London Film Festival 2015 Report -- Opening Night

I'm used to films warping my perception of time, but even so I was taken aback when the words “A Film by Jia Zhang-ke – Mountains May Depart” appeared on screen after what had felt like half an hour of the Chinese director's new film. It turned out to be a very late title card rather than a very early cut to the end credits, and it only brought an end to the first segment of Jia's triptych, with the director again taking a structurally bold approaching to exploring life in contemporary China. While A Touch of Sin told three distinct stories, Mountains May Depart tells one story over the course of three decades, beginning in 1999 and focusing on a love triangle between singer Tao Shen (Zhao Tao), wealthy and arrogant capitalist Jinsheng (Yi Zhang) and humble mine worker Liangzi (Liang Jin Dong). The second segment picks up the story in 2014, when we see that Tao's choice of husband hasn't worked out very well for anyone, and then Jia jumps ahead to Australia in 2025, where the narrative shifts to her son.

As the years go by the screen gets wider, from 1.33 in 1999 to 1.85 in 2014 and finally 2.35 for the futuristic third segment, an aesthetic approach that reflects the gradual widening of the film's scope and the growing distance (emotional and literal) between the characters. It's a daring approach that will prove to be a stumbling block for some viewers, as the film definitely loses something the further it gets from the intimacy of the love triangle that it starts with. There is a lot in Mountains May Depart that the viewer could find fault with, from the way Liangzi is abruptly written out of the film, leaving it feeling frustratingly lopsided, to the climactic section of the film, which admittedly suffers from some stiff performances and clumsy line readings that betray Jia's inexperience at directing in English.

It would be easy to focus on these flaws, but instead I was struck by the ambition and sweep of Jia’s vision. This is a film about family and freedom, about culture and capital, about history and the future, and he doesn’t let the allegorical nature of his story structure overwhelm the personal stakes for the characters. As ever, his filmmaking is elegant and full of resonant images – a wedding invite left on a table; a mother sharing a bittersweet meal with her son; an angry man isolated behind a language barrier of his own making who owns dozens of guns but “has nobody to fire them at.” Above all else, the film is a fantastic showcase for Jia’s wife Zhao Tao, who gives her finest performance here. She is the film’s emotional anchor, and while her absence from the third act is disappointing (despite a good performance from Sylvia Chang in a kind of surrogate role), her return contributes to a deeply moving closing scene that is every bit as memorable as the dazzling opening. Go West, indeed.

Jia Zhang-ke came to the London Film Festival to present his new film, but he was here for another reason too, being the subject of a documentary by Walter Salles. Jia Zhang-ke: A Guy From Fenyang follows the director as he revisits his old haunts and the places where he shot his films, bumps into old friends and acquaintances and contemplates his career and his fractious relationship with the Chinese authorities. Salles doesn’t bring much of a directorial perspective to the film, but it does benefit from some judiciously chosen clips and an elegant rhythm, as well as a sense of intimacy that distinguishes it from most other recent filmmaker documentaries. It’s a thoroughly engaging picture with Jia proving to be an affable and humble guide, and it occasionally provides some interesting insights. A fascinating portion of the film is devoted to the filming of his remarkable 2006 film Still Life against a backdrop that was changing even as they shot, while the most compelling portion comes late in the film as Jia discusses his father and the devastating legacy of the Cultural Revolution, which meant his father’s pride in his son’s work was always mixed with a fear of the consequences that he might face. A Guy From Fenyang was filmed in the build-up to the release of A Touch of Sin and it ends on a disconsolate note, as the denial of a commercial release for the film in China leaves him wondering if he can even continue. Of course, we’ve already seen his subsequent film, and watching this documentary there’s little doubt that Jia Zhang-ke will continue to make provocative, revealing films about contemporary China and the lives of ordinary people living in it for as long as he possibly can.

Another filmmaker being honoured in documentary form this year is Ousmane Sembène, with Sembene!, a film by Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman, accompanying the new restoration of the African director’s superb 1966 film Black Girl in the programme. Black Girl is one of three Sembene films that I’ve seen, along with Xala and Moolaadé, and I know very little about his body of work beyond those films, so I was keen to learn more about the father of African cinema. Sembene! mostly sticks to the established director biography template – chronological details, clips, talking heads – and as a result feels a little staid, but it is given a personal slant by being co-directed and narrated by Gadjigo, a friend and collaborator of Sembene's for the last 20 years of his life, who has now taken on the task of looking after the director's legacy. The portrait of Sembene that emerges through the film is a rebellious and independent man who was fiercely devoted to his craft, often to the detriment of his family and friendships. “I would sleep with The Devil to make a film” we see him saying during the film, but the film can only touch upon this aspect of his personality in a shallow and fleeting way. There are some interesting revelations, such as the fact that he was almost blind when he made his great Moolaadé (which I still found deeply upsetting and potent in just the couple of extracts featured here), but my biggest takeaway from Sembene! was an overwhelming desire to see the rest of this man's films. There is currently an major project underway to restore and re-release all of his films – badly needed, as Sembene! opens with the horrifying sight of decaying film cans – and hopefully there will be a full season of his films coming soon. Even better, how about a celebration of African cinema in general? It still feels like an area of the world that I am disappointingly ignorant of in terms of its cinematic output, and I'd love to have the opportunity to change that.

And I suppose I should make some mention of the festival’s official opening night film while I’m here. I’ve heard a lot of talk in recent weeks about how Suffragette is an important film and a story that deserves to be heard – “The Time is Now,” etc. – but I always get a little suspicious when I’m repeatedly told that a film is ‘good for you’ rather than simply: ‘it’s good’.  Suffragette is not a particularly good film or a particularly bad one – it's just determinedly average throughout, and the most frustrating thing about a film telling such an emotive story is that it feels too often like screenwriter Abi Morgan and director Sarah Gavron are going through the motions rather than really being driven by a sense of fire and urgency. The film follows the gradual emboldening and political awakening of Maud (Carey Mulligan) as she suffers through increasing degrees of drudgery, misery and pain, but the film's deck-stacking – leading to a dreadful scene involving Maud's son – works against it, and Mulligan's committed but unimaginative work doesn't give us a lot to connect with. Things pick up a little when the film moves the action to Epsom late on and Emily Wilding Davison takes centre stage, not least because she is played by the perennially undervalued Natalie Press, an actress who can't help but bring a sharpness, interest and texture to anything she plays. I sat there wishing that she was our protagonist instead. Suffragette is this year's The Imitation Game; a watered-down and inoffensive film that will elicit a combination of moderately appreciative reviews and shrugs in the build-up to the Oscars. Shouldn't we expect and demand more than this? Something that feels just a little bit dynamic, bold and dangerous? A film that defies convention rather than meekly surrendering to it? Yes, we can take satisfaction that a film written, produced, directed by and starring women is being given a platform like this, but I hope people dig deeper into the London Film Festival programme to discover and celebrate female-directed films with genuine vision and artistry.

Chantal Akerman: 1950-2015

Until a couple of years ago the only Chantal Akerman film I had seen, and the only one I'd really heard people talk about, was her 1975 masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Sometimes a filmmaker, even a great one, makes one picture that towers over the rest of their career, and that certainly seemed to be the case with Akerman. My opportunity to explore the rest of her work came in 2013, when A Nos Amours, the repertory film collective run by Adam Roberts and Joanna Hogg, ambitiously announced plans to screen an entire retrospective, including every feature film as well as her documentaries and television work, much of which had never been shown before in the UK. It's hard to imagine a better way to discover a filmmaker.

Akerman was just 25 years old when Jeanne Dielman was released – the same age as Welles when he made Citizen Kane, a comparable achievement – but what struck me about viewing her early works was how different they all felt. It's as if she spent the years prior to her breakthrough film trying on different styles and finding her voice, which suddenly solidified in the intimidating shape of Jeanne Dielman. The early pictures are bold, surprising, funny and haunting, and they provided one of the best cinema experiences I've ever had. 1972's Hôtel Monterey consists of a series of silent tracking shots through hotel corridors, and it was shown at the ICA on a 16mm print. When the ICA screens a film on 16mm they have to position the projector inside the theatre, as it's too big for the booth, and so we could hear only the whirring of this projector and the crackle of the print as Akerman's camera ghosted throughout the building. It's as close to an feeling of hypnosis as I have ever experienced (although her 1993 film D'Est came close to emulating it).

The other revelation that emerged from these early Akerman screenings is that she preceded Jeanne Dielman with a debut narrative feature that is every bit as formally bold and conceptually brilliant as her most acclaimed film. Je, tu, il, elle stars Akerman as an anxious young woman who we first meet alone in her apartment, frantically writing letters and – in an unforgettable image – eating handfuls of sugar straight from the bag. When she finally escapes from this location, she hits the road with a random truck driver (a Brando-esque Niels Arestrup) before hooking up with an ex-girlfriend for one of the most extraordinary and memorable sex scenes ever filmed. It's a genuine masterpiece, and for Akerman, just the first of many.

To watch Chantal Akerman's films in chronological order was to watch a filmmaker continually reinventing herself. Each film seemed simultaneously a natural development as well as a radical departure from what had come previously. Her brilliant 1978 film Les Rendez-vous d’Anna feels just as formally rigorous as Hôtel Monterey or Jeanne Dielman, but it possesses a markedly different rhythm, humour and emotional weight. In the 1980s her work became even more adventurous and surprising, culminating in the vivid and witty Demy-esque musical Golden Eighties that was preceded by a preparatory film called Les années 80, which was made as a rehearsal and features Akerman and her actors repeatedly going over their lines and choreography. It may be little more than a making-of film – a DVD extra these days – but in Akerman's hands it becomes something entrancingly creative, thoughtful and funny.

Perhaps that's the biggest misconception people have of Chantal Akerman's work if it is only represented by a challenging monument like Jeanne Dielman – her films on the whole are incredibly amusing and playful. There are rich comic moments in so many of her films from Je, tu, il, elle and Golden Eighties to Toute une nuit and Nuit et jour, and in the 1990s she even made a mainstream romantic comedy, with the beautifully shot A Couch in New York having a distinctively unusual comic rhythm, which she then one-upped with the screwball farce Tomorrow We Move in 2004. At times it's hard to look at the variety in this body of work and pin down what exactly a Chantal Akerman film is, but there are constants throughout every film – the fluid takes, the masterful use of space, the movement of bodies within the frame, the striking use of colour, the sheer boldness of the vision.

It's fair to say that this ongoing retrospective of Chantal Akerman's films has been one of the most valuable cinemagoing experiences of my life. Over the course of two years I have discovered a unique and multi-faceted artist whose work is boundary-pushing, deeply personal, warm and funny, and endlessly revealing. The retrospective is set to end late this month with the UK premiere of her final film No Home Movie and the opening of an Akerman gallery installation. I will still attend both of these events, albeit now with a heavy heart, but I am devastated that we won't get the masterclass that was scheduled for the afternoon before the screening. I wanted to be there to show Chantal Akerman how loved and respected her work is here in London, and to hopefully tell her what a formative, eye-opening experience discovering her films has been for me. This retrospective won't have the ending that any of us imagined or hoped for, but like all great artists, the work will live on. Earlier this year in Bologna a new restoration of Jeanne Dielman was shown. I can only envy anyone who sees that film and is inspired to embark on the same exhilarating journey of discovery that has almost come to an end for me.

No Home Movie will receive its UK premiere at the Regent Street Cinema on October 30th.

Chantal Akerman Now will be open at Ambika P3 from October 30th to December 6th.

Phil on Film, Badlands, Twitter and Me

You might have noticed that things have been a bit quieter around here these days. When I started this blog many years ago I was very prolific in reviewing new releases but for various reasons that pace has slowed. I simply don’t have the free time to devote to this blog that I used to, and while I am still writing for a variety of magazines and websites, this place has unfortunately fallen by the wayside. I’m hoping to change that over the coming months and perhaps I’ll use Phil on Film for shorter reviews and articles rather than attempting to write a full consideration of everything I see, as I could do once upon a time. It would be nice to kickstart this blog and hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the groove soon ahead of the upcoming London Film Festival.

One reason why my free time has been at a premium is because I’ve added film programming to my part-time activities, hosting events as The Badlands Collective with my colleagues Ian Mantgani and Craig Williams. Putting on these screenings and promoting them takes an awful lot of work but we have had some great events this year – a sold-out 35mm screening of Topsy-Turvy with a Mike Leigh Q&A and the UK premiere of the extended cut of Once Upon a Time in America followed by an Elizabeth McGovern Q&A – and we have some very exciting events coming up soon.

On August 26^th we are very proud to be showing two thrillingly unconventional and ambitious musicals at the lovely new Regent Street Cinema. In All That Jazz and One From the Heart two Oscar-winning directors put everything on the line as they experiment with the musical form; Bob Fosse turns the camera inward and explores his own personal failings with lacerating honesty and stunning artistry, while Francis Ford Coppola gambled his reputation, his career and his finances on a studio-bound love story – a gamble he ultimately lost. These films complement each other in a number of ways and as both films are too-rarely screened we’re thrilled to be projecting both from 35mm prints. You can find out more information and get tickets for these events here.

In September we are putting on our most ambitious event yet. To pay tribute to the legacy of Cannon Films – celebrated earlier this year in the documentary Electric Boogaloo – we have programmed three thematically linked double-bills at three cinemas throughout the month. On September 14^th our season begins with a look at Cannon’s relationship with cult authors, and the Prince Charles Cinema is our location for the wryly humorous and insightful Barfly, written by Charles Bukowski, and the crazily underrated thriller 52 Pick-Up, which was adapted from his own novel by the great Elmore Leonard.

Then on September 20^th we’re back at Regent Street to focus on the eclectic career of Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, who made one of the great action films of the era in 1985 with Runaway Train, a potentially straightforward genre film that grows into something greater and deeper with Oscar-nominated performances from Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, and incredible stuntwork. We’re following that with a real rarity: Konchalovsky’s 1987 drama Shy People, which won a Best Actress award at Cannes for Barbara Hershey and looked set to be an Oscar contender before its bungled distribution ensured it went largely unseen for years. As Roger Ebert wrote, “Of all of the great, lost films of recent years, Shy People must be the saddest case.” We’re so happy to be bringing this forgotten gem to a new audience, particularly when it has never even received a DVD release.

Finally, we’re focusing on Christopher Reeve in our third double-bill. Having publicly declared that he would never play Superman again after Superman III, Reeve was determined to do something that expanded his range and changed public perception of his work, but in order to get his passion project made at Cannon he was required to step into the blue tights one last time. As neither film would exist without the other, we’re presenting both Street Smart and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace at the Brixton Ritzy on September 27th. Street Smart is a hugely undervalued thriller, which boasts a revelatory performance from Morgan Freeman, while Superman IV is a fascinating look at how the first superhero franchise crashed and burned less than a decade after it had begun (and just two years before Tim Burton’s Batman changed the game again).

All of these films will be projected from original 35mm release prints and the chances of seeing some of them on the big screen again are very slim. We also have a few ideas to make each of these screenings memorable events in the true spirit of Cannon Films, so please book your tickets here to make sure you don't miss out.

One last thing. Some of you may have also noticed my absence from Twitter in recent weeks. I love Twitter for many reasons, not least the great people it has brought into my life, but I feel I need a break from it for now. I just don’t think the daily dose of cynicism, outrage and pandering is bringing me much happiness and I am conscious of the way checking my phone in every idle moment has become an automatic gesture. I’m using that time instead to read more, to walk around with my head up, and to focus on tasks in hand instead of checking my feed every five minutes. I am sure I’ll return to Twitter at some point, perhaps in a reduced capacity, but for now I’m finding its absence from my life surprisingly liberating.

That’s all for now, and I hope I’ll see some of you at our events soon. 

The Man Behind Man With a Movie Camera

Yelizaveta Svilova was busy organising footage in her office at a Moscow newsreel agency one afternoon when a colleague rushed over to her and said “Your director is jumping from the second floor window.” When she followed him outside she found her future collaborator and husband Dziga Vertov standing on the terrace, his brother Mikhail Kaufman standing below with a camera ready to capture whatever was about to happen. Vertov jumped and landed with a huge burst of laughter. When Svilova asked him what on earth he was doing, he replied, “I want to see life the way it is. When I jumped I was afraid, when I landed safely I was glad.” The trio later reconvened to study the footage that Kaufman had captured, and Svilova recalled this as a defining moment for her: “I realised when I looked at the material that it brought something new to film.”

Read the rest of my article on Mostly Film

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2015

At the height of summer, when cinemas are dominated by the noise of 3D blockbusters, Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato festival can feel like an escape route for filmgoers seeking something more sedate, rare and esoteric. Now in its 29th year, the festival gathers together an eclectic range of films from across the world, presented on both archive prints and new restorations, and introduces them to audiences who may never get another opportunity to see them. The large and detailed festival brochure handed out to attendees uses the term Il paradiso dei cinefili, the cinephiles’ heaven, and I found little in my time there to contradict this statement. Having said all of that, it felt a bit incongruous to don a pair of 3D glasses as I sat down for my first film after arriving in Bologna. It seems there’s no escaping stereoscopic gimmickry.

Read the rest of my article at Mostly Film