Author: Louise McLeod Tabouis

A DOG CALLED MONEY (95mins, 2019)

Musician PJ Harvey strolls around cold Kabul, searching through the bomb-shocked and abandoned houses, trying to decipher who lived there. In back alleys occupied by musicians and tailors she shares instruments, and witnesses the rapture of the Sufis at the Mosque. The shadow of the US military’s menacing white blimp-drone hovers over, while its soldiers play war games on their computers. 

Forced by the pressure of the crowd, a woman slides down a hill in the rain-soaked Northern-Greek refugee camp in Idomeni. She valiantly hangs on to her sack of belongings while attempting to cross into Macedonia. The line of people – adults and children – appears endless. Seamus Murphy’s camera stays close, filming the wet and worn-out but determined faces. This is starting to feel like Koyaanisqatsi (1982) for a new era. 

Between 2011 and 2014, musician PJ Harvey accompanied photographer/filmmaker Seamus Murphy, a seasoned witness of tragedy, as he travelled to Afghanistan, Kosovo and finally Washington DC; the heartland of where a lot of the world’s damage has sprung. Guided by both the Washington Post’s Paul Schwartzman, and resident Paunie, who present the maligned neighbourhood of Anacostia, this is an example of the deep division between black and white America, illustrated by the juxtaposition of Washington’s icons, death spots, and temples of religion.

By January 2015 they were back in the basement of London’s Somerset House.  PJ Harvey consolidating her experiences and observations into an album, The Hope Six Demolition Project – the ordinary details mixed with the extraordinary moments. Watched through one-way mirrors by members of the public who were invited to the Recording In Progress, the observer now becoming the observed, albeit through one-way mirrors. 

Visual artists are often brought into war zones – photographers, painters, filmmakers. Musicians? Not as often. There’s an initial slight feeling of dark tourism, but Harvey and Murphy are witnessing what people are either fleeing, resisting, ignoring, or don’t have access to. As Kosovo’s Father Sava states: “We want to belong, it’s human nature to look for the clan, to get together.” 

It’s hard to deny the importance of bearing witness, whatever form that may take. Song writing has a long cultural history of doing this and whether you like PJ Harvey’s music or not, her interpretation only adds to this. Murphy’s film reflects the disconnected-interconnected world, exposing the disparate lives that co-exist locally and globally. His captivating collage shows the creative process, the craft, and the collaboration to bring it to life, while not diminishing the power of the images and the people they encountered along the way. 

Find out what else he is doing here: www.seamusmurphy.com

THE AMAZING JOHNATHAN (Dir. Ben Burman, 2019, 90 mins)

Slicing open his arm, piercing his tongue, and deconstructing magic in his own way, that was Amazing Johnathan, aka Johnathan Szeles, a comedian-magician who hada year-round headlining gig in Las Vegas from 2001 to 2014. Illusionist, disruptor and well-liked by his colleagues, Johnathan is a risk-taker and someone who apparently has nothing to lose in his performances. 

Diagnosed with terminal heart disease and given a year to live, Amazing Johnathanannounced the news during a performance while the audience giggled. Was he being serious or was this yet another prank? Two years later Johnathan decided to come out of his medically-induced hum-drum retirement, after all is it better to stay alive but have nothing to do, or to die doing what you love?

“But what would it be like if he dies on stage while people are laughing?” asked his wife. This is where director Ben Burman takes up the saga. As he tussles with the footage, Ben is asked by an honest friend: “Can you trust anything that a magician does?”.  And there begins the story.

The Amazing Johnathan is as much about the subject as it is about the director and the process, creating an engrossing and at times amusing inquiry into truth and motivation. The ethics of documentary making are not often discussed. How close do you want to get? What happens if your story is not as unique as you had imagined? Faced with other crews working on the same project, Ben goes to incredible lengths to create the most original documentary. The editing by Burman and Scott Evans is brilliant. 

This is an interestingly ambiguous documentary about form, method and honesty, as well as the motives, sometimes subconscious, that propel us into projects. Unclear intentions, selected memories and unrequited endings are what contribute to Burman’s film, which has it all; and Burman does not shy away from sharing his own humiliations.  Eventually it is his Dad who asks the key question: “What is the story here?”. By the end it’s hard to decide who is the star of the film – Amazing Johnathan or the director himself.

Louis Theroux will host a special Q&A screening of the film on Tuesday 19 November, to be simulcast nationwide across the UK. https://www.tajdfilm.co.uk/

SMILE (Australia, 2018, 9 mins)

Having a portrait taken feels like a thing of the past. Going off to a studio with your family or siblings in an uncomfortable dress, or colour-coordinated outfits, and told to smile. It was later to be used as a gift to grandparents, as well as a record that this was a happy family. That was my experience in the 80s. Now that we’re living in an age of phone cameras, everyone appears to be a photographer, but not many people take portraits of each other, the type to frame or put on a wall. Ones that we can look at and treasure; or that are not lost in virtual storage or someone’s phone. 

Egyptian-born Tawfik Elgazzar arrived in Australia at the age of 23. In 2011 while waiting for work, he brainstormed with friends and out of that emerged a community photography project he named Flash Hub. Loving the eclectic community of people surrounding him in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Newtown (population 15,000), Tawfik installed a silver-starry curtain and lamp in front of the Newtown neighbourhood community centre as a way of documenting his neighbourhood. There each week he started photographing willing passers-by.

Genuinely interested in people and their life stories, while feeling a strong sense of belonging in his new community, Tawfik set out with the unassuming question: What brings joy to people – is it family, friends, or something else ?  Smiling is an act that people are wired to respond to and whether we like it or not, most of the time it has the benefit of being a happiness booster as our natural response is often to smile back. Tawfik knew this and needed it. His gift worked both ways.

He developed relationships with people and participants received their photograph, which they treasured. Some participants had to combat their negative feelings about being photographed – I’m too ugly for this – but realised that they could turn this into a positive experience. 

British/Australian Writer/Director/Producer Harriet McKern’s film explores the nature of portraiture, individuality, and cultural diversity, as Tawfik and his subjects discover what it feels like to be really looked at. Incorporating stories from participants, as well as Tawfik at work, McKern has managed to create a deceptively simple and aesthetically beautiful film about an exchange of giving. One which both Tawfik and his subjects treasured.  

Harriet McKern is currently developing projects as an independent director working in drama and documentary. Have a look at her films here: https://www.harrietmckern.com/films

SMILE has been selected at film festivals around the world including the inaugural MONOCHROME FILM FESTIVAL, which as the name suggests, is a short film festival showcasing some of the best monochrome works from around the world. 

Thursday November 14 at the Whirled Cinema in Brixton (London). 

Have a look at the whole of Tawfik’s project here.

Writer/director/actor Jude Klassen’s first feature film Love in The Sixth begins with a compelling opening scene. Interviewed with her boyfriend, a woman states she is “still waiting for that zing”. Her long-term boyfriend looks on, attempting to hide his dismay. And that is the first minute.

Love in The Sixth is a genre-bending film that adds a new edge to the classic environmental film style. Klassen describes it as “an unromantic musical comedy about extinction”. The story orbits around Dani Spungen (Klassen), host of the Martini Think Tank, literary interviews that are live-streamed from her house while, as the name would suggest, martinis are consumed. Her teenage daughter Kat (Mika Kay) as well as an eclectic band of singing and dancing characters make up the rest of the cast.

Her relationship with Sid (T.C. Folkpunk), a musician and master of the muttered acidic one-liner, is consumed by his jealousy and lack of attention. Meanwhile Sid is kindly dealing with Spungen’s teenage daughter Kat (Mika Kay) and her probing existential questions of the ‘don’t you care about the planet?’ type. While being accused of apathy, indifference and cynicism, Sid is tolerantly teaching her guitar.

It’s an astute reflection both on parenthood, and the trials of being a teenager when “nobody really understands the truth”. Dani Spungen manages to slip in some excellent retorts herself including the golden, “I need to read Angela’s Ashes again to feel like a good mother”.

Watching Love In The Sixth reminded me of John Cassavetes’ films. Not only his continual analysis of love – discuss it, kill it, hurt each other, destroy it – that was his trademark, but also the style of script that is fluid and as natural as improvisation can be, bringing a perfectly natural awkwardness that only adds to the conversations and situations.

Klassens worked with her family and community of Toronto friends, and the warmth between the cast feels natural, perhaps assisted by filming in her house, which is currently on trend. Look no further than Pedro Almodovar, who used a replica of his in the recently released Pain and Glory.

Klassens is clever and funny, and this is obvious in her film. Although the breakout musical moments create bumps in the narrative (Up Late Talking is my favourite), they perfectly suit Klassen’s collage of life in a community.

Love In The Sixth is released on Amazon Prime in US/UK.