Letterboxd — Your life in film

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

A Cold War comedy of misunderstandings, Top Secret’s terrific humour offers a fascinating contemporary British look at the communist threat, its silly story of a sanitary engineer who becomes mistaken for an international spy brilliantly handled in Jack Davies and Michael Pertwee’s gag-stuffed script. Smartly satirical in one moment, happily hysterical the next, it’s a movie that blends its many comic registers just about to perfection. What’s better yet is how beautifully shot a film it is, rich with noirish inspiration and therein excellently equipped to add atmospheric shadow to its constant laughs. They, always effective, are primarily delivered by George Cole, whose farcical yet believable leading turn grounds the film in a protagonist both ridiculous and relatable. The sly similarities made throughout between the operations and intentions of the war’s opposing sides are surprisingly sharp, and make all the greater the shame that this hidden gem has had little rediscovery.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

In the case of Borat and Bruno, the films and characters that launched Sacha Baron Cohen to stardom on both sides of the Atlantic, the bulk of the comedy—such as it was—came from the audacity with which the vulgarity and crassness was staged, and the sheer awkwardness that arose from the reactions of the public to this transgressiveness. The Dictator, by contrast, scripted and shot traditionally without the benefit of mockumentary realism, is little more than the most egregiously childish “humour” desperately spouted with increasing insensitivity across the course of a running time that feels ten times longer than really it is. Aggressively crude, the witless film excuses its consistent racism only by its inflated American stereotypes, mistakenly thinking that being offensive to all is somehow akin to being offensive to none. That’s not the case, and The Dictator’s persistent bad taste is just senselessly stupid, crass crap masquerading as boundary-pushing bravado.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

Teen angst is a tricky subject to handle in any medium: an earnest effort can just as easily wind up seeming to support the problems of privileged youth as genuinely tapping into existential dread. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You knows this well, and just about manages to stay on the right side of the line, though several missteps threaten to see it cross over. Following the fortune of the disaffected James, cut off from his divorced parents and sister alike, it’s a movie that always means well but never quite succeeds entirely. A tangential scene featuring Aubrey Plaza, though by far the funniest the film has to offer, only goes to show just how disjointed and tonally erratic a film it is, its inability to marry darker thematic elements with sillier moments of comedy by far its biggest issue. An excellent cast headed by the young Toby Regbo does much to iron out the major problems.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

Honing in on five specific case studies, teasing the utmost frankness from the characters it finds, Beatrice Alda and Jennifer Brooke’s wonderful documentary Out Late profiles the experience of those who exit the closet toward the end of their lives. Standing both as embodiments of the repressive climate of their cultures in which they were raised and the more accepting atmosphere of today, these people speak openly and beautifully about the challenges of coming to terms with who they are, and learning that there’s nothing more important in life than being comfortable in your own skin. Often joyous to watch, Out Late also manages more than once to enrage, particularly in a segment where the devoutly Catholic neighbour of a lesbian couple speaks of her friendship with the two and then suggests they may be going to hell. Though dogged with a lacklustre aesthetic and confined by its brisk running time to overview, Out Late is a stirring and very important film.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

Like the shock of being suddenly submerged in an ocean of ice-cold water, Alaskan writer/director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s feature debut is a striking experience, announcing the burgeoning filmmaker as one of the most visually talented and promising we have. On the Ice is a gorgeous work of art, its snowy vistas the perfect backdrop for a narrative hinged on tough moral questions. Shot with a nonprofessional cast in the Iñupiaq town where the drama is set, this is a formidable first feature with a stunning soundtrack to match its astonishing visual composition. It’s the most devastating shame, then, to find MacLean’s cast ill-equipped to do justice to the complexity of this morality play, their inexperience more a distraction than it is a benefit. Even the best, most beautifully shot story can be undermined by botched line delivery; though its multitudinous positives remain, On the Ice falls far short of the greatness it deserves.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

Another oh-so-English comedy from yesteryear, It’s Never Too Late explores the intricacies of 1950s family life with its story of a housewife turned novelist who finds herself whisked away to Hollywood to work on developing a film adaptation of her first book. Taking the archetypal family, restrictive gender roles and all, and cracking it wide open, the highly witty film sets itself up for some insightful social commentary before largely resolving everything in an underwhelming finale that does a slight disservice to the story’s erstwhile sense of progressiveness. It is, at least, marvellously funny throughout, the interactions between its colourful cast—stuffed with memorably wacky characters across four generations—and the wild antics into which they’re thrown making for no end of effective comic material. Phyllis Calvert’s performance in the lead role is perhaps the film’s strongest suit, as witty as any other and somehow so sadly involving too.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

One gets the sense immediately in watching It’s All Over Town that narrative is not the sort of thing with which its writers are familiar, nor indeed would they approve of it if ever introduced to the concept. A madcap musical that only barely manages to string together its wonderfully deranged numbers, it’s an insanely enjoyable time that could easily double its 55 minute running time with no complaints from the audience. Released in 1963, it somehow manages to still be a little shocking in its best moments, the sexually-charged moments it delights in delivering often very naughty indeed. Featuring appearances from a number of the major up and coming British pop acts of the time, it shuffles from set piece to set piece with little concern for anything more than getting the audience caught up in the deranged revelry of its song and dance, a task which it’s expertly equipped to complete.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

Very much a comedy of manners, Isn’t Life Wonderful! takes square aim at the affected airs of upper class Britons around the turn of the (last) century, using its sharp satire on times gone by as a means by which to reflect the social structure of its own time, the 1950s. Delightfully witty in the most English way imaginable, it’s narrated directly to the audience by the young son of a stiff-upper-lipped aristocrat whose alcoholic brother tries to win the affection of a visiting American heiress. Predominantly genteel comedy makes highly enjoyable this slightly outdated film, which nonetheless manages to entertain a modern audience with the sheer seduction of its strong wit. Primarily channelled through the laughably stereotypical Cecil Parker, the comedy makes a magnificent mockery of English entitlement, but never without the sharpest of smiles.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

Beginning with an abundance of similarities to Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, a serious issue for any film to have to overcome, Emile does well to carve out its own identity as a touching study of bitter regret. Starring Ian McKellen as a Sjöström-esque professor protagonist who travels from his London home to accept an honorary degree at his Canadian alma mater, it’s less a road movie than Bergman’s film, more content to allow its drama unfold in the home of Debra Kara Unger’s disillusioned niece character. A dreamy aesthetic complete with hazily-shot close-ups permeates the film and makes slightly less jarring the integration of multiple flashback sequences, which flesh out the characters’ backstory well alongside McKellen’s charismatically rueful stares into space. It’s not without its problems, Unger’s poorly-scripted issues chief among them, but Emile is never not an engaging watch, its skilled leads carrying it above and beyond the material’s flaws.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

As much a film of two halves as ever there was, Peter Chan’s Dragon changes gear midway through its running time, largely abandoning the wowing martial arts choreography of star Donnie Yen in favour of a more thematically-rich and atmospheric moodiness. It’s a play that thankfully pays off, easily enriching this tale of a retired warrior and the detective who uncovers his secret former life, and the moral conundrums they come to explore together. Yen and Takeshi Kaneshiro make for hugely engaging leads, equally adept in the multiple fight scenes and the more dramatically-inclined moments of character exploration. Strong as it is in other departments, though, Dragon has less to say about its ostensible themes than it seems to think, turning its head toward broader issues without ever managing really to say much about them at all. The impressive fight scenes and engaging performances, nevertheless, do their all to make up for this absence.

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"

An earnest, emotionally charged story of a relationship placed under strain by the arrival of one half’s ex, August has the benefit of sharp direction and a talented cast to its name, but hasn’t the drama to sustain itself across its hundred minutes. No doubt the major reason for this is its origin in writer/director Eldar Rapaport’s own earlier short film, which—at just 14 minutes—will no doubt have functioned with a good deal more momentum. As it is, August offers pretty pictures of pretty people, but disappointingly little insight into the true machinations of their minds. His craft honed in advertising, Rapaport is an immensely talented visualist, never better seen than in a stirring late sex scene where the aesthetic says absolutely everything the characters do not; had he the skill to match this visual invention with superior scripting, he might have made of August something a good deal more interesting.

Review from Next Projection

It’s immediately tempting to compare Fill the Void, the attention-grabbing first film from Israeli director Rama Burshtein, with Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills, also released this year. Both films, after all, concern themselves with the microcosmic machinations of religious orthodoxy: Burshtein’s with Haredi Jews in Tel Aviv; Mungiu’s with Eastern Orthodox Christians in Romania. Where Beyond the Hills offers an exterior view of its subject, however, filtered through the sceptical eyes of its outsider director, Fill the Void presents Burshtein’s insider view. Herself a member of the community she here depicts, converted twenty years ago, she offers a remarkable—perhaps even unique—look at a world with which most viewers will be entirely unfamiliar.

Having lived a secular life for her first 25 years, Burshtein aims with this film to overturn the reductive image of Haredim life the majority of outsiders maintain, presenting its facts plainly and never presuming to reach conclusions on her audience’s behalf. She demonstrates remarkable restraint in exhibiting such objectivity: given that the critical would undoubtedly impose sensationalist spin on this story of an eighteen year old girl encouraged to marry her sister’s widower in order to maintain a familial connection with the baby whom she died delivering, Burshtein might be expected to mount a defensive argument to the contrary, yet all she sees fit to do is present the reality as it is. It’s a commendable undertaking, and one which—regardless of faith—is worthy of great respect for its frankness and conviction.

That conviction is essential to the success of Burshtein’s aims of meeting a sceptical audience’s gaze: enforcing as it does traditional gender roles, Haredim culture might be—and indeed often is—seen as oppressive, ostensibly relegating women to domestic roles while the men make the society’s important decisions. Keenly disavowing this misconception, or at least its excesses, the film points constantly and very wittily to the realities of the matter, contrasting the women’s shrewd management of the household finances with the men’s recruitment to advise a panicked old lady which cooking appliance she should buy. Such amusing observations permeate the narrative, which Burshtein allows to play out like it would in any other culture, effectively normalising what might seem to many an entirely alien way of life, not least of all when she makes abundantly clear that the decision to marry or not—like her own to convert—is made entirely freely.

The determined objectivity with which this community is presented, it should be noted, does not refrain Burshtein from sharing its wonders, which—objectively speaking—are wonderful indeed. A warm musicality characterises many of the scenes, the protagonist’s skill with an accordion paired with the faint glow that defines the film’s aesthetic to make more than one sequence of entrancing beauty. Yet just as it indicates the rich culture of the community, the accordion equally attests potential reservations: asked by a friend whether she enjoys playing, the teenaged bride-to-be can only reply with “I don’t know any other instrument”, a sure sign that, for all the good toward which Burshtein attracts our attention, she is not blind to the truth that this society does have its lamentable restrictions. These people are not the strictly controlled individuals we might assume, but nor of course do they lead some idealistic existence.

In its magnificent closing shot, calling to mind A Separation in the astonishing power it wields to force the audience to critically engage with the film to which they have just borne witness, Fill the Void summates the impressive effect exuded throughout its running time, achieving precisely Burshtein’s aims to encourage the spectator to reassess the way they view this way of life. In a sense, it’s a remarkably selfless act, abandoning the potential of inherently great storytelling in favour of a quasi-documentary insight into the machinations of a community many have wrongly misjudged. Burshtein has made a film that preaches not the furtherance of her own orthodox beliefs, but rather simple understanding of and tolerance for just what those beliefs are. Beyond the Hills, through its rousing anger and impassioned cinematic discourse, infuriated with its image of the ills misdirected religion can cause. Fill the Void, calm and cool by contrast, seeks only to demonstrate how, when left to its own unobtrusive devices, it can be quite harmless too. Arguably it’s Burshtein who’s managed the greater feat.