June 10th
A Hero
Benediction
Mothering Sunday
Against the Ice (streaming on Netflix)
The Donut King (streaming at SBS OnDemand)
Another week of strong films. PLUS . . . a couple for couch dwellers. I recently trawled through the movie offerings for free at SBS On Demand, and the films on offer are really impressive. So, I rerun a review I did last year for a terrific film that has turned up on the very same channel.
A Hero
Dir: Asghar Farhadi
Length: 127 mins
 |
© Hi Gloss - an ordinary guy trying
to do the right thing |
Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is in a debtor's prison. While out on a two-day leave he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw the charges. Then his girlfriend finds a lost handbag containing some gold coins, and while they may solve Rahim's problem he decides to return the handbag to the rightful owner, making him a hero in the eyes of family, friends and social media. But things are not so simple, and a subsequent lie spirals out of control, introducing complexities that threaten to make Rahim's life even worse. Farhadi, who also wrote the script, is great at taking seemingly simple situations in life and exposing the complexity and nuances of how people interact. There is a raw humanity about all the characters, and plenty of moral ambiguity about who is right and who is wrong. The film is emotionally intense and complex, and as such has garnered some heavy-duty film festival awards. It requires attention to detail from the viewer, but should reward as a portrait of a man in crisis.4 - highly recommended
Benediction
Dir: Terence Davies
Length: 137 mins
 |
© Rialto - beautiful and moving
a poem in its own right! |
Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) served in the British army in the first world war. He was a renowned poet and used his craft to write verse that railed against the horrors of war. Terence Davies' sublime film masterfully juxtaposes the poetry with confronting archival black and white images of death and destruction. He then evokes the decadent life of the era to give us an insight into the artistic life of the day, with the likes of poets Wilfred Owen (Jeremy Irvine) and Edith Sitwell, and composer Ivor Novello (Matthew Tennyson). Sassoon moves in a world of closeted homosexuality (the love that dares not speak its name, as he refers to it), desperately seeking inner peace, but going through a series of disastrous relationships, and ultimately seeking salvation through the conformity of marriage and religion. Much about this film is both sad and quite beautiful. Every performance is a gem in its own right, with each distinct character standing out memorably. Davies employs many unusual devices that give the film a uniqueness beyond a typical biopic, with dissolving time frames, slow measured scenes, and several mysterious symbolic moments. I found the film mesmerising and moving.4 - highly recommended
Mothering Sunday
Dir: Eva Husson
Length: 104 mins
 |
© Transmission - visually gorgeous but a
bit too "try-hard" |
Jayne Fairchild (Odessa Young) works as a maid in a household headed by Mr Niven (Colin Firth) and his wife (Olivia Colman). The wealthy Sheringhams are close friends of the Nivens, and Jayne has been having a secret passionate affair for years with Paul Sheringham (Josh O'Connor). But he, of course, can only marry someone from the upper classes. One fateful day a tragedy occurs that will turn everyone's lives around and lead Jayne to become a writer. This is an enigma of a film, much of it really impressive and much of it, for me, quite troubling. Firth and Colman seem almost wasted in their small roles, but Aussie actor Young gives a standout performance as the melancholy Jayne, and her translucent beauty is well exploited by the camera. The settings in the film are beautiful and magnificent, both dreamy exteriors and grand interiors, but there is an overly self-conscious "artiness" to every shot, that is overblown and becomes almost a distraction from the plot. Some scenes feel almost out of place, especially with the extreme focus upon endless nudity, seemingly for its own sake. The time frame leaps about from past to future, and at times also detracts from the viewer's involvement in the main plot. The emotional depth, in what should be a totally heartbreaking story, is constantly overshadowed by the film-maker's undue emphasis upon stylistic devices. 2.5 - a maybe from me (note: most Rotten Tomato critics like it)
Against the Ice
Dir: Peter Flinth
Length: 102 mins
 |
© Netflix - being left behind in the
frozen wilds is no joke |
You want a stirring adventure in the freezing Arctic wilderness? This could be for you. Based upon a memoir by Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) this film (also written by Coster-Waldau) is about courage and survival in extreme conditions (and foolhardiness?) Mikkelsen and fellow explorer Iver Iversen (Joe Cole) return to base from an expedition to find the rest of their crew have gone and left them behind. They must then endure all manner of threats to their survival, including each other, for the next umpteen months. This is genuine old-fashioned film-making, with tension and excitement (both predictable and not). Nothing is ground-breaking, but the two leads are terrific and cinematography is suitably austere and shiveringly atmospheric. (Dog-lovers beware - the sled huskies do not have a good time of it!) 3.5 - well recommended
Dir: Alice Gu
Length: 90 mins
Streaming on SBS On Demand
 |
© Madman - donut heaven in a really
interesting and inspirational story |
In 1975 Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy fled with his wife and three kids to America, with nothing to his name. While working as a janitor and then 'pumping gas' he noticed a local successful donut shop and got himself apprenticed to Winchells, then a leading donut chain in California. The rest of the story is just amazing - how Ted set up a chain of his own unique donut shops, giving employment to countless other Cambodian refugees. There's a lot more to Ted's story but I'll leave you to discover it, as this is an absorbing and delightful story, not only of happy times and success from nothing, but also of hard times including some of the horrific history of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The soundtrack, featuring plenty of donut-themed songs, is a hoot, and the American obsession with the sweet treat something to be wondered at. At heart, this is a story of hope and caring, with Ted an inspiration to make the best one can of life.4 - highly recommended
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