BEAST - Day 6 - BFI London Film Festival 2017

Micheal Pearce's BEAST is an assured directorial debut that's half claustrophobic family drama in the manner of Lars von Trier, and half serial killer whodunnit. It stars Jessie Buckley (WAR AND PEACE) as Moll - a bullied daughter of an oppressively middle-class family living on the insular island of Jersey.  Given how overlooked and snubbed she is, it's no surprise that Moll is drawn to the charismatic outsider Pascal (singer-actor Johnny Flynn).  She has little concept of self-care, putting herself in harm's way and lying to the police because she wants the attention.  Her family hate Pascal because he's of a lower social class but they are more justifiably concerned that there's a serial killer on the island.  The question is how far Moll suspects and suppresses her suspicions about Pascal and what she'll do with them given that she's alienated most people on the island. 

Where the film works best is in chronicling the passive-aggressive coercion of a manipulative family.  Geraldine McEwan is truly frightening as Moll's mother, and Jessie Buckley demonstrates formidable range as she moves from bullied, self-harming daughter, to passionate lover, to agent of justice. The serial killer piece is good but perhaps less assured in its pacing and reveals. Nonetheless, this is a highly impressive first feature from Pearce and I look forward to seeing how he develops as a film-maker. 

BEAST has a running time of 107 minutes and will play London and Toronto 2017.

45 YEARS

Andrew Haigh (WEEKEND) returns to our screens with another deeply affecting, beautifully directed character drama.  45 YEARS stars Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay as an apparently happily married couple approaching their 45th wedding anniversary when a letter is delivered reporting the discovery of the frozen body of the husband's former girlfriend, Katya.  Although she died before the couple even met, his references to "my Katya", the fact that they pretended to be married, the way it has affected him, all deeply affect his wife.  The husband disappears into the attic to look at old letters and play old records and even smell old perfume. And the formerly trusting, loving wife becomes distrustful and insecure - checking up on him, changing from a perfectly understanding reasonable woman into someone unwilling to even hear the other woman's name.  

What I love about the script is that you feel sympathy with both characters even as they do things that are unsympathetic or self-involved. These are two real people, with all their faults and strengths, facing up to emotions long forgotten and long suppressed.  As we see the wife become sneaky and cold, her position is utterly understandable. As she demands a public show of loyalty at their anniversary party, and we see her husband almost child-like in his desire to please her, we still understand both sides.  The tragedy is shared and irrevocable, as summed up in the most haunting close up on Rampling's face that closes the film.

This is film-making at its most raw and elegant - the melancholy blue-gray misty Norfolk landscape a perfect backdrop for the melancholy regret.  It's a film that contains no grand emotional break-downs but is absolutely paralysing in its depiction of mis-trust.  Andrew Haigh has established himself as one of the most assured directors of actors and I can't wait to see what he does next.

45 YEARS has a running time of 95 minutes and is rated  15 for strong language and sex. The movie played Berlin 2015 where Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay won the Silver Bear.  It opened earlier this year in Estonia and is currently on release in the UK, Ireland and Slovenia. It opens in Germany on September 10th, in Denmark on October 8th, in France on November 4th, in Sweden on December 4th and in Greece on December 10th.

DIANA

You can listen to a podcast review of DIANA below, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.


Oh dear. I really wanted to like the Prince Diana movie, imaginatively titled DIANA, if only to put two fingers up to the mainstream elitist critical opinion. But the film flops heavily onto our screens with little wit and less understanding - a soppy, weepy love story that hasn't got the balls to tackle the fascinating issues that the Princess embodied. The film never takes on the Royal Family apart from a few shy hints that Diana would have liked to have seen her children more. Charles and Camilla emerge unscathed. The fascination that Diana seems to have had for spiritualists and quacks is unquestioned and unexplored. The influence of her butler, Paul Burrell, uninvestigated. And her capricious relationship with the media - hunted but also manipulating - only very gently hinted at. This movie lets everyone - including the late Princess - off the hook.

So what DO we get? We meet Diana as a lonely woman, fascinated with healing, who falls for a leading heart surgeon, Hasnat Khan.  They begin a shy courtship - an odd couple romance.  She's the Princess who loves classical music and exercise. He's the Pakistani surgeon who likes junk food and jazz.  When push comes to shove, he isn't willing to upset his traditional Muslim family or indeed to have his work compromised by her fame.  She reacts rather childishly by trying to make Hasnat jealous by publicly being photographed with Dodi Fayed, leading to their fateful crash in Paris.  Yes, it's tragic that the mother of young sons died, and even more tragic that her celebrity prevented her from enjoying a fulfilling relationship (if true).  But there is no emotional truth in this movie.  No nuance, empathy or insight.  It's as vacuous as Hello! magazine, but at least THAT has the benefit of the real Princess, rather than poor Naomi Watts, in a career-embarrassing performance, tilting her head to the side and fluttering her eyelids in a succession of bad wigs. 

The mind boggles. How could director Oliver Hirschbiegel, who directed the incredibly powerful, intelligent and affecting Hitler's bunker film, DOWNFALL, have produced something so insipid?  I suspect the blame lies partly with the timid producers, but also with screenwriter Stephen Jeffreys, who wrote a movie so risible it earned the shortest review this blog has ever published, for THE LIBERTINE.  One can only wonder what kind of sympathy Sofia Coppola might have brought to this story, after her luminescent depiction of Marie-Antoinette.  At the very least, her product placement would have been less crass than the long lingering handbag close-up that opens this film.

Eheu o me miserum.

DIANA has a running time of 113 minutes and is rated 12A in the UK for strong language, brief land mine injury and surgical detail. 

DIANA is on release in the UK, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland and Poland. It opens on September 26th in Belgium, Denmark, Portugal and Serbia; on October 3rd in France, Italy, Russia and Sweden; on October 10th in Australia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Estonia and Norway; on October 17th in Hong Kong and Japan; on October 25th in Brazil; on November 1st in the USA; on November 7th in Argentina and Finland; on November 14th in the Netherlands; on November 28th in Greece and Singapore; on December 13th in Spain; on January 9th in Germnany; and on February 6th in Chile.