BFI London Film Festival highlights

 I say highlights, but they are simply a sampling of what I saw. Not much, but how wonderful to be able to go out to the cinema again! I am cautious--I mask and distance as much as I can, and hardly anyone else does, which is disconcerting. But I was thrilled to be able to sit in a cinema seat and watch a screen. 

Actually, Curzon Soho's cinema 2 worked out well for me, because I was in the back row and on the end, in what felt like was the usher's seat. Ample legroom and nobody near me. Hurrah!

The films. Well, I only saw two features, both by celebrated auteurs but with very different outcomes. I am embarrassed to say I had never seen anything by Aki Kaurismäki before, though I know him by reputation. His latest, Fallen Leaves, is a curiously slight piece of work, at heart a two hander of lonely man and woman pursuing each other. There are other minor characters and also a dog, but really it's just those two being awkward and laconic and not much happens. The Ukraine war is on the radio as a backdrop, but I am not sure of the significance. The humour is dry and the performances were good but I was left unmoved by the thing. 

Todd Haynes' May December is a different beast, an unsettling expose of human denial, betrayal and deceit. I was a bit shaken by it. Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman are excellent as subject and actress playing subject. Their dance of power is played out as a slow burn over the film's length, with excellent support from Charles Melton as Moore's husband. I will say no more. 

As usual for the last few years, I also watched the shorts available online and found a few of note. Khabur (dir Nafis Fathollahzadeh) explores the ethnographic studies Germans made of their excavations of a site in Syria in the early 20th century. The director repurposes these to expose the assumptions of superiority and exploitation behind the works. She then gives voice to one statue as it sits in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. I found the sound mix a bit iffy, but the film is strong. 

Essex Girls  (dir Yero Timi-Biu) is a contemporary story of a girl navigating different social groups and trying to find her place in among them. Well acted and features Corinna Brown (Tara in Heartstopper!) in a supporting role. 

The other one I really liked was an animation, Boat People (dir Thao Lam and Kjell Boersma), which is the director's remembrances of leaving Vietnam with her family as a very young child. What she knew then and understands now are of course quite different. 

I hoped to get to some of the art exhibits but did not. It was good to be back. 

London Film Festival Shorts for Free 2022

 Once again this year I was not able to attend LFF but I did catch their Shorts for Free that were available online, with today being the last day to view.

It was quite a variable selection in terms of theme and quality. I was surprised to learn Dropout (writer/ dir Ade Femzo) won the audience award for best film, as I found it pleasant but unremarkable, a boy hiding the news of his music career taking off from his mum who wants him to stay in uni. John Boyega had some behind the scenes involvement, so perhaps that connection gave the film a publicity boost. 

The Chinese film I Have No Legs, and I Must Run won the festival's best short award, which is more understandable. It is an unsettling, atmospheric watch steepd in homoeroticism , as two runners compete for a place on the team, forcing each other to greater and greater effort until one of them breaks down. Director Yue Li makes references to pigs in a cage as his two leads work under the beady eye of a demanding coach. 

The other standout for me was Transparent, dancer Siobhan Davies' autobiographical reflection on her motivations and themes, beautifully shot and imaginatively rendered. I also recognised some of the East London locations. 

Several of the films I found annoyingly pretentious, but there were a couple other queer ones I want to mention. An Avocado Pit (dir Ary Zara) brings together a sex worker and potential client for a roam around Lisbon. Very talky but prettily shot. 

Checoslovaquia (dir Dennis Perinango), a Peruvian film, feels like the start of a longer work, as a mechanic-cum-taxi driver becomes entwined in the lives of the queer folk he spies on playing volleyball at the local river (as you do). His struggles with his own toxic masculinity play out over the course of the film and the title has something to do with a sport he watched as a youngster but this was not well rendered in the translated subtitles so I was left confused. The ending, too, feels rushed but it feels like the core of an excellent longer film is there. 

London Film Festival shorts

I didn't actually get to the BFI London Film Festival this year (again), but did watch some of the shorts available on the BFI Player. I watched two programmes, Weird and Wonderful World and My Identity, No Crisis. 

All of the films I really enjoyed came from the latter programme, as the former was long on atmosphere and quite short on satisfying story-telling. Plots and character development I kind of like. 

So, the best of the films I saw included 5 Stars (dir Remi Itani, UK), a drama staged as a documentary in which a women interacts with three Uber drivers over three rides, repeatedly fielding their questions about where she's from. From such a loaded question comes a lot of observations about racial identity and who really belongs, especially as all three drivers have origins outside the UK. Such a clever and knowing film. 

Play It Safe (dir Mitch Kalisa, UK) is a drama set in drama school, as Jonathan tries to negotiate the difficulties in being the only black student in his class. The final scene, which seems to go on for ages, is notable for focusing on the horrified reactions of his classmates, rather than him, as he acts out his assignment. Very well made and tense. 

My favourite, however, was Egungun  [Masquerade] (dir Olive Nwosu, Nigeria) in which Salewa returns to her home country from London to bury her mother. At the funeral she reconnects with someone from her childhood and the stage is set for drama and possible romance. I was cheering the couple on. Really, this could be turned into a feature. Someone, get it made!