The London Film Festival 2005

Helen M Jerome reviews

The London Film Festival 2005

London Film Festival 2005…

Helen M Jerome says Good Night, And Good Luck to an intense love affair with film, spread over a fortnight

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All life is here, and then some. For the London Film Festival is now established as not only one of the premier events in the capital’s calendar, but also one of the world’s best movie showcases – attracting directors, writers and stars and huge audiences across a packed fortnight. Yes, there are a few prizes up for grabs, and many films are in search of a distributor, but this isn’t really like Cannes or Sundance. It’s far more celebratory, which gives the festival’s artistic director Sandra Hebron and her estimable team the freedom to programme more daringly and perhaps more personally.

To open the festival with a thought-provoking political thriller like THE CONSTANT GARDENER and close with George Clooney’s compelling and beautiful monochrome GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK is something of a coup in itself. But the rest of the fare sandwiched in between is equally appealing, not least the documentaries, many of which sell out as quickly as their fictional counterparts.

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The big-budget MARCH OF THE PENGUINS is already a proven global hit, and it certainly passes the difficult test of holding both myself and my four-year-old niece in its thrall over 80 minutes. Like an old-fashioned Disney feature, but with higher production values and the unsentimental narration of Morgan Freeman, it tells the incredible journey of the non-flying birds, their courtship, parenthood and phenomenal perseverance. Or as my niece says, “it’s only all about penguins.”

BE HERE TO LOVE ME has a fraction of the budget, but director Margaret Brown wins you over with her great passion for the subject, the late, great American singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, his troubled life, influential legacy, and his family and colourful friends like Guy Clark. It matters not a jot whether you already know this musician’s work, but you’ll definitely want to afterwards.

From a completely different part of the musical spectrum comes RIZE, fashion photographer David LaChapelle’s brilliant study of the exuberant dance scene emerging from South Central LA, its prime movers and shakers and their backgrounds. Thrilling and illuminating – and a real one-off.

The treats among the main features come thick and fast, including SHOOTING DOGS, Michael Caton-Jones’ harrowing film about 1994’s Rwandan genocide, starring the riveting John Hurt and Hugh Dancy. On a lighter note, Anand Tucker’s SHOPGIRL is based on Steve Martin’s novella and stars the author-actor alongside Claire Danes and Jason Schwartzmann in a very modern romantic comedy which has “I Love LA” written through it like a big stick of rock.

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Perhaps the biggest mainstream treat comes in the shape of screenwriter Shane Black’s directing debut, KISS KISS, BANG BANG, a darkly witty and genuinely laugh-out-loud cross-fertilisation of the private eye and buddy genres. Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer are the odd couple trying to solve a tangled case and neither have been better. When Downey’s finger is severed, there are (as they say) hilarious consequences.

But this isn’t the only bizarre finger-severing sequence in a film. Oh no, just wait until you see the absolutely nuts CITIZEN DOG, from Wisit Sasanatieng, the Thai director who previously brought us the absolutely nuts Tears of the Black Tiger. Sort of Amelie in Bangkok, or Alice in Wonderland on acid, this has surreal musical sequences, weird colours and a swearing, smoking teddy bear – and puts the audience in stitches.

On the domestic front, Gosford Park screenwriter Julian Fellowes makes his own directorial debut with SEPARATE LIES, a grown-up examination of infidelity, culpability, manners and morals in middle class, middle England. Couched in a contemporary thriller setting, this draws out impeccable performances from Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson, plus the cadaverous, louche and reliably vulpine Rupert Everett.

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Going back to the Second World War, the festival’s surprise film, MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS, is a chocolate box of delights directed by Stephen Frears and starring Bob Hoskins and Judi Dench as the prime movers behind the revival of London’s infamous Windmill Theatre. Both leads and ingŽnues – including crooner Will Young – clearly relish their larger-than-life period roles in this crowd-pleaser, and Dame Judi has some delicious bon mots to utter.

Of course, the French fare is always thought-provoking, though this time two of their best films come from non-French directors. HELL (l’Enfer) is from Bosnia’s Danis Tanovic, best known for No Man’s Land, and is an uncompromising and incredibly stylish study of a dysfunctional family in meltdown since the death of the patriarch twenty years earlier. Emmanuelle Beart stars as the oldest of three sisters with Carole Bouquet as the ailing mother.

Beart’s ex-husband Daniel Auteuil and the iconic Juliette Binoche play the married media couple at the heart of Austrian director Michael Haneke’s thriller HIDDEN (Caché), the subject matter of which seems to get more relevant by the day. Voyeurism, fear and guilt stalk the movie, which features a genuinely shocking moment towards the end, and touches on the War on Terror and France’s past ties with Algeria. And even Auteuil admits he still can’t explain the plot!

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There’s another abrupt ending in NEWS FROM AFAR, the stunning feature debut from Mexico’s Ricardo Benet, who cast complete unknowns in every part, but Benet himself and the likes of David Aaron Estrada, who plays central character Martin, are surely destined for the same level of success as fellow countryman Gael Garcia Bernal.

Bernal gets his first English language role in the curious gothic movie, , set in Texas and also featuring William Hurt as a redeemed sinner who has become a preacher and eventually welcomes the fruits of his former sin – his bastard son Bernal – into his God-fearing family. But as the plot resembles Oedipus Rex meets Badlands, you already know that it will all end in tears – and violence. Bernal is thankfully as magnetic in English as he is in Spanish. But hey, that’s his job!

Dutch director Joram Lursen has made a heart-warming family film that every football fan will love, IN ORANGE, about a boy who dreams of playing for Holland so intensely that his dead father reappears to help coach him towards his ambition. Far more embittered, but equally amusing is the Czech feature CITY OF THE SUN, which could be retitled Auf Wiedersehen, Czech, about a group of out-of-work chancers willing to try anything to make money as their bills and family problems mount up.

Best of this European bunch, however, is THE DEATH OF MISTER LAZARESCU, which is basically a critique of the Romanian health service as an ailing widower is sent from one overstretched hospital to another. Gruelling and long at 153 minutes, dark and detailed, Cristi Puiu’s second feature repays the effort with shafts of humour. But it is a marathon, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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From Gwyneth to Kirsten, and from Auteuil to Bernal, the film stars turn up and are pretty glittery. Plus it’s always nice to hear from the horse’s mouth why they ended up in such a diverse bunch of movies. But the real insight comes when the filmmakers discuss their craft – an on-the-spot, in-person commentary while the film is still resonating in the enthralled audience’s collective consciousness.

A forest of hands appears as viewers vie to quiz their heroes and hang on their every uttering. Clooney talks about tackling a subject close to his heart, Cameron Crowe reveals that he made ELIZABETHTOWN after driving around listening to Ryan Adams and Patty Griffin, Caton-Jones explains the mixed emotions of filming Shooting Dogs in Rwanda and LaChapelle enthuses about his ‘krumping’ dancers in Rize. Only once do the filmmakers utterly misunderstand their brief, after the screening of The King, when they turn on every eager questioner with venom, and leave the bemused Bernal to try to compensate with charm. An extraordinary misjudgement and a genuinely jaw-dropping session.

So, another autumn has brought rich pickings at the film festival, but what you really want to know is which films can be recommended and dismissed unreservedly. Here goes…

Don’t bother with:

• The Brothers Grimm (a disappointing empty vessel)
• Elizabethtown (utterly vacuous, but with a typically great soundtrack)
• Stoned (a missed opportunity from producer-turned-director Stephen Woolley, crucially omitting Brian Jones’ charisma)

If you’re patient (geddit), check out:

• The Death of Mister Lazarescu

Look out for new talent:

• Director Ricardo Benet (News from Afar)
• Actor David Aaron Estrada (News from Afar)

Oscar winner (bet on it):

• David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck)

Without reservation, rush to see:

• Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
• Rize
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• March of the Penguins
• Hidden
• The Constant Gardener
• Citizen Dog

Remember, until the end of 2005 there’s a touring festival of six films nominated for the festival’s BFI Sutherland Trophy, so check out LFF.org.uk for details. As for the rest of the features, some are coming soon, but others may not appear at your local movie house for some weeks or even months. Enjoy!

Review copyright © Helen M Jerome 2005.