Hooray for the BFI Southbank!

I had dinner with Neve Campbell the other night. I say ‘dinner’ but it was actually about 1am and we were sat in an almost empty bar at the Park Lane Hilton nursing sore feet from a day at Cartier. This isn’t my normal scene, by the way, but I was invited by a mutual friend and the alcohol was free. It was actually my lack of funds that instigated my conversation with Neve, as she kindly offered me some hummus and a slice of her club sandwich. So anyway, over our hummus and jaw-shatteringly generous portion of turkey and bacon it transpired that Neve lives in London. As an experienced and talented actress living in London, I thought she might be interested in a discussion of the pros and cons of the BFI (fascinating, aren’t I?) Her reply will ripple through the membrane between my ears and skull for a long, long time… “the B-what?”

It was at this moment that I realised something: the lives of every film fan in this city don’t necessarily revolve around that auspicious and hallowed archway beneath Waterloo Bridge. I’m sitting with a globally renowned leading lady who has worked with the likes of Richard Attenborough and Simon Beaufoy, and she doesn’t even know that our national cinema exists!

I suddenly realised that even some of you, my esteemed readers, might not have graced the hallways of that dank, claustrophobic building and felt the weight of cinema history hang down upon your shoulders like a thick down blanket. I have therefore taken it upon myself to explain exactly why everybody in London who likes films needs to spend more time at the BFI.

Firstly, on an historic note, many of you may have visited the site without remembering it. It once housed the Museum of the Moving Image, a world-renowned museum that provided wonder to generations of young film lovers in the 90s. The area taken up by the museum now houses a swanky Benugo bar and a bookshop on all things ‘cinema’. I spent a lot of my childhood at that museum, and the building still holds an air of fantasy and that ethereal magic of the cinema. In a world where the romance and tradition of the cinema has been doused by the behemoth of Multiplexes and vats of Coca Cola, it is so important to have a purely cinematic space like the BFI Southbank where one can soak up the history and magnanimity of the moving image.

On another historical note, this is where the Free Cinema ‘movement’ enjoyed its brief but spectacular residency. In 1956, Lindsay Anderson – along with Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, and a host of enigmatic young British filmmakers – decided to show a series of films that shared a common spirit: the idea that,

“No film can be too personal.
The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments.
Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim.
An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.”

It was considered the first attempt at a genuine National cinema in Britain: the moment we tried to shatter the chains that bound us to Hollywood. The arrival of Channel 4 and the subsequent rise of Frears, Loach, Leigh, et al provided us with a more renowned and identifiable national aesthetic; but this era of British cinema, when Hollywood were desperately waiting to see what Richardson would do after Look Back in Anger, was so important… and it all began under Waterloo Bridge.

On a more practical note, the tickets are much, much cheaper than your local multiplex. There are also no confectionary stands or fizzy drinks, which has the double advantage of saving money and allowing you to watch the whole film without suffering a herd of imbeciles thoughtlessly grazing on monosodium glutamate all around you.

The range of films means that there is something for everybody: For example, Film Fundays, held on one Sunday every month, is a double-bill showing one children’s film and then one family friendly film (usually an old classic for the parents.) It is a great opportunity to spend a day at the pictures, followed (or preceded) by a leisurely walk along the Southbank to give the kids some exercise and fresh air.

At every screening you are provided with a ‘one-sheet’ which usually contains the Sight & Sound review for the film you are watching, followed by an interview with the film’s director. The sheet also provides you with all the production details and a list of similar events and screenings in the coming weeks. It really is a wonderful experience for a film lover; it reminds you that loving films is an artistic passion that should be cherished and nurtured, not a mindless hobby that should be exploited by popcorn vendors.

The final reason, and perhaps my ulterior motive for writing this piece, is that we film lovers are under threat at the BFI Southbank. The extension of the cinema into the old museum a few years ago may have provided us with space for a wonderful bookshop, multimedia gallery, and workspace; but it also provided ample space for a kitsch and overly fashionable bar. Was it Roosevelt that said, “Build it and they will come”? Either way, this is exactly what has happened, and the cinema is now crammed full of ‘hipsters’ and ‘media-types’ in colourful clothes, thick-rimmed glasses, and side partings.

The recent renovation of the riverside bar has amplified the problem by providing a breeding ground for these media darlings. They now occupy both ends of the building and they are closing in fast. Now, if you want to reach the actual screening rooms, you have to force your way through crowds of these mojito-sipping, Skins-loving heretics. We need your help!

Firstly I suggest destroying the Benugo enterprise by showing up in great numbers and spending so long ordering glasses of tap water and complimentary olives that nobody has time to serve our nemeses (who could easily head over to the OXO tower or some other neutral territory). We would then be free to bask in the loneliness of our weird, wonderful, and poverty-inducing love of the cinema.

If you do decide to go on the basis of my recommendation, then please mention my name somewhere, maybe I’ll get some free tickets!

REVIEW: Frozen River (dir. Courtney Hunt)

Cast: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott, Michael O'Keefe

Yesterday evening I had an unpleasant realisation… I had completely forgotten to watch Courtney Hunt’s much lauded debut feature, Frozen River. This was, of course, unacceptable. The last ‘promising’ female screenwriter to demand the attention of the Oscars was Diablo Cody, but on the assumption that the Oscar’s couldn’t be so disastrously wrong two years in a row, I decided to head over to the Odeon Panton Street to watch Frozen River.

At University I was forced to consider the importance of the ‘performance space’ to the experience of seeing a play or film. There is no doubt that the chosen location for a film’s exhibition – be it a living room, the local Multiplex, a rundown family theatre, or an archway near London Bridge – makes for a unique viewing experience. I had never actually entered the Odeon Panton Street (the one hidden behind the Odeon West End next door to the Odeon Leicester Square… monopoly anyone?) but I had always found it unassuming and, by extension, strangely alluring.

Now that I have seen a film there, I can promise you that it is the most disappointing cinema in London. I am still gob-smacked that they are allowed to charge the same £10 entry fee as the Odeon Leicester Square (a juggernaut of a screen) for the pleasure of sitting in the most cramped screening room in London, with a screen smaller than most home cinemas. At one point a person stood up three rows in front of me and blocked the entire screen. Screen 3 is literally a converted attic space. If you are ever choosing where to watch a film… avoid the Odeon Panton Street at all costs!

Fortunately, these unacceptable surroundings did not take away from what is, in my humble opinion, one of the finest films of the year. I simply cannot comprehend why this film didn’t do well at the Oscars. Oh wait… I just remembered the embarrassing bout of Slumdog fever that plagued this year’s festivities.

After the curtains had opened (it didn't take long... the screen was barely wider than my arm-span! Ok, I will douse my bitterness) the film began with a series of beautiful shots of upstate New York. This is the only time in the entire film that you are ever really aware of the cinematography. But it is always there: effortlessly matching the tone of the film and providing an extra layer of gritty realism. At certain points you can almost feel the icy cold and barren loneliness of the border country.

The camera soon finds its way to Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) on the morning that her new ‘doublewide’ mobile home is arriving. Her youngest son, Ricky, is giddy with excitement at the prospect but his older brother, T.J. (a fifteen year old who has had to grow up far too fast), seems far more subdued. The reason for T.J. and Ray’s anxiety is that the patriarch of the family, a hopeless gambling addict, has fled to Atlantic City with the money that was supposed to pay for the house

Sure enough, the deliveryman refuses to hand over the house and explains that Ray needs to find the $4500 by Christmas or she will lose her $1500 deposit. Shortly thereafter, while searching for her husband at a casino on the local Indian reservation, Ray has an unfortunate run-in with Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a rude young Indian woman who seems to have stolen Ray’s husband’s car. Lila forces Ray to drive across the St Lawrence River to smuggle illegal immigrants into the U.S. from the Canadian side of the border.
This is the set-up, and I will take you no further into the story because I see this as a blog for recommending, rather than ruining, good films. What I will do is try to explain why this story is so wonderfully hard-hitting, honest, and entertaining all at the same time.

To begin with, there is not a single element of the story that feels forced or dishonest; everything happens because of something deeply embedded in the characters emotional or social make-up. This is a very difficult thing to do, and it would have been impossible if the central characters hadn’t been so fully realised.

They are simple people with simple needs: Ray needs her new house to feel good about herself and please her children; Lila needs to make money to get her baby back from her mother (who stole the child from the hospital); and T.J. needs to feel like a man so that he can break out of his childish respect for his rat-fink father and start looking after his beloved brother.
But these simple needs betray a depth of character that is incredibly individual but also symptomatic of the society that they are forced to live in. Their needs are, for the most part, actually desires, and quite selfish ones at that. Their desperate attempts to fulfil these desires are driven by a misplaced belief that they are trying to please those who are close to them… but most of the time they end up hurting each other instead.

The basis is simple and effective: people in need of money are allowed to blur the lines of morality in the desperate pursuit of selfless and just goals. Or, to give it a Machiavellian twist, “the end justifies the means”. But the story investigates this most simple and engaging of ‘thriller’ conceits to its dramatic and socially affective end.
Can we really forgive Ray for aiding the despicable trade of human beings just because she wants a new house? Throughout the film her actions have unintended destructive consequences (increasing in dramatic effect as she gets dragged deeper into the world of trafficking) that we can’t help but blame her for, even though she is our protagonist and we generally support her decisions.

This constant, dizzying confusion that surrounds the morality of our protagonist’s actions is one of the truly hard-hitting elements of the film. As soon as we throw ourselves into a predictable ‘film audience’ empathy for the hero, we are slapped round the face as she pulls out a gun or forces the transformed Lila to take part in ‘one last job’. We want to support her, and we do because we know we would probably do the same thing, but we are forced to feel guilty for that natural sense of empathy for the underdog hero.

There is no doubt that the film is honest and hard-hitting in the extreme; but it is also genuinely entertaining on a dramatic and visceral level. It is the story of a gun-wielding ‘mom-turned-smuggler’ who drives across a frozen river to smuggle immigrants for Mafia bosses for Christ’s sake… what more do you want!

I wont tell you anything about the ending because I don’t want to ruin the film… but I so desperately want to tell you how well conceived it is. It follows on perfectly from the honest but entertaining nature of the rest of story (no mean feat, as endings to films like this are notoriously difficult to navigate).

This film really does have everything. If you fancy a trip to the cinema and were going to watch Harry Potter because it was the first film that came to mind, then please reconsider and watch this instead! If you are disappointed then you can ignore me – and the good people of the Sundance Film Festival Jury – for the rest of your lives. But if you enjoy it… well don’t say I didn’t tell you so!

REVIEW: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (dir. David Yates)

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, etc

I believe the definition of synergy is something along the lines of, ‘the interaction of two or more agents to produce a combined effect that is greater than the sum of their individual effects’. In which case the only positive-sounding word I can use to describe this film is… well, ‘synergistic’. I suppose it is rather like one of the miraculous potions brewed up by Professor Slughorn at Hogwarts: a drop of this, a rat’s tail, and the juices of a crushed beetle can produce a wondrous concoction.

This film takes the narrative of a half-hour episode of Beverly Hills 90210 (teeny heartbreak, the ‘bad kid’, the ‘cool kid’, sports, etc.), drops in an odd story about a magic cupboard, allows it to simmer for a while… and voila! A two and a half hour epic that does absolutely nothing except stupefy!

I have to confess to not having watched the fourth of fifth films in the Potter franchise (or should I be confessing to actually having watched the first three?) and as I sat down in the cinema I did actually have a momentary pang of dread that I wasn’t going to understand the plot! Firm slap on the hand for me for thinking that this franchise had managed to offer up a shred of valid intrigue or suspense over the past three years.

I appreciate that this is the ‘build-up’ film for the final, two-part climax, ‘The Deathly Hollows’; but surely something dramatic or interesting should happen over such an inexcusable time span? This is becoming something of a habit for studio blockbusters: Transformers 2 came in at about 150 minutes as well, and James Cameron’s Avatar is looking set to do the same. Why?! Ingmar Bergman gave us ‘The Seventh Seal’ in 97 minutes!

The film sees Potter returning to Hogwarts for his penultimate year of study. Once again he has in the inside scoop on the latest addition to the faculty; and once again Dumbledore needs his help in staving off the forces of evil from the gates of the school. Thrown into the mix are a few parties, some drunkenness, some tears, and some Quidditch. There are a few things that I still don’t understand about this whole sorry debacle: why do the forces of evil want so badly to get into a school? And why is the fact that Harry’s parents sacrificed their lives for him supposed to make him special? If I met somebody who jumped out of the way when their own child was in danger I would spit on them.

But the thing that I really don’t understand is the pride with which the film’s makers declare, “this is the film where the children really grow up”. They are correct, of course. The children have ‘grown up’ from 16yrs to 17yrs; and now there is snogging, beer-drinking, hanging out on stairwells, and everything else 17-year-olds do that 16-year-olds would never dream of.

But why is that an attractive publicity ploy? I appreciate that every male above the age of 18 is longing for the day when they can announce their lustful desire for Emma Watson without getting entered onto the public offender’s register; but apart from that who cares whether they are 15 or 18? They still can’t act, they will never be adults, and they exist in an imaginary realm where a global battle between good and evil is being waged. Did you ever here Peter Jackson announcing with glee that this was the film where Frodo and Sam really grow up? Nonsense!

Of the absolutely inexplicable two and a half hours, I would estimate that approximately half an hour of the film is taken up with the attempt to save the world and defeat Voldemort (we’re allowed to say his name now by the way); the other two hours is taken up with the bittersweet romances of our overwhelmingly mature and awe-inspiringly adult-like starring trio.

Imagine ‘Star Wars’ if Darth Vader had ten minutes of screen time, the Death Star was never even glimpsed, and the entire film was played out onboard the Millennium Falcon where Luke and Hans whine and argue about their love for Leia… disappointed by the prospect? You should be.

As you might have guessed, I didn’t really like this film. But what did you expect? I am a staunch supporter of narrative integrity and emotional character arcs; and these are not important in a multi-billion dollar franchise adaptation of a children’s book (I know they say it is for adults too… but adults usually use that argument with a distinct lack of conviction and a melancholy glimmer of shame in their eyes.)

It is evident that the filmmakers have made no effort to appeal to anyone outside the early-teen age bracket with this film. The only evidence of any emotional involvement from my fellow audience members was a squeal from the 12-year-old girl behind me when Harry and Ginny finally kissed. The thing that reaches out to a wider audience and justifies the eye-watering budget is the ‘look’ of the film; and there is no denying the fact that this film actually ‘looks’ quite good.

The CGI is mostly impressive, but you can’t help but worry about its longevity. At times like this I always remember the first time I saw ‘Air Force One’ and thought the CGI ‘plane-crashing-into-the-ocean’ scene was mind-boggling: now it is laughable.

The thing that really stands out about this film is not the CGI but just the general aesthetics of it: the darkness; the quality of the imagery; the scenic backgrounds; the fact that Hogwarts manages to look inviting in its grandeur and yet terrifying in its cold detachment at the same time. Bruno Delbonnel was the cinematographer on this picture, and I hope that David Heyman and Warner Bros are thanking him in their dreams for creating a visually stunning and alluring film to distract any discerning viewers from the dull and uninspiring plot.

In short… oh hell, go and watch it! It’s quite fun. Daniel Radcliffe is still so bad its funny. And Emma Watson is lovely.