film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Rosalynn Try-Hane

  • Q&A With Chicken Director Joe Stephenson

    Chicken is the debut feature length film directed by Joe Stephenson. BRWC were lucky enough to ask Joe about his new film – a story of two brothers living on the edge of society that packs an emotional punch. Chicken is a unique gem of a little movie and Joe explained that it was important to him: “to make a film lead by a character with learning difficulties that wasn’t actually about his learning difficulties”. Does he succeed? We certainly think so.

    How did the project come about? Had you already seen the play and thought I want to put this on the big screen?

    Scott [Chambers] and I have been friends for years, and when he got the part in the play I felt very involved in the work he did there since he was crashing at mine at the time. As I would go over lines with him and discuss the character and the themes Freddie had written, it was settling the back of my mind that I really felt something about what was being said. Then when I saw the play I really felt that the world could be expanded on, and that it might be a rare case of a play that could adapt to cinema without feeling too stagey. I felt I might be able to use the medium I love to bring the characters and world to life in a different but, crucially, faithful way.

    How different is the film to the play?

    I think Richard has changed, just through the nature of discussion and research. But also a few plot points didn’t feel right when adapting, but I can’t go into that without ruining the film!

    What was it that attracted you to this subject matter as your first full length feature?

    I always want to go on a journey with characters, to laugh and cry and be taken into their world and this felt like a story I could do that with. My tastes are really for quite epic storytelling, and when I saw the play I realised that epic storytelling can be used to describe emotion as much as scale.

    Did you ever consider changing the title of the film?

    I did not, it is Freddie’s title and I felt it was both important to keep for him, and it worked thematically for me too.

    On camera the lead actors have appear to have a close brotherly bond. Did they know each other before filming took place?

    They did not! Only brief acquaintance, so that’s great you say that. We did rehearse, and I had them do character biography’s to create a shared past together so all that work is hopefully what makes you say that.

    Scott Chambers does a fine job in his portrayal of Richard. Did the two of you differ on how the character of Richard should be portrayed?

    Not at all, we both love and care for Richard and understand him to an equal degree. We did a lot of talking, and I mean A LOT, and we found him together. From the time he was rehearsing the play to the conversations we had while financing was being raised for the film. Hours and hours of discovering a complex character together so we could bring him to life with respect and honesty.

    Watching the film I felt more of a connection to the character of Polly than Richard because we get to see more of him interacting either people. Was it a conscious decision to not fully explain Richard’s learning difficulties etc.

    A very conscious decision yes, the film is told largely from his perspective. The film is led by his moods, his attitudes, and just because he has certain learning difficulties I felt that it didn’t mean I had to make the film about them. If we had decided to explain them, I felt we would end up in a trap of making the film about them.

    The ending almost feels “Hollywood happy” – was the intention to finish on a high note?

    It was to end on hope, and I wanted that as first of all I didn’t want to put the audience through high emotions and have them exit the cinema feeling down! But second, and most importantly, I’m a hopeful person and I wanted the message of the film to be that no matter where you’re from or what you’ve been through, with a little help – sometimes from strangers – there is a way through and things can be better.

    How long did it take to shoot?

    4 weeks, it’s all we could afford! But you make it happen with what you have, and I had an amazing crew with which I wouldn’t have been able to do it without. No pick-ups or reshoots either, which I’m very proud of!

    How did you go about raising the budget to shoot the film?

    I asked all the places you would expect me to ask, and they all said no. So I spent months and months asking everyone I knew if they had anyone they knew who might be interested. Luckily a small handful (can count them on one hand!) stepped up and believed in me when no-one else did.

    How do you want the film to be perceived?

    As an emotional, well-made, little film that represents people not often represented in the media, and that it does it honestly and with respect. If people care about and remember these characters even just a little bit I will have done my job. Beyond that, industry speaking, I hope people can see that this is a little film that fought hard to be made and fought even harder to be seen, when the current state of the industry doesn’t work in favour of films like this.

    Chicken is released in UK cinemas on 20 May.

  • Review: A Hologram For The King

    Review: A Hologram For The King

    I like the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition for hologram: “a special kind of picture that is produced by a laser and that looks three-dimensional”. Alas Hologram For a King remains resolutely two dimensional. It is though a special kind of picture with a surreal opening dream sequence featuring Talking Heads “Once In A Lifetime” song and a refreshingly accurate portrayal of expatriate life in Saudi Arabia.

    The story is Alan Clay (Tom Hanks), a once prized salesman who sold an American company to China is now trying to sell holographic technology to the King of Saudi Arabia. He’s lost. Not only that: he’s lost it all to his ex wife, can’t pay for his child’s college education and ends up trying to cut out a lump after drinking some dodgy home brewed whisky with a unsterilsed knife. Then he finds himself plus a little extra, what we’re all searching for, LOVE. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. Yes, possibly but what is different about Hologram for a King is the observations of Saudi Arabia life for the expatriate community below the glossy veneer.

    A Hologram For A King is both adapted for screen and directed by Tom Tykwer. It based on the book by Dave Eggers and really captures the disaffection and disconnection many of the expats have in Saudi Arabia and the observations on the absurdity of the place – included is a scene of someone sweeping sand. The first part of the film is really not one that you could ever envisage Hollywood making and it works really well. There’s critical thought abound – businesses just wanting to make a quick buck and so selling industry off to China in order to make more profit for their shareholders but the loss at home and devastation to American communities. Then there is the commentary on class shown sublimely by the driver Yousef (Alexander Black) plus the boredom of expat life that leads to debauchery shown in scenes at an embassy party.

    This is the type of film that Hollywood would not make and counting the number of production company logos that flash up at the beginning investment was difficult to obtain. However, there is a cognitive dissonance between what the film is saying and what is shown clearly in the last third of the film when Alan Clay starts to fall in love with the female doctor (Sarita Choudhury). At that point I found myself humming silently “Once In A Lifetime” song that opens the film “how did I get here?” except I changed the ‘I’ pronoun ‘it’. Just how did it, the film, get here?

    Hologram for a King starts off looking like it will be a great movie and then doesn’t know what it is. Is it a film on social commentary, a story of a stranger in a strange place or the archetypal hero story? It is hard to engage when the film itself doesn’t know what it is.

    Hologram For A King is released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 20 May.

  • Dinner And A Movie With KinoVino

    Is there a way to top the dinner and a movie concept? The answer is Yes. KinoVino created by Alissa has put her stamp on it. Before you say oh my this is just an expensive meal and watching a classic movie. It isn’t. What makes KinoVino unique is that it is immersive without the gimmicks.

    BRWC was invited to experience KinoVino watching one of my all time favourite films Shirley Valentine and eating a meal inspired by the film. What cuisine could this be – Greek of course given Shirley leaves behind her drab life in Liverpool for the sunshine, beaches and bonking that was, possibly still is, the Greek islands of the 1980s. In the same way, a collection of people on a Saturday night in wet and cold East London turned up to the screening chased with welcome glasses of wine. The genius is that dinner is served afterwards. The magic is hidden behind a heavy red curtain that was pulled back to reveal Greece. Ok, olive branches and long communal tables but certainly stepping through the curtain felt like a portal of sorts.

    It was great because even alone I talked to people around me. Not only that it is a chance to talk about the film, life and marvel at the wonder of the food and reminisce about raucous holidays spent on one of the Greek isles.

    Dinner and a movie doesn’t have to equal date. It can also equal new friends, solo fun or even catching up on a classic film and really good food – stuff you may not have tried.

    It was refeshing, inventive and the eclectic crowd made it worth while. There was a seating plan aimed at getting people talking. The problem with cinema is you go in, stare at a scene and scuttle off afterwards without having the chance to discuss the film and your emotional response to it. This is the perfect event – and also some films you may have seen some you may not have. Click here to see the dates of the forthcoming events.

  • Review – Arabian Nights: Volume 1 – The Restless Ones

    Scheherazade told the King bedtime stories to save her neck. In Arabian Nights Volume 1 – The Restless One, Migel Gomes tells stories to show the destruction of his beloved Portugal over a period of a year to show the devastating effect the European austerity measures had on Portugal. It is an inventive, surreal, visceral and surprising use of visual storytelling. The question is will you beguiled enough to sit through just over 2 hours of it. Not only will you be beguiled, you’ll want more, never fear, there are two further volumes.

    This is the first in the trilogy of films from the writer and director Miguel Gomes. The writing was a collaborative one and when I interviewed Miguel he said all the stories in these films are all true, when you have watched the whole ensemble you question can that possibly be true but it is.

    The Arabian Nights trilogy and I think you have to talk about them as a whole concentrate on a one year period from 2013 to 2014 and were filmed in that same year. So the action happened and then a week later the writing team led by Gomes sat down to write down the storey ahead of filming. It was shot over the year so part social commentary, part observation and a call for action – the laid off ship workers, the plague of wasps wiping out beehives. There are so many metaphors and symbols – foreshadowing what is to come. For Miguel Gomes, Scheherazade is the ultimate storyteller and though he’s never finished the entire Arabian Nights he liked the format showing the truth but in a a cinematic format. The story of the cockerel, the capitalists and their hard ons and then the scene of the unemployed going on their New Year’s Day swim are all moving.

    Some of the stories told in Arabian Nights volume 1 are so visceral and all the more poignant given the social background. The absurd shown with the actual people not actors aside from the story of the men with hard-ons. It is Fernanda Loureiro who was taken to Court because her rooster was noisy and disturbed the peace of her neighbours that recounts the story in the story of the cockerel and the fire.Whose fault was it that Portugal found itself in this position: the government, individuals, the people or a mixture of the all of the former? Did people just not want to see the signs and hope they would disappear. Gomes leaves it to the viewer to form their own opinion.

    Just as the real Scheherazerade would stop in the middle of the stories so does Gomes – it leaves you wanting more of some of the stories and less of others. It is a clever concept. As I said this is a surreal, surprising and inventive piece of filmmaking and something that should be watched. I enjoyed some stories more than others but isn’t that the magic of the original 1001 nights not all the stories are engaging and some are there to jolt you to action. Volume 2 is my personal favourite out of the trilogy and you should try and see each one. There’s no right way or wrong way to watch these films but remember each chapter within that particular volume is a vignette not a completed story but a spotlight on a moment. Just as we in the UK consider Brexit on 23 June, this is a timely and interesting observation on the effect that Europe had on a country told by the ordinary people of that country.

    Arabian Nights – Volume 1 is released on 22 April across cinemas in UK.

  • Review: 11 Minutes #KINOTEKA2016

    Review: 11 Minutes #KINOTEKA2016

    11 Minutes written and directed by one of the titans of Polish cinema Jerzy Skolimowski and is 81 minutes long. Skolimowski who attended the opening night gala showing of his film said it was inspired by a very dark period in his life during which he suffered loss but wouldn’t be further drawn on that. You hear the adjectives bold, surprising and refreshing to describe the film and all of those would true.

    What is the film about? Well in his own words it tells the stories of 8 different people and somehow all these lives are affected by an event that also happens to be the culmination of the film. Before the screening Skolimowski recounted Roman Polanski’s reaction after seeing the film as follows:

    “When I watch the films in recent years I’ve always got the feeling 10 to 15 minutes into the film I know the plot. Seeing 11 minutes I had no fucking idea.”

    Polanski is right you don’t what the fuck is going on but you are transfixed. Strap yourself in and enjoy the emotional rollercoaster ride this films takes you on – you won’t be bored. One thing is true this film will make you want to live to the max as it reminds you life is short. It is gutsy piece of filmmaking displaying Skolimowski’s skill as a storyteller and director, in the wrong hands this could have turned into a jarring mess.

    11 Minutes opened the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival.
    The 14th Kinoteka Film Festival runs from 7 to 28 April 2016, full details click here