The London Film Festival 2010

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Helen M Jerome reviews

The London Film Festival 2010

London Film Festival 2010…

These are strange days for the business of show. The UK Film Council is wiped out by the coalition government with a single blow – Thwack! And the 3-D movie craze forces storytelling to take a back seat to SFX, CGI and prohibitively expensive kit – Kapow! Can the Empires Strike Back? (not to mention the Vues and indie art houses…)

Well, maybe there is cause for optimism, because as HELEN M JEROME witnesses at the 54th London Film Festival, the film industry continues to defy those who predict its demise by knocking out extraordinary products on budgets vast, negligible… and somewhere in between. There is a richness and diversity in what’s on offer from around the globe that warms the cockles and sees fresh, bold talent emerging – behind and in front of the camera.

First off, let’s mark your card for six mainstream British and American movies that should appear at a multiplex near you soon – and they’re all well worth seeing. The festival’s opening and closing selections, plus four more ‘tent-pole’ titles holding up the middle of the fortnight. The main reason to catch NEVER LET ME GO isn’t the dystopian mystery at the heart of Mark Romanek’s cool, controlled, almost perfect adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel. It’s the blisteringly good performances of Carey Mulligan (right) and Andrew Garfield, who move effortlessly into the premier league already inhabited by their co-star Keira Knightley, who sportingly plays second fiddle to the duo here.

It’s going to take a lot to wrest any Best Actor awards from James Franco in 127 HOURS. Danny Boyle has come up with the goods again, taking the true story of Aron Ralston’s gruelling, near-death ordeal in the desert and transforming it into a feelgood film (no, really). Despite audible wincing from the audience at three exquisitely harrowing moments, Franco’s upbeat, sunny disposition in the face of adversity will pull you through.

With its dream sequences, controlling matriarch, and sub-plots of twisted duality and identity, BLACK SWAN is reminiscent of a Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale cooked up with much more spice than sugar. And it looks to give Natalie Portman a similar push into both the reckoning for awards and becoming a bona fide star. For years it’s seemed that Portman might be treating film acting as a hobby alongside her academic pursuits – much like Franco. But now she’s shown her true commitment by dedicating eighteen months to classical ballet training in order to take the central role in Darren Aronofsky’s deliciously dark, dangerous drama. It’s a brilliant study of the glamour, obsession, bitter rivalry and bitchiness that go into being a prima ballerina. Yes, at times it’s plain daft, yet it’s completely irresistible. Maybe worth having a flutter on Vincent Cassel too for Best Supporting Actor, playing the New York City Ballet artistic director, with his chiselled cheekbones and arched eyebrows speaking volumes as he orders his charges around.

Actresses of a certain age usually have to make do with playing the mother, ex-wife or sundry other secondary parts. So it’s refreshing to see two of America’s finest, Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, front and centre in Lisa Cholodenko’s warm comedy, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, as the lesbian couple, gently bickering as they bring up their two teenage kids, who seem much more all right and together than their ‘moms’. Indeed, if Bening sneaks past Portman and Mulligan to win the Oscar, it wouldn’t be a shock or an injustice. The plot revolves around the kids finding out the identity of their sperm donor dad, who turns out to be Mark Ruffalo, a gorgeous, hippy-dippy, organic gardener and restaurateur (and another tip for Best Supporting Actor, surely). And he throws the family dynamic into disarray, accompanied by a terrific soundtrack, great West Coast weather and a lot of laughs.

Mike Leigh has never been afraid to feature women of a certain age, with Brenda Blethyn and Imelda Staunton turning in career-best performances for him in the past. Now it’s Lesley Manville’s (right) turn to get the Leigh ‘Midas touch’ in ANOTHER YEAR, which should see her jostle with Portman, Mulligan and Bening for any awards going. She plays Mary, a nervy, preening woman who has let life’s chances slip through her hands and takes refuge in drink and her lifelong friendship with solidly married couple Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), who in turn live for their allotment, their son and themselves. The dynamic between these three and the other waifs and strays who drop in makes for a wistful, pin-sharp study of friendship, family and disappointment. Vintage Leigh.

An unexpectedly amusing and rather moving British treat comes with THE KING’S SPEECH, with Colin Firth yet another Best Actor contender. He plays King George VI, crippled with a stammer and short temper, and unable to strike a measured, regal tone when making crucial speeches in public and over the radio. His devoted, pragmatic wife, Elizabeth (played for glorious fun by Helena Bonham Carter) goes in search of a solution, and finds it in the shape of failed antipodean actor-turned-speech-therapist Lionel (Geoffrey Rush), who is as breezy as Firth’s monarch is buttoned-up. But will Lionel’s unconventional methods prevail? Tom Hooper expertly directs an all-star cast (Timothy Spall as Churchill, Michael Gambon as George V, Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop, even Guy Pearce as George’s lovelorn brother) as he tells this compelling tale. But it is very much Firth’s film.

Now for half a dozen movies you might have to seek out in art houses, perhaps eventually on DVD. But seek them out you must. The two films that made me laugh out loud the most come, perhaps improbably, from Norway and Japan. A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN, from Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland, has a script so pitch black and droll as to be almost Pinteresque, and its other major asset is its star, the quite splendid Stellan Skarsgard, who plays a man who is fresh out of jail. He now finds that crime has moved on, his peers have aged, and he seems to have become catnip for middle-aged women, despite his sporting the worst ponytail outside a Coen Brothers movie. The climax involves birth, death, revenge and possible redemption as Skarsgard’s past and present collide. Also recommended is SAWAKO DECIDES, from Yuya Ishii, and starring Hikari Mitsushima in the title role, who is definitely one to watch. Beginning with a colonic irrigation scene and ending with a wake, this is high comedy played with a straight face. Comic staples include an embarrassing uncle, a family of drunks, a ‘greek chorus’ of Japanese clam factory workers, and a knowing child.

In more serious vein comes POETRY (right), from Korean director Lee Changdong (of Secret Sunshine fame). A grandmother, beautifully played by Yun Junghee, is in denial about gradually losing her memory, and tries to cling on to some joy and purpose in life by joining a poetry class, caring for an elderly disabled man, and bringing up her moody teenage grandson, Wook. Her growing sensitivity and blood loyalty are tested when she finds that Wook may be involved in the suicide of a schoolgirl, but the film also raises bigger issues about class, money and morality. ILLEGAL is a Belgian drama from Olivier Masset-Depasse that feels like a documentary, such is its power and directness, and edgy, hand-held camera work. So it’s no surprise to find that it’s based on real events. The central character, Tania (a breakout performance from Anne Coesens, who is married to the director) is a Russian immigrant with a teenage son, no papers and criminals encircling them. She works below the radar for eight years until one day she’s arrested and put in a bleak and brutalising detention centre. The tension is ratcheted up as she becomes increasingly desperate and witnesses her fellow detainees ground down until they give up. Timely and genuinely shocking.

One of the most promising feature debuts, PLANS FOR TOMORROW, comes from director Spain’s Juana Macias. Not only is it tightly plotted, with nods to Crash and Amores Perros in its connected, circular narrative, but Macias has also coaxed naturalistic and empathetic performances from all three of her lead actresses, as their stores intertwine and they are faced with crucial life decisions in one twenty-four hour period. From the other side of the world, Bolivia’s SOUTHERN DISTRICT is set in La Paz and gives a glimpse into the chasms that divide classes and races. Beautifully directed by Juan Carlos Valdivia, the camera endlessly revolves around its cosseted subjects in their fading, palatial mansion, while their Aymara Indian servants, Wilson and Marcy, wait on them hand and foot. Recalling the likes of Visconti in its cool, visual style, yet empathetic in its study of a family in decline, it means that despite the characters’ narcissism, denial and snobbery, we still find them likeable.

In the past the sure things have been films from certain countries, like Korea and Mexico. But where are the best movies coming from now? Quite frankly, I’ll have to plump for Denmark and Russia. First, Denmark: Thomas Vinterberg, of Dogme and Festen fame, has triumphed again with SUBMARINO, a story of two brothers in Copenhagen, their lives and destructive addictions. Not entirely nihilistic, it offers occasional flickers of hope before extinguishing them, but is an emotionally bruising film. The brothers are played by Jakob Cedergren and Gustav Fischer Kjaerulff, and the latter is also among the large cast of A FAMILY, a great ensemble piece directed by Pernille Fischer Christensen. Conflicts between love, work and family sprawl across the film, with birth, marriage and death also present and correct, while Jesper Christensen gives a towering performance as the patriarch.

The flipside of this is NOTHING’S ALL BAD, the astonishing debut feature of Mikkel Munch-Fals. Everyone is connected here, and not in a good way, as our four miserable, lovelorn protagonists discover after a series of rather unconventional liaisons and encounters. And the final scene at Christmas dinner is a classic. Final Danish treat is ARMADILLO, a documentary filmed in Helmand Province and an “exploration into the heart of darkness that is war” according to its director, Janus Metz. He also added that “it’s made more headlines in the Danish press than any Danish film ever”, and you can see why observing these young soldiers in the frontline, especially during and after a firefight with the Taliban, might stir up public opinion. This also won the Festival’s Grierson award for Best Documentary.

Now, Russia: Winner of the Festival’s Best Film award, HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER (right) is a thriller by Alexei Popogrebsky, set at an Arctic weather station, surrounded by endless, bleak, shimmering snow and ice. With just two onscreen characters who have different attitudes to their life and work, it noodles along nicely, building up a claustrophobic, moody atmosphere which abruptly turns into a manhunt. SILENT SOULS is a literal journey for two men, and a journey into their souls, as they discuss their innermost thoughts on a drive to take the body of the driver’s wife back to their Merjan homeland. Intense grief, intimate revelations and a stark ending make this film by Aleksei Fedorchenko one that lingers. Similarly, the ironically-titled MY JOY, from Sergei Loznitsa, is a journey made up of linked characters and episodes, set in modern Russia, but filmed in the Ukraine. Each event is based on something told to Loznitsa, and as the road trip continues, the desperate story darkens with desperate, feral characters and random acts of violence, all stunningly filmed by Oleg (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) Mutu.

Flying the flag for British storytelling are Peter Mullan, with NEDS, and Joanna Hogg with ARCHIPELAGO, her much-anticipated follow-up to Unrelated. NEDS is set in 1970s Glasgow, with foul-mouthed, knife-wielding teenage tribes making their teachers and fellow students’ lives a misery, against a backdrop of drunkenness and thudding glam rock. The breakout star is Conor McCarron, who plays a clever lad who is top of the class in everything until he falls in with the wrong crowd and is thrust into a spiral of violence. He veers from innocent babyface to crazed Scarface with aplomb in an astonishing performance. Kudos to Mullan too, for giving himself possibly the most unpleasant role. ARCHIPELAGO couldn’t be more different in measured pace and cool tone, though its story of a middle-class family holiday in the idyllic Scilly Isles exposes their festering animosities and conflicts with equally scalpel-like precision.

Across the channel, the French are carrying on with their ‘renaissance’ – though we can perhaps take heart that one of their biggest stars is our own Kristin Scott Thomas, excelling once again in the psychological thriller, IN YOUR HANDS (right), directed by debutante Lola Doillon and co-starring the promising Pio Marmai. We’re in Stockholm Syndrome territory here, where a kidnapped surgeon (KST) looks like she’s falling for her bitter captor (Marmai) as she tries not to fall apart. But who is really pulling the strings – him or her? Intriguingly, Doillon says that she had KST in mind when writing the screenplay, as her image in France is “the woman in control”. If only we used her so wisely and didn’t typecast her in Britain. In another twist, the French seem to have their own homegrown version of Le Mumblecore with a slacker movie MEMORY LANE, about a group of hippyish youths who hang out, chat, make love and music, and er, that’s it. It’s gently existential, but won’t frighten the horses.

French relations with Algeria get another airing from director Rachid (Days of Glory) Bouchareb in his epic drama of three brothers, OUTSIDE THE LAW. Not only does it show how badly the Algerians who fought for France were treated, but it also shows how easily pacifists become terrorists when pushed down once too often in striving for their cause. And it’s also got French right-wingers up in arms. Another political film, HANDS UP, takes another hot topic, immigration, and makes the viewer empathise by making the protagonists 10-year-old children who refuse to just stand aside and watch their schoolfriends and their families deported.

The rest of Europe is keeping pace, especially with the new Spanish-Mexican movie, BIUTIFUL (right), from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, starring Javier Bardem and the very modern city of Barcelona, which is being stretched to breaking point. As Bardem’s health and family relations decline, so the city slowly spins out of his control – and he must face his own mortality while barely keeping his Senegalese street-merchants and Chinese factory workers existing on the margins, away from the police, as all sides bubble towards the inevitable boiling point. Also from Spain, ELISA K is a controlled, narrated drama about the after-effects of a sexual assault on an 11-year-old girl by one of her father’s friends, unbeknownst to her family. The first half is shot in black and white and the second half in colour, as Elisa’s life moves on – though one always wonders if and when her repressed memory might resurface. Sensitively co-directed by Jordi Cadena and Judith Colell, this is based on the novel by Lolita Bosch, and is a highly promising start.

From Spain, and filmed in San Sebastian in the Basque language, FOR 80 DAYS is a novel take on late love. When a car crash puts her ex-son-in-law in a coma, ageing housewife Axun visits him in hospital and is reunited with an old girlfriend, retiring piano teacher Meite, whose brother is in the next bed. Despite not having seen each other for fifty years, their girlish romance is soon rekindled, their camaraderie pulls them inexorably together, but puts Axun’s marriage in jeopardy. It’s a warm and very human study of friendship and optimism, with superb performances from both leads, and empathetic direction from Jon Garano and Jose Mari Goenaga. Also tackling an unlikely relationship between two women – one a married piano teacher (mmm, that rings a bell), the other bored, mischievous and living with her boyfriend – is THE CALL. This joint Italian-Argentinean production is set in Buenos Aires and Patagonia, and is another story of grabbing life – and love – when it comes towards you, no matter how incredible and unexpected. “Of letting in light when you’re in periods of darkness”, as the director, Stefano Pasetto, explained.

With a name like Massimo Coppola, you’d expect his debut feature, AFRAID OF THE DARK (BRUISES), to live up to the pedigree, and although it turns out that he’s no relation, the film shows his potential for a great future. In short, the plot pitches a young Romanian woman into the midst of Italy, where in Single White Female style, she appropriates another woman’s family and boyfriend, but is actually looking for her own mother and identity – accompanied by a Joy Division soundtrack. Coppola has a cocky, arrogant confidence, backed by Paolo Sorrentino’s producers, so this could be the start of something remarkable. Watch this space. And let’s not forget the always-reliable Czech filmmakers, like Toma Main with 3 SEASONS IN HELL, based on a tragic, true story and set in 1947 Prague, where idealism turns to ashes, bohemians are set against the bourgeoisie and no-one trusts anyone else.

Finally, a whistle stop tour of the rest of World Cinema at the festival: who’d have thought we’d ever see an Israeli Catch 22 or a Filipino Falling Down – but we have them now, in INFILTRATION and MANILA SKIES. And there’s even a political allegory about Kyrgyzstan, in the shape of THE LIGHT THIEF, which has some terrific, larger-than-life characters, but a far from happy ending. With OCTOBER, Peru is another country punching above its weight cinematically, (albeit with some help from Venezuela and Spain) as it links storylines about love, loneliness, religious festivals, money-lending and an abandoned baby, with yet more terrific characters and an unexpected ending.

COLD WEATHER (right) is a satisfying, low budget mystery from the US, in which an endearing bunch of twentysomething underachievers try to solve a girlfriend’s disappearance, aided and abetted by their obsessive studying of Sherlock Holmes. Heck, they even start smoking pipes to help them think like Conan Doyle’s detective! But don’t lump this in with crime films, as the mystery is mainly played for laughs, and the director, Aaron Katz, is really using the story to explore friendship. Rounding up the global goodies is a true story of a cult figure who is still alive, I AM SINDHUTAI SAPKAL. This is Indian film-maker Ananth Mahadevan’s bold retelling of a classic rags to riches journey, and the only difference is that the riches are spiritual and altruistic, and involve speaking out for the poor, the disenfranchised, the orphaned, and the maltreated. A genuine heroine and a worthy subject.

  • STANDING OVATION: But onto the proper ‘awards’ for the 54th London Film Festival.

  • RISING TALENT (MOST PROMISING DIRECTORS):
    • MIKKEL MUNCH-FALS for Nothing’s All Bad
    • JUANA MACIAS for Plans For Tomorrow
    • OLIVIER MASSET-DEPASSE for Illegal
    • PERNILLE FISCHER CHRISTENSEN for A Family
    • LOLA DOILLON for In Your Hands
    • JORDI CADENA & JUDITH COLELL for Elisa K
    • SERGEI LOZNITSA for My Joy
  • RISING TALENT (STARS):
    • CONOR McCARRON in Neds
    • ELLE FANNING in Somewhere
    • ANNE COESENS in Illegal (right)
    • HIKARI MITSUSHIMA in Sawako Decides
    • PIO MARMAI in In Your Hands
  • CAREER BESTS:
    • MIKE LEIGH for Another Year
    • STELLAN SKARSGARD in A Somewhat Gentle Man
    • YUN JUNGHEE in Poetry
    • NATALIE PORTMAN in Black Swan
    • JAMES FRANCO in 127 Hours
    • MARK RUFFALO in The Kids Are All Right
    • COLIN FIRTH in The King’s Speech
    • LESLEY MANVILLE in Another Year
  • BEST DOCUMENTARIES: ARMADILLO and THE TILLMAN STORY, for their unflinching examinations of how the first casualty of war is truth – and the inevitable fallout from conflict whatever your nationality. TABLOID for Errol Morris’s peek inside a lurid story of true love, Mormons, bondage and a beauty queen. JOURNEY’S END for a tender, universal study of an old people’s home in Canada. And THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUCESCU for extraordinarily revealing use of archive.

  • MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENTS: SOMEWHERE, from Sofia Coppola, actually goes nowhere. It has a wonderful performance from young Elle Fanning (presumably as the young Sofia) and Stephen Dorff looks ravishing and washed-up all at once, but by being so unengaging and laidback it also manages to cast the viewer adrift. THE AMERICAN, directed by Anton Corbijn and starring George Clooney, looks good, but is curiously uninvolving for a thriller. REVOLUCION features shorts from ten of the best Mexican directors, but most of them miss the mark, despite honourable intentions. THE TAQWACORES sounds like a promising look at a bogus youth cult, but delivers a muddle. Ken Loach’s own incredibly high standards aren’t quite matched by his ROUTE IRISH, a subject covered far better in Peter Bowker’s recent TV mini-series Occupation. OKI’S MOVIE is too clever for its own good. EDGE is a noble English effort with some notable actors that doesn’t quite hang together. And PATAGONIA is a disappointing dual narrative from Wales and Patagonia. But they all get full marks for trying…

    • AND FINALLY… THE 12 MUST-SEES:

    • THE KING’S SPEECH
    • NEVER LET ME GO
    • ANOTHER YEAR
    • THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (right)
    • 127 HOURS
    • BLACK SWAN
    • A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN
    • SAWAKO DECIDES
    • POETRY
    • ILLEGAL
    • PLANS FOR TOMORROW
    • SOUTHERN DISTRICT

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

    Review copyright © Helen M Jerome 2010.

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