FILM OF THE WEEK
SOUL
The word PIXAR has now become synonymous with highly innovative and hugely entertaining animation features following such modern classics as TOY STORY, MONSTERS INC. and COCO. This terrific new film tells the story of Joe (Jamie Foxx), an aspiring jazz musician now teaching music to unresponsive middle school children. He is offered a full-time job at the school but on the same day, as fate would have it, he gets the chance to audition for the legendary jazz performer Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett)…
A brilliant opening for a tremendous animation feature that is both intelligent and entertaining and does not take its audience for granted. But after Joe is offered the job as Dorothea’s pianist the film suddenly changes gear when he is transported to a different parallel of life and paired with an infant, cynical soul (Tina Fey)…
The pairing of Foxx and Fey is ingenious and their smart, razor-sharp dialogue is truly hilarious. Visually the film is striking especially in the other universe sequences which recall films like INSIDE OUT and A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. An engaging, unpredictable and classy entertainment with a heart and a soul that will bring a lot of joy to the whole family!
MAYOR
David Osit’s award-winning documentary follows Musa Hadid, the hard-working Christian mayor of Ramallah, the fast-developing city of Palestine – only 10 miles from Jerusalem. It is a quick journey to the holy city but still, it takes Palestinians more than a couple of hours to drive through the hostile Israeli checkpoints.
Musa Hadid is an intelligent, humble man, now serving his second year in office and still struggling to make the city a more beautiful and dignified place to live in. He spends his days attending meetings or visiting sites for development, but he never fails to show his frustration when it comes to getting planning permission for which he absurdly needs Israel’s permission.
“It’s taken us fifteen years to get permission to build a cemetery,” he comments to some foreign visitors attending one of his meetings. “It is all a matter of dignity,” he says, “especially when some 16-year-old Israeli soldier comes around and orders us about, while feeling extremely powerful and hiding behind his gun.”
And things get even worse when Trump opens an American embassy in Jerusalem declaring it as the new capital of Israel, which prompts even more protests from the long-suffering Palestinians.
A compelling film about a man of great dignity – a shining light among the rubble!
SING ME A SONG
This ambitious documentary boasts superb cinematography and follows the story of Pevangki, an eight-year-old boy, studying in an isolated monastery deep in the mountains of Bhutan, one of the last countries in the world to introduce TV and internet to its people. Then the story picks up ten years later with a teenage Pevanghi, now hooked on using his mobile phone at all occasions especially when to chat with a young singer from the city of Thimphu…
This elegant film is a careful study of a young man torn between his desire to discover his identity with his true vocation and commitment to Buddhism.
A NIGHT OF HORROR: NIGHTMARE RADIO
An anthology of eight horror stories each filmed by a different director across the globe. The stories are told by Rod, a radio show DJ hosting a night of horror, who takes calls from his listeners while adding his own twist to the storytelling until he gets a distressed call from a child…
These dark tales are told with imagination and style but most memorably in the Australian “The Disappearance of Willie Bingham”, a creepy short with a new take on capital punishment. “Into the Mud” from Netherlands is the only story that takes place outdoors- deep in the forest with a slimy hunter and a mysterious young woman with a deep secret.
BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS: I first saw this addictive film at the recent London Film Festival. An effortless mixture of documentary and fiction which takes place in a Las Vegas bar known as the Roaring 20’s. It is its last day before closure and all its loyal clients gather in to celebrate, get pissed as well as to reminisce about the good old times. By the end Bill and Turner Ross’s unobtrusive direction and careful camera movements become part of the action! (Curzon Home Cinema)
THE INSECT WOMAN: Shohei Imamura’s 1963 Japanese classic looks as fresh and ground-breaking as the day it was first released. He tells the epic story of Tome Matsuki from the time she was born in 1918 until the early sixties when she, like a modern “Madam Butterfly,” becomes the Madam in a house of prostitution. Striking black and white cinematography and a mesmerising performance by Sachiko Hidari! (Blu-ray from Eureka)
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL:
A couple of highlights from the recent Festival screened virtually and at cinemas across England and Scotland.
INTO DAD’S WOODS (LA FORET DE MON PERE)
– This marks Belgian director Vero Cratzborn’s impressive debut which tells the story of Gina, a teenage girl struggling to come to terms with her beloved father’s unstable mental condition. At first, she thinks Jimmy is a free and uncompromising spirit, but she soon begins to have her doubts following his admission into a psychiatric hospital…The performances are exquisite in this sensitive and assured piece of filmmaking very much worth discovering.
JUST KIDS
– Christophe Blanc tells the story of three siblings forced by circumstances to fend for themselves. Both their parents tragically die, and it is now up to 19-year-old Jack to look after his 17 -year-old sister Lisa and 10-year-old brother Mathis. But after Lisa moves to the South of France with her boyfriend, Jack takes his younger brother Mathis and heads for Spain…A dangerous and daring story devoid of any Hollywood sentimentality with fully fleshed characters especially in the creation of Mathis, a character not often seen in movies.
