Steve

Zoo

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Tom and Buster the elephant

There’s the bones of a true story inside Zoo, a light British cocklewarmer about a boy who, during the Second World War, spirited a baby elephant away from his local zoo and housed it in a back yard until danger from the Luftwaffe had passed. So, no, this is not to be confused with Robinson Devor’s bizarre 2007 documentary Zoo, about men who like to have sex with animals, or even We Bought a Zoo, though this is undoubtedly as light-hearted, entertaining and uncool as Cameron Crowe’s 2011 bauble. We’re not in California but in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where Tom’s zookeeper dad has been called away to war, and his mum is always … Read more

Patchwork

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Angeliki Papoulia as Chara

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 Motherhood is what Patchwork is all about, something women are meant to take to naturally, according to its central character, Chara, who really really wants to be the perfect mother to her lovely daughter, but something isn’t quite right. Chara just isn’t feeling it. Post-natal depression that’s gone on too long, maybe, or a marriage to a nice man that’s proving to be too cloying, perhaps. Or maybe, with a fulltime job and housekeeping to do, she’s just worn out. Director Petros Charalambous and writer Janine Teerling are wary about revealing what’s afflicting Chara. The focus stays so tight on her that … Read more

I Am Gen Z

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Gen Z participant Noella

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 I Am Gen Z is a documentary about, er, Generation Z, and while it kicks off with a quick intro as to who Gen Z are NOT – they’re not millennials (born early 80s to mid 90s), instead they’re the next cohort (mid/late 90s to about 2012) – it settles down into an examination of the defining fact of their lives. They’re the digital natives whose lives have been shaped by, and who often live through, social media. It’s spooky to be reminded of how fast this has happened. There’s that old footage of Steve Jobs announcing three new devices – an … Read more

All Sorts

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June and Diego

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 You’re either a fan of the wacky, the quirky and the whimsical or you’re not. All Sorts is all three and yet manages to avoid the trap of believing that zaniness trumps everything else, and that it’s a licence to ignore the other considerations of film-making – like crafting a decent a plot. Not everyone is Wes Anderson. In fact, sometimes even Wes Anderson isn’t Wes Anderson. The director and writer here is J Rick Castaneda, of the production outfit Psychic Bunny – their 2009 bite-size web series Coma, Period. (still on YouTube) gave Rob Delaney an early starring role, after which Psychic … Read more

Pause

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Elpida in the stirrups

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 When is she going to crack? It’s the question asked by Tonia Mishiali’s feature debut, Pause (aka Paúse), and then answered in a series of gotchas. Pause as in Menopause, the film’s working title, and in an opening scene that’s more amusing to watch than it would be to experience, middle-aged Greek woman Elpida (Stella Fyrogeni) is being examined in gynaecological stirrups after which she’s told that she’s going through the menopause. The male doctor runs through a list of what Elpida can expect – night sweats, body odour, weight gain, allergies, bleeding, osteoporosis – a list that goes on so comically … Read more

The Hater

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Gabi with Tomasz

The Hater (Sala Samobójców. Hejter in the original Polish) slots in alongside Brechtian “man on the make” dramas like The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, or the novel/film Room at the Top, or even Mephisto, the Klaus Mann novel and 1981 movie by István Szabó. It’s a film about a young man who believes in himself rather than anything else, and we meet Tomasz (Maciej Musialowski) just as he’s being thrown out of law school for plagiarism, though he doesn’t seem overly concerned about the fact that he’s trashed his own prospects. Later, at the apartment of the aunt and uncle who’ve been sponsoring his studies, he keeps quiet about what’s happened while … Read more

Tommaso

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Tommaso and his wife Nikki

Tommaso is a film by Abel Ferrara that’s essentially a film about Abel Ferrara, with Willem Dafoe in the lead role as an avatar of the writer/director, a creative dude trying to live out his golden years in Italy but finding old demons constantly resurfacing. It’s an uncomfortable and not entirely gripping drama, though Dafoe’s amazing performance does almost get it over the line. We first meet the talented, accomplished and open Tommaso at a language school learning Italian, making the effort because he has a much younger wife at home (Ferrara’s own wife, Cristina Chiriac) and an infant daughter (Ferrara’s own daughter, Anna). He’s a film-maker, still working, and because of a … Read more

Sami, Joe and I

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Leyla, Joe and Sami

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 Swerving the woe-is-me of the issue-driven drama, Sami, Joe and I (Sami, Joe und Ich) takes on the sort of problems teenage girls encounter without becoming a hostage to them and also celebrates the vital force of female friendships without becoming sappy. Quite a feat. We’re in Switzerland, with three 16-year-old girls, all the offspring of migrants, as the summer holidays arrive and the wider world beckons. They’re a fiercely cliquey threesome, high on youth, hyperventilating with optimism, a band of sisters of Three Musketeers camaraderie and feistiness. Writer/director Karin Heberlein doesn’t overdo the “offspring of migrants” bit, but it’s there – … Read more

Relic

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Family photo of grandma, daughter and granddaughter

Relic is a horror film that’s abnormally effective because it’s about something that’s going to happen to us all – old age (if we’re lucky) and death. As it opens Grandma Edna (Robyn Nevin) has gone missing. And so her daughter, Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) have turned up at her house to find out what’s happened. Grandma has got to the age where forgetfulness is nibbling away at her memory, and physically she’s at the point where family members are having whispered conversations about her which Grandma isn’t party to. That doesn’t sound like a horror film, and in fact you could strip out all the horror elements from Natalie … Read more

The Noise of Engines

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Alexandre and Aðalbjörg in a field

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 French-Canadian film-maker Philippe Grégoire’s debut feature The Noise of Engines (Le bruit des moteurs) starts off with various shots of cars donutting away in rubber-burning circles, going nowhere, but fast. It’s a metaphor, of sorts, for a story about a young man who seems to be going nowhere, but slowly. Perhaps the contrast is a deadpan joke. There is a lot of deadpan joking going on here. The story is a lift from Grégoire’s own life. He worked part-time for the Canadian customs force to finance his way through college and he comes from a small town near the border with the … Read more