London Film Festival 2020 Part 2 by Helen M Jerome

OUTSIDERS

Focusing on the homophobia so rife in Nairobi that it’s enshrined into law, I Am Samuel from Peter Murimi is shocking, and should be surprising, but violent attacks on gay people are sadly still commonplace. Even their parents won’t accept the couple at the heart of this documentary. Samuel’s father is a preacher and beatings and brutality are routine, making one wonder when they might finally be accepted.

Ultraviolence is a passion project for director Ken Fero with powerful content that doesn’t quite work despite having all the stats and facts to show the sheer number of deaths across many years that can be attributed to UK policing – including Fero’s own classmate. Not as effective as it might be – and you could argue that parts of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series of films highlight the issues more effectively – but it’s all there if you just look past the film’s execution.

Shot from the point of view of the dogs themselves, Stray (above) is Elizabeth Lo’s poetic documentary about the canines legally given free rein to roam in Turkey. One of them, Zeytin rules the roost on the streets, foraging, chasing cats in his leisure time, and hanging out with other dogs and fairly feral kids. Nazar lives with other dogs and kids – including refugees – on building sites, all getting by and eating what they can. Even the strays vaguely have owners and territory, and the puppies are adorable, of course. Indeed, it feels like the Istanbul citizens treat their stray dogs better than their homeless children, which may be Lo’s message.

UNDER THE RADAR

Sometimes you stumble across something that sandblasts its way into your consciousness, and Chess of the Wind, the amazing ‘lost classic’ from 1976 is exactly that. Mohammed Reza Aslani created something that bent all sorts of taboos, then it disappeared. Now this genuine treasure has been found and restored. Clashes between traditional and modern, medicine and religion dominate a plot centred on powerful women. Meanwhile, death and inheritance, a bullying, tyrannical stepfather and the prospect of revenge propel the story. This unexpected treat also delivers out-of-the-blue eroticism, and its high drama feels almost like a Lorca play or one of The Godfather trilogy. Recommend you track it down.

Five decades earlier, three Australian sisters the McDonaghs, made several silent movies including 1929’s The Cheaters. Now that’s been restored to tell its tale of grifters – much like Miranda July’s family in Kajillionaire – and its crisp, witty style still punches through.

Tilda Swinton almost certainly deserves the title of ‘National Treasure’ now, and some 33 years back, our own Peter Wollen used her talents in the short, but by no means sweet oddity, Friendship’s Death. Set in 1970s Jordan, Tilda gets to channel her inner Katherine Hepburn (opposite Bill Paterson), playing an extra terrestrial, chatting and discussing matters endlessly while gunfire pings around outside.

Bang up to date, Pedro Almodovar also uses Tilda as the focus/muse in his new short film, The Human Voice. Based loosely on the Jean Cocteau play, it starts with Tilda going shopping for axes! There’s a stirring big score, the colours of her clothing, pills, walls are also typically Almodovar, and there’s lots of hanging around as we see her destroying all trace of the person she’s awaiting, even though she’s clearly intoxicated by this relationship. Cleverly (as with Pain and Glory) the camera meanwhile pulls back to reveal that it’s all an artifice; all a film set, so as viewers we are ‘in on the joke’.

SHORT STUFF

Everyone who loved Shoplifters will be overjoyed to see the initial episode of TV series, The Day Off Of Kasimi Arimara, which Hirokazu Koreeda directs. Disarmingly charming, it has Arimara basically playing a version of herself – but not exactly her – an actor of the same age doing similar, everyday things. It’s quirky and cosy until…thwack… there’s a family revelation. Seems Koreeda really can do no wrong right now.

Crucially, it’s charm that is lacking from the TV series, Industry (above), which has an amazing line-up of talent in front of and behind the camera, including Lena Dunham (Girls) directing one episode. When it kicks off it seems to be full of the energy of The West Wing, but set in the brutal world of finance and city traders in a glossy, stylised London. All the young characters (including Nabhaan Rizwan’s Hari) have tics and foibles as they create their own set of morals, and seem like they’re constantly auditioning for The Apprentice. The acting is wildly, almost comically, variable, and the dialogue sometimes feels like endless one-liners stapled together, eg central character Harper’s boss saying: “If I wanted a story I’d read Moby Dick.” Feels like it was designed to appeal on both sides of the Atlantic, and may have ended up sinking somewhere in the middle.

In a smart move, the festival made all its shorts free to watch online this year, with abundant treats. The comically homoerotic Shuttlecock from Tommy Gillard won the festival’s audience prize, and masculinity is also undercut in John Ogunmuyiwa’s Mandem. Dolapo Is Fine, with ace soundtrack and smart narrative, has a young black British woman navigating the pressures of a possible job in the City, from assimilation to name to hairstyle, well directed by Ethoshela Hylton, starring Doyin Ajiboye, with co-stars including Gina McKee and Joseph Mydell.

Friends fall out and senseless tragedy unfolds in Karishma Dube’s Bittu, and there’s a sweetly charming trans story in Abel Rubinstein’s Dungarees. Chicken exposes and upends blatant Aussie racism with considerable skill and wit from director Alana Hicks. The atmospheric and beautifully shot Stray Dogs Come Out at Night from Hamza Bangash is worth checking out. And there’s stunning black and white and colour photography, with strong soundtrack, and naturalistic performances in Gramercy, directed by duo Jamil McGinnis and Pat Heywood. Seek them out!

Mads Mikkelsen in Another Round

AND NOW (CUE SOCIALLY-DISTANCED DRUM ROLL)… HERE ARE OUR DVDFEVER AWARDS FOR 2020 IN FULL:

15 Best Feature Films:

Rising Talent:

Best Comedy:

Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan in Ammonite

Best Romance:

Best Drama:

Best Director:

Best Actress:

Best Actor:

Best Ensembles:

Another Round, Bad Tales, Mangrove, Kajillionaire

Best Duo:

Garrett Bradley’s Time

Most Haunting:

The Salt In Our Waters, 180 Deg Rule, Shadow Country, which I just can’t shake.

Best Music:

American Utopia, Lovers Rock

Best Ending:

Another Round

Biggest Labour of Love:

Shadow Country, with screenplay written over many years by Ivan Arsenjev, and all filmed in director Bohdan Slama’s home village.

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

Outright winner: Nabhaan Rizwan, as RPG, rival rapper to Riz Ahmed in Mogul Mowgli and as fated city trader Hari in Industry. Plus Simon McBurney in the terrible Siberia and his fabulous voice in Wolfwalkers. And if we bend the rules a little, and include restored archive films, then Tilda Swinton in both Human Voice and Friendship’s Death.

Second Chance Award:

Malgorzata Szumowska, who made The Other Lamb last year (which I hated) has turned it around in co-directing Never Gonna Snow Again

Most Disappointing:

Siberia, Possessor, Zanka Contact

Best Documentaries:

London Film Festival 2020 Part 2 by Helen M Jerome – The DVDfever Review

Follow DVDfever.co.uk

Related posts:

Follow DVDfever.co.uk