I have been AWOL for a very good reason. Round my parts, ’tis the season to be a film lover. It’s the annual BFI London Film Festival. The 57th to be exact and I think I’ve broken the record for sheer amount of film seen. The majority of film gorging occurred during the block press screenings which was good preparation for me as I was asked, last minute, to help in the festival, which killed any intention of attending any more festival goodness…

Or so they think…

Before I proceed, I should note that many of the big gala films have been omitted. This is for a number of reasons, mostly, I try to watch festival films that are not necessarily guaranteed distribution, so this may be the only opportunity I can get to see it. Secondly, laziness played a major part this year. I may have seen more films than any other year I have been attending/part of the festival, but that was more out of convenience than anything, the screenings all began at reasonable hours of the day, held at my place of work.

Last year I was fully prepared to watch a 9am screening in Leicester Sq, putting up with rush hour smugly watching people on their usual torturous daily commute while I warmed myself with the knowledge I was going to watch a film and maybe have some popcorn for breakfast, considering maybe heading to work later.

The follies of youth.

This year, I have been too busy being a grown up and having a life which requires being a bit more precious with my free time to consider a crack-of-dawn press screenings of Gravity and the like. The only allowance I made was for 12 Years A Slave because this film involved two of my men of the moment – Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender. The rest are still very much on my radar so expect to read about them very soon.

But for now let’s focus on what I have seen. Here in 4 parts is the round up of films I have loved, liked and loathed.

Enjoy!

As I Lay Dying

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VO68Kd2yQsE

Directional effort from James Franco. I’m beginning to develop a theory that there are in fact multiple James Francos co-existing in the world. After all he is forever everywhere! It’s not a case of actor exposure fatigue where say someone appears to be in every movie in a year (Natalie Portman 2010 comes to mind) where in actuality they’ve made a few films over the course of a couple of years that happen to be released in a small time frame. The James Franco Experience as I like to call it, has been ongoing for years now. He’s guaranteed to be in at least three films a year, starring in smaller vehicles that barely get a cinema release as well as studying every film degree known to man. No wonder he always looks half asleep. He must be exhausted! One can’t deny he’s ambitious. And it’s only an ambitious person who would have the confidence to try and adapt a William Faulkner novel.

As I Lay Dying is typical Faulkner fare, if you can call it that. It’s a family drama, this time based on a epic journey one family makes in order to bury the recently deceased matriarch. On their journey, each family’s individual and collective dramas are explored with the back drop of their arduous journey adding to the already brewing tensions within the familial relations.

As the first film of the festival for me, this was an uneasy dip into the festival pool. It was a hard watch for a variety of reasons and although I didn’t out and out dislike it,  I would be hard pressed to recommend it. Much of the main complaint of the film was the inability to understand the dialogue. Faulkner’s work is notoriously idiosyncratic in language, often poetic and opaque in style. In As I Lay Dying the dialogue is mainly stream of consciousness. It’s beautiful (at least to me) to read on paper and while it’s easier to understand when one can take the time to reread and digest the words on a page, it’s another story trying to decipher what has been said when people are mumbling, with strong accents and with no teeth. Never have I wished for subtitles as much as for this film.

Besides the dialogue I also had issues with the film’s style. While I can see that Franco was trying to replicate visually the stream of consciousness of the dialogue, some of his techniques did not translate this well. In particular his insistence on the use of split screen brought nothing to the film. It smacked of amateurish filmmaking, like he had seen something similarly done successfully in the past ( 500 Days of Summer) and decided to include it in the film, whether it worked or not. Albeit one scene,  it did not work. It just made it the film all the more tiresome to watch. Luckily about half way through the film, a good decision is made and the technique is abandoned.

It may be coincidence but at the same time as the split screen is banished, something else happens. The films gets infinitely better. The story kicks off, the performances improve, reducing the theatrics to give more naturalism and I actually began to understand what’s being said. I have to note that mostly the performances are consistent if not remarkable and actually Franco himself is the weaker performer here. I don’t know if having to both direct and act meant he couldn’t focus on his role but I felt he dreamwalked through the role making what happens to his character progression in storyline inconsistent and unbelievable. James Franco being James Franco does not work in a film like this.

Overall, this film was interesting. Interesting enough to be recommended? I can’t say  but it looks nice and it not the worst I’ve seen.

Mystery Road

Seen on the same day as As I Lay Dying this Australian feature piqued my interest because it appeared to be a western with a twist. The Man With No Name in this case being an Aboriginal policeman, Jay Swan (yes i know he has a name but he’s essentially an Australian Clint Eastwood, who has no name in his films)  played by Aaron Pederson who returns to his hometown to investigate the murder of a local Aboriginal teenager.

I don’t know whether I was still reeling from the effects of As I Lay Dying but Mystery Road left me wanting. I haven’t watched as much Australian cinema as I’d like but I’ve noticed a trend whereby apart from The Dish I cannot recall an Australian film that hasn’t been thoroughly depressing. I commend the need to address the obvious issues Australians face, of racism, poverty and destitution but Mystery Road was for me, just one more film like the rest. The hopes I had for the film were quickly dashed when I realised that it wasn’t going to be a clever twist on the classic western. It was as straightforward as they come to be honest and in this case it didn’t entirely work because it sets out to be mysterious and clever but ultimately cannot follow through with its initial promises. While the ending was classical in it’s action, the film ended with many so plot holes and unresolved storylines, I couldn’t help but feel cheated.

The performances ranged from OK to mediocre. Lead Aaron Pederson, I’m sorry to say doesn’t have the charisma or physical presence to be the strong silent type. His facial expressions went from disgusted to slightly more disgusted and while aiming for a characters who’s presence anchors the film, instead his emotionless reaction to everyone and everything drags the film. Other performances from the likes of Hugo Weaving are expertly done but there is a sense that the writers were so driven by the need to create a continuous air of mystery and ambiguity about all the film’s key players that many of the characters felt underwritten rather than morally ambiguous and their actions either inexplicable or irrelevant.

I didn’t hate the film as my short review might suggest but I can’t say I liked it. To be honest, I found myself forgetting all about it as soon as it was over despite the heavy subject matter. In a relentless pursuit of mood, the filmmakers forgot about the story.

Enough Said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nEEJaIjF_Lo

I don’t want you thinking that I hated every film I saw at LFF. There were quite a few surprise delights for me and this was one of them. I went into this one for two reasons, the trailer made me chuckle and I’d always liked James Gandolfini. The last reason made me walk to my seat in trepidation because I knew I would be watching his last film and I really wanted it to be a fitting last film for a great actor. My feelings are that it is.

The film is light and it doesn’t try to be anything over than that. It’s conventional in it’s storytelling, but what makes it so good is that it’s funny. The script is clever, the performances particularly from Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolphini are spot on. The film is the latest in the recent influx of films about the relationships of people approaching middle age or old age (Le Weekend, The Late Quartet and Before Midnight comes to mind), but these films usually have something that makes them relatable to all ages (over 18) wizened to the complexities of relationships.

Louis-Dreyfus and Gandolphini are both divorced parents who meet at a party and immediately like each other, they begin dating only for Louis-Dreyfus’ (Eva) to discover that her new client (she’s a masseuse) and friend (Catherine Keener) is the ex-wife of Gandolphini’s Albert. Wackiness ensues as the ex obliviously rants about her former husband which put’s emotional obstacles in the way of the burgeoning feelings Eva has for new beau. There is also the subplot that makes a distinctly story about middle aged life as both Eva and Albert worry about their children going off to college and the dreaded sense of emptiness their lives will have once their children have flown the nest. (They should feel comforted that current economical conditions means their kids are guaranteed to return and they’ll be screaming for them to move out).

This all sounds a little convoluted and gimmicky as I type but it actually works. I mean in real life there’s absolutely no reason why Eva wouldn’t just immediately tell Catherine Keener that she’s dating her ex-husband. She’s allowed. It says so in the ‘ex’ part of ex-husband. I also have issue with ordinary people having ‘ordinary’ jobs like freelance masseuses. I’m not saying that masseuses don’t exist but Hollywood has a very limited view on the kinds of jobs ‘ordinary’ people (with extraordinarily nice homes I might add) have.  I’ve seen more characters who are masseuses in film than any other occupation. I’m beginning to think in Hollywood Fairyland there are only  two groups of people – masseuses and the rich people who hire them. The film’s so lighthearted it earned all it’s goodwill so I could ignore the usual Hollywood quirks.

All in all, the film’s great. It flows along at a fresh albeit predictable pace. The film’s full of laughs and expert performances all round. You can sense the bond between all the leads. I was also impressed with the daughters in the film and slightly disturbed at how much Tavi Gevinson (of Style Rookie fashion blog fame) has morphed into Michelle Williams. I mean that’s not necessarily a bad thing because Michelle’s great but I was momentarily confused when she first appeared on screen thought that they had cast Michelle Williams to play a teenager once again. Dawson’s Creek was so yesterday! (Although Jen, alongside Pacey was so awesome!)

The film was fun and put a smile on ya face. It was also the first film to receive a round of applause so I’m hoping that says all that needs to be said.

My Fathers, My Mother and Me

My first documentary entry and also one of my favorites of the festival. The Documentary strand was very strong in this year’s festival, this one certainly setting the standard. It’s a contemplative, confrontational and questioning documentary about the childhood experiences of the filmmaker, Paul-Julien Robert, and the first twelve years of his life living in a commune in Austria called the Friedrichshof which practiced a philosophy of commune living, free sexuality and the dissolution of the nuclear family.

This film is certainly a journey both emotionally and narratively speaking. Initially the film starts off explaining the  commune’s creation and growth in the 70s, how Robert’s mother came to join the commune and how the philosophy of free sexuality meant that there were three prospective candidates as Robert’s biological father. That however is just the first third because soon there is a dramatic shift in tone as Robert begins to shine the spotlight on his mother and the reasons for her commitment to the commune. Why was she and the adults in the commune so rejecting of the nuclear family and were the alternatives the commune strived to create any better?

There is a final tonal shift as it becomes clear that in Robert and the fellow children’s view that the alternative lifestyle the commune provided were not better for them. In fact they were living in ideal environments of abuse  where instead of protection, complicit permission was given by their parents for the commune leader, Viennese Actionist artist Otto Muehl to exact his will.

Even though the film was one of the first films that I saw at the festival, it is one (amongst a few others) that has a lasting effect. The power not only comes the honest and relentless dissection of the relationship between a mother and son still affected by those experiences ( Robert is sometimes brutally confrontational in his pursuit of answers from his mother who is visibly remorseful but still willfully ignorant), the archive footage of life in the commune is both fascinating and shocking and gives the solid backbone to this exemplary film.

The archive footage is equal parts illuminating and haunting, demonstrating life that life in a commune that strove to stand apart from conventional thinking of societies the commune wanted to reject  actually worked under the same structures of hierarchy and distribution of power as conventional society. And like conventional society  good intentions inevitably gave way to the lust for power and dominance, often at the expense and exploitation of the most vulnerable – in this case – the children.

This film is one of my high recommends. I’ve no doubt it has been picked up for distribution as it was a favorite of many festival attendees. Whenever it’s out please go see it. Wherever. However. (As long as it’s legal see!)

Coming Up:

Part 2: Afternoon Delight, Starred Up, Electro Shaabi and Nebraska