Saturday 30 June 2018

Indian Horse, Vue Omni, Edinburgh International Film Festival

Saul Indian Horse and his brother are taken into the wilderness to avoid being taken by 'the white man' and sent to one of the residential schools in which children of the indigenous population were separated from their families and forcibly indoctrinated into christianity.  Despite the best efforts of his grandmother (less so his parents who have already been converted), Saul ends up in Saint Jerome's where the only thing he learns is how to survive the cruelty of the priests and nuns who make life hell for the children.  His saviour proves to be hockey, the national sport, which the apparently kinder Father Gaston has introduced to the limited range of activities available.  At first Saul is too young to be allowed to play, but through offering to clear the rink each day he teaches himself how to skate and handle a stick (including a very imaginative way of creating his own pucks) he soon shows he has a natural gift for the sport.

It will eventually take him away from the regime he's been subjected to, and towards a potential future as a pro hockey player.  But the racism that underlay the school system also permeates the crowds he must play in front of and it becomes clear that it will require much more than his talent if he's to make it to the top.

Although the film is based on Richard Wagamese's novel of the same name, the opening, packed with information about the brutal residential school system, and narrated by the adult Saul, gives it the feel of a docudrama, something it fails to sustain.  Three actors play Saul at different times of his life, but they become less convincing with age, and it's the six year old 1959 version (Sladen Peltier) who gives the best performance.

As an introduction to the iniquities of the treatment meted out to First Nation children (the system was only finally closed down in 1996) this is a powerful statement, showing the Catholic church in Canada to be the equal in their inhumanity to the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland.  It's also a reminder, through some excellent action sequences, of what a powerful cultural force hockey is in the country, and why it's one of the world's great sports.  But as a drama it sometimes feels let down by plot devices that jar rather than flow.  Well worth seeing, but there's a sense this could have been a better movie if the director had let the story tell itself.

Oh, and if any Caps fans happen to read this.... you'll have memories of our great #23 from a few years back.

Thursday 28 June 2018

Solis, Odeon, Edinburgh International Film Festival

After an explosion destroys his asteroid mining ship Troy Holloway (Steven Ogg) wakes to find himself in an escape pod, the only survivor of the disaster.  The pod's systems are damaged, he has no control over the craft, and it's heading towards the sun.  His Mayday call is answered by Commander Roberts (Alice Lowe), and it's soon clear that she's the only person who can save him, but she only has around 75 minutes before he's beyond reach.  Over an unreliable comms link Roberts assesses the situation and advises Holloway what needs to be done.  Their initial relationship is bristly, but changes as the time decreases and they find out more about one another.  Does Holloway want to be saved?  And why does Roberts insist he does?

Lowe is never seen on screen, with all the action filmed inside the pod, and occasional breakaway shots to emphasise how very alone Holloway is.  Leaving Ogg to carry the movie, which he does extremely well, and carries the audience with him throughout.  As the pod gets nearer the sun the pod gets hotter and the tension steadily increases.  We can feel the heat as the action progresses (or was that down to a packed cinema on a very hot evening...?) and final minutes of the film are as tense and involving as you could wish for.

For such a low budget product the set, and the special effects, are impressive.  What I did find the score irritating, overly portentous and intrusive, which spoiled my enjoyment of an otherwise gripping piece of cinema, often damaging the atmosphere the actors and direction had created.  That aside this is a better than average sci fi movie and enthralling as any thriller.


Terminal, Odeon, Edinburgh International Film Festival

It's noir Jim, but not as we know it.

Terminal is set in it's own very fictional and very familiar world, a stylish and stylised fantasy concoction outwith time and space.  Part LA and part London, part industrial wasteland and part nightclub strip, part 1930s and part future dystopia, the darkness of traditional noir and the gaudiness of neon.  It's sparsely populated with a few odd characters.  Annie (Margot Robbie), a cafe waitress with a strange line in black humour.  Bill (Simon Pegg), a teacher facing up to terminal illness.  Two killers for hire, Vince (Dexter Fletcher) and Alfred (Max Irons), unsure of who they are working for or who they've been sent to kill.  And a creepy night cleaner in the railway station (an almost unrecognisable Mike Myers).  All have their secrets, some are not what they seem to be.

Underlying these personas is a twisting plot based around revenge.  But who is the avenged in all this?  The final reveals explain all, some done with style, the last one somewhat overlong.  There's violence, tension and a lot of very funny moments.  There's a lot to enjoy.  Not least from Robbie, who looks to having a lot of fun herself portraying a character of many guises around whom the others revolve.

I suspect most people will find this a love it or loathe it movie.  Some will revel in the quirkiness, the artificiality, the jokes and references to other movies and genres.  Others will think it's being too clever for it's own good, too self conscious and lacking substance.  I'm definitely with the former group.  It's a daft tale, but clever enough to be satisfying, sufficiently peculiar to have it's own idiosyncratic charm.  Give it a try.

Wednesday 27 June 2018

Spotlight on Canadian Short Films, Cineworld, Edinburgh International Film Festival

Seven short films, ranging in length from four to twenty five minutes, which have no common theme except their Canadian origins and a desire to play around with form and content.  A mix of fiction, documentary and animation.

Voices of Kidnapping shows the sights and sounds of the Colombian jungle, with the superimposed voices (with subtitles) of excerpts from real life radio broadcasts.  They were the voices of people sending messages to members of their families who had been kidnapped and held by the FARC guerrilla group.  Some had been held for fifteen years, and these heartbreaking communications were the only possible means of contact.  Sobering.

Milk is a fly-on-the-wall-style look at events in the life of a young dairy farmer, contrasting the way her pregnancy is handled with that of the cows.  A bit bleak, but informative if you've ever wanted to know what noise a cow makes when it's giving birth, or hear the sound of cowshit hitting concrete.

Loretta's Flowers follows a beautiful young woman cycling through Toronto, meeting a stranger, a friend and a lover, but never managing to connect with any of them.  Beautifully filmed and acted, it's a nice look at the way we have such difficulty saying the things we mean, communicating real emotion.  Lovely ending too.

Embraced (Entreintes) is a brief, and word-free, monochrome animation about loneliness and love.  Drawn in a very simple but effective style, the characters emote a tragic yearning for human bonding.

Three Thousand uses archive footage and animation to comment on the last hundred years of the history of the indigenous people of northern Canada, and the threats to their quality of life.

Memory of the Peace is also about the challenges First Nation people continue to face in Canada, this time taking the form of interviews with individuals threatened by a planned flooding of the Peace Valley, an important site of great historical significance.  It's a moving insight into a culture that is constantly at risk.

RgBebop/Anthropology is a 4 minute abstract animation set to deconstructed jazz pieces.  An oddity, but fun.

While all the films had some interesting features my top picks Voices of Kidnapping for the simple way it touches our humanity, and Loretta's Flowers for the way it frames the miscommunication in our lives.

Monday 25 June 2018

What Will People Say (Hva vil folk si), Vue Omni, Edinburgh International Film Festival

Nisha is an ordinary Norwegian teenager, hanging out with her mates, playing basketball, flirting with the boys.  She's also the daughter of an ultra strict Pakistani family who often see her more in terms of a family asset than a human being.  When her father finds her messing about with a boy in her room she swiftly finds out which half of her life dominates.

In order to save 'face' within their community the family use lies, threats and physical coercion to remove Nisha to her paternal grandmother's household in Pakistan.  There's she's treated as little more than a servant, and punished if she steps out of line, kite flying the only innocent pleasure she's allowed.  Can she adapt to this new life, or will there be a way back?  We, the audience, suffer with Nisha, but will her to overcome her setbacks.  The drama is intense, but powerful, and leads to an unforgettable end scene.

The relationships portrayed are complex.  Nisha's father reacts selfishly, yet under his brutal responses there is also love, and the affection between the two is never far away.  Understanding is another things however, and the film exposes the extremist mentality that can come up with the inhuman concept of "honour" killings, the pressures second generation immigrants face in reconciling the two cultures they are a part of, and the difficulties social services face in intervening.

Beautifully acted, with Adil Hussain giving an outstandingly nuanced performance as father Mirza, there's also some wonderful cinematography.  Emotionally harrowing, but this is an important movie and one that deserves a wide audience.

Sunday 24 June 2018

The Heiresses (Las Herederas), Odeon, Edinburgh International Film Festival

A couple in their late fifties, Chiquita (Margarita Irun) and Chela (Ana Brun) have been able to live comfortably, and with some social standing, on the wealth inherited from their families.  But now money is getting tight and they are selling off some of the heirlooms.  Chiquita is the driving force, pushing things along, Chela is an artist, quieter, prone to depression.

When Chiquita is imprisoned on fraud charges Chela is forced to emerge from her place in the background and find a way to earn some money.  In doing so she starts to rediscover aspects of her own personality, long submerged within the relationship, and realising that when her partner returns she won't be able to fit back into the same mould, that there must be more to life than what was there before.

A slow burning tale, shot in short scenes and with a lot of close ups.  An almost entirely female cast, the few men in bit parts, with dialogue bouncing along on the surface of the underlying emotions.  And a stunning central performance from Brun who conveys so much while saying little.  A performance of the eyes.

The film is a bold statement coming from a Paraguay that (the director told us after the screening) remains fixated on macho culture, yet is so much driven by the actions of women.  It's a universally applicable study of the power dynamic in relationships, and what people sacrifice, often without realising, to make them work.  A brilliant achievement, and no surprise that it's been winning so many awards at festivals.

The Heiresses gets a UK release in September and is well worth seeking out.

Dallahan, Voodoo Rooms



Opening the gig was local guitarist DaveBeMac.  At times reminiscent of the great Andy McKee in his fingerstyle playing, Dave is fascinating to watch at his craft, playing his own compositions.  Laying the guitar across his lap he plays it like a combination of strings, keyboard and percussion, weaving complex tunes across a rhythmic background.  Held more conventionally he uses sampling to build layers of sound, adding fast fingerpicking to round off the depth of the piece.  There are more influences in there than you could shake a stick at, but you get the sense of a true rocker in the heart of the music.  He's funny too, with a fund of stories about the background to his writing.  A perfect start to the evening.

This is the fifth Dallahan review I've written, so previous readers will be aware that I'm a fully paid up fan.  Tonight's performance only served to confirm that.  The ensemble playing is as tight and imaginative as ever, Jack Badcock's vocals seem to improve year on year, and it was good to hear an even stronger Hungarian influence coming through, courtesy of Jani Lang's fiddling and vocals.  There were several new songs which will be appearing on their long overdue third album, out in October, which promise to make it every bit as satisfying as the previous two.  The merger of Celtic and Eastern European playing styles and influences continues to produce a sound that is unique and enjoyable, and the band has a relaxed and engaging stage presence, much of it from Andrew Waite's interjections and the obvious friendship shared across the quintet.

So it was a shame that some people from a private party in another room made their way into the audience and talked during much of the performance, to the band's clear and justifiable irritation.  Dallahan's music deserves so much more than that.

Calibre, Odeon, Edinburgh International Film Festival

Vaughn (Jack Lowden) will soon be married, there's a baby on the way, and an old pal is dragging him off to the Highlands for a few days of hunting.  Marcus (Martin McCann) is the hunter, a smooth city boy with a bit of a coke habit.  They set off from Glasgow to recapture old times, have a few drinks and maybe bag a deer or two.  What could possibly go wrong?

A night drinking with some of the locals (many of whom show a low level of tolerance towards the incomers) they set off into the forest in search of their quarry.  But when Vaughn accidentally kills a child who's wandered into his line of fire things get out of hand very quickly.  Marcus takes the lead in covering up the events, but in such a small community suspicions are hard to suppress.  Very soon the would be hunters find themselves cast as prey, and Vaughn will be forced into making the hardest decision of his life...

It's a common enough theme - how would we react if we were accidentally responsible for the death of another human being?  While the plot is very much conventional thriller, with (first time) director Matt Palmer (and an excellent editor) steadily raising the tension levels not once, but twice, the psychological elements are played out in the features of McCann and, most impressively, Lowden.  Meanwhile the locals present us with a mix of logic, anger and raw emotion that determine the fate of their big city visitors.  If there's a flaw it's in the suggestion  that a twenty first century Highland community could be a bunch of hicks from Deliverance, but it certainly works in terms of driving a scintillating plot.

The lasting impression is of Lowden in the closing shot, a wordless picture of what one weekend away has done to his psyche.  An excellent and very Scottish movie.

Friday 22 June 2018

Loveling (Benzinho), Odeon, Edinburgh International Film Festival

Every family is different, every family is the same.  Set in Brazil, this is a story that could take place anywhere.  Told over a period of less than a month, it's a snapshot of all the good and bad and wonderful that makes up family life.

Irene (Karine Teles) lives with husband Klaus and their four sons in a crumbling house with dodgy plumbing and a door that locks fast resulting in the family entering and leaving by a ladder up against the window.  They are joined by Irene's sister, and her young boy, hiding from the fists of her addict husband.  Together they form an unbreakable unit of bickering, loving individuals, with a desire to make life better.

Klaus is a dreamer, full of get rich schemes that never quite work out.  Twelve year old Rodrigo is rarely separated from his tuba, and the young twins just want to have fun.  When the oldest boy, teenager Fernando, is offered a place in a professional handball team in Germany Irene finds herself torn between hanging on and letting go.  A new worry to add to the everyday problems of a mother, wife and sister doing her best for her family.

It's beautifully shot, intimate and warm, and there's a wonderful opening sequence under the titles that encapsulates the togetherness of the group and the humour that comes out of their lives.  Meal times, the children playing in the bath, outings to the beach are noisy, chaotic, very real.  The messiness of life is all there, and Fernando's sudden chance for success is one more issue to be dealt with, which they face together and individually.  It's also very funny at times, unafraid to use moments of slapstick to get the laughs.

Teles (who shares the writing credits) gives us a marvellous central character, so often the dependable one, frequently vulnerable, determined that she will also keep her own identity.  A great performance, nuanced, emotional without ever descending into sentimentality, and a range of facial expressiveness that makes words redundant.  

There are no big disasters, no real violence, no overblown dramatic moments of spectacle.  Just a simple story of family life in all it's confusion and doubt and laughter and love and constant minor difficulties to overcome.  And a reminder of what's important in life.  Highly recommended.











White Chamber, Cineworld, Edinburgh International Film Festival

A portentous opening sequence brings us a future UK which has fallen to the rise of neofascism, which in turn has led to a military coup and subsequent uprising.  Civil war has become the new normal.

Ruth (Shauna Macdonald) wakes to a small stark room, white panels on all sides, perforated metal floor below, and is subjected to a strange, disembodied, interrogation and sudden, brutal torture, but swears she is a lowly cog in the machine, knowing nothing.  After twenty minutes of this intensity the action switches back five days, and, day by day, gives us the events that led up to Ruth's incarceration, turning our perceptions on their heads.

The twists that follow show the fine dividing lines between captors and captives, and the twisted justifications for inhuman behaviour that humans will use when they have a 'cause', have 'belief'.  And the power of revenge as a motivational factor.

The film makes no effort to nail a particular political standpoint, but it's equally clear this is envisaged as a Britain suffering the worst effects of the brexit fallout we are already seeing.  (And makes an underlying assumption that 'the UK' will continue to exist....)  There's a mishmash of genres at work throughout (something the director, in an interview after the screening, said he was aiming for) so it's hard to push this into any box - sci-fi, psychological drama, thriller, apocalypse, horror are all in there.  This makes it satisfyingly unpredictable, but leaves the viewer feeling unsatisfyingly confused.  And the horror elements are so memorable as to swamp memories of the more interesting aspects of the movie.

Great supporting performance from Nicholas Farrell as a calming centre to the storm, and the sets, whilst clearly done on a shoestring, are impressively clinical and devoid of empathy.

As The Handmaid's Tale has become the gloomy prognosticator for Trump's America,  White Chamber, as a story, had the potential to take on the role of our own dystopian warning.  It misses that target by some distance.  There's a lot to enjoy about this film, but it's too flawed to be any more than an entertainment.

Sunday 10 June 2018

The Isle of Love, Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh

A small Hebridean island, a place of permanence and transition, where people come and go and stay and leave.  So The Isle of Love begins, introducing us to a range of characters who are on the island for their own varied reasons.  A wild man living off the land, escaping from .... whatever ; a couple trying to patch up their marriage; a lovelorn man, seeing no future; a woman wanting to change her life.  They, and sundry other characters, provide a mix of plotlines that weave in and around one another, and come together at the end, exploring their own dilemmas and the impact of the island on their lives.

The set looks a mess at first glance, but reveals it's cleverness, able to to work as beach, harbour, cliffs, hills, rooms and shops.  There's a cast of six.  Five handle the various roles and share the narration that moves each story forward.  The sixth member is Adam Ross, driving force of indie band Randolph's Leap, leading the music with guitar and an excellent voice.  The others are also accomplished musicians and competent singers, and together form a full band line up with a folkpop feel to it.  Ross also briefly joins the action, playing himself traveling to perform on the island, and quickly shows why he's the musician!

That slight weakness aside, this is a strong ensemble performance, with no individual standing out, but everyone doing their job effectively.  There's a decent script too, funny, intriguing, thought provoking, and the songs are to the point with some clever lyrics.  You know where you are when you hear someone described as talking like a weatherman.  Occasionally, with so many characters coming around, it can be hard to keep up with who has which problem to resolve, but it all falls into place towards the end.

This is a play with music, rather than a musical, and although there is a feelgood ending of sorts, it also reminds us that there are't always easy answers to our problems, that running away rarely solves them, and sometimes the place you need to be isn't always where you thought it was.  Very enjoyable, with catchy songs and some real meat on the bones of both plot and character.  Recommended.

Wednesday 6 June 2018

Edie

I reviewed Edie almost a year ago, in the EIFF, and was interested to see if it was still a pleasure second time around, and if I would come away with different impressions.  So I'm not going to go over old ground, and you can read that first review here.

The first thing to say is it remains enjoyable and inspiring.  Yes it is a bit overly sentimental at times, and can be predictable, formulaic even, but the subject matter is unusual enough to transcend that. There aren't many action parts around for eighty-somethings.

Sheila Hancock's Edie dominates of course, but this second, more critical, viewing does show up her occasional tendency to over-emote, although she has plenty of wonderful moments, and moments of wonderment, for this not to be a big issue.  Whereas Kevin Guthrie as Jonny looks all the more assured and impressive.

The cinematography is the other big plus, those individuals pitted against a wild landscape give a powerful sense of just how small human beings are in a planetary context, especially to a unreconstructed city-dweller like myself.

Edie should have wide appeal, not just to older generations, but to anyone who feels they want to get more from their life.  And, as last time, I'd advise you to watch this short video beforehand, to get a greater sense of Hancock's achievement in making this movie.

Go and see Edie.