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Director – Óliver Laxe – 2025 – Spain, France – Cert. 15 – 115m

*****

Young son in tow, a man goes in search of his daughter who has gone missing at raves in the North African desert – 2025 Cannes Jury Prize Winner is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 27th

Luis (Sergi López from Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, 2006; Dirty Pretty Things, Stephen Frears, 2002; Harry, He’s Here to Help, Dominik Moll, 2000) and his son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) are searching for his son’s elder sister who vanished five months ago. Believing she is headed to a rave in the Moroccan desert, they turn up there to hand out Missing fliers and ask people there if they have seen her.

No-one has seen her.

They start off asking among dancing revellers, but soon move on to try people resting or on the fringes of the event. One group of three people halfway up a hillside, seem more sympathetic than most, but they’ve not seen the daughter so there isn’t a lot they can do to help.

The rave is an illicit event not sanctioned in any way by the authorities, so it’s perhaps not surprising that on maybe the second day… time can be hard to keep track of at these events… soldiers turn up to close the event down. … Read the rest

The Small Back Room

Directors – Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger – 1949 – UK – Cert. PG – 106m

*****

In London during World War Two, a back room boffin and bomb disposal man struggles with alcoholism – 4K restoration played at BFI Southbank on Tuesday, May 28th prior to release on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital on Monday, June 3rd

This black and white, post-war era drama isn’t the first film that comes to mind when people think about Powell and Pressburger – it was made immediately after what today are regarded as three of their best colour features – A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and their arguable masterpiece The Red Shoes (1948). And that was preceded by one of their finest black and white works, “i know where i’m going!” (1945).

In many ways, The Small Back Room couldn’t be more different. There’s a marvellous sense of whimsy about those films, even if the later ones are intense and savage in places. Like Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes – and, for that matter, Powell’s late solo masterpiece Peeping Tom (1960), an intensity lies at the heart of The Small Back Room.

Gone are the light, airy spaces of the earlier films, their sense of the outdoors expanse (and, in The Red Shoes, the expanded landscapes of the eponymous ballet sequence within the film).… Read the rest