Smoking Causes Coughing

 

New Quentin Dupieux film out 7th July from Picturehouse Entertainment

Any film from Dupieux is an event, not one of those Indiana Jones/Mission:Impossible type events, but a reminder that the French film-maker and all around visual medium specialist is back with another great yarn to share with the world.

In this instance, he has offered us Smoking Causes Coughing where he takes a five person superhero troupe who are governed by their puppet leader to combat the world challenging events.

The film begins with a family having to make a rest stop for their child to go to the toilet, during that stop the child sees Tobacco Force (Benzene, Methanol, Nicotine, Mercure and Ammoniaque) fighting a giant turtle whom they destroy with their combined tobacco powers to make him explode.

From the get go you notice this battle is not like anything we see nowadays in superhero films with mass CGI and expert choreography, instead we are treated to an affection tribute to the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers with ill-fitting costumes, over the top costumes and lots of fake blood.

Dupieux has a knack of making loopy and eccentric narratives, which is indicative of his own feverish personality, his attention span flies from one thing to another. Following their triumph, the Force report back to their boss - Chief Didier - a puppet rat who is the head of Tobacco Force and is highly desirable to any woman who encounters him.

Didier sends the team off to a retreat so they can reconvene and rebuild their teamwork which has been lacking on recent assignments, upon this retreat the world learns of a new threat to the world by evil Lezardin who threatens to destroy the Earth. Can Tobacco Force co-exist or will the world be snuffed out?

On their retreat, the team take to telling ghost stories of lore which means we break from the camp and see these stories told from a woman who cannot take off a helmet which shuts out the world to a nephew visiting his aunt at a farm with tragic results. 

The point of these narrative shifts or breakaways is a chance for the viewer to re-focus themselves away from the hectic chaotic world we find ourselves in at the moment - the moments of levity throughout from the supermarket fridge to the macabre moments of body horror are genuinely funny and welcome upon first watch.

Dupieux fortuitously has a game cast amongst his five leads who all play it straight and themselves show enough of the kinship as a group while maintaining individuality from missing their children while saving the world to seeking romance.

A funny yet fleeting film of 80 minutes and a love letter to those crazy Saturday morning superhero shows that stay with you, much like this film does.

Smoking Causes Coughing is out from 7th July via Picturehouse Entertainment

Bella Ciao - Giulia Giapponesi

 

Smart documentary on protest song that still rings true

Bella Ciao is a song that has become the Italian national anthem of protest - a chorus that rings around the world in times of adversity. From the mosques of Istanbul to the mountains of Chile, the song holds a special resonance to those who hold it dear.

The history of the song is as rich as the song's lasting appeal from a song of defiance to one used as the theme music to Netflix hit television show Money Heist. The film starts with a showing of the song being used around the world from Iran to Turkey and back to the homeland of Italy.

The film takes a long period telling the story of the Partisans, those who opposed fascism. Veterans speak of giving to their country for the freedom, and how the mistakes of having a sixteen year old fight in a war are being repeated around the world by insurgents and ongoing warfare. Yet these veterans speak of how they did not sing the song during the war, and it only became an anthem some 15 years after the conclusion of World War 2 by the youth movement and uprising in the Eastern bloc of late 1950s and early 60s - as a song for the masses.

The song was given a life of its own and its own mythology began to circulate in the 1960s and the film shows many stories from around the world expressing how the song came into their life and remains.

This documentary is as stirring as the song it lauds, giving life and reason to a song that has stood the test of modern warfare and an ever changing society. The film is indicative of how we express our identity through song and singing alike giving us a sense of belonging and unity.

Bella Ciao receives its UK premiere as part of the Cinecittà Italian Docs series at London's Bertha DocHouse on Sunday 25th June at 3.30pm with a Q&A with director Giulia Giapponesi.

SVEGLIAMI A MEZZANOTTE (Wake Me Up at Midnight)

 

Fascinating documentary on personal trauma

Directed by Francesco Patierno, this is based upon an autobiography by writer and narrator, Fuani Marino, who attempted suicide by falling from the fourth floor of a building a few months after giving birth to her daughter, Greta.

Suffering from post-partum depression, Fuani makes the case that this was a build-up of pressures and emotions that led to her attempt to take her own life and leave the darkness she found surrounding her world.

Told with a mixture of archive photographs from her own family albums, with up to date photos and videos along with stock library footage; in unison Patierno and Marino craft a gripping and intense viewing experience that is both first-hand but welcoming to the audience to understand where Marino has been and is going.

The loss of her writing (left) hand following the accident is tragic for any writer, having to re-learn that skill and not being able to recognise your handwriting as your own is hard. What is telling is that Marino has now recovered and she is not trying to hide her suicide attempt - in her words the writing of the memoir on which this film is based was in fact a political statement on behalf of all those who choose to remain silent.

A gripping and intense watch that is rewarding in its naked honesty on a taboo subject; she lived so she could tell the tale.

Screening as part of the Cinecitta Italian Docs at Bertha Doc House receiving its UK Premiere on Saturday 24th June 6.30pm with a Q&A with director Patierno afterwards.

Black Valley Farm - Sheila Bugler

 

New crime thriller from Sheila Bugler out 22nd June from Canelo Crime

Hailing from the South Coast, well Eastbourne to be precise, Sheila Bugler has curated a nice niche for her crime fiction. Previously she has written a series of novels featuring Dee Doran an investigative journalist which were very entertaining. This time she has written a novel that could read like a true crime novel about the discovery of bodies at the pseudonymous farm where a cult had been residing.

Incorporating dual narratives and timelines, so we follow the tale of Clare on the run for 10 years following the fire at the farm and how the fire started that engulfed the site killing ten people including children.

Nuala Fox, is a podcaster who won awards for her series based upon the cult, has now fallen by the wayside and needs another hit. She takes the job of working on a documentary with Andrea Leach, a far-right MP candidate for the new Progress Party, yet who is Ms. Leach and where did she come from.

Nuala though is hiding a secret herself in that she fabricated the end of her series to get better results, morality and ethics circumvent the narrative throughout. Everyone is being chased and all are chasing something, namely the truth.

Bugler is a writer this reader admires, and following her career has been a pleasure, and this book took a while to start but once it did get its wheels on track the pacing of the narrative was cranked up and handled with such robustness and thrills that it was hard to put down afterwards. 

The impending threat of being found out or discovering a hurtful truth is encompassing and the claustrophobic atmosphere Bugler creates of the cult itself along with the judgmental world we find ourselves in today, where we feel we have to please everybody but ourselves is key to the tension.

Heart-pounding by the books conclusion, Bugler has again written an engrossing tale of thrilling suspense that you will find hard to put down and find hard to forget.

Black Valley Farm is out on all formats from Canelo Crime on 22nd June.

Check out my reviews of other Sheila Bugler books below:

NextToTheAisle: When The Dead Speak - Sheila Bugler

NextToTheAisle: Before You Were Gone

NextToTheAisle: I Could Be You - Sheila Bugler

A Steady Job (Il Posto) - Cinecitta Italia Docs

New documentary highlighting the plight of full time employment in Southern Italy, screening as part of  Cinecittà Italian Docs

A Steady Job (Il Posto) focuses on graduate nurses and healthcare workers in Italy who compete for just a few vacancies in their desperate search for job stability. Filmed largely before, but ultimately impacted by, the coronavirus pandemic, it provides a disturbing overview of the labour market in Italy – a portrait of a tragically broken system.

 

Filmed in the hand-held form focusing on those trying to find work for these graduates, travelling to job fairs on long journeys, the documentary has this unfortunate air of resignation about the downfall of government to give jobs in a vital industry.

As the film notes in the beginning, one in two adults in Southern Italy are unemployed and so they travel on coaches to these job markets in the hope of gaining employment abandoning family with dreams still in their hearts.

A telling scene is when the man who arranges the trips for these hopeful souls is driving home with his business partner and he stops saying is it worth it for him to do this anymore in this recrutiment industry - the weight of the world and the burden he feels weighs heavy upon his shoulders. This moment is shot as an excised scene from Michael Mann's The Insider.

The ending of the film which poses more questions than supplying answers for those seeking employment, shows the individuals walking zombie-like with a melancholic ethereal electronic score underneath - this is a generation of souls lost without a direction in this world.

Filmed largely before but ultimately more impacted by the global pandemic, this overview of the Italian health system is both sombre and tragic. This film grips the audience and becomes an alternative road movie of sorts.

A Steady Job (Il Posto) will have its UK Premier and screen as part of the Cinecitta Italian Docs season at London's Bertha DocHouse on Saturday 24th June with a Q&A with directors Mattia Colombo and Gianluca Mattarese

Inland (Fridtjof Ryder, UK, 2022)

 

Debut film from highly touted Fridtjof Ryder released 16th June

Set in rural England, Inland explores the troubled reality a young man faces following the strange disappearance of his mother some years previously.

Following a prelude where the boy whose character name is the Man played by Rory Alexander is released from an institution after a period of time, he returns to his home town to settle down with a father figure named Dunleavy played by Oscar winning actor Mark Rylance.

The film is shot with an unforgiving close up of its actors throughout, the audience being made to feel uneasy by what is transpiring, the man is having to cope with a lot following his mother's strange disappearance, and this is a point of view film in that respect with Alexander featuring in every scene.

Mixed with experimental footage to depict his fragile mental psyche of visions and memories splintering his day-to-day life; Ryder has moulded a modern folk tale within this rural landscape for the modern era.

Following on from the January release of Mark Jenkin's Enys Men and even Alex Garland's MEN, the clash of individual and nature and what that collision causes is certainly in vogue currently.

Most folk tales incorporate a quest of sorts, the Man in this instance is searching for answers with a cast of characters eager to look after him for the best. Rylance in particular is channelling his famous role of Rooster from Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem to a degree, and acting as Executive Producer also, he is guiding the man in more ways than one.

The journey the man must navigate is unsettling at times helped by the ambient score utilised by Bartholomew Mason, evoking a disharmony amidst the harmonious surroundings of the woodlands. Coupled with the haunting voiceover of the mother by Kathryn Hunter and you have an eerie creation that is both stylistic and substantial.

An atmospheric and moody tale of life, grief and family, Inland is a film of great promise and character from a first-time director.

Inland is out on Friday 16th June on limited release from Verve Pictures.

A Blind Eye - Marion Todd

 

The latest installment in the DI Clare Mackay series is Seventh Heaven

Marion Todd is a St. Andrews based novelist who with the help of her publishers, Canelo Crime, has produced a great series of detective novels featuring the forthright DI Clare Mackay as she navigates high profile crime cases upon the streets of the famous Scottish town.

The latest case which pushes Mackay to the limit is about the mysterious disappearance firstly of solicitor Harry Richards and then the discovery of his corpse. What follows is a typically labyrinthe case that has many twists and turn as Clare discovers Richards was not the straight laced figure he appeared to be.

While the case gets more involved, Mackay must also contend with personal relationships as the blossoming relationship with her boyfriend continues apace and the possibility of moving in together looms.

What sets Todd's novels apart from others is the camaraderie of Mackay with her colleagues, it paints the loyal serving police force in a positive light with no bent coppers on this force.

Something I have noticed for the first time is how well Todd writes about her hometown, with a real eye for landscape and the feel of nature, this is a writer who loves where she lives and wants to share that love with her readers.

Gripping as always and page-turning to the maximum, A Blind Eye does not disappoint and as ever this reader can heartily recommend this crime thriller to fans old and new.

A Blind Eye is out 8th June from Canelo Crime on all platforms.