film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Dan Barnes

  • Lovers Rock: The BRWC LFF Review

    Lovers Rock: The BRWC LFF Review

    If you weren’t already excited at the prospect of the great Steve McQueen directing five new films as part of an anthology series this year (Small Axe, coming to the BBC in November), the masterful Mangrove would’ve changed all that when it opened the London Film Festival recently. Now, as this year’s event draws to a sad close, audiences have been lucky enough to view another excellent installment in the series, but the experience of watching Lovers Rock couldn’t be more different. 

    Set in West London in the early 1980s and clocking in at a mere 68 minutes, Lovers Rock takes place over the course of one Saturday night, as dozens of young people from the local West Indian community show up for the house party of the year, filled with delicious food, booze and loud, soulful reggae music. What follows is perhaps the most authentic and unapologetic look at such a night in all of cinema, from the romantic pursuits of its guests and the alcohol-driven euphoria that erupts at the sound of a great song, right to the irresponsible use of narcotics and the drunken arguments with friends and family. Its razor-focused, ingenious in its simplicity.

    Newcomer Amarah-Jae St Aubyn shines as Martha, who climbs from her bedroom window under the nose of her deeply devout mother to meet her friend Patty for a fun night out. They are hassled by various men before Martha meets Reggie (Francis Lovehall) and forms a surprise connection, in spite of her many reservations and much to the annoyance of Patty. Aside from the poor behaviour of Bammy (Daniel Francis-Swaby) towards the women at the party that quickly gets out of hand, and a row Martha has with her cousin, Lovers Rock is mostly a magical and positive experience, and is easily McQueen’s most upbeat film yet. 

    Audiences familiar with his work will watch Lovers Rock awaiting drama but, unlike Mangrove, or indeed any of his other films, it never really happens. The racial tensions in the area are clearly implied, most notably by a group of white men who hassle Martha on the street, but it never becomes the focal point of the story as one might expect. They’re there simply to remind us of why this party is happening in the first place; the guests don’t exactly feel welcome in the local clubs and have had to create their own safe space to party. But McQueen is far more interested in the fun his characters are having than the goings-on outside. 

    This is a film with very few characters and little story, more of an observational piece than a traditional narrative, high on atmosphere and spirit. McQueen, well-known for his signature long, motionless takes, moves the camera more than ever before, almost as an extra uninvited guest to the party and reflecting its hectic nature as the night continues. The engrossing reaction to the Janet Kay song Silly Games (making up almost ten minutes of screen-time, including almost five straight minutes of non-stop, passionate singing) is not only the finest moment of the picture, but one of the highlights of McQueen’s already illustrious career. He’s never had so much fun. 

    As the sun shines on Sunday morning, Reggie returns to work for his short-tempered boss and Martha makes it back just in time to attend church with her mother; a subtle reminder of the world these people must return to, having escaped from it the night before.  

    Lovers Rock is more concerned with mood than it is narrative, focused on capturing the magic of a moment that would normally make up only a handful of scenes. It perfectly captures the escapist magic of music, the essence of a house party and, more importantly, the comfort this one provides for its guests. Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series is becoming something very special indeed. This is sublime. 

  • Ammonite: The BRWC LFF Review

    Ammonite: The BRWC LFF Review

    Francis Lee, who first impressed audiences with his 2017 Bafta-nominated debut God’s Own Country, never quite creates the same magic with his sophomore feature Ammonite, a well-produced yet flawed romance starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan.

    It’s the 1840s, and famed palaeontologist Mary Anning (Winslet) spends her time walking the beaches of Lyme Regis in search of fossils that she can clean up and sell to wealthy tourists, one of whom (Sir Roderick Murchison, played by James McArdle) pays her to keep his wife Charlotte (Ronan) company for a few weeks while he’s away. Charlotte’s suffering from poor mental health, silenced by her oppressive husband and traumatised by a recent incident, the specifics of which are left for the viewer to interpret. 

    Mary is a subdued woman, angry at the world and living with her irritable mother Molly (Gemma Jones), and at first she finds Charlotte’s company to be nothing short of a nuisance, but soon they find a connection through their shared loneliness, baring all to one another and finding solace in their emotional presence. 

    It’s certainly unfair that Ammonite is already being compared to Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (released earlier this year), but perhaps only natural, given the similarities the two share, both being beach-set romances between two women. Sadly for Ammonite, it never seems to rise from the shadow of Sciamma’s deeply affecting masterpiece, but the presence of a similar yet superior film is far from the only reason Lee’s new work never really takes flight. 

    Winslet and Ronan are, unsurprisingly, on top form, both hitting the heights of their already illustrious careers and conveying raw emotion with the subtlest of touches, but their blossoming romance, while compassionately developed, never hits the right emotional notes. 

    Stéphane Fontaine shoots the film with real passion, the sound design is superbly complimentary and Dustin O’Halloran and Volker Bertelmann’s score is used astutely, but these elements seem to serve to inflate the emotional core, rather than compliment it. At its bare bones, the film’s themes are approached a little too simplistically, with the inclusion of some fairly clunky dialogue, including the on-the-nose line ‘women are supposed to care for their sisters’ and Mary likening herself to a ‘bird in a cage.’ It feels like Lee telling us how we should feel, rather than earning it through strength of character, and it all just comes across a little too obvious, right down to the almost cartoon-ish portrayal of Roderick. 

    When it comes down to It, Mary and Charlotte’s relationship has no heat or any sense of passion. Of course, the film is more focused on the comfort that these two lonely people find together than it is their romance per se, but we’re left with performances so repressed that it masks any chemistry shared between the performers and feels as cold as the beach weather of Dorset. For a story so focused on the connection found between these two women, the material feels a little restrictive. Even the closing moments (an ambiguous ending that leaves Mary’s decision open to interpretation) feel a tad too implausible and, above all, not in keeping with the raw nature of the rest of the film.  

    Given the talent involved and the heartfelt character of Lee’s previous film, it’s somewhat disappointing that Ammonite seems so misjudged. His intentions are commendable and clear, but his execution seems to take any soul out of the picture. 

    While the film doesn’t necessarily succeed as a romance, it works far better as a character study of Mary Anning, a lonely, under-appreciated and repressed person who finds hope from an unexpected source and struggles with the risk of opening up to her. Kate Winslet’s performance is so wonderfully engrossing that these scenes are far stronger than much of the film, and one can’t help but wonder how special it might’ve been had it been more focused on her. 

    Much of Ammonite works very well indeed. The performances are exceptional, not just from Winslet and Ronan, but also from Fiona Shaw, who sells its emotional core better than most in just a couple of stand-out scenes. The film is expertly-crafted as a whole; talented professionals at work creating some truly beautiful cinema, but these elements aren’t able to elevate the film beyond its limited material.  

    The simple truth is that the heart of Ammonite is off-balance and doesn’t really work; a competent film, yes, but an emotionally dissonant one. It’s hard to fully engage with the material in any meaningful way, and it never strikes quite the chord that God’s Own Country did so effortlessly before. 

    Overall, it’s a film that’ll impress a lot of people, many of whom might say something along the lines of ‘well, that was very well-made’, but they probably won’t be moved. It’s trying far too hard. 

  • Ultraviolence: LFF Review

    Ultraviolence: LFF Review

    It’s been almost twenty years since Ken Fero’s highly controversial documentary Injustice was released (a film that was banned from television and effectively banished Fero from the mainstream), but he’s now returned with another, equally shocking and revealing film that picks up right where he left off. With Ultraviolence, Fero gives us yet more evidence of prisoners who died under ridiculous circumstances while in police custody.

    Fero, who narrates much of the film himself with the help of Cathy Tysoe, frames the film as a letter to his son; a document to be looked back on, of a time that he hopes will one day pass. He tells various stories of such incidents one-by-one, referring to them as ‘memories’, accompanied with CCTV footage and interviews with family members. It’s a bleak and uncomfortable watch, as it should be.

    Ultraviolence opens with the ‘memory’ of Christopher Adler, who was left to die on the floor of a police station entrance while several officers belittled and mocked his condition, claiming he was ‘faking it’. The footage is harrowing, to say the very least, and it’s the start of things to come, as we’re soon shown film of Paul Coker lying almost naked in his prison cell as he dies, while officers on the other side of the door joke about it together. Coker isn’t seen by a doctor until almost thirty minutes after he dies. 

    Allowing the footage to play out like this is a simple but very clever technique, letting the truth speak for itself without the need for cinematic extravagance. Fero isn’t making any allegations here because he simply doesn’t need to; the truth is right there. His film is a cry for justice; nothing more, nothing less, and he goes on to look at several other cases, including his old classmate Brian Douglas, who died from a fractured skull, and Jean Charles De Menezes, who was shot seven times in the head while trying to catch a tube, each story as shocking as the last. 

    Fero only strays from his bare knuckles approach during fleeting moments of animation, which he uses to illustrate how these men came to be in custody in the first place. It’s masterfully done, although the basic style of the rest of the picture does become a problem. It’s an understandable approach, but it doesn’t necessarily always work, often coming across quite jarring and confusing the tone he’s going for. 

    While Ultraviolence is a work brimming with anger, the heart of the stories comes from the familial interviews, which are compassionately observed by Fero. The victim’s families are articulate, intelligent, and every bit as frustrated as you’d expect. Their determination is admirable, as we follow them through meetings, campaigns and on various marches. The film would’ve been a far stranger experience had it not been for their inclusion; the interviews serve to brilliantly humanise the people we sadly watch dying before our very eyes. 

    Fero often comes across as something of a pessimist. He notes that outrage has only ever been temporary, cleverly comparing it to the footage of Vietnamese children suffering from the effects of Napalm in the seventies. Sure, people were angry at the time, but it never stopped the use of phosphorus gas in Iraq years later. They knew it was wrong, but they did it anyway, the outrage soon forgotten. Fero posits that the same has long been true of police brutality such as this. 

    But he’s truthfully something of an optimist, dreaming of a revolution and confident in future generations. He believes he’s doing the right thing to get through to people, noting that ‘endless brutality requires endless resistance’, and while this is mostly a brutal work that is unashamedly confrontational, he really believes things can change. 

    Ultraviolence is another startling exposé of police brutality that’ll stick with any kind-hearted individual watching, but it’s not just a record of the incidents themselves. Rather, it’s a story about the ongoing fight for justice, and the importance of holding guilty people to account. There are clear issues with its style, which all too often distracts from the content at hand and completely messes with the tone, but for the most part the stories themselves are enough to get the message across. Fero’s approach is sincere and personal, and while his film may be one of the most painful you’ll ever sit through, it’s one that simply must be watched. 

  • Cicada: LFF Review

    Cicada: LFF Review

    Matt Fifer’s feature debut (co-directed with Kieran Mulcare) is a deeply personal one; a semi-autobiographical story about a bisexual man who struggles with intimacy due to a traumatic childhood experience and is forced to confront his past in order to move on from it. In Cicada, Fifer plays Ben, a lonely New Yorker who goes from job to job, fling to fling, and spends his free time regularly getting checked for STDs. His life is fairly empty until he meets Sam (Sheldon D. Brown, who co-wrote the screenplay) at a bookshop and forms an instant connection with him worth building on. 

    After Sam opens up about not coming out to his devout father and being randomly shot by a homophobe a few years prior, Ben finally feels able to discuss his own baggage, having been sexually assaulted as a young boy (set in 2013, this all plays out over the backdrop of the trial of football coach Jerry Sandusky, occasionally overheard on the news). Ben says at one stage, ‘I always thought if I ended up with a man, it would mean I lost.’ But together, Ben and Sam soon find themselves in a strong, healthy relationship, built on mutual trust and respect. 

    At the heart of Cicada is two compelling and passionate central performances. Brown is certainly the most natural in front of camera, but Fifer conveys Ben’s sadness skilfully enough, likely owing to his own relationship with the material, and the two share a natural chemistry that more than sells their affection for one another. 

    Thematically rich, this film not only focuses on homosexuality, childhood trauma and PTSD, but also on the challenges of an interracial relationship. Sam’s discomfort when meeting Ben’s friends for the first time draws a barrier between two men who had previously felt so equal. It’s a story of intersectionality and of otherness, in its many forms, and of finding the courage to own how you feel and work through it. 

    It’s clear that Ben has never really discussed his past before, but he’s encouraged to do so by Sam, and soon seeks out a therapist (awkwardly played by Cobie Smulders), and even opens up to his closest friends and family about it for the very first time. These are two lost souls who really needed a nudge, and their love for one another proves to be enough. 

    It definitely tries too hard in places, commonly turning to evocative montages and slo-mo as a means of conveying emotion, and it undoubtedly has issues with its pacing, but it’s also a film born of such passion and heart that it more than holds your interest. It’s a moving study both of personal identity and of past trauma, and a romantic, honest, personal tale of two men who find solace with each other in their time of need and learn to face their past together. 

  • Wolfwalkers: The BRWC LFF Review

    Wolfwalkers: The BRWC LFF Review

    Wolfwalkers: The BRWC LFF Review – Cartoon Saloon are on an incredible run. Following on from the success of The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea and The Breadwinner, the animation studio’s new film is an absolute work of art; a visually mesmerising picture with a very big heart. 

    Wolfwalkers tells the story of Robyn, an adventurous young girl who dreams of following in her father’s footsteps and hunting nearby wolves, until she befriends Mebh, a girl from the forest with a unique gift that changes everything. 

    This is exactly the sort of film that we need more of yet hardly ever see anymore. While children are so often treated to dumb, soulless releases like The Emoji Movie and Sing, here is a film that actually respects them; a charming fable with strong female characters and positive, life-affirming messages about embracing one’s true self, brought to life with classic hand-drawn animation. Its mere existence is miraculous, and its brilliance cannot be overstated. 

    The film’s visuals are constantly imaginative and drenched in colour and warmth. Combined with stellar voice-work from Honor Kneafsey, Eva Whittaker, Sean Bean and Simon McBurney, all oozing with life and character, and a truly magical score from Bruno Coulais, this is a story filled with myth, magic and wonder, made with love and care by a group of very talented artists. 

    While mostly light-hearted and breezy for the first half, the narrative becomes something else entirely as it develops, bravely raising the stakes and maturely owning its more contemporary themes of otherness and environmental ignorance. It’s truly ambitious, both emotional and suspenseful right to its conclusion, but it isn’t a film that tries too hard or cheaply pulls at the heartstrings; rather, the characters are so effectively well-drawn that we really grow to care for them.

    Wolfwolkers is just magnificent; a meaningful tale of how we fear that which we do not fully understand, told from the perspective of a strong friendship that is simply joyous to observe. It’s visually mesmering, creatively animated and beautifully told; a truly rewarding experience for audiences of all ages, and the year’s finest animation.