BALLYWALTER

Brand new Northern Irish film written by Prassana Puwanarajah , starring Seana Kerslake and Patrick Kielty.

Located in Northern Ireland, Ballywater tells the story of a young woman who has returned to her hometown of Ballywalter after a relative failure of making it work in London. She finds herself a bit arrested in her development while the rest of her family and life has progressed without her; her sister is expecting a new baby and she is struggling to keep down part-time work in cafes. This has led to her landing a job driving a taxi to make regular income. 

During this role, she happens upon a regular fare of Shane (Kielty in his first acting role) a man being driven to a stand-up comedy workshop as he embarks upon a new chapter in his life. The film is the bond these two forge together during their regular cab journeys to and from Belfast back to the eponymous town.

While the first half of the film is firmly Eileen's story, an unfortunate accident leads to her spending more time with Shane through consequence and we get to learn more about Shane's backstory and history, from his separation from his wife to his seeking for solace in comedy.

The film is a wonder to watch helmed by two great lead performances that anchor the film that could easily waiver if not for them and the sure-hand direction by first time director Puwanarajah with a well observed script from Belfast writer Stacey Gregg. A film of fleeting moments and those people who come into your life and just as quickly, leaving an indelible impression upon you and the rawness with which it addresses the character's emotions especially in Shane's final stand-up routine where he opens up about his depression. This is derivative of the film's low production budget which if it had a larger scale might have come across as pompous, yet the close-ups utilised help garner a strong emotional connection to the film.

The film is beautifully shot, depicting Northern Ireland not through a rose-tinted lense but proudly displaying the greyness of it all. Yet the actors embody their two lead roles with great relish with Kielty (enjoying a purple patch in his career as he is now host of The Late Late Show in Ireland) is quite the revelation delivering all the dramatic notes when required on point.

The employment of an ending reminiscent of Lost in Translation, says as much about the film's influences and its hope to appeal to an audience that is cine-literate and it is not a bad film to borrow film with this relationship that can go no further than being platonic yet it finds both leads embarking on second chances.

The confident direction by a new director married with two strong lead performances means this is a film that will reward the viewer in spades; its a low key wonder of a film that should be cherished.

Ballywalter is out on limited release in UK/Ireland from 22nd September

Kira Muratova DVD release

             

Studiocanal release to Home Entertainment a double bill in their Vintage World Classics, two seminal works by Russian female director Kira Muratova on Blu-ray/DVD from 18th September

A Ukranian film director, screenwriter and actress of Romanian/Jewish descent, Kira Muratova’s work was overlooked for many years due to the censorship of her early films in the Soviet Union - Brief Encounters was banned for twenty years and The Long Farewell for 17 years.  Muratova spent much of her artistic career in Odessa in Ukraine and made nearly all of her films at Odessa Film Studios.  Her work has been celebrated by film scholar and critic Dr Elena Gorfinkel as “one of the most distinctive and singular works of world filmmaking.”  

The first film The Long Farewell (1971) tells a tale of a relationship between a mother and teenage son. Their close relationship becomes clouded when adolescene arrives and after a visit to his father, Sasha (Oleg Vladimirsky) wants to breakaway from his overprotective mother and live with the father instead.

Muratova takes great care with crafting a coming-of-age tale filled with tension with underlying issues rising to the surface. Her film style is reminiscent of the early nouvelle vague with jump cuts and experimentation with form and presentation, yet there is an observant eye throughout of the location and the black and white photography helps create a more archive feel as if memories being presented on the screen.

Brief Encounters (1967) was Muratova's debut feature and shows the genesis of her impressionistic style again embracing the tropes of the French new wave. The film focuses on a love triangle between a city planner (Muratova herself), her free-spirited geologist husband (Vladimir Vysotsky) and a young woman they employ as their housekeeper (Nina Ruslanova). 

Eastern Europe has always been good at these by chance love triangles - such as Knife in the Water (Polanski) - but this one is different in that it focuses more on the women than the man in this instance and the man is outnumbered, whereas in Polanski's for example it was two men fighting over a woman. 

Muratova was ground-breaking in so many ways and putting female stories front and centre is paramount to her appeal and its a shame she is not more well known due to political ramifications. Hopefully these Studiocanal releases will help spread the word of her work which is extensive and gratifying.

The Long Farewell/Brief Encounters are released by Studiocanal in their Vintage World Classics strand on Blu-ray/DVD/Digital. Both discs feature interviews with scholar Dr Elena Gorfinkel who states that Muratova is “one of the most distinctive and singular works of world filmmaking.” along with video essays.

My thanks to Studiocanal for the review discs for an honest review

FRANK CAPRA: MR. AMERICA

 

Debut documentary feature film from British director Matthew Wells

This debut feature from Wells focuses on perhaps the first name above the marquee director, a man whose name sold a movie as much as an actor performing in his film be it Clark Gable or Barbara Stanwyck.

Capra's dominance of American popular culture from 1934 to the start of US involvement in World War 2 following the attack on Pearl Harbor. While that global event curtailed his career like others, he returned to make the most beloved of American movie classics but strangely a film that marked the beginning of his demise suddenly.

Frank Capra was born in Palermo, Italy and the first thing he wrote in his memoir when he started to write his life was 'I hated being poor'.

The film takes us through the major milestones of Capra's career stating that he had to work hard, but the fortuitous landing spot of Columbia Pictures which allowed him to expand as an artist and work in different genres before finding something that works. Capra would make war films, aerial flight films, dramas and yet he worked hard looking for the next project and building up a base of loyal soldiers around him from a regular cameraman and writer which culminates in the success of It Happened One Night in 1934. The first (and one of only 3 film still) to win the five major Academy Awards which itself was a happy accident.

Yet it was a success because of the work that came before hand along with some good fortune. Clark Gable was sent to Columbia as punishment for asking for more money, Claudette Colbert did not believe in the script and yet as the archive footage shows, the film is full of wonderful moments of cinematography and laid the blueprint for many a romantic comedy, buddy comedy and road trip movies which are repeated to this day. It was a slow burn of a box office hit, as positive word of mouth and repeat viewers led the film to glory.

Following that, Capra took a break and then returned to the spate of social commentary films for which he became renowned for starting with Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, You Can't Take It With You and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

The film then ends with a lot of talk about It's A Wonderful Life, Capra's favourite film and the archive interview of Capra throughout the film is vital to show his strength as a director and artist; normally in these documentaries it is rare to hear from the subject themselves mostly instead leaving it to the talking head experts and critics. Those are welcome here such as Alexander Payne - a director himself who uses small budgets, good casts to tell good human stories.

This is a vital documentary that serves as a reminder that Capra was perhaps the first superstar director, the man whose name above the title alone would serve as box office gold. That is until his career post Wonderful Life sadly lost steam and was only rekindled when that film was given a new lease of life in the 1970s when it was endlessly repeated on American television. 

Capra did not die poor and as Clarence says to George in his inscription within Tom Sawyer, 'no man is a failure if he has friends', Capra was universally admired at the time and his career from 1928 to 1948 was one of striking while the iron was hot. His films serve a great importance in the birth of talking American cinema, building up the mythos of right and wrong and the power of community that can share the problem and make the life of an individual all the better for it.

FRANK CAPRA: MR. AMERICA will be out later this year.

Summer of No Light - The Natvral

 

Sophomore release by Kip Berman pseudonym out now from Dirty Bingo Records

Kip Berman's alter ego, The Natvral, won rave reviews in 2021 with his debut album Tethers, a troubadour solo release full of unrequited and forgotten loves with a hipster twist hailing from Brooklyn, New York as he does.

He returns with a new album and it is more of the same with some killer tracks mixed in with melodic album tracks making it a full package as one. However, with the previous album, there is a tinge of melancholy underpinning the whole album from 'A Glass of Laughter' to 'Summer of Hell' which juxtaposes the exultant melody with downbeat subject matter.

Berman remains a spirited and prolific songwriter, one who is a harbinger and conduit for exploring his past to make sense of the living present. You get the sense his writing is a form of therapy and allows him to channel emotions into the art form of music making.

What is so beautiful about this album is it's imperfect nature of it all, there is a rough and readiness to proceedings and yet it is welcoming to all due to the universality in regards to themes of love and loss.

The title of the album 'Summer of No Light' is taken from the climate crisis of 1816, a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia darkened much of the world's sky - the ash brought dramatic global cooling and famine. During that summer however, was a period of creative explosion for one famous writer. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein that summer, she was in Lake Geneva riding out the awful summer. Berman expresses admiration that someone such as Shelley could sustain themselves through art, and yet getting fucked up. Famously Shelley was in Switzerland with her lover Percy Shelley, Lordy Byron and Claire Clairmont (Byron's paramour).

Tethers was completed under the restrictions of the global Covid-19 pandemic and was one of the finest releases during that period; and his defiance shines again in the punchy opener 'Lucifer's Glory' but the mark of any artist is one who can mix the riotous songs with ones of softness such as the closer 'Wintergreen'. 

Berman sounds happy and artistically free, drawing upon personal experience and gaining perspective on his life is a joy for all who listen.

Summer Of No Light is out now from Dirty Bingo Records

THREE AGES - Buster Keaton

 

Buster Keaton's directorial debut released for first time on Blu-Ray in celebration of the film's centenary.

Masters of Cinema/Eureka Entertainment are back with another Buster Keaton release, this time proudly releasing the directorial debut of old Stoneface from 1923. 

A film that was made as a swipe or reaction to D. W. Griffith's Intolerance which spanned several centuries of early American history, Keaton here takes the notion of love through the ages. Keaton shows the stone age, the roman age and the modern age. We spend the most abundant time in the modern age naturally as Keaton and Wallace Beery (Treasure Island, The Champ) as they attempt to win favour and the hand of Margaret Leahy - portraying heightened versions of themselves.

Keaton has fun mimicking and making fun of the eternal quest for a companion using sight gags (hitting a tall cavewoman over the head, she promptly stands up and dwarfs him) and stunt work of the highest order from the collapsing car to his death-defying jump across the street at height. A jump that nearly ended in tragedy yet he kept the seeming mistake in the final cut.

Keaton sets himself apart due to the little nuance and details he gives his characters, from the playful tapping of fingers on the arm of a sofa next to Leahy in contrast to the harsh brashness of Beery's modern day neanderthal bully.

There is the little touch of taking his American safe headwear off as a man and team-mate (he essentially) is helped get maimed leaves the field on a stretcher, this deftness sets someone apart. Whilst Chaplin would yearn to be the centre of the attention, Keaton is someone who tries to stay on the sidelines and prevent the spotlight hitting his characters.

The ending works so well as a foreshadowing of how love does and does not change - it becomes an unlikely foreshadow for Mike Nichols' The Graduate and then the final shot of a couple happy in domesticated bliss with man's best friend is one of how perhaps things have changed somewhat from little tykes running amok everywhere to one of coupledom taking time to enjoy life before a family begins - not unlike how many find ourselves nowadays. Another notch as to how Buster was ahead of his time.

Keaton shared directing credit with Edward F. Cline, the style and auteur streak can be seen that he would repeat in such classics as Sherlock Jr. and The General. While it may not reach the heights of those films that landed on the BFI's Top 100 of all time, it never the less serves as a reminder that Keaton was a pioneer and revolutionary in the still young medium of motion picture cinema. 

On the centenary of its release, we should never lose sight of the fact that modern day comedy stands upon the shoulders of Keaton and his peers.

The new release has a first run of 2000 copies for the Limited Edition slipcase; a new 1080p presentation on Blu-Ray from Cohen Film Collection featuring reconstructed original intertitles. Brand new audio commentary from film historian David Kalat. A new video essay This Side of Impossible by David Cairns. A new video essay by Fiona Watson entitled Under the Flat Hat. A 1912 D.W. Griffith short Man's Genesis that Keaton parodies in Three Ages; archival recordings of Keaton. And a collector's booklet featuring new writing by Philip Kemp and Imogen Sara Smith.

This is the UK debut on Blu-ray in celebration of the 100th Anniversary.

THREE AGES is released from Eureka Entertainment on August 21st.

PARIS MEMORIES

The new film from Alice Winocour is out from Picturehouse Entertainment on August 4th

Paris Memories is a film that is at once still and about being alive, living but coping with death, Winocour's new film follows Mia (Virginie Efira) our lead protagonist who is present for an atrocious act of barbarity when seeking refuge from a torrential downpour in a Parisian bistro. Her beau has had to return to work and she is alone when the attack happens, she hides under a table holding an African man’s hand they remain safe and are connected by this moment.

For Winocour this was a personal film as she states; 'My brother was at the Bataclan on November 13th. While he was hiding, I stayed in contact with him by text for part of the night. The film was inspired by my own memories of the trauma and by the account my brother gave in the days after the attack. I experienced for myself how events are deconstructed, and often reconstructed, by memory.” 

The Bataclan attacks occured in 2015 and much like the July 7th attacks in London, they are a constant reminder that a threat is around the corner but from the ashes of tragedy the power of healing and resilience can come to the fore.

An admired linguist who is renowned for her professionalism and a sort of rebel or outsider due to her riding a motorbike, she seeks solace following the event. Three months later, Mia is still unable to get her life back in order only remembering fleeting moments of the night, she attempts to investigate her memories to return to happiness. She attends therapy groups at the location as survivors tell their stories and yet she is met in opposition by one lady who accuses her of locking the bathroom door saving herself while others died.

Winocour is a director who engages with the milieu and mise-en-scene of the film, having her characters become one with the location and the location a part of the story. Tellingly the first shot we see post-siege is that of a Paris landmark with cars circling the monument, life goes on for everybody else in the major city yet for those who had to endure the attack the feeling of moving on is one that fills them with dread. A guilt of surviving while others were lost, she learns to cope through the struggle of daily work as anxiety grips her existence.

Winocour and Efira (as the focal point) have created a drama of quiet intensity and introspection about confronting the build up of overwhelming emotion that comes with witnessing a seismic event of tragedy; the film takes care to show that there is beauty in the world (a baby's cry) and yet there are those that will kill innocents willingly.

Yet Efira capably shows envy in her eyes at those who go about their business and how anything from the lighting of candles on a cake can illicit memories of the night. As Winocour mentions in press notes, she was more interested in the traces the attack left on the victims than attempting to explain the attack itself.

Efira deservedly won Best Actress at the 2022 Cesar Awards (French Oscars) for this performance is an actress who usually plays women who are unravelled or provoked (Verhoeven's Benedetta), her she plays Mia as a tightly wrought ball until the emotion finally comes to the surface. The empathy of her work here coupled with natural charm is a primer to the success of the film and how her every-person quality endears her to the viewership as she becomes a sort of detective in her quest for answers as she pieces together the fragments of her memory from that horrific evening.

Shot beautifully by Stephane Fontaine (A Prophet), the film is a message of hope in a sometimes mad world. Photograhed for the majority in medium and close up so that the intensity of the performance never waivers from the viewer and that comes from the quiet brilliance of Virginie Efira. This coupled with the same team of regular collaborators such as Julien Lacheray (Editor) and Pascaline Chavanne (Costume Design), this is a film of maturity and importance.

Paris Memories is the first time Winocour has filmed in her capital city and Paris itself becomes a character within the film wearing its scars for all to see while its inhabitants attempt to make sense of their position in the tragedy.

The recurring trope of hands touching and the need for connection amongst these souls, almost ghosts, is paramount and in Winocour's sympathetic and delicate handling the film touchingly attempts to make sense of the upheaval thrust upon Mia, Thomas and the others.

A film that is both resonant and emotional, touching and clear that there is hope within the world.

Paris Memories is out on 4th August in cinemas nationwide.

Silent Bones - Rachel Lynch

 

DI Kelly Porter returns with her new thriller

A gripping tale that is as much about the past as the present. DI Kelly Porter returns with a new tale about a cold case that brings back haunting memories for all involved.

Kelly was a good girl in school she stayed away from the cool kids, she kept her head down and did not rub people up the wrong way yet she remained approachable and knew when the cool kids went bad. 

In 1997, a young boy called Brian disappears and during a drought in the Thirlmere part of the Lake District, a body is found in a reservoir. The body is found to be that of young Brian who never came home one night.

The case spins on the discovery that some people are not letting on to know as much as they originally suggested. From the teacher, Mr. Thompson who hangs out with children at the weekend and may or may not been a drug supplier to those same pupils to Michelle the owner of a Holiday camp who took pity upon a local no-good Jason Cooper.

The discovery of a second body turns the case upside down with two murders to solve in a small town; coupled with accusations that Kelly's father, John Porter, renowned local policeman was not the salt of the earth he led people to believe.

As well as having to solve a case, Kelly also has a young family to look after and this follows familiar tropes of Canelo Crime releases from Lynch's contemporaries (MJ Lee and Marion Todd) who also have domestic routines to account for. This stable of writers make clear that law enforcement have problems at home to deal with as well as the crimes to solve - and this balance or openness of relationships certainly makes the characters more relatable and sympathetic. 

At times highly enthralling and page-turning, this is my first read of a Lynch crime thriller and certainly shall not be the last.

SILENT BONES is out on all formats from 27th July 2023 from Canelo Crime.