Here are some reflections on my experiences in this year’s festival, the sixty-fourth of its kind.
Jackboots on Whitehall was a shock start to the weekend. Somehow I’d got it into my mind it was a documentary. How wrong I was. This was an irreverent British comedy presenting a ridiculous retelling of the ending of World War II, stop-motion animated with beautiful puppets, scenery and photography. It was genuinely funny on many occasions but just a little too often it misjudged itself and didn’t quite hit the mark. In some ways it’s a shame the film looked so good because due to the nature of some of the content it can only be enjoyed by a niche audience. That’s the danger with ‘boundary-pushing’ liberal humour; the filmmaker risks alienating his audience and it certainly spoiled the experience for me. I passed Sir Patrick Stewart, who’d been in the screening, on the way out and that made it all a bit more worth it!
Murdo and I attended an industry event called Lunch with the Producers which was lunch followed by a discussion with a panel of successful producers (including Andrea Calderwood the Producer of Last King of Scotland and Generation Kill and a good friend of Barbara one of our TV Content tutors). Unfortunately the actual lunch was fully booked but being the sly dogs that we are Murdo and I managed to snaffle some substantial snacks from the leftovers while people took their time moving into the next room. The discussion was mildly captivating, and it was interesting that the assumed main difference between the successful Producers postulating and advising from the panel and the learner ‘producers’ listening and taking notes in the audience was simply location. We in the audience were based in Scotland. They in the panel were not. I am realising more and more the international nature of the film industry and the need to start thinking outside the box of Glasgow, or Scotland, or even Britain, and start considering where I fit in this global community of film.
Cinema Extreme, a short film initiative, was next on the menu and consisted of three short films, one produced by David Smith the Executive Producer of our DFTV Grad films. Short films have a tendency to leave me annoyed and dissatisfied. These were no exception. The Pizza Miracle was slightly more entertaining than the other two but it wasn’t relentlessly funny enough – which I think a short comedy needs to be – and it didn’t quite live up to its title for me.
Having seen very little of Ben Miller’s work I am unable to call myself a fan, but who could fail to love the loyal Bough in Johnny English or wonder at the sensitively ambitious dance teacher in Razzle Dazzle both brought to life by this witty and loveable British comedian. The feature film Huge was a charming buddy comedy about stand-up comedians, the directorial debut for Ben Miller, and it was a good film – not anything amazing – but definitely an entertaining watch. In fact it was a enjoyable night altogether. Lots of the cast and crew were there and Miller had organised to start the night with a stand-up comedian, as a sort of warm-up act before the film. It was a nice idea. As it happened the stand-up comedian was pretty bad but somehow that made the film seem better, and then there was a quick Q&A with Miller himself, and a few others, which just rounded it off nicely. One thing I noted whilst watching Huge on one of the biggest screens in the Cineworld was the lack of cinematic photography. There were far too many close ups, too much dizzying hand-held camera and not enough use of that generous wide space. For a Director and Cinematographer who have done a lot of TV I suppose this is an understandable oversight, but I was grateful for the reminder that the moviemaker projecting their story in front of a cinema audience needs to remember one very important fact; that screen is pretty darn huge.
It is with some guilt that I must admit that one of the most purely entertaining films I watched at the festival was the late Friday night showing of a Greek zombie movie called Evil in the Time of Heroes. I confess I never expected it to be so funny. The highest praise I can give is that within the first few minutes I had left all my prejudices, and most of my faculties, behind and was caught up in the most ridiculous and incomprehensible mess of fake blood and comic violence imaginable. I must be quick to add at this point that this is by no means my type of film, and there are definitely bits, even whole elements, of it that I neither condone nor enjoy. Zombie movies are the lazy man’s game. Throw in enough guts and gore and perhaps the audience will be so distracted that they won’t notice the story doesn’t work, or more likely they won’t care. It’s true, and it works, but ultimately it’s a false victory and sooner or later people crave for something deeper. Nevertheless, if a film is well-made then it is worthy of commendation and Evil in the Time of Heroes certainly raised the bar as far as independent features are concerned. If nothing else it is a substantial calling card for its Director Yorgos Noussias (who was at the screening for a Q&A session) who I expect may go on to work on bigger, and hopefully more tasteful and cohesive, projects.
Obselidia was another directorial debut this time from a woman with a Masters in Mental Philosophy… and I could tell. It wasn’t so much a film, in the conventional sense, as a study of certain attitudes and philosophies. I quite liked this side of it, and I liked the overall message, although at times the writing did jar slightly coming across as somewhat unnatural, verging on ‘preachy’, and the humour was sometimes a bit stodgy, though very necessary. My main issue with it was that instead of a narrative, pushing the story onto its climax, it had a ramble. Maybe it’s just my Hollywood-influenced need for a driving plot but I do know I wasn’t the only one feeling just a tad bored. Ben Miller happened to be sitting in the row in front and I could sense him, and quite a few others around me, shifting and shuffling in their seats at various points. The director’s biggest fear; bum sore! And the last few minutes were atrocious. The endings just kept coming; it was like Return of the King but without nine hours justification! I reckon one or two test screenings with the Diane Bell (the Director) taking careful note of audience reaction could have helped this film a lot.
Vacation! wasn’t great. It all hung on the one sense that somehow we knew this holiday would not turn out well. It was doomed by the quick cut opening images of newspaper headlines mentioning ‘a body’ and cleverly this was what drew us in and made us invest in the characters for almost an hour. The problem arose then when our suspicions were confirmed and ‘something’ happened but then nothing else happened after that. What life and expectation the film had built up to that point just slowly drained away, until it was all gone, and then the film finally ended. I could see what Writer/Director/Editor Zach Clark was trying to do, and I think he made his point but maybe at the expense of making a good film. Stylishly put together, particularly well edited, this film made an impression but didn’t rank very high on my enjoyment list… and the title certainly doesn’t merit that exclamation mark.
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer was probably the most all round enjoyable film I saw all weekend; a good British comedy laden with political satire so ahead of its time that it has now become more relevant rather than becoming dated. I must admit I was surprised, and sometimes a bit disappointed, at some of the content or nature of the jokes but overall it was a satisfyingly funny and entertaining watch. It was also a cracking story, the classic tale of a man who starts out as nothing but rises and rises until he has achieved ultimate power. For me the key to its success was the way in which it made the anti-hero Michael Rimmer (played by Peter Cook) both funny and loveable, and yet so clearly bad (he does actually murder the prime minister… and it’s funny!). Like any good comedy this gives the film a dual functionality; it’s entertaining, as films should be, and we laugh when we watch it; but it’s also truth and when the humour wears off we have something serious to think about.
Murdo and I attended another panellist discussion on The Casting Process which provided a brief but useful insight into the life of a casting director. I would have been ninety percent less interested if I had not known that Amy Hubbard (one of the panellists) was in fact casting director on The Lord of the Rings and was currently casting for The Hobbit! The actor within me quite enjoyed the advice about auditions (be prepared!) and agents but it was useful to be reminded that for a director casting is more about finding the chemistry, someone who is on the same page, than it is about working on the character. That comes after.
Nénette was a calm and relaxing finish to my weekend viewings. This was an hour-long French documentary composed of long static shots observing its subject, the eponymous forty-year-old orangutan, with a soundtrack consisting of people talking about her. Its slow and sleepy pace allowed plenty of space for personal discovery and also for, eh… sleeping, which I did a little bit of. What can I say? It was a tiring weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment