BFI London Film Festival 2020 (reviews) features, I Am Samuel, Shirley, The Intruder, Never Gonna Snow Again, Wildfire, The Human Voice, Bad Tales, and Siberia.
I AM SAMUEL
Pete Murimi’s directorial debut, I Am Samuel, is a powerful, poignant, and important documentary that follows young Kenyan Samuel and his partner, Alex, through the trials and tribulations of gaining acceptance within their family and community. The bravery of their journey is a testament to those who strive to achieve equality through individual acts of courage – their sweeping journey condensed into a 70-minute documentary that encapsulates the emotion and social change born of a love that seeks to topple the barriers of social oppression. Here, the bravery of the young men involved is a bright light in the fog of discrimination.
SHIRLEY
What happens when you mix the classic biopic with elements of fantasy, fiction and psychological terror? The answer is the deliciously dark, enthralling, and compelling Shirley, a film that takes the real-life story of Shirley Jackson and merges it with a fictional young couple sucked into a psychological and sexual game of cat-and-mouse. Josephine Decker’s Shirley has no intention of playing by the rules as the naive and enthusiastic Rose (Odessa Young) and her loving, career-driven new husband, Fred (Logan Lerman), arrive at the home of Shirley (Elizabeth Moss) and Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg).
In what feels like a homage to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the story opens with Rose and her husband, Fred, en route to a new life in Vermont, where Fred will assist Shirley’s husband, Stanley, with his academic research. But as they await their young playthings, Shirley and Stanley have other plans: a dark social experiment in literature, class consciousness and sexuality.
Josephine Decker and screenwriter Sarah Gubbins’ tale of 50s sexual conformity and oppression is far more than a historical dissection of the time; it’s a deep and thrilling journey into the mind of a literary genius who defied her time and place.
The Intruder
The opening thirty minutes of The Intruder surround us with paranoia and tension reminiscent of Hitchcock. However, what begins as a beautiful, taut thriller/mystery soon becomes a convoluted and obscure ocean of competing themes. That does not mean The Intruder is not fascinating, complex and beguiling despite its flaws, as we bounce from thriller to supernatural horror. However, the resulting film quickly fades from the viewer’s memory despite the outstanding performances of Erica Rivas and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart. For those willing to stick with its bewildering style and vision, The Intruder provides a rich cinematic experience; for others, it will be a confusing and frustrating journey.
Never Gonna Snow Again
Sitting somewhere between comic-book fantasy and social satire, Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s film is both beautiful and frustrating. Let’s start with the beauty; Never Gonna Snow Again is a stunning dissection of middle-class life, seen through the eyes of a rather gifted Ukrainian Masseur (Alec Utgoff). His home visits from one house to the next joyfully unpick the secrets and lies that hide behind the tall hedges of a chocolate-box suburbia, where clandestine meetings and affairs abound. While full of wonder, originality, satire, and stunning performances, the screenplay suffers from a lack of breathing room and, ultimately, leaves us hanging as the film closes, despite wanting so much more.
Wildfire
Cathy Brady’s debut feature, Wildfire, is nothing short of ferocious in its power and complexity. Wildfire sees, past trauma, mental health and a need for belonging dovetail with the turbulent social history of Northern Ireland as we are allowed entry into the lives of two sisters separated by unspoken pain. Their wild and passionate reunion pushes the boundaries of memory, place, sisterhood and belonging as repressed emotions ignite a blaze of drama. Brady’s eye for detail is outstanding as two souls merge on the road to either recovery or destruction. However, be warned: her movie never attempts to offer easy answers to the complex social themes it raises.
THE HUMAN VOICE
By freely adapting Jean Cocteau’s play, Almodóvar creates a luscious and enthralling 30-minute spectacle that is both addictive and provocative. Here, one woman (Tilda Swinton) deals with her lover’s departure in a staged apartment overflowing with vibrant colours -with the final phone call between the pair echoing the narrative beauty of Alan Bennett’s classic Talking Heads in its complexity, passion and performance. At the same time, the darkest corners of human vengeance, pain, and instability find a divine voice in Tilda Swinton’s hands. The resulting film is a short yet stunning piece of theatre that explores the current social lockdown and isolation we have all endured, and leaves us begging for more.
Bad Tales
If you were wondering whether Italian cinema has lost its bite in recent years, think again, because Fabio and Damiano D’Innocenzo’s Bad Tales is a pitch-black comedy with a sharp edge. Bad Tales sits somewhere between a modern fairy tale and a soap opera, joyfully dissecting the family and community relationships we all take for granted. Fabio and Damiano focus on the connection between children and their parents as they skillfully skirt the boundary between Italian neo-realism and dark fantasy. The result is a movie that burns with ferocity as it lays out a series of uncomfortable home truths. Bad Tales is nothing short of a daring and dark journey into parental failure and childhood rebellion.
Siberia
Visually stunning but fatally dull, Abel Ferrara’s journey into existential angst never quite finds its footing despite Willem Dafoe sitting in the saddle. The result feels more like a grand artistic experiment than an accessible journey as we descend into a dreamlike void between reality and fiction. Some may find Siberia a work of art, but for me, it was a desolate, cold, and somewhat lonely place to spend 92 minutes.
Follow Us