With the 32nd Edition of the BFI LGBTQ Film Festival opening on the 21st March, what better time than to take a look at some of the most eagerly awaited films in this year’s programme, and shine a light on the films we are most looking forward to catch.
Comments closedMonth: March 2018
Reviewed by Lee Hill
In his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, George Orwell said: “…if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.” Clear thinking, common sense, open debate and reason face new threats from the grip that marketing, branding, spin, “fake news” and other forms of intellectual cheerleading now have over our lives. The extent to which this corruption can infect even the most progressive nations, organisations, communities and individuals is one of the many themes of The Square, Ruben Östlund’s problematic follow-up to his 2014 arthouse hit, Force Majeure.
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It’s finally here! Watch the brand new trailer of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. At the end of the first film, the powerful Dark wizard Gellert…
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Reviewed by Rachael Kaines
The new Peter Rabbit film has many tell-tale signs of an absolute stinker. Take some beloved British children’s stories, written by a woman who refused to sell out her characters to Disney, add a few much derided actors (one in particular who has made a leap across the pond that has stoked this disdain ever further), plus live action animation of animals telling jokes and singing and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re getting with Will Gluck’s Peter Rabbit. Apart from the fact that you will be wrong.
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Reviewed by Lee Hill
I Got Life! is a deceptively slight film about the shifting moods and epiphanies one experiences in middle age. Having just turned 50, Aurore (Agnès Jaoui), a divorcee with two daughters living in La Rochelle, France, is hit not just by the onset of early menopause, but an omnipresent sense of how quickly youthful energy and potential can dissipate in mid-life.
After walking out of a waitressing job, Aurore is anxious, but proactive as she embarks on her next step. She gets leads from eccentric counsellors at her local Job Centre, provides counsel (and cautionary advice) to her daughters, and explores whether she can have a second chance at love. On that last front, the chief complication is the appearance of Doctor Totoche (Thibault De Montalembert), her boyfriend from her lycee days, who has moved back to town. When she was barely out of her teens, Aurore and Totoche thought their love would last forever, until of course it didn’t. Totoche went on to medical school after his national military service and Aurore married the slightly geeky man, who became the father of her children and her partner in a small business. She and her former spouse remain on good terms even if he is now married to a younger woman and become the stay-at-home Dad of a new brood of children.
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Reviewed by Lee Hill
Sweet Country is a sympathetic, but unsentimental look at one of many turning points in the tortured relations between aboriginal peoples and white Australians. Set in 1929, Mick, an embittered and alcoholic war veteran (Thomas M. Wright) buys a station in a remote part of New South Wales. With little farming know-how, he enlists the aid of Fred Smith, his closest neighbour (Sam Neill), a born-again Christian who has renounced violence and treats an aboriginal family led by Sam Kelly (Hamilton Morris) living on his land as equals rather than near slaves which is the social norm. When Fred reluctantly asks Sam Kelly (Hamilton Morris) to do a day’s work for Mick, this gesture of good will sets off a tragic chain of events. The day has barely passed when Kelly is forced to shoot and kill Mick and escape into the outback with his wife.
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Reviewed by Rachael Kaines
Mary Magdalene is a disarming portrait of someone who — the film argues — is an often misrepresented figure. This retelling is unashamedly feminist and augmented by astounding performances from both Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix. Mary Magdalene is not self-indulgent, self-righteous, or gratuitous, and all the better for it, resulting in a deeply profound and humanist revision to a well-worn history.
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Reviewed by Lee Hill
It is nice to see Lynne Ramsay back from Director Jail. In 2013, Ramsay had a very public falling out with the producers of the western Jane Got A Gun, which was completed by Gavin O’Connor. As often happens when a director is replaced early in shooting the rumour mill went into overdrive (see also Joseph Strick being replaced by George Cukor on Justine, Ken Russell taking over from Arthur Penn leaving Altered States, Terry Gilliam edging out Alex Cox on Fear Loathing in Vegas, ad infinitum). The good news is that Ramsay the auteur behind Ratcatcher and Morvern Calver is back and the sanitized version of Jane Got A Gun has become a future pub quiz question.
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Reviewed by Lee Hill
Gholam (Shahab Hosseini), the title character of this mordant portrait of an exile in extremis, is a shy, laconic Iranian military veteran in his 30s. He survives on the margins of the expatriate community in London by driving a mini-cab at night and odd jobs at a garage during the day. When not sleeping in a grim, mold encrusted studio flat, he spends his meagre free-time in a restaurant run by his uncle. While he strives to wear his burdens lightly, Gholam is treated largely with indifference or contempt by not just his self-absorbed customers, but his extended family. His response is to be a listener and he provides quiet friendship to his nephew, an aspiring rapper, and the garage owner, who mourns a lost bohemian life left behind in Iran. Assimilation eludes Gholam as he becomes more than an object of curiosity for the leader of a shadowy political group (Nasser Memarzia) keen to make use of Gholam’s dormant army skills.
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