpus on
narcissism, pride, dishonesty, self-pity” – asking, which he draws is vast and obscure, culled

WIDE ANGLE
from esoteric corners of private BitTorrent

sites. Even when excerpts are relatively
famous – Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of
Roses (1969), Frank Tashlin’s The Girl Can’t Help It
(1956) – the way he selects and deploys images
means that they are likely to pass incognito.
Each shot is uprooted, pushed into a fast-
flowing stream. Beauvais takes up residence in
the kingdom of the detail. Few whole bodies
appear, even fewer faces: rather, isolated objects
and gestures, an abundance of close-ups, a cascade
of visual curiosities liberated from narrative
constraint. That all these images come and go
without asserting their provenance is a fitting An image from Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream
evocation of Beauvais’s great bingewatch. When
cinema becomes “an aesthetic rampart against a Few whole bodies or faces
vile world”, the boundaries between films matter
less than the medium’s capacity for analgesic appear: rather, isolated objects
immersion, its skill at chasing out the hours and and gestures, an abundance of
installing bewildering visions in their stead.
Beauvais’s choice cuts are propelled towards close-ups, a cascade of curiosities
various aspects of his life recounted in voiceover.
They collide with his daily habits and political with enlivening a verbose text. Beauvais evades
sensibilities, his sense of affective paralysis and this sorry fate by selecting images of such visual
anxious need for change. Sometimes the accord power, so laden with sensation, that they escape
between sound and image is loose; more often, containment by the voice, asserting themselves as
content-based motives are identifiable. When its inquisitive interlocutors. Beauvais has watched
Beauvais mentions a departure for Lisbon, for these films, but they too have watched him. They
instance, we see suitcases. A frustration with are, he says, more like mirrors than windows. As
current events is matched with the smashing much as he turns to the screen to escape, this ever-
of a television set. We hear that 2016 is the faithful companion invariably reflects aspects
deadliest year yet for refugees crossing the of his own emotional state – not the precise facts
Mediterranean and see a man lying face down of his situation, but condensed and displaced
on a beach, an echo of the widely circulated clusters of affect of the sort that appear in dreams.
image of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream balances the
Kurd who drowned in that sea in 2015. narcissism of this screen-mirror with a
One might worry that this relation of image consistent preoccupation with a wider context:
to sound is simple illustration, the appropriated popular protests, elections, terrorist attacks
clips little more than slavish supplements tasked and mass shootings. Beauvais’s problems
are not just personal. His despair is tied to MILLIGAN
WAYS TO DIE
political disillusionment in an age of fear and
opportunism. It is inseparable from the feeling
that any possibility of meaningful social change
has been foreclosed and that the ideals that The films of trash auteur Andy
formed him – like anti-capitalism – have faded
in currency. Beauvais professes an interest in the Milligan are even too bad to
worldviews of the cinemas of the Soviet bloc, count as so-bad-they’re-good:
particularly their treatment of the relationship
between the individual and society, but cannot and therein lies their greatness
bring himself to join collective movements
in the present, when all seems already lost. By Kim Newman
That Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream is a sombre In The BFI Companion to Horror, which I edited,
film for sombre times is confirmed by the Stephen Bissette and Douglas Winter sum up
music Beauvais plays at the end, having earlier Andy Milligan (1929-91) as “American writer,
deemed it his “companion in misfortune”: director, cinematographer, editor. The tenacious
Bonnie Prince Billie’s ‘I See a Darkness’. The but untalented Milligan’s impoverished films are
AT A GLANCE song is devastating, but it is addressed to a loved characterised by amateurish scripts, direction, and
FRANK BEAUVAIS one, a possible saviour. If Beauvais finds hope
anywhere, it is in the presence of things and
performances; anachronistic horror stereotypes;
grating ‘canned’ music; and risible nudity and gore.”
people that sustain us, films, songs or friends. Nevertheless, Milligan is the subject of an
Born 1970 in Phalsbourg, France. It is the last who, with the offer of a Paris room, in-depth biography, Jimmy McDonough’s The
He has directed numerous shorts, including spur him to leave the village and help him move. Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker
On My Knees (2005), Sun and Death Travel The torpor breaks and he goes on to make this Andy Milligan (2001), which has been revised and
Alongside (2006), I’ll Be Floating Without Any film of films. In a world on fire, full of violence, expanded as a lavishly illustrated luxury artefact
Desire (2008), The Diamond’s Guitar (2009). we may not be able to wish for happiness. But from FAB Press, The Ghastly One: The 42nd Street
He is also a programmer for a film festival at we can, Beauvais suggests, find comfort in the Netherworld of Director Andy Milligan. The BFI’s
Brive-la-Gaillarde, Corrèze, in central France. mutual understanding that is friendship. Flipside label, devoted to odd extremes of British
Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream is Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream is screening at the cinema, has issued Milligan’s uncharacteristic,
his first feature-length film. ICA, London, on 29 March as part of the Essay London-shot art movie Nightbirds (1970)
Film Festival. Details: essayfilmfestival.com – the nearest thing in his filmography to a

‘
Artists are
nasty. When
we’re working,
I’m a monster –
and I know that
– but it’s the
only way you
can get it done
for that money.
Low-budget
means you can’t
do it again’
Andy Milligan
The schlocky,
amateurish art of
Andy Milligan (far ‘
left, in red shirt) has
been championed Although there are the usual
by director Nicolas
Winding Refn (below)
laughable Milligan moments, the
intimate, melancholy mood gets
‘good movie’ – on Blu-ray, tucking away his under
(1970). Bythe skin’
the end of the decade, he was recycling
slightly more characteristic ranting vampire Jimmy McDonough
– remaking on(1968),
The Ghastly One Nightbirds
a gruesome-
movie The Body Beneath (1970) as an extra. old-dark-house gothic, as Legacy of Blood (1978), and
Milligan’s work is both exactly as Bissette abandoning House of Seven Belles (1979), which Refn
and Winter describe it, and worthy of the sort has recovered from limbo and showcased online.
of attention bestowed on it by McDonough, the In the direct-to-video era, Milligan came back for
Flipside and longtime admirer Nicolas Winding Carnage (1984), Monstrosity (1987), The Weirdo (1989)
Refn (the director of Drive and The Neon Demon and Surgikill (1989), which even fans of, say, Gutter
who has played a behind-the-scenes role in all Trash (1969) and Guru, the Mad Monk (1970) deem
these Milligan-related projects). After working close to unwatchable. He finally achieved his secret
in fringe New York theatre in the early 1960s, ambition of making films everyone would hate.
Milligan turned to the movies with a gay-themed Compared with the vaguely genial, mostly dull
short, Vapors (1965), that might conceivably nostalgia of his contemporary Al Adamson (Blood
have been programmed with the works of Andy of Ghastly Horror, 1967; Dracula vs. Frankenstein,
Warhol, Jack Smith or Kenneth Anger. Then he 1971), Milligan’s horrors seethe uncomfortably:
scratched the filmmaking itch with horror and/or ugly, angry films by a driven, difficult creator;
sex films, mostly made on Staten Island: The Naked every scratched frame and botched splice only
Witch (1967), The Degenerates (1967), The Ghastly makes them uglier and angrier. There’s no
Ones (1968), Torture Dungeon (1970). He relocated ‘Andy led a controversial, violent, camp, condescending Milligan cult to match
to England for a few years and continued working the devotion bestowed on oddballs like Ed
– completely outside even the lower depths of erotic life that combusted in a Wood or fakers like Herschell Gordon Lewis. It’s
the British film industry – on gruesome gothics. impossible to laugh at or with Milligan’s hatchet
Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970) and The Man With
painful, lonely death. His story jobs, but they stick in the mind. John Waters,
Two Heads (1972) are his distinctive takes on is a rather compelling and who made the films Milligan might have if he’d
Sweeney Todd and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. got over his inner fury, once described the works
Back in NY, Milligan ploughed on with monster strangely entertaining one’ of Marguerite Duras as the sort of films your
movies. Blood (1973) features Dracula’s daughter Nicolas Winding Refn friends won’t forgive you for recommending they
and the Son of the Wolf Man, while The Rats Are sit through. Milligan’s work is further out than
Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! (1972) revised that, but he’s still a considerable, unique auteur.
its family curse because Milligan’s distributors The Ghastly One: The 42nd Street Netherworld
wanted him to cash in on the brief vogue for rat- of Director Andy Milligan is published
related horrors prompted by Daniel Mann’sWillard next month. Details: fabpress.com

WIDE ANGLE
‘Even by the bargain-basement standards of

exploitation film, Milligan’s pictures are unshakably
weird, like a child’s nightmare. Everything is
fractured and hysterical and half-told, as if some
arrested-development adolescent locked away in the
family closet has busted loose to tell all. The Ghastly
Ones’ message? Men and women destroy each other,
families demolish everything, and people are just no
damn good.’
Jimmy McDonough on The Ghastly Ones
‘You really can’t

go through life
wanting to be
liked. It’s the
hardest lesson to
learn. Once you
say, “Fuck it, I
don’t care,” then
its easy to relax,
to talk, laugh,
cry, whatever.’
Andy Milligan
‘There is a passion, an intensity that Andy brings to

it that is utterly real. This is what makes Milligan Little chop of horrors:
different from so many of the schlockmeisters Andy
Milligan
churning out kitsch as they smirked behind the (standing) on the set
of Monstrosity
camera – and what makes him so interesting.
Exploitation was no joke to Andy.’
Jimmy McDonough on Torture Dungeon
‘Seeds [above] is the beginning of moral decay in

America. Nobody is nice in it, nobody is sympathetic.
Nobody. If you made Seeds now it would be a hit.
Seeds is exactly what people are today.’
Andy Milligan

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SMOKE AND MIRRORS
AND MAKE-BELIEVE
Tilda Swinton’s remarkable screen presence has been the engine behind a dizzying variety of
films, from early collaborations with Derek Jarman to new work by Pedro Almodóvar and Wes
Anderson. On the eve of a BFI retrospective, she talks to Isabel Stevens about Buster Keaton,
sharing Tarkovsky’s dreams and why the greatest performance in cinema history is by a donkey
Photography by Katerina Jebb
s there any other icon of cinema today as singular on). All of which confirm the degree to which she relishes
I and curious as Tilda Swinton? Her gender-jumping
roles, that ghostly complexion and those green eyes
surprise and possesses a surrealist’s zeal for shape-shifting.
There is sometimes a sense that Tilda Swinton is omnipresent.
that love to pierce the fourth wall, marked her out early as an Just cast an eye over her credits for the last year: a cameo in the TV
otherworldly creature. The sheer number and assortment of series of What We Do in the Shadows, a turn as a samurai mortician
characters she has inhabited is perhaps unprecedented. Her in Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, and roles as a concerned
furious prolificacy means she has at least one feature to her mother in Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir and David Copperfield’s
name for each of her (nearly) 60 years. Her career stretches wealthy, eccentric aunt in Armando Iannucci’s Dickens adaptation.
from the homespun punk universes of Derek Jarman via Listen closely to Uncut Gems and you’ll also hear her on the phone
the worlds of the most venerable arthouse filmmakers talking to Adam Sandler’s jeweller Howard Ratner. It’s a varied
working today to Hollywood superhero extravaganzas – not list that testifies to her carnival troupe spirit and her place as
to mention her own directorial projects (from a home-movie an animating force for and enabler of cinema of all stripes and
of her dogs that went viral, to a film tribute to John Berger), creeds. She is a Boudicca-like figure, leading a rebellion against
film festivals she’s curated, her many music videos, various conformity and fighting to put art and experimentation at the top
fashion collaborations and her unannounced appearance in of cinema’s agenda. But she is equally happy to spot and collaborate
pieces of performance art (in 2013 she slept for eight hours in with first-time filmmakers (such as Luca Guadagnino
New York’s Museum of Modern Art while gallery-goers looked with The Protagonists in 1999) as she is with established

TILDA SWINTON
titans. While many performers gradually inch towards the UNDER THE INFLUENCE this was in the days before DVD extras,
defining work of their career, Swinton’s formative roles with (Clockwise from top left) The when people – interested filmgoers
Aladdin Sane album; Swinton
Derek Jarman in Caravaggio (1986), Edward II (1991) and Sally Potter on the set of Joanna Hogg’s – didn’t know how films were put
in Orlando (1992) others feel as enduring as any that have come short Caprice (1986); I Know together. I had absolutely no idea of how
since. Indeed, she has taken the camaraderie at the core of Jarman’s Where I’m Going! (1945); and one could be a part of making films. To
Jeanne Dielman (1975)
collaborative practice and the unearthly spirit of his heartland of make films felt like a very… arcane idea.
Dungeness and spread it far, far out into the filmmaking world. At that time David Lean was still making films, and Alan Parker
I spoke to her on the eve of her retrospective at BFI Southbank and David Puttnam. They were the sort of ‘international’ filmmakers.
in London – where she was also set to receive a BFI Fellowship for And then there was television, which was accepting the industrial
her contribution to film culture – and straight after the launch of middle ground, as it were. And then there was the BFI. And [through
the appeal to save Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage (see page 12). As it] a constant, steady stream of voices from Peter Greenaway to Derek
we leave the hotel after the interview, I’m reminded of her utopian [Jarman] to Sally [Potter] to Terence Davies, Ron Peck, people like that.
spirit and her appeal to different generations as she stops to ask a I used to go and see as much cinema as I could, but it never
mass of nine-year-old children thronging the pavements on a school occurred to me I could ever work in film. I was not interested
trip what they have been doing. “She’s in Narnia,” says a voice from in being a performer, because being a performer in the theatre
the crowd. Swinton smiles and just before she jumps into the car, was assumed to be the only possible thing. But I did start to
gestures to her young audience and says, “Future Derek Jarman fans.” do plays with friends and I performed in lots of them.
IS: And you were in Joanna Hogg’s first short film.
ON FORMATIVE INFLUENCES TS: I was. Joanna Hogg and I have known each other since we
Isabel Stevens: Let’s start by going back to your formative years, and were children. Joanna was in London at film school, as you
what influences played their part in you coming to cinema. David know having seen The Souvenir. I’m the girl in her first film [The
Bowie’s 1973 album Aladdin Sane was something that you held dear... Rehearsal], which is in The Souvenir. We never finished it – in fact,
Tilda Swinton: Literally. Originally, it was simply the fact he looked so we were talking the other day, saying we should finish it. Later
similar to the way I looked. It was a sense of solidarity and cousin-ship. on, I made Caprice [1986] with Joanna. She was a close ally. In a
IS: You went to boarding school. Did you find it restrictive? funny way, the ways in which she was alienated by the landscape
TS: Well, it’s prescriptive. There’s quite a simplistic code. And there are of industrial filmmaking, I was experiencing a similar thing. We
all sorts of ways people dream up to make other people feel alienated, shared a feeling that filmmaking wasn’t possible, that it was sewn
and I was easy meat for all of that. So it was helpful to see the Aladdin up. And that’s why Derek [Jarman] was so significant for both of
Sane cover. I carried it around for a long time before I could play it us. He was the one who said, “No, no, no, it can be this personal
because I didn’t have a record player. We weren’t allowed any music thing. It can be this dreamy thing, this completely fantastical
at our school, which was, I think, the worst abuse that we suffered, thing that’s related to painting and art. It doesn’t have to be this
really. Relatively banal boarding school experience, but still not great. three-act structure, highly industrialised thing that you give away
Especially when you’re a teenager in the 70s – to be kept away from to other people.” But you asked me about earlier influences!
what was going on musically at that time. I mean, that was crackers.
IS: You originally wanted to be a poet and studied literature at Cambridge
University. Which films made you think, “Yes, I want to do that”?
TS: Yes, I was a poet and I always assumed that that’s what I
would do. I was at university and I started to meet people I
liked and it so happened that they were making theatre – in
which I was never interested particularly. But I loved the
camaraderie of being around these people and making work.
IS: And you didn’t come from an artistic background?
TS: No, and also at that time in the 80s, there wasn’t the same sense [of
what was possible] that there is now. It’s so difficult to remember, but

IS: Yes, but not just in film. From all over.
TS: In terms of film, I’ll tell you one thing that, looking back on
it, is more significant than I thought at the time. I remember
seeing [Chantal Akerman’s 1975 film] Jeanne Dielman when I
was at Cambridge. And having said that I was not particularly
invested or interested in performance of any kind, Jeanne Dielman
did ring a bell with me. I thought, “Now that I’m interested in. I’m
interested in that kind of opaqueness.” It’s such an extraordinary
film because it’s so experiential. It’s really about the experience of
this person and the experience of her time. And that caught me. I
didn’t sit there thinking, “Oh, I’d like to do that one day.” But on a
deep level… I still refer to it for myself. I was referring to it when I
was working with Apichatpong [Weerasethakul on his upcoming
Memoria] last summer. It’s surfacing for me, that film. I refer to it
with Joanna when we’re talking about films that we’re going to
make together. It’s more of a talisman now – a practical talisman
– than it ever has been. So it was obviously a deep bell ringing.
I had Salvador Dalí on my wall at school. He’s not someone I
particularly think about since, but he was around. The sense of
fantasy was always very strong and that’s one of the things that I really
appreciated working with Derek: that fantasy was always there. BOOK OF REVELATIONS Spark was a great, from the beginning
But listen, we’ve come this far and I haven’t mentioned Tilda Swinton in Sally – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie [1961]
Potter’s Orlando (1992), a
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They were right story she says is less about was probably the first, The Girls
there at the very beginning. gender than it is about of Slender Means [1963], etc. The
IS: Which was the first film of theirs you remember seeing? ‘sheer boundarylessness and Driver’s Seat [1970], which I love.
endless evolution’
TS: I think it was Black Narcissus [1947]. I Know Where I’m IS: What was it about her that seized you?
Going! [1945] is still a great – it’s a locket over my heart, that TS: Oh, she’s so witty and wise and black and passionate and
film. Because the thing about it that’s so particular is that untidy. She’s so wild, Muriel Spark. One of my favourite pieces of
it is the great Scottish film made by an Englishman and a writing by her is a short story called ‘The Snobs’, which is only
Hungarian. They were able to distil this sense of mystique. about three pages long. It’s vicious and hilarious and messy. It
I probably saw it in the same Cambridge art cinema where I was the mess that appealed to me, the way she was so abandoned.
remember seeing Tarkovsky. The impact of Tarkovsky at the time is I’m not a big one for the idea of national art, or even really of
hard to remember, but it was quite intense. Stalker [1979], in particular. national identity, but she does write as a person who comes from
There’s a scene in it which exactly illustrates a dream I’d had since I Scotland. There’s something about the way she ricochets between
was a child. And that was a this puritanical, Presbyterian Calvinist, and the passion.
shock. It was like this thing IS: Virginia Woolf was another writer who was a key inspiration for you
‘There’s a scene in about collective unconscious. when you were young. Was Orlando the first book of hers that you read?
Stalker with a room There’s a scene with a huge TS: Yes. I must have been 12 or 13 when I read Orlando [1928],
room full of sand, and a bird’s and it’s a great time to read it. And I read it again every five years.
full of sand and a flying towards the camera and What strikes me now is how it has this reputation that it’s all
flying bird. I’d had touches the sand with its wing. about gender and particularly about binary gender, male-to-female
I’d had that dream since I was transformation. And reading, I realised that it’s not about gender at
that dream since I quite young. Obviously I’m not all. In fact, it’s not about any kind of prescription. It’s about sheer
was young. I was like, the only one, but as a young boundarylessness and endless evolution. My thesis is that if Virginia
person it was like, “Wow! We Woolf had written another thousand words, a thousand pages,
“Wow! We can share can share each other’s dreams.” Orlando could have easily turned into a spaniel next or a fly
each other’s dreams”’ As for writers… Muriel or a bottle of wine or anything else. It’s about limitlessness,
TILDA SWINTON ON…

HER FAVOURITE PERFORMER BEING A DONKEY
Whenever I’m asked what my favourite being a donkey, and nothing more. And
performance is, apart from Buster Keaton, not, by the way, being very attention-
it’s the donkey – or rather the string of seeking. Just getting on with the business
donkeys – that made Au hasard Balthazar of being a donkey from frame to frame.
[1966] for Robert Bresson. I’m serious! And that’s a really great lesson.
I love that performance, and I love The other thing I love about the donkey
the way the film presents that being is, of course, that it never appears again in
so much. It’s a masterclass for human another film. That’s the great thing that I
performers because you are so with that wish I had been able to do, which is maybe
donkey at every moment and it teaches why I like to switch it up. To be in one
THE DONKEY IN AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (1966) us everything we need to know about film and then disappear is fantastic.

TILDA SWINTON
it’s not about just being stuck with two genders. It’s about ‘For my generation, It’s not all live work – I love live
movement and endless transformation. And it’s got much music, dance and stand-up, for
more to do with class – or rather it’s a criticism of class structure and the identity of example. But [with theatre] I
of national pride, all of that. She does not leave any prisoners, really. British cinema was think it’s the agreement that
IS: Other than Powell and Pressburger, what other, older you’re all going to sit and watch
British cinema grabbed you when you were younger? also ‘Carry On’ films. and not do anything and that
TS: Oh, Hitchcock. And Kind Hearts and Coronets [1949]. I can’t tell you And Derek Jarman these people on stage are going to
how many times I’ve seen that film. Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers are do their thing and never the
patron saints of mine. And I have the nerve to want to be influenced had that in him – twain shall meet. The last piece of
by them. (Laughs) They are really extraordinary. My love for Alec that silliness and theatre I did was a one-woman
Guinness was particularly about Kind Hearts and Coronets. That tickles show, which I asked John
me still. And one of the reasons is because I come from a family who that crudeness’ Maybury to make into the film
all look like each other. And it’s just so obvious everybody gets played Man to Man [1992]. It really
by the same person. I must have been about 12 when I saw it. It tickled spoiled me for theatre, because I loved it so much. Because it was
me senseless, and I love him. Peter Sellers’s ability – particularly in essentially stand-up and I was talking to the audience a lot. It was quite
collaboration with Kubrick – that kind of protean wit that he parlayed chaotic and mad and I love that feeling of chaos. But that burst my
in those films, and thinking of him in Lolita [1961] and particularly bubble. I don’t think I could have gone back to the fourth wall after that.
Dr. Strangelove [1963]. I’ve always loved multiple performances. . IS: You also don’t do television series…
What else? Well, for my generation, the identity of British cinema, TS: This is not to be rude to theatre or to television, it’s just that
English cinema, was also Carry On films. And I relish that sauciness and I’m really interested in cinema and living there. To tailor your
irreverence and nonsense. And Derek had that in him – that silliness question, if cinema dried up would I do television? I don’t know.
and that crudeness. That’s very important… Also that handmade, Probably not. I don’t think about it much. There was a time before
personal – clunky sometimes – unvarnished thing. That’s what English I had my children when I watched a lot of television. But I haven’t
filmmaking in particular was really about. And Derek came out of had a television for a very long time, so I’m quite out of touch.
that. It’s like a school play! The school of the school play in cinema!
IS: I can see that tendency in many of your films, even recent ones. ON COLLABORATION
TS: Yeah! Bong Joon Ho absolutely has that going for him. Lynn IS: What is it about long-term collaborations – from Jarman to
Hershman-Leeson, who I worked with on Teknolust [2002] and other Luca Guadagnino and the Coen brothers – that appeals to you?
films, has that going on for her. I didn’t know we were going to TS: Simply, the practice of making work out of an engaging and
be talking about Carry On. (Laughs) But one of the things I loved enjoyable conversation with someone you trust and love has to be the
about Carry On is that you could tell what fun it was to make those best of all possible fun. The bald fact is that I don’t know any other way
films – I know that there are dark memoirs about awful goings-on, to do it. With Derek I was able to establish both a way of performance
but on the whole there are also rather wonderful memoirs. How it – supremely autobiographical, very often improvised, frequently
was a group of mates who were having a bit of a laugh and rolling silent – and a way of working as a filmmaker: in consultation about
from one thing to another. That was not dissimilar to what I call concept and script, funding, framing, editing, distribution. This
‘Jarmania’, which is the same core people who just rolled on and on. meant that from the very outset I was respected as a collaborator.
IS: If you were born before cinema, what would you have done? IS: Thinking of your more fantastical creations, let’s take Snowpiercer
TS: You’re asking the question my son asked when he said, “What [2013]. The character Mason as originally specified in the script is a
were people’s dreams like before cinema was invented?” I always mild-mannered man, but your Mason is totally different. How did you work
say – and people think I’m laughing, but I actually mean it – I was collectively to realise this very outré, Margaret Thatcher-like figure?
really interested in flat racing. And ideally, I would have loved to have TS: Bong Joon Ho and Catherine George, the costume designer, who I
been a jockey, but I was too tall. I don’t know, probably I would’ve knew already from working with her on We Need to Talk About Kevin
been a gambler. Or I would’ve been a writer about flat racing. [2010], came to my house and had lunch and then we went afterwards
IS: Not theatre? to the drawing room next door and dressed up. We had a number of
TS: I did work in the theatre. When I met Derek, I was at the Royal photographs we produced for each other – it was like playing Snap! –
Shakespeare Company and on the verge of stopping being a performer of creatures that this character, Mason, could be. We initially were very
completely because of the experience. I felt, “Well, this is not interesting.” clear that we wanted this person to be slightly mysterious, a politician
TILDA SWINTON ON…

AN ABANDONED MUSIC VIDEO WITH MICHAEL POWELL AND NEW ORDER
In 1988 producer Michael H. Shamberg on the 1990 World Cup Song for the English Estuary [on the England/Wales border near
approached Michael Powell with the idea of football team instead) and Powell’s death in Liverpool], and it was me and a dog. And
working with New Order. Powell proposed 1990. Powell described a close-up of Swinton I remember distinctly the treatment said,
the idea of a short film based around Charles dead in the salmon nets as being “box office”. “If Tilda has a dog of her own, that would
Kingsley’s poem ‘The Sands of Dee’. The poem “Michael Powell and I knew each other be the best.” And at that stage I didn’t have
tells the tragic tale of a shepherdess who gets already because Sally [Potter] and I were a dog of my own, so I remember thinking,
stranded and drowns in the incoming tide. The in touch with him for several years before “Oh, that’s a bit of a shame.” But I just
film was never made due to production delays we shot Orlando. New Order asked him remember it had the Archers logo on it. I
(Powell and Pressburger fan and New Order to do a video and he thought of me. It mean, it was such an amazing thing. The
frontman Bernard Sumner wrote in his memoir was going to be called ‘The Sands of Dee’, combination of having the Archers logo
that the band chose, against his wishes, to work and we were going to shoot it on the Dee and my name typed – I couldn’t believe it.”

who was a sort of construct, who was created in much the same way PLAYING IT COOL have to ask Wes Anderson, but I
as Colonel Gaddafi created himself, or Idi Amin or Margaret Thatcher. (Above, from left) Tilda have a sense that he’ll be thinking
Swinton: with Derek Jarman
I had this fantasy that Mason was of some indeterminate gender, in 1987, in Bong Joon Ho’s of a project and then he’ll fit us all
and that maybe when you went into her cabin there was a wig Snowpiercer (2013) and in in. The French Dispatch we’ve been
stand and her wig was on it. And who knows what gender she Wes Anderson’s The Grand talking about for around four years.
Budapest Hotel (2014)
was? Maybe she was actually a mild-mannered man in a suit and It’s a nice way of working. [Uncut Gems
she just dressed up in this ridiculous way in order to be bombastic directors] the Safdie brothers I met through Darius Khondji, who’s a
and tyrannical. That idea of boundless, egotistical, maniacal, director of photography I’ve worked with several times. We made Okja
bombastic, showing-off type power we really wanted to look at. [2017] together and worked on [Danny Boyle’s 2000 film] The Beach all
And then we started trading photographs, and Bong produced one those years ago. And he introduced me to the Safdies. We had supper
of a woman who looked like a parrot. And then we were off, we just one night and we liked each other. It’s just… how does anybody meet
went, “That’s the beginning of Mason.” So, I went and got a whole lot anybody? Is there a Tinder for filmmakers? Maybe there should be.
of uniforms and we did a whole lot of dressing up. I remember making
some medals out of paper and sticking them on. And that stayed in ON PERFORMANCE
the film, because of course that’s what Gaddafi did. He would make IS: You’re not an actor who’s attached to a particular school
his own medals and stick them on. We put it together like two eight- of acting – you’re not at all a Method actor, for instance.
year-olds would put together some sort of ridiculous school play. TS: I’d have to go further than that and say I’m not anything. I know
IS: Is that the way you work with, say, Wes Anderson? this always sounds a little bit strange, but I really don’t identify as an
TS: With Wes Anderson, you’re dealing with a different machine. actor at all. I mean, I’ve read [Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin]
You’re dealing with [four-time Oscar-winning Italian costume Stanislavski. I read Bertolt Brecht. But I don’t think in those terms. It’s
designer] Milena Canonero. She and Wes presented me with a much a strange thing to say, but when I’m working it’s like the performance
more realised variety. There was still a variety of options – there is in my peripheral vision – I don’t focus on it. Again, this is probably
always are – and then we would home in on colour, for example. best explained by thinking of my roots – the way we worked together
That’s always very important. Looking for the colour of the yellow with Derek, all of us, it was always collective. Yes, it is true that
of the dress for The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014] was also a bit of a Derek was saying to Sandy Powell, “You take care of the costumes.”
journey. The colour is as important as anything else. It’s almost more “Christopher Hobbs, you take care of the design. Tilda, you play
important than looking for the shape because, in the frame, it’s that.” But all the decisions were made collectively. It wasn’t like I
about resonating and taking up a certain amount of psychic space. was off by myself, like a proper actor figuring out a performance.
IS: How do your collaborations tend to come about? Do I suppose the most orthodox performances I made with Derek
people tend to come to you? Do you go to them? were things like Isabella in Edward II [1991]. And that was an
TS: A bit of both. I have a longstanding habit of knowing people interpretation of a text, of a classic play [by Christopher Marlowe].
before we work together. Like Apichatpong, for example. He There would be decisions about how she’s going to look, how
and I have known each other for over ten years, and we’ve been she’s going to be placed in the frame. That still is the case for
talking for that long about making a film together and we’re just me – what is the frame? What’s in it? What’s the atmosphere?
finishing it now. But that doesn’t feel like a very long time for me. Is the camera going to move? If so, how? And how do I fit in?
That’s pretty normal. And it’s a nice feeling, because when people In my observation, real actors tend to work on a continuity of
ask us, “Have you worked together before?” we sort of go, “Well, their own performance from shot to shot through the narrative of
kind of, yeah. We feel like we’ve made eight films together, but the story. And I don’t work like that. I go from frame to frame. I don’t
actually this is the first one.” I tend to get to know people before know how else to put it. If you’re up close on my face, or if you’re
there’s a project, and then there’s a project, and then the third and all the way back there and you’re in the foreground I’m tiny in the
least interesting question is whether I’ll be in it or what I’ll play. background, that’s really important. It’s not about my character.
But the conversation comes first and the project comes second. It’s to do with the shape. Maybe it’s more a fine art attitude.
I’ve been thinking about the way I worked with Derek in Prospect IS: How do you approach defining the look of the characters you
Cottage and that’s what it was. It was just sitting around the kitchen play? Are you very involved in that side of things?
table, talking about what we were going to do next. I mean, you’d TS: Again, it relates to the frame. Early on, beyond the

TILDA SWINTON
conversation with the directors, I need to talk to the designers,

and to a certain extent the cinematographer, about the look
and atmosphere of the film. And then I’ll start talking to the costume
designers. So that’s the order it goes in. This is another reason why
it’s so lucky working with people you know well. Because you
know roughly what you’re dealing with. For example, with Wes
Anderson, you never talk about period. No one ever says, “Is it the
50s? Is it the 60s?” No, it’s ‘Wes Time’. And there’s a code that gets
easier with every film because people understand that that’s the
sort of universe that you’re creating. It’s completely unique. So
when you’re in that kind of conversation – and it might be struck
up on the first film or it may be something that’s lovely rolling on
in the fourth – you have that agreement. You know that, in this
moment, this character needs to be very bright and very defined.
Or you need to know what colour the wall is you’re standing
in front of. This is all really important to me anyway, and I love
working in that way. It’s a very sort of organic conversation.
The first point is, how is it going to look? What does everything
mean? What does this person in this particular scene – in this
particular shot – need to mean? Does it need to mean something quite
abrasive? Does it need to look very put together? Or does it need to look
in opposition to its surrounding or somehow part of its surrounding?
IS: You seem drawn to characters in positions of power: Snowpiercer’s TRADING FACES in The Souvenir when you’re delivering
Mason, obviously, the White Witch in the Narnia films, Queen Tilda Swinton in (clockwise, the tragic news at the end, you’re coming
from top left) Michael
Isabella. Is there a particular attraction to these figures for you? Clayton (2007), Julia (2008), down the stairs. You seem a very physical
TS: Yes, or that they have some kind of negotiation with the idea of The Souvenir (2019) and The actor. A person I often think about in
power. Some of them are not as successful as others. For example, Deep End (2001) relation to you is Buster Keaton.
the [ruthless lawyer] character I play in Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton TS: It’s true, I am, as a person, fairly
[2007], I found that a really interesting portrait, because that’s mobile, and quite energetic. It’s very telling, how people move.
someone who has this very complicated negation with the idea of When you’re making films, you’re dealing with a code. You have
being powerful. You get the sense that she doesn’t really want to be in to work very fast – especially if you’re dealing with something
power but she wants to be a really good soldier and follow a leader. like 90 minutes – to lay down the code of who is this person, what
Then you have the character in The Deep End [2001], Margaret sorts of mechanisms operate when they’re making decisions about
Hall, who really wants to live a vanilla life being a service wife how they talk, what words they use, what they decide to say and
and a responsible mother and wife and daughter-in-law. And what they decide to keep quiet. All of that. And so, looking at how
she’s a very soft-spoken and rather shy individual, and then she’s they do it on the move, and this is semi-conscious – I won’t say it’s
thrown into this situation where she has to take control. completely unconscious because I do think about it a little bit.
I do like that this is what binds all these characters, unless Your mention of Buster Keaton is the most wonderful reference
they’re these sort of superhuman people like the White Witch because he’s the first god for me. Of anybody, he’s the person who
who are the epitome of all evil, so there’s nothing that they can made me want to be a film performer. I was very, very young when I
do but reign supreme. I do like looking at the way in which this saw Buster Keaton. I remember seeing him in the newsreel cinema
predicament of taking power on and living with it plays out. I’m in the late 60s, early 70s, and it was love at first sight. It was the
interested in the decision to be powerful, because it is a decision, combination of his incredible stillness, his physicality, and his beauty.
just as it’s a decision to be happy, that And there was something about the way in which he held his face.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
Tilda Swinton relished the people make and it costs them. Possibly the first moment I thought practically about performing
dual nature of her role in I IS: When I think of you in films, I tend to was when I was on a train going back to school and being very, very
Am Love (2009), saying: ‘You picture you moving. In The Deep End your unhappy about it. I was sitting in one of those carriages opposite other
have this interior life and
then you have the persona character is constantly on the move. In people – which now feels like it lives only in Miss Marple films and
they play out to other people’ Orlando you’re running. Even the scene nowhere else. I remember being aware that nobody would be able to
tell how miserable I was. I remember looking at all the other people
and thinking, “I wonder what’s going on in his life, that man with
the pipe, and that lady who’s doing her knitting.” And I remember
being immediately mesmerised by the possibility of both hiding
from the world what’s going on inside, but also showing it – and
how would you show it without talking? And Buster Keaton is the
patron saint of that, because he makes a point of connection and a
point of empathy so vibrant. The General [1926] was a very early film
of mine and it was a very early film I showed my children as well. It’s
a great, great film for kids. Because he’s a great example of an adult
for kids: he’s got the energy of a child and the anarchy of a child and
yet he has that solitary existential alienation which a child has too.
IS: Staying in a sense with Keaton, comedy is something you’ve done more
and more of over the last ten or so years. What’s led you down that route?
TS: It’s funny, because I remember after I’d been working for a few

years, occasionally people would say, “Do you ever think of doing ‘The studio films person is by themselves, and
comedy?” And I was struck because I thought I was always being funny. then you have this other world
I mean, Orlando is very funny. To be fair, there aren’t many laughs in I’ve done are all which is the persona that they
Edward II, so I suppose I did make it hard for people to know that it by filmmakers in play out with other people.
was all a bit of a laugh. Which it just is for me and it always has been. IS: You’ve worked across so many
IS: And when you are playing more, let’s say, naturalistic, emotional experimental mode. film styles and genres – from
characters – I’m thinking particularly of The Deep End and I Am Love De-ageing Brad Pitt Jarman to Marvel. But is it really
[2009] – does your approach change? I imagine it would be different that different, making a Marvel
to, say, approaching a character like Mason, though maybe not? to make him look 15 film to a Derek Jarman film?
TS: This is very reductive, and of course there are more calibrations is not a million miles TS: Marvel and Jarman are, in
on the scale, but we could say that there are sort of two major my experience, really close
modes – ‘Red Label’, ‘Gold Label’, or ‘Tilda Light’, ‘Tilda Strong’, from a Derek Jarman together. The studio films
whatever. There are two calibrations around realism. That’s the very Pet Shop Boys video’ I’ve done, which is only a
first question to figure out with a filmmaker. What are we dealing handful, are all by filmmakers
with here? Are we dealing with a real naturalism? Are we dealing who are in a kind of experimental mode. For example,
with an environment with an atmosphere and a landscape that is Constantine [2005], by Francis Lawrence. I remember a lot of very
really present in its reflection? And if we are, then that means the intelligent cyber-nerds running on to the set saying, “Look at
performance needs to be much more fine-toothcombed, much more this amazing thing we’ve just invented that we can use to have
reflective, and real. But that also goes for something like Julia [2008], shards of glass coming through the air in the denouement.”
which is pretty realistic even though she’s quite a flamboyant and The same was true on the The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [2008].
not particularly interior character. But still, that film was made with You had people going, “Look at this stuff we just literally coined where
that sort of eye for detail and believability, for want of a better word. we can de-age Brad Pitt to make him look 15.” That’s not a million
And then with the woman in I Am Love, the woman in The Deep miles away from working with Derek Jarman on a Pet Shop Boys video.
End and to a certain extent the woman in Michael Clayton – they are And that’s even true of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
quite interior people. I don’t like to use the word ‘character’, because [2005], which I did with Andrew Adamson. He said, “I’ve only made
I think you can talk about character if you’re dealing with someone animation, and this is going to be my first live-action film. It’s a total
like Mason, but with those portraits, I was trying to look like a person shot in the dark for me. Do you want to be a part of it?” He was being
and fade into the background as much as possible. They’re quite his own pioneer. To a certain extent, he was a first-time filmmaker.
interior, they spend a lot of time on their own figuring stuff out and And I’ve had a lot of experience working with first-time filmmakers.
they’re not used to being looked at. Even the character in I Am Love, So, they feel really close together. With Jarman we used to have blue
she’s a sort of trophy wife, but she doesn’t really expect to be seen or screens, not green screens, but apart from that, they felt very similar.
to have anybody ask her any questions about herself, so she has this IS: So does a drama without those effects, something like Michael Clayton,
internal life constantly running, which I love. I love playing with with a more traditional, conventional set-up, feel more foreign to you?
that sort of portrait when you have two things going at the same TS: I don’t know if it was traditional. It was more industrial,
time: you have this interior life, which you occasionally see when the I suppose, although it felt relatively low-fi. Looking back
TILDA SWINTON: SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
Caravaggio Man to Man The Deep End Julia The Grand

Derek Jarman, 1986 John Maybury, 1992 Scott McGehee & Erick Zonca, 2008 Budapest Hotel
Caprice Orlando David Siegel, 2001 Burn After Reading Wes Anderson, 2014
Joanna Hogg, 1986 (short) Sally Potter, 1992 Vanilla Sky Ethan Coen, A Bigger Splash
Friendship’s Death Wittgenstein Cameron Crowe, 2001 Joel Coen, 2008 Luca Guadagnino, 2015
Peter Wollen, 1987 Derek Jarman, 1993 Teknolust The Limits of Control Doctor Strange
The Last of England Blue Lynn Hershman- Jim Jarmusch, 2009 Scott Derrickson, 2015
Derek Jarman, 1987 Derek Jarman, 1993 Leeson, 2002 I Am Love Okja Bong Joon Ho, 2017
War Requiem (as narrator) Adaptation Luca Guadagnino, 2009 Suspiria
Derek Jarman, 1989 Conceiving Ada Spike Jonze, 2002 We Need to Luca Guadagnino, 2018
The Garden Lynn Hershman- Young Adam Talk About Kevin The Souvenir
Derek Jarman, 1990 Leeson, 1997 David Mackenzie, 2003 (pictured) Lynne Joanna Hogg, 2019
Edward II Love Is the Devil Thumbsucker Ramsay, 2011 The Personal History
Derek John Maybury, 1998 Mike Mills, 2005 Moonrise Kingdom of David Copperfield
Jarman, 1991 The Beach The Chronicles of Wes Anderson, 2012 Armando Iannucci, 2019
Danny Boyle, 2000 Narnia: The Lion, The David Bowie: The Stars
Witch and the Wardrobe (Are out Tonight) AS DIRECTOR:
Andrew Adamson, 2005 Floria Sigismondi, Will We Wake
The Man from London 2013 (music video) 1998 (short)
Béla Tarr & Agnes Only Lovers Left Alive The Seasons In
Hranitzky, 2007 Jim Jarmusch, 2013 Quincy: Four Portraits
Michael Clayton Snowpiercer of John Berger
Tony Gilroy, 2007 Bong Joon Ho, 2013 2016, dir.‘Harvest’ segment

TILDA SWINTON
on it, I realise it was a Hollywood film. It was Warner ALTERED STATES is entirely silent. So I’m very comfortable,
Bros and it had George Clooney in it. But we were in New Tilda Swinton in (from I’m more comfortable, with being silent.
left) Luca Guadagnino’s A
York, and on location, and it felt quite familial. In fact, I’ve gone Bigger Splash (2015), Derek IS: You’ve often played immortal
on to work several times with that film’s production designer Jarman’s Caravaggio (1986) characters, for example in Orlando,
Kevin Thompson. I introduced him to Bong Joon Ho. and Jim Jarmusch’s Only in [Jim Jarmusch’s 2013] Only
Lovers Left Alive (2013)
I’m trying to remember the last time I went completely cold into a Lovers Left Alive, and also arguably
world I didn’t know. I suppose the Marvel film Doctor Strange [2016], the superhero characters too. What’s the appeal to that?
but on the other hand, as I say, I think Doctor Strange is quite a Jarman TS: It’s tricky to answer it because I have to ask myself chicken-
film, actually. I was also keenly aware of the fact that David Bowie and-egg questions. Even before I played Orlando, I had played the
was a huge fan of Doctor Strange. We’d have conversations about extraterrestrial Friendship in [1987] Friendship’s Death. It’s the second
Doctor Strange. The wonderful thing about my few experiences of feature I made, by the great Peter Wollen, who died recently. She comes
those big CG films is that they are all so handmade at the end of the from another galaxy to work out what it means to be human. And
day. It’s all put together by paper and string. You’ve got someone this film set the plate for me. What is it – how we do this thing? We
saying, “This is the Hulk. You’re talking to him.” But, and everyone have a limited span, and we have to fill it up with human behaviour.
knows this now, you’re looking at a tennis ball on a stick. And I love But then that’s why it’s so wonderful to look at those portraits of
all that. I love the fakery and the smoke and mirrors and the make- individuals who don’t have a limited span – people like Eve in Only
believe of it. And that brings it closer to the school play. And so it Lovers who’s 2,000 years old and constantly reinventing. Or Orlando.
never feels very far from a children’s dressing-up box either in the This question of reinvention… I’m very interested in the concept
room next door with Bong Joon Ho or in Dungeness with Derek. It of identity. The way in which society peddles the idea that you have
all pretty much, in my experience, tends to feel like a playground. an identity – it will probably be decided for you, but even if you have
IS: You often play silent characters, thinking of A Bigger Splash, for a hand in it, OK, you’ve got one shot. You decide what you are, who
instance. Is that you thinking, “Okay, that’s a big challenge”? you are, what you’re interested in, and that’s it for the rest of time. You
TS: It’s my most comfortable spot. Of course this might explain can’t even evolve or morph a little bit, let alone really switch it up. And
something about my attraction to Buster Keaton as well, but I love I don’t believe it. It’s a terrible con. Even as a child, I was constantly
watching silent performance. I watched a lot of silent cinema when noticing people suffering under this burden, and was curious as to why
I was very young: somebody who was charged with looking after people were so determined to toe the line. And I became interested
me was very keen on Rudolph Valentino and Greta Garbo. It just felt in stories in which individuals are up against some predicament
completely correct to me to be filmed and not speaking. And of course that pushes them on to this precipice where they have to change,
the majority of my work with Jarman was not speaking. Not only in and where their identity, their sense of themselves, has to develop.
the Super-8 films blown up to 35, which are pre-eminently not synch So, I’m not just talking about Orlando, who is born a boy and then
sound, so there is no talking in them, but even in Caravaggio. There’s a realises that to be a man he has to kill and goes to sleep for seven days
bit of talking, of course, in Marlowe’s Edward II, but War Requiem [1989] and wakes up having turned into a woman. I’m also talking about
Margaret Hall in The Deep End who is doing everything she can to tick
all the boxes but then finds herself – spoiler alert! – burying a body and
TILDA SWINTON: THE YEAR AHEAD dealing with a man with dice tattooed on his neck with whom she
falls in love. And that feeling of her being thrown by circumstances
into this complete rethink of what she is, let alone what she might do.
Tilda Swinton’s impressive arthouse allies expands This was set very early. Even in Caravaggio, the character
roster of films this year to include Thai director transforms – the girl in the hammock turns into this gold-bedecked
includes Wes Anderson’s The Apichatpong Weerasethakul, courtesan. I’ve always been interested in that, and I don’t think
French Dispatch, in which she who told Sight & Sound in our it’s very exotic. Everybody is up against it all the time. You know,
plays a glamorous writer in February issue that he wr0te the you become a mother. Which parts of you are going to stay the
a New Yorker-inspired ode to Colombia-set Memoria (about same? Very few, by the way. And it’s like being on a roller-coaster.
journalism. She also reprises the an archaeologist, a fish-scaler You just have to hang on, and on it goes. It’s such a truism, but
role of Julie’s anxious mother in and a woman plagued by it’s the only thing we can rely on in life: change. Nothing else.
Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir Part strange sounds) with Swinton But if you’re ready for it, then it’s going to be all right.
II and is one of the narrators of in mind. She will also star A Tilda Swinton retrospective screens at BFI Southbank, London, until 18
Mark Cousins’s forthcoming in a short English-language March. A mini-exhibition in the Mezzanine at BFI Southbank surveys the
documentary Women Make Film . film Pedro Almodóvar is actor’s career through objects, costumes, photography and sketchbooks
Meanwhile, Swinton’s making of Jean Cocteau’s from the BFI National Archive and her own private collection. A selection
network of international one-act play The Human Voice. of films starring Swinton is available on BFI Player, alongside a collection
she has curated of her all-time favourite films

Cinema is limitless. recognise how magnificently, mind- restore, support or build great big
And she isn’t going anywhere glowingly similar/different we are screens from the beginning to the end
And of the territory their reach touches:
We want to travel, through time to make good their stated commitment
and space and into other people’s to filmmakers interested in making films
shoes and behind their eyes for the wild, wide screen, the experience
There’s no such thing as a foreign film And we like not knowing of communal exhibition and the honest
There’s no such thing as an old film what’s going to happen diversity of the canon of cinema history.
The idea of any national cinema
is missing the point And so Wouldn’t that be grand?
We have over a century’s worth of We would love more screens to see all this
bounty from all corners of this globe to on: big rickety ones currently in great old
savour and learn from, fresh as the day ramshackle cine-palaces now furniture
And the wide, wide screen can hold showrooms, dinky ones in niche rooms with
every possible thing we throw at it comfy seats, inflatable ones in parks, sheets
tied to two broomsticks in village halls
We have filmmakers everywhere – of
every possible description – with films We would love all the above and more And
in their heads and hearts and fingers
All on their way We want to watch film together in the dark We would love to stop squabbling
Some of them are producers’ PAs We want to watch things we’ve never heard over the idea that cinema cannot
or cine-passionate stand-by props boys of in languages we cannot understand be more than one thing
or even film students We want new faces, new places, new shapes,
Some of them just sold us our coffee new sizes, new stories, new rhythms Because then we can also stop whispering
or bus ticket or insurance and mouthing about cinema as if she is
They have cameras in their We want to get lost a fragile invalid that needs quiet, vacant
back pockets, every one and sterile surroundings lest she break,
They have a wide-eyed intergalactic And an endangered and diminishing ice
audience open to and eager for new We want long immersions floe that has any limits whatsoever
fellowships and new horizons We have the stamina
We have the lust When, in fact, she simply doesn’t. End of
Hooray for the multiplex and the Trained up by the box-set: imagine the
spandex zam-fests and whoosh- binge cinema three-day plunge… Cinema rocks and rolls
athons, the gargantuan one-stop
big-top bunker-cathedrals, the And bounces and stretches
cardboard nosebag of unspeakably
toxic phosphorescent worms and the And We love cinema for her elasticity,
quadruple-flavoured American ice cream her inventiveness,her resilience, her
Some time, imagine this: limber and undauntable roots and
We leave our world and gallivant, ricochet’d her eternally supersonic evolution
with mythic abandon in the deafening We get to know a film at the end of our
surround-sound pinball playpen bed – even in our hand, even on our As it says on the bottom of the studio credit
wrist on the Tube – and when it comes roll: throughout the universe in perpetuity
We love it to town, we LOVE to see it live large
From time to time. Like knowing an album inside out
ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH J COLEMAN AT INKYMOLE
and just craving the band’s live gig

And
WE WOULD LOVE THIS
Meanwhile Film Forever
And so
We love other stuff too, stuff of all shapes Onwards.
and sizes, stuff of the planet and all of us on it We would very much love the mighty
We want to see ourselves and others and streaming services to feel galvanised to

BLOOD LANDS
Václav Marhoul’s ‘The Painted Bird’, a searing portrait of a boy trapped in the violence of
Eastern Europe during WWII, joins a brave lineage of films exploring the experience of
conflict in the region, from ‘Ivan’s Childhood’ to ‘Come and See’. By Michael Brooke
C
zech director Václav Marhoul was far from boy as he travels through a hellscape bearing witness INTOLERABLE CRUELTY
the obvious candidate to attempt the first to, and often being the target of, set pieces as violent Petr Kotlar as Joska, in
The Painted Bird, which
translation into film of The Painted Bird, Jerzy as anything in recent cinema. (The 102-day shoot encapsulates the experience
Kosinski’s notorious 1965 novel set in an unspecified spanned 18 months, a pre-planned special effect that of living in what historian
war-ravaged Eastern European country during World enabled lead actor Petr Kotlar to visibly age over the Timothy Snyder calls ‘the
bloodlands’, from central
War II. Marhoul had just two feature films behind course of the film.) Few current films have been more Poland to eastern Russia
him – the Raymond Chandler-inspired slapstick farce deserving of an 18 certificate, and anyone even slight- and incorporating Ukraine,
Smart Philip (2003) and the war film Tobruk (2008), ly squeamish should approach with extreme caution. Belarus and the Baltic States
about Czechoslovak soldiers on the front line of the Although it was perhaps inevitable that the film
Allies’ North African campaign. Which explains would be repeatedly described as “Václav Marhoul’s
some of the shock that greeted its September 2019 Holocaust epic”, the director himself is at pains to
world premiere at the Venice Film Festival: this was play this down. And indeed the events labelled ‘the
undoubtedly a major film by a serious artist, with the Holocaust’ – the pre-planned, mechanised slaughter
work of Andrei Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr frequently of millions of people – comprise a comparatively
cited as legitimate comparators. But the bulk of the small proportion of his film’s 169 minutes. People
reaction, including numerous walkouts, was linked clearly en route to a Nazi extermination camp
to the film’s content. The narrative follows a young attempt an escape, and a numerical camp tattoo

VACLAV MARHOUL THE PAINTED BIRD
is revealed in the last scene, but otherwise the

film’s atrocity exhibition is conducted at a strictly
local level. And in this the film encapsulates the experi-
ence of living in what historian Timothy Snyder calls
“the bloodlands”, stretching from central Poland to east-
ern Russia and incorporating Ukraine, Belarus and the
Baltic States, which from 1933 to 1945 experienced, to
quote Snyder “mass violence of a sort never before seen
in history”. The 14 million victims were mostly native to
that region: Jews, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Russians
and Balts, very few of them wearing military uniform,
and while the perpetrators were often loyal to either Hit-
ler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union, sometimes they
were driven by more ancient enmities.
It was widely assumed that Kosinski’s novel was set
in the author’s native Poland (exacerbated by the erro-
neous initial impression that it was autobiographical),
but the text never specifies the location and the ethnic-
ity of its pre-teenage protagonist is similarly vague: his
non-Aryan physical features let him pass for either Jew
or Roma, and he’s constantly ‘Othered’ by people look-
ing for an easy excuse for persecution. Kosinski’s novel
was written in English, but despite casting Harvey Keitel,
Barry Pepper, Julian Sands, Stellan Skarsgård and Udo
Kier, Marhoul presents the film’s sparse spoken content
in Interslavic, a pre-existing artificial language based on
‘How will we realise what is good Slavic grammar and vocabulary, but impossible to local-
ise beyond a generic ‘Eastern Europe’. For similar reasons,
and what is not? If we do not Marhoul filmed in several countries: Poland, Slovakia,
know the evil, we can’t find the Ukraine and his native Czech Republic.
In attempting to depict the experience of living in
good. It’s a complicated question. the bloodlands, The Painted Bird joins a number of films
I’m still trying to find out myself’ that present a more localised and historically specific
study of individual atrocities, in the process present-
ing filmmakers with numerous dilemmas about how
best to balance the need to at least give an impression
of the full horror without justifying accusations of sen-
sationalist wallowing. As Marhoul puts it: “How will we
realise what is good and what is not? If we do not know
the evil, we can’t find the good. It’s a complicated ques-
tion for me. I suppose that my film doesn’t provide any
responses to the audience. Each in his own way has to
understand the story. This is quite important because I
am still trying to find out myself. So many questions, but
no clear answers.”
THE MISFORTUNES OF WAR On the whole, perhaps because of the comparative
Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn (2007, lack of prurient interest that led to things like the 1970s
right), Elem Klimov’s Come
and See (1985, below right), Nazisploitation phenomenon (Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS,
and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s 1974; SS Experiment Camp, 1976), the films that place
Childhood (1962, below) the Eastern European experience front and centre usu-
ally pass the tact test. Marhoul intended from the outset
to shoot in black and white, taking his cue from Steven
Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993), in turn inspired by An-
drzej Wajda’s Korczak (1990), which saw the Polish master
return to black and white for the first time in decades. In
The Painted Bird, cinematographer Vladimír Smutny’s
gravely beautiful black-and-white images recall two as-
pects of the work of Don McCullin – the unflinchingly
blunt images of conflict, and the vast, empty landscapes
that the great war photographer turned to in later years.
Interviews with McCullin often touch on similar topics
to those that Marhoul raises about the ethics of depicting
human beings in a state of extreme violation.
Marhoul applies similar tact to individual set pieces.

While much of the novel’s animal abuse is carried over more vividly than if he’d just been a distant witness. SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE
to the film, it’s invariably framed and cut in such a way Humphrey Jennings attempted something similar when Václav Marhoul (pictured
on set, opposite) attracted
that the cine-literate viewer can work out how the effect he transplanted the Nazi obliteration of the Czech village a strong international cast,
was achieved even on first viewing (and thankfully the of Lidice to a demographically similar Welsh mining including (clockwise from
book’s most brutally graphic section, involving a rabbit community in The Silent Village (1943), made only a few top left) Stellan Skarsgård,
Harvey Keitel, Udo Kier
that regains consciousness while being skinned, was years after the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland had (centre) and Barry Pepper
dropped at the script stage). The same goes for child been notoriously dismissed by Neville Chamberlain as
sexual abuse (significantly toned down from the book), “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom
and the scene in which a man is eaten alive by starving we know nothing”.
rats – described with lip-smacking relish by Kosinski in a Often it was in the relevant authorities’ interest to
decidedly James Herbert-like passage – happens entirely ensure that we knew nothing. Although it was widely
off screen once the narrative ingredients have been estab- known in Poland that the spring 1940 massacre of more
lished. The most shocking moments all have a clear psy- than 20,000 Polish army officers and other members of
chological point, often to do with loss of innocence: the the intelligentsia in Ukraine’s Katyn Forest had been car-
aftermath of a brutal eye-gouging is followed by the child ried out by Soviet forces, the official story that it was a
witness’s naive attempt to “make things better”, while Nazi massacre carried out three years later remained in
the murder of a woman, Ludmila, deemed to have be- place until a belated Soviet admission of culpability in
haved immorally, is rendered doubly disturbing by an act 1990. One of the Katyn victims was cavalry officer Jakub
of shockingly sexualised violence that is itself carried out Wajda, and his son Andrzej planned to make Katyn
by a much older woman. Marhoul has a double defence: for decades before it finally emerged in 2007. Wajda’s
every horrific set piece in his film is drawn directly from sombre, intensely moving film concludes with a recon-
the literary classic that inspired it, and there is no doubt struction of the massacre itself, and what truly horrifies
that equivalent atrocities occurred on a regular basis in is how primitive it is, as victims are lined up and shot in
the bloodlands throughout the 1940s (and indeed more the back of the head: the only concession to 20th-century
recently elsewhere: Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, Syria, etc). technology is the bulldozer filling in the mass graves.
He also has the defence that it’s a work of fiction: Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985), a major influ-
shortly before Agnieszka Holland’s recent Mr. Jones ence on The Painted Bird (Marhoul cast Klimov’s lead
opened commercially in the UK, the Sunday Times ran a actor Alexei Kravchenko in conscious tribute), similarly
shock-horror story about how its journalist protagonist shows how mass destruction can be perpetrated with
Gareth Jones is seen in the film indulging – albeit unwit- the most basic methods, provided there are enough fa-
tingly – in cannibalism, something that almost certainly natics willing to use them. Klimov’s equivalent of Katyn’s
never happened in real life. But cannibalism undoubt- climax involves villagers deliberately burned alive in a
edly was a side-effect of the mass starvation engendered barn, a method of slaughter frequently practised by Reviewed on
in Ukraine in 1932-3 by Soviet grain-requisition policies, Oskar Dirlewanger, the head of an SS unit that was for-
and while Holland and screenwriter Andrea Chalupa mally charged with hunting down active partisans but
page 72
could conceivably have not involved Jones directly, the in practice found it easier simply to murder whoever was
moment when he realises what he’s eating conveys a perceived to be in their way.
first-person shock at the full horror of the Holodomor The events in Come and See and The Painted Bird

VACLAV MARHOUL THE PAINTED BIRD
are seen through the horrified eyes of a child, a

not uncommon narrative strategy – Andrei Tar- VACLAV MARHOUL ON
kovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962) and Lajos Koltai’s Fateless THE PAINTED BIRD
(2005) are other distinguished regional examples). Ján
Kadár and Elmar Klos’s The Shop on the High Street (1965) GESTATION He is describing children in a crisis
does something similar, but their victim is a befuddled old I read The Painted Bird moment, like in concentration camps
woman (Oscar-nominated Ida Kaminska) whose ‘crime’ is before I worked on and war, and paradoxically the children
to be Jewish when the Slovak authorities were enthusias- Tobruk [2008], and are in much better condition than the
tically collaborating with the Nazis. Tellingly, there’s only when I finished that I adults because they have two big
one briefly glimpsed swastika: the film’s dominant op- started to think about advantages. First, they do not remember
pression symbol is the double-cross of the Hlinka Guard, my new project, and The Painted Bird much. Second, children cannot plan the
the Slovak People’s Party militia charged with enforcing came to me as a boomerang. It hit my future. We know what should happen
‘Aryanisation’ policies that at the time (1942) went further head all the time, but I didn’t believe in the next ten years, but children are
than equivalents in Germany itself. that an unknown Czech director could just living day to day and hour by hour.
There’s a simplistic tendency to think of the blood- buy the rights. Warren Beatty tried So the boy is simply falling, deeper and
lands’ victims as a monolithic group, but films like Ag- to get The Painted Bird. He was a very deeper through the dark, but he doesn’t
nieszka Holland’s In Darkness (2011) and Wojciech Smar- close friend of Jerzy Kosinski – they know. We know the dark’s there, but he
zowski’s Volhynia (aka Hatred, 2016) stress that Jews, Poles wrote the screenplay for Reds [1981] – doesn’t. That’s horrifying for me, not the
and Ukrainians had as many differences as similarities but Kosinski never agreed. He said he scene with the eyes.
– indeed, Holland insisted that an initially English-lan- would trust only two directors: Buñuel
guage project be presented in Polish, Ukrainian, German and Fellini. So I checked the rights, INFLUENCES
which are with the Spertus Jewish Three films have been very influential.
‘For four years I tried to finance it, Institute in Chicago. I wrote them a If you remember the scene in Andrei
letter, and didn’t expect any response. Rublev [1966] where the Mongolians
and it was a nightmare. I met so But they responded, and in 2009 I came are going to murder all those people
many producers who said, “It’s to Chicago and they interrogated me – in the forest. It’s very similar when my
that’s the correct expression – for more Cossacks are attacking the village. [The
harrowing, no English language, than an hour: “What is the mission shot of the naked Ludmila, a woman
black and white: forget it”’ of the book? What is the message of who has been ostracised from her
the story? What would you like to village] is the same shot, where she’s
and Yiddish in order to reflect this. Often as viscerally ex- say?” And I always read this book as crossing the meadow, that’s in Marketa
treme as The Painted Bird, Volhynia is one of the cinema’s being about the three most important Lazarová [1967]. I did this with full
most vivid recent depictions of how communities that things in life: good, hope and love. respect to Frantisek Vlácil, because he
have intermingled for centuries can swiftly become is one of the most wonderful, biggest
mortal enemies when given appropriate ideological PRODUCTION world directors that ever existed. And
impetus. Similarly, Wladyslaw Pasikowski’s Aftermath For four years I tried to finance this the third film is by Elem Klimov, Come
(2012) deals with the topic of active participation in anti- movie, and it was a nightmare. Every and See [1985]. In terms of the camera
Semitic atrocities by Poles as well as Germans, a subject year I went to the [European Film] and editing, it’s not so special, but the
that the present Polish government has recently made Market in Berlin and to Cannes and I story and the fact that Klimov didn’t
virtually taboo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ryszard Buga- met so many potential co-producers make any compromises was wonderful.
jski, director of the memorably confrontational Interro- who said, “No, no, never. It’s a harrowing And I tried to show my respect to
gation (1982), went to his grave unable to raise funds to story, no English language, black and Klimov’s work [by casting that film’s
dramatise the Kielce pogrom of 1946, the deadliest attack white: forget it.” But finally, after four lead actor] Alexei Kravchenko.
on Jews since WWII, and whose perpetrators were Poles. years, I put it together as a co-production
Marcel Lozinski’s queasily gripping Kielce documentary with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and THE ENDING
Witnesses (1987) accrues much of its Shoah-like power by Ukraine. Then it took one-and-a-half In the book, I didn’t really like the
dint of interviewing actual participants. years of principal photography and ending. His mother stays alive, his father
At the end of The Painted Bird, Marhoul urges the viewer ten months for the post-production. stays alive, they have another child, he
to sit through the end credits, to process what they’ve has a small brother, and he breaks his
just seen while listening to the film’s only non-diegetic A CHILD’S EYES arm. And finally he’s going somewhere
music: Israeli composer Naomi Shemer’s ‘Horchat Hai Most of [the scene in which the in Switzerland, in the mountains, he’s
Caliptus’. Petr Nikolaev’s Lidice (2011) offers a similarly labourer’s eyes are gouged out] is skiing and the avalanche is coming.
moving accompaniment to the end credits in the form different in the book. [In the film] the I thought so much about how to
of a parallel roll-call of real-life women bearing the first boy really loves the labourer, finish my movie without the
name Lidice, a tradition that began in Catholic countries and goes to give him the sentiment, just simply to
(especially in Latin America) after 1943 as a means of eyes because he believes send a signal of hope.
keeping the village’s memory alive, and which persists to that maybe he will put And after so much
this day. Many of the films mentioned above end in utter them back in and will see thought I found the
despair, with the protagonists either dead (sometimes by again. At that moment solution that he will
suicide) or faced with lifelong post-traumatic stress disor- he’s quite naive. I read a write his name on the
der, so any attempt, no matter how fleeting, to create an very good book: Resilience, window of the bus. I
upbeat ending that doesn’t seem gratuitously forced or by the French child was so happy, and said,
sentimental offers at least a crumb of comfort. psychologist Boris Cyrulnik. “Well, yes, that’s it.”
The Painted Bird is released in UK cinemas on 27 March

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STEPPING
THE TURNING POINT

Bachi Valishvili and Levan
Gelbakhiani as Georgian
dancers Merab and Irakli
in And Then We Danced,
directed by Levan Akin
(opposite)

OUT
Levan Akin’s tender love story ‘And Then We
Danced’ offers an intoxicating celebration of
Georgian culture, presenting a defiant challenge
to homophobia in the country. Alex Davidson
traces its place within a small but significant
tradition of queer films from the former USSR
T
he film is very loving towards Georgia – it’s
almost an invitation to go,” said director Levan
Akin to me at the BFI London Film Festival last
October, discussing his film And Then We Danced – a
moving, visually gorgeous gay love story about Merab
(Levan Gelbakhiani), a teenage Georgian dancer living
in Tbilisi, who falls hard for new recruit Irakli (Bachi Val-
ishvili). “I think when it comes out in Georgia in Novem-
ber,” Akin continued, “a lot of people are going to be sur-
prised at how warm it is and how it is very celebratory.
There are many people in Georgia who don’t have any
idea about LGBTQ issues, but… the movie premiered at
the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, which really boosted
awareness. People are really proud of it.”
At those LFF screenings, Akin and Gelbakhiani re-
ceived standing ovations. One month later, the film had
its domestic premiere in Tbilisi, where Akin’s predictions
sadly proved overly hopeful, at least with regard to the
reaction from some. The film was greeted with far-right
protests, as hundreds of men tried to force their way
into the cinema to disrupt the screening against a line
of police officers in riot gear. Georgia’s Orthodox Church
condemned the film, calling it “an attack against the
church”. As well as the distress caused to audience mem-
bers, such protests also necessitated additional security
measures, adding costs to venues keen to screen the film.
When I meet with Akin again a few months later, he
expresses surprise that the hate groups have been given
so much media coverage, preferring to emphasise how
encouraged he has been by the response from some
audiences to the film. “The support and the reaction to
the film has been very intense following the premiere,”
he says. “Many older people who have never seen any
LGBTQ stories were very moved by it. The film has
become almost a symbol in Georgia, with people play-
ing the music at demonstrations. It’s really wild.”
The Swedish-Georgian director was born in Stockholm.
“But we used to go to Georgia every summer. I have an in-
sider and an outsider perspective at the same time, which
is really fascinating,” he says. “A lot of the time you are
so ingrained in a country because you live there, you are
blind to it.” Georgia has a complex relationship to homo-
sexuality. Compared to other former Soviet states,
the country is legislatively fairly progressive, with

LEVAN AKIN AND THEN WE DANCED
laws that prohibit discrimination against queer

people. Akin is sceptical: “It looks and reads very
well, but it’s not really properly implemented.” He was
partly inspired to make And Then We Danced when thou-
sands of Georgians protested against a 2013 Pride march
in Tbilisi, breaking through police barricades and beating
queer activists with stinging nettles. “There should be re-
percussions for the people organising these counter-dem-
onstrations and inciting this violence. And there aren’t.”
Akin had to be guarded in how he communicated the
film’s subject matter when it was in production. “We
contacted one of the national dance ensembles very
early on, naively thinking they might help us,” he says.
“We told them about the movie. They freaked and called
everybody and told them not to work with us. Far-right
people called our casting agent and threatened her; we
had bodyguards while we were shooting.” The extent of
the homophobia resulted in the loss of film locations at THREE’S COMPANY in 2013, with transgressors facing hefty fines. As a result
extremely short notice, although ultimately the resis- Levan Akin was determined Kirill Serebrennikov, after struggling to find funding
to give his lead character
tance entrenched Akin’s determination to make the film. Merab (centre) an optimistic amid the resultant homophobia in Russia, gave up his
“It was a very rough shoot, we had very little money but story arc in And Then We ambition to make a film about the gay composer Pyotr
we were also bolstered by all the pushback,” he recalls. Danced, despite the sense Tchaikovsky (Serebrennikov’s 2016 film The Student
of threat in certain scenes: ‘I
“That gave us energy to keep fighting.” just wanted him to be in love does feature a prominent gay character who, inevitably,
While some filmmakers in post-communist European and happy,’ the director says ends up killed by the end credits). If representations of
countries have started to engage with queer-positive sto- gay characters are rare, portrayals of lesbian, bisexual
rylines in their movies over the last decade, the approach and trans characters in feature films from former Soviet
of many directors in post-Soviet states has been consider- states are almost non-existent.
ably more cautious. Ironically, two of the USSR’s greatest While homophobia may be prevalent in Georgia, the
filmmakers are considered by many to have been queer. tolerance of queer people is significantly greater than in
Despite being married until his death in 1948, many be- many other countries. Homosexuality is illegal in more
lieve Sergei Eisenstein was gay – an interpretation made than 70 nations, and in 2019 Brunei briefly joined the
explicit in Peter Greenaway’s bawdy biopic Eisenstein in ranks of countries where gay sex is punishable by death.
Guanajuato (2015), a film that earned much opprobrium Remarkably, films exploring queer lives are still made in
in Russia. Sergei Parajanov, director of stunning works these countries. Wanuri Kahiu’s Rafiki (2018), the first
such as Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965) and The Colour Kenyan film selected for the Cannes Film Festival, was
of Pomegranates (1968), was sentenced to prison in the late temporarily banned in its home country for “promoting
1940s for homosexual acts with an officer of the MGB lesbianism”. Walking with Shadows (2019), a British-Nige-
(a forerunner of the KGB), a few years before he began ‘I wanted the rian co-production set in Lagos and based on a novel by
making films. His flamboyance and provocative nature film to be a Jude Dibia, explores the fallout when the homosexuality
earned him the disapproval of the Soviet authorities, and of a married man is discovered.
in the early 1970s he was sent to a maximum-security warm embrace Although Rafiki and Walking with Shadows are com-
gulag on a number of charges, a sentence that led to a large rather than a paratively mild in their depiction of queer love – the
group of artists and filmmakers worldwide petitioning for former is a teen romance, the latter a soapy melodrama
his release. Unsurprisingly, none of the films of Eisenstein punch in the – the fact that they are from countries where gay people
or Parajanov feature explicitly gay characters, although stomach. I are persecuted is a major step forward. Making these
homoeroticism can be detected in the work of both. kinds of films in countries with strong traditional values
While some critics have read queer subtexts into films didn’t want it is, unsurprisingly, very challenging. When shooting Re-
such as Hussein Erkenov’s 100 Days Before the Command to be an attack tablo (2017), a powerful Bafta-nominated drama set in a
(1990), a dreamlike, erotically charged piece about young Peruvian Andes village, in which a teenager discovers his
soldiers in the Soviet army, it wasn’t until 2004, nearly on tradition and father has had affairs with men, director Alvaro Delgado
15 years after the dissolution of the USSR, that openly culture, because Aparicio had to sidestep some of the queer details of the
queer characters began to appear. You I Love (2004), a story when seeking permission to film in rural locations.
silly romantic comedy with very broad satirical swipes I love tradition Akin faced similar issues when scouting locations for
at capitalism, is Russia’s first gay-positive film, even if and culture’ And Then We Danced, occasionally needing to state that
it ends on an ambiguous note for the two male lovers. the story was about a French tourist who falls in love
Felix Mikhailov’s Jolly Fellows (2009) explores the lives of with Georgian culture, rather than a gay romance.
drag queens in Moscow, with many moments of misery And Then We Danced is much more optimistic in its
weaved in among the sparkles. The bleak but beautiful outlook than these other films made in oppressive condi-
Winter Journey (2013) follows the doomed affair between Reviewed on tions. Akin was determined, for example, not to show any
a gay music student and a petty criminal. A controversial violence towards the gay characters. First-time viewers
Russian amendment, forbidding positive depictions of
page 62 may watch certain scenes on edge, waiting for a physical
homosexuality “for the Purpose of Protecting Children attack that never comes. “I wanted the film to be hopeful.
from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional I never wanted Levan Gelbakhiani’s character to be victi-
Family Values”, was signed into law by Vladimir Putin mised in any way and beaten up,” says Akin. “I just wanted

him to be in love and happy and full of warmth. I wanted
the film to be hopeful. I could never bear to make the film QUEER AS FOLK: FIVE LGBT+ TV DRAMAS
if something bad had happened to that character.” Gel- AND FILMS THAT CAUSED CONTROVERSY
bakhiani, whom Akin discovered on Instagram, is superb
in his film debut, as is Giorgi Tsereteli as Merab’s boorish
brother, whose complex relationship with the protagonist
leads to some of the film’s most powerful moments.
Despite the film’s criticism of entrenched prejudices,
Akin has described And Then We Danced as a love letter
to Georgian culture and tradition, a country where a
large proportion of children learn to dance after school.
The director describes dance as one of five central forms
of Georgian culture, alongside polyphonic singing, the
church, wine and food. “I wanted the film to be a warm
embrace rather than a punch in the stomach. I didn’t
want it to feel angry and to be an attack on tradition and
culture, because I love tradition and culture. I don’t want
the bigots to hijack my tradition and my culture. Nobody
has a right to tell anyone what boxes you need to check WOMEN IN LOVE: WANURI KAHIU’S AWARD-WINNING RAFIKI (2018)
to say you’re Georgian.”
And Then We Danced is a sensory feast, with Lisabi Two of Us who fall in love. Protesters ripped down
Fridell’s cinematography emphasising the colours, the Roger Tonge (UK, 1988) posters, threw Molotov cocktails at the
flavours and the visual splendour of the dance perfor- This sweet romance between two male screens and stirred up violence in the
mances, and the region. Scenes featuring a close-up of a teens, made for the BBC, fell victim to streets. The attacks kickstarted a national
plate of steaming khinkali (Georgian dumplings) in a bus- the noxious Section 28, implemented by conversation about queer rights in India
tling restaurant or a group of youths woozily listening Thatcher’s government, forbidding the and led to the formation of the lesbian
to a haunting polyphonic chorus as they recover from ‘promotion’ of homosexuality. The film, activist group Caleri. The production of
hangovers are highly evocative. By the end credits, the in which the boys flee their homophobic Mehta’s film Water (2005) would also be
viewer may feel like they have actually visited Tbilisi. hometown for the coast, was re-edited disrupted by hardline Hindu organisations.
While the film evokes the beauty and the skill of the with an ending in which one of the boys
traditional Georgian dance and music scene in Tbilisi, returns to his girlfriend. Section 28 was Memories of My Body
Akin was also keen to show the city’s vibrant youth cul- repealed in the early 2000s across the Garin Nugroho (Indonesia, 2018)
ture, with an exhilarating, joyous scene in which Merab UK, although its ideology breathed again Garin Nugroho received death threats
is taken for a wild night on the town with a new friend: in the recent demonstrations against and faced a petition signed by 93,000
“Bassiani is a club in Tbilisi that has become world-fa- LGBT-inclusive education in Birmingham. people to ban his beautiful drama about
mous. It’s a venue that is important to Tbilisi’s youth cul- an Indonesian dancer who explores his
ture and a queer-friendly space. It’s where you can let your Farewell My Concubine identity when he joins a traditional Lengger
hair down and do what you want. I really wanted to have Chen Kaige (China, 1993) dance company. In the film, a sensitive boy
Bassiani in the film, as it’s where [the characters] would go Chen Kaige’s epic Palme d’Or-winning embraces the nature of the dance, which
that night. I thought it would be a nice way for Merab to masterpiece, following two male opera involves men assuming female forms, to
discover new sides to himself and his dancing.” In keep- actors across decades of tumultuous the horror of traditional members of the
ing with Akin’s desire to show different sides to Tbilisi, the history from the early years of the Republic community. In some areas of Indonesia,
next scene features a cheerfully bawdy encounter with a of China to the Cultural Revolution, earned homosexuality is punishable by 100 lashes
group of queer sex workers by one of the city’s parks. the ire of the censors. It was banned in and gay men have been publicly caned.
Ultimately, however dispiriting the protests have been, mainland China, for its portrayal of a
Akin is delighted to have reached audiences and helped harrowing period of history, its depiction Rafiki
to change attitudes. Despite the coverage, And Then We of suicide and the homosexuality of Leslie Wanuri Kahiu (Kenya, 2018)
Danced is a romantic and defiantly celebratory film, filled Cheung’s protagonist. The international “It is a sad moment and a great insult, not
with humour and energy. A huge fan of John Hughes, the outcry that ensued, as China bid to only y to the film industry,
y, but to all Kenyans
director of The Breakfast Club (1985) and Ferris Bueller’s Day host the Olympics, led to an who stand for morality, tha
that a film that
Off (1986), Akin compares his film to 80s Hollywood films overturn of the ban. glories homosexuality is allowed to be
about young lives. “I love 80s teen movies. It’s my present the country’s branding tool abroad.” So
to Eastern Europe,” he says. “With And Then We Danced, Fire intoned the Kenya Fi
Film Classification
they get their own 80s teen movie, as there’s never been Deepa Mehta (India, 1996) reluctantly lifted a ban
Board when it reluct
one from Georgia.” A key scene in the film even seems Hindu extremists stormed on Wanuri Kahiu’s drama
dra depicting
to echo and subsequently subvert the climax of Adrian cinemas in New Delhi and between two young
romance betwee
Lyne’s Flashdance (1983), a glossy, very 80s blockbuster Mumbai which showed Deepa a women, in o order for it to
that’s also about a marginalised dancer. How have Geor- Mehta’s powerful melodrama,, qualify for
f the Oscars.
gian queer teens reacted to And Then We Danced? “Many starring Nandita Das and The filfilm went on
young people write to me through social media on a daily Shabana Azmi as two to win
wi more than
basis thanking me for the film and for giving them a voice unhappily married women dozen awards
a do
REX FEATURES (1)
– not only from Georgia, but from many Eastern Euro- worldwide.
wo
pean countries. And actually from all over the world.” FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE Alex Davidson
Al
And Then We Danced is released in UK cinemas on 13 March

Almost 25 years after his career hit the skids when he was unceremoniously sacked from the set of ‘The Island of Dr.
Moreau’, cult director Richard Stanley is back with a new feature, ‘Color out of Space’, a superb sci-fi horror tale based on
an H.P. Lovecraft story, about a family on a remote farm plagued by a mysterious alien force. He talks to Michael Blyth
T
he career of director Richard Stanley has director and replaced by veteran John Frankenheim-
been as eccentric and wayward as anything er, and a once-promising career stalled dramatically.
found in his films, and is the stuff of legends. In the years that followed, the director made a
He burst on to the genre scene in his early twenties handful of documentaries – including The Secret Glory
in 1990 with the low-budget post-apocalyptic techno (2001), about the German medievalist and SS officer
shocker Hardware, before returning to his South Af- Otto Rahn’s quest for the Holy Grail; and The White
rican roots two years later for the supernatural folk Darkness (2002), an exploration into Haitian Vodou –
tale Dust Devil. The young filmmaker looked firmly and there were innumerable rumours linking him
on course for great things. And then came The Island to films both likely and ludicrous. As time went by,
of Dr. Moreau (1996). it seemed increasingly improbable we would ever see
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GARETH CATTERMOLE/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES
Following months of painstaking development on another fiction feature from him.
his dream project (the third big-screen adaptation of But, almost miraculously, now Stanley is back –
H.G. Wells’s novel), Stanley was just a few days into with a breathlessly inventive (and satisfyingly faith-
shooting when he found himself adrift in a sea of ful) horror sci-fi hybrid adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s
creative differences and personality clashes. The sad short story ‘The Color out of Space’, which sees Nico-
details – from Marlon Brando’s erratic and reclusive las Cage play Nathan Gardner, a New England farmer
behaviour after the suicide of his daughter Cheyenne, battling a mysterious alien entity after a meteor
to Bruce Willis’s sudden departure, to the volatile con- crash-lands on his property. The sudden arrival of
duct of his replacement Val Kilmer – are laid bare in this cosmic force has strange effects on each member
2014’s fascinating documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed of his family – teenage daughter Lavinia (Madeleine
Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau. But Arthur), young sons Benny (Brendan Meyer)
wherever the blame lay, Stanley was promptly fired as and Jack (Julian Hilliard), and wife Theresa

RICHARD STANLEY COLOR OUT OF SPACE
(Joely Richardson) – not to mention on the valu- smallness in the universe. One of the ways I approached
able alpacas Nathan keeps in the barn. that was identifying the key characters with my own
A bona fide Lovecraft expert, there could be no better family. If one is going to deal with annihilating a nuclear
director to venture into the cosmic terrains of the writer’s family, it raises the stakes if you can imagine one’s own
supposedly ‘unfilmable’ fiction. With Color out of Space family going through that.
the first in Stanley’s planned trilogy of Lovecraft adapta- MB: Why do you think Lovecraft’s stories seem to be reso-
tions, it seems our lost soul is lost no more. nating strongly in today’s cultural and political climate?
Michael Blyth: When did you first encounter Lovecraft’s RS: For some reason Lovecraft is having a boom, and
work? that has to be connected to what is going on in the mass
Richard Stanley: H.P. Lovecraft was my mother’s favourite unconscious at the moment. His vision of a world at
writer. She must have read some of those stories to me the mercy of completely inhuman, inexplicable cosmic
when I was about seven or eight, so that put the stamp of forces seems to be speaking to people’s hearts more than
quality on Lovecraft’s tales. By the time I was 13 I’d pretty ever before. We’re sensing that the environment is pull-
much read everything he’d written. I remember thinking ing against us, and also there is a growing lack of faith
about whether I could adapt Color out of Space into a Super in orthodox religion and the notion that an all-wise,
8 movie when I was a kid. It was mostly because Color all-kind benevolent creator God is going to bail us out.
was set on a single farm and involved a single family, As people start to think outside of the box, Lovecraft’s
which makes it a little more accessible than some of the notion of ultra-dimensional alien deities is starting to
other Lovecraft material, which tends to be set in places make more sense than it might have done 100 years ago.
like Antarctica or the bottom of the Mariana Trench. MB: Are there any other Lovecraft adaptations that you
MB: Lovecraft is a master of existential nihilism, but not think have successfully captured his notions of ‘cosmicism’
necessarily of crafting emotionally engaging characters. [the literary philosophy developed by the writer, rooted
Yet your film has a really strong emotional core… in the absence of a benevolent God, and in the relative
RS: My primary motivation throughout was to try to insignificance of humanity within an incomprehensibly
make the material relevant to a 21st-century audience, large, indifferent universe]?
so the initial notion was to bring Lovecraft forward into RS: As much as I love some of the work of Stuart Gordon
Trump-era America and Brexit-era Britain, and to try and [the director of films such as Re-Animator, 1985; and
reconnect the mythos to whatever primal fears are lurk- From Beyond, 1986], sadly I don’t think any of the official
ing in the present. And the second part of that is to deal Lovecraft adaptations have really gone after the core
with the fact that 100 years have gone past and there are themes. The notion of man finding his true position in
inherent issues with the original material, which meant the cosmos is something Lovecraft himself said all his
that we had to deal with the human element. stories were driving at. Gordon’s work is fun but it sort of
Lovecraft has no interest in humanity, or human char- hedges around the deeper issues. Probably the most Love-
acters, or emotions, so to some extent we tried to set up a craftian films are not actually adaptations of Lovecraft’s
dialogue with the material. I’m not as much of a nihilist work. John Carpenter’s The Thing [1982] would be the best
as Lovecraft, so a lot of the movie we are trying to argue Lovecraft movie ever if only it was from a Lovecraft story.
with the sheer bleakness of the basic concept. And, of I’m also very fond of Possession [1981] by Andrzej Zulawski,
course, Lovecraft also had some very negative tenden- which probably has the best tentacle sex on film. There
cies – his work displays a degree of racism and misogyny, are also Lovecraftian elements to both Andrei Tarkovsky
both of which needed to be checked and addressed in and Ingmar Bergman’s films – it’s hard to forget Berg-
some way by this movie. man’s view of God as a big spider in Winter Light [1963].
MB: How much of a challenge was it to inject that human Elements of Stalker [1979] definitely have a Lovecraftian
element into the film while still staying true to Lovecraft’s tinge, mostly in the way that Tarkovsky doesn’t attempt to
nihilistic philosophy? explain or give shape to the metaphysical forces at work.
RS: That was arguably the biggest challenge throughout. MB: Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness [1994] also feels
It’s also a challenge we face in everyday life – trying to very authentically Lovecraftian…
find some meaning or validity to our lives in the face of RS: And it tackles the idea of the mythos as a kind of psy-
the potential extinction of the human race or our sheer choactive virus, the way that the concepts have succeed-
ed in getting out of the box and spreading out of control.
MB: Has Lovecraft’s work become easier to adapt over time?
RS: It has become a lot less ‘unfilmable’ because a lot of
the concepts that were purely alien in the 1920s have now
entered into the realms of actual science. He talks about
non-Euclidean geometry. When I used that phrase in an
essay at school, the teacher aggressively red-pencilled it
out and said that all geometry is inherently Euclidean.
We now have chaos science and fractal geometry, which PURPLE HAZE
is precisely non-Euclidean and has become very useful in In adapting Color out of
generating the VFX and digital animation that we use in Space (above) with Scarlett
Amaris, Richard Stanley
bringing some of Lovecraft’s dreamscapes to the screen. introduced the character
MB: How has the filmmaking process changed since you of Lavinia, the teenage
made Hardware and Dust Devil? daughter of the family
played by Madeleine Arthur
RS: I hadn’t shot a movie in two decades and had been (left), who didn’t appear in
living on a mountain for ten years before Color started. H.P. Lovecraft’s original story

The main thing that has happened while I was out of the
office is that the world has gone digital. It certainly has its TIMELINE
advantages. We were able to move a lot faster and shoot RICHARD STANLEY
in low lighting conditions that we would never have
been able to pull off on 35mm. Another difference is that Richard Stanley is born in Fish Hoek, Afghan war. The experience results in
it is impossible to do anything without everyone know- South Africa on 22 November 1966. the 1990 documentary Voice of the Moon.
ing. It’s all digital, so there are backers and different pro- He is descended from the 19th-century In 1990 Stanley also makes his feature
ducers back in video-city watching the take at the same explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley. debut: the low-budget post-apocalyptic
time as you. There’s no way you can sneak subliminals He makes his first short Rites of cyberpunk film Hardware. It becomes
into the edit like I used to do, because now they can see Passage in 1983. His second, Incidents a cult hit and grosses $70 million.
every cut you make and every frame you shoot. in an Expanding Universe (1985), is set Stanley’s second feature Dust Devil
MB: Like Lovecraft’s deities controlling things from another in a dystopian future, and anticipates follows in 1992. The film was shot
dimension? his debut feature, Hardware. In in the desert in Namibia. Numerous
RS: Yeah. On some level it was a lot more efficient, the mid-1980s he also works on an different cuts of the film are released.
though, and the film crew we worked with was arguably unfinished 16mm short set in the In 1996 Stanley begins work on an
the best I’ve ever had the privilege of directing. It’s also Namibian desert, entitled Dust Devil. adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The Island of
the first time I’ve worked with a crew that hasn’t muti- Stanley moves to the UK in 1987, Dr. Moreau for New Line Cinema, but
nied at least once somewhere in the course of the shoot- becoming a regular at London’s Scala he is fired after only three days on set.
ing, which I really give them credit for. cinema, and making music videos Stanley makes a number of shorts
MB: If you don’t mind me mentioning The Island of Dr. for acts including Public Image Ltd. and documentaries through the late
Moreau, what were some of the lessons that you took from In the late 1980s Stanley travels to 1990s and 2000s, before returning
what must have been an incredibly difficult experience? Afghanistan to document the Soviet- to features with Color out of Space.
RS: I was a lot more relaxed this time. I went into Color
out of Space prepared to accept anything that came next. I
took the same approach in that I pre-planned the hell out
CREDIT IN HERE
of it, storyboarded it and looked at it from every imagin-

able direction. I ended up creating a little piece of New
England in a very remote location in Portugal. We shot in
the middle of a forest, moved trees around, created a field
and brought in alpacas. It was a much smaller budget
than Moreau, but it was the same kind of approach I
would have taken back then. The good thing is that this
time it worked. All the things that backfired on HARDWARE (1990) DUST DEVIL (1992)
Moreau seemed to pay off here and a lot of that is

RICHARD STANLEY COLOR OUT OF SPACE
down to Nic [Cage], the man who single-handedly
LOVECRAFT
restored my faith in Hollywood and the process.
MB: Thank god for Nic! How did he come on board?
WAITS
RS: We were very fortunate that Nic is a huge Lovecraft
fan. We had been hoping to do a movie together since
our paths initially crossed back in the 1990s, but the
stars didn’t align. When Nic was on board we basically DREAMING
had six weeks to hunt down the rest of the cast. Casting
the two female leads was probably the trickiest. The-
Horror writer H.P. Lovecraft first
resa, the mother, has an extremely nightmarish arc, so emerged as a cinematic force in the
we were super lucky with Joely [Richardson]. Joely had 1960s, but his tales of metaphysical
never done a part like this and had to go back and read dread have found increasing favour
the Lovecraft story a couple of times and think it through
carefully, but much to her delight it was something she with a new generation of filmmakers,
had a huge amount of fun with. I’d like to see Joely play writes Roger Luckhurst
a few more creatures. She’s definitely got the chops for it.
MB: And how was it working with the alpacas? For a pulp horror writer, seeking to create
RS: The alpacas were a complete dream. I don’t know what he called “a certain atmosphere of
why people don’t use them more in movies. The only breathless and unexplainable dread”, H.P.
problem was we couldn’t get them to scream or freak Lovecraft (1890-1937) had perhaps surprising
out as they are so docile. None of us wanted to attack the tastes in cinema. His letters are littered with
alpacas or scare them to try to produce the appropriate references to early silent stars such as Henry
response, so in the end we had to fake most of that in Walthall, Mary Pickford, and his favourite,
post-production. Charlie Chaplin. In 1917, he won a prize
MB: So no alpacas were harmed during filming? from his local cinema for a scathing review
RS: No [laughs]. Although the alpacas were accidentally of a biblical epic. Later, he called Universal’s
dyed purple at one point thanks to a miscommunication. The Invisible Man (1933) “genuinely sinister”
FARMED AND DANGEROUS It was known on set as the ‘alpacalypse’. We had to have and one of his very last letters praised the
Joely Richardson and Nicolas
Cage play Theresa and them sent back and cleaned and returned to their normal “elusively weird photographic effects”
Nathan Gardner, a married state. But beyond that it was smooth sailing. of Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s
couple who move with their Color out of Space is out now in UK cinemas and was A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935).
family to a rural farm, where
a meteorite crash-lands, in reviewed in our last issue. Richard Stanley’s Hardware Lovecraft watched the cinema emerge from
Color out of Space screens at BFI Southbank, London, at the end of April vaudeville and went to the first dedicated
cinema in his hometown, Providence, in
1906. He admired the silents, but worried
the talkies were vulgarising language.
Despite lifelong cinema-going, he told
a friend he “never took it seriously”.
How cinema felt about Lovecraft has
been rather different. For more than 25 years
after his death Lovecraft fell into obscurity,
dismissed as a pulp hack, cherished by
only a few readers. Then, in 1963, he crept
surreptitiously into American cinema, hidden
inside Roger Corman’s legendary series of
Poe adaptations for American International
Pictures. Although titled Edgar Allen Poe’s The
Haunted Castle, this sixth film in the series was
actually an adaptation by Charles Beaumont
of Lovecraft’s story ‘The Case of Charles
Dexter Ward’. Topped and tailed with quotes
from Poe, the film shoehorns the Lovecraft
tale into Corman’s familiar psychodrama
of neurotic compulsions and doom-laden
repetitions, played out as always by his
regular star, Vincent Price. Corman never
mentioned this cuckoo in the nest again
(the choice of material had been imposed
by AIP), but he had injected something
potent into the veins of B-movie horror.
The popularity of Lovecraft exploded in
the late 1960s once his tales were released
in mass market paperbacks. Daniel Haller,

directed several more Lovecraft adaptations,
including the sombre Castle Freak (1995) and
Dagon (2001). Gordon’s version of Dreams
in the Witch-House (2006) marked a move
to TV adaptation, anticipating another key
shift for the production of horror. This year,
Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams are producing
the HBO adaptation Lovecraft Country, from
Matt Ruff’s novel that directly addresses
Lovecraft’s notoriously racist and nativist
views. Ruff turns them against themselves
in a plot about African Americans fighting
Klan worshippers of Lovecraft’s old gods.
After 2000, the rise of both the New
Weird in literature and CGI in film has
made Lovecraft the sweet spot for many.
There are now more than 200 writer
credits for Lovecraft on IMDb, the numbers
rising significantly in the last decade. The
Heads will roll: John Carpenter’s Lovecraft-influenced The Thing (1982) influence oozes out in many directions. In
the mainstream, Alex Garland’s Annihilation
Corman’s talented production designer at AIP, International Pictures produced some (2018) was a troubled version of Jeff
directed Die, Monster, Die! (1965) with Boris enduring gross-out body horrors, including VanderMeer’s New Weird novel that seeks to
Karloff, a loose adaptation of Lovecraft’s ‘The Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985), based revise the Lovecraftian default disgust at the
Color out of Space’, and then a much groovier, on Lovecraft’s shocker ‘Herbert West – Re- tentacled other. Guillermo del Toro’s squidgy
psychedelic version of The Dunwich Horror in Animator’, and the follow-up From Beyond imagination owes much to Lovecraft, and
1970. As the 60s dream curdled, Lovecraft’s (1986), from another minor Lovecraft tale. the saga of his repeated attempts to raise the
cosmic doom seemed to speak to the age. From Beyond contains some memorable budget for an adaptation of ‘At the Mountains
There were rock bands called H.P. Lovecraft, forehead-sprouting third-eye acting work of Madness’ keeps fans on tenterhooks.
Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan had started from cult actor Jeffrey Combs, but the That the legendary eccentric Richard
worshipping Lovecraft’s old god Cthulhu, and titillating S&M vision of sexual transgression Stanley finally returns to cinema with a
editions of Lovecraft’s entirely fictional black- in the dimension beyond is more Clive Lovecraft adaptation makes perfect sense.
magic grimoire, The Necronomicon, emerged Barker than H.P. Lovecraft. The Hellraiser Meanwhile, the ambition to explore a
and developed an entirely independent life. franchise (1987-) took over this territory sense of creeping metaphysical dread at the
The history of Lovecraft adaptations in soon after. Brian Yuzna’s Society (1989), from arthouse end of horror has a debt to Lovecraft
part follows the trajectory of low-budget the same Empire stable, was suitably abject, as much as David Lynch. Films such as Spring
horror cycles. Jess Franco’s Euro-horror if not directly derived from Lovecraft. (2014) and The Endless (2017), both by Justin
factory produced the bizarre and joyless erotic After Empire Pictures collapsed, Gordon Benson and Aaron Moorhead, or Trey Edward
thriller Necronomicon (aka Succubus) in 1968, Shults’s It Comes at Night (2017), would fit
but borrowed only the title from Lovecraft. Lovecraft’s definition of cosmic dread.
Dan O’Bannon would eventually direct his Probably the most striking development,
own version of ‘Dexter Ward’ called The though, is the rise in short films, exploring
Resurrected (1992), but in the 1970s Lovecraft’s the digital effects made possible after the
fingerprints are all over O’Bannon’s script breakthrough of Gareth Edwards’s micro-
for Alien (1979), and the whole look of the budget, lap-top designed Monsters (2010). This
creature was borrowed by Ridley Scott from has brought affordable CGI to the killer Bs
H.R. Giger’s book of nightmarish paintings and smaller, independent filmmakers. Out
of biomechanical hybrids that was released of this batch, and for Lovecraft connoisseurs,
under the title Necronomicon in 1977. The it is worth seeking out Andrew Leman’s The
Necronomicon would pop up again as the Call of Cthulhu (2005), and his feature-length
book that accidentally conjures demons in The Whisperer in Darkness (2011), both made
Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981). Meanwhile, for the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
O’Bannon’s old film school friend John They are faithful silent adaptations, made
Carpenter directed The Thing (1982), based in a murky, oneiric black and white, and
on a 1938 pulp sci-fi story by John Campbell appear to swim directly out of a toxic 1920s.
that owed everything to Lovecraft’s earlier As Lovecraft’s wizards and swamp-
novella set in the furthest reaches of priests chant the awful promise that “dead
Antarctica, ‘At the Mountains of Madness’. Cthulhu waits dreaming” to return again,
In the 1980s, Lovecraft’s universe of mad we have to face, whether we like it or
scientists raising up tentacular monsters not, that there is a sliver of visual culture
was perfect fodder for SFX-driven body that is now soaked in Lovecraft’s toxic
horror. Charles Band’s crazy outfit Empire Boris Karloff in Die, Monster, Die! (1965) sublime of anxiety, awe and dread.

REMAIN
IN LIGHT
ROGER DEAKINS IN TEN SHOTS
A pair of belated Oscar wins have only brought to wider attention what plenty of people already
knew: that the British cinematographer Roger Deakins is one of the greatest artists of light and
shade in movie history. Joshua Rothkopf picks ten shots that show off different facets of his genius

ntil not that long ago, it was easy to praise Man, 2009) and the desperate schemes of lonely men;
U
THE FOG OF WAR
cinematographer Roger Deakins as the man elsewhere, we feel stifling heat (O Brother, Where Art Roger Deakins (standing)
with director Sam Mendes
who didn’t need Oscars. To see through his Thou?, 2000; No Country for Old Men, 2007) and a kind (seated, in flat cap) on the
eyes, to speak in his colour palette and luxuriate in his of pent-up fury. Just as memorably, Deakins has told set of World War I drama
inky blacks – those were perks enough. Now 70 and in the story, in images alone, of the invention and popu- 1917, which earned the
cinematographer his second
the prime of his career, fresh from winning his second larisation of the hula hoop (The Hudsucker Proxy, 1994, Oscar from 15 Academy
Academy Award for his work on Sam Mendes’s 1917, perhaps his most impressive sequence). He’s plugged Award nominations
the Devon-born Deakins feels like an institution. us into the holes of a bowling ball rolling toward a
Naturalistic without sacrificing technical discipline, strike in The Big Lebowski (1998).
he is capable of brokering an immediate connection And he’s taken this elastic-band tension – between
between director and audience. At the same time, he’s deadpan irony and hopped-up anarchy – and brought
seen the future, long before many of us did: Deakins it to other projects that needed it, notably Denis Vil-
manipulated the image before it became fashionable, leneuve’s crushing cosmic tragedies (Prisoners, 2013;
embraced digital, and now makes big-canvas work Sicario, 2015; and Blade Runner 2049, 2017, which
that feels decades younger than that of his peers. earned Deakins his first Academy Award) and four
Considering Deakins’s evolution means getting to wide-ranging, uncommonly intimate adventures di-
know Joel and Ethan Coen – you might as well call him rected by Sam Mendes (Jarhead, 2005; Revolutionary
the third Coen brother after the dozen movies they Road, 2008; Skyfall, 2012; and this year’s 1917). If it’s
have made together. But don’t confuse Deakins’s regu- Deakins, we’re often looking at a psychological space,
larity with routine. If anything, their long partnership characterised less by light and dark than by an inter-
is founded on restlessness. It begins in the mouldering nal climate of mood. A story has been widely shared
hallways of a run-down Los Angeles hotel, where the of his early rejection from the then-new National Film
neurotic screenwriter of Barton Fink (1991) toils at the School for not being ‘filmic’ enough. He made 1972’s
life of the mind. Deakins crystallises the idea of some- second class after roaming the countryside and de-
thing perfect just out of reach: a woman on the beach, veloping his eye. That’s either an example of a lesson
her back turned to us, blocking the sun with her arm. learned, or a joke worthy of its own Coens comedy.
The subsequent films continue this quest. There’s Finding Deakins’s ten stepping stones is an im-
pounding Midwestern flatness (Fargo, 1995; A Serious possible task, so let’s try to do it.

ROGER DEAKINS
1
APPROACHING ROOM 101
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
Strictly speaking, the career doesn’t begin here –
there had been shorts and documentaries, a smattering
of music videos (including Herbie Hancock’s ‘Rockit’)
and Michael Radford’s austere 1983 wartime romance
Another Time, Another Place. But with this striking,
desaturated take on Orwell’s totalitarian nightmare, an
artist is born. Deakins and Radford had hoped to shoot in
black and white, but the producers frowned. Deakins’s
inspired solution was a revival of the tricky bleach-
bypass process, a chemical overlay largely unused for
decades (and later reclaimed by the cinematographer
Darius Khondji for Se7en) resulting in shimmering,
silvery blacks and muted, defeated blues. Every facet
of Nineteen Eighty-Four’s greyscape is exquisite – as are
its looming Big Brother telescreens, created in-camera
for this pre-CGI production. But the really memorable
shot is a track behind Winston (John Hurt) down a
dark, dingy hallway, until a doorway opens before
him, revealing a lush, green paradise of the mind.
2
SWEET FREEDOM
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Some would call this film’s lasting popularity
mystifying, but that’s a trap: Frank Darabont’s prison
drama endures because it’s a simple story well told.
And when Morgan Freeman isn’t doing the telling (in
sonorous voiceover), Deakins’s camera is the chief
communicator, as is often the case with breakout
movies, from A Man Escaped (1956) to Toy Story 3 (2010).
You would never call any of his shots methodical
or rote. Rather, they chip away toward the goal of
pure visual euphoria, which arrives with Deakins’s
lightning-lit rainstorm. Escaped convict Andy Dufresne
(Tim Robbins) is free after crawling his way through
half a mile of shit, and the camera pushes behind him,
wading through an outlet pipe’s waste water. Then we
come around and rise, looking down at the transformed
man, arms outstretched, reborn. The image would
become Deakins’s first immortal bit of magic.
3
GREAT WHITE NORTH
Fargo (1995)
Deakins had already collaborated twice
with the brothers from Minnesota, first on their
1991 Palme d’Or-winning Barton Fink, then on their
Preston Sturges-esque screwball The Hudsucker
Proxy (1994). Either film would be the high point
of another shooter’s résumé. But Fargo signals a
further refinement of their shared visual language,
here honed into something bone-dry and ice-cold.
This is a movie with its own weather: violent gusts,
blinding vistas and, in counterpoint to Carter
Burwell’s lovely score, the crunch of windshield-
scraping. Unusually for a comedy, Deakins supplies
an overall mood of fatalistic, almost Herzogian irony;
some of these characters are too soft to survive,
expiring in a puff of down or a smear of red goo.
Pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances
McDormand) watches over everything like a hawk,
but the moment that haunts us is Steve Buscemi’s
“funny-looking” crook burying a briefcase of
money in an unforgivingly banal field of snow.

4
DREAMING OF THE MOUNTAINS
Kundun (1997)
There’s a curious emotional distance to
Martin Scorsese’s widescreen retelling of the Dalai
Lama’s mid-20th-century exile from Tibet, impeccable
though it is. To these eyes, that’s intentional, all
the better to invite curious viewers to make an
investment of effort into feeling the story: Kundun
is an invitation to faith. By this point, Deakins had
a few scenic knockouts to his name – notably Bob
Rafelson’s Mountains of the Moon, 1990 – but his
documentarian’s eye is always roving and intelligent,
never merely a conduit for empty voluptuousness.
The final shot of Scorsese’s film is fascinatingly
self-reflexive: a young man scans the Himalayas by
telescope, seeking home and yearning to return. It’s
a brilliant metaphor for this director’s career-long
obsession with locating a spiritual dimension in
the act of careful observation. Deakins’s work here
feels like perceptive film criticism; call it a crime,
then, that it’s his only pairing with Scorsese to date.
5
DEEP SOUTH ODYSSEY
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Developed in tandem with the Coens’ ironic
stillness (Fargo, No Country for Old Men), there’s a more
playful mode here – not so much zany as uninhibited.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? will serve to represent this
brand of mania (with our apologies to superfans of
The Big Lebowski and A Serious Man, both of them also
shot by Deakins). Revered by cinematographers, O
Brother is the first live-action film to be extensively
colour-corrected via computer; the Coens were after a
sepia-tinted, old-timey softness and their Mississippi
locations were far too verdant. For a reported 11 weeks
Deakins redialled digital levels and inspected the
yellowed results, a labour of love that would become
commonplace in post-production. Ultimately, the
effect is dreamy, uncanny and expressive in its own
right – perfectly utilised when the Soggy Bottom Boys
are lulled into submission by a trio of riverside sirens.
6
GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
The Assassination of Jesse James
by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
If you were looking for a single sequence that contained
everything Deakins did expertly, this rapturous
locomotive heist in Andrew Dominik’s revisionist
western would be it. A summation of Deakins’s career
smuggled into an unsuspecting director’s movie,
the scene showcases the cinematographer’s beloved
bleach-bypass treatment from Nineteen Eighty-Four,
adding extra texture to midnight blacks. Smoke
and chiaroscuro swirl as the train’s stark headlight
penetrates the tall trees; sparks fly from brake plates.
Vignetted by a soft-focus blur on the edge of the frame,
Deakins’s fable-like feel is breathtaking, propelling
the story into the realm of Leone-esque mythology.
Dominik came into his project with an already
impressive vision board, one influenced by pastoral
painter Andrew Wyeth and films like Days of Heaven
(1979). But his own director of photography one-upped
him via an amalgamated style that harked back to
the earliest silent cinema while feeling utterly fresh.

ROGER DEAKINS
7 8
SHOWDOWN IN THE GLASS TOWER BATTLE ON ANOTHER PLANET
Skyfall (2012) Sicario (2015)
If you make enough indelible images, the The Godfather cinematographer Gordon Willis
James Bond people come calling. Deakins was now earned the nickname ‘Prince of Darkness’ for his
the exemplar of a fully digital filmmaker, one who daringly underlit compositions (the epithet came
could add sizzle to even the oldest franchise. The from friend and fellow cameraman Conrad Hall, who
Ken Adam-designed Bond productions of the 1960s himself dimmed the lights in such noirs as Road to
and 70s were triumphs of elephantine modernism; Perdition, 2002). Deakins mostly doesn’t get that glum.
Deakins brought back some of that classic-feeling size But has anyone topped the dusk raid in Sicario: tense,
and swagger. His signature contribution is a Shanghai black-ops soldiering illuminated by the shallowest
gun-fu office fight shot in silhouette. Behind the strip of fading orange light? The eerie, otherworldly
combatants floats a building-wide jellyfish. (Don’t ask shot emphasises the alienness of an undeclared war.
why an office façade needs a screensaver – it works Embedded in tunnels or filming the campaign from
beautifully.) Panes of glass splinter and Daniel Craig high above the US-Mexico border, Deakins supplies
sulks; elsewhere in the film, a Macau casino beckons the film with a near-abstract sense of surreality. The
as Deakins serves up our hero on a floating platform action is morose, furious and inconclusive; there’s
of Chinese lanterns. He totally gets it, supplying de a politics to the camerawork that went widely
luxe exoticism and sharp edges in every frame. unmentioned at the time. Now it’s no longer subtext.
9 10
GREETINGS FROM THE FUTURE ENTERING THE
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) FIERY CITY AT NIGHT
If you were following along at home, 1917 (2019)
this was the project that finally earned Deakins Assembling a whole film as though it were a single shot
his first Oscar (after 13 previous nominations). doesn’t feel so impressive these days, particularly not to
Even more impressively, he emerged unscathed those of us who have seen the real thing in Alexander
from the assignment with a distinct sci-fi Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002). But Deakins pulls off a
psychodrama that somehow managed to dazzlingly phantasmagoric effect within Sam Mendes’s
please the fanboys – not bad for a sequel to a much-praised World War I drama which deserves all the
bona fide classic, one shot by the great Jordan attention: Lance-Corporal Schofield (George MacKay)
Cronenweth. Because it’s Blade Runner, there’s emerges from his concussed state into an atmosphere of
smoke. And rain. And interiors thick with dust dread – a town reduced to rubble, mostly deserted. Fires
motes. More subtly, Deakins captures the morbidity and flares streak the darkness. A church blazes. Once
of a civilisation lost in mourning for itself. His again, here is Deakins the nighttime master, turning
outstanding moment has sad-sack replicant ‘K’ pools of shadow into expressive black-on-black oils. Light
(Ryan Gosling) approached by a Godzilla-sized slants across ruined buildings, rising and falling with
pink hologram of a nude woman, sprung to life every overhead blast; as a feat of coordination alone, it’s
from a billboard: “Hello, handsome,” she coos, unmatched. (Deakins planned his moves using a scale
blinking soulless eyes. It doesn’t cheer him up. model of the village.) We creep behind, pulled inexorably
Their exchange is arrestingly strange and toward danger – or destiny. The sequence, exquisitely
emotionally delicate – two ghosts in the machine. paced and executed, could be its own horror film.

Postgraduate opportunity
discover film at edinburgh

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newwavefilms.co.uk IN CINEMAS 20 MARCH
Reviews
78 Vivarium
The real horror at the heart of ‘Vivarium’ is that the idea of
a perfect life is a trap and that parenthood can be as much
a curse as a reward. The approach here is about creeping
unease, the cold resignation to an inescapable fate
58 Films of the Month 62 Films 82 Home Cinema 90 Books

In the outpost of Bacurau, however, no attempt group are soldiers of fortune or soldiers of leisure,
Bacurau is being made to reproduce the civilisation of

the rest of Brazil. The fictional community, with
down in the sertão to play Make Your Own My
Lai with the permission of local government, out
FILMS OF THE MONTH
its largely black and indigenous population, has on an ultraviolent glamping trip replete with
been imagined as a quilombo, one of the culturally vintage firearms. (One of the girls goes out to
Brazil/France 2019 distinct settlements of runaway slaves that dot battle carrying a Thompson submachine gun, a
the Brazilian hinterlands, as depicted in Linduarte favourite of the Prohibition era.) Here, the blood
Directors: Kleber Mendonça Filho,
Noronha’s proto-Cinema Novo film Aruanda that runs through the veins of the American
Juliano Dornelles
(1960). Powerful hallucinogens are here a part man – and woman – has gone very, very bad.
Certificate 18 131m 14s of the locals’ balanced diet, and sex workers mix The anachronistic arsenals on display only
Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton without stigma with the rest of the community. increase Bacurau’s out-of-time feel, which comes
Around the middle of Kleber Mendonça Filho From what we can gather, the village is run quite literally to a head when a line of trophy
and Juliano Dornelles’s Bacurau, set in the along communal lines – when expired foodstuffs severed noggins – an image that might seem
harsh sertão backcountry of the Brazilian state are donated by an unscrupulous local politician, to belong to a distant past of tribal warfare – is
of Pernambuco, there is a scene that might be they are divvied up with no instruction other than photographed by observers with smartphones
familiar from any number of American westerns. for everyone to take as needed. I say “from what and tablets. The film’s setting is given as “a
Alerted to the fact of something amiss when a we can gather”, because Filho and Dornelles’s few years from now”, but the science-fiction
herd of horses from a neighbouring farm comes approach is to give us only as much information flourishes are few, excepting an automatic
galloping through the village of the film’s title as we require – there is no explanation for the translation device that makes an appearance at
– a lyric interlude, in a movie that abounds in dispute over water rights that seems to have put a key moment and the drones the Americans
them – two locals ride out to investigate, and the village at odds with the government, nor use, shaped like 1950s-style flying saucers. An
arrive to find the entire household butchered. what drove a small coterie of young men, led by opening shot looking down on Earth from above,
In the western of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Silvero Pereira’s Lunga, to live in isolation from the crossed by a passing satellite before descending
this would be a sign of an impending threat community, only to be drawn back by catastrophe. to the remote setting of Bacurau, establishes
to the fragile outpost of civilisation amid the Tactical withholding is also key to the film’s the film’s future as today’s surveillance society;
wilderness – bandits, perhaps, or more likely a narrative strategy, proceeding as it does through the ubiquity of camera-eyes provides some
belligerent Native American tribe on the warpath. a kind of baton-passing of the POV. After staying nice bits of business, including an impromptu
Here too it signifies an impending threat, but among the residents of Bacurau and nervously field fuck between two of the charged-up US
one that comes from the descendants of those observing, with them, the auguries of something shooters after a kill, as observed by a passing
western settlers – Americans abroad with no sinister afoot – the first indication is a scattering of drone, which in its combination of libido
civilisation to bestow, only bloodlust to slake. coffins spilled across a road by an overturned truck and militaristic sadism inspires memories
Filho and co-director Dornelles, a filmmaker in – the film gloms on to two suspicious vacationers of Lynndie England and Charles Graner.
his own right and production designer on Filho’s from the urban south and follows them to their While Bacurau begins and ends with the image
Neighbouring Sounds (2012) and Aquarius (2016), employers, those awful Americans. The leader of of Bárbara Colen’s villager Teresa, it gives us no
aren’t the first Brazilians to rebuild the western the Yanks is a suave German-American, played single protagonist – no lone rider ambling into
with local materials – most famously, one can by Udo Kier, and it is hard to say if he and his town, as in the American western – but rather
cite the example of Antonio das Mortes (1969) by two very different communities. The village
Glauber Rocha, who once described the western
as “the blood which runs through the veins of the
The impending threat here has just lost its leading citizen, leaving in her
place the doctor, played by Sônia Braga, who
American man”. For its first half, Bacurau proceeds comes from the descendants of presides over the handing out of foodstuffs. Of
as a sort of portrait of a frontier community, the Americans, Kier gives the only compelling
as detailed with incident and almost as rich in the western settlers – Americans characterisation of the lot, clammy and cruel. The
atmosphere as the little Oregon town in Jacques
Tourneur’s Canyon Passage (1946), complete
abroad with no civilisation to others are varying degrees of parochial, arrogant,
racist, bloodthirsty and boorish – which, sure, fair
with a local balladeer à la Hoagy Carmichael. bestow, only bloodlust to slake enough – but, more problematically, not capable
as a body of actors of investing the intended black
comedy of, say, a scene in which they descend
Q&A Kleber Mendonça Filho into semantic bickering about when it is or is
not ethically acceptable to kill a child. Whether
and Juliano Dornelles, co-directors they are operating as hired hands or paying for
the pleasure remains ambiguous – they seem
What was the impetus for ‘Bacurau’? Kleber Mendonça Filho (below, left): The neither competent enough to be professionals
Juliano Dornelles (below, right): Bacurau writing had been ongoing for years when nor wealthy enough to afford bloodsport,
grew out of our observations, annoyance and political events took place that reflected though perhaps it is part of the film’s premise
desire to surprise people by showing this poor, things we had written. There are a number that in the future even a man who works in HR
remote part of the world getting revenge on of ideas which we tried to develop from can afford to play The Most Dangerous Game.
people who consider [its residents] “simple,” our own observations on Brazil and the Such murkiness does not extend to Filho and
“funny” or “fragile”, when they are just as world, trying to make it very local. Dornelles’s style, marked as it is by a hard, matter-
complex and interesting as everybody else. It is Can you give some examples of of-fact clarity – a horizontally rolling widescreen,
essential that the point of view is northeastern, how you balanced the local with the occasionally crossed by Kurosawa-reminiscent
and that it is ours. The cinema still owes a lot global in the film’s aesthetic? wipes. (A former film critic, Filho makes no secret
of space to the Brazilian northeast, and KMF: I would emphasise the use of of his debts: Bacurau’s school is named for one
even more so in the way I believe we 1970s American Panavision C Series “Prof João Carpinteira”.) Given to the occasional
did in Bacurau, where everyone is anamorphic prime lenses. The pulsing zoom or showy split diopter shot, their
poor but nobody is to be pitied. optical distortions of these approach is not so unadorned as, say, that of
How did current events in lenses bring to mind a strain S. Craig Zahler in Dragged Across Concrete (2018),
Brazil impact the script? of American cinema that but Filho and Dornelles are looking to some of
JD: We were dealing with is very familiar but also the same tough, unsentimental masters – and
a sort of race against quite foreign. It was also to call Zahler’s film simply a work of the ‘right’
reality throughout the a real pleasure to be able and Filho and Dornelles’s one of the ‘left’ would
writing of the script. The to buy the rights to such be to melt them down to an unrecognisable
news we read daily was a powerful piece of music form. Altering the context of their sources, Filho
(and still is) so absurd and as ‘Night’ by John Carpenter, and Dornelles demonstrate the remarkable
dystopian that Bacurau was one of the directors who most power that remains in well-worn genre tropes
gaining more and more plausibility. made me want to make movies. when employed with force and intelligence.

FILMS OF THE MONTH
Western girls and western boys: Bárbara Colen as Teresa, one of the locals under attack in Bacurau
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Original Music Ben Saïd, Michel et de l’image animée, Rubens Santos Michael
Emilie Lesclaux Mateus Alves Merkt present a Institut français Erivaldo
Saïd Ben Saïd Tomaz Alves Souza CinemaScópio, Executive Producer Wilson Rabelo Dolby Digital
Michel Merkt Sound Recordist SBS Productions Dora Amorim Plinio In Colour
Written by Nicolas Hallet production Carlos Francisco [2.35:1]
Kleber Mendonça Costume Designer In co-production Damiano Subtitles
Filho Rita Azevedo with Globo Filmes, Cast Luciana Souza
Juliano Dornelles Símio Filmes, Arte Bárbara Colen Isa Distributor
Director of ©CinemaScópio, France Cinéma, Teresa Karine Teles MUBI
Photography SBS Productions, Telecine, Canal Brasil Thomas Aquino female southerner
Pedro Sotero Arte France Cinéma With the participation Pacote/Acácio Antonio Saboia
Editor Production of Arte France and Silvero Pereira male southerner
Eduardo Serrano Companies Aide aux cinémas Lunga Sônia Braga
Art Director BR Petrobras present du monde, Centre Thardelly Lima Domingas
Thales Junqueira Emilie Lesclaux, Saïd national du cinéma Tony Jr Udo Kier
The Brazilian sertão, the near future. Teresa returns townspeople. The bikers are scouts for a party of young
to the village of Bacurau for the funeral of her Americans who plan to massacre the villagers. But when
grandmother. The village suddenly disappears from one of the Americans is captured, Bacurau’s residents
web-mapping services, and residents’ cell phones learn of the impending assault. The Americans walk
cease to receive reception. Two bikers from the urban into an ambush, learning too late that Bacurau was
south appear, killing two locals when they discover the scene of an earlier uprising, and that its residents
a farmhouse massacre and threaten to warn the are deadly. The Americans’ leader is buried alive.
Bad trip: Udo Kier as the assailants’ leader

– in Morocco. Once again, Laxe is working that flourish in these mountains – Amador
Fire Will Come with non-professional actors who appear to

some degree to be versions of their characters
complains about them putting down dense
roots, strangling local plants, being “worse than
FILMS OF THE MONTH
(indeed, they share the same first names). the devil”. Benedicta, however, sees things in
Like Mimosas, Fire Will Come is a portrait of a more metaphorical terms, calmly replying, “If
very particular landscape. But this film’s terrain they hurt others, it’s because they hurt too” – an
Spain/France/Luxembourg 2019
is not possessed of conventional visual appeal: in observation that clearly doesn’t apply only to
Director: Oliver Laxe the opening winter section, Laxe and DP Mauro trees. The same can be said of the film’s title:
Herce, shooting on Super 16, emphasise the while Fire Will Come suggests a prophecy or a
Reviewed by Jonathan Romney overcast drabness of the mountains’ muted greens threat, the Galician O que arde simply means
Set in the mountains of Galicia, in northwestern and browns, with people tending to disappear “that which burns”, which could be taken as
Spain, Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Come is a truly into the land. In one sequence, Amador’s elderly referring both to the landscape and to humanity.
elemental film – certainly in so far as the mother Benedicta crosses a wood, almost entirely If Amador burns, it is on the inside. Amador
traditional four elements are all strongly vanishing in the dense textures of the image Arias’s solemn, laconic performance reveals little
represented. Water figures in heavy rainfall before being seen sheltering from the rain inside of what his character is, or of what consumes
and in the scene where middle-aged protagonist a tree trunk. Unlike Terrence Malick’s A Hidden him; his stony mien recalls Valeska Grisebach’s
Amador unblocks a spring above his village; Life (2019), in which every shot of the Austrian Western (2017), which was also about strong,
earth features in the shots of the region’s heavily Alps whacks us over the head with its spiritual undemonstrative men in a landscape, and
forested valleys; and air in the rolling mist and glory, there is no transcendence in the stark was similarly cast with non-professionals.
cloud-filled expanses of the first section, set milieu of Laxe’s film: this is simply a world in But another source of fire in the film is
in winter. As for fire, the drama culminates which people slog to survive, attending to the domestic: the stove kept stoked in Benedicta’s
in a sequence of some 13 minutes in which daily business of rural life, whether that involves home. Like the stove, Benedicta herself radiates
firefighters combat a blaze that has broken quiet, firm devotion to her son; you almost
out on Amador’s mountain. Amador himself There is no transcendence in chuckle at the no-nonsense brevity of her
embodies fire: at the beginning of the film, greeting after his two years’ absence (“Are you
he returns home to his mother’s small farm, the stark milieu of Laxe’s film: hungry?”). But images of their togetherness,
after two years in prison for starting a blaze this is a world in which people especially at the end, suggest a mutual dedication
that engulfed a mountainside. The first time that is arguably the film’s central heat source.
he is mentioned, by an official handling his slog to survive, attending to By contrast with the more overtly enigmatic
parole, he is referred to as “the pyromaniac”. narrative of Mimosas, Laxe has here made a film of
Whether Amador really is a pyromaniac –
the daily business of rural life resonant gaps rather than mysteries as such. We
and whether in any case that label can possibly heaving a stray cow out of a mud pool, hacking can’t be sure that, despite his jail term, Amador
sum up who he is – is one of the mysteries of away the brambles that have consumed an old has even really been guilty of anything – it may
this sparely suggestive film. Fire Will Come house or combating the flames that regularly simply be that he is a loner, a perennial outsider,
marks a homecoming for Laxe as well as for consume swathes of these mountains. and therefore fated to be a scapegoat. Certainly,
his protagonist: the French-born Spanish The film is clearly timely in this moment nothing directly implicates him in the latest
director shot his third feature in the village of of ecological anxiety, the perils of the Galician conflagration: a major narrative elision sets
his grandparents, and in the Galician language, environment chiming with the recent wildfires in after a brief scene in which Amador starts a
after making two films – the quasi-documentary in California and Australia. The film shows a conversation in a bar with Elena, the vet with
You Are All Captains (2010) and the mystically landscape struggling with threats to its survival, whom he earlier shared a moment of tentative
inflected quest/travelogue Mimosas (2016) among them the imported eucalyptus trees intimacy, listening to Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’
as she drives his wounded cow for treatment.
Despite being largely in a mode of gaunt,
Q&A Oliver Laxe, director unvarnished realism, Fire Will Come is bookended
with sequences of dreamlike eeriness. Quite apart
from the spectacular fire itself, with its walls
of red flame, there is the blasted aftermath the
We’ve become used to seeing fire, you find yourself on a different level of following morning: Benedicta picking her way
digital fire in films, but here it’s perception, it’s something alchemical. We across a grey field of charred trees, the appearance
real, and it comes as a shock. had to wait for the fires to start, and they of a confused, badly burned horse. The opening
We shot twice. The first summer, the always do in the Galicia region. But the second sequence has a touch of horror-cinema
firefighters told us where the fires were and summer, that area had its heaviest rainfall in ominousness: trees crash to the ground in a forest
I went and shot with a seven-person crew – history. We’d given up, then two days before at night, before we see bulldozers ploughing
we didn’t know whether the film stock would the end of the shoot, a fire broke out. them down, then a single eucalyptus, its scarred
melt in the heat. A year later, we went back How did you find your non-professional actors? trunk filling the screen with a baleful solidity. The
with the actors. When you’re working with Through auditions, mainly. Benedicta enigmatic nature of these images is underpinned
[Sánchez] emigrated to Brazil in her twenties, by the long, foghorn-like notes of the trombone
worked as a photographer, then came back. concerto by modern composer Georg Friedrich
She’s 95 now, and basically a hermit. Inazio Haas (for the moments of more human drama,
[Abrao] is a carpenter, Elena [Fernández] it’s Vivaldi’s mournful ‘Cum dederit’).
really is a vet. I always want to work with As for the ‘Suzanne’ sequence – with the
the person more than the character. camera and the cow exchanging a long placid
The opening images of bulldozers and gaze – this is one of the strangest uses of a
eucalyptuses are incredibly eerie, suggesting Cohen song in cinema. Elena tells Amador,
an alien presence invading the landscape. “No need to understand the lyrics to get the
I wanted to represent the ineffable. In that music” – which seems a neat comment on the
sequence, you have the forests and the subsidiary role played by spoken language in
machines, but there’s something else behind this drama of place and gesture. But Laxe then
them – the machines aren’t just machines, cuts to a shot of the house that villager Inazio is
the trees aren’t just trees. I wanted to restoring, and it is tempting to think of it being
make people feel that behind the world of “the lonely wooden tower” referred to in the
exterior forms is another world of subtle song. You might make the same connection
forms. David Lynch is good at evoking with Amador himself, as lofty, as solitary and
that, Apichatpong and Tarkovsky too. perhaps – although he survives his ordeals
Interview by Jonathan Romney – deep down, secretly as combustible.

FILMS OF THE MONTH
The hills are alight: Benedicta Sánchez as the devoted mother in Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Come, set in a landscape struggling for survival
Produced by Samuel Lema ©Miramemira, 4 et de l’Image Animée, Andrea Vázquez Álvaro de Bazal
Andrea Vázquez Curru Garabal A 4 Productions, Aide aux Cinémas du García Damián Prado
García Music Producer/ Tarantula, Monde, Eurimages Nando Vázquez
Xavi Font Additional Music Kowalski Films With the support of
Andrea Queralt Composed and Production Cineworld by Film Cast In Colour
Mani Mortazavi Arranged by Companies Fund Luxembourg Amador Arias [1.85:1]
Screenplay Xavi Font Miramemira, 4 A 4 Co-financed by the Amador Coro Quinoga Subtitles
Oliver Laxe Sound Productions, Kowalski Government of Spain Benedicta Sánchez
Santiago Fillol David Machado Films, Tarantula - Ministerio de cultura Benedicta, Distributor
Director of Sergio da Silva with the support of y deporte - ICAA Amador’s mother New Wave Films
Photography Amanda Villavieja ADADIC - Axencia With the participation Inazio Abrao
Mauro Herce Xavi Souto Galega das Industrias of Televisión de Inazio Spanish theatrical title
Editing Costumes Culturais, Xunta de Galicia, ETB, Elena Fernández O que arde
Cristóbal Fernández Nadia Acimi Galicia, CNC - Centre Deputación de Lugo Elena, vet
Art Direction National du Cinéma Executive Producer David de Poso
Galicia, northwestern Spain, the present day. Amador, ruined houses in the hope of attracting tourist trade.
a middle-aged man, is released from prison on parole However, Amador seems to form the beginnings
after serving two years on a charge of starting a fire of a rapport with Elena, a vet who tends one of the
in the rural region that he comes from. He returns cows after it becomes stuck in a pool of water.
home to live with his elderly mother Benedicta on Later, firefighters arrive to attend a massive
their farm in the mountains, where he helps her tend blaze that has broken out on the mountain, and
her three cows. Amador shuns company, despite an Inazio, assuming that Amador is responsible,
offer of work from Inazio, a local man who is restoring attacks him. Amador and Benedicta walk away.
Sánchez with Amador Arias as her son

And Then We Danced
Sweden/Georgia/France 2019
Director: Levan Akin
Certificate 15 112m 46s
Reviewed by Ben Walters

“You should be like a nail,
See Feature you’re too soft,” an instructor
REVIEWS
on page 40 at the National Georgian

Ensemble tells aspiring
young dancer Merab (Levan
Gelbakhiani). “Georgian dance is based on
masculinity.” The enmeshed imperatives
of gender performance, cultural expression
and national belonging underpin And Then
We Danced, a powerful and moving drama
written and directed by Levan Akin, a Swedish
filmmaker of Georgian descent. It’s centred
around the evolution of Merab’s rivalry with
new dancer Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) into an erotic
connection, and the related intensification of
his struggle to accommodate his more fluid,
emotive form of dance – and of living – with
normative expectations. Akin based his script on
interviews with dancers in Tbilisi and he reports
facing hostility from dance institutions for
exploring homosexual desire within the sector.
In its outlines, the film’s Bildungsroman
narrative and broadly realist tone align
with a cycle of recent queer dramas, such as
Switzerland’s Mario (2018), which was set among
aspiring footballers. And Then We Danced stands
out, though, for its nuanced characterisation,
powerful acting, rich attention to social context,
and a sophisticated technique whose subtle Two to tango: Marlen Egutia, Levan Gelbakhiani
balance of fluidity and stillness aligns with
Merab’s sinuous style of performance. The it notes, was not always as inflexible as some it’s more complex than that. Merab’s erotic
dance sequences in particular are captivating contemporary proponents would insist. experiences with Irakli open him up to new ways
and propulsive, giving magnetic form to This sense of contingency also applies to the of seeing and being, including an introduction
the growing chemistry between Merab and kinds of collective life that are seen as so vital to Tbilisi’s queer night scene. Its own distinct
Irakli. Elsewhere, Akin choreographs lengthy, to Georgian society. When Merab is told – in a forms of affection, support, aggravation, jeopardy
deceptively complex shots that immerse us in spirit of concern rather than cruelty – that there’s and euphoria suggest at least the possibility
the intense milieu of the dance academy – part no place for gay people in Georgia, it seems a of a life beyond the poles of conformity and
macho locker room, part cultural hothouse, credible assessment. Yet the film also suggests atomisation, dancing to a different rhythm.
part youth club – or in the modest flat shared
by Merab, his brother David (Giorgi Tsereteli) Credits and Synopsis
and their mother and grandmother.
Such networks, often lubricated by heavy
Produced by RMV Film, Inland Film, Levan Gabrava Tbilisi, the present. Alongside his irresponsible brother
drinking, are thematically central to And Then Mathilde Dedye Sveriges Television Luka David, Merab studies at the academy of the prestigious
We Danced. It’s a story about the invidious choice Ketie Danelia With production Dachi Babunashvili
National Georgian Ensemble of traditional dance.
Written by support from the Rati
Merab seems to face between powerful forms Levan Akin Swedish Film Institute Saba Abashidze The instructors, who champion the form as a rigid
of collective living (the ensemble, the family, Director of With support from Vakhtang expression of masculine patriotism, criticise Merab’s
Photography Région Île-de-France Giorgi Aladashvili softer style. The brothers live with their mother and
the neighbourhood), which offer belonging Lisabi Fridell in partnership Gela
and meaning while abhorring queerness, and grandmother, and Merab works as a waiter to help
Edited by with CNC – Centre Soso Abramishvili
Levan Akin National du Cinéma Shalva, restaurant support them. With competition to audition for the main
the possibility of a subjectively fulfilled life Simon Carlgren et de l’Image owner ensemble intense, Merab is wary of new dancer Irakli,
elsewhere, apparently dependent on solitude. Production Design Animée, Aide aux Giorgi Tsereteli but they become friendly. Both are selected to audition.
Scenes featuring just one character are few, Teo Baramidze Cinémas du Monde, David Increasingly attracted to Irakli, Merab gently rebuffs the
Music Institut français,
and generally show Merab in closeted distress. Zviad Mgebry Konstnärsnämnden In Colour advances of Mary, his dance partner since childhood.
The film in no way sugarcoats Georgian Ben Wheeler - Swedish Arts [1.78:1] The students go to Mary’s family’s country house for
Sound Design Grants Committee Subtitles her birthday; at night, Merab and Irakli masturbate
homophobia, but nor does it deny the value of Beso Kacharava Supported by together somewhat awkwardly. The following night,
normative bonds. There’s affecting nuance to Costume Design Enterprise Georgia Distributor
they have sex with more intimacy and affection.
Nini Jincharadze A film by Levan Akin Peccadillo
Merab’s relationships with Irakli, David and Choreographers Executive Producers Pictures Ltd David is expelled for absenteeism. Merab finds
Mary (Ana Javakhishvili), his dance partner Georgian Folk Dance: Ludvig Andersson him work as a waiter, but David causes them both to
since childhood. Gelbakhiani, a dancer making anonymous Mattias Sandström be fired. Irakli seems to vanish. Distressed, Merab
Contemporary Dance: bumps into a young man he previously cruised on
his acting debut here, brings a moving balance Natia Chikvaidze
Cast a bus, and is introduced to his friends. They have a
of fragility and resolve to each exchange. euphoric night out dancing. Merab learns that Irakli
©French Quarter Levan Gelbakhiani
There’s subtleness too in the story’s treatment Film, RMV Film Merab is in his hometown with his sick father. Merab injures
of lineage and tradition. And Then We Danced AB, Inland Film AB, Bachi Valishvili his ankle, jeopardising his audition chances, but
Takes Film, AMA Irakli
recognises the layers of meaning, memory painfully rehearses anyway. David announces his
Productions Ana Javakhishvili
and hope that can be embedded in personal Production Mary shotgun wedding. Irakli attends, but says he’s moving
Companies Kakha Gogidze home to marry and support his mother, leaving Merab
objects – an earring, a jacket – rendering Produced by French Aleko, dance teacher distraught. Merab acknowledges he might be gay;
them both cherished relics and engines of Quarter Film and Anano Makharadze David responds tenderly, but insists Merab’s best life
change. And it attends to the forces that mould Takes Film Sopo
In co-production with Ninutsa Gabisonia is outside Georgia. At the audition, supported by Mary,
traditions, the malleable contexts shaping AMA Productions, Ninutsa Merab defiantly dances with feminine fluidity and grace.
supposedly ageless customs. Georgian dance,

Arracht The Australian Dream
Ireland 2019 United Kingdom/Australia 2019
Director: Tom Sullivan Director: Daniel Gordon
Reviewed by Leigh Singer

There’s a strong case that sports enthusiasts going
into this award-winning documentary with
REVIEWS
zero investment in Australian Rules Football
(or ‘Aussie Rules’, for short) might connect
with it the most. Without prior knowledge of
Indigenous AFL icon and one-time Australian
of the Year Adam Goodes’s efforts to combat
racism both within his game and in the wider
national psyche, unmentioned parallels to
other sports and countries – the ongoing Colin
Kaepernick/gridiron standoff, Fifa’s various, often
lacklustre efforts to tackle football’s inequities
– arguably come more keenly into focus.
Similarly, general audiences unfamiliar with
Australia’s longstanding, wretched treatment
of its Aboriginal people receive a crash course
in engagement and enragement: from Captain
Blight club: Dónall Ó Héalaí, Peter Coonan Cook’s infamous “terra nullius” – nobody’s land
– colonial decree, which erased 60,000 years of
Reviewed by Michael Hayden his crimes, and the film drifts in his absence. human occupation at a stroke, to the horrors of
This debut feature from writer-director Tom Dónall O Héalaí’s portrayal of Colmán has an the Stolen Generations’ separated Indigenous
Sullivan is the product of a funding initiative set admirable physicality, especially in the scenes children. Director Daniel Gordon (a Bafta-winner
up by the national development agency Screen where he is hiding in a cave, surviving on his for Hillsborough) deftly weaves such key historical
Ireland, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and measly fishing catch. However, the character’s markers together with illustrative archive
broadcaster TG4 to ensure that work continues nobility and stoicism are overstated to the footage of Goodes’s touching journey from shy,
to be produced in the Irish language. It is rare extent that he becomes too good to be true, unaware kid to outspoken advocate. The film also
for a film in Irish to secure distribution, which so impeccably righteous that he won’t even features testimonies from other racially abused
suggests that this spare and serviceable thriller, take a drink of the poitín he brews for others. Indigenous former AFL pros. The 1993 photo of
while modest in means and ambition, has the Along the picturesque rolling coastline, Nicky Winmar lifting his shirt mid-match and
potential to travel beyond national festivals. another monster surfaces. Patsy repeatedly pointing to his dark skin is, in Australian terms,
The title, Arracht, is translated as ‘monster’ in tells Colmán, “I am not your enemy,” and it is as iconic an image as John Carlos and Tommie
the subtitles. This could refer to the Great Famine clear who is considered worse. The immovable Smith’s 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.
devastating Ireland during the period in which English landlord (Michael McElhatton) As an ideal educational primer, a call to arms
the film is set, though it more obviously refers to and meathead soldiers represent the real even, The Australian Dream kicks every goal.
the way that audiences are expected to view the evil of British oppression. Describing how Filtering the film chiefly through Goodes
brutal character of Patsy, played with moustache- things became so bad, Colmán declares: “It and its writer, acclaimed journalist Stan
twirling relish by Dara Devaney. It’s suggested didn’t happen to us. It was done to us.” Grant, both from mixed Indigenous
that Patsy has deserted from the British navy – While that might be a legitimate reading of
because “there’s only so much shit you can take history, the sense of victimhood jars, seeming
from an Englishman” – and has witnessed the trite and hackneyed. Lance Daly’s bilingual
horrors of the potato blight before arriving at the Black ’47 (2018) was a huge success in Ireland,
door of Connemara fisherman Colmán Sharkey. breaking box-office records. Like Arracht, it was
Sullivan chooses to show little of Patsy’s set in Connemara during the Great Famine and
subsequent murder spree, around which the explored strikingly similar themes of violence,
drama revolves, though it is asserted that he isolation, masculinity and nationhood, emerging
relishes his kills. He goes AWOL from the as a daring revenge fantasy. Without similar
screen for a long period after committing wit or ideas, Arracht pales in comparison.
Producer Sound Mixer Údarás Craolacháin Cast Seán Cillian Ó Gairbhí

Cúán Mac Conghail Alan Scully na hÉireann Dónall Ó Héalaí Seán T. Ó Meallaigh Pat Madden
Written by Costume Designer Cine 4 – TG4 Colmán Searcaigh, Seámas Tom Thaidhg
Tom Sullivan Clodagh Deegan Films in Irish ‘Sharkey’ Conall Ó Céidigh In Colour
Director of A Macalla film Michael McElhatton Dan [2.35:1]
Photography ©Macalla Executive Producers Lieutenant Davies Elaine O’Dwyer Subtitles
Kate McCullough Production John McDonnell Saise Ní Chuinn Maggie
Editor Companies Brendan McCarthy Kitty Siobhán O’Kelly Distributor
Mary Crumlish Fís Éireann/ for TG4: Dara Devaney Áine Break Thru Films
Production Designer Screen Ireland Deirbhile Ní Patsy Kelly Elise Brennan
Padraig O’Neill Supported by Churraighín Peter Coonan Kate English subtitles title
Music BAI – Broadcasting for Fís Éireann: Corporal Bailey Páraic Breathnach Monster
Kíla Authority of Ireland/ James Hickey Eoin Ó Dubhghaill Father Joachin
Connemara, Ireland, the 1840s. Colmán Sharkey a scuffle, Seán is killed and Colmán attacks Patsy.
is a fisherman with a wife and young son. At the Two years later, Colmán is living alone in a cave,
request of a local priest, he offers work and lodgings haunted by the voices of his now dead wife and son.
to hot-headed stranger Patsy. With crops failing, He bonds with Kitty, a young girl who witnessed the
and following a confrontation with his landlord’s murders at the landlord’s house. Patsy reappears,
representatives, Colmán visits the landlord with his accompanied by British soldiers convinced that Colmán
brother Seán and Patsy to request that rates are not killed the landlord. As the soldiers restrain Colmán, Patsy
increased. The meeting descends into violence when threatens to kill Kitty. Colmán overcomes the soldiers
Patsy murders three attendants, then the landlord. In before saving Kitty and strangling Patsy to death.
Out of bounds: Adam Goodes

Bad Boys for Life
USA 2020
Directors: Adil & Bilall
backgrounds, undoubtedly powers the

sense of personal stakes and emotional
heft. Goodes is a thoughtful, articulate subject
REVIEWS
and Grant adds rousing rhetoric. And the

deployment of talking heads directly addressing
the camera creates an aptly provocative feel.
Such stylistic choices do also contribute,
alongside justifiable admiration for its
protagonist, to the film occasionally veering
close to hagiography. The Australian Dream
largely becomes the official retelling of one
man’s nightmare. The complex debate around
the media treatment of the 13-year-old girl
ejected from an AFL match by Goodes for
her ‘ape’ taunt, and around the different
connotations of booing players at sporting
events, feels frustratingly curtailed. To the film’s Oldboys: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence
credit, though, it includes oppositional figures
such as tone-deaf conservative commentator Reviewed by Tim Hayes it and continuing the same peacock strut that
Andrew Bolt. And it cannily charts the shocking Don Simpson has been dead for 24 years, but got him through the previous movies. Despite
rapidity with which the establishment and the sight of his name in the opening credits starting a franchise even older than the one here,
social-media trolls turn when a national of Bad Boys for Life brings a warm Pavlovian Lethal Weapon (1987) remains the solid inspiration
hero dares to transform into the culturally sense of authenticity. In the current swamp of for any film venturing down this path, and once
unacceptable ‘black man who complains’. recycled characters and defibrillated franchises, Burnett and Lowrey leap on a motorbike and
Goodes’s soul-searching walkabout makes might this one be about to go properly back to sidecar for some high-speed pursuit, it’s the spirit
for striking Outback sequences, though visual the future, recreating the original caffeinated of director Richard Donner that looms larger
coups are generally at a premium. A brooding excess that Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer and than anyone’s. Modern rules are unbreakable,
electronica soundtrack bolsters the unsettling director Michael Bay cooked up in 1995 with though, so Mike’s previously unknown adult
mood, and it’s perhaps better to view the Bad Boys? Or at least the unhinged playbook son turns up and promptly shoots him, allowing
film more in the Indigenous tradition of oral of disconnected explosions that Bay recently the father to unlock a selection of past regrets
storytelling: speaking out against past and transferred wholesale to Netflix and called 6 and the offspring to reassess his parentage.
present prejudice and reclaiming an often Underground? But Bad Boys was so long ago that Both men duly obey pop culture’s most heavily
whitewashed narrative, which Goodes, Grant Will Smith took second billing after Martin hammered plea and discover a more authentic
and Gordon relate to righteous, potent effect. Lawrence, and its cop protagonists are now individual identity within themselves, in this
squarely in their fifties. Any Bay-style low- case bonding over the casual destruction of
Credits and Synopsis angle tracking shots and corkscrew camera a mother figure shown as an actual witch.
moves in Bad Boys for Life have considerately The Fast & Furious franchise has a magnetic
slowed down to let the characters catch up. pull here too, in the diverse group of supporting
Produced by Screen Tommy Gordon
Sarah Thomson Australia, Lorton The release of a third Bad Boys – 17 years after operatives Mike and Marcus team up with, all
Nick Batzias Entertainment, In Colour the previous one and surely connected to the of them genetically perfect. But their mission
Virginia Whitwell The Australian [1.85:1]
John Battsek Broadcasting arrival of spin-off TV series L.A.’s Finest, which is not diverse – just the same business of peace
Producer Corporation, Distributor belatedly follows Gabrielle Union’s character through redemptive violence that powers this
Goodthings Passion Pictures Dogwoof
Productions: and Goodthing
from Bad Boys II (2003) – means that certain genre from top to bottom, its original poker face
Charlotte Wheaton Productions present things will happen as a given. Marcus Burnett now locked in position by pure irony. Marcus
Written by in association
Stan Grant with Madman
(Lawrence) will be attempting to shift into prays for his partner’s recovery and promises
Directors of Entertainment, Film domesticity and grandparenthood, while partner not to bring more violence into the world,
Photography Victoria, Verymuchso Mike Lowrey (Smith) will be having none of in which case he’s in the wrong picture.
Dylan River Productions and
Michael Timney Uninterrupted
Editor Passion Pictures Credits and Synopsis
Matt Wyllie supported by the
Music BFI’s Film Fund
Cornel Wilczek Produced in
Pascal Babare association with Directed by Robrecht Heyvaert ©Columbia Pictures Mike Stenson Rafe Happy Anderson
Thomas E. Rouch The Australian Adil & Bilall Editors Industries Inc. and Barry Waldman Paola Nunez Jenkins
Sound Recordists Broadcasting [i.e. Adil El Arbi, Peter McNulty 2.0 Entertainment James Lassiter Rita
David Tranter Corporation Bilall Fallah] Dan Lebental Production Kate Del Castillo Dolby Atmos
Andy Boag Executive Produced by Production Designer Companies Isabel Aretas In Colour
Producers Jerry Bruckheimer Jon Billington Columbia Pictures Cast Nicky Jam [2.35:1]
©Passion Pictures, Paul Wiegard Will Smith Music presents in Will Smith Zway-Lo
GoodThing Andrew Ruhemann Doug Belgrad Lorne Balfe association with Detective Lieutenant Joe Pantoliano Some screenings
Productions Pty Ltd Ben Simmons Screenplay Sound Designer 2.0 Entertainment Michael Lowrey, ‘Mike’ Captain Conrad in ScreenX
Production Julian Bird Chris Bremner Steve Ticknor a Don Simpson/ Martin Lawrence Howard
Companies Joel Kennedy Peter Craig Costume Designer Jerry Bruckheimer Detective Lieutenant Jacob Scipio Distributor
Joe Carnahan Dayna Pink production Marcus Burnett Armando Aretas Sony Pictures
Story Stunt Co-ordinator An Overbrook/2.0 Vanessa Hudgens Theresa Randle Releasing
A documentary on Adam Goodes, who was raised
Peter Craig Mike Gunther Entertainment Kelly Theresa
by a single Aboriginal mother and became a legend Joe Carnahan Visual Effects production Alexander Ludwig Khaled (DJ
of Australian Rules Football and a passionate Director of Soho VFX Executive Producers Dorn Khaled) Khaled
opponent of racial prejudice. As Goodes learns Photography Mammal Studios Chad Oman Charles Melton Manny
more about his Indigenous roots, he becomes
increasingly outspoken. When he has a 13-year- Miami, present day. Detective Marcus Burnett Mike on the case after Armando murders their boss
old girl ejected from a match for racist taunting, tells partner Mike Lowrey that he is retiring. Mike Captain Howard. Mike realises that Armando is his
a huge backlash ensues that profoundly affects is shot by hitman Armando on the instructions son, born while Mike was undercover in Isabel’s
him and causes widespread reflection about the of Armando’s mother Isabel, but survives. When drug cartel. The trail leads to Mexico City, where
country’s racial history and behaviour. Despite Marcus declines to help him pursue Armando, Isabel confirms Armando’s parentage. She tries to
strong support and his ongoing commitment to the Mike teams up with a police tactical unit led by kill Mike, but Armando intervenes. Rita becomes
cause, Goodes eventually decides to quit the sport. ex-girlfriend Rita to hunt the shooter. Marcus joins police captain. Mike and Marcus reconcile.

Best Before Death Birds of Prey
United Kingdom 2018 (And the Fantabulous Emancipation
Director: Paul Duane of One Harley Quinn)
Certificate 12A 92m 2s USA 2019, Director: Cathy Yan, Certificate 15 108m 46s
Reviewed by Christina Newland

The particular brand of girl power generally
expressed by Marvel and DC movies is anodyne,
REVIEWS
to say the least. As with the ‘girl gang’ moment of
the final battle in last year’s Avengers: Endgame,
seeing the women crack skulls and femurs along
with the lads has been the main through-line for
the female characters of superhero franchises.
Birds of Prey follows similar lines, though at least
the anarchic crew of broads here are more fun
to watch than their bland counterparts. Margot
Robbie, reprising her role from 2016’s Suicide Squad
as the flamboyantly accessorised and psychopathic
Harley Quinn, is the film’s most compelling
part, with a lippy, audacious girlishness and a
gnat’s attention span. Following a breakup with
the Joker, Harley soon finds that the whole of
Gotham’s underworld has a grudge against her.
Setting out to stand on her own two stilettoed
feet, she ends up drawn into a showdown for a
priceless diamond with a child pickpocket and
a misogynistic nightclub owner played with
Bed manners: Bill Drummond maximum ham by Ewan McGregor. A tough
NYPD officer (Rosie Perez), a songstress who has
Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton on a map. Along with a bit of Birmingham and a side job as a heavy (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and
I will confess that, starting into Paul Duane’s Calcutta, we see Drummond in Lexington, a a mysterious female assassin (Mary Elizabeth
Best Before Death, I was soon restless and a little small town in the centre of North Carolina, going Winstead) all join in the bone-crunching. One
annoyed. I was put off by what I took to be the about his self-appointed rounds, documented extended sequence in a rundown Scooby-Doo-
laboured eccentricity of the opening scene, by photographer Tracey Moberly. And in the style funhouse is visually inventive, especially as
in which artist and former KLF member Bill course of watching him, observing the awkward the girls hop over giant clown tongues and dart
Drummond strips to slip on a fresh pair of jeans earnestness of his endeavour and seeing how between endless loops of lights and mirrors.
and then hop into the fetid canal water beneath his public performance attracts attention Ultimately, the plot is as messy as its
the overpasses of Birmingham’s Spaghetti from passers-by, many of whom presumably central character, trotting around with one
Junction. Drummond’s subsequent quibbling would not have much occasion to interact shoe and a bacon sandwich in hand, but it’s
over the inherent falseness of documentary with performance art in their lives, that initial also a whole bunch of glittery, satisfying
form seemed distinctly undergraduate stuff, annoyance gave way to a more tender emotion. fun – especially the unkempt, cheerful,
and there were many occasions to wince in the What Duane manages in his film mirrors what chaotic energy of Harley Quinn.
following scenes of Drummond in Calcutta, Drummond does in his project, which is about
carrying out the latest leg of his ongoing generating spontaneous encounters, sometimes Credits and Synopsis
conceptual art project. It all felt rather twee in uncomfortable ones, as when he sets up his kit
the face of so much poverty, rather tacky to be in Calcutta to perform his ritual of acting as a Produced by ©Warner Bros. ‘Huntress’
talking about self-criticism when surrounded shoeshine boy, only to realise that the locals in the Margot Robbie Entertainment Inc. Jurnee
Bryan Unkeless Production Smollett-Bell
by depredation, rather perverse for a man who main don’t have shoes to shine. The situations, Sue Kroll Companies Dinah Lance,
burned £1 million in cash to discuss finding many of them violating everyday decorum, are Written by A Warner ‘Black Canary’
Christina Hodson Bros. Pictures Rosie Perez
non-monetary ways to valuate art when designed to put people on their back foot, as Based on characters presentation Renee Montoya
everywhere around material needs are so great. will happen when a stranger shows up on your from DC A LuckyChap Chris Messina
Harley Quinn Entertainment, Victor Zsasz
But then, little by little, something funny doorstep with a free cake, presenting you with created by Paul Clubhouse Ewan McGregor
happens. Duane’s film follows Drummond on a quandary. Best Before Death is a free cake sort Dini, Bruce Timm Pictures, Kroll & Roman Sionis
Director of Co. Entertainment Ella Jay Basco
two legs of a proposed start-and-stop 12-year of movie, an unusual and unexpected offering. Photography production Cassandra
world tour, with each visit to a different city After an initial hesitation, I accepted it, and the Matthew Libatique Executive Cain, ‘Cass’
Edited by Producers
comprised of a repetition of the same public experience was an edifying one. The stranger, Jay Cassidy Walter Hamada Dolby Atmos
rituals, such as baking cakes and distributing like the artist, is so often treated as guilty until Evan Schiff Galen Vaisman In Colour
Production Geoff Johns [2.35:1]
them to strangers along points on a circle drawn proven innocent – but why should that be so? Designer Hans Ritter
K.K. Barrett David Ayer Distributor
Music by/Score Warner Bros.
Credits and Synopsis Produced by Pictures
Daniel Pemberton Cast International (UK)
Production Margot Robbie
Produced by Tony Cranstoun Fís Éireann/Screen of the Southern Celine Haddad [1.78:1] Sound Mixer Harley Quinn Additional
Steve Morrow Mary Elizabeth publicity title:
Robert Gordon Sound Ireland, Media Documentary Fund for Scottish Part-subtitled
Costume Designer Winstead Harley Quinn:
Paul Duane Kevin Pinto Ranch, Rook Films Executive Producers Documentary
Erin Benach Helena Bertinelli, Birds of Prey
Cinematography Michael Hunkele in association John Caulkins Institute: Distributor
Kolkata: with Scottish for Rook Films: Finlay Pretsell Anti-Worlds Releasing
Robbie Ryan ©Screenworks Documentary Andy Starke for BBC: Harley Quinn has just broken up with the Joker,
Lexington: Production Institute, BBC Ben Wheatley Tony Nellany leaving her without the protection she received as the
Patrick Jordan Companies Made possible in part for Screen Ireland/
Editor Screenworks presents with the sponsorship Fís Éireann: In Colour
powerful villain’s girlfriend. Psychopathic nightclub
owner Roman forcefully enlists her to obtain a
A documentary following Bill Drummond, artist and them to strangers; building a bed; shining people’s priceless diamond from the stomach of Cassandra,
former member of the KLF, on his ‘25 Paintings shoes; shrinking fresh denim in a symbolic body the child pickpocket who’s swallowed it. Police
World Tour’, which aims to visit 12 cities in 12 of water; and commissioning local musicians to officer Renee Montoya sets out to protect Cassandra,
countries over the course of 12 years. We see record a track from his 1986 album ‘The Man’. while Roman’s employee Black Canary is sent to
him in Calcutta and Lexington, North Carolina, Finally, through a short play, Drummond expresses snatch her. A showdown ensues, with all the women
repeating the same performances: crossing town his intention to no longer record the tour in banding together against Roman’s mercenaries.
beating a drum; baking cakes and distributing photographs but rather through stage dramas. Cassandra and Harley kill Roman with a grenade.

Calm with Horses Carmilla
Director: Nick Rowland United Kingdom 2018
Certificate 15 100m 32s Director: Emily Harris
REVIEWS
Mercy rules: Cosmo Jarvis, Barry Keoghan
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston The small-town west of Ireland settings look

Nick Rowland’s first feature is adept enough miserably unwelcoming, and cameraman Piers Clove actually: Hannah Rae, Devrim Lingnau
dramatically to prompt sustained agony in McGrail drains any tourist-board glow from the
watching its protagonist make the wrong landscapes, making it all dismayingly believable Reviewed by Kim Newman
decision. Most people around ex-boxer Douglas that miscreants such as the Devers clan should Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ (1872) is the
‘Arm’ Armstrong take him for a none-too-smart lord it over this forlorn territory. For all that, second-most-filmed vampire story, but seldom
thug-for-hire, yet a career-making performance we’re not exploring precisely social-realist terrain very faithfully. Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932),
from Cosmo Jarvis convinces the viewer that here but a heightened version thereof, even if notionally based on the novella, takes almost
goodness lurks beneath his brawny frame. Instead pop-culture-slanted conversations seem too like nothing from it, while Roy Ward Baker’s lushly
of embracing his estranged partner and their a Tarantino-esque box-ticking exercise, and the lurid Hammer outing The Vampire Lovers (1970)
troubled five-year-old son, however, he sticks by blazing red filter over a tense nightclub scene is unusual in sticking reasonably closely to the
his criminal paymasters, who have him doing feels too heavy on the cinematic highlighter pen. plot. The high concept that’s usually embraced
their dirtiest work for them. When his decency In fact, it’s the gentler, more poetic moments in Carmilla movies is the lesbian relationship of
gets the better of him and he lets one pitiful that sing here, especially the scenes where the vampire and victim, though Le Fanu’s also stresses
assigned victim off the hook, we fear that his otherwise unsettled little boy has a soothing the ‘cuckoo in the nest’ story of a stranger taken
good deed will not go unpunished – and that workout at the riding stables under health-service in by and seducing/transforming/destroying
pretending all has gone to murderous plan may supervision. Niamh Algar excels in the slightly a bourgeois household. As such, Jean Renoir’s
not be his smartest move in the circumstances. thankless part of the boy’s mother, nurturing Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) and Katt
On one side, there’s a devoted mother him with a fierceness that speaks of strong Shea Ruben’s Poison Ivy (1992) are nearer to the
and an innocent little boy with behavioural emotions; meanwhile, American-born Jarvis Le Fanu than such vampiric extrapolations as
problems; on the other, lawless, drug-dealing copes admirably with the rural Irish accent and Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses (1960) and Vicente
villains with no loyalty outside their benighted turns in a hugely touching display in an extended Aranda’s The Blood Spattered Bride (1972).
family unit – an opposition so schematic it’s final-reel take, as self-knowledge beckons very Writer-director Emily Harris shifts the story
a wonder the film just about gets away with late in the day. Elsewhere, Barry Keoghan, as two- from Austria to England and introduces an
it. However, if the construction is as basic as faced underling Dympna, is even more slithery unusual ambiguity about whether the peculiar
a set of self-assembly furniture instructions, than he was in The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), and provocative Carmilla, taken in by the
the movie’s deep investment in character and while Ned Dennehy mines some secret realm widowed Dr Bauer and his daughter Lara, is
milieu makes it a worthwhile exercise for its of psychosis as scary Uncle Paudi. Functional as really a vampire or simply happens to seem like
debut helmer, strong cast and able crew. drama it might be, but engagingly ornamented. one. Dogs shun her, she sleeps late, her closeness
to Lara leads to a red-lipped blood-sister pact
Credits and Synopsis (crucially, Lara tastes Carmilla’s blood first), and
she’s mysterious in her origins. This is enough
to persuade older authority figures, but perhaps
Producer Matthew Tabern of Film4, Irish Film Celine Haddad Ned Dennehy Ryan McParland
Daniel Emmerson Production Designer Board, WRAP Fund Sarah Dillon Paudi Devers Needles not the audience, that she needs to have a stake
Written by Damien Creagh Executive Producers David Wilmot Liam Carney pounded through her heart. Lara’s governess,
Joseph Murtagh Music Michael Fassbender Hector Devers Fannigan
Based on the short Blanck Mass Conor McCaughan Cast Kiljan Tyr Moroney usually played as a minor victim – Kate O’Mara
story Young Skins Andrew Lowe Cosmo Jarvis Jack Dory In Colour in The Vampire Lovers – is portrayed here with
by Colin Barrett Production Ed Guiney Douglas Armstrong, Bríd Brennan
Director of Companies Sam Lavender ‘Arm’ Maire Mirkin Distributor
tight-lipped concern by Jessica Raine as a version
Photography A DMC Film in Daniel Battsek Barry Keoghan Simone Kirby Altitude Film of the narrator of ‘The Turn of the Screw’,
Piers McGrail co-production with Sue Bruce-Smith Dympna Devers June Devers Distribution jumping to supernatural conclusions informed
Editors Element Pictures Will Clarke Niamh Algar Anthony Welsh
Nicolas Chaudeurge with the support Mike Runagall Ursula Dory Rob Hegardy by her own repressed desires and neuroses. Even
before Lara might be tempted by lesbianism or
Rural Ireland, present day. Former boxer Douglas ‘Arm’ is about to move back to Cork to find a place in a
vampirism, Raine’s Miss Fontaine ties the girl’s
Armstrong is hired muscle for the criminal Devers special school for the boy. Meanwhile, psychopathic
family. After a teenage female cousin is molested at Devers uncle Paudi has discovered Arm’s lie. Arm hand behind her back to school her out of being
a party, weaselly scion Dympna persuades Arm to escapes after a shootout but is tracked down to a left-handed – a condition she deems satanic.
murder the perpetrator. Arm lets the victim flee but nearby house, where patriarch Hector Devers is after In its comparative lack of melodrama, its stress
pretends he’s killed him; the pay helps him support a wealthy widow’s stashed fortune. Arm confesses on casual cruelty, gloomy pastoral interludes, hints
his estranged partner Ursula and their five-year- his love for Ursula and Jack in a tearful phone call. of night-time sensuality and lived-in/on-location
old son Jack, who has behavioural issues. Ursula Paudi arrives, and Arm expects to be killed.
period look, this Carmilla almost pastiches the

Cunningham
Germany/France/United Kingdom/USA/The Netherlands/Belgium 2019
Director: Alla Kovgan
Certificate U 92m 34s
Reviewed by Graham Fuller

Seven years in gestation, Alla Kovgan’s
Cunningham is an atypical biographical
REVIEWS
documentary, pleasingly devoid of contemporary
talking heads. As well as tracing Merce
Cunningham’s 70-year journey – which
made him modern dance’s Nijinsky and, as a
choreographer, the equal of Martha Graham
(for whom he danced from 1939 to 1945) and
George Balanchine – it captures for posterity
brief sequences from 14 of his most challenging
pieces. Kovgan restaged them for filming in
3D (echoing Wim Wenders’s Pina in 2011)
and, vitally, cast some of the last dancers from
Cunningham’s company, which, as he had
wished, disbanded in 2011, two and a half years
after his death and 58 years after its foundation.
Those of the new performances that replicate Step lively: Cunningham
Robert Rauschenberg’s sets and costumes – a
pointillist backdrop (originally spray-painted by in the 1950s is annoyingly split into six moving
Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns) which the dancers images. Pretty animal illustrations placed beside
in their spotted bodysuits seem to emerge from stills of the company on the road in the early
and fade into (‘Summerspace’, 1958); a dangerous days are as distracting as bits of separate footage
faux freeway strafed by the lights of speeding cars appearing nonsensically within strips of celluloid.
BBC’s 1970s run of classic ghost stories, which (‘Winterbranch’, 1964) – emphasise Cunningham’s A Moscow-born interdisciplinary artist who
extended from M.R. James and Dickens to Leslie technically complex and discomfiting has filmed four previous dance documentaries,
Megahey’s Le Fanu adaptation Schalcken the movements. Influenced by his interest in Kovgan presumably wanted Cunningham
Painter. The distinctive mix of folk tunes and anthropology, they radiate chaos and existential to be more expressive than, say, the visually
sinister electronic drone in Radiohead drummer isolation, which he was disinclined to discuss. conservative biographical documentaries
Philip Selway’s score also evokes such Carmilla Dancer Sandra Neels says that Cunningham’s made for PBS’s American Masters series, but
derivatives as John Hancock’s Let’s Scare Jessica to claim he was just creating steps simply wasn’t true. greater simplicity would have improved the
Death and Stephanie Rothman’s The Velvet Vampire In contrast, Kovgan’s recreation of film. It’s hard enough for the layperson to
(both 1971). But Harris – abetted by a nicely Cunningham’s ‘Shards’ (1987) on a Manhattan comprehend Cunningham’s choreographic
undefinable Carmilla from Devrim Lingnau, rooftop is marred by the camera’s grandiose process – dependent on meticulousness and
the only person in this whole film who seems to perspective from a circling helicopter. Similarly, randomness, the combining of legato and staccato
smile, and then only slyly – shapes the material the re-creation of ‘Suite for Two’ (early 1950s) is movements – and his counterpointing of John
to her own purposes, delivering a quietly shivery, unnecessarily complicated by a shot that reverses Cage’s dissonant music. As for human drama,
coldly angry fresh reading of a key gothic text. away from the duetting dancers over a pond and Cunningham leaves questions unanswered: why
(via an inserted scene of them dancing indoors) did Rauschenberg rudely sever his collaboration
Credits and Synopsis ostentatiously dollies back to them above the with artistic soulmates Cunningham and Cage in
water. There’s similar fussiness in the biographical 1964? How did the company survive a crisis that
sequences, which deploy split screens and angled left its coffers nearly empty? Flaws aside, this is an
Produced by Sara Lima Devrim Lingnau
Lizzie Brown Costume Designer Carmilla frames (with rounded edges) within frames; invaluable primer for modern-dance neophytes,
Emily Precious John Bright Tobias Menzies priceless colour footage of Cunningham’s dancers while Cunningham devotees should love it.
Written by Doctor Renquist
Emily Harris ©Hysteria Greg Wise
Additional Writing Pictures Limited Mr Bauer Credits and Synopsis
Sean McConaghy Production Jessica Raine
Based on the book by Companies Miss Fontaine
J. Sheridan Le Fanu Tilly Films presents Scott Silven
Director of in association magician Produced by Location Sound Achtung Panda! Kultur und medien, Warhol Foundation Executive Producers
Photography with Altitude Film Lorna Gayle Helge Albers Recording Media, Arsam Filmförderung for the Visual Arts, Stephanie Dillon
Michael Wood Entertainment a Bird Margaret Ilann Girard Oliver Stahn International, Hamburg Schleswig- National Endowment Anna Godas
Editor Flight Films and Fred Daniel Tuite Alla Kovgan Costume Designer Chance Operations Holstein, Filmstiftung for the Arts Oli Harbottle
Rebecca Lloyd Films production Paul the stableman Producers Jeffrey Wirsing With the participation Nordrhein-Westfalen, Supported by Lyda E. Kuth
Production Executive Producer: Elisabeth Delude-Dix Supervising Director of Cow Prod, La Medien und Cinemart, Rotterdam Andreas Roald
Designer Tilly Films In Colour Kelly Gilpatrick of Choreography Maison, Sophie Filmgesellschaft Film Festival, IDFA
Alexandra Walker Derrick Tseng Robert Swinston Dulac Distribution, Baden-Württemberg, Market, Amsterdam, In Colour
Composer Distributor Written by Director of Sovereign Films Deutscher 3D Financing Market, [1.78:1]
Philip Selway Cast Republic Film Alla Kovgan Choreography Co-produced Filmförderfonds, Liege, Belgium,
Production Sound Hannah Rae Director of Jennifer Goggans with Bayerischer Centre National French-German Some screenings
Recordist Lara Photography Rundfunk/Arte, du Cinéma et de mini-treaty presented in 3D
Mko Malkhasyan ©Achtung Panda! Docworks, RSI l’Image animée, Made in conjunction
Editor Media, Arsam Radiotelevisione MEDIA Programme with the MFA in Film Distributor
Rural England, the 18th century. Lara, sheltered Alla Kovgan International, Svizzera, Bord of the European Program at Vermont Dogwoof
teenage daughter of widower Mr Bauer, is Production Designer Chance Operations Cadre Films Union, Rockefeller College of Fine Arts
Olivier Meidinger Production With the support of Foundation and Dance With the support of
disappointed when her friend Charlotte falls ill and Original Music Companies Filmförderungsan- Films Association, IFCIC, the Guarantee
can’t make a promised visit. However, a girl of her own Volker Bertelmann In association stalt, Beauftagte de Robert Rauschenberg Fund for Cultural and
age survives a carriage accident and is brought into (Hauschka) with Dogwoof Bundesregierung für Foundation, Andy Creative Industries
the Bauer household to recover. At Lara’s suggestion,
the girl – who affects to have no memories – takes A non-fiction appreciation of the life and career staged and shot in 3D. Fragments of a Cunningham
the name Carmilla. Lara and Carmilla become of Merce Cunningham (1919-2009), the American radio interview are complemented by audio and
close, though Carmilla remains mysterious. Miss dancer-choreographer who revolutionised modern graphically rendered quotes from Cunningham
Fontaine, Lara’s governess, and Dr Renquist, the dance by disassociating movement from formal and his collaborators. They include composer John
local physician, begin to suspect that Carmilla is representation and setting it at odds with the Cage, who was Cunningham’s longtime companion;
responsible for Charlotte’s illness, and notice clues musical accompaniment. The roughly chronological artist Robert Rauschenberg, who designed sets
that suggest she is a vampire. They drive a stake narrative is constructed from archival footage and and costumes; and prominent dancers Carolyn
through Carmilla’s heart, leaving Lara grief-stricken. stills, and includes excerpts from 14 dances freshly Brown, Valda Setterfield and Sandra Neels.

Dogs Don’t Wear Pants Dolittle
Finland/Latvia 2019 USA/People’s Republic of China/Japan 2020
Director: J-P Valkeapää Director: Stephen Gaghan
Certificate 18 104m 54s Certificate PG 101m 24s
Reviewed by Anna Smith

“I bought a front-row seat to crazy town,” says
CGI squirrel Kevin during a scene in Dolittle, and
REVIEWS
his words might resonate with audiences in

more ways than intended. This foray into family
territory from Syriana’s Stephen Gaghan has
none of the charm of the 1967 musical with Rex
Harrison, and many perplexing choices. One
of these is star Robert Downey Jr’s insistence
on a Welsh accent; another is a plot that fails to
balance palace conspiracies with animal antics.
There’s brief intrigue in Dolittle’s ability
to understand sick animals, but this talent is
reduced to a plot device as he seeks information
from creatures on a mission. These range from
an octopus in Queen Victoria’s chambers to a
dragon guarding an antidote to the poison the
monarch has ingested. Unusually for a Downey
Breath wish: Krista Kosonen Jr character, Dolittle is not amusing enough to
compensate for his sense of self-importance, and
Reviewed by Anton Bitel despairing man who is exploring his unresolved he undertakes the voyage only for fear of eviction
In the grand tradition of psychological dramas, feelings and dangerous death wish. Mona, who from his mansion after the queen’s death. The
Dogs Don’t Wear Pants opens with a primal works by day as a physiotherapist, offers him a queen is a distant figure lying in bed; Dolittle’s
scene: in trying to rescue his already dead wife, different kind of therapeutic programme, which young apprentice, Stubbins, is a thinly drawn
who has become trapped in an underwater net, quickly turns into an addiction that upends everyboy, while the freakishly pretty Lady Rose is
Juha (Pekka Strang) too almost drowns, before both his relationship with adolescent Elli and merely Stubbins’s clearly signalled love interest.
he is pulled out semiconscious by a passing his professional life as – ironically, for this most CG work is strong, though only one or
fisherman – all before the eyes of four-year-old heartbroken of characters – a cardiothoracic two of the voice actors are well cast: Ralph
daughter Elli. Finnish director J-P Valkeapää, surgeon. His obsessive pursuit of Mona – or at Fiennes’s bitter alpha-tiger is rippling with
co-writing with Juhana Lumme, goes on to least the smothering service she provides – soon imperious resentment, but Rami Malek’s
restage and renegotiate this family tragedy leaves him bruised, hospitalised and clearly insecure gorilla fails to amuse. Like many
through the unexpected language of BDSM. not in his right mind, even as Mona finds her an ailing comedy, Dolittle ends up falling
A decade or so later, while the now teenage client’s needy submission chiming with her own back on fart jokes to make the kids laugh. But
Elli (Ilona Huhta) is having her tongue pierced impulses to both harm and heal. As something they will probably be laughing alone.
as a tentative birthday rite of passage, Juha of a romance develops between them, the film’s
wanders downstairs into a dungeon, where his great paradox is that the more Juha is able to Credits and Synopsis
transgressive intrusion sees him knocked over translate his suicidal Liebestod into ‘conventional’
and held in a stranglehold by the dominatrix kink, the healthier and more adjusted he becomes.
Produced by Perfect World voice of Yoshi
Mona (Krista Kosonen). The resulting sense Though the film’s themes are serious, Joe Roth Pictures a Roth/ Kumail Nanjiani
of suffocation reawakens in him a perverse there is also much deadpan humour, with a Jeff Kirschenbaum Kirschenbaum voice of Plimpton
Susan Downey Films/Team Downey Octavia Spencer
longing for his wife’s watery embrace, and lightness of touch typified by a sequence in Screenplay production voice of Dab-Dab
he starts regularly visiting Mona for sessions which Juha’s date Satu (Oona Airola) laughs her Stephen Gaghan A film by Stephen Tom Holland
Dan Gregor Gaghan voice of Jip
of dog-like subjugation that always climax way through an awkward sexual encounter. Doug Mand Presented in Craig Robinson
with his being choked to – and beyond – the This sex-positive story of a drowning man’s Screen Story association with voice of Fleming
Thomas Shepherd Dentsu Inc. Ralph Fiennes
point of unconsciousness, so that he can re-emergence into life is miraculously both Director of Executive voice of Barry
drown once again in grief, guilt and desire. bleak and funny – though the viewer might Photography Producers Selena Gomez
The bondage setting might suggest pure feel less passive if there were as much focus Guillermo Navarro Robert Downey Jr voice of Betsy
Edited by Sarah Bradshaw Marion Cotillard
kink, but Juha is figured as a deeply damaged, on what drives Mona’s S as Juha’s M. Craig Alpert Zachary Roth voice of Tutu
Chris Lebenzon Jonathan Liebesman Jim Broadbent
Production Lord Thomas
Credits and Synopsis Designer Badgley
Dominic Watkins Cast Jessie Buckley
Music Robert Downey Jr Queen Victoria
Producers Set Designer Artem Grigoryev Film Centre of Latvia, Krista Kosonen [2.35:1] Danny Elfman Dr John Dolittle
Aleksi Bardy Kaisa Mäkinen Riga Film Fund Mona Subtitles Costume Designer Antonio Banderas
Helen Vinogradov Music/Piano/ ©Helsinki-filmi Oy co-production Ilona Huhta Jenny Beavan King Rassouli Dolby Digital/
Written by Sampler/Electronics Production Executive Producers Elli Distributor Michael Sheen Dolby Atmos
J-P Valkeapää Michal Nejtek Companies Annika Sucksdorff Jani Volanen Anti-Worlds Releasing ©Universal Studios Dr Blair Müdfly In Colour
Juhana Lumme Sound Design Helsinki-Filmi Dome Karukoski Pauli, Juha’s colleague and Perfect Universe Harry Collett [1.85:1]
Original Story Micke Nyström presents in Tia Ståhlberg Oona Airola Finnish theatrical title Investment Inc. Tommy Stubbins
Juhana Lumme Costume Designer association with Andrea Reuter Satu Koirat eivät Production Emma Thompson Distributor
Director of Sari Suominen Tasse Film a J-P Ester Geislerovà käytä housuja Companies voice of Polynesia Universal Pictures
Photography Stunt Co-ordinators Valkeapää film wife Universal Pictures Rami Malek International
Pietari Peltola Roman Neso A Tasse Film, Suomen Cast presents in voice of Chee-Chee UK & Eire
Editor Laupmaa Elokuvasäätiö, Yle, Pekka Strang Dolby Digital association with John Cena
Mervi Junkkonen Reijo Kontio SF Studios, National Juha In Colour
Victorian England. Dr Dolittle lives as a hermit,
Finland, the recent past. Swimming in a lake, brings him closer to his wife. He is hospitalised after tending to his animals and mourning his wife
Juha’s wife drowns; Juha himself almost drowns concealing from Mona his loss of consciousness. Lily. Summoned by an ailing Queen Victoria, he
trying to rescue her. Some years later, Juha, still Banned from sessions, he goes on a date with Elli’s determines that she is suffering from nightshade
heartbroken, takes teenage daughter Elli to have her music teacher Satu, but she kicks him out after poisoning. He sets sail with his animals in
tongue pierced. Wandering into the BDSM dungeon he asks her to strangle him. Juha stalks Mona to a search of the antidote. Palace physician Dr
downstairs, he is attacked by dominatrix Mona; as club and later follows her home, where she insists Müdfly tries to thwart the expedition. Dolittle
he is choked, he has a vision of being underwater. on removing one of his teeth but refuses to help travels to Lily’s former home to find her journal
He hires Mona’s services, and the sessions always him die. Dressed in bondage gear, Juha goes to and discover directions to the island where the
end, at his request, with suffocation, which he feels the club. Dancing alone, he encounters Mona. antidote grows. He returns to heal the queen.

Downhill Emma.
Directors: Nat Faxon, Jim Rash USA/United Kingdom 2020
Certificate 15 86m 13s Director: Autumn de Wilde
Certificate U 124m 52s
Reviewed by Joshua Rothkopf

A comedy of collapsing masculinity, Ruben
Ostlund’s Force Majeure, a 2014 Swedish
REVIEWS
psychodrama about a ski trip gone belly up,
found endless ways to box in its unravelling
dad. Downhill, the perfectly unnecessary US
remake, doesn’t have nearly as much visual
sophistication; its co-directors, Nat Faxon and
Jim Rash, are better known as screenwriters (The
Descendants). Still, the premise is too durable
to botch. A family – now distinctly American
and neurotic amid the free-spirited guests of
a Eurotrashy chalet – witnesses a ‘controlled
avalanche’ that’s too close for comfort. When
the cloud of snow lifts, Pete (Will Ferrell) is
noticed to have selfishly sprinted away from
danger, leaving his wife and kids behind.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes a meal out of I’m with cupid: Anya Taylor-Joy, Callum Turner
her big confrontation, less a confession of
disappointment than an outpouring of withering Reviewed by Kate Stables Emma’s plan to unite the malleable Harriet
marital fury. (It’s Downhill’s one improvement “I always deserve the best treatment because with oleaginous vicar Mr Elton snaps along,
on the original: other modifications are showy I never put up with any other,” observes screenwriter Eleanor Catton’s short scenes and
and ineffective, such as a luge chase and a charming control freak Emma Woodhouse, perky dialogue mining the relentless social
meltdown over a missing glove at a helicopter in Jane Austen’s novel. She’s treated positively rounds and snobberies of rural society for comedy.
base.) Inexplicably, Ferrell is the weakest link, splendidly in first-time director Autumn de Her most successful seam is female chatter – the
downplaying his character’s blooming sense of Wilde’s smart, sumptuous but snarky adaptation, touchingly dull twitter of Miranda Hart’s spinster
insecurity despite a celebrated propensity for aria- which serves up Austen’s frothiest romantic Miss Bates, or the spiteful social point-scoring of
like tantrums. Why wasn’t he allowed to go full comedy as an Instagram-ready romp. Mr Elton’s new wife (a preening Tanya Reynolds).
Step Brothers and weep out his failure in the hotel Rather than execute a bold millennial A resolutely stylish, sharp-edged film, it has
hallway while maids look on? If you saw Force makeover, like the also much adapted Little brittle spots, one of them Anya Taylor-Joy’s
Majeure, that’s the scenee we were W
Women, Emma revels in the class-conscious chain Emma, initially a snobbish queen bee with
alley’s
y
all waiting for. Silicon Valley’s o
of romantic misunderstandings of Austen’s a mean streak. Her bickering romance with
Zach Woods, meanwhile, le, as o
original. Unabashedly a style-led movie, it old friend Mr Knightley (a captivated but
a co-worker hoping to steerteer ggifts Emma a Regency doll’s-house world of irritated Johnny Flynn) erupts with a start at a
clear of the mess, is too rravishing country estates with vast drawing ball, where you can feel the temperature flare
timid to provide a comic ic rrooms in sugar-almond hues, all wrapped in between them in lingering eye meets, a hand
foil. The movie turns m
manicured parkland. Anya Taylor-Joy’s pert, trailing on her waist. From here on in, the film
ice into slush. aappropriately doll-like Emma, undertakes has some emotional heft, the plot twists that
h
her meddling and matchmaking in costume separate them more bite. Shot in shallow focus,
Will Ferrell designer Alexandra Byrne’s exquisitely detailed or prettily profile to profile, they’re gradually
m
muslins and Empire-line pastel silks. Not since separated from the throng. Though the film
s M
Marie Antoinette (2006) have the idle rich looked doesn’t always foreground female friendship,
so appetising – though next to The Personal despite Emma’s protestations, late on it tears her
History of David Copperfield’s colour-blind satisfyingly between love and loyalty. There’s
Producers Sound Mixer Billie Stanton
Anthony Bregman Robert Flanagan Zach Woods casting, they also look very white indeed. barely a bat squeak of protofeminism here,
Julia Louis-Dreyfus Costume Designer Zach Despite de Wilde’s handsome, rigid with marriage and a fine house presented as
Stefanie Azpiazu Kathleen Felix-Hager Zoë Chao
Written by Rosie compositions, which nod to her photography every woman’s holy grail, yet the headstrong
Jesse Armstrong Production Miranda Otto background, nimble cutting keeps the action and opinionated Emma feels empowered
Nat Faxon Companies Charlotte
Jim Rash Searchlight Pictures Julian Grey
fleet rather than heritage-cinema staid. So in a distinctly 21st-century manner.
Inspired by the presents a Likely Finn Stanton
motion picture Force Story production Ammon Jacob Ford
Majeure [2014] by A Nat Faxon and Emerson Stanton
Ruben Östlund Jim Rash film
Director of Filmhaus Films In Colour
Photography Executive Producers Nick Emerson and Perfect Universe Ben Knight Miss Bates Connor Swindells
Tim Bevan Production Designer Investment Inc. Josh O’Connor Robert Martin
Danny Cohen Producers Distributor
Eric Fellner Kave Quinn Production Mr Elton
Editor Erik Hemmendorff The Walt Disney
Pamela Martin Ruben Östlund Studios
Graham Broadbent Music Companies Cast Callum Turner Dolby Digital
Peter Czernin Isobel Waller-Bridge Focus Features Anya Taylor-Joy Frank Churchill In Colour
Production
Written by David Schweitzer presents in Emma Woodhouse Rupert Graves [1.78:1]
Designer Eleanor Catton Supervising association with Johnny Flynn Mr Weston
David Warren Cast Based on the novel Sound Designer Perfect World George Knightley Gemma Whelan Distributor
Music Will Ferrell Emma by Jane Austen Glenn Freemantle Pictures a Working Mrs Weston Universal Pictures
Bill Nighy
Volker Bertelmann Pete Stanton Director of Costume Designer Title Films/Blueprint Mr Woodhouse Amber Anderson International
Production Julia Louis-Dreyfus Photography Alexandra Byrne Pictures production Mia Goth Jane Fairfax UK & Eire
Christopher Blauvelt Executive Producers Harriet Smith Tanya Reynolds
Editor ©Focus Features LLC Amelia Granger Miranda Hart Mrs Elton
The Alps, present day. On a ski vacation, the
American Stanton family – Pete, Billie and their England, 1815. Matchmaking Emma Woodhouse wants fall in love at a ball. Emma thinks Harriet is in love first
two sons – are rattled by an intentionally triggered her new friend Harriet to refuse Mr Martin, a farmer with Mr Churchill, then with Mr Knightley. Emma insults
avalanche that panics onlookers. After running Harriet is attracted to, and marry vicar Mr Elton dull Miss Bates at a picnic, and Knightley scolds her.
away from the perceived danger, leaving wife and instead. She brings them together frequently. Mr Elton Emma makes amends. Churchill’s secret engagement
children behind, Pete is ostracised by his family, proposes to Emma and is rejected. Emma’s widowed to Jane is revealed. Emma sadly refuses Knightley’s
a predicament amplified by the arrival of a meek father insists that she not leave him. Emma’s friend proposal, to let Harriet have him. She apologises to
colleague and his judgemental girlfriend. Billie flirts Mr Knightley reprimands her for meddling. Visitor Mr Martin for meddling. Harriet accepts Mr Martin’s
with a ski instructor, but ultimately is rescued on Frank Churchill intrigues Emma. Knightley’s interest in proposal. Emma and Mr Knightley are reconciled and
the slopes by Pete in a redemptive act of courage. orphan Jane Fairfax piques Emma. Knightley and Emma agree to live with her father after their marriage.

Escape from Pretoria The Great Buster
Director: Francis Annan A Celebration
Certificate 12A 106m 13s USA 2018
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Reviewed by Pamela Hutchinson

Peter Bogdanovich’s documentary on the life and
movies of slapstick poet Buster Keaton begins with
REVIEWS
a clip of his own appearance on The Dick Cavett

Show in 1972, singing the praises of the silent star.
With The Great Buster: A Celebration,
Bogdanovich continues to proselytise. This film
is a lavish encomium to Keaton, a figure who
can hardly be described as forgotten or unsung
but who is always worth revisiting. His films
comprise several comic masterpieces, and his
particular skills in the fields of physical dexterity
and mechanical absurdity remain breathtaking
a century on. In fact, this is a documentary worth
watching for the clips alone – showstopping gags
follow one after another, in a storm of perfect
stunts. Had you been living in unfortunate
Don’t lock now: Daniel Webber, Daniel Radcliffe ignorance of One Week (1920), Sherlock Jr (1924),
The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr (1928) et al,
Reviewed by Philip Kemp is Lieutenant Fontaine), gradually finessed his this film would swiftly convert you to the ranks
Broadly speaking, prison movies tend either to be way past multiple locks within the jail until of the true believers in the church of Keaton.
fierce and dynamic (Brute Force, 1947; Riot in Cell the three emerged into the outside world. Even sober analysis can’t spoil the fun. The
Block 11, 1954), frequently climaxing in an outburst Again as with Bresson, we don’t get much in talking heads adding their tributes here include
of violence, or slow and insidious (Birdman of the way of backstory. Virtually all we know of directors Quentin Tarantino and Werner Herzog
Alcatraz, 1962; The Shawshank Redemption, 1994), Jenkin is that he’s passionately anti-apartheid and a host of contemporary comedians. There are
often culminating in an escape bid. Pinnacle of and that he has a black girlfriend; that, and his thoughtful contributions from film historians too,
the latter type is perhaps Un condamné à mort stubborn determination to regain his freedom, including Leonard Maltin and Patricia Eliot Tobias,
s’est échappé (A Man Escaped, 1956), and if Francis using not only the fabricated keys but also co-founder of the International Buster Keaton
Annan’s movie never quite equals the single- broom handles, threads, wire, paperclips, Society. The latter is one of only two women in the
minded austerity of Robert Bresson’s masterpiece, chewing gum and whatever else comes to hand. documentary, the other being Cybill Shepherd.
it’s by no means unworthy of the comparison Geoffrey Hall’s camera focuses in closely on these The filmmaker’s protectiveness of his subject
– not least for its patient concentration on the improvised contrivances, emphasising their extends to virtually blanking the unpleasant
minute, painstaking details of the escape method. ramshackle fragility, while David Hirschfelder’s details of Keaton’s marriage to Natalie Talmadge
Like Bresson’s film, Escape from Pretoria is nervy score further rachets up the tension, and, more appealingly, to rearranging the
based on actual events, in this case adapted from leavened with chunks of choral Verdi. chronology for his work. The film first details
ANC-activist Tim Jenkin’s 1987 memoir of his Further narrative tension is added in the form Keaton’s rise to fame, followed by the declining
imprisonment in Pretoria Maximum Security of the trio’s clash with the other ANC prisoners, years, when studio travails and drinking dogged his
Jail, from which he escaped, after 20 months’ led by veteran Denis Goldberg, who try to career. Then it switches back in time to the 1920s
incarceration, along with two fellow inmates in dissuade them from their freedom bid, fearing and focuses in turn on each of his sensational
late 1979. Employed in the carpentry workshop, reprisals from the brutal prison guards. In fact, silent comedy features. Keaton therefore exits
Jenkin ingeniously used his woodworking according to Jenkin’s memoir, their fellow ANC this documentary on a high, with a big finish,
skills to fashion copies of the keys he saw jailbirds were largely supportive, and indeed we as any master of the comic arts would wish.
hanging from the guards’ belts; and with his see them laughing and cheering when they hear
friend Stephen Lee, with whom he was arrested, of the successful escape. This minor inconsistency
and another ANC activist, Alex Moumbaris apart, Annan’s film drives compellingly
(renamed Leonard Fontaine in the movie, in a forward; the title may act as a spoiler, but it’s
direct nod to A Man Escaped, whose protagonist how we get there that holds the attention.
Produced by Production Designer Entertainment South Australian David Rogers Stephen Hunter
Mark Blaney Scott Bird present in association Film Corporation Jason Garrett Peter Jenkin
Jackie Sheppard Music with South Australian Executive Producers Prakash Chugani Nathan Page Buster Keaton: The Great Buster
David Barron David Hirschfelder Film Corporation, Andrew Kotliar Deepak Chugani Mongo
Gary Hamilton Sound Designer Arclight Films Elizabeth Zavoyskiy Dilip Chugani Jeanette Cronin
Michelle Krumm Chris Goodes International, Ryan Hamilton Mary Jenkin Credits and Synopsis
Screenplay Costume Designer Particular Crowd, Ying Ye
Francis Annan Mariot Kerr Spier Films, Enriched Brian Beckmann Cast In Colour
L.H. Adams Stunt Coordinator Media Group, Story Todd Fellman Daniel Radcliffe [2.35:1]
Inspired by the book Johnny Hallyday Bridge Films and Mike Auret Tim Jenkin Produced by The Mont Alto Cohen production
by Tim Jenkin Premiere Picture Bryce Menzies Daniel Webber Distributor Charles S. Cohen Motion Picture
Director of Production a Footprint Films, Roger Savage Stephen Lee Signature Louise Stratten Orchestra Narrated by
Photography Companies Beaglepug production Philip Burgin Ian Hart Entertainment Peter Bogdanovich Sound Supervisor Peter Bogdanovich
Geoffrey Hall MEP Capital, Developed and Mick Southworth Denis Goldberg Roee Sharon Peled Dan Snow
Editor Momentum Pictures produced with the Martin McCabe Mark Leonard Winter Written by In Colour and
Nick Fenton and Hamilton assistance of the Andrew Phillips Leonard Fontaine Peter Bogdanovich ©Buster K Black & White
Director of Documentary [1.85:1]
Photography Project, LLC
Johannesburg, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, white advantage of being assigned to the prison workshop, Dustin Pearlman Production Distributor
ANC activists, set off explosive devices in the street Jenkin starts to fashion wooden replicas of the keys Edited by Companies Screenbound
to scatter anti-apartheid leaflets. They’re arrested, he sees hanging at the guards’ belts. Over the next 20 Bill Berg-Hillinger Cohen Media Group Pictures
convicted, sentenced to 12 and eight years respectively months he creates multiple keys for use in 15 locks. Music presents a Charles S.
and sent to Pretoria Prison (for whites only). There, along Despite the misgivings of Goldberg and the other ANC
with the brutal guards, they encounter Denis Goldberg, prisoners, the trio make their preparations and escape A documentary in which various figures
doyen of the ANC prisoners, and Leonard Fontaine, in December 1979. They take a taxi to Johannesburg, discuss the life and films of American actor
who agrees to join them in an escape bid. Taking and from there make their way to England. and comedian Buster Keaton (1895-1966).

The Jesus Rolls Koko-di Koko-da
USA 2017 Director: Johannes Nyholm
Director: John Turturro Certificate 18 85m 29s
Reviewed by Lisa Mullen

John Turturro’s personal project, which he
wrote, directed and stars in, is ill-advised on so
REVIEWS
many levels that it might be kindest to consider
it some kind of satirical meta-narrative about
the dangers of taking yourself too seriously.
Turturro’s memorably creepy creation Jesus
Quintana made a neat accent-point in the rowdy
tangle of amorality that was the Coen brother’s
The Big Lebowski (1998), but the idea that such a
flimsy character – more a collection of seedy tics,
really – could or should be spun into a whole
film fatally misses the point of quick-and-dirty
caricature. Worse still, Turturro staples this
averagely dumb idea on to one that’s objectively
terrible: a reboot of Bertrand Blier’s so-called cult
film Les Valseuses, which is now largely forgotten,
but was described at the time by the critic Roger
Ebert as “the most misogynistic movie I can
remember; its hatred of women is palpable
and embarrassing.” And that was in 1974. Unhappy campers: Leif Edlund Johansson
The Jesus Rolls may excise the more overt
rapiness of its source material, but it still packs Reviewed by Philip Kemp with her long lank hair and a pit bull on a chain.
a nasty punch for all its whimsical stylings Johannes Nyholm’s cruelly ludic second This trio first show up in a brief pre-credit
and jaunty, mariachi soundtrack, concerning feature, which takes its title from the refrain sequence, then again in cartoons on the old-
itself almost entirely with the idea that its of ‘Our Rooster’s Dead’, a Swedish nursery fashioned music box that Tobias and Elin buy
male characters should control and police rhyme (a jaunty ditty that recurs throughout), Maja for her birthday (which, of course, plays
the sexuality of women. Somehow, Susan appropriates the often used template of ‘Our Rooster’s Dead’). And in the final sequence
Sarandon, Audrey Tautou and Sônia Braga – Groundhog Day (1993) and stirs in elements it seems that it was Tobias and Elin who
never mind Christopher Walken, John Hamm of The Babadook (2014), Midsommar (2019) accidentally killed Sampo’s dog – more time-
and Bobby Cannavale – were persuaded to and a soupçon of David Lynch. Which isn’t to juggling. After each murder spree, the camera
join the cast and become accessories to this damn it as unoriginal. There’s enough ruthless pulls up and away to a God’s-eye angle, isolating
rubbish. What were they thinking? What was ingenuity on display here to keep us guessing, ghouls and victims in their woodland clearing as
anyone thinking? How did this get made? even if the overall trajectory can be foreseen. if in an amphitheatre. At intervals we’re treated
The film’s most bizarre element is the to primitive shadow-puppet displays, featuring
Credits and Synopsis grotesque trio who launch repeated time-looped a cockerel shot by rabbit archers – reminding
attacks on Tobias (Leif Edlund) and Elin (Ylva us that when we first meet the ill-fated family,
Gallon), a hapless couple still grief-stricken they’re wearing crude bunny-makeup.
Produced by Sidney Kimmel J.B. Smoove
Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, New the mechanic over the loss of their daughter Maja three years Altogether, animal imagery abounds:
John Penotti Element Media and Pete Davidson before and now making a camping trip to the each farcical slaughterfest is prefaced by the
Fernando Sulichin Tribus Film present Jack
Paul-Dominique a Sidney Kimmel Michael Badalucco woods in a desperate attempt to shore up their apparition of a white cat stalking haughtily
Vacharasinthu Entertainment, Security Officer fracturing relationship. The three attackers, off into the forest. As so often in horror
Robert Salerno New Element Barley
Written for the Media and Tribus Nicolas Reyes
who seem to emanate from some infernal circus movies (from 1934’s The Black Cat to 1983’s
Screen by Film production Tonino Baliardo sideshow, are Mog (Danish pop singer Peter Cujo and beyond), uncanny animals stand in
John Turturro Executive themselves, of
Based on the book Producers The Gypsy Kings
Belli), spruce, plump and sadistically chortling for human angsts. But Koko-di Koko-da doesn’t
Les Valseuses by Bruce Toll Susan Sarandon in his white three-piece suit and straw boater; really need to be rationalised. Nyholm is out
Bertrand Blier and Michael Lewis Jean Sampo (Morad Baloo Khatchadorian), a brutal, to unsettle us with a mix of twisted humour,
the screenplay Maximilien Arvelaiz
by Bertrand Blier, Robert Wilson In Colour bearded giant with a dead dog in his arms; and encroaching grief and surreal violence –
Philippe Dumarçay Lawrence Kopeikin [1.78:1] pale, pistol-toting Cherry (Brandy Litmanen), and for the most part, he succeeds.
Director of
Photography Distributor
Frederick Elmes Cast Blue Finch Film Credits and Synopsis
Editor John Turturro Releasing
Simona Paggi Jesus Quintana
Production Bobby Cannavale
Designer Petey Produced by Johannes Nyholm Khatchadorian Swedish couple Tobias and Elin attend a summer
Lester Cohen Audrey Tautou Johannes Nyholm Produktion Sampo festivity with their daughter Maja on the eve of her
Original Music Marie Scriptwriter In co-production Brandy Litmanen
Emilie Simon Christopher Walken Johannes Nyholm with Beofilm Cherry eighth birthday. The next morning, the girl is dead from
Sound Mixer warden Directors of Supported by Film Katarina Jakobson food poisoning. Three years later, their relationship
Ken Ishii John Hamm Photography i Väst, The Swedish disintegrating, Tobias and Elin go on a camping trip
Costume Designer Paul Dominique, Johan Lundborg Film Institute, In Colour in the woods. Early one morning, Elin is set upon by a
Donna Zakowska hairdresser Tobias Höiem-Flyckt Swedish Television Subtitles
carnivalesque trio: Mog, a tubby man in a white suit;
Sonia Braga Editor and Den Vestdanske
©GP Partners, LLC mother Johannes Nyholm Filmpulje Distributor Sampo, a bearded giant; and Cherry, a gaunt young
Production Gloria Reuben Production Designer Executive Producer Picturehouse woman. Having disposed of Elin, they attack Tobias.
Companies lady owner Pia Aleborg Peter Hyldahl Entertainment The action reverts to the previous evening, as the
Music couple erect their tent. The next morning they’re again
Simon Ohlsson
Olof Cornéer Cast assaulted and killed by the baleful trio. This recurs
Newly released from jail, Jesus Quintana and his
Supervising Leif Edlund on several occasions, with variations. Eventually, Elin
friends Petey and Marie embark on a crime spree Sound Editor Johansson awakes amid snow to find Tobias gone. She follows
during which they also explore their sexual needs Gustaf Berger Tobias a white cat to an isolated house, where she sees a
and fantasies. Along the way they meet and try Costume Designer Ylva Gallon
Gabriella Lundberg
shadow-puppet show involving rabbits and a cockerel.
to help a woman named Jean, but fail to prevent Elin
Peter Belli On the final repeated morning, the couple make a fast
her suicide, and later befriend her son Jack. The
Production Mog getaway and en route run down the dog Sampo was
film ends when they crash their car: they are Companies Morad carrying. Their car goes off the road. They embrace.
last seen hitchhiking at the side of the road.

Military Wives The Painted Bird
United Kingdom 2019 Czech Republic/Ukraine/Slovakia 2019
Director: Peter Cattaneo Director: Václav Marhoul
Certificate 12A 112m 40s Certificate 18 169m 33s
Reviewed by Kate Stables

Seizing the opportunity to combine a British
community comedy with the crowd-pleasing
REVIEWS
power of the 2011 BBC show The Choir: Military

Wives, Peter Cattaneo’s feelgood fictionalisation
of the singing group’s formation makes for a
heartwarming if predictable dramedy. With its
disparate ensemble of anxious garrison wives
finding solidarity through song while their spouses
are deployed in Afghanistan, it’s a regendered
kissing cousin to Cattaneo’s 1997 hit The Full Monty.
Sharp use of telling details immerses us in
the women’s nervy days, but Rosanne Flynn
and Rachel Tunnard’s script strains to land its
compensatory laughs, too busy manufacturing
rivalry between the choir’s leaders – brittle,
bereaved Kate (Kristin Scott Thomas) and laidback
Lisa (Sharon Horgan). Touching in its pathos
when a new wife is crushed by her husband’s Fear eats the soul: Petr Kotlar
death in combat, the film defaults to TV-movie
sentimentality for Kate’s shopaholic stiff-upper- Reviewed by Kim Newman ultimate fate, eaten off screen by rats, is a gloss on
lip grief and Lisa’s clashes with her wild-child Czech writer-director Václav his role as Dario Argento’s Phantom of the Opera.
teenager. Scott Thomas’s understated performance, See Feature Marhoul is drawn to literary The Boy – analogous to a bird whose wings are
tense with misery under upper-class bossiness, on page 34 classics of innocence lost blotched with paint, pecked to death by a suddenly
piques the viewer’s curiosity, but Horgan’s in wartime – his Tobruk hostile flock – is marked as a victim even without
alternating anxiety and amiable sarcasm are (2008) transposed Stephen the war. In fact, he is treated more kindly by
familiar from shows from Pulling to Catastrophe. Crane’s American Civil War classic The Red soldiers – a Nazi (Stellan Skarsgård) lets him go, a
While Kate and Lisa’s choir-mates are Badge of Courage to North Africa during World Soviet sniper (Barry Pepper) gives him a gun – than
one-note characters, the group’s gradual War II. Here, he tackles Jerzy Kosinski’s 1965 by a whole range of people who might usually
transformation from warbling uncertainty to novel, long deemed unfilmable for its Cannibal be seen as the victims of war, set against him not
a confident a cappella version of Yazoo’s ‘Only Ferox-level of sexualised ultraviolence against because he’s a Jew (often assumed, never quite
You’ and an ethereal ‘Ave Maria’ is engaging, children (also men, women and animals). A confirmed) but because he’s Not From Around
as their emotional unity mirrors their vocal caption insists young actor Petr Kotlar was Here and thus fair game. A witch who buys him
harmony. If the ‘big performance in jeopardy’ replaced by adult doubles during tactfully as a slave even declares that he’s a vampire.
plot twist feels a tad manipulative, the choir’s filmed scenes in which the lost boy is raped In an opening scene – invented by Marhoul
homemade power ballad, created from soldiers’ by a moonshine-manufacturer (Julian Sands) and guaranteed to send some audiences out of
letters, doesn’t leave a dry eye anywhere. and a woman called Labina (Julia Valentova). the cinema before the film s under way – some
Like One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kosinski’s bullies burn the Boy’s pet ferret alive, without
Credits and Synopsis novel has a narrator who speaks eloquently to the even the excuse of needing it for food. This marks
reader but refuses to talk with almost everyone The Painted Bird as perhaps the anti-Jojo Rabbit, a
else. Marhoul doesn’t use voiceover, putting the child’s fantasy of WWII as a series of lessons in
Produced by Production Cast strain on an array of guest performers – a range blank cruelty. Shooting in lush monochrome
Ben Pugh Companies Kristin Scott
Rory Aitken Ingenious Media Thomas of international faces speaking a patchwork of widescreen that pastiches Sven Nykvist’s work
Producer presents in Kate
Piers Tempest association with Sharon Horgan
dubbed languages – who deliver harsh lessons. with Ingmar Bergman, Marhoul approaches
Written by Embankment Films Lisa Harvey Keitel and Udo Kier, players with track the story with a stately, episodic pace that spins
Rachel Tunnard a 42 Production in Amy James-Kelly
Rosanne Flynn association with
records in transgressive cinema, appear as a dying a 222-page fast read into nearly three hours of
Sarah
Director of Tempo Productions Lara Rossi priest and an eye-gouging miller – while Sands’s beautiful if ultimately crushing horrors.
Photography Executive Ruby
Hubert Taczanowski Producers Gaby French
Edited by Zygi Kamasa Jess Credits and Synopsis
Lesley Walker Peter Touche Emma Lowndes
Anne Sopel Tim Haslam Annie
Production Hugo Grumbar India Amarteifio Produced by Costume Designer televize, Eduard Nina Shunevych Harvey Keitel [2.35:1]
Designer Josh Varney Frankie Václav Marhoul Helena Rovna & Milada Kucera, Marta priest Subtitles
John Beard Liz Gallacher Laura Checkley Screenplay Stunt Co-ordinator Directory Films, Alla Sokolova Julian Sands
Original Score Stephen Spence Maz Václav Marhoul Jiri Kraus Rozhlas a televízia Olga Garros Distributor
Lorne Balfe Emma Berkofsky Jason Flemyng Based on the Slovenska, Certicon Udo Kier Julia Valentova Eureka
Production Josh Horsfield Crooks novel written by ©Silver Screen, Ceská Group, Innogy, miller Vidrnakova Entertainment Ltd
Sound Mixer Jo Bamford Greg Wise Jerzy Kosinski televize, Eduard Pubres, Richard Michaela Dolezalova Labina
Paul Paragon Orlando Wood Richard Director of & Milada Kucera, Kaucky, Monte miller’s wife Aleksey Kravchenko Czech Republic
Costume Designer Hana Canter
Photography Directory Films, Rosso Production Zdenek Pecha Gavrila theatrical title
Jill Taylor Emma Willis In Colour Vladimír Smutný Rozhlas a televízia Co-funded by Czech labourer Barry Pepper Nabarvené ptáce
Rene Besson
Editor Slovenska, Certicon Incentive Scheme Lech Dyblik Mitka
©Military Wives Distributor Ludek Hudec Group, Innogy, Pubres, Lekh Petr Vanek
Choir Film Ltd Lionsgate UK Production Designer Richard Kaucky Jitka Cvancarová Nikodem
Jan Vlasák Production Cast Ludmila
Sound Designer Companies Petr Kotlar Stellan Skarsgård Dolby Atmos
UK, 2009. Military wives with spouses in Afghanistan Pavel Rejholec Co-producers: Ceská Joska Hans In Black & White
form a choir. The choir leaders, bossy Kate and easy-
going Lisa, bicker constantly. Despite a disastrous Rural Eastern Europe, World War II. When the elderly also sleeping with her goat, which he beheads before
local concert, they are booked to perform at the woman with whom he has been left dies, a boy suffers running off. Mitka, a Russian soldier, gives him a gun,
UK military’s Festival of Remembrance. When choir under a succession of variously abusive or exploitative which he uses to murder a market trader who has
member Sarah’s husband is killed, Sarah stops the carers. Though he can speak, he seldom does. A kindly beaten him. Nikodem, the boy’s father, is released from
others cancelling the concert. Kate quits hours priest entrusts him to Garbos, a moonshiner, who a concentration camp and finds him in an orphanage.
before the festival, angered at Lisa’s use of her family repeatedly rapes him. The boy tricks Garbos into The boy refuses to speak with Nikodem or admit he
memory in their song. She relents and dashes to join falling into an abandoned bunker full of hungry rats. remembers his parents. While Nikodem sleeps, the
the successful performance. Kate and Lisa reconcile. Labina, a woman who uses the boy as a sex slave, is boy writes his name – Joska – on a train window.

The Perfect Candidate Radioactive
Germany/Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 2019 Director: Marjane Satrapi
Director: Haifaa Al Mansour Certificate 12A 109m 42s
Reviewed by Pamela Hutchinson

In Radioactive, Rosamund Pike inhabits a role
previously taken by such stars as Greer Garson
REVIEWS
in 1943’s Madame Curie and Isabelle Huppert in
1997’s Les Palmes de M Schutz. Hers is a compelling
if often quite dour rendering of the pioneering
scientist Marie Curie, and her performance
provides the backbone of this wandering biopic,
which otherwise teeters constantly between
melodrama, lecture and vivid fantasy.
The film is structured in the form of flashbacks.
Marie, dying in hospital at the age of 66, recalls
her younger years, from the beginning of her
scientific career and her romance with Pierre
Curie (Sam Riley), through to a sex scandal,
xenophobic backlash and her fieldwork during
World War I. Flashforwards to the far-reaching
impact of her work on radiation barge into
the historical narrative; these comprise briefly
Revolutionary road: Nourah Al Awad, Mila Alzahrani, Dae Al Hilali sketched but nonetheless brutal vignettes
of Hiroshima, atomic tests in the Nevada
Reviewed by Philip Kemp Musa’s bedevil every juncture of Maryam’s daily desert, and the Chernobyl disaster, as well
With her fourth feature, Saudi Arabia’s first life – whether it’s the theatrically weary sigh of a as a little boy’s first radiotherapy treatment,
female film director, Haifaa Al Mansour, returns functionary when she asks to see his boss, or the though his subsequent fate is left uncertain.
to her native country and a theme expanding condescending TV interviewer who assumes that, Radioactive is adapted for the screen from
on her debut work. The eponymous heroine as a woman, she’s only interested in gardens. a graphic novel, Lauren Redniss’s Radioactive:
of Wadjda (2012) was ten years old, strongly Given its clear message that change – in Marie & Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout,
independent-minded and determined to have a attitudes and in the law – is seriously needed, and if the dialogue is for the most part
bicycle, despite being told that girls aren’t allowed Al Mansour’s film could easily have turned flatly factual, offering stilted exposition,
them. Maryam (Mila Alzahrani) is her adult hectoring, but it is handled with a lightness of
counterpart, a young doctor who finds herself touch and a sense of the ridiculous that deftly
repeatedly up against the endemic sexism of sidestep the risk. The film is graced with appealing
Saudi society. Early on, we see these attitudes at performances, not just from Al Zahrani as the
their most blindly (literally) entrenched, when staunch Maryam, but from Dhay and Nourah
an elderly patient, Abu Musa, is brought in Al Awad as her sisters, their responses to her
seriously ill but, shouting and struggling, with candidature vividly contrasted; a diverting if
his eyes firmly closed, refuses to let her treat him superfluous subplot brings in their glum father
or even look at him, demanding a male doctor. Abdulaziz (Khalid Abdulraheem), an oud player
When at the airport she’s blocked from flying out on tour and still grieving the death of his
to Dubai, as her travel permit needs endorsement wife. Only a last-minute change of heart strains
from a male ‘guardian’ (a coincidental echo of credulity. And indeed change is happening in
Soheil Beiraghi’s recently released Permission, Saudi, albeit slowly: the film starts with Maryam
set in Iran), Maryam impulsively decides to run driving, impossible until recently, and the
as a candidate for the local municipal elections. ‘guardian’ travel rule has been rescinded. The
From here on, Al Mansour shows us that the mere fact that so critical a film could be made,
same sexist (if less hysterical) reactions as Abu and by a woman, is heartening in itself.
Produced by Composer Establishment for Saudi Arabia Nourah Al Awad [2.35:1]

Roman Paul Volker Bertelmann Audiovisual Media, Executive Producers Sara Subtitles
Gerhard Meixner Recording Mixer and Razor Film in Faisal Baltyuor Tarek Ahmed
Haifaa Al Mansour Uve Haussig co-operation with Fahad Alsuwayan Al Khaldi Distributor
Brad Niemann Costume Designer Norddeutscher Christian Granderath Omar Modern Films
Written by Heike Fademrecht Rundfunk Rena Ronson Shafi Al Harthy
Haifaa Al Mansour With the support of Mohammed German
Brad Niemann ©Razor Film Filmförderungsan- Hamad Almuzainy theatrical title
Director of Produktion stalt, Medienboard Cast Abu Musa Die perfekte
Photography GMBH, Haifa Al Berlin-Brandenburg, Mila Alzahrani Bandar Alkhudair Kandidatin
Patrick Orth Mansour’s Est. for Mitteldeutsche Maryam Tarek Al Hasan
Editor Audiovisual Media Medienförderung, Khalid Abdulraheem Ahmad Alsulaimy
Andreas Wodraschke Production General Culture Abdulaziz Rashid
Production Designer Companies Authority of Dhay
Olivier Meidinger Al Mansour the Kingdom of Selma In Colour
Present-day Saudi Arabia. Maryam is a doctor at a municipal elections. He can’t help with the permit,
small-town emergency clinic. She phones Tarek, her but Maryam impulsively decides to run as a candidate
municipal councillor, about the clinic’s approach against Tarek, campaigning about the approach road.
road, which is unpaved and often swamped, but he She asks the help of her sisters Selma and Sara.
tells her the paving work isn’t urgent. Setting off Astonished at first, wedding photographer Selma
on a trip to a conference in Dubai, where there’s a soon pitches in, but teenage Sara remains disaffected.
chance of a prestigious posting to Riyadh, Maryam Maryam’s candidacy causes a sensation and some
is turned away at the airport, told her travel permit hostility, but interviewed on TV she gradually gathers
has expired. Unable to contact her musician father support. The clinic’s road is suddenly paved as ‘an
Abdulaziz, who could update her permit, she calls on emergency’. Maryam loses the election, but makes
her cousin Rashid, who’s vetting candidates for the a good showing. She decides to stay at the clinic.
Nobel pursuits: Rosamund Pike

The Rhythm Section
United Kingdom/Ireland/USA 2019
Director: Reed Morano
the visuals can be magnificent, even

wild. Directed by Marjane Satrapi,
whose 2007 debut film was an adaptation of
REVIEWS
her own graphic novel Persepolis, and with

often extravagantly lush cinematography by
Anthony Dod Mantle, Radioactive is classically
gorgeous one minute, as a pensive Marie reclines
in her laboratory, milky sunlight filtering in
through the dusty windowpane, and lurid the
next. At one point, Curie has a hallucinatory
vision involving the dancer Loie Fuller swirling
and pallbearers in phosphorescent robes.
Each night she snuggles up in bed with her
vial of luminous green radium glowing in her
palm. The film’s score, by Evgueni and Sacha
Galperine, is similarly rich with small surprises.
Given the pace at which Radioactive clatters
through the events of Curie’s life, the admirable
clarity of its scientific explanations and those
diverting splashes of colour, it seems designed
to work as edutainment for a younger audience:
the inspirational life of a great woman of science Time and punishment: Blake Lively
told with verve. Pike’s portrayal of Madame
Curie sits at odds with that reading, though. Reviewed by Pamela Hutchinson as well be zooming across country in an Aston
She’s frosty rather than feisty, awkwardly filled At one point in this movie, Jude Law’s rugged Martin as snoring on a National Express coach.
with regret over her greatest achievement, and loner B, living a hardy off-grid existence After B has trained Stephanie in spycraft and
distraught over the loss of her husband and somewhere in the Scottish Highlands combat, she’s ready to jet off to the continent to
collaborator. It’s a performance that offers more following the murky events that saw him play vigilante, passing herself off as a notorious
than a poster girl for female achievement and kicked out of MI6, accuses Blake Lively’s contract killer. It’s when she starts buying wigs
gives Radioactive a welcome ruminative quality, heroine Stephanie of being a cliché. She and plane tickets that the film begins to motor:
in tune with its subject’s unparalleled intellect. should have thanked him. This action thriller Stephanie makes a neatly androgynous assassin
from Reed Morano, best known for TV’s The when stalking her prey in Tangier and Marseille,
Credits and Synopsis Handmaid’s Tale, is at its best when it succumbs but dresses up like Bettie Page for a lethal
to the pleasures of genre and quits posing assignation in a Manhattan penthouse. For all her
as a rough-hewn psychological drama. prowess in the action scenes, however, Lively’s
Produced by Studiocanal, Amazon Irene Curie
Tim Bevan Studios, Working The first 45 minutes or so of The Rhythm Section performance is a bit of a blank. Law is solid as
Eric Fellner Title, Shoebox Films In Colour have the mottled look of gritty realism – Lively’s her gruff mentor, but Sterling K. Brown steals
Paul Webster Executive
Screenplay Producers Distributor flesh is blotched with bruises, her sweater full his scenes as a mysterious ‘information broker’.
Jack Thorne Joe Wright Studiocanal Limited of holes, flies dawdle across windowpanes. If the screenplay is as patchy as Lively’s British
Based on the book Amelia Granger
[Radioactive: Marie Ron Halpern
Stephanie was once a beaming Oxford student accent, this is nevertheless a good-looking film.
& Pierre Curie, A Tale Didier Lupfer with a loving family. But when they die in a Morano has an impressive cinematography
of Love and Fallout]
by Lauren Redniss
plane crash, her life takes a nosedive into drug CV, and Sean Bobbitt’s photography is a
Director of Cast abuse, sex work and depression. That is, until constant pleasure, including the film’s best
Photography Rosamund Pike a freelance reporter turns up and gives her moment – a high-energy car chase shot in one
Anthony Dod Mantle Marie Curie
Editor Sam Riley just enough information to spark an unlikely exhilarating take, the camera whipping back
Stéphane Roche Pierre Curie revenge mission. All the surface grottiness is so and forth from Lively’s face to the hazards
Production Aneurin Barnard
Designer Paul Langevin much set dressing, though. This screenplay is ahead. Not a bad metaphor for a movie that’s at
Michael Carlin Simon Russell so riddled with fallacies that Stephanie might its best when it keeps its eyes on the road.
Music Beale
Evgueni Galperine Gabriel Lippmann
Sacha Galperine Katherine Credits and Synopsis
Costume Designer Parkinson
Consolata Boyle Jeanne Langevin
Sian Brooke
Production Bronia
Produced by Music ©Eon Productions company: Four Cast Tawfeek Barhom
Michael G. Wilson Steve Mazzaro Limited Provinces Films Ltd Blake Lively Reza Mohammed
Companies Anya Taylor-Joy
Barbara Broccoli Sound Mixer Production Produced by Stephanie Patrick
Screenplay Gary Dodkin Companies Whitebeard Films Jude Law Dolby Digital
Mark Burnell Costume Designer Paramount Pictures Executive Producers Iain Boyd, ‘B’ In Colour
Paris, 1934. As an ailing Marie Curie is
Based on his novel Eimer Ní and Global Road Mark Burnell Sterling K. Brown Prints by
taken into hospital, she recalls her life. Director of Mhaoldomhnaigh Entertainment Rob Friedman DeLuxe
Marc Serra
In 1893, Pierre Curie invites her to share his lab Photography Visual Effects present in association Vaishali Mistry Max Casella [2.35:1]
after she is unfairly evicted from the Sorbonne. Sean Bobbitt Bluebolt with TMP, Ingenious Donald Tang Giler
They collaborate, fall in love and marry. Soon Editor Supervising Stunt/ Media an Eon Simon Williams Raza Jaffrey Distributor
Joan Sobel Fight Coordinator production Gregg Wilson Keith Proctor Paramount
their announcement of the discovery of two new Production Designer Olivier Schneider A Reed Morano film Stuart Ford Pictures UK
Richard Brake
elements is met with great acclaim and a shared Tom Conroy Irish production Greg Shapiro Lehmans
Nobel Prize. Pierre’s health suffers due to radium
exposure, and one night he falls under a carriage London, present day. Stephanie’s life has spiralled into man who ordered the bombing, identified only as
and is trampled to death. Marie is distraught, self-destructive drug use and sex work following the U-17. Stephanie goes to Madrid to meet information
but eventually begins an affair with a married death of her family in a plane crash. Keith, a freelance broker Serra, posing as an assassin. She takes on the
colleague, prompting a scandal. Amid controversy, reporter, tells her that the plane was felled by a bomb contract killing of two people involved in the plane
she is awarded a second Nobel and a job at the made by a Reza Mohammed. Stephanie tries to find and plot, then quits and returns to Serra. B tells her that
Sorbonne. At the outbreak of World War I, Marie kill Reza but her plan backfires and Keith is murdered. Reza and U-17 are in Marseille. When Stephanie goes
lobbies the government for mobile X-ray machines. Stephanie tracks down Keith’s source, B – an ex-MI6 there, she finds Reza about to blow up a bus. She
She dies after having visions of the man living in rural Scotland. B trains Stephanie and manages to evacuate the passengers before the blast.
consequences of her work and of Pierre. gives her the connections to go after Reza and the She then kills Serra, having realised that he is U-17.

Run Sulphur and White
United Kingdom 2019 United Kingdom 2019
Director: Scott Graham Director: Julian Jarrold
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston

It’s a very sad fact that the victims of child
sexual abuse are considerably more likely than
REVIEWS
the population average to repeat the cycle and
potentially become abusers themselves. Such
understandably sensitive subject matter isn’t often
treated in film, but the remarkable life of London
financial expert David Tait, who confronted his
own past sufferings and eventually became a
successful fundraiser for the NSPCC – climbing
Everest five times in the process – provided the
jumping-off point for this drama. However, much
as one would like to laud the film for its courageous
approach to undeniably challenging material, the
result proves a problematic viewing experience.
Screenwriter Susanne Farrell, working from
draft material by Tait himself, structures the
On the skids: Mark Stanley story across different periods, contrasting the
powerless young David’s awful treatment by a
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston The driver ends up where he started, but does the family friend in South Africa with the somewhat
In Bruce Springsteen’s hyperbolic lyric, the gesture of defiance in itself change anything? unsympathetic, show-off City trader he later
highways of New Jersey are “jammed with That image and the question it poses are the becomes. We know that a day of reckoning is
broken heroes on a last-chance power drive”. essence of the movie, which does well by the due, and the film lingers rather too long on the
Meanwhile, in Fraserburgh on the Scottish story’s domestic set-up, peaks in the mid-section run-up to that pivotal point, when the birth
coast, a restless fish-packing worker drives his (where the stunt drivers do their thing) and rather of the first child in a second marriage has a
son’s car at high speed along the town’s sea wall. underwhelms at the close. In Mark Stanley, the catalytic effect. Dramatically, this seems an odd
Bruce’s longing for escape haunts these shores film has a convincing leading man, bristling at choice, since the most intriguing element of the
too: Finnie, the thirtysomething driver, and missing out on the life he could have had. And story – the psychological graft required to move
his wife Katie both have “born to run” tattoos; yet with his wife, two kids and a suburban home, beyond those painful scars – is somewhat glossed
and Fraserburgh-born writer-director Scott the film suggests, there is plenty here worth over in a disappointingly sketchy resolution.
Graham opens his third feature with a written settling for, if only he could get out of his own As the older David, the talented Mark
quotation from Springsteen’s fist-pumping way. It’s just that the nagging ache of unfulfilled Stanley (imposing in Clio Barnard’s Dark
1975 anthem of the same name. In Gurinder dreams seems more dramatically potent. River) rather struggles to gain traction on the
Chadha’s recent Blinded by the Light, another Perhaps that’s why Graham devotes a character, his exterior brusqueness keeping
Bruce-inflected British drama, education gave substantial chunk of the action to Finnie in the the audience at a distance and thus ensuring
its Asian protagonist an escape route from car with his son’s unhappy pregnant girlfriend that the film never really picks up emotional
racism and confining suburbia. But for Run’s (a vividly engaging Marli Siu), both realising momentum. It’s a story that should move us,
white working-class character, the limited how different generations are repeating the yet in the end it falls dismayingly flat.
opportunities speak more of “nowhere to run”. same mistake – failing, as per Springsteen, to get
While there’s a seeming disparity between the out while they’re young. With confident night- Credits and Synopsis
grandiose rendering of Springsteen’s frustrations shooting on Fraserburgh’s twisty local roads, and a
and Run’s small-scale Scottish setting for similar sound mix that conveys the sonic boom of waves
Produced by Julian Jarrold film Distributor
yearnings, at the heart of Graham’s film is a crashing against harbour walls, Graham does Alan Govinden Executive Modern Films
brilliantly appropriate image that attempts to justice to the dilemmas facing his characters, even Michael Elliott Producers
Written by Walli Ullah
square the circle of entrapment and escape in though a lean running time and slightly skimpy Susanne Farrell Jim Mooney
this forlorn coastal context: the souped-up car closing stretch suggest more application was Based on the life Trevor Charles Price
of David Tait
belts along the sea wall, does a rubber-burning required to create a dramatically satisfying, fully Cinematographer
180-degree turn, then heads right back into town. developed through-line from their situation. Felix Wiedmann Cast
Editor Mark Stanley
Chris Gill David Tait
Credits and Synopsis Production Emily Beecham
Designer Vanessa
Nick Palmer Aftab Shivdasani
Music Rajesh
Produced by Recordist Scotland & BFI Executive Producer Anders Hayward Caleb Imray
Composed by Alistair Petrie
Margaret Matheson Cameron Mercer present a Bard Lizzie Francke Kid drunk boy
Anne Nikitin Jeff
Ciara Barry Costume Designer Entertainments Rose Garnett Scott Murray
Production Rosalie Craig
Rosie Crerar Rebecca Gore production in Robbi Allen Stevie In Colour
Mixer Sound Amber
Written by Stunt Co-ordinator co-production with Ross McKenzie Stuart Murison [2.35:1]
J.J. Le Roux Sheila Atim
Scott Graham Curtis Rivers Barry Crerar Ali Sim
Costume Designer Samira
Director of Developed and Douglas Russell Distributor
Natalie Ward Anna Friel
Photography ©BTR (WT) Ltd/The supported by the Cast Mick Verve Pictures
Joanne Tait
Simon Tindall British Film Institute/ National Lottery Mark Stanley Lisa Livingstone
©UME9 Limited Dougray Scott
Editor British Broadcasting through Creative Finnie hairdresser
Production Donald Tait
David Arthur Corporation Scotland Amy Manson Mark Wood
Companies
Production Designer Production Made with the Katie best man
AMG International In Colour
Andy Drummond Companies support of the Marli Siu Euan Stamper
Film presents an [1.85:1]
Location Sound BBC Films, Creative BFI’s Film Fund Kelly young groom
EMU production a
Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, present day. At the surprised to find his father driving; the two experience South Africa, the 1970s. Adolescent David Tait
fish-processing plant, employee Finnie can’t prevent mutual recognition of their trapped situation, and is sexually abused by an associate of his father
his work-shy son Kid from being fired. At home, it’s Finnie’s daredevil drive along the sea wall marks Donald. On the family’s return to London, Donald
clear that Finnie and his wife Katie’s dreams of a a gesture of rebellion. They plan to leave town also molests him. By the 1990s, David is a successful
better life are unfulfilled. One evening, Finnie sneaks together, but Finnie heads home instead. The next City trader. He has left his first wife and child
out and borrows Kid’s car for a spin. Thinking that morning, Finnie argues with Kid, who reconciles with to marry work colleague Vanessa. The birth of
Kid has come to collect her from her job at the Kelly at the bowling alley. Finnie makes tentative their baby forces him to confront his past. He
bowling alley, the lad’s pregnant girlfriend Kelly is peace with Katie, resigned to their joint future. becomes a noted children’s charity campaigner.

To All the Boys Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
P.S. I Still Love You USA 2019
USA 2019 Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Director: Michael Fimognari Certificate 12A 120m 16s
Reviewed by Nikki Baughan

It’s hardly surprising that it’s taken less than
two years for Netflix to usher this teen-romance
REVIEWS
sequel on to screens. While the streamer

famously doesn’t release viewing numbers, it
described 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
– based on the first book in Jenny Han’s popular
YA trilogy – as one of its most viewed original
films ever. In following the same formula and
making the most of charming, relatable lead
Laura Condor as teen protagonist Lara Jean, P.S.
I Still Love You looks set to recreate that success.
In the aftermath of the events of the first
film, in which Lara Jean’s ancient love letters to
all her crushes made their way into the world,
she is settling into her relationship with new
boyfriend Peter (Noah Centineo). But her fears
that it won’t last are worsened by her suspicions
that Peter may still have feelings for his ex-
girlfriend; and then there’s the reappearance of
her old crush John Ambrose (Jordan Fisher). Conversation pieces: Toni Morrison
That original director Susan Johnson has
been replaced by cinematographer-filmmaker Reviewed by Hannah McGill establishment as a senior editor at Random
Michael Fimognari – who expertly lensed the The subject of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s House, and was edited for her whole fiction
Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House and is handsome, sleek and loving documentary portrait career by a stalwart of that establishment,
also helming and shooting an inevitable third could hardly be more camera-friendly. With her Robert Gottlieb, but also used her position to
film, To All the Boys: Always and Forever, Lara Jean expressive face, steady gaze, mellifluous voice and gain book deals for figures such as Davis; and
– is the only noticeable change. With its peppy ready chuckle, Toni Morrison is a joy to watch who loved the bells and whistles of success and
performances, colourful palette and pop-music and listen to – a figure possessed of a charisma recognition. “Navigating a white male world was
soundtrack, P.S. I Still Love You is firmly playing so forceful that it’s not hard to imagine another not threatening. It was not even interesting,”
to its adolescent demographic, distilling big trajectory having placed her on the stage or on she says. “I was more interesting than they
ideas of acceptance, individuality and love into the movie screen. From the early lesson about were. I knew more.” From a less compelling
an easy-to-swallow, by-the-numbers format. the power of words gleaned from the impact of individual, this would reek of grandiosity, but
It’s enjoyable enough, however, and will surely writing “fuck” on a pavement, through her covert Morrison makes you thoroughly believe it.
strike a chord with youngsters who will recognise delight at having some of her books banned, to Her radical self-confidence also marks a
their own feelings and insecurities on screen. her infectious joy at being awarded the Nobel striking contrast with a contemporary discourse
The fact that it flirts with issues of revenge porn, Prize in Literature in 1993, the anecdotes here on rights and race that can seem to fetishise and
consent and self-respect, albeit with the same feel practised, but rich and sincere nonetheless. thus reinforce white perspectives by insistently
gentle approach, is something to applaud. Friends and associates provide context, defining the experiences of people of colour
analysis and praise. The latter commodity is through the lens of ‘white privilege’ or ‘white
Credits and Synopsis in abundance, and commentators can trespass supremacy’. Greenfield-Sanders would have
into hagiography (“If there’s life on Mars, they’re made a more prickly and challenging film if
reading Toni Morrison to find out what it’s like he’d teased out some of the debates around
Produced by Netflix & John Ambrose
Matthew Kaplan Awesomeness McClaren to be human,” claims scholar Farah Griffin, race and intellectual culture that have evolved
Screenplay present an Ace Anna Cathcart while Angela Davis locates Morrison’s 1987 over Morrison’s period of fame; or permitted
Sofia Alvarez Entertainment Kitty
J. Mills Goodloe production Janel Parrish novel Beloved as a turning point not just in US some harder critical appraisal of her books
Based on the novel An Awesomeness Margot literature but “in the history of the world”). (all negative reviews are here construed as
P.S. I Still Love You Films production Ross Butler
by Jenny Han Executive Trevor Pike
However, when it dials down the hyperbole the racist in motivation); or even if he’d had her
Director of Producers Madeleine Arthur film shows us a complex, tough and ambitious in discussion with some of the other talking
Photography Max Siemers Chris
Michael Fimognari Robyn Marshall Emilija Baranac
woman – one who questioned whether the heads, rather than charming the camera only.
Edited by Jenny Han Genevieve, ‘Gen’ pressure on black writers to engage continually Still, if this film plays it a little safe,
Joe Klotz Sofia Alvarez Trezzo Mahoro with white racism wasn’t in itself racist; who it remains a deeply engaging tribute
Production Rebecca Glashow Lucas
Designer Shelley Zimmerman Holland Taylor penetrated the heart of the white literary to a woman who did not.
Chris August Don Dunn Stormy
Music Scott Levine Sarayu Blue
Joe Wong Marc Bienstock Trina Rothschild Credits and Synopsis
Production Susan Johnson John Corbett
Sound Mixer Dr Covey
Simon Bright Produced by Photography Leo Coltrane Produced by Perfect Ford Foundation Distributor
Costume Designer Cast In Colour Timothy Greenfield- Graham Willoughby Steven Grothe Day Films Inc. Executive Producer Republic Film
Lorraine Carson Lana Condor [2.35:1] Sanders Edited by Ben Posnack In association Michael Kantor
Lara Jean Covey Johanna Giebelhaus Johanna Giebelhaus Elizabeth Victorine with American
©Awesomeness, LLC Noah Centineo Distributor Chad Thompson Music by/Score Masters Pictures Featuring
Production Peter Kavinsky Netflix Tommy Walker Producer/Piano/ ©Perfect Day Major support Toni Morrison
Companies Jordan Fisher Interviews by Keyboards/Vocals Films Inc. provided by AARP
Sandra Guzman Kathryn Bostic Production Additional support In Colour
Director of Location Sound Companies provided by JustFilms [1.78:1]
High-school student Lara Jean has settled into
her first official relationship, though she is still
nervous about how things with boyfriend Peter A documentary portrait of American novelist, editor two children as a single parent; and the process
will pan out. The situation is made complicated and professor Toni Morrison, who died in 2019. whereby she went from writing fiction in the hours
when John Ambrose, a boy to whom she wrote Interviewed by Sandra Guzmán (though speaking before her sons were awake to becoming one of the
one of her many love letters years before, directly to camera), Morrison describes her working- world’s most garlanded novelists. Commentators on
reappears in her life. She realises that the class childhood in Lorain, Ohio; the stellar career Morrison’s work and influence include Oprah Winfrey,
course of true love never runs smooth. in book-editing that she built up while also raising Fran Lebovitz, Angela Davis and Sonia Sanchez.

The Truth
France/Japan 2019
Director: Koreeda Hirokazu
Certificate PG 107m 16s
Reviewed by Tony Rayns

Koreeda Hirokazu’s French adventure may not
be his most powerful or original film but it’s a
REVIEWS
substantial success, not least because he’s brought
a lot of ideas and motifs from his Japanese films
to the party. The Truth consolidates the shift in
his recent work to looser and more conceptual
plotting, but it also reaches all the way back to
his second feature After Life (1998) for some wry
reflections on summing up life trajectories and
the practical uses of artifice. As the work of a
director working for the first time outside his
first language and his own culture, it’s at least
as assured as Like Someone in Love (2012), the
film that Abbas Kiarostami made in Japan.
Catherine Deneuve plays Fabienne Dangeville,
a ‘sacred monster’ of French cinema, a veteran
star whose thoughtless, self-serving egotism
masks deep insecurities about the final phase of
her career and her acting skills. She sparks the
dynamics of the plot in two ways: by publishing
a less-than-truthful autobiography entitled
‘The Truth’, which ruffles many feathers, and by
accepting a senior role in a sci-fi movie and then
needlessly giving a hard time to her director and
her co-star. The person most outraged by the book
is her daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche), who has
always felt that she was better ‘parented’ by her
mother’s friend and rival Sarah than by Fabienne
herself, but it’s Lumir, a US-based screenwriter,
who effectively repairs all the damage by writing
lines for Fabienne to apologise to those she has A star is worn: Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche
upset. In the process, Lumir’s own relationship
with Fabienne starts to come right – even when Fabienne has signed up to appear in is a sci-fi is clinched at the end of the film when Fabienne
Fabienne detaches herself from their moment story (it’s based on something by Chinese-born announces that she’s come up with a good answer
of reconciliation to reflect that she could use the American writer Ken Liu, an on-trend choice) to a question that a journalist-fan forgot to ask:
emotion she’s feeling as a performance strategy. and the shooting in Epinay Studios involves what she’d say at the Pearly Gates. We never get
Koreeda has no pretensions to uncovering a lot of green-screen work which makes the to hear what that answer is, but her confidence
deep truths about ‘truth’ or about real and studio scenes look and feel ramshackle and that she’s found it signifies her rapprochement
feigned emotions. His treatment of the lies ‘artisanal’ – very much like the ad-hoc staging of with her family and her acceptance that her
and evasions in Fabienne’s autobiography is cherished memories in After Life. That connection life and career are approaching their ends.
broadly comic, and a strand of backstory about
her relationship with a former rival never Credits and Synopsis
escalates into the melodrama that it briefly
threatens to – though it’s neatly dovetailed
Producer Jamal Zeinal-Zade, Pierre The outskirts of Paris. Fabienne Dangeville, a ‘grande
with the issue of her jealous reaction to a Muriel Merlin Jasmin Zeinal-Zade, Ludivine Sagnier dame’ of French cinema, is publishing a volume of
young co-star in the movie she’s seen shooting. Original Screenplay Margot Zeinal-Zade, Amy
memoirs called ‘The Truth’ and preparing to act in the
Koreeda Hirokazu Cofinova 15, Laurent Capelluto
The Truth stays light on its feet by contrasting Director of Indéfilms 7, Cinécap journalist sci-fi film ‘Memories of My Mother’, in which she and
Fabienne’s otherworldly self-regard with the Photography 2, Cinémage 13 Jackie Berroyer rising star Manon Lenoir will play the same character
Éric Gautier With the support of chef at different ages. She lives with her current partner
very ordinary domesticity of Lumir and her Editor Région Île-de-France Sébastien
American husband (Ethan Hawke) and daughter Jacques, a skilled chef. Her screenwriter daughter
Koreeda Hirokazu in partnership with Chassagne
Art Director the CNC - Centre Hadriel, the director Lumir arrives with her husband Hank and their
(Clémentine Grenier); Koreeda typically uses Riton Dupire-Clément national du cinéma daughter Charlotte on a visit to celebrate the book.
the child’s gaze as a leveller and the child’s Original Music et de l’image animée, Dolby Digital Tensions surface when Lumir reads the book and finds
innocent questions as the oil on the troubled Alexeï Aïgui and Procirep In Colour what she believes to be a completely false account
Sound With the participation [1.85:1]
waters of family tensions. The question of Jean-Pierre Duret of Le Pacte, Wild Part-subtitled
of her childhood, and Fabienne’s long-term manager
retirement from work is handled equally deftly Emmanuel Croset Bunch, Gaga walks out when he finds himself unmentioned. During
Olivier Walczak Corporation Distributor days in Fabienne’s house and at read-throughs and
in a couple of scenes between Fabienne and Sébastien Noiré Curzon filming sessions in Epinay Studios, it emerges that
a favourite restaurateur who’s giving up his Costume Designer
Lumir has never forgiven her mother for her reaction
day-job. The flow of incidents throughout is Pascaline Chavanne Cast French theatrical title
Catherine Deneuve La Vérité to the death in a swimming accident of her onetime
naturalistic and free from hyped-up climaxes. ©3B Productions, Fabienne Dangeville friend (and screen rival) Sarah Mondavan – to whom
To give the whole thing a conceptual Bunbuku, M.I Movies, Juliette Binoche Lumir always felt close. Lumir’s father (Fabienne’s
France 3 Cinéma Lumir ex-husband) Pierre visits the house and bonds with
framework, Koreeda turns (as he did in After Life) Production Ethan Hawke
Charlotte. Fabienne is frosty towards Manon and Luc,
to the terrain vague between life-as-lived and life- Companies Hank
the director of the sci-fi film, and Lumir intervenes
A 3B Productions, Clémentine Grenier
as-theatre. The one clearly symbolic motif is the Bunbuku, M.I Movies Charlotte by writing scripts for her rapprochements with
broken toy theatre which the young Charlotte co-production in Manon Clavel her manager and her colleagues on the film. These
co-production with Manon Lenoir
finds hidden amongst her grandmother’s experiences give Fabienne insights into the way to
France 3 Cinéma Alain Libolt
possessions; it’s eventually repaired by Fabienne’s With the participation Luc Garbois make the most of one crucial scene in the film, and
of Canal +, Ciné +, Christian Crahay she asks her manager to request a reshoot of that
ex-husband Pierre, a charming old hippie France Télévisions Jacques scene. As her visitors prepare to return home, Fabienne
who turns up at the house unannounced and In association with Roger van Hool seems much more comfortable in her own skin.
then disappears just as quietly. The movie that

The Turning Vivarium
USA/India 2020 Ireland/Belgium/Denmark/USA/United Kingdom 2019
Director: Floria Sigismondi Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Certificate 15 94m 9s Certificate 15 97m 46s
Reviewed by Nikki Baughan

A Latin word meaning, literally, ‘place of life’,
a vivarium is also an enclosed area in which
REVIEWS
animals or plants are raised for observation

and research. That’s the biggest clue that,
despite its seemly conventional focus on a
young couple attempting to put down roots
for their long-term future, Lorcan Finnegan’s
second feature, following his 2016 debut
Without Name, may not be all it appears.
That it opens with the upsetting image of
a cuckoo ejecting a baby bird and egg from
the nest it’s commandeering is another red
flag – and a neat thematic signpost – but things
soon settle into a more familiar tempo. Keen
to get on the property ladder, young urban
couple Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma
(Imogen Poots) are tempted by strange sales
Harried with children: Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard agent Martin (Jonathan Aris) to visit a new
housing development on the outskirts of
Reviewed by Kim Newman times it’s worn thin. A different key character town, named ‘Yonder’. Finding a sprawling,
The puzzle of what exactly is going on in Henry dies in one of the finales, a fresh explanation is soulless estate of cookie-cutter homes, Tom
James’s ‘The Turn of the Screw’ has been chewed given for the death of the malevolent Peter Quint and Gemma are underwhelmed and, realising
over since 1898. Indeed, the framing narrative, (a valet in the novella, here a riding instructor), that Martin has left, attempt to find the exit.
dropped by almost every adaptation, begins homespun housekeeper Mrs Grose (jolly Megs That’s when this supposed suburban idyll
the process of interrogating the interpretation Jenkins in two previous adaptations) transforms begins to fracture. After driving for hours through
the unnamed governess narrator puts on into a sinister reincarnation of Mrs Danvers (a a confusing mass of identical streets, their car
events surrounding the children at Bly House. haggard Barbara Marten), and Flora not Miles is runs out of gas and, dejected, they head back to
Among many uses of the material are Benjamin pressed to admit she can see the ghosts (this sounds the house they viewed and fall asleep. The next
Britten’s opera (1954), Jack Clayton’s The minor, but radically reshapes the dynamic). day is the same, and the next, and soon weeks
Innocents (1961) and even Michael Winner’s Miles and Flora, now tagged children of have passed. Every so often a box of generic
prequel The Nightcomers (1971), which all tackle privilege and played by Finn Wolfhard (Stranger supplies – cleaning products and vacuum-
ambiguities ranging from what exactly the title Things) and Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), sealed meat – is delivered by unseen hands.
means to whether there really are ghosts. become a sulky drumkit-abusing teen and a gap- One day, however, the box contains a
Scripted by Chad and Carey Hayes, best known toothed wicked innocent – though their first prank squealing baby boy and a commanding note:
for the Conjuring franchise, and directed by Floria (faking Flora’s drowning) makes it unbelievable “Raise the child and be released.” The point is
Sigismondi, whose last feature was The Runaways in a 1990s American context that their nanny well and truly made: Tom and Gemma must
(2010), The Turning isn’t quite a modernised (willowy Mackenzie Davis) doesn’t quit and sue forget all individual ambition and concentrate
version. The setting is moved from England to the estate. The governess now has a thudding their energies entirely on the care of this boy
America – though this Bly estate was filmed in backstory involving her own mad mother (Joely (played by Senan Jennings as a youngster and
Ireland – and the period is the early 1990s, signalled Richardson), who is given more nightmare Eanna Hardwicke as a young adult). And,
by the death of Kurt Cobain, on the grounds that prominence (“Let’s hope it’s not genetic”) than bewilderingly, he grows at an exponential
any later setting would allow mobile phones the underwhelming spectre of the malign Quint. rate, screams incessantly until he’s given
and the internet to interfere with the particular Throwing in not-that-effective jump scares every cereal, stares at the TV static for hours and,
isolation necessary for the tale to unfold. Many few minutes undermines any build-up of dread, weirdly, copies Tom and Gemma’s voices and
tweaks to the material might put off James purists, and the last reel displays indecision rather than mannerisms. Behaviours that, while heightened
but they at least have the virtue of adding a few ambiguity as two different, bluntly literal finishes to fantastical levels, most parents will recognise
surprises to a story that’s been adapted so many offer an unsatisfactory multiple-choice ending. as containing more than a grain of truth.
That’s the real horror at the heart of Vivarium:
Credits and Synopsis that the conventional idea of a perfect life is less
a template and more a trap, that parenthood
can be as much a curse as a reward. It’s not an
Produced by Glenn Garland ©Storyteller Seth William Meier Mrs Grose [2.35:1]
Scott Bernstein Film Editors Distribution Co., LLC John Powers Joely Richardson original thought by any means, but it’s expertly
Roy Lee Jane Moran Production Middleton Darla Mandell Distributor executed. While there are elements of Yorgos
Screenplay Duwayne Dunham Companies Niall Greih Fulton Entertainment One
Chad Hayes Production Designer DreamWorks Quint Lanthimos in Finnegan and co-writer Garret
Carey W. Hayes Paki Smith Pictures, Reliance Cast Denna Thomsen Shanley’s deliberate skewering of domestic bliss,
Based on the novel Music Entertainment Mackenzie Davis Jessel
The Turn of the Screw Nathan Barr present a Vertigo Kate Mandell Kim Adis
the approach here is about creeping unease,
by Henry James Production Entertainment/ Finn Wolfhard Rose the cold resignation to an inescapable fate.
Director of Sound Mixer Chislehurst Miles Fairchild Darlene Garr
Photography Robert Flanagan Entertainment Brooklynn Prince Holly
Production designer Philip Murphy has
David Ungaro Costume Designer production Flora Fairchild built Yonder to be a place suspended in time,
Editor Leonie Prendergast Executive Producers Barbara Marten In Colour a menacing mix of The Truman Show and The
North America, 1994. Kate Mandell takes a position at erratic behaviour prompts Kate to consider quitting,
Twilight Zone. Houses stretch to the horizon,
the remote Bly estate tutoring Flora Fairchild, a young but she feels a responsibility to Flora. She finds Miss two-dimensional clouds seem to have been
orphan whose previous live-in nanny, Miss Jessel, has Jessel’s corpse in a lake on the estate and has visions hung in the sky. It’s packed with everything
disappeared. Kate is greeted coldly by Mrs Grose, the of her being murdered by Quint, whose ghost causes we are told we should want – picket fences,
housekeeper, and disturbed when Flora’s slightly older the death of his own killer, Mrs Grose. Kate escapes gleaming appliances, a ready-made family – but
brother Miles comes home unexpectedly after being from Bly with the children… only to find herself back
it’s all cold, calculated and devoid of real life.
expelled from school. Kate comes to believe that Bly at an earlier point, worried that she has inherited
is haunted by Quint, a malevolent riding instructor her mother’s insanity, that she is the threat to the An edgy, scratchy score from Kristian Eidnes
who was a bad influence on the children. Miles’s children, and that she has only dreamed the escape. Andersen heightens the uncanny atmosphere.
Tom and Gemma handle the situation in very

The Whalebone Box
United Kingdom 2019
Director: Andrew Kötting
Certificate 12A 89m 19s
Reviewed by Ben Nicholson

Early in his first feature film, Gallivant, Andrew
Kötting explained that he’d “been told many
REVIEWS
times that Eden’s life expectancy wasn’t very
good”. Eden, his daughter, was born with a rare
genetic disorder called Joubert syndrome and
has gone on to defy the odds and become one
of Kötting’s frequent collaborators and muses.
Some 25 years after Gallivant, Eden, now in her
mid-thirties, is pictured in intimate close-up in
the opening moments of The Whalebone Box,
while a voiceover recalls, “The moment I saw
you I knew I could love you.” The line is the
title of Kötting’s 2010 performance/installation
collaboration with Leslie Hill and Helen Paris.
The filmmaker often works in this way, echoing,
reflecting and refracting previous work, and the
slippage feels apposite here, in a liminal film
that manages to be both earth and water, interior
and expansive, documentary and dream.
The ostensible narrative is that Kötting and
pinhole photographer Anonymous Bosch are
accompanying writer Iain Sinclair as he travels
from London to return a small whalebone box to
the beach on the Isle of Harris, where the whale
was originally washed ashore. Simultaneously,
this quest is a journey into the mind of Eden,
Housebound: Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg who narrates the film while often appearing
on screen asleep – searching her dreams for an
different ways and, as they attempt to deal with of connection, a brief glimpse of happiness imagined whale and even perhaps conjuring
their new reality – and, in the process, slowly even, as she dances with the boy to the car radio, the notion of the whalebone box. It recalls
lose their minds – Finnegan pointedly leans but ultimately have no impact on the child’s a line from Philip Hoare’s Leviathan or, The
in to notions of gender and traditional societal behaviour or the events unfolding around her. Whale about an “eerie otherworld, teetering
roles. As Tom, Eisenberg is skittish, selfish and Try as they might, whether through brute between travelogue and science fiction, was
increasingly angry, putting all his focus on force or gentle nurture, there’s simply nothing the birthing-ground for Melville’s monster.”
digging an escape tunnel in the garden and Tom and Gemma can do to escape their At one point, daughter and father visit the
ignoring the child that has been foisted upon situation – one that, from the outside, looks British Museum to see the Franks Casket, a
them. In contrast, Poots brings raw emotion to like everything they aspired to, but which has carved Anglo-Saxon whalebone chest. An
Gemma, who initially refuses to engage with turned out to be a hellish purgatory. And surely audio commentary suggests that the casket’s
the boy but eventually falls into a maternal role that’s the most disturbing thing of all – that iconography is open to interpretation and that
– spurred on by the very real threat Tom poses modern happiness is a regulated construct to “opportunities for multivalency are rampant”.
to the child – and attempts to show love and which we all blindly subscribe, but which may This could be a description of the film,
kindness. These do bring her fleeting moments turn out to be a prison of our own making. and there are various moments when the
Produced by Sound Designers Companies Casa Kafka Pictures Brunella Cocchiglia Senan Jennings
John Mc Donnell Kristian Eidnes A Fantastic Films Movie Tax Shelter Lorcan Finnegan young boy
Brendan McCarthy Andersen production in Empowered by Aram Tertzakian Eanna Hardwicke
Written by Jacques Pedersen co-production with Belfius, the Creative Maxime Cottray older boy
Garret Shanley Costume Supervisor Frakas Productions, Europe Programme Todd Brown Danielle Ryan
Story Catherine Marchand Pingpong Film – MEDIA of the Nick Spicer school mom
Garret Shanley Visual Effects In association with European Union Gabe Scarpelli Molly McCann
Lorcan Finnegan Benuts Lovely Productions, In co-production Ryan Shoup Molly
Director of TGBVFX Fís Éireann/Screen with VOO and Be tv Thomas Gammeltoft Côme Thiry
Photography Dupp Film Ireland, XYZ Films, In association Christophe Hollebeke baby
Macgregor Frame Madrona Drive with XYZ Films Manuel Chiche Olga Wehrly
[i.e. Miguel de Olaso] Space Office With the support With the participation Violaine Barbaroux crying woman
Editor Slowmotion of Eurimages, of Wallimage
Tony Cranstoun Windmill Lane VFX The Danish Film (Wallonia) Dolby Digital
Production Designer Take5 Institute – The Minor Developed in Cast In Colour
Philip Murphy Co-production association with Imogen Poots
Music by/Music ©Fantastic Films Scheme, Copenhagen Fís Éireann/Screen Gemma Distributor
Producer/Arranger/ Limited, Frakas Film Fund, Wallimage Ireland, Film4 Jesse Eisenberg Vertigo Films
Keyboards/Guitars Productions SPRL, (Wallonia), the Tax Executive Producers Tom
Kristian Eidnes Pingpong Film Shelter of the Belgian Imogen Poots Jonathan Aris
Andersen Production Federal Government Jesse Eisenberg Martin
Desperate to get on the property ladder, young couple released.” With the child growing at an exponential rate
Tom and Gemma visit a housing development named and displaying increasingly strange behaviour, Tom and
Yonder. Unimpressed by the cookie-cutter homes, they Gemma initially try to ignore him. Tom busies himself
attempt to leave – only to discover that they cannot digging an escape tunnel in the garden. Grudgingly,
find their way out. They try again the next day, and the Gemma falls into a maternal role, protecting the boy
next, but realise they are trapped. As the weeks pass from Tom’s violent outbursts. Eventually, the child grows
they are regularly delivered supplies, and then a box into an adult and becomes a housing agent, with the
containing a baby boy and a note: “Raise the child and be sole job of luring another young couple to Yonder.
The lovely bones: Eden Kötting

When Lambs Become Lions
USA 2018
Director: Jon Kasbe
REVIEWS
Motley crew: The Whalebone Box Ivory merchant: When Lambs Become Lions
physical and the psychic blur into one Reviewed by Hannah McGill poachers, one doubts that many viewers will
another, the box and its mysterious contents A close-up portrait of minor players in the Kenyan be persuaded by the vague insinuation that
acquire a potency, while the soundtrack speaks of ivory trade, the documentary When Lambs the two pursuits are equivalent, or equally
Schrödinger. Another voice refers to the discovery Become Lions is ravishing to the eye, touching and justifiable. By X’s own free admission, no one
of some film in the belly of a whale, which seems involving – even if its intense aestheticisation forces him to kill elephants. He acknowledges
like a splash of Kötting’s trademark japery, until of its subject and neat-and-tidy plotting carry that “there are other jobs”, but they’re not as
a post-credits twist offers an uncanny moment of it some distance away from fly-on-the-wall reliably lucrative, plus there’s the risk of him
mystical resonance and potential transfiguration. spontaneity. Director and cinematographer Jon having to do something repetitive and getting
Where 2017’s Lek and the Dogs drew Kötting’s Kasbe filmed his three main characters over bored. His father, he says, “died a nobody. I don’t
‘Earthworks’ trilogy to a close, The Whalebone three years. Asan, his cousin and childhood want to be remembered that way” – although
Box feels as if it is infused with the energy of buddy credited only as ‘X’ and their mutual why you’d want to be remembered for helping
his entire filmography – perhaps akin to the friend Lukas live in northern Kenya, where the to make elephants extinct goes unexplored.
psychic energy Sinclair suggests is radiating standoff over the illicit ivory trade has created It’s a neat moral flourish that X doesn’t even
from the physical box as it travels the country. parallel industries of poaching and anti-poaching. do the killing himself, but outsources it to the
Both film and box are finely crafted vessels, Asan has operated on the wrong side of the law gentle Lukas, whose encroaching illness initially
harnessing the power of their materials. For in the past, but now, as a married father, works seems like his body’s outcry against the ugly
Kötting, this is a febrile collage of digital and as a ranger protecting the wild animals. X is a labour he’s found himself doing, but eventually
celluloid footage, archival imagery (including poacher, and Lukas his subservient sidekick. proves to be the more tragically prosaic HIV
from his own films) and found or repurposed The film emphasises similarities in the two virus. If the film’s evident management and
audio. Philip Hoare – whose aforementioned lifestyles: the rangers enjoy the thrill of the manipulation of encounters and conversations
non-fiction cetacean epic Leviathan or, The Whale chase, Asan asserting that “to catch a poacher, in pursuit of narrative impact make it feel
furnishes the film with its chapter headings – is you have to think like one”; and they don’t somewhat less than authentic, the stark poetry
heard on the soundtrack unpicking the animal’s stint on violence. No one talks much about of its visuals – as when we see great heaps of
cultural and historical significance. Elsewhere, the importance of elephants or the morality of tusks burning in affirmation of the Kenyan
the vocals of performance artist and musician poaching; it’s a matter of money for all concerned. government’s clampdown on the ivory trade,
MacGillivary manages to channel both a siren But even as Asan switches sides, supplementing and then the strange ash structures they
song and a whale’s death throes into her haunting his income by passing information to the leave behind – can take the breath away.
lament. “Ah the world, oh the whale.”
Produced by Jon Kasbe Companies Film Program with Isaac Lee Dogwoof
Jon Kasbe Caitlyn Greene A Kasbe Films support from Open Erick Douat
Film ©Andrew Kötting Part-subtitled
Producers Music and Documentary Society Foundations Nicolás Ibargüen Not submitted
Andrew Kötting Production
Innbo Shim West Dylan Thordson Group production and JustFilms|Ford Juan Rendón for theatrical
Producer Companies Distributor
Tom Yellin Sound Design/ in association Foundation Daniel Eilemberg classification
Andrew Kötting HOME Artist Film, HOME Artist Film
Andrew H. Brown Re-recording Mixer with Fusion and Supported by VoD certificate: 12
Cameras Screen Archive
Director of Paul Hsu Project Earth the Mountainfilm In Colour Running time:
Anonymous Bosch South East,
Photography Supported by a Commitment Grant [1.85:1] 75m 52s
Nick Gordon Smith University of the
Jon Kasbe ©Kasbe Films, The grant from the A film by Jon Kasbe Subtitles
Iain Sinclair Creative Arts
Editors Documentary Group Sundance Institute Executive Producers
Tony Hill Executive Producer
Frederick Shanahan Production Documentary Matthew Heineman Distributor
John Maher Jason Wood
Edit
Andrew Kötting In Colour and In northern Kenya, ivory poachers are at constant X’s behalf, though a mystery virus is slowing him
Sound Black & White
Andrew Kötting [1.60:1] war with the rangers, who will shoot to kill in order to down. With a new baby at home, Asan is tempted to
protect dwindling elephant populations. Over three make money by assisting the poachers, but as the
Over 30 years ago, the writer Iain Sinclair came into years, this documentary follows Asan, whose work government clamps down on ivory poaching, Lukas
possession of a whalebone box made by the artist as a ranger is marred by unpredictable payment; his retreats from the illicit work. Finally, so does X,
Steve Dilworth. This experimental documentary cousin and friend ‘X’, who has chosen the other side retraining as a ranger. A closing caption reveals that
charts the box’s transportation back to the Outer of the moral and legal fence and poaches elephants Asan has left his ranger job and is in search of other
Hebrides, where the whale was originally beached. to order; and Lukas, who does the actual killing on work, while Lukas has died of HIV complications.

The Wild Goose Lake
Director: Diao Yinan
Reviewed by Tony Rayns

Back in the days before the Chinese government
cracked down on independent filmmaking (by
REVIEWS
imposing huge fines on anyone who makes
and shows unapproved films), Diao Yinan
directed his debut feature Uniform (Zhifu, 2003),
in which a young slacker ‘borrows’ a police
uniform and finds himself empowered socially
and psychologically. Sixteen years later Diao’s
fourth feature The Wild Goose Lake (Nanfang
Chezhan de Juhui) inverts the idea: the plain-
clothes cops on the trail of a cop-killing gangster
dress up as disco-dancers and bikers to stake out
criminal hide-outs and beat local small-time
gangsters at their own games. Uniform remains
officially unreleased in China, while the new
film, posing as a straightforward noir thriller,
was given the longbiao (‘dragon mark’) seal of
approval by the censors and permitted, as a
French co-production, to compete in Cannes.
Diao graduated from the Central Academy
of Drama in Beijing, and knows a thing or two
about acting. He has even done a bit himself,
notably in Yu Likwai’s All Tomorrow’s Parties
(Mingri Tianya, 2003) and Jia Zhangke’s Ash Is
Purest White (Jianghu Ernü, 2018), but he first
got involved with Chinese movies as a
scriptwriter for Peter Loehr’s company Imar in
the late 1990s. In his time as a writer-for-hire
he specialised in social satire – the highpoint
was probably Zhang Yang’s Shower (Xizao,
1999), framed as a lament for the demise of
Beijing’s neighbourhood bath-houses – and
he’s carried that forward as one strand in his A matter of life and death: Hu Ge
own work as writer-director. But his main
interest is in assumed identities. All four of his estranged wife. Zhou looks and behaves a string of spectacular set pieces, including a
his features to date have hinged on characters like a typical noir protagonist throughout, but brawl lit by a single, swinging light bulb and a
who hide their ‘real’ characters and motives. the plot ultimately turns on Aiai, whose real shootout watched by zoo animals. The imagery
Lake goes one better than the genre feelings and motives remain ambiguous to the and cutting are consistently arresting, but
commonplace that cops and gangsters are end, although she does give Zhou a free blowjob it’s hard to shake the feeling that the visual
mirror images of each other. Here, the cops and before sending him into a potentially fatal trap. razzle-dazzle is a deliberate distraction from
crims are literally indistinguishable: they dress Diao delivers all the classic traits of film underlying themes which might not have
alike, think and behave the same way, adopt noir – from the rain-sodden streets to the casual got past the censor so easily. The allegorical
the same strategies and speak the same local brutality – with flair and gusto, and mounts resonances are, of course, up for debate.
dialect. (It’s Chinese as spoken in the currently
troubled city of Wuhan, although the film Credits and Synopsis
doesn’t name its setting.) Diao underlines the
premise in the opening scenes: the town’s rival
gangs convene in the large basement room of a Produced by (Shanghai) Co., Liu Aiai A town in southern China. Wounded and hiding, gang
Li Li Ltd and China Film Liao Fan leader Zhou Zenong is contacted by the singular
hotel for a lecture-demonstration on the finer Shen Yang International Fund Captain Liu
Screenplay present a Green Ray Wan Qian
prostitute Aiai with a plan to meet his estranged wife
points of motorcycle theft and then a map-based Yang Shujun. They exchange memories of recent events.
Diao Yinan Films (Shanghai) Yang Shujun
proposal to assign ‘turf’ to individual gangs, and Director of Co., Ltd, Maisong Qi Dao At a gathering of gangs to discuss dividing up local
our first glimpse of the cops some ten minutes Photography Entertainment Huahua turf, Zhou’s man Redhead killed a rival gangster in
Dong Jinsong Investment Huang Jue
later shows them planning to tackle motorcycle an argument. Brother Ma tried to resolve the rivalry,
Editors (Shanghai) Co., Yan Ge
thefts by parcelling out streets and districts Kong Jinlei Ltd production Zeng Meihuizi but his plan went wrong when Zhou mistook a cop
Matthieu Laclau In co-production Ping Ping for a gangster and shot him. The police put a large
in exactly the same way. The one difference Production Designer avec Memento Films Zhang Yicong reward on Zhou’s head. Police chief Liu deployed his
between the two sides emerges much later, Liu Qiang Production, ARTE Xiao Dongbei plain-clothes men to the area around Wild Goose Lake,
Music France Cinéma Chen Yongzhong
when several cops pose for a ‘trophy photo’ over B6 With the support of client
where the rival gangs were lying low. Zhou’s friend
the corpse of a man they’ve just gunned down. Sound Design ARTE France, Aide aux Huahua hired Aiai to find Zhou’s wife and bring her to
The gangsters are driven by vicious rivalry, but Zhang Yang Cinémas du Monde, In Colour Junping Restaurant, just as Liu’s men launched a raid
Costume Designer Centre National du [2.35:1] on gangsters and killed Yang’s brother Yang Zhilie.
they don’t ‘celebrate’ their victories like that. Li Hua Cinéma et de l’Image Subtitles
Back in the present, Zhou asks Aiai to turn him in for
The first half of the complicated plot is told Animée - Institut
the reward money and then hand it on to Yang Shujun;
Production français, Memento Distributor
in flashbacks, shared by man-on-the-run Zhou Companies Films International MUBI they agree to meet up again at the lake to effect the
Zenong (played by Hu Ge, an actor-singer He Li Chen Guang Executive Producer plan. At the lake, they make love on a boat. But when
International Shen Yang Chinese Zhou goes to meet his wife he finds himself trapped by
from TV) and odd-woman-out hooker Aiai Culture Media Co., theatrical title
(Taiwanese star Gwei Lunmei, also a lead in Ltd, Omnijoi Media Nanfang Chezhan
his enemy Cat’s Eye. He gets away but is gunned down
Corporation Co., Ltd, Cast de Juhui by Liu’s men after a chase. Liu makes sure that Aiai
Diao’s Black Coal, Thin Ice), with occasional Tencent Pictures Hu Ge gets the reward and drives her to the bank – only to
cutaways to police briefings. Zhou has killed a Culture, Media Co., Zhou Zenong see her rendezvous with Yang Shujun. The two women
cop by mistake; Aiai has been hired by Zhou’s Ltd, Green Ray Films Gwei Lunmei
walk off together, Aiai still clutching the bag of cash.
supposed friends to track down both him and

Home Cinema
HOME CINEMA
Big phoney: Lou Costello (left) and Bud Abbott in Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945)
HE’S WITH STUPID

Against all odds, the over-elaborate, boys still play. A few years back on a visit to the Eltinge Burlesque Theater on 42nd St in New
National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, York City. The following year they put on
Pirandellian gags of the poor New York, I passed a group of adolescents the double yoke and teamed up, with Lou
man’s Laurel and Hardy are still on a field trip watching the ‘Who’s on First?’ playing the easily duped, easily frightened
routine, as seen in 1945’s The Naughty Nineties, manchild and Bud the stiff straight man,
funny. What’s that about? and reader, that tough crowd was losing it. jumped into radio feet first, and in short order
Among convinced Abbott and Costello found the picture people come a-calling.
ABBOTT & COSTELLO: converts, many of us have been whiling away In One Night in the Tropics the fellas appear
THE COMPLETE UNIVERSAL the winter months with Shout! Factory’s 28 under their own names, as they will not do
PICTURES COLLECTION film, 15-disc Blu-ray set, which encompasses again until the two seasons of The Abbott and
Arthur Lubin, Jean Yarbrough, Charles Lamont et al; their entire cinematic output at Universal Costello Show (1952-54), one of their supreme
US 1940-55; Shout! Factory; Region A Blu-ray; 2,285 Pictures, beginning with 1940’s One Night in achievements, in which they play unemployed
minutes; 1.33:1. Extras: theatrical trailers; stills galleries; the Tropics and ending in 1955 with Abbott and layabouts living in a shabby studio-set
production notes; audio commentaries; featurettes: Costello Meet the Mummy. For the novice, this neighbourhood peopled wholly by grotesques,
Abbott and Costello: Their Lives and Legacy, Abbott and will either prove too much or not enough including the hulking fortysomething future
Costello: Film Stories, Abbott & Costello Meet Castle Films; – in my experience Bud and Lou are an all-or- Stooge Joe Besser as a ‘child’ named Stinky,
out-takes from Pardon My Sarong, It Ain’t Hay, Hit the Ice, nothing proposition, something you either wearing an ill-fitting Little Lord Fauntleroy get-
Little Giant and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein take or leave, like coriander or Frank Zappa. up. (This is not the only Three Stooges crossover
Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton The artists were both born New Jerseyites: – Shemp Howard pops up in a number of the
I can’t say exactly where Abbott and Costello William Alexander ‘Bud’ Abbott of Asbury Universal films, with Besser in 1949’s Africa
stand on the spectrum of popular culture, Park; Louis Francis Cristillo, almost ten years Screams.) In their films, however, the duo are
between that which has been somewhat younger, a native of Paterson who’d bummed almost always hung with a number of colourful
intellectually redeemed and that which is still around Hollywood as a stunt man – his facility name-tags: Algy Shaw and Wellington Pflug in
regarded as irredeemable – my impression is that with the poetry of the pratfall is abundantly South Seas paradise parody Pardon My Sarong
they have for some time been stuck somewhere on display here – before coming back east to (1942) serves as a representative sample.
beneath Laurel and Hardy and just above, say, work the burlesque circuit, where in 1935 In their first movie they operate as occasional
the Ritz Brothers – but this much I know: the he met Abbott when both were playing the comic relief from the romantic plotline, which

HOME CINEMA
involves Allan Jones and Robert Cummings vying
for the attentions of Nancy Kelly, and aside from
the fact that Abbott and Costello will receive
New releases
top billing and a greater share of screentime
from that point on, with One Night in the Tropics
the basic elements for their future films are in BLACK ANGEL
place: Abbott and Costello shtick, a romantic Roy William Neill; US 1946; Arrow Academy; Region
plot acted out by marginally charismatic actors B Blu-ray; Certificate PG; 81 minutes; 1.37:1. Extras:
and, usually, musical interludes from the likes audio commentary by historian Alan K. Rode;
of the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald and introduction by Neil Sinyard; trailer; booklet.
the Merry Macs – who all appear in Ride ’Em Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
Cowboy (1942) – or, in Here Come the Co-Eds The golden age of film noir still has a few treasures
(1945), Phil Spitalny and His All-Girl Orchestra, to reveal to us, if this little-known Universal
featuring virtuoso violinist Evelyn Kaye Klein. offering, based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich,
The Abbott and Costello films, which is anything to go by. For one thing, the setting
became assembly-line productions once proven Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945) among jobbing Los Angeles showbiz types is
predictably profitable, can be subdivided into slightly unusual for the genre: after a chanteuse is
phases. Buck Privates (1941) initiated a brief Jewish, his persona, like Jack Benny’s, comes off as murdered, an alcoholic songwriter (Dan Duryea)
armed forces cycle, including In the Navy (1941), a parody of Wasp-dom – here the straight-backed, and the faithful wife (June Vincent) of the chump
which gives them one of their more palatable miserable Anglo-Saxon taskmaster: gruff, stiff, all set to hang for the killing come together to find
romantic lead partners in the form of Dick sharp angles, needlessly cruel and, for the most the real perpetrator. Noir mainstay Peter Lorre is
Powell, and the same year’s Keep ’Em Flying. A part, absolutely sexless, in Keep ’Em Flying found in delicious slithery form as the club owner who’s
spate of genre burlesques then leads to a number toting a placard that reads “UNFAIR TO WOMAN the prime suspect, but finding proof to convince
of horror-comedy releases following the success HATER’S UNION”. It’s Costello, then, who will Broderick Crawford’s hard-nosed cop is another
of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), pair with the very capable comediennes who matter. It’s a strong cast for a relatively modest
which have the duo being chased about by drift through several of their films: Joan Davis, production, though there’s also much pleasure
Universal’s horror-film IP. (Talk about synergy!) with whom he has a delightful dance sequence in here in sharp direction that barely wastes a
These provide ample opportunities for Costello Hold That Ghost, and frequent Donald O’Connor frame, superb design giving us a stylish lair for
to enact the elaborate pantomimes of terror – the co-star Peggy Ryan in Here Come the Co-Eds. Lorre’s presumed iniquities, and even specially
scared-stupid spluttering and panicky double- Costello is the lovable one, but Abbott is written songs with thought-through lyrics adding
takes – that are such a large part of his act, already grimly fascinating – an instigator, an Iago, his romantic yearning to the escalating tension.
very much in play in the proto-Scooby Doo slightly-too-close-together eyes only lighting up One certainly emerges with new respect for
haunted-house caper Hold That Ghost (1941). when he sees an opportunity to skin a sucker Roy William Neill. He’s remembered if at all
From film to film, the routines recur with the in dice or cards. (Another recurring bit: Costello for many of Universal’s Basil Rathbone/Nigel
most minor variations: a bit involving Costello always comes out on top.) The team are already Bruce Sherlock Holmes series but here, given
being driven into hysterics by a mysteriously an acquired taste, but Bud Abbott is for true twice his usual budget, he motivates everyone
moving candle is in both Hold That Ghost and Meet connoisseurs. A piece from Esquire magazine in concerned to deliver an unassuming gem of
Frankenstein – if it worked once, it’ll be just as good July 1964, written by Robert Benton and David studio-era craft – a film that’s so much better
another time. Costello, of the fireplug physique, Newman, later the authors of the screenplay than it probably needed to be. From the assured
does the most visible heavy lifting in the duo. He for Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, proposes a leads right down to characterful supporting
is a fount of catchphrases –“Heyyyyyyy, Abbott!” distinction between the Old Sentimentality that players, everyone makes their mark. Historian
and the bleated “I’m a baaaaaaad boy!” – and idolised movie stars and the New Sentimentality Alan K. Rode’s splendid commentary is especially
other recognisable and imitable ejaculations in which “a minor character actor who happens strong in teasing out biographical nuggets,
which include a variety of expressive whistles, to excite us in a personal way is a real celebrity”. such as the club bouncer who was a former
a horror-stricken words-fail wheeze that sounds Alongside Timothy Carey, Ringo Starr and Barton world champion boxer, and also offers a gold-
like an engine struggling to turn over, and the MacLane, they list “Abbott but not Costello”. standard anecdote about Brod Crawford and
slightly simian “Oooooh oooooh ooooh!” (I’m In fact, it’s difficult to imagine one without Frank Sinatra’s toupee. For genre buffs it’s an
particularly fond of his creative ‘profanities’, the other, as Dean Martin existed without Jerry irresistible package, and a delight to discover a
such as “AW, BIFFLE-DIFFLE”, invariably Lewis. Film to film, Abbott and Costello portray previously unlauded diamond in the noir vein,
followed up with “Now ya made me say a bad attached-at-the-hip, mutually resentful ‘pals’, not dulled by over-familiarity on late-night TV.
word.”) Short and husky, sporting ever-present bonded by mysterious mutual dependency, Disc: A clean HD transfer, though the highlight
armpit stains, he’s a deceptively spry athlete, usually co-workers on the verge of being canned is Rode’s superb commentary, delivering fact-
graceful in his clumsiness, though often the from a dead-end job – Who Done It? (1942), packed detail covering every aspect of the film’s
films eschew more involved slapstick gags for for instance, has them as soda jerks itching to production. It’s complemented by Neil Sinyard’s
interminable rear-projection chase scenes. bust into the radio murder-mystery racket. It’s video intro, which sees the story as a fascinating
Abbott’s own ‘catchphrases’ are mostly just perhaps the most wholly enjoyable of the early pen portrait of troubled author Cornell Woolrich.
a litany of opprobrium directed towards his 40s films, their first without musical interludes,
partner: “That’s no way to act,” “Will you listen with one of the slightly Pirandellian, play-acting- ENDLESS NIGHT
to me?” and, especially, “What’s the matter with become-real premises that are the stock-in-trade Sidney Gilliat; UK 1972; Powerhouse/Indicator; Region B
you?” The facts of Abbott’s ethnic background are of their movies: a broadcast studio specialising in Blu-ray; Certificate 15; 100 minutes; 1.85:1. Extras: interviews
somewhat hazy, but even if he was indeed half- whodunnits becomes scene of one, only solved with actor Hayley Mills and soundtrack collaborator Howard
by the careful broadcast staging of a whodunnit. Blake; appreciation by Neil Sinyard; archive audio interviews
Costello is lovable, but Abbott Their routines could be maddeningly elaborate with Sidney Gilliat and Bernard Herrmann; trailer; booklet.
– see the multiplication bit in In the Navy – but Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
is grimly fascinating – an they never broached sophistication, which Having cut his teeth writing scripts for Walter
instigator, an Iago, eyes lighting is part of their glory. An exchange from Meet
the Mummy – Lou: “How stupid can you get?”
Forde in the early 30s, Sidney Gilliat went on
to write, produce and direct – mostly in
up at a chance to skin a sucker Bud: “How stupid do you want me to be?” partnership with Frank Launder – dozens

New releases
of effective comedies, thrillers and wartime elements add considerable value. These include point treading on a high-up hotel window ledge,
HOME CINEMA
morale-boosters: The Lady Vanishes (1938) Gilliat’s recollections of his formative years in months before Lloyd’s Safety Last (but not nearly
for Hitchcock, Millions Like Us (1943), the St. the industry, and a remarkable document of a as daringly). The lavishly illustrated title cards can
Trinian’s films… It’s sad that, having contributed Bernard Herrmann appearance at the BFI, giving be on the nose, but the action is deft, detailed and
so much to British cinema, Gilliat was cast off at a his opinionated take on the distinctive nature comically sharp, if not particularly inventive.
relatively youthful 64 after the lukewarm critical of film music, plus horse’s-mouth testimony Disc: Restored by the Library of Congress,
response for this adaptation of one of Agatha on the making of Citizen Kane, The Magnificent the films look great, though Bell Boy 13 is the
Christie’s least typical novels. Saddening not least Ambersons and Psycho – all of which he scored. fuzzier of the two. The accompanying Ince
because it’s a fascinating, enterprising film which studio promo short is fascinating, advertising
sits more comfortably with the baroque Italian THE DOUGLAS MACLEAN stars as well as showing us how negatives are
giallo of its day than the usual snooze-worthy COLLECTION rolled, sets are built and studios are maintained.
British expectations of a Christie whodunnit. ONE A MINUTE / BELL BOY 13 Ben Model’s new scores are, typically, bouncy,
From the moment the opening sequence packs Jack Nelson/William A. Seiter; US 1921/23; Undercrank unobtrusive and faithful to the day and age.
in weird colour-filters and a faceless masked Productions; region-free DVD; 56/44 minutes; 1.33:1.
woman over a turbulent Bernard Herrmann Extras: new Ben Model scores, promo short A Trip Through RELAXER
score pitched to higher levels of anxiety by an the World’s Greatest Motion Picture Studios (1920). Joel Potrykus; US 2018; Anti-Worlds; region-free Blu-ray;
interjecting Moog synthesiser, we know we’re Reviewed by Michael Atkinson Certificate 18; 91 minutes; 1.85:1. Extras: commentary by
not in the realm of Miss Marple and Hercule A beacon in the briefly lit firmament of Thomas Joel Potrykus; selection of Potrykus’s shorts 1999-2019 –
Poirot. What follows is an ominous slow build, as Ince’s studio empire, Douglas MacLean thrived The Ludivico Treatment, The Ludivico Testament, Coyote,
socially mobile chancer Hywel Bennett and his as a comedy leading man from the late teens to Test Market 447b; deleted scene; behind the scenes and
super-wealthy new wife Hayley Mills build their the cusp of the talkie era, averaging three films a rehearsal footage; Potrykus-directed music video; trailer and
dream house on the English south coast, only to year for a dozen years before retiring into a low- promos. Disc Two: Potrykus’s feature Buzzard (US 2014, 97
be assailed by doomy rumblings about a curse key 30s career producing and writing comedies minutes, 1.78:1). Extras: commentary by Potrykus; alternative
on the property, her nasty scheming family and for W.C. Fields, Wheeler & Woolsey, Bing version of Buzzard comprising rehearsal footage; deleted/
bitchy best pal Britt Ekland – until, more than an Crosby and Charles Ruggles. MacLean’s screen alternative scenes; behind the scenes footage; guide to
hour in, death enters the fray. There follows a big character is always alert, acutely sympathetic, film’s ‘Easter eggs’; short documentary Buzzard at Locarno
reveal which suggests that everything we’ve just never quite clueless, and endearingly upbeat, International Film Festival; image gallery; trailers; booklet.
seen is an elaborate deception, viewed through with a great display of startled anxiety when Reviewed by Josh Slater-Williams
the distorting prism of a very frayed psyche. the scenario demands it. In other words, he put Although only one title makes the front cover,
The frisson of that expert rug-pulling moment no one off – like a sophomore Harold Lloyd, this package from new distribution outfit Anti-
aside, the film’s period trappings deliver their own but with no airs of auteurship about him; his Worlds is evenly split between two of Michigan
delights, what with production designer Wilfred films are polished mainstream programmers, writer-director Joel Potrykus’s four independent
Shingleton’s outrageous modern mansion for the built to wash easily over audiences. features to date: Relaxer (2018) and Buzzard (2014),
ill-fated couple (including interior swimming- The stories are classic hokum of the day, both unreleased in the UK. His genre-bending
pool under retractable floor), snooty relative but the quickness of editing and acting makes films have earned him regular backing from the
Lois Maxwell’s flower-power dresses, and an them feel something less than dated. One a US distributor Oscilloscope and ardent fans in
eye-catching advert for Green Shield Stamps. An Minute has MacLean’s law student return to his generational peers like Alex Ross Perry, writer of a
array of British acting notables, including George late father’s failing drug store, only to revive Filmmaker essay republished in this set’s booklet.
Sanders (his final film), Peter Bowles and Windsor it – amorally, it would seem – by concocting Both features here star Joshua Burge and
Davies, adds worthwhile texture, while Gilliat’s an entirely fake ‘patent’ panacea which does, are portraits of stunted masculinity and
disorienting formal flourishes provoke sudden however, seem to actually cure everyone of stagnation – literally in the Buñuelian Relaxer,
chills Dario Argento would have been proud of. everything. Complications with the law ensue, in which Burge is confined to a couch for the
A very useful reissue for an unjustly overlooked but the path the film takes toward moral narrative’s months-spanning entirety. In the
title, which did great business in Italy under the messaging is tortuous, to say the least – and it commentary for Relaxer, Potrykus notes the
even better title Champagne After the Funeral. visits multiple racist stereotypes along the way. influence of The Exterminating Angel (1962) and
Disc: A truthful 4K transfer preserves the murky Bell Boy 13 is a more trad rich-boy-goes-to-work Buster Keaton, the latter due in part to Burge’s
early 70s skin tones, while the disc’s archive audio affair, with an always-scrambling MacLean at one facial resemblance to the deadpan icon.
Potrykus’s (hardly) working-class young men
could be described as rudderless, except they do
have a few clear aims – just self-destructive ones.
Abbie in Relaxer tries to break an unbeatable
video-game record in one filmed sitting, only
to suffer a psychological collapse. The angry
Marty in Buzzard commits excessive effort to
the most idiotic small-time scams, and makes
a passion project of transforming a Nintendo
accessory into a Freddy Krueger-like claw.
A fascinating supernatural energy pervades
both, though more explicitly in Relaxer’s
alternative future of a Y2K apocalypse, which
also features a shadow-shot conversation that
could come straight out of a Pedro Costa effort.
Another unlikely European influence on these
empathetic explorations of ‘Rust Belt’ working-
class milieux would seem to be Finnish director
Aki Kaurismäki, whose laconic comic style
Potrykus filters through his own uniquely
grubby scenarios and distinct eccentrics.
Disc: A particularly sweet extras highlight
Christie love: Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett in Endless Night is a video diary of Buzzard’s appearance at

Revival
HOME CINEMA
GUILT COMPLEX
Stanley Kramer’s post-war
courtroom drama, once damned
as dull, emerges as a fluent, subtle
examination of Nazi morality
JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG
Stanley Kramer; US 1961; BFI; Region B Blu-ray and Region 2
DVD; Certificate 15; 179 minutes; 1.66:1. Extras: commentary
by Jim Hemphill; interview with Maximilian Schell (audio
only); interview with Abby Mann; interview with Abby Mann
and Maximilian Schell; tribute to Stanley Kramer; four
documentary shorts; featurette; trailer; stills gallery; booklet.
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
As a director, Stanley Kramer was by no means
universally admired. He was often labelled
heavy-handed and preachy, and the critic David
Thomson notoriously wrote him off as “a hollow,
pretentious man, too dull for art, too cautious
for politics”. Judgment at Nuremberg, Thomson
added, was “deeply depressing”. Rewatching
Judgment almost 60 years after its release, it’s
hard to concur. Following closely on from Inherit
the Wind (1960), it confirms Kramer’s skill at
keeping a courtroom drama visually fluent
and involving, avoiding any risk of stasis. And
thanks to Abby Mann’s scrupulously subtle,
morally shaded script, the three-hour running Moment of truth: Judy Garland as witness Irene Hoffmann-Wallner in Judgment at Nuremberg
time never drags. Earnest, yes; dull, no.
The action is set in 1948 – one year later than Garland and Clift’s contributions are script. (Of Judgment’s 11 Oscar nominations,
the trial of Nazi jurists on which it is based in fact relatively brief but crucial. Garland plays Mann and Schell were the sole winners.) Raising
took place, but significantly allowing it to coincide a Berlin housewife who, as a teenager, was far more questions than it answers, it refuses
with the Berlin Airlift and the Soviet takeover of accused of having sex with an elderly Jewish to resort to easy black-and-white judgements
Czechoslovakia. The big-league trial of the major friend; she was jailed and he was executed for about guilt and innocence. Above all, it presents
party leaders – Goering, Hess, Speer, Streicher – is this racially proscribed liaison. Clift plays a us with the central dilemma: if the duty of a
long past, and public interest has waned, making mentally challenged baker’s assistant, forcibly judge is to administer the law of his country as
it plausible that an obscure figure like Judge Dan sterilised under the Nazi eugenics policy. formulated by its government – then if that law
Haywood (Spencer Tracy), self-described as “a hick Both actors, in poor health at the time and is evil, can he be considered complicit in its evil?
from the backwoods of Maine”, is appointed to nearing the end of their truncated careers Kramer’s boldest move was to introduce
preside over this trial of judges and prosecutors. (they were each to make only two more actuality footage of the concentration camps
Judgment started out in 1959 as an episode, films, dying in their mid-40s), bring a moving – the piled-up skeletal bodies, the shivering,
scripted by Mann, of CBS’s prestige Playhouse 90 emotional fragility to their performances. anguished survivors – shown to the court by the
series. Of the TV cast only Maximilian Schell, But the outstanding star of the film is Mann’s prosecuting attorney (Widmark). The inclusion
as defence attorney Hans Rolfe, and Werner of this footage aroused widespread objections,
Klemperer (son of the great German-Jewish Thanks to Abby Mann’s and probably contributed to the film’s box-office
conductor Otto Klemperer, and famous for
Hogan’s Heroes) as the most defiantly obdurate
scrupulously subtle, morally failure – as did the suggestion, towards the end
of the trial, that pressure is put on the judges
of the accused judges, reprised their roles in the shaded script, the three-hour to go easy on the defendants, since Germany’s
film version. Kramer had wanted to cast largely support is now considered vital in the face of
unknowns, but was vetoed by United Artists running time never drags the Soviet threat. Haywood’s verdict, where he
who insisted on prestige box-office names. warns that no nation is immune to the infection
This was no bad thing, as it turned out. From of rabid nationalism, probably didn’t help
Tracy’s self-deprecating Haywood, doggedly either. All the more relevant today, of course.
striving to understand how one of Europe’s Unlike some previous releases, the film’s
most cultured nations could have succumbed to presented in its full original ratio of 1.66:1. Of
such vicious savagery, the whole cast – Marlene the two discs in the set, the movie is on Blu-ray
Dietrich, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Schell, while an accompanying DVD houses the bulk
Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift and yes, even of the extras. The latter presents a lavishly
William Shatner – rise to the challenge of the wide-ranging choice of offerings, including a
probing, intelligent script and the questions it detailed contemporary account of the 1948-
raises. Lancaster, as the judge who was once the 49 Berlin airlift, and a chilling 1937 British
most respected among the accused, preserves a instructional short, fronted by Julian Huxley,
stubborn silence until, at the film’s climax, he showing that dangerous eugenic advocacy was
erupts in an outburst of guilt and self-loathing. Richard Widmark, Judy Garland, Howard Caine by no means confined to Nazi Germany.

Streaming
HOME CINEMA
MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE
A series about a pair of New
Delhi-based wedding planners
is proving a good match in the
booming Indian streaming market
MADE IN HEAVEN
Reviewed by Naman Ramachandran
A brightly lit Indian wedding is what most
international audiences would expect from a
Bollywood production, and that is exactly how
Amazon Prime Video’s Made in Heaven opens.
But while there is a Bollywood sheen to the
proceedings throughout, series creators Zoya
Akhtar (Gully Boy, 2019), Reema Kagti (Gold,
2019) and co-writer Alankrita Shrivastava
(Dolly Kitty and Those Twinkling Stars, 2019)
delve below the surface gloss to examine the
deep fissures in contemporary Indian society.
The series is named after a New Delhi-based
wedding planning agency, Made in Heaven,
run by Karan Mehra (Arjun Mathur) and Tara
Khanna (Sobhita Dhulipala). Unlike the super-
rich clients whose progeny’s weddings they Best laid plans: Made in Heaven explores issues of class and sexuality in modern-day India
plan, Karan and Tara are middle-class. Karan’s
character is a rarity in screen portrayals in TV+ and Mubi are also present in India but
India in that he is openly, defiantly gay, and
While it has a Bollywood haven’t yet announced any original content.
the series does not shy away from depictions sheen, ‘Made in Heaven’ delves It is local streamers, however, such as
of gay sex. While homosexuality is no longer ALTBalaji and Zee5, that drive the real
illegal in India, it is still not widely accepted in beneath the surface to examine volume, although they don’t have the deep
what remains a deeply conservative society.
Tara has clawed her way into the ranks of
deep fissures in Indian society pockets of their international rivals. Rather
than target the urban demographic, they’re
the elite by marrying into the Khanna family. Disney’s Hotstar is the undisputed market looking to second- and third-tier Indian cities.
Her husband, the industrialist Adil (Jim leader, with more than 300 million monthly ALTBalaji is commissioning bold, sexually
Sarbh), is having an affair with his old friend active users. Its original offerings include local frank shows. Gandi Baat, available on both
Faiza Naqvi (Kalki Koechlin), who is from versions of Criminal Justice and The Office. Sister ALTBalaji and Zee5, began in 2018, and tells
the same socioeconomic background as him. channel Disney+ is due to launch at the end of erotically charged stories set in rural and small-
India has always been riven by caste and class March. Netflix, meanwhile, has made a splash town India. It is now in its fourth season.
differences and the entertainment industry with Sacred Games, a loose adaptation of Vikram While television continues to be the focus for
has long been mining this for drama. Series Chandra’s bestselling Mumbai underworld family viewing, streaming content is increasingly
co-creator Akhtar’s last film Gully Boy, set in novel, and Delhi Crime, a harrowing account a solo activity, with the majority of people
the slums of Mumbai, poignantly explored of the investigation following a notorious watching on their phones. With some of the
the same terrain. Made in Heaven too, brutally gang rape in Delhi in 2012. Successes for cheapest data rates in the world, and the number
exposes this aspect of everyday life in the Amazon include the spy thriller The Family of smartphone users projected to rise to 442
country, showing the way, for example, that Man, the World War II drama The Forgotten million by 2022, it’s no wonder that the streamers
an intern at the agency, Jaspreet Kaur (Shivani Army and the crime thriller Mirzapur. Apple are scrambling to create Indian content.
Raghuvanshi), is constantly reminded that she
is from one of the less salubrious parts of Delhi.
Made in Heaven also tackles subjects such MORE STREAMING RECOMMENDATIONS
as superstition, impotency and marriages
of convenience. If all this makes the series Enlightened would like to befriend. When we meet her
sound ponderous, it is not. Dividing directorial The ‘Laura Dern-aissance’ arguably began back she is living at home with her mum (Dern’s
duties episodically, Akhtar, Nitya Mehra with this HBO series, which ran for two seasons real-life mother, Diane Ladd) in a Californian
(Baar Baar Dekho), Shrivastava and Prashant between 2011-13 and then largely disappeared suburb, having sabotaged her career at a big
Nair (Umrika), display a lightness of touch from view, despite being a clear forerunner company and gone to rehab in Hawaii. She
that keeps the series the right side of mass of such later women-centred dramas as Big returns to work, now demoted – but begins
entertainment, sugar-coating the pill as it Little Lies (itself, of course, a key factor in the to question the company’s ethos, and finds a
were. A second season is in the works. revival of Dern’s fortunes). Created by Dern purpose in activism. With episodes directed
The Indian streaming market is booming, with writer-director Mike White, who wrote all by Todd Haynes, Jonathan Demme and Nicole
with more than 30 active platforms. The episodes and also co-stars, it earned Dern a Holofcener, it’s a great, acutely insightful tragi-
sector will be worth £1.3 billion by 2023, Golden Globe, but never found the audience comedy richly deserving rediscovery, and is
according to a 2019 PriceWaterhouseCoopers it so deserved. Dern plays Amy Jellicoe, a thankfully now available to stream on HBO,
industry report, with thousands of hours of woman with a gift for irritating everyone she and via platforms such as NowTV.
original content already commissioned.

New releases
the Locarno Film Festival in 2014, in which
HOME CINEMA
Potrykus presents an elated Dario Argento
with a T-shirt worn in the film, its design based
on Argento-produced horror Demons (1985).
THE SON OF THE SHEIK

George Fitzmaurice; US 1926; Eureka/Masters of
Cinema; Region B Blu-ray and Region 2 DVD dual
format; Certificate U; 69 minutes; 1.37:1. Extras: video
essay by David Cairns; intro by Orson Welles; booklet.
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
The Son of the Sheik, observes David Cairns in
his enjoyably sardonic video essay ‘Loitering
Within Tent’, is to be regarded “not as a work of
art, because arguably it isn’t”. Hard to disagree.
For his part, Orson Welles in his intro suggests
we should consider it “a flamboyant, tongue-in-
the-cheek romp”. Certainly it’s not to be taken
seriously for a moment. It looks good, thanks to
George Barnes’s cinematography and William
Cameron Menzies’s production design. But its
chief significance is as the final movie of the
greatest screen heartthrob of the 1920s – or Sandy denizens: Peter van Eyck, Carroll Baker and Mario Adorf in Station Six-Sahara
perhaps of any era – Rudolph Valentino, who died
of peritonitis, aged 31, only days before its release. shot, irreverent and surprisingly poignant release on disc of Station Six-Sahara, until now
It was always easy to mock Valentino, even account of the Profumo affair, was carved out a film so hard to find that I once chose it as my
at the height of his stardom. (Stan Laurel, in his of screenwriter Michael Thomas’s original subject for the ‘Lost and Found’ column (S&S,
pre-Hardy days, wickedly sent him up as Rhubarb four-and-a-half hour miniseries after UK TV September 2011). It has also long been a favourite
Vaselino.) Rumours persisted that he was gay; outlets had been put under quiet political of Martin Scorsese, who values its intense,
his first wife, a lesbian, left him on their wedding pressure to refuse it. This release’s plain- sweaty atmosphere and sense of isolation.
night. But his popularity was phenomenal: it’s speaking extras – especially Stephen Woolley’s The setting is a remote oil station in northern
said there were more than 100,000 mourners audio commentary with Thomas – offer a Africa, where the fraught relations between a
at his funeral, predominantly female, and that wealth of useful titbits like this, including a group of workers from disparate backgrounds
three women committed suicide at the news of fascinating account of Harvey Weinstein’s close (Scotland, Middle England, Spain, Germany)
his death. There was never much depth to his personal interest in the film’s nude scenes. are amplified by the sudden, surreal event
acting, though he’d improved considerably since Reworked into a twisted platonic love story of an American car crashing into their base.
The Sheik (1920), to which this is the sequel; and between Joanne Whalley’s vulnerable, fun- Its male passenger is injured, but his partner
he even plays a dual role, portraying the hero of loving Christine Keeler and John Hurt’s louche, emerges unscathed – Carroll Baker, a worldly
the earlier film along with his son. For its period, social-climbing Stephen Ward, Scandal is a wise, sexually confident young women who
the split-screen work is impressively convincing. Sirkian melodrama delivered with voyeuristic effortlessly provokes the lusts of the men.
The film’s plot presents its problems, and verve. Orgies, kitschy, tit-flashing floorshows Baker was renowned for the thumb-sucking
not just for being ludicrous. The hero falls in and the infamous Cliveden skinny-dipping teenage temptress she played in Elia Kazan’s
love with a dancer, Yasmin, charmingly played are created with a knowing but resolutely Baby Doll (1956), and Station Six-Sahara
by Hungarian-born Vilma Bánky in only her male gaze; and while the film takes aim at the was one of her attempts to shed this image.
third Hollywood role. (Her second, The Eagle hypocrisy of the early 60s, it’s long on 80s female Nevertheless, the film’s distributors were very
in 1925, also teamed her with Valentino under eye-candy – only Bridget Fonda’s cheerfully keen to promote her as playing the role of an
George Fitzmaurice’s direction.) But when calculating Mandy Rice-Davies exhibits any ultimate male fantasy. Not that the screenplay
he’s led to believe she lured him into the agency. Hurt’s fondly prurient Ward, procurer – deftly written by Bryan Forbes and Brian
clutches of her father’s villainous gang, who and then pariah to the British Establishment, Clemens, and based on a stage play – neglects to
rob and torture him, he revenges himself on becomes the film’s wounded protagonist in highlight the delusional posturing of the men
her by raping her. Despite this, the two end up a subtle and wrenching performance that surrounding her. But ultimately what overrides
blissfully united in the film’s lushly romantic eventually overshadows Keeler’s predicament. the undeniable absurdities and contrivances
final shot, as he gallops off across the desert The final scene, with its slow-mo cigarette ashes- of the plot is the totally cinematic direction of
on his horse with her in his arms. The episode to-ashes symbolism, is some of his finest work. Seth Holt, who showed so much promise while
leaves a questionable tone on what’s otherwise Disc: A luscious transfer, in which the much- working for Ealing and Hammer, but whose
a diverting farrago of prime studio exoticism. copied ‘warpaint’ dressing sequence, cut to career was cut short by alcoholism. Holt really
Disc: A clean and almost flaw-free The Shadows’ ‘Apache’, pops with lipsticked knew how to build sequences and possessed a
print, with entertaining extras. panache. Thoughtful, in-depth extras are a sophisticated grasp of image and sound while
boon, especially producer Stephen Woolley’s eliciting strong performances from his cast
SCANDAL appraisal of the different perspective that (which includes Denholm Elliott and a superb
Michael Caton-Jones; UK 1989; BFI; Region B Blu-ray he’d apply to Ward today. Caton-Jones’s free Ian Bannen). It’s interesting that among the
and Region 2 DVD dual format; Certificate 18; 115 mins; and frank interview is the plum feature. credits are producer Gene Gutowski and editor
1.85:1. Extras: commentary by producer Stephen Woolley Alastair McIntyre, both of whom were key
and writer Michael Thomas; commentary by Michael STATION SIX-SAHARA collaborators on Roman Polanski’s Repulsion
Caton-Jones; The Minister, the Model & the Russian Spy: Seth Holt; UK 1962; Network; Region B Blu-ray/Region (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966), films curiously
Making Scandal (2010); new interviews with Caton- 2 DVD (separate releases); Certificate 15; 102 minutes; foreshadowed in Station Six-Sahara. Apparently
Jones and Woolley; Dusty Springfield/Pet Shop Boys 1.66:1. Extras: trailer; stills; original campaign book. Buñuel was Holt’s favourite director, and
‘Nothing Has Been Proved’ music video (1989). Reviewed by David Thompson there are plenty of echoes of his work, too.
Reviewed by Kate Stables “Torrid Carroll Baker and Five Lusty Men” Disc: A very good transfer, but otherwise
Michael Caton-Jones’s debut film, an elegantly promises the trailer included on this first a frustratingly threadbare release.

Archive Television by Robert Hanks
PETER GUNN
HOME CINEMA
Blake Edwards; US 1958-61; Amazon Prime.

Painstaking craftsmanship, long years
labouring in the garret to produce a work of
unprecedented genius, are all very well, but
more and more I find I lean toward the quick ’n’
dirty – to the pulp writers and B directors, the
Georges Simenons and Joseph H. Lewises, who
ignore the dictates of art in favour of budget,
deadline and audience appeal, and once in a
while happen to knock off a masterpiece.
Peter Gunn – which is now on Amazon Prime
– ran for 114 episodes over three seasons. Even
at a tight 26 minutes or so an episode, that’s a
lot of plot and dialogue to be churning out, but
for the most part it feels remarkably slick and
unhurried. Blake Edwards – who’s credited as
creator and producer: in effect, the showrunner
– seems to have worked on the assumption
that the important thing is to establish style
and mood, and not worry too much about
minor details like plot and emotion. (It’s the
same logic that has convinced generations
of impressionable youth that there might be
anything in the characters of Edwards’s 1962
Breakfast at Tiffany’s to like or emulate.)
Peter Gunn is a private eye in a city that’s
presumably Los Angeles, though I don’t think
it’s ever named. Edwards actually said out loud
that he modelled Gunn on Cary Grant, and Grant
was gracious enough, or incentivised enough, to
show up for publicity shots. The man given the
unenviable task of trying to live up to this hype
was Craig Stevens, a minor but maybe rising
film star – he’d had a small but crucial role in
Otto Preminger’s noir Where the Sidewalk Ends
(1950), as the grifter Dana Andrews’s brutal cop Peter Gunn In another setting, perhaps Craig
accidentally kills, and just before Gunn he’d been
second-billed in Buchanan Rides Alone (1958), Stevens would have seemed merely stolid, but here
the last of the Randolph Scott-Budd Boetticher
westerns. Of course, Stevens is no Cary Grant – of
you can read him as imperturbable, even cool
course! – but there is a superficial, stunt-double
resemblance, underlined by some sharply cut Apart from Edie, Pete’s main relationship is ‘Edge of the Knife’, in season two, features Hope
suits (references to Gunn’s dress-sense crop with Lieutenant Jacoby (Herschel Bernardi), Summers as an elderly pickpocket called Leather
up fairly regularly), and at times he seems a harassed police detective in what appears who has supposedly gone straight but can’t help
to be doing a passable impression of Grant’s to be a criminally undermanned local police rhapsodising to Gunn about the joy of the snatch
accent. In another setting, perhaps Stevens department; he complains a lot about Pete – inspiration clearly the dip played by Thelma
would have seemed merely stolid, but here you bothering him for favours and stretching the Ritter in Sam Fuller’s Pickup on South Street (1953).
can read him as imperturbable, even cool. law, but given how often Pete cracks big cases But the traffic isn’t all one way. The opening of the
The context is, above all, jazz. Henry Mancini or pulls him out of jams that seems ungracious. first ever episode, in which traffic cops pull a car
contributed the driving, bass- and brass-heavy Most of Gunn’s cases are in the city, but he over and then open fire on the gangster inside,
theme tune and some cool, atmospheric does venture out into scrubby California was ripped off wholesale in John Milius’s script
background music; there always seems to be a countryside (Jacoby’s jurisdiction turns out to for the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force (1973).
band or a jukebox playing. Gunn works mostly be usefully elastic), and as the series progresses Peter Gunn is nearly always slick and fun,
out of a bar called Mother’s, run in the first season we see a bit less of Edie and the club, a little and once in a while the elements gel to create
by Hope Emerson, the ex-strongwoman who was more travelogue (though the ‘locations’– Italy, something that feels surprisingly like art. I’d
a terrifying female heavy in Cry of the City (1948) Spain, in one episode Manchester – are so clearly single out the season two episode ‘The Comic’,
and lifted Spencer Tracy over her head in Adam’s studio-bound that it hardly seems worth it). starring Shelley Berman as a standup comic who
Rib (1949). Mother’s has a resident band with a The storylines can get samey – Pete runs up hires Gunn because he believes his wife is trying
blonde chantooze called Edie (Lola Albright), against enough mob bosses to get you wondering to have him killed. The edits are pointed – a
who’s Pete’s girl; she does a song most episodes, how one city’s economy manages to support this fast cut to a blaring trumpet, a devastating final
in between backchat with Pete about whether many mobs – and sometimes contrived. Quite iris to black – and in the last five minutes, with
he’s actually her boyfriend and whether he often, the plots seem oddly familiar. In the season Berman on stage, under the spotlight, sweating
wants to come over to her place tonight. A lot of one episode ‘The Chinese Hangman’, Gunn is through a routine that verges on the existential,
Gunn’s cases take him into a world of music and sent abroad to find a woman who has made off the shadowy black-and-white cinematography
general hepness, and aficionados will recognise with a lot of money, and then finds himself falling pushes towards a vivid paranoia. It’s a reminder
some of the players who crop up – the trumpeter for his quarry: it’s basically a retread of Out of the of the good things Edwards did on the big
Shorty Rogers and Larry Bunker, who drummed Past (1949). ‘Death House Testament’ has Pete screen – the noirish An Experiment in Terror, the
for Bill Evans in the 60s. An LP of music from kidnapped and doped up in a phoney nut-house diagram of ordinary people breaking down like
the show topped the US jazz charts for a while. just like Philip Marlowe in Farewell, My Lovely. Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Only it’s better.

Lost and Found
AMANECE, QUE NO ES POCO
HOME CINEMA
OVERLOOKED FILMS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE ON UK DVD OR BLU-RAY
The late José Luis Cuerda’s satirical
masterpiece has not travelled
outside Spain: it’s long past
time that situation changed
By Mar Diestro-Dópido
A typical exchange in José Luis Cuerda’s canonical
Amanece, que no es poco (1989 – ‘Dawn Breaks,
Which Is No Small Thing’) plays out as follows:
– I miss mother…
– OK… but don’t you like the
motorbike I bought you?
– It’s formidable (…) but why did you kill
her, father?
– She was evil.
– Oh, come on father!
– I waited until you were a grown-up to tell
you (…) and now that you have an academic
post in Oklahoma, why would you need her?
– I don’t know… I’m on sabbatical
and have nothing to do.
– That’s why a motorbike with a sidecar
is better; so we can see the world. Sidecar with a twist: Antonio Resines and Luis Ciges in José Luis Cuerda’s ‘surruralist’ film
Cuerda’s shrewd film is a prime example of

esperpento – a quintessentially Spanish genre
For Cuerda, surrealism’s in a tiny, archaic and isolated Castilian town
called London – a shepherd explains to the
characterised by the representation of a distorted immediacy and improvisation, viewer how three days earlier he experienced the
reality, in which ludicrously black humour, barbed- end of the world. This is not unlike the closing
wire sociopolitical comments and a scathing could never co-exist with scene of Amenece…, which finds father and son
denunciation of religion feature prominently.
Cuerda, sadly, died in February, aged 72, but his
cinema’s intrinsic need to plan invited to witness what a civil guard describes
lyrically as the most outstanding sunrise he’s
uniquely absurdist take on life survives in the of folkloric vignettes walk a tightrope between ever experienced. Except, according to his
many filmmakers he influenced, as well as in irreverence and grotesquery – singing farmers watch, the sun is running 15 minutes late, and
his fervent cult followers, those amanecistas, or delve into dialectical materialism in order to then it rises from the wrong direction. Fooled
‘sunrisers’, who can recite the script’s every word become intellectuals; visitors can get a room for and furious, he starts shooting at the blazing
with a reverence normally reserved for the Bible. the night if they cite Dostoevsky; women give sphere while shouting “Goddamn mystery!”
When Amanece… was unleashed on the birth immediately after intercourse; a young Note that I haven’t used the term ‘surrealism’;
Spanish film scene in 1989, it was initially man repeatedly fails to commit suicide. It’s a for Cuerda this was impossible in film, since
received with utter stupefaction. The story of world where rice rains from the sky and men in his view surrealism’s main characteristics,
an engineer travelling to an idiosyncratic small sprout from the ground, at the expense of the immediacy and improvisation, could never co-
town perched in the Spanish sierra with his landowners: “You have no idea how much men exist with cinema’s intrinsic need to plan ahead.
father in tow, as they unknowingly head into suck up, they leave the soil completely dry.” Instead, he referred to his style as ‘surruralism’,
the apocalypse (be it the world’s or that of an Amenece… was born out of Total, an hour-long explaining: “What I write tends to be full of ideas
imploding society’s), is almost impossible to film made for TV that won the jury prize and that may seem a load of nonsense, but which are
categorise. Yet its bloodline can be traced back the critics’ award at the Monte Carlo television born from reality itself.” In Amanece…, a sort of
to Goya’s Caprichos, the Buñuel of Viridiana festival in 1983. In Total – set in the year 2598, hyper-reality meets Spanish picaresque, giving
(1961), Almodóvar at his most socially biting birth to a rural comedy of manners in which the
(particularly What Have I Done to Deserve This, traditions of a particular community – religious
1984; and Dark Habits, 1983) and, of course, WHAT THE PAPERS SAID or otherwise – become twisted out of recognition.
Cuerda’s beloved collaborations between the Writer-director of internationally praised
director Luis García Berlanga and the writer titles such as The Enchanted Forest (1987), Cuerda
Rafael Azcona, films such as The Executioner ‘A ingenious non-sensical
‘An also produced cornerstones of Spanish cinema
(1963) and The National Shotgun (1978). c
chronicle of an absurdity, such as the three films that catapulted Alejandro
Amanece… is a scalpel-sharp satire on s
sometimes Marxian and Amenábar to international prominence,
reactionary Spanish society in the years after o
others typical of the Monty Thesis (1996), Open Your Eyes (1997) and The
Franco’s dictatorship ended in 1975. In a series P
Python.’ Others (2001). But Amanece…, inexplicably, still
of deceptively naturalist scenarios, the film El País 16 October 1990
E lacks international recognition. Cuerda once
decries such ills as nepotism, religious dogma, described the purpose of Amanece… as follows:
elitism, casual racism, sexism, domestic abuse, ‘It
‘I is a mad, mad, mad film’, “What I want is to place the viewer in front of
chauvinism and paedophilia. No character in this La Vanguardia 4 January 1989
L a mirror, so that s/he can reflect on what s/he’s
most peculiar of towns is left unscathed. A series watching. After that, each to their own.” RIP.

Books
BOOKS
Merrily we roll along: Cecil B. DeMille (centre) shows his capacity for technical innovation on the set of Dynamite (1929)
renowned for his vast library of photographs of confidential paperwork, which gave up the
THE LOST WORLD and film stills. Kobal died in 1991, just a few secrets of not only DeMille’s pointed personal
OF DEMILLE months after completing this biography. It opinions about his peers, but of how he hired
was never published, and 25 years later his private detectives to spy on the unions and
younger sister Monika reclaimed the text, which how he feared repercussions if these memos
By John Kobal, University Press of Mississippi, ran to 1,100 pages, and sought a new deal. It were leaked. “Three men who talked too much
448pp, ISBN 9781496825230 now sees the light of day via the University were killed in Chicago,” reads one note.
Reviewed by Pame
Pamela Hutchinson Press of Mississippi, which requested that the There have been other DeMille books
Cecil B. DeMille’s name manuscript be significantly shortened, and so published in the time since Kobal’s death, but
is as synonymous with the book is now around half the length. There this one has a personal touch, not least because
Hollywood as it is possible are many rare and beautiful photographs of its characterful prose. There is at least one
to be. He is well remembered from the Kobal Collection illustrating the text, poignant moment when the book shows its
as the director of biblical though this is a work of biography and ardent vintage, too. In an aside fairly early on, Kobal
blockbusters and adventure scholarship rather than a picture book. mentions that DeMille’s audacious drama The
films – including The King of Kobal was the first researcher to be allowed Cheat (1915) is an exception to the rule that
Kings (1927), Cleopatra (1934) free access to DeMille’s personal archive, which “these days, silent films are rarely screened.
and The Ten Commandments was kept after his death at his Los Angeles Prints are too poor. Too many allowances have
( 6) – b
(1956) butt also
l has
h the movie-lore cachet of home, 2000 DeMille Drive. Though he also to be made for the primitive conventions of
giving his name to an honorary Golden Globe interviewed several people who had worked with storytelling. Their reputations rest in books.” One
and being immortalised in Billy Wilder’s Sunset the director, it’s this archival research that really can only hope that Kobal would be pleased by
Boulevard (1950) as the final director of its fading makes the book distinctive. The first chapter is a the recent improvements in the silent screening
star, Norma Desmond. That’s the long shot. In very evocative account of Kobal’s time looking landscape, which mean that the early chapters
close-up, DeMille is revealed as a fascinating through DeMille’s materials. Kobal’s survey of of this book will be just as hungrily received as
figure whose best work was achieved in the silent the house’s contents includes the peacock robe those that deal with DeMille’s sound films.
era, and whose taste for extravagant splendour worn by Hedy Lamarr in Samson and Delilah
and big-budget action existed alongside a capacity (1949), antiques originally used as props in This is a portrait of a genius,
for technical innovation, a keen appetite for DeMille’s films, “bibles of every description”, a
adult storytelling and a killer eye for detail. wall hung with weapons, sheaves of production mildly misunderstood, with
The history of The Lost World of DeMille is
itself something of an epic. It was written by
designs and still photographs, as well as “a recipe
for chicken gumbo from Mary Pickford”. Most
an enviably long career and a
film historian, author and collector John Kobal, thrilling for the aspiring biographer was the case fever for cinematic splendour
More so, really, because it’s the early years observes, Farber “has become a cult figure, and
that really sing here. As Kobal traces DeMille’s MANNY FARBER cult figures are nearly impossible to write about
BOOKS
movie career from the troubled production of his since everything specific that is said about them
directorial debut The Squaw Man (1914), he’s telling is subsumed by the glow of their exceptionalism”.
Paintings and Writings
an origin story for Hollywood itself. The Squaw Farber put the problem another way in a 1977
Man is celebrated as the first feature film shot there Ed. Michael Almereyda, Jonathan Lethem joint interview he gave to Film Comment with
– an accidental milestone that came about when and Robert Polito, Hat & Beard Press, 272pp, collaborator and wife Patricia Patterson: “I never
the crew were disappointed by the scenery in their ISBN 9781732056107 got rid of a fault in my writing that comes from
preferred location of Flagstaff, Arizona, and decided Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton
Pi sportswriting: you always build up a star.”
to get back on the train until the end of the line. “
“Americans,” Manny Farber There is much in Paintings and Writings to
The film also marked the beginning of DeMille’s o
once wrote, “seem to have a humanise its star subject – for example, the
collaboration with producers Adolph Zukor and sspecial aptitude for allowing magazine editor Robert Walsh’s observations on
Jesse Lasky – the founders of Famous Players- H
History to bury the toughest, the tonic effect of Farber’s meeting and partnering
Lasky, which later became Paramount Pictures m
most authentic native with Patterson in 1967, and the degree to which
– and more to the point it was a hit. Kobal then ttalents” – but it should be the relationship nourished one another’s work.
takes the reader film by film through DeMille’s n
noted, too, that we’re mad Director Olivier Assayas offers acute insight into
career, threading in his political interventions aabout exhuming them after the connections between Farber’s cinephilia and
and a little of his complex private life. fact Farber
the fact. Farber, the cri
critic, teacher and painter, was auteur paintings, scratching into the substrata
First, there’s his rapid rise to acclaim as one already receiving overdue attention for his work of “the residual condensation of memory”.
of the most sophisticated directors in the US in the last line before his death in 2008, and that he Praiseworthy, too, are contributions from two
business, with early melodramas such as The now belongs as much to the world of gallery art as of the book’s editors: Robert Polito’s brief critical
Cheat leading the way to his racier sex comedies to film culture is testified to by the exhibition and biography, which explores the sibling rivalry
at the turn of the 1920s, including a run of movies accompanying catalogue for ‘One Day at a Time: of the brilliant Farber brothers of Douglas,
with Gloria Swanson. During the making of Joan Manny Farber and Termite Art’, organised in 2018 Arizona; and Michael Almereyda’s recollection
the Woman (1916), DeMille’s epic conglomeration at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles of a long, often fraught relationship with Farber,
of the martyrdom of the Maid of Orleans and by curator Helen Molesworth, who had watched in which a key role is played by a negative 1982
the battlefields of World War I, Kobal pinpoints Farber’s high-wire-act lectures 30 years previously review of a Farber New York showing, written
the moment when the director’s “love for the at the University of California, San Diego. by Storr in the magazine Art in America.
spectacular took possession of him. The artist had Paintings and Writings, an amply illustrated For the Farber aficionado, however, the most
found his genre.” It’s this passion for scale that led new volume from Hat & Beard Press, collects exciting written material in Paintings and Writings
to DeMille’s most famous work, the blockbusters colour reproductions of Farber’s paintings, is by Farber himself: ephemera relating to his
often loved by audiences although mocked by principally the table-top, bird’s-eye-view still lives pedagogical career, lecture notes and quizzes that
critics – typified by his biblical films, beginning of cluttered, allusive odds and ends – flowers, suggest Farber was every bit as much a one-off in
with The Ten Commandments in 1923. It must be candy wrappers, graffiti’d puns, toy train-tracks, the classroom as he was behind a typewriter or
remembered, though, that DeMille could include photographs – that he began turning out not long in front of a canvas. (From one test: “List seven
an anachronistic and lavishly produced ‘vision’ after arriving in San Diego in 1970, and would ways in which the Laurel and Hardy Christmas
even in a contemporary adult drama, and he work variations on until the end of his life. These tree comedy parallels the characterisation and
frequently did – see the fantasy sequence in 1919’s are accompanied by a plethora of texts both by technique in [Fassbinder’s] Katzelmacher.”) Still
Male and Female in which Swanson is transported and about Farber. The list of contributors, as befits more illuminating are eight pieces of Farber’s
back to ancient Babylon to cavort with a lion. the subject’s growing prestige, is distinguished, art criticism originally published in The New
This is a portrait of a genius, mildly the contributions not uniformly so. As Farber Republic and The Nation in the 40s and early
misunderstood, with an enviably long career, has been canonised, it has become increasingly 50s, when he was wrestling – figuratively and
and whose lasting impact on the business he difficult to say anything new about him, and a quite literally, according to Almereyda – with
loved is all too well symbolised by the vestiges few well-worn points are trotted out time and the art critic Clement Greenberg and abstract
of his set for the original The Ten Commandments, again: the element of meandering topographical expressionist painter Jackson Pollock.
which lay submerged under the California sand exploration at work in both the criticism and Comparing Farber and Greenberg’s responses
for decades before being rediscovered. His fever the painting, the secondary importance given to the same shows and books in the 1940s in his
for cinematic splendour seeps through the fabric to value judgements in the criticism, the degree study The Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed
of the industry. As costume designer Edith Head to which pan and praise tend to shade into one American Film Culture (2016), David Bordwell
is quoted as saying after working on the 1956 another. As painter and writer Robert Storr notes that Farber consistently “outstrips
remake of that film, he was “a perfectionist on Greenberg” in “exactitude”, an observation borne
the encyclopedic detail demanded by his plunges out in the sharp-eyed pieces here, sprinkled with
into history”. The director required bibliographic those vintage Farberisms that, once read, are
references for each element of his grand designs, impossible to forget. On Goya’s Los Caprichos
as his archive of books and images attest. series of prints: “The consistent purity of Goya’s
More idiosyncratically, he also liked to let his hatred through his later works is an amazing fact
leading ladies pick out their costume jewellery, in itself.” On the American comic-strip artist: “A
so they would wear it like they owned it. funeral-faced craftsman who draws with his hat
The book is very sharp on the creatives who on and usually looks like an ex-saxophone-
DeMille gathered around him too, notably playing Republican.” ‘Virility’ is employed as a
production designers such as Wilfred Buckland term of praise, one of those chest-thumping,
and Mitchell Leisen (later a director), his editor macho affects that time and Patterson’s influence
Anne Bauchens, secretary Gladys Rosson and would soften. Personal recollections here return to
his brilliant screenwriter Jeanie Macpherson, both Farber’s irascibility and to the lush garden of
with whom he was also romantically entangled. the Farber-Patterson home in Leucadia, California,
Any book about DeMille should surely have whose harvest provided the subjects for his flora-
a cast of thousands, so there’s room enough strewn late paintings, radiant with pleasure, not
for them and their contributions. Manny Farber least that of living to see things clearly.
April 2020 Sight&Sound | 91

SAY WHAT HAPPENED
A Story of Documentaries
By Nick Fraser, Faber & Faber, 416pp,
ISBN 9780571329564
Reviewed by Nick Bradshaw
British documentary watchers
BOOKS
will know of Nick Fraser

as the co-creator and, for
17 years, series editor of
Storyville, BBC2’s invaluable
showcase for long-form
documentaries. The role has
given him both a box seat to
witness the rising energies
off d t fi
documentary filmmaking and a backstage
pass to mingle with its players. Now, like the
Ancient Mariner, he wants to tell you what he
has seen. Say What Happened recounts some
filmmaking hopes and struggles, a little learned
wit and wisdom, but mostly the wonders of
great documentary films themselves, their
creative distillations and bottled lives and
mercurial truths, and the lingering question
of their cultural power and potential. It’s less
memoir of a life in docs than testament to a life
with docs: “I do know that documentaries, taken
individually, resemble a group of old and new
friends,” he writes, and draws out the tussle of
choice and chance that makes documentary art
analogous to living. “That’s the only real way
to make a documentary film – by setting out
what you believe to be true, or beautiful, and
destroying any certainty by implying that, yes, it
could have been described in a myriad of other A touch of class: Michael Apted and Paul Almond’s Seven Up! (1964)
ways. This comes down to having a strategy
for life, while being prepared to abandon it. task a number of sanctified classics of that era, the innovations in independence of Jean
What other way is there of staying alive?” from Tony Essex’s The Great War in 1964 to Rouch and the French Left Bank essayists; their
Fraser takes his title and cue from a late Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, 1969.) He quotes American Direct Cinema pioneers (with apt and
Robert Lowell poem hymning the undervalued Dale on these works as “appointments to view moving attention paid to Frederick Wiseman);
art of description as the path to illumination for a post-war society keen to explore new the rise of the authorial reporter, from Edward
(“Yet why not say what happened? / Pray for the ideas, faces, ways of living – a sense of what it Murrow to Nick Broomfield, Michael Moore
grace of accuracy…”), and his book expounds is to live in a liberal and tolerant society,” and and Mads Brügger; the further iconoclasms and
an old-fashioned British sceptical empiricism. Seaton on public broadcasting’s claim to be formal forays of latter-day masters like Werner
Theory is verboten, but Fraser loves to sociologise like national glue, keeping people together. Herzog, Errol Morris and Adam Curtis; and this
his fellow doc travellers: the mostly left-idealist “More importantly,” Fraser adds, “[television] century’s explosion of nonfiction filmmaking
filmmakers, the fashion-bound critics and old afforded a path to self-education. It created beyond the West. Fraser also devotes a chapter
liberal or new hipster audiences, the old guard the illusion that an educated citizenry living to the art of documentaries of genocide, from
of patrician commissioners now displaced by in a democracy would always survive.” Leslie Woodhead’s Bosnian War report A Cry from
“sabre-toothed technocrats”. His chapter on the From there, Fraser pursues his story through the Grave (1999) to Sydney Bernstein’s German
prime of British public broadcasting (his second Concentration Camps Factual Survey (shot in 1945,
history chapter, following a rummage through The book recounts the wonders of released in 2017), Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog
the innovations of filmmakers in the first half (1956) and the crescendo of Claude Lanzmann’s
of the 20th century, such as Dziga Vertov, John great documentary films, and the 1985 Shoah. (Though nothing on Cambodia’s
Grierson, Joris Ivens and Leni Riefenstahl),
is magnificent, bringing together his own
lingering question of their long-time genocide chronicler Rithy Panh?).
The recognition of historical obligation and
memories and reappraisals, encounters with cultural power and potential aesthetic challenge in this section finds Fraser
players like public-television exponent Dennis at his most expansively European (he also gives
Potter and producers/executives Jeremy Isaacs a fond account of Marcel Ophüls, the director
and Alan Yentob, and apposite quotes from their of The Sorrow and the Pity, the landmark 1969
colleague Peter Dale, BBC historian Jean Seaton study of the French experience of occupation
and the art critic Robert Hughes. Fraser describes and collaboration in World War II).
the pre-Thatcherite culture of enlightened Which brings us to our present moment
institutional paternalism, liberated filmmaker of disunity, institutional exhaustion and
curiosity and benign executive disengagement dismantling, rising intolerance and post-truth
that produced the Up series (1964-), Isaacs’s The populism. Fraser doesn’t push the point – who’d
World at War (1973), umpteen strands and series bet on the future now? – but his story is laced with
and even Peter Watkins’s form-pushing historical a premonition that documentary itself may be at
docudrama Culloden (1964) and his suppressed risk, that its art of description and illumination
nuclear prophecy The War Game (1966): but he is as fragile as it is powerful; that we will struggle
does not undersell the establishment pressures harder for Lowell’s “grace of accuracy”, and
that pushed individuals like Watkins out, Fraser’s story of documentaries will prove
and never let many others in. (He also takes to Michael Moore’s Roger & Me (1989) more of a memoir than he would wish.

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September 2012| Sight&Sound | 93

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READERS’ LETTERS
Letters are welcome, and should be
addressed to the Editor at Sight & Sound, LETTER OF THE MONTH
BFI, 21 Stephen Street, London W1T 1LN
Email: S&S@bfi.org.uk FAMILY RESEMBLANCE
CHARLIE THE CHICKEN
Graham Fuller mentions numerous literary
and visual influences on The Lighthouse, even
including a reference to Dad’s Army (‘Divine
inspirations’, S&S, February). But I was reminded,
while watching the film, of the cabin-fever
scenes in The Gold Rush (1925), in which Mack
Swain’s descent into madness culminates in
his chasing Charlie Chaplin around the room
in the belief that he is a giant chicken.
Ray Jenkin Cardiff
PARASITE RESISTANT
How on earth did Parasite get to be Best Picture
at the Oscars? I wasn’t convinced by any of it. A
quartet of con-artists takes the place of the trusted
servants of a rich family with the family junking
their previous old staff when given the flimsiest
of reasons based on trivial incidents. An imposter
housekeeper cooks a complicated meal in less
than eight minutes with no prior knowledge
of the ingredients. An unwelcome visitor is let The most surprising and delightful thing in and coffin, are revealed to be in the castle
into the house late at night because she keeps the issue of Sight & Sound guest-edited by basement. The Count is restored to corporeal
on ringing the doorbell. The rich family are so Bong Joon Ho was the first sentence of his form when his remains are drenched in the
successful in business, but apparently idiotic short paragraph entitled ‘Memories of British blood of one of the intruders, eviscerated by
enough to be taken for a ride. None of this rings Cinema’ (S&S, March): “I love horror films from the creepy housekeeper. Mayhem ensues when
true. The plot has more holes than Swiss cheese. the Hammer studio.” The issue made clear how Dracula then bursts forth from the basement.
William Barklam London deeply Bong draws on the horror genre for his Before that, however, there is an
films. I think the great Terence Fisher’s Dracula, extraordinary passage where, in the words
SISTER FACT Prince of Darkness (1966, pictured) may have of David Pirie’s classic study, A Heritage of
Philip Kemp’s review of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort made a particular contribution to Parasite. Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946-72
(Home Cinema, Sight & Sound, February) states In both – spoiler alert! – four characters (1973): “Fisher allows his camera to prowl
that it is “the only film to team real-life sisters breach an upper-class house. In the Bong, around the deserted castle in a series of
Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac”. In they are one family; in the Fisher, they are movements which evoke with a poetic
fact, they had appeared together three years earlier two married English couples, one younger, grandeur the unseen presence of the absent
in Edouard Molinaro’s La Chasse à l’homme (1964), one older, though the two men are brothers. host.” These scenes are more than matched by
released in the UK as The Gentle Art of Seduction. Both houses turn out to contain a creepy Bong and Hong Kyung Pyo’s camera in Parasite
David Webster By email housekeeper who frequently intrudes on prowling around the rich family’s house and
their space. Halfway through Parasite a creating a similar sense of foreboding and
WHAT A DRAG new character emerges from the basement menace. I very much look forward to what
I enjoyed Tamsin Cleary’s article ‘The Tramp and causes mayhem. Halfway through the the supremely talented Bong will do next.
Is a Lady’ (S&S, December 2019). Your readers Fisher, the remains of Dracula, plus his cloak Anthony Roche Dublin
might be interested to know that A Woman
generated quite a bit of controversy in its time.
Chaplin’s early films had already been criticised until the 1930s. Chaplin responded immediately, War, which was much more controversial in
by a small but vocal chorus of self-appointed effectively substituting romanticism for wartime England than his transgressive humour.
guardians of the public morals for their sex eroticism in his next film, The Bank. However, Dan Kamin Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
and violence. “I have seen Mr Chaplin blithely he never abandoned the risqué and vulgar Dan Kamin trained Robert Downey Jr for his
performing functions in the moving pictures,” humour he knew most of his fans relished. performance as Chaplin and is the author of ‘The
one writer complained, “that even I would decline Tamsin mentions that performing in drag Comedy of Charlie Chaplin’ (2008). He also
to report.” But with A Woman (1915 – released was a music-hall staple, and of course it remains annotated ‘Charlie Chaplin’s Red Letter Days’, a
in England as Charlie, the Perfect Lady), Chaplin a robust part of the pantomime tradition. In his series of 37 articles written by a member of Chaplin’s
upped the ante, with such explicitly sexual excellent book Chaplin’s Music Hall (2012), Barry stock company and published in 1916 and 1917
sequences as disrobing a dress dummy as though Anthony uncovered a fascinating titbit about in the British magazine ‘Red Letter’. The articles
undressing a lover, conjuring a bosom by stuffing Chaplin’s early interest in cross-dressing. At 17, were recently rediscovered and edited by Dr David
a pincushion up his bodice and, perhaps most while on tour with the Casey’s Circus company James of Manchester Metropolitan University.
alarmingly, impersonating a seductive female in of juvenile performers, Chaplin borrowed the
a disturbingly convincing fashion. Some critics frock of a schoolteacher staying in the same
Additions and corrections
were outraged, and the film was even denounced boardinghouse and took a stroll around the March p.60 A Paris Education: Certificate 12A, 136m 36s; p.62 Color out
from the pulpit. Though the puritanical neighbourhood with her. No one was the wiser, of Space: Certificate 15, 110m 33s; p. 65 End of the Century: Certificate 18,
IMAGE: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE
83m 54s; p.66 First Love: Certificate 15, 108m 19s; p.76 The Public:
blowback did little to affect his enormous she proudly reported in a 1921 article in the Daily Certificate 15, 119m 17s; p.77 Quezon’s Game: Certificate 12A, 126m 51s;
popularity, the intensity of it both surprised and Mail, as England was going into a frenzy preparing p.78 Spycies: Certificate PG, 99m 2s; p.78 Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise
dismayed Chaplin, as we know from recently to welcome its favourite son in his triumphal of Skywalker: USA 2019 ©Lucasfilm Ltd, Screenplay by Chris Terrio, J.J.
Abrams, Story by Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow, J.J. Abrams, Chris
discovered eyewitness reports. The film was return home. Obviously, all was forgiven, Terrio; p.80 Villain: Certificate 18, 97m 3s; p.81 Vitalina Varela:
actually banned in the Scandinavian countries including Chaplin’s failure to fight in the Great Certificate 12A, 124m 48s

ENDINGS…
HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH
As the lead character slips away at and is dumped, in a trailer park, on the eve of the Hedwig sheds her wig and dress and, in a space
fall of the Berlin Wall. A romance with teenager outside story, faces Tommy, makes amends with
the close of John Cameron Mitchell’s Tommy (Michael Pitt) leads to a passionate the band and finally drifts out alone into the
genderbending musical fantasia, a musical collaboration; after a bitter split, Hedwig, night, letting go of the driving hunger for external
now a punk-glam sacred monster demanding validation and vengeance to find a kind of peace.
new self is quietly being born recognition and redemption, trails Tommy across Hedwig’s final shot lasts a minute and a half
the country, band in tow, playing crummy family and follows the character as they walk, naked
By Ben Walters restaurants near the stadiums where her ex and gingerly, down a wet, harshly lit Lower
It can be hard to be in between and it can be excels. Identities, relationships and hierarchies Manhattan alleyway toward the street. There’s
supple. You might be pulverised and you might slip and flip all over. This fits Hedwig’s historical a new register of both calm and welcomed
be quicksilver. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) moment of radical geopolitical uncertainty, vulnerability on Mitchell’s face, a sense that this is
is a deeply liminal work, a film that straddles, after the crumbling of Cold War binaries and no longer Hansel or Hedwig but a new self being
dances around and stumbles against and across before the toxic Othering of the war on terror. born. The camera cranes up as they walk away,
thresholds of many kinds – personal, formal, It’s a film, then, of strange transgressions and long shadow lingering, teetering to lean against
industrial, world-historical. It sings the glory of contingencies. For Hedwig, gender is a malleable a wall for support, walking through a puddle
fluidity and change, predominantly in modes technology of self-fashioning and social navigation. then pausing as the alley meets the street. One
of barbed and exuberant agency, charting the For Mitchell, the project was a vehicle for of the film’s original songs, ‘The Origin of Love’,
labour pains of a flailing yet defiant self struggling expressive self-exploration outside the mainstream. starts to play, mythically evoking a time when
toward affirmation in a world of cruelty and As a feature production (backed by New York- humans were whole and happy and there was
failure. It’s fierce and sure and on a mission. And based Killer Films), Hedwig benefited from an no need for love. As Mitchell crosses the street,
then, in its closing moments, as its lead stumbles industrial moment amenable to both queer people walk past, going about their business. No
naked down an alleyway, away from the camera, experiment and independent filmmaking. And one even looks. It’s New York, after all. Mitchell
reborn into mystery, it opens itself up to the as a text, it swerves straightforward conventions reaches the far sidewalk and the top of the
tender terror of mere uncharted possibility. of genre, tone and form – not least in its ending. frame, unclothed in any way, unencumbered by
Hedwig had unusual origins. In the mid- The film’s last act is a 20-minute fantasia or the gaze of others, unaware of what the future
1990s, writer-director-performer John Cameron fugue in which narrative, dialogue and indeed might bring, and is gone. People keep walking.
Mitchell, who had a background in theatre, drag fall away in a tumult of blurred personae, The song keeps playing. The credits roll.
worked with musician Stephen Trask to develop released resentments and dawning realisations. A A story about desperate, passionate and often
and showcase the character and story of Hedwig frenetic gig fragments into fractured flashbacks, harmful projects of self-realisation and self-
in the bars and clubs of New York’s downtown determination ends with a quiet un-becoming
queer scene. These appearances developed into a The film ends with an implicit and an implicit faith in the kindness of strangers
rock musical that Mitchell himself adapted into a and perhaps the kindness of strangeness too. Here
movie. The story’s main character, played by the faith in the kindness of is a way of understanding Hedwig’s queer value.
director, grows up in East Berlin as Hansel, falls in
love with an American soldier, is pressured into a
strangers and perhaps the It’s a work with a deep investment in things that
aren’t fixed, and in the impossible challenge of
botched sex change, gets married, moves to the US kindness of strangeness too finding both pride and love in a wicked world.

Sunday BloodySunday
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APRIL 2020 VOLUME 30 ISSUE 4

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATERINA JEBB

“We were all stunned, overwhelmed, by h,OOKSANDFEELS

Second Run presents

Vitalina Varela !FILMBYPEDRO COSTA

Coming soon: Albert Serra’s LIBERTÉ, Gabriel Mascaro’s DIVINE LOVE

T: 020 8955 7070

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 5

A Film By Kore-eda Hirokazu

In Cinemas & On Curzon Home Cinema μ March

OTHERWISE global populism. From Jesse Moss and Amanda

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 7

8 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

A joyful portrait of a 70s summer

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 9

10 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

++++ THE MIRROR

“A SENSUAL TALE “UTTERLY ORIGINAL

Federico Fellini’s distinct style delighted generations

A ROOM WITH A VIEW

12 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

house for the future, a hope machine.

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 13

A ﬁnny thing happened: The Sharks

14 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 15

THE NUMBERS: WEATHERING WITH YOU

» The ﬁrst ﬁlm from Terence Davies since feature

16 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

Main Supporter Supported by Official Partners Media Partners

THINK I’LL obliterating eyes, nose and mouth. Like every

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 19

from esoteric corners of private BitTorrent

20 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 21

‘Even by the bargain-basement standards of

‘You really can’t

‘There is a passion, an intensity that Andy brings to

‘Seeds [above] is the beginning of moral decay in

22 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

Tehran: City of Love

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 25

26 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

TILDA SWINTON ON…

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 27

TILDA SWINTON ON…

28 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 29

conversation with the directors, I need to talk to the designers,

30 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

TILDA SWINTON: SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY

Caravaggio Man to Man The Deep End Julia The Grand

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 31

32 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

and just craving the band’s live gig

April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 33

34 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

is revealed in the last scene, but otherwise the

36 | Sight&Sound | April 2020