PREMATURE - BFI London Film Festival 2019

Ayanna (Zora Howard) is a naive bookish teenager bound for liberal arts college in the Fall.  But before that, her summer is upended by a chance encounter with Isaiah (Joshua Boone) that turns into a full-blown summer love-affair that - interestingly - she instigates.  He's older than her, and she loves his passion for music and ideas. She feels confident enough to open sexually and intellectually, sharing that she writes poetry.  It's intense and overwhelming, and ripe for a reality check when Isaiah's white ex-girlfriend shows up, or every time he gets into an argument with her friends over politics. The way in which both parties deal with the rift speaks to Ayanna's relative and understandable immaturity.  There's a third act twist that's beautifully and responsibly handled, and navigated, as the entire film, with real authenticity and nuance. And as we leave the couple at the end of the summer, there's a lovely ambiguity as to what will happen next.

I really was interested in the relationship, thanks mostly to Zora Howard's beautiful acting and writing. It also helps knowing she was pivotal in crafting the film alongside debut director Rashaad Ernesto Green, so that the explicit sex scenes don't come off as exploitative. But the really beautiful thing in this film is the backdrop to the relationship - our window into contemporary Harlem, in sunkissed 16mm - the way in which young people debate politics, or simply just hang out in launderettes, and the beautiful support system that young black women and their mothers have to provide for each other. 

PREMATURE has a running time of 86 minutes. It played Sundance and London 2019 and does not yet have a commercial release date.

MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL - BFI London Film Festival 2019

Stanley Nelson (BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION)  has created an impeccably constructed, and arguably definitive, documentary biography of the iconic jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. His film, MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL is both musical and personal biography and benefits from incredible access.  On the musical side, we have talking heads from band members, music historians and contemporary musicians who were deeply affected by his work - most articulate of all is Carlos Santana. On the personal side we have very moving interviews with his lovers.  What comes across is a nuanced and clear-minded picture of a musical genius struggling with his own demons.  The movie never shies away from telling about his jealously abusive relationships, his drug addiction, and neurotic anger.  As his first and most significant lover, Francine says at the end, one wonders how such a violent man can create such beautiful music.  You also feel very deeply how much Miles was loved to the end, even while people acknowledged how difficult he was to deal with.  The result is a deeply compelling, moving and elucidating film that brings unparalleled depth to our understanding of this musician. For example, I had never truly appreciated how far his later works were laying down the foundations for hip-hop and garage until this film. And insofar as his struggle was part of the wider struggle of black men to get respect in white America - and his humiliations unshielded by his wealth and fame - one would hope that this film would have some appeal beyond jazz aficionados.

MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL has a running time of 100 minutes. It played Sundance 2019 and was released in the USA in August. It is playing the London Film Festival and does not yet have a commercial release date for the UK.

MARRIAGE STORY - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Six

Writer-director Noah Baumbach has created, in MARRIAGE STORY, the best Woody Allen film since the late 1980s. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about a director so closely replicating the technique of another even if it's a technique I so admire and it's done so well.  But if I push that slight queasiness to one side, I have to admit that MARRIAGE STORY is one of the most authentic, heartfelt and beautifully acted relationship dramas I've seen in some time, and I hope that Baumbach, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Laura Dern are duly reward with award nominations.

The story is a deeply personal and relatable one.  It's based on Noah Baumbach's own divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh, and acted by Scarlett Johansson in the midst of her own divorce.  Two fundamentally decent good people find they cannot live together anymore.  The husband - a theatre director - feels that his wife, his star actress - has cooled sexually, resents her for his having been married and faithful in his prime, and so has an affair.  The wife resents the fact that her career has been subsumed into his, that he so steadfastly considers them a New York family when she wants to go back to LA, that she's never given the chance to direct.  In the most trenchant line of the film, her lawyer points out that when he wants something it's a debate, but when she wants something it's just a discussion.

They begin the divorce process hoping not to involve lawyers. They have precious little money to split - the only real contention is custody and specifically where their primary home will be - are they a New York or LA family. But as she files for divorce when shooting a pilot in LA, as her kid was born in LA, he's in school there while she shoots the pilot, it all seems to go in her favour. Moreover, she hires a no-nonsense cut-throat lawyer played by Laura Dern, while he hires a decent lawyer played by Alan Alda. This all winds through - we get an absolutely superb, unrelenting, vicious, heart-wrenching, set piece argument - and the case is settled. The irony being that if he'd agree to just spend a year in LA in the first place they might never have gotten divorced in the first place.

I really love this film. There's something so honest about their mutual resentments, about her need to break free, about his complete lack of awareness.... There's also something so tragically well-observed in how the expensive lawyers think it's all about victory, and are actually social friends outside of the courtroom, and don't really care about the clients at all. There's a wonderful moment of subtle acting near the end when her lawyer has managed to squeeze out another concession from him, but a concession she even wanted, and when the lawyer says "you won!" you can see her wince.  

This is Scarlett Johansson operating at a level we haven't seen before - establishing herself as a truly gifted and mature actress. And in combination with her surprisingly tragicomic, charismatic performance in JOJO RABBIT - this truly is her year.  And I guess I'm overall pleased that someone is giving us complicated adult dramas of the calibre of late 80s Woody Allen, even if it isn't Woody himself. 

MARRIAGE STORY has a running time of 136 minutes and is rated R. The film played Venice, Telluride, Toronto and London. It will get a limited theatrical release in November before being released on Netflix on December 6th.

JOJO RABBIT - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Five

JOJO RABBIT is an absolute triumph - trust the people who voted it People's Choice at Toronto! Don't listen to the critics who are so scared of laughing first at what is, after all, a rightly difficult subject.  Because JOJO RABBIT is not just an hilariously brilliant satire on mass hysteria and fanaticism. It's also a deeply moving film that doesn't shy away from showing us the consequences of racism and totalitarianism, even while giving us hope that sheer human compassion will ultimately prevail.

The conceit of the film is that young Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a ten year old boy who has been indoctrinated by the Nazis and is so fanatically devoted to Hitler (Taika Waititi) that he imagines him to be his imaginary friend.  Meanwhile Jojo's wonderfully funny but straightforward mother (Scarlett Johansson) doesn't hesitate to criticise "Shitler" and forces Jojo to see the consequences of his actions, all the while loving him. When Jojo gets injured at his Hitler Youth summer camp, run by the brilliantly funny but ultimately much more profound Captain K (Sam Rockwell) he has to spend his days at home, and it's there that he discovers his mum is hiding a teenage Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in the attic. And so we discover what happens when an indoctrinated boy faces an actual human being that he has learned to hate.

I went into the film expecting a black comedy in the vein of THE PRODUCERS and it is one of the funniest films I've seen in years. The physical comedy of Rockwell and Rebel Wilson - even Alfie Allen in almost wordless role.  Stephen Merchant as a Gestapo officer with his goons Heil Hiterling away. And most of all Taika Waititi as Hitler, delusional and jealous of Jojo's new friendship.

But what makes this film great is its subtle intelligence and profound humanity.  Take for example the opening credits using a German-language Beatles track over archive footage of Hitler Youth screaming for their Fuhrer.  This beautifully makes a point about mass hysteria and how easily crowds can be led. It also contrasts with beautifully with a German-language Bowie track at the end, the ultimate icon of individuality and nonconformity.

Or take the example of Waititi's Hitler - largely goofy but in one point of anger ranting and raving as the Fuhrer did when he worked himself  up in a hysterical fit - and it's genuinely and rightly scary. When Waititi as director wants to pack a punch he does - a pivotal scene is absolutely breathtakingly painful to endure. And Waititi also knows when to misdirect, making us think one character is in danger when another is.  Or take the altogether subtle moment when a joke about mass Heil-Hitlering becomes morbid and desperate because a Jewish girl has to force herself to do it.  And finally consider the responsibility of Waititi in not allowing us to turn our heads from the horror of war and genocide - and the fact that all hilarity aside, we are shown and told of the gravity of the situation.

For me, JOJO RABBIT is a success because it so beautifully finds the balance between satire and profound emotion - because it never shies away from its responsibilities in tackling the subject matter, while also allowing us to triumph over evil through laughter. The film tells us twice that to dance is to be free, and to express our joy and hope and happiness. I think laughing does much the same. I am reminded of that brilliant youtube meme that rebus a clip from THE DOWNFALL, with Hitler losing his shit that a Polynesian Jew is playing him in a film.  I laugh because I am free to laugh. In the words of Jojo, "Fuck you, Hitler."

JOJO RABBIT has a running time of 108 minutes and is rated PG-13. The film played Toronto and London 2019 and will open in the USA on October 18th and in the UK on January 3rd 2020.

COUP 53 - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Four

In 1953, Iran was ruled by a popular left-wing Prime Minister called Mossadegh who nationalised the Abadan oil fields, much to the chagrin of the state owned British oil company that was reaping the profits. So, the CIA and MI6 funded and plotted a successful coup d'etat that returned the more pliable but dictatorial Shah of Iran to power. Naturally he was about as popular as a shit sandwich, and this resulted in the revolution that brought religious fundamentalists to power, and tanked Iranian-Western relations to this day.

This film is an important and earnest one that attempts to tell us what really happened during that coup, and to provide proof of what MI6 has never admitted - of British involvement in the coup. In its final hour the film is absolutely compelling, thrilling and vital. It takes us step by step though the coup using a multiplicity of voices uncovered from outtakes from a 1980s British TV doc unearthed in the British Film Institute archive - interviews recorded with Iranians present at the time by an amateur historian in Berlin - and most interestingly Ralph Fiennes acting an interview with the key MI6 man that was then redacted from the 80s TV show, but also unearthed by the film-makers.  They also use beautifully rendered animation to take us through the violence of that night.

Arguably even more importantly the film-makers successfully argue that this was a pivotal event in post-colonial history. That the lesson learned was that it was cheaper to stage a coup than to fight a hot war, and that this became the model for CIA operations to this day. In one very chilling shot, the film speeds from box to box of archives of coups throughout the world. 

The problem with the film is that the director Taghi Amirani and his producer and co-creator Walter Murch, feel it necessary to waste an hour taking us step by step through how they pieced the story together.  I get they are proud of their long and arduous journey through archives to uncover the story. But it just holds us up. Frankly, it comes across as indulgent and tedious. That said, this is an important film. Just skip the first 45 minutes.

COUP 53 has a running time of 118 minutes. It played Telluride and London 2019 but does not yet have a commercial release date. 

LEAP OF FAITH: WILLIAM FRIEDKIN ON THE EXORCIST - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Four

Director Alexandre O Philippe seems to specialise in documentaries about iconic movies and the technical choices and consequences of how they were made. The last film of his that I watched and thoroughly enjoyed was 78/52, about the iconic shower scene in PSYCHO.  In that film he had a multiplicity of contemporary film-makers comment on what makes it technically so compelling.  In his latest film, Philippe interviews William Friedkin about the making of THE EXORCIST and the result is insightful but claustrophobic.  It's really interesting to hear Friedkin discuss what he decided to keep and reject from Bill Blatty's novel - the importance of the Iraqi prequel -and how much care he took over capturing the light and the natural soundscape of the bazaar and the archaeological dig. I also came away with a profound respect for Friedkin's knowledge of classical music, and his clear sense that he wanted a subtle sound-track, rejecting a more bombastic score from Lalo Schiffrin, and his friendship in the process! Most of all, I had no idea that Friedkin was so passionate about fine art - particularly Caravaggio, the Dutch masters and the impressionists. This documentary neatly shows how certain shots in THE EXORCIST are framed and lit to mimic Rembrandt. We also get a lot of discussion about how Friedkin cast Jason Miller as Father Karas, despite already having another actor on contract.

What's surprising is that Friedkin doesn't discuss the casting of the little girl or the morality of asking her to perform such disturbing scenes. It's also surprising that he's so confused as to the meaning of the pivotal final scene of the film. And on both of these points, and more generally, I felt this film could have benefited enormously from other voices - other film-makers or historians to put Friedkin's comments in context. Without that, the film became, sad to say, a bit claustrophobic and ultimately tedious.

LEAP OF FAITH has a running time of 104 minutes. The film played Venice and London 2019 and does not yet have a commercial release date.