BFI Flare: New Adventures

One thing I have noticed so far is the number of films that don't end well, as in don't end clearly or decisively. Perhaps the filmmakers like ambiguity, but it is a bit frustrating for me as a viewer. 

 Low Rider, the much anticipated return of Campbell X, spends most of its running time on the road, as Londonite Quinn seeks out her father in Cape Town. The film is a quest, a road movie and a bit of a search for the authentic self as Quinn falls in with Harley (a wistful Thishiwe Ziqubu), a duck and dive local with a rusty Toyota. 

I enjoyed their rapport but grew frustrated as the film's bumps in the road largely came from bad decisions by Quinn. There was no real sense she wanted to have a spiritual makeover, either, until the last 10 minutes of the film took a sharp left turn and she ended up in some kind of Afrofuturist commune led by a steampunk leader. Most odd and quite jarring. 

The short Notice Me certainly does have a decisive ending as it is a Hackney set rom-com in which a new girl has a meet cute with a hunky barista and then spends most of the film running from any possible happy ending. It is quite fun and great to see some local faces on film, too. 

BFI Flare: Teens on the Run

 Jone, Sometimes (dir Sara Fantova) is a languid drama centring on 20-year-old Jone who is looking after her father and younger sister while also trying to figure out her own life. The film takes place during a week-long festival in Bilbao which allows Jone to get out and meet her friends and also stir up a romance with Olga, who is visiting from Madrid. I liked that it was not a typical coming of age. There is no coming out drama: Jone's friends are totally casual about her desires and encourage her to go after Olga. It never feels like a rom com but rather a well-rounded portrayal of someone caught in the middle of several competing pulls. 

 The short Newbies baffled me. Two young people spend most of its 17-minute running time voiceovering about a single tooth and then wandering around New York and ending up on the subway. I really have no idea what is was supposed to be about, but it looked great, with lots of moody night-time cinematography.  Oh, and Danny Glover pops up. 

 Jone, Sometimes Trailer 

BFI Flare: Transgressions

 How one views Fil Ieropoulos's film Uchronia may well depend on how familiar one is with Arthur Rimbaud and, indeed, how interested one is in the 19th century symbolist poet famed for his provocations. The film invites us to consider our contemporary struggles and interests through the ghost of the resurrected artist as he surveys footage and watches other long dead visionaries alongside us. 

The visuals are engaging and the performances committed, but I felt I was watching a long in-joke, as the entirety of Rimbaud's Un Saison en Enfer was played out on-screen via long, long monologues. Entire scenes could have been scrapped, I felt, and the film would have been better for it. Still, it was amusing to see versions of Emma Goldman and Alan Turing take to the screen and lecture us on our failings. I could well identify with the ghost of Marsha P. Johnson expressing disappointment at today's LGBT community thinking it won the liberation lottery. Ha!

Uchronia Trailer 

The short Rainbow Girls (writer/dir Nana Duffuor) is a delight, as three black trans women raid high end boutiques in SF to get what is theirs. "It don't belong to nobody", claims Angel, pulling a couture dress from her wardrobe, "except some white CEO". Based on true events, the film is quite sympathetic to its desperados, especially Tati who is trying to get herself and her mother out of their car and into some kind of stability. Watching the gang make its escape on an "Ogle" shuttle is quite the tonic. 

Oh, San Francisco! How could it come to this? Never when I lived there back in the day did I imagine such a transgressive city could let itself be thoroughly commandeered by tech bros. Marsha would be so disappointed. And I imagine Rimbaud would also have a few words on the matter. 

Rainbow Girls Trailer 

Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival

 I am in the unusual position of covering two concurrent film festivals, albeit 346 miles apart. Yesterday I attended the first day of BFMAF, which is running through Sunday. This year for the first time the festival is staging relaxed screenings, so I spent much of the day sitting in the town hall under the watchful gaze of Queen Victoria! She was not amused. 

Although I missed the final screening, I did catch the first three, which included Shari Frilot's Black Nations/Queer Nations?, Cece Wyss's All Good Medicine, Jenny Brady's The Glass Booth and Rehana Zeman's Soft Fruit, which were documentaries of various vintages, as well as the highly experimental Q-Loxx and a live performance by Roy Claire Potter. 

Being in the relaxed screening room meant we did not get the Q&As that accompanied the other screenings and Potter's performance was streamed as audio + captions, which I found quite interesting. I actually viewed that one lying on one of the cushions and it gave a different flavour to the experience. 

But I did not detect any real differences in the relaxed screening, although there were options to move around, speak or visit a chill-out space. It's good to have options. 

Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival continues through 22 March.  

 

 

BFI Flare: Five Films for Freedom

 The traditional kick-off for the festival, these shorts from around the globe are available to stream through the 29th of March, offering a taste of the programme. 

The lone UK entry, I Hate Helen, is an amusing take on adolescent jealousy as Priya fixates on Helen, a fellow swimmer and classmate. But when Helen has to help her, Priya is forced to confront the root of her strong feelings. I didn't love the ending, but the film is well made.

Theo, from Brazil, is also a drama about school kids, this time set in 1986 as footie-mad Theo tries to find a way to live out a passion for the beautiful game without declaring a binary gender. There is one outstanding moment when Theo does declare a gender while handing over a piece of candy. Smooth. 

The French film Room 206 is a short doc shadowing Clair as she ("at the moment") prepares for gender-affirming surgery. It seems to take place over one day, but that is not clear. There is a lot of chat about ice cream for some reason. 

 The Mexican doc Rag Dolls also takes place over a day as Rosita and Diana go about their business, navigating the streets of Puebla via wheelchair while giving an idea of how difficult life is for them without family or government support. That their date takes place at KFC is a bit of a surprise but to each her own. 

The Vietnam drama Sweat is a languid two hander as Hung tells his friend Hoang he is leaving to cross the border. They also spend a day together but I did not understand the ending. Beautifully shot but confusing.  

 

The Tasters

 This new film from Italian director Silvio Soldini is a fictionalised account of real events during the Second World War when a small cohort of German women was pressed into service to taste Hitler's food. 

When Rosa Sauer arrives exhausted from besieged Berlin during 1943 to stay with her in-laws, little does she realise she will be whisked to a compound near the Führer's Lion's Den in the countryside. Soon she is seated at a table with six other women and after their initial excitement at being offered rare delicacies, they discover they are actually test subjects: they must eat the dishes and then wait for an hour to ensure that the food is not poisoned. After the initial set-up, I did wonder how the film would maintain its drive for two hours. 

 It does so by introducing an SS officer called Ziegler who sets his stall out as a hard ass and then turns his attentions to Rosa. Thus ensues a queasy courtship which had me declaring, "Oh, No, Rosa". Her husband is declared missing on the Soviet border and she is lonely.... but still. Ziegler, surprise, surprise, is not a nice person, given to threats, intimidation. But still Rosa is attracted. 

With a film like this there can be no happy ending. It's not a rom com, and these are not kind, good-hearted, likeable people. Rosa forms an uneasy alliance with another of the tasters, Elfriede, who seems to be hiding something. And indeed the last act is tense and fraught with dangers. 

The story is true--there were tasters for Hitler, but this film is based on a novel and so must be judged on that rather than historical accuracy. It is well staged and acted. I could have done without the "love" story, but it does raise questions about loyalties and how far people will go in extreme circumstances. 

Trailer 

 The Tasters opens in the UK and Ireland on 13 March.  

The Spin

 This Irish indie road movie (dir Michael Head) starts promisingly enough, as hapless Elvis and Dermot are cornered by their landlady and given a deadline to pay rent on their failing record shop in Omagh. Following the trail of a horde of valuable vinyl, the hit the road and drive down to Cork. 

But once they leave town, the film drags badly, the pair's semi-improvised banter wearing thin. Tara Lynne O'Neill has a few good moments as the voracious landlady and the two leads, Owen Colgan and Brenock O'Connor, have decent chemistry, but the film goes nowhere, despite its penchant for wacky cameos (Kimberly Wyatt with a baffling accent-- Why?). 

In the end, the viewer is left wondering why our patience is being tried on two dimwits who appear to share a brain cell. Instead of whimsy what comes across more is idiocy.  

Trailer

The Spin will be in UK cinemas from 27th February.