Fact of the Day

London
Is full of People
Who will only talk to you
If you can further their career
Make them more popular
Or get them into parties


That's not a tribute to Alan Partridge by the way.

Love Like Poison - Out Now

Newcomer Katel Quillevere’s directorial debut is a moving coming-of-age drama blending emotional depth with an intense naturalistic social realism. Unafraid to tackle big ideas, the script deals with sex and religion with admirable frankness and maturity. Doing all of this while retaining a sweetness and playful innocence is part of what makes this film such a memorable one.

The story centres on Anna (Clara Augarde), a young teenager filled with doubts about her faith and desires. Returning to her small Breton village from Catholic boarding school for the holidays she discovers that her father has left. Her shocked and depressed mother (Lio) seeks the company of the local priest (Stefano Cassetti), who is also a childhood friend. Meanwhile Anna quietly plays Connect 4 and listens to old records with her blasphemous, cantankerous grandfather Jean (Michel Galabru). Soon her attention is drawn towards local boy Pierre, an earthy and free-thinking youth who inspires many conflicting feelings within Anna.

Love Like Poison scores high points in many important areas. Visually it is stunning. Certain scenes seem to be drenched in bold, vibrant colours – Quilevere has said that the expressive use of colours by Dario Argento and Douglas Sirk helped guide the work –while others have a melancholic, shadowy feel. The landscape of Brittany is brought out all its wild, rugged glory and the village itself and its people have a timeless quality that could almost be from any decade in the last 30.
The film is also interesting in its use of music. The title is inspired by a Serge Gainsbourg song and the eclectic folk songs and choir music – including a choral version of Radiohead’s Creep – add a powerful dimension to the events on screen.

A rich vein of dry humour runs through the film; Catholic traditions are respected but there is a healthy amount of cynicism about the power of the church as well as the infamous guilt it all too often inspires. It is no coincidence that Anna’s crisis of faith comes just as she is preparing for her confirmation – there is little doubt that Quillevere’s primary interest is to raise doubts about the focus of religion in Catholic families.

The balance of darkness and humour is well portrayed in the character of Jean, a fun loving and independent man whose bawdiness and natural jocularity provide the film with its lightest moments. However his sickness of mind and body lead him into darker territory. In a way he represents the humanist model without God; in one scene he openly belittles and disrespects the priest but he is ill and shows signs of becoming amoral and ‘less human’ in his dementia.

Love Like Poison is a remarkable debut – there is a style and uniqueness about it which draws the audience in. There are so many ideas in the script and the acting and casting is uniformly excellent. Some of the pacing goes occasionally awry but on the whole this is a wonderfully affecting picture from a filmmaker worthy of attention.

This review also appears here

Everywhere and Nowhere - Out Now

Kidulthood director Menhaj Huda’s sporadically eloquent film attempts - and mostly succeeds - to give a realistic account of the British-Asian growing up experience. Aspiring DJ Ash (James Floyd) experiences freedom in London’s club scene but feels trapped at home, under the stern gaze of his traditional father (Alyy Khan). While relatives and friends party, take drugs and get on with their lives, Ash’s music career takes off, partly encouraged by older DJ Ronnie (an unconvincing ex-Blue singer Simon Webbe).

Featuring an interesting cast (Saeed Jaffrey, Art Malik, Adam Deacon and The Inbetweeners’ James Buckley) and a stirringly authentic soundtrack from Shiva Soundsystem’s Nerm, Everywhere and Nowhere is on solid ground with the excellent club scenes but falters slightly towards the end of the family drama.

Howl - James Franco IS Allen Ginsberg!

One for the ‘angel headed hipsters’, Howl is a flawed attempt at telling the story of one of modern poetry’s best loved and most parodied works. According to directors Jeffery Friedman & Rob Epstein, the film is ‘a poem-pic‘ and not a traditional biopic. In this goal they are at least partly successful.

Alllen Ginsberg’s Howl is, along with Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and William Burrough’s The Naked Lunch, one of the cornerstones of the ‘beat generation’, that group of writers who in the 1950’s transformed the American (and later the world’s) literary landscape and eventually influenced and helped shape the counter culture - or as, Ginsberg puts it; “just a bunch of guys trying to get published”.

The movie progresses in three ways: a documentary interview with Franco’s Ginsberg, Franco’s reading of Howl over the effective and visually appealing animation work of Ginsberg collaborator Eric Drooker and the dramatised obscenity trial where the prosecution tried to prove that the work had no literary value. Of these, the reading over animations works the best. The other two segments call to mind Mark Twain’s quote about how explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog – you understand the frog better but it dies in the process. Here, for joke, read poem.

Despite a short running time and a sharp, fizzing performance from Franco – a novelist as well as an actor himself - Howl could prove to be something of a slog for non-Ginsberg converts. To them I would suggest; buy the book instead.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams - Herzog and Pre-History...in 3D! Released 25 March

A visually stunning and, at times, humbling experience, Herzog’s mesmerising 3D documentary presents the audience with a chance to examine the earliest prehistoric cave paintings currently known . Gaining unprecedented access, the crew crawled along narrow walkways throughout the cave to bring the 35,000 year old artworks to the screen. The contours of the cave come to life brilliantly and, staring at the animal figures and prints of early humans in the dark, one almost feels inside the cave – separated by thousands of years but somehow connected. A beautiful achievement, held together by Herzog’s wry narration and interviews with the often eccentric cast of scientists and archaeologists conducting work into exploring the cave, Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a perspective changing film that is literally full of humanity.

TRAILER

Robert W Monk