Tomi Haffety explores the portrayal of the Mexican elite during the 1982 Peso Crisis through Las Niñas Bien

Las Niñas Bien acts as a cinematic tribute to the legacy of Julio Iglesias, the Mexican Pesos Crisis of 1982 and all those who subsequently fell from the elite with one capitalist swoop. The 2018 film is the second feature by Alejandra Márquez Abella and follows the life of the exclusive Las Lomas neighbourhood’s ‘queen bee’ Sofia (Ilse Salas), as she navigates her privileges amidst the worst financial crisis Mexico had experienced.

Opening with a scene at Sofia’s lavish birthday party, filled with rare octopus and expensive wine, Márquez Abella familiarises the viewer to the lifestyle that the guests share. This is subtly introduced by their removed attitude toward the failing economy, even using it as a punchline to their after-dinner jokes. Living in a palatial house with live-in staff who have been around for generations, Sofia, the protagonist of both the film and the social scene, sends her children to international summer camps to expose them to the world outside Mexico, even warning them not to mingle with other Mexicans. Along with the other housewives, she enjoys uninterrupted tennis matches and lengthy pampering sessions. She is untouchable, or at least, that is what she believes until reality starts to slowly creep in, and creep it does.

Márquez Abella exhibits a great talent for using subtle symbolism to carry the story forward and as the plot develops and cracks begin to show in Sofia’s perfect life, these symbols are given free reign. Beginning subtly with the lack of water the morning after the birthday party and the neighbours packing large bags in the car to go on a ‘long vacation’, it becomes apparent that the world Sofia was so comfortable in is beginning to slowly change.

The minimalist score composed by Tómas Barreiro has the mesmerizing power of complimenting the story and the repeated clapping symphony, aptly named ‘the war of the applause’, plays when the plot hits a climax to emphasise the agitation and discomfort felt by Sofia. Costume designer Annai Ramos played a vital part in telling the story through fashion as the clothes that the women wear represent their pristine lives, and they act as a base for much of the plot, for example Sofia wears a sombre black dress on the night that everything seems to collapse. Cleaners are left unpaid; a skin rash develops very visibly over her neck and Sofia removes the foreboding black butterfly from the parlour wall- an action she was warned against by the gardener as removing it would bring only bad luck.

Sofia’s ignorance and selfishness are represented through her continued avarice at the expense of her husband whose sobriety begins to decline with his wealth. The desperation to continue life as before is palpable and as the plot develops, it becomes obvious to everyone apart from Sofia that she no longer holds the title of ‘queen bee’ and is beginning to be usurped by a younger, new money housewife, Ana Paula. In this case, Mexican colourism and elitism is apparent in the way that Ana Paula is of Mexican descent whereas Sofia’s family are recent immigrants from the ‘fashionable’ Spain. This holds true in the repeated references to Julio Iglesias who, in Sofia’s eyes, stands as the pinnacle of cosmopolitanism and class- both things she is striving to obtain, and then maintain. A powerful scene towards the end of the feature presents two sides of Sofia’s life: she is pampered by others as she gets ready for an evening meal but she is forced to shower with stagnant pool water following the restriction on hot water. The juxtaposition between Sofia’s ties to her old way of living and new, forced way of living is a powerful metaphor of her fall from grace.

Las Niñas Bien begins with Sofia reciting a fantasy that is not too dissimilar to her reality, but by the closing of the film exactly a year after the exuberant party, Sofia sits with her husband at a dinner with her young nemesis. Márquez Abella has perfectly critiqued the instability of capitalism in a ninety-minute feature. Highlighting the insecurity of the wealth elite through regular wide shots, whether it be at the private tennis court or the palatial décor of the exclusive mansions, Abella presents as much wealth as possible into the frame. Sofia’s dramatic fall from grace and replacement as a key figure in her social circle is brilliantly narrated through Sofia’s fantasies and a reality which becomes increasingly nightmarish.

Las Niñas Bien is artistically shot and both the leading and supporting actors, who are dominantly shoulder-pad clad women, transform the story from a Desperate Housewives satire to a masterful capitalism-critiquing feature.

Las Niñas Bien is now available to stream on Mubi. Watch the trailer here:

Pihla Pekkarinen reviews Zoé Wittock’s debut, as part of FilmSoc’s coverage of Sundance Film Festival 2020. 

Jumbo is about desire, about relationships, about love, about sex. It is also about a girl who falls in love with a fairground ride. 

Jeanne is a young girl who lives with her mother and works the night shift at the local fairground. She discovers a newly installed ride and begins to spend lots of time carefully cleaning it and chatting to it. One evening, she gets a reply; so begins a bizarre love story between girl and machine. Zoé Wittock’s debut feature Jumbo is a surrealist portrayal of object sexuality.

By night, Jeanne’s romance with Jumbo is sensual and sincere; by day, she seems insane and severely in need of help. The film skillfully uses lighting to capture this nighttime sensuality: Jeanne’s face illuminated in the dark by Jumbo’s bright neon lights is a visualization of their communication and intimacy. He is projecting himself onto her, and she unto him. Contrastingly, the moments we see Jumbo in broad daylight are jarring and upsetting. He appears as a hunk of metal the other characters cannot see past. We also see Jeanne as others see her: a frumpy girl in an oversized uniform who won’t look anyone in the eye. By day, the romance dwindles into a crazy obsession; by night, we return to the magical intimate space between Jeanne and Jumbo.

Producer Anaïs Bertrand describes the film as “a very classic story… about a young girl’s first love and how her mother adapts to this new situation.”  The conflict between Jeanne’s mother Margarette (Emmanuelle Bercot) and Jeanne is a central driving force of the narrative. Margarette is sexually permissive but cannot understand Jeanne’s attraction and attacks her for it. Bercot’s brokenhearted mother figure serves as both a source of reason and of frustration. Her physical altercations and screaming matches with Jeanne are reminiscent of ones between a homophobic parent and their child, drawing on emotional references that lend a new layer of meaning to their conflict. Jeanne’s boyfriend and manager Marc is another source of great discomfort, pushing the audience to sympathize with her romantic attraction to Jumbo. Her manager at the park, Marc, walks in on Jeanne while she’s changing clothes, and proceeds to pursue her against her wishes. Margarette encourages their relationship, even inviting him round to have sex with her daughter. This quasi-prostitutional treatment of Jeanne reinforces the film’s anxious tone, further elevating the sympathy we feel for her relationship. 

The film is bizarre and surreal in concept and style, but not in emotion. Noémie Merlant (A Portrait of a Young Girl on Fire) delivers a brilliantly subdued performance as Jeanne. Her anxiety toward men and her passion for Jumbo is palpable, and she manages to make a romance between a teenage girl and a fairground ride feel sincere and relatable. Together with Wittock, they turn a story that could have been silly and cringeworthy into one with real heart. Jeanne’s adoration for Jumbo feels true; her tears are heartbreaking and her passion is sexy. This narrative of forbidden love does not differ altogether too much from Juliet and Romeo, or Maria and Tony. The surrealist elements accompany a universal story of love and loss, surprising and impressive at every turn.

9/10

Jumbo is not yet available to stream or purchase. Check out the trailer below:

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, governments all over the world – including the UK – have urged those who can to stay at home. This newfound plethora of time may feel stressful and strange, or perhaps mind-numbingly boring. What better way to alleviate lockdown blues than by watching a great film, or finally tackling the tv show you’ve had on your watchlist for ages? Below, a handful of our writers share what films and television shows they’ve been watching to pass the time.

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Sex and the City

Tomi Haffety

The perfect binge, watch-whilst-you’re-eating, feel-good series, Sex and the City is a noughties classic. Spanning ninety-four episodes over six years, the witty and glamourous series follows the lives of four women as they navigate style, sex and, quite obviously, the city. Carrie Bradshaw’s namesake column in a small New York newspaper is the backbone to the show as she narrates her and her best friends’ lives, inventing a wealth of creative euphemisms as the group’s relationships go out of fashion quicker than nineties sequins. Winning seven Emmy Awards out of a substantial fifty nominations, Sex and the City was an unprecedented hit when it first aired and is still just as relatable and entertaining. Although the crucial theme of spending absurd amounts of money on shoes and labels feels somewhat outdated – a detail toned down in the subsequent films – the show pioneered the normalcy of casual dating and cherished female friendships. As with many series from the same era, the show’s punchlines occasionally drew on casual racism and sexism, revealing the lengths the show still had to go. Nonetheless, it is a sitcom best watched when you want to fantasize about living in a big city, laugh at Samantha Jones’ consistent sexual humour, and realise, as popularly regarded, that Carrie Bradshaw is possibly the worst friend to grace television. More than this, the show’s unashamed approach to important issues regarding female sexuality and debates surrounding feminism continues to be relevant. Sex and the City remains a turning point in representing the modern woman, and its lasting legacy has filtered through generations; take, for example, the Instagram page ‘@everyoutfitonsatc,’ which has reached 670k people twenty years after the show aired. Watching Sex and the City will make you laugh, equip you with fashion tips, and – most importantly – help you pass the endless hours of quarantine.

Before Sunset

Sang Park

Whenever the going gets tough, at least one person will tell you to just focus on the positives, look forward, and crack on until things work out. However, it would be criminal for any of us to claim that the question of “what if?” has never crossed our mind. In Before Sunset, set nine years after Jesse and Céline’s first encounter in Vienna, we are re-introduced to the pair, who have both been pondering that very same question since the last time they saw one another. Once the two reunite, this time in Paris, what ensues is a stroll through la ville de l’Amour accompanied by a conversation that bounces around from topic to topic like a pinball. While their ramblings and chitchats show us the beauty of people’s ability to reconnect in an instant, no amount of coffee at a chic Parisian cafe or a sarcastic back and forth about American optimism and French sullenness is able to prevent Jesse and Céline from asking the inevitable question: ‘Where would we be now if we had met again after our night?’ As the two grapple with this hypothetical, the facade that they have both put up fades away and ultimately unsheathes the caged hopeless romantics living inside them. 

Amidst this pandemic, most of us, like Jesse and Celine, are forced to make peace with the fact that our relationships with our loved ones and our community have come to an abrupt halt, and that they may be lost forever. Maybe like Jesse, you wish you could just call that girl, who took up all the nooks and crannies in your brain or maybe, you just miss grabbing a cold pint with your mates. Whatever the case may be, Before Sunset has something for everyone wrapped up in the pain of solitude. Jesse and Celine’s encounters remind us that there is a future, where we can love and treasure one another unconditionally; their enduring love reminds us of the joy in the unknown ahead of us, no matter our past and present.  

Climax

Sofía Kourous Vázquez

There are a lot of parallels between quarantine life and Gaspar Noé’s Climax. Much like the film’s protagonists, who find themselves stuck in their dance school during a snowstorm in the middle of nowhere, we are all trapped indoors in what is also somewhat of a nightmare. Quarantine brings out the worst in everyone: you’ve got your sad babies who would rather curl up in a ball until it all blows over; your angry types who are just looking for someone to blame; and your run-of-the-mill thirsty hoes keeping their eyes on the prize through the chaos. If you need a reason to reminisce over your long-lost days of (possibly) substance-induced clubbing and then take it all back as Noé’s neon dance fantasy degenerates into depravity and horrific mayhem, Climax is your ticket. A global pandemic is a total bummer but hey, at least you’re not stuck unknowingly drinking large doses of LSD-spiked sangria with a bunch of fucked up French people! Explosive and immersive. Many trigger warnings apply.

My So-Called Life

Fatima Jafar

I watched all nineteen episodes of My So-Called Life in rapid succession one summer a few years ago, when there was a lot of time to do nothing. Something about the story of Angela Chase, a fifteen-year-old living in a quiet suburb of Pittsburgh, rang true for me then, and has stayed close to me all this time. Now, in these weeks of quarantine and isolation, when cities have slowed down and the roads seem quieter than ever before, I find myself turning to these episodes for some kind of solace. My So-Called Life expertly charts the lives of a few adolescents and their families in the fictional neighbourhood of Three Rivers. Each episode navigates the fabric of each character’s experiences with a tenderness that I have seldom seen in American coming-of-age television shows. The uncomfortable intricacies of growing up are delved into, and families, relationships, and health are picked apart and tackled with an unflinching eye. I think the reason that my mind goes back to this television show during the pandemic is because of its own willingness to sit in its slowness. The plotlines unfold with both the hesitancy and intensity that accompanies every confused teenager— the fleeting, intense crushes, the hot bursts of anger, the frequent tears. Because the heart of the show is the emotional drama between various characters, the story simmers within its own anxiety, and at times, it’s own yearning. This suburban pull – the desire to feel and experience something more than boring high-school life in a small neighbourhood – evokes a tension not far from the isolation we are experiencing right now. Watching human lives slowly playing out on screen and immersing myself in the tender fragility of passing time has helped me reframe this period of isolation for myself, teaching me how to pause and be on my own for a while. 

Rocknrolla

Maria Düster

This film, I’ll admit, is a wildcard. I think about Guy Ritchie a lot – not because I admire him in any way, but because his films occupy such a niche place in the film industry that none of us knows exactly what to do with. While some may simply call them “British gangster films,” I prefer “pathological commitment to imbuing every single storyline on earth – from Sherlock Holmes to King Arthur to whatever the hell The Gentlemen was – with a mildly revolting form of British maleness that roots itself in Cockney accents, martial arts, and a simultaneous hatred towards and fetish for the class system.” All of his films – save for Aladdin, thank God – appear to be colour-graded with the hard salt spray of an ugly British beach somewhere. Yet, I still find myself drawn to his films, unable to look away (except for the half of them I have never seen). Rocknrolla follows a trio of crooks called “The Wild Bunch,” comprised of “One-Two” (Gerard Butler), his partner “Mumbles” (Idris Elba), and driver “Handsome Bob” (Tom Hardy). When a (you guessed it) Russian mob boss concocts a massive real estate scam, The Wild Bunch – along with a crime boss (Tom Wilkinson), an evil accountant (Thandie Newton), and a punk rocker named Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell) – all duel it out for a big wad of cash. Mark Strong’s alluring narration, combined with a convoluted and unrealistic plot, provide the perfect escapism for surviving a raging pandemic. Also, unless I imagined it in a fever dream, Tom Hardy hooks up with Gerard Butler in one scene. Or maybe it was Idris Elba? Either way, happy watching!

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Niloufar Javadi

I grew up consuming an unhealthy amount of American media. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was one of those films that I had heard about countless times, but never actively sought out. So when my American flatmate suggested watching it, I tentatively agreed. I was pleasantly surprised. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off follows wisecracking high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), who is determined to enjoy a day off school sightseeing in Downtown Chicago with his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and his best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck). Equipped with a charming protagonist, fast-paced plot, and surprisingly deep and tender moments, the film offers a welcome distraction from the sporadic episodes of uncertainty and confusion that seem inseparable from our new reality.  Like most people I know, I have become increasingly introspective during the lockdown (I like to think I have good reason to). Like Ferris, I am about to graduate and be hurled into the “real world,” where I will need to survive without an academic structure for the first time since I was four years old. The past month has forced me to put my life on hold, to think about the direction I am taking the rest of my adult life and why. Ferris Bueller offers a reassuring squeeze of the hand, reminding me that there is no harm (well, perhaps not too much)  in taking a day off of normal life to think, indulge and live more deliberately.

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COVID-19 is a global health emergency. UCL Film and Television Society urges all readers to consult their local government’s advice. For UK-specific advice, visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus.

Dan Jacobson demystifies epidemiological models through Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead.

It was only a matter of time before the outbreak of COVID-19 caused a worldwide shift towards armchair epidemiology. Whilst this outbreak has triggered an incredible global, collaborative, scientific response with regards to everything from vaccine development to nation-wide tracking (with significant contribution from UCL itself), we have also seen every type of pandemic misinformation come to fruition in the scariest of ways: from conspiracy theories about 5G networks to Didier Raoult’s highly criticised chloroquine study influencing US policymaking to the archetypal Silicon Valley trope “I’m not an epidemiologist, but…” offering the fake illusion of integrity and expertise when none exists.

Incidentally, you probably wouldn’t think that the best preparation for a pandemic would be a hypothetical zombie apocalypse; yet, many of the techniques and strategies which would be applied in this scenario are surprisingly similar. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta – probably the world leader in disease research and response – has been known to release “zombie warnings” as disease-preparedness stunts. The topic has even been debated in the Canadian Parliament.

The first-ever epidemiological model of zombie infection, known as the ‘Munz model’, was created by Philip Munz of Carleton University in 2009, and it’s incredibly simple. Essentially, you separate the population into three groups: susceptible individuals, zombies, and “removed” individuals, and then you use differential equations to model how individuals move between these groups. Susceptible individuals become zombies by being bitten by a zombie, zombies are removed by being killed by susceptible individuals, and removed individuals gradually become zombies again.

Figure 1: The Munz Model

The Munz model is also known as a “compartmental model”, which has been applied to real-life disease outbreaks and epidemics for almost a century. The models are intuitive, incredibly flexible, and can be adapted for any type of infectious disease. And now, they are forming the basis of the models used to predict and react to this year’s COVID-19 outbreak. I’ll come to that in a minute, but for now, let’s focus on zombies.

The Munz model suffers from one huge problem: it uses a terrible definition of a zombie outbreak. Assuming that a real zombie apocalypse would be similar to that which is seen in popular culture, there is not a single case where all removed individuals become zombies. In reality, the model applied will differ depending on which film you choose to watch.

Shaun of the Dead

The epidemiological model behind the zombie outbreak in Shaun of the Dead follows the same basic technique behind these compartmental models. This time, the population is split into four groups: susceptible individuals (S), infected individuals (I), zombies (Z), and “removed” individuals (R), or “dead zombies”. Susceptible individuals become infected by being bitten by a zombie. Infected individuals become zombies at a specified “zombification” rate. Zombies are then removed by being killed by a susceptible individual.

Figure 2: Shaun of the Dead: Model

In terms of population dynamics, this model – though incomplete – is fairly accurate. It is missing the regular population dynamics, such as births, deaths, and emigration, as well as any real intervention measures beyond “removing the head or destroying the brain”. However, as the large majority of Shaun of the Dead takes place over two days, with all “anti-zombie” measures only occurring during the second, these are not concerning. (The only anomaly of this model is Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, who appears as a zombie late in the film, and then as his human self in the final scene some months later. I will be ignoring this). I will also include only London (population in 2004 ~ 7.4 million) in this model. It is unclear how much the zombie outbreak has spread, but Morrissey declares that there is “Panic on the streets of London”, and motorways out of London are said to be blocked. So that’s encouraging.

However, in the case of Shuan of the Dead, the real challenge is not in identifying the dynamics of the outbreak, but rather correctly estimating the parameters of the model. These are the values used to describe the effect which each part of the model has on the population. In order to properly estimate these parameters, what you really need is data. Unfortunately, Shaun of the Dead doesn’t provide this. A previous study which presented a model of Shaun of the Dead used a nifty statistical technique called Markov Chain Monte-Carlo simulations. However, I cannot be bothered to do this, so instead, I will use a combination of common sense and the fact that I have seen this film far too many times.

The parameters of this model are:

1. The transmission rate of a single zombie: this can be roughly translated to mean the average number of susceptible individuals which a zombie will infect per day. I am assuming that this is a standard zombie feature and does not change over the course of the film. I have set this as 5.
2. The zombie-killing rate of a single susceptible individual: this is the average number of zombies which are killed by a single susceptible individual per day. As is suggested in the film, there seems to be a minimal response to the zombies until the second day, so this is initially set to zero. Once the second day begins, this is increased to 5, and later on in the day is increased to 10.
3. The “zombification rate”: this is the average rate with which infected individuals become zombies, which can be estimated as the reciprocal of the time spent infected. I have estimated this as 8 hours, as evidenced by Pete (late on Day 1 to early on Day 2), Philip (early on Day 2 to the middle of Day 2), and Barbara (middle of Day 2 to late on Day 2). Ed received multiple zombie bites, which likely explains why his symptoms escalate far quicker than the others.

Figure 3: Shaun of the Dead: Results

According to my model, the outbreak begins around 5 days after the initial infection. By the time Shaun and Ed begin killing the zombies, the zombie count is around 2.1 million. If we assume that infection is irreversible, the final number of susceptible individuals in London is 1.2 million, which seems accurate. Although, at this stage, “accuracy” is somewhat beside the point.

What does this have to do with the COVID-19 outbreak?

In the initial version of this article, written during the very beginning of the UK lockdown, I created my own model of the COVID-19 outbreak, using the exact same principles detailed above, in order to demonstrate how these models could describe a real-life pandemic. However, I decided to remove it, as to not add to the screaming online void of the feared aforementioned armchair epidemiologists. Fortunately, other far more knowledgeable and experienced researchers have done the work themselves.

In the case of the COVID-19 outbreak, its dynamics are far more difficult to ascertain. The best demonstration I have come across of the usefulness of these compartmental models in describing the COVID-19 outbreak was an interactive model developed by Dr Alison Lynn Hill, a Research Fellow at Harvard University, in which you can alter parameters and analyse for yourself the effects of various intervention measures. Hill makes two interesting alterations to the standard SIR model: the first is a latency period (E), during which the individual is carrying the disease, but is not yet infectious. The second is a separation of infectious individuals into mild, severe, and critical cases. Only mildly infectious individuals can infect others, and only critical cases can result in death. As a disclaimer, Hill clarifies that this simulation is for research and educational purposes, owing to the limitations of the model and uncertainties regarding COVID-19 infection. Another COVID-19 projection tool can be found here.

Another example is probably the most widely-circulated model of the COVID-19 outbreak, fronted by Professor Neil Ferguson as part of the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team. Published on March 16th initially as an agent-based model, and then as a compartmental model, the report predicted, assuming zero-intervention measures, over half a million deaths in the UK and complete overwhelming of the NHS, and has been widely credited for triggering the lockdown measures implemented by the UK government beginning on March 23rd. The key underlying message of the report was the analysis of two intervention strategies: mitigation (slowing the epidemic to reduce the strain on the NHS, otherwise known as “flattening the curve) and suppression (reversing epidemic growth through “wide-scale intensive social distancing”).

It is worth clarifying that these epidemiological models are not predictions, but simulations of potential futures with the intent of influencing the choices we make as a society. Indeed Ferguson has since suggested that, given increased NHS ICU capacity and ventilator availability alongside current social distancing measures, the UK death count will likely stay below 20,000. But, as stressed in Zeynep Tufekci’s fantastic article for The Atlantic, “we have one simple, urgent goal: to ignore all the optimistic branches and that thick trunk in the middle representing the most likely outcomes. Instead, we need to focus on the branches representing the worst outcomes, and prune them with all our might.” With the flexibility of these compartmental models, we can ask a plethora of questions: what could happen if we lift the lockdown after three weeks? Six weeks? What if prior infection is not enough for immunity, and individuals become susceptible again? How long does immunity need to last to prevent a second outbreak before a vaccine is developed? Will there even be a second outbreak? 

Additionally, I would like to clarify that my own models could not be classified as predictions either, even if they weren’t describing a fictional zombie apocalypse. I am a first-year PhD student who wanted to learn how to encode differential equations in R because I haven’t left the flat in days. However, I think it is incredibly important that these models are used and discussed. They allow us to think about the effects of our policy decisions and, more importantly, what happens when Londoners do not follow them. The public should know what these “mysterious models” are and how they inform these decisions. So, for now, wash your hands, practice social distancing, and maybe just watch Shaun of the Dead again.

The code which I have used to model the zombie outbreak in Shaun of the Dead can be found on my GitHub.

COVID-19 is a global public health emergency and FilmSoc encourages all readers to follow their government’s advice closely. For UK-specific information, visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus.

Shaun of the Dead is available to rent and buy online. Watch the trailer below:

Dan Jacobson reviews the sequel to the Netflix smash hit.

In the very first scene of To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You, Kitty, the younger sister of main character Lara Jean, tells her that “It’s not the time to dream of being in an 80’s movie.” Lara Jean is about to go on her first date with her new boyfriend, the dreamy-yet-jock-yet-16-yet-emotionally-mature Peter Kavinsky, and she is dreaming of John Cusack with a boom box and Heath Ledger singing ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’. Kitty’s comment perfectly encapsulates the challenges Lara Jean is about to face, and the central ethos of the film itself.

To All The Boys I Loved Before – the 2018 predecessor to P.S. I Still Love You – was a smash hit. Over a single summer, alongside Set It Up and Crazy Rich Asians, the film managed (for an albeit brief time) to make romantic comedies relevant again. Atypically, the film did not do this by subverting or redefining the norms of the genre (although the visibility of Asian actors is undoubtedly praiseworthy). Instead, director Susan Johnson created a movie that – utilising the ‘Fake-Dating’ high school movie template – acted as a fresh and unapologetic homage to the films and stories which inspired it.

This inspiration is alluded to directly through Lara Jean’s love of John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles, despite the obscene stereotyping of the character Long Duk Dong. In fact, there are references to the past 30 years of romcom history everywhere; from Lara Jean’s impeccable fashion taste echoing Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’s Sloane Peterson and Clueless’ Cher Horowitz, to the vibrant pastels found in Legally Blonde and Grease. Whilst an inability to move away from the influences worn on a film’s sleeve can imply unoriginality (Joker, anyone?), To All The Boys managed to use these references in a way that produced a feel-good and heart-warming film. If the filmmakers had simply chosen to repeat the first film when making the sequel, that would have been more than enough for me.

I’m still not sure whether or not they tried to repeat themselves, but whatever happened, the spark has been buried. I hope it isn’t buried too far, because the third and final film in the franchise is in post-production. But I can’t find it.

At its centre, P.S. I Still Love You tells the story of a love triangle, one of the most popular romantic tropes of all time. After Lara Jean begins dating Peter, a crush from many years earlier – John Ambrose – comes back into her life when they both opt to volunteer at a retirement centre. The rest is self-explanatory. However, the sequel suffers from one key flaw: a juicy plot is favored over consistency and coherency. The entirety of the first film presented Peter as “perfect”; he is sensitive, respectful, and drinks kombucha at house parties. Now, to further the plot, the second movie has to undo all of that hard work. It’s an unfortunate crux that simultaneously reaffirms what made the first film so loveable, and the resulting sequel feels nothing but forced.

The contrived character development is evidenced in Peter’s brand new set of flaws, which pop up sporadically throughout the film’s first half. He is late to meet Lara Jean in a busy café. He always takes the last cupcake or slice of pizza. And, most importantly, he still seems to have feelings for his ex, Gen (this was also his sole flaw in the previous film, where we also learn that Lara Jean’s fears are unfounded). Additionally, John Ambrose is presented as flawlessly as Peter was. Maybe I, like most of the Internet, fell too easily under the spell of Peter, but I spent the entire film just waiting for Lara Jean to confirm that it is Peter who she loves after all.

Unfortunately, this laziness pervades too many aspects of P.S. I Still Love You. The film is driven almost entirely by voiceovers, giving the film an air of a 90-minute game of connect-the-dots, for which the final image is, somehow, exactly the same image as the one before. The soundtrack is boring and repetitive, anchored by soulless synth-pop ballads, whilst the previous film’s flawless blend of indie rock, electronic funk, and brooding dream pop – with ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ thrown in for very, very good measure – was intrinsic in its fresh tone and modern feel. Oh, and the final scene has snow. SNOW! From out of nowhere. Seriously, nobody is wearing a coat. As I have mentioned, I have nothing against pandering to beloved rom-com tropes, but this one takes the freshly baked, Valentine’s Day snickerdoodle.

Where I will defend P.S. I Still Love You is in its continuation of the legacy established by its predecessor as somewhat “post-critic.” At its centre, the To All The Boys films are about love; the representations of young romantic love, sisterhood, and father-daughter love displayed by the characters, and also a love of love evidenced by the filmmakers. This love extends to television and music as well. Jane the Virgin, for example, has developed a cult following and critical success based on a love of insane Latin American telenovelas, alongside episode-length odes to Sex and the City, Fifty Shades of Grey, and The Bachelorette, to name a few (a Bachelorette-themed episode is how you do a love triangle). Artists like Charli XCX and Carly Rae Jepsen, who began the 2010s being presented as tween-pop, radio-darling, computer-generated one-hit-wonders, are now (rightfully) hailed as the most innovative pop stars of their generation. This “love” is not the voyeuristic schadenfreude of Love Island, or the ironic camp-worship of The Room – this is genuine, unashamed love.

The ubiquity of social media means that not only is everyone given a platform to air their opinions of films and music, but that we are exposed to these opinions more than ever before. This has caused a paradigm shift away from the dated, male-centric art criticism of bygone years, where ‘prestige TV’ was immediately lauded and any female-led shows were glossed over as ‘guilty pleasures’ or ‘candy’. In an interview with Vox, TV critic Emily Nussbaum says, “If it’s pink or brightly colored, fun or funny, or related in some way to soap operas, it’s coded as female, whether it’s female or not.” As a straight man with a love for romantic comedies, my perception of shows and films like this has evolved from “I’ve never heard of it” to “I don’t watch it” to “I enjoyed it” to “This is excellent.” If a show or film truly is worthy of praise, its genre should be irrelevant.

We haven’t reached equal respect for all genres just yet, but films like To All The Boys I Loved Before are rectifying this. I don’t know whether P.S. I Still Love You will cause a positive or even negative response in this regard, but the public’s anticipation for the film is proof that we are at least heading in the right direction. Like Lara Jean, I say we don’t need to hide our love of 80’s movies anymore. Whilst I may come to regret these words, I cannot wait for the next one.

To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You is available to stream on Netflix worldwide. Check out the trailer below:

Tomi Haffety reviews Kore-eda’s acclaimed film.

After its premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Our Little Sister quickly rose to acclaim amongst both Japanese and global audiences, winning the Audience Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2017. Set in Kamakura, a sacred coastal town south of Tokyo, the film follows the lives of the three Kouda sisters, who reunite with their younger half-sister, Suzu, after the death of their estranged father leaves her without a guardian and somewhat neglected by her step-mother. The sisters invite Suzu to live with them in their family home in Kamakura, and she quickly becomes welcomed by the family and community. This is as much a film about family ties as it is a coming of age story, and Kore-eda captures the blossoming relationships made as Suzu settles into the town.   

As a sixteen-year-old watching this film for the first time on a drizzly afternoon at home, I was instantly enchanted by Kore-eda’s subtle mastery of the representation of unusual family dynamics in the context of contemporary Japan. Our Little Sister is set during summer, the same season during which I regularly visit my family in Tokyo. Summer in Japan is like no other season around the world; the relentless symphony of cicadas onscreen is calming enough to make anyone nostalgic, even for the heat and humidity. The film makes me crave those family holidays in what is probably my favourite place on earth. From one of the earliest scenes on a small rural train, journeying to the bucolic edges of Japan’s eastern coast, to the sharing of cold soba noodles with their grandmother towards the end, this film could be a montage of my experiences of Tokyo. Our own trip to Kamakura to visit the Great Buddha is one that has resounded in my memory  – so vivid that as I watch Suzu cycle through a canopy of cherry blossoms, I can feel the same breeze. Taking lengthy walks around the town in the height of the summer, we visited temple after temple and ate enough kakigori (shaved ice) to keep us cool for the year. 

Although I am one of four sisters too, there are very few similarities between my family and the Koudas. While they all appear self-sufficient, my sisters and I still depend on our parents, and the positive relationship we have with them bears little resemblance to the one on screen. Because the sisters are adults when they welcome the youngest into their family, I watch the film as though the three eldest were the four of us, and imagine what it would be like for an estranged younger sister to join our already formed sisterhood. When I moved to London six months ago and found myself without my family for the first time, I re-watched Our Little Sister in an attempt to bring a piece of home with me. With all their contrariness, the sisters have an unbreakable bond of friendship, best conveyed during a scene towards the end of the film when, after having missed a summer firework display, the sisters return home and light their own in the garden. The unobtrusively wholesome scene captures everything that Kore-eda does best; the clear bond between the quartet is palpable in the dimly lit garden, with only fireworks lighting their faces.This moment is the perfect conclusion to a film about family reunion and the experience of sparking new connections with a person you have a biological bond with. 

My romanticised vision of Japan makes it difficult not to feel so attached to a place where I have only happy memories, and so through Kore-eda’s work I can relive those experiences again. A recurring scene in the film is of the four protagonists lounging in the heat in an open tatami room, sharing stories and snacking on cold plums. I could not count the times when my sisters and I have done the same in my grandma’s house, fighting over who gets to sit closest to the air conditioning. Our Little Sister helps me to transcend the physical boundaries of being apart from both my sisters and our happiness in Japan. When I watch this film thousands of miles away from them, I no longer feel alone.

Our Little Sister is available to rent and buy online. Check out the trailer below:

Never Rarely Sometimes Always, an Eliza Hittman feature in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category, is a quiet, contemplative film about an unwanted teenage pregnancy. Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) is a stone-faced seventeen-year-old who, upon discovering she is pregnant, travels to New York City with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) to have an abortion. What follows is an intimate portrayal of a teenager and her friend navigating the complicated network of gender and relationships, accompanied by a sharp critique of social obstacles to medical procedures. 

The film is sparse in dialogue, with ambient sound and a single-note score dominating most scenes. Autumn and Skylar exist around each other, most things going unsaid. Autumn never utters the word “pregnant” or “abortion”, and neither does Skylar. The film dwells on uninterrupted shots, creating even more space and silence. In the titular scene, Autumn is being interviewed by a counselor ahead of her procedure about her relationships. The camera stays close to her face as she answers the interview questions one by one, painfully slow. The scene showcases Flanigan’s sublime performance, as Autumn’s stoic facade cracks and falls for a few moments when she reveals intimate details about her relationship. Nothing about her performance has been disguised by a cut, and Flanigan shines. 

The violence of the male presence is astounding. When laid out, Autumn and Skylar do not face much violence beyond what is ‘ordinary’: a man masturbating at them on public transport, a pushy customer, an inappropriate boss. But the discomfort we feel towards any man in the film is palpable, and a perceptive and honest depiction of the calculations women have to make every time they interact with a male stranger: are you a threat? The characters remain wary and alert, never letting their guard down, and we understand exactly why. The film orbits around gendered experiences, and depicts young female excitement – as well as fear – around the discovery of a new (sexual) currency available to them.

The film also provides an important critique of accessibility, with its portrayal of the abortion process refusing to sugarcoat anything. Autumn first visits a pro-life clinic in her hometown who administer a supermarket test and show her an anti-abortion film from the 80s, attempting to discourage her from the procedure. She then travels to a Planned Parenthood in New York – hidden in what appears to be an apartment building – before finally finding herself at a windowless medical clinic with chipping paint and bulletproof glass windows. The first scenes of the film betray no obvious clues as to the time period the film is set in, leading me to initially place the setting in the 70s or 80s, before realizing the film was contemporary. The timelessness serves as a sharp critique of the outdated medical and family planning facilities in the US. The entire abortion process, despite being fairly straightforward one, is immensely arduous. Whilst there are no direct references, Hittman lands clearly on the pro-choice side of the current political debate.

The film possesses few moments of levity; it remains a tense, urgent, intimate portrayal of pregnancy and womanhood throughout. Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a hard watch, but a necessary one. 

8/10

Never Rarely Sometimes Always will be released in North America on 13 March 2020. A UK release date has yet to be announced. Check out the trailer below:

There is an intimate relationship between cinema and the city. While urban environments possess ample potential for exploring space on screen, the intangible aspects of these places – identity, mood, energy – prove more difficult to portray. The lived reality of a city versus its depiction in film can inspire both love and hate, a somewhat strange confrontation with fact and fiction.  Below, five writers from Film Soc examine how cinema sees their hometown, and how the identity of that place makes it onto film.

Chungking Express, Hong Kong

Emma Davis 

When Hong Kong is featured on film, it’s often the commercial towers that make it on screen. Whether it’s Lara Croft, Batman or Pacific Rim, the jagged shiny buildings loom above an action star’s adversary. It’s an exotic urban locale; busy, anonymous and full of delights. However, such films fail to show the human, realistic side to Hong Kong’s urban environment. Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express was one of the first films that showed western audiences a wondrous side to the city. In the film, I saw my own experiences of Hong Kong’s meandering character. The first eponymous location, Chungking Mansions, is an underrepresented area even within Hong Kong society. Regarded with suspicion as a crime-ridden area undeserving of attention, the Mansions are a place where ethnic minority Hong Kongers and immigrants support each other in a multicultural tower that functions as an indoor market, shopping centres, restaurants and guest houses. The city of Hong Kong is an equally chaotic concept. Unfortunately, the real fast food shop Midnight Express is no longer open, exemplifying the cutthroat reality of operating a business in Hong Kong’s central district. The area is constantly undergoing change, easy to see as you ride the Central-Mid Levels escalator up the hill. Chungking Express is a melodramatic and brooding movie, but it shows a simple Hong Kong; full of sweaty neon nights and long humid days, the way in which the characters languidly interact with the city is intimately familiar — not exotic or hectic.

Starter For Ten, Bristol  

Annabelle Brand

I watched Starter For Ten a few years before starting university and, in a lot of ways, it set my (sometimes unrealistic) expectations for what uni would be like. The film is a love letter to the student vitality of my hometown, Bristol, where city life is shaped by the ebb and flow of returning students. Based on David Nicholls’ novel of the same name, Starter For Ten follows Brian Jackson’s (James McAvoy) first year at Bristol university, attempting to navigate both systematic academic elitism and women.

As I became closer in age to the Bristol uni students I saw in town, walking around Clifton, Park Street, or College Green, the depiction of university as shown in Starter For Ten seemed to become more and more real to me. Although the movie seems a little dated now – the film came out in 2006, and I’ve been in uni for a while now –  its reckless cheerfulness still feels charatersitic both of my experience of uni life and my hometown. 

Dazed and Confused, Austin

Maria Duster

Dazed and Confused stumbled into cinemas in 1993. The film follows incoming high school seniors and freshmen on their last day of school, an eclectic odyssey of teenage life in the 70s. Director Richard Linklater (Before trilogy, Boyhood) has lived in Austin since the early 80s and remains an important presence in the city’s film community, alongside collaborator/patron saint Matthew McConaughey. Dazed and Confused is a cult favourite of Austinites, a sentimental day trip in the midst of a rapidly changing city. While most of the movie’s locations have been torn down and/or gentrified, those that remain find a way to sneak themselves into the lives of residents, whether they realize it or not. The field on which Pink and Wooderson muse about life is the Toney Burger Center, a stadium where I spent many afternoons at age 13 watching middle school football games in a painful attempt to get my crush to notice me. The Emporium pool hall was filmed at an old shopping center on North Lamar, one of the main thoroughfares of the city I’ve frequented my entire life. Growing up in Texas feels both dull and frenetic, a wide open space filled with nothing and everything. I love Dazed and Confused because it reminds me of the city I knew as a child – Austin before it became Austin – and the spark that’s still there. It feels like an old cotton t-shirt from a random Tex-Mex restaurant, weed and beer, stupidly nostalgic and incredibly heartfelt. Austin, through and through. 

Spike Island, Manchester

Daniel Jacobson

There was a period of around 20 years – between the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall and Oasis’ Be Here Now– where Manchester was the coolest place in the world. For many, including the school lads at the centre of 2012’s Spike Island, this feeling was epitomised by The Stone Roses’ seminal 1989 debut album, a record brimming in equal parts with witty self-awareness and an epic, anarchic punk spirit of literal biblical proportions, capturing the community and paradoxical optimism following decades of rapid post-industrial decline.

I grew up in a very different Manchester – one where you can buy smashed avocados in the Northern Quarter, Morrissey has gone off the rails, and the last Stone Roses single was arguably the worst song of the decade. However, I found myself re-evaluating my relationship with the city following the 2017 attack. Though Manchester has shifted and evolved, it is grounded in its history, conserved by both its culture and people. Although Spike Island – which follows a band of friends attending The Stone Roses’ legendary Spike Island gig – can come across as overly slapstick and sometimes unfocused in capturing the youthful exuberance conveyed by The Stone Roses, it presents itself as not just a love letter to the band or the city, but an ode to distinctly Mancunian values. 

Slackistan, Islamabad/Karachi

Fatima Jafar

I grew up in Karachi, the chaotic, big-city sprawl of Pakistan, but the film that always reminds me of home is the 2010 independent film Slackistan, based in the country’s capital Islamabad. Made on an almost non-existent budget, the film is heavily inspired by Richard Linklater’s 1990-baby Slacker, but focuses on a group of twenty-somethings in Islamabad, fresh out of university and disenchanted with life. Slackistan encapsulates the laziness of a day spent driving around with friends aimlessly, in a car burning with the afternoon heat. It is hopping from friend’s house to friend’s house, in a seemingly endless post-university malaise, looking for excitement and life in a ‘city that always sleeps’. The director, Hammad Khan, manages to capture the detached reality of sheltered young adulthood in cities like Karachi and Islamabad, where time is whiled away drinking tea, smoking cigarettes, and having conversations about what you wish you could do with your life. Soundtracked by different Pakistani punk and rap artists, Slackistan is an irreverent, satirical ode to the slowness of freshly obtained adulthood in Pakistan, and the gnawing sense that, while people around you seem to be falling in love, getting married, and starting their lives, you’re still stuck in restlessness of your teenage years. Slackistan, with all its messy, amateurish cinematography and wandering dialogue, represents perfectly (with a healthy dose of irony) the angst and confusion of sheltered kids trying to find their place, and purpose, in Pakistani cities. 

All of the above films are available to stream or buy online in the UK. 

Pihla Pekkarinen reviews Carlos López Estrada’s ode to Los Angeles youth. 

Following the success of Blindspotting, Carlos López Estrada’s second feature film, Summertime, is intended to be a love letter to L.A., told by the teenagers who inhabit it; a lament over gentrification and loss of spirit, a portrait of the “true youth” of the city of angels. However, the film fails to achieve the emotional poignancy it is aiming for; the tone is too inconsistent, and the jokes provide only brief moments of levity in what is overall neither a particularly funny nor moving film. The emotional climaxes flop, failing to provoke much sympathy, let alone a single tear.  

The film is described as a “free-verse poem,” featuring twenty-five teenagers performing spoken word poetry. This form – which speaks directly to the audience and necessitates their listening  – is meant to be a gut punch, shattering the listener’s view of reality and bringing about a new perspective. But this doesn’t quite translate to the screen as Estrada had perhaps hoped. Granted, the featured poems are written and performed by high school students, but some of the pieces are impressive. However, the film fails to do them justice, because in spite of the fact that this art comes from them, the entire situation feels inauthentic. The characters seem like they are performing for university admissions boards rather than for each other. 

The problem with Summertime is the classic “show, don’t tell” dilemma; poets monologuing about how they don’t feel part of their family, or how much they miss home, is simply not as poignant as literally watching characters go through and experience these relatable issues. Seeing a character fall in love only to get brutally rejected is much more heart-wrenching than watching her tell you about how depressed it made her to be told she was undateable. This example is taken straight from the film; in what is supposed to be a moment of standing up for herself and finally owning her narrative, a character details awful things said by a past unrequited love. He told her she was ugly, men only liked her for her breasts, that she was undateable and no-one would ever love her. While evoking sympathy, none of these statements really hammer home, because she is the one saying them. The film does not allow viewers to come to any conclusions of their own. It tells them what to think, how to feel, and when to feel it. 

The film floats in an awkward liminal space between documentary and fiction. In fiction, actors play parts outside themselves, allowing them to be ugly and complicated; in documentaries, directors work to capture the underbelly of people, an angle their subjects are unwilling to expose by choice. Yet, this film does neither. The characters are too guarded, unwilling to relinquish control enough to allow us to see them and relate to them. The glass wall between audience and character is bulletproof. Overall, the film would be improved if it were not only written by teenagers, but directed by  them too. Summertime feels too much like a performance, like teens who were given a chance by a professional and wanted to make the most of it, but in doing so, lose all authenticity and true emotion that their original performances on that spoken word night surely had. 

3/10

Summertime premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2020. No UK release date has been announced yet. Check out an interview with the film’s stars below:

Ellie Lachs reviews Wang Xiaoshuai’s emotional family epic.

Wang Xiaoshuai’s newest film So Long, My Son is a slow burner to say the least. The three hour ode to trauma slowly slips beneath the skin, unknowingly picking at any traces of complacency or contentment amidst its audience. The film follows two couples through China’s cultural revolution into modernity, skirting around, over and through the tragedies that hit each family.

So Long, My Son centres on a tight and traditional family unit in which friends are like family and family are like friends. The two central couples- Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun, and Shen Yingming and Li Haiyan – all live in the same apartment block, work in the same factory and have sons – Liu Xing (‘Xingxing’) and  Shen Hao (‘Haohao’) – that were born on the same day. This intimate bond, established early on in the film, quickly dissolves with the onset of the 1980s and the implementation of the One Child Policy. These interpersonal and national conflicts result in an uncomfortable and upsetting end, only to be trounced with the accidental death of Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun’s son. Such events make these tight-knight friendships too unbearable to sustain, and the result is a silent and grievous separation which only adds to the tragedies that have already taken place.

Where bereavement propels Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun to the province of Fujian, an underdeveloped area on the southeastern coast of China, all their friends stride into the city and its developing economy, creating a near irreconcilable rift between the familial unit.  Despite these geographical disparities, lingering guilt, regret and unspoken apologies drive the action within; this underlying current of unresolved emotion plays an integral role in holding the audience’s attention for all three hours. 

The hidden emotional depths of the characters are also conveyed formally, with many of the film’s scenes rejecting dialogue in favour of undefined background noise. Xiaoshuai proves how much action can take place against the clapping of waves, clicking of car doors and boiling of water in pans. This abject use of showing rather than telling directs the audience’s attention towards the facial expressions and body movements of the actors. Xiaoshuai demands us to heighten our haptic engagement, and in doing so plants us into his scenes; we become participants in the action. When Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun sit in their flat, stone-faced and glaring out of their window as the new year fireworks explode before them, they assume the same spectating role as us. The effect of the muted dialogue perpetuates the sense of ambiguity; we can only assume what is going on behind the deep-set countenances of grief and guilt. 

Xiaoshuai artfully pairs the constant state of questioning and anticipation with a decidedly non-linear chronology.  The director seamlessly flits between pre-Cultural Revolution, the centre of the Revolution, and the proceeding People’s Republic. The periods and plotlines are muddled, creating endless seconds of disorientation. The viewer is offered foresight without evidence and evidence without foresight, requiring them to decode the relevant plot details and distinguish the specific traits and lives of the characters within. 

This can, however, be possibly attributed to the circular nature of the plot. Many scenes echo former ones, causing the past to literally permeate the present. In three different scenes, the audience races down the same hospital aisle; under different circumstances but through nearly identical shots, the multiple casualties become intertwined. Equally, when Liyun and Haiyan are hospitalised at the same time, their diagnoses become tangled and it is unclear who the real centre of attention is. This interplay demands an enormous amount of audience concentration, as well as the perceptiveness to notice the undercurrent of subtle links that seep through the plot.   

The final note then resides in genre. That the film inserts itself so firmly within a realist narrative without imposing any political commentary is arguably what really allows tragedy to seep in. So Long, My Son is not meant to provoke or rile its audience, but rather to contemplate the fragility of life and examine the excruciating nature of loss. It is a tragedy with no one to scapegoat, with no political turmoil to blame, and this makes it all the more painful. Perhaps this is why we are privy to reject Yaojun’s early confession that ‘time stopped for us a long time ago, we are just waiting to grow old now,’ in the hope that the plot will unfurl into something positive, a reconciled series of events. In reality, the film exposes the kind of trauma that festers and blooms in continuous cycles; three hours suddenly feels like a small price to pay in comparison to the interminable suffering of Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun.  

So Long, My Son is no longer in cinemas but is available to rent via Curzon Home Cinema. Check out the trailer below: 

Manisha Thind reviews Paul Wright’s 2017 documentary.

“A story of change, of people moving off the land and away from the country.”

Arcadia is a compelling odyssey concerning the mutating relationship between Great Britain and her citizens. Comprised of astutely selected archive footage infused with experimental and psychedelic scores courtesy of Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp), the film is a historical reverie.

Juxtaposed next to the deep, choral incantations in the first clip is an ethereal chanting filled with the promise of spring. Thenceforth, director Paul Wright sets the tone of a hallucinatory atmosphere that persists throughout the documentary. Post-War English village life and agricultural occupations are exhibited for the first ten minutes of the film, characteristically merry and nostalgic. These elements starkly contrast with today’s more urban, global standards. The chirpiness of ordinary and habitual 1950s life is shattered by an unsettling score accompanying a foreboding statement: “Deep in the land comes another truth. A different truth. A secret past. A hidden history.”

Ominous transitions partition the various clips, and the audience spirals into an ever troubling and provocative pilgrimage through England’s socio-political rabbit hole. Footage of Lewis Carroll’s inquisitive Alice is followed by images of gleeful nudists and of well-to-do crowds in formal attire. Naturism and paganism are juxtaposed with depictions of foliage, mining and the Queen’s Guard. The archetypal nonconformism of the 1960’s is exemplified, overflowing with psychedelic freak-outs and unbridled love.

“A glimpse of Heaven. But this was only part of the story. To find our salvation, she had to understand the whole truth of this land.”

Merry Britain’s transformation into a troubled nation comes as the socialists and miners become marginalized, and the country is plagued by deforestation, landfills and hunting, whilst the elite idly stand by. Animal abuse is shown simultaneously with joviality, thus demonstrating the problematic ignorance that has neglected to confront the urgency of the climate crisis and animal rights. Far from ‘Merry England’, we are subjected to viewing the harsh realities afflicting the impoverished and underprivileged working classes. Community and spirit have declined to result in punks rebelliously raving, lads rolling down hills undeterred by ostensible injury, and a society sharing only consumerism in common.

“In the United Kingdom, a crisis of great dimensions is in the making, which, if it were allowed to run its course, would shake the world, and make our own position highly vulnerable and precariously isolated.”

Some may consider Arcadia to be no more than a glorified montage; however, the film provides a necessary reminder that Britain’s historical past has fashioned the present, and often mirrors it. Brexit, rising tuition fees and taxes, the attack on the NHS, and immigration are only a few of the issues that exemplify the current societal cleavages and national detachment that bedevils Great Britain. Arcadia proves incredibly relevant, both warning and prayer. That said, hyperbolic dystopianism and the incessantly pessimistic tone of the film leads to Wright deliberately negating footage that would otherwise show communities uniting to face adversity. Moreover, the film would have benefited from surveying more themes – such as racism, sexism and homophobia – in lieu of repeating the footage of pagans chanting. Nonetheless, fundamental national divisions persist despite advances towards liberty and enlightenment; this film intuitively captures these divisions, one which most would rather not acknowledge. Let us hope that subsequent generations will finally upturn this ceaseless spiral towards the Earth’s decay and societal partition, into something that more closely resembles a utopia.

Arcadia is available to stream on BFI Player or available to rent on multiple platforms. Check out the trailer below:

Daniel Jacobson takes an in-depth look at Noah Baumbach’s tender drama Marriage Story through game theory.

One of the most famous and widely researched thought experiments in game theory, the field of mathematics dedicated to studying strategy and decision-making, is called the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and it goes something like this:

You and your friend are being charged with bank robbery. You are separately interrogated by the police, who offer each of you the opportunity to testify against the other, or to remain silent. If you both remain silent, you each receive 2 years in prison. If you both testify against each other, you each receive 5 years. However, if one betrays the other, whilst the other remains silent, the person who remained silent receives 10 years in prison, and the betrayer walks away free. What do you do?

From the outsider’s perspective, the optimal result in this scenario is for both parties to cooperate, as this results in the least amount of shared jail time. However, if you remain silent, you are guaranteed either the same amount (2 years) or more jail time (10 years) than your friend. In this way, whilst cooperation is the optimal outcome for the ‘team’, individually, it is in your interest to betray your friend.

As a romance story addict who is just beginning a PhD in computational genetics, I have developed a fairly potent obsession with the application of mathematics to a variety of messy, real-life situations including, more cynically, love and relationships. In fact, I wrote a movie about it (Calculating Nora, the 2019/20 Term 1 Film, is coming soon!). Whilst people have tried, there are serious limitations to applying game theory to relationships because, at its centre, game theory is about conflict, and relationships, ideally, are not. You can’t win at love. But you can win at divorce, and the quicker you realise this, the better chance you have of doing so. This is the problem at the centre of Marriage Story, and by asking what happens to a relationship when a conflict becomes all-encompassing, its writer and director Noah Baumbach has created, in my opinion, one of the funniest, most moving, most thought-provoking, and most human films of the decade.

Marriage Story portrays the divorce between Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver), from couples’ therapy, through the proceedings, up to the two of them moving on with their lives. Both parties clarify from the beginning that they want a fair, equal, agreeable separation, mostly with reference to their son, Henry, and whilst they both carry their share of mistakes, admittedly skewed towards Charlie, the divorce is the finale of the simple realisation that, with Nicole taking a job in California and Charlie staying with his theatre company in New York, their marriage has, unfortunately, run its course. Neither side is thrilled by this, but if they can both just get through their 2 years in prison, they can begin moving on in the healthiest way possible.

The movement away from cooperation and towards conflict is best represented by their respective lawyers. Nicole’s transition into conflict is fairly understandable as, at least initially, she is more likely to be cast as the “victim”, whose life and work has become entirely intertwined with Charlie’s. It is fuelled, however, by her lawyer Nora, played by the astonishing Laura Dern, who coaxes Nicole’s insecurities to the surface during their phenomenal initial meeting, in which Nora all but seduces Nicole into viewing her divorce as a zero-sum game – if one person benefits, the other person must lose out. And Nicole is entitled to win.

This is clearly more difficult for Charlie who continues to convince himself that, despite hiring Nora and playing for favours with their son, Nicole is still dedicated to securing an equal settlement. His first lawyer (Alan Alda) is older and more modest, and instantly connects with Charlie on his own familiar, personal grounds. However, Charlie is forced to hire his own hot shot lawyer (Ray Liotta) once it becomes abundantly clear that by choosing to act cooperatively, he risks losing custody of his son. In their first meeting, Liotta tells him “If we start from a position of reasonable, and they start from a position of crazy, by the time we settle we will be somewhere between reasonable and crazy. Which is crazy.” He knows that when one side has chosen conflict, the other’s only option is to fight back.

This is what I personally found the most heart-breaking about Marriage Story. As we are aware from the beautiful opening montages, Charlie and Nicole love each other. However, they are led to believe that they are fighting a battle when, in fact, if they had chosen to settle out of court and without lawyers, as initially discussed, their separation may have gone more smoothly.

There are two gorgeous scenes of serious conflict, in a movie where Charlie and Nicole are often apart. One, the film’s most notorious scene, portrays their initial attempt to come to an agreement themselves, culminating in searing words and a hole in Charlie’s wall, indicative of the equally upsetting Before Midnight. Whilst they have the best intentions, both sides are still too wrapped up in their lawyer’s opinions to work through it maturely. The second, my favourite scene in the film, shows their court case, in which Charlie and Nicole sit quietly whilst their sides are presented almost entirely by their lawyers. Here, every moment in the film is twisted and subverted into ammunition against the other: a drink at dinner is presented as alcoholism, a dedication to work as negligence. Unfortunately, their eventual attempts to seek greatest payoff are alluded to during the introductory scenes where, amongst the endless references to being good parents and dedicated spouses, their only shared trait is to be “competitive”.

Of course, the incredible depth of character generated throughout this movie is testament to Noah Baumbach’s unbelievable script, which presents conflict in a far more nuanced way than any film I have seen in a long time. Baumbach is a filmmaker to whom I have, admittedly, not dedicated sufficient time. I enjoyed the first 25 minutes of The Meyerowitz Stories, before deciding that the film was long and I wanted a sandwich and it was on Netflix anyway so I could continue watching later. Additionally, my 16-year-old-self described The Squid and the Whale as “sanctimonious drivel”, albeit without a clear definition of “sanctimonious”. Yet he redeemed himself by writing these unbelievable articles for the New Yorker.

The richness in story and character created by Baumbach’s script arises from his focus on a dozen or so scenes from the divorce, as opposed to providing every event in the story. Similar to films such as Boyhood, many essential events throughout their story – the termination of Charlie’s Broadway show; the success of Nicole’s television show; even the final settlement – are glossed over in passing. This allows for the film as a whole to breathe and play out organically. It means that the audience has the time to acknowledge and comprehend Charlie’s desperation as he takes Henry trick-or-treating late at night. Nicole’s frustration and nervousness before handing over the divorce papers is palpable and hilarious. And when Charlie delivers a full rendition of Sondheim’s “Being Alive”,it is not a thematic titbit played momentarily in the background, but rather an opportunity for Charlie, and us, to reflect emotionally and critically on what has occurred and consequently, what we have learnt.

Interestingly, there is a solution for optimising your winnings during multiple consecutive applications of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, known as the “iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma”. In a series of tournaments created by the political scientist Robert Axelrod, hundreds of algorithms were pitted against each other to see which methods optimised the results of these games. The most consistently successful technique, as reported in his 1984 book The Evolution of Cooperation, was known as “tit-for-tat”. Introduced by the mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapoport, the technique dictates that one should begin by cooperating with the other person and continue to do so until they choose to betray you, at which point you simply copy them. This does make some logical sense. By applying tit-for-tat, one is able to benefit whilst the other is cooperating and retaliate when betrayed. Tit-for-tat is, incidentally, the general response during real-life applications of the Prisoner’s dilemma, notably the “Live and let live” non-aggressive trench warfare behaviour during World War One.

However, a key characteristic of tit-for-tat is that whilst it was the most successful technique applied in Axelrod’s tournaments, a player applying tit-for-tat can only ever do as well as its competitor, but never better. Instead, it optimises its own results by optimising those of its opponent. This is possible because the Prisoner’s dilemma is not a zero-sum game. In Marriage Story, when Nicole plays as the provocateur by meeting Nora, Charlie utilises tit-for-tat. As neither side is able to cease betraying, for fear of insurmountable losses in court, they enter a “death spiral”. It is only their agreement to relax their demands and begin cooperating again that allows them to reach the fair settlement they intended for in the first place.

My absolute favourite films, such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Little Miss Sunshine, and Marriage Story, have either influenced the way I choose to live now, or emulate what I would like to see in myself in the future. Whilst I might not be able to say the same for Kermack-McKendrick models, the Central Limit Theorem, or, indeed, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, I was struck by game theory’s ability to wholly encompass a story as emotionally harrowing and deeply personal as a divorce, without detracting from its nuances. You still can’t win at love, but it is naïve to suggest that conflict resolution and relationships exist independently. Whether we want to admit it or not, conflict is at the centre of all of our relationships and interactions, from family to flatmates, from loved ones to lecture buddies. I loved Marriage Story because, from my perspective, it presented a healthy method for dealing with these conflicts, one where seeking personal victories causes misery, and the choice to cooperate is beneficial both for the group and the individual. All it required was for Baumbach to put it so eloquently.

Marriage Story is available to be streamed on Netflix now and you can watch the trailer below: 

Pihla Pekkarinen reviews the much-anticipated Disney sequel.

Frozen, when it was first released six years ago, gripped the world. Frozen paraphernalia was inescapable. Anyone who had or spent time with young children in the first few years after its release was haunted by the spectres of Anna and Elsa. At the small preschool I taught at, there were at least three Elsas or Annas at Halloween and Carnival.

Frozen was hailed by parents and critics alike for its feminist undertones. The leads were two strong, independent women, and the film prioritized the relationship of sisterly love over romantic love. It depicted the difference between a manipulative romantic relationship and a supportive one, making clear how not all romantic relationships are equal. It embraced femininity as a strength rather than a weakness. Criticism arose too, with some claiming that the stereotypically princess-like appearances of Elsa and Anna contribute to unattainable beauty standards, particularly shameless in their targeting of young girls. Overall, however, the release of Frozen in 2013 was recognised as a huge step in the right direction for Disney.

Frozen II follows nearly the same path as its predecessor. Anna and Elsa set off on another quest for the truth, meet guiding characters, and eventually succeed in saving their people from peril once again. It is a heartfelt film with a formulaic plot and the occasional chuckle-provoking joke. The characters grapple with moral dilemmas but are never themselves at the center of them. The film reprises almost all the elements of the smash-hit “Let it Go” in a similar power ballad, with the main difference being that Elsa has graduated to letting her hair fall fully down this time. (One wonders what the next step will be: perhaps Frozen III’s Elsa will shave her head, or even dye it pink?) Frozen II is hardly revolutionary. Or is it?

In one scene, the beloved snowman-friend Olaf turns to Anna, confessing he feels angry at Elsa for letting him down. Instead of dismissing him, or encouraging Olaf to sympathise with and forgive Elsa, Anna immediately acknowledges and validates his hurt. Olaf’s anger is not treated as negativity to be suppressed, but rathe an emotion as valid and important as any other. In another poignant moment, as Anna rides into battle, instead of questioning her judgement or trying to protect her, Kristoff asks what she needs and follows through on her request. He later tells her, in one of the more memorable lines of the film, “My love is not fragile.” Their relationship is depicted as one of partnership and collaboration, rather than patriarchal oppression and imbalanced power. The film also features an indigenous community modelled after the Sami people of Northern Europe. The portrayal has been lauded by its Sami audience as both accurate and respectful. Frozen II acknowledges (in a limited, Disneyfied way) a history of oppression and violence against global Indigenous communities.

Frozen II actively responds to Disney’s troubling social legacy, toying with the stereotypes and tropes associated with the genre. The film is aware of the susceptibility of its young audience, and consciously attempts to send empowering messages. However, they are not particularly well-integrated into what is essentially a standard Disney princess plot, and older audiences may find this constant moral nudging slightly grating. But the film cannot and should not be faulted for trying to do better: the effort to create a more inclusive and empowering future for Disney is explicit.

Frozen II is unlikely to have the all-consuming legacy of its predecessor. The songs are less catchy, the new characters less compelling (due partly to their limited screen time), and the plot more convoluted. It is nevertheless a charming and heartwarming piece of entertainment which will undoubtedly prove popular amongst its young audience. At least Frozen II has some originality and is not a live action remake of an already existing film. Ultimately, Frozen II represents an effort on Disney’s part to do better–which counts for something in this wintery political climate.

Frozen II is still showing in cinemas worldwide. Check out the trailer below:

Fatima Jafar pens a love letter to a beloved childhood film.

The first time I watched Monsoon Wedding I was ten years old. My mother sang its praises all throughout my early childhood, and I finally watched it sitting in my parents’ bedroom one summer. My most recent viewing was last week. Over the last decade, this film has snaked its way into each year of my life, appearing silently, softly, always when I needed it most: during the perennial tug of homesickness, countless flus, exam seasons, birthdays, goodbyes. I wanted to write something for the film, in exchange for everything it has been for me.

Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding tells the story of a summer wedding in a Punjabi Hindu family. On the surface, it appears a stereotypical ‘South Asian wedding movie’: peppered with a Bollywood Item number, family drama and, of course, romance. But Monsoon Wedding remains unwaveringly self-aware. Nair subverts the cinematic trope of brown weddings as exotic, vivacious, colourful — ideas which often cater to Western fetishisation of South Asian culture — and holds a critical mirror to the genre itself. 

The film places the viewer within the home of the Verma family, where Aditi Verma is about to be married. As the film begins, we see each family member arriving to the home, and the tension builds concurrently. We view each scene from inside the spaces that the characters occupy, traveling from bathroom to bedroom alongside each of them. This enshrines a deeply personal, intimate atmosphere that remains with us throughout the film– it begins to feel as though we are part of the family itself. 

 Once the family has arrived, a gnawing anxiety bleeds through the narrative. We see the relationship between Lalit and Pimmi—Aditi’s parents—straining, as the pressure of the matrimonial preparations builds. They argue about money, sending their ‘sensitive’ son to boarding school (he is chastised for enjoying cooking and dancing), and all the while their sex life remains stagnant. Lalit struggles financially, having to borrow money from his friends to cover the costs of the wedding. Pimmi feels constantly alienated by her husband, her sexual desire unfulfilled. As the film continues, their relationship is punctuated with short, explosive arguments that often end with the slamming of doors and cold silences. Nair sheds light on the perils of the idolisation of ‘wedding culture’ in many South Asian families. She reveals the debilitating effect ‘wedding culture’ can have on people, both financially and personally. 

While the tension in this relationship increases, Nair conversely explores the dynamic between cousins Ria and Aditi. They talk about men, sex, marriage, and familial pressure without a filter. The power and comfort that their friendship contains remains a rooting force throughout the ensuing chaos of the film. Nair deals with female sexuality with great sincerity,  creating an unabashed space within which these conversations occur, that never feels contrived or fetishised.– Aditi is set to marry Hemant in an arranged marriage, but is having an affair with her married boss. Aditi speaks of the affair openly with Riya and the strict margins of taboo are tossed out as each character confronts their own uncomfortable truths head-on. Nair is not interested in painting an image of the idealised Indian family; she is interested in telling the story of a real one.

 In an act characteristic of her subversion, Nair also brings the camera to the back of the house, away from the image of the upper-middle class family. At the back of the house, she explores the slow-burning romance between Alice, a woman who cleans the Verma home, and Dubey, the event manager of the wedding. Nair explores this love story in forgotten spaces: dirty kitchens, generator rooms, and balconies— hidden, secluded areas at the back of the home, where lovers cannot be seen by others. She explores the taboos existing around interfaith marriages (Dubey is Hindu and Alice is Christian), as well as the depiction of romance, love, and sex in non-upperclass, non-uppercaste contexts. 

The film focuses extensively on hidden spaces, the oft-overlooked rooms and areas where many things can exist at once: love, sex, pain, trauma, secrets. Nair presents a family with stories and experiences enmeshed in its fabric, and how these secrets become rents when the entire family comes together in the singular space of a home. The tension is pinned between the closed doors behind which conversations are held. As we watch the film we get the sense that, even if we are viewing a scene set in a certain room, much more is going on in the house than meets the eye. The deep-seated anxiety embedded within the film comes to the fore through the revelation of a pattern of continuous abuse occurring within the family. At this point, all of the seams binding the home and the family together, are torn. The facade of a perfect, happy family breaks down and the characters are left to contend with the truth. 

The reason I love Monsoon Wedding so deeply—a love that has been sustained over ten years— is because it is honest about everything that it is: it is a wedding movie, but also a film that critically explores marriage, sex, class, abuse, trauma, secrecy, and illusion. The viewer is never entirely sure of which neat genre-box the film ticks, and by remaining resolute in transgressing these cinematic borders, Monsoon Wedding does not exist as any one thing—it is a complex story about a family and the home they live in: closed doors, creaking floors and all. 

Kerem Uzdiyen reviews Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited gangster epic.

This review contains no spoilers.

Did Martin Scorsese follow up on his recent “real cinema” remarks by delivering some really good cinema? Yes, he absolutely did.

The Irishman is the story of Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a truck driver who becomes tangled up in the Philadelphia crime scene and forms separate partnerships with union teamster Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and mob leader Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci). The film tackles quite well-known historical events that I personally did not know about going into the film; however, I believe this actually made the film more exciting, never knowing quite what to expect. 

Scorsese seemingly goes back to the good old ’90s, bringing De Niro and Pesci along with him. The comparisons to Casino and Goodfellas undoubtedly begin before the film does. However, Al Pacino (this is his first collaboration with the director) is not the only update to Scorsese’s cinematic world; while the film mostly takes place in the ’60s and ’70s, the film has a fresh element to it that seems very fitting for 2019. Very few films tackle the past with such loyalty and freshness, and this ultimately separates The Irishman from both its counterparts from the past and films that have come out in the last few years. After years of acting in tepid films or not at all, De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci show their maturation into cinema’s older leading men. Scorsese proves that he is as masterful as ever, the film showcasing even more of his signature style than 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

So, let’s talk about the negatives first. Or, should I say, the single negative – and, no, this is not nit-picking a perfect movie, this is actually a bit of a problem. With a runtime of 3 hours and 29 minutes, The Irishman is a very long film, and, being very dialogue-based, it has a rather slow pace until the last act. I will admit, there were times I got bored and had to check my watch to see how much of the film we had gotten through. While the length didn’t bother me too much, the friend I saw it with had trouble sitting through the middle part; consequently, the running time caused him to have mixed thoughts about the film. In all honesty, you could easily cut 30 to 45 minutes from this film and it would be the same, if not better. A film that is too long risks the audience having a hard time following multiple characters and plot points, or weaker arcs being built, which can frustrate audiences. An undeveloped plot strand throughout the film is the relationship between Frank and his daughter Peggy (Anna Paquin). In fact, his daughter’s relationship with Hoffa (who becomes Frank’s mentor and possibly best friend) was somehow better developed. Admittedly, I would not have thought of this as an issue if the film was shorter, but it is disappointing considering the film’s length.

Despite it’s long running time, I believe The Irishman will be heralded as a classic, alongside Casino and Goodfellas. The average age of the main acting trio in the film is 77; they are so old that Pesci has barely acted since Casino in 1995. It’s easy to assume that, given their age and experience, Scorsese and some of his old pals would just be having a little bit of fun without giving a lot of attention or energy. However, I was shocked at the enormous amount of effort all three men put into the film and how new and fresh Scorsese’s direction felt. All their talents combine to make the film feel absolutely alive and monumental. I doubt this will be De Niro and Pacino’s last film, but I think they should ride off into the sunset after this one. De Niro leads with subtlety, never stealing the show entirely but always in control. It doesn’t feel like he’s acting at all; he delivers the performance so naturally that Robert De Niro and Frank Sheeran are indistinguishable by the end. The use of de-aging, especially on De Niro’s face, concerned me at the beginning, but the visual presentation of the film as a whole made the obvious visual effect completely fade from my attention.

Now that the Best Leading Actor nominee is out of the way, let’s talk about our two possible Best Supporting Actor nominees. Al Pacino gives a fantastically charismatic performance as the larger-than-life figure, Jimmy Hoffa. The film, along with Pacino’s performance, crafts Hoffa into a character the audience deeply cares about, no matter his flaws. Scorsese and screenwriter Steven Zaillian find different ways to show who Jimmy Hoffa is, sticking to a “show don’t tell” approach that lets the audience grow gradually fonder of the character until the very end. The biggest surprise – along with what I thought was the most impressive performance in the film – comes from Joe Pesci. His performance is so nuanced and convincing that it feels lived in, almost like he has been living life as Bufalino for the last 20 years. His commanding presence garners respect and inspires intimidation; while Hoffa comes and goes, Russ is a constant fixture brimming with charisma for three and a half hours. I can already say Pesci is my favourite for the Oscar race come February. 

A great writer is obviously necessary to make way for such great performances and Zaillian delivers, perfectly crafting dialogue that keeps the audience captivated for the lengthy runtime. Both the gangsters and the unionists are portrayed in obvious detail, doing justice to the source material (I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt) and historical record. The humour surprised me the most: the film absolutely excels with subtle, clever humour all the way through, making it so much more fun to sit through. I was surprised at how many times I cracked up laughing at a gangster film. The cinematography and production design is also what you have come to expect from Scorsese and his crew – consistently beautiful and grandiose, and always fitting the mood of a scene.

The Irishman is a perfect demonstration of Scorsese’s genius, at no point more obvious than the ending. As this is a no-spoiler review, I can’t tell you much, but the ending of this film is slightly unexpected and memorable, cleverly completing the three hour-plus ride with a powerful demonstration of the ramifications of mob life. The final shot leaves the audience to think about the true message lying underneath, made even more impactful by the old age of its director and stars.

In conclusion, if you have a long attention span, definitely see this film in the theatre. If you don’t have a long attention span, definitely see this film on Netflix. Overall, definitely see this film.

9.5/10

The Irishman is playing in cinemas worldwide and is now available to stream on Netflix. Check out the trailer below:

Sofía Korous Vázquez explores the exquisite visuals of a Kieślowski masterpiece. 

This past week FilmSoc screened Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Veronique (1991), a filmic whirlwind of poetic images that draws viewers under its spell with its bold yet delicate beauty. Every frame is magic; here are just some of my favourite images that embody The Double Life’s creative language.

Reflections, mirrored worlds, glass

Doubles, dualities

Worlds within worlds, marionettes

Beams of light, warm and cold

Interior spaces, greens, and reds

Camerawork, gliding, skew

The red frame

Kieślowski really out here making 5 seconds of red frame the most engrossing thing to ever grace a screen!

Later today, we are screening Children of Men. It’s free to all UCL students and no society membership is required. Come along!

Kirese Narinesingh reviews Robert Eggers’ acclaimed new film. 

This review contains minor spoilers.

At one point in The Lighthouse, Robert Pattinson’s forlorn, spiritually exhausted character finally kills a bothersome seagull in an outburst of fury and violence, smashing it against the ground vigorously until nothing remains but its feathers and a broken body. The scene leaves the audience visually arrested, unable to move; a type of paralysis only achieved by the work of a director who knows what true horror is, and whose films actively reinvent the genre.

The Lighthouse takes place in 19th-century Maine, set against a harsh landscape of fog and interminable waves that crash onto the lighthouse’s rocks. The endless stream of noise deeply perturbs Pattinson’s Ephraim, while Willem Defoe’s rugged veteran lighthouse keeper, Thomas Wake, is humorously unaffected. Wake seems to have walked straight out of Moby Dick, possessing the nonsensical speech and ridiculous antics of a nineteenth century seaman. The dynamic first appears as no more than “gloomy, quiet youngster meets swashbuckling pirate,” but slowly develops into much more, as the unlikely pair are fated to spend four weeks together in isolation. The film’s premise immediately evokes Bergman’s Persona, with its similar feature of two protagonists on a deserted landscape, one of who becomes increasingly neurotic.

Director Robert Eggers seems to realize this particular situation can go anyway he wants; all creative directions are explored, culminating in a genre-defying blend of horror, comedy and psychological drama. 

The film slowly devolves into a dance of unadulterated madness. As both characters learn to coexist, with Ephraim admittedly bearing the brunt of this encounter—he is forced to put up with Wake’s endless stream of farting—they seem to grow increasingly mad. Ephraim’s madness is more pronounced, as he spends his days tormented by a certain seagull, constantly sexually frustrated and masturbating to a small relic of a mermaid. The pitiful performance is masterfully executed, with Pattinson managing to hold his own against an actor of Willem Defoe’s stature.

Defoe’s character Wake, however, may be the key to the film’s madness; he certainly incites it.  It’s not that evident at first (or maybe it is, in retrospect) that he might be slightly off, but this slowly changes. Defoe plays the role brilliantly, crafting a madness comprised of bursts of clarity amidst the insanity. He ironically warns Ephraim of the dangers of teetering madness, encouraging him to drink to stave it off, yet simultaneously imposes one unbreakable rule that causes the tension to turn into madness: the lamp at the top of the lighthouse is off-limits. It seems such a trivial thing, but for Ephraim, the lamp becomes a feverish, infectious obsession that Wake passes on to his apprentice. Eggers’ most interesting scenes come forth in these interactions, where the madness of each man seems to intersect and merge, their circumstances producing depravity, dramatic outbursts, and creative insults laced with deep frustration.

Can you blame them for going mad? They’re the only two real characters in the whole movie.  Yet it still begs the question of what exactly causes this madness to escalate—is it the barren landscape of the lighthouse, with its burning light and deafening foghorn, or the intense claustrophobia? The film is shot in black and white, allowing Eggers to ironically expand his palette by playing with and revitalizing the nuances of early horror cinema. Similar to films like Persona and The Innocents, the director uses the subtle greyness to explore a descent into the abyss of psycho-sexual neuroses.

Can we consider this a horror film? If so, this is Robert Eggers’ second foray into the genre. His first film, The Witch, was just as grounded in authenticity, with characters left to their own devices. But this film is evidently a different beast. The source of horror is left completely unseen and only hinted at throughout the film: is it the ominous, ubiquitous seagull, or the dream/nightmare of the mermaid, who tantalizingly and mockingly haunts Pattinson’s sexuality?

The Lighthouse has all the exciting suspense and whiplash thrills of horror, but I am still hesitant at the idea of firmly rooting it within the genre. The film feels like more than conventional horror, comprising a mixture of drama and psychological thrills, its protagonists proving more terrifying than any external force. There is no true supernatural entity; only two lonely men on a deserted island left to their own devices.

Once again, I watched Robert Eggers not only exceed but obliterate the expectations that come with making and releasing a horror film, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

The Lighthouse will be released in the United Kingdom on 31 January 2020 and is also showing at CINECITY 2019 in Brighton this November. Check out the trailer below: 

Editor KC Wingert reviews Michael Caton-Jones’ female-led film at BFI LFF 2019. 

The Scottish comedy Our Ladies made its world premiere on Friday, 4^th October, as part of the BFI London Film Festival. Given the popularity and critical success of the Alan Warner novel on which Our Ladies is based—which also spawned a West End musical adaptation from Lee Hall (Rocketman, Billy Elliot)—the film bills itself as a hilariously entertaining romp, documenting a day in the lives of five schoolgirls from the Scottish Highlands. Set in the mid-‘90s, Our Ladies could be an ode to navigating raging hormones and desperate crushes similar to Ten Things I Hate About You or a touching coming-of-age story á la Lady Bird. Unfortunately, Our Ladies is not on par with these nostalgic genre classics, missing a few of the key features that make its mid-‘90s teen comedy companions so great.

Orla, Fionnula, Kylah, Rachell, and Amanda are the self-proclaimed “partiers” of their Catholic school’s choir. They’re all completely obsessed with sex, gossiping about who’s shagged whom the entire bus ride down to a choir competition in Edinburgh. The girls make plans to spend the day drinking, shopping, and finding men to sleep with before their big performance that evening. However, as tensions among them unexpectedly begin to rise, they split off from each other, embarking on their own Edinburgh adventures.

Not all of these girls are as experienced as their open attitudes towards sex imply. Orla (Tallulah Greive), for instance, begins the film praying to a portrait of Jesus hung in her room that she might have sex that evening because, unlike Jesus’ mother, she “doesn’t want to be a virgin her whole life.” Fionnula (Abigail Lawrie), on the other hand, has slept with plenty of guys, but what she’d really like is to sleep with a girl—one of the few secrets she keeps from her friends. With womanhood fast approaching, the girls are forced to think hard about their futures perhaps for the first time, and the conclusions to which they begin to come make them realise they may have less in common with each other than they thought. For some of them, the thought of being a teen mum and staying in their small Highland town forever is the dream—while others in the group look upon that attitude with derision.

Though these characters’ separate journeys are entertaining to watch and elicit several genuine laughs, they get in the way of a cohesive plot. In fact, a lot of the characters’ actions feel less like they have narrative purpose and more like they’ve been shoved in as a punchline. The narrative structure of Our Ladies feels awkward and ham-fisted right down to the corny, character-by-character epilogues.

(Can I please take a brief moment to say how much I hate epilogues in fiction films? If this character’s future isn’t important enough to merit a sequel, it’s not important enough to show an inspirational music-backed freezeframe of that fictional character’s face with some text telling us where they fictionally moved after leaving their fictional hometown and what kind of fictional job they have, in this work of FICTION).

Our Ladies’ queer subplot ends on a triumphant note that feels wholly unearned, and the entire main conflict of the film is ameliorated with a hackneyed kumbaya moment after which everyone just carries on as usual. There’s even a random, inexplicable musical number written in, which feels out of place in a film that otherwise seems to be making an attempt at gritty realism. The final act simply devolves into a bunch of jokey bits that are meant to be funny but because of the subject matter—underage girls getting involved with older men—are actually just very uncomfortable to watch.

A good coming-of-age film should be one that almost anyone can see a little bit of themselves in. Unfortunately, Our Ladies doles out characters that are unlikable and unrealistic. It deals with the hormonally-charged boy-craziness of a group of teenage girls in a way that doesn’t highlight the hilarity and awkwardness of exploring one’s sexuality in the way so many great teen comedies do. Rather, it feels exploitative; the cast of young girls is depictd as gladly flirting with unbelievably creepy older men, having sex while completely wasted and then casually laughing it off later, and reacting nonchalantly when a man exposes himself to them and proposes an orgy.

Perhaps this exploration of teenage girls’ sexualities misses the mark because, despite the fact that the main cast is entirely female, neither the writer nor the director of this film a woman. In fact, Our Ladies’ unequivocally odd choice of writer/director is Michael Caton-Jones – otherwise best known for directing the 2002 feature Basic Instinct 2, which Wikipedia describes as an “erotic crime thriller” and Rotten Tomatoes describes as “bad.”

Our Ladies comes to us at a time when ‘90s nostalgia is in high demand and women’s stories are being celebrated in film more often than ever. The film has an incredibly talented young cast and a promising pitch, but potential alone cannot make a film good. Our Ladies lacks authenticity in its hollow attempt at sex-positivity, and because it deals with the stories of teenage girls, that failure comes across as not only sexist but also as downright creepy. I’m not going to say conclusively that men can’t tell girls’ coming-of-age stories—Bo Burnham proves they can with his 2018 feature Eighth Grade, for instance. However, Caton-Jones (who, again, DIRECTED BASIC INSTINCT 2) demonstrates that he does not possess the insight into the mind of a teenage girl necessary to tell this story well.

Our Ladies has not been issued a UK release date yet.

Audrey Ciancioni and Margot Lumb review Todd Phillips’ divisive new take on the infamous DC villain.

This review contains minor spoilers. 

The newly released Joker is dense in references to the DC Comics Universe, yet the controversy surrounding the film regards its artistic and ideological aspects, rather than the movie’s role in the existing superhero canon. Joker tells the story of how the infamous titular character could have come to be. To do so, Todd Phillips’ newest work attempts to take the form of a social critique, exhibiting society’s callous disregard for the feelings and wellbeing of the weak and the different.

The film operates on the assumption that the world is irrational and toxic, this nihilistic worldview permeating each frame. Gotham City is more than a general setting; it is alive, breathing, coughing – a character in and of itself. Transportation scenes – whether outside in buses and police cars or underground in the subway – exist somewhere between a scary dream and a beautiful nightmare. The city is the movie’s ultimate antagonist, leading souls astray and making havoc of people’s lives.

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a miserable, pathos-filled freak, turns into a monster in spite of himself. Society in this filthy city, overflowing with garbage and sliced up into connected rails and roads of loneliness, is rude and violent: “They don’t give a shit about people like you,” as Arthur’s social worker aptly puts it. A group of boys assault Arthur with a sign, transforming him into a bleeding hunchback; his alleged friend, an abusive and condescending Judas named Randall, betrays him; three drunk young men gratuitously attack him on the subway. Joker forms under the twitching lights of the underground tunnel, through the repeated strikes of his head against the glass telephone booth.

Joker was heavily criticised immediately upon release, with many claiming that the film not only blames society for turning the main character into a villain but also justifies the violence he commits as a result. However, Arthur’s violence is never excused; even if it could be interpreted that he is primarily a victim of difficult circumstances, the movie does not follow that narrative. Rather, it complexly rewrites a globally famous character so that, for the first time on the big screen, we see him as the main character of his own fiction – without making him a hero.

Even if Arthur believes he is right to express his anger, this does not excuse his exerting violence. The direct proof of this is an almost unbearable tension throughout the film, close to that of a horror movie. The movements of the scrawny clown are all too straight and stretched, his laughter all too loud, his smiles too tight, the music too prominent – the movie slows to force patience when viewing the misanthropic acts it pictures (such as gratuitous bullying, fridge-bathing, and knife-slaughtering).

Arthur sometimes serves as society’s scapegoat; other times, he is merely a lost soul among millions. The character alternates between moments of seeming-innocence and open violence; moments of individual significance, others of collective uprising. Hence, although being a grown adult, he remains child-like.

Arthur laughs like a child, behaves like a child, even smokes like a scared child. He is a ridiculous caricature; a running clown with fat shoes, a Charlie-Chaplin-puppet, a dummy dancing along to piano music. He expresses everything in an extremely direct manner, creating the impression that something surprising (or shocking) could happen at any moment. Arthur’s naivety and heedlessness make him act in embarrassing ways, leading to uncomfortable moments. He becomes cartoonish in his misfortune, and the viewer is invited to mirror Gotham, reacting with guilty laughter, betraying some sense of superiority over the clown’s all-wrong moments.

Yet, Joker is not a funny movie; it is a movie about laughter. As Arthur claims in his final speech, in front of a live, rich and well-bred audience: “You choose what is funny, and what is not.” In this final scene, a wonderfully mastered mise en abyme projects the viewers onto the TV-show’s audience. We become a faceless crowd, laughing under the scenic light, watching the slow transformation of the stage into a disturbing playground for the Joker to become the star of his own act.

Joker is not a political manifesto. There is no lecture being made, no incitement of violence. If violence is indeed pictured as a rational way to deal with an overly irrational world, Todd Phillips does not present it as a good response to society’s abuses; he presents it as one possible response, leaving the spectator to decide for themselves.

Joker is a difficult movie to deal with because it operates on many levels of meaning. What we can do is define it by what it is not: it is not a critique of society and is not searching to impose itself as the one true interpretation of the character. Although this could be said of any movie, the saying “it is what you make of it” particularly fits Joker. The only valid criticism one can have? The movie provides no answers, not one.

Joker is showing in cinemas worldwide. Check out the trailer below:

Milo Garner reviews Werner Herzog’s intimate new film at BFI LFF 2019.

Werner Herzog has a penchant for representing the alienated. His great films of the ’70s and ’80s have always centred on those who have lost touch – or who have never been in touch – with the world around them:  the raving king Aguirre stumbling on his forsaken raft; the vampire Nosferatu, reduced to a lovelorn welp; the wandering, ever-lost Stroszek drifting through the hinterlands of America. Even in his more conventional output – not least the Nicholas Cage vehicle Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – his protagonists seem a step removed from their reality. Herzog himself might be described similarly. He is by no means a loner, nor a reject – few rejects nab a guest spot in The Simpsons, let alone a role in the latest Star Wars project – but nonetheless he seems to share something of the errant madness that infects many of his leading players.

His latest film Family Romance, LLC considers alienation from its inverse. It concerns Ishii Yuchii, the founder of the eponymous company, which provides a rental service for family members and friends. Though much like something pulled from a Charlie Kaufman script, this company is genuine, and while the incidents in the film are largely scripted, they often drift into the realm of documentary – a realm in which Herzog is, of course, immersed. The Japan of his film, and, by extension, the Japan of reality, is a country wherein alienation has become the norm – a country in which a company like Family Romance not only exists, but feels much at home. This film is sci-fi, dystopian, but not with much need to invent or fabricate.

The aesthetic of the film is notable in this respect. Shot on a handheld digital camera (operated by Herzog himself, with additional footage from producer Roc Morin), a visual style reminiscent of low-budget filmmaking techniques pervades throughout. The privilege of Herzog’s name is difficult to ignore; had a new director submitted a film of this technical quality, there is little chance his film would feature at such a prestigious festival as LFF.

However, this low-quality style – the rollicking, imprecise camerawork of an aging director using a relatively cheap camera – suggests a distinctly relevant aesthetic question. Considering the fictional premise, the imprecision implies an artificiality, as though the means of this film’s making are constantly revealed and thus a constant reminder of its untruth. This artificiality is then complemented by its opposite:  much of what takes place in the film is inescapably real. An extended scene of children playing with and petting a hedgehog is essentially documentary, as is the sequence of crowds gathering around a certain stunt pulled in the middle of the film. In these moments the ramshackle production no longer suggests falsity, as though the film exists on a thin line between an unconvincing fiction and an uncomfortable reality. No doubt much of the amateurism is a result of inexpert hands and low budget, but the effect suggested by these choices synthesises with the film otherwise closely and consistently.

The narrative of the film follows Ishii Yuchii – played, naturally, by himself – as he completes various jobs for his company. The most significant is to fill in as someone’s ex-husband, acting as a returned father to a young Mahiro (too young to recognize true- from false-dad). The ethics here are obviously sketchy, but more distinctly interesting is the question of affect. The happiness Mahiro experiences with her faux-father is no less ‘real’ than it would have been with her actual (and still absent) father.

This conclusion leads to the further observation that so much of the modern world is constructed through falsehood. Instagram is briefly mentioned (though not with the dismissive grimace of an angsty boomer; Herzog’s interest in burgeoning tech has aged him well). In this increasingly pervasive online sphere, reality and unreality are becoming more indistinct. In a chemical sense – the sense of dopamine and serotonin – the actions of Ishii Yuchi and his company could be considered noble. They are providing happiness where it would otherwise not exist. They are perhaps not a symptom of an increasingly isolated world, but its cure – the first step towards a future where artificiality and authenticity are intertwined and indistinguishable. This idea is not far from Kiarostami’s Certified Copy, a film that considers a similar ground to Family Romance, LLC, if more elegantly.

This sentiment, however, does suggest an unease – perhaps an orientalist, exotic discomfort for a Western observer. This burgeoning culture peals like a cheap sci-fi novel, and not one of the utopic bent. Herzog, while generally reserved in his judgement, seems to sympathise with this assessment; his inclusion of ‘LLC’ in the title, as noted by Peter Debruge for Variety, seems an ironic undermining of the two words prior. Eric Kohn, writing for Indiewire, further suggests that the film engages in a subtle critique of such widespread and all-consuming capitalism as Family Romance requires, in which commerce now encompasses friends, family, and love – all things that money supposedly cannot buy.

For Herzog, though, love is the problem. To quote the late Daniel Johnston, ‘true love will find us in the end,’ and this film proves no different. The dramatic crux – late in arrival but no less affective – concerns Ishii Yuchii and the realisation that he has begun to develop a genuine affection for his surrogate daughter. This is calamitous for his work. The ghost in the machine is just that – the artificiality of this new world can only function so long as its purveyors remain genuinely detached and unaffected. This, Herzog supposes, quite contradicts the human spirit.

While this is the lasting impression, it is not a conclusion entirely. Earlier in the film, Herzog follows Ishii Yuchii into a ‘robot hotel’ – a gimmick establishment in which the hotel staff and even its fish are robots. Herzog here suggests a cyborg future in which capitalist service might circumvent the foibles of human limitation. Even then, the director is wont to consider beyond this bleak premonition. Speaking a line that can be read in no voice but Herzog’s, Ishii asks the hotel’s (human) proprietor whether robots can dream – a throwaway ‘shower thought,’ for the moment. More so, however, this is Herzog thinking beyond the gimmickry of contemporary robotics. True love will find us in the end, sure – but perhaps it’ll find them, too. A scrappy, micro-budgeted, and inconsistent docu-drama, Family Romance, LLC rests far from Herzog’s most compelling output, but it is nonetheless a cogent, even affecting investigation of concepts central to humankind’s present and future.

7/10

Family Romance, LLC is showing in select cinemas. Check out the trailer below:

Emma Davis reviews Ciro Guerra’s latest colonial drama.

Waiting for the Barbarians follows a man called the Magistrate (Mark Rylance) over the course of a full year running the outpost of a small frontier town situated in ‘The Empire’. The film starts with the torrid arrival of Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp), a cruel and efficient officer who has been sent to quell any indigenous peoples’ revolt against the Empire. The Magistrate works closely with the oppressive Colonel, which leads the Magistrate to question his loyalty to the Empire – an uncertainty that acts as a catalyst to his eventual downfall. Despite a colour palette reminiscent of the Adventures of Tintin comics, this film takes on a surprisingly dark and serious tone.

This is Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s fifth feature film and first English-language one. Waiting for the Barbarians bears similarity to the director’s Oscar-nominated Empress of the Serpent and his crime drama Birds of Passage, which both explore the tumultuous relationship between Colombian indigenous peoples and their oppressors. Extrapolated to a more general context,  Waiting for the Barbarians centers the psyche of the coloniser, not the colonised. The script is penned by Afrikaner J. M. Coetzee, writer of the novel by the same name, who grew up in South Africa during apartheid. His best-known works are largely about people feeling like foreigners where they live—an idea that is explored with the Magistrate’s character in Waiting For The Barbarians.

Mark Rylance handles the character of the Magistrate astutely. His character is gentle yet strictly bureaucratic, a disposition nuanced by an obsession with the local people and culture. The audience feels unease as Rylance’s creepy performance and a strong script deftly handle issues of fetishization and the colonial gaze. The character of Colonel Joll serves as a great adversary to Ryland’s Magistrate. Johnny Depp plays the Colonel as cold, cruel, and deeply unsettling, a portrayal that avoids becoming a caricature thanks to the small amount of screen time given to his character. The body language and costume design of the Colonel juxtaposes that of the Magistrate, with the Colonel’s decadent black-and-gold uniform providing a stark contrast to the practical khaki clothing of the Magistrate. When the pair interact, their scenes reveal tension beneath the characters’ polite formalities. 

The rest of the characters are not utilised as well as Rylance and Depp. As Officer Mandel, Robert Pattinson makes an excellent late entrance to the film, but the rest of his time on-screen feels indulgent and is used to demonstrate increasing brutality against revolutionary suspects. Aside from these three men, Gana Bayarsaikhan plays a woman from the ‘barbarian’ nomadic tribes, simply called The Girl. Tall and beautiful, with a tragic backstory and incredibly muddled storyline, she simply exists to further the narrative development of the Magistrate. This issue extends to the rest of the supporting cast; while they could be interesting figures in their own right, they simply prop up their protagonist. 

The film plays with lots of ideas, but these ideas fail to impress. The whole movie feels dated, especially the tropes of colonial fiction used. The second half contains more physical violence than the first, exposing a greater depth of suffering to the Magistrate and, in turn, the audience. What pleasure would an audience receive from seeing a uniformed white man beating a row of Asian people? What do I, as a viewer, discover about human brutality by seeing women and children of colour being beaten? What can I learn about the tension between revolution and reform as forms of social justice? This movie portrays violence and suffering without actually delivering the substance it desperately wants to get across. Clunky narrative and weak thematic points let down an otherwise stylish film.

A modern audience would benefit from specific depictions of the injustices that speak truth to colonialism’s impact. For instance, I prefer the work of director Claire Denis in her cinematic explorations of the ‘white saviour’; compared to Denis’ filmography, Guerra’s direction and Coetzee’s writing look weak. Ava DuVernay’s series When They See Us takes the perspective of the victims of a wrongful conviction by New York Department of Justice. Any adaptation of Madame Butterfly will show how a white man in power falling for and seeking to protect a woman of colour in his imperial domain was a staple of 20th Century Asian representation. In literature, Nadine Gordimer puts nonwhite South Africans in the centre of her stories on apartheid South Africa, in contrast to J. M. Coetzee’s more limited scope. Gordimer is thus known for more politically-charged writing about apartheid South Africa than Coetzee (You can read about their debate on censorship around Salman Rushdie’s work here). When it comes to examining colonialism, I think it’s inappropriate to insist, as Waiting for the Barbarians does, on an almost fantastical setting when the costume design and colonial themes strongly invoke the very real memory of European violence. As such, exploring the perspective of the oppressor, no matter how sympathetic they are, is dangerous — and frankly, it’s boring.

The film explores the validity of indigenous peoples’ knowledge, and this produces the most compelling metaphor. As the Magistrate tells the newly-arrived colonial armed forces, the local people know the land better than the colonisers of the Empire. When suspects are apprehended by the armed forces, the violence is pointed: the indigenous captives’ eyes are ruined to blindness. They can no longer see the world around them or the land they live on. Their feet are burned, which also symbolically ruins the lifestyle of nomadic peoples: they are now deprived of the freedom to roam without subjugation and obedience to the Empire. But again, it is not particularly insightful to reap the suffering of people of colour on-screen when they are unnamed characters. In this film, they are reduced in the gaze of the Magistrate, their coloniser, as he questions his own allegiance to the Empire.

The inadequate handling of these narrative features distracts from the main cinematic elements of the film. No matter how well the cinematography serves the desert and mountains, or how intricate the costume design, the film’s analysis of colonialism feels strange amidst the realities of our modern discourse. It misses the mark on what kind of stories are needed today to discuss issues and repercussions of colonial regimes. Those in power have written their own history, and this film reinforces these narratives instead of directly confronting them.

Comparatively, Waiting for the Barbarians‘ attempt at commentary leaves audiences underwhelmed. The film clearly wants to be subversive—are the colonisers not the barbarians for their violence?—yet falls flat. The creative tools used to explore these ideas are employed awkwardly, making the stylistic and cinematic elements empty and the overall movie a drag. Whilst empire nostalgia is insidiously prevalent in European nations, I’m not sure to what audience this movie is meant to appeal.

Waiting for the Barbarians has had select showings at film festivals worldwide. A wide release date is not yet confirmed. Check out a sneak peek below:

KC Wingert reviews the buzzed-about dark comedy at LFF 2019. 

With her debut feature Lucky Grandma, a film about an elderly Chinese-American woman with a rebellious streak, writer-director Sasie Sealy contributes equal parts humour and suspense to this year’s London Film Festival. Tsai Chin plays the titular role of Grandma Wong, a gruff, chain-smoking loner whose expressionless indifference and grumpy demeanour has led me to dub her the Clint Eastwood of Grandmas. Grandma Wong lives alone in the small, outdated Chinatown apartment she and her late husband once shared. Though her daily schedule is monotonous—practising tai chi, lighting incense for her in-home Buddhist altar, evading her adult son’s requests that she move in with him and his family—Grandma Wong receives a reinvigorating jolt of excitement while visiting a fortune teller, a sequence which visually references the opening tarot scene of Agnès Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7. The fortune teller presents to Grandma Wong a series of cards written in Chinese script and tells the old woman that she will have an incredible amount of luck on October 28^th (admittedly a very different fate than the one predicted for Cleo).

With fortune on her side, Grandma Wong empties her bank account on the 28^th and hops on a Chinatown bus headed straight to the casino. At first, it seems like the stars really have aligned for her; she beats incredible odds and wins at craps and roulette so many times that her tokens double, then triple, and then quadruple. Her lucky streak comes to an end eventually, though, and she returns to the Chinatown bus downtrodden, having lost all her savings in one bet.

Grandma Wong’s good luck seems to take a different form, however, when money literally falls into her lap on the bus ride home. The man in the seat next to her suddenly dies of a heart attack while everyone else on the bus is asleep. When the bus hits a bump and a duffel bag filled with money falls from the luggage carriers overhead, Grandma Wong realises that her deceased seatmate is in fact a gang member transporting money for the Red Dragon gang. Already panicked about her casino losses, Grandma Wong absconds with the money, inadvertently placing herself at the centre of a violent gang conflict over the cash.

The strength of this film is not necessarily the narrative, which at times feels muddled and confusing amidst its portrayal of New York gang politics and reaches a hasty conclusion in its third act. Rather, Lucky Grandma’s greatest asset is its characters, all fully realized through the little details which make up each person’s unique and entertaining personality. Grandma Wong’s lanky grandson David, for example, may play a relatively small role in the film. However, in the approximately 10 total minutes of screen time he has, viewers learn that he is a one half of a dance duo, making goofy, low-quality hip-hop music videos in his grandmother’s apartment with his chubby, twerk-happy friend Nomi. This small, endearing personality detail raises the emotional stakes later in the film when the Red Dragons demand Grandma Wong pay a ransom to spare David’s life. The same goes for the character Big Pong (Hsiao-Yuan Ha), the man Grandma Wong hires as a bodyguard after dopey Red Dragon gangsters Pock-Mark (Woody Fu) and Little Handsome (Michael Tow) show up at her apartment. Big Pong first appears to be quiet and intimidating, but viewers will find a tender sweetness in his character when he talks about being a vegetarian, describes the girl he loves who still lives in China, and scolds Grandma Wong’s grumpy neighbour for disrespecting an elder.

The main figures in any film are only as strong as the actors who play them, and the cast of Lucky Grandma brings these characters to life with quirk and charm. As the socially isolated Grandma Wong, Tsai Chin is often the only actor onscreen. The character requires an actor who can subtly convey large emotions with her facial expressions and body language, and Tsai Chin is more than fit for the challenge. She brings laughs just by widening her eyes, furrowing her brow, or turning her head—no dialogue required. As gangster hitman Little Handsome, actor Michael Tow somehow manages to be simultaneously terrifying and hilarious, sending chills down one’s spine with his threatening stare one moment and highlighting his character’s sheer absurdity with a goofy smile in the next. The talent in this cast alone could dispel any excuses Hollywood may make for whitewashing Asian or Asian-American roles (I’m looking at you, Scarlett Johansson).

Though it is not a life-changing or particularly profound film, Lucky Grandma is sure to make viewers chuckle heartily, scoot to the edge of their seats in suspense, and stare in wonderment at each creatively-framed shot. The plot leaves room for confusion and questions, but the dramatic achievements of the cast alone are enough to make this film a success among audiences. The film deftly combines humorous and whimsical moments with darker undertones. Considering the film centres on the identity crisis of an elderly Chinese-American woman—a demographic I can safely say is sorely underrepresented in American film—Lucky Grandma is a breath of fresh air and a new perspective in the comedy genre.

Lucky Grandma is still showing in select cinemas. Check out what influenced the film below:

Xara Zabihi Dutton reviews the highly anticipated Fast & Furious spin-off.

This review contains spoilers.

The moment Luke Hobbs (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) lifted his copy of the portable Friederich Nietzsche in an alternate rep to his dum-bell I was transfixed; as Hobbs sounded his mouth around the words of this universal hero of pseudo-intellectuals, my hand landed in a viscous lump of gum on the seat arm-rest. Like it or not, David Leitch’s Hobbs & Shaw had my undivided attention. 

Hobbs & Shaw, a spin-off of the Fast & Furious franchise, follows Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) as their boyish rivalry is challenged by the task of ensuring a bio-warfare serum does not make it into the hands of Brixton Lore (Idris Elba). That’s about it in terms of followable plot.

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Hobbs & Shaw enters a particular kind of viewer (this viewer) into the entropy of what I will now refer to as the ‘Nietzsche-sticky-gum syndrome’. This entropy is defined by its back and forth motion between the heights of pretentious back-pattery, and the depths of the oversight excused during the glorification of All Things Trash (also see: ‘Just Let People Enjoy Things’). With just a little further stretch of the (viscous, sticky) imagination it also reflects the body-mind dualism within Nietzsche. As we see Nietzsche propose the improvement of the body in tandem with the mind, so Hobbs embraces his mental and physical development, and we embrace the stimulation of our ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ senses at the hands of David Leitch.

During the film, we see a shift from the appraisal of the potential of technology and the allure of an ever-improving body to a rising fear of the irreversible and inhumane changes impending through bio-enhancement (also see the controversies of Nietzsche, and the recent eugenics scandal at UCL). There’s a kill-or-be-killed element to even the technology within even our sad, physical combat-less daily lives. Failure to improve personal productivity through technology makes the scale of work we are expected to undertake untenable. 

Hobbs and Shaw overcome their rivalry in the common pursuit of disarming (unplugging) the antagonist of the film, Brixton, as they realise that his analytic implant can only address one opponent at a time. A symphonic dance ensues, as Hobbs and Shaw take punches for each other in order to preoccupy Brixton, collaboratively disarming him. Neither man has the ability (as individuals without bio-enhancement) to singlehandedly defeat Brixton. The gushy moral? Personal quests for self-enhancement must be foregone to defeat a technological system that will inevitably destroy them. This single scene encapsulates the ethical binary of contention within the film: the struggle between neoliberal individualism, and collaborative, community-based action.

The power of collective action comes to the fore once again when we are introduced to the family Hobbs had left behind for mainland America, after an influx of drug dealing tore apart the community he had grown up in.  To deactivate the serum implant Brixton quests for, Hobbs seeks support from his mechanically-gifted brother, who rewove his own extended family by providing employment, and a community hub by establishing his own car maintenance shop. Hobbs is the brother who left to strike out on his own because of the social trauma common to many indigenous communities. In this film, we see him seek support from that same, rebuilt, reunited community. No doubt, Johnson’s own Polynesian heritage is the inspiration for this appraisal. It is encouraging to see a mainstream celebrity use their clout to seamlessly integrate social issues into a mainstream film. As a franchise, Fast & Furious has exemplified the attainability non-tokenistic representation, in a string of financially profitable, blockbuster hits.

While Hobbs’ mother makes an appearance as the matriarch of the Samoan community, there’s no doubt that Fast & Furious female characters are defined by their relationship to men: women are Mothers (cue a dazzling cameo from Helen Mirren), Sisters, daughters or love interests. This is no hot-take – it’s a stone-cold fact. I doubt anyone’s even bothered to try out the Bechdel Test on this franchise. Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby), Deckard Shaw’s woe-betided sister, is referred to (un)enigmatically as ‘the girl’.  The disinterest in representing women as anything other than adjunct genetic limbs to men means that we only encounter women defined by heteronormative and heterosocial kinship ties. 

And yet we find the reason to go on, to spend our Thursday evenings in the Holloway Odeon consuming media that just isn’t meant for us, in the hope that some auto-critiquing Producer will throw us a bone or an Easter egg (a signal of distress, perhaps), to show us that they find the films they’re engaged in the culture-factory of producing as monotonous as we do. And just when you’ve got no hope left, Nietzsche re-enters. After his first appearance in the opening sequence, Hobbs quotes Nietzsche in defense of the psycho-physical benefits of working out (hard). Hattie misattributes the quote to Bruce Lee in a quip which seems an attempt to de-intellectualise both Lee and Shaw. It has been noted by Reddit users that perhaps this is a gentle nod to Quentin Tarrantino’s racially caricatured depiction of Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The fast turn around of films like Hobbs & Shaw provides ample opportunity for reactive references to films released in succession. In including this intertextual reference to Lee, David Leitch may be attempting to re-inscribe Lee in mainstream contemporary film as both a lauded and respected figure. In any case, the Lee-Nietzsche parallel drawn is intriguing – two adolescent- boy icons raise up and level each-other.

Parts of the script being in Samoan, the film is challenged by one of the greatest stumbling-blocks of mainstream cinema in the West: subtitling. Yeah, you heard, words at the bottom of the screen you’ve got no option but to read. When you want nothing more but to consume your adrenaline porn, subtitles are deeply unsavory. Hobbs & Shaw ditches the mildly alienating, oh-so-subtle white Helvetica associated with Arthouse and World Cinema for what, in all honesty, looks like WordArt text from 2007. The subtitling is unavoidable, slipping around the screen depending upon the speaker or action. It might remind viewers of the subtitling also implemented in the most recent John Wick: Parabellum (also co-directed by David Leitch of Hobbs & Shaw). The subtitles become incorporated as a paratextual counterpart to the high-octane aesthetic of action films (God-forbid a single viewer be visually under-stimulated).

So we write reviews which overburden the banalest aspects of culture with some kind of superlative critical significance, without being able to even faintly outline the plot. Not because we’re pretentious and can’t ‘just let people enjoy things’, but because this is still the centre-ground of cultural entertainment, and we refuse to be pushed to the fringes. The fringes of culture are expensive, alienating, and worst of all, no one’s there to listen to opinions about films they haven’t watched.

I could, at any point, walk out of this sticky-seated Odeon and go watch something which does not fill make me feel like I’m well and truly living in that thing they call the Metropolitan Liberal Elite. Tomorrow evening, you may well catch me in a screening of a seminal work of Czech New Wave at one of the thriving independent cinemas in London (£20 a ticket though, really?). But tonight, tonight I’m watching a spin-off of the Fast & Furious franchise that has received mediocre-at-best reviews from critics, and I am lovin it.

Hobbs & Shaw is still showing in select cinemas. Check out the trailer below:

Gwendoline Blangy reviews Quentin Tarantino’s newest film.

Bloody explosions, the n-word, swearing, unlimited violence, feet-worshipping…that’s what everyone expected when Quentin Tarantino’s 9th film made its premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. And yet, while maintaining his notorious visual and narrative style, Tarantino still manages to surprise – but is it for better or for worse?

What strikes viewers the most while watching is the time they wait. The film is almost three hours of waiting, during which the narrative repeatedly tiptoes around any real action before trailing away. Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood tells the story of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a star actor in decline who is struggling to renew himself in his roles as a virile hero, and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his stunt double/driver/bodyguard/only friend. Rick and Cliff belong to a part of Hollywood that is dying out; Rick is being offered opportunities to fly to Italy to star in Spaghetti Westerns, while Cliff grows tired of being a stunt double. These two macho members of the John Wayne and Robert Redford generation no longer recognize themselves in the new era of cinema represented by Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Roman Polanski, who just moved in next to Rick on Cielo Drive and by whom Rick dreams of being noticed. It is within this generational clash that the backdrop of Los Angeles in the summer of 1969 is shaped, in which the hippies of the Manson Family, who settled at Spahn Ranch, threaten the rest of the characters.

However, the film actively rewrites history, justifying the title “Once Upon a Time” (which also pays tribute to Sergio Leone’s 1984 Once Upon a Time in America). Every shot is bathed in a strange atmosphere, a waking dream: viewers follow Sharon Tate as she watches her own film in a theatre with a happy look on her face; they discover an egotistical Bruce Lee who faces a calm and confident Cliff Booth in a scene which is very funny, but may not please the fans of the martial artist; and they witness an explosive finale that offers the spectator a breathtaking fifteen minutes in the purest Tarantino style one could imagine.

References to his previous films are constant; in one scene, Rick does an ad for Red Apple Cigarettes, a brand that can also be seen in Pulp Fiction or the first Kill Bill. Once Upon a Time’s basis in real-life events continyes Tarantino’s track record of historical fiction, seen in others films such as  Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained. The film also fuels rumors of the director’s apparent foot fetish: the way the camera languorously focuses on the toes of Pussycat (Margaret Qualley), one of the young hippies who tries to lure Cliff to their ranch, reflects Tarantino’s passion for women’s feet, already shown with Beatrix Kiddo and Jackie Brown.

But perhaps the most complex part of this Tarantino take on a buddy movie is how Cliff reflects in reality what Rick embodies on screen. Rick Dalton has played emotionless cops, firemen, and bounty killers, yet cries as soon as he feels like he’s become a “has-been.” The increasing presence of hippies in Rick’s Los Angeles only reinforce his sense of belonging to the past. Cliff doesn’t need to pretend to be the manly-man of Rick’s movies. He knows how to fight and doesn’t hesitate to do so, and becomes to Rick – as the voiceover explains – “a buddy who is a little more than a brother, and a little less than a wife.” Cliff is a caricature of the masculine ideal of Hollywood’s golden age movies, and he becomes almost inhuman, unreal, just like the characters Rick plays on the screen.

So is this film a real success? It’s a good movie, but maybe not the best Tarantino. It is the most mature, perhaps, since it takes time to see the story to its finale. One may have the feeling that the elaborate sets, the masterful visuals, and the costumes overwhelm the stakes of the film’s central conflict, but the finale rewards viewers’ patience with a cataclysmic scene.

Nevertheless, one does wonder about how women are approached in the film. Violence against women is ever-present, and the final explosion makes it a little, one might say, gratuitous. That said, the main criticism against the latest Tarantino is that the director underused actress Margot Robbie, who, apart from wandering around and smiling, has little narrative purpose except to anchor Rick and Cliff’s story in a real context. Margaret Qualley lights up the screen as passionate Manson Family member Pussycat, but she tends to be hyper-sexualized, speaking only in sexual innuendos and constantly bending over in her torn shorts.

But can we blame the director for keeping some of the motifs that made the success of his previous films? With Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood, Tarantino does not deny himself his usual style; on the contrary, he takes time to develop it, to bring it to his paroxysm in order to create a mature piece of work in perfect agreement with his previous films. Additionally, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt give incredible performances, and viewers will enjoy seeing them in the car remembering the past or at the bar trying not to lose face in front of Al Pacino. Tarantino reinvents genre, history, and dialogue with every new film. To summarize the director’s collective works, it is better to quote him directly: “I am a historian in my own mind.”

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is still playing in select cinemas. Check out the trailer below:

Editor KC Wingert reviews our first film from BFI LFF 2019.

Warning: this review contains spoilers. 

Making its UK premiere at LFF, The Peanut Butter Falcon is a delightful dramedy from collaborators Tyler Nilsen and Michael Schwartz, whose writing recalls the humor and delight of American novelist Mark Twain and whose comical directorial style rivals the Coen Brothers for their quirky contribution to modern American folklore.

The first feature-length narrative from the filmmaking duo, The Peanut Butter Falcon tells the story of Zak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man with Down’s syndrome placed in  a nursing home after his family forfeits him to the state. Despite friendships with the elderly residents of his home and a close relationship to his direct caretaker Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), Zak feels imprisoned. He wants to explore the world before he gets too old, and his only respite from his monotonous life is his fantasy of becoming a professional wrestler under the tutelage of his hero Saltwater Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). He cleverly configures numerous madcap escape schemes with the help of his older roommate Carl (Bruce Dern), which provide many laugh-out-loud moments within the first 20 minutes. But The Peanut Butter Falcon is not all silliness—rather, it becomes a more tender film when, in one of his late-night escape attempts, an underwear-clad Zak stows away on a boat stolen by the churlish Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) as he skips town.

Stuck with a differently-abled stranger wearing nothing but his underwear, Tyler is at first disgruntled. LaBeouf masterfully plays this character as a surly loner whose gruff exterior slowly chips away as he befriends and aides Zak on a journey to the Saltwater Redneck’s wrestling school. Tyler, a sort of frontiersman/survivalist who seems to know how to navigate the rugged Outer Banks but can’t seem to stay out of trouble, is on the run from two fishermen from whom he stole crab traps and whose equipment he burned in retaliation for jumping him.

Tyler, we find out, has lost his brother—and blames himself for the tragic death. But as he grows closer to fellow misfit Zak, he finds fraternity in his relationship to his lovably idiosyncratic companion. Watching LaBeouf and Gottsagen onscreen together is an absolute delight; their palpable chemistry creates an incredible friendship onscreen. It is satisfying to see the goofy LaBeouf act without condescension alongside a young man with Down’s syndrome, especially in a story that is less about “overcoming” a disability and more about embracing the challenges and joys of understanding and loving someone with Down’s. As for Gottsagen, his empowering performance highlights the humour and skill so many people with Down’s syndrome possess while reminding viewers that having a disability does not always mean a person is helpless.

Overall, The Peanut Butter Falcon easily interweaves humour with heartbreak, moments of joy with pangs of dolour. It feels much like the tall tales of Twain’s Americana, with magical moments punctuating the narrative into a romantic frontier myth akin to those which make up much of American folklore. Themes of self-realisation and cleansing give the characters of The Peanut Butter Falcon beautiful, heartwarming redemption arcs which will leave viewers euphoric. Ending on a slightly uncertain (but happy!) note, this expertly-crafted story from Nilsen and Schwartz reminds viewers that one’s story isn’t over ‘til it’s over, and that there is always room in life for rebirth, restoration, and growth.

The Peanut Butter Falcon will be screening at the BFI London Film Festival on 3 October, 4 October, and 11 October 2019. Tickets are available to purchase on the LFF website. Check out the trailer below:

FilmSoc’s Screenings Producer Sarah Saraj reflects on today’s weather phenomenon.

The sky today was pretty incredible. It got a lot of us feeling like we were in a film. In fact, it reminded us of many films shrouded in memorably sepia-coloured hues. I guess life really does imitate art. Here are some films with the dreamiest of amber skies that we believe we may have been living in today:

1. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Is all of this yellow sky business just promotion for Villeneuve’s new blockbuster? Are we all being duped? Is this some elaborate Hollywood novelty trick plaguing the entirety of England?

2.  Apocalypse Now (1979)

‘Is the Apocalypse literally now?’ I ask myself. Sure, the government wants us to think it’s all due to Hurricane Ophelia and Saharan dust but does anybody really buy that? Maybe our disgusting rate of pollution is finally catching up with us — I mean, it’s pretty hot for October. End of the world, global warming, or both?

3. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

This would corroborate my theory that we have been transported to a new, filmic world, namely the boring Sepia one Dorothy inhabited before she jumped ship to the glitz and glamour of Oz.

4. The Lion King (1994)

From the day we arrive on the planet,

And, blinking, step into the sun.

There’s more to see than can ever be seen,

More to do than can ever be done.

5. Life of Pi (2012)

Thank God books get made into films because how else would we have these dreamy visuals? This film literally made me want to get separated from my entire family and left for dead on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, anyone else?

6. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

And who doesn’t love a vaguely problematic but highly praised classic? The weather today definitely made me feel like I was in the Middle East!

7. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

The idea that we are living in a United Kingdom on its way to becoming a post-apocalyptic wasteland, as featured in the 2015 return of George Miller’s Mad Max, is increasingly plausible.

8. Enemy (2013)

Another Villeneuve? Boy, did he know this was coming! But seriously, who feels like today was just one of those psychological-thriller days? I know I definitely hate Mondays.

9. Sicario (2015)

…Another Villenueve?!

10. Days of Heaven (1978)

Terrence Malick’s 1978 religious romantic drama is possibly the most beautiful film ever made. Evangelical and quasi-religious setting prevail in this absolute masterpiece.

11. The Yellow Sky (1949)

I guess when you type something into Google the internet will graciously impart its knowledge to accommodate you; Yellow Sky is the title of a 1948 Western. The film features a ghost town by the same name.