By Orla Smith.

From the very first frames of Limbo, director Will Blank asks you to look closer.

He holds on the sky just long enough for you to notice the shape of the clouds. His camera creeps towards a chipped billboard bearing the image of an old painting. The nearer we get, the more shapes emerge from the writhing mess of brown and grey paints.

With nothing but images of a desolate desert and the kind of art that could only have been created before any of us were born, you might think that Limbo is set in another time. That illusion is shattered when a mobile phone crashes against that billboard, cutting through the agitated sound of wind that soundtracks the film’s opening minute.

At only eight minutes, Limbo doesn’t feel clipped. It flows at its own strange pace, gracefully shifting in style and direction. The presence of that mobile phone feels like an intrusion, but it’s nothing compared to the jarring effect of hearing the film’s lead actor Raúl Castillo speak for the first time. His gravelly voice – reminiscent of Adam Driver’s – is a jolt, as a human presence takes over from the dominance of nature. He’s soon dwarfed by it again, as the camera pulls back and replaces him as a small and aimless figure against the enormity of the plains that stretch endlessly around him.

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Voiceover is used liberally, less as exposition and more to verbalise the stray thoughts of our protagonist, who remains nameless. The words we hear feel in line with a thought bubble in a comic strip – it was adapted from one, written by Marian Churchland. We follow the protagonist’s train of thought as it wanders to and fro, occasionally allowing us glimpses of what has led him here and what he has left behind.

The title Limbo might lead you to believe that he is stuck in an uncertain space between life and death, but upon further consideration of the film, it feels as if it is evoking a kind of limbo that may be more familiar to the living people watching it. We never find out the contents of the text message that compelled the protagonist to drive away from his life and hurl his phone away in spite, but  there’s no doubt that it contained the kind of information that sent him skewing off onto a different path. We’re afforded glimpses of the girlfriend he has left behind. If this is the story of the end of a relationship, his limbo is more akin to the one we all experience when looking for a way to move from one chapter of our lives to the next.

But the film has a final trick up its sleeve, in the form of a large, dying dog whose design contains just enough wise mysticism to make it easier to buy when he starts to speak, in the voice of Sam Elliott no less. The communication between the human and the dog is telepathic, but there’s enough expressiveness in the slow heaving of the dog’s struggling form to make sure there’s no doubt that this voice is connected to that body.

Limbo manages to be so expressive because it has the directorial confidence to focus on its most crucial details with microscopic scrutiny.

The sound design is masterful, zeroing in on tiny moments, like the folding of a burrito, or the slow opening of a heavy eyelid. Our protagonist remembers sitting in the kitchen, thinking about food and recalling the image of a teabag slowly seeping into water. All the while, his girlfriend wanders around the periphery of the frame.

It’s the loss of her that he laments, yet he can only think of times when she was there and he ignored her. It’s a film about regret and moving on, and maybe more still that I haven’t yet been able to parse from its flurry of sound and images. This one’s a thinker, worth experiencing and discussing, and worth letting live in your head for a while.

Limbo has the release date of 27th June 27.

Brandon (Jahking Guillory) dreams of owning a fresh pair of Nike Air Jordans, sure that they’ll elevate his social standing, make him a hit with the girls and make a meaningful impact on his life. Shortly after acquiring a pair they’re stolen from him and he’s beaten by a local hood. Brandon decides to do what it takes and ropes in his friends to help him get his trainers back.

With the central trio of friends (Guillory, Christopher Jordan Wallace and Christopher Meyer) evoking the likes of Riki Famuyiwa’s Dope by way of Larry Clark’s Kids and the Hughes Brothers’ Menace II Society, there is a strong thread of humour that laces these teenagers together. This levity is used sparingly and serves to both break the tension in more atmospheric beats and demonstrate the youthful vigour as the boys crack wise, talk about girls and talk themselves up.

The tougher moments come when their immaturity and lack of physical prowess puts them at odds with the more ruthless characters who’ll take what they want, violently and with no regard for human life. Brandon and his friends idolise the Hip-Hop aesthetic and the brash life that surrounds them but when faced with the remorseless viciousness of the hood it takes a toll on their friendship, making the young men question their principles. As refreshing as it was to see a hood portrayed with a strong paternal bond with his son, Kofe Siriboe wasn’t given enough to do as the hard case, Flaco.

2016 was a great year for Mahershala Ali. After an Oscar winning performance in Moonlight, and performances in Hidden Figures, Free State of Jones, Luke Cage and House of Cards, it is no surprise his turn in Kicks is one of the film’s highlights. Playing Brandon’s Uncle, he gives his nephew some valuable life lessons in that calm, measured tone, Jahking Guillory’s performance is at its best when these two share some of the tougher, more atmospheric moments together.

Visually, there’s a lot to absorb in Kicks. From the photography to the use of slow motion and the title cards which signal each new Hip-Hop track (signifying each new chapter), the design is engaging and perpetuates the tone and aesthetic. The use of spoken word lyrics lends itself to a more romantic view of childhood’s journey into adolescence which presses ahead to manhood when each new Hip-Hop track bursts forth. There’s one element that fails to work so well, and that’s the inclusion of a phantom astronaut (no, I’m not making that up), whose presence is briefly summed up in the final reel but the execution seems overly ponderous and is ill fitting with the rest of the movie.

Overall I admire what director Justin Tipping has done with Kicks. This is more than a boys-own story of grabbing the croc by the tail and holding on. While some of the poetic elements seem like an overreach I’m eager to see what this director and the stars deliver next.

Baby, a young getaway driver with a penchant for super-loud soundtracks to drown out his tinnitus falls in love with the girl of his dreams. Seeing a way out of his criminal life, Baby must face the music and make deadly decisions on one final ill-fated heist.

Taking cues from the likes of Gone in 60 Seconds, Bullit, The Getaway, The French Connection and The Driver, Edgar Wright imbues his first non-comedic feature with high octane gusto and an endearing romantic streak. The premise is straight forward and tonally we start off with the hallmark, lighter traits and visual nuances of Wright, which steadily metamorphose into a darker, thriller’esque tone in the final reels. Opening with Baby’s penultimate job, we are made aware of the director’s influences in the most bombastic and rambunctious way possible.

The use of diegetic music and the action’s rhythmical elements warming us to the notion that this is a good kid doing bad things for the right reasons.

The fact that Ansel Elgort (Baby) has no trouble holding his own against the likes of Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx says a great deal about how right he is to be the central force in this film. Coming across like Risky Business’ Tom Cruise by way of ’77 Han Solo, the character of Baby is charming and charismatic. He’s the antithesis of the gruff, man’s man, machismo-fuelled architype of the 1970s but retains the silent, enigmatic allure of the period. Lily James’ Debora works harmoniously with Elgort’s Baby and the two share a wonderful energy but I was hoping for a more rounded out character for James to sink her teeth into.

If I were to nit-pick I’d say the film tends to hit the breaks in the romance-oriented scenes as Wright is far better suited to car chases and gunplay than he is the lovey dovry stuff.

Baby Driver is at its best when the pedal hits the metal and the soundtrack is blasted at its loudest. Taking on an almost Musical quality during the action set-pieces, this is the second film this year that demonstrates the impactful, destructive cacophony of gunfire. The fact that both Baby Driver and Free Fire feature an arms deal gone awry adds a wonderful kinship between these two outstanding throwbacks to 70s action cinema. The blend of humour, romance and violence is deftly handled and you get the impression that Baby Driver acts as Wrights first foray into more “serious” features. After the pulse pounding conclusion ramps up the tension I wouldn’t be averse to seeing Edgar Wright handle a straight horror/ thriller. Between the killer soundtrack, the assured tone and the balls to the wall action, Baby Driver is one of the more thrilling films of 2017 so far.

Baby Driver is released in theatres 28^th June.

By Last Caress.

Cesare (Luca Marinelli) and Vittorio (Alessandro Borghi) are a pair of twentysomething best friends, dancing, dealing, snorting and brawling their way around the Tyrrhenian coast of Rome in the late 1990s. Most of what they do or what they want to do involves scoring drugs, taking drugs, dealing drugs, and scoring some more drugs. Eat, sleep, rave, repeat. I mean, they’re fairly bloody violent for a couple of pillheads but, well, maybe that’s all the coke they hoover up like a pair of G-Tech Air Rams. I dunno. Anyway, this is their life, this has been their life and this, it would appear, will be their life for the foreseeable. They, and everybody they know, bicker and snap at one another ceaselessly, like velociraptors – when they’re not popping pills, snorting coke or hallucinating busloads of carny folk and mermaids, of course.

Then, Vittorio meets Linda (Roberta Mattei) and, as is so often the way with these things, everything changes. He gets a job – a real one, on a building site, as opposed to the street-level drug peddling he was doing previously – he lays off of the drugs and, subsequently, begins to drift from Cesare who, coincidentally, is becoming more chemically dependent as time moves on. Both miss their friend, but will Vittorio pull Cesare out of the murk into which he’s sinking and into the light, or will Cesare bring Vittorio down with him?

Writer/director Claudio Caligari was 67 when he made Non essere cattivo (aka Don’t Be Bad) in 2015 and, sadly, he died mere days after completing the editing process on the picture. He was not the most prolific of filmmakers; Non essere cattivo was only his third movie in 32 years having made Amore tossico (aka Toxic Love) in 1983 and L’odore della notte (aka The Scent of the Night) fifteen years later in 1998. Still, he remained theatrically consistent, with each of his movies depicting different elements of the underbelly of Rome. Toxic Love was about heroin addicts and their trials and tribulations on the streets of Italy’s capital from the center to the shores of Ostia (wherein Non essere cattivo is also largely set), and The Scent of the Night focused on a Roman cop turned fully to a life of crime.

Both of those movies were set in the decades in which they were made and, in this regard, Non essere cattivo differs slightly in that it’s a 21st century pic set in the 1990s, making it a period piece of sorts. It certainly feels as though Mr. Caligari was attempting almost to filter the redemptive facets of Brian De Palma’s Carlito’s Way (1993) through the kinetic lens of Danny Boyle’s smack-tacular Trainspotting (1996), although Non essere cattivo – selected as the Italian entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2015 Oscars, although it ultimately didn’t make the cut – doesn’t come close to scaling the dramatic heights of either of those hedonistic monoliths. That doesn’t make it a bad film, of course; it’s an expertly-crafted piece featuring engaging performances across the board but particularly from Messrs. Marinelli and Borghi in the lead roles and, provided you have a great affinity for urban drug-fuelled lowlife crime capers, you’re going to find much to enjoy here. But, if you don’t, Non essere cattivo breaks no new ground in that area and will likely not be a movie for you.

Non essere cattivo is widely available on various VOD services now.

How do you rebuild from nothing? How do you carry on when there is no place to go on to? These are the questions asked in DESTINATION UNKNOWN, a sobering documentary about twelve Holocaust survivors. The documentary tells their story (in their words exclusively) from childhood – to liberation. This was the only question Llion Roberts, the producer, asked the survivors in their interviews. Their answers narrate and shape the entire documentary, creating an immersive, intense atmosphere as we revisit the horrors of the past through the victims’ eyes.

I had the chance to interview Dir. Claire Ferguson and Prod. Llion Roberts about the film.

In our interview, Claire and Llion both recollected poignant moments during filming that provided a rich and insightful backdrop to the film. Roberts first felt the spark to tell this story when he was at Auschwitz-Birkenau and was observing portraits on the wall, after visiting the snow covered barracks. He saw a 13 year old girl on the wall, named Kristina, that was the spitting image of his daughter, who was also 13 at the time. This flash of humanity and connection is a common theme throughout the documentary – it is the only hope the story gives us.

Stanley, one of the survivors, was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau and by chance, the sommerkommander (a Jew forced to work with the Nazis to run the camp) knew him. He told him he had buried his mother’s and sisters’ ashes outside Crematorium 2: when Roberts was able to show Stanley the exact spot, he broke down and wept (along with the camera crew).

This did not make it in to the film: imagine what has.

Ferguson stated that she did not want the film to be retrospective. She wanted it to be happening to the viewer, just as it happens to the victims every single day: they remember, they live with it. Small details the interviewees recall: a bird flying away outside the attic he was hiding in (“the bird is free, and we humans are not free”), moments that they unsure why they even remember (“Schindler used to stroke my head, and tell me I would be free: to remember the Jews in Egypt”)  – it all serves to create a very intense and confronting experience – one that is not to be missed.

DESTINATION UNKNOWN is in cinemas 16^th June.