| The Guardian - Culture: Film | | | | 20 Days in Mariupol review – searing film bears terrible witness to brutal siege | | by Peter Bradshaw Oct 4, 2023 | | Film-maker Mstyslav Chernov risked everything to document Russia’s attack from within the besieged city, recording unthinkable horrors in this vital account There is genuine horror in this eyewitness documentary about Vladimir Putin’s attack on the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol; I spent many moments of it with my head in my hands. The brutal siege lasted from February to May 2022; civilian centres were targeted and more than 20,000 people killed. The Ukrainian Associated Press journalist and film-maker Mstyslav Chernov was there for 20 days, and filed video reports that helped to galvanise western opinion, particularly the horrific images of mass graves. But this movie is the uncut, unexpurgated version: the real nightmare, the real explicit obscenity which no TV executive would put on the nightly news. Chernov shows the dead bodies of men, women, children and babies. But perhaps even more horribly, he shows us, in unthinkable closeup, the wrenching anguish of those left behind, sobbing over the shattered bodies of their loved ones. It really is not to be borne. Continue reading... | | | | | The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde review – menace on Edinburgh's mean streets | | by Cath Clarke Oct 4, 2023 | | Hope Dickson Leach’s atmospheric adaptation of the classic thriller looks good but in rewriting the story, adds an unnecessary element of distraction This atmospheric black and white adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s gothic classic from Hope Dickson Leach, the director of The Levelling, opens with a tremendous shiver of menace. In the dead of night, as an eerily inhuman singsong echoes on the soundtrack, a little girl walks along an alleyway. Something steps out of the shadows. From behind, it appears to be a man, a gentleman – in a top hat and exquisitely tailored shirt. But the way it moves, gliding like a predator towards the girl, is hardly human; then it savages her with the rotting teeth of an animal. Perhaps nothing else that follows quite lives up to this taste of evil. Dickson Leach’s film adds to the pile of 120-plus screen versions of Jekyll and Hyde. This one started out last year as a “hybrid-production” staged in an Edinburgh theatre: for three nights, audiences sat in front of a screen watching a live stream of actors performing scenes on sets around the theatre. That footage has been edited – with added effects – to make this film. And it really does feel like a feature film (rather than filmed theatre): stylishly shot with a noirish feel, velvety rich black and white cinematography, camera furtively lurking in the shadows. Continue reading... | | | | | Haunting of the Queen Mary review – tap-dancing horror ride aboard the big ship | | by Leslie Felperin Oct 4, 2023 | | With a gory plot that unfolds across two timelines, this feels like a rebranding exercise for the grand ocean liner, turning it into a horror-themed adventure experience This horror feature takes place largely on the RMS Queen Mary, the grand ocean liner built in Glasgow’s Clydeside docks in the 1930s which for many years now has been permanently moored in the harbour at Long Beach, California. In order to take advantage of both the ship’s vintage decor as well as its touristy gift shops and scale model displays, the screenwriters have crafted a plot that unfolds across two timelines. One is set in 1938 when a grisly, entirely fictitious murder takes place, while the other happens in the present day as a family interested in history and the supernatural gets caught up in the ship’s haunted legacy. The crisscrossing between the two periods is executed gracefully thanks to some nimble rhymed editing, and there’s some real dramatic heft at play here – but the bloated running time drags it down, and lots of spooky business in the back half might have been better jettisoned overboard to gain speed. In the 1938 section, a family of grifters – war veteran David Ratch (Wil Coban), his fortune-teller wife Gwen (Nell Hudson) and their young daughter Jackie (Florrie Wilkinson) – try to pass themselves off as toffs to access the first-class dining room. When their ruse is discovered, wee Jackie manages to persuade a table of Hollywood folks to let her audition, a plea that appeals to Fred Astaire (Wesley Alfvin) who lets her perform with him. The whole dance sequence, with period-appropriate choreography and taps dubbed in post and all, goes on for ages, making this a film with the highest gore-to-dancing ratio since cult Japanese director Takashi Miike’s The Happiness of the Katakuris. While the band are swinging, dad David is possessed by an evil spirit and soon there is a great deal of axe murdering, shown in gory detail with the colour processed to make the blood look extra dark, toned to the deep browns of the wood panelling. Continue reading... | | | | | Celluloid counter-revolution: a salute to the underground film lovers of Iran | | by Ehsan Khoshbakht Oct 4, 2023 | | Unsuitable films were burned after the Islamic regime took over Iran. But one man stashed away reels and reels of banned and western movies – to thrill a new generation in secret film clubs Passion for movies has hardly ever been more political than in Iran. Over the past century, drastic political change in certain countries has split the personality of the country’s film culture into two distinct halves. Usually, the new ideology ostracised and undermined the one that it had displaced. But in scarcely any other country has extreme change – a revolution – worked to make access to the past virtually impossible. The Islamic regime in Iran made watching any type of film outside strictly defined codes an illegal activity; doing so shunted the act of loving cinema into counterculture. The regime’s aim, though never explicitly pronounced, was to destroy images of alternative realities and worlds. It is not yet clear how many films went up in smoke during the film incineration campaign of the early 1980s, a tragic episode still denied by the regime. This is the point when cinephilia became a hazardous occupation. Continue reading... | | | | | The Rev review – the strange case of the Welsh priest who mutilated corpses | | by Cath Clarke Oct 4, 2023 | | Was repressed sexuality behind the grisly crimes of Emyr Owen in a quiet seaside town? Detectives and forensic investigators re-examine the case 40 years on Reverend Emyr Owen (or “the perverted priest” the tabloids inevitably dubbed him) was a Welsh Presbyterian minister convicted in 1985 of mutilating corpses; he had confessed to cutting off the penises of three men laid out in his chapel of rest in Tywyn for burial. The “aha” moment of his arrest, dramatised by this documentary, is right out of a vintage detective novel. DC Gwyn Roberts had been investigating poisonous letters sent anonymously to a local woman when he recognised the same handwriting – with a distinctive letter “t” – on the inscription of a Bible. “It was a eureka moment,” recalls Roberts in a flat monotone. (Some of the interviews here have an unintentionally hilarious quality that made me wonder at first if the film was a spoof.) Roberts got an even bigger shock when he searched 62-year-old Owen’s house and found, alongside a stash of gay porn, some nasty books about cannibalism and human sacrifice and photographs of the severed genitalia. On the drive to the police station, Rev Owen admitted everything. “I’m glad it has been stopped before anything worse happens,” he said. Might he have gone on to commit more grisly crimes, possibly on living victims? The question is left hanging. Continue reading... | | | | | 'He was suffering a lot': the tragic death behind uplifting trans drama 20,000 Species of Bees | | by Cath Clarke Oct 3, 2023 | | The film caused a sensation in Berlin, when its nine-year-old star became the youngest ever winner of the Silver Bear award. We meet its Basque director, who has been compared to Ken Loach for her humanity and compassion Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren first had the idea for making her debut film when she read about the suicide of a 16-year-old trans boy in the Basque Country where she lives. What struck her about the case was the hopeful note that the teenager left behind, imagining a kinder, more accepting world. “He said he was making this decision to shine some light on people in his situation, for visibility. He was accepted by his family, but he was suffering a lot. It’s very sad.” Solaguren is speaking via Zoom from her apartment in San Sebastian. Her film, 20,000 Species of Bees, premiered in February at Berlin, where – in the biggest surprise of the awards night – its lead actor, nine-year-old Sofía Otero, scooped the Silver Bear prize, making her the youngest ever winner. Since then, it’s been all-go for Solaguren. Next week, she takes the film on tour to Iceland, then it’s Toulouse followed by London; after that Japan. Sounds exhausting, I say. “Everything in October!” she beams. “But all the travelling can be a bit overwhelming.” Continue reading... | | | | | |
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