April 28th
Downton Abbey: A New Era
After Yang
Farewell Mr Haffmann
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
More from the Moro Spanish Film Festival
This week brings something to relish for the fans of Downton Abbey, plus a trio of intriguing arthouse films. Also the Spanish FF continues, with the film Mediterraneo bordering on unmissable.
Downton Abbey: A New Era
Dir: Simon Curtis
Length: 125 mins
 |
© Universal - the upper class in all
their finery in an entertaining tale |
Never having watched the series or for that matter seen the first film, I really am not so familiar with all the characters in this incredibly handsome, uplifting and crowd-pleasing story of an English upper-crust family living in a majestic old home. For the cogniscenti, rest assured all your faves are here, including the family matriarch Violet (a marvellous Maggie Smith). Two main plot threads run through the film: 1. Violet discovers she has inherited a villa in the south of France, leading the family to delve into a possibly scandalous past and to visit said French connections. 2. Lion Films come to Downton to use it as a setting for a silent movie which runs into trouble causing Downton family members and staff to become involved in the project. The cast plays as a roll-call of much-loved faces of British acting; apart from Smith there's Imelda Staunton, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Penelope Wilton, Jim Carson (the archetypical butler), to name a few. I am impressed that the upper-class do not come across as a parody of themselves; all seem quite believable, nor are the downstairs servants presented patronisingly. Smaller plot threads of possible life-threatening illness, gay romance and Eliza Doolittle-esque reimaginings are nicely handled. The costumes, settings and cinematography are simply splendid old chap, and in this utterly fraught and troubling world, this is just the sort of diverting entertainment we need. 3.5 - well recommended
After Yang
Dir: Kogonada
Length: 96 mins
 |
© Kismet - a gentle sci-fi, with a
philosophical reflection on the
meaning of life |
Set sometime in the near future, Jake (Colin Farrell) and Kyra (Jodie Turner Smith) have an adopted Chinese child Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). To help her understand her heritage and to give her a sibling they purchase an android named Yang (Justin H Min). Mika is deeply attached to her older "brother", but he is second hand, and one day suddenly ceases to work. While attempting to repair Yang for a distraught Mika, Jake discovers a camera inside the android, and on the memory card is footage of everything that Yang has ever recorded from each day of his life, including previous lives he has led with other families. With overtones of Blade Runner, the film explores the huge questions of love, loss, connectedness and what it means to be human. Winner of Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2021, this is a gentle and deeply moving film that will both intrigue and challenge you to deeper philosophical thought.4 - highly recommended
Farewell Mr Haffmann
Dir: Fred Cavaye
Length: 115 mins
 |
© Palace - a powerful World War 2 story
of three people driven by what each feels
is the "right" thing to do |
Paris 1941: Joseph Haffmann (Daniel Auteuil) runs a jewellery shop, his creations in high demand. But when the Nazis start rounding up Parisian Jews he makes a weighty decision: he sends his wife and three children down to the south of France, and signs his shop over to his assistant, Francois Mercier (Gilles Lellouche), a man hoping to make his own designs one day. Joseph hopes to join his family but can no longer exit Paris safely, so ends up hiding out in the basement of his own home, where Francois and his wife Blanche (Sara Gireaudeau) are now in residence. What ensues is a convoluted twisting of roles, colored by Francois' increasingly dark side coming to the fore, both in his marriage, his greed, and his relationship with the Germans. Much of the increasingly taut action centres around the fraught dynamic of the threesome in the house, and an almost Faustian pact they strike. The camera captures the claustrophobia of Joseph's situation, viewing the outside world through a street level window. This is subtle film-making, with a wonderful plot (some fabulous twists at the end), and sublime acting by the three leads. It is yet again a reminder of the horrors of the Jewish situation in World War 2, along with an invitation to ponder, what makes for a good person?4 - highly recommended
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Dir: Ryusuke Hamaguche
Length: 121 mins
 |
© Potential - coincidence, relationships,
regrets. Gentle but moving |
From the director of Drive My Car comes a film which is for me, much more engaging. Three short stories introduce us to women with issues around relationships: love, regret, jealousy, betrayal. In the first, Tsugumi and her friend Meiko talk endlessly in a taxi, the conversation revealing that they seem to have a connection with the same man. In the second, an aggrieved student tried to convince the woman he is having an affair with to seduce a college professor to create a scandal. And in the third, my favorite, after a high school reunion, an unhappy woman, with many past regrets, makes a chance encounter through a mistaken identity. This leads to some much needed soul-searching for both women. It's all about relationships, via intense conversations, but each tale is so intriguing that we end up feeling like a fly on the wall, almost voyeuristically engaged with the various interactions. The film has won several prestigious awards, including the Silver Bear at Berlin, and while fans of faster-paced films will possibly not enjoy it, this is terrific dialogue-driven cinema with compellingly truthful acting.4 - highly recommended
Moro Spanish Film Festival
Ongoing until May 15
All Palace Cinemas Melbourne
The festival continues to bring top-shelf Spanish and Latino cinema to the world. I recommended you to four last week and here we go with another two.
Mediterraneo: The Law of the Sea: This true story focuses upon Oscar Camps (Eduard Fernandez), a lifeguard from Barcelona. When, in 2015, Camps sees a picture of a small Syrian boy drowned trying to get to Europe via Greece, he heads to the island of Lesbos. There, with the help of his daughter and a couple of other committed lifeguards, he starts a rescue operation, bringing stranded refugees safely in to shore. The NGO he founds, Open Arms, still operates today, heading to the world's trouble spots. This is moving cinema with a capital M. The story is thrilling, but more importantly a vital example of people with a huge capacity for compassion. The director never descends into sentimentality or melodrama - just shows it like it is - all the despair of the refugees, the bureaucratic indifference (initially) of the Greek authorities, the generosity of some of the locals, and the life-changing contributions of Camps and his crew. The film inspired me and moved me to tears.
Official Competition: Pen Cruz, like you've never seen her before, plays film director Lola Cuevas, a woman known for her unusual methods. She is co-opted by a wealthy tycoon who wants to leave a mark on the world, and gets her to direct a film from a Nobel-Prize-winning book, about sibling rivalry. Her leading men Felix (Antonio Banderas) and Ivan (Oscar Martinez) couldn't be more different in their acting approaches, but their egos are equally large. The film is witty, at times laugh out loud funny, and as a vehicle to stick it to the film industry and to arrogance, this is one worth seeing. Cruz and her leading men are terrific in their performances, and the minimilism of the sets means you can concentrate hard on the over-the-top characters.
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