Category: REVIEWS

When a celebration turns sour, a new freedom is discovered as jilted lover Leyla (Goknur Danishik) is taken on a journey and finally discovers who she really is.

Brought to you by Turkish director Tofiq Rzayev and Angry Student Films, In a Time for Sleep is a powerful short focusing on the discovery of self and the hard-hitting events that can lead to self-discovery. In a Time for Sleep is well directed feature, delivering gorgeous shots of the Turkish coast and beautiful editing with smooth and effective transitions. There’s no doubt that Rzayev has put his heart and soul into this film and the subject matter is something close to his heart, but, still, this short lacks a sense of oomph and deliverance. It’s hard to distinguish exactly where the short falls down, but it’s quality surprisingly freefalls toward the end and I was left unsure as to what the self-discovery, which clearly happens, actually was. I knew it happened, I saw it happen, but I had no idea what exactly was realised and that left me puzzled. With exciting build up, a mysterious entrant (Elif Barut) In a Time for Sleep had everything going it’s way, but seem to lose it very quickly. I also found it hard to believe anyone could fall in love with the villain of this piece Arda (Mehmet Fatih Guven), credit goes to Guven for creating such a miserable character, but the motivation and interest of two female characters was…hard to imagine.

Perhaps I just didn’t understand thew motivation, and perhaps I can’t, as pampered as I am. Either way Rzayev and his whole production team have created something worthwhile here. In a Time for Sleep for it’s 15 minutes is worth a watch. I’m excited to see the next production from this team and interested in their future growth. I wouldn’t call this the final product, but I’m hopeful of a lot more in the future!

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.

By Last Caress.

Adonis and Aphrodite, from the gleefully disturbed mind of David Chaudoir, is a hand grenade in monologue, a cautionary Jackanory for anyone who ever wondered whether the humdrum stupor of their middle class, middle aged suburban stasis might be enlivened by having impulsive group sex with the neighbours. And, well, haven’t we all wondered that? I’m wondering it right now, and I live next to a chicken shed.

Mike and his wife live in a pleasant, quiet middle-class suburb in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. They’ve got new next-door neighbours, referenced throughout by the names emblazoned in etched marble on the front of the house: ADONIS AND APHRODITE. She’s a Greek Goddess, he’s… well, Greek (“That’s not racist, is it?” wonders Mike’s wife). The suspicion amongst the neighbourhood is that they’re nouveau riche; lottery winners, maybe. A Bentley here, a Ferrari there. Lots of building work being done to the property, some of it sumptuous, some of it too sumptuous. Be that as it may, our new Greek neighbours invite the rest of the street to a lavish party. Mike and his wife have a whale of a time but the most significant event of the evening occurs at the very end, as Mike and his wife announce their farewells. Aphrodite kisses Mike’s wife passionately, exciting her in ways she’d never previously experienced. Adonis gropes and fondles her behind, exciting Mike in ways he’d never previously experienced. Back at home, Mike and his wife have passionate sex. Twice.

The next day, Adonis and Aphrodite show up at Mike’s doorstep, and whisk him and his wife away for a meal at a well-heeled hotel. They take a room there. So begins the swinging.

Okay, you can have that one. The swinging. That’s the first sharp left narrative turn taken by Adonis and Aphrodite but it’s not the last, and the others I shall not divulge. But be assured, this tale spins off of its axis again, and again, and again (and if you’re already aware that writer/director David Chaudoir, who also made the phenomenal Bad Acid, has a penchant for blackly humorous horror, you may be able to guess at which direction the tone of the picture may take at some point). Not bad at all for a twelve-minute short movie which isn’t really a movie at all in the traditional sense, but an Alan Bennett-style Talking Heads monologue delivered entirely from inside a greenhouse by Mike’s unnamed wife, played sublimely and with a misdirecting homespun Yorkshire warmth by Madeleine Bowyer, whom Mr. Chaudoir had specifically in mind as he crafted Adonis and Aphrodite, and one can see why. She is tremendous.

It’s high time now that David Chaudoir was afforded the opportunity to craft a full-length feature. Having now been delighted by both Bad Acid and Adonis and Aphrodite, I have no doubt it would be vaguely Lovecraftian in its content and uniquely British in its delivery, unabashedly retro-cool and laced with ink-black humour throughout. Can’t wait.