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| The Guardian - Culture: Film | | | | Belle review – anime that makes for an intriguing big-screen spectacle | | by Peter Bradshaw Feb 1, 2022 | | This weird postmodern drama sees a lonely teenager join a virtual world where she becomes a hugely successful singer There’s some amazing big-screen spectacle in this weird postmodern emo photo-love drama from Japanese anime director Mamoru Hosoda, whose previous film Mirai elevated him to auteur status. Suzu, voiced by Kaho Nakamura, is a deeply unhappy and lonely teenager at high school, who lives with her dad. Her mum died some years ago, attempting (successfully) to save a child from drowning and Suzu can’t come to terms with the zero-sum pointlessness of this calamity: a total stranger was saved but her mother died. Or not zero in fact: while her loss increased the sum-total of unhappiness, the most popular boy in school – a friend since they were little – is tender and protective towards Suzu. Her life is complicated further when she is persuaded to join a virtual reality meta-universe called U, a glittering unearthly city like a next-level Manhattan or Shibuya. (Presumably entry into this fantasy world needs a VR headset, although oddly this is not made plain.) Participants have their biometrics read and get an enhanced avatar of themselves and Suzu finds that she is now “Belle”, an ethereally beautiful young woman with quirky freckles and a wonderful singing voice. To her astonishment, Suzu finds that Belle is becoming a colossally famous singer – but at the very high point of this meta-success she comes across the Beast, who disrupts one of her concerts: a brutish, aggressive outcast figure loathed by the self-appointed vigilante guardians of U. Continue reading... | | | | | Bond actor Lashana Lynch nominated for Bafta rising star award | | by Nadia Khomami Arts and Culture correspondent Feb 1, 2022 | | The Briton is up against Kodi Smit-McPhee, Millicent Simmonds, Ariana DeBose and Harris Dickinson Lashana Lynch, who made history as the first black female 007 in No Time to Die, is one of five nominees for this year’s Bafta rising star award. The British actor has been shortlisted alongside Kodi Smit-McPhee, Millicent Simmonds, Ariana DeBose and Harris Dickinson for the only Bafta voted for by the British public. Continue reading... | | | | | A Violent Man review – hardnut prison drama is guilty as charged | | by Leslie Felperin Feb 1, 2022 | | Craig Fairbrass’s impressive screen presence as a longtime convict carries this shadowy take on life behind bars Craig Fairbrass (Villain, Muscle, Rise of the Footsoldier franchise) is an actor who may lack range but has an undeniable screen presence. He emits an almost radioactive glow with his hulking, jolie-laide physiognomy, amplified by an abraded, East End baritone that seldom rises above a menacing whisper. That charisma goes a long way in this prison drama, written and directed by Ross McCall, which consists of a weary procession of scenes in which Fairbrass’s longtime convict Steve Mackelson growls, glowers and recites monologues full of self-serious pauses about prison life and how hard he thinks he is. All this seems to take place in one or two rooms in one of Her Majesty’s establishments where budget cuts appear to have deprived the cells of lightbulbs. A moderate amount of backlighting is supplied by a strip of window high in one black wall. No wonder the supporting officers (SOs) can never tell what’s going on. The deprivations also extend to the prisoners’ and support officers’ language, worn back to the stubs of self-expression so that they can only speak in prison slang (“tooled up”, “burner”, “peas” and the like) or the word “cunt”, which in this world is so ubiquitous it’s practically a pronoun. Continue reading... | | | | | |
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