By Alex Purnell. In the 21st Century, the refugee crisis has caused a chasm of debate, a humanitarian disaster is underway as asylum seekers escape their war-torn homes in search of safety and security. However, once these refugees manage to find new pastures, they are posed with the problem of gaining legality within their new homes and the constant threat of those who are angry with their presence.
Ghabe is a weighty love-story set in the lush greenery of Sweden’s coniferous forests, as a young Syrian refugee, Monir (Adel Darwish) and his uncle Farid (Ahmed Fadel) are getting used to their new surroundings whilst the Swedish Immigration Board decide if the two are eligible to be granted a residence permit. The problem arises when an altercation between Monir and some locals jeopardises his chances of legality.
Ghabe’s underlying message of acceptance is in a world of hate beautifully compelling, Monir’s painful past is hidden behind a thick wall of evergreen forest, a symbol of the young-mans uncertain future. The film seems to fit in this state of purgatory for its characters, their worries seem trivial as they evade the locals, fearing the unknown.
It’s not until Monir encounters a young Swedish woman you see him open up. As a romance between the two rapidly develops, the young refugee reveals his past, and as his new love, Moa (Nathalié Williamsdotter) seemingly assimilates within Manir’s refugee household. Alas, Moa’s xenophobic family reveals the true underbelly of this hard-hitting drama, the problematic and racist stereotypes of the ‘other’.
Visually breath-taking, its late-summer forest colour scheme and intricately crafted shots make this film a feast for the eyes, companioned with a haunting albeit optimistic classical soundtrack, Ghabe delivers an audio-visual theme which complements its serious and urgent tone perfectly. Simply put, this film looks and sounds incredible.
An emotional trek through the turbulent mind of a young refugee, Ghabe is beautifully heartfelt yet devastating. It’s a poignant yet important feature which maturely and tastefully deals with one of the most important yet complex problems of our time.
I remember seeing ‘Lilo & Stitch’ when I was 11. I went to see it at the Odeon cinema with my cousin, and it was the first time I had gone to the cinema with someone other than my parents. Not only is this a vivid memory that I have, but it also revolves around a film that I love.
‘Lilo & Stitch’ was released on the 4th October 2002 and follows sisters Lilo and Nani who live in Hawaii. After an alien experiment crash lands near them, younger sister Lilo adopts it, mistaking it for a dog. The alien, whom she names Stitch, starts as a mischievous and chaotic creature, but soon learns what it means to have a family and to be loved.
Despite Disney labelling this as a classic, this can still be viewed as underrated. This isn’t a film that comes up a lot when people think of a Disney film, which is a shame. The way that this film deals with family loss and what it means to be a family is beautiful. Lilo’s older sister Nani is suddenly pushed into the role of a parent when they lose their biological parents, and the film displays how she deals with this situation in a caring and sensitive way. However, they are siblings, so they also have their fights and arguments. And, when Lilo adopts Stitch, she immediately accepts him as part of the family because she wants a friend.
Stitch’s journey from a mischievous creature who was created to destroy everything, to a loving and caring family member is also charming and, at times, emotional. Because he was created in a laboratory, he’s never known love or kindness; it’s a foreign thing to him. But, through Lilo’s ongoing love and trust in him, he learns what it means to be part of a family.
That doesn’t mean this film is without its humour. The film has a lot of slapstick and visual jokes, mainly coming from Stitch as he tries to understand this new world around him, and it’s fantastic. The scene where he creates a model of San Francisco from anything he finds in Lilo’s room, only to subsequently destroy it will always get a chuckle out of me. That, and when Lilo discovers that if she places Stitch’s finger on their record player and opens his mouth, he essentially becomes a speaker (a scene that was used in the trailer). The film is perfectly balanced between its humour and the more serious side of their living situation.
Overall, at 18 years old, ‘Lilo & Stitch’ is still an underrated Disney film that deserves more attention. It’s not only funny but also has great animation and tells us that a family can be anyone whom we feel close to; in this case, Stitch. Like Lilo says in the film ‘Ohana means Family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten’.
Reuniting the talents of star Mads Mikkelsen and director Thomas Vinterberg (their 2012 film The Hunt resonates as a haunting portrait of mob mentality), Another Round takes our preconceived notions towards addiction dramas and cleverly subverts them at every turn. Instead of mawkishly loathing in a sense of dread, this Danish film registers one of the most authentic portrayals of substance abuse seen onscreen.
Another Round follows Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), a dull teacher stuck in the doldrums of a midlife crisis. His wife can barely stand him, he has a distant dynamic to his kids, and his lengthy lectures fail to incite much interest from his students. While attending a birthday dinner with his teacher friends (played respectively by Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars Ranthe, and Magnus Millang), the group decide to embrace a new pact: to consume enough alcohol to operate daily at .05 BAC.
The initial results display newfound confidence for the four, while also reflecting the inherent dangers behind their newfound lifestyle. This description may leave some blueprinting the upcoming narrative beats, yet Vinterberg never settles for simplistic truths. The character’s journey isn’t a steady rise and fall, rather blending the liberation and stunted inhibitions that booze imbues into their mindsets.
Few addiction dramas understand the conjoined reality of these extreme tonalities, with Vinterberg exhibiting a rare portrait that packs an authentic punch. While the second half offers a few searing dramatic frames, much of Another Round indulges in a deftly humorous sensibility, often having fun with the character’s extreme dedication to their pact. All of this set-up builds up to a masterfully unhinged finale, one that leaves an unforgettable impression with its creative verve.
It helps that Another Round‘s material is elevated by a superb cast. I can’t hide my deeply-seated admiration for Mads Mikkelsen, an actor who continues to evolve while rarely getting the credit he deserves (his performances in The Hunt and the video game Death Strandingrank as some of the best in recent memory). Here, Mads refreshingly plays against type as a nebbish school teacher, portraying middle age milieu with the kind of depth and subdued emotionality he always imbues into his characters. Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars Ranthe, and Magnus Millang are equally as assured in their performances, selling the quartet’s strong comradery while handling the film’s delicate tonal balance.
I can’t say enough positive remarks about Another Round, an equally intoxicating and affecting portrait that boasts honest truths at every turn. Whenever Vinterberg and Mikkelsen decide to team up again, I will be first in line to support them.
Thomas Vinterberg’s ANOTHER ROUND, starring Mads Mikkelsen, will now be released in cinemas the following week on Friday 27th November.
A few years ago, I watched a movie with my cousin and her family about a serial killer who had a thing for children. The killings were mostly happening off-screen, and a lot of it was ambiguous. As the movie progressed, my niece kept asking questions about the film. Questions like what exactly is happening with ‘that uncle’ and the children or where do they go off to etc. To my utter surprise, my cousin was explaining everything in detail to her in an extremely patient and objective way. After the movie got over, I couldn’t help it and ask, “Was that necessary?”. To that she just said, “Of course it is. She needs to understand and be aware of what is going on.”
Cuties is getting a lot of flak for how the protagonists were portrayed and objectified on screen. A lot of it has to do with its unfortunately erroneous marketing campaign. The uneasiness also gets amplified when you realize how young these girls are.
The main character of Cuties is Amy, a Senegalese Muslim, living with her mother and brother in Paris. Her family is waiting in gloom for her father’s impending second wedding while her mother is secretly crumbling, trying to maintain a semblance of outward dignity about the situation. Fascinated by a group of schoolmates who have been practicing privately for a local dance competition, she desperately longs to be part of their gang.
Inspired by the suggestive twerking videos they see online, they misguidedly believe that they should emulate those routines to grab eyeballs and possibly go all the way in the competition. As Amy is slowly succumbing to peer pressure and desperation, she steals a phone to secretly practice the video routines. When the owner catches her with the stolen phone, she takes a compromising picture of herself and posts it online, believing it would get him into trouble. As expected, instead of having the required effect, it makes her a social pariah and gets blocked by not just her friends but also her entire school. All this leads to a mighty explosive climax that shouldn’t be spoiled here.
There is a certain innocence in these children when you see them gawking at the school cuties and even with their awkward attempts at flirting with their much older schoolmates as that’s what they believe they should be doing. They also vaguely know what they do might get them into trouble but are so influenced by what they saw online that they think it is acceptable behavior. Maïmouna Doucouré, the director, also makes it pretty clear of that fact. That maybe it WAS the idea, and we are supposed to be uncomfortable at what we are seeing. Not just what they do on screen. But also why and what influenced them to do it.
At one point, the girls ostracize Amy for posting that dirty picture, as they fear they would be labeled sluts if they continue to hang out with her. It does not even occur that somebody might judge them for all they have been doing so far already.
It causes a throwback memory of all those childhood birthday parties, where one kid inevitably dresses up, and how many parents reacts to it. The child may be living the princess dream and having the time of her life. But she doesn’t realize some of the adults around her have already possibly started to judge her.
Fathia Youssouf is a gem as Amy, and it is hard not to be moved by her incredible performance. From the moment she first comes on screen, to her fascination and longing gazes at the gang’s antics and her awestruck reaction at her neighbors’ using an iron to straighten her hair and her trying to do the same with disastrous results.
In a stunning sequence that shows her state of mind, her mother and omnipresent, all-knowing matriarchal aunt conducts a purge on her to quash her rebellion. In an ultimate act of defiance, the way her dervish dance morphs into an involuntarily twerking dance routine that she has been practicing so hard is an image that sears into your head and stays there for a very long time.
Médina El Aidi-Azouni playing her sympathetic friend Angelique, the group’s de facto leader, also portrays her character with remarkable aplomb. I also genuinely appreciate the bond Amy shared with her mother, played by Maïmouna Gueye. When they finally come to terms with each other and their decisions, it feels earned and not shoehorned for the climax’s sake.
The fact that the movie is making people uneasy is not that surprising. Some scenes in the film genuinely make your skin crawl. But you realize that part of the discomfort you feel watching Cuties also comes from the fact that the kids do not wholly comprehend the consequences their actions may have. It is a movie that needs to be understood and watched, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel.
Last night I was lucky enough to attend the virtual premiere of horror studio Blumhouse’s latest venture, a web-series entitled Welcome to the Blumhouse. Comprised of four made for streaming films, Welcome to the Blumhouse is pitched as an anthology show that brings Blumhouse’s now recognizable formula of creative led mid-budget scares to Amazon Prime viewers. The virtual live event was made up of two films, Veena Sud’s The Lie, about a husband and wife who find themselves caught in a web of crime and deceit when they try to cover for their daughter’s illegal activities, and Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour’s Black Box, a Black Mirror-esque thriller about a man who undergoes and experimental memory treatment after losing his memory in a car accident.
Frustratingly, I could only choose one of the two films to watch, and the 2am showtime meant that one film, coupled with the intriguingly billed “interactive after party experience” meant that one film was probably all I could really handle. After some research I decided to go with Black Box (The Lie has been knocking about now since 2018, and that set off warning signs for me) and so, after a brief kip, I settled in to enjoy the show.
As a film, Black Box feels derivative. It’s not that it’s particularly bad, indeed most of the concepts are genuinely engaging and the film even finds time to introduce a genuinely creepy and unsettling monster, but it treads on well-worn ground. From the aforementioned Black Mirror all the way through to Paul Verhoeven’s Arnie vehicle Total Recall, there are a lot of recognizable tropes and ideas floating about. Certain elements even bore a surprising resemblance to Jordan Peele’s now iconic Get Out, itself a Blumhouse production.
The biggest issue I had with Black Box, though, was that the central premise simply didn’t feel like enough to sustain the runtime. By the mid-point the inevitable twist had become so glaringly obvious that the remainder of the film was spent waiting for my predictions to be proven true – and they were.
The cast were all doing their jobs well, with special mention to both leading man Mamaudou Athie, who manages to not only deliver an interesting and layered central performance, but manages to do so twice, and to Amanda Christine, who plays our lead’s daughter, Ana, and steals every scene she’s in with seemingly little effort, despite her young age.
Ultimately, though, the film falls flat in its delivery. It looks fine for a direct-to-streaming production but lacks the cinematic quality of Blumhouse’s big screen releases, like Peele’s Get Out or this year’s The Invisible Man, and the script feels rough and unfinished. As if the ideas were almost there, but another pass or two could have elevated them above where they currently are. The fact that it also carries so much similarity to the likes of Black Mirror or Get Out doesn’t help, either, and while Black Mirror itself has fallen from grace in more recent years, meaning that Black Box would likely not seem out of place amongst that show’s newer output, as an introductory instalment of its own anthology, there’s little here to suggest that Welcome to the Blumhouse will be offering anything other than four movies the studio deemed not good enough for cinema.
It’s worth noting, though, that the film seemed to go down a storm in the online chat, and many of the other attendees of the virtual premiere seemed to genuinely enjoy the story and be genuinely surprised by its various twists and turns. Take from that what you will.
In the end, though, the real highlight of the night was the convoluted but incredibly fun “interactive after party” which saw guests navigate their way around the titular “Blumhouse” in an effort to solve the disappearance of a young girl. Actors live streaming video in each of the houses’ various rooms would respond to questions from the guests in the chat box and drop subtle hints and clues to the victims’ whereabouts. Annoyingly, I was timed out before my computer was able to load the final sequence, which took place in the Attic, and at 5.30 in the morning I was ready for bed, so I don’t actually know how it all ended. But I had fun.
Blumhouse as a studio have positioned themselves as the sort of modern-day Hammer equivalent, delivering popular, audience pleasing, ghost train movies that work on a blend of small budgets and interesting characters. If they are indeed the modern-day Hammer, then Welcome to the Blumhouse would presumably be the modern day Hammer House of Horror, and in this regard the comparison is rather apt. Unable to hit the heights of the best big screen outings, but a lot better than some of their lesser products, it’s an interesting, but familiar experience that will please existing fans but likely won’t win over anyone new.
