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    MOSTLY BRITISH FILM FESTIVAL San Francisco



    12-22 February 2015

    The San Francisco Mostly British Film Festival runs at the historic Vogue Theater. Below are the festival blurbs. I've provided reviews of a few of the 23 films.



    For Filmleaf General Film Forum thread for the festival go here.

    Links to reviews:

    '71 (Yann Demange 2014)
    I, Anna (Barnaby Soutncombe 2012)
    Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn (Thomas Hamilton 2014)
    Queen and Country (John Boorman 2014)
    Riot Club, The (Lone Scherfig 2014)
    Starred Up (David Mackenzie 2014)
    Still Life (Uberto Pasolin 2013)
    Turning, The (Jonathan auf der Heide, Tony Ayres, et al. 2013)


    List of the Films:

    ’71
    A young British soldier is accidentally abandoned by his unit following a terrifying riot on the streets of Belfast in 1971. The soldier must find his way to safety through a hostile, unfamiliar landscape where it is difficult to distinguish friend from foe.
    7:00PM
    THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2015

    STARRED UP
    Jack O’Connell (“Unbroken” and ‘71”) had his breakthrough role in this powerful prison drama that pits father against son. He stars as an explosively violent teenager transferred from a young offender’s institution to an adult prison.
    9:00PM
    THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2015

    THE ANIMAL CONDITION
    This thoughtful documentary looks at three and a half years in recent Australia history when animal welfare grew from a fringe concern to a national focal point. Four young people take an investigative road trip through Australia, speaking to indigenous people along the way.
    5:00PM
    FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015


    I, ANNA

    This moody, downbeat noir stars Charlotte Rampling as the title character, a lonely and seductive divorcee who participates in speed-dating and takes strangers home with her. A debut feature from Rampling’s son, Barnaby Southcombe, the film co-stars Gabriel Byrne as a police inspector.
    7:00PM
    FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015

    OUR MAN IN HAVANA
    This sly black comedy boasts a screenplay by Graham Greene (based on his novel) and direction by Carol Reed. Alec Guinness plays James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana.
    9:00PM
    FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015

    EVERGREEN
    Jessie Matthews was England’s Ginger Rogers–except she didn’t need Fred to complete her. Matthews danced and sang in her distinctive warbling voice through numerous British musicals of the 1930s. To get more of a feeling for what made her such a success.
    11:00AM
    SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015

    FIRST A GIRL
    Jessie Matthews plays an ingénue getting nowhere with her musical stage ambitions. Through a complicated plot twist, she appears onstage as a man posing as a woman. This story inspired “Victor Victoria” starring Julie Andrews as the cross-dresser. UK 1935 …
    1:00PM
    SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015

    HOPE AND GLORY
    With the Oscars just a few days away Mostly British pays tribute to a wondrous British film that was nominated for five Academy Awards in 1987, including Best Picture. “Hope and Glory” is based on director John Boorman’s experiences growing up.
    3:00PM
    SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015

    WINNIE MANDELA
    During Nelson Mandela’s incarceration, his wife Winnie assumed his mantle, becoming known as the mother of South Africa. A new biopic about this remarkable woman, played by Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson (“Dreamgirls”), traces her rural roots through to her meeting Mandela (a regal Terrence Howard).
    5:30PM
    SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015

    LESLIE HOWARD: THE MAN WHO GAVE A DAMN
    Director Thomas Hamilton will introduce the film and afterwards discuss it with the audience in conversation with Ruthe Stein. This fascinating documentary will be shown for the first time in the United States at the Mostly British Film Festival.
    7:30PM
    SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015

    HUMAN TRAFFIC
    A cult film among young people in the UK, it tells the story of five friends who spend Friday night getting wasted in Cardiff, trying — without much luck — to escape their workday hang-ups and frustrations.
    10:00PM
    SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015

    THE BATTLES OF CORONEL AND FALKLAND ISLANDS
    This amazing British film of the silent era commemorates two decisive naval battles fought by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WWI. It is an awe-inspiring reconstruction of naval warfare using British Admiralty battleships, shot mostly near Malta and the isles of Sicily.
    11:00AM
    SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2015

    A FIELD OF BLOOD
    One unfortunate effect of Internet- dominated journalism is the demise of the old-fashioned newpaper movie, from “My Girl Friday” to “All the President’s Men.” Now along comes a series in their spirit set in the early 1980s.
    1:15PM
    SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2015

    LOVE MARRIAGE IN KABUL
    This powerful documentary follows an Australian-Afghan woman Mahboba Rawi who runs a charitable foundation, Mahboba’s Promise, to support and educate orphans and widows across Afghanistan. The film focuses on her quest to unite Abdul, a boy brought up in one of her orphanages, and Fatemeh, the girl he loves who lives next door. It is no easy task.
    3:30PM
    SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2015

    CHARLIE’S COUNTRY
    Aboriginal elder Charlie (David Gulpilil) becomes disillusioned with modern community life and heads off into the bush to try living like his ancestors. After things don’t go well, Charlie assesses his life to find new ways to cope. Gulpilil (“Rabbit-Proof Fence” “Crocodile Dundee,” more.
    5:15PM
    SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2015

    THE TURNING
    180 mins. This film with its interlocking episodes resembles Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts,” based on Raymond Carver short stories. “The Turning” is an adaptation of 17 interlinking stories by bestselling Australian author Tim Winton. The cast is a who’s who of Aussie actors.
    7:30PM
    SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2015

    GOLD
    This bittersweet, quirky comedy is about an estranged father who returns to his hometown after an absence of twelve years in order to re-connect with his daughter and ex-wife and fulfill a request of his dying father.
    5:00PM
    MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015

    JIMMY’S HALL
    Set during the tumultuous aftermath of Ireland’s 1922 Civil War, this is the true story of charismatic Irish Communist leader Jimmy Gralton, who dared to build a community hall in County Leitrim. The Catholic Church and political leaders were appalled.
    7:00PM
    MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015

    STANDBY
    This sweet- natured romantic comedy looks at what happens when an ex suddenly pops back into your life. At the Dublin airport, a distraught woman (Mad Men’s Jessica Paré) appears at a counter pleading for a flight home.
    9:15PM
    MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015

    STILL LIFE
    Eddie Marsan (“Happy-Go-Lucky” and “Ray Donovan”) stars in this haunting drama as a council social worker whose job is to find the next-of-kin when someone dies alone.
    TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015

    MY ACCOMPLICE
    This special romantic comedy, set among the piers and promenades of Brighton, focuses on the relationship between a good-natured young Scot, a caretaker for adults with special needs, and an artistically-inclined immigrant from East Germany, working at a bakery.
    7:00PM
    TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015

    BONOBO
    A mother is appalled when her daughter leaves law school to live in a commune of hippie misfits who in accordance with the behavior principles of the Bonobo monkey, a species for its “make love not war” philosophy.
    9:00PM
    TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015

    EVERYDAY
    The prolific British director Michael Winterbottom (“24 Hour Party People” and “Jude”) shot “Everyday” over five years in the style of Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood”, following one family and their struggle to survive when the father is imprisoned for smuggling drugs.
    5:00PM
    WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2015

    Reviews follow:
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 02-27-2015 at 03:27 PM.

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    '71 (Yann Demange 2014)

    YANN DEMANGE: '71 (2014)



    Demange's incredible Irish Troubles film gives new meaning to the phrase, "caught in the crossfire"

    Yann Demange's incredibly intense Troubles film gives us twenty-four hours in the life of English squad member Gary Hook (Jack O'Connell), suddenly stationed in Belfast (he thought he was going to be sent to Germany) and thrown into a violet, Intifada-like fray his green, patrician commanding officer and sergeant are not prepared for. A teenaged orphan with a kid brother (Harry Verity) whom we meet at the outset, Hook finds himself on the run and wounded after a comrade is killed by his side in a street clash and his unit bolts, accidentally abandoning him. He is rescued and treated by Irish allies. But he's in hostile territory -- everyone is. This non-stop historical action movie is an authentic recreation of a hot, lethal slice of the Troubles. It doesn't break things down or make them easy for us (some subtitles might have helped). From the Ulster Protestant side are the Unionists and loyalists, and on the mostly Catholic side are the Irish nationalists and republicans, and there are the Privisional IRA, and those originally on their side who have turned against them because of their brutality. And to complicate matters there are the undercover Brits of the MRF, whose officers regard themselves as outranking the English soldiers. Caught in between, Hook is told he is "just meat" -- to his government, to the Army, and to his Irish enemies.

    An initial chase scene with Hook running break-neck along back alleys and in tiny spaces behind tight houses pursued by two enemies is breathtaking, intense filmmaking. The sense of Hook's abandonment as he sits panting in a tiny space is real and vivid. From there on the film settles down into some of the machinations and mood of James Marsh's 2012 Shadow Dancer, which deals with the Troubles but in the Nineties. Except where Marsh's film stagnates at times, Damange's maintains a world-class actioner clip that never cease to impress you, grip you, and horrify you as you watch, always with the spotlight on Gary Hook to keep the action centered, despite its constant ambiguity and danger. No film has better shown how dangerous Northern Ireland at this period was or how bitter and lethal the hostilities among people were.

    And the hostility even includes those ostensibly setting out to save Hook, because there is dissension between the regular army and the intelligence officers who consider themselves and their undefined mission more important than Hook or his comrades. And what betrayals lie in wait on the Irish side? In fact while the physical suffering and danger are clearly defined, the politics and the loyalties remain lurking and ambiguous, all this amplified for an American viewer by the sometimes hard-to-decipher accents. For its sense of everything gone wrong, of war as no good for anybody (a point written into the dialogue but succinctly enough to avoid didacticism), the succinctly named '71 almost deserves comparison with a stunning anti-war film like Bernhard Wicki's 1959 The Bridge/Die Brücke ("In 1945, Germany is being overrun, and nobody is left to fight but teenagers"), which also has a long devastating action sequence.

    Yann Damange is a French-born filmaker in England who has worked largely in TV, gaining admiration and awards. In 2011 he was directing the flavorful BBC drama miniseries "Top Boy" about inner-city London estate teenagers involved in risky drug dealing. '71, his first feature, has mostly gotten deserved raves; it establishes its director as a master of understated technique and muscular, riveting action. He falters in a few lesser respects. Some might think a final shootout far-fetched or overly drawn-out; and the concluding moments are a nice enough calm-down but fairly routine. But these are minor quibbles. In his Variety review Guy Lodge describes Jack McConnell as a "rapidly rising star," and indeed intense as his role is here, one easily imagines him capable of more. He is also seen in the much-talked-about new prison drama Starred Up (which I have not seen). Guy Lodge compares this film with Paul Greengrass' benchmark 2002 docudrama of the Troubles set in '72, Bloody Sunday, which indeed it brings to mind. Tat Radcliffe’s fine widescreen cinematography shifts from 16mm. for daytime and digital for razor sharp night images. All the tech aspects are aces as are all the performances. See for yourself; this is a film not to be missed.

    '71 debuted at Berlin, and showed at Telluride and Toronto. It was screened for this review as part of the 52nd New York Film Festival, where its excellence clearly merited its inclusion in the Main Slate. It opens theatrically in the UK 10 October and in France 5 November 2014. Roadside Attractions owns its US distribution rights.

    To be shown in the San Francisco Mostly British Festival at the Vogue Theatre at 7 pm Thursday, 12 February 2015.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-26-2015 at 11:41 PM.

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    STARRED UP (David Mackenzie 2014)

    DAVID MACKENZIE: STARRED UP (2014)


    Jack O'Connell and Ben Mendelsohn in Starred Up

    Rough father-son bonding in an English prison: a breakthrough for director and star

    "Starred up" denotes the British prison practice of introducing some particularly hard youthful cases into adult prison before they're 21. Eric Love (Jack O'Connell) at 19 is an explosive, violent youth brought into jail after years of juvenile detention. David Mackenzie's film is intense and realistic, its dialogue almost laughably hard to follow, even with subtitles. It's laconic, fast, laced with prison slang and swear words, and drowned out by scuffles and the constant reverb of the prison. This is a sacrifice willingly made in this austere, tense, and violent feature to be true to a world that for most of us, despite all the prison movies, remains totally strange.

    The screenplay is by Jonathan Asser, who worked as a volunteer counselor in prison like Oliver Baumer (Rupert Friend) here. It's about the taming of Eric under Baumer's and his little group's ministrations, and also about Eric's epic struggle with the prison and, most of all, with his own father, Neville (Ben Mendelsohn), who's in the same jail and has been there for 14 years. Neville tries to take Eric in hand, mainly to please the prison boss Dennis Spencer (Peter Ferdinando), but proves wholly unsuited to the paternal role.

    It's mentioned in the film that those who're "starred up" are "leaders." In fact as played by O'Connell Eric Love is dangerous, but also impressive, strong, good looking, and evidently in peak condition (he constantly works out, in his cell, and a communal gym). But he is troubled and hostile. When Eric is first placed in that cell, he immediately uses a lighter and razor blade to turn a toothbrush into a shiv. Shortly he is seen knocking out one prisoner, garroting another, and stabbing a third. Somehow Baumer persuades the prison authorities to put Eric into his counseling group. It's touch and go whether Eric will be reformed, killed, or put away for life. The explosive action keeps you guessing most of the way. The movie's accomplishment is to keep you both confused and riveted.

    Few actually saw Starred Up during its brief theatrical run. But it's one of 2014's must-sees, and the best yet by director David Mackenzie, whose work, despite eight features, has not been well-reviewed since his filming of Alexander Trocchi's dark, sexy cult novel Young Adam a decade ago. It's equally important as the go-for-broke major feature film breakthrough of the 25-year-old O'Connell. O'Connell dominates this film with his raw, literally naked physicality: he's stripped down to frontal nudity more than once in the course of the action. O'Connell, "Jack the Lad," as his tattoo shows in a Times photo by Bruce Weber, is no newcomer. He has been in television, notably a later iteration of BBC's "Skins," and at 17 played Pukey in Shane Meadows' memorable skinhead memoir This Is England. But this year he has lead roles in three well-publicized features, the other two being Unbroken and '71. (US limited theatrical release of '71 comes in February.)

    Eric Love (O'Connell), like Taher Rahim in Audiard's 2009 A Prophet, is a nineteen-year-old inducted into a prison when the film begins. I thought of A Prophet when watching Starred Up, but this is smaller scaled and set over a much more limited period. One might also think of Alan Clarke's borstal-juvenile delinquent films, Scum and Made in Britain. Tom Hardy in Bronson has also been mentioned. Not that there is much time to think of such comparisons while watching Starred Up. (When the smoke clears, Starred Up is an intense prison bath with fine acting by all, but A Prophet a richer, better film.)

    As I said, 2014 was a big year for O'Connell. Unbroken, Angelina Jolie's sophomore directing effort about American war hero Louis Zamperini's survival through an ordeal at sea and several brutal years in Japanese prison camps, is a kind of blockbuster and an intense physical role for him, but it's underwhelming as a movie. Much better is '71, where O'Connell plays a young English soldier caught in a very dangerous situation in Belfast during the Troubles. It's a terrific thriller. He's also in another 2014 release, playing Calisto in 300: Rise of an Empire. Of these '71 is evidently the best film. But Starred Up is the new feature that best shows off O'Connell's great gift for outrageous bad boy roles.

    According to an admiring, well-informed online article about the film, it was shot (in chronological order, Mackenzie has explained) in real prisons in Northern Ireland, at the Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast and Maze Long Kesh in Lisburn. Some accusations of clichéd elements in the finale of Starred Up don't detract from the compulsively watchable nature of the film and excellent performances of everybody, with O'Connell the standout.

    Starred Up, 106 mins., debuted at Telluride (and Toronto) in August-September 2013. Theatrical release 21 March 2014 in the UK, August in NYC and on the Internet. Early June release in France where it was very well received (AlloCiné press rating 3.8). Screened for this review on Google Play 4 January 2015.

    To be shown as part of the San Francisco Mostly British Festival at the Vogue Theatre at 9:00 pm Thursday, 12 February 2015.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-27-2015 at 01:53 AM.

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    I, ANNA (Barnaby Southcombe 2012)

    BARNABY SOUTHCOMBE: I, ANNA (2012)



    Mood and stylish visuals can only get you so far

    Barnaby Southcombe is Charlotte Rampling's son, and he departs from his usual TV work for this feature film directing debut. Charlotte herself said she didn't think his screenplay was very good: "She doesn't mince her words," he said. Described in a blurb as a "moody, downbeat noir," it's cool, dark, elegant and beautifully photographed, making London's Barbican complex look dreamlike and sinister. It's also dreary, creepy, and clumsily edited toward the end with final revelations that were already obvious and never really matter. This is the ultimate unreliable narrator tale, told from the point of view of Anna (Rampling -- "I," get it?), who lives in a torpid dream world, or perhaps, is simply crazy. But of course Rampling still, at 66, has that elegant beauty and that somber hypnotic Mona Lisa "Look" that may turn you on or off, depending on what movie she's in. This one, alas, is a clinker.

    The services of Gabriel Byrne and the remarkable Eddie Marsan (the latter mostly wasted here as a frustrated lieutenant) are enlisted as cops investigating the violent and bloody killing of a man who had gone to a speed dating event that Rampling's character also attended. She's a lonely divorcee who seems to do little other than sell beds at the posh Peter Jones London department store and participate in speed-dating, bringing men home with her, in between leaving odd messages to her daughter from a pay phone. The central question, "Is she a murderer?" may soon be abandoned by viewers in favor of "Why should I care?" D.C.I. Bernie Reid (Byrne) cares, but he's confused. When he should be tailing Anna, he winds up dating her and apparently in love with her. Poor D.I. Kevin Franks (Marsan) can't seem to keep him on track. He becomes as dreamy and wacko as Anna. Along the way Honor Blackman turns up, but names and atmosphere can't hold together Southcombe's adaptation of Elsa Lewin's novel, which never makes sense. At the time of the UK release Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian gave a very short review saying he liked the department store and the use of the Barbican and the moodiness, but found the "story itself unconvincing." Indeed. It's also off-putting, annoying, and cloying and a waste of the commitment Rampling, Byrne, and the rest of the cast give to it.

    Southcombe has said in interviews that his mother had often told him his earlier short scripts didn't work, and her disapproval, not to mention the way her long period of crippling depression warped their relationship, was probably why it took him so long to get around to making a feature. Now he needs to forget about mamma's disapproval and try doing a film on his own, away from her influence, out from under her shadow, and without her in the lead.

    I, Anna, 93 mins., debuted at Berlin Feb. 2012, showing at a number of other festivals including Sydney, Shanghai, and Locarno. It opened in the UK 7 December 2012; also released in Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Brazil.

    Showing at the Mostly British Festival at the Vogue Theatre in San Francisco at 7:00 pm Friday, 13 February 2015, when it will be introduced by Peter Robinson.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-27-2015 at 01:57 AM.

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    THE TURNING (Jonathan auf der Heide, Tony Ayres, 16 more 2013

    JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE, TONY AYRES, ET AL: THE TURNING (2013)


    TOBY WALLACE AND BRENNA HARDING IN THE TURNING

    Many-faceted portrait of a writer and a place

    This remarkable and ambitious omnibus film with its interlocking episodes has been said to resemble Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, based on Raymond Carver short stories. Structurally, it may; in mood and focus, not so much. There's a difference between marginal residents of low-budget parts of Los Angeles and people living around a remote coastal village in Australia. Carver's stories are up-close stuff about the relationship issues of adults. The Turning, an ambitious adaptation of the eponymous story collection by the acclaimed Australian writer Tim Winton (designated a Living Treasure by the Australian National Trust), has much more of an outdoors, and sometimes coming of age, feel, a strong visual sense of landscape. There are stories in which children are central. There is a lot about water. Alcohol plays a part too, as it does it in Carver. Making the Australian film, or short film collection, was a formidable effort, understandably presented as a signal cultural event Down Under. Marketing it in this form for general viewers elsewhere is less easy. But indigestible and uneven as this collection may feel, it has the tonic vigor and harsh energy of Australian cinema, the wild open country that's terrifying, yet free. It's the land, and the cinema, of Walkabout, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mad Max, or of Animal Kingdom.

    The theatrical release film, shown in London at BFI in 2014, runs three hours and contains eighteen stories in which some characters recur, and so do locations. Notably, in contrast to Altman's Short Cuts, each short film is by a different director. (For full details see Wikipedia, "The Turning (2013 Film).") This has been issued on DVD, and further theatrical release is coming. However, there was a much shorter version edited down for presentation on ABC1 Australian television, consisting of only half the original short films and lasting only ninety minutes. My remarks are based on that. (The remaining nine stories were originally made available online as multi-platform ABC iView content, but this is no longer the case.) The three-hour original version is getting a UK theatrical release and a US one in early 2015.

    Given the multiple directors, it's surprising that there is some sense of unity of mood and even style, but there are also shifts. There is no absolute harm in this. There's no reason to assume Winton never changes tone in the stories; readers describe his style as sometimes brutal and abrupt. But Guy Lodge asserts in his Variety review that The Turning "boasts a handful of standout contributions — none more striking than the writing-directing debut of actress Mia Wasikowska — amid a surfeit of gauchely literal ones." It's not quite that simple. Actually Wasikowska's "Long, Clear View" is itself very literal in translating a voiceover to images, though it's not uninteresting to see this, and the effect is less cloying than it might be given that it lasts only for a few minutes. (Each story is adapted by a different writer, too.)

    The casts of the collection include some well-known Australian actors, including Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto and Rose Byrne. Byrne won the Australian Film Institute’s Best Actress award for her performance in the title short, "The Turning." But often lesser known newcomers are equally impressive. The plot weaves through turning points, if you will, in the lives of locals in the familiar town for Winton (he's used it before) of Angelus, the last whaling town in Australia, as they form relationships, end them and see their lives skid off track. Blanchett appears (really in a pretty minor role) in a segment adapted by her husband Andrew Upton. Besides standard dramatic episodes, The Turning also unfolds in the guise of an interpretive dance and an opening animated segment with a somewhat ponderously intoned voiceover from T.S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday," which also serves as the epigraph to the story collection. The eight stories in the ninety-minute version are "Reunion," "Commission,""The Turning," "Aquiver," "Cockleshell," "Sand," "Long, Cleaar View, "Boner McPharlin's Moll."

    In the original collection Winton was mining his own memories of a childhood and adolescence in a town on the West coast. Common characters include a boy named Vic (played by different ac tors), his mother Carol, and his father Bob, an alcoholic cop who suddenly disappears. There are two aboriginal brothers, Max and Frank. They occur in the entirely wordless and powerful story of "Sand," directed by Stephen Page, in which the older boy builds a tunnel while their adult male relatives are surf fishing, and the younger boy, trustingly, goes inside. The older boy jumps up and down on the dune to make the tunnel collapse and bury his sibling, afterwards running down to the beach. His brother escapes, but the implication is that he won't trust his brother ever again. "Aquifer" shows a man revisiting a scene of violence from his childhood prompted by a news report. The intercut flashbacks and intrusive musical background are distracting and clumsy. "Cockleshell," inconclusive but more successful, focuses on a teenage boy called Brakey (the dreamy Toby Wallace) who's madly in love with Agmes (Brenna Harding), the girl next door, and closely follows her for several days as she spear-fishes a meal for her impoverished older parent, even though fishing disgusts him. Agnes' lack of interest in Brakey is mysterious, nor does the shocking finale clarify things as filmed, but Asian-born director Tony Ayres infuses a sensuous quality into his film in a way that makes Wallace's scenes memorable. Similarly the aboriginal actors in "Sand" are striking in themselves, and their closeness to the beach landscape and the ocean is palpable. Despite Rose Byrne's win in it, Guy Lodge condemns "The Turning" segment itself, with its piggyback religions conversion of an abused wife who's just befriended a better off wife, and he's right; the conversion, which departs from the story's narrative order, doesn't feel convincing. Sometimes the filmmakers can't seem to convey in their few minutes what Winton was getting at in his words.

    "Boner MacPhalin's Moll," directed by Justin Kurzel, is one of the shorts with a jarringly different approach. It's retrospective account of a violent, dissolute individual is told, at least partly, in a vérité, documentary style, as if speakers are being interviewed on camera. The echt Australian accents here are a bit thick for American viewers. The short version ends with one of the more literal versions, "Big World," which consists simply of a voiceover summarizing the story of two high school boys who try to escape bad grades and a grim or mediocre future by running away north from town in a VW van and picking up a girl, but don't get anywhere. It's an audiovisual CiffNotes version of the story, sweet and pretty but hardly a stand-alone film.

    The Turning (even half of it) is a remarkable, if challenging and uneven experience. The incidents on offer are sometimes quiet, but nonetheless earth-shaking for the participants, and sometimes are shocking and violent. These are always short films, and must adhere to the special shorthand and economy that entails. One must be patient: one must be prepared to refocus every ten or fifteen minutes, and to do that for three hours sitting in a cinema isn't easy. A challenging exercise, but with its rewards. Welcome to Australia, and to the world of Tim Winton, as filtered through eighteen different directors' short films. They may not do full justice to these stories, as described in a appreciative short essay for the Guardian by Jem Poster, but the attempt is a fine tribute nonetheless.

    The Turning, 180 mins. (but 90 mins. screened, as noted above), debuted at Melbourne August 2013, then in 2014 at Berlin and other festivals including Hong Kong, Seattle, and London. There was a theatrical version of the short story series in 2008. The film was released in Australia 26 January 2014, and "disk and digital" formats came out there 24 Feb. 2014. Schedule for release of the film in the UK 6th Feb. 2015. A US release is coming (Main Street Films). Screened for this review courtesy of Main Street Films in the 90-minute TV version for the San Francisco Mostly British Festival.

    To be shown in the Mostly British Festival in San Francisco at the Vogue Theatre at 7:30 pm Sunday, 13 February 2015.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-27-2015 at 02:10 AM.

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    STILL LIFE (Uberto Pasolini 2013)

    UBERTO PASOLINI: STILL LIFE (2013)



    Obsequies

    In Uberto Pasolini's somewhat too aptly named Still Life (not to be confused with Jia Zhang-ke's), today's offbeat "it" boy of British acting, Eddie Marsan, a natural specialist in meek and understated roles, plays John May, a London caseworker in the south central district of Kennington assigned to investigate those who die alone and unclaimed. The similarity between their lives and May's is all too obvious. He dines alone in his council flat on a can of tuna, a slice of white bread, and an apple, and lives for his work. Thus when tossing the ashes would be enough, he insists on staging funerals for his cases even though friends and relatives either can't be found or aren't interested and he's the only one who attends. The priest intones a eulogy he has penned using bits of information he's gathered from the deceased's dreary last digs. Photos of them he's found he tips into his own personal home album book of the dead. When May's department is downsized and he's let go (after 22 years) he makes a grand project of his final case, a violent alcoholic called Billy Stoke who happens to have died in a council flat facing his own across a causeway.

    The film is a celebration of the forgotten, marked by a cheerful miserablism that's typically English; but some have found it condescending, and others consider the screenplay to be marred by an ending that celebrates May and his cases with a touch of the supernatural. The cool, gray, symmetrical style of the images fits nicely with Joh May's tidiness, which may be a sign of OCD, or simply a love of order and a need to do what's right and proper. Marsan's performance is a marvel of understatement and subtlety, but his character and the story have too little depth. The symmetries and concern with order lead to repetitiousness. The coolness of the style looks and feels right, but there is no energy. Things liven up a little bit at the end, and so, too late, does John May, when he explores his final case so thoroughly he begins to connect with a woman, Billy Stoke's estranged daughter, played by Joanne Froggatt of "Downton Abbey." Still Life provides too few rewards and its latter part is too forced and sentimental. The score by Rachel Portman has been called (by David Rooney of Hollywood Reporter) not just "cloyingly saccharine" but "criminal." Still, for students of screen acting it may all in a pinch be endurable for the performances of Eddie Marsan, and some of the other cast members who also do choice work.

    Still LIfe, 92 mins., debuted at Venice, showing at other festivals, and had limited US release 13 January 2014. French release under the title Une belle fin 15 April 2015. Released by Tribeca Films it was made available on iTunes & VOD 13 January 2015 and in theaters 16 January 2015 (NYC at Quad Cinema); t was badly received (Metacritic rating 43%). Other US locations January and February. UK release 6 February 2015. It was screened for this review as part of the Mostly British Festival in San Francisco 12-22 February 2015.

    At the Vogue Theatre 5 pm Tuesday, 17 February 2015.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-26-2015 at 11:39 PM.

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