Review: Amy

Last Friday, the British Urban Film Festival kicked off its summer season with a double feature at London's Genesis cinema. First up was a preview screening of Asif Kapadia's highly anticipated documentary Amy. The film documents the life of  the extraordinary life of Amy Winehouse until her terrible death of alcohol poisoning on 23 July 2011.

On the one hand, the documentary paints an incredibly sad and moving picture. Winehouse's well-known story, where addiction and depression triumph over extraordinary talent, follows the blueprint of tragedy. As with his acclaimed documentary Senna (2010), Kapadia foregoes the use of talking heads and constructs the film from a wealth of archive material, home videos, photographs, television clips. Winehouse occupies nearly every frame of the film. As a result, the distance between spectator and subject is reduced significantly. Amy manages to humanise the singer in a way the tabloids and mass media never could (or wanted to).

Then there is the voice. That incredible voice. First heard from the mouth of a tiny British teenager at a birthday party, it was destined to conquer the world. "All I'm good for is making tunes," claims Winehouse in one interview and music, rather than fame, was always the ultimate goal. Huge crowds screaming her name were no improvement on small, intimate jazz clubs. Kapadia furthermore uses a simple but effective trick to convey the brilliance of Amy's extremely personal songwriting: as the music plays, the lyrics appear on the screen. We may have heard the songs hundreds of times, but now we are able to understand them even better.

Another of the film's main interests is the assignment of blame for the singer's downward spiral. Amy is never a completely victimised, but Kapadia identifies three main culprits. Father Mitch Winehouse has unsurprisingly complained about the film and he definitely doesn't come out of it well. When Amy escapes to St. Lucia to avoid the relentless media scrutiny, Mitch turns up with a reality TV-crew in his coat tails. Blake Fielder-Civil meanwhile is the Nancy Spungen to Amy Winehouse's Sid Vicious. Her on-off boyfriend/husband introduced her to crack cocaine before going to prison in 2009.

The third group of accused are the mass media, the unyielding paparazzi laying in siege in front of her house, the chat-show hosts making cheap jokes about her addiction and us, laughing at said quips. Here Kapadia, somewhat inevitably, has his cake and eats it. The mere existence of this all access, behind the scenes documentary undermines any argument that Winehouse's privacy needs to be respected. The film criticises the media circus surrounding the reluctant celebrity, but at the same time makes liberal use of the inquisitive paparazzi footage it is looking to condemn. Kapadia fails to address this contradiction, but fortunately his palpable affection for Winehouse rescues his film from becoming voyeuristic or gratuitous.

Review: Honeytrap brings Brixton to the big screen

Writer-director Rebecca Johnson constructs a heavily fictionalised narrative around a real life event for her debut feature Honeytrap. I won't reveal the details of the case which briefly dominated the headlines in 2009, but the curious can find out more by clicking here. The cinematic version of the story focuses on 15-year-old Layla (Jessica Sula). After spending her formative years with her grandparents in Trinidad, she is thrown into the urban jungle of Brixton.

In the capital, we enter familiar coming-of-age territory. Layla is largely left to her own devices, as mother Shiree (Naomi Ryan) seems more interested in her boyfriend and reality television than her daughter. Desperate to find an identity and to fit in, Layla adapts her style and practices London-slang in front of the bedroom mirror ("allow it fam!"). Shoplifting in the hope of impressing a group of local girls becomes the first of many mistakes she makes over the course of the film. Soon, the attractive teenager is caught up in a love triangle. She attracts the attention of Shaun (Ntonga Mwanza), your typical nice guy, and gangster-rapper Troy (Lucien Laviscount). Unfortunately, Layla instantly falls for the latter.

There are several things to like about Honeytrap. Rebecca Johnson clearly knows what she is talking about; she has been running short film projects with young people in Brixton for more than a decade. Watching a character make one bad decision after another can become a frustrating experience for the audience, but we stay on Layla's side throughout. Johnson never patronises or pities her protagonist and tells the story through the melodramatic lens of a teenage girl. Jessica Sula turns out to be a remarkable screen-presence in the leading role.

We also understand what attracts Layla to Troy despite his reprehensible behaviour. As a budding rapper, he represents (the potential of) fame, money, glamour, and respect. In short, he has the status, the identity, she craves. Music and culture are identified as a potential escape very early on. A drawing of Beyoncé for instance becomes a replacement for maternal love. Fashion likewise becomes a form of communication. In one scene, Layla wears a glittery golden dress in an attempt to make Troy jealous. On the streets of Brixton, she looks ridiculous, but in her own fairytale-world, it makes sense. These little moments of subjective filmmaking show a deep understanding of the female teenage experience in a hostile urban context dominated by men.

The film is however not without flaws. The budget was extremely low ($2 million and change) and it shows. Johnson struggles to make Honeytrap look cinematic, but the visuals remain all too frequently rough and underdeveloped. The film also works much better as a character study than a piece of dramatic storytelling. Her decision to tease the climactic tragic event in the opening scene robs the final act of tension for the unknowing audience member. As a result, the ending is more of an afterthought than an exciting climax. Comparisons to Céline Sciamma's vastly superior (and, to be fair, more expensive) Girlhood don't do Honeytrap any favours either. Both films, released on the same day in the UK, examine the life of a black teenage girl in the modern urban context. If you only have time for one, pick Girlhood, but Honeytrap does make for an interesting companion piece.

The alienating realism of Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin polarised critical and popular opinion from the moment it hit the festival circuit in the autumn of 2013. About twelve months later, the film was hailed by many critics as one of the best of the year and it made an appearance in numerous top 10-lists. The lose adaptation of Michel Faber’s 2000 novel stars Scarlett Johansson as an unnamed alien preying on humans of the male variety in Scotland. During its difficult, decade-long production history, the project went through numerous iterations and transformations. The final result was produced for a relatively modest £8 million and takes an almost experimental approach to narrative filmmaking. In the following paragraphs, I will show how Under the Skin is innovative on a technical as well as a textual level in a number of ways, particularly in regards to its attitude towards realism.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is its much debated use of non-professional actors and of hidden cameras. During the shoot, an almost unrecognisable Johansson would drive around the streets of Glasgow and strike up conversations with unknowing passers-by. In order to capture these scenes, the filmmakers installed ten small digital cameras throughout the driver’s cabin. All ten angles were filmed at the same time. Jonathan Glazer would meanwhile give instructions to Scarlett Johansson via an earpiece. This required some inventive work from the technical department (the cameras had to be inconspicuous) and the editor (due to the enormous amount of footage shot simultaneously). The concept itself is obviously nothing new. In an article for The Dissolve, Matt Singer discusses the history of the hidden camera-technique from 1948’s Candid Camera to more recent examples such as Borat (Larry Charles, 2006) or Great World of Sound (Craig Zobel, 2007). The main differences between Under the Skin and its predecessors are genre and purpose. The vast majority of Singer’s examples are comedies, frequently made for television. Others include reality-TV and investigative documentaries. Glazer takes this gimmick and applies it to narrative, dramatic cinema. In the process, the director asks fundamental questions about the nature of the medium. The concept of realism and the desire to depict reality on screen have occupied cinema and the discipline of film studies since their inception. Many current directors use handheld cameras and/or long takes to convey an illusion of the real, but Glazer erases (or at least blurs) the line between truth and fiction. During her travels through Scotland, the alien encounters a series of characters that are played by a mixture of amateur and professional actors. Crucially, the objective gaze of the camera remains neutral and the audience often can’t distinguish between the two; between naturalism and performance. The only person who is clearly acting is Scarlett Johansson. The star plays on her image as a glamourous Hollywood celebrity. Like the extra-terrestrial protagonist, she looks completely out of place in the rough, gritty environment of Scotland. Performance style and stardom are thus used as a means to make Johansson’s character stand out even more from her surroundings.

Under the Skin establishes an original form of realism through the use of hidden cameras, which Glazer exploits in a truly innovative manner. The film is defined by the juxtaposition of two polar opposites; as Jonathan Romney put it in Sight & Sound: ‘the surreal and the very concretely real.’ Glazer combines the real life people, landscapes and locations with fantastical images and Mica Levi’s mesmerising soundtrack. During the eye-creation sequence in the beginning and the devouring-scene later on, the imagery even veers into the abstract. We see a viscous liquid flow towards a bright, red rectangle followed by several seconds of flashing lights and incomprehensible images. The realism of Under the Skin does not attempt to draw the audience into the narrative or to highlight a particular social issue. On the contrary, it arguably takes on Brechtian qualities and serves as an alienation device. Looking at humanity from an outside (an alien) perspective is one of the main themes of the film. The alien struggles to understand, and later emulate, human behaviour, and as spectators, we empathise with her confusion. The environment of the shopping centre Johansson visits in an early scene is extremely real and familiar to most audiences, yet the scene strikes us as artificial and strange. After seeing the alien hesitantly pick out an outfit, there are several brief, voyeuristic shots of women having make-up applied. This suggests that their behaviour is just as absurd and unnatural as the alien’s. Another sequence, in which Johansson follows a man into a nightclub, works in a similar fashion. She is ushered onto the dancefloor by a flock of excited young women who communicate through indistinguishable chatter. Partying seems like a strange, exotic ritual throughout the entire sequence. Both these scenes were shot with hidden cameras at real life locations. Glazer thus manages to subvert the traditional meaning of realism and uses it to provide us with an outside perspective. In Under the Skin, the screen is not like window, but like fairground mirror rendering a skewed image of ourselves.

Read my original review of Under the Skin here.

Review: Intelligent science-fiction with Ex Machina

Ex Machina is a three hander between man-of-the-moment Oscar Isaac (also in A Most Violent Year), woman-of-the-month Alicia Vikander (currently portraying Vera Brittain in Testament of  Youth, before completing her hattrick with next week's Son of a Gun) and ginger-of-the-year Domhnall Gleeson. As you can see in the picture above, at least one member of the trio is not of the human variety. Ava (Vikander) is a cyborg created by the eccentric genius and billionaire Nathan (Isaac) in his isolated mansion. We arrive at the ultra-modern residence in the company of Caleb (Gleeson), a young, wide-eyed computer nerd. He gets to spend a week in the company of his boss after winning a competition, during which he is to fulfill a very important task: perform the Turing-test on Ava in order to determine whether she truly possesses artificial intelligence.

One of Ex Machina's strong points is the air of uncertainty. The relationships between the three central characters keep shifting and there is constant doubt about their motives. Soon, we feel like we can't trust anybody. Nathan is a cross between Frankenstein, Colonel Kurtz and Mark Zuckerberg with lovely beard and a fondness for alcoholic beverages while Ava's mind is not as transparent as her body. Then there is the possibility that she has no control over her actions. Was she simply programmed that way? We never know who is manipulating whom in this unconventional triangle.

The true manipulator is Alex Garland. After making his name as a novelist (The Beach) and a screenwriter (28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go), the Brit took place in the director's chair for the first time. His work is, like all good science-fiction, full of fascinating ideas. Ex Machina feels in some ways like a continuation of two 2014 films starring Scarlett Johansson. On the one hand you have the idea of looking at human behaviour from an outside point of view like in Under the Skin. How does a form of artificial intelligence perceive humans? This ties in with the themes of Spike Jonze's Her, in which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with the voice of an operating system. Garland takes this a step further by giving his machine a visibly mechanical body, combined with a human face and a gender. This is clearly enough for Caleb to feel some sort of attraction towards Ava. Garland plays around with these concepts, defies our expectations and asks intriguing questions.

Ex Machina primarily appeals to the brain. It is a simple affair playing out in a single location without elaborate action sequences. The film nevertheless doesn't become becomes static. The camera keeps moving through the windowless interrogation room on the prowl for new angles and Garland keeps our attention with regular visual treats (exhilarating landscapes, nudity, unique dance moves). Ex Machina delivers for all fans of intelligent sci-fi and the comparison with Moon are justified.

Review: Beyond Clueless goes into the teenage dream

For most people, the main appeal of Beyond Clueless will be nostalgia. The essay-film provides an exhaustive look at over 200 teen-movies made between the early nineties (the oldest title I managed to jot down was 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me) and the mid-noughties. Anybody who went through and beyond puberty during this period will experience a trip down memory lane.

Director Charlie Lyne looks back at the films of his youth, but he also treats his subject with respect without losing his audience through unnecessary intellectualisation. His approach remains simple. The clips are only accompanied by a simple, original score and an ominous voice-over provided by cult actress Fairuza Balk (whose voice reminded me of Cate Blanchett’s introductory monologue in The Lord of the Rings). The absence of interviews and talking heads actually works in the film’s favour. Our stay in the crazy, fictional world that is the cinematic American high-school is never interrupted by disruptive bursts of reality. In this universe, people are divided into clear categories. Whether you are a jock, plastic, nerd or skater, it’s all about finding your place within or outside of the system. You try to fit in, make new experiences and let lose before departing onto the daunting, uncertain path of adulthood. The ultimate goal of the teenager (and of the teen movie) is the discovery of their individual identity, which is exactly where Beyond Clueless ends up. On the way there, we get montages of youngsters striding through busy school-hallways, experiencing their awkward and/or passionate first kisses and sexual encounters before finally graduating. We are also given glimpses of some Hollywood A-listers before their rise to fame (i.e. Jake Gyllenhaal in a plastic bubble, Jessica Alba as the girl-next-door and a baby-faced Joseph Gordon Levitt) and a surprisingly deep analysis of the “classic” EuroTrip.

On a personal note, I was surprised that I had not seen more of the featured films. Charlie Lyne is, according to Wikipedia, only one year older than myself, but I only recognized a fraction of the films.  Maybe its because I grew up in a different country or because I was a weird teenager, but I have never seen Final Destination and unfortunately only discovered Mean Girls and Clueless in my early twenties. The touchstones of my teenage years were the John Hughes classics from the 1980s and newer films such as Rocket Science, Juno or the underrated High School Musical-franchise. This lack of knowledge did not take away from my enjoyment of Beyond Clueless since I was able to understand the anxieties of the pubescent characters only too well. I also enjoyed the film on a completely different level and discovered films I had never heard of. If, like me, you are unaware of the 1999 film Idle Hands, you may struggle to believe that it actually exists. In this movie, Devon Sawa discovers that his right hand has a blood-thirsty mind of its own and is hell-bent on wreaking havoc whether he likes it or not. And there is way more where that came from in Beyond Clueless. A very fetch experience (yes I am still making "fetch" happen).

Review: Scott and Bale go full Old Testament with Exodus: Gods and Kings

The biblical epic is officially back (for now). After Daren Aronofsky gave us his version of Noah featuring rock giants, berries and Ray Winstone wielding a magical rocket launcher, Ridley Scott takes on the Book of Exodus on an even bigger scale. Exodus: Gods and Kings is, in contrast to the delightfully unusual and frankly a bit bonkers Noah, for the most part a more classical, old school movie. The result is high on spectacle, but low on character, coherence and fun.

Most people in this part of the world should be more or less familiar with the story. Christian Bale steps into the sandals of Charlton Heston, who immortalised the role of Moses in the classic Cecil B. de Mille 1956-version of the story The Ten Commandments. He starts off as a member of the Egyptian royal family and a general of their overpowering military, before discovering that, not unlike the Blues Brothers, he is on a mission from God. He then adopts his true heritage and proceeds to lead the escape of the enslaved Hebrew people from Egypt. During this process, he constantly transforms his physicality and facial hair (I counted at least 10 different beards hiding Christian Bale's gorgeous features). 

The film occasionally engages with the source text in interesting ways, but largely sticks to the Old Testament and its values. God appears to Moses in the form of a young boy and there are hints of a logical explanations for the devastating plagues and the famous partition of the Red Sea (meteor!), but it really is a heroic tale about a man on a mission, about faith and about revenge.

The women are completely marginalised. Some heavy editing appears to have reduced the roles of Sigourney Weaver and the wonderful Hiam Abbass to a couple of scenes and as many lines. The vast amount of plot and action covered in two and a half hours leaves little time to develop many of the minor characters beyond their elaborate costumes. Even Moses himself isn't particularly interesting. There are brief moments of doubt, but he simply shrugs it off after seeing the next miracle. His  love-hate relationship with the Pharaoh Ramses (Joel Edgerton) also lacks chemistry and impact.

What we are left with is a sense of epicness. Very few directors can convey the grandeur and the scale of things like Sir Ridley. The camera constantly leaves the ground to show us big, sweeping shots of cities, deserts and monuments in construction. The landscape and the CGI-effects look equally spectacular on the big screen. On a technological level, the film is brilliant aside from the pointless 3D and a brief moment of embarrassingly bad ADR. The Egyptians are hit by the ten plagues in a montage of truly biblical proportions. Ben Mendelsohn furthermore steals all of his scenes as a slimy, deliciously camp slavedriver.

I wish the film had taken a bit more time to develop its characters and update the story for modern audiences. As it is, Exodus lacks emotional impact. If you think Christopher Nolan takes himself too seriously, you might want to skip this one. With the exception of some glorious Mendelsohn-innuendo, there are no laughs at all. That said, the shot of the horse running away from the ocean is almost worth the price of admission alone. It's not as forgettable as Kingdom of Heaven, but nowhere near as good as Gladiator. 

Review: Northern Soul makes your feet move

A warm chuckle of nostalgic recognition was emanating from the primarily middle-aged crowd at the Friday night screening of Northern Soul through the auditorium of the Duke of York's on more than one occasion. First time director Elaine Constantine (who was 9 at the time the film is set) has created a nostalgic love letter to leather jackets, rare American records and unsuccessful attempts to grow a mustache.

In 1974 Lancashire, the writing is literally on the wall. A large graffiti on the side of a house announces proudly: "Brunswick is a shithole." This act of vandalism was committed by John (Elliot James Langridge), a disenfranchised teenager. Growing up in the North has left him utterly bored and frustrated. It's not until he hears a different kind of music that he finally becomes himself. Together with his new friend Matt (Josh Whitehouse), he hatches big plans: they want to open their own club before going to America. The music is of course Northern Soul.

If you are, like me, unfamiliar with the music, the style and the attitude of the movement, it takes the film a while to settle in this unfamiliar environment. The pop-culture references went over my head and I found it difficult to engage with the characters. After about half an hour, this began to change, as the film finds it groove and the soundtrack steps up a gear. Once the characters make it to a nightclub in Wigan, I found myself tapping my feet to the rhythm of the soul and the romance between John and his crush Angela (Antonia Thomas) is very well played.

Northern Soul doesn't share the unabashed optimism of films like Good Vibrations though. Constantine makes no secrets of the excessive drug consumption that accompanied their intense partying and the story takes some surprisingly dark turns. This doesn't always work, as there is no place for sadness in nostalgia. As I was walking out of the cinema, a woman said to me: "I liked it, but there should have been more happy times. It's fucking Northern Soul!" She has a point, but the film is nevertheless a fascinating portrait of a subculture which is worth discovering and will make it impossible to sit completely still in the cinema chair. You should also keep your eyes open for a very funny Steve Coogan cameo as a Partridge-esque teacher.

LFF review: X+Y equals tears+laughter

X+Y celebrated it's European premiere at the BFI London Film Festival in front of an ethousiastic home crowd. Numerous members of the cast and crew had made their way to Leicester square in order to witness the fruits of their labour on the big screen. And they did have a reason to celebrate: Morgan Matthews has created a funny and moving crowdpleaser that will surely find an audience.

Is there a mathematical formula for love? This question occupies Nathan's mind. Nathan has always been different. He is extremely quiet, unable to express himself and shies away from physical contact. The loss of his father in a car crash when he was a child makes matters even worse. The film never specifies the nature of his condition as autism or Asperger's syndrome (and it doesn't matter), but Nathan is also blessed with an exceptional cleverness and talent for mathematics. He is played Asa Butterfield, who comes of age as an actor with this remarkable performance. 

When Nathan is selected to represent the UK at the prestigious International Mathematics Olympiad, he has to leave his comfort zone for the first time. Leaving his mother (Sally Hawkins) and mentor (Rafe Spall) behind, the teenager takes off towards China in order to prepare for the competition. The challenges he has to face would be hard for anyone: enormous pressure to succeed, a foreign culture, social tensions. The maths problems seem easy in comparison. Fortunately he receives help from Zhang Mei, a girl on the Chinese team (Jo Yang who is cuter than a squirrel on waterskis).

The term "Olympiad" in the name of the central competition is more defining than "Mathematics" for the film, because it follows all the tropes of a sports movie. You always know where the story is going, but that is perfectly fine within this genre. The film's heart is in the right place and Morgan Matthews displays enormous affection for his characters. In 2007, he made a documentary about the British maths-team called Beautiful Young Minds , so this is a world he knows inside out. He never looks down on Nathan or tries to explain his "otherness." He simply accepts him for who he is, which is quite beautiful. Another important aspect is the humour. X+Y and particularly Rafe Spall's self-deprecating, witty teacher provide plenty of laughs. 

That said, the film does at times try too hard to be emotional. The narrative loses its way slightly in an increasing number of subplots, which all have to tie together neatly by the end. One character kind of comes across as a Sheldon Cooper-like caricature and a romance between Hawkins and Spall remains similarly underdeveloped, but the actors make it work. These minor flaws don't however take away from the fact that X+Y is a lovely feel-good film carrying an important message about understanding and priorities. 

LFF review: Benedict Cumberbatch masters The Imitation Game

The Imitation Game is this year's The King's Speech. Even though it isn't nearly as good as Tom Hooper's Oscar-triumph, there are significant similarities: both films are based on a true story, are set on British soil during the war, star a famous Brit as a socially awkward lead with a stammer and feature a bombastic score composed by Alexandre Desplat. The result is an enjoyable, if ordinary, biopic about the extraordinary Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), one of the great minds of the twentieth century. 

The story cuts back and forth between three time frames. There are some unnecessary flashbacks showing Turing as a schoolboy, already an exceptionally gifted outsider with only one friend.  We also see him in the early 50s, when he was forced to undergo hormonal treatment after being exposed as a homosexual. The bulk of the movie is however taken up by Turing's wartime exploits, when he and his team of mathematicians and analysts achieved the seemingly impossible: they deciphered the German enigma code (a feat that significantly shortened the war and saved millions of lives) thanks to an early computer. 

At one point, Turing says: "People think of the war as this epic battle between civilisations - it wasn't like that for us." He spent the war brooding over a puzzle in a small warehouse near Manchester. As a consequence, The Imitation Game is a character driven drama. Benedict Cumberbatch delivers an excellent performance in this role. He portrays a man who is very much in the closet (not only about his sexuality): he never seems comfortable in his own skin, avoids eye contact, but still manages to convey the character's arrogance and confidence in his abilities. He builds an intense platonic relationship with Keira Knighley, whom I have criticised in the past and probably will continue to do so in the future. Matthew Goode, Charles Dance and Mark Strong (sporting an epic comb over) meanwhile round of the strong cast by delivering convincing supporting turns. 

Any rough edges to the characters or narrative have however been smoothed over in order to maximise the film's emotional impact and make it accessible to a mass audience. Politics are largely forgone; even the prosecution of homosexuals by the British government seems like an afterthought. Director Morten Tyldum (Scandi-noir thriller Headhunters) talks about celebrating uniqueness, about outsiders who are different, who think outside the norm. His film is watchable and moving (in large parts due to the strength of Cumberbatch's performance), but also emotionally manipulative and utterly conventional. And it doesn't quite have the warmth, the humour or the filmmaking skills of The King's Speech to make up for these flaws.