Contents October 2019
44
Smalltown boy
Shola Amoo discusses his semi-autobiographical The Last Tree,
about a British-Nigerian boy who leaves an idyllic life in the
English countryside for a London council estate. By Will Massa
REGULARS
5 Editorial The long goodbye
Rushes
6 On Our Radar: Highlights from
the BFI London Film Festival, from
Céline Sciamma to Martin Scorsese
8 Dream Palaces: The director Guy
Maddin recalls sticky floors and scary
nights at the Gimli Theatre, Manitoba
9 Global Discovery: Graham Fuller meets
the makers of extraordinary Balkan
beekeeping documentary Honeyland
10 Preview: Mark Cousins revisits Neil
Jordan’s earth-shattering Angel
11 The Numbers: Charles Gant goes to
work on Quentin Tarantino’s box office
12 Obituary: Roger Graef explains how
D.A. Pennebaker revolutionised
documentary film. Plus tributes from
Joan Churchill and Nick Broomfield
Wide Angle
14 Nonfiction Film: Jemma Desai pays
a brief visit to Utopia, courtesy
of the Flaherty Seminar
16 Primal Screen: Michael Eaton browses
the silent versions of David Copperfield
17 Artists’ Moving Image: Matt Turner
on Rainer Kohlberger’s entrancing
collaborations with computers
Festivals
19 Kieron Corless is overexposed in the
Aegean, at the Syros film festival
95 Letters
Endings
96 Nick James on the alchemy of art in
Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterful portrait
of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev
20
FEATURES
FEA S
20
COV FEATURE
COVER
Faraway, so close
Fa
In James Gray’s Ad Astra Brad Pitt
play an astronaut who travels to the
plays
furth reaches of the solar system to
furthest
track down his father in a bid to save the
Eart Here the director explains why he
Earth.
crea a sci-fi tale that tells a myth of man
created
rath than a myth of the gods. By Nick
rather
Pinkerton
Pink PLUS Anne Billson on the film’s
star, whose coronation as Hollywood’s
gold
golden boy in the early 1990s was soon
com
complicated by a series of darker, more
complex roles that challenged his status
as the heir apparent to Robert Redford
32
Love among the ruins
Filmed as the bombs fell in Aleppo, often
with her infant daughter in her arms, Waad
al-Kateab’s For Sama is an unmissable,
harrowing document of the war in Syria
from the point of view of those who
suffer most. By Jason Burke PLUS Isabel
Stevens talks to al-Kateab about the perils
of shooting inside Aleppo and why she
feared every day might be her last, and
her British co-director Edward Watts
explains his role in shaping the final film
38
The man who foresaw cinema
If anyone recognised the true potential
of animated photography to become
more than a passing novelty, it was
Robert Paul, whose visionary role in the
history of British cinema – alongside
his wife Ellen – remains profoundly
undervalued. By Ian Christie
38
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 1
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 EDITORIAL
Editor
Nick James
Editorial Nick James
Deputy editor
Kieron Corless
Features editor
James Bell
Web editor
Nick Bradshaw
Production editor
Isabel Stevens

THE LONG GOODBYE

Chief sub-editor
Jamie McLeish
Sub-editors
Robert Hanks
Jane Lamacraft
Researcher
Mar Diestro-Dópido
Credits supervisor
Patrick Fahy “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?” Edward
Credits associates G. Robinson’s gangster’s last words from Little Caesar
Kevin Lyons
James Piers Taylor (1931) have just the right air of disbelief to introduce
Design and art direction
chrisbrawndesign.com
this, the last of my editorials for Sight & Sound; disbelief
Origination not because I don’t want a finale (which in my head is
Rhapsody
Printer
no bullet-riddled demise, more a version of Alexandria
Wyndeham Group Ocasio-Cortez’s dance into her office played backwards
BUSINESS in slow-mo) but because for the last 21 years my life has
Publisher been structured around this mag’s monthly schedule.
Rob Winter
Publishing coordinator
The highlight of the S&S month has always been the
Brenda Fernandes editorial meeting, in which we finally decide what will
Advertising consultant
Ronnie Hackston
go into the next issue and what will be on the cover.
T: 020 7957 8916 But coming a close second is the moment when I sit
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E: ronnie.hackston@bfi.org.uk down to write this column, often with barely an idea
Newsstand distribution in my head (“We know!” I can hear a chorus of friends
Seymour and colleagues shout) – always so succinctly illustrated
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Bookshop distribution around here were perhaps too often serious, the tone
Central Books
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downbeat. Students have asked me, “Why does it have ‘Sight & Sound’ team, most of whom
E: contactus@centralbooks.com to be so pessimistic?” And here we are with Trump have been with the magazine for more
Sight & Sound is a member of the as president of the USA and Boris Johnson as prime
Independent Press Standards
Organisation (which regulates the UK’s minister of the UK, so clearly I should have lightened than a decade and whose enthusiasm
magazine and newspaper industry).
We abide by the Editors’ Code of
up a little and got myself a future ‘can do’ vision. for the art of film is, I hope, obvious
Practice and are committed to Naturally, I have mixed emotions about this last
upholding the highest standards of
journalism. If you think that we have column, so it is not an entirely sad occasion. Since I Michael Brooke, Ian Christie, Roger Clarke, Mark
not met those standards and want to
make a complaint please contact made the decision to go, I’ve looked back through our Cousins, Maria Delgado, Bryony Dixon, Graham Fuller,
rob.winter@bfi.org.uk. If we are unable
to resolve your complaint, or if you
achievements at S&S since May 1997, my debut issue Charles Gant, Ryan Gilbey, Pamela Hutchinson, Trevor
would like more information about IPSO
or the Editors’ Code, contact IPSO on
as editor. It’s been a gratifying experience. Time does Johnston, Ed Lawrenson, Hannah McGill, Henry K.
0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk marvellous transforming things with one’s viewpoint. Miller, Christina Newland, Nick Pinkerton, Naman
Sight & Sound (ISSN 0037-4806)
is published monthly by British Film
For instance, most of the covers we agonised over, Ramachandran, Farran Smith Nehme, Sukhdev
Institute, 21 Stephen Street, London some of which I once worried were weak, now look Sandhu, Kate Stables, David Thompson, Ben Walters,
W1T 1LN and distributed in the USA
by UKP Worldwide, 3390 Rand Road, happily of their time, in a way that grants its own Kelli Weston and Catherine Wheatley. It’s on the wings
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lustre. It’s such a rich field of great films (and TV) that of these talents that S&S has soared and swooped.
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has been a golden flowering of world cinema. Having decade and whose dedication to and enthusiasm for
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revisited these old issues, I’m even prouder of what the art of film is, I hope, obvious, but thanking them
Sight & Sound we’ve published than I was when I first announced my all, one by one, past and present, is more appropriate
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Annual subscription rates: of writers who’ve lent us their eloquence, knowledge The Favourite, High Life, Moonlight, Phantom Thread,
UK £50, Eire and ROW £75
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Copyright © BFI, 2019 trenchant core group who deserve my initial thanks titles, cannot be said to be in too much trouble. The
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The views and opinions expressed
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of this magazine may not be used
or reproduced without the written
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The BFI is a charity, (registration
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21 Stephen St, London, W1T 1LN
because they’ve been writing for S&S regularly
throughout the 21 years. J. Hoberman, Philip Kemp,
Mark Kermode, Geoffrey Macnab, Kim Newman,
Tony Rayns, Jonathan Romney, Amy Taubin, David
Thomson and Ginette Vincendeau helped me ease
my way into the role and they all remain on the S&S
roster. The stalwarts who’ve been writing for us more
recently come next (with apologies to the dozens of
occasional or more recent writers I’ve not been able to
include because of space): Geoff Andrew, Anne Billson,
death of cinema has been mooted and declared often
throughout my time; indeed, Susan Sontag’s New York
Times essay ‘The Decay of Cinema’ was published
before I started as editor. “If cinephilia is dead, then
movies are dead too,” she wrote, and for her cinephilia
was “the conviction that cinema was an art unlike
any other: quintessentially modern; distinctively
accessible; poetic and mysterious and erotic and moral
– all at the same time.” As readers of this magazine,
your cinephilia continues to disprove her pessimism.

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 5

 NEWS AND VIEWS

Rushes

ON OUR RADAR
BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL
(2-13 OCTOBER)
When autumn beckons it means one thing for
film-loving Londoners: the LFF is on the horizon
and with it the opportunity to sample the heavy
hitters that will dominate debates and awards
ceremonies over the coming months. The big coup
for London this year is that the most anticipated
film of 2019, The Irishman, which reunites Martin
Scorsese with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci and
adds Al Pacino into the mix, will close the festival.
(The LFF last bowed out with Scorsese and De Niro
with Raging Bull in 1980). LFF artistic director Tricia
Tuttle is full of praise for the performances in the
biopic based on the lives of organised crime-linked
union figures Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa and
dismisses any concerns about the film’s extensive
use of newfangled digital de-ageing technology:
“You forget all about it and lose yourself in this
really complex story with many, many characters
– only Martin Scorsese could pull this off.”
Armando Iannucci’s adaptation of David
Copperfield is the first of 345 films in the festival.
Tuttle singles out Dev Patel (“I had no idea he
was as funny as he is, but he has got incredible
comic timing”) in a film she describes as “a period
drama, unlike any you’ve seen. It’s not staid, or
stuffy but really playful in its formal approach.”
Sight & Sound is proud to present another sui
generis period drama – and a highlight of this
year’s Cannes – as our LFF Special Presentation:
Céline Sciamma’s rapturous costume romance
Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Men are banished to the
background in this beautifully composed tale of a
quivering love affair between a painter, Marianne
(Noémie Merlant), and her unwilling subject
Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). Enriched by Sciamma’s
fidelity to detail, the film rebels against familiar
period stories of female oppression and instead
sketches a gasp of freedom for women circa 1770.
Female directors account for 40 per cent of
the films in the festival. While Marielle Heller’s
A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, a portrait
of the celebrated American children’s TV show
host Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), is the only female-
directed film among the headline galas (“It’s still
the case that lots of the films which are getting Model behaviour: Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

6 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

 big investment are not directed by women,” says
Tuttle), there are plenty of bold and beautiful
female discoveries to be had everywhere else,
among them Rose Glass’s Saint Maud, a British
debut feature in the festival’s main Competition;
and Lingua Franca, a New York-based drama about
an undocumented Filipina trans woman played
by the film’s writer and director Isabel Sandoval.
The archival strand Treasures is also full of female
filmmakers, featuring a restoration of Nina
Menkes’s hallucinatory 1991 underground classic
Queen of Diamonds (one of John Cassavetes’s
favourites), as well as a young Björk in her debut
acting role in Nietzchka Keene’s little-seen
Icelandic medieval fantasy The Juniper Tree (1990).
Tuttle also highlights a beautiful new 35mm print
of Wanda Tuchock and George Nichols Jr’s drama
Finishing School (1934), while the Archive gala
offers one of the most special world premieres
in the festival: British silent star Betty Balfour’s
Love, Life and Laughter (1923), which was believed
missing until it was spied in the Eye archive in
the Netherlands in 2014 and restored by the BFI.
As the archive strand shows, it pays to wander
off the beaten track, with the LFF always offering
a fertile hunting ground for new voices. This
year you can find 19-year-old filmmaker Phillip
Youmans’s Burning Cane, which is earning
comparisons to the films of Terrence Malick and
RaMell Ross; as well as Workforce, the debut by
Mexican director David Zonana, exec-produced
by Michel Franco and one of a number of
particularly strong Latin America films in the
festival. These include Ema and Death Will
Come and Shall Have Your Eyes, from Chilean
directors Pablo Larraín and José Luis Torres Leiva,
respectively, and the English-language debut of
Colombia’s Ciro Guerra, Waiting for the Barbarians,
an adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s novel, starring
Robert Pattinson, Johnny Depp and Mark Rylance.
This is Tuttle’s second year in charge and she
seems as committed to the public side of the
festival as to its premiere scoops. The addition of
a 780-seat pop-up Thames-side cinema in 2016
has helped to make the festival more visible
and accessible to Londoners, something which
remains a top priority. “We made quite a few
changes last year,” Tuttle explains. “We started
running the competitions differently, so rather
than having a closed-door end ceremony, anyone
could buy a ticket to it, with the winning film
screened after – like the festival’s perennially
popular surprise film. We’re going to do that again
this year. It’s a really important part of making
the awards feel like the rest of the festival, where
people get access to all moments and there’s
no ‘This is for the industry only’. One initiative
we are piloting this year – hopefully it will be
something we expand on – is creating more
opportunities for the general public to engage
in dialogue around the films. So although we’re
expanding our industry programme, we’ll also
have more of a public hub at the BFI Southbank,
where we’ll do free screenings of short and archive
films, as well as talks, salons and club nights.”
Pablo Larraín’s Ema Phillip Youmans’s Burning Cane Isabel Stevens

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 7

 DREAM PALACES
THE GIMLI THEATRE, MANITOBA

The Canadian director of
My Winnipeg and The Forbidden
Room recalls the anarchic joys
of a rural cinema of his youth
By Guy Maddin
I don’t remember the first time I went because
it was just where we kids had always gone – wild
bunches of us, nightly to the Gimli Theatre.
In the off-season, Gimli was a quiet Icelandic-
Canadian fishing village an hour’s drive away
from Winnipeg, my home during the school
year, but during the summer this lakeside
community teemed with us ridiculous swim-
suited and beach-hatted seasonal dwellers from
the city, highball-guzzling doctors and lawyers
on vacation with their shit-disturbing kids.
I don’t know what the programme logic
of it was, but us sandy-bottomed brats saw
movies we would never be allowed to see back
in the city. They didn’t seem to worry about ‘R’
classifications at the Gimli Theeee-Ate-Ur – we
all pronounced the second word of its name
with three syllables, as the like of Jethro Bodine
from The Beverly Hillbillies would, in a horrifying
gesture of urban condescension toward the
year-round village locals and, I suppose, toward
the theatre itself, for it was really nothing
more than a humble barnlike box, worthy of
our oblivious ridicule. We felt we were young
hucksters beating the system by getting in
to the adult movies it played. At age 12, I saw
Three in the Attic (1968), a movie about a guy
who is kidnapped by three women and kept
as a sex slave in some attic. There was a lot of
expectant arousal in the house that night, but
I recall almost nothing in the movie delivering
on its titillating promises. In fact, almost all my
memories of the place are unreliable, full of gaps,
and highly charged – and that’s the way it should
be when one thinks of their childhood cinema.
The experience should be childhood itself.
The Gimli had an atmosphere that I’ve never
encountered anywhere since – an incredible
Zero for Conduct anarchy! It was run by two
middle-aged sisters, women who were probably
quite lovely people, but to us they seemed put
on this earth to be on the wrong end of a joke.
If they weren’t identical twins, no one could tell
them apart anyway. They were unbelievably
austere, dour, seemingly carved from oak. Now
when I see the mother in Day of Wrath (1943)
I think of these sisters. In my memory now
they wear starched Lutheran witch-burning
attire. One of them took your money at the
front. Seemingly the same person ripped
your ticket a few feet away and then a third
one (but there were only two of them!) would
stand by the strange machine that vended
candy. They didn’t seem to want to sell you
anything from this sweets dispenser, which
It didn’t matter what was programmed,
I went. This little lakeside cinema was on a
second, third or even later-run circuit. I saw
BUtterfield 8 (1960), with Elizabeth Taylor and
Laurence Harvey, about five years after it was
released. Some friends of mine had brought
some smoked fish. I remember taking garlic
sausage. The floors were unbelievably sticky
with decades of spilled soda, and since the
house was packed I was forced to lie down on
this flypaper-like surface, my clothes and hair
stuck to it completely. That was part of the
anarchist commitment. And for no reason I
remember I had brought a pack of firecrackers,
which I set off in a machine-gun burst of
incredibly loud detonations, producing a thick
cloud of smoke from which a massive close-up
of Liz Taylor emerged. Movie magic. There was
no end to our superiority as young cinephiles!
All of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm movies; Ray
Bolger melodramas; Stephen Boyd adventures;
The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), with Rory
Calhoun; The Great Impostor (1961), with
Tony Curtis; and all my greatest horror movie
immersions were here. I saw a lot of Japanese
horror films. Matango: Attack of the Mushroom
People (1963) and Frankenstein vs. Baragon
(aka Frankenstein Conquers the World, 1965).
I recall my excitement over what I thought
was to be a horror film – A Boy Ten Feet Tall
(aka Sammy Going South, 1963), a British film
starring Edward G. Robinson, it turns out – and
I remember just waiting for the kid to grow to
be ten feet tall. And the movie was wrapping
up its disappointing story and he still hadn’t
grown to be ten feet tall, and he was never going
to – and I had my first experience of metaphor.
For no reason I remember I had
brought a pack of firecrackers,
producing thick smoke from which
a close-upp off Liz Taylor emerged
g parties – bring your own firecrackers.
The Gimli Theatre – a great rolling mass of
culture as wide as any river, bearing like so
much adolescent debris the wrecks of old movie
prints, great oily spills of innuendo, gags, erotica,
mayhem and boredom, lots of boredom. And
fear, fear, fear! When I saw Hush… Hush, Sweet
Charlotte (1964), I remember getting more and
more scared of the imminent dark walk home.
I had gone alone that night and this clunky
gas-lighting vehicle was terrifying. I had done
some nervous approximations and concluded
the sun would be set by the time the movie was
over, leaving me to walk the mile of shadowy
country lanes home in the dark, something I
did not dare do by myself. Sure, I could count
on the company of a few dozen patrons for the
first half-mile, but I’d be on my own the rest of
the way, and that last stretch of road was bereft
of streetlights and riotous with low-hanging
branches and menacing bushes. I decided to
flee early, while I stood a chance. As soon as the
fire exit door clicked shut behind me I knew I
had miscalculated. All was moonless black in
the sleeping village. I was alone. I sprinted home,
my lungs burning, my face lashed by leaves.
The Day of Wrath sisters passed away some
time in my adulthood; I lost track of the theatre
in my twenties, and didn’t go for a long time.
Then I returned when I became a filmmaker.
I am happy to pronounce the place – almost
completely unchanged over time – as one of
the marvels of movie-watching. It’s a million
madeleines under one roof. Its new owner
has put in brand new digital equipment: the
sound is amazing and the projection is great.
(Alas, Quentin, there’s no 35mm there any
more). If I’m working on a movie, I’ll make the
hour-long drive to this wondrous temple to
hold a test screening. Whatever is screened
there looks, sounds and feels exactly the way
a movie is supposed to look, sound and feel.
And what feeling. Also, you can rent the whole
theatre for just $200. Excellent for birthday
ILLUSTRATION BY LUCINDA ROGERS

featured a nicotine-yellowed window in front

of a meagre display of long-extinct chocolate
bar brands. The coin slot had always been
jammed, so this third sister stood with the key
to the mechanism and she’d unlock it to give
you a petrified toffee if you gave her the exact
change. We tended to bring food from home.

8 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

RUSHES GLOBAL DISCOVERY
A STING IN THE TALE
Honeyland, a luminous documentary
about a rural beekeeper in North
Macedonia, offers a powerful
allegory about capitalist greed
By Graham Fuller
North Macedonian filmmakers Tamara
Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov began their
collaboration on Lake of Apples (2017), a half-
hour documentary about the salvation of the
country’s biodiverse freshwater Lake Prespa.
They were intending to follow it with a short
film about the ecology of the Bregalnica river
region when they met the independent rural
beekeeper Hatidze Muratova and decided to
focus on her instead. Culled from some 400
hours of footage, their luminous 87-minute
documentary Honeyland is both a study of
Hatidze’s serene endurance in ancient conditions
and a cautionary environmental documentary.
Hatidze – born in 1964, of Turkish descent
– and her half-blind, bedridden, but still lucid
mother, 85-year-old Nazife, were, when filming
started, the only inhabitants of Bekirlijia, a
barren Balkan mountain village abandoned
in the 1950s. They have a dog and cats but no
electricity or running water. They subsist on
Hatidze’s seasonal honey sales in Skopje, 20
kilometres away. When he was alive, Hatidze’s
father stopped matchmakers calling on her – the
family’s youngest and last surviving daughter – so
she would take care of Nazife after his death.
Working with a four-person crew, Kotevska and
Stefanov spent three years filming Hatidze, whose
delicately balanced existence was disrupted by the
arrival of the nomadic cattle-herders Hussein and
Ljutvie Sam and their seven children. Through
Hatidze’s warm friendship with the kids, especially
the empathetic eldest son Mustafa, Kotevska and
Stefanov got to know and film the family too.
Cinematographers Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma
shot the footage on Nikon DSLRs, using only
natural light and the candle and oil lamps in the
tumbledown cottage Hatidze shared with Nazife.
“We gave ourselves six months just to follow
Hatidze to enable us to understand her and allow
the cinematographers to understand what they
were filming,” Stefanov says. “We shot about 30
scenes of her physical activities with the bees
and her relations with her mother. They were
all visually attractive and emotive, but we didn’t
know what they were talking about because they
were speaking in Turkish. We translated it later.”
Kotevska explains how the language barrier
worked in the film’s favour. “Hatidze and Nazife
spoke good Macedonian but Turkish was their
main language, so one of the most important
rules we set when we started filming was to
shoot them speaking Turkish, even though we
didn’t understand it. This made us pay more
attention to their body language. We think that’s
one reason why audiences feel so close to this
movie, because body language is our primary
way of communicating and very visual.”
Honeyland is a painful allegory of rapacious
capitalist greed destroying the environment.
The last in a long line of environmentally aware
apiarists in her family, Hatidze creates hives by
A total buzz: Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s Honeyland
attracting bees with the dry dung she places in
dizzyingly high rock crevices, on holes in trees,
and in the grates and other apertures in the
village’s ruined houses. When harvesting time
comes in the autumn, she removes only one
honeycomb from each hive. After he is taught
how to husband bees by Hatidze, however,
Hussein removes all the honey from his hives,
causing his bees to attack and kill Hatidze’s.
Stefanov says he and Kotevska knew they had
the makings of an environmental message film
right away. “We shot the scene when Hatidze
takes the honey from the ruins and says to the
bees, ‘Half for me, half for you,’ during the first
week of filming.” The scene echoes the 1993
United Nations Nagoya Protocol on Biological
Diversity, which, Stefanov says, promotes “the
equal sharing of benefits between users, which
are humans, and providers, which is nature, in
this case bees. We tell a very simple story about
the overuse of natural resources. The appearance
of the fat guy, the buyer [who demands absurd
amounts of honey from Hussein], is important
because it starts a spiral of greediness.”
Stefanov and Kotevska made the decision
not to intervene when Hussein and the buyer
plunder one of Hatidze’s least accessible hives
in the most destructive way. “We felt horrible,
of course,” Kotevska admits.” Stefanov adds: “It
wasn’t our job to serve justice in this place. It
was our job to send a message. We realised if we
started playing cops, we would lose them [the
Sams family] as protagonists, and they would
just do the same thing without us there.”
Though Honeyland is reminiscent of Robert
Flaherty’s films, not least his portrait of an Inuit
family in the Canadian Arctic, Nanook of the
North (1922), Kotevska and Stefanov eschew
the Flahertian practice of staging scenes. “His
She told us her mother was dying
and we came over with the camera.
It was the hardest thing, but she
wanted to tell her whole story
films were pretty much like fiction,” Kotevska
says. “We didn’t construct anything.”
They did, however, give themselves licence
to recontextualise scenes, sequences and shots
to forge a coherent narrative, and the film was
“directed in the editing”, Stefanov says. A shot
of Hatidze peering over the wall of her yard
when she sees the Sams arriving in the village,
for example, was filmed at another time. A
night scene following Nazife’s death shows
Hatidze running outdoors with a firebrand
to scare off baying wolves; it emphasises
both her loneliness and her fearlessness. In
reality, Nazife was still alive at the time.
Kotevska and Stefanov established great
intimacy with Hatidze. If it seems they
encroached on her privacy at her lowest ebb
– singing through her tears to Nazife, lifeless
under the blankets beside her – it’s important
to note that Hatidze summoned them when
the old woman was fading. “We were in the
editing process,” Stefanov says. “The mother
was getting worse and worse, and one day
Hatidze called and told us she was dying. We
came over. There were relatives there, too.
We were outside with the camera. It was a
strange situation – the hardest thing – but
Hatidze wanted to tell her whole story.”
The directors have used prize money from
the Sarajevo Film Festival to buy a house for
Hatidze and have bought a car and clothes
for the Sams family, which expanded to 10
after filming ended. Hatidze still plies her
solitary trade. “Beekeeping is the only thing
she knows how to do,” says Kotevska.
Hatidze is enjoying her moment in the
spotlight, however. “She’s a natural-born star,”
Kotevska adds. “When she attended the party
with the children after the first screenings of
the film in Skopje, she stepped on stage and
grabbed the microphone and started singing.
At a screening in Switzerland, she sang a song
she’d composed about Macedonians who’d
moved there, and they were all in tears.”
Honeyland is released in UK cinemas on
13 September and is reviewed on page 102
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 9
 RUSHES PREVIEW

TROUBLES IN MIND
For a young man from Belfast, the
first glimpse of Stephen Rea on
screen in Neil Jordan’s Angel in
1982 caused the world to shift
By Mark Cousins
This is a story about movies, war and holding your
breath. In a couple of hours, I’m going to rewatch
a film that changed my life. I first saw Neil Jordan’s
Angel when I was 17, in 1982. Before it, movies
meant Hollywood to me. Growing up in Belfast
during the Troubles, cinema was an escape from
the folly of war, an invitation from the distant
dream state where Gene Kelly, Kim Novak and
Luke Skywalker lived, where Danny and Sandy
slalomed around each other in Grease (1978).
But then came Angel, a world shift. In it I
saw an actor from Belfast, Stephen Rea, speak
with my accent. He was dreamy in the film,
and melancholic, like I was dreamy and
melancholic back then; he was a musician
holding his saxophone like others held their
guns. Seeing him, I realised that my world was
not a universe away from the movie world.
I haven’t seen Angel in 37 years, but I remember
– as Joan Didion would say – “with a clarity
that makes the nerves in the back of my neck The joy of sax: Honor Heffernan and Stephen Rea in Neil Jordan’s Angel (1982)
constrict”, how it made me enter the movies in
a new way. Before it, I was just a consumer of cried, like you do when something that you looks nothing like his 72 years. As long as he’s
cinema, submissive and agog. Northern Ireland think will last forever, doesn’t. And then, 20 years still trucking, I’m still trucking. I’ve never met
seemed too boring, too troubled, to be cinematic. after that, people with names like Jacob Rees- him, and would probably tremble if I did.
But Rea, particularly his voice, made us more Mogg, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage started to And so it’s time to rewatch Angel. I’m doing
active; he put us on to the luminous rectangle, say things that took our fucking breaths away. so in part because I’m in a new Channel 4
just like John Gordon Sinclair and Bill Forsyth What they say makes me feel the war at my documentary about the Troubles and cinema,
put Scotland on screen in Gregory’s Girl (1980). shoulder. I can smell its whiskey breath. Our directed by Belfast filmmaker Brian Henry
What was the corresponding movie initiation quasi, uneasy peace has found a new synecdoche, Martin. Also, Film4 is showing films related to
in Wales? Maybe the Welsh-language Hedd Wyn a ‘backstop’. Rea appeared in a short film, Hard the Troubles – The Crying Game, Hunger (2008)
(1992)? And England’s? A trickier question. Border (2018), written by Clare Dwyer Hogg and and ’71 (2014), great films about Northern Ireland
Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938)? And then directed by Juliet Riddell, in which he says, “We and bodies. In the C4 documentary, I talk about
Powell and Pressburger’s A Canterbury Tale (1944)? live here and we’re holding our breath again.” Angel’s impact on my life, but as I said those
From that moment, I was in cinema like a fish In the years since Angel, I haven’t held my words on camera, I realised that I hadn’t actually
is in water. Years passed. I watched Rea’s movie breath. I’ve gulped in life and filmmaking, I’ve seen the film since it came out. I google and find
career unfold, and the Troubles boil, and my love lived euphorically, an Irish-Scottish hybrid. I’ve that it’s on Amazon Prime, so I’ll watch it now.
of cinema become my love of making cinema. travelled the world, and loved the fact that Jordan I know this is wrong, but I’ll type as I watch…
Rea’s face and body continued to fascinate. and Rea removed the barbed wire from film for Opening credits. A saxophone. The first shots
That hunched, hang-dog, Deputy Dawg, slow me. I’ve aged like Stephen has aged, though he look like an Edward Hopper painting. We’re in a
anger, rich in mercy, was there again in Neil ballroom, which is called Dreamland, probably
Jordan’s The Crying Game (1992), but Stephen Growing up in Belfast during the in Armagh, somewhere away from the numbers.
danced on a wall and hung like a bat in front Ten minutes in, Stephen walks out into the night.
of Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire (1994), Troubles, cinema was an escape We hear angelic voices and he sees a bell and
which reminded us of the lightness in him, the
lack of despair in even his saddest parts. Over
from the folly of war, an invitation lights in a tree: a singing, ringing tree. Sometimes
you watch a film from years ago and you
the years I became obsessed by Rea, his heavy- from a distant dream state remember none of it, but I remember all of this.
lightness, his jolie-laide looks, his border-crossing. My brain was like a sponge back then, and Angel
(Among other things, he came from a Protestant was so new, so much of a discovery, such a scaffold
family but identified with nationalism.) for my fragile self, Northern Ireland’s fragile self.
I was less fascinated by the parallel story It’s 50 years since the British army arrived
of the Troubles in the 1980s and 90s. I moved in Northern Ireland. In the scheme of things,
away from the north of Ireland, and tried to the Troubles are not much to write home
turn my back on it. About 80 people per year about. More than twice as many people died in
continued to be killed, the mise en scène of death Srebrenica, for example. But you can see things
continued to be domestic, everyday, familial in rock pools, in small stories and how they’re
and banal unless you knew the people or the portrayed in movies. In Stephen Rea’s body
details. Atrocity had its peaks and troughs. language. In Neil Jordan’s interest in gender and
Then, in 1999, came the Good Friday fable. In escapism, and holding your breath.
Agreement, a dully written masterpiece, more And in fear.
balanced than the Treaty of Versailles or the 50 Years of the Troubles: A Journey Through
Dayton Accords. When the ceasefires came we Jaye Davidson and Stephen Rea in The Crying Game Film is on All4 until the end of September

10 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

RUSHES INDUSTRY
THE NUMBERS
Once upon a Time… in Hollywood
looks set to deliver Quentin
Tarantino his biggest box-
office success in the UK
By Charles Gant
Quentin Tarantino achieved his biggest UK
box-office result with Django Unchained (2013),
but three years later The Hateful Eight saw a
big drop – achieving less than half the Django
tally, with £7.41 million. Still, Sony had plenty
of reasons to be optimistic for the filmmaker’s
latest feature Once upon a Time… in Hollywood
– including the combination of Leonardo
DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, who had respectively
helped propel Django Unchained and Inglourious
Basterds (2009) to significant box-office success.
In the challenge column was the film’s
association with the Charles Manson Family
murders of summer 1969. While fictional serial
killers – notably Hannibal Lecter – have delivered
box-office hits, films about real-life ones, from
Ted Bundy to Jeffrey Dahmer, have been for
niche audiences. In the case of Tarantino’s new
film, it became clear that the murders would
provide the backdrop to a story about a fading
movie actor and his stunt-double friend.
Following January releases for Django
Unchained and The Hateful Eight, Sony picked a
late-summer launch for the new film – the same
strategy that had worked for Inglorious Basterds,
which had likewise premiered in Cannes. A
UK date (14 August) three weeks after the US
provided time for the film’s talent to come into
the country after completing US duties, and gave
breathing space after Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs
& Shaw (2 August) and before It: Chapter Two (2
September), while also swerving 9 August, the
50th anniversary of Sharon Tate’s death. As well
as they can ever be, the planets were aligned.
Once upon a Time… in Hollywood debuted in
the UK with £5.11 million for the weekend
period, and £7.54 million including Wednesday
and Thursday previews – about double the
previous biggest opening for the director.
Central to Sony’s strategy was a desire
to reach new audiences. “This was very
much our aim right from the start,” says
Sony UK managing director Ian George.
“Yes, Tarantino’s hugely important, but you
don’t want to just talk to Tarantino fans. We
wanted to get it as broad as possible.”
IN PRODUCTION
» Meryl Streep has just been cast in Steven
Soderbergh’s next project, a comedy called
Let Them All Talk. Streep will play a famous
author who goes on a cruise with a group
of friends and her nephew (Lucas Hedges).
Soderbergh’s last two films have been bought
by Netflix but this was snapped up by the
new premium VOD service HBO Max.
» Jia Zhangke’s next film is a documentary,
So Close to My Land, which explores the spiritual
history of the Chinese people as seen through
Brad Pitt in Once upon a Time… in Hollywood
Sony’s plan was “to be bold and big and sell it
as a pure entertainment rather than get bogged
down in the Manson stuff”. George adds, “People
know, certainly his fanbase knows, with an
18-certificate Tarantino movie there are going to
be some elements that are dark. While we didn’t
hide that, we just veered away from it, and went
with the pure star sell, and the combination
with the director, and the critical acclaim,
which was better than we dared dream of.”
The selling of a film based on talent names
harks back to an era when titles were routinely
sold off the star power of the two Toms – Cruise
and Hanks – or Julia Roberts. At press time, the top
QUENTIN TARANTINO MOVIES AT THE UK BOX OFFICE
Film
Django Unchained
Pulp Fiction
Kill Bill: Volume 1
Inglourious Basterds
Kill Bill: Volume 2
Once upon a Time… in Hollywood
The Hateful Eight
Jackie Brown
Reservoir Dogs
Death Proof/Grindhouse
* first five days; † includes 1994 rerelease
the eyes of three Chinese writers: Jia
Pingwa, Yu Hua and Liang Hong.
» Kristen Stewart is makingng her feature
directorial debut with an adaptation
of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir The
Chronology of Water, whichch focuses
on Yuknavitch’s bisexuality,
y,
addiction issues and
relationship with BDSM.
» Jordan Peele is
producing and co-writing
ten films at the UK box office so far this year have
all been based on existing intellectual property,
ranging from Marvel characters to iconic Disney
brands, Lego toys and the Elton John song
catalogue – and all are driven by the property
more than by the star talent. The highest-grossing
film this year based on original IP is The Favourite
(£17 million). Now Once upon a Time… looks set
to nab that crown. “Originality is something we
all desire,” George says. “It’s also quite scary at
times, because you go, ‘God bless me, there’s no
existing IP, there’s nothing we can hang it on.’”
George is encouraged by the performance
of boutique and indie cinemas with Once upon
a Time…, with the likes of Everyman achieving
almost 8 per cent of the opening weekend total
(vs typically 2.5 per cent of the market) and
Picturehouse delivering over 6 per cent (vs
typically 2.2 per cent). Picturehouse Central
was the third-highest-grossing site, behind only
Vue Westfield and Odeon Leicester Square.
The executive is also enthused – and
pleasantly surprised – by exit polling provided
by data gatherer Comscore’s PostTrak service.
“The strongest audience, and they’re all strong
across the board, but the one that pops is
young females,” notes George. “I don’t have
the numbers on previous Tarantinos, but I
can’t imagine that young females was the
strongest demographic out of everybody.”
Year Gross
2013 £15.7m
1994 £12.7m
2003 £11.7m
2009 £10.9m
2004 £9.16m
2019 £7.54m*
2016 £7.41m
1998 £6.62m
1993 £6.31m†
2007 £905,000
a ‘spiritual sequel’
seq to Bernard Rose’s 1992
cult horrorr C
Candyman. Emerging filmmaker
Nia DaCosta will direct; Aquaman star
Abdul-Mateen II will play the hook-
Yahya Abdul
handed boge
bogeyman, originally incarnated
by Tony Todd.
Tod According to Peele, the new
film will “r
“return to the neighbourhood
where the legend began: the now-
gen
gentrified section of Chicago
w
where the Cabrini-Green
h
housing projects once stood”.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 11
 RUSHES OBITUARY

D.A. PENNEBAKER, 1925-2019

In a series of astonishing films, the
great observational documentary
filmmaker created high drama
from the fabric of everyday life
By Roger Graef
There are many filmmakers who are admired
for their work. But few can claim to have created
a genre of their own. Donn Pennebaker (‘Penny’
to his friends) was one of those. I can still recall
the impact of seeing his handheld observational
films, with long takes and no commentary
– made with his collaborators Robert Drew,
Ricky Leacock and Albert Maysles. These were
cinéma vérité documentaries, which were as
revolutionary as the Modern Movement was
to architecture, or cubists were for painting.
And like those other artforms, this revolution
was prompted by technological progress: the
development of handheld cameras that also
recorded sound along the side of the frame,
or with a cable to handheld recorders that
would be in synch with the cameras, and
could capture dialogue as it happened.
Before then – and for a good few years
afterwards – most documentaries were shot
on mute handheld 16mm Arriflexes or with
bigger cameras on tripods. Sound was recorded
separately from the cameras. The final films
relied on loads of music and narration – what
was known as ‘the voice of God’ telling you what
you were seeing, as well as what to think about
it. There were some fine films made that way,
by the likes of John Grierson and Humphrey
Jennings in the UK and Robert Flaherty in the US,
among many others. They were “film poetry”,
as Grierson once told me accusingly when
criticising observational documentaries – ‘obdocs’
– for lacking it. But for me and many other young
directors, the unvarnished reality of the cinéma
vérité films was truly dramatic, and inspiring.
I was a young theatre director at the time.
I had been an observer at the Actors Studio in
New York, and had been fascinated by the task of
conveying a sense of reality on stage. That was the
goal of the Method, taught to many film stars and
directors by Lee Strasberg. Seeing my first cinéma
vérité films made me realise that this was the best
possible way of capturing reality, and conveying Roll with it: D.A. Pennebaker (right) with Richard Leacock
it to an audience. I switched from directing plays
to making documentaries, thanks to those films. As a director and cameraperson, you give up the sound, you have nothing. In pure vérité films,
One of the first was Primary (1960). Pennebaker control normally available, the power to decide not having synch sound renders the pictures
and his colleagues completely blew open several and compose each shot carefully, and light it if worthless – no matter how poetic they may be.
forms of filmmaking. Their first political film necessary. You give up the chance for retakes, or The Pennebaker team went on to make
was for the Time-Life film unit headed by Drew. the ability simply to stop when things go wrong a huge variety of films on subjects not
It was shot during the battle for the Democratic and resume where you were before. Your task is normally conceived of as film-worthy: like
party presidential nomination between John simply to keep going wherever the action you people in offices doing business, as seen, for
F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. Unlike are following takes you. It is a high-wire act, example, in The Energy War (1978), about
the polished and prepared normal coverage especially when following fast-moving and fast- Jimmy Carter’s gas bill (which Penny kindly
of politics and current affairs, it showed real talking characters like politicians running for told me years later was inspired by my film
people engaged in a real and chaotic struggle – office. And without properly audible recorded Decision: Steel for ITV earlier in the decade)
raw, obviously filmed as it happened, with all More than three decades later, Pennebaker
the unexpected excitement of knowing that Cinéma vérité documentaries were – alongside his wife and frequent collaborator
neither the filmmakers nor the participants Chris Hegedus – directed another bombshell
would know what was going to happen next. as revolutionary as the Modern for political filmmaking. The War Room
That remains the secret ingredient of Movement was to architecture, or (1993), which went behind the scenes of Bill
ALAMY(1)

observational filmmaking. It can turn ordinary Clinton’s presidential campaign, revealed

life into drama, knowing it is real and unstaged. cubists were for painting the machinations of election-strategy-

12 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

 making and was nominated for an Academy
Award for Best Documentary Feature.
But the other major accomplishment and
engine of cultural change devised by Pennebaker
and his collaborators was the filming of
pop music, again as it happened, along with
fascinating and revealing footage of what
happened behind the scenes. His astonishing
feature-length film of Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour
of England, Dont Look Back (1967), still feels
utterly contemporary for the raw honesty of
the filmmaking. Far from being a hagiographic
puff, as so many more recent apparent portraits
of pop stars must be, tightly controlled by the
star and their PR machine, Dont Look Back is
an unvarnished portrait of a brilliant and self-
involved artist. In one revealing and memorable
scene, Dylan totally ignores the magnificent
singing of Joan Baez in their hotel room, while
banging away on his typewriter, only barely
swaying in time with it after many minutes
have gone by. The film is remarkable for the
length of takes and sequences, which are far
longer than most editors and directors would
tolerate then or now. The richness of each
take is that it develops a life of its own: like the
verbal fencing with a hapless student journalist
who is tied in knots by Dylan’s relentless
banter. It if were shorter, it would have just
been witty. At the length Pennebaker shows
it, we see Dylan as cruel, picking the wings off
a butterfly. Given that the length of each film
magazine was ten minutes, the investment
of so much time in each take without a cut is
even more remarkable. (In the UK, the work of
Kim Longinotto shows a similar willingness to
keep rolling to follow the action unfolding.)
The filming of Dylan’s concert performances
is also lengthy, and more rewarding for
being so. Pennebaker’s magnum opus in that
vein was Monterey Pop (1968), with precious
examples of late lamented singers like Janis
Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. It is so beautifully
filmed in colour that it feels like we are
there at the festival and is as powerful and
enjoyable as when it first burst on the scene.
The power of the film and its hugely long takes
stands in stark contrast to the restless coverage of
such concerts seen in the successors to Monterey
Pop – marked by kaleidoscopic filming and nervous
editing – and in the still more hysterical form, the
pop video. Pennebaker trusts his audience to sit still
and immerse themselves in the experience – as it
happens. The ending follows the set by sitar master
Ravi Shankar and goes on and on, far beyond our
expectations: the hypnotic music doesn’t follow
Western melodic forms and Pennebaker allows
the performance to run its course rather than
truncate it. It is an act of love to devote such time
to the music, the musician and the occasion.
He leaves a lifetime of insight and achievement,
always accomplished in a disarming way.
All of us observational filmmakers – and his
audiences – owe him a great deal, especially at
a time when ‘fake news’ and the manipulation
of imagery are on the rise. Penny’s films
demonstrate a commitment to the honest
GETTY IMAGES (1)
depiction of reality, without artifice or
interruption, and a trust in the audience to
value it, that is desperately needed now.
A FRIEND IN THE ROOM
TRIBUTES TO D.A. PENNEBAKER
Joan Churchill
Director/cinematographer who worked with
D.A Pennebaker on ‘Searching for Jimi Hendrix’
[1999] and ‘Down from the Mountain’ [2000]
When I first met ‘Penny’ in the early 70s, he
took me to his screening room in Midtown
New York and showed me footage of famous
dead people, many of them musicians (Janis,
Jimi, Otis) but also there were the Kennedys,
Norman Mailer, Germaine Greer, etc. Eventually
this beautiful, intimate footage became films
when Chris Hegedus came into Penny’s life.
He was such a charmer that not only the
Kennedys but even crusty Bob Dylan allowed
Penny to be present with his camera. Penny
liked to describe his approach to shooting
as wanting to be perceived as “a friend
in the room”. And that he was. He was so
interested in people, so non-judgemental, so
engaging, that nobody could resist him.
His love of music shone in his choice of
films, but he also had the most extraordinary
collection of early 78 records, mostly jazz.
They took pride of place in Penny and Chris’s
living room, lining the wall. He would put
on a record and listen with rapt attention.
He had stories about all the musicians,
many of whom he knew from his youth in
Chicago or had filmed subsequently.
And then there was Penny the gourmet.
Barzini’s grocery store was right around the
corner from their office on W 91st St. Even after
everyone begged him to stop walking to and
from home and office, he insisted on making
the journey to buy his forbidden pastries.
And cheeses. And bomba rice for his famous
paella. Here’s a snippet from his paella recipe:
Paella for 16 normal people, or 8 Pennebakers:
As rice takes on broth, and clams begin to
bite at the air, add shrimps, chicken, chorizo,
ham, hot sausage and with chaotic charm
strew the emerging paella with artichokes,
olives, capers, pimentos, and anything else
you need to get rid of, ending ultimately
with the baby peas which should not get too
cooked. Stomp around with big spoon, or end
of a broom stick. Don’t stir. Just stomp at it.
Cover with alum foil and let sit for an hour.
Ballad of a thin man: D.A. Pennebaker filming Bob Dylan in 1965 for Dont Look Back (1967)
To a long and wondrous amazing life. RIP
Penny. Chris Hegedus wrote: “He was obsessed
with how the universe began. Hopefully
he’s somewhere figuring it out now.”
Nick Broomfield
Director, ‘Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love’
I first heard about Pennebaker from Marianne
[Ihlen] when I was 20 and travelling around
Hydra. Penny had been filming there the year
before. He was looking for Leonard [Cohen]
but ended up filming Marianne, and she told
me all about this inspirational character and
showed me Dont Look Back. Then I discovered
that Penny and Richard Leacock had really
invented this new type of filming with their
handheld 16mm camera. They transformed
documentary filmmaking. Penny was using
his camera like people use their phones now.
He would just go and film. Sometimes
he didn’t even view the footage. He hadn’t
seen his Marianne footage until I managed
to pry it out of him 50 years later. The sound
had never been transferred and synched up.
He had so much footage in his vault. One
of the big questions is what to do with it.
One time he lent Joan and I his studio in
the Garment District in New York. We were
working late and managed to get locked in
the building and there was no way out. We
got stoned and just watched all his films.
They are so wonderfully non-judgemental.
He had that ease of being with people.
There was no pretend button on him and he
was very spontaneous. I was there when he got
his Lifetime Achievement award at the Oscars.
Typically, Penny went on with no notes, no
preparation of what he was going to say. He told
these great big elliptical stories, and after about
15 minutes, his family were desperately signalling
to him to stop but he was having a great time.
When it looked like he was going to wind up, Will
Smith suddenly interrupted and said, “I think we
should take a vote as to whether Penny should
continue or not” and of course everyone decided
that he should continue. I don’t remember Penny
saying anything mean about anybody. He was
somebody who just celebrated being alive.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 13

Wide Angle
NONFICTION FILM
A WEEK IN UTOPIA
This year’s Flaherty Seminar
pushed its participants to think
about the way in which film can
change the world – and vice versa
By Jemma Desai
For a drizzly seven days in June, a college campus
in upstate New York was taken over by 170
filmmakers, programmers, writers and other
thinkers for the 65th edition of the renowned
Flaherty Seminar, an experience which lies
somewhere between a cinephile retreat, film
theory summer camp and a real-life cinematic
utopia. This year’s edition took as its theme
‘Action’, speaking directly to a politically engaged
crowd of avant-garde and nonfiction cineastes
who came ready to immerse themselves in
the potentials of collective liberation through
watching film. With a format that provides an
opportunity to root both contemporary and
historical nonfiction filmmaking in the present
(and in a multifarious audience’s subjectivities),
it is also an annual reappraisal of nonfiction
film, giving space for participants to think
through the dilemmas inherent in the form.
Discomfit zone: Hara Kazuo’s Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974)
14 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
EXPLORING THE BIGGER PICTURE
Who is privileged when we attempt to make
the unfamiliar legible? What is the relationship
between artist, subject, audience? Whose voices
do we amplify and whose do we erase when we
come together to show and discuss such work?
Within the context of a global climate that seems
increasingly at odds with any concept of idealism,
this year’s edition grappled not just with how
these concerns articulated themselves through
the different ‘realities’ depicted on the screen, but
also with the notion that political liberation could
ever be achieved through sitting in front of one.
The Flaherty Seminar is named after Robert
Flaherty, considered by many the father of
American documentary, and was founded by
his wife Frances in 1955, shortly after his death.
Since that initial convening of cinephiles at
the Flaherty farm in Vermont the seminar has
shown the work of artists as varied as Louis
Malle, the Maysles brothers, Mira Nair, Satyajit
Ray, Agnès Varda, John Cassavetes, Ozu Yasujiro,
Pedro Costa and Joris Ivens, often before they
were widely screened in America. The seminar
is based on two central ideas: exploration and
non-preconception. This is not a traditional film
festival: there is little to no marketing, there
are no galas, red carpets, special presentations
or roped-off VIPs. There is no parallel
programming, either, so that all participants
watch everything in the order intended by
the curator. Each screening is followed by an
in-depth discussion, with filmmakers in the
programme attending as active participants and
nothing is revealed before arrival except the
curator (who changes annually) and the theme.
This year’s curator, Shai Heredia, has a
background in the production of moving image
(as a film director), as well as its circulation
(as the founder of Experimenta, a Bangalore-
based moving-image festival). That informed
an approach she later described as akin to an
edit: the assemblage of ideas, paced and crafted
to provide space for reflection and insight.
Programming, like editing, is a deliberate
act, one that has the potential to obscure as
well as emphasise, and one where proximity
can create layers of meaning and hierarchies of
The screening turned a room of
probing thinkers into a cacophony
of whooping, squirming,
breathless disorientation
attention. These nuances laid the foundations
for a charming intergenerational dialogue when
Heredia paired two Filipino filmmakers, Rox Lee
(b. 1950) and Miko Revereza (b. 1988). In another
selection, though, young Chinese filmmaker
Chan Hau Chun’s quiet observational film 32+4
(2015), which is about alienation from familial
bonds, was almost drowned out by proximity
to notorious Japanese ‘action’ documentary
filmmaker Hara Kazuo’s Extreme Private Eros:
Love Song 1974 (1974). An extraordinary
screening, memorable for turning a room of
probing thinkers into a cacophony of whooping,
squirming, breathless disorientation, was also
one of the most problematic, drawing attention
to how ‘edits’ in the programme and in the
films themselves revealed the fickleness of our
attention spans and the effect of adrenaline on
our critical faculties. A central scene in which
feminist activist Takeda Miyuki gives birth to her
own son in real time with absolutely no assistance
took up almost all the space in the following
discussions, temporarily diverting attention from
the possible intention behind the proximity of
the two filmmakers, and indeed some of the more
discomfiting aspects of racial fetishism and anti-
blackness on display elsewhere in the film itself.
A key part of the Flaherty experience is
the extended discussions after the films.
It is here that the possibility of a shared
community and discourse can be formulated
and enacted. Heredia’s curatorial statement
around her theme of action hinted at the idea
of a coherent community, an audience of
political animals. “We are artists in action,”
she began, “we act creatively, speak out, and
make works that challenge the status quo.”
Through the act of coming together Heredia
invited us to “learn how to create powerful
moments of aesthetic and political liberation…
in discourse, thought, and experience.”
But who were ‘we’? And was collective
liberation even possible in our new community?
Heredia’s programme circled around these
nuances, inviting participants to extrapolate her
position. In her coupling of Fuses (1964-67), the
ode to heterosexual love-making from the late
American feminist pioneer Carolee Schneemann,
with Delhi-based Priya Sen’s equally intimate
but necessarily less uninhibited film Yeh
Freedom Life (2018), which follows women who
love women (but don’t identify as queer) in an
inner-city suburb, Heredia seemed to gently
probe at this notion of ‘we’, underlining that
liberation articulated itself wildly differently
in different contexts and different bodies.
Ripples of oddly timed laughter in films with
harrowing subject matter – such as The Emperor’s
Naked Army Marches On (1987), in which Hara
Kazuo follows Okuzaki Kenzo, a World War
II veteran, as he seeks retribution from the
perpetrators of war crimes – created tension in
the discussions later, and highlighted differences
in affect among the people in the room.
While Heredia’s curatorial statement was
rousing and political, her programme itself
appeared to offer a challenge to participants to
interrogate the idea(l) of cinematic utopia. Take
Helga Fanderl, a German Super 8 filmmaker
who, camera in hand, crafts each of her films
Ecstatic electricity: Carolee Schneemann’s Fuses (1964-67)
from events and images in the real world that
catch her attention: Heredia’s inclusion of her felt
like a tribute to the dynamism of experimental
filmmaking; the personal liberation in creating
images for images sake, and the freeing potential
of just watching. From leaves nestled in the
corner of a skylight, huge waves crashing in the
sea, to a group of young girls playing a game of
chase in the playground, Fanderl’s filmmaking
contains no post-production, no edit, until the
moment of assembling her own programmes
for exhibition. In conversations that followed,
participants spoke about the privilege inherent in
the pursuit of image-making in this vein. What
did it do? Fanderl confessed herself confused at the
impassioned political nature of the discussions
sparked by her work and later told us to take our
politics out of the cinema and on to the streets
if we wanted to effect real-world change.
Her words, towards the end of the seminar, got
a thunderous round of applause from participants
weary of cinematic community building. But the
comments threatened the assumptions of the
whole event. Founded as it is on a kind of turning
away from more flippant modes of screen-based
production and consumption, the Flaherty
demands that participants have some faith in
the idea that the kind of moving image exhibited
there can change how we think about the
world. Early on, Priya Sen reflected on her own
approach to filmmaking: “I believe that a place
Priya Sen’s Yeh Freedom Life (2018)
changes people, people don’t change the place.”
This question of the direction of change, of its
impact, seemed to be at the heart of our purpose
at the Flaherty. What action, what impact, what
change was being enacted, and for whom?
In recent years the seminar has made efforts
to give more attention to international and
marginalised perspectives. While the room
looked more diverse than previous editions,
familiar hierarchies emerged. A predominantly
Western audience, which privileged the English
language and applied an Americanised worldview
to discussions about a programme located largely
in the global South, raised questions about the
possibility of creating a coherent discourse
across difference. Heredia’s inclusion of Kamal
Swaroop’s Om Dar-B-Dar (1988), an avant-garde
psychedelic trip of pure nonsense, seemed to
mock the pursuit of legibility. The film played
away from the main site, and many of the
participants arrived late. With few seats left that
gave a good view of the subtitles, many stood
in order to see them. Eventually, some gave up
and sat to take in the images, gathering quicker
than others that ‘understanding’ the dialogue
just added another layer of disorientation. This
inclusion seemed like a call to de-centre ourselves,
an idea echoed in comments by executive director
Jon-Sesrie Goff at the end of the seminar. On the
closing night he encouraged us not to colonise the
histories of these works by following an impulse
to be the ‘first’ to screen them in our respective
contexts – to acknowledge that things that
were new to us had pasts of their own that may
have been erased or muted. The sentiment was
underscored in the last discussion of the seminar.
After a week of experiencing the romance of
the sound of reels changing and the textures of
physical film, and basking in the joys of careful,
precise projection, Goff reoriented us from
format fetishism to the politics of circulation.
He pointed out that showing these films is an
active process, that passing them through a
projector indelibly marks them, changes them
in unexpected ways – just as watching them
continues to transform us. In seven short days we
could not possibly have changed the world, but
the traces of our attempt live on in the reels.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 15
 WIDE ANGLE PRIMAL SCREEN
ABOUT A BOY
Armando Iannucci’s new version
of David Copperfield is one of many
attempts to put Dickens’s favourite
among his novels on screen
By Michael Eaton
“Of all my books, I like this the best... like many
fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts
a favourite child. And his name is DAVID
COPPERFIELD.” Thus Dickens wrote in an 1869
preface, 20 years after the first appearance of
David Copperfield in serialised form. He did not,
however, reveal to his readers the personal reason
for that preference. Only when John Forster’s
biography appeared in 1872, after Dickens’s
death, containing Dickens’s unpublished
account of his neglected childhood working
in Warren’s Blacking Warehouse and the
shame of living hand to mouth on the streets
of London – details unknown even to his
family – were the autobiographical resonances
between the author and his creation disclosed.
In spite of Dickens’s fondness, few silent film
adaptations of David Copperfield were produced
compared with the innumerable versions of
A Christmas Carol and, to a lesser extent, Oliver
Twist. Perhaps it is the long chronological span
of this Bildungsroman, necessitating at least two
‘Davids’, or perhaps it is the confessional tone of
the first-person narration that proved daunting.
The earliest version was made by the
Thanhouser Company of New Rochelle, New
York. Directed by George O. Nichols, it was
released as three separate films over three
Cliff walker: Eric Desmond as the young David in the 1913 version of David Copperfield
16 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
The Early Life of David Copperfield (1911)
consecutive weeks in October 1911. The Early Life
of David Copperfield was the first and it bravely
attempts to distil nearly 300 pages of the original
text into its ten-minute duration. The other two
films, Little Em’ly and David Copperfield and The
Loves of David Copperfield, both of similar lengths,
deal with the protagonist as a young man.
Despite explanatory intertitles these films might
seem impossible to understand without some
prior knowledge of the original. It is therefore
surprising that the trade journal The Moving Picture
With its fine compositions and
clarity of storytelling, Bentley’s
‘David Copperfield’ was a leap
forward for British film in 1913
World remarked: “The man, woman or child
who has never read a line of Dickens will feel the
Dickens spirit and the Dickens atmosphere.”
The first British version was released in 1912:
Little Emily, made by the Britannia company
and directed by Frank Powell. A print exists in
a French archive but I haven’t seen it. From the
title we can assume that this film concentrates
on the Byronic Steerforth’s seduction of the
innocent girl. It was not uncommon in the early
days of the cinema to select one scene or strand of
a lengthy novel for adaptation, and this subplot
certainly provides melodramatic possibilities.
A production of the following year, 1913, is
of much greater significance. Produced by Cecil
Hepworth, adapted and directed by Thomas
Bentley and, at 7,500 feet, running for over an
hour (depending on projection speed), this is
often claimed to be Britain’s ‘first feature film’.
Hepworth’s father was a magic-lantern lecturer
whose most popular presentation was ‘In the
Footsteps of Charles Dickens’ and Bentley was
a “great Dickens character impersonator and
scholar”. In 1912 Bentley appeared in Leaves from
the Books of Charles Dickens for Britannia, again
directed by Powell. According to The Dickensian,
the journal of the Dickens Fellowship, he
“appears as certain characters from the novels in
incidents enacted in the real background of their
settings in their respective books”. Among them
Bentley impersonates Micawber, emerging from
Dickens’s birthplace in Portsmouth, and David,
in Canterbury. The same year Bentley directed his
first Hepworth Dickens adaptation: Oliver Twist.
Scenes in Bentley’s David Copperfield were
introduced by first-person intertitles, locations
were shot “on the actual scenes immortalised
by Charles Dickens”, with interiors filmed at
the Hepworth studios in Walton-on-Thames.
There were three actors for David, Eric Desmond
playing him as a child being particularly affecting.
With its fine pictorial compositions and its clarity
of storytelling, this was a leap forward both in
British film and Dickensian adaptation. The
keepers of the flame lavished praise in the pages of
The Dickensian: “...the finest Dickens Picture Play
we have yet seen... Dickens’s creations to the life...
the narrative so well maintained... the scenery so
accurate, and the acting so life-like and natural.”
The final silent David Copperfield (1922) was
one of four Dickensian films released between
1921 and 1924 by Nordisk in Copenhagen, all
of which were directed by A.W. Sandberg, the
company’s head of production. This was the
third in the series, after Vor Faelles Ven (Our
Mutual Friend, 1921) – an interesting choice of a
novel seldom adapted – and Store Forventninger
ILLUSTRATION BY MICK BROWNFIELD WWW.MICKBROWNFIELD.COM
(Great Expectations, 1922); the final film was
Lille Dorrit (1924), again rarely filmed. Though
unfairly neglected in their country of origin
today and little known outside Denmark, these
are, surely, the greatest instances of Dickensian
adaptation on the silent screen, with superb
sets, beautiful photography, commendable
condensation of complex stories and splendid
performances. The musical theatre actor Frederik
Jensen is outstanding as Micawber, paving
the way for the unforgettable performance
of W.C. Fields in the masterpiece directed by
George Cukor for MGM 13 years later.
WIDE ANGLE ARTISTS’ MOVING IMAGE
CHRONICLE OF A SHIMMER
Algorithm is a dancer: humming, fast and slow (2012)
Rainer Kohlberger’s abstract, sense-
defying works, programmed into
a computer rather than filmed,
feel like nothing on earth
By Matt Turner
“Here we are in the presence of a shimmering
consciousness,” reads the text that opens Rainer
Kohlberger’s keep that dream burning (2017). Two
further lines follow before the writing fades and
the scene explodes into a galaxy of greyscale
digital noise that continues for the film’s duration,
its abstract vortices growing ever more complex
as magic-eye puzzle-style mirages appear
sporadically, barely perceptible within the fuzz.
“A flicker of the soul is all that is needed, I believe
coming here was the right thing to do.” This is one
of many short, strangely soothing soul-flickers
that the multimedia artist has produced, and the
first Kohlberger made with his latest collaborator
– an AI. The hidden images are created by
machine-learning processes: secret shimmerings
embedded by an alien artificial brain.
Working across film, installation and live
A/V performance, Kohlberger – Austrian born,
Berlin-based – makes abstract, algorithm-
based images for screens. Though he exhibits
regularly at international film festivals, he is
part of an ever-widening cohort of filmmakers
creating ‘cameraless cinema’, producing his
work entirely in-computer, programming most
of his visuals with the vvvv toolkit – described
by its makers as “a hybrid visual/textual live-
programming environment” – and creating
sound in Ableton Live. Most of his work
contends with perception and its fallibility – the
variability with which human sensory apparatus
perceives the information it is presented, or
as he has put it: “The blurriness of the border
where mind is confronted to its surroundings.”
Kohlberger has also said that his work,
sometimes described as ‘generative art’, “can be
understood as pure light”. This is particularly
apt for his earlier films. In moon blink (2015),
monochromatic pulses radiate upwards, the
delineation between light and dark increasingly
stark. As it reaches a peak, the contrast fades and
the image becomes noisy, the lines indistinct;
gradients of diffusive colour emerge from the
granular aberrations, collapsing into intense
strobes accompanied by a high-pitched pulsating
drone. As a wash of assaultive white light is
interrupted by patches of noisy colour, an
initially simple image-field becomes complex.
Drifting between blurry and sharp, noisy and
clean, the viewer’s eye is never left to rest,
instead always searching for a focal point, a
clarity that the film resists. humming, fast and
slow (2012) follows similar patterns, but now
vertical bars dilate along a horizontal axis. The
film also starts in greyscale, black bars flickering
at varying speeds, as the title suggests. Before
long, colours enter the frame, at first subtly but
soon more abrasively, until they consume the
visual space altogether, mutating the relative
rigidity of black and white into something more
vibrant and amorphous. In both works, the
effect is pleasantly psychedelic – a flooding of
the senses as stimulating as it is disorienting.
Kohlberger’s films challenge viewers’
perceptions, encouraging them to wonder
whether what they’ve seen is what others saw.
This trickery reaches its apotheosis in more
than everything (2018), an awe-inducing 3D film
designed to exist as much in the beholder’s eye as
Kohlberger’s films challenge
viewers’ perceptions, encouraging
them to wonder whether what
they’ve seen is what others saw
on the screen. The film plays on the phenomenon
of ‘binocular rivalry’ – the competition between
the two eyes when two different images are
presented together, one aimed towards each eye:
no two viewers will experience it in the same way.
In his other films, abstract visual masses seem to
burst out of the screen, but here – with the aid of
polarised 3D glasses – the emergence is literal:
a gaseous cloud that hovers off screen over the
auditorium, the motions of the granular material
that lie inside it varying according to which eye is
dominant in each viewer and how the individual
brain interprets the information being received.
His latest film, It has to be lived once and
dreamed twice (2019), though still abstract in
terms of visual form, edges nearer to narrative,
introducing text, voice and a semblance of story.
Alongside distorted visual detritus (clouds of
noisy mist, broken signals and colour washes)
and a buried body of visual material extracted
from a half-century of science-fiction cinema,
post-processed and disguised, the film’s narration
describes a futuristic scenario in which the same
artificial intelligences that Kohlberger has begun
to employ in his work have superseded their
human creators. In what is his most expressive
and visually varied film, this post-human
apocalypse is presented less as a problem than as
an inevitability for a universe in which “reality
is only an idea”. It is maybe not surprising that
someone who works ones and zeroes into
wonders wouldn’t greet a world in which non-
human entities have become the planet’s primary
beings with fear, but instead with something
closer to benign fascination. “Here we are in the
presence of a shimmering consciousness […] I
believe coming here was the right thing to do.”
It has to be lived once and dreamed twice
screens alongside a live A/V performance
by Rainer Kohlberger at Regent Street
Cinema, London, on 6 September, as part
of Open City Documentary Festival 2019
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 17
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 Festivals
SYROS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
This celebration of cinema clings
on to the utopian spirit of the
earliest film festivals and makes
fine use of its Greek island setting
By Kieron Corless
Pitching camp in some exotic locale has long
been a staple move for film festivals starting
out: the appropriation of a ready-made tourist
ambience sends strong signals that work
and play will commingle, that sensual and
conversational pleasures will be writ large in
the festival experience. That originary utopian
impulse tends to get eroded and ultimately
obliterated as the number of attendees inflates
and commercial pressures are exerted. Do festival
visitors ever swim in the sea at Cannes, Venice
or San Sebastian these days? You’d be lucky
to even glimpse the beach at Cannes through
the swollen ranks of hospitality and corporate
marquees strung out along the shoreline.
But this is just one strand in a bigger narrative;
there is still a substantial cohort of smaller and
medium-sized film festivals around the world
where the lure of growth is resisted, where
the utopian impulse, however it manifests, is
carefully nurtured and sustained. One such takes
place every July on the Greek island of Syros,
the administrative capital of the Cyclades group
in the Aegean Sea. Syros is fascinatingly varied,
unusually both a fully working port as well as a
tourist destination, and notable in Greece for the
especially harmonious co-existence of its Catholic
and Orthodox populations. Seven years ago,
bewitched by the island’s idiosyncratic history
and atmosphere, two enterprising New Yorkers,
Jacob Moe and Cassandra Celestin (the latter
half-Greek), succeeded in getting a film festival
off the ground, one which feels more sensitively
attuned to and thoroughly inscribed in its local
setting than just about any other I’ve visited.
From the outset, the venture has been imbued
with several overlapping ideas and ideals,
given flesh by a programming team that now
consists of five people, a mix of native Greeks
and Americans: first and foremost, don’t obsess
about premieres; programme widely across
genres and time periods around a central theme,
thus elevating everything to the same plane, be
it an experimental short or a narrative feature;
include elements of live performance, music and
visual art and installation, so film isn’t necessarily
privileged; and, above all, make ample use of
specific sites around the island for events and
screenings, a different one each day – a beach, a
quarry, a disused shipyard, a field for a drive-in,
the town square – to connect locals, tourists and
festival attendees in one highly charged space.
The overarching theme of this year’s festival
was ‘overexposure’, which the opening night film,
Agnès Varda’s Nausicaa (1970), illuminated by
way of contrast, as it was never ‘officially’ finished
or screened after Varda shot it for French TV in
The sky’s the limit: this year’s festival screened work around the theme of ‘overexposure’
1970, making it something of an outlier in her
oeuvre. Ostensibly a love story between a French
student with a Greek father and a Greek exile
in Paris escaping the dictatorship, it completely
wins you over by virtue of its formal hybridity,
its curiosity and openness to the world, and its
own particular amalgam of ludic and thoughtful.
Its extensive cast of actual Greek exiles often
speak directly to camera about their experiences,
taking the viewer on a bracing plunge into
Greek history, politics and identity, which
made it a perfect choice for this opening spot.
That broad theme of overexposure proved
consistently generative owing to its potential
application to numerous scenarios, be they
environmental, political, social and/or cinematic.
One risk of overexposure is, arguably, an inability
to see what’s actually there, a momentary
blindness that can be exploited for nefarious
political ends. Commissioned by the family of the
murdered Greek anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas,
the research agency Forensic Architecture’s team
of specialists successfully undercut the official
police narrative in the murder trial with their
customary painstaking attention to the most
minuscule details, in this case a few overexposed
pixels in surveillance footage of the crime scene.
The resulting film investigation felt thrillingly
‘live’, both in the sense of a creative hijacking
of the image taking place before one’s eyes, but
also because that same day in an Athens court
this material was helping, after prolonged legal
Syros is fascinatingly
varied, unusually both a
fully working port as well
as a tourist destination
struggle, to bring the conviction of the accused
Golden Dawn member significantly closer.
For me, though, it was the site-specific events
that left the most indelible imprints. In an
overexposed era of the live feed, where everything
is downloadable, what smarter counter-
proposition than a series of one-off, unrepeatable
experiences where cinema is opened out to
the elements and the contingent. And so the
latest iteration of Jem Cohen’s longstanding
investigation into the infinitely complex relations
between music and image, in collaboration
with the musicians Giorgos Xylouris and DJ /
rupture, was accompanied by a blood-orange
moon hovering above the atmospheric disused
shipyard hosting the packed and hypnotic
event (there was also a magical partial lunar
eclipse on the opening night while Dreyer’s 1932
Vampyr was screening in the town square).
My favourite was an event that took place right
in the heart of an imposing local quarry on the
outskirts of the main town, in which Austrian
experimental filmmaker Rainer Kohlberger (see
Wide Angle, page 17) gave a performance with
the resonant title Happy to Go Blind. A selection
of 16mm avant-garde films by the likes of Paul
Sharits, Rose Lowder and Kurt Kren, among
others, were projected simultaneously with
his own computer-generated imagery, creating
an enraptured, questing dance between past
and present, analogue and digital, that the
quarry’s own exposed layers of history seemed
the most apt and potent backdrop for. In its
peak moments the tumult of sound and lights
sparked currents of spooked energy that seemed
to flow all over the screen, the quarry walls and
the spellbound audience, tapping deep into
some ancient spirit of place. Not an experience
anyone present is likely to forget in a hurry.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 19
 In James Gray’s ‘Ad Astra’ Brad Pitt plays an
astronaut who travels to the furthest reaches
of the solar system to track down his father
in a bid to save the Earth. Here the director
explains why he created a sci-fi tale that tells
a myth of man rather than a myth of the gods
By Nick Pinkerton
n the course of his first four films – Little Odessa
I (1995), The Yards (2000), We Own the Night
(2007) and Two Lovers (2008) – James Gray pro-
duced a body of work as regionally and tonally distinct
as any in turn-of-the-millennium American cinema. His
Little Odessa, which appeared the year after the Pulp Fic-
tion watershed, was likewise a crime picture made by a
raconteur cinephile director and built around a hit-man
character, but any resemblance ended there – Gray’s film
was steeped in the soul-swallowing sadness emanating
from the breaches of a sundered family unit, committed
to earnest expression of feeling rather than postmodern
play and, unlike Tarantino’s Los Angeles mash note, Little
Odessa was utterly and irrevocably a New York
City movie.

20 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

STAR MAN
Brad Pitt as Roy McBride,
an astronaut who goes to
investigate a disruptive
force emanating from near
Neptune that poses a serious
threat to humanity, in James
Gray’s Ad Astra

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 21

JAMES GRAY AD ASTRA
The pathos of the films comes in part through
the application of an elegant style that evokes
Luchino Visconti to a blue-collar American milieu
22 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
Not just any New York, either. This was the
bridge-and-tunnel city, the city of a thousand little
cities, of Queens and the parts of Brooklyn that don’t
fit with the ‘Brooklyn’ brand, ethnic enclaves like the
Russian-Jewish Brighton Beach of Little Odessa, We Own
the Night and Two Lovers, or industrial eyesores like the
Sunnyside rail yards in The Yards, the parochial outer bor-
oughs where Manhattan is called ‘The City’ and visited
rarely, if at all. (When three-time collaborator Joaquin
Phoenix’s character in Two Lovers goes into The City, he
is as agog as though he were touching down in Oz.)
This New York is the terrain of Gray’s youth – he grew
up in Queens – but he accessed the wider world through
cinema, and no small part of the pathos of the films that
he would make as an adult comes through the applica-
tion of an elegant style that at times evokes the patrician
Luchino Visconti to a steadfastly blue-collar American
milieu usually burdened by hackneyed visuals meant
to evoke ‘grittiness’. And while far from Visconti’s Eu-
ropean scene, the world of Gray’s early films does breed
aristocrats of its own – witness Sunnyside native James
Caan in The Yards, the working-class nouveau riche with
a Forest Hills Gardens manse – and their smothering
familial expectations.
More recently, Gray has gotten off the block, and off
into new territory. The Immigrant (2013) was his first
period piece to reach beyond the span of his own life –
We Own the Night was set in 1988 – recreating the teem-
ing lower Manhattan of the 1920s, and a variation on
the Eastern European immigrant experience of his own
extended family, as filtered through the experience of
Marion Cotillard’s Ewa Cybulska, a Polish Catholic new
arrival waylaid at Ellis Island by Phoenix’s shyster pimp.
The Lost City of Z (2016) went still further afield, portray-
ing events in the life of the British explorer Percy Fawcett
(played by Charlie Hunnam), who disappeared while
seeking a rumoured lost city in the heart of the Amazon
jungle in the early 20th century. (Both The Immigrant and
The Lost City of Z were shot on 35mm by the peerless cin-
ematographer Darius Khondji, and are reminders of the
qualities of texture and visual nuance that have largely
been forgotten following the digital changeover.)
Now, with Ad Astra, Gray has drifted about as far from
home as you can go – though, as discussed in the course
of our conversation below, his conception of the world of
routine commercial space travel owes something to the
image of NYC’s Penn Station. The director whose previ-
ous excursions into special effects didn’t extend much
beyond digitally de-ageing former New York mayor Ed
Koch in We Own the Night has now made an honest-to-
God science-fiction epic, concerning the voyage taken
by astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) to the edge of the
known universe, investigating a disruptive force ema-
nating from near Neptune, where a mission led by his
PHOTOGRAPHY: ELIZABETH WEINBERG/NYT/REDUX/EYEVINE
father, space programme legend Clifford (Tommy Lee
Jones), disappeared years earlier. Lent ballast by Pitt’s
lean, terse and detailed performance, Ad Astra shifts
scale between the registers of the intimate and awesome,
making room as it does for some astonishing action set
pieces, including a breakneck Moon rover race and an
unexpected encounter on a drifting vessel that has put
out a distress call.
This may all seem like a total creative about-face for
Gray, but in addition to pursuing persistent thematic
 concerns – relating to fraught family relationships and
particularly fathers and sons – Ad Astra shows his abhor-
rence of cliché firmly intact. Where once Gray achieved
a signature style by lending grotty neighbourhoods and
the lives of small-time hoods a painterly precision of
colour and an emotional expressiveness comparable to
grand opera, here he has re-enchanted the idea of space
travel precisely by demythologising it. A production
design-attentive filmmaker always particularly sensitive
to capturing the sedimentary layers left by the passage
of history, the way that the look of any given time is an
accumulation of the looks of the recent pasts, Gray has in
Ad Astra created a shockingly (and deflatingly) feasible
future that extends in a straight line from the present day.
It’s a film that, in striking out for the cosmos, discovers
both banality and beauty. I spoke to Gray in Los Angeles
about this particular accomplishment as he worried over
the finished product.
Nick Pinkerton: There’s a variously attributed line that goes:
“It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of
capitalism” – and that seems to me relevant to what you’ve
done here. Very often, things set in an imagined future, dis-
tant or near, will take an either dystopian or utopian tack,
and what struck me is that you’ve imagined a future that
is very close to a logical extension of the present. For ex-
ample, the Moon colony, when seen from a distance, looks
like Penn Station, with a Nathan’s [hot-dog restaurant] and
a Hudson News. Which is very funny.
James Gray: Yeah, it should be! By the way, you should
know that in the script itself, I described the Moon as a
kind of Penn Station, that’s literally exactly the way I de-
scribed it. So I guess I achieved some victory there. The
trajectory of human beings is, I think, upward. If you
looked at the life of an average person in the 1300s, it
would be pretty horrible. Let’s say, a man from Europe
in 1300 would probably either be dead from the plague
or, if he had survived, would be emaciated and malnour-
ished with no dental care at all, and he would have a life
expectancy somewhere around 32 years, right? That’s
GRAY AREAS
Previous films by James Gray
(opposite) include (below,
from left, opposite) Little
Odessa (1994), starring Tim
Roth; We Own the Night
(2007), with Eva Mendes and
Joaquin Phoenix; and The
Lost City of Z (2016), with
Charlie Hunnam
ALAMY (2)
what a person was facing. Today, the person faces a life
expectancy of maybe 80 years if they live in an advanced
country, and they have a much better chance at a much
more comfortable and pain-free existence: You reach for
the Advil. So, I’m not against a forward-looking idea of
human progress, because I do believe in it. If you were to
look at a graph of human progress, it would have a ton
of little dips in it – one of them would be Hitler or some-
thing – but it’s progress. But, for me, there’s no answer
yet to the market. There was a temporary answer with… I
guess you could call it a socialist dictatorship idea, which
was completely fucked up and not really an answer, obvi-
ously. But at least it was some counterweight to capital-
ism. And you could say to a teenager in 1966, “What do
you think, is that guy a sell-out?” and they would under-
stand what you were talking about. Today if you said that
to a teenager, one imagines that would mean there’s no
more iPhones left in the store or something.
What I tried to do was basically say, “OK, the near
future is not dystopian or utopian – it’s both.” The future,
in a movie, is just a way of expressing the present. Some
people, when turning to science fiction – and my ap-
proach is not this – they say, “What will happen in the
future? Will we be driving George Jetson mobiles?” or
whatever. My view is always that it’s just an extended
metaphor for the present.
I tried to say to the gang as we were creating this thing,
“Look at everything that is in the present, and try and
stretch maybe 50 years later, and what would it be?” And
we kind of went backwards a little bit. We looked at prog-
ress, if you want to call it that, 50 years ago. For example,
did Sharpies [permanent markers] exist 50 years ago? The
answer is yes, they’ve been around in some form since
the late 1800s, but in their current form since 1963 or ’64.
So, we used Sharpies. This helped us with that kind of
detail. Then we looked into computing, where things
have been miniaturised and planted in your ear, this sort
of thing. In a sense the technology would become
invisible, so we wouldn’t harp on about ‘The
If you were to look at a graph of human progress,
it would have a ton of little dips in it – one of them
would be Hitler or something – but it’s progress
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 23
JAMES GRAY
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
Brad Pitt’s McBride in
Ad Astra (opposite, top;
and below, surveying the
planetary landscape); Donald
Sutherland, Pitt and Sean
Blakemore (below right);
the Moon rovers (opposite
bottom), which come under
attack by space pirates
Kurt Vonnegut says, in space all man found
was emptiness, low comedy, a total void, and
the true terra incognita was the human soul
24 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
AD ASTRA
Magic of the New’. This wasn’t going to be like
Tomorrowland at Disneyland, or the 1964 World’s
Fair. We were going to try and almost forget about the
idea of technology.
NP: I love the cool-down chamber McBride goes to on Mars.
It reminded me of the suicide room in Soylent Green [1973].
JG: That cool-down chamber was basically our world of
screensavers and spinning colour wheels that are sup-
posed to calm you down. I thought all that stuff was
really funny, actually. I’m sure no one else will, so there
you go.
NP: In some respects, it can almost be taken as a… I don’t
want to say as an anti-space travel movie, but we do see
people who are using exploration as a way to abjure things
that might better be taken care of on the ground, and more-
over, space itself is such a harsh, and unwelcoming, and
basically hostile environment.
JG: I’m not anti-exploration. I don’t view space travel as
some kind of evil thing, thinking, “Why aren’t we spend-
ing that money on Earth?” I’m very much for it: it is of
great value. Society survives and thrives on collective
myths, and we can’t really deny that. So the aspirational
element involved in going to the Moon, for example, in
the mid- to late 1960s… people don’t realise today, and
certainly people who are younger than we are, I don’t
think they realise the context in which Armstrong and
Aldrin walked on the Moon. We’re talking about it just
being a year removed from the Tet Offensive, and Rich-
ard Nixon is the president, and the country is really in
dire shape after the Democratic convention and the as-
sassinations of RFK, JFK and, of course, Martin Luther
King. The trip to the Moon, the aspirational aspect of it,
was tremendously important for the national myth, and
that does have value. But the problem is that you can’t
look at it as a panacea, and even though it’s important,
the problem is that this collective mythmaking only
takes you so far.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote The Sirens of Titan in, I want to say
either the year of Sputnik or right after, and he was really
very prescient. In the beginning of the book, he says that
basically man flung himself outward into space, “flung
like stones”, I believe he writes. Then he says all he found
was emptiness, low comedy, just a total void with no
meaning, and the true terra incognita was the human
soul, which I thought was just gorgeous when I read it.
That is what I was trying to get across in the movie, to
make a science-fiction movie that was very much a myth
of man, not a myth of the gods. So that was the idea, but
you never know how much that comes across, talking
all this highfalutin bullshit and then, of course, you hope
the thing makes some shred of sense.
NP: McBride is very often in his own company, and while
keeping his own company has these psychological evalu-
ations which give him occasion to monologue. These mo-
ments are incredibly direct, and this is very much against
the grain, because the classic screenwriting seminar idea
is that no one ever says what’s on their mind, they circum-
navigate around things, come at things from oblique angles.
And you’re not following those instructions at all here. Not
that that’s ever really been your m.o. as a writer, but here in
particular you go as directly towards things as possible…
JG: You’re right about that. The way we rehearsed a lot
of this was that he was only able to open up completely
and honestly with a faceless voice from the other end
that was probably automated and probably no one was
listening. Just checking his biorhythms. You’re right
that nobody ever saying what they mean is a totally clas-
sic, almost clichéd screenwriting technique. I’ve talked
about this many times before but my urge is to always
be as sincere as possible, and as direct as possible. Here,
it’s a bit of an experiment, but I wanted to just say, “Here
is Brad Pitt as emotionally naked as you could possibly
make him, as vulnerable as he could be, as direct as he
could be.” Can the wall between the actor and the char-
acter, and the actor and the movie, be broken? Anything
that gets in the way of the sincerity of it, I wanted to try
and destroy, and I needed a vehicle through which he
could express himself clearly and sincerely to us.
NP: You very rarely encounter that level of near-direct
address in a film of this type. You rarely encounter it at all
in films, but to find it nested inside something that also has
these spectacular elements to it, to have these moments of
extreme intimacy, it’s very disarming.
JG: Yeah, I have a feeling that some people might hate
that. Look, I’m a huge admirer of 2001: A Space Odyssey,
it’s one of my favourite films ever. It’s incredible. And I
knew I couldn’t do that. Forget the talent level, that’s a
whole other issue, but even if somehow I had enough
talent to do it, I couldn’t, it’s been done already, it’s called
2001. So, the idea behind it was to do, in a way, the oppo-
site of 2001. See, 2001 says to you… Kubrick beats the trap
rather brilliantly with the false gods angle, he says, “Well,
there are aliens, but you don’t see them. They’re repre-
sented by this probe-thing which is a black Donald Judd
[sculpture] kind of thing.” You can project anything you
want on to it, right? It’s like a piece of 60s minimalism;
is it good, is it bad, what does it mean? Spielberg breaks
the trap in his films because they play like a fable. E.T.
[1982] is not really supposed to be some actual examina-
tion of what alien life is like. It’s basically about a kid who
is trying to deal with being totally alone in the face of his
parents’ divorce, and how is he going to deal with it? It’s
going to be very difficult and he’s going to be lonely as
hell. It’s a version of an imaginary friend really, and so it
succeeds on that level. Kubrick is able to beat it because
you don’t know what it means. So I couldn’t do a myth of
the gods, I couldn’t do false gods, aliens, I couldn’t do that.
What does it mean, what is left? What is left is the land-
scape of the soul, and how do you expose that? The way
we decided to try was to make it as sincere as we could,
and that was really the method.
NP: The film seems to be in conversation with The Lost
City of Z in a lot of interesting ways. Obviously, there are
through-lines that you could follow through the entire body
of work; certainly, fathers and sons being one. But here
there’s this particular interest in exploration, both physical
and spiritual. How did the two films inform one another, be-
cause it seems like they have to in some way?
JG: I swear it was not a conscious thing because I wrote
the script before. I was waiting for The Lost City of Z to get
Can the wall between the actor and the character
financed, to see if I could. Maybe it informed it on the be broken? Anything that gets in the way of
script level. I didn’t write them in the order that you see
them. But I did feel that in Z, there was a huge amount
the sincerity of it, I wanted to destroy
of historical, biopic tropes that you had to adhere to,
and I got a little frustrated. It’s not that I’m not proud of
that film, I worked very hard on it, but there were things
which I felt you had to tackle before you could deal with
the direct issues of fathers and sons in it. That came in, in
the last act of the movie. But it was only by way of discov-
ery that Fawcett came to some kind of atonement with
his son. That came by way of discovery, and here, with
Ad Astra, I felt the discovery had to be direct from the be-
ginning, that there was something much more… almost
primal, and mythic, about the story. It’s shorter [than
The Lost City of Z] – well, with these ridiculous credits
you have now everything runs 10 or 11 minutes longer,
but the new movie should be an hour and 45 minutes,
not 2 hours 20 minutes. It would be a very direct leap.
The father is out there, he went to explore, what does it
mean? And to take the son’s point of view on what that
meant to their relationship, that the father could
go out there and leave the kid behind for so long.

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 25

JAMES GRAY AD ASTRA
This issue of the father’s abandonment is very per-
sonal to me, and so I tried to latch on to that, and
get rid of the historical biopic elements that I’ve had to
embrace in some way in the previous work. Again, this
is the drive to be more direct – which seems counter-
intuitive when you’re talking about a space movie – but
going out into the endless void is a fantastic metaphor,
you can’t beat it. So the answer is yes, there is a rhyming
to both these movies.
NP: In some respects, they could almost be looked at as op-
posite numbers, because Z is that very heroic age of explo-
ration, that 19th-century age of exploration where there are
still blank spaces on the map to fill, whereas in Ad Astra, as
far out as Pitt’s McBride goes, he’s still following established
trails. He does not boldly go where no man has gone before.
JG: That’s right, and in a way he has some version of a
choice there. The father, in an act of real narcissistic meg-
alomania, says, “You and I, together we can prove what
science says doesn’t exist” – and McBride declines that
offer. And there’s very much a refusing of the call to go
further, which I thought was important. I think if he de-
cides and commits to go where no man has gone before,
that’s not really what the world needs. It’s certainly not
what I need.
NP: I also wanted to talk about the action set pieces, which
are very, very strong and, in some ways, seem to develop
some ideas about staging action that are present in We Own
the Night – again you’re muffling sound to create effect,
again using obfuscation to build suspense.
JG: Thank you. The lunar rover sequence [in which Mc-
Bride is attacked by space pirates] was always in my mind
because I had seen a movie called A Hijacking [2012], by
a director named Tobias Lindholm, which I was very in-
terested in. Then later I saw Captain Phillips [2013], which
was like the flip side of A Hijacking, but it was very in-
teresting to see one before the other. What struck me
about A Hijacking was that here you have this Danish
executive who is faced with these moral choices… it’s all
about negotiation, which doesn’t have anything to do
In ‘no meaning’, you find meaning. My ambition
is always, ‘How do you make the story so clear
that it becomes even more ambiguous?’
26 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
THE FUGITIVE KIND
In Ad Astra, Tommy Lee
Jones (below) plays Clifford
McBride, a space programme
legend who led a trip to
Neptune that disappeared
several years before the
events in the film
with my movie, but I loved the idea of introducing us
to these Somali pirates, who, no matter how developed
some parts of the world are, you saw this other part of the
world, and you realise it’s 2011 and you’re really taking
about Long John Silver in some ways.
So when I had been researching the Moon, there are
space treaties, but you realise they would have no way
of enforcing them. So, I wanted to think of the set pieces
each as a different way of expressing that, really: that
we’re not supposed to be there, and that there are all
these ideas of progress, like, “Look at this, we’re now set-
ting up Moon bases!” and yet, all that brings is the same
bullshit you have on Earth; this kind of no borders, no
laws, no control, is this what we are without limits?
And with the animal attack [on the rescue ship], it’s the
same ideas: it’s unexpected terror that lurks around every
corner in a place we are not supposed to be. Now, this is
an inherently strange approach to a set piece, because
set pieces in movies are usually predicated on victory or
achieving a goal. I think I shot myself in the foot in We
Own the Night, because I created the car chase with the
idea of Joaquin Phoenix’s failure very much in my mind
– that it would be the moment when he would watch
the death of his own father and be powerless to act, and
that the rain was the gods interfering, or the gods com-
menting on his destiny. Here, I tried to extend the idea
a little bit: that this character is forced into a role which
he didn’t ask for, which is to pursue his father in some
kind of weird Oedipal catastrophe. He’s somewhere he
shouldn’t be, and it’s bizarre, and yet it’s also earthbound
in its pettiness, in that he has no ability to change or alter
the dynamic that’s larger than he is. This, to me, is very
powerful: that there is a limit to the characters’ ability to
perform acts. In a way, it’s a very anti-heroic idea behind
the set pieces, that the character is beholden to a large
order, or a larger lack of order I should say, a larger ran-
domness over which he has no control.
So all of the set pieces are built with an eye towards
that. Things are not in our hero’s control. As in mythic
heroic stories – and I don’t mean superheroes, that’s quite
a different meaning for the term ‘hero’, I mean a hero in
a much more pretentious, asshole college professor kind
of language, which is the Campbellian idea – the strug-
gle, the drift and the pull of destiny, and of chaos, and of
a state of the world – in this case, the universe – all that is
out of our protagonist’s control. That plays such a major
role in who and what he becomes.
It was always meant to illustrate… well, my own philo-
sophical view of it is that even though the human race
is bent towards progress, our point of view and attitude
and worldview hasn’t changed very much in the last two
centuries or so. We are hardwired in a particular way.
So I was trying to explain that even with progress, there
comes an almost atavistic series of impulses.
To me, the trap one falls into is that it’s all good, it’s
all bad, it’s easily identifiable, you can wrap your hands
around it. I wanted to present the opposite. There is
chaos, but there is also order; there’s no meaning, but in
‘no meaning’, you find meaning. My ambition is always,
“How do you make the story so clear that it becomes
even more ambiguous?” Which seems paradoxical, but
that’s really the drive. Not vague, but ambiguous.
Ad Astra is released in UK cinemas on 18 September
and will be reviewed in our next issue
Outlaw blues: Brad Pitt in Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
THE MAN WHO
WOULD BE KING
Brad Pitt’s coronation as Hollywood’s
golden boy in the early 1990s was soon
complicated by a series of darker, more
complex roles that challenged his status
as heir apparent to Robert Redford
By Anne Billson
Brad Pitt – a rough, tough name in the
tradition of Rock, Brick or Chip, with
maybe just a hint of manly coalmining – is
the classic embodiment of the American
Dream, a boy from a humble background
or even ‘hillbilly country’, who made it
big in Los Angeles. “In some ways, I’m
still a kid from Missouri and Oklahoma,”
he once said. After paying his dues
in bit parts and TV, his breakthrough
came in 1991 with a one-two punch of
mainstream hit and indie arthouse. His
brief role in Thelma & Louise as a hunky
young hitchhiker, a cannier Joe Buck in
a cowboy hat who knows what women
want (but who won’t hesitate to rip them
off) is a stripped-to-the-waist calling card.
The artier half of this complementary
double was the title role in Tom DiCillo’s
Johnny Suede. Pitt, pouting like Cocteau muse
Edouard Dermit with added pompadour,
plays a hipper-than-thou neo-1950s aspiring
rockabilly star who wanders around his New
York flat with a hand absent-mindedly tucked
down the front of his underpants. Pitt was
long rumoured to be the real-life model for
the ridiculous method actor Chad Palomino
(James LeGros) in DiCillo’s later comedy
about low-budget filmmaking, Living
in Oblivion (1994), but the filmmaker
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 27
BRAD PITT AD ASTRA
has denied this. In fact, Pitt himself
was slated to play Palomino before he
dropped out to take a leading role in Robert
Redford’s third film as director, A River Runs
Through It (1992). The film is an adaptation of
Norman Maclean’s autobiographical memoir
about coming of age in picturesque Montana
landscapes, with fly-fishing a metaphor for
the human condition, and Pitt cast in the sort
of role that might once have been filled by the
Sundance Kid himself. It established Pitt as
Redford’s heir, Hollywood’s new golden boy.
Golden boy rode again in Legends of the
Fall (1994) – which might as well have been
called ‘Legends of the Hair’, since not even
Anthony Hopkins hamming it up as a stroke
victim with a speech impediment can distract
from Brad’s backlit tresses as he moseys
around roping steers, wrestling grizzlies and
killing Germans. He went even blonder for
Seven Years in Tibet (1997), in which he plays
Austrian ex-Nazi Heinrich Harrer (in real life
fêted by Hitler as part of the team that made
the first ascent of the north face of the Eiger
in 1938), who escapes from a POW camp in
1944 and toils over spectacular Himalayan
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Johnny Suede (1991)
28 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
topography to live among peace-loving His brief role in ‘Thelma &
Buddhists clad in yak pelts. The blond turned
bland in the misconceived Meet Joe Black Louise’ as a hunky young
(1988), in which Pitt plays an inexplicably hitchhiker who knows what
unworldly Death, tasting peanut butter for
the first time with childlike gormlessness. women want, is a stripped-
But just as there’s some truth in the cliché to-the-waist calling card
that every comedian secretly wants to play
Hamlet, so the old adage that inside every
matinee idol is a character actor itching to
get out is not entirely fanciful. Good looks
have never been a hindrance to a Hollywood
career, but as Alec Baldwin and Matthew
McConaughey – to name but two – have
shown, it’s not until he’s looking a little
ragged around the edges that an actor’s
capabilities are taken seriously. Throughout
the 1990s, parallel to the films that showcased
Pitt’s romantic beauty, he was already
making strenuous efforts to undermine his
goldenness, expressing his intent to move
on from “this ‘pretty boy’ thing… and play
someone with flaws”. And flaws is what
we got, with knobs on. He unleashed his
inner psycho as Early Grayce, the squinty
serial killer on a road trip in Dominic Sena’s
The fisher king: Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It (1992)

Body heat: David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999)
Kalifornia (1993), in which he starts off as
a redneck deplorable in a Dixie cap and
ends somewhere north of Robert Newton
‘oooh-arrgh’ territory, barely able to stop for
gas without stabbing or shooting someone.
For True Romance (1993), an early Tarantino
screenplay, Pitt reportedly called director
Tony Scott to ask for the role of comic relief
reefer-smoking Floyd, and then improvised
most of his lines. The results were so
convincing that the stoner label continued
to dog him for the rest of the decade, at least –
and not always without reason. “I was hiding
out from the celebrity thing,” he would
tell the Hollywood Reporter in 2012. “I was
smoking way too much dope. I was sitting on
the couch and just turning into a doughnut,
and I really got irritated with myself.”
His wan performance as one of the
bloodsuckers in Neil Jordan’s Interview with
the Vampire (1994) was easily overshadowed
by his co-stars, though the sight of Tom
Cruise hovering lasciviously over Pitt’s
jugular did provide one of the more explicit
homoerotic images served up by major
Hollywood stars in the 1990s. But Pitt is a
perfect hot-headed foil to Morgan Freeman’s
calm philosophical investigator in Se7en
(1995); Pitt’s character, Detective Mills, looks
all set to emerge as a typical action hero, but
it’s these same gung-ho qualities that seal
his doom as the ultimate fall guy. It was the
first of three leading roles for David Fincher.
ALAMY (1)
He is all mannered twitchiness as
psychiatric patient Jeffrey Goines in Terry
Se7en (1995)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (1995), a lurch into The Pitt six-pack was also
look-at-me-I’m-acting that earned him
critical acclaim, a Golden Globe and an bared in Fincher’s ‘Fight
Academy Award nomination for Best Club’, a film that doesn’t
Supporting Actor. In Alan J. Pakula’s The
Devil’s Own (1997) he breaks out the Irish seem to be sending up
accent as an IRA terrorist whose attempt toxic masculinity as
to buy Stinger missiles in NYC goes awry.
The film never gets to grips with its mixed much as celebrating it
messages, but in retrospect the character
feels like a dry run for ‘One Punch’ Mickey
O’Neil’s mangled brogue in Guy Ritchie’s
Snatch (2000), ranked by the Independent as
one of the ten worst Irish accents in film
history. Ritchie reportedly rewrote the role
when Pitt proved unable to master Cockney,
but his bare-knuckle boxer is the funniest
character in the film, and sports a lean, mean
torso (covered in tattoos) in the ring. The
Pitt six-pack was also bared in Fincher’s Fight
Club (1999), adapted from the cult novel
by Chuck Palahniuk. Tyler Durden is a
corrupted version of the golden boy, oozing
effortless cool as the definitive lad’s lad in
a film that doesn’t seem to be sending up
toxic masculinity as much as celebrating it.
Echoes of young Redford are again
discernible in Tony Scott’s Spy Game (2001), in
which the older actor’s veteran operative has
to single-handedly save his former protégé
(Pitt) from execution on the far side of the
world. But peak jeunesse dorée is attained in
Pitt’s outrageously buff – and frequently in
the buff – appearance as Achilles in
Troy (2004): shining armour, flowing Snatch (2000)
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 29
BRAD PITT AD ASTRA

locks and a nifty trick of leaping in the

air to stab his opponents in slow-mo
in between heterosexual couplings in tents.
Troy was the first film Pitt helped to
produce. He formed Plan B Entertainment in
2001 with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey;
after his 2005 divorce from Aniston, Grey
moved to Paramount Pictures and Pitt became
sole owner of the company, bringing in Dede
Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner as president and
co-president. “Plan B is really a little garage
band of three people,” Pitt has said, “and
our mandate has been to help get difficult
material, that might not otherwise get made,
to the screen and to work with directors we
respect.” The company has often obtained
properties with a view to Pitt starring in them
– he was originally slated for Matt Damon’s
role in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006)
and Charlie Hunnam’s in James Gray’s
The Lost City of Z (2016), both Plan B co-
productions – but has also shown impeccable
instincts in backing such critically acclaimed
films as Selma (2014), Moonlight (2016),
Okja (2017), Beautiful Boy (2018) and Vice
(2018). Pitt also took supporting roles in
12 Years a Slave (2013) and The Big Short Life, a user’s manual: Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2010)
(2015), as well as producing them.
Meanwhile, the actor’s palpable chemistry
with wife-to-be Angelina Jolie in the slick
contract-killer caper Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
In ‘Ocean’s Eleven’, Pitt
embroiled him in tabloid gossip even as demonstrates plenty of what
he was diligently expanding his range into has since been recognised
portentous drama (Alejandro González
Iñárritu’s Babel, 2006), screwball comedy as one of his special talents
(the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading, 2008, – eating while acting
in which, as goofy fitness trainer Chad
Feldheimer, Pitt was once again the funniest
thing in the film) and romantic whimsy,
nabbing a Best Actor Oscar nomination
for ageing backwards in Fincher’s The
Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).
Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Pitt with Jonah Hill in Moneyball (2011)
Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007),
another Plan B production, gave the actor
one of his best roles, channelling his natural
screen charisma into the incarnation of
sociopathic celebrity. He played another, less
glamorous killer in Dominik’s next film,
Killing Them Softly (2012), a belated entry
in the cool hitman trend, which, like the
Jesse James film, underpinned genre thrills
with topical subtext. Another portrait in his
ruffian’s gallery is Westray in Ridley Scott’s
The Counsellor (2013), a wily fixer with a
cowboy hat and greasy ponytail, whose final
scene is one of the most shockingly gruesome
deaths of an A-list star ever committed to film.
“I die really well, by the way,” Pitt has said, in
relation to his career in general. “It’s one of
my strong points. I just take a bullet well.”
Pitt joined up with George Clooney and
ALAMY (1)

director Steven Soderbergh for a taste of

franchise success as part of the all-star male Viva Las Vegas: Pitt with George Clooney in Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

30 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

Lethal weapon: Pitt with Angelina Jolie in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
ensemble cast of the larky Ocean’s Eleven
caper (2001) and its sequels (2004/2007),
demonstrating plenty of what has since
been recognised as one of his special
talents – eating while acting. Junk food is a
recurring motif in the Jerry Maguire-esque
Moneyball (2011), landing him another
Oscar nomination for delivering lots of
motor-mouthed technical sports-related
dialogue through a mouthful of munchies.
Pitt also produced Terrence Malick’s The
Tree of Life (2010) – in which he plays
the protagonist’s authoritarian 1950s
father – as well as his grandiloquent Imax
documentary Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey
(2016). Another potential franchise reared
its rotting head in the Pitt vs zombies movie
World War Z (2013), considered by many
a betrayal of the oral history source novel
by Max Brooks; a sequel was announced
but shelved in 2019 due to budget issues.
His segments are the weakest link in the
episodic Inglourious Basterds (2009), his first
collaboration with Tarantino; Pitt tries hard –
too hard – as Nazi-killing US Lieutenant Aldo
Raine. He has never been wholly convincing
in tough military roles, mostly seeming to
act with his chin as the scarred World War II
tank commander in David Ayer’s Fury (2014)
or failing to win Afghan hearts and minds
in the more satirical portrait of American
military muscle, David Michôd’s War
Machine (2017), another Plan B production. He
seems more at home in the romantic WWII
espionage melodrama of Robert Zemeckis’s
Assassin’s creed: Pitt with Marion Cotillard in Allied (2016)
Allied (2016), his swoony chemistry with
Marion Cotillard harking back to Mr. & Mrs.
His swoony chemistry
Smith, but with more emotional realism. with Marion Cotillard
In Tarantino’s rambling and uneven Once in ‘Allied’ harks back to
upon a Time… in Hollywood, the flights and
digressions are tethered by the bromance at ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’, but with
its heart. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance as more emotional realism
Rick Dalton, an alcoholic TV star on the skids,
is a study in tragicomic desperation, but it’s
Pitt as his loyal stuntman, driver and odd-job
man Cliff Booth who commands attention.
While DiCaprio keens and perspires to droll
effect, Pitt is reined in, watchful and reactive,
with hints of something tightly coiled and
dangerous just beneath the affable façade.
The Pitt torso still looks nicely ripped when
he peels off his shirt, but the erstwhile golden
boy has acquired interesting wrinkles, both
literally and metaphorically, and seems to
have absorbed aspects of his earlier stoner
and psycho-killer personae, so the results feel
less like acting and more like a fully rounded
human being who could conceivably exist off
the screen as well as on it, where he is equally
compelling fending off flocks of dead-eyed
hippies as feeding his dog or simply motoring
around town. Without resorting to gurning
or chin-thrusting ‘character acting’, he hints
at Booth’s dark side so economically that
Tarantino’s flashbacks to his backstory feel
saggy and redundant. Pitt is at his best when
seeming to play himself, Cary Grant-style.
Maybe he’s not a natural character actor, and
shouldn’t try to be one. He’s a star, perhaps
the last true film star in Hollywood. Once upon a Time… in Hollywood
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 31
LOVE
AMONG
THE
RUINS
Filmed as the bombs fell in Aleppo, often with her infant
daughter in her arms, Waad al-Kateab’s ‘For Sama’ is
an unmissable, harrowing document of the war in Syria
from the point of view of those who suffer most
By Jason Burke

32 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

 O
ne of the things that almost all films get wrong
about war is not only that most of the time
nothing happens but that something resem-
bling ordinary life can coexist with conflict.
In Gaza in 2014, I watched as trails left by outgoing
rockets fired at Israel by Hamas, the militant Islamist
group, arced over bustling markets and cafés with barely
a shopper or tea-drinker turning a head. The threat of
incoming missiles from Israel seemed to be equally ig-
nored. In Iraq in 2004, there were similar scenes. Just a
few city blocks from where US troops were exchanging
fire with insurgents, there might be taxis lining up for
fares or restaurants serving lunch. In the Democratic
Republic of Congo, farmers treat warring militia as just
another natural hazard, and accept a level of risk when
they go to their fields or drive to market that seems ex-
traordinary to outsiders.
The opening sequence of For Sama shows Waad al-Kate-
ab, the journalist and activist who captured the images
from which this compelling film has been made, singing
to Sama, her very young daughter, swaddled in blankets
and gurgling happily. Then there is an explosion. It is not
far away, but is muffled by the buildings around the bed-
room she shares with Hamza, her husband, in the hospi-
tal he runs in Aleppo, the northern Syrian city. Al-Kateab
carries on singing, like any mother to her child, before
passing Sama to a friend to take to the basement. Then
there is another blast, and then another, much closer. The
corridors fill with dust; in the basement the lights flicker.
Al-Kateab asks with rising panic, “Where is Sama? Where
is my girl?” This is war, but viewed very differently. It is
conflict woven through the lives of civilians, not the in-
verse, as is usual with most portrayals.
The Syrian Civil War is still being fought, if at a lesser
intensity than during the five years covered in For Sama.
It is a conflict in which images have played an extraor-
dinary powerful role. One reason for this is the new
technology that has put a camera in everybody’s hand – lamic extremists in Iraq exploited with savage efficiency. I AM A CAMERA
along with the means to broadcast any content that they By the time of the Syrian war smart phones were ubiqui- Waad al-Kateab,
photographed in her roles
or others create. Al-Kateab appears to have shot much of tous, adding new dimensions to the power of media to of mother and journalist
the footage on a small camera, occasionally using a drone reach vast audiences. The regime in Damascus and the – with her daughter Sama
to capture astonishing and beautiful images of Aleppo different opposition forces all used video clips dissemi- (opposite); filming in Aleppo
(top); and with her husband
from above. But her husband, Dr Hamza, is shown being nated on the internet to frame the conflict in different Hamza and Sama (above)
interviewed at the hospital by an international news ways and to reinforce their arguments within Syria and
channel, on his phone via Skype, during the brutal siege the region, as well as to international audiences. The
of the city by the forces of president Bashar al-Assad and conventional military protagonists – the Russians who
his allies during the latter half of 2016. Here there is a bomb al-Kateab’s hospital among other civilian targets
multiplicity of viewpoints – that of the journalist watch- – use clips to disguise what amount to war crimes. The
ing the interviewee being watched by other journalists, unconventional military actors, such as militia fighters
themselves watched by viewers across the world. linked to Iran or Lebanon’s Hezbollah, used them for re-
Terrorism and insurgency have long been deeply in- cruiting. Western or other TV networks, unable to access
fluenced by developments in media technology. Much of the frontlines themselves once the war became too dan-
the violence of Jewish militants in the mid-1940s in what gerous for international journalists, systematically used
was to become Israel was designed to impact on a very material shot locally by ordinary civilians. Some put the
distant audience in the UK, the colonial power, relayed material emerging from Syria and Iraq to less edifying
via the new photojournalism. Through the next decade, purposes. Aficionados edited and posted compilations
fighters in Algeria pursued a similar strategy, relying on of combat footage – and killings. But protestors and ac-
the radio to relay news of their bombings and ambushes tivists found they could film on mobile phones, and then
to metropolitan France. These attacks were made against get crucial images out of the country that provided the
targets which would attract media attention, rather than only evidence of atrocities, circumventing tight censor-
those that had immediate military significance. Famous ship and monitoring by state security agencies. Al-Kate-
attacks of the 1970s, like that on the Munich Olympics ab’s work was used by Channel 4.
in 1972, were constructed to exploit the new capabilities Among the most shocking content produced by
of live television broadcasts. Al-Qaeda was influenced by actors in the war were the clips produced by the Islamic
the advent of satellite TV, and chose to pursue difficult, State. Militants from what was then al-Qaeda in Iraq had
risky, spectacular attacks against high-profile targets disseminated clips of executions or similar atrocities
largely because success would guarantee media coverage. around 15 years ago, but the Islamic State took
The big change came with digital technology, which Is- this much further, making the production and

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 33

FOR SAMA WAAD AL-KATEAB AND EDWARD WATTS
WARD BONDS distribution of a range of often highly finished
Dr Hamza al-Kateab (centre, short films a key part of their strategy and pour-
holding his daughter Sama)
and colleagues at the al- ing significant resources into their media operations.
Quds Hospital in Aleppo, of Their violence too was often designed to fit the medium,
which he was director not vice versa. Short clips were distributed from phone to
phone via multimedia messaging services to intimidate
and undermine government military forces before the
group’s advance across swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2013
and 2014. Then, of course, there were the notorious pro-
paganda clips, heavily influenced by video games, which
showed graphic images of combat and of killings. These
were carefully choreographed, edited and finished pro-
ductions, which had a global impact.
But in this saturated environment For Sama stands
out. It is obviously a carefully made documentary, last-
ing a little over 90 minutes and obeying most of the stan-
dard formal rules of the genre. It is also deeply personal
and very intimate. Most of what has emerged from the
Syrian conflict has sought to appear objective. For Sama
does not. It takes the form of a long explanation to the
daughter of the al-Kateabs, born in Aleppo, of the reasons
behind her parents’ decision to stay in the city despite the
obvious dangers to themselves and her. This is a child
who grows up with air raids, in a city where ten-year-
olds play in water-filled shell craters on neighbourhood
streets and where toddlers talk of cluster bombs.
There is little too that al-Kateab does not film: the
moment when a pregnancy test is positive, her prayers
for a safe deliverance, her husband struggling to hold
back tears after the death of a friend and colleague in a
new attack. If packages for news bulletins obey their own
formal frameworks, designed to give them the appear-
ance of clear and distanced truth-telling, For Sama delib-
erately and defiantly provides a very different perspec-
tive. This is lived experience, a video diary, not a report.
It is also the view of a civilian, a woman and a mother.
This is true in a very literal sense: we see Russian or Syrian
regime aircraft flying through the clear blue sky over the
city and releasing deadly barrels packed with explosives
on to the neighbourhoods below. Our viewpoint is that
of the victim, not the perpetrator. This is the exact oppo-
Our viewpoint is that of the victim, the opposite
of the clinically dehumanised ‘through the sights’
footage released by military press departments
34 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
site of the clinically dehumanised ‘through the sights’
footage released by military press departments, much
viewed as well on YouTube and elsewhere.
As with most conflicts, the portrayal of that in Syria
has been largely controlled by and focused on men,
whether as reporters, medics, clerics, politicians, officials,
farmers or fighters. The attention paid to the female
Kurdish troops or to outstanding reporters such as Marie
Colvin are the exceptions that prove the rule. For Sama is
not about men – although Hamza al-Kateab is inevitably
central, and most of the medics who run the hospital are
male. One key character is a female friend and colleague
who is confronted with the most difficult choice of all: go
into exile, abandoning the city, the hospital and her com-
rades, neighbours and friends, or stay, with her young
family, and risk an appalling fate. She stays, as long as she
can, as an act of resistance as much as anything else. “To
try to live a normal life in this place is to stand against the
regime,” says Waad al-Kateab.
There is much that is deeply harrowing. It is the chil-
dren, inevitably, who suffer most. Covered in dust from
explosions, still bleeding from being buried by another
bomb dropped from a regime or Russian helicopter or jet,
they watch, sobbing, stunned, as doctors work to save a
badly injured brother, nephew, friend or father. There is
blood on the floor of the clinic, red pools running into
one another. “Wake up, wake up,” one cries to a dead boy.
Another howls for his father. There is delicacy too. An
eight-year-old dies beneath the frantic hands of the doc-
tors. We do not see this. We see his small body under a
makeshift shroud, fine features below its gauze. You do
not sleep well after viewing such images. This does not
leave you indifferent.
Which is, of course, the aim of this extraordinary film.
The al-Kateabs take extraordinary risks in their lives, and
in the documenting of their lives, to bear witness in the
most raw and real sense. They are away from the hospital
when it is bombed, and largely destroyed, so we see the
seconds before impact on security camera footage. An
old lady hobbles down a corridor. Teenagers wait, bored
and worried. Medics move carefully and deliberately
around a room. More than 50 people died in this attack.
These images are evidence of war crimes, committed sys-
tematically and with total impunity.
The last third of the film shows the final weeks of the
siege. The regime forces are streets away. Food is short. It
is freezing cold and the bombing is continual. Dr Hamza
tells his wife to make sure Sama is looked after by some-
one else if the regime’s troops arrive because she will
have more chance of survival if she is not identified as the
child of the chief of the hospital and his journalist wife.
She cannot do this, and thankfully does not have to, as a
truce is arranged which allows the family a fragile and
dangerous escape route – this is at the end of 2016. They
take it, but at what cost? “Saying goodbye is worse than
death,” Waad says, and she knows about both. The trag-
edy is that the violence is continuing, as regime forces
backed by their allies move in on a final enclave of Idlib,
bombing, maiming and killing once again. The world
knows, but has averted its eyes. This will be remembered
as a great and shameful failure in decades to come. That
we have films like For Sama is small consolation.
For Sama is released in UK cinemas on 13 September
and is reviewed on page 60

‘EVERY MINUTE
WAS IMPORTANT’
Waad al-Kateab discusses the perils
of filming inside Aleppo and why
she feared every day might be her
last, while British co-director Edward
Watts explains his part in the making
By Isabel Stevens
Edward Watts and Waad al-Kateab: ‘We fought a lot. We had disagreements, but the film is stronger for that’
Isabel Stevens: Throughout the film there are
very cinematic aerial shots of Aleppo’s ruins
that are in stark contrast to your handheld
footage. With these drone shots, were you
already thinking about making a feature film?
Waad al-Kateab: I kept hoping that this
footage was going to get out to someone
outside somehow. I hoped that they
would do something important with it. I
was thinking of that person. What things
do they need? How can we improve and
develop my footage to the point that it will
be important, as a story and a document.
IS: You didn’t train in journalism or filmmaking.
How did you go about learning on the job?
WAK: When the revolution started in 2011
I was a student at university and part of
being in the revolution was documenting
the protests. At the time the regime was
denying everything. So I started filming
on my mobile like many other activists.
When I moved to the east part of Aleppo, I
started using a camera. In the beginning I
had no idea how to frame the action or how
to do a small news report. I made mistakes
but I learned more through them. I did a
lot of short documentaries in 2013 and
2014, but I couldn’t finish them because
of mistakes in the footage that couldn’t be
fixed in the editing. It was often the more
technical things. I would often experiment
– like with time-lapse, I didn’t know how
to do those kind of scenes. So I left my
camera for two to three hours to catch the
sunset but it wasn’t time-lapse at all and
I was shocked when I got out of Aleppo
and someone showed me and I was like,
“It was that easy?” Then, in 2016, I started
working with Channel 4 News and I got
a lot of feedback, so I was more focused.
IS: Did any war reporters give you
advice and encouragement?
WAK: When journalists came to Aleppo, I
watched them and tried to learn from them.
Sometimes they wanted footage from the
city. Because they were often here for a
short period they loved speaking to citizen
journalists like me and hearing about stories
going on, and in some cases they used some
of my footage. I was watching a lot of news
reports, so I could work out how to
make my footage better and different.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 35
FOR SAMA WAAD AL-KATEAB AND EDWARD WATTS
IS: What about the technical difficulties
of shooting in a warzone? Did you always
have electricity to charge your camera?
WAK: When East Aleppo was out of the
regime’s control, people ran all the services
themselves. Over the five years, people found
an alternative for everything from water to
electricity. We had big generators for every
neighbourhood and we had electricity for two
hours at night, at the start of the day and at
midday. It was a problem organising your time
around charging. I would wake in the middle
of the night to put the camera on charge.
IS: Were you thinking: “I need to make my
footage stand out from the other news stories
being told”? Your short C4 reports focus a lot
on children and often tell a more hopeful story.
WAK: I had no plan. It was more about
what I was interested in. I’m a woman
and a mother so these details took my
attention more. Also, Aleppo was full of
children. If you wanted to ignore them
you couldn’t. They are everywhere. In
the hospital we had five births a day.
IS: How did it feel when you were filming while
pregnant? It’s a very different state of being.
WAK: When you are pregnant you actually
feel strong. And the fact that we thought we
could be killed at any moment, that gave me
a lot of life strength. I was thinking all the
time and I think everyone there had the same
feeling, “This is my last day. This is the last
story I will shoot.” I never knew how long I
would have to film. Every journalist, however
distanced they are from their subjects, will
be inside their story somehow, even if they
lead really different lives or come from
different places. I’m sure that a lot things got
my attention because I was a woman and
pregnant. Or because I had Sama with me.
IS: Did the fact that you had Sama with
you when you were filming change
people’s reactions to you?
WAK: The difference between what I’ve done
and other stories out there is that I was part
of that community. We were moving around
Aleppo and there weren’t many journalists
living there so people began to get to know
me. I used to go to the market with my
camera and Sama all the time. My car was
green so it became a little bit famous. Being a
woman and being pregnant gave me access
too. A lot of people were more comfortable
speaking to me because I was experiencing
the same thing as them. We were all scared
about what the future held for us.
IS: Was it harder to get people to talk to you
when it became clear that the West wasn’t
going to get involved in the conflict? There’s
a scene in the film when a mother whose
son has just been killed questions why
you’re filming but then changes her mind.
WAK: When you live there and you’ve seen
many people in many difficult situations, you
36 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
know that usually people don’t want to be
filmed, and that was definitely the case after
they realised that this footage didn’t change
anything around the world. Many people
were disappointed. But I was expecting that
too. Sometimes you just have to look at the
person. Look at their eyes. And then speak
to them. You need to respect the people
that don’t want to be on the news, even if
you think the issue is really important. But
in the scene you mention in the hospital, I
thought the same, that she didn’t want to
be filmed, so I put the camera down and
I was about to move out of her way and
then she shouted, “Film me.” Suddenly I
just put the camera back up. I didn’t even
process what she just said. My mind and my
emotions were just moving automatically.
IS: How did you balance your daughter’s
needs with the constant filming?
WAK: My life there was very busy. I don’t
always know how I did it all. I was struggling
with the desire to be a normal mum living a
normal life with my first child. But at the same
time I want to be a journalist documenting
everything. And to do everything I want
because I could be killed at any moment.
Every minute we felt this was the last
minute we would be alive, so we invested
everything in every minute. I was spending a
lot of time with Sama but also working a lot,
sometimes taking Sama with me, sometimes
leaving her with some of my friends at the
hospital. Sometimes I was working very
late at night and then waking up early with
Sama. My theory was just to live as much
as I could and enjoy the moments with
her. I felt upset and sad at times because
it’s not a normal life for a baby but I had
support from [my husband] Hamza, all the
staff at the hospital, from friends – even
if they had reservations about what I was
doing, they still helped me. They’d see I
was tired, take her and let me go to sleep. It
was unplanned and you just do it, without
thinking about yesterday or tomorrow.
When I was going to the market or on
the streets, when I was tired and upset and
wanted to see people living, I was carrying
Sama in a sling, as this was in the period
when she was seven months to one year, and
then I’d shoot with her and people would
meet her and play with her. Other times I’d
shoot and have her in the buggy. Everyone
in the hospital, we were like a family. They
felt like she was their daughter too.
A lot of people were more
comfortable speaking to me
because I was experiencing
the same thing as them. We
were all scared for the future
IS: How did it change as she got older and needed
more attention and was moving about more?
WAK: The problem was that as she was getting
older, the situation was also worsening,
but you can’t balance everything or plan.
You just had to react to the events and
the bombings. I know how she needs me
but sometimes I couldn’t be there with
her all the time as she wanted. But we
tried to do our best in the situation.
IS: I like the moments in the film where
it’s just you and Sama and you were
talking to her. You didn’t turn the camera
off even in those private moments?
WAK: My friends would often laugh at me
filming all the time. But when one of them
was killed afterwards we all watched all my
footage and felt that these were important
memories. I didn’t just want to film all the
bad things that were happening because
if I passed away, the idea was to leave this
footage for Sama as well as the world outside.
I wanted people to have an idea about what
life inside the siege was like. Every minute
was really important. And it was important
to record it, even for us if we survived.
IS: Waad, was it important to work with an
outsider to craft the film? Ed, did you have
to convince Waad to let you work on it?
WAK: At the beginning I thought it would
be very difficult. I was sure I could do this
film alone, as I was pretty much alone and
in charge of all the shooting over the years,
and it’s my story and because we’ve just lost
Aleppo. Ed had never been to Syria before but
he has a lot of filmmaking experience, so I was
worried about how much control he would
have and how I would be involved. I had a
lot of worries. But when we started working
together I let him into my personal life, even
stories that didn’t make it into the film. I
needed him to understand my feelings and
why I took certain decisions. It was like very
close friends talking to each other. It took a
long time but we were very aware that we had
to be on the same side. It wasn’t easy for either
of us. We fought a lot in many places. We had
disagreements but also many agreements
too. But the film was stronger for that.
Edward Watts: I was asked to work on the film
by our colleagues at Channel 4. They knew
how much I cared about Syria and my desire to
make a major film about it. Of course, I still had
to prove this to Waad but I didn’t consciously
plan how to do that. I only tried to show her
through my actions how passionately I cared
about her story and Syria; that she could trust
me to listen to her and work with her closely
to make sure the story was true to what she
wanted. I would not run off with the footage
and do my own thing, as Waad had seen
outsiders do to many of her colleagues.
I believe our different perspectives
were crucial to making the film as strong
as it is. Sometimes I’d want to include
something because it would make the
film more cinematic. Or she’d want to
include something because it was of such
importance to their lives and the struggle.
Though, of course, the division wasn’t as
simple as that – often we swapped roles too.
IS: How did you identify what to focus on
out of Waad’s 500 hours of footage?
EW: We had a number of narratives to
interweave: Waad’s personal story, her
friends’, the hospital and the battle for the
city. We initially started with a chronological
telling but that meant we had no command
of the narrative. The history drove it
instead. That made the emotional arc
cruder too. It moved straight from hope
at the beginning of the revolution to the
darkness of the siege at the end, whereas the
truth that Waad had captured was much
more nuanced. There were rarely moments
without light, rarely moments without
threat or sorrow throughout the five years.
Only after we struck on the For Sama
framework, about two-thirds of the way
through the process, did these questions
begin to resolve. It allowed us to use
flashbacks, shifting between light and
dark moments throughout, and gave a far
more emotional, personal quality to the
storytelling, taking audiences inside Waad’s
thoughts and feelings in a raw, direct way.
IS: Waad, what was it like having
to rewatch all this footage of the
traumatic events you experienced?
WAK: In a way it’s much harder than what we
lived through. When you’re there you can’t
process what you’ve seen or done. While we
were editing the film you have to understand
and explain everything to foreign people,
people who’ve never been in that situation
and you have to talk about every event.
IS: Was it difficult being the only
person having that experience?
WAK: It’s a big responsibility. At the same
time you’re dealing with the feeling
that you lost everything and you can’t
go back. It was burning my mind all the
time. I may never be in Aleppo again.
While we were editing, the situation in
Idlib, the last area outside of regime control,
got very bad. People there had the same
experience as we did in Aleppo. Seeing that
still happening and the world still ignoring
it, I felt that what I was doing now was more
important than when I was in Aleppo. If I
don’t do it right now, it’s all for nothing.
IS: You seem so composed in most of the
film. Even when the hospital is bombed
and you can’t find Sama, you remain
relatively calm and quiet. But your
voiceover reveals a more vulnerable side.
WAK: We agreed in the hospital that we
shouldn’t show when we were scared as
Justice league: Sama amid the bombed-out ruins of Aleppo
then you will make everyone around you
panic. But I wanted to be very honest with
the story and the audience. I wanted the film
to tell my story but also that of every mother
living there. We changed the voiceover
many times throughout the process and
each time it was more closely related to the
footage or the feeling itself of living there.
IS: Are you still filming Sama
and your other daughter?
WAK: Since I left, I decided I didn’t want to
do that. The whole story was about Aleppo
and what it was like there. It’s not about
me or Sama any more. It finished when we
left Aleppo. If something changed, maybe
I would film our lives again. But I have
other ideas about films I want to make.
IS: When will you show the film to Sama?
She’s very unlikely to remember much, so
her memory of the war will be your film.
WAK: She knows she has a film about her
and she’s very excited about the idea itself,
just like the other children in the film.
She’s already watched parts of it, like my
wedding and some of the scenes when the
children were painting the bus. But I don’t
know when exactly. When she comes to
me and asks. I don’t think it will be long,
as she’s three and a half now – she will
begin to understand the situation more and
more. I will try to protect her from doing it
very early, but this generation have online
access all the time. But the interesting idea
is if she watches it many times. How will
she experience it at ten to when she’s 18 or
20? Her thoughts will be different when
she’s older, or even a mother herself.
IS: Do you have any plans to
show the film in Russia?
EW: We would love to when the time
is right. We believe that if the Russian
people saw what their government was
doing in their name in Syria, they would
be horrified and demand they change
policy. More than anyone else, Russians
have the power to make a difference to
the people of Syria. That’s why it’s so
important they have a chance to see it.
However we have to be careful that the
Russian regime is not able to pirate the film,
re-edit or misrepresent it. They have a long
history of propaganda, misinformation and
distortion. So we need to make sure that
wherever and however we show it, the film is
protected. So far, we haven’t found that forum
yet – but we’re exploring interesting options.
IS: You’re obviously advocating for
foreign governments to intervene in Syria.
But what can ordinary people do?
WAK: The most important thing is awareness.
This is not a civil war; this is a revolution. And
this is people fighting for a better future for
themselves and their families. With Brexit
and what’s going on in the US and in Europe,
everyone, not just people in Syria, is having
a tough time. No one knows how to change
anything. But everyone has to work together
and not just think about themselves. People
need to understand that every refugee has
a story and that Syrians don’t see asylum
or being a refugee as an opportunity. And
they risked a lot in leaving. We want to
show why and how they became refugees
and how it wasn’t really their choice.
Our priority now is the ‘Stop Bombing
Hospitals’ campaign. It is becoming
increasingly acceptable around the
world. It’s very common to see children
dying on the news and people continue
their lives, and that’s what we are trying
to stop with our impact campaign. On
our website there are details about how
to act in solidarity with the film.
See www.forsamafilm.com for details
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 37
 THE MAN
WHO
FORESAW
CINEMA
If anyone recognised the true potential of animated photography to become more
than a passing novelty, it was Robert Paul, whose visionary role in the history
of British cinema – alongside his wife Ellen – remains profoundly undervalued
By Ian Christie

38 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

“The public have been surfeited with Trains, Trams and
‘buses, and… the capacity of animated pictures for producing
BREATHLESS SENSATION, LAUGHTER AND TEARS
has hardly been realised… Exhibitors have been asking for
something New, Distinctive, Telling and Effective.”
Advertisement in The Era, October 1898
ho invented cinema? For most of the last cen-
W tury, this was very much an international com-
petition. If you were American, it was self-evi-
dently Thomas Edison, or more correctly his employee,
William Dickson, with their Kinetoscope. If you were
French, it was equally obviously the brothers Lumière,
playing down their debt to Edison’s example and their
lack of interest in anything other than actualities, with
a nod to fellow-countrymen Etienne-Jules Marey and
Georges Demenÿ. Meanwhile, Germans argued there
was a strong case to be made for the brothers Max and
Emil Skladanowsky, who screened moving pictures to a
paying audience before anyone else.
In Britain, the story was more complicated. Until the
1960s, it was a matter of national pride to regard the true
visionary as William Friese-Greene, who first patented
and perhaps even demonstrated moving pictures, but
had his glory stolen by Edison (and Dickson). His monu-
ment in Highgate Cemetery still declares him to be “the
inventor of kinematography”. And the Boultings’ film
The Magic Box, made for the Festival of Britain in 1951,
duly toed the party line, with Robert Donat an irresistibly
moving incarnation of the reckless inventor – in the same
vein as John Mills’s gallant titular hero in Scott of the Ant-
arctic (1948; both films incidentally shot by Britain’s Tech-
nicolor virtuoso Jack Cardiff). But after the claims made
for Friese-Greene were derided by the historian Brian Coe
in 1960, Brits generally withdrew from the field, prefer-
ring to honour a galaxy of quasi-pioneers, ranging from
Louis Le Prince to Wordsworth Donisthorpe and ulti-
mately Robert Paul’s early collaborator Birt Acres.
Of course, the idea that any single person ‘invented’
cinema is essentially absurd. So the correct answer
should be ‘no one’. It was a relay race, a group effort, a
product of the spirit of the age that had created photo-
graphic images, projected them through magic lanterns,
discovered how to give them stereoscopic depth, and
finally wanted to have them move.
LORD OF THE RINGS
The best-known work by
Robert Paul (opposite, top),
who built Britain’s first film
studio, in North London,
(seen in an 1898 advert, left),
is probably the anarchic
fantasy The ‘?’ Motorist
(1906, opposite)
But one name has rarely been promoted as the Brit-
ish entry in this contentious race. And yet, if there was
any single figure who foresaw the potential of ‘animated
photography’ to become something much more than
a sideshow or a passing novelty, it was Robert William
Paul – certainly supported, and very likely encouraged
by his wife Ellen, who had been on stage at the Alham-
bra, the famous music hall in London’s Leicester Square,
when they first met in 1896. So convinced was Paul of the
potential of the new business, after three hectic years at
its heart, that he built a studio in Muswell Hill, then on
the outskirts of London, during 1898, and placed the bold
advertisement at the start of this article in the showman’s
paper The Era. His offer continued: “A staff of Artists and
Photographers have been at work in North London, with
the object of producing a series of animated Photographs
(Eighty in number), each of which tells a tale, whether
Comic, Pathetic, or Dramatic… with such clearness, bril-
liancy and telling effect that the attention of the behold-
ers should be riveted.”
Very little survives today of the slate of films that sup-
ported Paul’s vision. Even what was almost certainly the
world’s first two-scene film, Come Along, Do! (1898), some-
how lost its second shot on the way to the National Film
Archive. However, the pay-off interior scene – when the
husband taking a close interest in a nude statue is
chided by his wife – has now been reconstructed
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 39
ROBERT PAUL

A FACE IN THE CROWD
No authenticated image of
Robert Paul’s wife Ellen is
known, but during the tragic
launch of HMS Albion in
1898, in which more than
30 spectators drowned, his
camera continued running
during rescue activities,
and appears to have caught
Ellen, dressed for the royal
occasion (below)
digitally from another of Paul’s innovations, the
illustrated catalogue.
Among the films from that extraordinary autumn for
which we only have catalogue stills, Our New General
Servant tells a complete story in four spatially and tem-
porally distinct scenes. A wife engages a new servant; her
husband flirts with the maid in the parlour, then is seen
kissing her in the garden, before the indignant wife sacks
the maid in the kitchen. It is of course a familiar Victorian
tale, told in many media, but here making a sensationally
early appearance on film. The great French cinema his-
torian Georges Sadoul read Paul’s catalogues carefully in
the 1940s, and concluded that he was ahead of everyone
else, and a major influence on French filmmakers, such
as Ferdinand Zecca, who are today much better known.
Significantly, however, Sadoul’s volume has never been
translated into English.
The pioneer English film historian Rachael Low was
studying this period at the same time as Sadoul, and they
shared some of their research. But Low seems not to have
appreciated Paul’s narrative ambition, even going so far
as to prudishly accuse him of “bad taste” and an exces-
sive concern with “marital discord” – especially when
compared with the wholesome family life portrayed in
her favourite early British film, Rescued by Rover (1905).
DOUBLE IMPACT
Perhaps Low would have thought differently about
Paul’s storylines if she had realised how much the output
of his studio owed to his wife Ellen. The traditional his-
tory of pioneer filmmaking spoke only of men, which
meant that the ‘discovery’ of Alice Guy – originally Leon
Gaumont’s secretary, but actually responsible for many
of his company’s early films – was a tremendous boost
for feminist film history. But most of the many women
who undoubtedly made early filmmaking possible were
not ‘directors’ – indeed that title really belongs to a later
phase of the industry. The most telling revelation of how
important Ellen Paul was to Paul’s Animatograph Works
came in a 1943 obituary, from an electrical engineer col-
league: “His wife was producer, stage manager or princi-
pal lady in many a playlet for which her expert knowl-
edge eminently fitted her.”
Ellen Daws was the niece of Britain’s first female the-
atre proprietor, at the Theatre Royal in Brighton, and had
enlisted her aunt’s support for a career on the stage. She
was a member of the Alhambra ballet company when
Robert’s ‘animatographe’ became an act on the music
hall’s programme in early 1896, and played the charac-
ter role in his first fiction film, The Soldier’s Courtship, in
April of that year. An anonymous note on a BFI record
card suggests that she appeared in a number of his films
– including Come Along, Do! – but her real contribution,
as the obituary made clear, was more likely to have been
managing the studio. And this may well have included
proposing ‘playlets’ or new directions for its output, as
competition from other producers increased.
In fact there is more circumstantial evidence of Ellen’s
involvement in other films. So, for instance, BFI silent
film curator Bryony Dixon was recently able to identify
Paul’s Fun on the Clothesline (1897) because it ‘stars’ a pop-
ular slack-wire artiste Harry Lamore. But the man and
woman larking with him around the clothes line look
very much like Robert and Ellen. Likewise, in one of Rob-
ert’s films from the following year, recording the launch
of the cruiser HMS Albion on the Thames, the camera
pans quickly past a well-dressed women in the boat. Be-
cause this event became a tragedy, with many onlookers
drowned by a large wave, we know much more about
the circumstances of filming than usual. When Paul had
to defend his showing the film against accusations that
he was profiting from a disaster – made by his one-time
collaborator Birt Acres – he explained that the camera
was electrically powered and running automatically, en-
abling him to rescue survivors from the water. And if it is
Ellen that we see fleetingly, this would be because it was
a royal occasion, for which Robert had hired a boat, with
no expectation of any mishap.
The full extent of their professional partnership will
probably never be known, in the absence of any surviv-
ing letters or relatives (their three children died in early
infancy). But the scattered evidence we have is already
enough to suppose that it was extensive, and to deepen
our understanding of the part played by women in early
cinema. The obituary already quoted, and the testimony
of a younger family friend, Irene Codd, both point to
Ellen playing a major part not only in Robert’s film busi-
ness, but also in helping manage his parallel and more
substantial scientific instrument business.

GOING THE DISTANCE

Ellen Paul’s real contribution was likely to have been The Pauls’ inventive fiction in 1898 gave them a com-
manding position as suppliers to the burgeoning exhi-
managing the studio. And this may well have included bition business. Their catalogues briefly carried titles in
proposing ‘playlets’ or new directions for its output French and German, which suggests they already had, or

40 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

were seeking, wider international sales. But what would
take the British film business in unforeseen new direc-
tions was the war in Southern Africa at the end of the
following year.
Two other companies, British Biograph and Charles
Urban, acted as quickly as Paul, all three sending cameras
to the Cape in the hope of gathering first-hand material
to satisfy a home audience. In the event, it proved almost
impossible to get close enough to any action to produce
what might have been expected by viewers already fa-
miliar with artists’ vivid representations of battle. In
spite of Paul producing a striking colour poster of a
mounted soldier on the veldt, which advertised ‘living
photos’, very few of his or others’ work managed more
than distant views of troop movements.
Although some of these – such as the image of a
Boer general being taken into captivity, or Scots Guards
marching triumphantly into the Boer stronghold of
Bloemfontein – seem to have been popular with a
public avid for some contact with the war, Paul realised
that more was wanted, and he responded with another
remarkable burst of innovation. A group of battlefield
‘reproductions’ were staged on Muswell Hill’s new
golf course (and soon exuberantly imitated by the new
Blackburn firm of Mitchell and Kenyon). Elaborate al-
legorical tableaux were filmed in the studio, mocking
Boer leaders and invoking traditional images of Britan-
nia. A wounded soldier’s dream of his mother, seen in
a vignette insert, added pathos to the films on offer. But
most ambitious of all was Paul’s own contribution to the
national war effort: Army Life, a comprehensive 25-part
guide, endorsed by the War Office and no doubt intend-
ed to boost recruitment, yet running almost as long as a
modern feature, with a specially compiled music score
for accompaniment.
Once again, almost nothing beyond a few fragments
survives of this wartime production, although Paul’s
now voluminous illustrated catalogues can still evoke
cinema’s first engagement with a national emergency.
With fewer than 80 of the roughly 800 films that Paul
produced over 15 years extant, the catalogues offer a
tantalising record of continuing ambition. The Boxer
Rebellion in China would inspire political satire, and the
Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 three dramas. Perhaps most
unexpectedly, his Goaded to Anarchy shows surprising
sympathy for the plotters of the 1905 Russian revolution.
What has survived Paul’s destruction of his stock in
1909, after deciding to exit the industry he had helped
create, tends to be his ‘trick films’. Using stop motion and
multiple exposure – like his early customer Georges
Méliès – Paul and his collaborators, including the
conjuror Walter Booth, apparently hoped to create a THREE CHEERS
market for distinctively English fantasy. His surviving (Above, from left) Come
Along, Do (1898), which is
1901 Scrooge, even in its incomplete state, is the closest reputed to feature Robert
link we have with the era of original Dickens stage pro- and Ellen Paul as the country
ductions, and a tour de force of early special effects. In the couple; Paul’s first fiction
film The Soldier’s Courtship
following year, The Magic Sword tried to create the equiv- (1896); and Scrooge (1901),
alent of a miniature Christmas pantomime, complete which is the closest link we
with a gallant knight, his lady love, a witch, a good fairy have with the era of original
Dickens stage productions
and even more ‘magic’ effects.
There would be more new genres, such as the ‘day in
the life’ documentary and location-based crime dramas
(as reported in ‘Disappearing act’, Sight & Sound, 2016),
reinforcing Paul’s claim to wider recognition as a true
pioneer of the cinema we know. And 1906 saw his an-
ticipation of the reckless car-driving of Toad of Toad
Hall – and indeed of Back to the Future (1985) – with The ‘?’
Motorist. Probably his best-known work today, thanks to
YouTube, this features a mystery couple who defy police
and magistrates to fly freely through the solar system,
before touching down back in Muswell Hill and making
their final, shape-shifting escape.
Its anarchic fantasy seems to express something quite
personal. Paul was a keen pioneer motorist, who had al-
ready made a speeded-up Runaway Car Through Piccadilly
Circus in 1899, and would himself be fined for speeding
in North London driving the same car that we see we see
in this film. Like fellow motorists Arthur Conan Doyle
and his Muswell Hill neighbour the poet W.E. Henley, he
was impatient with police ‘ambushing’ drivers. Later ac-
counts of his activities during World War I, help-
ing to develop scientific gadgets for air and sea
GOIN’ SOUTH
Paul’s only known poster
advertised his extensive
coverage of the Anglo-Boer
War in 1899-1900, which
helped to galvanise the
infant film industry
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 41
ROBERT PAUL
How did Paul
come to be
omitted from
the list of
usual suspects
credited with
inventing
or creating
cinema, despite
remaining
centrally warfare and mobilising his workforce on behalf
of the war effort, reveal a forceful, impatient char-
involved for acter – as enigmatic as the ‘?’ motorist himself.
much longer
TIME MACHINES
than many How did Paul come to be omitted from the list of usual
others? suspects credited with inventing or creating cinema, de-
spite remaining centrally involved for much longer than
many others? The main reason is probably that he wasn’t
a failure or a casualty, but a very successful producer and
technologist, who also judged his exit shrewdly. But an-
other seems to have been temperamental. Despite being
a frequent letter-writer to newspapers and journals, and
having gifted much of his equipment to the Science
Museum, he seems to have been genuinely averse to per-
sonal publicity. Another obituarist wrote of him having
a strange talent for “melting away”.
Paul’s fluctuating reputation through the writing of
early cinema history is traced in my forthcoming book.
But the odd ways in which his life continued to intersect
with two better-known figures is revealing. One is Wil-
liam Friese-Greene, his apparently discredited forerun-
ner. Since the demolition of Friese-Greene’s reputation
in the 1960s, a much more creditable record has recently
emerged; and Peter Domankiewicz has convincingly
shown that the older man did indeed succeed in shoot-
ing moving pictures.
However, the most famous story about Friese-Greene,
brilliantly dramatised in The Magic Box, has him demon-
strating his eventual success to a suspicious patrolling po-
licemen, played in the film by Laurence Olivier. Bizarrely,
while this didn’t happen to Friese-Greene, it actually did
to Robert Paul, who first recounted it as an after-dinner
anecdote to industry colleagues. Yet after Friese-Greene’s
destitute death in 1921, it was strangely transferred to him,
and the device upgraded to a projector. What really hap-
pened, in Paul’s workshop in Hatton Garden, early in 1895
when he was still collaborating with Acres, was a noisy
midnight celebration of their first trial film for a kineto-
THE HISTORY BOYS scope viewer – which did indeed attract police attention.
The Boultings’ The Magic The second figure Paul crossed paths with was H.G.
Box (1951, above left)
explored the contribution Wells. The film historian Terry Ramsaye told the story of
of William Friese-Greene ‘Paul’s Time Machine’ in his 1926 popular history A Mil-
to the history of film, lion and One Nights, although Paul’s preliminary patent
inadvertently mixing up a
story that actually happened for an entertainment inspired by Wells’s breakthrough
to Robert Paul; and H.G. novella The Time Machine was no secret. It’s easy to under-
Wells with Margarette Scott stand why neither of these young men in a hurry took it
and Raymond Massey on the
set of Things to Come (1936, any further in 1895. To create the theatrical spectacle of
above right) time-travel would have needed resources and experience
42 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
that neither had – more like the spectacles that Imre Kiral-
fy was presenting at Earl’s Court in London, where Paul’s
kinetoscopes had made their debut as a sideshow.
Much less well known, however, is that Wells seems
to have appreciated the potential of this new medium as
fully and quickly as Paul did. In 1899, the year following
Paul’s advertisement, he wrote what would long remain
his most comprehensive envisioning of the technologi-
cal future. The Sleeper Wakes is a time-travel story about
a man who wakens from a coma after 200 years, to
discover that purchases can be previewed on portable
gadgets like a small kinetoscope, and books have been
replaced by cylinders that offer screen versions of novels
he already knows. And Wells’s novella A Story of the Days
to Come (also 1899) even predicted giant moving-picture
advertisements in a future London.
Wells’s own relationship with cinema would remain
complex, and largely unsuccessful. One book, The King
Who Was a King, was based on a rejected film script, and
even when Alexander Korda recklessly gave him free rein
with Things to Come (1936), the result proved spectacular,
although dramatically disappointing. But for both Wells
and Paul their early encounter, and the dream of cinema
as time-travel, remained a vivid memory. In 1941, while
the war that Wells had desperately warned against raged,
he reminisced in the scientific journal Nature about the
project, exclaiming: “We would have become ground
landlords of the entire film industry.” Paul was quick to
reply, observing that the impact of “the simplest scenes,
coupled with the novelty of seeing photographs moving,
sufficed to attract the public and establish the new art of
cinematography”.
Paul remained a realist. By then he considered himself
primarily an electrical scientist, with his contribution to
the ‘childhood’ of cinema a distant memory, even though
he played an active part in starting the Cinema Veterans
organisation. If he and Ellen did see Wells’s Things to
Come in 1936, we might wonder what they made of it.
But he wasn’t going to let even the great guru Wells get
away with overselling their bright idea of 1895.
An exhibition about Robert Paul and early British film
runs at London Metropolitan Archives during September-
October and at the National Science and Media Museum
in Bradford from November to February 2020. A special
screening at BFI Southbank, London, celebrates Paul’s
150th anniversary on 27 October and the graphic novel
Time Traveller is available now. Ian Christie’s Robert Paul
and the Origins of British Cinema will be published by
Chicago University Press later this year
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SMALLTOWN
S
hola Amoo’s first feature A Moving Image (2016)
was the centrepiece of an impassioned multi-
media project that took aim at gentrification in
South London. His second feature, The Last Tree, marks
a shift into a more personal gear for the director, with
a lyrical and absorbing exploration of dual identity in
early noughties Britain. We follow Femi, a young Brit-
ish-Nigerian boy, who leaves behind a carefree child-
hood with his foster mother in rural Lincolnshire when
his mother fetches him to live with her in inner-city
London. Harnessing a powerful breakthrough perfor-
mance from newcomer Sam Adewunmi, Amoo invig-
orates the more familiar tropes of British social realist
cinema to offer up a sensitive and refreshing take on the
coming-of-age drama.
Will Massa: A Moving Image felt like rapid-response film-
making and drew on a variety of creative disciplines to ex-
plore a pressing social issue. At first glance The Last Tree is
a more familiar feature film proposition but it also channels
some of that same energy. How did it feel making the transi-
tion between the two projects?
Shola Amoo: A Moving Image was always conceived of
as a feature-length visual art project. It was very ‘live’ in
the sense that, in true documentary fashion, it was being
moulded as it went along according to what was going
on around us: we were at the [anti-gentrification] meet-
ings and filming inside the protests. The Last Tree is both
more specific and more traditional, but aesthetically I
like to think of it as something of a companion piece. I
always set out to make The Last Tree highly immersive,
almost like a VR project in some respects. That ambi-
tion shaped the entire production approach and lots
of the heads of department, like my editor Mdhamiri A
Nkemi and my composer Segun Akinola, worked with
me on A Moving Image so we had a great creative short-
hand. We had a new director of photography this time
round in Stil Williams but I had worked with him on
my short film Dear Mr Shakespeare [2016] which was a
real aesthetic bridge for me between the two longer proj-
ects. We worked really hard together on the approach to
immersion. The audience follows Femi through three
landscapes at three key moments in his life so we were
always asking ourselves, “How do we carry the audience
on this journey with him in a way that will make them
feel really involved?” Everything we did – from lenses
to lighting to camera movement – was about trying to
create that feeling.
44 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
Shola Amoo explains how he sought to
confound audience expectations in his semi-
autobiographical ‘The Last Tree’, the tale of a
British-Nigerian boy who leaves an idyllic life
with foster parents in the English countryside to
join his birth mother on a London council estate
By Will Massa
WM: Hybridism is clearly a key feature in your work, both
aesthetically and thematically – does it feel like an exciting
time to be coming through as a filmmaker?
SA: We’re in an age of multi-hyphenates and that’s really
energising – just look at someone like Donald Glover.
Creative people are doing a bit of everything now and
drawing on a really wide range of influences. And it’s not
just in a jack-of-all-trades fashion, it’s about aiming for ex-
cellence in whatever you turn your hand to. I started in
documentary, then did music videos in the early grime
days, then some theatre and then visual arts, so maybe
it’s inevitable that I come at filmmaking from a creative-
ly hybrid angle, bringing as much as I can to the table.
A Moving Image was a synthesis of all the work I had
been doing to date, but with The Last Tree it felt like there
was an opportunity to specialise, asking myself which
strands of my creative experience to apply at which mo-
ments. A key difference this time round was that we had
a clearer sense of the environments or the critical context
the film was likely to be received in. We were conscious
of working in a more familiar narrative structure but we
still wanted to be fairly experimental within that space.
WM: One of the striking things about The Last Tree is your
desire to confound expectations. Right from the outset you
use sound and image to play with what we’re used to seeing
and feeling in British cinema.
SA: The project has been bubbling for a few years and
over time the marriage between form and content in the
script really crystallised. Narratively speaking, we always
set out to flip expectations, so subversion becomes a key
approach. In terms of representation, Femi’s childhood
in Lincolnshire is almost hermetically sealed and we
wanted to create a world that protects him from some
of the more familiar tropes audiences might expect to
play out in those contexts, at least in cinema. In this in-
stance rural Britain is a relatively safe space but when we
open the film we wanted to play with expectation – first
through sound design, then through the portrayal of the
landscape and finally on who we settle on as the protago-
nist. From then on it was about capturing the bliss of his
existence, which was important in terms of setting up
the contrast of the second and third acts. That protection
is removed once he gets to London and he begins to un-
derstand what the world is and how you have to shape
yourself to fit in it. But perhaps to show a young black
kid simply enjoying life in the British countryside
with a group of other kids is quietly radical in itself.
BOY ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND
Femi (Sam Adewunmi, left)
revisits the flatlands of
Lincolnshire where he grew
up, in Shola Amoo’s three-
part The Last Tree, which
in its earlier stages follows
his carefree life as a child
(played by Tai Golding, above
with Denise Black, who plays
his foster mother Mary)

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 45

SHOLA AMOO THE LAST TREE
WM: The film is one of several recent British debuts
that explore dual identity and are inspired by the
personal histories of their directors. How did you find the
balance between autobiographical detail and artistic licence
during the development phase?
SA: Working on a project like this requires the develop-
ment of a certain mental aptitude and it took a while for
me to arrive at the final iteration of it. I felt close enough
to the material to provide a strong degree of authentic-
ity but ultimately, I think, I managed to create enough
distance to avoid it becoming one big therapy session.
I went on a bit of a loop working out how to get there.
Inevitably I needed to pin myself down within the nar-
rative somewhere, but it was a real balancing act and the
process of making it was about honing that act. It was
emotionally challenging; I know all screenwriters take
some time out between drafts but I was also checking
in with myself periodically to see how comfortable I
felt representing certain elements of my life. I was being
cautious with myself because at the end of the day I need
to stand up and represent the film. I think I managed to
include the right kind of detail without having to divulge
the specifics of my personal history. It’s funny because in
its own way A Moving Image was semi-autobiographical
and in other ways it’s as personal to me as The Last Tree,
it’s just a different type of personal.
WM: It’s interesting that it’s in London that Femi has to start
to build an armour and navigate the different manifesta-
tions of his identity as a teenager. Each decade brings its
own set of identity politics with it and The Last Tree is set in
the early noughties – would you have done anything differ-
ently if you were setting it now?
SA: There would definitely be much more nuance
around the concept of African-ness within a British con-
text. At Femi’s school he has the piss taken out of him
because his name isn’t as anglicised as his classmates.
I’m not sure you’d see that so much now because things
have really flipped in terms of the embrace of African
culture as a very cool thing. From what I can tell, cultur-
ally there’s a real surge of consciousness happening and
much of that has been driven by online culture in a way
that wasn’t possible at the time the film was set. What
was once considered marginal and culturally diverse is
now crossing over into the mainstream more efficiently
through social media. At the school I went to there were
all sorts of little beefs or hierarchies of perceived differ-
ence, but I see kids all over the UK listening to Afrobeat
in the street now and those cultural currents are reach-
ing the States too. That just wasn’t happening when I
was growing up. People seem to be taking a greater pride
in their heritage now and they’re owning that diaspora
identity in a really positive and powerful way.
WM: Perhaps the most energising sequence in the film
occurs when Femi is exploring Lagos for the first time;
it’s vivid and intoxicating. To what extent did filming that
moment channel your own evolving relationship to Nigeria?
SA: I was almost living vicariously through Sam in
that moment because he’s a British-Nigerian actor, but
this was his very first time in the country. He’s Yoruba
like me and I only found out half-way through produc-
tion that this was going to be his first time in Lagos. Al-
though this was my first time shooting there, I’d been
quite a few times over the years visiting family. But for
Sam the scenes where Femi is taking in his surroundings
46 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
The more we go out and tell these stories the
stronger the quality is going to get and the easier
it will be to fight the stereotypes and clichés.
MY LIFE IN FILM
The Last Tree director Shola
Amoo (above) sought a
careful balance of fact
and fiction in his semi-
autobiographical tale, which
moves from Lincolnshire to
London to Lagos in Nigeria
and soaking it all up were extremely real. We wanted to
change tack slightly on the aesthetics in this passage of
the film. For example, when Femi is first sitting in his fa-
ther’s house his world suddenly slows and what has been
a very fluid film up to that point becomes anchored and
still. It was the only time we used a tripod in the whole
production. Then, once the meeting between Femi and
his father is over and he’s starting to process things, we
wanted to really up the kinetic energy, to open the pres-
sure valve and capture the state of mind of the character.
It’s such a key moment for Femi and his mind is rushing
in response to this new environment and all the ques-
tions he’s been asking himself growing up.
WM: After a few years of talk it does feel like the UK industry
is starting to embrace different types of story and story-
tellers. How do you feel about the black British cinema you
grew up watching in the 1990s and noughties and where
do you hope some of the recent breakthroughs will lead?
SA: There wasn’t a lot of it about when I was growing up so
you’d just watch what was there. For a while ‘urban’ films
were the only types of films getting made. When that hap-
pens you reach a point where new directors might get led
into a trap around the burden of representation. I guess I
just want to see more range. I’d like to be able to talk about
black British film the way I talk about Nigerian music, to
see it reach a higher peak. I love this recent trend of going
on the road with your film, travelling to different countries
and I was really pleased to see how well Rungano Nyoni’s
I Am Not a Witch [2017] was received. The more we go out
and tell these stories the stronger the quality is going to get
and the easier it will be to fight the stereotypes and clichés.
Support beyond the first feature is vital but so is a sense
of scale and scope. The cultural products we export as a
country can tell an incredibly powerful story – just look at
what’s been happening with grime. That’s where I’d like
to see black British filmmaking in ten years’ time.
The Last Tree is released in UK cinemas on
27 September and is reviewed on page 68
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73 Rojo
There is a sense of menace underpinning Argentine director
Benjamín Naishtat’s brilliant third feature, a disarming allegory
about middle-class society turning a blind eye to the excesses
committed in the name of so-called peace and stability

50 Films of the Month 56 Films 80 Home Cinema 90 Books

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 49
FILMS OF THE MONTH
Gun crazy: a scene from Episode III, with (from left) Elisa Carricajo, Laura Paredes, Valeria Correa, Horacio Marassi, Pilar Gamboa
La Flor
Argentina/The Netherlands/Switzerland 2018
Director: Mariano Llinás
Reviewed by Kim Newman
“Hi. I’ll try to explain what this movie is about,”
begins director Mariano Llinás, talking to the
camera by a busy country road in a very flat
region of Argentina, dominated by structures that
ought to support billboards but don’t. The empty
monoliths playfully hint that this very elaborate,
very long (it will be said over and over, within the
film itself and by everyone who writes about it)
construction will deliver no message, make no
point, merely exist as an endurance test (with
intermissions) reinforced by epic-level trolling.
Llinás returns at intervals throughout, growing
older and shaggier over the nine years the film
was in the making, to remind viewers they’re now
trapped with his uncontrollable vision. At one
point, he mentions that it’s three and a quarter
hours until the end of the episode we’re watching
(Episode III), whereupon there will still be three
50 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
more entire segments to go. The director tells us
plainly what we’re in for, but holds back some
surprises – such as the 40 minutes of end credits
unspooling over an upside-down shot of pampas
grass at sunset. This sequence is longer in running
time than Episodes V and VI, both of which would
feel superfluous or beside the point if anyone
had a sense that the film had a single point to be
beside. It takes its title from a flower-like sketch
Llinás makes to illustrate its form, though this
elegance is parodied and deconstructed in a
scruffier ‘it’s-a-spider-no-it’s-an-ant’ scribble made
by the director’s harassed alter ego in Episode VI.
“There are six stories,” Llinás continues. “Four
of them have a beginning but not an ending.
That is to say they stop in the middle: they have
no ending. Then, there is episode five, which
like a short story has a beginning and an end.
Finally, there is episode six, which begins in
the middle and ends the film. Each episode has
a genre, so to speak. The first episode could be
regarded as a B movie, the kind that Americans
used to shoot with their eyes closed and now
just can’t shoot any more. The second episode
is a sort of musical, with a touch of mystery.
The third episode is a spy movie. The fourth
episode is difficult to describe. Not even I, in the
moment of making this prologue, have a clear
idea. The fifth is inspired by an old French film,
and the last is about some captive women in the
19th century who return from the desert, from
the Indians, after many years. The punchline
of the whole movie lies in the fact that all the
episodes star the same four women in different
roles. Valeria, Elisa, Laura and Pilar. I’d say
the movie is about them and, somehow, for
them. OK, I think that’s about it – for now…”
The lede that no one is going to bury is
that La Flor is 13 and a half hours long. It’s an
anthology movie that wants to be watched in a
sitting – like, say, Peter Duffell’s The House That
The director returns at intervals,
growing older over the nine years
the film was in the making, to
remind viewers they’re trapped
with his uncontrollable vision
 Dripped Blood (1971), which also stretches to a
metafictional episode set in the film industry
that has yielded the larger film – rather than
a series of interrelated movies or TV shows
with a shared cast (such as the BBC’s 1972 run
of plays The Sextet) that can safely be watched
with week-long rests instead of intermissions.
The vastly different running times of individual
segments resists any packaging of the parts for
broadcast – although, in an era of bingewatched
streaming shows where 13 episodes drop on
the same date to tempt instant addicts, the
experience of consuming all of La Flor in one
go is not as unusual or challenging as it might
have been ten years ago, when the director saw
the four main actresses in a stage production
and began putting this together as a shared
vehicle for them. Llinás’s film has been so long
in the works that the cast age affectingly and
with consequences for any career prospects.
The fresh-faced ingénues and incipient divas
of the first segments, who might have been
springboarded into international movie roles if
these episodes had been seen shortly after they
were shot, are nearly middle-aged character
actresses by the latter stages, last seen out of
focus through a blur of muslin, cobwebs and
dirt in the punitively hard-to-watch Episode VI.
Anything this all-encompassing must make
deliberate or accidental connections along the
way. That aside about Episode I being the sort
of thing Americans can’t make any more must
have been delivered long before the Tom Cruise
version of The Mummy (2017), which more
than validates the observation – though several
elements of the piece, including an exorcist called
‘La X’ (‘la Cruz’), seem to be specific digs at that
already-forgotten flop. Nearly a conventional
horror film, the mummy story here mostly serves
to introduce the four lead actresses, and ends
with a non sequitur that declares the female
mummy to be one of a trio of queens whom we
then expect to turn up in later stories… only to
be never mentioned again. The genre-blending
and structural complexity don’t start until
the musical episode, which is the first to bend
time. Singing duo Victoria and Ricky’s career
stretches from a vinyl LP copyrighted 1981 to
Episode I: (from left) Pilar Gamboa, Valeria Correa, Elisa Carricajo, Laura Paredes
MP3 players, though they age less over its course
than Pilar Gamboa does over the course of the
whole project. Later, in a 1980s-set episode,
FILMS OF THE MONTH
a cross-Channel hovercraft displays a web
address on its side, though the Argentinian idea
of Thatcher’s Britain – with the PM as a cigar-
smoking equestrienne and cadres of posh spies
with moustaches out of Hergé – is likely to be
seen in the UK as entirely farcical by design.
Carrying over from Episode I Llinás’s fondness
for tracking shots with his female stars centre
screen, Episode II breaks away from its declared
remit as a musical by having Flavia (Laura
Paredes) simply take a long walk out of the
showbiz storyline, with its tangle of angsty
personal-creative relationships and (genuinely
effective) song score, into a fantastical plotline
involving mad science, scorpion venom, eternal
youth and a sinister conspiracy. It’s a priceless
moment, and those who aren’t willing to follow
the trail out of the film they thought they were
getting and into something stranger should
probably walk out then, because the tangle
becomes a lot more complex and potentially
infuriating in the longer, Chinese-box-structured
Episodes III and IV. These pile on the flashbacks-
within-flashbacks, unresolved storylines, non
sequiturs and head-scratching to such a degree
that even the director (like his less sympathetic
fictional avatar) seems close to cracking up.
The Hergé reference recurs with glimpses of
Tintin albums (and a sketch of Tintin’s moon
rocket in the director’s notebook), a mummy
resembling the creature in The Seven Crystal
Balls and an archaeologist who dowses like
Professor Calculus. But, as the film wears on,
riffling through the labyrinthine complexity
of Cold War-era spy fictions in which all agents
are at least triple, other literary models become
more apparent and there’s a blunt attempt to
connect with a gothic-picaresque tradition
that boils down to flatly digging out dog-eared
copies of Jan Potocki’s The Saragossa Manuscript,
William Beckford’s Vathek, Charles Maturin’s
Melmoth the Wanderer and Arthur Machen’s The
Three Impostors. All of these are characterised
by jumbles of tales within tales, doppelgangers,
eternal recurrences, vast conspiracies that may
also be trivial, pull-backs to reveal the author
hard at work, and a feeling that long though
they might be they still aren’t finished.
Even when Llinás throws in a black-and-white
silent palate cleanser, it’s a remake of Jean Renoir’s
Partie de campagne (1936), based on a story by
another versatile multi-genre tale-teller (Guy de
Maupassant) and – of course – never completed by
its director thanks to adverse weather conditions.
At this point, your reviewer must cop to numbed
exhaustion and a sense that the director’s trolling
tactics go beyond tweaking the audience to
keep them engaged and into a fundamental
misunderstanding of the psychology of anyone
willing (or obliged) to sit for it all. Most of
Episode V is blankly silent, a creative decision
that suggests technical breakdown – Lord, what
if the screening can’t go on and we have to come
back and watch the whole thing over again
to get to the end? – only to set up a stretch of
strange magic as scraps of Renoir’s soundtrack
play over beautiful images of an arbitrary air
show (maybe using some of the period planes
seen in Episode III’s airfield sequence).
One of the little lies salted away in the director’s
statement is that the women are in all the
episodes. They dominate the first three,
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 51
 but become ‘witches’ (remote, teasing,
capricious presences) seen by earnestly
befuddled male characters (the director, a
FILMS OF THE MONTH

parapsychologist, Casanova) in the fourth, are

absent from the Renoir homage, and return
only as blurs in the coda-like sixth (a minimalist
Argentinian western as much as Episode I is
an Argentinian mummy movie). Llinás takes
a secondary role in the fiction, as Boris the
Mole, in the most extensive flashback of the
globetrotting section of Episode III. A traitor
unnoticed by the queenly spymistress (Elisa
Carricajo), Boris has foreseen and furthered
the collapse of the Cold War way of life. Here,
Llinás delivers a monologue to a nodding star,
whereas the film is otherwise given to letting its
actresses handle stage-like speeches of revelation
or illustration, often frankly assessing their own
roles in the ongoing dramas. “If this were a play,
I wouldn’t be the heroine – or even the enemy
of the heroine,” muses Victoria’s possible rival
Andrea (Valeria Correa). Later, she delivers a
monologue about her family background that
suggests she is formidable enough to be an Episode IV: (from left) Valeria Correa, Elisa Carricajo, Laura Paredes, Pilar Gamboa and Laura Citarella
antagonist… only to be trumped when the diva
responds not with another speech but with a
devastating song that paradoxically wins a duel
If ‘La Flor’ is endurable it’s not episodes, while Carricajo grows in authority from
minion to coven leader over a run of stories). We
with the punchline “I don’t mind losing.” because of its genre games, get to know these women and relate intimately to
In the end, as was said in the beginning, if La them over the course of the day or so we spend in
Flor is endurable it’s not because of its genre games, M.C. Escher structure or even the their company. My impatience with the last two
M.C. Escher structure or even the occasional well- occasional well-tailored anecdote, episodes – and those agonising end credits – may
tailored anecdote, but because of its star quartet, be down in part to a sense of loss as the marvellous
all of whom display presence and range (Gamboa but because of its star quartet queens, spies and witches are removed from
literally goes from supreme voice to mute between the pattern, leaving a flower without petals.

Credits and Synopsis

Producer Rodrigo Sánchez - Swiss Agency for Cast Flavia Valeria Correa Pilar Gamboa mother [uncredited]
Laura Citarella Mariño Development and Episode I: Valeria Correa la niña actresses in Milva Leonardi Mariano Llinás
Directors of Costumes Cooperation), I.Sat, Laura Paredes Andrea Nigro Horacio Marassi The Spider daughter director of La Flor
Photography Flora Caligiuri Mecenazgo Cultural – Dr Lucía Conti Elisa Carricajo Dreyfuss Walter Jakob Matías Feldman Laura Citarella
Agustín Mendilaharzu Carolina Sosa Loyola Buenos Aires Ciudad, Elisa Carricajo Isabella Marcelo Pozzi director of The Spider divorced father texting producer
Yarará Rodríguez Universidad del Cine Marcela Héctor Díaz Casterman Emma Rivera Ramón Marquestó of The Spider
Sebastián ‘El Production With the participation Valeria Correa Ricardo, ‘Ricky’ Debora Zanolli wardrobe mistress son
Mago’ Cardona Companies of Argentina Cine, Yanina Alberto Suárez Barbara Andrea Garrote In Colour and
Editors A film produced by Florencia Juri, Pilar Gamboa Frank Serguei Dorogov Violeta, new producer Episode VI: Black & White
Alejo Moguillansky El Pampero Cine Fundación Proa La X voice of Boris Pablo Seijo Elisa Carricajo [1.78:1]
Agustín Rolandelli and Piel de Lava Film Extracts Germán de Silva Episode III: Agustina Muñoz Gatto Sarah S. Evans Part-subtitled
Art Directors With the support (audio only) Giardina Pilar Gamboa Fox Valeria Correa
Laura Caligiuri of Hubert Bals Partie de Theresa Episode V: mestizo girl Distributor
Flora Caligiuri Fund, Visions Sud campagne/A Day in Episode 2: Elisa Carricajo Episode IV: Esteban Lamothe Laura Paredes ICA Films
Music Est – Fonds suisse the Country (1936) Pilar Gamboa Agent 50 Laura Paredes Santiago Gobernori mestizo girl’s mother
Gabriel Chwojnik d’aide à la production Victoria Aragón Laura Paredes Valeria Correa tourist cowboys Pilar Gamboa
Sound Director (supported by SDC Laura Paredes 301 Elisa Carricajo Gaby Ferrero creole girl

Episode I. Contemporary Argentina. Dr Lucía Conti,
in charge of a facility for the study of archaeological
specimens, receives a crate from unethical archaeologist
Giardina; it contains a female mummy recently unearthed
at a remote dig. When Yanina, a young woman working at
the facility, unbandages the mummy’s skull, false eyes
fall out of the sockets. A cat is possessed by the mummy
and becomes extremely violent. Yanina also becomes
possessed, and injures a would-be rapist so badly that it’s
thought he was attacked by four men. Giardina advises
Dr Conti to call in an exorcist known as ‘La X’, who frees
Yanina from possession and identifies the mummy as one
of ‘the three queens’.
Episode II. Contemporary Argentina. Successful
singing duo Victoria and Ricky have broken up
professionally and personally, but manager Frank insists
they record an album for which they are contracted.
Victoria and Ricky both tell various versions of their
famous love story and the song it inspired. Andrea
Nigro, an ambitious younger singer, is brought in as a
possible replacement, but realises she can’t compete
with Victoria. Flavia, Victoria’s confidante, is distracted
from her involvement with the musicians when she is
drawn back into a scientific cult which believes that rare
scorpion venom is the key to eternal youth. Flavia injects
herself with the venom, and is captured by cult leader
Isabella. Victoria and Ricky record together.
Episode III. Somewhere in South America, the 1980s.
Five female spies – ex-Soviet spymistress Agent 50,
ex-Nato assassin 301, mute English communist Theresa,
former revolutionary turncoat ‘la niña’ and knife-thrower
Barbara – are sent by their employer Casterman to
retrieve captive rocket scientist Dreyfuss. When Theresa
has to kill two men who weren’t part of the plan the
women were following, Agent 50 deduces that Barbara
is part of another team tasked with wiping them out
and kills her. Hiding overnight at an airfield, the four
women await the second team, who are supposed to kill
them. Casterman goes over their files and ponders the
circumstances that have brought them to this crisis –
considering Theresa’s wavering loyalties to her Russian
handlers and the British government department in
which she was placed, 301’s chaste romance with a
fellow assassin she often has to pretend is her husband,
and la niña’s ability to torture and murder first for a
revolutionary faction and then for a CIA team set to
exterminate her former comrades. Agent 50 is expert at
scenting treachery, having tracked down Boris, a mole
responsible for a devastating collapse of the Russian
intelligence network that possibly hastened the end
of the Soviet Union. In Casterman’s second team is
Fox, a helicopter pilot whose sympathy for Agent 50’s
team prompts her to change sides just before the dawn
confrontation.
Episode IV. Contemporary Argentina. A director has
been working for six years on ‘The Spider’, a science-
fiction film set in Canada, and is frustrated by dealing
with his four obstreperous female stars. He tries to
bring in a new producer to rein in ‘the witches’ while he
and his crew shoot scenes with sinister trees. In fact, the
actresses and all the female crew are real witches. An
assistant murders the producer with an axe, and a spell
is cast that makes the director disappear, to be replaced
by a strange Italian man who speaks in antiquated
dialect. Gatto, a parapsychologist, studies the director’s
notebooks in an attempt to work out what has
happened. The Italian man proves irresistibly attractive
to the female staff of the asylum where he’s kept. Gatto
goes over the director’s reading list and comes to
believe that the mystery is connected with a perhaps
spurious section of Casanova’s memoirs, recounting the
libertine’s involvement with four sorceresses who resist
his advances and render him lovelorn. Gatto is knocked
down by a sinister black car.
Episode V. Contemporary Argentina. A couple of idle
bikers dress as gauchos and woo a bourgeois woman
and her daughter during a day out in the country. A
divorced father who is visiting an air show with his son
seems set to cut in on the women, but is duped into
getting lost in the woods.
Episode VI. Nineteenth-century Argentina. Sarah
Evans, an Englishwoman long held captive by ‘savages’
in the desert, walks back towards civilisation with three
others – a mother and daughter and a Creole woman.

52 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

 ‘It’s nearly impossible to verbalise
how amazing the live experience is’
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FILMS OF THE MONTH
Seduced and abandoned: Shico Menegat as Pedro in Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon’s tale of a young gay man living in southern Brazil
Hard Paint
Brazil/The Netherlands 2018
Directors: Filipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolon
Certificate 18 117m 0s
Reviewed by Tony Rayns
Spoiler alert: this review reveals a plot twist
Waves from the New Queer Cinema continue to
wash up on distant shores. Porto Alegre (‘Joyous
Harbour’) is the capital of Brazil’s southernmost
state Rio Grande do Sul and, by this film’s
account, a city in decline: we glimpse many
premises up for sale or rent, one woman says
she foresees the place sinking into the sand and
a central character says he feels as if he’s living
in Purgatory. The film, though, sticks to the
peripheries, both geographical and emotional.
Its main locations are featureless residential
suburbs, where new high-rises block the view of
Lake Guaiba from the older ones, and a seemingly
disused stadium where the kids put on illicit
late-night raves and parties. Many of the film’s
details are no doubt site-specific, but a diagnosis
of Brazil’s urban woes is far from the authors’
minds. (The film was made before the election
of Brazil’s far-right, homophobic president Jair
Bolsonaro.) They focus instead on questions of
54 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
loss, loneliness and emotional disengagement,
centring their script on one young man’s
struggle to feel whole in his own skin.
The film rations out its backstory, keeping
some revelations in reserve, but tells us much
of what we need to know about the protagonist
in the opening scenes. Pedro (Shico Menegat)
performs on a website as ‘Neonboy’, entertaining
his fans by smearing luminescent paint on his
near-naked body and soliciting payment for more
explicit private performances. At the start he’s
fallen asleep in front of his webcam, provoking
a string of comments from the fans at the side of
the computer screen. Next, though, he’s being
bundled into a court hearing to determine when
he’ll be tried for some as-yet-unspecified crime.
He’s accompanied by his elder sister Luiza; the
first thing she does is tie back his unkempt
pre-Raphaelite locks to make him look a bit
more presentable. He tells the judge that he’s
unemployed, was kicked out of college, has no
idea where his father is and that his mother
died when he was very young. He says he lives
with Luiza and gets along with her very well.
Two scenes later, we learn that Luiza is leaving
to work as a journalist in Salvador, in Brazil’s
far-away north-east. Pedro will have to pay the
rent – and fix a broken tap, and pay the civic fine
for too-loud music at her leaving party – without
her help. Evidently Pedro has been ‘abandoned’
by those he loved and relied on all his life, and
that syndrome is ongoing. Much later in the
film Pedro’s grandmother will visit for a couple
of days from her home in the countryside, and
she infers that bipolar issues run in the family.
Hard Paint (Tinta Bruta) is structured in three
chapters, ‘Luiza’, ‘Leo’ and ‘Neonboy’, the first
two showing Pedro losing people he feels close
to, the third showing his hard-knocks route
towards finding a real identity for himself. In the
first chapter, Luiza (Guega Peixoto) is sketched
as a generally supportive elder sister, but one
whose desire to advance her career trumps her
commitment to keeping an eye on her troubled
kid brother. She’s the one who alerts him to the
existence of an online rival, copying his act and
stealing his customers. This rival, ‘Boy25’, turns
out to be a dance student called Leo (Bruno
Fernandes), who gives the second chapter its
name and reveals himself in short order to be
less a rival than a potential lover. Co-directors
Filipe Matzembacher (born 1988) and Marcio
Reolon (three years older) like the dramatic
potential of unvoiced motivations: their weaker
debut feature Seashore (Beira-Mar, 2015) shows
one bi-curious boy inviting a gay friend on a

The film focuses on questions
of loss and loneliness, centring
on one young man’s struggle
to feel whole in his own skin
Pleasure and paint: Pedro and Leo, played by Bruno Fernandes, perform for webcam voyeurs
trip, ostensibly to sort out some family business Denis masterpiece Beau Travail (1998) and the
but secretly because he wants to try gay sex solo surf-diving sequence which ended Seashore.
for himself. Here, it becomes clear that Leo has It’s hard to guess if the authors had this in
FILMS OF THE MONTH
imitated Pedro’s online act precisely as a way mind as they formulated Hard Paint, but the
of getting to meet and know him; he already notion that Pedro desperately needs to shed his
knows all about the assault charge he’s facing. protective emotional ‘armour’ follows a template
But Leo, too, is leaving, on a scholarship brought into modern gay culture by John Rechy’s
to study dance in Berlin; he’ll be gone by the debut novel City of Night (1963). The book is a
time of Pedro’s trial. Their bond (very credibly picaresque, charting a Chicano hustler’s journey
played by both actors; there was reportedly a through the US gay underworld, angrily and
lengthy rehearsal period) is rooted in empathy. neurotically refusing emotional connections
Leo is bullied by his local dance teacher Igor with his johns. Hard Paint is more a chamber
– doubtless a prime reason he thinks of Porto drama, reflecting the closed-in world of those
Alegre as Purgatory – and he’s aware that the who live online, but its dynamic is identical:
guy Pedro attacked and blinded in one eye had Pedro sees himself as a bullied, abandoned loner
been bullying him since he was a small boy, who delivers a kind of satisfaction to his online
presumably a form of gay-baiting. It’s Leo who fans but uses the paint to shield himself from
guides Pedro out of his shell, getting him out any responsive connection. You could argue
of the apartment and away from his webcam, that the film, like Pedro himself, doesn’t really
introducing him to relatives and friends, taking need the metaphor, but it gives an exquisitely
him to a party. (Pedro is honouring a promise to measured, MDMA-inflected and superbly
Luiza to spend a little time each day outside by performed film its most potent image. The
loitering for five precisely timed minutes on the second time that Leo and Pedro put on a double
street, watched – as he is throughout the film – by act for the webcam, Leo drips luminous paint
anonymous, silhouetted strangers from upstairs from his mouth to Pedro’s. An iconic image
windows and balconies.) The film’s greatest for drug culture, and for gay culture too.
success is to show Pedro slowly relaxing into a
reciprocal relationship for the first time in his life, Credits and Synopsis
generally without relying on dialogue to make
anything explicit. His anger when Leo belatedly
Produced by Ministero da Sandra Dani
breaks the news of his imminent departure, Filipe Matzembacher Cultura, Brasil Avó
expressed in an online performance of naked Jessica Luz Governo Federal, Frederico Vasques
Marcio Reolon Fundo Setorial do Beto
wrestling which goes too far, is devastating. Written by Audiovisual, Ancine Denis Gosh
In the third chapter Pedro starts learning to Filipe Matzembacher - Agência Nacional Igor
Marcio Reolon do Cinema, BRDE - Camila Falcão
stand on his own feet. After an aborted real-world Director of Banco Regional de Paula
meeting with his online fan ‘Married Voyeur’ Photography Desenvolvimento João Petrillo
Glauco Firpo do Extremo Sul Gabriel
and a scary sexual encounter with a macho guy Editor Avante Films,
who picks him up in a bar – another bully – plus Germano de Oliveira Besouro Filmes In Colour
a brief chat with his departing grandmother, Art Director present a film by [2.35:1]
Manuela Falcão Marcio Reolon & Subtitles
he overcomes his self-pity and heads to Leo’s Sound Designers Filipe Matzembacher
sending-off party. The emotional thrust of their Marcos Lopes Executive Producer Distributor
Tiago Bello Jessica Luz Matchbox Films Ltd
reconciliation scene couldn’t be more affecting,
but the film’s one false note is struck when the ©Porto Alegre Brazilian
metaphor of the luminous paint suddenly looms Production Cast theatrical title
Companies Shico Menegat Tinta Bruta
too large. The boys’ bust-up at the end of chapter M-Appeal, Avante Pedro, ‘Neonboy’
Films, Besouro Bruno Fernandes
two had Pedro insisting that he needs exclusive Filmes, Hubert Bals Leo
use of the paint and Leo coldly responding: “Yes, Fund, Secretaria Guega Peixoto
you’re much less interesting without it.” In the do Audiovisual, Luiza
closing scenes Pedro brings leftover paint as a
Porto Alegre, Brazil. Pedro awaits trial for assaulting
parting gift for Leo, saying he doesn’t need it any Gabriel, who has long bullied him; his college
more. Leo’s response is: “You never needed it.” The expelled him and he subsists by providing online
over-explicitness is mitigated by the final image entertainment for voyeurs as ‘Neonboy’ – so named
of non-dancer Pedro starting to dance alone at the
party – an ending which echoes both the Claire
because he smears his body with luminous paint.
Part 1: Luiza. Pedro shares a rented apartment
with his journalist sister Luiza, who is leaving to work
in Salvador. She alerts him to the appearance online
of a rival, ‘Boy25’, who copies his act. Soon after Luiza
has left, Pedro meets ‘Boy25’ – dance student Leo –
and asks him to desist; they put on a webcam show
together.
Part 2: Leo. Leo and Pedro meet again to divvy
up their earnings. They go to a party. Pedro leaves
first and is attacked by two of Gabriel’s friends,
but fights them off. Leo visits him later and reveals
that he knows all about the assault charge; they
make love. The two become closer, performing more
online double acts and meeting regularly; Pedro is
welcomed by Leo’s circle. Before long, though, Leo
breaks the news that he has won a scholarship to
study in Berlin and will be leaving soon. They part on
bad terms.
Part 3: Neonboy. Pedro has sex with a macho guy
who picks him up in a bar and then menacingly
demands payment; Pedro narrowly escapes. He
steels himself to go to Leo’s farewell party, where
they make up. Pedro falls asleep and wakes just in
time to see Leo leaving for the airport. Alone at the
party, Pedro dances.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 55
 American Factory The Art of Racing in the Rain
USA 2019 Director: Simon Curtis
Directors: Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert Certificate PG 108m 39s

Reviewed by Hannah McGill Reviewed by Chris Hall

Chronicling the dramatic culture clash that There are plenty of reasons why Simon Curtis’s
occurs when a Chinese industrial powerhouse family drama The Art of Racing in the Rain shouldn’t
REVIEWS

reactivates a dead US factory on its own terms,
this is a fascinating document of economic
change, with a disquieting weakness for cheap
racial othering. Its awkward mix of approaches
– comedic plinky-plonk music backs scenes
of encroaching disaster, earnest investment in
human stories meets tongue-in-cheek trawl for
meme-friendly weirdness – perhaps reflects
what is required of documentarians aiming
their work at the eyeball-hungry international
platform that is Netflix, where American
Factory landed after its Sundance debut.
While this breadth of tone precludes neither
sensitive characterisation nor a resonant closing
message about the future challenges of balancing
profit against people, it does make for a viewing
experience that seems troublingly calculated to
encompass the interests of both tub-thumping
leftwingers of the Michael Moore stripe and
people who like to snigger at weird foreigners.
Academic analysis or political contextualisation,
meanwhile, is conspicuous by its absence. As
entertaining and poignant as many of the scenes
between bosses and workers are, they essentially
repeat the same point: the Chinese are utterly
disciplined at the expense of their rights and
private lives, whereas the Americans work hard
but unquestioningly privilege personal freedom
over the corporation that employs them.
Some moments in the film catch these
conflicts beautifully. Furnace supervisor
Rob makes a heartfelt effort to welcome and
befriend his younger Chinese counterpart
Wong, inviting him over for Thanksgiving
dinner and some recreational shooting with
his extensive gun collection. Chairman Cao,
the overall boss of Fuyao, is portrayed as an
unfeeling skinflint until right at the end, when
the filmmakers catch him in a quite unexpected
Rosebud moment. “I miss the croaking frogs and
chirping bugs of my childhood,” he laments.
“I’ve built so many factories. Have I taken the
peace away and destroyed the environment? I
don’t know if I’m a contributor or a sinner.”
This moment of introspection sums up the
War of the works: American Factory
film’s chief observation. Clanging, played-for-
laughs culture clashes notwithstanding, most
of these people are trying to do the right thing
as they’ve been conditioned to conceive of it –
but they’re caught up in the logical outcome of
globalised capitalism, in which communities
hitherto largely sealed off from one another
are going to be required to operate cheek by
jowl, and the differences go far beyond mere
food and language. Nor are these differences
ideological so much as behavioural. The
struggle we witness is certainly not between
capitalism and communism, but between an
American capitalism that springs from and
coexists with a deep investment in the idea
of personal liberty, and a Chinese version
that runs on the denial of any such thing.
American children, the Chinese workers are
informed, are “showered with encouragement”,
with the consequence that “everyone who
grows up in the US is overconfident”.
Squashing that confidence becomes the
Chinese employers’ chief preoccupation –
although in a further layer of irony, there’s
a whole US industry of union-avoidance
consultants on hand to aid them in this. Rob the
trigger-happy furnace supervisor, incidentally,
is one of some 3,000 American Fuyao recruits
who leave its employ as it’s finding its feet
in the country: he is fired for taking too long
to find a document on his computer.
work: there’s a very predictable child custody
battle, a mawkish terminal-cancer diagnosis, a
rote stages-of-life aspect and – this would seem
to be the coup de grâce – Kevin Costner as the
voice of a golden retriever named after Enzo
Ferrari. But equally you might almost say that
it’s as wilfully quirky as Wes Anderson’s Isle of
Dogs (2018), which is on one level also a tale of
a man and his dog, except that Curtis’s film is
more in the realm of a straight-to-TV afternoon
weepie (plenty of ‘scenes of emotional upset’
here). And yet… it’s very hard not to like. All of
these things, alongside that off-putting title,
remind me of what the late great Ken Campbell
used to say approvingly about the garish covers
of Philip K. Dick novels: “It keeps the wankers
away.” The Art of Racing in the Rain is what it is – a
summer-holiday family film with a loveable dog.
Milo Ventimiglia plays racing driver and part-
time mechanic Denny Swift, whose blandness
and lack of edge are utterly preposterous in
someone who aims to be in Formula One, yet
his Keanuesque affability keeps you suspending
your disbelief. When Denny falls in love with
Eve (Amanda Seyfried), his constant canine
companion Enzo is jealous and attempts to come
between them, though harmony is restored
when they marry and have a daughter, Zoe
(Ryan Kiera Armstrong). But, scenting decay,
Enzo soon realises that something is very wrong
with Eve, whose health rapidly declines. After
her death, Denny is left to fight his in-laws
(Martin Donovan gives good disapproving
father-in-law) for custody of his daughter.
The device of a narrating dog bearing witness
to events, where we hear his thoughts but he

Credits and Synopsis

Produced by Steven Bognar Lindsay Utz ©Dayton Factory Steven Bognar and In Colour
Steven Bognar Aubrey Keith Original Music Film, LLC Julia Reichert
Julia Reichert Jeff Reichert Chad Cannon Production Executive Producers Distributor
Jeff Reichert Julia Reichert Sound Design Company Jeff Skoll Netflix
Julie Parker Benello Erick Stoll Lawrence Everson Participant Media Diane Weyermann
Cinematography Edited by presents a film by

A documentary chronicling Chinese glass
company Fuyao’s takeover of a former General
Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio, which closed down
in 2008, with the loss of thousands of jobs.
In 2014 Fuyao brings in Chinese staff to train the
US workforce. Former GM workers are thrilled to be
employed again, but cultural differences quickly
surface, with the Chinese alarmed by the inferior
productivity and heightened health-and-safety
demands of their new colleagues, and the Americans
baffled by the Chinese workers’ subservience to
their bosses. On a visit to Fuyao’s Shanghai HQ,
US employees are confounded by elaborate musical
displays glorifying the company. Back in Ohio,
battle lines are drawn over unionisation, which
Fuyao boss Chairman Cao vehemently opposes.
Fuyao successfully enlists union-avoidance consultants
to dissuade employees from organising, and pretexts
are found to fire many pro-union workers. Americans
in senior positions are also fired in favour of Chinese
executives. Chairman Cao reminisces about the poor,
pre-industrial China of his childhood, wondering
whether his factories have done more harm than
good. Fuyao begins to introduce automation, allowing
it to shed more workers.
Closing captions note that the factory has
been profitable since 2018, paying a starting wage
of $14 an hour; also that by 2030 the advance
of automation will require some 375 million
people worldwide to find new types of work.
Mile of dogs: Milo Ventimiglia

56 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

 Asterix The Secret of the Magic Potion
Directors: Louis Clichy, Alexandre Astier
Certificate PG 86m 59s

can’t really intervene, allows for an unforced Reviewed by Leigh Singer successor to whom he can teach the secret recipe
reflective quality. Costner’s timbre owes more to Inspired by Disney’s theme parks, Parc Astérix for the magic potion that allows his Brittany
Rick Deckard than the usual puppyish voiceover, opened outside Paris in 1989 and has been village to hold out against Caesar’s invaders,

REVIEWS
and he lends an understated charm to Enzo’s wit pulling in visitors ever since. And just as Disney’s it ushers in a trademark Asterix and Obelix
and wisdom, his grizzled performance befitting monopolistic uber-studio has been cannily road trip. And if the action is largely confined
a dog who watches TV documentaries about restructuring and consolidating its blockbuster to Gaul, rather than providing opportunities
Mongolian Buddhism and thinks he is going to properties, from Marvel through Pixar, there’s to poke fun at the national stereotypes of
be reincarnated as a human. With his thoughts a sense that Asterix movies might finally be neighbouring countries in the manner of the
about the importance of living in the moment, following suit here too. The release of this comic books, there’s still much amusement to
of adapting to unpredictable elements in life, second 3D CG-animated outing for France’s be had at the expense of the hopelessly deluded
Enzo reminded me of another wise old golden favourite comic-book hero, following 2014’s The provincial French and hapless Roman army.
retriever, Shadow from Homeward Bound: The Mansions of the Gods, suggests, if not yet a Gaulish More interesting is the film’s nemesis, rogue
Incredible Journey (1993). Presumably, the film Cinematic Universe, then a continuation of the druid Demonix. Given animation’s lengthy
(and no doubt the bestselling novel on which it promising reboot for his 60th anniversary. production process, it’s likely his storyline was
is based) is attempting to evoke something of the Where the intermittent 1999-2012 live- developed long before Marvel’s 2018 superhero
duality of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, action versions with revolving casts (Gérard smash Black Panther hit the screens. Yet it’s
in that it’s simultaneously a straightforward story Depardieu’s Obelix the only actor to feature in uncanny how Demonix’s accusation – that
but also a philosophical meditation on life. Most all four films, opposite three different Asterixes) keeping the magic potion for one small group
problematic is a reference to the cause of Ayrton and the lacklustre hand-drawn Asterix and the betrays the greater community, which might also
Senna’s death at the San Marino grand prix in Vikings (2006) felt uncoordinated, Alexandre throw off its oppressors given access to the secret
1994, which is still argued over, and a spiritual Astier and Louis Clichy’s smart blend of retro- recipe – echoes that of Erik Killmonger’s rage at
reading that essentially says he was meant to die cartoon look and cutting-edge techniques seems Wakanda’s hoarding of its advanced technology.
that day – “his body had served its purpose. His a more natural, streamlined counterpart to However, Demonix’s solid logic is swiftly
soul had done what it came to do, learned what modern family-friendly franchise animation. overshadowed by his nefarious treachery, which
it came to learn, and then was free to leave.” In terms of gross, Mansions of the Gods was a top- echoes that of many a classic Disney villain,
But any film featuring “Seattle’s third- ten domestic release in 2014, and Astier and Pixar- even down to his giant shapeshifting in the
best Soundgarden tribute band” and a trained Clichy evidently feel confident enough to climactic scene. It’s here – as well as in the opening
malevolent/suicidal zebra that’s a proxy take greater risks this time. The Secret of the sequence
sequence’ss precision-toole
precision-tooled slapstick and the
for the destructiveness inside all of us can Magic Potion is only y the second Asterix finale’s surreal antic
antics with potion-powered
easily get away with the cheesiest of all feature, of the 14 too date, to use a story flying chickens – that this Asterix soars.
cheeseball endings, cycling back to the not derived from René Goscinny and In fact, there’s a strange correlation in
start in a ludicrous but still oddly affecting eloved comics.
Albert Uderzo’s beloved that, like the characters,
c the film is at
tale of trans-species reincarnation. heir
It’s credit then to their its most potent
pote when infused with
oned
screenplay (sanctioned magic elixi
elixir; without it, it can drag.
Credits and Synopsis by Uderzo and by Thankfull
Thankfully, there are enough
Goscinny’s widow) w) inventive visuals to compensate,
y of a
that it feels largely and much
muc wordplay with droll
Produced by Production Trish
Neal H. Moritz Companies Martin Donovan erix
piece with the Asterix character names, iincluding Beatnix,
Patrick Dempsey Fox 2000 Pictures Maxwell oeuvre. When the druid “master potion mixe
mixer” Vodkatonix and,
Tania Landau presents in Gary Cole
Screenplay association with Don Kitch Getafix resolves to o find a in an oddly random d dig at a Hollywood
Mark Bomback Starbucks Coffee Kevin Costner A-l
A-lister, sneaky Roman
Based on the novel Company an Original voice of Enzo
by Garth Stein Film/Shifting Ryan Kiera
Asterix: The Secret
et un
underling Callous
Director of Gears Productions Armstrong on
of the Magic Potion Fraudulous Tomcrus.
Photography production Zoë
Ross Emery Executive
Film Editor Producers In Colour Credits and Synopsis
Adam Recht Donald J. Lee Jr [1.85:1]
Production Joannie Burstein
Designer James C. France Distributor
Producer Production Designer Mikros Animation Ken Kramer Mark Oliver In Colour
Brent Thomas 20th Century Fox Philippe Bony Alexandre de Broca With the participation Asterix Caesar [2.35:1]
Music International (UK) Screenplay Composer of Mikros Image, C. Ernst Harth Saffron Henderson
Dustin O’Halloran Cast Alexandre Astier Philippe Rombi Canal+, OCS, Obelix Don Brown Distributor
Volker Bertelmann Milo Ventimiglia Louis Clichy Animation Directors M6 and W9 John Innes Ron Halder Altitude Film
Costume Designer Denny Swift Original Story Coline Veith With the support of La Getafix Andrew Cownden Entertainment
Monique Amanda Seyfried Alexandre Astier Jerome Charton Région Île-de-France Fleur Delahunty Brian Drummond
Prudhomme Eve Based on the work and the CNC Pectin Alec Willows French theatrical title
Kathy Baker of René Goscinny, Production Executive Producer Jason Simpson Howard Siegal Astérix Le Secret de
Albert Uderzo Companies Natalie Altmann Unhygienix/ Michael la Potion Magique
Present-day Seattle. Budding racing driver Denny Director of An M6 Studio Somniferus Adamthwaite
Swift is compared to Ayrton Senna because of his Photography production in Scott McNeil Andrew Cownden
outstanding ability to drive fast in the rain. Denny’s David Dulac co-production Voice Cast Fulliautomatix Sam Vincent
Editor with M6 Films English-language Michael Shepherd Brian Dobson
pet dog Enzo is perturbed when Denny falls in love Bertrand Maillard Executive production: version: Demonix
with Eve and they move house. But when Denny
and Eve’s daughter Zoe is born, Enzo becomes like Gaul under Julius Caesar, 50 BC. The druid Getafix injures Getafix’s protégé. Asterix quarrels with Getafix and
a big brother to her and harmony is restored. But himself collecting ingredients for the magic potion that is captured by Demonix, who also hypnotises Obelix.
Enzo smells cancer on Eve and is helpless to do gives the residents of his village superhuman strength Meanwhile, the village’s supplies of magic potion run
anything other than watch as her health declines. to resist the Roman invaders. He resolves to find a out under sustained attack by the Romans. Demonix
When Eve dies, Zoe’s parents demand custody of successor to whom he can pass on its secret recipe. and Cholerix are unable to make the magic potion
their granddaughter and take legal action after Warriors Asterix and Obelix – and a young stowaway correctly, instead mixing a concoction that allows
Denny physically lashes out at their plan. However, girl, Pectin – accompany him on his travels through Demonix to wield fire. He attacks both the Gauls and
grandmother Trish can’t bring herself to say that Gaul to search for the right candidate. At a druids’ the Romans, who team up to stop him. Asterix, Obelix
she witnessed the assault on her husband, and the gathering, Getafix’s old rival Demonix harangues him for and the rest of the villagers lead the fightback. Pectin
court awards custody to Denny. Meanwhile, Enzo is keeping the magic potion solely for his own village, and makes a new batch of magic potion. When Demonix
hit by a car and killed. He appears to be reincarnated threatens to steal the secret. Demonix makes a deal with grows to giant size after drinking a different brew,
as a young boy in Italy, where Denny now lives (with Caesar to give him the recipe in return for local power. Getafix conjures the allies into a huge combined
Zoe) as a test driver for Ferrari and where he dreams Demonix convinces young druid Cholerix to creature to defeat him. As the village celebrates,
of finally becoming a Formula One racing driver. dazzle Getafix with a spell. Cholerix is chosen as Getafix considers making Pectin his successor.

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 57

 The Big Meeting
United Kingdom 2019
Director: Daniel Draper
Certificate 12A 90m 59s
Reviewed by Jasper Sharp
Barring hiatuses during the two world wars
and the strike years of the 1920s, the Durham
REVIEWS
Miners’ Gala has taken place every year since it
was established in 1871 by the Durham Miners’
Association (DMA) trade union, itself formed
two years previously by workers in the energy-
producing heartlands of a heavily industrialising
Britain needing to fuel its rapacious colonial
interests. By the turn of the 20th century, the
DMA had grown into the largest and most
powerful workers’ union in the world, and the
gala’s annual street parade, culminating in a mass
congregation for political speeches at the city’s
racecourse, was a central event in the British
labour movement’s calendar, a celebration of the
defiant power of community and collectivism
and of the region’s proud coalmining heritage.
Some two decades after Brassed Off (1996)
and The Full Monty (1997) provided the cultural
markers for the New Labour landslide, the
heyday of the British coalminer and its turbulent
conclusion with the strikes and pit closures of the
1980s might feel like a bygone age. Nevertheless,
as is made abundantly clear in this documentary
filmed on the occasion of the 134th gala, held
on 14 July 2018, for many people such things
are still very much a part of living memory.
The Big Meeting casts its net wide in laying out
its case for the cultural, personal and national
importance of the gala in both past and present
days – too wide, perhaps. The vast number of
interviewees, be they academics outlining the
sociohistorical context of the rise of the labour
movement in this part of the world or local
figures talking about traditions such as banner-
making and brass bands – often find themselves
reduced to disembodied soundbites identified
only in tiny text in the corner of the screen as
the parades go by in a mixture of archive and
contemporary footage. But if the film feels bowed
down by the wealth of content, its loose structure
does sometimes bear fruit, such as the observation
that the reason brass-band music is either loud
and rousing or soft and gentle, never in between,
is because its original players’ everyday sonic
environment was either deafening industrial
noise or the serenity of the natural world.
This is a second feature from director Daniel
Draper, whose 2017 documentary Nature of the
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Patrick Dineen Matthew Bell
Christie Allanson Sound Design Susanne Levin
Daniel Draper Stefan Kazassoglou
Written by In Colour
Daniel Draper ©Shut Out The [1.78:1]
Director of Light Ltd
Photography Production Distributor
Allan Melia Company Shut Out the Light
Edited by Shut Out The Light
Christie Allanson Executive
Composer Producers
A documentary celebrating the 134th Durham
Miners’ Gala, held on 14 July 2018. The film
includes archive footage from previous years,
while a wide range of academics, trade-union
members, politicians and parade participants
discuss the gala’s history, its importance to the
British labour movement and its centrality in
commemorating the region’s coalmining heritage.
58 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
Miner insurgency: The Big Meeting
Beast, an uncritical portrait of ‘Beast of Bolsover’
Dennis Skinner, presented its subject as a lone,
no-nonsense voice of reason who succeeded
in lodging himself firmly among the echelons
of the British political establishment through
pluck and grit. It failed, however, to make much
of a case for his exerting any real influence
on the wider course of national politics.
The Big Meeting similarly shines a welcome
light on a swathe of society given little voice
by the contemporary media following the
decline of regional broadcasting in the UK, but
for all the evocations of workers’ solidarity and
a community united by pride in a common
industrial heritage, it somehow feels curiously
ahistorical. Various interviewees point to the
achievements of the union movement in regard
to the National Health Service, the rights of
workers, women and the LGBT community and
its solidarity with like-minded international
organisations, while the divide-and-conquer
politics of the Thatcher era are invoked. However,
there is little in the way of engagement with
the divisions currently facing the country.
The gala is described as “a piece of political
theatre” and “a people’s demonstration”. It
is mentioned that Tony Blair shunned the
event during his years in office, while Jeremy
Corbyn’s eulogising of its joyous celebration
“of a working-class culture, a working-class
history, a working class living and breathing
the spirit of communities co-operating
together” provides a much clearer indication
of where the film is coming from. Elsewhere,
Ben Sellers, of the social media team behind
Corbyn’s campaign as Labour leader, laments
how Durham “has become over the years a
middle-class oasis. This is the one day where
the working class take back their own stage.”
Those not stirred by the sound of a brass
band might find themselves distanced by the
film’s celebratory and nostalgic mood. With its
prominent endorsement by the DMA reflected
in its choice of contributors, The Big Meeting
declares a partisan approach that’s in danger
of speaking to the few, not the many.
The Bravest
Director: Tony Chan
Certificate 12A 118m 50s
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
A cursory glance at The Bravest reveals an old-
fashioned disaster movie, in which valiant fire
crews in a Chinese coastal city risk life and limb to
prevent a blaze at an oil refinery from spreading
to a nearby chemical-storage facility, where
exploding cyanide tanks could cause unthinkable
carnage. It’s important to note, however, that
China’s fire service was until very recently part of
the national army, and was only separated under
the supervision of the ministry of emergency
management. The assumption, then, is that the
film is a showpiece for the modern, reorganised
service – though perhaps more striking to
Western eyes is how the city’s Communist Party
chairman takes a central role in the unfolding
drama, since the command structure established
by the fire department ultimately answers to
him. The underlying message is that the Party is
looking after everyone’s best interests, and that in
the midst of such crisis situations it is coordinated
and combined effort that will win the day. In
fact, Party members among the fire crews are
specifically selected for the most dangerous tasks.
That said, the scenes of mass panic as social
media spreads video footage of the conflagration,
with highways gridlocked and local trains
swamped, also suggest the degree to which
disasters may outrun the Party’s ability to
control them, even if the heroic emergency
services eventually prevail. Moreover, the
inspiration for the film came from an extended
piece of literary reportage by the writer Baoerji
Yuanye on the suppressed details of a real-life
near-disaster in the port city of Dalian back in
2010, when hundreds of fire trucks assembled
to control a blaze at state oil giant PetroChina’s
refinery, a site dogged by safety issues in
recent years, which caught fire again in 2017
after undergoing major refurbishment.
Still, while the physical and computer-
generated resources available to the filmmakers
are indeed impressive, it would be wrong to
Into the flames: Huang Xiaoming

imagine that documentary-style veracity is
the keynote here, since The Bravest massages
the emotional impact of self-sacrifice to such a
shameless degree that it verges on laughable.
Forget the square-jawed forbearance on display
in Hollywood models such as Deepwater Horizon
(2016) and Only the Brave (2017). Here, there
are enough tears to dowse the conflagration,
as disposable cast members succumb to the
flames and their colleagues erupt in – glycerine-
assisted? – close-up grief. Schmaltz levels rise
alarmingly as one brigade makes a seemingly
doomed last stand against oil-spill flames that are
inexorably closing in on a supply of dangerous
chemicals: the captain encourages his men to
send one final message to their families, and
we’re treated to a lengthy series of tearfully
sincere farewells to mums and dads back
home as he records it all on his smartphone.
Of course, the sacrifices made by those brave
servicemen and women who run towards the fire
when everyone else is escaping do indeed bring
forth strong emotions, but in this instance the
excess delivers diminishing returns. By the time
what looks like the entire city lines the streets for
the fire service’s funeral cortège, it’s hard not to
feel somewhat numbed by the whole occasion.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Cast Chinese
Andrew Lau Jiang Du theatrical title
Peggy Lee Lie huo ying xiong
Written by
Ma Weiguo
Ge Gao
Chao Wang Weng Weng
Yonggan Yu Jason Gu
Inspired by the Zhou Hao
reportage of Yong Hou
Baoerji Yuanye Wu Chenguang
Production Xiaoming Huang
Designer Jiang Liwei
Sai-wan Lau Hao Ou
Sound Xu Xiaobin
Phyllis Cheng
In Colour
Production
Company
Subtitles
Bona Film Group Distributor
A Tony Chan film Sony Pictures
Releasing UK
A coastal city in China, present day. Fire-brigade
captain Jiang Liwei leads his men into a burning
building and rescues a young girl. A storeroom
of gas canisters explodes, killing one of his men.
When Liwei is reassigned to an out-of-town
crew, Ma Weiguo takes his position, eager to win
the approval of his ex-military father-in-law.
Both men are among the many fire crews called
in when a leak at an oil refinery causes a massive
blaze, threatening a nearby chemical-storage
facility containing cyanide. Local residents panic,
overloading roads and the transport system as
they flee. Liwei’s wife and small son are swept up
in the exodus. Meanwhile, the fire rages and the
valves linking the oil storage to the distribution
network must be shut down. Liwei leads a technician
into the flames to begin the process, but their
power-supply truck is destroyed, meaning that
the valves must be closed manually. Liwei’s wife
becomes separated from her son, but she finds him
at a hospital, where he has been taken by a kindly
older couple. The fire crews sustain casualties as
they battle the conflagration, and after a heroic
effort to close the valves, Liwei too is engulfed.
Huge crowds line the streets for the dead crew
members’ funeral cortège. Weiguo, whose crew
battled to prevent the chemical-storage facility
exploding, wins his father-in-law’s approval.
The Farewell
USA 2019
Director: Lulu Wang
Certificate PG 100m 10s
Reviewed by Vadim Rizov
Lulu Wang’s The Farewell is based on a true story –
or, as an opening title card has it, “a real lie”. When
REVIEWS
Wang’s paternal grandmother was diagnosed
with terminal cancer and given only six months
to live, her family decided to follow Chinese
norms and not let her know. The reasoning was
twofold: that the anxiety of knowing about a
diagnosis can kill faster than the cancer itself, and
that shouldering responsibility collectively as a
family to spare an individual needless pain is the
right thing to do. Wang, who was born in China
before moving to the US at the age of six, first told
the story as a segment on the radio programme
This American Life and stages it for her second
feature. (It remains decidedly a family affair:
Wang’s great-aunt Lu Hong appears as herself.)
The writer-director’s onscreen avatar is
Billi (Awkwafina), a first-generation Chinese
immigrant – in this case a struggling writer with Generation health: Awkwafina
an improbably large Brooklyn apartment. Little
time is wasted getting Billi and her family over to in one scene, a family banquet at a restaurant.
Changchun, China, where most of The Farewell With the camera planted on a revolving lazy
unfolds. The primary subject is culture-clash Susan, a family whose members are spread out
anxiety: a Chinese native who hasn’t returned between China, the US and Japan argue about
home in a long time, Billi has fears about their parental and cultural values, the view slowly
integrating back into the family group, where her resetting itself to take in repeatedly shuffled
status as someone more ‘American’ than Chinese configurations of combatants in an adroit use
and her shaky grasp of Mandarin inevitably set of widescreen staging. Those who’ve sent their
her apart. Benefiting from the novelty of being children away from China for higher education
an American independent film shot on location are alternately on the offensive and the defensive;
in China, The Farewell anchors itself in its star’s the sense of a family unavoidably stratified
rightly acclaimed performance. Exposed to shocks along different ideological lines is palpable.
and surprises big and small, Billi internalises most Generally, however, The Farewell is a low-
(but not all) of her anxiety, and Awkwafina avoids impact experience, in part by design. Averse
overplaying any of her reactions, instead seeming to purposeful discomfort, Wang avoids the
credibly on edge – and perpetually unsure about imposition of dramatic third-act reveals or
how much of that to let out – throughout. showily cathartic confrontations, but there’s still
When Billi wonders if it’s unethical to deceive a sense of plodding through a routine structure,
her grandmother (Zhao Shuzhen), her uncle in which every character serves a clear function,
Haibin (Jiang Yongbo) responds that such raising a point of conflict at regular intervals
thinking marks her as the product of Western until all strands have been resolved. It’s strange to
individualism as opposed to Chinese ideals of watch a film whose charged premise is rendered
collective responsibility. Yet this fraught territory so frictionless. If Awkwafina’s performance is
– the construction of first-generation identity in admirably free of pathos, the movie around her
an ever-expanding diaspora – only really crackles is softening the blows at every opportunity.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Production Nai Nai Brooklyn, the present. Billi, a struggling young writer
Daniele Melia Companies Lu Hong and first-generation Chinese immigrant, learns that
Marc Turtletaub A24 and Ray little Nai Nai
Peter Saraf Production presents Jiang Yongbo her application for a Guggenheim Fellowship has been
Andrew Miano Big Beach presents Uncle Haiban rejected. Her parents tell her that her Nai Nai (paternal
Chris Weitz Kindred Spirit Chen Han grandmother) has been diagnosed with terminal
Jane Zheng presents in Hao Hao cancer and given six months to live. They plan to fly to
Lulu Wang association with Aoi Mizuhara
Changchun, China, where the family will say goodbye to
Anita Gou Depth Of Field, Aiko
Written by Seesaw a Lulu Zhang Jing Nai Nai under the pretext of gathering for the wedding
Lulu Wang Wang film Gu Gu of Billi’s cousin Hao Hao. Following Chinese custom, the
Director of A Big Beach Yang Xuejian family decide not to tell Nai Nai about her diagnosis.
Photography production Mr Li Billi’s parents, worried that she won’t be able to restrain
Anna Franquesa- Supported by the
Solano Sundance Institute In Colour herself from breaking the news to her grandmother, tell
Edited by Feature Film Program [1.85:1] her that she shouldn’t come. Ignoring their instructions,
Michael Taylor Executive Producer Part-subtitled Billi arrives after the rest of the family, startling her
Matthew Friedman Eddie Rubin parents but delighting Nai Nai. In the days leading up
Production Designer Distributor
Yong Ok Lee
to the wedding, Billi spends time with her grandmother
Entertainment Film
Music by/Piano Cast Distributors Ltd while getting into arguments with her family members
Alex Weston Awkwafina as to whether they’re doing the right thing by not
Sound Designer Billi letting Nai Nai know about her diagnosis. At the
Gene Park Tzi Ma wedding banquet, Billi delivers a tearfully emotional
Costume Designer Haiyan
Athena Wang Diana Lin speech. The trip comes to an end and Billi returns home.
Lu Jian An epilogue reveals that six years later, Nai Nai
©Big Beach, LLC Zhao Shuzhen (the filmmaker’s real grandmother) is still alive.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 59
 Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw
USA/Japan 2019
Director: David Leitch
Certificate 12A 135m 43s
Reviewed by Lou Thomas
If the thought of a ninth entry in the Fast & Furious
series leaves you wearied, it’s some comfort to
REVIEWS
know that David Leitch is on directorial duties.
While the artistic value of Fast & Furious Presents:
Hobbs & Shaw may be called into question, Leitch
is a solid helmsman for entertaining genre thrills.
As a former stuntman who doubled for Brad Pitt
five times, an uncredited co-director of John Wick
(2014) and the director of Atomic Blonde (2017),
he’s taken part in and marshalled contemporary
action cinema with aplomb. Here he pairs recent
series regulars Dwayne Johnson and Jason
Statham for the inaugural franchise spin-off.
When MI6 agent Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby)
retrieves a killer virus immediately before bionic
super-soldier Brixton Lorr (Idris Elba) can steal
it for his Eteon terrorist group, she injects it into
herself, using her body as a sort of biological
safety deposit box. She goes on the lam, knowing
that the virus will kill her in three days unless it’s
extracted. The virus is called Snowflake, perhaps
a winked reference to the contemporary term
for ‘wimp’ used by online bullies and unpleasant
media pundits. Naming a virus as such may seem
rather on the nose, but so is naming your chief
antagonist after London’s most famous black
neighbourhood when the actor playing him is
perhaps cinema’s most famous black Londoner.
American diplomatic security agent Luke Hobbs
(Johnson) and Hattie’s brother, former British
special forces officer Deckard Shaw (Statham)
are tasked with saving Hattie, and the day.
These two, who had a tempestuous love-
hate relationship in the previous two official
Fast & Furious instalments, are definitely not
snowflakes, which you can tell from their
incessant fighting, unsophisticated macho
bants and Hobbs’s supposed romantic interest
in Hattie. Given Johnson and Kirby’s non-
chemistry, it would’ve been more believable and
interesting to see him couple up with Statham.
Implausible sexual attraction aside, Hobbs &
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by David Scheunemann Crafty Apes
Dwayne Johnson Score Cantina Creative
Jason Statham Tyler Bates Exceptional Minds
Chris Morgan Sound Design and Stunt Co-ordinators
Hiram Garcia Supervision Simon Crane
Screenplay Mark Stoeckinger Chris O’Hara
Chris Morgan Peter Brown UK:
Drew Pearce Costume Designer Pete White
Story Sarah Evelyn
Chris Morgan Visual Effects ©Universal Studios
Director of Dneg Production
Photography Framestore Companies
Jonathan Sela One of Us Universal Studios
Editor Rise Visual Effects presents a Chris
Christopher Rouse Studios Morgan Productions/
Production Designer Outpost VFX Seven Bucks
London, present day. MI6 agent Hattie Shaw injects
herself with a deadly virus to avoid it falling into
the hands of Brixton Lorr, a cyber-enhanced soldier
working for the terrorist group Eteon. Hattie will die
if the virus is not extracted from her body within 72
hours. Federal agent Luke Hobbs and former British
special forces officer Deckard Shaw (Hattie’s brother)
are assigned to work together to track down the
virus, despite their history of mutual enmity. Hobbs
finds Hattie and takes her to a secret CIA office.
Deckard joins them but Brixton attacks the office
and kidnaps Hattie. Deckard realises that Brixton
is a former colleague. Deckard and Hobbs rescue
60 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
For Sama
United Kingdom/USA 2019
Director: Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
Certificate 18 99m 50s
Reviewed by Nikki Baughan
Eight years after civil war broke
See Feature out in Syria, and with much of
on page 32 the country reduced to rubble,
the outpouring of pain and
protest continues to be felt in a
slew of arresting and affecting films, both fictional
(such as Philippe Van Leeuw’s In Syria) and factual
(including Talal Derki’s Oscar-nominated Of Fathers
and Sons and Evgeny Afineevsky’s Cries from Syria).
Now former Aleppo resident and self-taught
video journalist Waad al-Kateab adds her
voice to the growing throng with For Sama,
Splinter cell: Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham one of the most powerful and essential films
to come out of the country in recent years.
Shaw offers a familiar baseline of ludicrously Co-directed with Emmy-winning filmmaker
OTT action and angrily spat-out quips. The ripe Edward Watts, it’s a first-person account of
dialogue throughout Chris Morgan and Drew exactly what it means to live smack-bang in
Pearce’s screenplay is often naive in the extreme, the middle of an active war zone. Told squarely
but it takes a very po-face not to chortle when from a female perspective, it also offers a
Johnson relays yet another brainless bon mot viewpoint rarely seen in films about conflict.
(“I’m what ya call a nice cold can of whup-ass”). This comes predominantly from Waad
Statham, meanwhile, isn’t quite as funny as herself, who in 2011 was studying for a business
he managed to be in Spy (2015) but provokes degree – a freedom already hard won from her
laughter during a slapstick sequence in which traditional parents – when protests against the
our heroes have to beat up a series of Eteon dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad began sweeping
minions and use the half-dead soldiers’ retina across Aleppo. Picking up a camera initially to
scans to proceed through locked doors. True to document her fellow students daubing protest
form, Leitch mounts the noisy carnage here and messages on the campus walls, she continued
elsewhere with pace and clarity. Elba has fun to film as Arab Spring optimism descended
with the bionic snarling and glowering, though into violent chaos, the regime fighting back
there’s none of the malevolent subtlety of his against protesters in the most heinous of ways.
role as arch-criminal Stringer Bell in The Wire. Her ever-present camera watches, unflinchingly,
When Hobbs and the Shaws enlist as events unfold over the course of the following
Snowflake creator Professor Andreiko to four years, and Aleppo becomes a place of
steal the virus extractor from Eteon’s Ukraine nightmarish daily violence. Yet Waad resolutely
factory, one spectacular bout of industrial stays in the city. She is at first gripped by the
havoc sees giant smokestacks topple around promise of true revolution; then, when she falls
our heroes after Eddie Marsan’s professor for and marries doctor Hamza, she stays for love;
gleefully wields a flamethrower. Like Hobbs and, finally, she is seized by a determination to
& Shaw as a whole, the scene’s overblown, help her beloved city in its time of absolute crisis.
CGI-enhanced chaos goes on a bit too long and As the footage jumps backwards and forwards
lacks nuance but is still satisfying viewing. in time, taking in the beginnings of the war in
2011 and the subsequent intensifying atrocities,
accomplished editing by Chloë Lambourne and
Simon McMahon brings both narrative drive
and cohesion, without ever detracting from or
production Jason Statham Joe Anoma’i
A David Leitch film Deckard Shaw Mateo labouring the scenes playing out before us. And so,
Presented in Idris Eba Lori Tuisano like Waad, we bear often claustrophobic witness
association with Brixton Lorr Sefina
Dentsu Inc. Vanessa Kirby Eddie Marsan to traumas that, at times, are unbearable. Two
Executive Producers Hattie Shaw Professor Andreiko young boys bring the body of their brother to
Dany Garcia Cliff Curtis
Kelly McCormick Jonah Hobbs Dolby Atmos/DTS-X
the hospital, killed by shelling while they were
Ethan Smith Helen Mirren In Colour playing at their home and unable to be saved
Ainsley Davies Queenie Shaw [2.35:1]
Steven Chasman Eliana Su’a
despite the best efforts of Hamza and the medical
Samantha Distributor team. When Waad begins to sob, Hamza tells her
John Tui Universal Pictures to remove herself; there is simply no room for
Cast Kal International
Dwayne Johnson Josh Magua UK & Eire emotion when working under such conditions.
Luke Hobbs Timo His grief, of course, comes later; the impact on both
Hattie after a chase through London’s streets. Waad and Hamza, who lose several friends and
The trio find Professor Andreiko, who created the colleagues during the course of filming, is seismic.
virus. Andreiko explains that Hattie must extract the This real-world horror is further brought home
virus using a device in the Eteon factory in Ukraine. by the fact that, throughout, Waad overlays her
The gang steal the device and destroy the factory. journalistic images with an intimate voiceover,
Deckard, Hattie and Hobbs head to the latter’s
childhood home in Samoa to prepare for a final detailing her own experiences, thoughts and
confrontation with Brixton and extract the virus. feelings. Poignantly, this narration is constructed
Brixton attacks with his Eteon cohorts and Hattie as a letter to her daughter Sama, who was born
is taken aboard his helicopter. Deckard, Hobbs and during her parents’ final months in Aleppo,
his family chase Brixton and eventually defeat him, to the sound of bombs and shelling. The fact
though they stop short of killing him. Brixton is
killed by Eteon’s unknown boss via remote control.
that, as an infant, Sama remains completely
unfazed by the cacophony of war, sleeping
 For the Birds
USA 2018
Director: Richard Miron
Certificate: not submitted

Reviewed by Hannah McGill

With its rural New York setting and themes of
physical squalor, emotional co-dependency and

REVIEWS
the negotiation between self and society, this
first feature inevitably calls to mind the Maysles
brothers’ iconic Grey Gardens (1975). If it lacks a
central figure as charming as ‘Little’ Edie Beale
– our protagonist here, Kathy Murphy, is much
more testing company – For the Birds follows Grey
Gardens in anatomising with compassion and
carefully managed judgement a deep-rooted and
painfully complicated human relationship. Did
Kathy start keeping birds because her marriage
was unfulfilling? Or did things falter between
her and husband Gary because she filled the
marital residence with birds? “I like to look at
’em and stuff, but I wish they were a little bit
further away,” says Gary of the fowl that overrun
his home. Later, and less endearingly, Gary
states of Kathy that “she had one job from the
day I married her: to be a housewife, to keep the
mobile home clean. And she failed miserably.”
Neither soundbite sums up Gary or their
relationship, of course; and it’s to director Richard
Miron’s credit that he emphasises the complex
ebb and flow of neediness and resentment
between the Murphys, rather than identifying
an abuser and a victim for the sake of more
straightforward drama. As Kathy undertakes
a legal battle to retain her birds, and she and
Gary drift further apart, other characters emerge
with startling vividness: William Brenner, a
A season in hell: Waad, Sama al-Kateab tremendously enthusiastic local lawyer who
takes on Kathy’s case pro bono; and Sheila Hyslop,
through the nightly onslaught and giggling reminder that, in times of conflict, life marches a stormily charismatic animal-welfare worker
as her parents run with her for cover, speaks defiantly on. A plant cutting, taken from Waad whose indignation on behalf of the birds does
volumes about how the very young can come and Hamza’s garden when they were forced to battle with her compassion for their owner.
to regard such conflict as normal life. flee their bombed home, becomes a poignant Amid the layers of loyalty and legality,
Yet, as her parents attempt to make a life for symbol of human tenacity and optimism. Other propriety and power, pride and bloody-
her in the city’s one remaining hospital amid flashes of hope pierce the darkness: footage mindedness that govern relations between
all the death and destruction, a handful of toys of Hamza and Waad’s joyful wedding; Hamza these people, it’s striking how rarely anyone
scattered around their small room, it’s also a playing peek-a-boo with Sama during one of has a direct conversation. Gary deploys Sheila
their frequent trips to the hospital basement to and her colleagues to communicate an obvious
Credits and Synopsis escape the missiles; a seemingly stillborn baby, truth that he seems unable to express to his wife
born to a wounded mother, brought back to even after 25 years of marriage: there are
life by the medical team’s unrelenting efforts. too many birds in the house. The welfare
Produced by Production In Colour
Waad al-Kateab Companies Subtitles These are, however, brief moments of escape
Filmed by A Channel 4 News from the never-ending onslaught, which,
Waad al-Kateab & ITN Productions Distributor
Edited by feature documentary Republic Film finally, forces Waad and Hamza to leave their
Chloë Lambourne for Channel 4 and Distribution beloved country in 2016 in search of safety
Simon McMahon PBS Frontline
Music Executive
(Waad now works as a filmmaker for Channel
Nainita Desai Producers 4). It’s a difficult decision for Waad, who is torn
Dubbing Mixer Ben de Pear
Jez Spencer Nevine Mabro
between her responsibilities as a mother and
Siobhan Sinnerton her loyalty to a country – and a cause – that she
©Channel 4 George Waldrum truly believes in. That internal battle comes
Television Raney Aronson-Rath
Corporation Dan Edge through in her narration, recorded after Sama’s
birth. While her tone is measured and, often,
A documentary by Waad al-Kateab, who in 2011 weary, it nevertheless reverberates with the
was studying for a business degree at university in
Aleppo when protests against the dictatorship of
anger and injustice of the intolerable situation
Bashar al-Assad began sweeping the city. Picking up that she and other ordinary people like her have
her camera to document the actions of her fellow found themselves in through no fault of their
students, Waad continued filming as the regime’s own. “We never thought the world would let
forces responded with unimaginable violence. this happen,” she states, a personal lament that
Making the decision to stay in Aleppo with her doctor
strikes a powerful, gut-wrenching chord.
husband Hamza, Waad spent the next four years
fighting to stay alive while raising her young daughter Indeed, the events depicted in For Sama are so
and helping her husband and their team of volunteers appalling, so hellish, that it is tempting to look
to save as many lives as possible. Narrating her own away, to pretend it’s not happening. But we owe
experiences as a video diary for her daughter, Waad it to Waad, and so many others like her, not only
explains why she made the difficult decision to stay to give it our full attention, but to scream its
in Syria – and why, in 2016, she finally had to leave.
humanitarian message from the rooftops. Under the feather: Kathy Murphy

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 61


people are no less loath to be frank with
Kathy, and the results are disastrous;
when communications break down, it’s not
REVIEWS
because they want to take her birds away, but
because they try to mislead her about it. But if
the message is clear, that honest communication
helps to prevent future pain, the film is arguably
guilty of its own problematic evasions. Kathy’s
mental health is glancingly referenced here and
there, but not explored, even though there’s
clearly more going on than mere eccentricity.
At times, it’s hard not to feel frustration that
sensible and hardworking people are going to
such lengths to spare the feelings of someone
who appears in need of intervention of a more
direct and medical kind. We’re not told, either,
exactly what caused the estrangement between
Kathy and her daughter, though Gary indicates
that Kathy’s behaviour pushed relatives away.
Whether Kathy is medicated at the close of
the film – when we see her making a new home
for herself, with limited chicken presence, after
divorce from Gary and his death – we don’t
know. But she is distinctly upbeat, observing
that “just because you’re older, doesn’t mean you
can’t change. You can learn or unlearn things.”
It’s a superficially happy ending, but one with
a bittersweet message behind it: Gary’s death
has freed her. Chickens or no chickens, this
couple found it impossible to flourish as long
as they were entangled with each other.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by and Lunamax VOD certificate: 15
Richard Miron Films production Running time:
Jeffrey Star in association 92m 29s
Holly Meehl with Cedar Creek
Cinematography Productions
Richard Miron Made with support
Edited by from Independent
Richard Miron Filmmaker Project
Jeffrey Star Executive
Original Score Produced by
Andrew Johnson Cindy Meehl
Sound Recordists Brian Reed
Jeffrey Star
Sean McCusker In Colour
Greg Murtha [1.78:1]
Zhanna Kugotova Part-subtitled
Christian Chapman
Distributor
©Birds Dogwoof
Documentary, LLC
Production Not submitted
Companies for theatrical
A Treelight Pictures classification
Documentary. In Wawarsing, New York, Kathy
Murphy and her husband of 25 years, Gary, share
their rundown mobile home with Kathy’s pet birds,
of which there are in excess of 150. Kathy and Gary
live largely estranged from friends and family, a
situation with which Gary is uncomfortable. The
local SPCA enlists law enforcement in its attempts
to reduce Kathy’s menagerie; Gary is supportive of
this. Though initially cooperative, Kathy is furious
when her two prized turkeys are removed, and can’t
forgive Gary for siding with the authorities. The
SPCA obtains a court warrant to remove more birds.
An eccentric lawyer represents Kathy pro bono, but
loses the case. Kathy is given a five-year suspended
sentence and forbidden to acquire any more birds.
Kathy and Gary divorce, though Gary, increasingly
sick with diabetes, continues to depend on Kathy
for company and support. Gary dies. Kathy inherits
enough money from him to obtain a new mobile
home in a different locale. She has a housewarming
party, which her daughter and grandchildren attend.
62 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
Good Boys
USA 2019
Director: Gene Stupnitsky
Certificate 15 89m 39s
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
In another socioeconomic context they would
be choirboys hitting pure high notes, but in Good
Boys three US middle-schoolers use those piping
unbroken tones to fire off volleys of expletives for
comic effect. With today’s tweens under pressure
to grow up faster than ever, there is mileage in
this transitional moment, and a consistent vein
of humour has these still fairly innocent boys
grappling with an adult world they haven’t yet
got a handle on. There are numerous areas of
complication, such as the precise purpose of their
parents’ sex toys, the traumatic images of straight
hardcore porn, why people would take illegal
drugs and even the correct usage of tampons, as
the film mines their incomplete comprehension
to amuse a knowing adult audience.
Effectively, the storytelling remains inside
the boys’ limited perspective, and if that means
the comedy is to some extent one-note, then so
be it. While the later teens remains the most
common age for rites-of-passage comedy and
drama (producing partners Seth Rogen and Evan
Goldberg also brought us 2007’s Superbad, in
which two high-school pals warily approach
the adult realm of college life), tween territory is
significantly less well trodden. Good Boys brings
to mind the issues of friendship and maturity
memorably tackled by Rob Reiner’s similarly cast
Stand by Me (1986). Except that it updates it to a
modern world of anal beads and ecstasy tablets.
Parents of kids this age may be somewhat
concerned by the shenanigans on display,
as our plucky trio skip school to replace a
valuable drone, lost during an attempt to spy
on teenage neighbours and hence fathom the
mysteries of osculation. Jacob Tremblay’s Max
has been invited to a classmate’s ‘kissing party’,
where the girl he fancies will be present, and
his best friends Thor (Brady Noon) and Lucas
(Keith L. Williams) have vowed their support,
even though the prospect of actually kissing
anyone terrifies all three of them. Subsequent
misadventures see them selling a parent’s sex
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Jeremy Stanbridge presents in
Lee Eisenberg Music association with
Evan Goldberg Lyle Workman Good Universe a Point
Seth Rogen Production Grey production
James Weaver Sound Mixers A Lee Eisenberg &
Written by Donald Painchaud Gene Stupnitsky film
Lee Eisenberg Chris Duesterdiek Executive Producers
Gene Stupnitsky Costume Designer Josh Fagan
Director of Carla Hetland Nathan Kahane
Photography Brady Fujikawa
John Furmanski ©Universal Studios John Powers
Editor Production Middleton
Daniel Gabbe Companies
Production Designer Universal Pictures
Suburban US, present day. Sixth-grade friends Max, Thor
and Lucas – who are not among the cool kids at school
– accept a beer-drinking challenge set by alpha tween
Soren. Max acquits himself well enough to be invited to
Soren’s ‘kissing party’, which Brixlee, a female classmate
on whom he has a crush, will also be attending.
The prospect of kissing terrifies the boys, so in an
attempt to gain tips they use Max’s father’s off-limits
drone to spy on teenage neighbour Hannah and her
boyfriend. But Hannah and her friend Lily keep the
crashed drone, causing the boys to steal Hannah’s
handbag, which contains ecstasy tablets. As a
standoff ensues, the drone is destroyed. The boys,
horrified at being in possession of drugs, dispose
Jacob Tremblay, Brady Noon, Keith L. Williams
doll under the impression that it’s used for CPR
practice, crossing a busy freeway on foot and
buying ecstasy off a frat member – episodic
highlights vigorously handled by director Gene
Stupnitsky to elicit crowd-pleasing laughter.
While the chuckle count is definitely higher
here than in many of today’s mainstream would-
be comedies, there’s so much hustle and bustle in
the telling that the film doesn’t quite convey how
the chums’ pure-hearted friendship represents
a special time in their lives. As a result, when
the plot engineers a separation, it doesn’t carry
the emotional heft of Stand by Me. That’s a very
high benchmark for comparison, though what
is quite touching in this instance is the degree
to which the boys, for all the naughty scrapes
they get into, are essentially caring individuals.
They love their mums and dads, wouldn’t
dream of kissing a girl without her consent, and
worry about the damage that drugs do to the
community. Despite the grandstanding four-
letter words, persuasive performances from
the three likeable leads genuinely persuade
us that the title isn’t altogether ironic.
Cast Will Forte Millie Davis
Jacob Tremblay Max’s dad Brixlee
Max Retta
Keith L. Williams Lucas’ mom Dolby Surround 5.1
Lucas Mariessa Portelance In Colour
Brady Noon Max’s mom [2.35:1]
Thor Michaela Watkins
Molly Gordon drone saleswoman Distributor
Hannah Matt Ellis Universal Pictures
Mr K International
Lil Rel Howery
Lucas’ dad Sam Richardson UK & Eire
Midori Francis Officer Sacks
Lily Izaac Wang
Soren
of the pills. Hannah and Lily buy a new drone, which
they’ll exchange for replacement drugs if the boys
can obtain some – which they do, after a frat-house
encounter turns into a paint-ball scrap. Max’s father
returns from a trip earlier than expected, so Max flies
the replacement drone back into the house, causing
much damage. He is grounded. Nevertheless, the three
friends sneak out that night to go to Soren’s party.
Lucas bails out early, Thor can’t face ‘spin the bottle’
with Brixlee, and Max kisses her in front of everyone.
It’s a sign that the boys’ friendship is changing.
Lucas starts to hang out with the geek kids and
Thor takes up musical theatre, but the three
friends vow to “be there for the big stuff”.
Good Posture
Director: Dolly Wells
Reviewed by Anna Smith
A bored young woman moves in with a married
couple in this engaging debut from writer and
actor Dolly Wells. It was filmed in six weeks
on location in Brooklyn with Wells’s friends
– some are more famous than others, but
they all bring plenty to this gently humorous
observational drama. Grace Van Patten takes
centre stage as the sulky Lilian, who seems
every inch the emotionally neglected but
materially spoiled daughter of a famous father,
which it transpires she is. Less predictable is the
direction the story takes. After a stoned night
partying with Don, Lilian doesn’t become the
teen temptress or the other woman in a love
triangle: instead, she’s left living with Don’s
wife Julia, a celebrated novelist who stays in her
room and communicates largely by note (a neat
gender flip of the reclusive male-writer trope).
And so this becomes a literary two-hander
that demands far less time of its bankable star
Emily Mortimer (Wells’s co-star and co-writer in
the series Dol & Em), whose Julia appears rarely
and mostly in voiceover. When Mortimer is on
screen, she’s magnificent and helps to establish a
mood as efficiently as Wells’s sharp, economical
script. The scene in which Lilian first meets
Julia is fantastically awkward. “Do you have a
cold?” asks Julia when Lilian proffers her hand,
swiftly characterising her as a germaphobe
who cares little for politeness and who’s no
fan of house guests, either. It’s only on paper,
safely away from physical contact, that Julia
softens and shows fondness for the “entitled
oaf” living under her roof – and it’s there that
Lilian can reveal her own intelligence, stripped
of the beauty she implicitly relies on to cruise
through life without stretching herself too hard.
More pronounced comedy comes from an
enjoyable array of supporting characters, chief
among them Sol, a camp cameraman who’s
thrilled to be helping Lilian make a documentary
about Julia (this despite the fact that Julia
doesn’t even know about the project and that
he’s read none of her books). Cameos from the
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Production Designer Executive Producers
Jamie Adams Charlotte Abbott James Norrie
Maggie Monteith Sound Bob Portal
Written by Simon Gerschon Chris Reed
Dolly Wells Costume Designer
Director of Emmanuelle Martin
Photography Cast
Ryan Eddleston Production Emily Mortimer
Editor Company Julia Price
Adelina Bichis Talland Films Grace Van Patten
Brooklyn, present day. Having split from her boyfriend
Nate, Lilian moves in with family friends – famous
British author Julia Price and her musician husband
Don. Lilian’s father is in Paris with his French girlfriend
Celeste, Lilian’s mother having passed away. An
apparent excerpt from a documentary sees author
Zadie Smith paying tribute to Julia’s talents. Lilian
has a tense dinner with Julia on the first evening
but bonds with Don, who leaves the house after a
row with his wife. Over the next few days, Julia stays
in her room and communicates only by writing
in Lilian’s journal when she’s out of her room.
Lilian gets to know the family dog walker George, and
decides to film a documentary about Julia to impress
Nate, who’s now dating a documentary maker. After
Straight up: Grace Van Patten
documentary’s famous contributors playing
themselves err close to self-indulgence, and
the first one runs confusingly early in the film,
before the idea of the doc has been introduced.
But they’re well enough scripted, and perhaps
improvised, to deliver both narratively and
humorously, with Zadie Smith on especially
naturalistic and funny form. To make things
even more New York-flavoured, there are also
dogs, dog walkers, clumsy dates and coffees
galore. It’s unmistakably Brooklyn, but there’s
still something universal about this story of
abandonment, connection and inspiration; an
understated indie that suggests Wells could
easily be the next Gerwig or Baumbach
Lillian Norbert Leo Butz In Colour
Condola Rashad Lillian’s father
Nate’s girlfriend John Early Distributor
Gary Richardson Sol Pinpoint
Nate Emmanuelle Martin
Ebon Moss- Celeste
Bachrach Zadie Smith
Don Jonathan Ames
Timm Sharp Martin Amis
George themselves
interviewing potential cameramen, Lilian sleeps with
one and hires another, Sol. They rent a studio and set up
interviews with Zadie Smith, Martin Amis and Jonathan
Ames. Smith reveals that Julia lost a baby before coming
to New York and was later transfixed by the sight of a
mother and toddler, revealed to be Lilian with her late
mother. The next day, Julia leaves out a copy of her novel
‘Good Posture’, with a note that reads: “To loveable Lilian,
an inspiration then and now.” Lilian discovers that her
father is back in New York with a pregnant Celeste and
doesn’t want Lilian to live with them. Julia finds out
about the documentary from Sol and is displeased.
Lilian writes an apology and Julia invites Lilian into her
room, asking her to play the ukulele. The next day, Julia
reunites with Don to walk the dog, and Lilian moves out.
Hero
Canada/Trindad and Tobago 2018
Director: Frances-Anne Solomon
Certificate 12A 111m 8s
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
Trinidadian lawyer and war hero Ulric Cross is not
a name known to the public, but this engrossing
REVIEWS
biographical drama-documentary shows how
his life and times joined the dots between WWII
valour and the tricky post-colonial transition
for several new African republics. There’s a little
footage of Cross himself, resilient though ailing
towards the end of his life – he passed away in
2013 at the age of 96 – but to a great extent this
is a reconstruction, scripted for actors, using
a wealth of cannily chosen archive footage
to fill in the backgrounds. Anglo-Trinidadian
filmmaker Frances-Anne Solomon evidently
had to work with modest budgetary means,
but she deftly integrates newly shot interiors
and car and train journeys within the fabric of
vintage newsreel in a way that, while not exactly
seamless, nevertheless draws us into the reality
of these events and Cross’s place in them.
For a bright boy from Trinidad, the coming of
the war offered him an escape to Britain – a country
that was to provide and thwart opportunities for
advancement. With ‘colonials’ apparently not
deemed capable of piloting aircraft, Cross worked
his way into the cockpit as the navigator on
dangerous pathfinder missions, where Mosquito
planes flew close to the ground to illuminate
targets for following bombers. Awarded the DSO
and DFC, Cross was reputedly the most-decorated
West Indian in the force, but even though he
passed his bar exams after the war, there was
simply no way into the legal profession in Britain
for someone from his background. However,
myriad factors offered him a way forward, not least
his job producing talks for the BBC’s Caribbean
radio service. This brought him into contact
with thinkers C.L.R. James and George Padmore,
whose Afrocentric work anticipated African
independence movements before Ghana become
the trailblazer in 1957. Thanks to Padmore’s
role in helping President Nkrumah gain power,
Cross was to join the new administration, and
soon found himself facing hard lessons about
the continuing sway of tribal loyalties and
former imperial powers who were not about to
relinquish their economic interests so easily.
Much of this unfolds via dialogue-driven
scenes, but Solomon knows to keep the pace
up, and Nickolai Salcedo, playing the younger
Cross, has enough screen presence to keep
us involved, generating a palpable sense of
thwarted idealism as someone who’s been on the
frontline against fascism and has a grounding
in British legal practice yet finds himself
struggling with realpolitik. From Ghana
Renaissance man: Nickolai Salcedo
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 63
 Honeyland
North Macedonia/Switzerland/USA 2019
Directors: Ljubomir Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska
Certificate 12A 89m 34s

to Cameroon and eventually Tanzania, Reviewed by Nikki Baughan

he sees nationalist dreams floundering, An extraordinary documentary
partly for the lack of legal expertise in newly See Rushes both in terms of subject and
REVIEWS

formed regimes, but also because of local power on page 9 craft, Honeyland is a powerful,
struggles and the activities of imperialist forces moving exploration of the
for whom Cold War anti-communism makes delicate balance of tradition
a convenient cover for nefarious meddling. and modernity in the most rural of locations.
The whole process is fascinating in its From the jaw-dropping opening sequence, in
complexity, and since the struggle of post-colonial which a middle-aged woman clambers through
transition is a relatively rare cinematic subject the imposing terrain to locate a beehive on a
matter, it gives the film genuine cachet, even craggy overhang and extract its honey, first-time
though the narrative structure rather falls away directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov
towards the end. Jessica B. Hill doesn’t have much demonstrate such innate dramatic and cinematic
to do as Cross’s daughter Nichola except to look sensibilities, such an eye for evocative detail, that
soulfully at family photos, but her presence at times their film could almost seem like expertly
as keeper of the flame does tie in the real-life crafted fiction. Yet this tale of a female beekeeper
footage of Ulric and his white English spouse in rural Macedonia is deeply, earthily authentic, a
Ann (whose experiences possibly warrant a film portrait of an ancient way of life that’s baked into
in themselves), even if the notion of her father as the soil but proves to be as fragile as a bee’s wing.
inspirational freedom fighter is represented by a Fiftysomething Hatidze Muratova scrapes out
catch-all closing montage linking Castro, black a living amid the rolling mountains as a wild
power and today’s LGBT activists under a too beekeeper, Europe’s last remaining one, according Land of silk and honey: Hatidze, Nazife Muratova
broad banner of resistance. Still, the title gets it to the film’s promotional material. When she isn’t
right: Ulric Cross was indeed a hero, and it’s more caring for her ailing 85-year-old mother Nazife, genial expression. Yet her lifestyle, it becomes
than worthwhile making his acquaintance. Hatidze spends her days scouting for and carefully clear, is fuelled more by duty than choice.
maintaining hives. Ensuring that she leaves The genuine intimacy brokered between
Credits and Synopsis enough honey for the bees to prosper, she sells film and viewer means that it’s something of
her wares at the city market. While her existence a shock when a large family of nomadic Turks
may be cloistered to the point of claustrophobia, suddenly roar into view and pitch up next door,
Produced by Production Jimmy Akingbola
Frances-Anne Companies Kwame Nkrumah Hatidze is nevertheless charming, engaging bringing with them hordes of children and cattle.
Solomon Hero Film, Fraser James and sharp-witted; shooting over three years, the Initially meaning to work the land, patriarch
Written by Republic Bank George Padmore
Frances-Anne A Frances-Anne Adjetey Anang filmmakers have clearly earned the trust they need Hussein soon realises the monetary potential of
Solomon Solomon film Patrice Lumumba for their subject to entirely let down her guard. beekeeping and sets up his own hives. He has
Additional Writing A Tall Caribbean Tale Prince David Oseia
Nickolai Salcedo CaribbeanTales Mobutu Sese Seko By taking a purely observational stance, with none of Hatidze’s knowledge or patience, and his
Akley Olton Media Group, John Dumelo no talking heads or contextual information, slapdash approach to making honey – quantity
Creator Imagine Media P.K. Asante
Anne-Marie Stewart International Joseph Marcell Honeyland so thrusts the viewer into its little- and profit above all else – soon decimates his
Director of Produced with the C.L.R. James seen world that it allows us to feel – rather than hives and sends his bees on a rampage through
Photography participation of Jessica B. Hill
Walter Pacifico Telefilm Canada Nichola Cross simply observe – the intricate ebb and flow of Hatidze’s own colony. Images of Hussein and his
Cinematographers Produced with O.C. Ukeje life in this beautiful, challenging wilderness. kids running screaming from the stings of their
Jake Thomas the support and Julius Nyerere
Akley Olton financial assistance Kofi Adjorlolo The harmony in which Hatidze lives with her own insects are an effective contrast to those
Steve Marshall of the Trinidad Asantehene natural surroundings is emphasised by some truly of Hatidze calmly working in clouds of bees.
Robert MacFarlane and Tobago Film Valerie Buhagiar
Editor Company Limited Daphne Park glorious cinematography from Fejmi Daut and As tensions build between the neighbours, the
Charles Ross Executive Samir Ljuma, which basks in the expansive golden filmmakers are careful to show that Hussein is no
Production Producers In Colour and
Designer Anne-Marie Stewart Black & White hues of the landscape before lingering on Hatidze’s villain, but simply a desperate man doing all he
Alexandria Cook Lisa Wickham [1.78:1] weatherworn face in the candlelight of her home. can to care for his family with minimal resources.
Music Composed
& Arranged by Distributor Moments within this one-room dwelling are His determination to have yet more children
John Welsman Cast Blue Dolphin Film particularly poignant, as Hatidze and Nazife because they are believed to be a man’s greatest
Supervising Nickolai Salcedo Distribution
Sound Editor Ulric Cross
engage in affectionate cross-generational sparring. treasure also speaks to the fact that his life is
Brian Eimer Peter Williams Onscreen title “I’m not dying,” rasps Nazife, although she clearly dictated by tradition just as much as Hatidze’s. And
Costume Designers Anthony ‘Pony’ Card 1: Hero
Trinidad: MacFarlane Card 2: Inspired by is, “I’m just trying to make your life miserable.” when, finally, Hussein and his clan admit defeat
Simone Phillips Pippa Nixon the Extraordinary During brief conversations they have about the and hightail it away in a dusty cacophony, and
Ghana: Ann Cross Life & Times of
Sylvia Tettyfio Eric Kofi-Abrefa Mr. Ulric Cross
fact that Hatidze has never married – mainly Hatidze can return to the life of solitude she has
Kofi Mensah due to her late father turning away all the village always known, Honeyland ends not on a sense of
matchmakers – the prospect of what might relief but of dignified resignation. As the last of her
A drama-documentary blending archive footage with have been is the merest flicker on Hatidze’s kind, there’s simply nowhere else she could be.
recreated scenes to chart the life and times of Ulric
Cross (1917-2013), a Trinidadian-born lawyer who
was decorated for his WWII service in the RAF, and Credits and Synopsis
who subsequently worked for the post-independence
governments of Ghana, Cameroon and Tanzania Produced by Neon presents Development SDC A documentary filmed in an isolated region of rural
before returning to Trinidad for continuing legal and Atanas Georgiev Produced by Macedonian Film Macedonia, where fiftysomething Hatidze Muratova
diplomatic service. While actors play most of the Ljubomir Stefanov Pharmachem - Agency, SFFilm scratches out a living keeping wild bees. Scouting
parts, including the role of his daughter Nichola, Cinematography Skopje Apolo Media Documentary
Fejmi Daut & Trice Films Film Fund the environment for hives and carefully maintaining
there is also footage of the real-life Cross’s bedridden Samir Ljuma With the support of Made possible by her own at the stone cottage she shares with her
final days and an interview with his wife Ann. Edited by Swiss Agency for SFFilm Invest ailing mother, she sells the resulting honey at the
Overall, a picture emerges of the wartime heroism Atanas Georgiev Development and city market. This perilous existence is thrown into
of colonial volunteers, as well as the difficulties Music Co-operation SDC In Colour
Foltin Nature Conservation Subtitles
turmoil when a large Turkish family move in next door,
of the transition to independence for countries initially to tend crops and then to embark on their own
Sound Designer Programme in
with landowning tribal societies and ties to former Rana Eid Macedonia - NCP Distributor beekeeping enterprise. They are, however, without
imperial powers keen to retain their economic project of the Dogwoof Hatidze’s patience or knowledge, and their slapdash
interests. Cross’s example in fighting for freedom Production Swiss Agency for approach soon puts a devastating strain on the local
and equality proves an inspiration to his daughter. Companies Co-operation and
bee population that is so intrinsic to Hatidze’s survival.

64 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

Judy Killer Kate!
United Kingdom 2019 USA 2018
Director: Rupert Goold Director: Elliot Feld
Certificate 12A 117m 42s

Reviewed by Lisa Mullen Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton

Judy Garland was one of the first victims of the Budgetary constraints have often been the mother
Hollywood star system, her childhood a perfect of invention, particularly when one looks at

REVIEWS
storm of pushy showbiz parents, naive ambition the history of cash-strapped independent genre
and a manipulative studio hungry for docile girls. productions, but less money doesn’t equal more
This riveting portrait of Garland in middle age movie in the case of comedy-horror Killer Kate!, co-
could easily have been played in a key of seedy written and ploddingly directed by Elliot Feld. The
pathos: the grim conclusion to a life defined by better part of Feld’s film is given over to a home-
addiction, depression and self-sabotage. Instead, invasion siege, heavy dependence on a single
with a jaw-dropping performance from Renée location being a reliable way to keep costs down
Zellweger at its pulsing, neurotic heart, the film – though when it comes to the ineffable qualities
is funny, warm and satisfyingly self-aware. of charm or comedy or just plain filmmaking
The backstage musical was a mainstay of chutzpah needed to provide points of interest,
classical Hollywood, and Garland’s filmography A star is torn: Renée Zellweger those are mighty thin on the ground here.
is stuffed with them, from Broadway Melody of The film’s sense of humour is evident from the
1938 to A Star Is Born in 1954. With their rags-to- doting fandom is personified by a persecuted outset, as we’re presented with four bickering
riches plots and showstopping song-and-dance gay couple (Andy Nyman and Daniel Cerqueira) siblings overseen by an overbearing patriarch,
numbers, such films manifested the American who love her unconditionally for giving them shot from obfuscating angles – a close-up of
myth of bootstrap success and the power of a a licence to emote. On the other hand, most his stubbled jaw as he barks orders, his broad
cheery outlook. Director Rupert Goold plays with of Judy’s mistakes happen when she fails to shoulders seen from behind. Well into adulthood,
this trope in various ways, inviting us to test it from treat her own unruly emotions with sufficient the quartet squabble like spoiled toddlers,
different angles. His film opens on a huge, intrusive scepticism. Presented at one point with a big, and the pettiness of their pecking away at one
close-up on the face of the young Garland (Darci showy cake, she eyes it warily. “Every time I cut a another contrasts with the gravity of what
Shaw), gazing into the lens as if into a mirror, cake,” she says, “I find I’m married to some jerk.” they’re discussing – a planned killing spree.
while the sinister voice of Louis B. Mayer (Richard The jerk in this case is her soon-to-be fifth The proximity of the grim and mundane
Cordery) booms out his chilling ultimatum: if husband Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), a continues throughout the film, as in a leaden
you want to be a star, do as you’re told – or else. handsome dud peddling a harebrained get-rich- sequence involving a pizza delivery guy
As the camera pulls back, we find ourselves quick scheme; in contrast, third husband Sidney stumbling across a massacre and the running
in a fever-dream version of the Wizard of Oz Luft (Rufus Sewell) comes off quite well, existing gag of having one of the intended victims
set: a toxic, colour-saturated nightmare to in two states: ‘exasperated’ and ‘not unreasonably engage in heart-to-heart conversations while
which the adult Judy returns, relentlessly, in concerned about the happiness of their two her face is increasingly obscured by a mask
her thoughts. In comparison, the threadbare children’ (Bella Ramsey and Lewin Lloyd). No of human blood. It’s all ‘deliciously dark’ in a
plush of her London dressing room, where one, of course, gets the luxury of a fully developed recognisably mid-90s way, stirring unwelcome
she is reluctantly installed for a sell-out run inner life apart from Judy: that’s not a bug, but a memories of a flotilla of grisly post-Tarantino
of performances in the winter of 1968, seems feature of a film about self-obsession. Without knockoffs, with even a dim gesture towards
safe and sane. Under the firm, nannyish care Zellweger, the result might have been a trudge, structural playfulness – in this case, establishing
of her assistant Rosalyn (Jessie Buckley) she or an embarrassing mess, but her performance two separate ensemble groups without at first
manages not only to survive her re-immersion fills it to the brim with nuance and narrative providing any clear connection between them.
into the rigours of full-time employment, but purpose, and if that’s not enough, she sings that Killer Kate!’s second group is a bachelorette
also to knock ’em well and truly dead. Mostly. huge, heartbreaking repertoire with all the knobs party preparing to spend the night in a secluded
The film makes no apologies for slathering turned up to 11. Her Garland is pure, seductive hilltop house rented through a home-sharing
on the schmaltz: in fact, that’s why we’re here, legend: a monster, sure, but what a star. app – ‘LAbnb’ rather transparently standing
to ponder sentimentality itself, as a means of “At least,” as Judy herself remarks airily, after in for Airbnb. Angie (Danielle Burgess) is to be
communication, as a currency and as a trap. Judy’s telling a blatant lie, “that’s how I remember it.” married, and her estranged sister Kate (Alexandra
Feld) has been dragged into the celebration,
Credits and Synopsis along with two of Angie’s teacher co-workers.
It will soon transpire that the members of
Produced by Production Developed by Hilary Williams Dan Mickey Rooney
this second ensemble are the intended victims
David Livingstone Sound Mixer Calamity Films Charles Diamond Daniel Cerqueira of the first, that murderous family, but even
Screenplay Adrian Bell and Pathé Ellis Goodman Stan Dolby Atmos before the two sets collide they are united
Tom Edge Costume Designer Developed with Michael Gambon In Colour
Based on the Jany Temime the support of the Bernard Delfont [2.35:1] by their dysfunctional group dynamics,
stageshow End of BFI’s Film Fund Cast Richard Cordery
the Rainbow by ©Pathé Productions A Calamity Films Renée Zellweger Louis B. Mayer Distributor
Peter Quilter Limited and British production for Judy Garland Darci Shaw Pathé Productions Ltd
Director of Broadcasting Pathé, BBC and Jessie Buckley young Judy 20th Century Fox
Photography Corporation Confit Productions Rosalyn Wilder Bella Ramsey International (UK)
Ole Bratt Birkeland Production Executive Producers Finn Wittrock Lorna Luft
Editor Companies Cameron McCracken Mickey Deans Lewin Lloyd
Melanie Ann Oliver Pathé Productions, Rose Garnett Rufus Sewell Joey Luft
Production Designer BBC Films and Andrea Scarso Sidney Luft, ‘Sid’ Gemma-Leah
Kave Quinn Ingenious Media Laurence Myers Royce Pierreson Devereux
Original Music present a Calamity Lee Dean Burt Rhodes Liza Minnelli
Gabriel Yared Films production Aaron Levine Andy Nyman Gus Barry

In 1968, Judy Garland’s career seems to be over.
Forced to play a series of cheap gigs, she drags
her young daughter and son between hotels,
scrabbling for every dollar. When she is offered
a lucrative residency at a London theatre, she is
reluctant to leave her children behind, but faced
with legal bills for a custody battle with their father,
Sidney Luft, she has no choice but to take it.
Under the firm but sympathetic care of her assistant
Rosalyn, Judy triumphs in London, playing to packed
audiences of adoring fans. But her addictions and
mental-health problems – the legacy of her troubled
Hollywood childhood – do not disappear; she misses
her children, and her doomed infatuation with
soon-to-be fifth husband Mickey pitches her into old
habits of shoddy work and unreliability. Sacked and
disgraced, she finally admits that the children will
be better off staying with their father, and returns
for one last heartbreaking performance before
leaving London. Filled with sorrow, she suddenly
dries on stage, but the audience rise up to support
her, singing the words for her in a show of love.
Running on empty: Danielle Burgess

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 65

 Killers Anonymous
United Kingdom/USA 2019
Director: Martin Owen
Certificate 15 95m 22s

in particular by sibling rivalries. These Reviewed by Vadim Rizov

dynamics are drawn out in barn-door- The premise of Killers Anonymous, the third
broad strokes, with uncertain performers feature from Martin Owen (L.A. Slasher, Let’s Be
REVIEWS

uniformly overplaying, receiving few favours Evil), would hardly sustain five minutes of sketch
from the dialogue they’ve been handed, when comedy. The title accurately suggests the set-up:
they appear to have been handed dialogue in a wan parody of Alcoholics Anonymous, KA
at all. Trying to hype himself up commit to is a ‘support group’ for those who have killed,
the deed, one of the would-be killers delivers a category flexible enough to accommodate
a stammering monologue, which appears both professional assassins and the odd doctor
to be ad-libbed and manages almost single- with a homicidally neglectful streak. The real
handedly to make time stand still in this business here is to put a cluster of actors through
mere 70-something-minute slip of a movie. their paces as much as possible on one single,
As comedy, Killer Kate! is horrific, as economical set (at Ealing Studios, no less), where
horror, mediocre, its kills mostly of the they’re confined for most of the film’s duration,
corn-syrup-and-food-colouring-dripping- working through great reams of dialogue to pad
from-the-mouth variety, some of the most out the running time until sufficient length has
pedestrian seen since Jordan Peele’s Us. Unlike been attained and a long-awaited big-twist ending
Peele, a developing talent shackled with an ensures that the moral score card is settled.
insuperable burden of expectation, Feld has The most esteemed cast member is Gary
the freedom of working in obscurity, but he Oldman. His character is billed only as ‘The Man’.
never summons up the sense of real danger An assassination attempt on Senator John Kyle
that is the provenance of impoverished (Sam Hazeldine), contracted to one Jade (Jessica
filmmakers. And so when diabolism is called Alba), was botched, and The Man has come Murder party: Killers Anonymous
for, the rote manoeuvres of Killer Kate! seem from Los Angeles to London to determine why.
downright domestic, a cosy and tackily His interrogation sets the tone as he repeatedly Following the mandatory umpteen reversals
appointed home-away-from-home rental. asks, “What happened?” without getting any regarding each character’s true nature, the final
closer to a real answer, while both she and the rug-pull – involving the CIA and interfering
Credits and Synopsis film stall for time. Oldman’s easy pay-cheque Russians – can finally be deployed. The film’s
work is restricted to two locations (briefly), entrance into ripped-from-the-headlines territory
before he decamps to take a seat and drink wine feels as generic as it might have in the Soviet
Produced by ©Feld Films, LLC Mel
David Feld Production Brandon Bales at a third, a rooftop opposite the main action, 1980s – not a Manchurian Candidate nod to
Alexandra Feld Companies Terry where he remains sedentary and comfortable the more outlandish theories behind Donald
Elliot Feld They Watch at Night Grant Lyon
Daniel Moya presents a Feld Jimmy until it’s all over. Most of Killers takes place in Trump’s election but an airport-thriller twist
Jesse Pruett Films production Larry Cedar the church basement where the KA group meet from any time in the past 40 years. Yet if the
Written by In association with Hank
Elliot Feld Infinity Production Tiffany Shepis
and, one by one, dole out their backstories and movie were to be tonally dated to any more
Daniel Moya Services, Inc. Christine motivations. In due time, tensions rise, meaning specific period, it feels, in the worst way, like
Director of Executive Preston Flagg
Photography Producers Brother Tino
that guns are pulled as the camera swoops part of the deluge that followed Pulp Fiction
Daud Sani Larry Feld Ashton Jordann into dramatically canted angles, during which (1994). Per post-Tarantino norm, the script self-
Edited by Greagrey Waldrop Ruiz the volume of shouting tends to increase. The reflexively notes its own failure, as one character
Carter Feuerhelm Stephanie Coronado pizza guy
Production Hunter Smit twists are meagre, the ‘blackly comic’ dialogue accuses the others of indulging in endless
Designer Trent leaden, the effect unremittingly tedious. monologues – but the admission doesn’t help.
Stephanie Brewer Cast
Music Alexandra Feld In Colour
John E. Hopkins Kate [2.35:1] Credits and Synopsis
Sound Mixer Danielle Burgess
Chris Claypool Angie Distributor
Costume Designer Amaris Davidson Terracotta
Kevynn Brewer Sara Distribution Produced by In association with Morgan Los Angeles, the near future. An assassin known only
Abby Eiland Kirsty Bell The Ideas Factory Jessica Alba as The Man is at a meeting of Killers Anonymous, a
Matt Williams Executive Producers Jade
Written by Miriam Elchanan Gary Oldman support group for those with the urge to homicide,
California, present day. Kate plans a Halloween Martin Owen Stan Wertlieb the man when he is dragged away by a phone call. He travels
date with a colleague, but alters her plans under Elizabeth Morris Barry Brooker to London, where the planned shooting of John Kyle,
Seth Johnson Alan Latham In Colour a US senator running for president, has been botched
pressure from her father, who encourages her
Cinematographer Mario Tafur [2.35:1]
to attend a bachelorette party being thrown by by assassin Jade. After The Man leaves Jade, she
Håvard Helle Timothy E. Burke
her estranged sister Angie. With Angie and two Edited by Douglas Urbanski Distributor goes home with flirtatious Krystal and is killed.
of Angie’s co-workers, Kate takes off for a rustic Stephen Hedley Phil McKenzie Goldfinch Studios Later that night, a stranger, Alice, arrives at a
retreat at a hilltop house rented via a home-sharing Chris Gill Jonathan Willis London meeting of Killers Anonymous. The chapter
Production Designer is led by Joanna, who invites those gathered to share
app. Meanwhile, a family of four siblings ruled over Cassandra Surina
by a grizzled patriarch are planning a grim fate Music Cast their stories and memories. Meanwhile, they’re spied
for some unsuspecting victims – soon revealed Roger Goula Tommy Flanagan on from the next room by a young girl, Morgan. From
to be Angie’s bachelorette party. After drugging Production Markus a nearby rooftop, The Man listens in on the group’s
Sound Mixers Rhyon Nicole Brown conversations via a microphone. The meeting is
the women with champagne, three of the siblings
Nigel Albermaniche Alice
begin the attack. Angie is injured in the mêlée Lee Sharp
disrupted by Kyle’s arrival and Morgan’s discovery.
MyAnna Buring
and her teacher co-workers are killed, but she Costume Designer Joanna Joanna reveals that Killers Anonymous is not a support
and Kate manage to kill two of their assailants. Kate Forbes Michael Socha group but rather an organisation run by the CIA, meant
The sisters spend a nervous night holed up in Stunt Co-ordinator Leandro to recruit contract killers while keeping the agency’s
Jude Poyer Tim McInnerny role secret. The group demand to know why Alice is
the house, reconciling old differences. The next Calvin
morning, Kate kills the final attacker, revealed to be ©KA Film Limited Sam Hazeldine there, and she tells the story of her first murder – that
an employee at a local family-owned hotel. Taking Production Senator John Kyle of her abusive father as a young girl, in part to protect
their attackers’ shotgun and car, Kate and Angie Companies Suki Waterhouse her sister Morgan. Joanna reveals that Alice is the
Lionsgate and Violet new head of the chapter and has been recruited by
go to the hotel, where Kate kills the last remaining Grindstone Elizabeth Morris
sibling and the father, who before his death explains Entertainment Krystal
the Russians as their new presidential candidate in
the motive behind the massacre: he wanted to Group present in Elliot James preference to the CIA’s previous choice, Kyle. The whole
damage the reputation of the home-sharing apps association with Langridge situation has been a stress test to weed out weak
that were undermining his business. Reconciled, Fabrication Films a Ben killers. After almost all of them are killed, Alice emerges
Goldfinch production Isabelle Allen with her surviving recruits, to The Man’s approval.
Angie and Kate plan to visit their father together.

66 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

Kings The Kitchen
Director: Deniz Gamze Ergüven USA/Canada 2019
Certificate 15 86m 48s Director: Andrea Berloff
Certificate 15 102m 30s

Reviewed by Vadim Rizov Reviewed by Violet Lucca

Kings is the movie Deniz Gamze Ergüven wanted Aiming for Mean Streets but landing in sub-
to make first, rather than her debut feature, American Hustle territory, The Kitchen revels

REVIEWS
the widely acclaimed Mustang (2015). All told, in that explicitly Hollywoodian idea of New
the project took 11 years to be realised, during York City in the 1970s – a fast-paced, grimy
which period, as Ergüven told the Los Angeles metropolis where anyone can break the law
Times, “I’ve heard a lot of reasons not to make with little or no repercussions, wear feathered
this film, but none of those counted for me.” hair and patterned polyester suits regardless
Some of those potential reasons are obvious of their gender and, after a money-counting
even before seeing Kings: regardless of how montage, hit up a disco to boogie the night away.
much time Ergüven spent doing research on Yet these shopworn excesses aren’t stylishly
the ground in Los Angeles, having a Turkish realised or campy enough to be enjoyable, and
director take on the riots that erupted in are dampened further by prosaic dialogue, lame
the city in 1992 following the Rodney King action scenes, uneven tone and a plot that is
verdict is an inherently loaded proposition, alternately implausible and incomprehensible.
filled with plenty of opportunities for cultural Ruby O’Carroll (Tiffany Haddish), Kathy
mistranslation and myopia. Furthermore, the Brennan (Melissa McCarthy) and Claire Walsh
film’s premise – single mom Millie (Halle Berry) (Elisabeth Moss) are three Irish mob housewives
and neighbour Obie (Daniel Craig) find common from Hell’s Kitchen who forgo the pittance
cause (and romance!) mid-riot – theoretically the gang offers them when their husbands are
gives a white protagonist equal status. That, in sent to jail; instead, the women move into the
current parlance, is bad optics, but it also doesn’t protection business themselves. This transition is
seem like a very enlightening perspective even eased by the fact that Kathy is the granddaughter
taken in good faith. (In practice, Craig is mostly City on fire: Halle Berry of a former boss, which allows her to call on
absent for the first half and seemingly enjoying her beefy cousin for enforcement muscle;
playing drunk British uncle thereafter.) her eldest are missing. That sets Millie on the meanwhile, Gabriel (Domhnall Gleeson), a
But the manifold errors of Kings are far goofier run, in a series of events that finds her arrested Vietnam vet who’s in love with Claire, provides
and more inexplicable than merely not having not once but twice in one night. The film’s pitch essential backup, even showing the women
any historical reading to offer besides ‘the LA riots is tuned ever higher, with much screaming and how to cut up a body, stuff it in garbage bags
were a difficult time for many people’. Clocking running, police officers openly monologuing and throw it in the East River. Gabriel also
in at 86 minutes, it scans like a film that’s had their contempt for the community to those being teaches Claire, who was physically abused by
many crucial pieces of connective narrative arrested (“God, I hate this job!”), destruction of her imprisoned husband, how to love again, in
tissue removed: a character who looks fine in period cars (the film looks inadvisably well- scenes that are more creepy than romantic.
one scene has a busted lip in the next, with no financed) and, underneath it all, a weirdly As it turns out, these women are natural leaders
explanation, and so on. But there’s plenty to pervasive horniness that jibes goofily with the – though what exactly their leadership qualities
object to in what remains, including the very bad subject matter. It’s not till halfway through that are remains unclear, as do the means by which
idea of beginning with a restaging of the 1991 Millie looks at her seemingly crazy alcoholic they quite handily take over territory belonging
shooting of Latasha Harlins by a Korean store neighbour across the way in any light other than to other, more experienced members of their
owner, then layering her dead body in a dissolve as a nuisance; when she does, there’s a dream sex criminal organisation. Though writer-director
over a helicopter shot of LA as blood pours out sequence in the void of outer space that suggests Andrea Berloff attempts to keep the action on
of her head and over the city, in a metaphor an inadvertent parody of First Reformed (2017). the more realistic side and show how women
that’s both stunningly obvious and tacky. In total darkness, Craig swoops down, licks formerly relegated to housework and childrearing
Millie has eight kids (all evidently adopted Berry’s ass and makes his way up her body. Ten might take care of a gang, a lot of concerns
from the streets in moments of dire need), and minutes later, the riots have begun. The tones do conveniently fall away and stay gone: all three
when the riots finally start mid-movie, two of not synthesise or form productive dialectics. are crack markswomen, despite never having
carried guns before; Kathy’s children recede to
Credits and Synopsis their grandparents’ house a quarter of the way
through; Ruby shoots a pimp and orders his
prostitutes to work for her, though doesn’t specify
Produced by with CG Cinéma Lamar Johnson Los Angeles, 1991. Millie is a single mother who
Charles Gillibert International, Scope Jesse Cooper
what their job might be, and they are never
regularly takes in children with nowhere to go. Amid
Written by Pictures, France 2 Kaalan ‘KR’ Walker seen again after that scene. Having conquered
Deniz Gamze Ergüven Cinéma, Ad Vitam, William McGee rising tensions following the killing of Latasha Harlins
by a Korean store owner and the Rodney King trial, their neighbourhood, the women start
Director of Suffragettes Rachel Hilson
Photography With the participation Nicole Patterson Millie takes in another child, teenager William. One of to expand into other parts of midtown
David Chizallet of Canal+, Ciné+, Millie’s children, Jesse, develops a crush on neighbour
Editor France Télévisions In Colour
Nicole and finds her an abandoned apartment to stay in.
Mathilde van With the support
de Moortel of Eurimages, The Distributor William leads a group of his friends in a raid on a police
Production Designer Tax Shelter of the Studiocanal Limited station in retaliation for their violence and is shot while
Celine Diano Belgium Federal fleeing. He’s taken to the hospital by Nicole and Jesse.
Score Composed Government via On the first day of the Los Angeles riots, Jesse walks
and Performed by Scope Invest
Nick Cave Executive in on William and Nicole having sex. Noticing that the
Warren Ellis Produced by boys are missing, Millie goes looking for them. Joining
Costume Designer Wei Han a crowd of protesters, she too is arrested, but escapes
Mairi Chisholm Yee Yeo Chang from the car. Neighbour Obie helps her break the
Celine Rattray
Production
handcuffs. They see some of Millie’s younger children
Trudie Styler
Companies Charlotte Ubben on TV boasting of their looting, and drive to the store
The Orchard Bliss Olivier Gauriat to retrieve them. An enraged officer handcuffs Millie
and Maven Pictures and Obie to a lamppost. They manage to escape by
present a CG Cinéma shredding their jeans into a rappelling line. Meanwhile,
International Cast
production Halle Berry fleeing from the police, William accidentally knocks over
A film by Deniz Millie Dunbar Nicole. Jesse stabs him with a shard of glass. Nicole and
Gamze Ergüven Daniel Craig Jesse steal a car and try to drive William to a hospital,
A co-production Obie Hardison but he dies. Everyone reconvenes at Millie’s house.
Natural born leaders: Haddish, McCarthy, Moss

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 67

 The Last Tree
Unitd Kingdom 2019
Director: Shola Amoo
Certificate 15 98m 42s

Manhattan, shaking down Hasidim in the

diamond district and partnering with an
Italian boss in Brooklyn to get in on the Javits
REVIEWS

Center construction jobs. But all their hard work

is threatened when their husbands are released
from jail and want to restore the patriarchal order.
As the women are pulled apart – by their
husbands, by their own selfish desires – it
becomes clear how simplistic and thin each
character is. Ruby, a black woman alone in
an all-white, all-Irish world, is reduced to a
monomaniacal sociopath seeking power for
power’s sake, even going so far as to sleep with
an FBI agent, while Kathy is only marginally less
power-hungry because she wants to take care of
her kids. Claire, who has supposedly regained
her self-esteem thanks to Gabriel’s love, is rarely
seen doing anything without him, and is less
avenging angel than a punch bag to be avenged.
Conspicuous music cues – lots of Fleetwood
Mac, Heart and Kansas – intended to heighten
emotional intensity only undermine it. (Weren’t
these all used in much better movies already?)
Set It Off (1996) – in which Jada Pinkett, Queen
Latifah and Vivica A. Fox rob a bank – was a far
more rewarding female crime flick, and, after all,
enough time has passed that it’s a period piece.
Double trouble: Sam Adewunmi
Credits and Synopsis
Reviewed by Kate Stables younger Femi keenly conveys a child emotionally
Despite its early-2000s setting dislocated by being surrendered by the only
Produced by presentation in Gary Silvers
Michael De Luca association with Bill Camp See Feature (when Brexit’s deafening mother he’s known into Yinka’s strict Nigerian
Marcus Viscidi Bron Creative Alfonso Coretti on page 44 arguments about what care. Mothering and its inevitable failings form
Written by A Michael De Luca Jeremy Bobb
Andrea Berloff production Rob Walsh constitutes Britishness one of the film’s central themes, as Yinka’s beatings
Based on the comic Executive E.J. Bonilla were faint rumbles), Shola and perennial despair at his behaviour leave
book series by Ollie Producers Gonzalo Martinez
Masters, Ming Doyle Richard Brener Wayne Duvall
Amoo’s lyrical coming-of-age drama wrestles Femi emotionally shut down and resentful of
Director of Michael Disco Larry, Kathy’s father with questions of belonging and identity in an Mary’s perceived betrayal. His sharp first-person
Photography Dave Neustadter Annabella Sciorra
Maryse Alberti Aaron L. Gilbert Maria Coretti
indubitably timely fashion. His hero Femi is a child perspective shapes the film, a subjective portrait
Edited by Jason Cloth Myk Watford of two Britains and two mothers. Raised from a often delivered, in its urban sections, in unsettling
Christopher Tellefsen Elishia Holmes Little Jackie Quinn small child in rural freedom in Lincolnshire by his low-angled close-ups on its hero, Spike Lee-style.
Production Adam Schlagman
Designer Dolby Digital gentle white foster mother Mary, he’s destabilised It’s a film whose surroundings vibrate in tune
Shane Valentino In Colour by being dropped abruptly into life on a tough with its emotional mood. Thus Femi’s South
Music Cast [2.35:1]
Bryce Dessner Melissa McCarthy inner-London estate when his Nigerian mother London is a grim, grey enclave of brutal tower
Sound Mixer Kathy Brennan Distributor Yinka reclaims him. It’s a partly autobiographical blocks, Amoo and DP Stil Williams giving it a very
Danny Michael Tiffany Haddish Warner Bros.
Costume Designer Ruby O’Carroll Pictures
story, and the young Femi’s banked-up misery different look from the vibrant, gentrification-
Sarah Edwards Elisabeth Moss International (UK) resonates with convincing touches. defying Brixton of Amoo’s first feature, 2016’s A
Stunt Co-ordinator
Stephen Pope
Claire Walsh
Domhnall Gleeson
Tai Golding’s still and wary performance as the Moving Image. Femi’s tough inner-city school is
Gabriel O’Malley
©Warner Bros. James Badge Dale Credits and Synopsis
Entertainment Inc. Kevin O’Carroll
and BRON Creative Brian d’Arcy James
USA, Corp. Jimmy Brennan
Production Margo Martindale Produced by Antonia Lowe British Film Institute support of the Femi In Colour
Companies Helen O’Carroll Lee Thomas Music Production BFI Film Fund Gbemisola Ikumelo
A New Line Cinema Common Myf Hopkins Segun Akinola Companies Executive Producers Yinka Distributor
Written by Production Great Point Media Lizzie Francke Denise Black Picturehouse
Shola Amoo Sound Mixer and BFI present a Jim Reeve Mary Entertainment
New York, 1978. Three Irish mobsters are arrested Cinematographer Alex Ashcroft Prodigal production Robert Halmi Tai Golding
while holding up a liquor store and sentenced to Stil Williams Costume Designer in association with younger Femi
three years in jail. Their wives – Kathy, Claire and Editor Holly Smart Hartley Media Limited Nicholas Pinnock
Ruby – are given cash by the gang to survive while the Mdhamiri Á Nkemi and Privateer Pictures Cast Mr Williams
Production Designer ©LT COMM/The Made with the Sam Adewunmi
men are in jail, but it’s not enough. Kathy and Ruby
get a grocery-store owner to pay them protection
money; soon they have other clients. Kathy’s cousin London, the early 2000s. Eleven-year-old foster-child Williams confronts Femi and Yinka about his risky
provides them with muscle. The three women build Femi enjoys the freedom of his rural life in Lincolnshire behaviour. Femi rescues Mace from a street beating by
up a protection racket and kill the former head of with his beloved long-term foster mother Mary and his rival gang members. A fight at school with Mr Williams
the gang. They expand into the diamond district. An friends. His strict and religious mother Yinka reclaims becomes an emotional breakthrough. Femi runs away
Italian boss asks them to partner with him, and they him, taking him to live on a multicultural inner-London to Mary’s house, where she is fostering another young
agree. Their husbands are released from jail. Claire estate. Yinka’s strict parenting style and frequent boy. He makes his peace with her. Back in London,
and Ruby shoot their husbands dead; Claire is killed beatings upset Femi, who withdraws from her. At 16, Mace has Femi badly beaten as punishment for his
by a young man whose life Kathy spared. Kathy tries Femi is recruited as a ‘lieutenant’ by local gangster disappearance. Femi takes his exams, and chooses
to be kind to her husband, but the Italian boss reveals Mace. Femi is drawn to studious girl classmate Tope, to protect Tope from his former friends. Yinka takes
that he wanted to have her killed. Ruby blames Kathy who is bullied by his friends. He fights constantly him to Lagos, where he meets his biological father, a
for Claire’s death, but they reach an understanding with his mother. Femi keeps watch for Mace when wealthy Christian preacher. Femi is reconciled with his
and agree to continue expanding their territory. he commits a violent crime. Concerned teacher Mr mother, and blessed in a Yoruba religious ceremony.

68 | Sight&Sound | October 2019


riven with acutely observed ethnic fault lines and
the ‘colourism’ that gets Nigerian classmate Tope
taunted for her dark skin by a black British pupil.
So by the time we find Femi again at 16, now
played by a brooding Sam Adewunmi, he’s grown
a carapace of hard-man masculinity. Listening
secretly to The Cure while telling friends it’s
Tupac, he’s learned to hide his soft underbelly.
Writer-director Amoo’s plot takes on a generic
gang-tale feel, however, as Femi is recruited by
local gangster Mace (Demmy Ladipo). From
early on, we understand that violence, from
Yinka’s canings to the ‘punishment beatings’
he metes out on Mace’s behalf, is the price Femi
pays for adult attention. Despite this, the film
opts to show him dabbling rather than diving
into lawlessness – shoplifting, enforcing Mace’s
beatings, acting as a bemused lookout during a
violent crime – which is a useful reminder that
teenage life is mutable. Not every ‘lieutenant’
inevitably opts to stay with the gang. Nonetheless,
it gives the plotting an oddly uncommitted air.
This limited jeopardy makes the story less
tense and jolting than, say, the rather edgier My
Brother the Devil (2012) or TV’s gritty, melancholy
Top Boy (2011). It also shows up the muzzy, one-
note characterisation of almost all the people
around the teenage Femi, who’s played with
sensitivity and swagger by Adewunmi. With
the exception of Gbemisola Ikumelo’s stubborn
Yinka, they’re there solely to service the hero’s
story, with little for the actors to work with.
Nicholas Pinnock’s briefly glimpsed saviour
teacher Mr Williams seems inserted purely
to head Femi off a path that leads only to the
jail yard or the graveyard. A cursory sliver of
romance with the cagey Tope (Ruthxjiah Bellenea)
climaxes in a scene whose slo-mo extreme
subjectivity makes it hard to gauge whether
their public kiss is a breakthrough or a fantasy.
Even though Amoo’s interest is in arthouse feels
rather than genre thrills, his narrative sometimes
seems disjointed, its concentration displaced into
visual flourishes. Spanning Lincolnshire, London
and (for a tantalisingly brief period) Lagos, the
film differentiates each setting with a distinctive
visual and sonic signature. Golden light, saturated
colours and lush orchestration wrap around
Femi’s childhood rural idyll, while Mace’s bolthole
pulses with red light in the grey bulwark of a
council estate. Lagos buzzes with city chaos,
then the moneyed stillness of Femi’s biological
father’s vast house. There’s a strong Moonlight vibe
about much of this, though Amoo’s 2013 sci-fi
short Touch, where golden fields are similarly a
joyous space for his characters, suggests it’s also
his own rapidly developing visual style. The up-
close sound design – wind in the trees, sudden
breaths, the blood beating in Femi’s ears – puts the
viewer almost inside his head. But the film doesn’t
deliver the immersive experience of a brutalising
childhood with the all-round originality that
Jeremiah Zagar’s recent We the Animals musters.
When Femi surfaces in Lagos, brought
back in search of his Nigerian roots and absent
father, each ravishing-looking scene is more
elliptical than the last. All that we can see, as
he romps alone on the shoreline like Antoine
Doinel in The 400 Blows (1959), is that he’s at
last able to carve his own path in life.
Mission Mangal
Director: Jagan Shakti
Certificate 12A 126m 50s
Reviewed by Naman Ramachandran
In recent years, top Bollywood star Akshay
Kumar has largely forsaken his action-hero
image and chosen projects that explore Indian
societal issues (Toilet – Ek Prem Katha, Padman)
or have patriotic themes (Airlift, Gold, Kesari).
Mission Mangal, about India’s first mission
to Mars, was released this summer, timed to
coincide with India’s Independence Day and
also the 50th anniversary of the founding of
the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
on 15 August 1969. The film is dedicated to all
the scientists who built the space agency.
There was, then, a real danger of this becoming
a propaganda film, led by a cheerleading,
patriotic Kumar. However, debut director
Jagan Shakti and his team of writers take a
leaf out of the Hidden Figures (2016) playbook
and place the focus squarely on the women
scientists. With the exception of Kumar’s
mission director Rakesh Dhawan, the men are
largely ornamental – a refreshing move in an
industry where the reverse is usually the case.
The women scientists, led by the exceptional
Vidya Balan, have domestic lives that are relatable
in contemporary India. Balan’s character, Tara
Shinde, has to cope with an invalid father-in-
law, a daughter in her rebellious teens and a
son who is leaning towards Islam, staunchly
opposed by his Hindu father. Another, Eka
Gandhi, dreams of leaving India and joining
Nasa, while at the same time dealing with
a complicated love life; Neha Siddiqui has
trouble finding an apartment just because she is
Muslim; Varsha Pillai faces a mother-in-law who
demands a grandchild; and Kritika Aggarwal
must balance the demands of her job while
caring for her wounded soldier husband.
Playing squarely to the gallery, Shakti ensures
that the science is explained, sometimes several
times over, to a wide audience, but always using
homespun analogies: Tara’s bright idea for
conserving fuel for launching the Mars satellite
Credits and Synopsis
Producer Director of Amitabh
R. Balki Photography Bhattacharya
Writer S. Ravi Varman Re-recording Mixer
R. Balki Editor Alok De
Story Chandan Arora Costume Stylist
Jagan Shakti Production Designer Theia Tekchandaney
Writing Team Sandeep Sharad
R. Balki Ravede Production
Jagan Shakti Music Composer Companies
Nidhi Singh Dharma Amit Trivedi Fox Star Studios
Saketh Kondiparthi Lyricist presents a Cape of
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO),
Bangalore, 2010. The launch of ‘Fat Boy’, a
Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, fails
because of an error made by scientist Tara Shinde.
Mission director Rakesh Dhawan covers up her
mistake and assumes responsibility for the failure.
When Rakesh refuses to accept Nasa-returned
scientist Rupert Desai’s idea that India should
borrow technology from the US, he is assigned to
spearhead an unmanned satellite venture to Mars,
widely considered a graveyard mission within the
ISRO. Tara joins him, and comes up with a slingshot
launch method designed to save fuel. They request
experienced personnel, but are instead assigned
junior scientists who have lost their passion for
space research and now simply go through the
REVIEWS
Launchpad: Mission Mangal
into space comes when she is frying puris (deep-
fried bread) in residual heat rather than keeping
the oil boiling throughout; Kritika’s solution for
regaining lost mission communications stems
from her husband’s practice of hard-rebooting the
home computer. While these, and many other
ideas explored in the film, are undoubtedly broad,
they are crudely effective and serve to create a
feelgood narrative for the masses. Indeed, the
film is on its way to becoming a huge success
in India and among the Indian diaspora.
The sophistication lies in the way that Kumar’s
character has been written. Though he does
have his grandstanding moments, Kumar’s
Rakesh is a fascinating study, prone to making
statements sotto voce. He is married to his job
and has no personal life, but is human in that he
is easily frustrated and sometimes ready to give
up, despite being a visionary scientist. Towards
the end of Mission Mangal, Rakesh cedes the
floor to Tara and her team of women scientists, a
welcome sight in commercial Indian cinema.
Good Films and a Taapsee Pannu In Colour
Hope Productions film Kritika Aggarwal [2.35:1]
Sonakshi Sinha Subtitles
Eka Gandhi
Cast Nithya Menon Distributor
Akshay Kumar Varsha Pillai 20th Century Fox
Rakesh Dhawan Kirti Kulhari International (UK)
H.G. Dattatreya Neha Siddiqui
Ananth Iyer Jhuma Biswas
Vidya Balan Varsha’s
Tara Shinde mother-in-law
motions of a nine-to-five job. Though the mission
budget is halved, Rakesh and Tara are determined
to make it succeed. Despite upheavals in the team’s
personal lives, Tara motivates them and makes
them believe in science again. Their aim is to use
an existing Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and build
lightweight instruments for it, in time for a period
in 2014 when Mars will be closest to Earth. After
several setbacks, and despite constant opposition
from Desai, the Mars mission is ready to launch,
but is aborted due to adverse weather. Conditions
eventually improve and the mission is reactivated.
The launch is successful, and eight months later the
satellite reaches Mars. The team lose communication
with the satellite due to an eclipse, but regain it
shortly afterwards. The mission is a success.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 69
 Mother Neither Wolf nor Dog
Belgium/The Netherlands/Switzerland 2019 United Kingdom 2016
Director: Kristof Bilsen Director: Steven Lewis Simpson
Certificate 12A 109m 50s

Reviewed by Jasper Sharp Reviewed by Violet Lucca

While never overplayed, the socioeconomic Though well intentioned, not all attempts at
iniquities behind the transnational care diversifying the canon are well executed – a
REVIEWS

industry in a globalised world are rarely far problem that has more to do with a (usually
from the surface in Belgian director Kristof white, usually male) gatekeeper’s ignorance of
Bilsen’s unshowy but undeniably affecting issues specific to a marginalised community than
documentary, in which intergenerational family with any incompetence or inexperience on the
relationships are ostensibly the main focus. part of the artist concerned. Neither Wolf nor Dog,
Pomm is a young Thai woman who works in which a white writer from Minnesota attempts
as a one-to-one caregiver for well-heeled to document the stories and philosophies of
Westerners in the Baan Kamlangchay residential a Lakota elder, is preoccupied with just such
home in Chiang-Mai, barely scraping together questions of cross-cultural transmission. (This
enough to support her three children, who frame is metatextual: director Steven Lewis
live many miles away. Despite her calm and Simpson is Scottish and has made two previous
cheery manner as one of three carers providing pictures in Indian country.) But while the
round-the-clock support for the aged Elisabeth, film understands Lakota social customs and
Pomm’s employment is both predicated on and depicts the indignities of reservation life in
reinforces her lack of freedom to enjoy life with quiet yet furious detail, it largely reduces the
her own family. In a scene where she asks the Bridging the gap: Mother negotiations around storytelling to clichéd
owner of the care home for time off to visit her shouting matches and pouting on the prairie.
two eldest, Miriam and Moses, living with her following Elisabeth’s death, is in marked contrast Based on the novel by Kent Nerburn, the film
mother some four hours’ drive away, we learn to Pomm’s fragmented family set-up: a large follows Kent (Christopher Sweeney) after he
that she is juggling her shifts with another part- house in a picturesque Swiss landscape, a doting receives a call out of the blue from Winonah
time job, the nature of which is never revealed. husband, three beautiful twentysomething (Roseanne Supernault), asking him to come
Pomm has clearly had more than her fair daughters and a dog. One might see something to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South
share of misfortune, including her split from the callous in the household’s decision to outsource Dakota and turn the oral history of her 95-year-
husband with whom her youngest, four-year-old the care of this wife and mother – now a old grandfather Dan (Chief David Bald Eagle)
Nadia, now lives, and memories of a father who, tragic shadow of her former self though only into a book. Kent is initially reluctant, but,
unable to provide for his family, killed himself, in her early sixties – to a commercial outfit after looking through a box of his recently
saddling them with his debts. Ironically, it is in a strange and distant land. Bilsen’s film deceased father’s possessions (including an
Elisabeth who, on a daily basis, seems to give remains non-judgemental as it allows the army bag bearing the words ‘Service Before
Pomm the most emotional comfort: despite family members to justify their actions, the Self’), he throws caution to the wind and
her dementia being so advanced that she has result of several years of deliberation, with one drives the several hundred miles to the res.
lost the ability to speak, as a sounding board daughter claiming they are selflessly putting Despite the telegraphed inspirational message
for Pomm’s tales of hardship, Elisabeth at least aside their wish to see Maya every day. of this moment, Kent’s experiences at Pine Ridge
appears to respond compassionately, and there’s When they arrive in Thailand, the family’s are far from warm and fuzzy. The Lakota who
no danger of her ever revealing Pomm’s secrets. anguish at the prospect of their imminent live on the reservation are deeply sceptical of his
On a trip back to her rural hometown, it separation is palpable. Pomm’s observation that motives for coming all that way, and things only
becomes clear that Pomm does not enjoy quite the husband Walter’s obvious tenderness towards deteriorate from there. Kent is unsure of himself
same level of intimacy with her own mother. In his wife is not reciprocated is lent a heartrending as a writer, and the hostility he meets erodes
a heartfelt voiceover, she claims she sometimes potency by home-video clips of happier days – his self-esteem even further. Because this kind
yearns to throw her arms around her mother, the couple smiling on their wedding day, Maya of mild undermining is presumably the worst
but is afraid that the older woman’s adherence with her girls as they are growing up. Walter’s thing that could happen to a tall, conventionally
to Thai cultural norms would see any such stoicism during a Skype call to check on his wife’s attractive white guy like Kent, he tries to leave
display of affection rejected. Already, too, one progress following his return to Switzerland is without finishing the project, but his car
can detect a sense of estrangement developing heroic, as she barely registers his presence on mysteriously breaks down and he is forced to stay.
between Pomm and her pre-teen daughter the computer screen. It is clear that Maya has Given an equally mysterious response from
because of their long periods of separation. at least been delivered into safe hands, but the the reservation’s mechanic, Dan and his friend
The domestic situation of new patient Maya, question that lingers is, who cares for the carer? Grover (Richard Ray Whitman) take Kent on a
week-long road trip that culminates in a visit to
Credits and Synopsis the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre,
when Native American women, children and
Producer Limerick Films Pascal Decroos Fund A documentary about Pomm, a young woman
unarmed men were slaughtered by US cavalry.
Kristof Bilsen presents a co- In association with working as a caregiver for patients at the Baan It’s there that the film’s pretences fall away and
Written and production with Man’s Radio Télévision
Developed by Films Productions Suisse Kamlangchay care home for German-speaking Chief Bald Eagle – whose grandfather White Bull
Kristof Bilsen & Halal Docs With the support Alzheimer’s sufferers in Chiang Mai, Thailand. was a key participant in the assault on Colonel
Xan Márquez Caneda A film by Kristof of SACD/Scam Assigned to the elderly Elisabeth, whose dementia Custer’s troops at the Battle of the Little Bighorn –
Camera Bilsen Development is at an advanced stage, Pomm reveals her financial
Kristof Bilsen A co-production Bursary, Tax Shelter speaks about the horrors of Wounded Knee. This
and family problems: she works to provide for her
Marko Milovanovic with RTBF – Unité Initiative of the nonscripted section is rough and fragmentary in
Chutimon de Programmes Federal Government three children, two of whom, Miriam and Moses, live
Sonsirichai, ‘Pomm’ Documentaires, VRT of Belgium far away with their grandmother, while her youngest, a way that says more than even Chief Bald Eagle’s
Editor – Canvas, EOdocs Executive Producer four-year-old Nadia, is with her ex-husband. tears as he speaks – an emotional transmission
Maarten Janssens With the support of Kirsten Johnson In Zofingen, Switzerland, the family of Maya, a
Music Flanders Audiovisual of the history of a trauma that has never healed.
Kyle Bobby Dunn Fund (VAF), In Colour woman in her sixties who is suffering from dementia, Yet this is the lone credible, genuine moment.
Sound Recordist Netherlands Film [1.85:1] make plans to send her to the home in Thailand.
Xan Márquez Caneda Fund (NFF), Centre Subtitles After Elisabeth passes away, Pomm is given leave
Most of the rest of the film relies on what is easily
du Cinéma et de to visit her mother and children four hours’ drive identifiable to viewers as conflict: an indigenous
©Limerick Films, l’Audiovisuel de la Distributor character will accuse Kent of being insensitive,
Man’s Films
away, before returning to look after Maya, who has
Fédération Wallonie- Limerick Films
Productions, Halal Bruxelles, Creative been brought to the home by her husband Walter and Kent will respond by complaining about his
Docs, RTBF, VRT, EO Europe Programme and grown-up daughters. She slowly settles into crappy hotel room, or noting that “I didn’t march
Production – MEDIA of the her new life under Pomm’s care. Pomm makes a
Companies European Union, with Custer!” By focusing on Kent’s story, Neither
brief visit to Nadia six hours away in Phitsanulok.
Wolf nor Dog is simply a low-budget variation on

70 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

 Night Hunter
United Kingdom/USA 2018
Director: David Raymond
Certificate 15 98m 48s

Reviewed by Anton Bitel

A young woman, dressed in her underwear, runs
through the snowy woods at night. Cornered

REVIEWS
by her pursuer, she prefers to fall to her death
than be recaptured. Her state of relative undress
and her willingness to die are signifiers, in
this opening sequence of Night Hunter, of the
unspeakable events that have preceded what
we are seeing. Once police detective Marshall
(Henry Cavill) is on the case, working with Rachel
(Alexandra Daddario) and her cyber squad, it
becomes clear that this young woman, Alice,
is just one of many girls to have gone missing.
Investigating, Marshall and Rachel chance upon
former judge Cooper (Ben Kingsley), who with Broken world: Henry Cavill
assistance from his foul-mouthed young ward
Lara (Eliana Jones), sets honey traps for online This is indeed a story of broken homes,
groomers whom he then castrates. Cooper helps including Simon’s own, which complicates our
the police close in on Simon Stulls (Brendan view of a man caught red-handed and identified
Fletcher) in an isolated mansion’s basement by Julie as her ‘evil’ captor, yet seemingly
dungeon, where a girl, Julie (Sara Thompson), is incapable of masterminding such elaborate
being held captive along with Lara. Yet as Rachel actions alone, and himself very much a product
interviews the withdrawn, mentally impaired of an extremely troubled family history. Rushed
Simon in custody, she is unsure whether he to obtain results by Commissioner Harper
Christopher Sweeney, Richard Ray Whitman is the perpetrator or just another victim. (Stanley Tucci), Rachel regrets that she doesn’t
The feature debut of writer-director David have more time to explore the sweet-seeming
on the Hollywood tendency to put a white face on Raymond, this twisty thriller, with its grimly Simon’s fractured mental state – but soon Cooper,
a non-white issue, evidenced over the decades in horrific crimes and its slippery captive consultant, Marshall and Rachel will come face to face
movies from The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) owes an obvious debt to the Hannibal Lecter with Simon’s dark half, within and without.
to The Help (2011). The poor technical qualities – novels of Thomas Harris, as well as to their The film too has its unpleasant side. For it
bad sound, crushed colour correction, stiff acting, various film and television adaptations (most sympathises with its devils at the same time as it
awkward pacing – do the film no favours and notably Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the glorifies in police brutality (while interrogating
detract from the small things it gets right. Lambs, 1991). Much as Lecter was able to ‘get into both), and treads the thin ice between the
the head’ of those investigating him, all involved law, vigilantism and the most abominable
Credits and Synopsis in the Night Hunter case are negatively affected. brand of criminality. Night Hunter seems, at
For the film pays due attention to the toll of these least initially, to be dealing in cyber crimes,
abhorrent crimes not only on the (surviving) but then traces its rapey depravities back to a
Producer presents a Steven Delvin
Steven Lewis Lewis Simpson film Zahn McClarnon victims and their families but also on the pre-internet age. It is a bleak film, its nocturnal
Simpson Executive Billy disrupted domestic lives of Marshall – separated wintry surroundings (Manitoba doubling for
Screenplay Producers Harlan Standing
Kent Nerburn Marc Allen Bear from his wife and daughter – and the tormented Minnesota) the perfect stage for its characters’
Steven Lewis Kathryn Young Jumbo Cooper, who like Marshall is obsessed with his desperate attempts to claw their way back out
Simpson Melissa Anderson Sarah Sido
Adapted from Karl Richard Louise
work and who lives in a house without furniture. of the darkness to the warmth and the light.
the novel by Wambli Bear
Kent Nerburn Runner
Cinematographer Cast Barbara
Credits and Synopsis
Steven Lewis Dave Bald Eagle Josee Bald Eagle
Simpson Dan museum lady
Editor Christopher Produced by presents in Marshall Rural Minnesota, the present. Separated from his wife
Steven Lewis Sweeney In Colour Robert Ogden association Ben Kingsley and daughter because of his obsessiveness about
Simpson Kent Nerburn [2.35:1] Barnum with Fortitude Cooper
David Raymond International, Arcola Alexandra Daddario work, police detective Marshall, helped by cyber-squad
Sound Mixer Richard Ray
Rick Van Ness Whitman Distributor Christopher Pettit Entertainment Rachel leader Rachel, pursues someone who is abducting,
Grover InYo Entertainment Rick Dugdale and PalmStar Stanley Tucci raping and killing young women. Meanwhile, young
©Roaring Fire Films Roseanne Written by Media Capital Commissioner Harper Lara helps widowed ex-judge Cooper to set honey traps
Production Supernault David Raymond Executive Producers Brendan Fletcher
for online groomers. When Lara goes missing, Cooper
Company Wenonah/Danelle Director of Alastair Burlingham Simon
Roaring Fire Films Tatanka Means Photography Tony Parker Minka Kelly leads Marshall to the home of Simon Stulls, where Lara
Michael Barrett Kevin Scott Frakes Angie and another girl, Julie, are being held captive. Julie
Edited by Buddy Patrick Mpho Koaho identifies Simon as her captor, but in custody he shows
US, present day. Winonah calls Kent, a white writer in Jim Page Peter Aitken Glasow evidence of multiple personalities and seems incapable
Production Designer Steven Ashley Emma Tremblay
Minnesota, and asks him to come to the Pine Ridge Taavo Soodor Sundip K. Bhundia Faye of carrying out the crimes alone. Someone is killing
Indian Reservation in South Dakota to document her Music Composed Mark Catton Eliana Jones investigating police with car bombs and gas attacks. A
grandfather Dan’s stories and turn them into a book. and Produced by Larry Harding Lara policeman is blackmailed into releasing Simon when his
Kent initially refuses but then impulsively drives the Alex Lu James Milligan Sara Thompson own baby girl is abducted. Marshall and Rachel discover
several hundred miles to the reservation. He starts Re-recording Mixers Nasrat Muzayyin Julie
Onnalee Blank
that Simon’s mother gave birth to him after she was
Nadine De Barros Daniela Lavender
working with Dan, but is criticised for adding too Matthew Waters Francesca Dutton Dickerman raped by David, a wealthy academic who paid her off to
much of his own voice to the stories. Eventually, Kent Costume Designer Zorin Finkelsen Dylan Penn halt any legal action. The mother subsequently hanged
becomes frustrated and tries to abandon the project, Sandy Soke Dave Hansen Sophia herself. Marshall finds David in his college rooms,
but his car breaks down as he tries to leave. Dan and Stunt Co-ordinators James Lancaster Nathan Fillion stabbed by a disturbed Simon. With Simon back in
Scott Rogers Mitesh Parikh Quinn
his friend Grover take Kent on a tour of the land, Sean Skene Niraj Parikh custody, Lara goes missing again. As Rachel transports
including the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre. Guy Bews Pulak Parikh In Colour Simon to court, Cooper rams the vehicle off the road,
They run into one of Dan’s other grandchildren, who Amanatey Sogbodjor [2.35:1] desperate to learn of Lara’s whereabouts. Simon’s twin
has substance-abuse problems. Kent learns about ©Arcola Guarav Talwar brother appears, kills Cooper, rescues Simon and takes
Winonah’s parents’ unsolved murder. He finishes Entertainment Rob Wood Distributor
Limited
Rachel. Simon and his controlling brother plan to set
Signature
the book. When Winonah asks Dan if he wants Production Entertainment Rachel and Lara alight and let them fall burning through
her to read it, he says no, since he was there, and Companies Cast a lake’s thin ice. Marshall tracks them to the lake, and
puts it under the short leg of his kitchen table. Arise Pictures Henry Cavill after a tense standoff the twins fall into the icy water.

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 71

 Normal
Italy/Sweden/United Kingdom 2019
Director: Adele Tulli
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Little girls are obsessed with their appearance
(especially their hair), dress up as princesses, play
REVIEWS
with toy plastic domestic utensils (preferably
pink). Boys compete in electric-scooter races, play
violent videogames, love using guns, obsess about
football. Such gender-determined activities – or
their equivalents – continue into adulthood. Or
so Adele Tulli’s documentary tells us. “So what
else is new?” will likely be the reaction of most
viewers, perhaps with the added observation that
such sexual stereotyping is, one hopes, heading
towards obsolescence. Or then again, might be
the further qualification, possibly not in Italy.
Certainly the impression that Tulli’s film
gives, at least until its final few minutes, is that
wearisomely old-fashioned sexism is alive
and stiflingly well in present-day Italy, with
society and the Church conspiring to keep
both sexes firmly in their divinely allotted
places. Hints that not everybody might be going
along with this, that change (as in virtually
all European countries) is widely advocated
and well under way, are depressingly absent.
Only the final sequence of a dignified, well-
attended gay marriage (a pointed contrast to
the raucous celebration of a hetero wedding
that precedes it) suggests that, even in Italy,
things may be changing. (Civil-ceremony gay
marriage was legalised in Italy in 2016.)
Some of the scenes we’re shown, shot all
across the country, are so staggeringly crass
that it’s tempting to wonder if they might not
have been staged for the camera. In a church,
a priest sanctimoniously lectures an audience
of married couples on their responsibilities.
“God is putting his credibility in your love,” he
tells them. And a middle-aged female marriage
counsellor addresses young brides-to-be on
the apparent assumption that they’re idiots.
“So from being daughters, where mum cooks,
washes and irons for you at home, all those
things that you’ve no idea about now in the
sense that they get done and that’s it,” she
explains, “when you’re married… you’ll find
yourself thrown into a completely different
situation.” Husbands, she warns the attentive
young women, need to be treated like children,
“cuddled” and “taken into consideration”.
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Elisa Cantelli Production
Valeria Adilardi Adele Tulli Companies
Luca Ricciardi Original Music Institute of
Laura Romano Andrea Koch Contemporary
Cinematography Sound Recording Arts presents
Clarissa Cappellani Davide Pesola Valeria Adilardi, Luca
Francesca Zonars Ricciardi, Laura
Editing ©FilmAffair, AAMOD, Romano, Mauro
Ilaria Fraiolo Istituto Luce Vicentini present a
with: Cinecittà, Intramovies FilmAffair production
A documentary shot in modern-day Italy. We see a small
girl having her ears pierced; a boy being kitted out by
his dad for an electric-scooter race; young mothers with
their infants practising callisthenics; a factory making
toy plastic household utensils for little girls’ kitchen
sets; a small girl posing in a Cinderella costume; girls
having their hair styled and colour-sprayed. Teenage
girls scream hysterically for a YouTube star, then pose
for photos with him. Young men play violent computer
games, go diving, take part in shooting exercises
and paddle kayaks. A young man tells his shy friend
72 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
Weight of tradition: Normal
Much of this sounds suspiciously scripted; as
does the conversation between a pair of young
men, where the more confident of the two
instructs his shy friend how, when talking to a
woman, he must retain control of the situation
(“The man always has to take the initiative”)
in order to function as an “alpha male”. Other
episodes feel more authentic, albeit woefully
antediluvian. Shapely young women wearing
minimal bikinis parade before a mainly male
judging panel for the Miss Mondo beauty
contest; they’re shot from behind from the
waist down, their faces never seen. Crowds of
shrieking teenage girls chant the name of their
YouTube idol – “Antony! Antony!” – before
tearfully posing for selfies with him. (Selfies
feature a lot, not surprisingly.) Young mothers,
complete with pushchairs, are drilled in the
park. At a beach party, men with sledgehammers
smash up a yellow van, while women in black
leather bras gyrate in front of leering males.
True, it’s all compulsively watchable,
tellingly shot and skilfully edited together
with deft narrative rhythm, all to the beat of
Andrea Koch’s synth-heavy score, and runs
a trim 70 minutes. But if Tulli’s aim was to
suggest that, when it comes to the imposition
of heteronormative assumptions, Italy is
several decades behind the rest of Western
Europe, she’s succeeded all too well.
A co-production and Ginestra Film
with Archivio With the support of
Audiovisivo del Eurimages, Arts &
Movimento Operaio Humanities Research
e Democratico Council, University of
In association with Roehampton, Milano
Istituto Luce Cinecittà Film Network, SIAE
and Intramovies - Bando S’illumina,
In collaboration Techne Doctoral
with Rai Cinema Training Partnership
how to dominate a woman in conversation. Women
are given beauty treatments and artificial tans. A
young couple are filmed in a waterfront setting, the
director positioning them in male-dominant poses.
A priest lectures couples on their obligations in
marriage; a marriage counsellor instructs prospective
brides. The finalists in the Miss Mondo contest are
interviewed by a mainly male panel of judges. At a
noisy wedding ceremony, a penis-shaped cake is
served. A stage magician divides his female assistant
in two. In Ferrara, a male gay couple are married.
Ready or Not
USA 2019
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Certificate 18 95m 14s
Reviewed by Anton Bitel
As founding members of filmmaking collective
Radio Silence, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler
Gillett have previously helmed the segment
‘10/31/98’ from V/H/S (2012), the frame story
of Southbound (2015) and all of Devil’s Due
(2014). Their latest, Ready or Not, is a darkly
funny foray into a family’s strange history and
traditions, and also an allegory of America’s
opportunistic, exploitative class system.
“You don’t belong in this family,” Grace
(Samara Weaving) is told by her future brother-
in-law Daniel (Adam Brody), just moments before
she marries Alex (Mark O’Brien) in the opulent
gardens of the huge Le Domas estate. “I mean
that as a compliment.” The family has built its
success on the manufacture of cards and board
games, and some of its members suspect that
Grace, an orphan who was passed from one foster
home to another, is just a “gold-digging whore”,
even if she insists that all she has ever wanted is
to be permanently accepted into a stable family.
No matter, as the criteria for initiation into this
particular clan are predicated not on grooming,
background or personal wealth, but only on one’s
willing participation in a midnight game played
after every new marriage – according to strict
rules laid down to great-grandfather Victor Le
Domas, then a merchant seaman, by his travelling
companion Mr Le Bail in exchange for a massive
business investment. For most newcomers, this
game merely involves a chess match or a round
of Old Maid – but if anyone is unlucky enough,
like Grace, to draw hide-and-seek, they will find
themselves locked down in the mansion and
hunted by the rest of the well-armed family,
at least some of whom believe that a failure to
slaughter her before dawn will lead to all their
deaths and the family’s bloody end. Like Erin
in Adam Wingard’s You’re Next (2011), outsider
Grace becomes both witness and victim to an
established family’s dysfunctional rituals, forced
into aggressive cat-and-mouse with in-laws who
are more concerned about their legacy than
about her life and are all too willing to sacrifice
poorer strangers (and the odd staff member)
to the continuance of their own fortunes.
Coming out in the same year as Chelsea
Stardust’s similarly themed Satanic Panic, Ready
A film by Adele Tulli
In Colour
[1.78:1]
Subtitles
Distributor
ICA Films
Crimson tide: Samara Weaving
 Rojo
Argentina/Brazil/France/The Netherlands/Germany/Switzerland 2018
Director: Benjamín Naishtat
Certificate 15 109m 28s

or Not taps into the widespread feeling, no matter

on which side of America’s polarised divide you
sit, that the days are numbered for the nation’s

REVIEWS
well-heeled white elites, whose monetary base
is ill-founded and ill-maintained, whose moral
compass has long been out of sync with any kind
of reality and whose perpetuation results from
corrupting deals with the devil. The pleasure on
offer here is the satisfaction of comeuppance,
and of a downtrodden, objectified underclass
emerging triumphant over its oppressors. It is
thrilling, violent and often hilarious – but also,
as fantasies go, intensely political. Once, a virgin
bride’s dress was bloodied to signify her transfer
as property from one patriarch to another – but
this very expressly non-virginal bride will end
up covered in crimson for different reasons, ones
that break radically with family tradition.

Credits and Synopsis

Time of the wolf: Andrea Frigerio, Laura Grandinetti, Darío Grandinetti

Produced by Companies Fitch
Tripp Vinson Fox Searchlight Elyse Levesque
James Vanderbilt Pictures presents Charity Le Domas Reviewed by Maria Delgado doctor friend, following ‘inconveniences’
William Sherak a Mythology Nicky Guadagni
Bradley J. Fischer Entertainment/ Aunt Helene There is a sense of menace underpinning resulting from his wife’s involvement in a trade
Written by Vinson Films John Ralston Argentine director Benjamín Naishtat’s brilliant union; a cabaret magic act where the audience
Guy Busick production Stevens
R. Christopher A Radio Silence film
third feature. Like 2014’s History of Fear (in volunteer doesn’t reappear on cue – the only
Murphy Made in association In Colour which a wealthy community in the Buenos time the word ‘disappeared’ is actually heard
Director of with TSG [2.35:1]
Photography Entertainment
Aires suburbs is threatened by unexplained and in the film. Beneath the surface of small-town
Brett Jutkiewicz Executive Distributor unrelated incidents) and 2015’s The Movement respectability lies an ethos of disappearance that
Film Editor Producers 20th Century Fox (a black-and-white contemplation of 19th- stretches its tentacles well beyond the military.
Terel Gibson Chad Villella International (UK)
Production Tara Farney century nation-building in the Pampas), this is Claudio may not define himself as political,
Designer Tracey Nyberg a disarming allegory about middle-class society but his decisions align him with the governance
Andrew M. Stearn Daniel Bekerman
Music turning a blind eye to the excesses committed structures of the town. The country clubs and
Brian Tyler in the name of so-called peace and stability. dinner parties, the affluent homes and self-
Production Cast The film’s narrative, set in provincial satisfied posturing – all create the fabric of a
Sound Mixer Samara Weaving
Trevor Goulet Grace Argentina in the mid-1970s, just before the bourgeois world that locks together to protect
Costume Designer Adam Brody
Avery Plewes Daniel Le Domas
military coup, concerns small-town lawyer its interests. The quick-tempered boyfriend of
Stunt Co-ordinator Mark O’Brien Claudio (Darío Grandinetti, of Pedro Almodóvar’s Claudio’s daughter Paula ‘disappears’ a fellow
Eric Bryson Alex Le Domas Talk to Her and Julieta), an ostensibly decent, law- student because he can. When impunity is
Henry Czerny
©Twentieth Tony Le Domas abiding citizen, whose cool exterior is rattled seen as a right, individuals of all generations
Century Fox Film Andie MacDowell by an investigation into the disappearance of a feel entitled to take matters into their own
Corporation and Becky Le Domas
TSG Entertainment Melanie Scrofano stranger seen in the area three months earlier. hands. The showdown between Claudio and
Finance LLC Emilie Flamboyant private investigator Sinclair (Pablo Sinclair silences a restaurant. Claudio may at one
Production Kristian Bruun
Larraín regular Alfredo Castro) rolls into town point reprimand Diego for his rude behaviour,
Le Domas mansion, 30 years ago. Young Daniel
– in one of the film’s many nods to the western but his own conduct displays an insolence
prevents his little brother Alex from witnessing – to find out what has happened and in the based on a self-righteous sense of privilege.
a bridegroom, Charles, being hunted down by the process lifts the veneer of respectability under In many ways, this is also a film about
other members of the family, who are armed and which Claudio, like many of the town’s great acting. Paula’s dance teacher talks about
wearing masks. and good, operates. For the stranger, Diego, was intentions in performance, and the town is
Present day. The adult Alex returns to the mansion
the brother-in-law of Claudio’s friend Vives. intent on performing cordial respectability,
to marry Grace. A tradition established generations
earlier by family benefactor Mr Le Bail means that Like Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless whatever might be simmering beneath the
at midnight Grace must play a randomly chosen Woman (2008), this is a film about a society’s cracks. Grandinetti’s evasive Claudio is a
game. Assigned hide-and-seek, she quickly discovers complicity in a systematic culture of enforced study in minimalist acting, contrasting with
that the armed family members hope to capture disappearances. There are whisperings at social Castro’s mannered, effusive performance
and slaughter her in a satanic ritual before dawn, gatherings about union activists who have as Sinclair – a role that Naishtat wrote
in the belief that their failure to do so will lead to
their collective destruction. Caught helping Grace
vanished. Claudio ‘disappears’ Diego and is for him, inspired in part by Columbo.
evade the others, Alex is handcuffed to a bed, while involved in a shady deal to help Vives buy a house There is a strong 1970s look to Rojo: not only
trigger-happy sister-in-law Emilie accidentally kills a abandoned by its inhabitants after what appears the saturated colours, fierce zooms, freeze
maid. Grace burns the butler Stevens and flees to a to have been a politically motivated raid. And the frames, split diopters and telephoto lenses,
barn, where she is shot in the hand by Emilie’s young film opens with a pre-credit sequence that shows but also Claudio’s prominent moustache,
son Georgie and discovers a pit full of corpses. Grace
different generations looting the empty house Sinclair’s oversized glasses and the hit songs
escapes the grounds, but Stevens captures her and
brings her back. About to be ritually sacrificed by for clothes, electrical goods and other gains. that offer a chorus-like commentary on the
clan patriarch Tony, Grace escapes with help from Naishtat has drawn on his own family history action. There is even a sly reference to Bernard
Daniel (whom sister-in-law Charity then shoots in crafting the film: his grandmother was Herrmann’s Taxi Driver score in Vincent van
dead). Grace batters Tony’s wife Becky to death. ‘disappeared’ into a clandestine prison, and a Warmerdam’s dynamic composition.
Alex escapes his bonds, but seeing his mother dead, number of the photographs we see in the vacant Malevolence simmers throughout:
decides to sacrifice Grace. However, he is too late:
it is already dawn. All the family members explode
home are those of Naishtat’s relatives. The motif disappearances are alluded to in murmured
bloodily, including Alex when Grace returns his ring. of disappearance recurs repeatedly: a red eclipse conversations; there are military road
that hides the sun; the departure of Claudio’s checks and armed guards at social

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 73

 Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
USA 2019
Director: André Øvredal
Certificate 15 107m 28s

gatherings; a museum opening is Reviewed by Anton Bitel

disrupted by a startled outburst from Spoiler alert: this review reveals a plot twist
Vives’s wife Mabel; Tony Ronald’s ‘Help, The frightening tales promised in the title
REVIEWS

ayúdame’ plays on the radio as Santiago lures of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark are told and
the unsuspecting student into his car. Naishtat retold, reconstituted, rewritten (in blood) and
scratches at the surface of this society, so recycled. The film has been adapted from
that the paranoia and estrangement lurking some of the creepy contes ( ‘Harold’, ‘The Big
beneath the perfectly groomed exteriors of Toe’, ‘The Dream’, ‘Me Tie Dough-ty Walker’,
these middle-class professionals become all ‘The Haunted House’) collected from folkloric
too clear. At the end, Claudio dons a wig to models and urban legends in Alvin Schwartz’s
attend his daughter’s performance, as news three horror anthologies (1981-91) for teens.
of General Videla’s imminent coup reaches It is not itself an anthology film, but rather
him – one of the many references to a cover- binds its stories together with a new framing
up that this remarkable film negotiates. narrative, set in 1968. This is a time of profound
change, as the youthful optimism and idealism
Credits and Synopsis of that decade is beginning to sour: in the
background, the airwaves buzz with news of Death by story: Austin Zajur
children being sacrificed to the Vietnam War,
Producers of Hubert Bals Cast while Richard ‘Tricky Dick’ Nixon, himself a Chuck (Austin Zajur), who pulls away from his
Barbara Fund, Netherlands Darío Grandinetti
Sarasola-Day Film Fund, World Claudio teller of tall tales (and a precursor of Trump), mother’s smothering affection, is absorbed into
Federico Eibuszyc Cinema Fund, Andrea Frigerio
Written by Film und Medien Susana
is in the process of winning the presidency. the embrace of a monstrous woman (named ‘The
Benjamín Naishtat Stiftung NRW, Alfredo Castro Accordingly, screenwriters Dan and Kevin Pale Lady’, in a link-up to the child-devouring
Director of
Photography
Programa Ibermedia,
Meceneazgo
Detective Sinclair Hageman, working from a story by Guillermo del Pale Man from del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth); and,
Diego Cremonesi
Pedro Sotero Cultural - Buenos Dieguito, the hippie Toro, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, have more politically, the racism-facing, draft-dodging
Editor Aires Ciudad
Andrés Quaranta Instituto Nacional
Laura Grandinetti made Schwartz’s tales resonate with a transitional Ramón (Michael Garza), horrified that his brother
Paula
Art Director de Cine y Artes Susana Pampín period in US politics, as well as with the present. has returned from Vietnam in pieces, is pursued
Julieta Dolinsky Audiovisuales music teacher The stories also resonate with the film’s teen by the relentless ‘Jangly Man’, who deconstructs
Composition, Funded through Rafael Federman
Arrangements Agência Nacional do Santiago
characters. In Mill Valley, Pennsylvania, aspiring and reconstructs himself from his own body parts.
& Production/ Cinema - ANCINE, Claudio horror writer Stella (Zoe Colletti) and her Finally, Stella confronts the ghostly Sarah, as
Keyboard, Electric Banco Regional de Martínez Bel
Bass & Pedal Desenvolvimento Vivas
friends break into an abandoned 19th-century one writer to another, with a proposal to pen some
Steel Guitar do Extremo Sul, Rudy Chernicoff mansion and take a notebook in which, 70 years hard truths and thus end the various myths and
Vincent van Fundo Setorial magician
Warmerdam do Audiovisual
earlier, young Sarah Bellows was said to have half-truths circulating about the dead girl. This
Mara Bestelli
Sound Director With the Mabel penned stories that she told to local children is not just a paean to the power of horror stories
Fernando Ribero participation of
Costume Designer l’Aide aux cinemas
shortly before they died. Soon, the friends find to conceal, and expose, unpalatable realities, but
Dolby Digital
Jam Monto du monde, Centre In Colour themselves written into new stories that describe also an important lesson for an age of fake news,
National du Cinéma [1.85:1] in real time the terrifying circumstances of their lying presidents and easily misdirected rage.
©Pucará Cine, et de l’Image animée
Desvía, Ecce Films, - Institut Français
Subtitles
own doom. Each story reflects the particular Directed by André Ovredal (Trollhunter, The
Viking Films, A co-production Distributor fears of its victim: Tommy (Austin Abrams), Autopsy of Jane Doe), this is essentially, like the
Sutor Kolonko of Fresnoy, studio New Wave Films
Production national des artes terrified of retaliation from those he bullies, is books on which it is based, horror for teenagers.
Companies contemporains attacked by the scarecrow that he’s subjected It comes, however, with that double-edged,
Pucará Cine in
co-production
Produced with
the support of
to his aggression; Auggie (Gabriel Rush), with bittersweet nostalgia familiar from It (2017)
with Desvía, Ecce the Hubert Bals his phobias about food additives, is taken by or Summer of 84 (2018), as it plays out the
Films, Viking Films, Fund+Europe
Sutor Kolonko programme
the ghost whose missing toe was in his dinner; formative childhood fears of today’s adults.
In association Fundación Global
with Borde Cadre Developed Credits and Synopsis
Films, Le Tiro, Cine through the EAVE
Jempsa present programme
with the support
Produced by Digital Visual Effects Auggie Hilderbrandt Mill Valley, Pennsylvania, Halloween, 1968. Teenagers
Guillermo Del Toro Mr. X. Austin Abrams Tommy, Stella, Chuck and Auggie, joined by Chuck’s
Sean Daniel Visual Effects Tommy Milner
A province of Argentina, 1975. Claudio, a respected older sister Ruth and their new friend, the draft-
Jason F. Brown Gimpville Dean Norris
lawyer, meets his wife Susana for dinner in a local J. Miles Dale Roy Nicholls dodging Ramón, break into the abandoned Bellows
restaurant and becomes involved in an altercation Elizabeth Grave ©CBS Films Inc. and Gil Bellows mansion. It is said that in the 19th century, young
with a bullish stranger who then attempts to Screenplay eOne Features LLC Chief Turner Sarah Bellows was imprisoned in the mansion, and
trash the restaurant. An encounter with the Dan Hageman Production Austin Zajur
that she literally poisoned children with her stories,
Kevin Hageman Companies Chuck Steinberg
stranger on the way home leads to a fatal injury; Screen Story Eone Entertainment Natalie Ganzhorn whispered through the walls. Leaving with Sarah’s old
Claudio disposes of the body in the desert. Guillermo Del Toro and CBS Films Ruth Steinberg storybook, aspiring writer Stella sees a tale (about
Three months later, Claudio is asked by his Patrick Melton present in association Lorraine Toussaint Tommy being turned into a scarecrow) write itself
friend Vives to assist him with a transaction to buy Marcus Dunstan with Rolling Hills Lou Lou into the book. With Tommy genuinely missing (and
Based on the series and Starlight a Kathleen Pollard
an abandoned house. Vives has hired a famous by Alvin Schwartz his varsity jacket now on a scarecrow), Stella and
Hivemind/1212 Sarah Bellows, ghost
Chilean television detective, Sinclair, to help him Director of Entertainment Ramón watch as another story appears – and arrive
find his wife’s brother Diego, known as El hippie, Photography production In Colour too late at Auggie’s house to prevent him being taken
who disappeared three months earlier. Claudio Roman Osin A Double Dare [2.35:1] by a corpse whose toe he has inadvertently chewed.
realises that Diego was the stranger encountered Editor You production
Patrick Larsgaard
Now aware that all who were in the Bellows house
Executive Producers Distributor
on the fateful night in the restaurant. Claudio’s Production Designer Peter Luo E1 Films are cursed to meet fates written in the pages of the
daughter Paula is preparing to take part in a school David Brisbin Alex Ginno book, Stella, Ramón and Chuck rush to save Ruth from
performance, arousing the suspicions of her Music Joshua Long hatching spiders. Researching Sarah at a local hospital,
jealous boyfriend Santiago. Santiago seems to be Marco Beltrami Roberto Grande they learn that she was imprisoned, institutionalised
Anna Drubich
responsible for the mysterious disappearance of Sound Mixers and tortured by her family for attempting to expose
one of Paula’s fellow students. Sinclair returns to Greg Chapman Cast the fact that their paper mill was poisoning the
Buenos Aires, having confronted Claudio with his Erika Schengili- Zoe Colletti local water. Chuck is absorbed by a monstrous
discoveries about the circumstances surrounding Roberts Stella Nicholls woman he’d dreamed of. The self-reconstituting
Diego’s death. Claudio attends his daughter’s Glen Gauthier Michael Garza
Costume Designer Rámon Morales
‘Jangly Man’ chases Ramón to the Bellows mansion,
dance performance and hears rumours that Ruth Myers Gabriel Rush where Stella lifts the curse by promising Sarah
General Jorge Videla has launched a coup d’état. to write the true story of her mistreatment.

74 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

Sea of Shadows
Austria/USA/Germany/Australia 2019
Director: Richard Ladkani
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Jacques Cousteau once called the Sea of Cortez,
in the north of the Gulf of Mexico, “the aquarium
of the world” for the richness and diversity of its
marine life. It’s now an aquarium whose tanks
are cracked and leaking. The causes, as with
most cases of environmental catastrophe, are
twofold: human greed and human stupidity.
Greed, because the swim-bladder of the totoaba
fish that inhabits this marine region is more
valuable, weight for weight, than gold, making
it irresistible to organised crime. Stupidity,
because the reason it’s so pricy is the superstition
of traditional Chinese medicine, which alleges
– against all evidence – that these bladders
possess remarkable medicinal properties.
Collateral victim of the criminal trade in
totoaba bladders (nicknamed ‘the cocaine of
the sea’) is the metre-long vaquita, smallest
member of the whale family, also native to the
Sea of Cortez. Vaquita aren’t caught for profit,
but the huge gill nets set for the totoaba trap
and kill them too. Their numbers are reckoned
to be fewer than 30 – extinction beckons.
It’s the imminent fate of the vaquita that
fires the anger behind Sea of Shadows, Richard
Ladkani’s passionately environment-minded
documentary. Austrian-born Ladkani’s previous
film, The Ivory Game (2016), sent a similarly
urgent message about the world’s dwindling
population of elephants, slaughtered for their
tusks; if anything, this time the prognosis is
yet more pessimistic. But there’s too much
sheer adrenaline coursing through the movie
to make it a downer. Much of it plays out like
an action thriller, as when the conservation
ship Sea Shepherd, trying to locate the illegal
fishing boats, or ‘pangas’, and destroy their
nets, is met with stones and rifle shots from
the boat it’s tracking; or when the Mexican
government, riddled with corruption but finally
goaded into action, sends a squad of marines
to arrest a panga crew and they’re set upon by
an angry crowd in the port of San Felipe and
ignominiously forced to release their prisoners.
Credits and Synopsis
Co-directors Verena Schönauer Companies
Matthew Podolsky Original Score National Geographic
Sean Bogle Composed and Documentary
Produced by Produced by/Guitar, Films presents a
Walter Köhler Charango and Piano Terra Mater Factual
Wolfgang Knöpfler H. Scott Salinas Studios production
Director of Location Sound in association with
Photography Roland Winkler Appian Way, Malaika
Richard Ladkani Pictures, The Wide
Edited by ©Terra Mater Factual Lens Collective
George Michael Studios GmbH A film by Richard
Fischer Production Ladkani
The Sea of Cortez in the Gulf of Mexico is home
to the endangered totoaba, a fish whose swim-
bladder is believed in Chinese medicine to have
healing properties and can therefore fetch huge
sums. These bladders are smuggled from the
port of San Felipe, through Mexicali to Tijuana
and thence to China, in a trade controlled by the
‘totoaba cartel’. But the gill nets in which the
fish are caught also trap the vaquita, the world’s
smallest cetacean, which is close to extinction.
This documentary follows the attempts of the
‘Sea Shepherd’ conservation ship, Earth League
International and the Vaquita CPR preservation
society to end the swim-bladder smuggling and save
Whale killers: Sea of Shadows
Ladkani plays fair: those opposed to the
vaquita conservation programme aren’t only
the Mexican cartels – led by one Oscar Parra,
impeccable casting with his sticky-out ears,
baleful stare and villainous black moustache
– and their Chinese counterparts, but indigent
local fisherfolk, understandably attracted by
the generous sums fetched by the totoaba
bladders and inclined to dismiss the rarely
sighted vaquita as a myth. Still more tragic are
those like San Felipe fisherman Javier Valverde
and his family, who try to fish ethically, only
to find themselves forced by local hostility to
relocate 140 miles south. And the moment
when the conservationists, having painstakingly
captured a vaquita with the aim of keeping it safe,
discover that it can’t survive captivity and have
to watch it die, is little short of heartbreaking.
Here and there the film becomes a
touch overemphatic and preachy – but
understandably so. As Jack Hutton, mate of
the Sea Shepherd comments, this is just a small
part of a far larger struggle: “If we can save
the vaquita, then perhaps we can save the
planet.” Or as Javier Valverde, exiled from his
ancestral village, puts it, “With the death of
the ocean comes the death of the people.”
Produced by Terra Support Australia Ryan Harrington
Mater Factual Studios Executive Producers
in association with Leonardo DiCaprio Dolby Atmos
Appian Way, Malaika Jennifer Davisson In Colour
Pictures, The Wide Phillip Watson [2.35:1]
Lens Collective for Scott Z. Burns Part-subtitled
National Geographic Dinah Czezik-Müller
Documentary Films Michael Distributor
Produced with Frenschkowski Dogwoof
the support of the Laura Nix
Austrian Film Institute Rebecca Cammisa
and the Film Industry Carolyn Bernstein
the vaquita. Their efforts are supposedly supported
by the Mexican government and armed forces, but
this support is undermined by endemic corruption.
Carlos Loret de Mola, an investigative journalist
from TV station Televisa, follows the struggle and
features it on his programme. Many local fishermen,
covertly supported by the cartel, angrily oppose the
conservationists’ campaign. The CPR manages to
capture a vaquita, hoping to keep it in safety, but
the animal proves unable to withstand captivity and
dies. The government sends in marines to capture an
illegal fishing boat, but furious fishermen see them
off. Finally, local cartel leader Oscar Parra is arrested
and jailed. The fate of the vaquita remains uncertain.
The Shiny Shrimps
France 2018
Directors: Cédric Le Gallo, Maxime Govare
Certificate 15 103m 6s
Reviewed by Hannah McGill
Is it coincidence, or a conscious tribute to the
sheer breadth of cinema in France, that the twin
REVIEWS
baby boys briefly glimpsed in The Shiny Shrimps
are called Gaspar and Noé? Some viewers may
pass a moment or two wondering whether any
similarity to the name of a certain iconoclastic
director is entirely accidental. After all, as
modest and insistently feelgood as this French
comedy is, it has certain elements that Gaspar
Noé might appreciate – including a staunch
appreciation of utter hedonism even in the face
of death, and a character with a tattoo of Ryan
Gosling’s face on his anus… Subversive little
elements such as these keep this from being
wall-to-wall buddy-comedy clichés (though it
still manages quite a lot of those), helping it to
achieve a level of self-awareness that makes it
finally rather affecting. Gay life, it gently notes,
did not become simple just because rainbow flags
went mainstream. Political attitudes still differ
radically; identities are mutable; family ties are
still frayed and secrets can still be corrosive.
The set-up is straightforward and the conflict
it generates familiar. A successful, straight
swimmer, Matthias (Nicolas Gob), is caught
on camera making a homophobic remark and
directed as penance to coach a gay water-polo
team, The Shiny Shrimps (based on a celebrated
real-life outfit, of which co-director Cédric Le
Gallo is a member). The initial awkwardness
between this alpha male and a motley crew of gay
men (plus one transgender woman) is of course
followed by bonding and nascent affection. His
work with the Shrimps even helps the divorced
Matthias to repair his relationship with his
teenage daughter, who finds them fabulous.
The water-polo scenes themselves are overlong
and ineffective, demanding familiarity with a
sport that will be obscure to most viewers, and
relying too much on the same semi-submerged
camera angle. A long nightclub scene, while
narratively important, lacks atmosphere and
buzz, and could perhaps have used some of the
deranged carnality and visual virtuosity that
Gaspar Noé brought to the choreography of
Climax (2018). But while the lessons Matthias
learns are predictable, the teasing out of the
team’s personalities and life experiences is
effective – from the irritating self-righteousness
of a former gay-rights activist (“At Act Up, you
made sandwiches! We know you never went
on a march!” “I’m agoraphobic, OK?”) to
the odd social and sexual positioning of
Swim for life: The Shiny Shrimps
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 75
 The Shock of the Future
France 2019
Director: Marc Collin
Certificate 15 78m 28s

a trans woman who still associates with Reviewed by Ginette Vincendeau

the gay men who used to be her peers and The Shock of the Future is directed by musician Marc
partners. The complexity attached to ideas such Collin, one of the leaders of the band Nouvelle
REVIEWS

as playing by the rules and winning in a society that Vague, whose name harks back to both 1970s
holds you to standards and expectations you’ve music and (obviously) the French New Wave
already rejected is nicely addressed in a scene cinema of the 1960s. Unsurprisingly Collin’s first
where Matthias rounds on the team for being film is about music, featuring real-life singers
too exhausted from sex, drugs and dancing to Clara Luciani and Corine. The result is in turn,
perform at their best. “This is the Gay Games,” fresh, original, clichéd and disappointing.
they tell him. “If you were gay, you’d understand.” Even without knowing Collin’s background,
In the last, shamelessly tear-jerking scene, New Wave cinema does indeed come to mind
the opposite point is made, also effectively: as we watch beautiful, long-haired Ana (Alma
you don’t need to be gay to relate to grief, Jodorowsky) wake up in an archetypal Parisian
familial estrangement or a truly committed garret flat and begin her day in a rumpled
Bonnie Tyler lip-sync performance. bed with a cigarette, the first of many, under
a large poster for Godard’s 1975 Numéro deux.
Credits and Synopsis A mobile camera follows Ana as she exercises
to music (still smoking) in the cramped space,
which we barely leave throughout the film.
Produced by of Charades Romain Lancry
Renaud Chélélékian In association Damien As the camera reveals more of the
Edouard Duprey with Indéfilms 7 Roland Menou environment, we see an impressive amount of
Screenplay With the support Joel
Cédric Le Gallo of the Région Geoffrey Couët musical equipment. Ana is a composer, though
Maxime Govare Grand Est and of Xavier we see her struggle to complete even a brief
Romain Choay Mulhouse Alsace Romain Brau
Based on an Agglomération Fred
commission for a commercial. We also gradually
original idea by in partnership Félix Martinez understand that we are in the late 1970s: cassettes Music box: Alma Jodorowsky
Cédric Le Gallo with the CNC Vincent
Director of In collaboration with Maïa Quesemand
and LPs are strewn around, trousers have flares,
Photography the Bureau d’accueil Victoire the grey telephone a dial and the decor a lot female collaboration rather than rivalry is
Jérôme Alméras des tournages Pierre Samuel of brown and orange. But the period setting is foregrounded, with the central scene of Ana
Editor Grand Est, Agence Bertrand
Samuel Danési culturelle Grand Camille Thomas- mostly relevant to the music that forms the composing while Clara (Luciani) writes and
Art Director Est and of the Colombier narrative and oral landscapes of the film. The records lyrics; later, the established singer
Jérôme Alméras Mission Cinéma de Matthias, coach
Composers Mulhouse Alsace Jean-Louis retrospective ‘shock of the future’ is the arrival Corine is helpful to Ana. But such is the extent
Thomas Couzinier Agglomération Barcelona in France of electronic music. Through a series of and limitation of the film’s ‘feminist’ project.
Frédéric With the support Hervé Langlois
Kooshmanian of the SACEM Yvon Back
encounters and the convenient delivery on that The feminist intent would have been
Production With the President of the day of both a beatbox and the latest record from more convincing if the majority of the film’s
Sound Mixer participation of Fédération Française
David Rit Ciné+, Canal+ de Natation
Sheffield, Ana discovers, and immediately starts soundtrack had not been by men. There are
Costumes Executive composing, electronic music. She predicts that amusing vignettes pinpointing sexist behaviour
Matthieu Gamblor Producers In Colour it will be a revolution – contrary to the opinion by Dominique and the repairman (Teddy Melis)
Marion Moules Yann Girard [2.00:1]
Abdelhadi El Fakir Subtitles of crass music producer Dominique (Nicolas who lends Ana the beatbox, and the point is made
©Les Improductibles Rodolphe Duprez Ullman), who attends her party that night. that men keep bringing her down to her looks
and Kaly Productions Distributor
Production Peccadillo Ana’s hindsight ‘prediction’ is of course facile, rather than her talent. Yet the film doesn’t exactly
Companies Cast Pictures Ltd and it serves to bolster the worn-out notion of avoid this pitfall, choosing an exceptionally pretty
Les Improductibles Nicolas Gob
and Kaly Matthias Le Goff French theatrical title
the visionary artist (in a garret) battling against actress (who is also a fashion model) and making
Productions present Alban Lenoir Les Crevettes obtuse bean-counters. Ana eventually gives up her gratuitously exercise in white knickers, while
in association with Jean pailletées
Universal Pictures Michaël Abiteboul
the commercial job, to the fury of the producer, Luciani looks like a latter-day Françoise Hardy.
International France Cédric her friend Jean-Mi (Philippe Rebbot), in order A modest and commendably short film,
With the David Baïot to pursue her art, as if musicians through the The Shock of the Future is at times charming and
participation Alex
ages had not had to work for money. More amusing, but it lacks depth and urgency, and it
France, the present. Champion swimmer Matthias original is the fact that the artist in question certainly falls short of its final dedication to “every
Le Goff is vilified when he uses a homophobic slur is female, and the film clearly aims to claim a female pioneer who participated in the birth and
on camera. The French swimming federation sets a place for women in a male world. Unusually, recognition of electronic music in the world”.
penance: Matthias will coach flamboyant water-
polo team The Shiny Shrimps. The team proves to
be a diverse assortment of characters, including Credits and Synopsis
founding member Jean, who is hiding a bone cancer
he has decided to stop treating; hot-tempered Produced by ©Nebo Productions, Geoffrey Carrey Paris, 1978. Ana is a young music composer, living in
Joel, who misses his years as a gay-rights activist; Nicolas Jourdier The Perfect Kiss Films, Teddy Melis a flat borrowed from a friend, where she can use his
Cédric, who with twin babies at home is struggling Gaelle Ruffier Sogni Vera Films Clara Luciani sophisticated musical equipment. We follow her life
to balance friends, work and family; and Fred, a Marc Collin Production Xavier Berlioz
Written by Companies Nicolas Ullmann over 24 hours. She struggles to compose music for a
one-time gay man now living as a woman. Matthias Elina Gakou Gomba The Perfect Kiss Films, Corine commercial commissioned by her friend Jean-Mi, and
motivates the team enough for them to qualify Marc Collin Nebo Productions, later gives up. A repairman she has called to mend
for the Gay Games in Croatia; he then intends to Director of Sogni Vera Films In Colour the equipment shows her a novelty, a beatbox, which
return to his own swimming career, but his daughter Photography With the participation [1.75:1]
Stefano Forlini of Centre du Cinéma Subtitles
she begs him to let her use. Later, her American friend
Victoire, having become attached to the Shrimps, Supervising Editor et de l’Image Animeé Duncan brings records of the latest electronic music,
persuades him to join the Croatia trip. The team win Yann Malcor With the support Distributor in particular from Sheffield, which she loves. She
their first game and celebrate with a wild night out. Art Director of SACEM 606 Distribution composes a piece and records it with a singer, Clara,
The next day, all of them are weakened; Matthias Marco Malaragni who becomes her friend. In the evening, she throws a
is angered by their lack of commitment, but Jean Original Music French theatrical title
Composed by Cast Le Choc du futur party designed in part to impress an important music
explains to him that being with loved ones is far more Marc Collin Alma Jodorowsky producer, Dominique Giroux. He is not interested in
important than winning. Cédric, stricken with guilt Sound Recordists Ana her electronic creation, dismissing it as a novelty.
at missing his children’s first birthday, departs, and Stéphane Gessat Laurent Papot Depressed, she wants to give it all up, but her friend
Matthias takes his place in the water. The game is Maxime Girard Paul
Costumes Elli Medeiros
Paul convinces her to carry on; they visit successful
interrupted when Jean is taken ill. Jean dies, and the Eve Menuteau Tatiana singer Corine in her recording studio. At home, in the
Shrimps perform a dance number at his funeral. Philippe Rebbot morning, Ana sits at the console and starts composing.

76 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

The Sun Is Also a Star
USA 2019
Director: Ry Russo-Young
Certificate 12A 99m 58s
Reviewed by Leigh Singer
It is 150,000,000km from the sun to the Earth, and
its light takes eight minutes to reach our planet,
but even that distance feels small compared with
the yawning gap between believable human
behaviour and the narrative contortions required
to pair up the couple in this exhausting Young
Adult novel adaptation. Nancy Yoon’s book was
a New York Times bestseller and National Book
Award finalist, which suggests there’s far more
going on within its pages than in this New York
City travel brochure crossed with a potpourri of
cheap greeting-card aphorisms. Its conception
of relationships and love makes Richard Curtis
look as gritty as John Cassavetes, actually.
Coincidence and providence loom large
in many a popular fictional romance. In that
sense, Ry Russo-Young’s film follows a familiar
trajectory of chance encounters, opposites
attracting and unstoppable destiny. What’s
particularly offensive here, though, is how the
storyline hitches the grim, hot-button issue of
forced deportation to fantasy in the glibbest
possible manner. Natasha’s Jamaican family
– victims of a random raid by Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, no less – are due
to be exiled the very next day. She perhaps
finds them a last-ditch stay of execution – yet
apparently she’d rather stay out all night with
a new paramour than return home to inform
her loved ones of possible salvation, or even tell
them where she is (15 missed calls are logged
on her phone). Coup de foudre be damned:
it’s gimmicky plotting that only renders its
heroine monstrously selfish, stupid or both.
That Daniel, dreamy poet to Natasha’s
pragmatist, is a borderline if affable stalker,
who insists that their encounter is a “first date”,
regardless of Natasha’s opinion, eventually seems
one of the more benign contrivances. Far more
troubling, if we’re to buy into their coupledom,
is that the “X-factor” chemistry he cites as a key
ingredient to compatibility is noticeably absent.
It could be down to actors Yara Shahidi
Credits and Synopsis
Produced by Production Designer and Metro-Goldwyn-
Leslie Morgenstein Wynn Thomas Mayer Pictures Inc.
Elysa Koplovitz Dutton Music (excluding MGM
Screenplay Herdís Stefánsdóttir retained territories)
Tracy Oliver Production ©Metro-Goldwyn-
Based on the novel Sound Mixer Mayer Pictures Inc.
by Nicola Yoon Antonio L. Arroyo and Warner Bros.
Director of Costume Designer Entertainment Inc.
Photography Deirdra Elizabeth (MGM retained
Autumn Durald Govan territories)
Arkapaw Production
Edited by ©Warner Bros. Companies
Joe Landauer Entertainment Inc. Warner Bros.
New York, present day. On the day before her
Jamaican immigrant family are due to be deported,
teenager Natasha manages to secure a last-chance
appointment with an immigration lawyer later in
the afternoon. Korean-American Daniel is heading
to his crucial college interview to study medicine,
but at Grand Central Station he spies Natasha
and becomes convinced that she is his destiny. He
follows her and, after a cyclist is knocked down
by a speeding car, saves her from being hit too.
Natasha believes only in science and empirical
evidence. Daniel, an aspiring poet, believes in love
and fate. He persuades her to spend the day with him
to prove his theories. Daniel’s interview is postponed
Tempting fate: Charles Melton, Yara Shahidi
and Charles Melton struggling with the sheer
relentlessness of cutesy soundbites that clogs
up Tracy Oliver’s screenplay, where even a
karaoke-bar visit demands the declaration, “You
don’t choose a song, a song chooses you.” But
it’s also the way the film persistently resorts
to slick montages, sugar-coated with indie
pop, to do its emotional heavy lifting. There’s
scant sense of the exciting, in-the-moment
connection evident in infinitely superior
single-day movie romances, such as Richard
Linklater’s Before trilogy or Alex Holdridge’s
In Search of a Midnight Kiss. If it’s written in
the stars, why convey it in the dialogue?
Credit must go to Autumn Durald’s
cinematography for its sensitive illumination
of the photogenic, non-white leads’ skin tones.
Manhattan’s fairytale glow, however, when
allied to the featherlight premise, ultimately
compounds the overall air of superficiality. All
of the more substantial tangents – a fascinating
history of the Korean monopoly on African-
American hair businesses, Natasha’s parents’
backstory, even ICE crackdowns – are blithely
skimmed. By the time of John Leguizamo’s
eye-rolling double duty (he’s somehow
Natasha’s immigration lawyer and Daniel’s
med-school interviewer), this rigged exercise in
tempting fate has collapsed all credibility and
engagement into a dramatic black hole.
Pictures and Metro Anais Lee Charles Bae
Goldwyn Mayer young Natasha Keong Sim
Pictures present an Charles Melton Dae Hyun Bae
Alloy Entertainment Daniel Jae Ho Bae Cathy Shim
production John Leguizamo Min Soo Bae
Executive Producers Jeremy Martinez
Pamela Hirsch Gbenga Akinnagbe In Colour
Tracy Oliver Samuel Kingsley [2.35:1]
Miriam A. Hyman
Patricia Kingsley Distributor
Cast Jordan Williams Warner Bros. Pictures
Yara Shahidi Peter Kingsley International (UK)
Natasha Kingsley Jake Choi
and Natasha’s appointment delayed, so she agrees.
Over the day, the two fall in love. The lawyer suggests
that Natasha has a good case and tells her to come
back the next day. Daniel clashes with his controlling
family. He and Natasha spend the night together out in
the city. At Daniel’s interview – with the same lawyer
Natasha saw, who’s also the cyclist from before – he
confesses that he doesn’t want to be a doctor. Natasha
learns that her family’s appeal has been rejected.
Daniel accompanies her home, but the family are
forced to leave. Over time, the two lose contact.
Five years later, about to study astronomy
in the US, Natasha meets Daniel by chance
in New York and they are reunited.
UglyDolls
USA/People’s Repblic of China 2019
Director: Kelly Asbury
Certificate U 87m 19s
Reviewed by Anna Smith
The UglyDolls plush toys were created in 2001
as an antidote to idealised dolls such as Barbie,
REVIEWS
promoting individuality and celebrating physical
characteristics that don’t conform to perceived
beauty norms. Weaving this message into a
big-budget musical movie with merchandising
tie-ins is quite a challenge, not least because
audiences are encouraged to crave their own
identical Hasbro character from the film, be it
one-eyed Uglydog or gap-toothed Moxy. These
dolls are not, in fact, unique, though encouraging
their young owners to be is a laudable aim.
Voiced by singer Kelly Clarkson, pink,
asymmetrical Moxy is a likeably upbeat and
curious protagonist, who leaves the quirky land
of Uglyville and ends up rocking the boat at the
Institute of Perfection with her friends and fellow
anomalies. The Institute is effectively a limbo
before the heaven of child ownership, with a
sinister historical parallel whereby Aryan leader
Lou (Nick Jonas) preaches perfection and sends
defective toys to a washing machine resembling
a gas chamber. One of the supposedly perfect
dolls is Mandy, who struggles to fit into this
vacuous, image-obsessed world because she’s
secretly both short-sighted and sympathetic.
Feminist singer and actress Janelle Monáe is a
great fit to voice this doll, “stuck playing a role
someone else agreed to”, but she’s landed with
only passably catchy songs promoting self-
confidence, cooperation, love and compassion.
These messages seem particularly apt in
the Instagram era, and there’s an easy parallel
to be made between the preening dolls and
today’s cosmetically enhanced, lifestyle-selling
‘influencers’ (the heavy social-media presence
of the film’s voice stars is another irony). A
scene in which each doll comes through the
airport-style gates into Perfection and is crowned
‘Lawyer/Model’, ‘Engineer/Model’ is briefly
amusing. But that’s as sharp as the humour gets:
this lacks the smart crossover comedy of the
Toy Story and Lego Movie series, or even Shrek
2, which was also directed by Kelly Asbury.
Stuck on a repeat cycle of message-led songs,
UglyDolls also lacks a compelling narrative and
emotional direction. While Moxy craves a child to
own her from the start, it’s uncertain whether it’s
meant to be the truly desirable goal. But a
suggestion that she might be happier living
Making a difference: UglyDolls
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 77
 Werewolf
Poland/The Netherlands/Germany 2018
Director: Adrian Panek
Certificate 15 88m 10s

in harmonious community is swept away Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton

as ruthlessly as the robot arm flings dolls There’s no such thing as a bad dog, only bad
into the reject chute. Marketing demands prevail. owners. This, in essence, is the idea at the core
REVIEWS

As for the animation, it’s merely fine: the of Adrian Panek’s Werewolf, a Polish-German-
felty animals look cute and soft to touch, with Dutch period thriller concerning a clutch
old-fashioned mouth movements, though this of orphaned labour-camp survivors pinned
contrasts with a CG explosion mimicking real- down in their group home by a marauding
world flames. A bigger problem is that while pack of unleashed German guard dogs, the
the colourful visual palette should appeal to kids trying to stretch out dwindling supplies
toddlers, the language is frequently too complex of food and water while plotting an escape.
for them, meaning that UglyDolls is caught The title of Panek’s film, whose meaning is
in between worlds in many senses. Kids or much the same in Polish as in English, suggests
tweens? Religion or atheism? Individualism the Nazi ‘Werwolf’ plan, which proposed the
or consumerism? UglyDolls feels genuinely operation of a resistance force inside Allied-
stuck in limbo – and parents may be eyeing occupied Germany as enemy lines advanced
the exit as keenly as Moxy herself. towards Berlin. Werewolf begins in the inferno
of the camps, with the Germans in retreat, but
Credits and Synopsis salvation proves to be a case of ‘out of the frying
pan and into the fire’ as we follow a group Dog days: Werewolf
of young people – the oldest, Hanka (Sonia
Produced by ©Ugly Industries Wanda Sykes
Jane Hartwell Holdings, LLC Wage Mietielica), can’t be more than 20 – to a new to play, where a single misstep can mark the
Robert Rodriguez Production Gabriel Iglesias home in an isolated manor house surrounded by difference between life and death. Pop thrillers
Oren Aviv Companies Babo
Screenplay STXfilms, Shanghai Wang Leehom deep woods. There, the punishment continues, such as Paul W.S. Anderson’s Pompeii (2014) and
Alison Peck Alibaba Pictures Lucky Bat as they are attacked in turn by raping and Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Shallows (2016) aren’t
Story Co., Ltd and Huaxua Bebe Rexha
Robert Rodriguez Film Distribution Tuesday
pillaging Red Army soldiers, those yawping freighted with anything like the baggage of
Based on the Co., Ltd present Charli XCX dogs and a fugitive Nazi who’s holed up in a historical solemnity that Werewolf carries – it
UglyDoll characters Supervised by China Kitty
created by Film Co-production Lizzo
hillside bunker, waiting for things to blow over. begins with a house-of-horrors imagining of
David Horvath, Corporation Lydia The premise is not so far from that of Stephen the Gross-Rosen labour camp, and its scenes of
Sun-min Kim Executive Nick Jonas King’s 1981 novel Cujo, made into a film by children weathering near-starvation evoke the
Edited by Producers Lou
Julie Rogers Robert Simonds Pitbull Lewis Teague in 1983, though the scale is very terrible depredations of the camps throughout.
Nolan Southerland Adam Fogelson Uglydog different. Here, instead of a mother and child But what those films do have is clarity when
Production Ruoging Fu
Designers Mingyu Peng Dolby Digital cornered in a Ford Pinto by a single rabid St it comes to mapping out their screen terrain,
Andrew Woodhouse Huixia Zhang In Colour Bernard we have a whole mess of young people communicating exactly how much distance
Shannon Jeffries Luyuan Fan [1.85:1]
Music Composed Wei Zhang
trapped inside a rather sprawling estate by a exists between their characters and mortal danger.
and Conducted by Jerry Li Distributor canine army of indeterminate size – whenever It’s uncertain if the risible term ‘elevated
Christopher Shujin Lan-Shuster STX Films
Lennertz Gabriel Bloch
a character peers out of a window or puts horror’ has been translated into Polish, but
Original Songs Pitbull their hand on a doorknob, one of the animals Werewolf, with its pretensions to connect its
Christopher Drew Matilsky is right there, barking bloody murder. pulpy premise to real historical trauma, fits the
Lennertz
Glenn Slater Panek handles his young and largely bill. This is not to say that genre filmmakers
Re-recording Voice Cast inexperienced ensemble ably, but there’s no need necessarily avoid ‘big’ themes, but that
Mixers Kelly Clarkson
Joel Dougherty Moxy real sense of the lay of the land – the set-up they must be ever vigilant of the nose-in-the-air
Greg Orloff Janelle Monáe of the house and its surroundings – essential aloofness that comes with lofty goals. With eyes
Head of Animation Mandy
Sébastian Bruneau Blake Shelton
to establishing and building the suspense of fixed on attaining relevance, it’s easy to lose
Ox the game of inches the children are forced sight of the messy business of making a film.
In a toy factory, imperfect dolls are rejected
and sent down a chute to be recycled. Credits and Synopsis
Three-toothed Moxy is a toy living in Uglyville,
where dolls live in harmony. She sings about her Producers Co-produced by Krzysztof Durski Gross-Rosen labour camp, south-west Poland, at the
dreams of being owned by a child, and wants to Magdalena Kaminska House of Netherhorror, Czarny end of World War II. As the Nazis clear out, leaving piles
explore the world. She takes her closest friends Agata Szymanska Twenty Twenty Vision
Written by Filmproduktion, In Colour of bodies in their wake, bespectacled preadolescent
down a mysterious pipe that leads to the Institute Wladek survives only by desperately toadying to his
Adrian Panek Telewizja Polska [2.35:1]
of Perfection, where more conventional dolls Director of S.A., Rosco Polska Subtitles masters. When Red Army soldiers arrive, they sweep
are trained in protocols before they run the Photography With the support of up orphaned youths, including Wladek, the slightly
Gauntlet – a fake house with various tests – to Dominik Danilczyk Polski Instytut Sztuki Distributor
older Hanys and a young woman named Hanka, and
see if they are ready for the human world. Editor Filmowej, Netherlands Eureka Entertainment
Jaroslaw Kaminski Film Fund, The set them up in a makeshift home looked after by the
Head trainer Lou is a local idol, who sings about Production Designer Netherlands Film Polish theatrical title middle-aged Jadwiga. Soon, however, Jadwiga is found
perfection. He recoils at the UglyDolls but agrees to Anna Wunderlich Production Incentive, Wilkołak in the woods with her throat torn out. Investigating Red
let them train, while trying to sabotage them. Mandy, Music Polsko-Niemiecki Army soldiers, who attempt to rape Hanka, meet the
a sympathetic and secretly short-sighted doll, tries Antoni Komasa- Fundusz Filmowy
Łazarkiewicz same fate: killed by the camp’s former guard dogs, now
to help the UglyDolls. On Lou’s orders, three vain running wild in the woods. The young people are left
Production
dolls find Uglyville and kidnap its leader, Ox, bringing Sound Mixers Cast with no adult protection and little food, their shelter
him back to Perfection. Ox confesses that he was a Mariusz Bielecki Kamil Polnisiak surrounded on all sides by angry, starving attack dogs.
reject who ended up in Perfection but was bullied Grzegorz Kucharski Wladek
Wladek, jealous of Hanys and ostracised by the group,
and encouraged to leave by Lou. Ox diverted the Costume Designer Nicolas Przygoda
Malgorzata Karpiuk Hanys manages to subdue the dogs using commands he
chute to a cove that he made into Uglyville. Moxy Sonia Mietielca observed in Gross-Rosen, and slips out of the orphanage
and friends return to Uglyville with the news that ©Balapolis, House Hanka building. He finds a fugitive Nazi sheltering in a bunker.
they are rejects; residents plunge into a depression. of Netherhorror, Danuta Stenka During an escape bid, Wladek deliberately closes a door
After going back to Perfection, Moxy and Twenty Twenty Vision Jadwiga
Filmproduktion GmbH, Werner Daehn on Hanys, almost costing him his life, and flees into the
friends take the graduation test, and pass due to woods. Hanys, observing that Wladek has tamed the
Telewizja Polska SS man
showing love and compassion, while selfish Lou S.A., Rosco Polska Jakub Syska dogs, follows his example, and soon the youngsters are
– revealed to be a prototype – fails. Uglyville and Production Siwy playing with their new pets. The fugitive Nazi attacks
Perfection are happily merged, and Moxy is sent Companies Helena Mazur
Wladek, who is saved by Hanys. Giving chase, the Nazi
to live with a little girl who also has three teeth. Produced by Balapolis Ruda
is mauled by the dogs, which now serve the children.

78 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

 presents Summer 2019

JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER

See full details and buy direct from powerhousefilms.co.uk

 Home cinema
HOME CINEMA
Way-out vest: Bruce Levine and Al Pacino in Cruising
THE THING WITH LEATHERS
Reviled on release, Cruising is both a
schlocky thriller and an unsettling
examination of fear and loathing
among and toward gay men
CRUISING
William Friedkin; US 1980; Arrow Video; Region B Blu-ray;
Certificate 18; 102 minutes; 1.85:1. Extras: new audio
commentary with William Friedkin and Mark Kermode;
audio commentary by Friedkin; archival featurettes
on the film’s origins, reception and legacy; trailer.
Reviewed by Alex Davidson
Right from the start, Cruising was a hated film.
William Friedkin took a 1970 pulp fiction
serial-killer thriller by Gerald Walker set in
New York’s gay scene, transferred it into the
city’s S&M leather bars and cast Al Pacino as
Steve, a cop who works undercover to unmask
the murderer. In the in-depth extras that
accompany this new restoration Friedkin talks
80 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
about working with the S&M community,
but at the time many gay men were horrified,
believing their lives were being sensationalised,
and they disrupted filming in a number of
innovative ways. The film opened to negative
reviews and underperformed at the box office.
It’s still a shocking film, whose influence
can be seen in trashy erotic thrillers (Basic
Instinct, 1992) as well as in provocative works
by queer filmmakers such as Alain Guiraudie
(Stranger by the Lake, 2013) and Yann Gonzalez
(Knife+Heart, 2018). James Franco even made
a mediocre vanity project, Interior. Leather Bar.
(2013), in which he imagined the legendary
lost 40 minutes of sexually explicit footage
that Friedkin cut from the film – Friedkin’s
anecdote about how the first cut of Cruising
was received by the head of the ratings board
is a commentary highlight. The first murder is
particularly harrowing, reminiscent of the first
on-screen killing in Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972).
Cruising channels a palpable terror of men.
Almost all of the male characters are at best
unlikeable, at worst detestable, particularly
those who work in law enforcement. The very
few male characters depicted sympathetically
end up being violently killed. Serial-killer films
with exclusively male victims are still very
rare. Putting men at the mercy of other men
who want to fuck them and kill them put a
rare spin on the tropes of slasher films from
the previous two decades, in which female
characters generally fell prey to vicious sex
killers. There is only one woman of note in
Cruising; Steve’s girlfriend, an underwritten
role for Karen Allen, exists solely to serve
as a question mark over his sexuality.
Despite the prevalent gloom and horrific
violence, some of the scenes in Cruising topple
into full-blown camp. Sequences of Pacino
huffing an amyl nitrate-soaked handkerchief
and boogieing frantically on the dancefloor,
howling “Yes! Yes!” as he pumps iron and, in a
surreal moment, being punched in the middle

Depictions of gay men as violent
and villainous were nothing
new, but they were rarely as
sinister, and never as eroticised
of a police interview by a cop wearing only
a cowboy hat and a jockstrap, are ridiculous,
if unsettling. The film is at its best when it
flirts with black comedy – the set piece where
Pacino enters a club under cover, in full leather
attire, only to discover it’s ‘cop night’, as horny
fake detectives writhe around him, is a smart,
droll take on identity and performance.
In the new director’s commentary (the
second on the disc was recorded for a previous
release), Friedkin is characteristically frank
about working with Pacino, claiming he did
not know his lines and favouring the original
choice for the role, Richard Gere. Friedkin is
right to suggest that Pacino’s rather awkward
performance works for a character who is
completely out of his element. It was a risky
choice for a popular actor to play such an
ambiguous and heavily sexualised character. A
scene where Pacino, trussed up naked on a bed
in an attempt to trap the killer, scolds police
officers for breaking in too early before the sexual
encounter has progressed, is unusually blatant
in suggesting the character’s confused sexuality.
The film may not be coy about showing gay
sex but it is far from celebratory. Sex ends in
grisly death – subliminal shots of gay porn are
even intercut in the murder sequences. Lessons
in the meanings behind the handkerchief code,
doled out by a sex shop salesman (an early role
for Powers Boothe), send Steve fleeing for the
exit. Violent scenes of whipping and fisting are
seen in the bars. Cruising revels in city sleaze,
enhanced by James Contner’s cinematography
(done full justice in this 4K restoration) and
Jack Nitzsche’s chilling score. The depiction
of a deadly force killing the gay community
seems particularly disquieting today, as the
Biker groove: Robert Pope and Gene Davis in Cruising
film was released the year before the first Aids-
related deaths began to make headlines.
While seeing film depictions of gay men as
violent and villainous was nothing new, they
were rarely as sinister, and never as eroticised,
as in Cruising. As frenzied as the action gets, it
has sensitive representations not just of gay
self-loathing (a theme Friedkin had previously
explored in 1970’s The Boys in the Band) but,
more interestingly, the reasons behind it. While
the killer(s) may be the enemy within the
community, the police department’s brutality
towards queer men (the film opens with the
sexual abuse of two LGBTQ+ clubbers) and the
icy homophobia of a suspect’s father make
clear the hatred gay men faced, even in a city as
nominally liberal as New York. Cruising may not
be a great film. but it’s always a fascinating one
and remains deeply unsettling. Although the
resolution was derided by contemporary critics
as unsatisfactory, even lazy, the ending image of
a black stare to camera is chillingly effective.
Many of the extras that accompany the film
are from previous releases of the film, including
two entertaining documentaries that focus on its
production, and its reception and legacy. While
Friedkin complains that gay demonstrators who
disrupted filming “were trying to shut down free
speech”, he is understanding, and even supportive,
acknowledging the political and social climate
at the time of the film’s release. Almost all of
the men who played gay characters talk about
their experiences on the film, as does Randy
Jurgensen, a former police officer who conducted
similar undercover work to the protagonist,
and who worked closely with Friedkin. The
filmmaker talks about his work with real-life
killer Paul Bateson, who appeared as a radiological
technician in Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), six
years before he was imprisoned for the murder
of a gay man. Best of all is a new commentary
by Friedkin, alongside Mark Kermode, whose
presence draws some great anecdotes from
the director, especially about working with
Pacino and the battles with the censors.
HOME CINEMA
New releases
L’ARGENT
Marcel L’Herbier; France 1928; Flicker Alley; all-region
Blu-ray; 150 minutes; 1.33:1. Extras: making-of featurette
Autour de L’Argent shot by Jean Dreville in 1928; feature
on restoration of Autour de L’Argent; L’Herbier’s short
Prometheus... Banker (1921); promotional materials;
choice of two scores; essay by Mireille Beaulieu.
Reviewed by Michael Atkinson
One of the most visually dynamic silents ever
made, from the fiery halycon years of the silent
era’s demise, L’Herbier’s masterpiece remains
inexplicably little known and little seen, despite
being armed with a battery of invention rivalled
in its day only by Gance. Loosely adapted from
Emile Zola’s novel of 1891 and brought into the
20th century (prophetically, as it happens), this
high finance melodrama is all about intangibles
– wealth, greed, status, betrayal – and yet every
shot is a shock to the system, a jolting physical
experience; it’s possible that no film up to this
point moved quite as much as this one. L’Herbier
depicts the vagaries of skulduggery in and
around the Paris Bourse via relentlessly restless
camera runs and pivots and swoops, vertiginous
shifts in focus and perspective, gargantuan
sets (with chessboard floors!), kaleidoscopic
layered compositions, and restless Soviet-
style speed-editing. The exhausting upshot of
this tumult is an acute sense of moral nausea
(personified by the slinky, soulless femme
fatale Brigitte Helm), manifesting Zola’s high-
handed messaging with visual unease and
incertitude. The history of the medium needs
to be amended to accommodate this octopus.
Disc: The 4K scan beats all comers, though the
running time presents a bit of a conundrum;
the most-often cited length is 195 minutes
(including the almost unwatchable version
on YouTube), but this 150-minute version is
taken from various camera negatives, and
reportedly has no missing footage. (The two
versions seem to have similar frame rates.)
The extras are a delight, especially Dreville’s
Autour de L’Argent, a 40-minute silent document
of L’Herbier’s elaborate on-set process,
packed into a zesty, lyrical whorl very much
like L’Argent itself. L’Herbier’s thematically
companionable 1921 short, obviously
influenced by Zola, plays like a test reel for the
more ambitious feature seven years later.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Josef von Sternberg; US 1935; Arrow Academy; region-free
Blu-ray; Certificate U; 88 minutes; 1.37:1. Extras: selected
commentary by Peter Lorre biographer Stephen D. Youngkin;
introduction by critic David Thompson; Haroun Farocki’s 1982
German TV documentary Peter Lorre: The Double Face; 1947
radio adaptation with Lorre; booklet notes by Adrian Martin.
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
After the six films at Paramount with
Marlene Dietrich that fixed his reputation as
a consummate purveyor of alluring
atmosphere and warped psychology,
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 81
 New releases
Josef von Sternberg’s next move was to
HOME CINEMA
sign with the modest Columbia Pictures
operation for this slimmed-down Dostoevsky
adaptation for their new contract star, his fellow
émigré Peter Lorre. Studio boss Harry Cohn
knew Lorre carried European prestige but wasn’t
sure what to do with him, and this study of the
intellectual student who thinks he’s above the
law, kills a pawnbroker and is pursued by a wily
detective was seen as a way of introducing him
to the great American public. The result was
dismissed by von Sternberg himself, and was
to fall out of circulation for years, but proves an
intriguing example of huge talents working hard
on a film which did them few career favours.
Von Sternberg dials down his usual elaborate
settings for a bare claustrophobia, but only in
occasional close-ups of Lorre and co-star Marian
Marsh do we feel any inkling of electricity, while
the casting of portly top-billed ham Edward
Arnold as the pompous police inspector kills
any prospect of believability or nuance in the
proceedings. Lorre twitches as if his very life
depended on it, but his efforts lack the same
affecting emotional communion with the role
that he showed in his portrait of the troubled
killer in M (1931). The multinational cast never
begins to feel like a proper ensemble either,
though English theatrical legend Mrs Patrick
Campbell is good value as the loathsome
pawnbroker in the last of her handful of
film roles. Ultimately, it’s all dismayingly
lifeless as drama, but the disc’s worthwhile
extras provide ample fascinating context for
admirers of Lorre, who went on to an eight-
film B-picture stint as the Japanese sleuth Mr
Moto after this tanked at the box office.
Disc: A clean transfer in good condition.
Whatever the feature’s limitations, excellent
supplements include 35 minutes of thoroughly
researched commentary from Lorre biographer
Stephen D. Youngkin, a dense, thoughtful
early 80s German TV doc by Haroun Farocki,
and predictably smart booklet notes on von
Sternberg from the critic Adrian Martin.
DAÏNAH LA MÉTISSE
Jean Grémillon; France 1931; Gaumont; Region B Blu-
ray/region-free DVD (separate releases); 49 minutes;
1.19:1 in 4:3. Extras: documentary on Grémillon’s
magic realism by Roland-Jean Charna; commentary
on montage of key scenes by Philippe Roger.
Reviewed by Tony Rayns
This lovely restoration, premiered in Bologna’s
Il Cinema Ritrovato last year, rescues a film that
Jean Grémillon disowned in 1931 because his
producers (Gaumont and Franco-Film Aubert)
forced him to cut nearly half of it. Daïnah la métisse
(literally, Daïnah the Halfbreed) is set on an ocean
liner in the Pacific en route to Nouméa in New
Caledonia. Among the moneyed passengers is
an elegant black couple: Smith (Habib Benglia),
who works as the ship’s magician, and his
younger, French-born wife Daïnah (Laurence
Clavius in her only screen role), of mixed race,
who runs and jazz-dances kind-of wild. After a
masked ball to mark the crossing of the Equator,
Daïnah chats with the rough Michaux (Charles
Vanel), an engineer from below decks. He gets
the wrong idea and tries to rape her; she fends
82 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
him off, biting his shoulder. Next evening,
though, Daïnah disappears from the ship.
Neither the missing footage nor the original
script apparently survives, but most think that
Grémillon simply removed 30-odd minutes from
the start and replaced it with a couple of captions.
What’s left bears comparison with E.A. Dupont’s
Piccadilly (1929), another melodrama with a
libidinous ‘foreign’ heroine, but Grémillon brings
his immersion in the Paris avant-garde of the 1920s
to the party: startling compositions and montage,
brilliant sound-design (the engine-room sounds
like musique concrète), daring juxtapositions of
documentary and fantasy. Best of all is the masked
ball, a triumph of design (Jacques Lafitte) and
imagery (cinematographer Georges Périnal, fresh
from Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet and two classics by
Clair – Le Million and A nous la liberté). Grémillon’s
remarkable career took some six years to regain
momentum, only to founder again in the 1950s.
Disc: The lustrous transfer has an English-subtitle
option. The ratio of waffle to solid info and
analysis in the unsubtitled extras is not optimal.
THE EAR
Karel Kachyna; Czechoslovakia 1970; Second Run; region-free
Blu-ray; Certificate 12; 95 minutes; 1.37:1. Extras: introduction
by Peter Hames; commentary by Projection Booth
podcasters Ben Buckingham, Martin Kessler and Mike White;
short film (The Uninvited Guest, 1969); booklet essays by
Peter Hames, Steven Jay Schneider and Graham Williamson.
Reviewed by Michael Brooke
Fully worthy of comparison with The Conversation
(1974) and The Lives of Others (2006), and made
before either (albeit not premiered until 1990),
Karel Kachyna’s riveting study of personal
and political paranoia is by some distance
the bluntest, most head-on disquisition on
Czechoslovak politics made prior to the Velvet
Revolution in 1989, and doubly remarkable
for being produced after the Soviet invasion of
August 1968 (it’s considerably less surprising that
it was immediately shelved on completion).
Returning from a party tired and drunk,
Quaker oater: Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in High Noon
Ludvík (Radoslav Brzobohaty) and Anna
(Jirina Bohdalova) initially appear to be a
standard-issue bickering couple. But as the
evening progresses and the flashbacks mount,
it becomes increasingly clear that Ludvík
is a close associate of politicians who have
mysteriously been arrested, that there’s every
possibility that the next ring at the doorbell
might herald something similar, and that his
house has been bugged with at least half a dozen
tiny microphones. Only references to real-life
politicians like Benes and Gottwald signal that
this is set in the Stalinist show-trial era of the
early 1950s; in all other respects The Ear could be
transplanted wholesale to any other totalitarian
setting, which was undoubtedly Kachyna and
screenwriter Jan Procházka’s intention.
Disc: Only previously available in very fuzzy
standard definition, The Ear is a literal revelation
in this 4K restoration: a single instance of severe
damage around a reel change is presumably a
legacy of its pre-1990 history. The extras combine
helpful contextualisation by multiple critics (Ben
Buckingham, Peter Hames, Steven Jay Schneider,
Martin Kessler, Mike White, Graham Williamson)
plus a well-chosen supporting short, 1969’s
The Uninvited Guest, in which private domestic
spaces are similarly invaded by overbearing
officialdom. Also shelved for two decades, it
got its director Vlastimil Venclík expelled from
film school and forced to change career.
HIGH NOON
Fred Zinnemann; US 1952; Eureka Masters of Cinema;
Region B Blu-ray; Certificate U; 85 mins; 1.37:1. Extras:
audio commentaries by historian Glenn Frankel and
western authority Stephen Prince; video interview
with Neil Sinyard; 1969 audio interview with writer
Carl Foreman at the National Film Theatre; three films
on making of and context of High Noon; trailer.
Reviewed by Robert Hanks
High Noon has earned its place at or near the top
of the westerns canon partly by virtue of
its stubborn ambiguity – or is that just
Revival

HOME CINEMA
THE GATHERING STORM
Forty years after it was released,
Fred Schepisi’s epic about
Australian racism doesn’t seem
any less relevant or powerful
THE CHANT OF
JIMMIE BLACKSMITH
Fred Schepisi; Australia 1978; Eureka; Region B Blu-ray &
Region 2 DVD dual format; Certificate 18; 122/117 minutes;
2.35:1. Extras: two commentaries (Schepisi, Alexandra
Heller-Nicholas); documentaries Celluloid Gypsies and
Making Us Blacksmiths; interviews (Schepisi, Ian Baker,
Tom E. Lewis, Geoffrey Rush); trailer; stills gallery; booklet
Reviewed by Michael Brooke
Thomas Keneally has been Booker-nominated
for four novels based on actual historical events.
The most famous by some distance is Schindler’s
Ark (1982), later filmed by Steven Spielberg, but
a decade earlier his seventh novel The Chant of
Jimmie Blacksmith (1972) made a considerable
international splash thanks to its vivid first-
person account of the life of a half-Aboriginal,
half-white man incapable of integrating fully
with either community for cultural reasons
tragically outside his control. Fred Schepisi’s
handsome adaptation was equally acclaimed The revenger’s tragedy: The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
(in 1979, Pauline Kael referred to it in passing
as “the one great Australian film I have seen […] upbringing by Jack Thompson’s Methodist and that the much-derided Poms ultimately
an Australian The Birth of a Nation seen from the minister was intended to ‘civilise’ him, but leaves hold the whip hand over them, bribing those of
side of the blacks”, before enthusing at greater him permanently in limbo, and constantly open sufficient standing with the occasional royally
length when it eventually reached the US), but a to the kind of exploitation that’s sometimes blessed bauble, such as an MBE. When Jimmie
notorious flop in Australia itself, almost certainly breathtaking in its throwaway callousness. and his half-brother Mort (Freddy Reynolds) take
because it told too many uncomfortable truths (“Don’t you come the bush lawyer with me,” says a hostage in the form of liberally minded teacher
about the past while implicitly echoing too many one employer after a perfectly reasonable protest McCready (Peter Carroll), their conversations
about the then present (and not just the 1970s: about inadequate remuneration, while what bitterly and sarcastically articulate their mutual
this film could almost be a celluloid rallying cry little money he does get paid is expropriated by despair (“You can’t say we haven’t given you
for the Black Lives Matter movement). In the UK, the elders in his community and frittered away.) anything. We’ve introduced you to alcohol,
it ludicrously ended up on one of the director of That he’ll eventually snap is inevitable – who religion, influenza, measles, syphilis, school,
public prosecutions’ notoriously ill-informed wouldn’t, under these circumstances? – and a whole host of improvements”), while an
early 1980s watch lists: those collecting so-called the film’s still considerable moral force derives impending referendum on federation reveals
‘video nasties’ for cheap thrills would doubtless from the fact that few would blame him, even if a nation riven by political as well as cultural
have been equally baffled by its inclusion. he inadvertently ends up reinforcing precisely and racial divisions. The film’s firm sense of
(While its 18 certificate remains amply merited, the stereotypes that he initially sought to historical place paradoxically serves to make
nobody could sensibly accuse Schepisi’s sombre defy, which is the film’s central tragic irony. its themes all the more universal, and it’s
masterpiece of gratuitous sensationalism: its most Schepisi’s approach throughout is classical, lost not a jot of its power four decades on.
notorious act of violence is performed off camera.) measured, unfussy, with superbly composed Eureka’s package is stacked to the gunwales,
Like the protagonist of any number of other widescreen landscapes reinforcing the notion with the Blu-ray version including both the
films, Jimmie Blacksmith (a performance of of an ancient world that the white man has Australian and slightly shorter international
appealingly wide-eyed disingenuousness from invaded and corrupted: one telling scene is set cuts of the film (the DVD only has the Australian
non-professional Tom E. Lewis) intends to make against a backdrop of millennia-old rocks scarred version) – interestingly, with slightly different
something of himself: he’s clever, resourceful, by graffiti that’s by turns obscene, ephemerally colour timing. Two full-length commentaries
financially frugal and cheerfully prepared to political, or both. Ironically, the white Australians complement each other nicely, with Schepisi
take on the most back-breaking tasks in the are as torn between two worlds as is Jimmie: offering production details and Alexandra
least clement weather if they end up becoming references to Queen Victoria and the Boer War Heller-Nicholas taking a wider (and notably
measurable steps in his planned ascent. He’d establish that they ultimately play a very minor well-researched) critical/historical/sociological
notionally be an admirable catch for any role in the furtherance of the British Empire, overview that underscores the way that
employer or wife, were it not for the fact that many of the tensions depicted in the film
this is 1900, and racism is endemically casual, The film was a notorious flop in remain unresolved nearly 120 years after its
even during the course of ostensibly friendly real-life inspiration played out. Interviews are
conversations, so that his status is reinforced Australia itself, almost certainly copious and substantial (the chat between
at every turn. Too pale for the Aboriginal
community from which he originally hailed,
because it told too many Schepisi and cinematographer Ian Baker runs
over an hour), while the booklet reproduces
too dark for every other social situation, his uncomfortable truths Kael’s breathless rave from 1980.

October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 83

 Rediscovery
HOME CINEMA
DISCOVERY CHANNELLED
Compassionate and curious,
the French filmmaker Nicolas
Philibert nudges us towards
profound questions about our lives
NICOLAS PHILIBERT:
LES FILMS, LE CINEMA
Nicolas Philibert; France 1978-2019; blaq out; Region 2
DVD (12 discs); approx 20 hours; 1.33:1 / 1.66:1 / 1.85:1.
Extras: extensive interviews and short films; 200-page
booklet with essays and interviews in French.
Reviewed by Geoff Andrew
Since the breakout success of Etre et avoir (2002),
Nicolas Philibert has acquired a reputation as
one of the finest, most distinctive filmmakers
working in nonfiction today. But access to
his early work has been limited – only now, it
seems, are the extraordinary documentaries
he made with the mountaineer Christophe
Profit in the late 1980s becoming available on
DVD – so this comprehensive French boxed set
of new digital restorations is welcome indeed.
Most of the films (except for the extras) come
with English subtitles; those that don’t – the
mountaineering films (which have sparse
dialogue anyway), La Maison de la radio (2012)
and De chaque instant (2018) – have French
subtitles for the hard of hearing, which might
prove useful for those eager to gain a better
understanding of this remarkable body of work.
Since making his debut with His Master’s Voice
(La Voix de son maître, 1978) – a fascinating, still
very relevant documentary Philibert made in
collaboration with Gérard Mordrillat, in which
the chief executives of a dozen major companies
proffer their views on labour relations, power
structures, responsibility, unions, etc (Philibert
calls it a film “about vanity”) – he’s achieved
an unusually high strike rate. For this writer
at least, of the 12 features Philibert has made
so far, only one – Qui sait? (1998), a document
of the development of a show improvised and
performed by students at the Théâtre National de
Strasbourg – feels faintly disappointing, perhaps
because its subject matter is less immediately
appealing than that of his other films; unlike most
of his work, which explores areas of everyday
experience we often don’t get to see, it deals (in
part) with performance. That said, the mise en scène
is as subtle and skilful here as elsewhere, and Qui
sait? is no mean achievement in illuminating the
possibilities and pitfalls of collaborative creativity.
Given that many of Philibert’s films visit
institutions – the world’s most famous museum
in La Ville Louvre (1990), a school for the deaf in
Le Pays des sourds (In the Land of the Deaf, 1992),
Paris’s Museum of Natural History in Un Animal,
des animaux (Animals and More Animals, 1994),
the La Borde clinic for the mentally ill in La
Moindre des choses (Every Little Thing, 1996), a rural
single-class primary school in Être et avoir, the
home of Radio France in La Maison de la radio,
and a Parisian training school for young nurses
84 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
in De chaque instant – one might be forgiven for
presuming that Philibert is following in the
footsteps of Frederick Wiseman. Besides the
obvious difference in duration, however – most
of the Frenchman’s films run a comparatively
brief 100 minutes or less – there’s a significant
difference in focus and tone. Though Philibert,
like Wiseman, is interested in providing behind-
the-scenes insights into how institutions
function, his approach doesn’t end or even
start there. His concern is not with authority,
methodology and ideology but with simply
finding something new to himself and new to
the viewer. Making a film about an institution of
some sort is for Philibert very much like making a
film about an individual, whether it’s Christophe
Profit – famous for scaling the most vertiginous
mountainscapes in the most challenging
conditions, as documented in the nerve-wracking
Christophe (1985) and Trilogie pour un homme seul
(1987) – or the titular fortysomething orang-
utan in Nénette (2010): it becomes a journey of
discovery. And there among the various things
discovered will be the theme of the film.
While a film’s subject may initially sound
slight – the refurbishment of the zoological
galleries in Un Animal, des animaux; patients and
staff putting on a play in La Moindre des choses; the
teaching of complex daily medical procedures in
De chaque instant (sadly, unreleased in the UK, but
in no way inferior to its predecessors) – Philibert
has a way of teasing out and encouraging us
to consider important questions about what
it means to be alive in a world inhabited by
other people and species very different from
ourselves. The miracle of his achievement is
The miracle of Philibert’s
achievement is that he guides
us towards philosophical
reflections with such a light touch
Show of hands: Etre et avoir
that he guides us towards these philosophical
reflections with such a light touch; his films
are at once delicate but direct, responsible
and respectful, wondrously intimate in their
fly-on-the-wall observations yet profoundly
imbued with his presence as filmmaker. They
are models of curiosity and compassion.
Philibert has a keen eye for an amusingly
unusual or illuminatingly unexpected image,
and a sharp ear for an expressive sound, piece
of music or moment of silence (La Maison de la
radio and Nénette are especially interesting in
this respect); his films are as beautiful as they
are insightful and affecting. He is fascinated by
many things – communication and community,
courage and vulnerability, normality and
abnormality, learning and teaching, the
complexity of the world, the fragility of life –
and perhaps this is most gloriously evident in
the close attention he pays to the face (usually
but not always human) and to the looks being
directed, here and there, back to the camera.
As an observer of the facial landscape, he
is up there with Dreyer and Bergman.
Finally, to Retour en Normandie (Back to
Normandy, 2006). This is Philibert’s most
‘personal’ film, partly because he’s in it and it deals
with events from his own life – the search, this
time, is not only for a theme but for the people he
met in 1975 while working as assistant director on
René Allio’s Moi, Pierre Rivière… – but also because
it feels like a summary of his interests which
also sheds light on his deeply human approach
to filmmaking. Could this richly rewarding
odyssey be Philibert’s masterpiece? But so many
of his films might merit such an accolade.
The recent 2K restorations included here
– overseen by the director – do justice to the
films’ visual elegance. The unsubtitled extras
include numerous interviews with the very
eloquent Philibert, and several short films –
one of which, the dialogue-free La Nuit tombe
sur la ménagerie (2010), is a small gem.
New releases
confusion? Marshal Will Kane’s futile quest
for volunteers to help him stand up against
the vengeful gunman heading to Hadleyville on
the noon train can be taken as a liberal critique of
an America that pays lip-service to community
and duty but, when the chips are down, will
always revert to selfish individualism; or, just as
plausibly, as a dramatic statement of the NRA-
sponsored view that the only thing that can stop a
bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The
tendency to read it as a morality play is surely not
accidental – at times, as when Kane takes his case
into church and pleads with the congregation,
it is laid out almost as a thought-experiment, a
gun-toting, stetson-wearing trolley problem; and
listen to the way the script harps on the fact that
the new Mrs Kane is a Quaker. But that doesn’t
mean that John W. Cunningham’s original
short story, or Carl Foreman’s screenplay, or Fred
Zinnemann’s conception of the film actually
involve a clear sense of what the moral issues are.
Still, the concision and simplicity of the story,
Gary Cooper’s pained stoicism as Kane, Grace
Kelly’s radiance as his bride, Floyd Crosby’s
sharp, boldly composed cinematography – all
these banish any suspicion of muddiness,
for at least as long as you’re watching it. The
only truth that matters is that a man’s gotta
do what a man’s gotta do; and imagine the
trouble we’d be in if we ignored tautologies.
Disc: The 4K restoration does the camerawork
proud. The theme-song tends to overshadow
the rest of Dimitri Tiomkin’s score (though the
Academy knew enough to give him an Oscar for
it): here, the richness of it comes across beautifully.
HOLD BACK THE DAWN
Mitchell Leisen; USA 1941; Arrow Academy; Region B
Blu-ray; Certificate PG; 116 minutes; 1.37:1. Extras: audio
commentary by Adrian Martin; video appreciation by Geoff
Andrew; 1971 NFT Guardian lecture with Olivia de Havilland;
1941 radio adaptation with Charles Boyer, Paulette Goddard
and Susan Hayward; stills gallery; original trailer; first
pressing only: booklet with essay by Farran Smith Nehme.
Reviewed by Kate Stables
Billy Wilder’s cutting verdict on Mitchell Leisen’s
stylish, romance-focused direction (“He was a
window-dresser”) has proved hard to shake off,
typecasting him because of his background in
set and costume design. It’s particularly harsh
in this case, since Leisen’s deft genre-mixing
and tender touch gets the best from Wilder
and Charles Brackett’s sweet-and-sour script.
Charles Boyer is a refugee gigolo attempting to
enter the United States, to escape small-town
Mexican purgatory, by marrying naive
schoolmistress Olivia de Havilland. Like Leisen’s
Remember The Night (1940), it’s a redemptive
romance, improved this time by Paulette Goddard’s
breezy, wheedling gold-digger (“I’m dirt, but so is
he. We belong together”) tangling the film’s
emotional currents. Boyer, excellent in a cynical
and faintly satirical incarnation of his Latin-lover
screen persona, also provides a weary Wilder-
trademark narration – one of the film’s three
intriguing narrative frames, which Adrian Martin’s
first-rate audio commentary unpacks. Forcing
Wilder and Brackett to axe a hotel-room monologue,
where he acts as an arbitrary border guard to a
cockroach, cost Boyer dear later in the film, however.
East side story: Joe Robinson and Diana Dors in A Kid for Two Farthings
A glowing de Havilland got the lion’s share
of the dialogue, and won herself an Oscar
nomination. Her stirring defence of America’s
immigrant heritage (“It’s like a lake, clean
and fresh. It’ll never get stagnant while new
streams are flowing in”) strikes an oddly
topical note. So does the film’s Casablanca-style
satire-and-sympathy portrayal of the Hotel
Esperanza’s war-fleeing horde of refugees,
willing to risk everything for life in the
America beyond the flimsy border fence.
Disc: A handsome transfer, which shows off
the film’s picturesque Mexican road trip nicely.
Geoff Andrew’s thoughtful reappraisal of Leisen’s
talents is the plum in the hefty extras package.
INSECT
Jan Svankmajer; Czech Republic 2018; Athanor;
region-free Blu-ray; 98 minutes; 1.78:1. Extras:
making-of documentary, trailer, stills gallery.
Reviewed by Michael Brooke
This wilfully bizarre, jarringly dislocated
adaptation of Karel and Josef Capek’s 1922
opus Pictures from the Insects’ Life (also known as
The Insect Play) would not, to put it mildly, be a
good recommendation for someone’s first Jan
Svankmajer film. But as a 33rd – and his last,
he claims – it’s often great fun: the great Czech
surrealist (now in his 85th year) has rarely
been so exuberantly playful. Recalling Noises
Off as frequently as Kafka’s Metamorphosis, it
simultaneously presents a performance of the
play, the play in rehearsal (bumblingly amateur
actors, frequently exasperated director) and
Svankmajer and his crew shooting the film and
painstakingly realising its various animated
special effects the old-fashioned pre-CGI way.
Crammed with presumably intentional
nods to his earlier work, it’s most similar in
treatment to the similarly mixed-media Faust
(1994), and just as prone to pulling off startling
visual coups, many involving extreme close-
ups of either insects (much to the distress
HOME CINEMA
of one of the actors, practically a case study
in extreme entomophobia) or human body
parts that are just as repulsive as anything
sported by other species. This material is classic
Svankmajer, but it’s disappointing that the
Capek original is buried to the point where it
scarcely registers: while Alice and Faust were
often equally wayward, Svankmajer at least
managed to catch and sometimes enhance
the essence of the stories they were based
on, whereas the satire here is so muted that
it fails to catch fire even with heavy-handed
onscreen prompting. A shame, but even
minor Svankmajer has more imaginative
effervescence in any random minute than
many artists manage in their entire careers.
Disc: Picture and sound are both fine, and
this Czech release (from Svankmajer’s own
production company: his other six features have
had similar Blu-ray treatment) is 100 per cent
English-friendly (menus, subtitles on feature
and extras). The 15-minute on-set documentary
adds to existing glimpses behind the scenes.
A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS
Carol Reed; UK 1955; BFI; Region B Blu-ray & Region 2
DVD; Certificate U; 96 minutes; 1.37:1. Extras: archive
shorts on wrestling, London street markets and post-
WWII regeneration; interviews with actors Vera Day and
Joe Robinson; booklet notes by Matthew Coniam.
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
Given that anti-Semitism remains a depressingly
relevant issue, this half-forgotten 1955 Carol
Reed offering, with its sheer warmth and
inclusiveness, makes for heartening viewing.
No, it’s certainly not on the level of his post-
war classics Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol
and The Third Man, yet its blend of magical
whimsy and slice-of-life realism, set within the
multicultural enclave of Petticoat Lane market
– just streets away from London’s financial
centre – represents a charming investment
in hope for a prejudice-free future.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 85
 Television by Robert Hanks
ARMCHAIR THEATRE ARCHIVE
HOME CINEMA

VOLUME ONE: NOTHING TO PAY / THE CHERRY

ON THE TOP / LIGHT THE BLUE TOUCH
PAPER / EDWARD THE CONFESSOR
VOLUME TWO: WORM IN THE BUD / THE
INVASION / THE CHOCOLATE TREE / WHAT’S
WRONG WITH HUMPTY DUMPTY?
VOLUME THREE: THE BIRD, THE BEAR AND
THE ACTRESS / THE FISHING MATCH / THE
MAN WHO CAME TO DIE / DEAD SILENCE
VOLUME FOUR: THE THOUGHT OF
TOMORROW / TOFF AND FINGERS /
LATE SUMMER / THE GONG GAME
Various; UK 1959-69; Network/Studio Canal; Region 2 DVD;
Certificate 12; around 215 minutes per volume; 1.33:1.
On the surface, the main attraction of these
hugely enjoyable collections of largely unknown
television dramas, with their smudgy black-and-
white camerawork and sometimes very stiff
dialogue, is nostalgic. And there is enormous
pleasure to be had from seeing Ian Holm
acting alongside Beryl Reid in Leigh Vance’s
creepy comic thriller Edward the Confessor
(1969); catching Derek Jacobi’s first television
appearance, as a Nottinghamshire thug in The
Fishing Match (1962) by Norman King; spotting
that two of the leading actors on Volume Two
were among the traitors in Where Eagles Dare
(1968), while two on Volume Three turn up in The Chocolate Tree By quite a stretch the oddest,
Carry on up the Khyber (1968)… But the more of
them I watched, the more I felt nostalgia being nastiest and most compelling play in the collection –
drowned out by a sense of recognition – by a
creeping suspicion that Armchair Theatre Archive
even in 1963 viewers must have been take aback
is, at least as much as it’s a document of the past,
a series of bulletins from some parallel present. that the Martians are coming. Both plays suffer in Fright (1971) and First Blood (1982). Nothing
That feeling was especially strong in The from a certain crudity of language and thought, to Pay (1962) and Light the Blue Touch Paper
Chocolate Tree (1963) – by quite a stretch the but they share a surprising, bracing viciousness, (1966) – the first about a Welsh businessman
oddest, nastiest and most compelling play here. and offer a picture of a country (Britain or just trying to put a stop to his daughter’s reckless
It was written by the late Andrew Sinclair, whose England?) that loathes itself and the world: one in marriage; the second starring Anna Massey
resumé includes the satirical novel The Breaking of which, for half a century at least, everything has as a harassed young housewife faced with a
Bumbo (1959) and directing the 1970 film version changed and everything has stayed the same. problem of political conscience – are feeling
of that as well as the Burton-Taylor Under Milk None of the other plays is quite so free or so their way, intriguingly, towards feminism;
Wood (1971). The Strangs have grown wealthy powerful – partly, I think, because, as the title though across all four discs, the violence of
from centuries of trading with one of Britain’s Armchair Theatre suggests, TV was still struggling men’s language towards women, the sheer
African possessions, but the winds of change are to break free of a theatrical conception of drama: rudeness put into their mouths, is startling.
blowing across the continent, independence is writers and directors haven’t grasped the intimacy, For pure fun I’d single out Robert Kemp’s
near, and the Strangs are welcoming the new head inwardness and flexibility that TV can offer. For Toff and Fingers (1960), a crime comedy put out,
of state to their London home to discuss the future the most part, the studio sets (often elaborate and misleadingly, under the ‘Armchair Mystery
relationship. Proceedings are dominated on the generously budgeted) are treated as mini-theatres Theatre’ banner, with a Hitchcock-style
one hand by Paul Rogers, as the ailing, half-mad into which the camera daren’t intrude too introduction by Donald Pleasence: a pair of crooks
head of the family, contemptuous of his offspring much. The opening credits suggest things were masquerading as a gentleman and his valet go
and patronising to the Africans; on the other by changing – to begin with, a revolving display of to ground in a remote Highland village, and fall
Earl Cameron as the president-to-be, who has his theatrical masks; by the end, a funky montage of in love with the place. Roger Livesey, as the Toff
own understanding of the relationship and his photographs and symbols (Armchair Theatre ran who finds noblesse oblige comes naturally, finds
own grudges. Their rocklike characters contrast from 1956-74, but this series misses out the last echoes of his performance in The Life and Death
with the mercurial tempers of Peter McEnery as few years – I presume because it was taken over of Colonel Blimp (1943), and the whole thing has
Strang’s grandson, an ex-soldier traumatised by by Thames Television, and this series seems to be a ring of I Know Where I’m Going! (1945). None of
the Mau Mau, and Yemi Ajibade as the president’s based on the archives of its predecessor, ABC). the plays is a waste of your time, though Hugh
proud, militant son. At times, the dialogue puts on The theatrical roots are clearest in John Whitemore’s clunking satire What’s Wrong
display a frank, vehement racial hatred – even in Glennon’s The Bird, the Bear and the Actress with Humpty Dumpty? (1967) comes close.
1963, viewers must have been taken aback by the (1959): a Broadway producer (Harry H. Corbett, The discs are another fruit of Network’s
liberal use of the N-word. And beneath the hatred of all people) and entourage, on holiday in partnership with the ‘Forgotten Television
lies, on the British side, an assumption of privilege Provence, come across a long-forgotten designer Drama in the UK’ project at Royal Holloway
that generates both complacency and rage. (based on Edward Gordon Craig, who had University of London, and a good part of the
The same volume features an absurdist play by worked with Stanislavski in Moscow before enjoyment comes from the thorough and
Angus Wilson, The Invasion (1963), in which a self- the revolution) and decide to cash in on his thoughtful introductions to each play by the
important English county family and the ghastly reputation. Interesting that a drama so grounded academics Lez Cooke, John Hill and Billy Smart
nouveaux who have bought their ancestral in the history of the stage and predicated on (and, in the case of The Chocolate Tree, Stephen
manor declare war on each other, and neither lofty notions about Art was directed by Ted Bourne). It’s a brilliantly enlightened enterprise;
side has time to listen to their children’s discovery Kotcheff, better known for the less genteel Wake I hope there’s plenty more to come.

86 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

New releases
Adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his
own novella, it’s about a community based
around the shops and stalls run by the Jewish
diaspora. The central character, played by David
Kossoff, is a hard-up, hard-working tailor and
lovable mensch, whose words of advice have an
unexpected impact on the small boy who lodges
with him. Meanwhile, his brawny co-worker
gets inveigled into the wrestling game, hoping
to get the cash to marry his girlfriend at last. Is
the little kid’s one-horned goat a real unicorn
with special powers, and can our man win the
big fight? Only fair to say that the expected
answers take way too long to materialise.
Still, if the plodding pace demands a certain
patience, the happy melting-pot vibe is quite
captivating, and the whole shebang showcases
1950s British cinema’s can-do craftsmanship,
particularly in the way the location shoot is
blended with matching studio sets. The film
also provides a smile-inducing cavalcade of
much-loved faces, including Sid James, Diana
Dors, Irene Handl, Sidney Tafler and so on, right
down the cast list. The evidence of wartime
bomb damage in the backstreets is in sharp
contrast to the emphasis in the story on the
happy integration between Jewish exiles and
native East Enders – wishful thinking, perhaps,
but it’s a film of good intentions in every frame.
Disc: Ted Scaife’s colour camerawork shows
some intermittent fading, but the transfer is
very clean otherwise. An array of archive films
make this a tempting package for lovers of
vintage London footage – Robert Vas’s 1962
portrait of old-world Whitechapel The Vanishing
Street is especially worthwhile. Venerable cast
members Joe Robinson and Vera Day offer
suitably gossipy recollections in interview.
IDA LUPINO:
FILMMAKER COLLECTION
NOT WANTED / NEVER FEAR /
THE HITCH-HIKER / THE BIGAMIST
Ida Lupino; US 1949/49/53/53; Kino Lorber; Region A
Blu-ray; 91/82/71/80 minutes; 1.37:1/1.66:1. Extras: audio
commentaries, tralilers, booklet essay by critic Justin Chang.
Reviewed by Michael Atkinson
By now, amid the ‘fourth wave’ feminism surge,
the Lupino reclamation project is in full swing,
telling and retelling the story of Golden Age
Hollywood’s only post-Dorothy Arzner femme
auteur, as she fought the system for years as
an actor before deciding to independently
produce and direct her own movies, with
her husband Collier Young, starting in the
late 40s. It’s a modest oeuvre, despite ardent
Lupinoistes’ ongoing efforts at deep reading,
but obviously also a necessary one, rich in
gender-role ambivalence and narratives tilted
toward emotional collision rather than action.
Lupino produced but only finished directing
the illegit-pregnancy programmer Not Wanted
once Elmer Clifton had a heart attack; it and Never
Fear, a triumph-over-polio melodrama, are both
(perhaps in hindsight) percolating parables about
women losing their autonomy in a man’s world.
The Bigamist is the odd duck here, a guilt-fuelled
and earnestly sympathetic portrait of Edmond
O’Brien’s double-wifed modern man, acquiescing
to the desires of both a walking-wounded Lupino
Flirty pretty thing: Isabelle Adjani in One Deadly Summer
and a self-involved Joan Fontaine and always
wanting to be somewhere else. The Hitch-Hiker
is the gem and the true noir, an all-male guilt
bolero in which flabby buddies O’Brien and Frank
Lovejoy, off on a fishing trip but actually headed
south of the border for hookers, stop in the
middle of the night to pick up a hitcher, getting
instead a serial psychopath on the run (William
Talman), who holds a gun to their heads all the
way down to a south Mexican badland where
tourists don’t go. Remembering the confused,
vulnerable masculinity she picked up from her
four movies with Raoul Walsh, Lupino blurs the
scenario’s edges, confounds genre stereotypes,
and basks visually in the inky darkness of a
post-war landscape unbothered by streetlights.
Disc: Top-notch transfers, with fun if tiring
audio commentaries by youngish genre
geeks (Kat Ellinger, Alexandra Heller-
Nicholas, etc) scanning these fast B-movies
with ambitious magnifying lenses.
ONE DEADLY SUMMER
Jean Becker; France 1983; CultFilms; region-free
Dual Format; 133 mins; Certificate 18; 1.66:1. Extras:
interview with director Jean Becker; documentary
on screenwriter Sébastien Japrisot.
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Following a credit sequence in which a bearded
Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker
HOME CINEMA
man hauls a barrel-organ over tough terrain
(the relevance of this emerges in due course),
and an enigmatic onscreen Lewis Carroll quote,
Jean Becker’s film kicks off in what seems like
undemanding French rural-comedy territory.
We’re in a sunlit, gossipy Provençal village
where the local lads horse about and make
maladroit passes at the flirty local girls. Flirtiest
and prettiest of these is the recently arrived
Elle (Isabelle Adjani), who unexpectedly sets
her sights on the quiet and reserved Florimond
(Alain Suchon), a young mechanic and firefighter
mockingly known as ‘Pin-Pon’. Soon they’re
engaged and he’s moved her into his house,
to the amusement of the neighbours and the
grim disapproval of his mother (Jenny Clève).
This light-hearted opening gradually turns
dark, becoming a saga of brutal rape and long-
nurtured revenge, as Elle’s backstory emerges
(yes, that barrel-organ is key) and the hysteria
underlying her capriciousness starts to show
through. Adjani, in the role that rightly won her
the second of her (so far) five Césars, gauges the
transition faultlessly, but she’s well matched
by the less experienced Suchon as the gangling,
insecure Pin-Pon. (Surprising to learn that
Becker considered casting the robust Gérard
Depardieu.) As Pin-Pon’s deaf but shrewd aunt,
Suzanne Flon charmingly steals several scenes.
L’Eté meutrière (literally, ‘The Murderous
Summer’), was Becker’s first feature after a
17-year gap, and in the interview included on
this disc he calls it his first “mature film”. His
initial cut ran some three hours, but he was
persuaded to trim about 40 minutes for release;
a pity the excised footage isn’t included here.
There’s ingenious use of multiple narrative voice-
over, and Georges Delerue’s score hauntingly
incorporates the British World War 1 hit ‘Roses of
Picardy’ – rendered, of course, on a barrel-organ.
Disc: A faultless 2K restoration does full justice
to the sunlight-and-darkness of DP Etienne
Becker (the director’s brother). The director
interview and doc on the film’s screenwriter
(Sébastien Japrisot, adapting his own novel)
provide informative background.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 87
 Lost and Found
POLA X
HOME CINEMA
OVERLOOKED FILMS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE ON UK DVD OR BLU-RAY
Leos Carax’s wild romance,
loosely adapted from Herman
Melville, hasn’t lost its power
to shock and entrance
By Beatrice Loayza
Perhaps it is on account of excessive taboo-
breaking (incest, terrorism, potentially
unsimulated sex scenes) or the curse of
its source material (Herman Melville’s
professionally catastrophic 1852 novel, Pierre:
or the Ambiguities) that Leos Carax’s Pola X
(1999) has fallen into relative obscurity: it is
virtually unavailable in the UK, despite the
filmmaker’s small but conspicuous footprint
on the history of French cinema. The fourth
of the five films in Carax’s swaggering body
of work, Pola X was perhaps too delirious and
anarchic for audiences still dipping their toes
into the new trend towards transgression later
christened the ‘New French Extremity’.
A feral twist on the cliché of suffering for
one’s art, Pola X is Carax continuing, in a sense,
his previous work’s fixation on young love run
amok. Here, though, the object of desire is not
the individual, but the notion of artistic truth.
‘Pola’ is an acronym for Melville’s novel (in
French, Pierre, ou les Ambiguities), which Carax
recalibrates from New York to Paris; X refers to
the tenth draft of the script – an arbitrary number,
suggesting this version of the story is simply the
one we get, out of countless frenzied possibilities.
If in Mauvais sang (1986) Carax channels Jean-
Luc Godard and Charlie Chaplin, then Pola X
is Carax in the manner of Antonin Artaud.
Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu) lives a pampered
life with his widowed mother Marie (a leonine,
sensual Catherine Deneuve). Motorbike cruising
and sex with his soft-pink fiancée Lucie (Delphine
Chuillot) punctuate his routine. Progress is slow
on his second novel, but two phrases – “a mad
recklessness” and “a young irreversible love” –
stick out as he clicks away on his computer in a
room overlooking a row of sprinklers endlessly
watering a manicured lawn. Pola X also represents
for Depardieu a sort of mid-career fulcrum,
marking a departure from boyish, hormone-
riddled performances (as in Alain Courneau’s
Tous les matins du monde, 1991) to mature, caustic
roles post-millennium – such as the general
Armand de Montriveau in Jacques Rivette’s
The Duchess of Langeais, made in 2007, the year
before Depardieu’s death from pneumonia.
Relationships are arranged and rearranged in
pairs and trios, all linked by erotic charge to Pierre,
regardless of familial boundaries: Pierre and
Marie, lounging and tenderly caressing like old
lovers in bed; Pierre, Lucie and cousin Thibault
(Laurent Lucas), with whom a sexual relationship
is teased. Then appears Isabelle (Yekaterina
Golubeva), mangy but captivating, who will
replace Lucie as the object of Pierre’s affections.
88 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
Pola explorer: Guillaume Depardieu as Pierre in Pola X
The film devolves into delirium
and raving physicality, the
narrative incomprehensibility
mirroring Pierre’s degradation
A refugee from the Bosnian Civil War,
Isabelle entrances the golden boy with her
plaintive beauty. She recounts her painful story
to him in a dimly lit forest, their two bodies
restless shape-shifters in the dank blue of the
nigh (a tour de force by cinematographer Eric
Gautier, whose CV includes Irma Vep, 1996,
The Motorcycle Diaries, 2004, and most recently
Ash Is Purest White, 2018). In high-pitched,
broken French she summons disconnected
traumatic memories for nearly eight minutes,
all captured in one long, mesmerising tracking
WHAT THE PAPERS SAID
‘T
‘There’s no denying Carax’s
iintense visual imagination
and commitment... the film,
a a horrifying circularity to Pierre’s endeavour.
iin all its deranged grandeur,
rrepresents a defiant refusal
tto capitulate.’
Gavin Smith ‘Sight & Sound’,
G Pierre and Isabelle as disembodied limbs and
June 2000
J writhing shapes during sex; Marie’s dead body
‘Ne
N ith
ither geni
‘Neither ius n
genius nor poseur, the aging
enfant terrible who calls himself Leos
Carax can be seen to best advantage in
Pola X. This moody, rapturous adaptation of
Pierre, Herman Melville’s gothic follow-up
to Moby-Dick, is never less than seriously
romantic.’
J. Hoberman ‘Village Voice’, September 2000
shot. Crucially, Isabelle reveals she is Pierre’s
long-lost half-sister; they will live as husband
and wife, declares Pierre, newly inspired.
The couple find lodging in an abandoned
warehouse where a group of terrorists spend
their time rehearsing, banging on steel plates
and instruments as if for an industrial noise
band. The film is scored by the late Scott Walker,
whose shivering holler can be heard in the
heavier, experimental tracks. Freshly installed
in a terrifying abode of angular metal staircases
and open ceilings, Pierre begins to write. The
camera hovers menacingly above their rooms,
revealing a porousness to the walls around
them, a susceptibility to the surrounding
madness that aggravates, inspires and poisons
Pierre with a similar clanging, joyless ferocity.
This second half of the film devolves into
delirium and unchecked, raving physicality,
the stylistic vehemence and narrative
incomprehensibility mirroring Pierre’s
degradation. For a film so concerned with the
unmasking of truth (Pierre’s use of a pseudonym
for his first novel; the revelation of a secret room
in the chateau), the outcome of madness, death,
and an ultimate return to static living suggests
As with Depardieu’s committed physical
performance, the film’s most striking moments
are articulated in terms of bodily ruptures:
splayed out on the road like a rag doll after
a night-time motorbike ride in search of her
son. Carax’s strangest inclinations might be
manically disseminated, but it’s this unchecked,
visceral life force just beyond articulation
that packs a punch. And unlike Carax’s other
films, such an unshackled, inwards-looking
portrait of the artist has the effect of a pained,
personal reflection on the limits of art.
 PIER PAOLO
PASOLINI
TRILOGY OF LIFE + SALÒ

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AND SCANDALOUS CINEMA’
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 Books

HITCHCOCK AND
BOOKS

THE CENSORS

By John Billheimer, University Press of Kentucky,

384pp, ISBN 9780813177427
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
At this rate, there may soon be more books
about Alfred Hitchcock than about all
other British-born directors put together.
Still, if further Hitchiana remains as
readable and soundly researched as John
Billheimer’s study of A.H. versus prudes (an
oversimplification, yes, but not by much),
there should be no cause for complaint.
The majority of Hitch’s battles over elements
of sexuality, violence, explicit language and
so forth in the films he wanted to make were,
inevitably, fought out with Hollywood’s
Production Code Administration (PCA), headed,
from 1934 until his retirement 20 years later, by
Joseph Ignatius Breen, a devout Catholic and, as
Billheimer notes, “a rabid anti-Semite”. Under
Breen’s direction, the Code strictly forbade not
only nudity, “movement of breasts”, “excessive
and lustful” kissing, profanity (“damn”, “hell”,
“jeeze” and the like, with “Thank God!” permitted
only if spoken “with due reverence”), drug use,
the sight or indeed the mention of lavatories,
excessive violence, unpunished crimes and even,
in the script for Hitch’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941),
such suggestive terms as “bedroom slippers”.
Breen and his acolytes, though, weren’t
the only captious scissor-wielders the Master
of Suspense had to contend with. Their
equivalents in Britain were the members of the
British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), set up in
1912 – whose prime concerns, however, seem
to have been less with sex and violence and
more with political and social issues. (‘Seem’
because the BBFC’s records were destroyed by
a German bomb in 1941.) It was thanks to the
BBFC that Eisenstein’s 1925 Battleship Potemkin
wasn’t permitted a public screening in the UK
until 1954, and that the villains in The Lady
Vanishes (1938), while implicitly Teutonic,
were never identified as German. In 1937 Lord
William Tyrrell, the then BBFC president, could
announce to a gathering of exhibitors (with not
the least hint of irony), “We may take pride in In the realm of the censors: Hitchcock ‘manipulated censors as slyly as he manipulated cinema-goers’
observing that there is not a single film showing
in London today which deals with any of the as the FBI and the Office of War Information Chevrolet demanded the deletion of a line
burning questions of the day.” Not surprisingly, (over Notorious, 1946) and the US Department of about “fording a stream” for similar reasons.
Hitchcock’s idea of making a film about the the Interior (over North by Northwest, 1959). And At times, the PCA seems to have assumed
1926 General Strike got less than nowhere. once he moved into television, he discovered that the majority of moviegoers lived in a fog
In the States, the work of the PCA was that the programme sponsors imposed their of barely penetrable ignorance. All references
supplemented, and often augmented, by own pettifogging restrictions, mostly on purely to ‘cyanide’ or ‘arsenic’ were taboo, on the
REVUE/SHAMLEY/UNIVERSAL/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK

the Legion of Decency, an outfit created by
the Catholic Church that applied its own
rating system to releases (A = “morally
unobjectionable”, B = “morally objectionable in
parts”, C = “condemned”). C films were frequently
denounced from the pulpits, and Catholics
were required to take a membership pledge at
least once a year and follow the Legion’s rulings
under pain of mortal sin. On occasion Hitchcock
encountered strictures from other bodies such
commercial grounds. Chrysler once found a
mention of Abraham Lincoln “offensive” because
Lincoln cars were made by its rival Ford, while
Like other feisty-minded directors,
Hitchcock relished the game of
diverting and bamboozling the
self-appointed moral guardians
grounds that they might provide potential
poisoners with useful pointers when visiting the
pharmacy; the generic term ‘poison’ had to be
substituted. Similarly, Hitchcock was frequently
warned against scenes in which criminals
wiped fingerprints off glasses, doorknobs and
so forth, or where kidnappers muted their
victims with a hand over the mouth – again,
too much helpful info for would-be evil-doers.
Over the years, Hitchcock became adept at

90 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

what he called the “competitive horse-trading”
involved in dealing with the PCA and similar
bodies. Like other feisty-minded directors
such as Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder, he
relished the game of diverting, misleading
and bamboozling the self-appointed moral
guardians. Unlike his erstwhile boss, David
O. Selznick – himself no mean control-freak
on occasion – he avoided overt confrontation,
instead, as Billheimer puts it, “proceeding by
indirection and, in the end, manipulating censors
as slyly as he manipulated moviegoers”.
Hitch’s favourite tactic in his games with the
censors was to deliberately include elements that
he knew perfectly well to be unacceptable “so that
they could be used as sacrificial lambs to appease
censors and convince them to allow images that
might otherwise have been cut”. Often, indeed,
the censors would become so fixated on some
relatively minor issue – such as the French police
ogling salacious postcards in To Catch a Thief
(1954), a scene duly excised – that they apparently
missed the flirtatious double entendres between
John Robie (Cary Grant) and Frances Stevens
(Grace Kelly) in their picnic scene overlooking
the Riviera. (Frances, proffering a chicken: “You
want a leg or a breast?”) And amazingly enough,
the undertones of gayness in Strangers on a Train
(1951) and of voyeurism in Rear Window (1954)
seem to have bypassed the Breen Office entirely.
Accounts of olden-time official prudery, as
detailed in this book, are always good for a laugh.
But one can’t overlook, as Billheimer notes, just
how much damage was done to Hitchcock’s
work by the niggling objections of the various
blue-nose bodies he had to deal with. The author’s
estimate that “in the course of making the
twenty-seven films from Rebecca to Torn Curtain
[after which the PCA was abolished] Hitchcock
spent the equivalent of three and a half years
with Production Code concerns on his to-do
list” might be thought excessive; but there can’t
be much doubt that a good many of his movies
were spoiled by the limitations imposed upon
them. Hitch’s planned final scene in Suspicion
(1941), where a whistling Cary Grant, having
poisoned his wife (Joan Fontaine), blithely
pops into the post-box the letter in which she
denounces him, must surely be regretted; as also
the unjust execution of the priest (Montgomery
Clift) originally intended for I Confess (1953).
Against this, Billheimer suggests that just
now and then a Hitchcock film may actually
have been improved by the censors’ meddling,
citing the softened characterisation of Alicia
(Ingrid Bergman), from hooker to good-time
girl, in Notorious, or the famous shower scene in
Psycho (1960), where “the impact of the scene
is due in no small part to the constraints the
Production Code placed on Hitchcock”. And
it’s maybe worth noting that the decline in
quality of Hitchcock’s later films, from Marnie
(1964) onwards, coincides almost exactly with
the weakening and eventual abolition, in 1968,
of the PCA. A heretical thought, perhaps – but
could it be that the great director to some degree
needed the stimulus of those devious ‘horse-
trading’ exercises to keep him on his toes?
THE FILMS OF ELAINE MAY
Edited by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Dean
Brandum, Edinburgh University Press, ReFocus
series, 256pp, ISBN 9781474440189
Reviewed by Ian Mantgani
Despite critical reverence and a legendary status
in American improv comedy, there has never
been a book-length study of Elaine May, unlike
her former performing partner Mike Nichols,
who has been the subject of several. A pioneer
in establishing a new style of urbane, neurotic
popular humour in the late 1950s and 60s, May
would go on to direct only four feature films – A
New Leaf (1971), The Heartbreak Kid (1972), Mikey
and Nicky (1976) and the notorious box-office
bomb Ishtar (1987). While she has continued to
work as an actor and writer, the unique brilliance
and sudden demise of her directorial career
has made this limited body of work a subject of
particular fascination for cinephiles in the know.
May’s position as both famous and obscure,
disappeared and constantly working, led critic
Jonathan Rosenbaum to describe her as “hiding
in plain sight” in his essay ‘The Mysterious Elaine
May’, an idea that forms the mainspring for this
publication in Edinburgh University Press’s
ReFocus series, which employ interdisciplinary
analysis to centre attention on American
filmmakers lurking just outside the canon.
Divided into four sections, the book first
establishes May’s background with the
improvisational cabaret revue the Compass Players
and with Nichols, giving detailed breakdowns
of the methodology of their routines. It then
seeks to critically situate May as part of the New
Hollywood movement and within a tradition
of improvisation. There are then individual
chapters about her four features and a section on
The unique brilliance and sudden
demise of her directorial career has
made this limited body of work a
subject of particular fascination
Hiding in plain sight: Elaine May
collaborations, including May’s screenplay for
Otto Preminger’s Such Good Friends (1971) and
BOOKS
her performances in work such as Woody Allen’s
television miniseries Crisis in Six Scenes (2016).
It is in the situating of May critically that the
book as a whole proves most valuable – factually,
in reminding us, for example, that May was only
the fourth female member of the Directors Guild
of America; and theoretically, in the likes of Clem
Bastow’s chapter on The Heartbreak Kid, which
breaks down the gendering of the film’s gazes
and argues that the cold reception May was given
by second-wave feminists was unwarranted.
From the intelligent, rigorous writing, certain
themes emerge: the compassion in May’s surface
misanthropy, her sense of physical comedy, the
improvisational ‘passing the ball’ which infuses
the double-act performance dynamics of her
feature films, and her own personal reclusiveness
and misdirectional self-mythologising.
The academic survey structure does result in
some lurching back and forth in chronology, as
each writer begins their own rendition of May’s
background. And the book is essentially an
elucidation of known assertions about May, of
which Rosenbaum’s essay is the urtext. We don’t,
for example, get any concrete sense of whether
the original A New Leaf script, with its deleted
murder scenes, has actually been made available
to scholars, or get more than a passing mention
of the rumour that May secretly directed the 1990
comedy In the Spirit (credited to Sandra Seacat).
We don’t get analysis of her plays, but we do get
wondering aloud about whether the relationship
with Nichols was romantic, even though there’s
not a single mention of her long companionship
with the director Stanley Donen. The book’s
oddest structural gambit is an addendum
featuring an interview with screenwriter
Allie Hagan, which is perfectly readable but
also uncharacteristically slight and chatty.
Nevertheless, it’s welcome to see a
compendium looking to resituate May from
the fringes of contemporary American cinema.
Between the collection of smart, meaty pieces and
their dazzling array of footnotes, we now have
something to begin ‘passing the ball’ to future
authors who can continue the May renaissance.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 91
 THE DYNAMIC FRAME

Camera Movement in Classical Hollywood

Patrick Keating, Columbia University Press,
368pp, ISBN 9780231190510
Reviewed by Nick Pinkerton
In 1941, the film critic Otis Ferguson took
BOOKS

a train from New York to Hollywood with

the intention of going on to studio sets to
figure out how, exactly, the sausage was
made, studying on-set activity firsthand. In
the nearly 80 interceding years, remarkably
few journalistic critics or academics have
followed in his footsteps, overwhelmingly
favouring a focus on content over an even
glancing acquaintance with form.
What a welcome thing then is Patrick
Keating’s The Dynamic Frame, a study of the
moving camera in studio-era Hollywood from
1924 to 1958, which among its other resources
cites Ferguson’s trip west. Keating, previously
the author of Hollywood Lighting from the Silent
Era to Film Noir, has with two volumes done
as much spade-work as anyone living towards
explaining why the movies of Hollywood in the
period looked and moved as they do. The in and
out dates of his new book reflect two landmarks
in the moving camera: 1924 is the year of F.W.
Murnau’s The Last Laugh, which Keating credits
as starting an international cinematographic
revolution in the philosophy and practice of
the moving camera, a revolution that came to
Hollywood in advance of Murnau, while 1958
brought the great summation of the opening Boom times: the legendary crane devised by Paul Fejos and Hal Mohr for Broadway (1929)
shot of Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil, an analysis of
which forms the conclusion to Keating’s book. Descriptive close reads of film scenes on the strained and stretched and sweated in order
Between these two film-school staples, printed page, even when they’re as keen as they to facilitate the studio camera’s expressive
Keating draws on a plethora of less well-known are in The Dynamic Frame and amply illustrated possibilities. “The work of preproduction is
examples – a scene from Nunnally Johnson’s with stills, can sometimes be slow-going – though mental, verbal, and visual,” Keating writes.
Black Widow (1954), for instance, illustrates Keating, in mixed-medium mode, has set up a “The work of production is bodily. The actors
the solutions found for using the new, broad website to host the clips referred to in the text, a move their arms and legs and torsos, and the
CinemaScope frame, with its overload of moving companion to this study in the moving grip and operator move theirs. Each must
information, to do the work of isolating detail. camera. Any compunctions about this are more anticipate the others’ gestures, like dancers
The Dynamic Frame is made up of an introduction than allayed by an absolute confidence that in an ensemble. The Hollywood studio
and six chapters, beginning with a history of the this is not a book that will gather dust on the system relied on preproduction planning
influence of the Germanic moving camera in shelf, for what Keating has done is provide an in order to rationalize production, but the
Hollywood and an examination of the attitudes invaluable resource to scholar and film fan – a process of filmmaking ultimately came
expressed within the movie colony towards such practical timeline of the relationship between down to craftspeople working together
‘trick’ shots, and continuing through further visual expression and on-set innovation. in the moment. One type of collaboration
investigations of the moving camera – adapting Woven through the book’s chapters is a history was corporate; the other was corporeal.”
to the sound revolution, acting as an expression of the developments in filmmaking technology While explicating the infinity of meanings that
of modernity – which, although arranged that permitted or encouraged additions to can be carried by the essential camera gestures
thematically, also form a rough chronology. the vocabulary of the moving camera and an of the period covered – the pan, tilt, dolly and
With primary research encompassing the work increasing visual fluidity. His book’s cast of crane – Keating makes occasional digressions
of other scholars (the film theorist David Bordwell characters includes generations of dollies, from into matters of, to use a phrase in currency among
is an important touchstone), extensive interviews the Rotambulator to the Velocilator to the small certain midcentury French critics, tracking shots
from all manner of Hollywood personnel, and manoeuverable ‘crab dollies’ of the 1950s, the as moral gestures, particularly in addressing films
state-of-the-art essays by technicians lifted prototype of which was created for Hitchcock’s of the Depression era. His most radical revisionist
from American Cinematographer and other The Paradine Case (1947); legendary cranes gesture, however, is his reclamation of the labours
publications, Keating identifies and interrogates like the ‘Broadway boom’, the 28-ton monster of the grips, gaffers and camera assistants rarely
several ongoing debates over the meaning devised by director Paul Fejos and DP Hal Mohr offered so much as a footnote by posterity. In a
of camera movement. He complicates the at Universal for their Broadway (1929); and, passage like that above, as in his reconstructions
common assumption of the existence of a strict no less important, the below-the-line workers of the extraordinary acts of physical teamwork
dichotomy between an objective and subjective who operated these strange new beasts. that made possible the smooth-ride filmmaking
camera, furnishing examples which illustrate Keating brings focus to the role of these of the studios, Keating reminds us of the everyday
how rarely the ‘subjective camera’ is ever purely artisans who, often anonymous in their efforts, feats of behind-the-camera virtuosity that made
that – he prefers the term ‘semisubjective’ – and the studios tick, and just how difficult it was
addresses the periodically popular concept His most radical gesture is his to make things look effortless. An essential job
of the omniscient camera, reminding us that of work for anyone interested in the under-
even a free-floating camera is tasked with the reclamation of the labours of the the-hood aspects of the filmmaking game and
job of selecting what to show an audience and
when and how to show it. (Hence the challenge
grips and gaffers rarely offered so a paean, to borrow from Ferguson, to “what
tedious and backbreaking work goes into the
posed by the expansive CinemaScope frame.) much as a footnote by posterity actual shooting of any Class A picture”.

92 | Sight&Sound | October 2019

ADVERTISING FEATURE
HARRYHAUSEN
The Lost Movies
By John Walsh, Titan Books, 192pp, hardback,
illustrated, £29.99, ISBN 9781789091106
Publication date: 10 September 2019
Known for his iconic stop-motion
creatures, Ray Harryhausen was at the
forefront of Hollywood special effects
for much of the 20th century, with
films including Jason and the Argonauts
(1963), One Million Years B.C. (1966)
and Clash of the Titans (1981). But for
every film that reaches the big screen,
half a dozen projects are never realised.
Harryhausen: The Lost Movies explores
the effects artist’s unrealised films,
including unused ideas, projects he
turned down and scenes that ended up
on the cutting-room floor. This book
includes never-seen-before artwork,
sketches, photos and test footage
from the archives of the Ray & Diana
Harryhausen Foundation. Author John
Walsh is a trustee of the Foundation
and a double Bafta-nominated
filmmaker whose work focuses on
social justice and gives a voice to
otherwise unheard-of contributors.
www.titanbooks.com
LUIS BUÑUEL
A Life in Letters
Edited by Jo Evans and Breixo Viejo,
Bloomsbury, 640pp, 107 b&w images,
paperback, £28.99, ISBN 9781501312588
“Garlanded with informative
footnotes, this collection is a
magnificent testament to the
everyday burden and bonhomie
of being Buñuel.” – Rob Stone,
University of Birmingham.
Luis Buñuel corresponded with some
of the most famous writers, directors,
actors and artists of his generation and
the list of these correspondents reads
like a roll call of major 21st-century
cultural icons: Fellini, Truffaut, Vigo,
Aragon, Dalí, Fuentes and many more.
Now for the first time in English,
250 of these letters have been made
available, providing insight into the
daily and major events in Buñuel’s life,
as well as giving observations from
the director and his correspondents’
perspectives on developments
associated with major film industries
from the late 1920s to the late 1970s
in France, the US and Mexico.
www.bloomsbury.com
PRESTON STURGES
The Last Years of Hollywood’s
First Writer-Director
By Nick Smedley and Tom Sturges
with foreword by Peter Bogdanovich,
Intellect, 324pp, paperback, £22,
ISBN 9781783209927
Few directors of the 1930s and 40s
were as distinctive and popular as
Preston Sturges, whose whipsmart
comedies have entertained audiences
for decades. This book offers a new
critical appreciation of Sturges’s whole
oeuvre, incorporating a detailed study
of the last ten years of his life from new
primary sources. Preston Sturges details
the many unfinished projects of these
years, including films, plays, TV series
and his autobiography. Drawing on
diaries, sketchbooks, correspondence,
unpublished screenplays and more,
Nick Smedley and Tom Sturges
present the writer-director’s final years
in more detail than we’ve ever seen,
showing a master still at work – even
if very little of that work ultimately
made it to the screen or stage.
www.intellectbooks.com/
preston-sturges
WINGS OF DESIRE
By Christian Rogowski, Camden House,
96pp, paperback and ebook, illustrated,
£12.99/$19.95, ISBN 9781640140370
Filmed in 1986-87 in still-divided
Berlin, Wings of Desire is both a fairytale
and a fascinating time capsule of that
late Cold War moment. Wim Wenders
created a filmic poem of dazzling
complexity: the skies are populated
with angels bearing witness to its
inhabitants’ everyday concerns. One
falls in love with a beautiful young
woman, a trapeze artist, and decides
to forfeit his immortality. Published
to coincide with the 30th anniversary
of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this
book employs archival research to
bring out new insights into the film’s
making and its meanings. It is part
of Camden House’s new German
Film Classics series., an exciting new
series for enthusiasts, with particular
attention to films available through
DVD, or streaming outlets, in high-
quality English-subtitled versions.
boybrew.co/2SFnA6l
September 2012| Sight&Sound | 93
FEEDBACK
READERS’ LETTERS
Letters are welcome, and should be
addressed to the Editor at Sight & Sound,
BFI, 21 Stephen Street, London W1T 1LN
Email: S&S@bfi.org.uk
RESCUING DAMSEL
In praising Swing Time, Robert Hanks disparages
A Damsel in Distress as “not one of Astaire’s
better films, dragged earthward by, among
other things, George Burns and Gracie Fields’s
(sic) theoretically comic routines” (Home
Cinema, S&S, August). Comedy is a matter of
opinion, and, having seen Damsel several times
in theatres, I can report that there was nothing
theoretical about the big laughs the customers
were enjoying thanks to Burns and (not Gracie
Fields but) Gracie Allen. When factoring in a
superb Gershwin score, the music of Ray Noble
and his orchestra, Joseph H. August’s loving
cinematography of ‘A Foggy Day’, and the overall
direction of George Stevens, I’d have to say that,
with apology to Mr Hanks, A Damsel in Distress
is decidedly one of Astaire’s better films.
Preston Neal Jones Hollywood, USA
FRIGHT LIGHT
I enjoyed Kim Newman’s insightful article
about the horrors found in daylight (‘Demons by
daylight’, S&S, August). Mention of films called
‘The Dark’ or ‘Darkness’ put me in mind of two
very different but distinctive films: And Soon the
Darkness (1970), a thriller that made excellent
use of the sticky, claustrophobic heat of a bright
summer’s day in rural France; and Kathryn
Bigelow’s Near Dark (1987), in which the sun
sears and scorches its vampire protagonists like a
burning death ray from a vintage a sci-fi movie.
John Davies Heidelberg
CRUX OF THE MATTER
I can’t work out whether it was brave or foolhardy
for the UK’s flagship film magazine to leave in the
last phrase of Frank P. Tomasulo’s letter on Pauline
Kael (Letters, S&S, September), namely “in an era
when critics mattered”. You elevated it to ‘Letter
of the Month’, so it’s not like the phrase slipped
by unnoticed. Is S&S having an existential crisis?
Alan Miller Editor, ‘First Frame’ Magazine
ALL ABOUT STEVE
I have to point out that the sequence in Spider-
Man: Far from Home that Kim Newman singles
out for praise (“this stretch of the film is very
Steve Ditko”) is in fact taken almost frame-for-
panel from The Amazing Spider-Man issue 67,
published more than two years after Steve Ditko
quit Marvel. The layouts for those scenes were
by John Romita and Jim Mooney. Nonetheless,
Mr Newman is quite right. It is very Ditko.
Dave Morris London
THE LINE OF BEAUTY
Many thanks to Hannah McGill for her review
of my film Penny Slinger – Out of the Shadows
(S&S, August). I welcome all thoughtful
criticism, but I must defend the reputations of
the film’s contributors, whom McGill unfairly
misrepresents, often by misquoting them or
decontextualising what they actually said.
McGill charges the film’s “male commentators”
LETTER OF THE MONTH
THE NEVERENDING STORY
Nick James’s editorial on nearly three decades
of film-watching (‘And life goes on…’, S&S,
September) brought to mind a fascinating
chapter in Projections 2 (Faber and Faber,
1993). Numerous filmmakers – Paul Schrader
(pictured), John Boorman, Monte Hellman
et al – were asked “The Burning Question”:
“What kind of movies do you imagine
might emerge in the next millennium?”
Schrader’s response, in particular, was
fascinating: “Storytellers should not be
particularly concerned about the death
of motion pictures as they have evolved
to this point. Movies have been a useful
twentieth-century tool; when they are no
longer useful, they will fade from view,
replaced by their technological offspring.
It’s not the storyteller’s job to defend an
art form. The storyteller’s job is to revamp
humankind’s tales using new technologies,
with “obsessively returning to her [Penny’s]
physical allure”. Where “obsessively returning”
comes from is unclear. Three brief mentions in 98
minutes doesn’t exactly support that; two of the
film’s five male commentators don’t mention
Penny’s “physical allure” at all. When the female
art critic Anke Kempke does discuss Penny’s
“physical allure” (“She had no fear of using
beauty”) she contextualises it as “condemned
terrain” within “some areas of feminist art”. This
review suggests it still is.
In an attempt to support her charge, McGill
quotes Antony Penrose as saying of Penny: “She
was interesting: she was very sexy.” Crucially, the
context of Antony’s observation is omitted. He
continues: “For me as a hormonally challenged
adolescent, this was really exciting, but there
was also a profoundness about her. She was
obviously a very thinking person.” The late
Peter Whitehead is quoted thus: “Penny was a
powerful little lady at that time; she was like
the It girl of the late 60s and early 70s.” But
this is a misquote. Peter only said the first part.
The second half of the quote was actually said
earlier in the film by Kempkes. I could go on…
telling and retelling old truths and moral
conflicts. Don’t cry for cinema.”
He adds, presciently, that the coming
decades “will be years of confusion and
exploration. Film-makers will be forced to
choose: refine your dying art or stumble like
awkward children into the new forms.”
However, as William Goldman put it: “Nobody
knows anything.” Who knows where the
anarchic present will lead us – technologically,
culturally, socially and politically? Less than
two years lie between the respective
commercial and artistic apexes of US cinema:
Gone with the Wind (1939) and Citizen Kane
(1941). Who also foresaw that the upheaval of
the 1960s counterculture would lead to Easy
Rider (1969) and the New Hollywood of the
1970s? Perhaps the 2020s will have that same
breakaway quality – and not just in the US.
Will Goble Essex
Critics – like filmmakers – are at liberty
to get things wrong. But these distortions
unfairly reflect the generous and thoughtful
spirit with which those interviewed
engaged with the project. ‘Beauty’, it seems,
remains an extremely contentious issue.
Richard Kovitch Director, ‘Penny
Slinger: Out of the Shadows’
Hannah McGill replies: I sincerely apologise to
the production team for the misattributed quote,
which was a note-taking error. I stand by both my
positive assessment of the film, and my observations
about some of its interviewees’ remarks, which
are there for all to hear and which complement
the subject’s own artistic response to objectification
in a way I rather assumed was intentional!
Additions and corrections
September p.61 A Faithful Man: Certificate 15, 75m 16s; p.62 The Great
Hack: Not submitted for theatrical classification, VoD certificate: 15,
Running time: 113m 24s; p.68 Memory: Not submitted for theatrical
classification, VoD certificate: 15, Running time: 93m 8s; p.78 Stones
Have Laws: We incorrectly claimed that all three directors of the film
were Dutch, but one, Tolin Alexander, is Surinamese Maroon.
August p.62 Blue My Mind: Not submitted for theatrical classification,
REX FEATURES (1)
VoD certificate: 18, Running time: 97m 7s; p.86 The caption for the
picture of The Man Who Laughs incorrectly identified the actress as
Mary Philbin. It is, in fact, Olga Baclanova, playing Duchess Josiana.
October 2019 | Sight&Sound | 95
 ENDINGS…
ANDREI RUBLEV
The finale of Andrei Tarkovsky’s
epic portrait of life in 15th-century
Russia creates heartstopping
suspense from the unveiling of a bell
By Nick James
Whenever I’m asked what my favourite film is, I
answer Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (1966),
partly as a quick response to a dull question.
But recently I looked again at the dramatic
ending of Tarkovsky’s monochrome epic – I say
‘dramatic’ ending as I’ve chosen to ignore the
film’s colour epilogue, which is devoted to details
of the real Rublev’s actual icons. Of course, the
dramatic sequence is the towering achievement
I remembered from when I first saw the film
in the 1970s; but it is difficult to determine a
point where, so to speak, it begins to end.
Andrei Rublev portrays vivid, powerful scenes
of 15th-century Russian life as observed by the
titular humanist monk and icon painter (played
with great sensitivity by Anatoly Solonitsyn) as
he plies his trade while his fellow Russians try to
endure life under the oppression of princes and
an invasion by cruel Tartar hordes. Through a
procession of searing scenes, Rublev witnesses the
persecution of a pagan peasantry and the blinding
of fellow craftsmen and develops doubts about his
art and the vindictiveness of his fellow monks.
The eighth and final chapter of the film
introduces us to Boriska (Nikolai Burlyayev,
incarnating hopeful, troubled youth so
naturally), the young son of a bell founder, who
is quizzed by thug-like emissaries of the local
prince about his father’s whereabouts. After
96 | Sight&Sound | October 2019
explaining that his father and all the other
craftsmen have died of the plague, Boriska
persuades them that he has been given the
secret of casting bell bronze by his father.
They take him with them and there are
several suspense-building stages to the bell’s
construction: digging the pit, finding the right
clay, finishing the mould before the winter
snows start to fall, baking it with a huge bonfire,
demanding more silver from the palace for the
alloy mix (usually mostly copper with some
tin), pouring the liquid bronze into the mould at
night. The industrial process, a massive collective
physical undertaking of wood, mud, fire and
metal, is so precarious, ingenious and marvellous
that one is almost convinced alchemical magic
is about to happen – or worse still, fail.
Phases within each of the film’s chapters are
entwined by brilliant editing, making them
feel continuous and unbroken. It’s arguable
that the whole of the final chapter constitutes
the ending I’m talking about, but I take the real
finale to be from the moment when the bell
has been hauled up on a joist out of the pit. A
long shot of the palace gates on the plain, seen
through the ropes and girders of the hilltop
bell construction site, shows the prince and
his retinue, including two aristocratic Italian
visitors, coming out on horseback to see the
bell. People fall on their faces in reverence. The
The process of casting the bell is
so ingenious that one is almost
convinced alchemical magic is
about to happen – or worse, fail
overseer sees them coming and issues threats
to the foreman while a somewhat bewildered
Boriska wanders around the bell as it is tied off.
The hoisters descend the ropes and the bishop
and his presbyters bless the bell on all four sides.
When the prince and his retinue arrive,
Boriska is shoved forward, as if to say “He’s
responsible” – but one of his mounted men forces
Boriska back to the bell. The foreman asks who
should ring it. Boriska isn’t able to answer, so
the foreman gets in the pit himself and starts to
swing the enormously heavy clapper. It moves
very slowly at first, getting ever closer to the
rim, taking much heartstopping screen time.
It’s a masterful piece of suspense. Everyone is
silent except for the two visiting dignitaries,
who are chattering to each other in Italian,
predicting (I’m told) that it won’t ring. The
workmen know they’ll be beheaded if it doesn’t.
Finally, the bell rings massively and sonorously
and at that moment Andrei sees a smiling
Durochka (Irma Raush), a female simpleton he
saw carried off willingly by the Mongols. She’s
dressed in white and apparently happy – almost
a miraculous vision. Meanwhile, Boriska has
collapsed in tears of relief next to a wooden post in
a field of mud. Andrei comes to comfort him and
it’s then that Boris confesses that his father never
told him the secret of the bronze. In response,
the ageing painter-monk chooses to break his
long-held vow of silence and says, “Come with
me. You’ll cast bells and I’ll paint icons.”
For me, the scene conjures the chaos of
‘interesting times’, incarnates the dream of social
mobility, shows a passionate, redeeming devotion
to aesthetics and condemns the beneficiaries of
greed-driven power structures out of hand.
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