DREAMAWAY - BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Preview

DREAMAWAY is a document that I really liked at first, but which outstayed its welcome.  What I loved was seeing behind and beyond a news story.  As a Brit, I was painfully aware of the terrorist attack on Sharm El Sheikh that led the UK government to ban direct flights to the resort. But other than knowing in some vague way that I can't safely travel to Egypt, I didn't give it another thought.  But this documentary focuses our attention on what happens to a tourist resort when one of its biggest markets is cut off. We are introduced to a cleaner, a DJ, a resort activity person, a guy who dresses up and poses with tourists - and see what their lives are when those tourists go away. And bear in mind that these are the lucky people - their hotel hasn't been shut down, as many other hotels, cafes and restaurants and bars have been.  They may be on half wages but they still have jobs.

The result is a melancholy and surreal film in which we see employees move into deserted hotel rooms - a cleaner with such a small amount of rooms to clean that she lies down in one and watches TV - a group of resort entertainers doing a aqua gym routine with no-one in the pool to join in - a DJ playing music to a deserted dancefloor. It's a very tangible picture of economic depression that reminded me a bit of footage of ghost towns in Florida and China after the financial crisis. Pristine new buildings with no-one to enjoy them is a very sad and pitiful thing. And the lives are sad and pitiable to - whether financially or emotionally - as the young girls complain about the lack of other girls to hang out with because the sacked workers have all gone home. 

Where I found the documentary lost me was in the more fanciful moments where the main characters speak to camera and then follow up a - I kid you not - inflatable giant black monkey on the back of a moving truck that seems to dole out life advice. I could've done without this and perhaps have done with more context or contrast.  I read somewhere that the film-makers had originally planned to do a compare and contrast between Sharm and Cairo and I would have preferred that.

DREAMAWAY has a running time of 86 minutes. There are still tickets available for one of two screenings at this year's BFI London Film Festival, where it is screening in the Documentary competition. The film does not yet have a commercial release date.

London Film Fest Day 5 - FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON/VOYAGE DU BALLON ROUGE

Oh dear. There are some films that you feel that you *ought* to like as a self-respecting cineaste and reader of the New York Review of Books. As you find yourself shifting uncomfortably in your seat, looking at your watch for the third time in five minutes and opening another bottle of mineral water you wonder, "What is wrong with me? Am I not a sensitive soul?" Well, maybe I am a barbarian, but I found FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON as boring as Alistair Darling's first Pre-Budget Report, not to mention as lacking in substance and as dependent on nicking the only good idea in it.

Starting with the good idea, this is the visual motif of the film. Writer-director Hou Hsiao Hsien bases his 2 hour French-language film on a 1950s Oscar winning short-film called THE RED BALLOON by Albert Lamorisse. There's something evocative about a small boy whose only real companion is a large red balloon that follows him through the streets of Paris. Otherwise, the small kid is dragged from pillar to post by his ditzy mother (Juliette Binoche) and new Chinese nanny (Fang Song.) He fantasises about his sister Louise, who now lives in Brussels. He's genuinely like-able but he's tragically just a bit part in his mother's chaotic life.

Apart from this visual conceit we have little else of substance here. Hou Hsiao Hsien cheekily shows us how the floating balloon effect is created by making the Chinese nanny a film student who seeks to emulate the original short. How post-modern! But I think we need a little more than THAT. And as for the chaotic life of the mother, this does provide some comic interludes. Binoche is clearly having a lot of fun in her brash blonde wig, godawful clothes and absurdly OTT puppeteer's voice. But an eccentric character neither adds up to a plot nor to a meta-text. As a result, the movie is simply boring.

FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON/VOYAGE DU BALLON ROUGE played Cannes, Toronto and London 2007. It goes on release in France and Belgium in January 2008.

London Film Fest Day 4 - THE VOYEURS/AMI, YASIN AR AMAR MADHUBALA

THE VOYEURS is an unsatisfactory film. To be sure, it has some amiable characters, some good spoofs of Indian media culture and lecherous film directors, and a fascination with the hidden lives of ordinary people. But this is set against an over-long run-time, a lack of narrative pace, symbolism that seems to serve no function, and a plot twist that jars with the gentle, whimsical tone of the majority of the film. The film is set in Calcutta and shows two naive computer geeks installing a hidden camera in the room of the beautiful dancer next door. Despite the sinister nature of this action, it's actually rather innocent. They never watch her undress: they simply want to gaze at her image in the manner of gazing at a movie star poster. She is disenchanted by the cruel nature of the Calcutta film industry. They are done for being peeping toms with cruel consequences. In between we have wonderful vignettes exposing the reality of ordinary life in a poor Indian city - a refreshing change from laminated Bollywood super-hits. We also have some beautiful photography - lots of slow 360 sweeps of interiors and crane shots of the alleys of Calcutta. However, while THE VOYEURS adopts a ponderous pace, it has none of the drive or depth of a Madhur Bhandarkar film, or a meticulous drama like THE NAMESAKE. A disappointment.

THE VOYEURS played Toronto and London 2007.

GOLDEN DOOR/NUOVOMONDO - strange, beautiful, unique!

GOLDEN DOOR is one of those strange magical quiet films that you either take to your heart or find boring and pretentious. For my part, I was enchanted by something so magical and yet so authentic it feels like re-enacted social history.

GOLDEN DOOR opens in rural Sicily at the turn of the twentieth century. It is a country of superstition, mean understanding and deep poverty. Widower Salvatore Mancuso dreams of a land called Califormia where there are rivers of milk and the earth is so fertile that vegetables grow taller than men. So he sets off for America with his two sons, mother and two other girls from the village who will marry Italian-Americans and so gain their citizenship.

The small steps towards this goal make up the two hours of this film, and they are re-created in detail, with an observant glance that makes subtle judgements rather than large political points. The Mancuso family walk to the port-town from where they will sail to Ellis Island. They have scavenged shoes, suits and cloaks to make a good impression when they arrive. Before boarding they must pass medicals and have photographs taken - all strange and wondrous things. A well-dressed English lady, Lucy (Gainsbourg) attaches herself to the family and no-one has the confidence to ask why. A quack doctor tries to sell them medicine for the mute son.

The movie is about the strange bonds that form between the rural family and the well-dressed English woman. The grace of the movie is that it leaves almost everything unspoken and lives a little in the land of dreams. But the movie is also about the petty hurdles that these often illiterate people had to cross to enter into the New World. They are not simply tested for diseases but for being too "feeble-minded" to enter the USA.

But if you see this movie for no other reason, watch it for the beautiful production design by Carlos Conti and stunning use of the camera by DP Agnès Godard. The stand-out shot is an aerial view of the dock-side and the deck of the ship. At first it just looks like a single surface teeming with people. But as the boat pulls away, we see that they are split into voyagers and well-wishers.

The only flaw I can possibly think of is that some might object to the anachronistic use of Nina Simone in the score. (I embraced it!) But frankly, in a world of formulaic studio films, I'd rather directors were too daring and occasionally failed, rather than continually safe. Bravo, Emanuele Crialese!

GOLDEN DOOR/NUOVOMONDO played Venice and Toronto 2006. It opened in Italy in 2006 an din Poland, Sweden, France, Denmark, Belgium, Argentina, Israel, the Netherlands, Germany, the US, Greece and Hungary earlier in 2007. It is currently on release in the UK and opens in Finland on August 17th.