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. 
 

Justice for Kali

 Happy New Year to all and sundry. My hopes for this year are that it runs a bit more smoothly than last. It's also a chance to say goodbye to some old favourites, not least Stranger Things, which concludes its five-season run last week. 

SPOILER ALERT 

Like many, I was gripped by the drama with its twists and turns, new characters and at least one old face. Unlike many, I was thrilled to see Kali, she of the supposedly reviled Lost Sister episode of season 2. In the original episode, not only did Eleven discover she was called Jane, she actually met her birth mother and aunt, thereby giving some context to her life. But not only that, she discovered another survivor of the lab experiments in Kali, who helped her discover her powers. I loved this episode and was disappointed when Eleven/Jane simply discarded all of this new info and headed back to grim Hawkins and her toxic father figure, Hopper. 

Kali then vanished from the story until episode 4 of season 5 and, shock horror, she was back in the clutches of the evil scientists, this time led by Dr Kay. Naturally, I assumed she would join forces with her sister Jane and take down the villainous Vecna. Others assumed differently. The internet with rife with theories that Kali was a plant from Vecna or trying to undermine Eleven. Not a problem--everyone has an opinion. 

 But what were the Duffer Brothers playing at? In bringing her back, they said they wanted to give her a chance to shine, blah, blah. Well, if being repeatedly sidelined and victimised is shining, then they succeeded. Kali barely had a chance to do anything and only used her powers of illusion as she escaped the lab. Nobody really acknowledged her except her sister and even worse Hopper was openly hostile to her. I could not understand what her purpose on the show was, unless it was to make Eleven look good by contrast. Such a wasted opportunity. 

And her demise was grotesque--Hopper leaves her wounded as he carries off Eleven, only goes back grudgingly to get her when Eleven asks him to, then appears quite happy to let her get shot so he doesn't have to give away Eleven's hiding place. But he never needed to give away anything. He could have given fake info to at least stall the captors. Previously, Hopper had said he would happily kill Kali if she made a wrong move. Kill her. A young woman who had been repeatedly tortured, as had Eleven. Who saw her comrades excecuted by the military. Who was then held and had her blood drained repeatedly for experiments. 

 Where was the compassion? The empathy? At least some acknowledgement that this person was suffering trauma? Nowhere. Instead, this character, who had been absent for several years, was just served up as some kind of limp sacrifice to create conflict or influence Eleven's journey or some such nonsense. Yeah, thanks for that. Kali deserved better. 

I like to imagine Jane and Kali off somewhere, invisible to the human eye, living a life away from the military, toxic alpha males, mad scientists and the crazed fanbase that never respected there could be two sister survivors of Hawkins Lab.  

A Tooth Fairy Tale

Who doesn't love an animation featuring fairies, goblins and trolls? I was really looking forward to this new film from director Michael Johnson. But, oh, dear. 

Van is an aspiring tooth fairy being tutored by his strangely muscular dad in the ways of harvesting teeth from unsuspecting children. But Van is restless and not really in tune with his magical powers. Plus, he gets his head turned by hot green goblin Gemma when he catches her spiriting away one of his would-be captures. So ensues an action adventure romance thingy. 

So far, so okay. But Johnson and his screenwriters concoct an awful mess involving an annoying troll, some tooth mines, family drama and, most egregious of all, villainous spiders. Why spiders? Who knows? The writers had a cornucopia of mythical beasts to choose from including gremlins, dragons, griffins, leprechauns, werewolves, centaurs, and gorgons. And they went for spiders, including a cackling queen lazily voiced by Fran Drescher, clearly phoning in her performance, as befits the material.  

Some elements of the story work, such as the idea that the feuding tribes can work together to free their offspring and look to a better future. One without spiders, presumably. Utterly baffling. And really not great for educating kids about biodiversity. Plus, Gemma, who is meant to be a brilliant scientific mind, is reduced to a passive love interest who has to be rescued in the rather ridiculous third act. 

Oh, and Michael Johnson et al, about that climax? Most spiders can swim. Please do better.

Trailer  

 A Tooth Fairy Tale is available on digital download from 8th December