Skip to content
BFI 60th London Film Festival Part 2: It’s high time we looked further afield, into Europe and beyond, to see what they’re up to in their movies. Some of them may not have the massive budgets and starry casts of their American and British equivalents (with notable exceptions), but their ambition, artistic merit and craft sometimes put our own output in the shade. So set aside your popcorn and cola, and instead sip an espresso, dip your frites in mayonnaise, dunk your churros in your chocolate, chomp on some sushi, and do your wurst. It’s hygge time we enjoyed some subtitled films from across the world…
At least in our post-Referendum splendid isolation, we are still allowed to watch European cinematic treats. And there are simply loads this year. The best is from Europe’s heartland, Germany, and is a 162-minute long comedy called Toni Erdmann.
In fact, it’s not only the best from Europe, but I believe it may well be the best in the whole wide world this year. Directed and written by Maren Ade, the film works on many levels but is, above all, hilarious. You could view it as a realistic portrayal of the ever-expanding New Europe, with winners and losers, where business operates across all frontiers, and you must be able to switch back and forth in languages at the drop of a hat, work hard and play hard. And you might see it as a drama about the differences between generations over quality of life, family values, and what each perceives as important. That’s if you can stop yourself snorting with laughter.
The premise of Toni Erdmann is that when uptight, driven businesswoman Ines (Sandra Huller) returns to work in Bucharest, her eccentric father Winfried (stage star Peter Simonischek) finds himself at a loose end, and decides to follow her there. Being a practical joker rather fond of disguises, he isn’t quite himself when he turns up at Ines’ workplace and at social events with her peers and bosses. Instead, he adopts a persona he calls ‘Toni Erdmann’ and morphs into a bewigged, false-teeth-wearing grotesque, guaranteed to embarrass and charm in equal measure. Ines is horrified, and but every time she thinks he’s disappeared, he pops up again. He can see that many of her business colleagues are arseholes who take Ines for granted, and her expression constantly hovers between shock and amusement as he blunders into every corner of her life, at one stage even emerging from her wardrobe.
There’s also poignancy when they witness rural poverty and management bullying up close in Romania, then turn up uninvited at an Easter gathering which climaxes with her singing a heartfelt version of The Greatest Love of All, while he accompanies her on piano. I won’t spoil the penultimate set piece scene, but let’s just say that you might justifiably be nervous of appearing overdressed at one of Ines’ office-bonding parties. Whatever Maren Ade decides to direct next will definitely be worth seeing (I’m aiming to track down her previous film, Everyone Else), and in the meantime on no account miss Toni Erdmann. Fingers crossed it wins all the Foreign Language Film Awards.
Equally bold and surprising, and also from Germany, comes Wild, director Nicolette Krebitz‘s shocking story of a mild-mannered IT worker, Ania (Lilith Standenberg). A bit of a loner, she spends her free time either visiting her sick granddad in hospital or going to the shooting range, until one day, walking across the park on the way to work, she spots a wolf. For Ania, it’s immediate obsessive love; she’s determined to capture and tame the wolf, buying a huge steak for it, studying wolf behaviour online, and stripping down her apartment for its arrival. Having hatched an elaborate plan, she eventually traps, drugs and drags the animal into a borrowed van, then gets it home. Her colleagues and boss wonder about her deteriorating appearance. But can she satisfy her longing for the wolf; will she become equally feral; and is this a Grimm fairytale in reverse?
All Of A Sudden,Turkish director Asli Ozge‘s first German language film, starts with the mysterious death of a stranger in Karsten’s apartment after his party. Who was she and who is to blame? The cloud of suspicion hangs heavily over Karsten; his girlfriend and mother don’t trust him, and his boss sidelines him. Everyone wonders why he simply didn’t call an ambulance? The atmosphere builds as Karsten feels oppressed by the claustrophobia of his small hometown. But does the unlikeable Karsten deserve our sympathy, even if he is vindicated? Can the end justify the means? These and more moral questions swirl around the muddy final stages of Ozge’s intriguing drama.
In Ivan Tverdovsky‘s Zoology, middle-aged Natasha (played by the fabulous Natalia Pavlenkova) is a sad, lonely zoo worker who is bullied at work by her ghastly, unsympathetic colleagues, then goes home to her overbearing mother. In fact, she has more in common with the animals. Much more, as it turns out, when she goes for a check-up and an X-ray and it’s clear that she has a tail – which acts as a turn-on for sympathetic X-ray operative Petya (Dmitriy Groshev). Erotically charged, bestial and startling, this Russian drama also has the best ending you’ll ever see.
You can’t go wrong with Belgium’s Dardennes brothers, who’ve been turning out low budget, high quality, thought-provoking movies that linger with audiences long after the credits. What makes The Unknown Girl (right) different, is that there’s a central mystery at its heart – finding the identity of a dead girl – and the only person playing detective is a local doctor, Jenny, beautifully played by Adele Haenel. So domestic scenes of Jenny at her practice and visiting patients interweave with thriller elements and a real sense of danger from threatening thugs.
If you want zany comedy, with physical gags, romance and music, then look no further than Lost In Paris from real-life couple Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel, who also play the main, mismatched pair. Fiona is a fish-out-of-water Canadian librarian summoned to Paris by her ageing aunt, who soon ends up in the water, when she falls off a bridge into the Seine. A series of more than unfortunate events, lots of slapstick action, mix-ups and larger-than-life characters propel her into the arms of charismatic vagrant Dom. Though not before a glorious dance sequence to the Gotan Project track, Chunga’s Revenge. Quirky with a capital Q, it’s worth sticking with it just to see the splendid Emanuelle Riva, of Amour fame, play Aunt Martha.
The growing trend of couples trying to make a clean break, yet trapped because they cannot afford to each have a home, is perfectly dramatised in After Love, Belgian director, Joachim Lafosse. Each plays their young daughters against the other, and disdain seeps from every pore when Marie (Berenice Bejo) throws a dinner party, and the estranged Boris (Cedric Kahn) turns up ready to pick a fight. The mundanity of family life, interspersed with bitterness over money and responsibility, flared tempers, broken promises, stressful mealtimes and occasional golden moments, make this feel all too credible. And it’s guaranteed to divide male and female viewers.
Go to page 2 for more great films from the BFI 60th London Film Festival.
Isabelle Huppert is definitely having a moment. She seems to have entered a golden phase in her career, so whatever project she chooses, no matter how slight or overblown, she effortlessly acts everyone else off the screen. Case in point is Elle, from Paul Verhoeven (The Man Who Would Be Hitchcock), with nods to Rear Window voyeurism (binocular spying) and Frenzy (brutal sexual assault). It’s all rather sordid, and we get a back story about her father, the infamous, incarcerated mass murderer, which in turn informs the increasingly violent video games her company makes. There are nods to Hitch themes like identity and submissiveness, and she keeps putting herself in harm’s way. Though it’s more Hitch-cod than the real thing. So it’s a miracle that Huppert’s reputation comes out not just unscathed, but actually enhanced.
Huppert is also the reason to see Souvenir, from Bavo Defurne, which casts her as a washed-up ex-Eurovision chanteuse, Liliane, now working on the production line in a pate factory. She’s happy to spend her days in monotonous work and her evenings knocking back the booze, until young Jean (Kevin Azais) joins the factory and recognises her. He’s also an amateur boxer, who charms her (despite the three decade age difference), woos her, becomes her manager, and improbably lures her back onstage. So it turns into A Star is Reborn, complete with chanson choruses you can’t get out of your head (Je Dis Oui!), sung with amusingly overwrought gestures. Parfait!
If you’ve seen The Conversation or The Lives of Others, you’ll be familiar with the paranoia in a film like Scribe, that involves listening in on other people. Debut director Thomas Kruithof constantly places his camera behind and above the subject – usually Francois Cluzet as Duval, or the ancient typewriter he’s using – increasing the sense of claustrophobia and tightening the tension. Kafkaesque in its layers and the sense of floundering around, so Duval (and the viewers) can’t tell who the good guys are, as he also struggles with his alcoholism. Compromised at every turn, it feels like he’s a pawn in intricate Cold War politics, and being Cluzet, it’s impossible to drag your gaze away from him for even a moment.
Stepping much further back in time, A Woman’s Life is Stephane Brize‘s fine adaptation of a Maupassant story that manages to balance reverence with freshness. We get an insight into life of Jeanne, played by Judith Chemla, as she goes through her blissful girlhood, and falls for young nobleman Julien, who turns out to be serially unfaithful. Just as she’s coming to terms that her life won’t be a bed of roses, she is further betrayed and impoverished by her spendthrift son. Set near the Normandy coast, the style and pace of the film get us right into her innermost thoughts and feelings, and her sense of suffocation.
The Innocents is based on the diary of the main character, wartime doctor Mathilde, played by the luminous Lou de Laage. Director Anne Fontaine‘s coolly beautiful, yet starkly shocking film is about despair, love, hope, and misjudged values when your world is collapsing around you. The year is 1945, when French medics are working through their final weeks’ duty before leaving Poland, and Mathilde takes pity on a nun who says that they need help at their remote convent. What seems like a one-off event, helping a heavily pregnant young woman – described as a charity case, but actually another nun – to give birth, turns out to be the first of many. For all the nuns have been systematically raped and impregnated by occupying troops, left terrified and unsure of what to do. “For us nuns,” they tell her, “the end of the war doesn’t mean the end of fear.” And Mathilde narrowly escapes the same fate on her way back, taking refuge in the convent and making it her mission to help them. Shame dominates the nuns’ lives, with one describing her faith as “twenty four hours of doubt and one minute of hope.” When the babies are born, the Mother Superior (Agata Kulesza) claims she’s taking them away to a better place, yet is this just another twist in this amazing true tale?
The Stopover is set in Cyprus, where a military unit is stopping off to decompress on its way back from Afghanistan. Directed by sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin, the film focuses on two women, Aurore and Marine, played by Ariane Labed and Soko, and the tension building between them and the rest of their almost entirely male unit. They’re all still wired up and jumpy, even as their ‘decompression’ starts, using VR headsets to ‘revisit’ their tour of duty to try to get everything – including PTSD – out of their systems before their return home. Yet they all still seem unsettled and rootless, tense and troubled, as the action simmers to boiling point…
In a quiet, run-down, Southern Italian seaside town, where prostitutes wander back up the beach after a night plying their trade at sea, we meet a family straight out of Shameless, who have built their entire livelihood around their daughters, who are Indivisible, conjoined twins. Brilliantly directed by Edoardo De Angelis, the 18-year-old twins are all-too-believably played by real-life sisters Angela and Marianna Fontana. They spend their days preparing to perform as a beautiful celebrity freakshow, bringing blessings and good luck, singing at weddings and coming-of-age ceremonies, with their money-grubbing father and gadget-obsessed mother ferrying them around and constantly pushing them forward. Then, just as they’re coming of age, they’re told by a doctor that as they don’t share any organs, they could be separated.
Fed up of always being together, one twin is over the moon at this revelation, the other’s not so sure, and the parents can see their income disappearing. When the twins run away (which is hard in itself), it’s straight into the clutches of a seductive, yet sleazy bloke who has offered to pay for their operation, but is running what’s basically a David-Lynch-esque brothel on a boat and wants to have his wicked way with them. So many questions are raised, including the hypocrisy of their very own family leeching off the girls, and it seems like there can be no fairytale ending. Recommended.
One of the best thrillers of the festival has to be the slow-burn Fury Of A Patient Man (right), set in Spain and directed by Raul Arevalo. Flipping back and forth in time, it’s deliberately unsettling, a feeling that’s enhanced by the point-of-view filming of a violent robbery and attempted getaway in the opening scene. Moving forward to the present day, we have no idea why Jose (the seething, brooding Antonio de la Torre) is befriending the locals, and gently, gradually making a play for the local barkeep’s wife, Ana (Ruth Diaz). It all starts to come clear when we discover the identity of the victims of that initial, fatal robbery (but I won’t spoil that for you). Suffice it to say it will have you gripped, as you travel through some memorably bloody retribution scenes, including one beneath a boxing gym. Outstanding.
Smoke And Mirrors, aka Man of 1000 Faces, is a tense thriller and a compelling watch, based on the true story of infamous Spanish secret service agent Francisco ‘Paco’ Paesa (Eduard Fernandez). Directed by Alberto Rodriguez, and set in the 1980s and 90s, the action moves around Europe, identities change, dirty money is laundered, deals are all dodgy, and a tangled web is woven. So much so that it’s hard to remember who’s alive, who’s dead and who’s undercover. At least we can be sure that pretty much everyone is corrupt!
Denmark first pushed its way into our consciousness in the last decade with The Killing, created by Soren Sveistrup, and starring Sofie Grabol as Sarah Lund, and Lars Mikkelsen as Troels. Now, in The Day Will Come, this unbeatable trio link up again, with Jesper Nielsen directing. This is an equally dark story, but more worryingly, it’s ‘inspired’ by real stories from an infamous boys’ home called Godhavn in the 1960s. When their mother gets sick, two cheeky young brothers, Erik and Elmer, wonderfully played by Albert Lindhardt and Harald Hermann, are sent away to this home, run by strict, sadistic headmaster Heck (Mikkelsen), whose cruelty is softened by an idealistic teacher (Grabol). The behaviour of the rest of the staff, however, varies between casually cruelty to full-on sexual abuse, yet it’s hard for sympathetic school inspector David Dencik to catch them out. Cooly filmed, like a Hammershoi painting, the goings-on inside make Dotheboys Hall look like a holiday camp.
Go to page 3 for more great films from the BFI 60th London Film Festival.
Some films hit you right in the heart without warning. And that’s the case with Juho Kuosmanen‘s uplifting debut, The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Maki. Shot entirely in glorious 16mm black and white, and based on the true story of Finland’s 1960s boxing champ, it boasts a delightfully understated performance from Jarkko Lahti as Maki, with Oona Airola matching him as the local lass he inconveniently falls for just as he’s about to compete for the world title. Luckily, theatre actor Lahti (making his own screen debut) was already a fan of the Finnish hero, and trained for four years to make a convincing pugilist. As for Airola, she was just a ticket seller at the theatre until she was discovered, and their chemistry is enchanting. Reminiscent of Irish boxer Barry McGuigan, Maki is the archetypal small town hero, adrift in the big city, Helsinki, with his manager milking him, and everyone wanting a piece of him. Prepare to be enchanted, and keep an eye out for the real Maki and wife towards the very end…
The Giant is a small scale movie with big messages about prejudice, disability, hope… and petanque. First-time Scandinavian writer-director Johannes Nyholm shows us the everyday difficulties and routine bullying that severely deformed, autistic Rikard (Christian Andren, superb) faces. But we also see him with his loyal sidekick friend, and witness how brilliant they are at petanque, as they take on cocky opposition in the Scandinavian Championship. Can they succeed against all odds? Pathos is lightened with humour, as Nyholm cleverly juxtaposes realistic slices of Rikard’s life, glimpses of his mother in her own care situation, plus fantasy sequences shot from Rikard’s point of view – using a fisheye lens – as he towers over the earth as the ‘Giant’ of the title.
Kills On Wheels (right) also deals with disability in unsentimental, often humorous fashion. Our trio of felons, Zoli (Zoltan Fenyvesi), Barba (Adam Fekete), and Rupaszov (Szabolcs Thuroczy) have the ultimate cover for their wrongdoing: they’re in wheelchairs, yet make up a deadly gang nevertheless. Drugs, extortion and even murder become commonplace in this Tarantino-esque Hungarian caper, with ex-firefighter Rupaszov leading the two teen recruits into their life of crime. Brilliantly shot by debut director Attila Till – much of it at wheelchair height to put the viewer in their shoes – the film also outlines the characters’ backstories, and colours in their motivations, while tackling attitudes to disability unflinchingly. Quite an achievement.
Austria’s Ruth Beckermann has dramatised the correspondence between famous, post-war literary lovers Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, in The Dreamed Ones, and gets young actors Anja Plaschg and Laurence Rupp to read their words. But although the simple device is admirable, and has worked in previous films like 84 Charing Cross Road, and even You’ve Got Mail, this time it feels almost anti-cinematic, and might have been more effective as a radio play.
Always controversial, Catalan director Albert Serra‘s latest work is The Death Of Louis XIV, starring a bewigged Jean-Pierre Léaud as the dying monarch. It’s an elegantly filmed, stately and stifling account of the King’s last days, complete with fawning courtiers and physicians. Yet it feels not quite the sum of its varied parts.
For picaresque fantasy, mixed with military cock-ups, rural romance and lots of farm animals, look no further than the almost-uncategorisable On The Milky Road (right), directed by Emir Kusturica, who also stars alongside Monica Bellucci. Physical comedy involving clock hands, gunfire and a Butch Cassidy-style escape somehow hang together, and disbelief is willingly suspended thanks to the charm of Kusturica and Bellucci, who do their own stunts (just don’t tell the insurance folk!) Lots of fun.
Post-Arab Spring, the Middle East is just about holding its own in film-making, despite ongoing political fallout and internal conflicts. Tunisia brings us Hedi, from Mohamed Ben Attia, which puts a very real dilemma in the hands of Majd Mastoura as the titular character. Hedi is a passive guy whose upcoming marriage is being sorted for him, and he’s happy to go along with everything. until he’s sent away to try to drum up new business as a salesman for Peugeot. Bored and lacking confidence, he’s unexpectedly and passionately drawn to hotel worker, Rim, which puts his upcoming nuptials in doubt. Just like Hedi, the film is quiet and unflashy, but also appealing and unforgettable.
In Kamla Abou Zekri‘s A Day For Women, some Egyptian women are quite literally being pushed around. And when they finally have one place to themselves – the newly-opened swimming pool – for one day each week, there’s a ray of hope. It stars producer Ilham Shaheen as Shamiya, with Nahed El Sebai as upbeat Azza, and Nelly Karim as the widowed Lula, whose father is a drunk, and whose brother is a religious fanatic. All these women’s stories connect at the pool, their camaraderie develops, and though the exterior seems soapy, the issues beneath are real.
Something is stirring in Saudi Arabian film, with Wadjda starting the ball rolling in 2012, and Mahmoud Sabbagh‘s Barakah Meets Barakah is a welcome follow-up. This is a cross between a rom-com, satire, political critique, and lament for times past. The lead duo are both called Barakah, even though he embraces the name and she uses her nickname, Bibi. But as he works as a municipal inspector and she is a selfie-taking Instagram star, it feels like a long shot for our hopeless lovers to have any future. A promising debut.
From Afghan first-time director Shahrbanoo Sadat, Wolf And Sheep stars two engaging children, Sediqa and Qodrat as unlikely friends who are endlessly herding goats and sheep around the brown, dusty hills. They and their peers act out adult roles and curse like troopers, complete with jokes and boasting. Daily life is repetitive, though broken up by a real wolf attack, rivalry between one husband’s wives, and a couple of fantasy sequences. An assured start.
Go to page 4 for more great films from the BFI 60th London Film Festival.
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…