Daliland

 
When a film centres around a specific time for a prolific person in history, there is a danger that the film will feel restrictive and have precious few areas to explore. With little over 90 minutes, we are given a look into the last years of world-famous Spanish surrealist artist, Salvador Dali, but not focusing on his final works, ailing health, or a closer look at his relationships with his wife or band of followers. This is a biopic but through the eyes of someone who knew him for a short while. Those biopics that want to delve deep but never quite go as far as you would hope. However, there is a great performance from Sir Ben Kingsley to revel in.

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

Hilma

 

The story follows the artistic career and spiritual awakening of Hilma af Klint as she tries to make sense of the world when her beloved younger sister dies tragically. Young af Klint is admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and meets a group of like-minded artists who also share her interests and beliefs in the spiritual world. They found a collective called ‘The Five’ that creates art inspired by the spiritual world and aim to create and build a temple for the work, but the art world isn’t quite ready to welcome or understand these new ideas.

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

Watch List: May & June

Luca

Pixar and Disney's latest about two sea monster pals who dream of running away and exploring the world is adorable. The sea monsters themselves are intricate characters who feel more than just legends of the deep. When curious Luca meets confident Alberto, another sea monster living alone on an island, the two immediately bond over their desire to explore. Once the boys make their way to mainland, set in Italy, their story really begins. They meet Giulia, a little girl who's Dad is a fisherman with a cat that finds the boys very suspicious. The story it seems is about friendship and knowing when to let go and move on, but of course with Pixar there always has to be statements. The film morphs from one lesson to another, accepting others, trustung your friends and about family. One aspect which is neglected is the reason why Alberto is alone on an island when we first meet him. We get a slight insight but nothing more than one tear soaked scene and nothing more, which is shame. Overall, its an adorable story set by the idyllic Italian coast, a sweet getaway when you can't travel. 3/5

Shiva Baby

 

Full review HERE 4/5

The United States vs 

Billie Holiday

 

Full review HERE 

Summerland

 

Having missed this film, the first time round last year, I caught up with the sweet story about a reclusive writer of folklore and young boy separated from his family, far from home. Although there is heartfelt story of lost love in flashbacks and a revelation at the climax of the film, this is really all about two lost people needing comfort, one knowing and other not realising they missed it. Gemma Arterton is brilliant as the moody writer who has shut herself away from the world to the annoyance of the village, but this role suits Arterton perfectly. Adding the beautiful location, this sweet story by the coast during wartime is a delight. 3/5

Dinner in America

 

Full review HERE

When Marnie was there

 

Adapted from the book of the same name, the film brilliantly exports the story from its origianl location to a small country town in Japan. Anna is sent away to stay with relatives of her foster mother so that she can get well again. While in the town Anna becomes obsessed with a house that sits away from the town across a marsh. She has dreams about a girl named Marnie until she actually meets her in person. But its very clear the two girls are from different times but somehow can interact with each other at certain times. Over her stay, Anna tries to find out the mystery of their connection and who Marnie really is. The story is very on brand for Studio Ghibli, feeling grounded in the real world and the spirit world. The friendship between the girls is developed very quickly as if they already had a predetermined connection. Capturing pure joy and lonliness is the art that Ghibli has created so well over the years and this is no different. 4/5

God's Waiting Room

 

Full review HERE 

Nomadland

 

There was such a lowkey hype about Nomadland at festivals that I didn'y may close attention. There is no clear storyline or plot, just a year in the life of Fern, a nomad who drives from site to site taking on seasonal work in different states. We get to see her with her fellow nomad friends, on own adventure, with her sister who doesn't understand her lifestyle and in her town that no longer exists. Not only a comment on how the recession affected certain people and age groups, its showing that there are other ways to live but there is an underlying comment on how town can be so reliant on a factory to keep everything turning but within a blink of an eye that town can just disappear. Beautifully shot, a sombre character piece that is full of sadness and joy at the same time. 4/5

The United States vs Billie Holiday

 

 

 

While the war on drugs seems to be used as a reason to pursue Billie Holiday for years is excessive yet is stems from the truth. Although the film does use fictional characters to pad out the actual events and real people, the truth behind the stories is mostly all true which is some biopics tend to twist. The film does indulge in trying to be several different kinds of film in one and therefore over stretches the run time which does feel too long, but the amazing central performances at least make up for it. 

 

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

Effie Gray

When Euphemia ‘Effie’ Gray marries the older celebrated art critic and writer John Ruskin, she believes she will be happy. But she soon realises that her married life is far what she imagined. Bullied by her overbearing mother-in-law and negated by her husband, who also refuses to consummate the marriage, Effie falls into loneliness and illness. While on a visit to her native Scotland she finds comfort and love with the painter, John Everett Millais. But before she can find her true happiness, she must escape her the cruelty of the Ruskin family. 

 

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

Tove - BFI Flare

 

Tove Jansson is struggling painter, deciding to find her own way in life outside her sculptor father’s studio. Taking a run-down apartment during World War two, she begins her life as a wild and care free artist. Her world is turned upside down when she meets the upper-class theatre director Vivica Bandler, whom she falls desperately in love with. Opening her up to new experiences and opportunity, Tove finds out how painful unrequited love can be, channelling her emotions into her art and into her most famous creations, The Moomins.

 

Full review can be read over at Filmhounds HERE.

 

 

The Capote Tapes

 

Documenting from his start and first novel, where the photograph on the book jacket was more talked about than the book itself, Truman was unashamedly himself. This was not only brave but dangerous in a time when being gay was illegal. Capote created a character for himself to play throughout his life whenever he was in the spotlight and in private, he tried to live up to his creation. 

 

My full review is over at Filmhounds HERE.

Ammonite - BFI London Film Festival

The world of fossil finding is rarely if at all explored on screen outside of documentary series or nature programmes. The addition of a famous fossil collector, dealer and palaeontologist’s story being told add perspective and human interest, but with a passionate and secret love affair as well, Ammonite takes on the form of a typical British period romance drama. Luckily in the hands of writer and director Francis Lee, the story isn’t entirely what you’d expect.

My full review can be read HERE over at Filmhounds.

I Got You Babe

 Great love stories are hard to come by. Especially those that have the power to cause an audience to emote to the point of tears. Even when there is awful drunk old man swearing very loudly and flashing his phone light all over the room.

I've always been a Chaplin fan so never really watched Buster Keaton and only a few bits and pieces of Laurel and Hardy, but with word on the grape vine or through emails at one of my previous jobs, I found out there was going to be a biopic of sorts about famous comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

The film focuses on their 1953 tour of the UK and Ireland, which doesn't quite go as planned. Staying in dingy hotels and playing to barely an audience. The understanding is that they are doing the tour until they start shooting their next film, a spoof of Robin Hood, which Laurel has been in talks about with a producer in London, who's name Hardy continuously gets wrong. Dealing with the decline in popularity, decline in health, past arguments which they both still hold on to and their lifelong partnership, take a toll on the two comedians but not their unbreakable friendship.

Starting with a fantastic opening scene, where Stan and Ollie, at the height of their fame in 1937 walk across the studio to their set, with their backs to the camera for most of the scene, we hear them casually talking, we know exactly who they are and instantly understand what the two men are like. The film then picks up in 1953 in dreery North England where the duo are about to start a tour. The empty theatres, a sign of the times and a question of whether they should keep going. Their age, health and status are always in question, even they start to do a bit of publicity bringing success and sold out audiences. The most charming a brilliant scenes are when the two friends are alone, going over new material Stan has written or simply just comforting each other after Ollie, or as he is more affectionatly called, Babe, makes a shattering decision.

Heart aches and breaks that these two friends have shared aren't really about their many marriages, but with each other. Notably, when Hardy made a film without Laurel while the latter was in a contract dispute with the studio owner, Hal Roach. This felt like a betrayal to Laurel which comes out after a successful performance when the duo argue. But this is not a spectacle of an argument, this is quiet heated angry words followed by the throwing of bread roll. The heightened emotions of the film are gloriously understated, no dramatics, just real heartbreaking moments. With a brilliantly cast John C. Reilly as Hardy and Steve Coogan (who deserves more praise than I've seen/read) who really does morph into Laurel. Their wives Lucille and Ida, played by Shirley Henderson (always a delight) and Nina Arianda are also an amusing pair, as said in the film, two double acts for the price of one.

A great love story doesn't have to be about romantic love, the friendship of Stan and Ollie is a great love story and we get to see just a glimpse into it through this film.

#StanAndOllie

@StanAndOllie ‏  

Novelist, Mime, Actress and Journalist

What a way to start the new year with not one, not two, but THREE British films and all period costume dramas AND all based on real people. What are the chances of that? Having been lucky to see both The Favourite and Colette at LFF last year, I will hopefully be catching Stan & Ollie later this week.

There are far too many stories about women who have propped up men's careers at the expense of their own, fictional or otherwise and say this not as someone who is fed up about hearing about them, but as someone who is appauled that there are just so many. 'Colette' is no different on the surface, as it tells the story about Gabrielle Colette who married Henry Gauthier-Villars, 14 years her senior, famous writer known as 'Willy'. With ideas at his 'factory' drying up, Willy persuaded his wife to write, thus creating the 'Claudine' series. But as Willy was the famous writer, all the novels were published under his name. As 'Claudine' rose to such famous heights, books sold out in bookshops everywhere, the novels adapted into a stage play, her picture on products aimed at young women, Colette wished for her named to be credited alongside her husband's, which he refused.

'Colette' explores her early married life with Willy, her twenties where she created Claudine, the success of her work and her wish to be acknowleged as the writer as well as her strained marriage with Willy, who, a know libertine, had affairs and even encouraged Colette's own affairs with othe women. It would seem that this story doesn't aim to shock but to witness Colette's flurry of creative and sexual desires. She experiences a sort of freedom when she writes about a ménage à trois between herself, Willy and a married woman, even though it seems as if her creative alliances come crashing down for a moment at the thought of her books being burnt. The film is occupied with three main things, Colette's beginnings as a novelist, her marriage to Willy and her burgeoning sexuality. With the author blurring the lines of her fictional character, Claudine's exploits, as the books were inspired by truth, Colette is in danger of being swept up with the Claundine hype. Her choice to take to the stage seems an odd career choice and more of a creative release.

Needing and wanting a release feels like the real theme of the story, rather than Colette just wanting recognition for her work and her husband taking all the credit. It would have been interesting to see what happened to Colette, post marriage breakdown and post Claudine, as she continued to write, most famously, 'Gigi', which was adapted and made into that 50s musical about a young girl who is being groomed to become a courtesan. But do not think that this film falls short of his dramatic and biopic service, it has a great cast, actually welcoming to see Keira Knightly back in a role that suits her perfectly and Dominic West bringing the house down with his awful obnoxious Willy. A story with more to tell and true heroine that has far more to her that what we see on screen.

#Colette

@LionsgateUK

#LFF