#lff2016

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FREE FIRE - LFF 2016 - REVIEW

Oh Ben Wheatley. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Down Terrace, Kill List. Sightseers, and now finally, Free Fire.

Shooting his films, his way is something Wheatley does with uncompromising and unnerving consistency.

The frequency and quality of his output may be the envy of filmmakers and this crafty litter number feels like a conclusion to a series of high concept, lo-fi films (against standards similar films), which have all in their own way squeezed every drop of creativity from one of cinemas most creative minds.

The big names and crowd-pleasing aesthetic suggest his next film could be a world away from the smart and small gifts he keeps on giving.

Free Fire is in essence a highbrow cineaste’s worst nightmare, a film with little plot, character development or theoretical subtext. It is, instead 90 minutes of profane, violent, loud, lurid fun and the perfect way to end LFF 2016.

27 films in, most of the serious kind I had hoped to get a jolt to my senses with this film. It didn’t disappoint.

What little plot there is focuses on an arms deal in an abandoned Boston warehouse (actually a Brighton warehouse) in the 70’s. We know it’s the 70’s from the music and font that greets the opening credits, and shortly after from the hair and costumes.

Justine (Brie Larson) brokers a deal between two Irishmen (Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley) and a gang led by Vernon (Sharlto Copley) and Ord (Armie Hammer), who intend to sell them a stash of guns. When shots are fired during the handover, complete pandemonium ensues, with everyone at the scene suddenly thrust into a game of survival.

And that is literally that, but my word does Wheatley have fun with it.

The majority of the film is a shootout but Wheatley switches between that, dialogue, a few character beats and douses them in his signature dark humour and playfulness. His characters all get moments of action and wordplay; one liners zing past at the speed of a bullet.

Initially it is hard to figure out the geography of the space and where everyone is situated, but as the film takes a pause for breath it’s clear who, where and more importantly how everyone is.

This is a Friday night; crowd pleaser but serious critics may cite the lack of anything substantial and even a disinterest in the shootout.

DON’T BE THAT GUY.

I didn’t feel either. Maybe my fan boy liked the film more than most but as someone with experience of how complex a shoot with many moving parts can be, I appreciate Wheatley’s skill at stripping things down and more importantly getting them done.

It may not be the most serious film, but it’s seriously fun, you can see that in everyone’s performances. It’s the kind of film actors grow up secretly wishing they could do once. The shootout you would play in your garden with mates, in computer games or paintball.

Don’t think about it. Just enjoy it. Brilliant bang for your buck.

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CITY OF TINY LIGHTS - LFF 2016 - REVIEW

City Of Tiny Lights feels like a long overdue starring vehicle for Riz Ahmed. Over the last decade Ahmed has proved himself to be one of Britain’s best and most versatile actors as comfortable and captivating in gritty kitchen sink drama, comedy, horror and more edgy or provocative material.

Here he takes the lead role of Tommy Akhtar a hard-boiled private detective in the style of a Phillip Marlowe creation. 

Patrick Neate adapts from his book of the same name and significant strays far from his novel, although the novels incendiary sub plots of radical Islam and terrorism are there in parts.

When Tommy is hired by a prostitute to locate a friend and colleague he discovers her last client dead, drawing him into a mystery linking old and new faces.

Neo Noir works best when it attacks generic conventions with a fresh perspective. Here the fresh perspective is undoubtedly Ahmed as the lead and London as a location. Both feel like elements we haven't seen on screen this way.

Ahmed is believable as a man with a unique skillset, plagued by baggage from his past, one more cigarette and bourbon away from another crack in his cool, and as a focal point he carries the film excellently.

That being said, it's London, which feels like the real star here.

It is a London a far cry from Working Title films that have travelled the world telling people this is how it is. This is a London of rain, shadows, shady transactions and stunning night skylines. It is multicultural, murky and monolithic.

Director Pete Travis shines a long overdue light on the cities late night pulse and heartbeat.

As an aside I actually loved the film even more when I saw that my neighbouring street and corner shop is a key location, which crops up numerous times.

The support cast is a mixed bag. Most notable is Billie Piper who does well with a role that doesn't have much of a transformation. 

Through flashbacks we learn how her character and Tommy became friends and ironically the younger version of her has the meatier moments.

The film is flawed in ways a film like this usually is. The plot is not as tight as it could be, in some cases it is heavily signposted and fairly obvious who the villains are and what is happening before it is revealed.

The sub plot and flashbacks whilst charming, well acted and crucial to the character development feel like they're from a different film. Incidentally this sub plot was never in the novel.

Long exposure photography is used and feels slightly superfluous, as does narration from Tommy, which appears sporadically with no pay off.

City Of Tiny Lights is a satisfying film that poses some important questions to an audience familiar with a changing London landscape. It feels timely. I wanted to like it more, but I would gladly watch more adventures of Tommy, however maybe would be better served on TV.

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NOCTURNAL ANIMALS - LFF 2016 - REVIEW

Tom Ford’s sophomore Directorial effort opens with the sight of an old naked woman dancing to a score reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann, that wouldn't look out of place in a perfume advert were it not for the woman being of the unconventional and dare say un-photogenic type. 

It is a lurid and dazzling way to begin a film and it establishes a connection between satire and shock, which continues through this very enjoyable and watchable thriller.

The film is essentially two separate stories merged into one via Amy Adams character, a successful art dealer on the surface, but struggling financially and emotionally with her Husband.

Her idyllic life is shaken by the arrival of a manuscript written by her first husband who she has not seen in years, which tells the story of a teacher who finds a trip with his family turning into a nightmare.

As Susan reads the book, she is engulfed by memories of their past and forced to examine hers and her own dark truths.

The fictional story becomes a film within a film and is the stronger of the two strands. Thrilling, slick, sinister and sad, it holds up as well as any of the (many) thrillers I have seen at LFF so far.

The cast in this strand is also exceptional, Jake Gyllenhaal (playing both ex husband and the teacher), Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Michael Shannon are 3 points of a triangle with shifting morals and needs that share the role of antagonist to gripping effect.

Whilst the strand set in the present, complete with flashbacks that bind it and supply meat to Susan’s state of mind are satisfying and sometimes inspired they never quite plumb the depths of discussion and emotion the fictional strand does.

Her troubles are also really that of the 'first world kind' but in the context of the film are believable enough to propel the narrative.

Adams does well with a role that is actually quite restrained, although some of the funniest and most scathing lines are hers.

Ford obviously has fun satirising the LA Art and Fashion worlds, as well as the notion of beauty, wealth and class. It is a far funnier film than it first appears.

As is to be expected the film looks stunning and doesn't waste a shot. The direction is excellent as its shifting tones never jarr. There is one plot hole that I am still struggling get my around but it's a throwaway moment in a film that doesn't have many.

With so much to look at it wouldn't have surprised anyone if the film left them feeling cold and uninvolved, but it does quite the opposite and immerses you in both stories.

Whether you connect with both is debatable but you can't say Ford hasn't tried to give you enough to enjoy and has avoided trying to play it safe.

If there was any more proof needed of that, then the ending does precisely what Hollywood tends not to.

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GOLDSTONE - LFF 2016 - REVIEW

The Neo Western is alive and kicking in Ivan Sen’s exquisite follow up to his 2013 film Mystery Road.

A direct sequel, that continues the story of indigenous Aussie Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen), who arrives in the frontier town of Goldstone on a missing persons enquiry. What seems like a simple light duties investigation opens a web of crime and corruption that touches on worldwide issues but tightens focus to Australia.

Starting with a slow and steady pace, an inebriated Swan barely utters a word and lets those around him do the talking which sets up their characters perfectly.

We know who the main players are before Swan has stated his intentions, and despite a few light signposted plot devices we are always riding saddle with Swan and finding clues where and when he does.

The film makes stunning use of the outback expanses with aerial photography deployed in a thrillingly refreshing way, especially in a climatic shootout.

The score, by Sen himself, is a tension building, teeth grinding triumph and everything he throws at the camera is beautifully considered.

There is little not to like here, particularly for fans of the crime and cowboy genre.

Where it really soars, is in the emotional interplay between Swan and his fellow indigenous people, an exploited community seemingly trapped on the outskirts of their land.

Swan is helpless to stop a rot of a decades worth of ill treatment, and this is where Sen’s film expertly blends the truth and reality of Australia’s dark past and murky present with a gripping detective yarn.

Diversity is a word the cinematic landscape may grow tired of hearing, but it takes films like this to eradicate it. Sen himself is of a mixed indigenous background and with his introduction to the film he linked his and Pedersen’s heritage to themes the film throws up.

As a man with a mixed background, the search for a home and an accepting community is something that Swan carries with him and it is refreshing to see this on screen in a film, much less an Australian one.

The need to challenge views of a society at odds with it’s history, and the part people need to play in the present, as well as the future is another theme touched on with sensitivity and intelligence.

Industry, foreign trade, race and gender politics all infuse their way into the procedural aspects of the plot with a subtlety often missing in mainstream cinema of this kind.

Most satisfying of all is that the film finds real moments of emotional depth, which had me floored, and genuinely close to tears.

The buddy cop trope gets a twist that elevates the final stages of the film and makes the climax and it’s resolution fully earned.

Sen has delivered something akin to a sleeper hit of LFF, a film without fanfare that delivered on a simple premise and left me eagerly awaiting the follow up, another film involving Swan. Goldstone is pure gold.

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THE BIRTH OF A NATION - LFF 2016 - REVIEW

The Birth Of A Nation isn't a film that arrives without fanfare. Hype might be the wrong word, but expectancy isn't, since it was acquired for a record-breaking amount at Sundance.

This has skewed the image of the film, which is at best a TV movie, and decidedly average.

Weighty subject matter (and other controversy) aside, what remains is a film, which never touches the artistic heights of 12 Years A Slave (which it will unfairly and forever be compared with).

In telling the true story of Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher who orchestrated an uprising against Slave masters, Star, Writer, Producer and Director Nate Parker has brought something notable and timely to screen, but it's a shame the film feels so heavy handed and obvious. 

Others in the screening I attended were moved and involved. I was during the first 30 minutes, but after that the film becomes a little too deliberate in its use of musical cues, shot choices, Christian themes and scripture, all of which are heavily used to convey plot or emotion, for me this jarred and grated.

Whilst 12 Years was sensitive, poetic and considered this struggles to replicate any of that.

Nate Parker’s achievement in making this film cannot be underestimated, but there were too many moments where I wondered if less autonomy would’ve resulted in something better.

His performance is solid, at times spectacular and channels real depths of emotion in his scenes that require it.

His support cast embodies roles with zeal although I found the treatment of women in his film disappointing.

Most are woefully underwritten, adding nothing special or any real subtext to their interactions with other characters. The only actress who really gets to shine is Aunjanue Ellis as Nate’s wife and she delivers a multi-layered performance, but in truth the rest are two dimensional and forgettable.  

Surprisingly the White characters have more meat to their roles. Jackie Earle Haley makes a vile pantomime villain, Armie Hammer is solid as the master and Mark Boone Junior is as dependable as ever.

The most frustrating thing about the film is that it cannot be judged without the Sundance sale as a separate entity and the $17million acquisition by Fox Searchlight looks misjudged at best.

Screening as #oscarssowhite was trending, that furore led the execs responsible to think they had a genuine classic on their hands, but the film doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny it will attract as a result.

It is competent, it’s message of action and call to arms is inspiring, but there is little in the way of outstanding cinematic craft, which separates the good from the great.

As a piece of cinema it is satisfactory but as a piece of cinematic history I doubt it will be remembered in the same way films with similar issues at the forefront have been.

See it to be part of the discussion but don’t feel obliged, there are far more important films out there.

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ARRIVAL - LFF 2016 - REVIEW

Arrival arrives with a fair amount of hype and finally after a first viewing I can say some of it is justified.

Dennis Villeneuve is certainly proving he is as capable delivering riveting thrillers as he is with somber dramas, and anyone who caught his mind bending mini movie Enemy, will have long suspected a sci-fi with him at the helm would at the very least be a little different.

When Professor of linguistics Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is enlisted by the government, to decipher the language of aliens upon first contact she is paired with scientist Ian Donelly (Jeremy Renner) to ascertain their mysterious intentions before the worlds armies decide to intervene.

Adams and Renner are solid, supported (or inspired) by a concept that is fairly original by the standards of today's mainstream sci-fi output. The trouble is when it isn’t being a sci-fi film it leaves you feeling cold and unmoved despite it clearly trying hard to do the opposite.

Arrival has moments of sci-fi grandeur that feel like an attempt at a new vision of the genre, so it's a shame that the rest of the film isn't quite the sum of its parts.

The film plays fairly linear after an opening flashback, but then starts to incorporate more and not only are they clunky they are flat.

Whenever we flashback the film loses momentum. The scenes are devoid of real character and don't enhance or propel the drama in any way which ultimately makes the films conclusion, Louise' decisions, and reasons for both incredibly muddy. 

The few scenes that set up Adams’ character are adequate enough and do the job so it's a shame Villeneuve resorts to using so many.

The balance is all wrong because once we are at the landing site the film finds fun in all the bells and whistles on offer.

There are some jaw dropping sequences with zero gravity and less is definitely more, which is impressive as is the head pounding score.

Villeneuve and his regular composer Jóhann Jóhannsson are once again on the same wavelength and their marrying of visuals and music make for some of the films most absorbing moments. 

The conflict between the scientists, military and defence teams is refreshingly intelligent, witty and surprisingly kept to a minimum, which allows the story to progress apace.

The trouble is it feels like somewhere along the line someone has pulled the 'Nolan' card and it suddenly starts to play like Interstellar.

Interstellar was a mixed bag, excellent sci-fi bogged down by heavy-handed drama awash with faux sentimentality and emotion.

Arrival suffers the same fate and ultimately in the process doesn't live up to the concept or hype.

At its best it is evidence that Villeneuve’s upcoming Blade Runner sequel will look, sound and feel great, but at its worst it makes you worry that his characters may get the short end of the stick.

In a nutshell it's better than Prometheus but doesn't hit the heights of Gravity.

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THE EAGLE HUNTRESS - LFF 2016 - REVIEW

Good docs aren't in short supply this year, there's been two eye opening efforts from female directors (Chasing Asylum, The 13th), which have reinforced the themes of diversity that the LFF program has maintained throughout.

The Eagle Huntress fits into this category as it focuses on a young woman trying to achieve greatness in a world dominated and run by men.

Inspired by an image director Otto Bell saw, of a young girl standing atop a mountain holding an eagle aloft, the film follows her journey from wannabe eagle huntress to a fully fledged one.

Situated in the Altai Mountains, in northwest Mongolia, 13-year-old Aisholpan challenges the traditions and perceptions of her Kazakh tribe by dreaming of competing in the Golden Eagle Festival.

This is no easy feat. It requires time, training and skill so Aisholpan determination to catch an eagle, train it and succeed where no woman has previously is inspiring and her journey is gripping.

This is a heartwarming film that not only embeds you into the community and culture of the Altai but also the family whom you quickly grow to adore.

If there is a prize for Dad of the year, then all bets are off in my eyes as the Dad on show here is a hero of epic proportions. 

His unwavering support of his daughters desire to follow in his footsteps, and the guidance he gives her makes the film as much his story as hers, and together they achieve something earth shattering within their community and country.

The scenes between them take on a mixture of buddy film, thriller and coming of age elements, and it's amazing how connected you feel to their journey despite the fact the filmmakers must've tried to not interfere.

The aesthetic of the film is supported by the breathtaking locations, the environment, villages and resources reminds you the world is full of wonderful deposits of life and nature even if it is sometimes sparse, harsh and unforgiving.

The story soars as high as its subject matter and proceeds to deliver a real triumph over adversity tale that whilst a little sentimental at times (in part due to heavy handed musical cues) is nothing short of captivating.

Daisy Ridley has served as a producer and narrator here and whilst I understand the reasons behind it (her presences will attract a target demographic of young women and men too quite possibly), her narration is fairly bland and it can sometimes feel at odds with the imagery, but even so it doesn't diminish the films message in any way.

This is the type of documentary young people and young women in particular should be shown at the earliest opportunity. It is further proof that gender politics should be a thing of the past.

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MIRZYA - LFF 2016 - REVIEW

How many times can you tell the story of Romeo and Juliet? One more time it seems as Mirzya proves that Shakespeare's classic is ageless.

Based in part on the bard and mythical couple Mirza and Sahiban, Mirzya is an epic cocktail of colour, song, action and sweeping romance that resembles Zhang Yimou’s recent Wu Xia trilogy of films.

It is an assault on the senses and fantastic to look at but as with beauty, sometimes looks can be deceiving.

The film starts with a barnstorming merging of narration over musical and action set pieces. 

A horseback warriors fights for the prize of a woman amidst a backdrop of mountains and rivers that the Game Of Thrones production team should sign up for its next season. It is truly a wonderful way to open a film, all speed ramps, and slow motion and superior sound FX work.

The film then jumps to a contemporary setting and trains its focus on two young friends, a boy and girl, Adil and Soochi. When the boy commits a fatal crime to defend his young love he flees and their lives take different paths.

But like all true romances they are destined to cross paths again and when they do many years later, Soochi is due to be married.

But the fireworks and flames of love still burn which means acting on their passion will have serious consequences.

Yes, this is a tale as old as time but anything more would bog down what is already a film full of much to digest.

A sensual feast, this is Bollywood by way of Hollywood and David Lean, epic in scale and scope. Yet it is equal parts fascinating and frustrating.

Whilst the sword and sandal style action of the fantasy narrative is enjoyable it’s tiresome use of slow motion makes the scenes overlong and often detracts from the story set in the present, which feels far more gripping due to it’s real and relatable stakes.

I also found a slightly worrying and obvious leaning to a fairer skinned actress distracting especially as she doesn't resemble her younger character. 

I doubt whether this is enough to diminish the film in the eyes of its target audience but it did with me. 

Taken, as a piece of cinema Mirzya is excellent value, targeting all your senses. Its love story is strong if simplistic and there are musings on class race and power that whilst uneven make the film about a little more than it appears on the surface.

And if that wasn't enough the title song is as addictive as any Disney effort and has been stuck in my head for weeks.

Mirzya will satisfy anyone with appetite for entertainment like they used to make, where every penny was spent on something to enhance and give enjoyment.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite flaws and I would gladly watch another Mirzya before a 5th Pirates Of The Caribbean movie.