BAD GENIUS - BFI London Film Festival 2017

BAD GENIUS is a superb thriller and social criticism of the high pressure and corrupt elite education in Thailand.  On one level, it can be watched in the same way as one would watch a heist movie like OCEAN'S ELEVEN - there's a caper, obstructions, high stakes, and a thrilling pay off.  This is all handled with a slick and impressive visual style.  But the more satisfying way to read the film is as a criticism of the class divide in Thailand, and how the rich always get to exploit the poor, and get away with it too.

As the movie opens we see our heroine Lynn join a prestigious Thai private school on a full scholarship. She's befriending by Grace and Pat - two academically stupid but cunning rich kids who persuade her to help them cheat on their exams, at first out of friendship, and then as a more general money-making exercise.  At first, Lynn is wide eyed as she realises how corrupt the education system is. Rich parents but the school equipment to get their kids good grades, and flagrantly bribe Lynn to attend the same university as their kids so that the scamming can continue beyond school. In such an environment why shouldn't she make money and game the system too? This all culminates in a giant scam that sees Lynn and her at first reluctant fellow scholarship student Bank travel to Sydney to take an international academic test and then send the results back to their Thai clients. And this is where the film reaches its brilliant best - both in terms of ratcheting up the tension of the heist - and posing really tough questions of social justice. To say more would be to spoil it, but I think this is a tremendous film in that its both truly exciting and profound.  Kudos to all involved. 

BAD GENIUS has a running time of 130 minutes and opened in South East Asia earlier this year.  It is playing the BFI London Film Festival 2017 and there are tickets available for all screenings. 

9 FINGERS - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

9 FINGERS is a stylish, self-conscious and fascinating movie but one that ultimately fails to cohere.  It's a fun idea but stretched too far.  As the film opens, our protagonist Magloire (Paul Hamy) is standing in a moodily lit train station. The mood is one of film noir meets Indiana Jones. Shot in black and white, 9 FINGERS features a lot of men smoking, wearing macs, with pencil moustaches.  It's like the bad guys in Tin Tin got a movie.   The action kicks off as Magloire is chased from the station by the police, is given a bunch of money by a mysterious stranger, and then gets taken up by a gang of criminals led by the charismatic leader Kurtz (Damien Bonnard - DUNKIRK).  There's a hold up and a MacGuffin like plan to somehow get some polonium, and before we know it we're stuck in a claustrophobic freighter with Pascal Greggory's philosophising gang member, discussing the disappearance of Kurtz, the mysterious "9 Fingers" and a never-ending journey to Nowhereland. 

How much you enjoy this film will depend on how far you are willing to let yourself be enveloped by Simon Roca's beautiful cinematography and the darkly comic existential non sequiturs.  I could easily see how the entire exercise could grate on viewers impatient for an actual point to the film.  I found myself oscillating between the two, at once admiring the film's beauty, it's love of genre cinema, and it's wit while also become more and more frustrated about where if anywhere it was going. This is clearly a film for people with a sense of mischief and a tolerance for meandering subversive homage. 

9 FINGERS has a running time of 99 minutes.  The film played Locarno 2017 where FJ Ossang won Best Director.  It is playing the BFI London Film Festival 2017 and there are still tickets available for all three screenings. 

THE CAKEMAKER - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

Ofir Raul Graizer's THE CAKEMAKER is an anaemic relationship drama that never recovers from Tim Kalkof's opaque central performance as the eponymous baker.  His character, Thomas, is in a loving relationship with a married Israeli man, Orun, who dies in a car crash.  This prompts our almost silent hero to go to Jerusalem and insinuate himself into the life of his ex-lover's widow Anat (Sarah Adler).  His baking is so good it draws crowds, but puts Anat's Kosher license at risk.  And soon she finds herself falling in love with him. 

When the film works best it's in its ambiguities.  Does Thomas return her advances because he was always bisexual and is actually attracted to her, or is he gay but somehow wants to feel close to his ex-lover?  How much does Orun's mother know about his and Thomas' relationship? And just how will Anat and Thomas' relationship resolve itself.  I love that the writer-director doesn't feel the need to overburden us with clear-cut answers. But there's also a criticism to be made in this cool detachment. First, that the love affair between Orun and Thomas is shown in such a bland way - as if the director is embarrassed at showing a homosexual relationship on screen.  Second, that the protagonist remains so unknowable that one's left leaving the cinema frustrated at the lack of emotional entry point to his story.

This film reminded me a lot of Hong Khaou's LILTING.  That film starred Ben Whishaw as the grieving lover of a closeted man. Except this time, instead of befriending his ex-wife, he befriends his prejudiced mother. The contrast is striking - both films were sensitive and delicate, but Whishaw's exceptional performance took us right into the heart of grief.  This is what THE CAKEMAKER so clearly missed. 

THE CAKEMAKER has a running time of 104 minutes. It played Berlin 2017. It is also playing the BFI London Film Festival 2017 where it's nominated for the Sutherland Award for First Feature.  There are tickets available for all three screenings. 

ERASE AND FORGET

Andrea Luka Zimmerman's documentary about Vietnam veteran turned TV personality Bo Gritz is a deeply dissatisfying and disorganised work that fails to truly get under the skin of its subject.  In the film-maker's defense, that may because Bo is a clever construct - a fantastic and mythical character designed to appeal to the worst of America's macho militaristic culture. The facts are that Gritz was a soldier in Vietnam who killed hundreds of people, using questionable methods, trained the mujahideen in Nevada, accused the US government of selling drugs in SE Asia, and played conciliator with a white supremacist, even offering up a Nazi salute. It's also a fact that some of this must haunt him because he recently tried and failed to commit suicide.  This picture of an ethically questionable and mentally fraught individual is however masked by the Bo Gritz avatar which is a man of derring do. He cons Clint Eastwood and William Shatner into giving him money to rescue US POWs left behind in Vietnam, but fails to rescue them, because they probably didn't exist. That doesn't matter of course, because he sells this tale to a movie studio for RAMBO II, a movie so at odds with the sensitive alienation and mental fracture of FIRST BLOOD as to be unrecognisable.  You get the feeling that Bo is so open with the media, and this doc, because part of him loves the attention. He even went for a presidential run, and seemed to revel in a kind of messianic status. 

So Bo Gritz is indeed a fitting subject for a doc, not least for what he tells us about american society - what it values and what it chooses to forget. But sadly, this documentary never really puts Bo on the hook for his past, his lies or his Nazi salute.  And it doesn't clearly show you what footage you're watching or where in his life we are.  Even worse, Andrew Luka Zimmerman uses a technique brought to prominence by Joshua Oppenheimer, of having a war criminal re-enact his atrocities. This feels like a cheap imitation and doesn't serve any purpose as Bo won't go emotionally deep enough on screen to have any kind of meaningful reaction.  The result is, then, a documentary where it feels like the subject is playing the director, and it's deeply frustrating. 

ERASE AND FORGET has a running time of 90 minutes. It is rated 18 for graphic images of real dead bodies and injury. The film played Berlin 2017 and will play the BFI London Film Festival. It will be released in the UK on March 2nd 2018.

ABU: FATHER - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

Arshad Khan's biographical documentary is fascinating and beautifully constructed. Using a mixture of family photos and home videos intercut with animation, clips from Western and Bollywood films, he creates a compelling and authentic collage of life in 1980s Pakistan and then as an immigrant in Canada.  His childhood seems impressively liberal - he dances with his siblings to Western music.  But he knows he's different, and when dressed by his sisters in girls' clothes he is molested. Later, his father becomes increasingly religious and thus disturbed by his son's homosexuality. He tries proselytising in the car in Canada, and then confronts his son and asks him to get psychological help - equating homosexuality with alcoholism - something that can be recovered from.  But at least Arshad is out of the closet, working as an airline steward, and discovering the gay subculture.  9-11 proves to the tipping point, as for so many others.  His parents become even more extremely religious and he becomes politicised. This is where I found the documentary to be the most fascinating - because it takes us into tv clips of radical preachers that we might not otherwise see and shows the impact on a previously liberal family.  The mother who used to dance to Pakeezah songs in her living room now refuses to leave the house without the permission of her husband, and thinks her son is belligerently refusing to be straight.  They make pilgrimages and there is a kind of rapprochement between father and son, but ultimately this is a story about failed connections and irreconcilable differences. Arshad's articulate sister posits a theory that when immigrants fail to find an easy entrance to a different society then can fall back on religion because it's a place of belonging and easy answers.  In this discussion of why assimilation fails, and why liberal humanist values do not translate, this documentary moves from being a personal journal to of universal and urgent relevance today.  In that, it makes a superb viewing partner to the equally provocative and interesting AZMAISH: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SUBCONTINENT - also playing at this year's festival.

ABU has a running time of 80 minutes. The film is playing the BFI London Film Festival 2017. There are tickets available for both screenings.

PRINCESS CYD - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

Stephen Cone's PRINCESS CYD is a slow paced and quietly beautiful love story on two levels. The protagonist is a 16 year old survivor of an unexplained childhood tragedy that killed her mother. Years later her struggling father sends Cyd to Chicago to stay with her aunt for a few weeks in her mother's old family home.  At first they have nothing in common.  The aunt, Miranda, is a famous author who lives by her intellect and is introspective. By contrast, Cyd is uninterested in books and mostly wants to sunbathe and flirt with a girl, Katie, from the local coffee shop.  Cyd's criticism of her aunt's lifetime result in a plea for tolerance, and soon time and slow adjustments do their work.  In the end, the movie becomes a love story between Cyd and Katie, but also between Cyd and her Aunt - who forge a strong familial tie as important as the fledgling love affair. All three women end up stronger and happier for their connection, and the young girls finally appreciate the power of the written word to transform lives, just as the aunt appreciates the joy of living in the moment.  

The performances are good across the board and the rest of the production workmanlike.  But I have to say that I struggled with the film, especially in its first two thirds. It felt too slow, too dull, too obvious.  The movie went exactly where I thought it would and the epiphanies were as predicted. The weirdest part is that you never really feel that Cyd or her aunt are living in the aftermath of a family tragedy. And when the writer introduces a pretty shady and dangerous plot involving Katie, it also feels like it has no consequences. Overall, this movie has some worthwhile aspects to it, but is ultimately a pretty dull watch.

PRINCESS CYD is playing the BFI London Film Festival 2017.  There are tickets available for both screenings.  It will be released on the internet in the USA on December 5th.

EX LIBRIS - THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY - BFI London Film Festival 2017

After the magisterial IN JACKSON HEIGHTS, documentarian Frederick Wiseman returns to New York for EX LIBRIS - THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY. In over three hours, his quietly investigative camera shows us the myriad ways and places in which the famed institution works.  Yes, some of that is in the iconic Beaux Arts building and involves people checking out books and researchers inquiring after the Gutenberg Bible. But it also involves disseminating knowledge in the most broad sense possible - bringing attention to the pockets of people who don't have access to the internet, and making sure they have somewhere where they can get online too. It also involves people taking courses to upgrade their skills, or apply for civil service jobs, or citizenship.  Or learning by listening - to Richard Dawkins on secularism, to Elvis Costello on how a song's meaning can change with intonation or subversive musical echoes, or to an historian of slavery, or a poet protesting since Vietnam.  The quality of the discussion is superb, and the fact that this, and all the resources, are available to the public is mind-blowing and gratifying.  The work of the library also extends beyond its main campus to its smaller offshoot buildings, and to community outreach work. It's a poet talking to kids about Alice in Wonderland with a baby gurgling in the background.  It's in these sections that one really gets a sense of the vitality of the institution and a glimpse into life in New York beyond the glossy Manhattan cinema backdrops that we are so used to - of real people in an active and diverse community.

The length of the film may be offputting to some, but is typical of Wiseman's films and allows his room to let his subjects breathe and talk and for us to hear their mission and their concerns.  To watch it all the way through it to enter their world and truly catch a glimpse of something real and, yes, inspiring. Because in a world  where we are atomised by social media and handheld devices and societal segregation, there's something beautiful about a community space where people come together in the pursuit of knowledge, debate - where even the homeless are welcome - where you find kids and grandparents - English speakers, Spanish speakers and so many others - people searching for books, prints, poetry - in the best tradition of a liberal humanism that is now under threat. 

EX LIBRIS - THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY has a running time of 197 minutes.  The film played Venice and Toronto 2017. It is playing the BFI London Film Festival, where it is nominated for the Grierson Award. Both screenings are sold out but there are usually stand by tickets available on the day.

ROLLER DREAMS - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

ROLLER DREAMS is a lighthearted and somewhat slight documentary about the roller dancing culture that took off around Venice Beach in the early 80s, inspired a handful of white-appropriation cheesy movies, and was finally run out of town by a combination of unsuitable gangsta rap music and gentrification aggressively enforced by the local police. The vintage footage of the dancing is impressive and the talking heads rather melancholy - one of the OG dancers is living in a garage, another is almost in tears when he can no longer skate, only a third thanks skating for helping him get a modelling contract and put his kids through college. Where the documentary is most disappointing is in its superficial investigation of race.  I wanted more talking heads of people explaining why black people could only hang out in Venice, and the way in which the skating community responded to the Watts riots and Rodney King, and if the police were truly brutal, then let's hear from some of them or local politicians or local journalists.  Otherwise, we're merely left with a large crowd-pleasing but trite standard doc about a slice of Americana hinting at larger issues it doesn't have the commitment to truly investigate. 

ROLLER DREAMS has a running time of 82 minutes. It won the Audience Award at Sydney 2017. There are still tickets available for all the screenings at the BFI London Film Festival.

THE DEAD NATION - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

This year's festival contains a handful of absolutely searing documentaries showing societies where violence and hatred are endemic, but none quite as slippery and tragic as Radu Jude's THE DEAD NATION.  

His film does two things. On one level it's a straightforward linear account of just how quickly Romania succumbed to anti-semitic fascism in the 1930s, as told in the memories of the Jewish doctor Emil Dorian. We hear this shocked liberal well-informed man tell us how Jews have been expelled from medicine, then from civil society altogether - to the point where he must even prove his right to citizenship.  The new fascist Romania moves quickly to barbarism - he calmly tells us how Christians now have several ways of referring to Jews - "dirty Jews" etc - and how the Jews have been to put to hard labour, and how many cases of frostbite he's had to treat.  Set against these everyday terrors, news comes from afar, of massacres, rapes, trains  of Jews being sent away, and then with alarming precision, the testing of a new gas on 400 Jews, now dead.  The Holocaust comes with a slow certainty from afar, and how can we say that "ordinary" people didn't know when one could read of such gas experiments in the newspaper?  Dorian even hears news from abroad - such as Thomas Mann condemning the German nation for allowing this to happen.  Finally, methodically, we move through the years to 1945 and the war is over.  The Soviets are now hailed as heroes and Dorian sceptically predicts that they too will use anti-semitism to control the nation.  There's a wry hope for elections, but it's as if we're in on the joke. Romania will remain governed by totalitarian populists. 

Set against this straightforward and deeply affecting narrative, we have the subversive use of photos and songs to echo, contradict or debate the doctor's account. The photos are black and white plate photographs taken in a professional studio in a rural town, selected by editor Catalin Cristutiu from a trove of 8,600 such pictures recently discovered.  So when Dorian tells us that the Roman salute has become mandatory, we see photo after photo of proud peasants, professionals, happy families, children, all giving the terrifying salute.  Increasingly, as the war begins, those photos feature men in uniform, proudly displaying guns. Of course, the photos don't show the terror unleashed on the Jews - but rather the smug bourgeois men and women who perpetrated it.  So when Dorian describes some of the Christian women who become fascist thugs, we see happy domestic pictures of contented mothers. The feeling of unease and of half-truths is emphasised by the use of propaganda speeches and songs.  The language used is that of tinpot fascists the world over - purity, strength, unity, family, sacrifice, loyalty. No mention of the race that will be sent to the Gas Chambers to achieve this apparent utopia.  The songs, the close part harmony of men marching to war, is even more sinister when placed against Radu calmly reading the memoirs of a sensitive doctor, wondering how artists and poets cope in such times. 

THE DEAD NATION is a beautiful, provocative and unique film that tells us a lot about how quickly a country can slip into violent anti-semitism, but also something profound about the way in which we choose to present ourselves and the lies and equivocations that mark the so-called historical record. It's a superb film and a worthy contender in the LFF Official Competition.

THE DEAD NATION was released earlier this year in Romania. It is in the Official Competition of the BFI London Film Festival and tickets are still available for all three screenings. 

DEVIL'S FREEDOM - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

Serving as a powerful counterpoint to SICILIAN GHOST STORY, Everardo Gonazalez' DEVIL'S FREEDOM is a chilling and unforgettable documentary about the consequences of drug related violence in contemporary Mexico.  Gonzalez interviews both victims and perpetrators of murder rape kidnap and extortion - and hidden by unsettling and levelling surgical masks - their testimony has both candour and power.  What's amazing is how much one can get from the eyes and intonation despite the masks - and yet how honest people are believing they are masked.  You have a schooled describe the weight of a gun and thrilled with the power of his increasing number of kills - a mother in tears as she describes punching police officers to get to the body of her dead son - policeman uncovering corpses that died with their mouths open, signifying that they were buried alive.  The result is a film that is relatively short but rightly intense.  A brave and bold way of showing the horror of life in a country where violence is commonplace. 

DEVIL'S FREEDOM aka LA LIBERTAD DEL DIABLO has a running time of 74 minutes. It played Berlin 2017.  Tickets are still available for both screenings at the BFI London Film Festival. 

TAKE EVERY WAVE: THE LIFE OF LAIRD HAMILTON - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

TAKE EVERY WAVE: THE LIFE OF LAIRD HAMILTON is two hours of hagiography mitigated only by some pretty spectacular nature photography.  The director and writer - Rory Kennedy and Mark Bailey - (LAST DAYS  IN VIETNAM) - are captivated by their Big Wave surfstar and give him a pretty easy ride in their chronological trek through his life.  The kid is shown growing up in idyllic circumstances in Hawaii, where the biggest name in surfing marries his single mother, seemingly at his request.  But he's disruptive at school (though this doc shows him as a cheeky scamp) and lives a live of utter indulgence.  He can't be bothered to play by the rules and surf competitively, and when he meets a hot volleyball player he leaves his wife and she moves in with him within 8 days.  Again and again, we are meant to worship him as a pioneer of his craft - and maybe he is - without interrogating his personality.  The result is a fairly dull documentary that will have limited appeal beyond the surfing world. This isn't like one of those mountaineering docs that I love, where you watch to understand the personalities that engage in this extreme activity.  I was utterly bored.  That said, the cinematography of the big waves by DPs, Alice Gu and Don King, was breathtaking.

TAKE EVERY WAVE: THE LIFE OF LAIRD HAMILTON played Sundance 2017 and went on limited release earlier this year. There are tickets available for both screenings at the BFI London Film Festival.

AZMAISH: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SUBCONTINENT - BFI LFF 2017 Preview

AZMAISH: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SUBCONTINENT is a searing, provocative and deeply relevant documentary about the demise of liberal humanism in India and the rise of the Hindu-fascism.  It contrasts this with the parlous state of Pakistan - a failed state dominated by an uneasy balance of militarism and Islamism that didn't even have the luxury of decades of Nehru-ism that India at least benefited from.  Both countries now have a political discourse driven by discriminating against the Other, and are united in expressing this through the subjugation of women - an ironic commonality.  The brave documentary who chronicles this slide into extremism is Sabiha Sumar, a child of Partition who grew up in Pakistan with her father's memories of liberal India.  She takes her journey with Bollywood and arthouse actress Kalki Koechlin, as they move from articulate but petrifying dinner table conversations in Mumbai to feudal rural Pakistan. The over-riding conclusion is that India is wilfully throwing away its inheritance of liberal democracy in favour of Hindu populism, and they aren't afraid to point out that the ruling party has its own funded militant violent thugs, akin to the SS. And, as Kalki points out, if a new generation is raised in segregation, rather than in the diverse communities of the past, learning to hate from the cradle, "then we really are screwed".  By contrast, the  problems of Pakistan seem like a more acute version of the same - deep political corruption and an in-state terrorist organisation - the Taliban.   As I watched this brilliant and brave film, I kept thinking of all the parallels with the Europe and the USA today - not just the obvious populist vote for Trump - but the degradation of liberal discourse - as much from the Left as the Right.  A Hindu fascist argues in this documentary that critics of the new Indian government argue that the quality of discourse in parliament has gone down - but then that was only ever the discourse of the liberal elite and didn't reflect the concerns of the uneducated masses. We are seeing something of the same in the West today - the increased distrust of the learned expert, and the very institutions that underpin our democracy.  And in the segregation of communities into the vegetarian building or the Hindu building or the Muslim building aren't we seeing a reflection of the liberal Left's fight for "safe spaces" and the protests against dissenting speech on campus?  Apparently all diversity is good except diversity of thought.  In the closing moments of this film, the director also makes the link to the rise of populism in the West. And I wondered why there weren't more films addressing this in the LFF line-up and being thankful for this one. I've long since been petrified by the slide of India into extremism and finally we have a spotlight onto this vitally important issue.  That said, far be it for us to be complacent when we suffer from so many of the same problems. This is a must see movie.

AZMAISH: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SUBCONTINENT has a running time of 85 minutes. The film played Toronto 2017.  Tickets are still available for one of the screenings at the BFI London Film Festival.

TONSLER PARK - BFI LFF 2017 Preview

TONSLER PARK is a feature length documentary by prolific shorts director Kevin Jerome Everson. Shot in black and white 16 mil the film takes place in a polling station in Charlottesville, Virginia at the general election of 2016. The location has now become infamous, but viewers looking for context will be left wanting. Rather, this is a meditative micro-focussed documentary, in a style familiar to fans of Frederick Wiseman. The director allows his camera to linger, meditatively, but never intrusively on the members of the Charlottesville community giving up their time to run the polling station and those who elect to vote.  What emerges is a picture of a deep-rooted community and a kind of faith in the system - that the pamphlet on the proposed constitutional amendments will answer the voters questions - that the volunteers swearing oaths to act truthfully in guarding the democratic process will do so.  Their faith is uplifting and this picture of grassroots political engagement challenges my more cynical view of the state of American politics.  The message of this film is, then, profound. That said, I found the director's chosen format - 16 mm black and white - alienating and barrier forming. I wanted to see more of the expression of people's faces and the environment of the polling station.  I couldn't see a compelling artistic reason for the choice. That said, the film was still very much worth watching.

TONSLER PARK is playing the BFI London Film Festival and tickets are still available. 

SICILIAN GHOST STORY - BFI LFF 2017 Preview

SICILIAN GHOST STORY is a slow-burn drama that tells the tale of a mafia abduction in Sicily from the perspective of the teenage girl who had a crush on its victim. Descriptions of the film often play up the movie's fantasy elements but I found this to be a canard.  This is fundamentally a beautifully observed and melancholy tale of thwarted love and societal injustice. The fantasy elements, such as they are, are lightly handled and can be read as mere imagination and intuition.

The story takes place in a Sicilian hilltown amid verdant fairytale woods rather than in the dusty, oppressive Sicily of the Godfather films.  In a sunlit, giddy opening, our heroine Luna (Julia Jedlikowska) follows the kind, beautiful Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez) into the woods, and like any knight in shining armour, he saves her from a rabid dog. She then plucks up the courage to give him her love letter, and revels in this success that night by sending signals by torchlight to her best friend Loredana (Corinne Musallari).  But the next day at school, Giuseppe is nowhere to be seen, and Luna simply can't accept her parents and teachers explanations that he's sick or gone away.  The societal silence around his kidnapping, punishing his father for becoming an informant, is claustrophobic and brings Luna to the edge of madness. She cannot fathom why no-one will help her find her beloved when he can only be being held in the surrounding villages. Memories of their brief time together draw her back to the woods, and to the makeshift house where he is being held.  Her mother approximates a kind of buttoned up Mrs Danvers with her cool hardness and the owls are not what they seem. And all the time, poor Giuseppe is still imprisoned, clinging onto Luna's love letter but ever weaker and more apathetic.

The film works beautifully as an allegory of the impossibility of innocence in a corrupt world. Even outside of the main story, we see Loredana beaten by her father so much that she doesn't even seem to be bothered by it any more. At any rate, it gives her a magnificent toughness that puts her in a class of Badass Movie Best Friends all of her own.  But the real victory of the film is to be unflinching in its depiction of violence but also to give us some room for hope without seeming forced or simplistic.  After 90 minutes of very slow action, and an ending that I thought was all its own, the  movie continued and I was rather glad it did. It's also beautifully shot by Luca Bigazzi (YOUTH) and depicts a Sicily quite unlike that we have on screen before.

SICILIAN GHOST STORY played Cannes 2017. It was released in Italy earlier this year. It goes on release in France on November 15th and in Argentina on December 7th. Tickets are still available to see it at the BFI London Film Festival 2017.