Seret - The London Israeli Film Festival 2013

The Seret London Israeli Film Festival takes place at venues across London from June 9th - 16th. The programme features 25 films, documentaries and TV series from both established and emerging Israeli talent, and the lineup is eclectic enough to ensure there will be something for all tastes. Here's my take on four of the films on offer on this year's festival.

The Ballad of the Weeping Spring (Balada le'aviv ha'bohe)

The Ballad of the Weeping Spring is an unashamedly old-fashioned and straightforward crowd-pleaser, and on that basis it must be regarded as a success. There's no doubt where the film is heading, and you can almost visualise the emotionally charged finale as soon as the plot has been set in motion, but Benny Toraty is smart enough to invest the narrative with plenty of offbeat character touches and incidents. Essentially a "Let's get the band back together" romp, The Ballad of the Weeping Spring consciously nods to The Magnificent Seven as it follows the crotchety Tawila (Uri Gavriel) who is attempting to recruit musicians to perform for a former bandmate before he passes away. The film proceeds as a series of amusing vignettes, with Tawila and his gradually enlarging posse travelling from town to town en route to his ailing friend, and picking up new members for the group, often after engaging in some kind of amusing confrontation. The fact that one of these confrontations involves a jilted bride wielding a machete as she waits for her cowardly husband to come out and face the music indicates the film's tone – the humour and performances are often on the broad side. What keeps the film anchored is Gavriel's tough central turn – he has a Tommy Lee Jones-style gravitas – and the fact that Toraty shows a nimble hand in the way he balances the film's comedy with its more emotional scenes, without letting the film grow overly sentimental. Other pleasures are provided by the striking location work and frequent bursts of traditional Israeli music. It's an entertaining and ultimately satisfying package, and even if you know exactly where the film is going to end up, you don't begrudge the time you've spent getting there.

Joe +Belle

Joe + Belle is a tale of lovers on the run, but when that story has been told and re-told so many times through cinema's history, any take on the concept has to work twice as hard to rise above the dull sense of familiarity. Sadly, little about Veronica Kedar's feature debut feels fresh. The film opens with the quote "When love is not madness, it is not love," but Kedar's tactic for generating that sense of madness consists of throwing disparate elements into the mix and moving at a pace that doesn't allow them to settle. As a result, her film is a baffling collection of contrivances and inconsistencies that barely rings true for a moment. The writer/director herself stars as Joe, and we first meet her as she arrives back in Israel from Bangkok with a bagful of drugs, and we first meet Belle (Sivan Levy) when she emerges from a psychiatric hospital. Their "meet cute" occurs when Belle inexplicably decides to break into Joe's bathroom to commit suicide, and soon a mix-up involving Joe's ex-boyfriend results in a dead body on the floor. The manner in which the two girls attempt to dispose of this corpse creates one of the few scenes in the film that has rich comic potential, but Kedar has lamentable timing in this regard and that potential is frittered away. What's most bizarre about Joe + Belle is the lack of urgency the characters display as they hit the road to escape the law; we never feel the gravity of their crime or their fear of facing the consequences. The lack of humour, tension or social context (aside from mentions of Qassam rocket frequently being overheard on nearby radios) renders Joe + Belle a quite useless thing, and the romance that suddenly blossoms between the pair is laughably unconvincing, particularly after Joe's "Yuck" response when she first hears of Belle's lesbianism. Joe + Belle is full of shortcuts and easy choices, and it never ventures into the complexities that characters and a plot of this nature should throw up.

Epilogue (Hayuta and Berl)

One of the most acclaimed and talked-about films of 2012 was Michael Haneke's Amour, and it was perhaps inevitable that any other film exploring similar subject matter in the same year would be neglected. This appears to have been the case with Epilogue, but Amir Manor's beautifully observed and extremely moving drama deserves to be rediscovered. The film takes place over a single day, beginning in the morning when elderly couple Berl (Yosef Carmon) and Hayuta (Rivka Gur) are disturbed by a social worker who subjects them to a humiliating session of questions and physical trials. This is the first instance of the central characters being baffled and affronted by the modern world that exists outside their apartment, but it won't be the last, and the sight of this poverty-stricken couple attempting to maintain a sense of dignity in the face of their troubles is very affecting. Manor follows both characters as they go their separate ways throughout the day and run some errands, but their shared experience is the same, frustration and disillusionment at the way they are treated by younger generations across the city. "We're irrelevant," a weary Hayuta tells her husband later that night, and the director frequently frames his characters behind glass or through openings to suggest two people cut off from the rest of society. Epilogue has flashes of humour that help leaven the bleak tone, and there are moments of individual kindness that carry a considerable emotional impact. Above all else, it is a wonderful showcase for two veteran actors, whose wonderful onscreen chemistry suggests a whole life lived together, and a love that still burns bright.

The Gatekeepers

The Shin Bet is Israel's interior security service and until The Gatekeepers was made the six surviving former heads of this service had never been interviewed. So Dror Moreh has pulled off quite a coup by persuading them to open up for his cameras, and he has made the most of the opportunity by crafting their recollections into a gripping and eye-opening documentary.  The tale they tell is of a country in a constant state of war, and they explain in sober, illuminating detail what it takes to maintain the security of the state under such circumstances. These are hard men who are resolute in their convictions, and they don't flinch under Moreh's questions, but sometimes we see glimmers of a troubled humanity. Yuval Diskin describes being perturbed by an "unnatural" feeling even after achieving a terrorist kill that is as clean as possible, with no collateral damage, and this sense of moral ambiguity proves to be the film's most fascinating theme. Avraham Shalom dismisses any ideas of morality factoring into the war on terror, suggesting that one should regard the lack of morals in terrorists before worrying about the validity of torture. Ultimately, all six of the interviewees show their desire for a political agreement and lasting peace – "We wanted more security, we got more terror," one states – but they are pessimistic about the future and firm in their conviction that anything and everything must be done to protect Israel while the threat persists. The Gatekeepers is a fascinating study of men for whom warfare is a constant factor, and life-or-death decisions are a daily task. Moreh's beautifully edited film allows these intelligent, eloquent and formidable men to share that experience with us, and the result is a truly extraordinary documentary that lingers in the memory.

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2013

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival begins this week in London, with a number of screenings and events taking place across the capital. The programme contains a diverse collection of films that aim to investigate human rights abuses around the world and bring these situations to a wider audience. Here is my take on four of the highlights from this year's festival.

Jai Bhim Comrade

Jai Bhim Comrade begins in 1997 with the killing of 10 unarmed members of the Dalit community, who were protesting the desecration of a statue of Dr Ambedkar, an inspirational figure for these people. A few days after this massacre, the poet and singer Vilas Ghogre visited the scene of the crime and he was so shaken by the events he committed suicide. This is where Anand Patwardhan – who used Ghogre's music in one of his earlier films – started filming, and over the next 14 years he continued to amass footage, which he has now edited into an engrossing and illuminating three-hour examination of caste discrimination in India. The Dalit people are regarded by many people in India as "untouchables"; they are fit only for the most degrading manual labour and are treated with disdain as they walk the streets cleaning up after those from more respectable communities. In Jai Bhim Comrade, Patwardhan explores the complex history of the country's societal distinctions and exposes the oppression that they face every day, while also telling the story of Vilas Ghogre and keeping tabs on the criminal trial of the officers who opened fire on the Dailts.

That Patwardhan can keep tracks of these various strands of his sprawling subject without ever letting the film feel baggy or unfocused is testament to his intelligent filmmaking. He has a patient, inquisitive approach that allows him ample time to investigate every aspect of the topic in eye-opening detail. He gives voice to a wide spectrum of people during the course of the film, whether they are politicians or members of the downtrodden Dalits, or simply upper-class citizens who don't think twice about airing their bigoted views. The film's most potent tool, however, is the soundtrack, as Patwardhan incorporates numerous protest songs into the film that tell the story with clarity and heartfelt urgency. One of the most striking scenes at the end of the film focuses on a group of young protest singers called Kabir Kala Manch. In a troubling postscript, we are told that they have been forced into hiding after daring to speak out. Jai Bhim Comrade is a brilliant film about politics, injustice, racism and social inequality, but above all it's a film that listens to people who most desperately need to be heard.

The Parade (Parada)

When the LGBT community in Serbia bravely attempted to stage the country's second Gay Pride parade in 2010, the result was a day of riots, violence and hatred as right-wing hooligans and the police (both of whom outnumbered the actual marchers by around 6 to 1) fought running battles. Srdjan Dragojevic's The Parade takes place one year earlier and details the aborted attempt to stage a Pride march in 2009, with his satirical take on the story focusing on a group of homosexuals and homophobes who are unexpectedly forced to work together. Prior to the opening credits, a glossary explains the various derogatory terms that Serbs, Croats, Albanians and Bosnians have for each other, before revealing that they all share the same word – "Peder" – for homosexuals. When Dragojevic introduces us to his four principle characters, they are painted in such broad strokes they initially appear almost cartoonish. There's ultra-macho ex-gangster Limon (Nikola Kojo), his trophy wife Biserka (Hristina Popovic), gay wedding planner Mirko (Goran Jevtic) and his partner Radmilo (Milos Samolov), who drives a pink mini and has to be taught to act like a man in a scene reminiscent of La cage aux folles.

These characters are all given depth by the expert performances from the cast and by Dragojevic's smart script, which takes every opportunity to skewer the codes of Serbian machismo and the thoughtless homophobia that is rampant in the region. The first half of The Parade is terrific fun, as it cleverly draws together the disparate characters and contrives a way to make them co-exist in an amusing manner. The picture loses a bit of its spark when Limon and Radmilo are forced into a cross-country road trip to recruit additional security from Limon's ex-army pals, and the longueurs of this segment push the picture unnecessarily close to a two-hour running time. Watching these initially antagonistic characters bond is still fun, however, no matter how predictable it may be, and the picture has a stirring finale, which epitomises Dragojevic at making us laugh while never letting us forget the very real threat of violence that gay people face in homophobic societies.

Salma

Kim Longinotto has spent years travelling the world and making documentaries about societies that oppress women, and in Salma she has another remarkable story to tell. Salma is the story of a Tamil woman in her 40s who is currently respected as one of India's most prominent poets and female activists, but the true magnitude of her achievement in gaining such a position is only revealed by examining her past. It is common practice in many Islamic Indian communities to withdraw a girl from society when she has her first period, and to keep her locked inside until a husband is found for her. This is what happened to Salma, who was imprisoned by her parents for years until she finally acquiesced to marriage, and then found herself locked up by her husband's family, eventually spending over two decades effectively under house arrest. Throughout this time, Salma was writing poetry about her experiences, and when she finally smuggled these poems into the outside world, the publicity they generated ensured her overdue liberation.

As Salma revisits her past, Longinotto is an unobtrusive observer, with the director always being alert to particularly telling moments. We see her subject telling teenage girls that they have to stay in school, but her advice is contradicted by the many women who repeatedly tell them that this is simply the way things are, and that women of this faith have a role that they have to play. The way in which Salma has overcome the obstacles in her life is truly inspirational, but Longinotto plays that sense of emotional uplift against the backdrop of so many women who never find such a way out. In one haunting shot, she films a wedding, in which a teenage girl is being married to a much older man. As celebrations go on around them, Longinotto's camera moves in to the girl's face; she looks so vulnerable, so afraid, so young.

War Witch (Rebelle)

Many films have explored warfare from the perspective of a child, but perhaps it makes most sense for a film set in Africa to take that approach, considering the way children are regularly forced to take up arms on that continent. Canadian director Kim Nguyen's War Witch is the story of Komona (Rachel Mwanza), a 12 year-old girl abducted by rebel forces from her home in the Democratic Republic of Congo and forced to kill her own parents as she is turned into a soldier. Nguyen augments the horrors of what Komona witnesses and experiences with a magic realism that allows him to create some striking images, notably the white ghosts that walk the land in front of Komona after she has killed. This careful balancing of contrasting tones is a vital component in War Watch's success, and Komona's romance with fellow soldier Magicien (Serge Kanyinda) gives the central section of the film a tenderness that is all the more moving for being surrounded by such horror.

This focus on their relationship also gives dimensions to characters who might have existed as little more than symbolic figures in a lesser film. Nguyen also draws sensitive and convincing performances from his cast of non-professional actors, with Mwanza in particular being an extraordinary discovery. She brilliantly depicts the gradual hardening of Komona's soul in the face of conflict and the atrocities that are inflicted upon her, before her relationship with Magicien allows her to reconnect with her humanity. Nguyen's direction is excellent, attuned to both the emotional journey of his characters and the world they exist in, which is defined by its violence and belief in magic as an everyday part of life. Given how many shoddy and manipulative films we've seen about African troubles, It's easy to be suspicious of western filmmakers who travel to the continent seeking sensationalist fare, but Nguyen has delivered a portrait of an African child soldier that is surprising, nuanced and ultimately very moving.

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival takes place from March 13th - 22nd

FilmFest Australia 2012

Here's my take on four of the films that will be screening at FilmFest Australia in London from September 14th-23rd.

Swerve

Although the roads leading in and out of the remote town of Neverest are largely empty, three strangers happen to converge dramatically on one barren stretch in Swerve's opening minutes, kicking off a twist-laden plot that pivots on a briefcase full of cash. Craig Lahiff's first film in a decade has shades of Jim Thompson or perhaps the Coen brothers, with its cynical portrait of selfish, backstabbing characters trying to outsmart each other in the pursuit of money. But such comparisons may suggest a dark wit underpinning the narrative, which is something Swerve distinctly lacks. All we have here are a collection of archetypal characters – an honest drifter, a corrupt cop, a femme fatale – and a story that relies heavily on sudden reversals. It feels very familiar.

Still, maybe we shouldn't demand too much of a thriller that runs for less than 90 minutes, and for most of its skimpy running time, Swerve holds the attention with its snappy pacing and good performances. In particular, Jason Clarke shines as the cop with a hair-trigger temper and murky past, while Emma Booth is as seductive and duplicitous as she needs to be in the film's only female part. Hanging around on the fringes of the narrative, Travis McMahon appears as an implacable killer determined to track down the loot, but his attempt to create a Chigurh-like figure founders on the actor's complete lack of menace. Swerve does deliver jolts of excitement around the film's key set-pieces, most of which Lahiff handles well, but things go awry during a laboured and contrived detour to an abandoned silver mine and the picture never really recovers from this deflating sequence. Ultimately, in a film that values plot over characterisation, we're never given a reason to care which members of this underdeveloped crew will eventually end up with their hands on the prize, and which of them will end up dead.

Goddess

Elspeth Dickens (Laura Michelle Kelly) is the goddess of the title, and she gets a suitably grand entrance, with the camera sweeping towards her in a parody of The Sound of Music's opening shot. However, just as Elspeth is about to break into song, she has to run off and stop her hyperactive twin toddlers from getting into mischief. Thus, the conflicting aspects of Elspeth's life are presented to us immediately – on the one hand, she's a singer and artist desperate to share her voice with the world, but on the other hand she's a permanently harried and stressed mother of two, with a husband who's often absent. That husband is played by Ronan Keating, handling his acting debut with plenty of confidence and humour, but the standout turn here comes from Kelly. In fact, it's hard to imagine the film working as well with anyone else in the central role.

Kelly is empathetic, funny and charming both as the frustrated housewife and as the all-singing, all-dancing "goddess" she transforms into when the decision to broadcast her songs on a webcam turns her into an internet sensation. Director Mark Lamprell handles the frequent shifts between Elspeth's domestic travails and her musical fantasies in a fluid manner, developing an infectiously enjoyable rhythm, and the songs themselves are nicely varied. There's a Busby Berkley-esque number; a couple of slinky, Fosse-style productions; a neatly choreographed dance down the riverbank; and a big, inclusive number at the end. The different styles and tones Lamprell brings to these sequences keep the film feeling fresh throughout, and it makes it easy to forgive some of its minor flaws. The broad comedy doesn't always work – a frying pan to the face here, an accidental clash of heads there – and the film starts to drag a little towards the close as Elspeth and James' mundane marital crisis comes into focus. But for the most part, Goddess is a smart and entertaining picture that clicks together satisfyingly, and it's worth seeking out for Kelly's potentially star-making performance alone.

Any Questions for Ben?

Rob Sitch has written and directed two of the most beloved entries in the recent history of Australian film, The Castle and The Dish, but after a twelve-year absence from cinemas, his new film Any Questions for Ben? is a very different proposition. Gone is the smalltown charm of the earlier pictures, with this one taking place in Sydney and following the high-flying life of re-branding executive Ben (Josh Lawson). This is one of those pictures that gives us a guy who seems to have it all – Ben is young, handsome, wealthy, and he enjoys a spectacular social life, both with his group of firm friends and the conveyer belt of supermodels who share his bed – before it tries to convince us that such a life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Poor old Ben is starting to feel rather dissatisfied with his shallow, rootless existence, and he realises what's missing from his life when old school friend Alex (Rachael Taylor) comes back to town.

The rest of this absurdly bloated film basically consists of Ben foolishly procrastinating over telling Alex how he feels, with his dithering growing increasingly tiresome to watch. Sitch tries to liven proceedings up with an interminable series of rapidly edited montages set to an unimaginatively chosen soundtrack, but this fast and furious style doesn't really suit him, and these sequences only serve to pad out his underwritten narrative. Thankfully, the director's strengths are evident in other areas, most notably when the film settles down and allows the fine ensemble of character actors Sitch has assembled to step into the spotlight. Any Questions for Ben? is saved by some funny lines and a handful of exceptional supporting performances, with David James (Ben's awkwardly jovial boss), Felicity Ward (his straight-talking friend) and Lachy Hulme (his self-appointed mentor) taking the acting honours. There's also an appearance from Daniel Henshall, who is here playing the nicest guy in the world, and anyone who saw him last in the terrifying Snowtown may be as unnerved by his appearance as I was. No matter how jolly he seemed to be on screen, I kept expecting Henshall to reveal his dark side and start murdering his friends. To be fair, if he had ended up strangling Ben, I would have understood.

Toomelah

Following the recent Samson & Delilah, Toomelah is another film exploring the plight of Aboriginal communities in contemporary Australia, but Ivan Sen's film is something else entirely. There is no attempt made to smooth out the rough edges of this picture: the locations are real, the lighting is natural and the cast is made up of non-professionals playing roles not too far removed from their own experiences. Inevitably, this casting decision leads to some awkwardness and stiffness in the performances, with their evident discomfort (they often look directly at the camera) occasionally distracting from the story Sen is trying to tell. Nevertheless, as the film progresses we are gradually drawn into the world that Sen is showing us through the eyes of Daniel (Daniel Connors), a ferocious 10 year-old.

Daniel likes to act tough, beat up his fellow pupils at school and hang out with the local drug dealers, who treat him as an errand boy. His language (heavily accented and subtitled) is littered with "fucks" and "cunts", but that's just what he hears from every single person around him, and we are encouraged to wonder what kind of future lies ahead for Daniel when these adults are the only role models he has. Toomelah is a bleak and authentic portrait of a society where drugs, violence and crushing poverty dominate the lives of its inhabitants, but the director finds some beautifully human moments amid the wreckage, when Daniel stops playing gangster and briefly reverts to being a child. In Connors, he has found a young lead with a natural charisma and attitude that gives the film a fiery presence at its centre, and we do grow attached to him even as we watch him engage in such destructive behaviour. Ultimately, I have to say I admire Toomelah more for what it is attempting to do than I enjoyed the experience of watching it, but it is a commendable and thought-provoking piece of work.

The London Indian Film Festival 2012

Now in its third year, the London Indian Film Festival was established with the aim of showing British viewers that there is so much more to the continent's cinema than the Bollywood spectaculars we most readily associate with it. The new features and shorts being presented at this year's event are violent, transgressive, amusing, challenging and socially aware, and they will provide an opportunity to see films that may otherwise never be shown here. I've already seen four of the features being screened at the festival, and my thoughts on them are below.

Necklace

Even though it begins with the odd warning Consumption of alcohol and smoking cigarettes are injurious to health, Shekhar Das' new film Necklace is not a cautionary tale about the dangers of overindulgence. Instead, it's an engaging and frenetic farce about a group of characters from across the spectrum of India's class divide. The plot is sparked by a robbery, as professional thief Keshtopada (Rudranil Ghosh) makes a disastrous attempt to break into the apartment of wealthy couple Biswanath (Rittwik Chakraborty) and Shikha (Rituparna Sengupta), which results in him falling from their 2nd floor balcony. As the thief is driven off to hospital, Shikha takes his hysterical wife Kanakchampa (Locket Chatterjee) into her home, in the hope of dissuading her from pressing charges or claiming compensation from the couple. It quickly becomes clear that Keshtopada and Kanakchampa are milking the situation for all it's worth, with the husband playing up the extent of his injuries while the wife starts getting used to the luxurious environment she finds herself in.

Working as both a spry comedy and a commentary on Indian social inequality, Necklace bounds along at an appealing pace, with Das only occasionally overplaying the gags in his pursuit of laughs. For the most part, Das and his cast strike the right note, and the performances from Locket Chatterjee and Rituparna Sengupta are particularly impressive, as the two women from starkly contrasting backgrounds, who gradually overcome their mutual distrust and form a bond in the film's most satisfying narrative turn. Necklace is an unusual comedy which is largely successful, but it does have a number of oddly discordant notes, with the rather offhand treatment of Chandrayee Ghosh's prostitute character being a misstep for the picture. I guess Das is attempting to show that comedy and tragedy, like extreme wealth and poverty, so often exist side-by-side, but this character would probably have been better served by being the focus of another film entirely.

Tooting Broadway

The bloody world of London-based Tamil gangs is the focus of Tooting Broadway, Devanand Shanmugam's confident directorial debut. The screenplay (from another first-timer, Tikiri Hulugalle) ambitiously attempts to tell a story that encompasses a number of years and involves numerous tangentially connected characters, and he opens with a bang, as a brutal attack on a prostitute kick-starts the narrative. Tooting Broadway's opening half is sharp and compelling, as it briskly introduces the major players in the drama. Karuna (San Shella) is the former gang leader trying to make it as a legitimate businessman while his former cohort Arun (Nav Sidhu) has returned to the area after an absence of four years, in order to pull his younger brother out of the criminal life he has been drawn into.

A sense of growing political unrest forms the backdrop to this drama, with a planned Tamil protest outside the Houses of Parliament dominating the thoughts of a few participants. Tooting Broadway poses questions of national identity and loyalty, but it doesn't always successfully mesh these ideas with the focus of gang violence that the film is primarily focused upon. Shanmugam's visual sense is impressive (if a little ostentatious at times, as in an overlong chase sequence) and he uses his locations well, while editor Ben Nugent shuffles back-and-forth between the film's multiple time periods in a slick fashion. In front of the camera, the cast acquit themselves with inconsistent results; Sidhu and Shella are solid but a couple of actors in supporting roles appear ill-at-ease, and as the film flits between its disparate storylines few of these characters are given an opportunity to make a memorable impact on the film. Nevertheless, Tooting Broadway is an commendable debut, which only lacks a sense of originality in its storytelling and emotional impact when it's really needed.

A Decent Arrangement

The decent arrangement in Sarovar Banka's film is a marriage for American-born Indian Ashok (Adam Laupus). He has returned to the country of his heritage in order to find a wife – or, to be more exact, to choose a wife from the contenders who have already been selected for him. His older cousin Preeti (Shabana Azmi) has taken charge of this situation and has already evaluated all of the eligible females in the local area, producing a thoroughly detailed dossier that ranks them for Ashok; all he has to do is pick one. Of course, it's not as simple as that, and Banka's film wittily explores the customs and traditions involved in this process, through the eyes of the beleaguered Ashok.

Ashok is essentially a passenger for much of the movie, following Preeti's instructions and barely uttering a word of dissent, despite his obvious misgivings. This performance suits the character's awkwardness but it can also make him a maddeningly passive protagonist, and a difficult guy to empathise with as he goes through this very taxing ordeal. Far better equipped to carry the dramatic load are the female performers, with Azmi giving a tremendously enjoyable turn as the woman coordinating Ashok's future, and the beautiful Diksha Basu bringing a non-nonsense practicality to her turn as Amita, the woman with whom Ashok is finally paired with. Amita makes it very clear from the start that she is doing this for her parents, and that love is not a consideration for her, which is a dismaying point of view for the western-raised Ashok to digest. This clash of cultures is played with perception and a light comic touch by Banka, a former playwright making his directorial debut here. He imposes a leisurely pace on the picture and is excellent at making the key conversations between the central characters count. He has delivered a very Indian story that should prove to be accessible, entertaining and eye-opening for all viewers.

Gandu

Gandu is the Indian word for asshole, and the fact that director Kaushik Mukherjee (going by the Bond-like pseudonym Q) has given his film this word as its title suggests the confrontational tone being adopted here. The director has said that his intention with the film is simply "to fuck up your mind" and the whole movie plays as a visual and aural assault on the audience. Your mileage may vary with this sort of thing, but I found it almost unendurably crass and juvenile, and while it has whipped up plenty of controversy and discourse on the festival circuit, I just wish it was worth the attention. 

The title character is a sexually frustrated wannabe rapper played by Anubrata Basu, who lives with his mother and spends most of his time masturbating, stealing money from the wallet of his mother's sleazy boyfriend, and performing his generally awful raps to the camera. Gandu is angry, obnoxious and not much fun to be around, so it's hard to get on board with a movie that indulges him as much as this one does. However, the biggest problem with the film is something that may be viewed by others as its greatest virtue; namely, Q's heedless and convention-busting direction. Gandu is screaming for our attention at every minute, with split-screens, captions and hyperactive editing, and while the luminous black-and-white cinematography is often very striking, we aren't given a moment to enjoy it before Q hits us with another example of his directorial verve. Late in the film, the picture shifts into an astonishingly vivid colour sequence for a frank sex scene, but by that point Gandu has already revealed itself to be a mess; the equivalent of being shouted at for 90 minutes, and not having a clue what was said at the end of it all.

The London Indian Film Festival runs from June 20th to July 3rd at venues across the capital.