Tag: confused

Categories
Dance Movies Animation Features

Ana, en Passant
(Ana, en Passant)

Ana, en Passant (Ana, en Passant)

Director – Fernanda Salgado – 2026 – Brazil, Portugal, France – Cert. tbc – 90m

*****

A woman from Paris travels to Belo Horizonte, Brazil where she hopes to unearth something of her family history – from the BFI London Film Festival 2026 which runs from Wednesday, October 7th to Sunday, October 18th in cinemas and on BFI Player

This opens with a profusion of images and a child’s voice asking: “mummy, what is a map?” The images are moving images treated in painterly ways, animated postcard-like holiday snaps putting themselves into order, flashes of memory as if printed on an unusual under-texture. Then an image of a baby scanned in the womb. More images – fish in the ocean, talk by the little girl of whether fish follow maps too – then we settle into the film proper.

Which is to say that, rather than the film’s form constantly shifting, it suddenly settles into a more formal, less abstract, fixed form of 2D animation as Ana (voice: Jéssica Pierina) – the little girl asking the questions earlier, perhaps? – leaves the Paris Metro with its familiar Hector Guimard art deco, wrought iron entrance, wanders satisfyingly along the bank of the Seine and finally enters her apartment, where she tidies broken pieces of china off the floor, binning them.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Features Live Action

Weapons

Weapons

Director – Zach Cregger – 2025 – US – Cert. 18 – 128m

****

One night, all but one of the children in one class in the town school disappear into the dark, leaving the townsfolk baffled as to what happened to them… – Fortean-sounding mystery is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 8th

One night at 2.17am, the 17 other kids in Alex’s class got up out of their beds, went downstairs, opened their front doors, and ran out into the night. As a child relates the incident, we observe it in flashback. The kids run with arms half outstretched at an angle, as if playing at being aeroplanes in the school playground. If you’ve seen the film’s poster, this strange angle of the arms is also apparent. As it also is in the film’s trailer, which starts with this flashback. But what is in the mind of these kids? Where are they going? To what purpose?

For that matter, why the title Weapons? I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that you’ll know the answer once you’ve seen the film.

Thus begins one of the most intriguing cinematic mysteries of recent years. To unpack his prologue, writer-director Cregger opts for an astute, six-part, character-based structure.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Features Live Action

Allelujah

Allelujah

Director – Richard Eyre – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 98m

***

While a small NHS hospital in Wakefield, Yorkshire is in danger of being closed down by the government as inefficient, it seeks to care for its geriatric patients– out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 17th

Based on the 2018 stage play by Alan Bennett, this multiple plot- and character-drama follows the day-to-day lives of assorted, mostly terminal, geriatric patients in The Beth, or the Bethlehem Hospital to give it its full name, in Wakefield, Yorkshire. Dr. Valentine (Bally Gill) whose real Indian name no-one can pronounce (really?) provides a framing device, a man who in an engaging, opening voice-over makes it clear that he genuinely cares for the elderly and who closes the film in a couple of scenes that don’t really work. Of which, more later.

Because what follows is for the most part character- rather than plot-driven, the character of Dr. Valentine doing his rounds and grappling with the inevitable day-to-day crises as they come up provides the main structural spine of the story.

I say ‘the main’ line, but in fact there is one other character who serves a similar function not to mention several subsidiary plots, one of which is considerably weightier than the others.… Read the rest