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What about the rest of Europe? From Poland comes Jerzy Skolimowski’s technically daring 11 Minutes, which seems to be moving around lots of disparate snatched lives until you realise that the action is all connected and converging. The total length of the actual action time is just 11 minutes, but we see it from different points of view, rewinding and fast forwarding in time to increase the suspense, fill in the gaps and try to make sense of motivation and context. A bit like putting together a jigsaw without the edge pieces. Initially it all seems to be filmed on iPhones, CCTV, tiny camcorders, Skype, laptops and police cameras, but this isn’t sustained throughout. But how does it all connect? A bold experiment.
From Romania comes a charming, almost wordless romance between lonely actress Cristina and much younger boxer Rafael, in Florin Serban’s Box. He is utterly infatuated with her before they’ve even met, and follows her ceaselessly. But will their seemingly parallel paths ever cross and can they find love or even fleeting passion?
Not exactly a Romanian Rear Window, but Radu Muntean’s One Floor Below does ramp up the tension after Patrascu overhears a neighbour threatening another – and a body is discovered soon after. The magnetic lead character, played by Teodor Corban, is a bit of an Arthur Daley type himself, ducking and weaving to make ends meet, and there’s violence bubbling under throughout this strong study of masculinity, suspicion and conscience.
In Africa and the Middle East there’s still bold experimentation, sometimes backed by generous budgets. The debut feature from Bazi Gete, Red Leaves, has a plot that’s basically King Lear set in modern-day Tel Aviv, with a widowed Ethiopian patriarch and his disappointing family at its heart. Having sold his home, he wants to live with each of his offspring for the rest of his life – or that’s the plan. But they aren’t so keen. He’s demanding and stubborn and they’d rather he was in a home, away from them. And things just get worse for him.
Biyi Bandele’s Fifty sees emotions constantly boiling over and an acting style that’s similarly heightened as we follow the stories of a group of affluent Lagos women in a frankly soapy drama. Bit of a letdown after the promise of Half of a Yellow Sun. Good soundtrack though.
There’s quite a bit of money around in the Middle East for movies right now, and the pick of the bunch is Very Big Shot, from Qatar and Lebanon. In fact, director Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya’s thrilling drama even made it into the festival’s Official Competition. For what starts out as a violent, shoot-em-up thriller gradually turns into something altogether more interesting, clever and occasionally playful. A big shot drug dealer who almost went straight realises he can smuggle vast amounts through airport security if he actually makes a film and hides the drugs in film canisters. So it becomes his film within the film itself. But how will they fund the production? And have they recruited the world’s most earnest director?
There’s a genuinely psychotic character at the heart of Rattle The Cage, the 1987-set thriller from writer-director Majid Al Ansari, and made in the UAE. Crammed with bags of suspense and knowing movie cliches, it has the look, feel, characters and pacing of a western, or maybe one of Tarantino’s violent oeuvre. Set over the course of just a few hours, with a mounting body count, it relies on the audience buying into the almost-pantomime villain luring victims into his web… and hoping for his downfall.
Finally, Asia brings some very different, very dramatic treats. From India comes Meghna Gulzar’s film
Guilty, based on true story of a murder case that’s still ongoing. When a teenage girl is found murdered, dead in her bed, all blame is focused on the family’s servant, who has gone missing. The police are painted as bumbling incompetents. And when the servant is also found dead, killed in exactly the same way, the girl’s grieving parents are suspected of an honour killing. The Inspector (Irfan Khan, reliable as always) from the Central Department of Investigation is called in, only to be betrayed and thrown off the case, so the investigation must start all over again. Gulzar says she was involved in a year and a half’s research for the film – and her thoroughness shows – and even though controversy rages around it, the case has still to be resolved.
Living an isolated life in the suburbs until he’s ‘suspended for being gay’, the professor in Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh works at the university of the same name – and his story is based on a real case from 2009. But has he been intentionally disgraced? How did the men who filmed Professor Siras in bed with his rickshaw driver know when to break in? Theories swirl around that he was intentionally disgraced, and one crusading reporter takes on the story and is determined to prove that this was a conspiracy led by the university and its politicised hierarchy.
The literally shadowy opening of Partho Sen-Gupta’s Sunrise shows top Mumbai cop Inspector Joshi still longing to solve the disappearance of his own child… a decade on. The rain beats down on Joshi’s own personal hell as he stumbles upon an incredibly dodgy nightclub with worryingly young girl dancers and seedy clientele. And meanwhile his wife is cracking up. Will his own personal mission collide with the investigation? And which is reality and which is his dream/nightmare?
An, from Naomi Kawase, is an absolute joy from Japan, with perfect ingredients. Unambitious baker Sentaro is just about getting by making his dorayaki pastries until he gets help from an elderly woman, Tokue, who knows how to make the perfect red bean paste filling, or ‘an’. Soon customers are queuing around the block… until there’s a major setback. No big action or fantasy sequences, just the pleasure of seeing characters and friendships gradually reveal themselves. And Kirin Kiki is simply wonderful as Tokue.
To see how 3D can be employed to boost a big budget musical you need look no further than Hong Kong director Johnnie To’s Office, which also stars its writer-producer Sylvia Chang as the new boss. It’s a non-stop fun fest that oozes glamour, in glitzy, stylised office space, but with all-too-familiar workplace rivalry, stsress and ambition. Not to mention corruption and other corporate shenanigans. The other big name stars include Chow Yun-Fat and Wei Tang, and they clearly relish their vamped-up roles in what’s an improbable mix of Moulin Rouge and Doris Day set during the financial crisis.
Wei Tang also stars in Mabel Cheung’s Chinese drama, Tale Of Three Cities, the far-fetched, but true story of actor Jackie Chan’s parents and how they met, lost and found each other many times. She’s an opium smuggler, he’s an ex-spy, and both are widowed when they first encounter each other. From then on they’re constantly on the run from multiple enemies including the Japanese, and their protracted romance is interrupted by war, near-death scrapes, escapes and rival suitors.
At DVDfever.co.uk we have a weakness for Korean cinema, and Assassination from Choi Dong-hoon certainly has its moments. Set in two time periods, with a gang of criminals assembled into a motley crew to fight against Japan, and boasting bloody shootouts, strong female leads and some double crossing, this may offer nothing new, but is always entertaining.
In the third and final part of our festival round-up we’ll bring you the best of this year’s documentaries, and then announce our virtual awards in all categories… ending by marking your card with a list of the absolutely unmissable movies.