SUNDOWN***** - BFI London Film Festival 2021 - Day 5

Michel Franco's SUNDOWN is a stunning taut character study that takes you from extreme discomfort to a kind of blissful understanding in its short 85 minute running time. It features a typically memorable and nuanced performance from Tim Roth as an extremely wealthy man called Neil who seemingly on a whim decides to turn his back on his family.  As the film opens, we see the family luxuriating in a Mexican resort that could come straight out of HBO's White Lotus. As Neil wryly says to Colin, "why do have to be such an arsehole?"  Their existence is lubricated by endless drinks and low-level bickering. We are unclear as to Neil's relationship with Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) but he seems distant.  

The key plot point happens half an hour in when the family is called home to deal with the death of Alice's mother, and Neil pretends he's left his passport at the hotel and doesn't board the flight. He checks into a random downtown hotel and rather sleepily falls into a rhythm of drinking at the beach by day and sleeping with a local girl by night. He seems happy in this relationship and I rather admired his ability to slip into the local scene. But the audience's frustration mounts with each lie to Alice and our discomfort rises with the momentary flashes of violence.

As the film moves into its final act, Franco and Roth masterfully manipulate our feelings. It's testament to Roth's easy-going charm that even at his most inexplicable, we still hang in there with Neil, hoping to understand. Credit to to Henry Goodman (TAKING WOODSTOCK) as Richard, because his faith in Neil keeps us engaged. The resulting film is slippery and strange and unforgettable.

SUNDOWN has a running time of 83 minutes. It played Venice, Toronto and London 2021. 

NEW ORDER / NUEVO ORDEN - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day

NEW ORDER is a nasty brutal short film about social inequality, envy and corruption.  As the film opens, patients are being kicked off hospital beds to accommodate the victims of a brutal social uprising. We cut to naked cadavers splattered with green paint.  We then cut as brutally again to a wedding in a spectacular mansion where guests hand envelopes bulging with cash to the bride and her mother locks them in a safe.  Their old gardener interrupts the celebrations. His wife is desperately ill but was kicked out of the hospital and now he needs money for a private operation. Mother, father, brother all reject charity but the bride wants to help, and when the social justice rioters reach the wedding house and start shooting and looting, she flees with the gardener. A day later, the house is a scene of carnage and murder.  The bride, who had taken shelter with the gardener, is seized by armed militia.  She's rounded up with other rich people, brutalised, raped and then offered up for ransom.  As the movie ends, whatever this New Order is that has staged the coup has become as bad as the old regime - and may indeed be in cahoots with parts of it.  We end the film with extrajudicial killings.

What is director Michel Franco trying to do with this film?  He rightly shows how the politics of envy underlies a lot of modern political unrest. He rightly shows that rich people can be really self-centred. He rightly shows that there is brutality at the heart of humanity and in that sense, this film makes an interesting companion piece to SHADOW COUNTRY, also playing in this festival. But these are not especially radical thoughts, and I didn't care about any of these characters. The movie soon became a kind of thought exercise - what would happen if...?  And I would have liked more precision and clarity around the ending. 

NEW ORDER has a running time of 88 minutes.  It played Venice 2020 where it won the Silver Lion. It also played Toronto, San Sebastian and London 2020.  It does not yet have a commercial release data.

London Film Fest 2012 Day 11 - AFTER LUCIA

Mexican writer-director Michel Franco's AFTER LUCIA is a grim, unrelenting movie about a teenage girl victimised by her classmates after an ill-advised, drunken and, crucially, video'd sexual encounter.  At first the abuse it typical cruel teenage boy harassment.  But it steps up a level when the girls become jealous of her.  Early on, there is an opportunity for her to tell her teachers and father WHY she is acting up. Perhaps because she wishes to protect her grieving father from further pain, or just from sheer shame, she keeps quiet. This is a fatal decision that leads to further introversion, abuse and ultimately catastrophic consequences for all involved.  

AFTER LUCIA is at its most affecting when it shows how a father and daughter - once so casually intimate - become distanced from each other as they struggle to cope with their grief and (in her case) extreme bullying. This deterioration of communication was all the more tragic because the director so brilliantly depicted the former closeness.  On a personal note, I am very close to my father and it's just a relationship you rarely see on screen.

At first I found the level of abuse Alejandra takes hard to believe.  I just couldn't believe that schoolkids would be so savage and, indeed, that Alejandra's teachers, if not father, would notice. At its most brutal, the film reminded me of Larry Clark's KIDS.   But the director is always careful to show how she covers up, and also how the kids are cognisant of when and what they can get away with.  And Tessa Ia is so convincing in her portrayal of  girl who just goes inside of herself, that I went with it.  It was then, a shame that in the final reel the movie took a turn that I really did not believe, cheapening the overall effect of the film.

Still, even with that incredible turn of events  AFTER LUCIA remains one of the most disturbing and best of the films at this year's Festival. 

AFTER LUCIA played Cannes, where it won the Un Certain Regard Award, and London 2012. It is currently on release in France, Russia and Mexico.

Running time - 102 minutes