Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 93: April/May 2022 i Little White Lies

The helmets. The beards. The longships. The looting, the pillaging, the red mist of battle. The gods. The runes. The bottomless barrels of mead. Viking iconography has long since passed into cinematic cliché. But how did it get there? And does any of this have a basis in historical fact, or is it all just Hollywood myth-making? As director Robert Eggers prepares to unleash his thunderous Dark Age revenge tale The Northman, we part the veil of history to recount the epic saga of Vikings on the silver screen… The word ‘viking’ is itself a fiction, an 18th-century catch all term for the Norsemen and Danes who raided the coasts of Northern Europe from roughly the 8th to the 11th centuries. Probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon term ‘wicing’, or pirate, the…

Directed by JOACHIM TRIER Starring RENATE REINSVE, HERBERT NORDRUM, ANDERS DANIELSEN LIE Released 25 MARCH There’s a line first coined by American writer Allen Saunders, popularised in John Lennon’s ‘Beautiful Boy’: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Few filmmakers have managed to illustrate this wry truism as well as Joachim Trier, who with the final film in his Oslo trilogy concludes a decade-long study of the highs and lows of young adulthood. This time his subject is Julie (Renate Reinsve), a talented young woman whose life, in the years leading up to her thirtieth birthday, is chronicled in 12 chapters. Meandering between studying medicine and psychology to dabbling in photography while she works at a bookshop, Julie encounters accomplished cartoonist Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) who, after they…

Directed by NANNI MORETTI Starring RICCARDO SCAMARCIO, MARGHERITA BUY, ALBA ROHRWACHER Released 18 MARCH ANTICIPATION. Moretti’s quality-control is usually reliable, but six years since the last feature? 3 ENJOYMENT. Soap opera complications don’t connect with the real world in this ineffective disappointment. 2 IN RETROSPECT. Dubious sexual politics make us wonder if Moretti is out of time, or just needs better material. 2 The fixed, self-serving prejudices of privileged white middle-aged men may not be such a good thing after all. That’s the far-from-revelatory takeaway from admired Italian auteur Nanni Moretti’s latest drama, his first project to be adapted from someone else’s novel rather than his own original screenplay. The title refers to a posh city mansion block, whose fortunes unfold over ten years of incident-packed turmoil presented as a some sort of…

Directed by SEAN BAKER Starring SIMON REX, SUZANNA SON, BREE ELROD Released 11 MARCH ANTICIPATION. Sean Baker rarely misses – this guy has an amazing eye for talent. 4 ENJOYMENT. A dirty delight. Weird, smart, fantastic and very, very wrong. 4 IN RETROSPECT. There’s a lot of wisdom behind all the laughs. Baker’s sharpest feature to date. 4 Everybody used to want a piece of Mikey Saber, but not so much in 2016. Donald Trump is foaming at the mouth, desperate to convince a fragile country to swear him in as president, while Mikey is sweetly banging on his estrangedwife’sfrontdoor(well, they’retechnicallystill married) as he returns home to smalltown Texas, tail between his legs and a fire in his belly. There were probably countless hustlers like Mikey in that place and at that time,…

Directed by CATARINA VASCONCELOS Starring CATARINA VASCONCELOS, HENRIQUE VASCONCELOS, LUÍSA MINISTRO Released 11 MARCH As with any form of mass media, cinema is habitually used as a bullhorn through which a filmmaker is able to bellow a statement of intent. The Metamorphosis of Birds by Catarina Vasconcelos is more interested in articulation: how, with precise fusion of sound and image, can we forge intricate, mellifluous and profound modes of expression rather than squander the medium’s boundless poetic potential? This artisanal, lightly whimsical Portuguese debut comprises intricately designed and lit tableaux over which a narration tells of a generational family saga with much focus on estrangement and loss. It’s a film drunk on its yearning for revelation: for opening ornamental boxes; watching an ant crawl across some glistening bark; flowers blooming in time-lapse; little…

Directed by GASPAR NOÉ Starring DARIO ARGENTO, FRANÇOISE LEBRUN, ALEX LUTZ Released 13 MAY Gaspar Noé is one of the foremost purveyors of feel bad cinema, having built a successful career off of his love of making audiences squirm. His earlier work, notably Irréversible, Enter the Void and Climax, is filled with explicit, visceral images depicting humanity at its most chaotic. Watching these films, you get the impression he relishes putting us, much like his characters, through the proverbial wringer. By comparison, Vortex is a positively moribund affair. An agonisingly slow-paced portrait of ageing in all its inglorious banality, it centres on an elderly couple (played by Dario Argento and Françoise Lebrun, whose names are accompanied by their respective birth years in the opening credits) living out their last days in a cluttered…

Directed by PAUL VERHOEVEN Starring VIRGINIE EFIRA, CHARLOTTE RAMPLING, DAPHNE PATAKIA Released 24 JULY ANTICIPATION. Verhoeven! Nuns! Blasphemy! Oh my! 4 ENJOYMENT. Efira is on top form; everyone else is having a blast. 4 IN RETROSPECT. A cheeky tall tale from a master provocateur. 4 Reuniting with his Elle co-writer David Birke, Paul Verhoeven returns to the big screen with a project some five years in the making. Following delays due to both Verhoeven’s hip surgery and the pandemic, the film was duly anointed at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, before releasing in the US amidst reported church protests. It’s understandable why religious folk might take umbrage with the content; Bendetta recalls the salacious life of the blessed lady (Virginie Efira) who first appears as a precocious child who claims the Virgin Mary…

Directed by MARIE AMIGUET, VINCENT MUNIER Released 29 APRIL Whistling winds, quiet whispers, and the longing for the perfect introduction to elusive parts of nature are core to The Velvet Queen. It’s a hypnotic lesson in watchful photojournalism, offering an insightful take on a quest to liaise with wildlife in its natural habitat – in this case, the rare Tibetan snow leopard. Wandering the peaks are Vincent Munier, a wildlife photographer, and his writer friend Sylvain Tesson, who aim to climb great heights through extreme weather conditions and lock eyes on their prize. Through its cinematography alone we soon find out this is no Animal Planet special. The scenery is breathtaking, open and often paralysing in its grandeur. Shots of wind lifting sand and filtering it through the open air almost personifies…

Directed by ANTONETA ALAMAT KUSIJANOVIC  Starring GRACIJA FILIPOVIC, DANICA CURCIC, LEON LUCEV Released 8 APRIL A‘murina’ is another term for a Mediterranean moray eel, a delicacy which teenager Julija (a wonderful Gracija Filipović) and her father Ante (Leon Lučev) hunt with spears at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea. In Croatian writer/director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s assured debut, coproduced by Martin Scorsese, the sea is both a haven of tranquillity and a well of simmering desire. This area of the Croatian coastline, where the sparkling sea is interrupted by jagged outcrops, is an appropriately beautiful but harsh setting for this sharp-edged coming of age story. Julija is a quiet, solemn young woman who prefers the peaceful oblivion of diving to the company of her parents. Her father is resentful of his meagre lot in…

Directed by GAKURYŪ ISHII Starring GAKURYŪ ISHII TATSUO YAMADA, MASAMITSU OHIKE, KÔJI NANJÔ Blu-ray/DVD Out NOW Gakuryū “Sōgo” Ishii started strong. His second feature Crazy Thunder Road was made as a university graduation project, but Toei Studios saw the film, picked it up, and distributed it nationally. Viewing the film now, it is easy to see why. Brash, bold, and bullish, with its colourful visual style, catchy soundtrack, and energetic action sequences, Crazy Thunder Road feels like a statement of intent. However, beyond the over-the-top stylings lies a surprisingly nuanced narrative. What starts out as a simple story about a biker gang undergoing an identity crisis shifts gears midway through. After the biker gangs fight with each other endlessly, a right wing group steps in to offer them a way out in the…

From a colonial-era New England village of 2015’s The Witch to a gusty coastal island in the 1890s as seen in 2019’s The Lighthouse, Robert Eggers is cinema’s chief excavator of the past. On his new film, The Northman, he goes farther than ever in space and time, travelling back to Iceland at the turn of the 10th century for a Viking fable of vengeance. Working with the highest budget of his career and a full stable of bona fide movie stars, this is his most ambitious undertaking yet — not that levelling up will keep him from indulging in his obsession with obscurity. LWLies: What was the first thing you did to make The Northman? Eggers: Several years ago, as Brooklyn hipsters were wont to do, my wife and…

Directed by TERENCE DAVIES Starring JACK LOWDEN, JEREMY IRVINE, PETER CAPALDI Released 20 MAY Terence Davies’ eighth narrative feature begins with an elegy for fallen soldiers. As a trainload of eager young recruits depart for the Western Front, flickery blackand-white newsreel footage shows the grim fate that awaits them. A man’s voice speaks ruefully over these scenes of hope and despair. It belongs to the film’s subject, Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden), who fought in World War One and wrote poems about his experiences. His letter ‘A Soldier’s Declaration’, printed in 1917 and controversially read before the House of Commons, was perhaps the strongest anti-war statement of its day. It shaped the course of its author’s life. Although Sassoon was to all intents and purposes a conscientious objector (a status he actively sought out,…

Directed by LAURA SAMANI Starring CELESTE CESCUTTI, ONDINA QUADRI Released 8 APRIL ANTICIPATION. Premiered in the Cannes Critics’ Week sidebar. 3 ENJOYMENT. Stunning scenery in which the distinct performances are given room to blossom. 3 IN RETROSPECT. Though at times meandering, that is a moving portrait of motherhood. 3 A dozen women of all ages circle a ghostly, white-linenveiled figure in procession. They hum in harmony as the veil is ceremoniously removed to reveal a young, pregnant woman who silently walks towards the ocean. This immediate and confrontational introductory scene proposes the central thematic question of Small Body: will this mother sink or swim? A portrait of determined motherhood in 1900s Northeast Italy, Laura Samani’s feature debut is a brooding and wandering mythopoetic tale. Alongside co-writers Nadia Trevisan and Alberto Fasulo, the director…

Directed by BLERTA BASHOLLI Starring YLLKA GASHI, ÇUN LAJÇI, AURITA AGUSHI Released 18 MARCH When her husband goes missing while fighting in the Kosovo War of 1998, Faridje (Yllka Gashi) faces division at home. She has two children and an ailing father-in-law (Çun Lajçi) to provide for, yet her desire to work sees her become a source of gossip. Even worse, she is seen as giving up on her husband. Pouncing on an opportunity from a supermarket, she starts producing jars of ajvar, a homemade condiment made from peppers, and gradually recruits her friends and neighbours to join her. Blerta Basholli’s film could easily have descended into sweeping melodrama, but is instead a quiet character study with stings and smiles along the way. The director favours showing the devastation of a community rather…

Directed by SEBASTIAN MEISE Starring FRANZ ROGOWSKI, GEORG FRIEDRICH, ANTON VON LUCKE Released 11 MARCH ANTICIPATION. Franz Ragowski is a force of nature, and DoP Crystel Fournier is one of the best in the business. 4 ENJOYMENT. Sebastian Meise asserts himself as a compelling directorial voice. 4 IN RETROSPECT. A spiraling, repetitive film that uses its structure to drive home a powerful queer narrative. 4 Homosexuality was legalised in West Germany in 1969. Sebastian Meise’s Great Freedom is set almost entirely prior to this date, weaving together prison time spent during and after the World War Two. These dates merge together almost indistinguishably, taking place in identical cells and yards that fade in and out of our consciousness. An exclusively male cast of wardens and prisoners come and go, all revolving around the…

Directed by MARIAMA DIALLO Starring REGINA HALL, ZOE RENEE, JULIA NIGHTINGALE Released 18 MARCH Writer/director Mariama Diallo places elite establishments under the microscope in her debut feature, Master. Blending horror with social commentary, the film evenly, explores the intersection of race, class and gender through the experiences of two Black women. Gail Bishop (Regina Hall) has just been appointed Master at the prestigious, predominantly white Ancaster College, a fictional New England university steeped in rich American history. Gail, meanwhile, was the first Black person to hold the position. What also characterises Ancaster is the ancient lore that surrounds it having been built near where the Salem Witch Trials took place. According to legend, a woman accused and hung for witchcraft now haunts the grounds, revealing themselves to selected students. Upon her arrival, freshman…

Directed by NABIL AYOUCH Starring ANAS BASBOUSI, ISMAIL ADOUAB, ZINEB BOUJEMAA Released 29 APRIL In an attempt to portray the lives of underrepresented young individuals, director Nabil Ayouch sets his eighth feature in an arts centre which he co-founded in Casablanca’s neglected suburb of Sidi Moumen. He means well and interprets the teens’ connection to rap music as emblematic of a rebellious spirit, but deeper discussions on other social issues – politics, women’s rights, religion – are unfortunately reduced to mere sources of frustration, either ending abruptly or remaining incomplete. The film’s saving grace, though, is the cast of non-professional teenagers playing fictionalised versions of themselves. They have a charming rapport with their teacher, the former rapper Anas (Anas Babousi), who sets up a hip hop programme, though its uncertain whether you should…

Directed by ARTHUR HARARI YÛYA ENDÔ, Starring KANJI TSUDA,  Released  YÛYA MATSUURA 15 APRIL Most people who have studied history know the tale of the Japanese soldier who stood guarding his post during World War Two and refused to stand down until officially relieved by his commanding officer. It has become synonymous with the quaint spectacle of war, where such confusion highlights the absurdity of extended conflict. Arthur Harari’s Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle is the story of that soldier, told with an emphasis on the ravages of time and the noxious qualities of extreme patriotism. It is a film about state mind control more than it is a chronicle of human psychology gone awry. If anything, Hiroo Onoda, here played by Yuya Endo, is presented as rather a meek figure who…

Directed by MURIEL BOX, MARY FIELD, SARAH ERULKAR, KAY MANDER, MARGARET THOMPSON, ET AL Blu-ray/DVD Released 28 MARCH Often referred to as the father of British documentary filmmaking, John Grierson is definitely a well known name. The same cannot necessarily be said for his sisters, Ruby and Marion, who both also worked as filmmakers during the 1930s. Righting this inequity of record and reputation is part of the intention of the BFI’s new collection of short films made by women documentary filmmakers in the UK between 1935 and 1967. Featuring a selection of new restorations, the collection includes work from the aforementioned Griersons, plus other names like Mary Field or Muriel Box, all of whom deserve to be better known. The collection includes films made in diverse styles and covering a variety…

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When Alexander Skarsgård was a child, his family used to spend their summers on the idyllic Baltic island of Öland. Sweden’s second largest island is coincidentally home to their royal family’s summer residence. In a manner, the Skarsgårds form a dynasty of their own, with patriarch Stellan one of the most recognisable Swedish actors of all time, and four of his eight children – Alexander, Gustaf, Bill and Valter – also pursuing careers in film and television. In fact, it was a friend of his father who gave Alexander his first acting role at the tender age of seven, in Åke and His World (he played Kalle Nubb, the eponymous Åke’s best friend). But during his childhood holidays on Öland, he was more interested in the runestones that littered the…

Directed by LAURA WANDEL Starring MAYA VANDERBEQUE, GÜNTER DURET, LENA GIRARD VOSS Released 22 APRIL ANTICIPATION. It’s always interesting to see what a new director will bring to the table. 3 ENJOYMENT. Stylised agony that slowly loses its impact. 3 IN RETROSPECT. A strong display of Wandel and her actors’ talent but keen to see something different next time. 3 The presence of children on screen is a precarious thing. Filmmakers take a great risk when dealing with kids, inviting the potential for saccharine precociousness or muddled inexperience that could serve to derail the entire work. Yet, as is the case with Laura Wandel’s feature debut Playground, some films are impressively bolstered by the work of its young performers who bring a fearless sense of authenticity to this story about their lives and…

Directed by HAIDER RASHID Starring ADAM ALI, SVETLANA YANCHEVA, PIETRO CICIRIELLO Released 18 MARCH In a time where global commodities, capital and people flow at unprecedented rates, migration condemns millions to a life of uncertainty and disposability. It’s with a strikingly minimal amount of dialogue that Haider Rashid’s Europa poignantly evokes how those bearing the brunt of state violence enter a physically and emotionally soul-destroying state of purgatory. Adam Ali gives a harrowing, physical performance as Kamal, a young Iraqi man attempting to cross the Turkish border into Bulgaria. He flees into the dense Bulgarian Forest and is thrust into a living nightmare, spending three days and three nights in constant motion in order to evade a ruthless gang of armed vigilante ‘migrant hunters’. Within this skilfully choreographed, kinetic fight-for-survival story, the air…

Directed by JACQUES AUDIARD Starring LUCIE ZHANG, MAKITA SAMBA, NOÉMIE MERLANT Released 18 MARCH The neighbourhood from which Jacques Audiard’s ninth feature film takes its name is situated in the south of the French capital, and is home to a large portion of its Asian population. Lucie Zhang plays Émilie Wong, a Taiwainese Parisian living rent-free in her grandmother’s apartment, ignoring the concerns of her mother and older, more successful sister, while halfheartedly working a restaurant job. She encounters level-headed teacher Camille (Makita Samba) while searching for a roommate, and an ill-advised attraction develops. But the course of true love never did run smooth, and Émilie’s immature, borderline nihilistic ways soon take their toll on the sensitive Camille. Meanwhile, 32-year-old Norah (Noémie Merlant) has just arrived in Paris from Bordeaux to study law…

Directed by RUTH PAXTON Starring SIENNA GUILLORY, JESSICA ALEXANDER, RUBY STOKES Released 11 MARCH ANTICIPATION. Filmmaker and photographer Ruth Paxton serves up her first feature. 3 ENJOYMENT. Medium-rare. 3 IN RETROSPECT. A feast for the senses and a promising debut. 3 If you’ve ever scrolled through Instagram for recipes you’ll notice how the camera hovers above the food, looking down like a deity on ingredients and mouth-watering dishes. Then comes the algorithm, suggesting healthy options and a selection of exercise routines to get a flatter tummy. Next up: perhaps obsessively worrying about appearance… Director Ruth Paxton mimics the floating angles of social media and modern cookery shows, gliding her camera gracefully over delicious meals, all served up with threatening pitch-black cutlery. Yet, this isn’t another obvious takedown of the ills and pressures of…

Directed by GRAHAM MOORE Starring MARK RYLANCE, ZOEY DEUTCH, DYLAN O'BRIEN Released 8 APRIL ANTICIPATION. Seems like the trailer gives away a little too much of this single-location thriller. 3 ENJOYMENT. Well-constructed chamber piece and tense throughout, as power dynamics mutate. 4 IN RETROSPECT. Compelling performances make it worth sticking through one quite silly climactic beat. 3 Seven years after winning a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Imitation Game, writer Graham Moore follows up that biopic with an original, largely effective thriller. Co-written with Johnathan McClain, The Outfit is also Moore’s feature-directing debut. Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance) is an Englishman operating a small bespoke tailor shop in Chicago circa 1956. Trained on Savile Row, his business is located in a rough part of the city, rife with criminal feuds. But the primary…

Directed by JUHO KUOSMANEN Starring SEIDI HAARLA, YURIY BORISOV, VALERIY NIKOLAEV Released 8 APRIL With an undercurrent of triumphant sentimentality uncharacteristic for a Wikipedia page, the entry for shimmering Eurodance jam ‘Voyage, Voyage’ by Desireless, proclaims that the song, “transcended the language barrier on the music charts and became a huge international success.” The song plays three times in Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment Number 6, including over the ending credits; truly, cheese crosses all borders. Set mostly over the course of a multi-day journey on a cramped train from Moscow to Murmansk, the film is a story of two strangers, a Finnish woman and a Russian man, who are thrown together, and despite their differences. Laura (Seida Haarla) is a student in Moscow, who was studying Russian (which she speaks quite well) but now…

Directed by KIRO RUSSO Starring MAX BAUTISTA UCHASARA, JULIO CÉSAR TICONA, ISRAEL HURTADO Released 15 APRIL If you wake up of a morning and are convinced that you need more hardcore psychedelia in your movies, then make a date with Kiro Russo’s swirling Bolivian mind-expander, The Great Movement. It is the musical death rattle of a rural miner whose lungs are riddled with disease and so he unwittingly decides to trek to La Paz and sock it to the Man. Unfortunately, his protests are met with deaf ears, and he’s forced to search for other means of salvation. This leads him down a rabbit hole of folk remedies, witch doctors and that daunting chasm that still exists between science and suspicion. That plot acts as as a loose framework for Russo’s various flights…

Directed by ANN HUI Starring GEORGE LAM, ANDY LAU, SEASON MA Blu-ray/DVD Released 22 MARCH “Why photograph people? They’re ugly.” Shortly after they meet, Cam Nuong (Season Ma) tells Akutagawa (George Lam), a Japanese photojournalist visiting Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, that he should “photograph the sea and the clouds” instead. He laughs, but misses her point. Chaperoned at first by the Cultural Bureau representatives who invited him, Akutagawa eventually breaks away to search for the real Vietnam. When he meets Nuong and her impoverished family, he starts snapping happily, making little consideration for the impact his images might have. On release, Ann Hui’s Boat People was controversial. Made with support from the Chinese government, some critics felt that the film was propagandistic in its depiction of post-liberation Vietnam. It is certainly…