Tag: forest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Evil Does Not Exist
(Aku wa Sonzai Shinai,
悪は存在しない)

Director – Ryosuke Hamaguchi – 2023 – Japan – Cert. 12a – 106m

**

A small, unspoiled village community is visited by two representatives of a company planning to set up a glamping facility – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 5th

This starts and ends with a journey on foot through a forest with a viewpoint looking up at the branches of trees as quiet, meditative and arresting music by Eiko Ishibashi plays on the soundtrack.

A young girl of about eight (was it her viewpoint?) wanders through the woods.

A man chainsaws chopped tree trunks into small logs, then takes them near to his house to chop them for firewood. He puts several big, plastic cans in his car boot and drives out to a stream to fill them with water. Kazuo drops by to help the man load the filled bottles into his car. They hear gunshots, which the first man remarks he heard they were hunting in Kunihara.

At this point the first man Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) realises he’s forgotten to pick up his daughter from daycare, and drives over there to discover she’s given up waiting and walked home along. He finds her in the forest and gives Hana (Ryo Nishikawa), for that is her name, a piggyback home.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Fungi Web of Life
laser digital IMAX 3D

Director – Joseph Nizeti – Co-directors – Gisela Kaufmann, Paul Phelan – 2023 – Australia – Cert. U – 40m

*****

The amazing world of fungi, its place in the ecosystem and how it may be able to help solve some environmental issues; narrated by Björk, presented by Merlin Sheldrake – out at the BFI Waterloo IMAX on Friday, February 9th

Think of fungi and most of us immediately think of mushrooms or toadstools, but those are merely its above ground manifestation. In fact, the wood wide web (a phrase easily misheard as the more familiar World Wide Web) extends through forests which are, as this notes in passing, disappearing at an alarming rate through deforestation, when the mostly slow paced and marvellous imagery and peaceful sounds and music on offer are briefly interrupted by a close up of the huge drive wheel of a mechanical digger and grating sounds of machinery to match.

Innovative Icelandic musician Björk, who has referred to her 2022 album Fossora as her ‘mushroom album’, lends her voice to the English language narration here. This gives the piece a strange, unearthly feeling that’s somehow perfect for its subject matter. Also on hand is biologist, writer and speaker Merlin Sheldrake, who wanders through the proceedings to visit Kew Gardens and assorted natural areas of forest around the planet to point out pertinent items and features.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

Mavka
The Forest Song
(Mavka.
Lisova Pisnya,
Мавка.
Лісова пісня)

Directors – Oleh Malamuzh, Oleksandra Ruban – 2022 – Ukraine – Cert. PG – 99m

Ukrainian language dubbed version with English subtitles ****1/2

English language dubbed version ****

#Mavka

Can the love of a brave and essentially honest youth for Mavka the forest spirit succeed in the face of the enmity between humans and nature? – Ukrainian animation is out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 28th

Long ago, events flared into a terrible winter war between the Guardian (voice in Ukrainian: Nazar Zadniprovskyi; in English: Marc Thompson) of the forest beyond the Dark Mountain and a sawmill owner who initially wanted to obtain one drop of the Source of Life to heal his sick daughter but then became greedy and brought an army to seize the rest of the Source of Life for himself. Seeing the terrible devastation wrought upon the forest in the conflict, the Guardian decreed that no human should ever again set foot in the forest.

Many years later, as young forest spirit Mavka (voice in Ukrainian: Natalka Denysenko; in English: Laurie Hymes) awakens from her winter sleep to spread the new life of Spring, in the nearby village where flautist Lucas (voice in Ukrainian: Artem Pyvovarov; in English: Eddy Lee) is performing with fellow musicians, the late sawmill owner’s daughter Kilina (voice in Ukrainian: Olena Kravets; in English: Sarah Natochenny) returns promising well paid work.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

Boonie Bears
Guardian Code
(Xiong Chu Mo
Ban Wo Xiong Xin,
熊出没·伴我“熊芯”)

Directors – Lin Yongchang, Shao Heqi – 2023 – China – Cert. PG – 99m

****1/2

Abandoned by their mother as children, bear siblings Bramble and Briar uncover a conspiracy involving roboticists and robots – in a dubbed format for family audiences – out in cinemas on Friday, May 26th following its premiere at the Prince Charles Cinema around midday on Saturday, May 13th

Bear cubs Bramble (voiced in the English language version by Siobhan Lumsden) and Briar (voice: Nichalia Schwartz) enjoy and idyllic life in the Pine Tree Mountain forest in the care of their loving, lullaby-singing mother Barbara (voice: Kally Khourshid). Barbara shows them her amber pendant containing a moon and a star shape, one for each of her two cubs who have those shapes in light patches of fur on their chests. (Bramble is the one with the yellowish fur and Briar the one with reddish fur.)

One day, Briar sees her walk away through the burning ruins of a house as if she never knew him. The brothers never see her again, growing up on their own and looking out for one another.

Years later, the adult Bramble (voice: Joseph S. Lambert) and Briar (voice: Patrick Freeman), disguised as robots using makeshift fridge and washing machine costumes that would give the robot performer of Brian And Charles (Jim Archer, 2022) a run for his money, are being driven by their best friend the human Vick (voice: Paul ‘Maxx’ Rinehart) along with roboticist Dr.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Blind Willow,
Sleeping Woman
(Saules Aveugles,
Femme Endormie)

Director – Pierre Földes – 2022 – France, Canada, Luxembourg, The Netherlands – Cert. 15 – 100m

*****

Three characters experience the aftermath of the 2011 Tokyo earthquake in a story based on six Haruki Murakami short stories – animated feature is out to rent on BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, May 5th

This is an animated feature based on six Haruki Murakami short stories which comes not, as you might expect, from Japan, but rather from one of the few other countries that can reasonably be said to have an animation industry: France. Writer-director Pierre Földes, whose father Peter is an award-winning animator, further confounds expectations by making a film of six Murakami short stories… [Read the full review at All The Anime…]

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is out to rent on BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, May 5th.

It was out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, March 31st.

Trailer:

Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

Avatar:
The Way Of Water

Director – James Cameron – 2022 – US – Cert. 12a – 192m

Immersive Cinema *****

Screenplay *

Now raising their own family on the planet Pandora, a couple flee the attacking Sky People to live among a tribe of sea people – first Avatar sequel is out on digital on Tuesday, March 11th

Having gone native on the planet Pandora following the events in Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), in which paraplegic human soldier Jake Sully (performance capture including voice or Pcap: Sam Worthington) was transformed into an avatar of a non-disabled, native Pandoran, in the first third of the film, Jake is raising a family with Na’vi partner Neytiri (Pcap: Zoe Saldaña): two boys, two girls. They play in the jungle forest with their friend Spider (Jack Champion), a human child who was too young to be evacuated when the other Sky People left. Spider has been raised by human scientists who remained behind, and he must constantly wear a breathing mask to survive in Pandora’s atmosphere; he is to all intents and purposes feral.

When the Sky People return to Pandora with a new remit – to prep the planet for human habitation since the Earth is becoming uninhabitable – Jake’s old commander Quaritch (Pcap: Stephen Lang), who died in the first film but is now reconstituted as an an avatar embedded with the character’s DNA and memories, is determined to hunt down and kill the Sully who, as he sees it, betrayed him.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

No.7 Cherry Lane
(Jiyuantai Qihao,
繼園臺七號)

Director – Yonfan – 2019 – Hong Kong – Cert. 12A – 125m

*****

The tutor of an 18-year-old girl falls for her mother who hired him against the background of the 1967 protest marches in Hong Kong – plays in the Annecy Animation Festival 2022 which is taking place in a 100% on-site edition this year right now as a Screening Event

Insofar as this is like anything else – which it really isn’t – it’s like a reworking of The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) filtered through In The Mood For Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000). Oh, and it’s 3D rendered then 2D animated. Broadly speaking, The Graduate is about a young man seduced by a much older, bored housewife before later becoming romantically involved with her daughter. In The Mood For Love is set in early 1960s Hong Kong and includes a sequence on a sloping pedestrian street where a man passes a women walking in the opposite direction, the whole thing charged with a sense of romantic longing. There;’s a similar scene in No.7 Cherry Lane, although it’s considerably less central to the plot than the one in In The Mood For Love.

Yonfan, here making his first film in ten years, would certainly agree that filmic and literary references abound in the film.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Boonie Bears
Back To Earth
(Xiong Chu Mo
Chong Fan
Di Qiu,
熊出沒·重返地球)

Director – Lin Huida – 2022 – China – Cert. PG – 100m

****

The latest movie in this long-running, animated Chinese franchise, hugely successful at the Chinese (and therefore global) box office, is the first to get a UK cinema release – in a dubbed format for family audiences – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 27th

Urban bear superhero Bramble (voiced in the English language version by Joseph S. Lambert) successfully battles and defeats a monster formed from the garbage that people in the city have failed to properly throw away, lapping up the ensuing admiration from local child and cute animal residents until rudely awakened from his urban daydream by the human Vick (voice: Paul ‘Maxx’ Rinehart), who wants him to clean up the litter in the rest area of the Pine Tree Mountain forest / national park where they live.

Motivated by the promise of an ice cream on completion, Bramble speedily undertakes the task by racing around gathering the detritus in his arms only to come a cropper at the very end, spilling all the collected rubbish at its allotted bins. Although he has the best intentions and tries hard, Bramble is not the smartest bear in the woodlands.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Europa

Director – Haider Rashid – 2021 – Iraq, Italy, Kuwait – Cert. 12a – 75 m

****

A young Iraqi migrant is hunted by mercenaries after he crosses the Turkish/Bulgarian border – out in cinemas and on demand on Friday, March 18th

A number of movies hang over this bold adventure thriller about Kamal (Adam Ali), a young Iraqi migrant who after crossing from Turkey into Bulgaria finds himself hunted by paramilitaries with guns and balaclavas. One is the gothic classic The Most Dangerous Game / The Hounds Of Zaroff (Irving Pichel, Ernest B.Schoedsack, 1932) in which the passengers of a luxury liner shipwrecked on an island find themselves in a deadly relationship with the big game hunter who lives there. The others are much more recent. Utøya July 22 (Erik Poppe, 2018) is a one take recreation of the Utøya teen camp Summer massacre in which kids attempted to survive a rampaging gunman while Son Of Saul (László Nemes, 2015) follows a Jewish worker-prisoner around a Nazi death camp.

The connection with The Most Dangerous Game may actually be coincidental rather than deliberate, since what inspired Rashid was stories of real life migrants’ experiences. The locations are a Bulgarian woods not a constructed Hollywood jungle set, yet it fits neatly into that lineage.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Weald
(Somaudo Monogatari,
杣人物語)

Director – Naomi Kawase – 1997 – Japan – 73m

***

Serial elderly residents of Japan’s Yoshino Mountains go about their daily business and talk about life’s joys and hardships – online in the UK as part of Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF) from Monday, January 17th to Sunday, February 6th, 2022.

Prior to making such features as The Mourning Forest (2007), Sweet Bean (2015) and Japan’s 2021 International Oscar entry True Mothers (2020), independent Japanese film maker Kawase cut her teeth on intensely personal, low budget documentaries, first shorts then both shorts and features.

For this her third feature length documentary, Kawase took her camera up the Yoshino Mountains at the Southern end of Japan’s two island mainland to shoot the lives of elderly locals recording them and presenting her footage as a series of straightforward portraits. There’s no attempt to impose any narrative or outside agenda; rather, her camera gives space to these people to talk, reminisce and, ultimately, simply to be.

A woman who has spent her entire life farming a small plot of land keeps herself to herself, claims she isn’t lonely and that she likes being at home. “How much longer can I do this,” she asks the camera as she walks up a woodland slope.… Read the rest