The London Film Festival 2008

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Helen M Jerome reviews

The London Film Festival 2008

CoverLondon Film Festival 2008…

HELEN M JEROME is genuinely surprised by the quality – never mind the breadth – of the field at the 52nd London Film Festival.

My first feeling on scanning through the runners and riders in the festival programme was disappointment. Nothing seemed to jump out and grab me. But how wrong I was. And who would have thought that I would be unreservedly recommending that you on no account miss the following three movies: a Danish thriller; a film set in a French secondary school; and a bleak imagining of Bobby Sands’ 1981 IRA hunger strike, directed by a Turner-prize-winning artist. For THE CANDIDATE, THE CLASS, and HUNGER respectively have nosed ahead of an incredibly strong field. Anyway, enough of the horse-racing analogies…

HUNGER (right) is a brave, unrelenting debut feature from Steve McQueen, a controversial artist with a movie star name, who has made one of the films of the year. Set in Northern Ireland’s notorious Maze prison during the dirty protests and hunger strikes of the early 1980s, this is a genuinely shocking, but also surprisingly beautiful, portrait of the last days of political prisoner, Sands (Michael Fassbender).

He makes the ultimate sacrifice for his cause, surrounded by casual brutality, dehumanising conditions, blood, excrement, and occasional tenderness. And thanks to the powerful imagery, the wonderful screenwriting of Enda Walsh, and an extraordinary, 22-minute-long, single-take, imagined exchange between Sands and Father Moran (Liam Cunningham), this is a film that lingers long in the memory.

Cover Another committed individual is Francois Begaudeau, the inner-city teacher who not only wrote a novel about one school year, but also plays himself in the filmed version, THE CLASS (right). Directed by Laurent Cantet, and winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, this is a highly-charged look at the non-stop cut and thrust of the classroom. Rapid-fire exchanges between the professor and his multi-cultural teenage students variously inspire, threaten and bewilder the entire class, as it teeters on the brink of chaos. And you’ll be quietly hoping that each of them make it through unscathed.

Last year it was Serbia’s The Trap and Iceland’s Jar City that stood out. This year, THE CANDIDATE shows that European noir is alive and well and currently residing in Denmark. From its threatening, Bernard Herrmann-esque score, to its existential, flawed hero Jonas (played by the easy-on-the-eye Nikolaj Lie Kaas), not to mention the twisty-turny plotline and stylish photography, this is a classic and classy thriller. Heck, it even has a blonde femme fatale in it. Tense, pacy and dark, the story focuses on attorney Jonas’ seeming inability to move on from his father’s ‘accidental’ death, even when his own life seems in jeopardy. Jonas switches from hunter to hunted and back as he tries to make sense of what’s going on. Hitchcock would be very proud of director Kasper Barfoed. Simply brilliant.

Cover Let’s get the festival opening, centrepiece, and closing films out of the way.

FROST/NIXON (right) was a great, fun way to kick off festivities, featuring remarkable impersonation-cum-performances from Michael ‘Chameleon’ Sheen as a lavishly side-burned David Frost, and Frank Langella as disgraced ex-President Richard Nixon. The film is directed with welcome restraint by Ron Howard, and fleshes out Peter ‘The Queen’ Morgan’s original hit west end play, adding ripe cameo roles for the likes of Matthew MacFadayen as John Birt, Sam Rockwell as James Reston Jr and Toby Jones as Swifty Lazar.

Talking of Toby Jones, he makes an utterly believable Karl Rove alongside the excellent Richard Dreyfuss as Donald Rumsfeld in Oliver Stone’s W. But this is very much Josh Brolin’s film, dominated by his uncanny rendition – visually and vocally – of George W. Bush throughout his implausible rise to the White House via Yale, drunk-driving, and the oil rigs.

Warm-hearted and suitably uplifting, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE made a fitting closing film, taking our home-grown director Danny Boyle into new territory: India. Bathed in a golden glow, throbbing with life, and dominated by a handful of child actors, this is possibly Boyle’s most crowd-pleasing work yet. But its main drawback is its uneven tone, due to writer Simon ‘Full Monty’ Beaufoy’s contrived structure. For as the hero, Jamal, appears on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, each of the questions relates back to his life story – and the pace of the core narrative drops in the quiz scenes – until the final act when quiz and life converge.

Cover With a fraction of the Boyle budget, but the same vitality and sympathetic characters, two further films from the Indian subcontinent became quiet, word-of-mouth hits. Directed by Mehreen Jabbar, and produced and financed by her mum and dad, RAMCHAND PAKISTANI is a vibrant, dramatic miniature. Based on real events, it features the remarkable Syed Fazal Hussain as an eight-year-old Hindu ‘untouchable’ who strays over the border from Pakistan into India, and ends up in jail. Set in Kashmir, TAHAAN – A BOY WITH A GRENADE focuses on a child’s attempt to reclaim his beloved donkey, and features a revelatory performance from Purav Bhandare in the title role. This gently absorbing tale is helmed by Santosh Sivan, the middle brother of a trio of directors, and son of a documentary filmmaker.

Further east, a much-needed shot of krazy, kamp komedy complete with kowboys came from Korea in the shape of Kim Jee-Woon’s THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (right). Spoofing every western genre, plus action adventures from Indiana Jones to Hero, this has a motley crew of villains, outcasts and bounty hunters in search of a treasure map. Alternating hilarity and wince-inducing violence, it races towards a dramatic conclusion in the Manchurian desert. Lower on the hilarity scale, but equally ambitious in scale is Peter Chan’s Chinese remarkable historical epic THE WARLORDS. Power, love, self-sacrifice, brotherhood and enmity are the universal themes, but the major coup for Chan is in the stellar cast-list: Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro. They are the three comrades-in-arms – and rivals – heading up a cast of thousands through two hours of blood, guts and glory.

The Middle East gave us two memorable, hard-hitting movies. The Lebanese film BEIRUT OPEN CITY mixes genres as its parallel narratives veer into melodrama, black comedy and conventional thriller. But is our Egyptian screenwriter hero, Khaled, becoming the victim of the sinister plot that he’s writing – or not? WALTZ WITH BASHIR, from Israel’s Ari Folman, sounds like an unpromising concept: a full-length animated documentary – with subtitles. But it’s actually a powerful, heartfelt depiction of the hell and futility of endless war, from an equally personal perspective, but without the leavening wit of last year’s major animated feature, Persepolis.

Cover Back into Europe, one hesitates to say there’s a renaissance afoot in French cinema, but LET’S TALK ABOUT THE RAIN is another real treasure from the self-effacing director-writer-star Agnes Jaoui. As ever, she seems able to navigate complex relationships with warmth, and create perfectly-drawn characters like the two ‘filmmakers’ Jean-Pierre Bacri and Jamel Debbouze, who reveal as much about themselves as their subject. In Germany, a rich period of self-examination continues with Uli Edel’s THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX (right).

Following modern classics like Downfall and The Lives Of Others, this is a close study of a turbulent time in the 1970s, as we learn what drove a group of disaffected youths into terrorism. Martina Gedeck, who was so memorable in The Lives Of Others, stars as journalist-turned-activist Ulrike Meinhof, and the charismatic Moritz Bleibtreu is Andreas Baader, whose fiery attitude sparks the group into action.

Also dealing with the recent present is IL DIVO, from Paolo Sorrentino, of Consequences Of Love and Family Friend fame. This is a bio-pic of Italian premier Giulio Andreotti, a man known for being averse to principles, and here played by Consequences star Toni Servillo, again on top form. The opening 10 minute sequence is fabulously, effortless stylish, accompanied by a ravishing soundtrack that propels you through the film – but you must pay attention throughout, unless you’re an expert in Italian politics.

Cover From Scandinavia comes Denmark’s FLAME & CITRON (right), based on the true story of two cool, conflicted resistance fighters with scruples. And one of them – Flame – was at one time the most sought-after man in northern Europe. The director, Ole Christian Madsen, meticulously researched the drama for nine years, and honed his unusual characters through the archives, making this another word-of-mouth, buzz hit of the festival. Icelandic high comedy is a rare thing, but hopefully Valdis Oskarsdottir’s hugely funny COUNTRY WEDDING will lead to more. Basically a road movie with a twist, it features a couple of coachloads of wedding guests – one from the bride’s side and one from the groom’s – en route to the wedding ceremony with walkie-talkies to connect them, but without a map.

The other theme emerging from several films is the effect of new Europeans when they cross borders for work. REVANCHE is a remarkable thriller from Austrian director Gotz Spielmann, that starts with the seedy lives of imported, exploited sex workers in Vienna. And when the main character, Alex and his Ukrainian girlfriend flee the city for the forested countryside, events spiral out of control and nature proves a far from idyllic destination.

In Federico Bondi’s quiet, tender BLACK SEA the heroine is a Romanian carer, Angela (the luminous Dorotheea Petre) paired up with a crotchety Italian widow Gemma – and they bond over their mutual loneliness. In the Dardennes brothers’ THE SILENCE OF LORNA, Lorna is an Albanian immigrant seeking Belgian citizenship by any means necessary, with a deeply moving performance by newcomer Arta Dobroshi.

Cover Those in search of something lighter and frothier could do a lot worse than EASY VIRTUE, based loosely on the play by Noel Coward, but steered towards a more modern course by Priscilla director Stephan Elliott. The leading couple may be Jessica Biel and Ben Barnes as newlyweds, but they have the film stolen from under their noses by the sang-froid and bon mots of frosty matriarch Kristin Scott-Thomas.

In a terribly, terribly genteel fashion, of course. And romantics who loved last year’s Juno should warm to Michael Cera again in NICK & NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, set on one night in New York City. Lots of fun, a silly plot and dynamite soundtrack make this another feelgood movie. If you want more finger-clicking songs along with period pleasure (but minus the happy ending), check out Brit bio-pic TELSTAR, about the legendary music producer Joe Meek (Con O’Neill). This paranoid svengali-figure was a hit-making machine in the 1960s, and writer/director Nick Moran clearly relished transferring his play onto the big screen.

The first annual TOBY JONES AWARD for appearing in the most festival films is this year shared by Mathieu Amalric and Catherine Keener. Amalric makes his mark as Catherine Deneuve’s son in dysfunctional family study, A CHRISTMAS TALE; has a cameo as a man who wears a nappy for his online viewers in the bizarre, voyeuristic 57000 KM BETWEEN US (right); and tries to get the better of Daniel Craig’s 007 in QUANTUM OF SOLACE. Whereas Keener is stuck between melodrama and comedy in her roles in innovative writer Charlie Kaufman’s debut feature as director, SYNECDOCHE NEW YORK; alongside another festival stalwart Colin Firth in GENOVA; and playing second fiddle to Steve Coogan in HAMLET 2. Toby Jones himself, and Matthew Macfadayen are noble runners-up.

CoverSTANDING OVATION

But onto the proper ‘awards’ for the 52nd London Film Festival.

DOCUMENTARY: Best documentary is shared between Terence Davies’ love letter to Liverpool, OF TIME & THE CITY, and Agnes Varda’s visually witty autobiography, THE BEACHES OF AGNES. Intelligent, grown-up and inspirational.

RISING TALENT (DIRECTORS):

  • Lance Hammer for BALLAST
  • Sergei Dvortsevoy for TULPAN
  • Enrique Rivera for PARQUE VIA
  • Charlie Kaufmann for SYNECDOCHE NEW YORK
  • Valdis Oskarsdottir for COUNTRY WEDDING
  • Mehreen Jabbar for RAMCHAND PAKISTANI

RISING TALENT (STARS):

  • Michael Fassbender in HUNGER
  • Arta Dobroshi in THE SILENCE OF LORNA
  • Thure Lindhardt in FLAME & CITRON
  • Nikolaj Lie Kaas in THE CANDIDATE (right)

JUST SAY NO:

    Films to give a wide berth to… well, I hate to say it, but they’re both British. I KNOW YOU KNOW stars Robert Carlyle and a cute kid, is directed by Justin Kerrigan and goes precisely nowhere. But way worse is INCENDIARY, starring Michelle Williams as a ‘working class’ north London girl with an accent that veers all over the place, and a plot that is frankly risible. Avoid.

Cover

AND FINALLY… THE 12 MUST-SEES:

  • HUNGER
  • THE CLASS
  • THE CANDIDATE
  • LET’S TALK ABOUT THE RAIN
  • THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX
  • IL DIVO
  • RAMCHAND PAKISTANI
  • W.
  • FROST/NIXON
  • COUNTRY WEDDING
  • FLAME & CITRON
  • REVANCHE

Check out the official London Film Festival website at: LFF.org.uk

Review copyright © Helen M Jerome 2008.

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