Although born in Chad in 1961, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun has lived and worked in France since 1982. Having fled the civil war and escaped across the border into Cameroon with his parents, he attended film school and worked as a journalist in Bordeaux before making his first short, Maral Tanié, in 1994. Since producing Chad's first feature, Bye Bye Africa (1999), Haroun has striven to give compatriots a vision of themselves to prevent `a colonisation by images' and Abouna (2002), Daratt (2006), Sex, Okra and Salted Butter (2008). A Screaming Man (2010) and Grigris (2013) have earned him a raft of festival prizes.
Haroun also makes shorts and documentaries, like Hissein Habré: A Chadian Tragedy (2016). But these rarely get shown outside the Francophone world and it has taken two years for A Season in France to secure a UK release. Joining a burgeoning sub-genre that includes Ousmane Sembène's Black Girl (1966) and Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano's Samba (2014), this heartfelt drama examines the lot of black African migrants fighting exploitation, poverty, prejudice and bureaucratic indifference in order to make a new life. Yet, for all its authenticity and empathy, this low-budget picture seems content to tell its story rather than address its underlying issues.
Waking in the night after a flashback to the moment his wife was killed during their flight from the Central African Republic, Abbas Mahadjir (Eriq Ebouaney) thinks he sees Madeleine (Sandra Nkake) in the Parisian apartment he shares with children, Yacine (Ibrahim Burama Darboe) and Asma (Aalayna Lys). The latter has also been dreaming of her mother and she asks Abbas if the dead ever return. He sings her a lullaby and thinks he hears Madeleine's voice joining in with him.
Although he was a university professor back home, Abbas now works with Régine (Régine Conas) on a grocery stall on a market, where he has befriended florist Carole Blaszak (Sandrine Bonnaire), whose family roots are in Poland. We learn through an essay written by Yacine that the family arrived in France with philosopher Etienne Bamingui (Bibi Tanga) and are currently awaiting the verdict of the Court of Asylum after Abbas's initial application was rejected. The kids resent the fact they have to keep moving and accuse their father of having lied to them when he promised they would be welcomed in France. He cries after they go to bed and has to apologise to Carole after he fails to perform in bed because he can't get Madeleine out of his thoughts. She reminds him that she is alive and needs him to commit and he accepts that he has to move on for himself and for his children.
Carole accompanies Abbas to the court building and looks around at the different nationalities in the waiting room. The verdicts are pinned to a noticeboard and Abbas is crushed by his rejection. He is further hurt when Yacine informs him that a real father would get his papers. But Étienne is also having a hard time and has to use public washrooms to keep clean for his job as a commissionaire outside a pharmacy. He also has erectile issues and girlfriend Martine (Léonie Simaga) wonders whether he has found someone new. However, he is very much alone in a shack under an overpass, where he reads and struggles to keep warm.
Abbas finds a cramped apartment and Asma dreams of having a large room for herself and her goldfish. Bing. Yacine wants a blue room because he supports Paris St Germain and he covers his father and sister in feathers during a pillow fight over who is the best player. He buys Carole a book on plants for her birthday, while Asma makes her a drawing and Abbas gets her a necklace. They eat Polish apple cake and dance to French rock before heading back to their new digs, where Abbas reads the registered letter delivered to Carole's address. He learns that he has 30 days to leave the country or risk being deported. But he has no intention of surrendering his passport or signing on at a police station to prove he has not gone underground.
As he has been fired for smashing veg in his frustration. Abbas has no source of steady income and has to leave the kids alone in the flat at night. They try to do their homework and Yacine cooks the very omelettes that he had despised when his father served them. Feeling cooped up, they look down enviously at a boy kicking a ball around in the courtyard. But Abbas is aware how precarious their plight has become and, during a visit to the library with the kids, he flinches on seeing a migrant being chased by the police because his documents are out of date.
Shortly afterwards. Étienne's shack is burned down and anti-migrant graffiti is daubed on the nearby wall. Abbas offers his friend floor space, but he refuses his charity and insists that he will find a way to remain in France, as he doesn't want to return to a continent that has become an illusion. He sets light to himself in the court building and is rushed to hospital, where a distraught Abbas meets Martine and confirms the lie that Étienne lives in a Malian hotel. However, he is also soon made homeless when landlord Thammah (Khampha Thammavongsa) refuses to give him time to find his back rent. But Carole invites them to move in with her and even suggests marriage so that Abbas can remain.
Étienne dies of his injuries and Martine comes to the cemetery, which Yacine reveals in voiceover used to be a potter's field and only offers resting places for five years, after which the interred are exhumed and cremated. When Abbas breaks down, Carole urges him not to quit and lies to the police when they come to the apartment to ask if she knows the illegal's whereabouts. Hiding in the kitchen, Abbas hears that Carole faces five years' imprisonment and a sizeable fine for helping him and (having recently seen Madeleine's ghost again), he doesn't feel he can expose her to the risk. When she goes to give a statement, Abbas and the children disappear. They leave their belongings behind and a note, in which he references the 1938 Evian Conference, when the world failed to find a solution to the plight of European Jews. Carole drives north and searches in vain at the razed site of the Jungle at Calais.
Taking its title from Arthur Rimbaud's prose poem, `A Season in Hell', and hitting a tone similar to the one Claire Denis achieved in 35 Shots of Rum (2008), this avoids the kind of head-shaking pulpiteering that one might expect from a Paul Laverty script. But Haroun makes little attempt to explain or critique the asylum application process and its vagaries, as he loads the dramatic dice by making Abbas and Étienne cultured men who could offer France a good deal, if only the authorities weren't so blinkered and jobsworthy. Moreover, he avoids showing the Central Africans in a wider Parisian setting, so that the audience gets little sense of the prejudice they encounter or the jeopardy they face in being denied their papers. We see nothing of Yacine or Asma's school life, while Abbas and Étienne seem to live in social bubbles, even though each has a girlfriend and an unfamiliar mourner shows up at Étienne's graveside (along with a cheesy CGI butterfly). One suspects this narrowness of focus is down to budgetary restriction, but it makes the story seem sequestered and melodramatic.
Like the score by Senegalese musician Wasis Diop, Eriq Ebouaney and Bibi Tanga exude dignity. But we don't get to learn much about their past or present experiences. How did Tanga find his shack and why does Léonie Simaga exhibit so little curiosity about his lifestyle when they are supposed to be dating? The ever-excellent Sandrine Bonnaire is more involved in Ebouaney's appeal and chides him for bringing the cops to her door by failing to appeal the court verdict. But the action is more convincing in its minor moments than its rather stiffly scripted set-pieces, as Mathieu Giombini's camera contrasts the bas-fonds dwellings designed by Eric Barboza and neighbourhoods in which Ebouaney fetches up as his dream of security slips further out of his reach.
This November will mark the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall. But Michael Bully Herbig harks back a further decade to reconstruct one of the most audacious escapes from the German Democratic Republic in Balloon. Some 75,000 East Germans were jailed for trying to flee the Communist regime between 1961-88, while over 800 souls perished at the border. Erring closer towards Ostalgie than Wolfgang Becker's Goodbye, Lenin! (2003), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others (2006) and Christian Petzold's Barbara (2012), this is still a fitting tribute to the members of the Strelzyk and Wetzel families, who had taken exception to Delbert Mann's Disney version of their escapade, Night Crossing (1982).
On the day that Frank Strelzyk (Jonas Holdenrieder) graduates from school in the town of Pößneck in Thuringia, he can't keep his eyes off classmate, Klara Baumann (Emily Kusche). Her father, Erik (Ronald Kukulies) is a Stasi agent who boasts to Peter (Friedrich Mücke) and Doris Strelzyk (Karoline Schuch) during the car ride home that he can arrange for them to go on holiday anywhere they wish. However, they have made plans with friends Günter (David Kross) and Petra Wetzel (Alicia von Rittberg) to fly across the West German border by hot air balloon and they are excited by a change in wind direction. Unfortunately, Günter has decided the balloon isn't big enough to take both families and he gives Peter his blessing when he decides to make the trip alone.
Telling younger son Andreas (Tilman Döbler) that they are going camping in the woods, Peter and Doris begin making hurried preparations for their departure. But Frank insists on leaving Klara a goodbye note and he leaves it in the outdoor letter box at the end of the Baumann's garden before they drive off in the dead of night. They are airborne for 32 minutes before condensation begins to form on the cloth and Peter is unable to prevent the balloon from descending. He scorches his hands on the burner in an effort to relight the flame, but they crash land and are lucky to be in one piece.
Tantalisingly, the frontier was within touching distance and they trudge back to their car through a restricted zone, having left the remnants of the balloon behind them. Walking through the nearby town, the Strelzyks are aware of how conspicuous they are. But they reach their vehicle before it has been detected and are able to dump any incriminating equipment in a lake before getting back to Pößneck around dawn. Frank even has time to retrieve the letter to Klara. although the Baumann dog barks at him and attracts the attention of a couple of neighbours.
When the balloon is found, Oberstleutnant Seidel (Thomas Kretschmann) is put in charge of the investigation and he orders a forensic check of the entire site. He asks the local border guard whether the country would be better without its anti-socialist riff-raff and he doesn't know how to reply without landing himself in trouble. Peter also has an uncomfortable chat with Baumann, who is disappointed why they didn't come over to celebrate graduation day and seems suspicious at Peter's story that he went to collect his mother-in-law from the station and that she had to be rushed to hospital after she fainted. However, as Baumann has got a new colour television, he wants Peter's electrical expertise to help improve the reception from the West, as he wants to watch Charlie's Angels.
Andreas is hurt that his parents didn't trust him with the truth about their expedition and Doris has to reassure him that they were simply trying to protect him. But she has a panic attack when she realise that she has lost a bottle of traceable pills and has a flashing vision of being tortured in prison (as her brother had been for trying to flee when he was 14). She blames Peter for talking her into such a reckless scheme and he promises her that no one is going to disappear them and put Andreas in an orphanage. But, Seidel's ruthless interrogation of a couple of border guards shows how determined the Stasi are to find the fugitives and use them as an example to others contemplating the unthinkable.
With Baumann's help, the Strelzyks get a permit to travel to East Berlin, where Frank manages to slip a message into the handbag of a US Embassy employee. They hole up in their room waiting for contact and Peter has a nightmare about the Stasi coming to their door and Frank being shot in his efforts to flee. When a message comes from reception, Peter mistakes a friendly American in the foyer for an embassy official and is disappointed to discover the desk clerk wishes only to return his dropped wallet. Meanwhile, back in Pößneck, the Wetzels have heard about a failed balloon escape and are concerned that the Stasi will be able to trace materials back to them.
After Frank and Andreas hear their father blaming himself for getting so close and failing, they agree to make another attempt and try to buy 200 metres of taffeta in a dress shop. The assistant is suspicious and they beat a hasty retreat, but a message is conveyed to Seidel, who is sure he can close the net. However, the Wetzels are all in favour of making a second attempt because Günter is six weeks away from having to do a two-year military stint.
A material buying and metal welding montage follows, as the clock starts ticking. But Frank finds time to fly a kite with Klara and he loses his grip on the string when she kisses him and it floats away on the wind. However, Peter forbids his son from seeing her again, even after he comes up with an ingenious way of ensuring a steady flame in the balloon burner. Andreas is also having a crisis, as he is upset by the prospect of leaving his friends and grandparents behind. Moreover, Peterchen Wetzel (Till Patz) lets slip in his kindergarten class that Günter spends a lot of time sewing for an ambulance driver.
There are only five September days before he is called up and the weather conditions are not favourable. He insists Petra goes with their kids, but they still need more fabric and shops in the area have reported on the excessive purchases being made by two women in a blue-and-white Wartburg car. Seidel believes he is close to an arrest and Baumann is brought in to provide local insight. While they check pharmacies for thyroid medication, Günter sews the final panels (with the kindergarten teacher telling Seidel that any unusual sewing will be for flags and bunting for the GDR's 30th anniversary).
Frank is jealous because Klara has started seeing a bloke with a motorbike and he rows with Peter about his crush putting the whole family at risk. As the weather forecast predicts a northerly wind over the weekend, Frank asks Klara to come with him. She's taken aback, but keeps her composure when her father comes home with news he's on a search detail at the pharmacy. This clues Frank that the Stasi are getting closer and they leave immediately before Seidel discovers the sewing machine in the basement. While he sends for roadblocks and helicopters, Peter takes the car and trailer through fields to get to the launch site, while Günter and Frank follow on his moped and are lucky to get past a spot check on a country road.
The moped motor overheats and they have to push it for much of the last leg, as Peter prepares the balloon and Doris and Petra keep their children calm. One guy rope snags as they take off and Frank is hit in the face. The mishaps also causes the burner to set light to a piece of the canvas, while it soon becomes clear that the hastily sewn top section is not fit for purpose. But, even as Seidel spots the balloon from his chopper, he is powerless to stop the fugitives, who think they have failed when they collide with a power cable.
Crashing to the ground, the balloonists are sure they have fallen short. But Peter and Günter go on a recce and surrender to a passing border patrol, who inform them that they are in Bavaria. Whooping with delight, they rush back to their loved ones and we cut back to East Germany, where Klara reads the letter Frank left her, while her father is carpeted for his incompetence and Seidel is summoned to Stashi HQ to answer for his failure. As the credits roll, we see photos of the balloon and the Strelzyks and Wetzels, as the action forwards a decade to show the fall of the Wall and the chance to families to reunite after four decades apart.
Despite the best efforts of John Hurt and Jane Alexander as the Strelzyks and Beau Bridges and Glynnis O'Connor as the Wetzels, Disney's version of events lacked the kind of insider impetus provided by Michael Bully Herbig. This may not be the subtlest film-making, but it's mightily effective, as Herbig and editor Alexander Dittner ratchet up the tension, while also juggling the numerous characters in the script that Herbig co-write with Kit Hopkins and Thilo Röscheisen. In truth, we don't get to know the escapees all that well, but the very nature of their enterprise makes them underdoggishly empathetic. The shrewdest move, however, is in following the example of Ulrich Mühe in The Lives of Others by making Seidel calculatingly professional without being hissably villainous.
Driven by Marvin Miller and Ralf Wengenmayr's rich orchestral score, the action is capably designed and photographed by Bernd Lepel and Torstein Breuer. But, even though this is based on a true story, it still feels slightly infeasible that the plotters would have been able to proceed undetected in a country with watchful eyes everywhere. Moreover, it's a shame that Herbig opted against showing the balloon in flight and relied instead on studio shots of the figures in the flimsy boxing ring-like basket. The logistical side of the operation is fascinating, but the real spectacle lies in the nocturnal flight and one can't help feeling that Herbig has rather missed a trick.
Quebecois film-maker Kim Nguyen has had something of a hit-and-miss career to date. Having debuted solidly with The Marsh (2002), he dipped slightly under the radar with Truffe (2008) and City of Shadows (2010). Yet, since earning an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film with the child soldier drama, War Witch (2012), he has struggled to connect with UK audiences, as neither Two Lovers and a Bear (2016) nor Eye on Juliet (2017) managed to secure a release. He returns this week with The Hummingbird Project, a tekkie thriller with an e-commerce moral that feels like a Trump era variation on such post-Watergate paranoia parables as Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View (1974) and Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor (1975).
While working as a plumber's assistant to pay his way through college. Vincent Zaleski (Jesse Eisenberg) was knocked out by a stray pipe and the memory of somebody telling him to hold on to `the line' has driven him ever since. While working on Wall Street for Torres & Thatcher in 2011, he hatches the idea for a fibre-optic tunnel from the Kansas Electronic Exchange (KAX) to the Stock Exchange server in New Jersey that will allow traders to send messages a millisecond faster than their competitors and, thus, beat them to the big-buck punch. With his Russian-Jewish cousin Anton (Alexander Skarsgård) capable of creating the computer code, Vincent hooks up with engineer Mark Vega (Michael Mando) to dig a four-inch tunnel that stretches a thousand miles through the Appalachians.
Following a family gathering, the cousins return to work, where boss Eva Torres (Salma Hayek) hauls Anton and underlings Jenny (Anna Maguire) and Elias (Ryan Ali) into her office to query why they're making such slow progress speeding up her messaging links. She suspects Anton's mind is elsewhere and wife Mascha (Sarah Goldberg) is puzzled why he is drilling a hole in the back of a filing cabinet in the middle of the night. But he keeps his counsel and refuses to be intimidated when he and Vincent resign from Torres's company in December 2011. By February, they have an office in New Jersey and they begin tunnelling in June, with 54 crews on the job.
The problem is, Vincent has told financial backer Bryan Taylor (Frank Schorpion) that he will be able to send information in 16 milliseconds when Anton knows his programme can't get any faster than 17. Vega is also having problems getting through the mountains in a straight line. However, Torres has had the party tailed and, realising what they are up to, she orders Jenny and Elias to work on a new system using towers to gazump them. While he still knows nothing about this, Vincent learns from Dr Bloom (Jessica Greco) that he has stomach cancer and needs urgent treatment. He keeps the news from Anton and Vega, but his condition is not improved when Torres pays them a surprise visit and threatens to land Anton in jail for stealing lines of code she claims belong to her.
Already under pressure trying to save a millisecond, Anton moves closer to the edge at the thought of being separated from his precocious 11 year-old daughter, Katia (Trinity Forrest). So, he confides in kindly barmaid Barbara (Kaniehtiio Horn), who is intrigued that the speed he hopes to achieve equals the flap of a hummingbird's wing. However, he is dismayed when she asks why he is working to help the super rich when poor product suppliers like lemon growers in Zimbabwe are getting nothing for their efforts. Vincent also falls foul of market forces when Torres buys off some of his drilling gangs and Jenny discovers Jimmy Tran (Daniel Jun), a college whizz kid who might be able to resolve the speed issues with her system. But drilling expert Ophelia Troller (Ayisha Issa) comes up with a river raft solution to cut down on the time and expense of going under the mountains, while Vega gets hold of a chopper that can drop equipment into the most inaccessible places.
Although Taylor and his associate Simon (Jonathan Dubsky) are getting twitchy about deadlines and mounting costs, they remain prepared to trust Vincent, even when he hits a vein in the Appalachians, has a falling out with engineer Ray (Kwasi Songui) and has to deal with an Amish farmer (Johan Heldenbergh) who refuses to let him tunnel under his land, as he believes speed and money make it more difficult to live according to God's will. Taking a rare moment for himself, Vincent pays for a therapeutic massage and allows himself to cry, as he reflects on the fact that he is gambling with his own life, as well as Taylor's money.
But Torres is also still on his case and she sends FBI Agent Santana Lopez (Conrad Pla) to arrest Anton for Stock Market fraud at the very moment he works out how to save the precious millisecond. While he faces a 10-year sentence, Vincent discovers that Torres's towers are already operational and have the potential to slash the transmission time to 11 milliseconds and he passes out when trying to attack one of the beacons with a chainsaw. He tries to take out an insurance policy while being rushed to hospital in an ambulance, but he is too late and Taylor is furious with him because he risks losing his company. However, Anton fights back against Torres by using the phone-triggered equipment hidden in the hollowed out filing cabinet in his home office to slow down her system. But, while she agrees to drop the charges and not prosecute Vincent, they both know the game is over.
Out of jail, Anton tells Vincent that he is working on a method to harness the speed of neutrinos to reduce the message delivery time and jokes that they will be able to take over Wall Street, burn it down and invite the Zimbabwean lemon farmers to toast marshmallows on the flames. They drive out to the Amish ranch in a downpour so that Vincent can tell the elder that he has removed the cable from beneath his land. He tries to help carry sacks of grain into the barn, but collapses and is grateful when the elder covers him with a blanket. Vega had told him that they journey matters more than reaching the destination and, while sitting with Anton, Vincent tries to fathom whether his effort has been worthwhile.
Combining the grit and guts of a Manifest Destiny Western with the slickness of a fat cat morality tale like JC Chandor's Margin Call (2011) or Adam McKay's The Big Short (2015), this manages to be both engrossing and dismaying, as it lays bare the mentalities that underpin Donald Trump's version of the American Dream. The presence of Jesse Eisenberg reinforces the sense that echoes from David Fincher's The Social Network (2010) keep reverberating through a wholly fictional storyline that will feel all too real to those who have been treated like expendable inconveniences in the name of so-called progress. Nguyen lays it on a bit thick in having an Amish community prick Vincent's cancer-stricken conscience, but the point that greed is not good remains well worth making.
Once upon a time, the Capracorny little man used to stand up against the forces of big business. Nowadays, he tries to beat them at their own game and it's hard to empathise with Eisenberg, even after his terminal diagnosis. Similarly, it's difficult to take Alexander Skarsgård's eccentric geek seriously, with his headnest tonsure and habit of focusing his thoughts by hitting balls on the hotel's indoor tennis court in his dressing-gown. With her silver-streaked tresses, gold-rimmed glasses and designer wardrobe, Salma Hayek's vengeful villain also borders on caricature.
Yet, such is the conviction of their playing that most viewers will be content to be buffeted along by the relentless tide of events that are photographed by Nicolas Bolduc with a keen eye for the rugged majesty of the great outdoors and the slyly satirical details dotted around production designer Emmanuel Frechette's interiors. Yves Gourmeur's propulsive score reinforces the sense of urgency, although editors Arthur Tarnowski and Nicolas Chaudeurge don't always pull off the tonal shifts between the gung-ho machismo of the landscape taming and the more contemplative moments of human vulnerability, which is something of a drawback in a dissertation on the pace of modern life.
The rite of passage continues to fascinate film-makers and documentarist Jeremiah Zagar is the latest to fathom the mysteries of youth in We the Animals. Adapted from Justin Torres's 2011 novel, this 16mm delight evokes memories of David Gordon Green's George Washington (2000) and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) and marks something of a creative leap for its director after making a clutch of shorts and the feature-length actualities, In a Dream (2008) and Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart (2014).
Jonah (Evan Rosado) lives in upstate New York with his older siblings, Manny (Isaiah Kristian) and Joel (Josiah Gabriel) and their Puerto Rican father, Paps (Raúl Castillo), and white American mother, Ma (Sheila Vand). The brothers are inseparable, but Jonah keeps a secret journal in the springs of their bed and gets up in the night to write and draw by torchlight. Their parents work long hours and the boys sneak out of their shared room to see them sleeping on the sofa together. They enjoy hearing how they met at a school dance and have been sweethearts ever since. But Jonah likes the quiet moments at home, when Paps teaches them to dance to the radio in the kitchen, more than the more boisterous expeditions to the lake, one of which culminated in a furious row after Paps tries to force Jonah and Ma to learn how to swim by towing them into deep water and leaving them to fend for themselves.
One night, the boys hear Paps moving around and he tells them that he has just returned from the dentist because Ma needed her wisdom teeth removing. He claims the surgery was a bit rough, but reassures the boys that their mother will be fine in the morning. They watch him disappear into the darkness and creep into Ma's room, as Jonah's 10th birthday dawns. She tries to hide under the covers, but they see her cut lip and bruising around her mouth. Jonah promises he will still with her forever and she tells him to think of this as his 9+1 birthday, so he will always remain her little boy. When he kisses her on the mouth, however, Ma lashes out in pain and he cowers at the corner of the bed and wonders what is going to happen.
With Ma refusing to get out of bed, the boys raid the fridge and cupboards for anything they can find to eat. When the phone rings, they opt against answering it. But they find an old phone in the basement and make each other giggle by playing out conversations between Paps and Ma, in which he pleads with her to let him come home. They huddle under the covers with their torches chanting `body heat' (they are invariably shirtless in shorts when at home) and Jonah continues to scribble in his notebook (with some of his drawings coming to pencil life, notably one depicting him floating to upwards after the lake incident).
Having nearly been caught shoplifting in a corner store, the boys are nabbed in the act of pilfering from an allotment by a gnarled old man (Tom Malley). However, he invites them home for a feed and introduces them to his grandson, Dustin (Giovanni Pacciarelli), a tousled blonde who shows them video clips of sex phone lines and Jonah is surprised by Manny and Joel's coarse response to the sight of naked women. When the image switches to two men having sex, Jonah falls silent and he watches intently, hoping that the other don't notice. That night, he asks his brothers if they think Paps will come back and they are confident he will. Jonah dreams about him emerging from the lake and smoking and channels his thoughts into his drawings. although he is nearly caught when Joel wakes up and peers under the bed.
Eventually, Ma gets up and starts cooking for them again. Paps keeps calling and they overhear an argument while they are hanging out in the basement. Paps gives Jonah a haircut and promises that he is back, although another row breaks out when he buy a pickup truck and Ma curses him for not getting a more practical family vehicle. But they go for a ride with the boys in the back and they enjoy themselves shooting at the stars with their fingers, while their parents kiss in the front seat.
One morning, the boys hide behind the shower curtain and peer out to see their parents canoodling by the mirror. The sight and sounds reminds Jonah of the porn clips he has seen and the drawing he later confides to his notebook has an erotic edge. Embarrassed by being spied on by her sons, Ma gets behind the curtain with them and they chase Paps into the living room and jump on him when he comes searching for them. But Manny feels betrayed that he put fooling around with Ma before playing with them and slaps his father hard on his bare back. His siblings join in, as their frustration at not being at the centre of Paps's attention spills over.
Some time later, Manny and Joel fall out when the latter refuses to take praying seriously and Jonah gets left behind when they charge off into the woods. He goes to Dustin's house and is invited to watch porn in the den and he notices the older boy's hand slipping down the front of his shorts. A banging on the window brings him back down to earth and he chases after his siblings, who need him to help with some chores.
Paps works as a nightwatchman and, when Ma is on a clashing shift at the brewery, he takes his sons for a sleepover in his office. Jonah dislikes having a sleeping bag on the floor and dozes off on his father's knee at his desk, as Paps tells him he proud he is of having such a good-looking child. But they oversleep and the supervisor catches them sneaking out to the truck and Paps gets fired. They break down on the way home and have to get towed and Paps raises a smile, as Manny and Joel start banging on the paintwork and yelling out defiant slogans. However, he looks like half a man when Ma shoots him a look of contempt when they reach the house and she realises how much harder life is going to be without his wage.
Needing a way of channelling his fury, Paps digs a grave in the back garden and the boys watch him toiling from the window. When he fails to come back inside, Ma goes out to him and only returns, cold and wet, when a rainstorm hammers down. Jonah is intrigued by the hole and wanders out to lie naked in the mud. He feels the soil covering his fingers and imagines himself levitating into the air in a moment of self-realisatory liberation - before descending back to the depths when his brothers find him and confide that they had always known he was weird. Lying under the bed that night, he draws his siblings as winged demons pulling him apart, as he tries to fly away.
They are woken by Ma urging them to grab some things before bundling them into the truck. She says they are running away and suggests Spain as a possible destination, as all the boys there will like Jonah. He gazes at her with trusting incomprehension and he remains impassive, as she asks if they would rather go home. Paps is waiting for them in the window, when they roll back at dusk and Jonah slips away and contemplates going to see Dustin, but can't see any light from his house.
Winter sets in and the remote house is covered in snow. As Manny and Joel have found some booze and cigarettes, Jonah feels they have grown up and left him behind. They sneak out at night and go to the weir to smoke and drink and threaten to push Jonah into the rushing water. He steals their bag and hides out with Dustin, who protects him when Manny and Joel come looking for him. As he has found a roll of banknotes in the bag, he asks Dustin if they can go to Philadelphia together to find his mother and, when Dustin agrees, Jonah reaches across to stroke his hair and kiss him.
Smiling as he hastens home, Jonah climbs in through an upstairs window. However, he notices that his bed has been disturbed and he realises his brothers have found his book. He wanders into the living room to see torn pages bestrewn across the floor and he tries gather them up when Ma kneels beside him and asks if he is okay. Feeling threatened and betrayed, Jonah lashes out at Paps and has to be restrained.
He vanishes into the world of his drawings and decides he has to leave. As he watches his brothers sleep, he imagines them beckoning him over for a `Body Heat' ritual. But they don't wake and neither does his mother, as Jonah covers her on the sofa with a blanket. Outside, he finds his torn pages in a bin and clutches them to his chest, as he turns for a last look at the house and we see his shadow on the snow, as he soars above the treetops to embark upon a new beginning.
There's nothing particularly remarkable about Jonah's story. His brothers take after their macho Latino father, while he relates more closely to his mother's sensitivity. But, while his first steps towards adolescence are no different from those taken by thousands of 10 year-olds the world over, the way in which his coming of age is captured is quite mesmerising. Much credit should go to production designer Katie Hickman for creating a milieu that seems at once comforting and daunting, while editors Keiko Deguchi and Brian A. Kates bring the rhythms of childhood exuberance and trepidation to Zak Mulligan's grainy handheld imagery. This is complemented by Mark Samsonovich's scratchy pencil drawings, which are frequently animated to the melancholic strains of Nick Zammuto's score to convey the soaring heights and dreaded depths of Jonah's imagination.
Scripting with Daniel Kitrosser, Zagar taps into the poetry of Torres's prose. But the form trumps content throughout, as Zagar so immerses the audience in Jonah's perspective that he even allows him to tilt the camera at one point, so that we are left in no doubt whose experience we are viewing. Newcomer Evan Rosado excels as the wide-eyed junior member of a family he adores, without always understanding. Wherever he fixes his gaze, he does so with a quizzical gravitas that is both adorable and saddening, as it's clear he is slowly reaching the conclusion that he doesn't belong with his nearest and dearest.
Isaiah Kristian and Josiah Gabriel are boisterously feral, as they struggle to make sense of Raúl Castillo and Sheila Vand's amorous antics and combustible mood swings. But this episodic elegy belongs to Rosado and his innovative director, who shot the final scenes five months after the main shoot wrapped in order to suggest the imperceptible first step towards maturity. Yet, for all his audiovisual ingenuity, Zagar relies too heavily on the flights of fancy to nail the emotional reality of Jonah's journey.
Dutch director Sacha Polak has been feted for her first features, Hemel (2012) and Zurich (2015), which respectively focused on women suffering from trauma and grief. In making her English-language bow with Dirty God, Polak draws on these themes, as well as the body image issues raised in her courageous documentary, New Boobs (2013). Switching writing partners from Helena van der Meulen to Susanne Farrell, Polak demonstrates a sure insight into working-class British mores and more than merits the comparisons that have been made with the social realist films of Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay and Ama Assante.
Following close-ups of her scarred skin, Jade (Vicky Knight) leaves hospital with her mother, Lisa (Katherine Kelly), after being treated for extensive burns. Toddler daughter Rae (Eliza Brady-Girard) is scared by her Perspex safety mask and bawls hurtfully on their reunion at the London tenement block where they live. Unable to sleep, Jade pops downstairs to see her best friend, Shami (Rebecca Stone), who is unfazed by her changed appearance and draws on some new eyebrows before helping Jade try on a few dresses. As they smoke and joke, Jade admits that the mask is uncomfortable, but Shami refuses to let her feel sorry for herself.
She drags her out to a nightclub, where one of the gang makes reference to the fact that Jade's mixed-race ex, Kieran (Tachia Newall), will go to prison for a long time when he stands trial for throwing acid in her face. Feeling self-conscious, as people stare at her through the flashing coloured lights, Jade is happy to see Shami's boyfriend, Naz (Bluey Robinson), on whom she has long had a crush. However, she is less amused when he and Shami have noisy sex while she is trying to sleep on the sofa and she gets up in the night to vomit in the sink.
Returning home to find Lisa looking after Rae, Jade hides away in her room until she is disturbed by the sound of her wheeler-dealing mother having a fashion sale in the living room. She is also upset at seeing Rae's paternal grandmother, Pat (Wendy Albiston), dandling the two year-old on her knee and she urges Lisa to keep her away in future, as she doesn't want to be reminded of her son. When Rae keeps her awake crying, Jade covers her head with a blanket and gives her daughter a foul-mouthed puppet show, which brings a gurgle of delight.
Going to the fair with Shami and Naz, Jade is aware that Eli (Karl Jackson), the lad tagging along as her date, isn't interested because of her scarred cheek. Moreover, she has to put up with catty remarks from some girls by the Ghost Train and feels self-conscious after seeing the grotesque faces leering out of the darkness. She is equally glum after a check-up with her specialist, as she doesn't recommend further skin grafts. So, having passed some Muslim women in the street, Jade buys a niqab and dances around the flat with a joyous sense of freedom. When she ventures outside, she enjoys patting Naz on the behind when she passes him on the walkway and he doesn't recognise her. But Lisa isn't impressed when she sees her and asks if she's converted.
Jade keeps having erotic dreams about her ex-boyfriend sporting black feathers. In court, however, she can barely bring herself to look at him in the dock when he is given a lengthy sentence for throwing acid in his face. She tries to hide her hands, as the judge dismisses the defence that he had been provoked by Jade's unreasonable behaviour. Back home, she finds a website for a Moroccan plastic surgeon who can repair her face for a bargain price and she sends photos taken with her phone. She also goes online to fool around with a stranger on a sex line, although she is careful to keep her face in the shadows.
Needing money, Jade gets a job at a call centre and has to put up with stares and snide remarks. But she is befriended by Flavia (Dana Marineci), who has been working there for three years and puts up with the rubbish pay because she has two kids to feed. She offers Jade a smoke during their break and gives her a hug when she reveals that Rae had called her a monster when she first saw her face in hospital. While sitting in a car wash, Flavia also listens as Jade recalls the night of the unprovoked attack and how the skin on her hands and face had been melting off.
Lisa catches Jade masturbating on webcam and is furious with her for exposing herself with her daughter in the room (even though the cot is the other side of Jade's clothes rail). She also looks on helplessly, as Jade snatches Rae away from Pat when she takes her to the nearby playground and feels betrayed by her mother consorting with the enemy.
However, she loses her bag during a ride on the London Eye and has to take refuge at the call centre because she doesn't have the money to get home. The security guard lets her in and Jade buys Rae some crisps from a vending machine after finding some money on a desk. She dozes off on the floor and doesn't see Rae wet herself. But they have to leave at the end of the guard's shift and they are cowering in the cold at a bus stop when Lisa arrives with social worker Daisy (Alys Metcalf) to take Rae home.
As Lisa doesn't want her in the flat, Jade crashes on Shami's sofa. But she is humiliated when footage of one of her online hook-ups goes viral on another site and Flavia has to restrain her when she lashes out at one of her mocking workmates. Unable to face Shami, Lisa tries to harm herself by running into a wall and sleeps rough in a warehouse. Once again, she has dreams about her ex-boyfriend and this seems to prompt her into going ahead with the surgery in Marrakesh.
Stealing money from Lisa's hidden stash, Jade flies to Morocco with Shami and Naz and they share a room in a swanky hotel. Although she is suffering with the heat on her skin, Jade finds herself being drawn towards Naz. He tells her that she shouldn't blame herself for what happened to her and she jokes that she fell foul of a dirty God, who had it in for her. Naz kisses her and Shami almost catches them having sex, when she comes back early from sunbathing.
After spending the night floating on an lilo and sleeping on a poolside sun bed, Jade travels by taxi to the clinic. However, it proves to be a bogus address in a remote village and she has to make her way back to the city knowing she has not only been ripped off, but is also stuck with her scars. She joins Shami and Naz at a nightclub, where he insists that he has always fancied her. But Shami confides that she might be pregnant and Jade knows she has to back away to avoid losing her best friend. As she dances, she thinks she sees Kieran, as well as bird flying around the ceiling. She leaves without her friends and chats to the toddler of a woman running a fruit stall by the hotel and is pleased to make her smile.
Packing her case, Jade flies home without telling Shami and Naz. However, Lisa has changed the lock on the flat and she has to spend the night at the mattress warehouse again. On reporting to work, she asks Flavia if she can stay with her for a while, but she has her kids staying and doesn't have room. Somewhat improbably (given her brawl with a workmate and the fact she has been abroad), Jade wins employee of the month and she is heading home with a large silver cup when Daisy phones to say Lisa has been arrested for shoplifting.
Jade rushes to Hackney Police Station and gets slapped across the face when Lisa sees her for stealing the cash. She says she had been saving for a trip to Disneyland or Lapland, but now fears she'll face prison. When Jade tries to apologise, Lisa reveals that she had stayed away from the hospital after the attack, as she couldn't bear to see what Kieran had done to her little girl. But Jade refuses to be a victim and insists he took nothing away from her. She collects Rae, who is pleased to see her, and the family heads home on the bus to make the best of whatever life can throw at them.
From the moment we see her pocked skin (enhanced by make-up designer Morten Jacobsen) in opening close-ups accompanied by Iranian-Dutch singer Sevdaliza's `Human', burn survivor Vicky Knight gives an exceptional performance on debut in this harrowing tale of struggle and redemption. Seething with a sense of injustice to match her pain and fury, Knight allows herself the odd self-pitying wallow over the course of her journey. But she remains flintily credible, as she loses patience with her mother and daughter, tussles with workplace chauvinists, endures humiliation after seeking anonymous gratification, and risks her most important friendship over a dalliance she needs to bolster her self-esteem.
Yet, while Polak mines the grittier end of the social-realist scale, she and Farrell lose their grip on the narrative in the final third, with everything from the moment Jade flies out to Morocco to the final bus ride home smacking of melodrama. Indeed, Lisa's arrest feels like something out of Eastenders, which is frustrating, as the action to this juncture had been credible and compelling. Moreover, Polak had elicited genuine compassion for Jade rather than cheap pity. But the more dependent the film becomes upon the contrivances of the storyline, the less effective it becomes. Rutger Reinders's score becomes more plangently insistent, while Sander Vos's editing acquires a deliberation that was absent in the more observational opening passages.
Sanne Schat's production design and Ruben Impens's camerawork retain their consistency (the niqab and car wash sequences are deftly moving), while the support playing is solid, if sometimes awkwardly Loachian. Soap veteran Katherine Kelly does well enough as the fortysomething mum who has enough on her plate fending for herself without having to deal with a daughter struggling to juggle single motherhood and her physical and psychological distress. But, while Rebecca Stone and Bluey Robinson are empathetic, their characters are too thinly limned to carry their share of the dramatic burden during the deeply flawed finale. In drawing attention to the mounting problem of acid attacks in the UK, it's clear that Polak has much to offer and it's to be hoped that somebody releases Hemel and Zurich on disc or online - but we have a shocking habit in this country of letting festival films slip into an obscurity from which they can rarely be retrieved, even after their maker goes on to enjoy some critical acclaim.
Twelve years after producing Richard Laxton's Grow Your Own (2007), Carl Hunter reunites with writing partner Frank Cottrell-Boyce for his directorial debut, Sometimes Always Never. The onetime bassist with The Farm, Hunter currently teaches film production at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk (making him the week's second academic film-maker after Wild Honey Pie's Jamie Adams). He actually made his first short, Blood Sports For All: The Punk Kes, back in 1995 and has collaborated with the Keble-educated Cottrell-Boyce on the 2009 short, Accelerate, and his prize-winning 2010 novel, The Unforgotten Coat. Given their shared Mersey heritage, it's perhaps not surprising that a wisp of Scouse whimsy seeps into their story - but when's that ever been a bad thing?
Widowed tailor Alan Mellor (Bill Nighy) has arranged to meet his ice cream van painter son, Peter (Sam Riley), on the waterfront at Crosby. They have been summonsed to identify a body in York that might be Alan's missing son, Michael. During the drive in a vintage Triumph Herald, Alan annoys Peter by playing with a word game app rather than chatting. He then insists that they stay at a B&B after a shift snafu prevents them fulfilling their grim task. In the lounge, they meet Margaret (Jenny Agutter) and Arthur (Tim McInnerny) and Alan talks them into a game of Scrabble, with a £200 wager riding on it.
Much to Arthur's annoyance, Alan turns out to be quite a logophile and the more he plays obscure words, the more wound up he becomes. He takes out his frustration on Margaret, who is quite prepared to bite back. When Arthur goes to the loo, she explains that he is on edge and wishes he still sang, as he did in the days when he worked for the Pickwick record label and doubled for everyone from Ken Dodd to Freddie Mercury on their Top of the Pops compilation albums. He even impersonated Bonnie Tyler on `It's a Heartache'. But he lost the will after their 19 year-old son disappeared and they have come to identify a recently found body. Alan says nothing about his own mission and clasps Margaret's hand in sympathy before agreeing to let her remove a word so Arthur can play one for a large score.
While walking in the garden before bed, Alan tells Peter about the bet and Arthur being Mr Pickwick. He regrets taking the money off him, but got it into his head that whoever won would get bad news at the morgue the next day. Margaret is surprised to see the Millers next morning and she waits with Peter, while Alan goes into the mortuary. Feeling guilty about his dad fleecing Arthur, Peter offers to return half the money and Margaret is furious with her husband for frittering the money. She calls it the `Fool's Tax' and shushes him when he complains about her revealing his once top secret identity.
They are left nonplussed when Alan breezes in to fetch Peter because the body wasn't Michael. In the car, Peter complains about having had a second-best childhood, as they had Chad Valley Big League rather than Subbuteo. But Alan refuses to apologise for raising the boys on his own and they part beside the ice cream van on the darkened `Another Place' beach. Before he leaves, however, Alan puts flyers asking for information about Michael's whereabouts under the wipers of all the parked cars.
Time passes and Peter's wife, Sue (Alice Lowe), muses with son Jack (Louis Healy) whether it would be better if Michael was dead rather than happy somewhere else without his father and brother. She offers Alan some supper and a bed for the night when he arrives unannounced one evening and puts it into her head that Jack spends too much time computer gaming, while Peter is a classic exponent of passive aggressive transference, as he would always rather walk away than confront a problem head on. Alan gives Sue a Dymo label maker and Peter remembers how everything in the house used to be labelled.
He sleeps in Jack's bunk bed and forces his grandson to go on top. The next morning, he drives Jack down to breakfast because he is playing Scrabble online. Then Sue embarrasses Jack, as he tries to act cool in front of Rachel (Ella-Grace Gregoire) at the bus stop. When he gets home, Alan is still on his computer and proceeds to keep him awake at bedtime by telling him a story about his great-grandmother mining coal in the basement of her corner shop. Some time later, he takes him to his shop and fits him for a couple of suits. He also gives him a new haircut that impresses Rachel and Sue, who stops at the bus stop to tell her son how spruce he looks.
Jack is mortified, but Rachel takes a shine to him and they start travelling on the back seat of the bus together. Moreover, Sue begins putting labels around the house. She comes round to play Scrabble and feels sorry for Peter, not only because she realises he is the non-prodigal son who stayed behind, but also because he doesn't know how he fits into his own family. He hovers on the periphery, as Sue joins in the game and Alan referees. Peter gets cross when his father looks up certain words and doubts whether `yo' should be allowed, even though it's a standard greeting like `hi'.
When he tries to apologise next day, Alan shows him a board he is playing online and is convinced that it's Michael. He notes that he had stormed out after Peter had challenged the legitimacy of `zo' during a game of Scrabble and Peter feels affronted that he is being blamed for his brother's disappearance. As he tries to talk, he bumps into Margaret, who emerges from the bedroom wrapped in a towel. She feels no guilt, as she had divorced Arthur after identifying Nigel, and embarrasses Peter by telling him what a good lover Alan is.
The next day, Jack is concerned because Alan has left without a word. He and Sue browbeat Peter into going to his house to check he's okay. But there's no sign of him and, when she drops round, Margaret is so upset by the sight of photographs of Michael that she breaks down and calls Arthur to come and get her. They drive home singing `It's a Heartache', while Peter goes to the police, where the desk officer (Alan Williams) tells him a story about his son running away after an argument during Top Gear. He had searched everywhere for him and got into a right state before finding the boy asleep in bed. Peter knows, however, that things are rarely that simple.
As Alan had synched his phone with Jack's computer, he tracks him down to Ainsdale. He had said something about meeting somebody off the Internet and Peter agrees to find him to make Jack feel better. He meets a waitress (Eithne Browne), who likes the popping sound made by the `p' in the word `soap' and finds Alan's car parked beside a caravan in the woods. The walls are covered with maps littered with neatly printed labels, but there's no sign of Alan.
The next day, Peter ventures into a boatyard, where Bill (Alexei Sayle) mistakes him for Michael. He takes some convincing that Peter is Alan's son, but Bill eventually reveals that he's out in his boat and is a very competent sailor. But he's soon back shivering in a blanket after he sinks, although nothing is said about the incident. Instead, Peter explains that Michael left after their mother died because he was so angry and upset and that the game of Scrabble was merely the last straw. However, Alan is convinced that an online player called Skinny Thesaurus is his son and he has arranged to meet him because he used the word `marauder' during a game and that was the make of their caravan.
Rising next morning, Alan finds a tile from a cheap knock-off game called `Scrubble' on his car bonnet. He darts through the woods to find Peter sitting at a picnic table, with a set he found on Ebay. Alan realises he has been playing Peter online and they apologise for being the Pickwick of sons and the Chad Valley Big League of Dads. Peter claims the non-prodigal son did well out of the deal, as he got to spend time with his family and Alan nods, as if finally accepting that Michael is never coming back and that he should make the most out of Peter and his family. As the film ends, Rachel joins them to watch fireworks on the beach, as Peter sings to his guitar and a chair is left for Michael - just in case.
Taking its title from the rules applying to the three buttons on a gentleman's jacket, this is an unassuming delight. The biggest compliment one could pay it, is to compare it to something concocted by the master of quotidian northernness, Peter Tinniswood. That said, there are also hints of Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell in Cottrell-Boyce's beguiling dialogue. Echoes of elsewhere can also be detected in the visuals, as Hunter playfully dots the action with definition intertitles, monochrome flashbacks and amusing bits of cinematic kitsch, such as the ill-lit back projection during the road trips and the Pugwashian animation used for the sinking scene. Even Bill Nighy and Sam Riley's Scouse burrs recall Harry Enfield's `calm down' skit (although this might not be entirely intentional), as they struggle to communicate in spite of their articulacy.
Accents apart, the wordplay is worthy of a radio drama, while the supporting turns of Jenny Agutter, Tim McInnerny and Alice Lowe are spot on. That said, Roger McGough would have made a better Alan than Nighy, who never quite fits as the melancholic tailor using deadpan mannerism to mask his pain. Tim Dickel's production design is more bespoke, however, with his use of greens and blues for the B&B and Alan's parlour being pipped by the wonderful wallpapers in the latter and Jack's bedroom. Richard Stoddard's camera picks up such details with an insouciant grace that characterises the entire production. Ultimately, the story is something of a shaggy goose chase. But anyone with a fondness for 70s board games and cultural ephemera will find this more satisfying than a beaker of Horlicks.
CinemaItaliaUK signs off for the summer with one of the most unusual films this fine initiative has ever screened. Inspired by the 1791 Singspiel by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Emanuel Schikaneder, Gianfranco Cabiddu and Mario Tronco's Il Flauto Magico di Piazza Vittorio is an audiovisually audacious bid to breathe new life into a revered classic with the aid of a multi-ethnic orchestra. Sung in eight languages and blithely blending the old and the new, this may not please the purists. But it could appeal to those taken by Shakirah Bourne's Shakespearean retool, A Caribbean Dream (2017).
As a park keeper (Omar Lopez Valle) at closing time is transformed into a narrator, we learn that Prince Tamino (Ernesto Lopez Maturell) has been stranded in a distant land and appeals to the gods to save him when he is attacked by a monster (Javier Varela Carrera). His words are heard by three women (Ashai Lombardo Arop, Cristina Chinaglia and Kyungmei Lee), who are maids to the Queen of the Night (Petra Magoni). They are taken by the stranger's good looks and are reluctant to leave him alone with any of their rivals, in case she attempts to seduce him.
While they depart to report to their mistress, Tamino comes round and convinces himself that he has been rescued from the creature by Papageno (El Hadji Yeri Samb), a birdcatcher who is ready to take credit where none is due. He is punished by the returning maidservants, who place a padlock on his lips for telling fibs. They escort the pair to the palace, where a messenger (Ziad Trabelsi) explains that the queen's daughter, Pamina (Violetta Zironi), has been abducted by the evil demon, Sarastro (Fabrizio Bentivoglio). The Queen appears to recall how bereft she was when her child was stolen from her and she promises Tamino that he can marry Pamina if he rescues her and retrieves a stolen medallion.
Overwhelmed by Pamina's beauty, Tamino gazes at her portrait and whistles a melancholic melody that floats through the air and reaches her ears. as she appears to try an escape down a spiralling staircase. As he is now only capable of whistling, he is presented with a magic flute that has the power to turn sorrow into joy. Papageno has his speech restored and receives a scarab that he wears around his neck, as they are warned their gifts can only be used once each in case of emergency.
Guided by a trio of Mariachi musicians (Evandro Dos Reis, Pino Pecorelli and Daily Mado Sissoko), the pair cross candy-coloured video game settings and emerge through a portal on a winding yellow road that leads to a series of arches. They are challenged by a temple priest (Raul Scebba), who informs them that they have been duped and sent on a false errand by the Queen of the Night. Nevertheless, he heads them through the arches and into blinding sunlight. Finding themselves at the foot of a sandy incline, Tamino and Papageno scramble to the top and slip past a couple of guards to search for Pamina.
Splitting up, Papageno sees Pamina through a skylight, as she is being tied and tormented by Monostato (Houcine Ataa). She pushes him away and he vows to return, closing the door just as Papageno falls through the window and lands on Pamina's couch. Untying her, he joins her in a duet that attracts the attention of Monostato and his henchmen, who are rendered powerless when they suddenly start dancing after Papageno strokes his scarab. Met on the stairs by Tamino, the fugitives take an elevator to the basement, where the prince uses his flute to open the stone door to a cave.
Inside, they find the medallion on a blue plinth. However, they also encounter Sarastro, who turns out to be Pamina's father and a benevolent soul, who has been striving to protect his child from her wicked mother. That said, he orders Monostato to receive 77 lashes across the soles of his feet, while the interlopers are taken into the garden abutting the yellow temple to face three tests. The priest explains that Tamino has to avoid communicating with Pamina the next time he sees her, while Papageno is required to resist the temptation to eat on being presented with a feast. While he helps Tamino pass his ordeal, Papageno takes a celebratory bite out of an apple and is forced to remain in the garden while his friend is led away.
Meanwhile, the Queen of the Night pays her daughter a visit and sings the famous aria `Hell's Vengeance Boils My Heart' in demanding that Pamina stabs Sarastro to death. Instead, Pamina uses the dagger to drive away Monostato, who skulks away to lead the queen (who has promised him Pamina's hand) through the caves to the medallion chamber. Meanwhile, Sarastro allows his daughter to help Tamino negotiate the final tasks and together they endure a cascade of water, which turns into a ring of fire. Below them, Papageno alerts the priest to the Queen of the Night's presence and beats her to the medallion, which he attaches to the Circle of Power.
The flames die down and the friends are reunited in time for Pamina to hurl the corrupting amulet over a cliff edge into the sea. She returns to the temple to confront her feuding parents and ask why they can't get along. At these words, their strutting stand-off becomes a dance of reconciliation, as Pamina and Tamino invite Papageno to accompany them, as they wander through the park gates and into the streets of Rome, as dawn breaks.
There have been a clutch of films based on Mozart's masterpiece, including Lotte Reiniger's sublime silhouette animation, Papageno (1935), and the 1975 and 2006 versions of The Magic Flute directed by Ingmar Bergman and Kenneth Branagh (the latter with a screenplay by Stephen Fry). But this freewheeling variation stands alone in terms of innovation and audacity. Boldly designed by Lino Fiorito to incorporate stylised live-action and the odd animated interlude, it's gleamingly photographed by Stefano Falivene to capture the ravishing colours of Ortensia De Francesco's costumes, which are almost as flamboyant as Piergiorgio Milano's swaggering choreography and Leandro Piccioni's dazzling score.
There may be no Papagena, but she's scarcely missed, as Cabiddu and Tronco rework the scenario to make Pamina the focus, as she finds a way to bring her parents to their senses and reach her own decision about her handsome prince. Moreover, the co-directors subject the audience to a Bill Viola-like barrage of brilliantly bonkers set-pieces that the Mozart played by Tom Hulce in Miloš Forman's Amadeus (1984) would probably have adored.
Camping it up like Gloria Swanson in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), Petra Magoni almost appears to be mocking the operatic histrionics demanded of her, while Ashai Lombardo Arop, Cristina Chinaglia and Kyungmei Lee are irresitibly delightful as the impish maidens. Screen legend Fabrizio Bentivoglio brings a touch of classy gravitas to the part of Sarastro, while El Hadji Yeri Samb has fun as Papageno. If there is a weak link, it's the lack of spark between Violetta Zironi and Ernesto Lopez Maturell (whose voice feels a bit thin in places). But, as they sashay away into the Wizard of Ozzy sunrise, most viewers will have been too forcefully pinned back in their seat even to notice or care.
To most British cineastes, Mania Akbari is best known as the mother driving her son around Tehran in Abbas Kiarostami's Ten (2002). However, since making her directorial debut with the 2003 documentary, Crystal, Akbari has produced the unflinching features 20 Fingers (2004), One. Two. One. (2011) and From Tehran to London (2012), as well as such actualities as 10 + 4 (2007), 30 Minutes to 6 (2011) and Life May Be (2014), which she co-directed with Mark Cousins. She shares the credit with sculptor partner Douglas White on A Moon For My Father, an epistolary reflection on beauty, body image, identity and inspiration that centres on the health issues that have shaped Akbari's life and art over the last 12 years.
In December 2013, Mania Akbari attends the Royal Marsden Hospital for a series of photographs prior to reconstructive surgery following a a double mastectomy. She writes to Douglas White in March 2014 about rubber, as he is building a palm tree out of shredded tyres and she is contemplating the latex implants she is about to receive. The tree takes her back to her childhood during the Iran-Iraq War and the monochrome shots of tyre mountains give way to archive footage of soldiers preparing for combat. A song urging readiness and courage plays over the images, as Akbari speculates (in Farsi) on the tales that the palm trees could tell after witnessing so much carnage and cruelty.
Writing from Edinburgh, while attending his uncle's funeral in October 2014, White reveals that they killed time by visiting the Forth Road Bridge and an aquarium. He is relieved his mother had not been the first sibling to die and, while watching her wander between the tanks, he muses on the fact that her body provided his first aquatic home. This reminds him of how a friend had delivered his premature daughter and been surprised by the amber shade of her amniotic sac. White also revels in the childhood sensation of feeling weightlesswhile lying in a bath as it fills with water and describes how Michelangelo used a coffin filled with water while sculpting marble to determine which parts of the stone to work upon.
This recollection makes White ponder his vocation and the ways in which sculpting reveals secrets. Over footage of a 2004 experiment to fill a Brazilian ant colony with concrete, he confesses to having become obsessed with the structure that was excavated and only later recognised that the chambers had a gonadal aspect that struck him because he was trying to become a father. As we see an image of an ant in a piece of amber, White divulges that Michelangelo was supposed to have been able to see a figure inside a slab of marble and he defined his purpose in life as the liberation of the sculpture within.
Over February 2015 footage of passengers on the Tube, Akbari contrasts the love between her devoted parents and the fact that White's father had left when he was still young. She did lose someone close to her, however, as Asadollah Bakhtiari, the uncle who had read her stories as a child, was executed during the Islamic Revolution. Her cousin, Reza Torabi, moved in with her family and studied engineering. He was full of optimism for a better future for his compatriots and Akbari admits falling in love with his looks, his idealism and his ability to change light bulbs. The day after he told her the story of Rostam and Sohrab, he was killed in a terrorist bombing in the Iranian Parliament on 29 June 1981 and he was proclaimed a martyr in the Iranian media. We see a clip from a TV show about him, as Akbari reveals that she gave the male doll she had named Asadollah and Reza to the maid's daughter. Akbari was 13 when the war with Iraq ended, but she felt it continue inside her, especially during religious celebrations like Ashura.
In his studio in September 2015, White works on a spinning sign with the word `No' written on it, as he recalls being on the top deck of a night bus and seeing a neon sign with just these two letters flickering above a snooker hall. It had been removed by the time he went to retrieve it and is embarrassed to say this is the closest he has come to bereavement, as he has never lost anyone close to him. However, when his estranged father was dying, White flew to Australia to visit him and we see his photographs from the day of the funeral. We also witness an attempt to pickaxe open the safe he found in his father's workshop and a close-up of the fruit bat that he had found dead on a grass verge while out walking. On returning to London, he had spotted a blackened banana skin and noticed the resemblance to the bat's wings and he began collecting others he found and experimented with ways to preserve them. This forced him to confront the memory of rubbing his dying father's feet while he was in hospital and being discomfited by the flesh-on-flesh feel.
As Akbari enters hospital for her surgery in December 2017, she remembers White making `New Skin for an Old Ceremony', which had been inspired by the decaying carcass of an elephant that he had seen on holiday in East Africa with his mother. She connects this to the removal of her own breasts and the maimed bodies of war veterans, as both are proud of their losses and having survived. We see Akbari undergoing treatment, as she reflects on the failure of the Iranian regime to impose modesty policies on the public, as they have served only to focus attention on the female form. In seeking to stop women posing on electrical boxes in the street to denounce the compulsory wearing of the hijab, the government replacing the tops with pyramids. But the demonstrators merely placed wooded structures over them to continue with their protest and Akbari superimposes a picture of her naked self on one of the images to make her own contribution to this `collaborative sculpture project'.
With the doctors concerned that her cancer could return, Akbari had her ovaries removed. Shortly afterwards, she begins IVF treatment and her life becomes a regime of hormone pills and injections, even though she feels conceiving is as unlikely as the intact removal of the concrete ant colony from the Brazilian earth. It takes lot of sacrifice and needlework and the defiance of considerable medical odds, but Akbari becomes pregnant and her success is contrasted with that of a heron outside her window surviving the dive bombing of a mischievous crow.
She gives birth to a son and produces milk from the right nipple that had been left after her surgeries. He accompanies her for another set of photographs at the Marsden and he cries when she bumps his head on hauling him out of his stroller. On being coddled and shown off to the staff, however, he begins to gurgle and Akbari bundles out of shot to get on with her life.
Revisiting some of the themes examined in Jason Barker's A Deal With the Universe, this is an enormously courageous film, as Akbari exposes herself physically and psychologically in the name of political art. But there is also a poetic element to the way in which the words spoken are contrasted with images that focus the viewer's mind on the complex, provocative and intimate issues being addressed.
Harrowing though much of the footage is, there are also moments of quiet humour, as White tries to be brave while giving a blood sample while knowing he isn't entitled to complain after everything that Akbari has been through. But he does feel like a junior partner in the piece, in much the way that John Lennon was in his film collaborations with Yoko Ono. Nevertheless, the bond between the pair is readily evident and, if it sometimes feels as though we are eavesdropping on deeply personal events, the openness of the film-makers and the inclusiveness of topics that touch us all ensures that this is an experience to share.
Seven years have passed since Charlie Paul made a notable debut with Ralph Steadman: For No Good Reason (2012). But the wait has been worthwhile, as Prophecy provides a gripping insight into the working methods of Scottish artist Peter Howson, as he embarks upon one of his most ambitious canvases. Having made his name with working-class images like `The Heroic Dosser' (1987), Howson was hired by the Imperial War Museum to cover the war in Bosnia-Herzogovina in 1993 and later acted in a similar capacity in Kosovo for The Times. He has also designed postage stamps and album covers and discovered God after recovering from alcoholism and drug dependency. But Paul is solely interested in the creation of a single work of art.
As a 6x8ft canvas is transported to Glasgow, Peter Howson explains that the world is in a perilous state and that he intends his latest picture to show that the thin veneer of civilisation is cracking. He covers the white expanse with an ochrish background and describes how his style has become more spontaneous over the years. Yet, as he uses a cloth to groove in the outlines of some figures, he believes a form of memory is also at work from a dream he had of the Gates of Hell. He laments that people in distress are ignored on the streets of major cities each day and he wants this image of the Crucifixion to encompass the ancient and the modern. Thus, he includes streetlights and contemporary structures to highlight the continued relevance of Christ's sacrifice and the ongoing suffering of the souls in torment witnessing his agony, as they are plucked from the Vale of Tears by angels or pulled downwards by demons.
Flitting between Greek mythology, mermaids and the first El Greco he saw at the National Gallery when he was eight, Howson recalls how his librarian uncle had encouraged him to read and he had devoured Tintin and Moomin books, as well as comics like The Victor and The Beezer. He admits to boring himself with the canvas as it stands and he flicks through the many books on his shelves for inspiration. Reluctant to add too much colour, he paints a Stars and Stripes on to a TV screen and reveals that people are more likely to buy a painting with reds in it, even though artists since the Renaissance have found it difficult to use.
As he discovered producing contentious items like `Croatian and Muslim' (1994), Howson is convinced that an artist can't help but be original if they're being sincere. He admits this was a difficult time in his life, as his marriage collapsed and he slipped into a downward spiral. But he refuses to be bitter, even though his war zone experiences prey upon his mind. Vigorously applying glaze, he explains the impact it has on a picture and like the fact it intensifies the mood by deepening the colour. A time-lapse sequence reveals the unifying effect the application has on the image, as it darkens in tone and aspect, and Howson shows how Leonardo Da Vinci used glaze to darken `Saint John the Baptist'. There is a risk in such ploys, however, and he admits that he has junked paintings after making stupid mistakes.
Returning relieved that he has not messed up, Howson starts using cobalt blue for the reflected light and admits to breaking the compositional rules by having four or five light sources in the picture. He is glad he is using oils, as they are correctable and he avers that he no longer uses life models for his anatomy as they wouldn't be able to sustain the poses he needs. As he searches for a red to bring a blood-fire tinge to things, he jokes that the tubes of paint can often hide like naughty children just when you need them.
Howson suffered from nightmares as a child and was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. His vulnerability led him into the orbit of people who were bad for him and he saw the Gates of Hell after taking a cocaine overdose. But he would rather have opened himself to experiences and made mistakes than shut himself away and missed out on fulfilling his potential. As he works, he adds new characters and identifies areas in the image that need improvement. Such revisions can be hard work, but he would rather be doing this than working in a factory.
While his dogs sleep, Howson explains that he doesn't have a phone so he can stay in his creative trance that enables him to make changes with confidence. A remarkable time-lapse montage follows showing how several past canvases underwent radical revision, but he can feel this one coming together. As he works, he bemoans the fact that so many modern artists are incapable of producing this kind of picture, as the classical influence is waning, even though it's what brings the public to the great galleries. He points out a character called Lucie, who has appeared in many of his paintings and he suggests she's a sort of lucky charm. She is based on his daughter, who also suffers from Asperger's, and he regrets not having been a better father when she was small. He now loves her more than anyone other than God (because he created her) and he explains that she is holding the Crown of Thorns in this picture and has a form of stigmata on his back.
When he was six, Howson saw Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923) and this remains his ideal image of the New Testament story. He considers painting to be a cinematic experience, as characters come and go as the story of the creation unfolds. As `The More I See You' plays on the soundtrack, Howson claims the characters as his pals and he has a hankering for a Burger King at the end of a montage that includes a break to play with one of his dogs with a Sooty glove puppet. Returning to the easel, he decries the fact that Modern Art has become overly elitist and leaves viewers feeling foolish unless they can read the artist's intentions. He thinks art should be for everyone and feels he has an obligation to educate and inspire, as well as entertain.
Howson admits to not enjoying the last stretch of any picture, as he always spots things he doesn't like. He amends the sky to brighten it at the edge of the main image and adds a few warm shadows to peripheral characters. It's deft work and he uses small brushes for the finer details. As he signs the canvas, an astonishing time-lapse sequence shows the process from start to finish and the radical nature of some of the tonal shifts will take viewers by surprise, no matter how closely they have been watching. While he hopes the picture ends up in a gallery so it can be seen, he's not concerned if it's bought by a private collector.
Gallerist Matthew Flowers describes what happens to the painting once it leaves the studio and we see it travel by van to London for packing. Several other Howsons are due for shipping to New York, where they are exhibited for the rich and powerful (a fleeting glimpse of a portrait of David Bowie suggests he has bought a Howson in the past). We learn that a collector has an option on `Prophecy' and a night shot choppers out from the skyscraper office in which it's being kept to hover over Canary Wharf, as though sitting in judgement on the source of the sins that Howson has apocalyptically allegorised. A closing caption reveals that he has produced over a thousand paintings with an estimated value of $60 million. But he insists he is still a craftsman who has to sell his wares in order to survive.
While Jack Bond devoted the first nine minutes of An Artist's Eyes to self-taught outsider artist Chris Moon working on a canvas, Charlie Paul spends all but a bookending dozen minutes in close proximity to Howson, as he painstakingly perfects a canvas that bears the unmistakable influence of Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch and Rembrandt van Rijn. The footage captured by four different cameras is attentive, but discreet, while Howson is given the room to free associate on a soundtrack recorded by six microphones positioned around the studio. He makes for a fascinating study, both as he paints and contemplates his handiwork. But editor Joby Gee steals a little of his thunder with the `work in progress' sequences that are as masterly as they're mesmerising.
Having long been obsessed with musicians, novelists and artists, documentarists have recently taken to profiling photographers, dancers, architects and chefs. Such was the success of Thomas Riedelsheimer's collaborations with Andy Goldsworthy on Rivers and Tides (2001) and Leaning into the Wind (2017), however, that film-makers started latchinng on to shaping the great outdoors. Following Dana Erin Richardson and Sarah Zentz's Back to Eden (2011), Delia Vallot's Can You Dig This? (2015), Phil Grabsky's Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse (2017) and Sébastien Chabot and Joe Duncombe's The Gardener (2018), Thomas Piper tags along with a globe-trotting Dutch garden designer for Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf.
It's autumn, as Piet Oudolf sketches with felt tip pens in his studio in Hummelo. He shows people around his garden, which he confides requires a lot of attention to make it appear so wild. The camera lingers on individual plants and drones provide elevated perspectives that capture the ambience as deftly as the opening time-lapse sequences. Oudolf bought the largely derelict farm in 1981 and he has lived there ever since with wife Anja and their sons, Pieter and Hugo. As he explains to Cassian Schmidt, the director of the Hermannschof Garden, the plan was to open a nursery so he could learn about the properties and potential of a range of plants. He also started writing books with Henk Gerritsen, who was experimenting with wild plants and Oudolf's desire for greater spontaneity in design made them a solid team.
While chatting with fellow designer and sometime co-author Noel Kingsbury, Oudolf recalls how he and Gerritsen published Dream Plants for the Natural Garden in 2000 and he notes that he continues to draw upon its contents for his designs today. Hans Ulbrich Obrist, the Artistic Director of the Serpentine Gallery, suggests that Oudolf undertook what might be called a Grand Tour to learn about plants across the world and he is joined at White Clay Creek Preserve in Landenberg, Pennsylvania by designer Rick Darke. The scenery is beautifully photographed to capture the colours and the unspoilt beauty of the spot, as Darke informs Oudolf that his gift lies in showing people what they hadn't realised was there.
Back home, Oudolf begins work on transforming Durslade Farm into the Hauser & Wirth arts centre at Bruton in Somerset. He explains how he devised the layout and how mathematics plays a part in calculating where to plant particular plants according to their flowering dates. The colourful drawings are artworks in themselves. although they are also selling tools as Oudolf needs to convince a client of his vision for their space. He wanders around his garden, pointing out combinations that work, even though they would never appear in the wild. It's a time of endings, but Oudolf finds things to appreciate in decline, as well as flourishing.
Another time-lapse sequence takes us into winter and Oudolf is at The High Line, a 1.45-mile elevated park that occupies the former New York Central Railroad spur in Manhattan. The snow has also fallen on Battery Gardens and on Hummelo, where Oudolf is explaining how he puts plants on stage and lets them perform. He doesn't buy into terms like the Dutch Wave or New Perennialism, he just goes with his instincts and places his trust in Nature. As he places as much emphasis on character and texture as on colour, he hopes he can produce gardens that look good in bad light.
Looking back on life in the bar run by his parents, Oudolf claims he learned to observe while watching the customers. But he didn't know what he wanted to do and took a number of jobs before his imagination was sparked while working in a garden centre. Anja supported him all the way and she joins him on a visit to the Arboretum Kalmthout in Belgium. He finds inspiration everywhere and tries to incorporate what he finds into the garden at Hummelo, where he muses on the fact he is no longer young and won't be able to regenerate like his plants.
Cutting back is also taking place at High Line and the Lurie Garden in Chicago, as we morph into spring. Oudolf is working on a design with various grasses and he claims that he tries to build a political element into his schemes, as he wants to fight the extinction being exacerbated by climate change. But he also wants people to see that there is more to life than the daily grind.
Work is progressing at Durslade, as the ground is levelled and marked before plants are placed in their pots for Oudolf's inspection. He consults with unnamed team members, who do the actual work, as he prefers not to get his hands dirty. But he supervises with clarity and good humour to ensure the 54,000-plant reality matches his blueprints. Crossing to New York, he checks in with Tom Smarr, Director of Horticulture for Friends of the High Line and commends the simplicity of the planting. Always on the move, the heads to Texas Hill Country to look at wildflowers and is so enchanted by the sprays of colour at the side of the road that he keeps stopping with his camera. Delighting in seeing plants in their natural environment, he feels his batteries charging for a busy period that lies ahead.
Enjoying the return of plants he considers to be good friends, Oudolf starts the summer with a visit to the Schulenberg Prairie Restoration at Lisle, Illinois with Roy Diblik from Northwild Perennial Farm. They compare plants getting along with people and Oudolf says that those that don't behave in the community should be removed. He moves on to the Lurie Garden to plan future layouts with Director of Horticulture, Jennifer Davit. The combinations surprise him, as he knows it's impossible to control garden, but he is pleased with the effects and compares himself to a conductor trying to bring about harmony.
As in Chicago, Battery Gardens (2001) and High Line (2004) brought wildlife back to areas of post-industrial decay and he catches up with the latter's co-designer, James Corner, and his partner, Lisa Switkin. Corner compares Oudolf to a chef who knows his ingredients, but he insists he only knows his stuff because he makes an effort to see plants in their original contexts and hopes that people share his ideas on beauty.
At the opening of the Durslade centre, Iwan and Manuela Wirth ask Oudolf why he's never exhibited his designs before and they rather blow smoke in hailing him as an artist in an awkwardly staged conversation that rather confirms that it would have been wiser allowing the Dutchman to toot his own horn rather than have others fawn over him. They wander into Oudolf Field, where he points out that it is still a work in progress, as while some beds are `screaming' to draw attention to themselves, others are `crying' because they are still to flourish. He takes the same pride in his own garden, as he muses on the fact that some plants have still to bloom, while others are already turning into skeletons.
Oudolf acknowledges that plants have filled a void in his life and he wonders whether the meadows he cycled through as a child left an unconscious mark. It's autumn again and the garden clock at Dursdale ticks over aerial shots of the garden to show how closely the finished article resembled the original sketches. Wirth thanks Oudolf for his inspiration during the opening ceremony and the film ends back in Hummelo, as Oudolf sums up his achievement by claiming to show beauty where people hadn't expected to see it.
As the film was completed in 2017, there is no way of mentioning the fact that Oudolf has since closed Hummelo to the public in order to focus on his design work. Clearly, the commissions will keep coming, as he not only has a remarkable knowledge of plants, but he also has an exceptional mind's eye when it comes to conceiving layouts. Every place Piper visits feels like a minor miracle and the camerawork captures the richness of the textures and hues. On occasion, Charles Gansa and David Thor Jonsson's musical accompaniment works a tad too hard, while none of the office meetings with esteemed colleagues works as well as the field strolls or the segments in which Oudolf holds forth on his methodologies and philosophies.
Seemingly not one to suffer fools or undersell his talents, Oudolf comes across as less readily affable than, say, Monty Don. But he has much to be proud about, while he exhibits a touching humility in giving much of the credit for his designs to Nature itself. Piper - who has made a number of architectural documentaries, as well as a 2010 profile of Sol LeWitt - recognises that the plants are the stars of the show and his photography is suitably awed. But, with Oudolf only letting his guard down among the Texas wildflowers, this often feels more like a slick corporate promo than an enthused artistic appreciation.
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