Skip to content
Izu Ojukwu‘s Nigerian-set film, 76 is cleverly shot in an almost soapy drama style, while revolutionary times hang over the characters. The first half of the film has a dynamite soundtrack, accompanying a plot revolving around a couple – Dewa and Suzy (played by Nollywood superstars Ramsey Nouah and Rita Dominic) – who are caught up in politics and an attempted coup, with a heavy military presence always rumbling away. As the action becomes more sinister and oppressive, so does the music. And it’s all rooted in the real events of the period, that led to the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed.
Latin America has produced so many fine directors and actors that we take it for granted that a Chilean film about the iconic, rather lecherous poet, Neruda, will be terrific. As Pablo Larrain‘s movie also stars Gael Garcia Bernal as Detective Peluchonneau (our narrator), hunting down Luis Gnecco as Neruda, and Mercedes Moran as his wife Delia, it seems a fair presumption. Its saturated colours, degenerate parties, revolving camera positions, and laughable hiding places mean it does have its moments. yet it’s not quite the sum of its parts. The Communist, romantic bourgeois couple are on the run, and reluctant to ‘go underground’. Neruda would rather be composing and reciting his rousing political verses, leaving a trail of poetry books behind for the detective to find as they flee. Slick, well made, but rather empty.
Chile has also produced some smaller, equally intense, domestic dramas, now including Rara, from Pepa San Martin, and inspired by a real case. As she heads towards her 13th birthday, Sara (Julia Lubbert) is bothered by everything: her little sister Cara, her estranged father, occasionally even her mum, Paula (Mariana Loyola) being more affectionate with her female partner, Lia (Agustina Munoz). There’s a pressure to conform, even as Sara starts to rebel. Superbly acted by adults and children, and gently directed, you sense that the real confrontations are happening offscreen, as the girls’ parents fight for custody.
Who would have thought that the perfect person to adapt Sarah Waters‘ novel Fingersmith, a twisty Dickensian tale of romance, scheming, sadism, library books and passion, would be Oldboy director Park Chan-Wook? But with The Handmaiden, filmed in Japanese and Korean, he has jumped up to the Premier League, giving the tale scale, glamour and a thrilling, singular lust. It matters not one jot whether you’re familiar with the story, because after the stately pace of the opening scenes, your head will be spinning from the twists in each of the three acts, seen from the different characters’ points of view. Kim Min-hee plays Lady Hideko, disturbed mistress of the remote house, with Kim Tae-ri as her new, devoted maid Sook-Hee, plucked like Oliver Twist from a Fagin-style criminal training enterprise scheme – and both women are flawless in their roles and their chemistry. We can’t be sure who he’s setting up, but Ha Jung-woo definitely makes a dodgy Count Fujiwara, with Cho Jin-woong as creepy book collector, Uncle Kouzuki. Nothing is quite what it seems; it’s hard to know who is preying on whom, and as the camera and Sook-Hee explore the Japanese/English house and gardens, and we witness the erotically-charged seduction scenes, we are drawn into the web of deceit, double-crossing and pure fun. Co-written with Park’s Lady Vengeance collaborator, Seo-Kyung Chung, this feels like awards catnip.
Does anyone outside Eastern Europe do quirky as well as Korea? The Bacchus Lady, from E J-yong Youn, is a far from cautionary tale about an ageing prostitute with a heart of gold, who also gives her customers an elixir as part of the bargain. Played for comic effect, this is also a poignant story of getting older, having fewer friends, very little romance and just getting by. And Yeo-jeong Yoon is perfect as the hooker, So-young, who runs her business like clockwork, until she’s left looking after a runaway child, and is asked to help a client break the law.
What’s In The Darkness is a powerful, haunting drama from Chinese female writer-director Wang Yichun that’s not without its comic moments, even as the plot concerns bumbling local police investigating a number of murdered girls, with dodgy suspects at every turn. As much of the thriller is filmed from the point of view of one policeman’s teenage daughter, Qu Jing, we also experience her adolescent curiosity and confusion, and it bodes well for whatever Wang Yichun explores next.
Everyone is on the make in Ma’ Rosa, in a low level, often criminal fashion, including Ma (the utterly believable and Cannes-award-winning Jaclyn Rose), her husband (Julio Diaz) and their four kids, all ducking and diving in Brillante Ma Mendoza‘s drama. Ma has a small store and operates purely in cash, even dabbling in a tiny bit of drug dealing. Handheld cameras throughout capture all the night-time Philippines’ action, always moving, with bent cops swooping in to raid and arrest Ma and Pa, then demanding a large amount of cash to release them. In the context of the current president cracking down on drugs and executing dealers, this feels like more of a fly-on-the-wall doc, shot as if in real-time across one evening and night. But can the resourceful kids scrape together enough cash to get their parents out?
Now every bit as ambitious and creative as their live action counterparts, animated films like My Life As A Courgette (right), the first feature from Claude Barras, explore themes like broken homes, alcoholism and the children’s care system with zero sentimentality. Delightful in its homemade, stop-frame style, this is the tale of Courgette, who is taken away and put into a home. Here, he is isolated, then embraced by the odd assortment of young inmates, who like nothing more than a frank discussion about s -ex. Love and friendship take the place of family, as Courgette seems destined to grow up in adversity.
The Red Turtle is the first French collaboration with Japan’s extraordinary Studio Ghibli, and guided by Michael Dudok de Wit. There’s no dialogue, and a simple palette of grey, green, brown and blue, as the story of a shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe-type figure unfolds. He tries to make his escape by raft, he dreams and hallucinates as his situation becomes hopeless. until the Red Turtle appears before him and events change miraculously. A satisfying ecological fable, and the beginning of a promising partnership.
Coming in Part 3: The best documentaries, and our much-anticipated DVDfever Film Awards for 2016…