Nothing elicits mixed emotions quite like the annual London Film Festival. For every joy – they have picked the new Jean-Pierre Jeunet movie, Micmac – there is a corresponding sorrow. Have not we had enough Harmony Korine films?
The 53rd Festival (October 14-29), organised by the British Film Institute, itself in danger of being swallowed up by the UK Film Council, is a signifier of some bland filmmaking and low risk-taking. It ought to be re-named “George Clooney’s Film Fortnight”. It opens with Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox, with the title character voiced by Clooney. It features two new Clooney movies, military satire The Men Who Stare at Goats, favourably received at the Venice Film Festival, and Jason Reitman’s corporate restructuring comedy Up In The Air. The title refers to frequent flier miles. I wonder how they carbon offset that one. If George could have turned up in the closing movie, Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy, otherwise known as “John Lennon, the Early Years”, or even in Steven Soderburgh’s factually-inspired comedy, The Informant! – exclamation mark added to avoid confusion with Carol Reed’s IRA drama – I am sure he would have.
Mixed emotions extend to the relocation of the LFF’s Leicester Square showcase to the Vue multiplex. I have many happy memories of that cinema when it was the Warner West End – glancing across the aisle and spotting Stanley Kubrick in a boiler suit prior to the start of the press show of Full Metal Jacket, for example. Splitting premieres between neighbouring screens, with an inevitable effect on post-screening question-and-answer sessions – one audience will see the celebrity in the flesh, the other won’t – cannot be good. The LFF is only taking over half the cinema, with festival-goers mixing with the audience for Saw VI. There may be some contrasting discussions in the foyer.
There will be other mixed emotions watching Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, the film Liam Neeson was shooting at the time that his wife Natasha Richardson tragically died. It is Egoyan’s first official remake – wife pays prostitute to tempt husband – based on an Anne Fontaine movie, Mathilde. In John Hillcoat and Joe Penhall’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Viggo Mortensen and son face cannibals in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man concerns a university professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) undermined by rumour and his wife’s infidelity to general indifference. (“The rabbi can’t see you. He’s busy.” “I see him. He’s not doing anything.” “He’s thinking.”) Michael Haneke’s Cannes Palme D’Or winner, The White Ribbon, a period drama filmed in black and white, is infused with his customary sense of dread. Claire Denis’ return to Africa, White Material, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Viking drama, Valhalla Rising, and Greg Barker’s documentary, Sergio, about the former UNHCR head, Sergio Vieira de Mello, are not so much highlights as typical of the festival’s wide variety.
There is also Eyes Wide Open, an Israeli drama set in a butcher’s shop, and two
films, Cold Souls and Paper Heart, in which two actors, Paul Giamatti and Michael Cera, play versions of themselves; a restoration
of Anthony Asquith’s 1928 silent film, Underground, with live musical accompaniment; and Vincere, Marco Bellochio’s film about Benito Mussolini viewed from the perspective of his wife. And what about Bunny and the Bull, a quirky European road movie featuring the stars of TV’s The Mighty Boosh; and Gaspar Noé’s hallucinatory drama, Enter the Void? I could mention something on every page of the programme, but then I’d run out of – …
Patrick Mulcahy
Neil Young writes: It may not be the country’s oldest or longest-running annual showcase of cinema – that’s Edinburgh (1947) – but the London Film Festival, organised by the BFI and sponsored by The Times, has certainly been around for a while. October 16 1956, to be precise – the day after Che Guevara and Fidel Castro sailed on the Granma from Mexico to Cuba. By the time the inaugural LFF came to a close on October 26, the Hungarian revolution had broken out, Britain and France were five days away from bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal and London cinephiles had been treated to less than two dozen features by the likes of Akira Kurosawa, Yasujir Ozu, Luchino Visconti, Andrzej Wajda and Satyajit Ray.
Fifty-three years later, Wajda – of Man of Marble and Man of Iron fame – is the last of that august bunch still standing. Now 83, the doyen of Polish cinema is represented at this year’s 119-feature LFF by his latest opus Sweet Rush, an elegaic follow-up to his recently-distributed Second World War epic, Katyn, and his sixth collaboration with actress Krystyna Janda. Wajda is a long way from being the oldest director represented at LFF 54, however. That honour goes to Portugal’s truly unique and evidently unstoppable Manoel de Oliveira, who turns 101 in December and is reportedly in the midst of directing what will be his 49th film.
His 48th, Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl, wowed the critics at the Berlin Film Festival. De Oliveira, perhaps best known on these shores for 2006’s Bunuel tribute/sequel Belle Toujours, is the last surviving directorial link to the silent era. Sound hadn’t reached Portugal by the time he made his 1931 debut with short documentary Working on the Douro River.
It’s heartening to see the LFF maintain its commitment to what aficionados term “early cinema” in the 2009 line-up. The big date for your diary should be Friday October 23 7.30pm at the Queen Elizabeth Hall – just along from the festival hub that is the BFI South Bank (formerly the National Film Theatre) – when Anthony Asquith’s 1928 classic tale of “love, treachery and murder” on the tube, Underground, is unveiled via a brand-new, digitally-restored print. Tickets may appear pricey at £15, but this is actually terrific value as a live score will be provided by the Prima Vista Social Club, comprising accompanists such as pianist Neil Brand and violinist Gunter Buchwald who are the very best in the business, anywhere in the world.
Also recommended from the archives: Dirigible (Frank Capra, 1931); Far From Vietnam (various directors including Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda, Alain Resnais and Chris Marker, 1967), Hapax Legomena (Hollis Frampton, 1971-2), Jubal (Delmer Daves, 1956), Laila (George Schnee Voigt, 1929), Leave Her To Heaven (John M Stahl, 1945), The Night of Counting the Years (Shadi Abdel Salam, 1969), Topper (Norman Z McLeod, 1937), The Touch (Ingmar Bergman, 1971) and a special programme
of Vitaphone Varieties (various directors, 1928-9).
Among the plethora of newer titles, look out for Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece), Don’t Worry About Me (David Morrissey, UK), Kinatay (Brillante Mendoza, Philippines), Lebanon (Samuel Maoz, Israel), Lourdes (Jessica Hausner, Austria), Mother (Bong Joon-Ho, South Korea), A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, France), A Room and a Half (Andrei Khrzhanovsky, Russia), Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thornton, New Zealand), She A Chinese (Xiaolu Guo, UK), Vincere (Marco Bellocchio), White Material (Claire Denis, France) and – last but by absolutely no means least – Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner, The White Ribbon.
Neil Young
