When Let the Right One In was first released on DVD in the US, there was much anger over the subtitles on the disc, which appeared to be a simplified and dumbed-down version of those that appeared on the theatrical release. For many fans of that Swedish horror, the title of Matt Reeves' American remake, Let Me In, might suggest a similar policy at work, ironing out complexities and making the film more palatable for a mainstream audience who can't be bothered reading subtitles. Such accusations do carry some weight, it must be said, because there really is no reason for Let Me In to exist. For the most part, the film slavishly adheres to the template of the original – sometimes looking like a shot-for-shot remake – but I came away from Let Me In liking the film a lot more than I expected to, and in some regards actually admiring it more than its acclaimed predecessor. Let Me In might well be a pointless exercise, but as pointless exercises go, it's not a bad effort.
I should say at this point that I never quite saw Let the Right One In as the masterpiece that many hailed it as, but it's an undeniably beautiful and bold film, filled with numerous remarkable sequences and driven by two excellent performances from its young leads. Tomas Alfredson's adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel has much to recommend it, but I found it oddly unsatisfying, respecting it more as a collection of standout scenes and daring choices rather than embracing it as a fully accomplished and cohesive horror.
Let Me In shares many of the original's virtues and flaws, while offering up a few additional virtues and flaws of its own. The story remains essentially the same, focusing on two lonely children, each troubled in their own way. Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is friendless and frequently at the mercy of the school bullies, while the breakup of his parents' marriage ensures his home life offers little stability or comfort. The only person he connects with Abby (Chloe Moretz), the girl who moves in next door and only comes out at night. Abby is a vampire, living with her guardian (Richard Jenkins, fine if underused), who has to go out at night and find blood to satisfy her insatiable hunger. The smartest decision Reeves makes in his adaptation is to focus more intently on the emotional connection between Owen and Abbey, and he is rewarded by excellent performances from his young actors, with the mysterious Moretz and vulnerable McPhee bringing a sense of intimacy and tentative affection to their quiet scenes together. In fact, Let Me In is just as effective – perhaps even more so – when regarded as a story of teenage romance and a coming-of-age tale than as a horror.
Reeves makes a few judicious choices elsewhere in his handling of Let Me In. The ambiguity over Abby's gender – depicted in a confusing, muddled fashion by Alfredson – is dropped here, as is the rather silly cat sequence from the original, while the addition of a car crash sequence filmed entirely from the back seat works superbly. Generally, however, Let Me In is at its best in the quieter moments, wherein Reeves can establish a mood of encroaching dread, and the unconvincing, CGI-enhanced method of Abby's attacks unfortunately tends to punctuate the sinister atmosphere. Despite such missteps (and the director's overreliance on 80's pop references), Let Me In strikes me as a more fully formed film than Let the Right One In, even if it lacks the original film's ambition and imagination. The sense of warmth that Reeves manages to inject into the central relationship gives the film a greater dramatic pull, and it simply feels more consistent overall, although it is similarly let down by the unsatisfying and implausible climax. Let Me In is a commendable piece of work then, and instead of the lazy, rushed travesty that fans must have feared, Reeves has unexpectedly produced a film that still possesses some bite.
The first character we meet in Another Year is Janet, and she is unhappy. When asked by her doctor to rate her happiness on a scale of one to ten, she doesn't hesitate before snapping back "One," with her misery evident in her uncomfortable, closed-off body language, and the tight grimace on her face. Janet seems utterly resistant to the idea that anything short of "a different life" could lift her out of her depression. "What's the point?" she asks despondently, "Nothing ever changes." Despite being played by Imelda Staunton, the star of Mike Leigh's 2004 film Vera Drake, Janet only appears in two scenes in Another Year, the second of which introduces us to Gerri (Ruth Sheen), the counsellor she has been referred to. After that, she leaves the picture never to return, and we wonder what has become of her. Did she keep up her sessions with Gerri? Did she manage to overcome her woes and turn her life around? Or did she slide further into misery and decide to end it all? Leigh isn't saying, but he leaves all of the options on the table.
Even though Janet plays a tiny role in Another Year, she seems to embody one of the film's central subjects, that of people trapped by their own unhappiness, unable or unwilling to change their lives, and finding it impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This description might make Another Year sound like it ranks alongside Vera Drake as one of Leigh's bleakest works, and quite a comedown from his upbeat Happy-Go-Lucky, but it actually settles somewhere in between those two extremes, as it explores states of happiness and sadness and the gulf in between.
The lighter side of Leigh's new film focuses on Gerri's marriage to Tom (Jim Broadbent). This couple might have been together a long time, but they haven't lost the sense of affection and playfulness that has sustained their marriage, and they seem entirely contented with their lot. They also share a great relationship with their son Joe (Oliver Maltman), who seems similarly satisfied with life, and in no great hurry to change his single status despite his mother's gentle prompting. One of the great joys of Another Year lies in watching the way Leigh's characters interact, with their easy familiarity and shared sense of humour creating a convincing, warmly enticing portrait of a real family. Leigh uses this family as the anchor for his film and gradually introduces supporting characters who offer a severe contrast to their sunny disposition.
The most fascinating of these is Mary (Lesley Manville), a workmate of Gerri's and someone who has been a regular visitor to Tom and Gerri's home for many years. Mary is around 50, although she makes an effort to appear younger, and she is unhappily single, frequently drowning her despair in drink as she contemplates a lonely future. When Manville first appeared in the film, twitching and chattering nervously, I thought she was overplaying her part, but it gradually dawned on me that Mary is trying so hard to keep it together, and to maintain some sense of hopefulness, which is exactly what makes her such a heartbreaking character. Manville beautifully expresses the depths of her character's neediness and desperation, and she's devastating in those moments when she drops her forced chirpiness to reveal the sadness within. In a couple of awkward scenes she flirts with the friendly but clearly uninterested Joe when she joins the family for a summer barbecue, but we know she's destined to leave the party alone once more.
Other characters come and go in Another Year. There's Ken (Peter Wight), an old friend of Tom's whose situation mirrors Mary's, but who is even more pitiful as he eats and drinks too much and bemoans his lonely existence. Then there's Ronnie (David Bradley), Tom's older brother who is left bereft by the passing of his wife, and his son Carl (Martin Savage), with whom he shares a fractious relationship. The way Leigh introduces and then dismisses these supporting players gives Another Year a sense of life going on outside the frame, and the impression that we are only dipping into these characters' lives. Leigh frames his film as four snapshots of a year, marking the progression of his narrative by the passing of the seasons. The seasonal chapters are subtly delineated by Leigh and his regular DP Dick Pope through variations in tone, with the most dramatic of these switches occurring in the Winter section, shot in a grey, shadowy hue, and haunted by a sense of loss.
Generally, however, 'dramatic' is not the correct word to use when describing Another Year. Leigh tends shy away from major revelations and explosive confrontations, and instead the film works as an accumulation of details, with the director's camera always ready to capture the gestures, the meaningful glances and the awkward silences that define their relationships. This is the kind of film that only Mike Leigh could have made, with his thorough, character-driven preparation bearing fruit in an ensemble that appears to be fully invested in their roles. The director observes his creations with compassion, and Another Year is one of the most emotionally piercing and resonant films he has yet produced, climaxing with a masterstroke of a final shot that focuses on Mary as she contemplates her future. Again, Leigh gives us no clue as to what lies ahead for this troubled, hugely sympathetic figure, but with the despairing Janet still fresh in our minds, we can only hope and pray for better times ahead.
Sawako Decides (Kawa no soko kara konnichi wa)
This quirky Japanese comedy occasionally threatens to get a little too quirky, but the film is kept in check by some deft direction and a charming lead performance. Hikari Mitsushima plays the title character, a character who is actually defined by her indecisiveness. In her fifth year in Tokyo, she is currently on her fifth job and fifth boyfriend, and while Sawako knows she is downtrodden and that her life is passing her by, she just accepts this state of affairs with her regular catchphrase, "It can't be helped." She believes she's just an average person who doesn't deserve anything better, but she has to get her act together when called back to the small town she grew up in, where her father is dying and the family clam-packing business is quickly going down the tubes. While the insecure and unassertive Sawako can be a frustrating character at times, Mitsushima subtly gives her a beguiling innocence and openness that keeps the audience on her side, even while Yûya Ishii's storytelling can get a little wayward. The director has a lively, sharp visual style and while Sawako Decides occasionally feels baggy, Ishii does build momentum towards the climax nicely in the second half, and there are a couple of very funny sequences along the way. He also neatly rejects some anticipated clichés by basing Sawako's triumphant final act around her embracing, rather than overcoming, her underdog status.
Essential Killing
Vincent Gallo plays a Taliban fighter in Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing, but that fact is only really relevant for the first twenty minutes of the movie. After he has been chased, captured and interrogated by US forces in Afghanistan – remaining stoically silent throughout – Gallo manages to escape and disappear into the snowy mountains, with troops closing in behind him. At this point, the character's loyalty or religious beliefs have little bearing on his actions; what we are watching here is a man desperately trying to survive, by any means necessary, in the harshest of conditions. With Gallo giving a riveting wordless performance, Skolimowski gradually forces his character into a primal state; kill or be killed, find shelter, eat whatever materials are available. The director frequently frames his actor against the vast emptiness of his surroundings, and some of the images captured by Adam Sikora's camera are staggeringly beautiful. Essential Killing is a striking, lyrical film, driven primarily by a raw animal energy, but also blessed with surreal visions, moments of madness and even a touch of tenderness (offered by Emmanuelle Seigner's kindly mute). This is a stunningly bold and enigmatic film, and I already want to see it again.
Dear Doctor
There's a touch of Ealing comedy about the premise to this beautifully measured Japanese film. In a small village, local doctor Ito (Tsurube Shôfukutei) is regarded as something of a saint, but what they don't know is that he's actually a fraud, with no medical qualifications whatsoever. Miwa Nishikawa's film operates on two narrative levels, cutting between Ito's story, as seen through the eyes of his young assistant Soma (Eita), and the later police investigation into his subterfuge. This director was a former protégé of Hirokazu Kore-eda, with whom she shares a light directorial touch and a deep humanism, finding a perfect balance here between comedy and heartfelt emotion. Shôfukutei has a great comedian's face, and he gives Ito an appealing, impish charm, but he also excels in portraying the character's gradually encroaching guilt and shame over his actions later on. Our attachment to him complicates the film's emotional aspect; what Ito did might have been wrong, but he has brought real joy and relief to his patients, in a way that a more conventional doctor may not have done. Dear Doctor is a really wonderful comedy, creating a group of strong, likeable characters and unfolding a story that successfully manages to amuse and move the viewer. The only time Nishikawa come close to stumbling is right at the end, when she threatens to drag the climax out unnecessarily, but when you see the way she finally does bring her film to a close, it's hard to begrudge her decision.
127 Hours
After closing the 2008 London Film Festival with Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle is back as the festival's headline act once again with his latest effort. He has brought the same sensibility and visual style to a very different story, one in which the central character is static for much of the movie. 127 Hours tells the true story of Aron Ralston (played by James Franco), a thrill-seeker whose climbing adventure in Utah's Blue John Canyon ended with him being trapped in a crevasse, his arm pinned to the wall by a huge boulder. The title refers to the length of time that Ralston was trapped, a significant portion of which consisted of him slicing through his own arm with a small penknife in order to free himself, but what surprised me about 127 Hours was how quickly the film dealt with that particular part of the story. However, even if it's over quickly, the sight – or, more accurately, the sound – of Franco cutting the nerve in his arm is one that has stayed with me for days, and it was by some distance the most disturbing moment of the festival. Unfortunately, Boyle lets the tension slacken elsewhere, with his desperate desire to keep the film visually exciting at all times resulting in too many flashbacks, gimmicky shots, dream sequences and cutaways, all of which were less impactful than the simple reality of a man trapped and alone. Still, 127 Hours is moderately gripping stuff and it benefits greatly from both its genuinely stirring climax, and from Franco's outstanding performance, with his charismatic and emotionally charged display maintaining a sense of focus that Boyle sometimes lacks.
Kaboom
Well, that didn't last long. My appreciation for Gregg Araki, built up through his films Mysterious Skin and Smiley Face, slowly drained away as I watched his latest film. Kaboom is partially about pretty young people fucking, and it's partially about a cult that wants to bring about the end of the world. On the whole, I found it pretty tiresome. I won't deny that there are a couple of amusing moments here and there, and the actors are effective enough, with Juno Temple (despite a wavering accent) and Roxane Mesquida (as a sex-mad lesbian witch) standing out, but the film's strained attempt at wackiness never really takes flight. Araki's direction is too sluggish for the film to develop the kind of crazy energy Kaboom really needs, and instead it just plays out as a load of tedious random incidents. It's repetitive, empty and really rather annoying, and a disappointing step backwards for a filmmaker who was just starting to grow on me.
Cold Fish (Tsumetai nettaigyo)
What better way to end a film festival than with an insane tale of murder, sex and butchery in Japan's tropical fish industry? Sion Sono's Cold Fish is apparently based on a true story, although how much of this is drawn from reality and how much was invented by Sono's sick imagination is open to debate. Mitsuru Kukikoshi stars as Shamoto, a timid owner of a small fish shop who has a chance encounter with Murata (Denden), the proprietor of a tropical fish megastore that completely overshadows Shamoto's family-run business. Murata offers to help Shamoto, giving his rebellious teenage daughter Mitsuko (Hikari Kajiwara) a job as one of his scantily clad assistants, but soon he is involving the bewildered Shamoto in murders, and forcing him to assist in the very gruesome dismemberment and disposal of body parts. Cold Fish is the blackest of comedies, and Sono's twisted sense of humour is vital as it prevents the film from simply becoming a nihilistic wallow in human depravity, which it frequently threatens to do so. Sono doesn't hold back from exploring his characters' darkest sexual and rage-filled impulses, but his film remains weirdly compelling, thanks in part to the outstanding ensemble work. Cold Fish builds to an outrageous, blood-soaked finale that has to be seen to be believed, with Sono displaying no pity for these characters as they slowly destroy themselves.
Final Festival Thoughts
So, that was my London Film Festival 2010, and it was a great couple of weeks. The standard was generally high; from the 61 films I saw there were very few out-and-out stinkers, and I ended up with no walkouts and only one case of falling asleep during a screening. However, despite seeing more films than in any previous year, I was disappointed that I didn't get to see everything I would have liked. I'm not too worried about some of the bigger pictures, like The King's Speech and Biutiful because I know I'll have plenty of opportunities to catch those before they get released, but it was frustrating to hear friends and fellow filmgoers rave about 13 Assassins, Blue Valentine, A Somewhat Gentle Man, Taipei Exchanges or Cold Weather, and not know when (or if) these films will receive distribution. It's so hard to predict these days what festival films will receive a proper cinema release; in fact, I remember thinking that Balibo, one of my favourite films from the 2009 LFF, was a dead cert for a wide release, and yet it still hasn't seen the light of day.
Those disappointments aside, the 2010 LFF was a major success. I met some great people and saw some great films, and it's just such a pleasure to spend a couple of weeks watching an eclectic range of cinema surrounded by people who share your passion. Searching for common themes among the films I saw, there's no question that this was a particularly strong year for documentary filmmaking, whether they are straightforward documentaries or films that daringly experiment with the form. Otherwise, the most interesting trait I noticed in the films I watched was that many of them dealt with themes of loneliness or alienation, or of communities somehow cut off from the world at large: Meek's Cutoff, Adrienn Pál, Archipelago, Aurora and Of Gods and Men could all fit this loose description. Also, it was great to see so many filmmakers I admire stepping up their game with bold, ambitious films and, in some cases, producing the best work of their career. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Kelly Reichardt, Olivier Assayas, Mike Leigh, Jerzy Skolimowski, Cristi Puiu and Peter Mullan all left the festival with their already considerable reputations enhanced.
And that's about it. Below you can read my final take on the best and worst of the 2010 London Film Festival. Roll on LFF 2011!
The Best of the Fest
1 - Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
2 - Meek's Cutoff
3 - Waste Land
4 - Essential Killing
5 - Carlos
6 - Tabloid
7 - Another Year
8 - Dear Doctor
9 - Poetry
10 - Adrienn Pál
The Next Best: The Arbor, Archipelago, Aurora, Boxing Gym, Catfish, Hunting and Sons, The Kids Are All Right, Neds, Of Gods and Men, The Tillman Story.
The Worst
1 - Brighton Rock
2 - Blessed Events
3 - West is West
4 - The Nine Muses
5 - Howl
6 - Film socialisme
7 - Miral
8 - Southern District
9 - Kaboom
10 - The Taqwacores
The Tillman Story
Like his last film My Kid Could Paint That, Amir Bar-Lev's The Tillman Story is a documentary about truth and deceit, but this time the deception is on a far greater scale. Pat Tillman was a celebrated football player who gave up his lucrative career to sign up for the Army and serve in Afghanistan, where he was killed in 2004. Initially, the Tillman family and the media were told that he had been killed by enemy fire in an ambush, and he was posthumously honoured with the Silver Star and Purple Heart, but the reality was that Pat Tillman had been killed by friendly fire, a fact that was quickly swept under the carpet. The US government used the death of Pat Tillman as propaganda, and The Tillman Story follows the tireless efforts of Pat's family – particularly his determined mother – to set the record straight, and Bar-Lev's skilfully structured storytelling exposes the cover-up while also painting a moving portrait of a decent, honest family standing up against the government that has betrayed them. The film is compelling, shocking and infuriating; a damning indictment of the government and a mass media that is complicit with their lies. As a piece of filmmaking, The Tillman Story is a significant improvement over Bar-Lev's last film, piecing together the various strands of the story with intelligence and clarity, and its climactic scenes – that show us a group of four-star generals squirming and weaselling their way off the hook – are utterly enraging.
A Brighter Summer Day (Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian, 1991)
The BFI's archive section in the LFF programme is not just for revivals of classics from cinema's earliest decades, as this restoration of a 90's masterwork proves. Edward Yang's four-hour drama A Brighter Summer Day has rarely been seen in its complete form since its original release in 1991, and its long-neglected print required significant work before being presented at the festival, but watching it in its entirety really is a wonderful experience. Set in the early 1960's, the film tells the story of Taiwanese teens searching for an identity by joining street gangs, and Yang sets this narrative against the backdrop of a country coming to terms with a politically uncertain future. He paces A Brighter Summer Day perfectly over the course of his epic running time, gently guiding the film forward through a series of events which gradually accumulate in emotional power without ever seeming forced. There are fine performances throughout from the young cast, with Zhen Zhang giving a confident turn in the lead role and Wang Qizan stealing many scenes as Elvis fan Cat, and the violence that these characters become embroiled in occurs suddenly, being all the more effective for the director's understatement. With Yang's careful compositions and outstanding use of lighting, A Brighter Summer Day is a pleasure to watch, and not a single scene seems extraneous as the director flawlessly unifies the personal, historical and political elements of his film with the elegance of a master storyteller.
The First Grader
This is conventional, tick-the-boxes filmmaking and you can predict its narrative arc from frame one, but The First Grader is a solid crowd-pleaser nonetheless. It's based on the true story of Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge (Oliver Litondo), an 84 year-old who turned up at a local school one day when the new Kenyan government announced free education for all. Undeterred by the teachers' insistence that the offer is aimed only at children, Maruge stubbornly turns up at the school gates every day, dressed in uniform and clutching his pad and pencil, until sympathetic teacher Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris) final relents and allows him to join her class. What follows is a fairly standard tale of inspirational uplift and the desire for education, but director Justin Chadwick also includes some surprisingly dark and violent scenes from Maruge's freedom fighter past, which are jarring against the generally upbeat images of happy African kids running around in slow motion. The First Grader certainly looks smart thanks to Rob Hardy's strong cinematography, but the film is really grounded by its two leads. Naomie Harris gives a sensitive and appealing performance, while Oliver Litondo brings a rheumy-eyed dignity to the role of this unlikely hero.
Attenberg
Is there something in the water in Greece? For the second year running, that country has provided one of the LFF's oddest films. Attenberg is very similar in style and tone to Dogtooth, and there are connections between the two films, as Athina Rachel Tsangari produced Giorgios Lanthimos' brilliant movie, and Lanthimos himself shows up here in a key role. The film also reminded me of Celine and Julie Go Boating, with its focus on two childlike young women cocooned in their own little world. Marina (the amazing Ariane Labed) lives with her dying father and after watching recordings of Sir David Attenborough's documentaries together (the title is a mispronunciation of his name) they like to impersonate animals; at other times, she and her only friend Bella (Evangelia Randou) practise their increasingly outlandish silly walks up and down the garden path. There is a risk that all of this might come off as weirdness for the sake of weirdness, and the major failing of Attenberg is that, unlike Dogtooth, it never gives us a context for its characters' strange behaviour. The film therefore seems to lack a sense of purpose, and only towards the end, as Marina comes to terms with her father's passing, does it feel like Tsangari is trying to give this strange movie some sort of focus. Having said that, every sequence in Attenberg is fascinating to watch, with the performers attacking their roles with relish and the director's use of her actors' bodies being particularly impressive. It might not add up to much in retrospect, but Attenberg is certainly an absorbingly strange piece of filmmaking.
Adrienn Pál
Lonely, obese and stuck in a deadening job on a hospital's terminal ward, all it takes is a name from the past to stir Piroska (Éva Gábor) out of her inaction. When a patient appears on her ward with the name Adrienn Pál, Piroska is reminded of her childhood friend, whom she lost contact with abruptly twenty years ago. Piroska remembers them as being inseparable as children, but as she speaks to fellow classmates and teachers in a bid to track her companion down, conflicting accounts emerge, and we begin to suspect that Piroska has idealised this relationship as a way of escaping the dreariness of her real life. Adrienn Pál is an odd kind of detective story, with director Ágnès Kocsis following her protagonist as she clumps around in her wooden shoes, and the outstanding camerawork gives us a kind of visual representation of the character's inner journey. Kocsis plays around with repetitive rhythms, such as Piroska sitting in front of her bank of monitors, taking a corpse down to the morgue, or idly munching on a slice of cake, and her film is often mordantly funny. There's a terrific running gag in the way diegetic music is utilised, and many scenes are small masterclasses in staging and execution. If I wanted to pick holes in Adrienn Pál I might say that it's a little too long for the story it tells, but this is such an accomplished piece of work, and Gábor's quietly affecting performance is so impressive, it feels churlish to criticise.
Life, Above All
Life, Above All is a powerful but flawed study of an African family torn apart by AIDS as well as a wider examination of the ignorance that many Africans still have when it comes to dealing with the disease. Despite being slight in stature, Khomotso Manyaka gives a commanding performance as Chanda, the young girl who has to hold together a family already reeling at the start of the film from the death of her infant sister. As both her mother and alcoholic father succumb to the disease, Chanda's family begins to be viewed with suspicion by the rest of the community, particularly as she remains close friends with Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane), a child prostitute. Director Oliver Schmitz is tough enough to address these issues in a clear-eyed fashion, but he also has a weakness for melodrama, and Life, Above All's storytelling sometimes comes off as preachy and unlikely. The film's strengths lie in its excellent cinematography and its very strong performances, with Harriet Lenabe bringing some welcome fire and conviction to her role as Chanda's no-nonsense neighbour. Life, Above All is a commendable and quite touching attempt to address a serious issue in an accessible manner, but it's let down by its climax, which feels a little easy and weak.
Somewhere
Sofia Coppola's latest wallow in ennui and alienation caused some controversy when it picked up the top prize at this year's Venice Film Festival, and now I've seen Somewhere, it's easy to see why its victory provoked complaints. The film is empty and aimless, and not even up to the level of the director's own Lost in Translation, which is broadly resembles. As the movie star drifting through hotel rooms and having sex with models every night (the poor guy!), Stephen Dorff gives a faintly monotonous performance, and it's left to Elle Fanning, as his 11 year-old daughter, to bring some natural vitality to the picture. She has been foisted on him by her mother to take care of until she leaves for summer camp, and while they have fun in each other's company, the relationship between the pair doesn't really develop in any interesting way. The film just floats along with a few nice scenes and a few flat ones; Coppola is capable of capturing the odd graceful moment, but she's just as likely to leave a scene hanging with no discernible purpose or direction, and in Somewhere her success rate is about 50/50. Even the film's better moments weren't strong enough to leave a lasting impression on me, and this vapid film started to escape my memory almost as soon as the credits rolled. One thing did stick with me, however, and that's the film's ending, which is laughable.
Neds
Although it might initially appear to be yet another unremarkable tale of disillusioned youths and gang violence, Peter Mullan's portrait of Glasgow's 'Non Educated Delinquents' is distinguished by Mullan's typically forthright direction and some interesting storytelling decisions. Mullan's protagonist is John McGill (impressive newcomer Conor McCarron) a youngster who dreams of escaping his troubled background through education, but who gradually finds himself being sucked back into the violent world inhabited by his older brother. Mullan makes some interesting points about class prejudice and the failings of the education system letting John down; he is humiliated in school when his intelligence and desire to learn is perceived as a superiority complex, and he is treated with barely concealed disdain by the snobbish mother of a classmate. As a filmmaker, Mullan can be blunt and unsubtle, but he can also be wonderfully daring and imaginative, and Neds develops in some extremely unexpected ways, with surreal fantasy sequences being incorporated into the authentic depiction of 70's Glasgow. This is a tough film – Mullan doesn't hold back on the violence, and I found one sequence deeply chilling – but it is also a complex, compassionate and resonant one, and it closes with one of the most remarkable final shots of the year.
Miral
As I watched Miral, I felt that there's a multitude of great stories to be told about this period of history, but this really isn't one of them. Even Julian Schnabel seems unsure about the tale he is telling, as he tries to pick his way through fifty years of Israeli and Palestinian conflict. The title character, played by a horribly miscast Freida Pinto, doesn't even appear in the film for much of its first half, as Schnabel labours over the backstory, first introducing us to Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass), who established a school for Palestinian orphans. This is an interesting story in itself, but Miral then shifts the focus to Nadia (Yasmine Al Massri), a runaway who ends up in jail, before fellow prisoner Fatima (Ruba Blal) picks up the narrative baton. Finally, attention turns again to Nadia, who it transpires is Miral's mother, but by this point in the film I was struggling to retain any interest. After the unexpected success of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Schnabel's old faults return to haunt his filmmaking here, and Miral is hobbled by a ponderous, preachy tone, distracting cameos (Willem Dafoe and Vanessa Redgrave add nothing to the film) and a flashy visual style that fails to cohere with the material. One or two scenes work, and one taut scene in which an act of terrorism is set against a scene from Polanski's Repulsion feels like it has been lifted from another, better film, but generally it just drags aimlessly. Miral's cause is not helped by that fact that Freida Pinto, when she finally does turn up, fails to show the depth and conviction required to give her frustratingly passive character some weight.
Dark Love (L'amore buio)
This is a fascinating, provocative story – and, according to the director, a true one – but it's badly fumbled in the execution. Antonio Capuano's film explores the fallout from a gang rape, with imprisoned teen Ciro (Gabriele Agrio) being the only member of the gang who feels guilty enough to confess. While inside a juvenile jail, Ciro can't stop thinking about the victim Irene (Irene de Angelis), who is slowly trying to piece her life back together, and he begins writing her letters as Capuano cuts back and forth between their stories, to observe the way they both respond to the event that has defined them. Unfortunately, his approach seems at odds with the subject matter, particularly in the flashy visuals and stylised cinematography that is often evident in Ciro's story. His handling of Irene's half of the picture is more sombre, but it feels too vague and lacking in insight, and the film as a whole is oddly passionless, which is both unexpected and disappointing. The only scene in Dark Love that really had any impact for me was a late, silent exchange of glances between Irene and her mother, and I could have done with more moments like that.
The Great White Silence (1924)
One of the undoubted highlights of last year's LFF was the archive gala screening of Underground, and this year the archive gala has again provided a very special festival experience. The Great White Silence is a documentary first produced in 1924 by Herbert Ponting, who travelled with Captain Scott on his ill-fated Antarctic expedition as the team's official photographer. The footage he returned with is extraordinary, particularly in this sensational restoration, and one can only wonder what audiences eighty years ago must have made of the penguins, seals, killer whales and alien landscapes that Ponting's camera captured. He was a daring cameraman – at one point hanging over the side of the ship to view the prow cutting through ice – but he was also a wonderful storyteller, and in The Great White Silence he has fashioned a compelling narrative. The film skilfully details the challenge faced by the expedition and finds time for amusing asides, before the tone darkens as Scott and his men trudge slowly towards their death. At its LFF gala, The Great White Silence was presented along with a new score by Simon Fisher Turner, whose haunting music – incorporating vocal work, sound effects and an effective use of silence – creates an eerily effective soundtrack. This is both a marvellous film and an invaluable historical document, and it will be released in cinemas and on DVD by the BFI next year.
Nothing's All Bad (Smukke mennesker)
Sex and loneliness are the driving factors behind the stories told in Nothing's All Bad, a bleakly funny Danish film that weaves together the lives of four disparate characters. The tone is set in the film's prologue, with a meeting between an emotional man and a prostitute provoking uncomfortable laughter, and more often than not, director Mikkel Munch-Fals successfully walks the very fine line between offending and amusing. He is greatly assisted by four excellent performances: Sebastian Jessen as a young hustler; Bodil Jørgensen as a lonely widow; Mille Lehfeldt as a young woman recovering from a mastectomy; and Henrik Prip as a man struggling to control his sexual perversions. The way in which Nothing's All Bad forms links between these characters and draws them together can often feel contrived and unconvincing, but almost every scene is superbly staged and performed, and the director creates numerous powerful moments. Nothing's All Bad did make me despair at times with its grim view of humanity – particularly of its male characters, almost all of whom are driven by sex alone – but the film also made me laugh a lot, and its clever, awkward ending is actually quite sweet.
Black Swan
In Black Swan – Darren Aronofsky's exploration of how women can't realise their artistic potential until they get laid – the director expresses his lead character's paranoia and duality by constantly surrounding her with mirrors. That should give you an idea of the kind of subtlety on display here, but while Black Swan is often a profoundly silly film, and one that had me laughing incredulously at times, it's also a vivid and recklessly enjoyable one, and there's certainly something admirable in Aronofsky's go-for-broke approach. At the very least, there's a great performance to behold here, with Natalie Portman giving the display of a lifetime as ballet dancer Nina, who has to unleash her darker side to play both the White Swan and the Black Swan in impresario Thomas Leroy's (Vincent Cassel) production of Swan Lake. As she does so, she is plagued by doubts, viewing sexy newcomer Lilly (Mila Kunis) as a threat and wilting under the pressure of her harridan mother (Barbara Hershey). For a while, Black Swan is gripping and hysterical, but at a certain point it just becomes hysterical and impossible to take seriously. Aronofsky serves up some striking visuals and there's an amusingly unhinged cameo from Winona Ryder (as a past-her-best star), but he's too obvious and clumsy a filmmaker to fully exploit the film's psychologically tortured aspect. Black Swan is certainly a ballsy and trashily entertaining picture, but it ultimately ends up feeling like a cluttered mash-up of The Red Shoes, Suspiria and Mulholland Drive, without ever being half as good as any of them.
Poetry (Shi)
Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine still hasn't received distribution after premiering at the London Film Festival in 2007, so let's hope his beautiful new film receives the attention it deserves. Poetry tells the story of 66 year-old Mija (Yoon Jeong-hee) who is suffering the early stages of Alzheimer's. In an attempt to keep her mind active, she signs up for a poetry course, and her teacher encourages her to start examining the world around her – an apple, water, a tree – to truly see these objects in a way she never has before. While this main narrative is unfolding, a secondary story emerges about Mija's sullen, uncommunicative grandson who was guilty of a terrible crime, and Poetry continually sets its central character's search for beauty against the dark ugliness of everyday life. Lee's storytelling is elegant and subtle, with the film playing out at a measured pace that allows room for intriguing minor characters, like the policeman who tells dirty jokes at poetry recitals, or the elderly stroke victim that Mija cares for. Yoon's central performance as the curious, wistful Mija is wonderful, subtly portraying her struggle to come to terms with her grandson's actions and the new sense of understanding she achieves through her poetry course. Lee handles the film's complicated emotions with skill and gracefully draws his various narrative strands together for an exquisite and deeply moving climax. Will Poetry be the first of Lee Chang-dong's films to receive a UK cinematic release? I certainly hope so.
Film socialisme
Watching the latest Jean-Luc Godard film felt like an act of duty rather than an experience I was actively looking forward to, and as expected, the time I spent with Film socialisme gave me very little pleasure. I'm not sure what exactly Godard is trying to say here, or if in fact he has any real interest in communicating with his audience; the dialogue in the film only comes with minimalist subtitles that the director describes as "Navajo English." These texts boil the spoken language down to a handful of key words – "watch no tell time," "nocrime noblood" – and it quickly becomes clear that there's little point in trying to follow the film via this method. Instead, I focused on Film socialisme's images, which is where Godard occasionally shines. The HD photography used in the film's opening section, which takes place on a cruise ship, is vibrant and beautiful, and I found something to enjoy in this section even if I didn't understand who these people were or what their purpose was. The middle section, which takes place at a gas station that houses a llama, is very dull indeed, as is the final collage of sound and image, at which point I was frequently checking my watch. While I'm sure Godard has plenty to say about the Middle East or copyright infringement, the manner of his filmmaking made it impossible for me to connect with his ideas, and I often felt frustrated with the arrogant disdain that he appears to be displaying towards his audience. What we've got here is a failure to communicate, but I still feel I must protest at the news that the film will be available with full English subtitles when it is released in the UK next year. Whatever you think of Film socialisme, it is what it is, and this decision does seem to undermine the picture's unique nature. I wonder what Godard's view is on that?
Route Irish
After revealing an unexpected whimsical side in Looking for Eric, Ken Loach's Route Irish feels like a more natural fit for the director, as he uses the template of a thriller to examine the human cost of the war in Iraq. Mark Womack gives a strong central performance as Fergus, a security contractor whose best friend Frankie (John Bishop) has just been killed in Baghdad. According to the authorities, Frankie was just "In the wrong place at the wrong time," but Fergus smells a rat and begins an investigation that exposes deception and a cover-up, which eventually puts his own life in danger. While it's good to see a film considering the innocent Iraqis caught up in the crossfire, there's an uncomfortable disconnect between the polemical points that Loach wants to make and the structure of Paul Laverty's screenplay. At his best, Loach is still capable of orchestrating powerful and realistic sequences, and he pulls off a couple of memorable scenes here (a shootout in Iraq, a horrible torture scene), but Laverty's script often feels generic in its construction, particularly towards the end of the film. Likewise, the relationship between Fergus and Frankie's widow Rachel (Andrea Lowe) feels forced and poorly defined, the bigwigs in sharp suits are too obvious as the villains of the piece, and many scenes simply end with people shouting at each other. I still think Loach is a filmmaker capable of greatness and a rare veteran director who has retained his passion and integrity, but I'd like to see him working with other scriptwriters to see if they can provide him with the kind of complex, substantial material he deserves.
Brighton Rock (Surprise Film)
Rowan Joffe will tell you that his Brighton Rock is not a remake of the classic 1947 adaptation, but a new interpretation of the novel. However, it's not easy to forget the Boulting brothers' great version while watching this dismal misfire, particularly when the final scene so closely apes the original, which strikes me as a tacit admission that it couldn't be bettered. Otherwise, Joffe gets just about everything wrong, starting with the casting of Sam Riley as teenage gangster Pinkie. Adopting a silly, scratchy voice for the part, Riley never comes close to suggesting the malevolence or calculation that this character requires, and his inert central performance is a handicap the film can't overcome. Surrounding Riley, the performances from Helen Mirren, John Hurt and Andy Serkis are merely adequate, while Andrea Riseborough struggles gamely to give Rose some personality. Joffe seems determined to impose his own directorial personality on the material as well, but his overheated style and gimmicky shots come off as self-conscious, while the dreadful, overbearing score crashes away constantly, and the decision to update the story to the 1960's seems pointless. Nothing coheres, and the film just plods forward with a complete lack of tension and menace. A few months ago, I watched the original film when the BFI screened it on a nitrate print, and it is so much darker, sharper and – dare I say it – so much more modern than this lacklustre and completely disposable picture.
