June 27th 2025
F1
Riviera Revenge
The Story of Souleymane
Ocean with David Attenborough (streaming on Netflix)
What a week for diverse and engaging films. French films feature large, with one excellent comedy, and one heart-rending, award-winning refugee drama. Then we have a big blockbuster pulse-racing experience in the world of Formula One. Finally David Attenborough gives his view on the dangers our oceans are facing in a visually beautiful streaming doco.
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© Universal - teammates but rivals -
all the roar of the track in a stunning movie experience |
Three very sexy handsome men, throbbing, roaring car engines, precision driving and competitiveness, globe-trotting exotic locations, and more nail-biting, adrenalin-fuelled energy than you could imagine! What's not to like? This is the story of a Formula 1 driver who gets a second chance, and while the Apex Grand Prix team may be fictional, all the other racing teams are real. Shot over a couple of years at most of the world's Formula 1 Grand Prix tracks, we are taken behind the scenes of the planning, the strategies, the training, the rivalry and the mechanics of high level motor sport. All of it set in the framework of a most absorbing story, even if it has its formulaic moments. After surviving a horrific crash 30 years prior, Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is recruited back into an ailing F1 team. His old pal and team boss Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) pairs him with up-and-coming rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Can they overcome their rivalry enough to form a winning team? The way this has been shot is as near as possible to putting viewers in the driver's seat and that makes for nail-biting, exhilarating tension, as the cars scream around the track, career into barriers and avoid near misses (or crash) with each other. I'm a closet rev-head so I really loved this film. Pitt seems to only get better with age, balancing laid-backness with emotion; Bardem is winningly cast, while one of the few female characters Kate (Kerry Condon) epitomises a clever woman with remarkable aerodynamic engineering skills (and a minimal love interest for Sonny). With Hans Zimmer's dynamic driving (!) score, plus a fabulous soundtrack of high-octane songs, this is excitement and escapism at the top of the sporting elite game.4 - highly recommended
Riviera Revenge
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© Potential - French fun wih a few serious
undertones |
Ex-military man Francois (Andre Dussolier) has been married to Annie (Sabine Azema) for 50 years. He runs his family in army fashion, and his three adult children all have varying issues with him. While trawling through old papers in the attic, he discovers a love letter to Annie, and, putting two and two together, discovers she had an affair a few years into their marriage. Infuriated, humiliated, and threatening divorce, Francois heads off to Nice to confront the ex-lover Boris (Thierry Lhermitte). I'm not usually a big fan of French comedies, but this one really hit the spot for me, not only because it is sweet, funny and at times silly, but also because of the deeper issues lurking below its comedic surface. The dialogue always feels authentic, and the comedy, while sometimes bordering upon farce, is joyous and fun. The examination of the nature of long-term marriage brings a thoughtful edge to the plot, as do the subtleties of the parents' relationships with their children, and secrets they also harbor. Set on the glorious Cote d'Azur the film naturally looks splendid, and all in all, it's a delightful, distracting romp of a film (even if the ending was a little disappointing).3.5 - well recommended
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© Palace - realism and poignancy: the
human face behind the refugee crisis |
Films dealing with the refugee experience can often be both moving and disturbing, and so it is with this much-awarded French film about Souleymane (Abou Sangare), a young refugee from Ghana, hoping to be accepted for a residency permit in France. He has two days to prepare his story (not necessarily true) for his interview by the French authorities. Meantime he is working as a food delivery courier in Paris and sleeping night to night in a variety of homeless shelters. Everything seems to go wrong, from accidents, to people not paying him, and as the interview nears, so his stress heightens. The pace and tension of this film is impressive; a man frantically pedalling through the city, racing the clock, feels almost like a thriller and we are invested in his every move and daily challenges. Sangare's performance is so compelling, we feel for him from the word go. (He knows the role, having lived the part in real life!) The few lighter moments with his African street buddies soon give way to a poignancy that is absolutely heartbreaking. The near-final scene of his actual interview is as totally memserising as it is surprising. This is fine film-making with deep humanity at its heart.4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended
Ocean with David Attenborough
Dir: Colin Butfield, Toby Nowlan & Keith Scholey
Length: 95 mins
Streaming on Netflix
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© Netflix - marine life under threat
from many sources |
As we have come to expect from 99-year-old Attenborough, this is yet another documentary that is both exquisitely filmed, but also features the measured wisdom, knowledge and warnings from one of nature's staunchest supporters. David takes us into the ocean depths to show us the remarkable beauty of marine life in all its diversity, but also to raise the alarm. Deep sea trawling and overfishing, along with climatic changes are depleting the oceans of life and destroying the ocean beds. If some of these images don't shake you out of complacency, nothing will. As usual though, he is not without hope, saying regeneration is possible, if only humans will create more marine parks and prohibited fishing zones. 4 - wholeheartedly recommended
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