Author: Jack Ford

It’s hard to hate The Fox and the Child; the film’s heart is in exactly the right place and it boasts some truly gorgeous photography, but all its intention and beauty is not matched by the narrative. While sweet, the story is sparse and most of the time treading water, so you’re left feeling more sympathetic toward it. So well made by craftspeople with an obvious eye for detail and storytelling, it had a lot of potential and was capable of much more than a pass.

March of the Penguins director Luc Jacquet here makes a departure into fictional film making. While not a documentary The Fox and the Child has similar aims of his previous effort: to show nature and those who live in it in all their glory.

When it reached English shores it came with an added narration from Kate Winslet and a marketing campaign twee to the point of being off-putting. In fairness, it is not an easy film to sell, as its potential audience seems smaller than most – it’s easy to imagine those interested in a film about nature would much rather be out in it instead.

The film follows the straightforward story of an unnamed young girl (Bertille Noël-Bruneau) who encounters a wild vixen fox that she follows into the woodlands, where she keeps returning to through the changing seasons in the hope of finding her again. At first she observes from a distance as the fox is fiercely independent and wary of humans, but through sharing experiences of the outdoors together, they start to form a bond.

The Fox and the Child is one of the most gentle films you will ever see, as it is mostly concerned with the eponymous Canidae and youngster exploring the wilderness of Ain in southern France, where the film was shot. Aside from the girl naming the fox Lily and discovering she is a mother to cubs, the film is very loosely structured until about the last fifteen minutes, when it tries to come to some conclusion.

Its gentility however comes at a cost: after a while the film feels repetitive and slow, particularly as there are no real plot developments for much of the way. Nothing happens to threaten the relationship between the two and when they do find themselves in a precarious situation, the danger is always resolved swiftly and easily.

With an emphasis on themes over story, Jacquet seems to be attempting more to capture a child’s sense of innocence, curiosity and wonder, in a similar way to The Red Balloon. While The Fox and the Child is nowhere near as sensible, it does manage to evoke a lot of the feeling of being young and free through characters that, despite being from different species and only one able to speak, have a believable relationship. The story feels emotional without getting too sentimental and is so harmless that the forgiving would be able to overlook the faults, though the rest will definitely be fidgeting at times.

Winslet’s narration is workable but her dialogue contains a bit too much detail and exposition. In the original French version the voice of Isabellé Carre guided us through proceedings as part of a wraparound where she tells the story to her young son. Nothing audible is a match for the visual storytelling: we get a greater sense of the relationship between the main characters in a single shot of them sat together than from any amount of dialogue explaining that.

Showing an ability to convey story and emotion through photography and editing, Jacquet really should have had more faith in his imagery, that alone could have carried a modest and amiable story like this one. The Fox and the Child pushes through its problems but could have been a bigger success had it relied on its visuals – and maybe added a little more story.

Recently, certain horror films have benefited from added momentum after plenty of pre-release word of mouth. Case in point Terrifier 2, starring David Howard Thornton as a killer clown, which saw significant increase in attention following early reports of ambulances being called to tend to fainting viewers. Thornton’s follow-up performance is in another film which has had plenty of free publicity ahead of the official release, the premise of a beloved children’s classic re-told as a gruesome slasher proved too intriguingly bizarre to go ignored.

Early interest has made Steven LaMorte’s The Mean One one of the most shared horror films of 2022, but the film’s set-up is more than a gimmick to get it trending. It is slickly made, willfully silly and, while it may not be the highest quality product you will see this year, it is certainly one that is unforgettable and packs a lot into its hour-and-a-half run time.

This version begins with a young girl called Cindy who, after encountering a home intruder in a Santa suit on Christmas night, then witnesses her mother killed by the unwelcome visitor. She insists her mother’s killer was in fact green, but no one will believe her, leading to a lot of feelings of doubt and disturbance.

Following a long recovery and still suffering from the trauma, Cindy (Krystle Martin) returns to her childhood home in ‘Newville’ twenty years on, with her father encouraging her to start celebrating Christmas again. But once he starts hanging decorations and singing carols, the same green creature appears in their family home and savages him while Cindy watches on helplessly.

So far, so sickening. While it is similar in premise to fare such as Silent Night, Deadly Night, the seminal seventies slasher punctuated by its central character driven to kill from reliving a childhood trauma of seeing his parents murdered by a man dressed as father Christmas. Yet The Mean One tonally is more in line with Krampus, with an eye for dark humour extracted from the set-up; the film’s greatest strength is sitting in between parody and a credible genre film that can stand on its own merits.

Everyone is committed to the premise, which is what makes the film work even in patches when the joke runs a bit too thin. All the actors are perfectly in line with the tone, including Chase Mullins as kindly officer Burke, the only one in Newville who makes the effort to help Cindy overcome this demon of hers, even against the wishes of his superior, Sheriff Hooper (Erik Baker).

He, along with the mayor of Newville Margie McBean (Amy Schumacher), work to dispel rumours of a so-called “Christmas killer” plaguing the town and shut down Cindy’s every insistence to investigate further. Their efforts seemingly the only reason locals have not taken to the holiday. (Aside from Burke, who is Jewish and therefore not affected.) The only other believer in Newville is the aptly-named ‘Doc Zeus’ (John Bigham), who believes his wife was also a victim of the thing that killed Cindy’s parents, whom he dubs “The Mean One”.

However, the Mean One himself (Thornton) is very real, and exactly as Cindy first described him: a green, grunting animal of a man with a deep aversion to Christmas who wanders down from his mountain domain to savage anyone daring to celebrate. When Cindy finally sees what she has been told time and again was a false traumatic memory is in fact real, and no one else prepared to do anything about it, she finally takes it upon herself to avenge her parents and put an end to the carnage herself. “You’re a dead one,” as she puts it, “Let’s roast this beast.”

The script by Flip and Finn Kobler is reliant on familiar tropes, in particular jumpscares, and could easily fall apart if over-analyzed. Yet it is self-aware to the extent of letting everyone know there is no point thinking too hard about it. Their characters are just well-defined enough to make us want to see their arcs through and the dialogue is loaded with clever Seussian references and well-crafted jokes. In particular the self-referential humour when they have to subvert licensing issues, such as when Doc is interrupted just at the moment of revealing the Mean One’s name by a waitress shouting “FINCH! ORDER FOR MIKE FINCH!”

The Mean One is not asking for much scrutinization, it’s main aim is to be as batshit insane and entertaining as possible, and that it is. The impact is somewhat lessened by underwhelming CGI splatter scenes, but anchoring the film are Martin, so personable and likeable in the lead role, and Thornton’s undeniable screen presence, which here surely cements him as a cult horror hero. Succeeding largely through its own high level of self-awareness, The Mean One is a ridiculously enjoyable antidote to traditional holiday fare that may be too familiar at times, but is able to generate real scares and laughs all the way through to its genuinely affecting ending.

South Korea has really been on the ball lately, not just in their handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but in their cinematic output. Park Chan-wook’s extraordinary The Handmaiden and the immortal Parasite from Bong Joon-ho were both the best films of their respective years by a long way. The respective stars of both of, Cho Jin-woong and Choi Woo-shik, feature in the new police procedural from director Lee Kyoo-man, The Policeman’s Lineage. It may not reach the same heights as the previous films of its leads, but it is still a well-made and entertaining genre piece.

From the start The Policeman’s Lineage moves at breakneck pace and it’s possible to have key story details pass by, particularly as it attempts to set the scene early on. First we are introduced to Choi as Choi Min-jae, a third generation police officer wanting to uphold the law in the same way as his grandfather and late father. Still new to much of the job, his idealistic views have quickly turned to disillusionment from seeing so much corruption on the force. After testifying in court against his partner, he is recruited by internal affairs as a perfect candidate for a potentially dangerous assignment, as he is seen as moralistic but also genial enough to succeed where others have failed.

The target is Cho’s character, Park Kan Yoon, a chief investigator with a highly successful track record but under suspicion for his means and methods of gathering intel. His investigations are often beyond the means and resources of the force, leading to a belief that he has some manner of a financial backer. There’s also the belief that he may be responsible in the murder of another cop who was investigating him.

Choi then is assigned to Park’s team, keeping a close eye out for anything that could implicate him in illegal activity. Park’s main obsession is Na-young Bin (Kwon Yul), a young CEO running an illegal drugs ring supplying to high-income clients, but those connections have seen him avoid jail three times. Enraged by Bin’s cockiness, Park sets out to finally bring him in by any means. As part of his undercover assignment Choi joins Park and the rest of his team in their efforts to bring Bin to justice.

So far so good. The Policeman’s Lineage wins points for being a more realistic look at policing and not deliberately trying to imitate anything. Also, for a change, the cop under surveillance is not corrupt and secretly in league with criminals on the side. Soon, however, things starts to feel more familiar.

Park clashes with section chief Hwang (Park Hee-soon), as the two have very different ideas of policing; Hwang is completetly by the book while Park is not above over-exercising his authority in the form of threats and violence if it gets him results. As he puts it, “As long as you catch the perp, nothing is illegal.” The more Choi spends under Park, of course, the more he starts to see some legitimacy to his unorthodox methods, and he starts to walk a dangerous line between his ideals and the reality of the job.

Before too long The Policeman’s Lineage starts to feel similar to Michael Mann’s Miami Vice: both good looking and ultra-modern, but whose stylistics start to overwhelm a plot that is by turns straightforward and overly-convoluted. In doing so, it feels like more and more opportunities are being missed.

The film does produce some compelling and exciting moments, with the best action sequence being a raid on a drug lab that is visually arresting and full of tension driven by the narrative, timing of the story and situations of the characters involved. The pace never lets up, it’s definitely a film that requires concentration, though does not always merit the audience’s attention.

It’s also not helped by a reliance on genre formulas and problematic plot developments. After a while Cho starts to fall into familiar character tropes, similarly Park starts out a complex character before ending up as a standard ruthless anti-hero. The case however is not quite so straightforward and there are a lot of twists and turns, some of which are harder to swallow than others.

Perhaps it’s not fair to compare The Policeman’s Lineage to other excellent Korean exports, purely on the basis they all share lead actors. The ambitions of Lee’s film are not as high as those that have pushed the envelope recently, and that’s OK. This film knows what it wants to be and, while it could have gone a lot further, it is a stylish and well-paced police actioner that does enough visually and with its story and characters to sustain its running time and keep hold of the audience to the end.

The documentary Castro’s Spies focuses in on one lesser-known part of Cuban history in the post-revolution era, where Fidel Castro was installed as the country’s leader. That of five volunteers who agreed to leave their home and live new lives in America, gathering information on potential threats to the country, learning on the job as Cuba had no real intelligence service. They became known as The Cuban Five and their story is told here in a way that is accessible, compelling and fascinating.

Most of what western audiences would know about Cuba’s recent history may have come from sources which do not view the political shift in a positive light. Castro’s Spies give time to get many different viewpoints across, including those who took up the cause of the revolution and could see and feel the good it was doing for the country.

This adds many new layers to this period of recent history long told in one way, opening up a spectrum of new viewpoints on and from Cuba. For example: we’re familiar with there being plenty of paranoia at the time in the US over the threat posed by Castro’s Cuba, but there was equally as much paranoia in Cuba over what they perceived as the biggest threats against them.

In the fifties Cuba had been thriving on the back of much American investment. All of that changed following the revolution, when the subsequent social policies proved bad for the middle class, who fled the country to nearby Miami. Among them were a group of radical counter-revolutionaries who sought to bring down the new regime, led by Orlando Bosch who orchestrated a number of terrorist attacks targeted at high-profile Cubans.

This led to the Cuban government wanting to install agents in Miami to keep tabs on such people. The Cuban Five were recruited after serving in the country’s intervention in Angola, given new identities and installed in Florida to keep tabs on people and places of suspicion. Their families were not told why they had gone to the United States, some believed they had deserted them and Cuba, relationships were strained when they were accused of being traitors.

They were away from home throughout all the other major moments of post-revolutionary Cuba, all of which are also covered by Castro’s Spies. This includes the “Special Period”, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba lost their key trading partner, and the US’s instigation of the Helms Burton Act, which further strapped Cuba financially. This ramped up paranoia in both countries but in very different ways: in America over how Cuba would retaliate, in Cuba how to prevent the country from going to pieces.

Directors Ollie Aslin and Gary Lennon gathers interviews with a many different participants, including the Five themselves: Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González, as well as allies and detractors. In doing so they open up a lot of dialogue on the many different sides of the revolution. Notably among those speaking out against the Five is Jose Basulto, leader of the organisation Brothers to the Rescue.

Brothers to the Rescue were a group of expat Cuban pilots who took to the air above the Gulf of Mexico, searching for deserters trying to make it to the USA by raft. They were also of interest to the Cuban government as it was made up of a lot of counter-revolutionaries, therefore under suspicion. When Basulto was shot down by the Cuban air force in 1996, there was a dramatic shift in the narrative, as afterwards many outsiders no longer saw Cuba as a peaceful place.

This whole period remains a highly polarizing piece of recent history and it’s surprising to see in Castro’s Spies how recent they all went down and how raw all the associated feelings are. It might go some way to explain how hard prosecutors came down hard on the Five when they were all arrested in 1998.

While spying is not itself an illegal act, they were charged with a number of high crimes including the curiously-named “failure to register as a foreign agent” and “conspiracy to commit espionage” despite their being no evidence for the latter. In fact, one of the subjects in the film, an attorney who prosecuted the Five, comes across as very paranoid and a little xenophobic when discussing the presence of Cuban spies in Ameirca.

There may not be much in the way of explosive revelations that come out in the film, as we have become used to in this age of Netflix documentaries, but story is central to Castro’s Spies. It’s not out to be sensationalistic, only to tell its story well, and it succeeds in that. This film sheds new light on a multi-layered historical event and presents them in new ways, even if you’re familiar with these events. At the same time it’s very easy to get into and understand for anyone going in cold.

“I’m an air doll, a substitute for handling sexual desire,” says Nozomi, the central character of Air Doll, whenever she is forced to contemplate her purpose and existence in the film. An adaptation of the anime of Yoshiie Gōda, the film which was first released in its native Japan back in 2009 is now available on-demand in the west through Dekanalog releasing.

It’s true, Nozomi is a life-size female inflatable used by her owner Hideo (Itsuji Itao) for a dinner companion and confidant, but largely for sex. During the day however, when he is not around, she becomes a real woman, played by Bae Doona. Able to talk, move and act on her own, she starts to spend more time away from Hideo and create an identity and life of her own.

Air Doll is a slow burner, but necessarily so. Director/writer Hirokazu Kore-eda lets the film take its time in order to builds and develops its characters and plot in meaningful ways. Had it gone at a different pace then neither would not have been so effective. By the end of the film, its emotion-driven moments work so well because of everything that has come before it. In particular, as we follow Nozomi’s growth from the mind of a child to fully independent and free-thinking, before she finally begins contemplating death.

In early scenes Nozomi, reminiscent of Daryl Hannah in Splash, explores the human world, curious about her new surroundings, mesmerised by everything. Eventually she gets a job in a video shop, where she forms a mutual attraction with her co-worker Junichi (Arata Iura), she learns to use make-up to cover the seams on her skin, buys her own clothes. These early experiences of being human are exciting for her, as is every new opportunity – first time eating in a restaurant and going to the beach, even about growing old, something those around her can’t understand.

Throughout Air Doll she interacts with a host of different characters, all of which touch on one of the major themes and issues of Koreda ‘s script: the feeling of loneliness in Japan. Each of Nozomi’s new friends are experiencing loneliness in some form, including a struggling widow and the child of divorced parents. Her instinct are to help remedy people’s loneliness, but the way she was made to ease the feeling is not suitable or going to work for everyone she meets – allowing the film to also touch on the changing of traditional roles of women.

Instead, Nozomi begins to learn compassion for those around her. In particular, for an old man she meets ans forms a meaningful connection with. He used to be a supply teacher, like her only of use in the place of anyone else. She is struck that he goes by with no human or animal companion, as he explains, “having a dog makes you lonely.” A simple touch of the head from Nozomi is enough to ease his inner pain. Seeing how much loneliness can hurt, Nozomi learns the downside of caring. As she puts it, “Having a heart was heartbreaking.”

Air Doll has a lot in common with Steven Spielberg’s A.I. – both about simulacrum humans who are learning what it is like to be human and trying to find their purpose. While on a smaller sclae, Kore-eda’s film is more personal and without the sentimentality and long discourse of Spielberg’s, as such is able to tell its story in a far more naturalistic way and the final result a more relatable and effecting film.

On the one hand Air Doll works as an interesting, solid drama and character study while also addressing much bigger real-world themes and ideas, including loneliness and the roles of women in society. It can feel samey at times, is far from subtle and a bit sluggish for some, but its well-crafted characters and sensibly-handled themes make for an engaging and thought-provoking oddball drama.