BFI London Film Festival 2021 Part 2 by Helen M Jerome

MOST DISAPPOINTING

Let me tell you, it wasn’t all sunshine and cinematic treats at the festival. Some movies really didn’t live up to the hype, and some will hopefully disappear. One that got a megaton of hype is Titane (above), which may have won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but I nevertheless hated with a passion throughout – all except for the final third of the film, which can’t quite redeem it. It’s two or three films in one, which is perhaps one of its problems. There’s the auto-eroticism aka car-shagging-porn part (which isn’t a patch on Noemie Merlant’s turn in Jumbo), the brutal serial killer on the run section, and then the Martin Guerre conclusion. Every part feels exploitative and in your face, like a really loud bit of music you can’t turn down, and it’s hard to warm to the central character as she charges around bloodstained and damaged. Director Julia Ducournau will no doubt find a lot of doors open for her after this, and lead actress Agathe Rousselle will turn many heads, but what (almost) redeems the exercise for me is Vincent Lindon as the firefighter in the final third, yearning, tender, loyal, uncompromising and credible even as the movie goes OTT.

Here’s another three I’d recommend you steer clear of. The intense, bloody violence from the opening scenes of Bull make for another hard and deeply unpleasant watch. Neil Maskell is a terrific actor playing the central role, but it feels like every gang vengeance cliché is being ticked off, and I have to admit I didn’t make it to the end. Billed as a psychological thriller, Wild Indian feels more like a daytime TV drama, and despite a couple of solid central performances, again boasts universally unlikeable characters. Norwegian buddies-on-the-run film, The Outlaws, is apparently a true story and starts promisingly with poetic voice-over and odd couple at its heart. But after a while the uneasy, constantly moving camera, flashes back and forth, and eminently dislikeable duo grate and it wears out its welcome.

As for Neptune Frost – well, I should have noted all the red flags (for me) in the billing. An anti-capitalist sci-fi musical “blending afro-futuristic and glitch aesthetics” should have been enough to warn me off. But did I listen? No, I bloody didn’t. Nothing holds together, with any tiny embers of excellence snuffed out, meaning it never adds up to anything compelling. Maybe it will eventually become a cult hit, but I doubt it. Avoid.

Here are our DVDfever Awards for 2021 in Full!

20 Best Feature Films (in alphabetical order):

Rising Talent:

Best Comedy:

Best Romance::

Best Drama:

Best Director:

Best Actress:

Best Actor:

Best Ensembles:

Mass, Boiling Point, The Lost Daughter, The French Dispatch

Best Duo:

Most Haunting:

Small Body, Lamb

Best Ending:

The Power of the Dog

Best Millinery:

Passing

Annual Festival Ubiquity Award (aka the Kristin Scott Thomas Award):

Outright winners: Tim Roth, in Sundown and Bergman Island (above). He’s having a moment. As is Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson in both Lamb and Cop Secret. And Olivia Colman in Lost Daughter and Mothering Sunday. Oh, and Anders Danielsen Lie in Worst Person in the World and Bergman Island.

Most Disappointing:

Titane, Bull, Neptune Frost

Best Documentaries:

BFI London Film Festival 2021 Part 2 by Helen M Jerome – The DVDfever Review

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