Tag: grief

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Features Live Action Movies

The Last Dance
(Po Dei Juk,
破·地獄)

Director – Anselm Chan – 2024 – Hong Kong – Cert. 12a – 130m

****

A failed, professional wedding planner joins a Taoist funeral director as a partner in his company as various crises come to a head in the latter’s family – engaging drama is out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 15th

There have been movies about undertakers and funeral parlours before, but never one quite like this. Whether or not one is at a stage in life where one has had much experience of bereavement, at some point, each one of us is going to die – and, before that, in all likelihood, have to deal with our nearest and dearest dying and, by extension, undertakers and funeral directors in whatever culture we happen to live. Consequently, there is a universal fascination with such matters.

Hong Kong has a very specific cultural take on this phenomenon in its Taoist priests and rituals. While these have over the years supplied the basis for much beloved and fantastical Hong Kong action or horror fare such as Zu Warriors From the Magic Mountain (Tsui Hark, 1983) or the Mr. Vampire films (1985 onwards), no-one has ever tried to build a contemporary, generational family drama around the Hong Kong funeral business, at least, not so far as I’m aware.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Marines
Who Never Returned
(Doraoji
Anneun Haebyong,
돌아오지 않는 해병)

Director – Lee Man-hee – 1963 – South Korea – 110m

***1/2

A small unit of Korean soldiers pushing North in the Korean War adopt an orphaned girl as a mascot before being all but wiped out – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

This opens impressively with what looks like stock footage of armoured cars and infantry coming up a beach. Soldiers race across open ground to a safe shooting position, briefly going back a couple of dozen or so feet to drag two of their wounded comrades forward into comparative safety.

They move on to a derelict, war-torn town. Burning buildings, half-collapsed sections of walls (one of which partially topples as they wait momentarily beside it). One soldier advances across a patch of open ground, gun in hands, grenade at the ready, watched by his expectant comrades from their positions of cover. Time seems to stand still. Eventually he lobs the grenade and the others move up behind him. He drops into a ditch. Ahead of him, a civilian woman comes onto the waste ground with her small daughter.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Starve Acre

Director – Daniel Kokotajlo – 2023 – UK – Cert. 15 – 98m

***

As a couple become mired in grief following the death of their son, their behaviour turns increasingly obsessive, erratic and violent – terrifying and unsettling folk horror is out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 6th and on Blu-ray, DVD and BFI Player from Monday, October 21st

Thinking the fresh air of the countryside will benefit their son’s health, the family of Richard (Matt Smith), Juliette (Morfydd Clark), and their young son Owen (Arthur Shaw) move from their urban home to the wilds of the Yorkshire countryside and the house, named Starve Acre, in which Richard grew up. Owen doesn’t respond too well to the new environment. An unfortunate incident occurs offscreen at a village event, in which an animal gets stabbed in the eye and Owen’s clothing is stained with blood.

His understandably concerned parents take him to Dr. Monk (Roger Barclay) for advice. It isn’t immediately obvious as to what exactly is wrong, and the situation is set to worsen for the couple.

In Richard’s opinion, it doesn’t help that their hardened, elderly neighbour Gordon (Sean Gilder) visits quite often to fill the boy’s head with tales of a mysterious Jack Grey.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Count of Monte Cristo
(Le Comte de Monte-Cristo)
(2024)

Directors – Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte – 2024 – France – Cert. 12a – 173m

*****

An innocent Frenchman framed and imprisoned as a Napoleonic partisan escapes to impose justice on his false accusers – new Dumas adaptation is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 30th

There have been numerous adaptions of The Count of Monte Cristo for the screen, not to mention radio and other media, over the years; this latest one is directed by the screenwriters of The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady (both Martin Bourboulon, 2023), who clearly have a strong feel for Alexandre Dumas’ works.

Much of what’s here is familiar: shortly after the fall of Napoleon, on the day of his wedding to sweetheart Mercédès (Anaïs Demoustier from The New Girlfriend, François Ozon, 2014), ship’s crew member Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney from Frantz, François Ozon, 2016) is arrested for Bonapartism, falsely accused by another crew member Danglars (Patrick Mille from the two 2023 Three Musketeers movies and Love Crime, Alain Corneau, 2010). Neither the crown prosecutor Villefort (Laurent Lafitte) nor Dantès’ friend Fernand de Morcef (Bastien Bouillon from Jumbo, Zoé Wittock, 2020) refute these allegations, although both know them to be untrue, since both have their own reasons for doing so: the prosecutor because Dantès could unwittingly ruin him, Fernand because he too is in love with and wishes to marry Mercédès.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Puffin Rock
and the
New Friends

Director – Jeremy Purcell – 2022 – US, UK, Ireland, China – Cert. U – 92m

***1/2

The puffin and animal community of Puffin Rock is thrown into crisis by the arrival of a few refugees, the disappearance of a puffin egg and a terrible storm – spinoff feature from preschool children’s animated TV series out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 11th

Irish animation house Cartoon Saloon’s Puffin Rock TV series (2015-2016) has deservedly won awards in the world of preschool children’s television. Narrated by Chris O’Dowd, who acts as a running commentary and offers guidance to the two main characters, it centres around two preschool puffins Oona and her younger brother Baba who live on the isolated, human-free island of Puffin Rock with their kind, protective and loving parents. Through O’Dowd’s voice-over and the introduction of other animal characters, episodes deliver simple facts about natural history in a friendly and informative manner. While this educational is never allowed to get in the way of the storytelling, it’s a welcome extra. The programmes are around six minutes in length. (The series can be found on Netflix in the UK, where three six minute episodes are gathered into twenty minute batches comprising three episodes.)… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Three Colours: Blue
(Trois Couleurs: Bleu)

Director – Krzysztof Kieślowski – 1993 – France – Cert. 15 – 94m

*****

A woman who survives the car crash which kills both her composer husband and their young daughter finds herself financially secure and free to do…nothing – 4K restoration is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 31st

This represents the first part of a trilogy based on the three colours of the French national flag, with each film representing one of that nation’s three values of liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, brotherhood). I first saw the film on its UK release back in 1993, for which I interviewed Kieślowski. It’s possible I’ve seen it again in the interim. These days, the trilogy is elevated to the status of a cinematic masterwork. As a young thirtysomething, I remember feeling quite mixed about it. But your perception of these things can change with time, and watching the film again in 2023, in full, restored 4k glory prior to reissue on Blu-ray, I was far more impressed with it than when I first saw it.

For one thing, on this occasion I’m not seeing it for the first time, so the brief appearance (in the courtroom sequence) of Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) and Dominique (Julie Delpy) immediately conjures the second film Three Colours: White (1994) in which those characters are the two main protagonists, which wasn’t the case on first viewing when no-one knew what was coming in the second and third films, the third being Three Colours: Red (1994).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Krzysztof Kieślowski
talks about
Three Colours: Blue

Transcript of interview from 1993 when Kieślowski was promoting Three Colours: Blue. At the time, the other two films in the trilogy had yet to be screened to press.

How far do you consider Three Colours: Blue a separate entity in its own right, and how far the first part of a planned trilogy? “I think it’s a film in its own right.”

Did the initial inspiration come as this film, or rather as the three films? “Well, we started from ideas, from scripts – and since the original idea was such as it was, that included three films. So then we had to answer three questions because there were obviously three problems. We decided fairly early on in our working to make the three separate films, which of course have certain common elements to them. But these are quite carefully camouflaged links, representing my playing around with games for the viewer who also indulges in such games. If the viewer doesn’t like such games, then he’ll just see three entirely different stories. If the viewer likes these, then the films become something more.”

These’ll be something to look forward to later on. “Yes, a few of those feature in Blue, but there aren’t all that many of them.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Perfect Sense

Director – David Mackenzie – 2011 – UK – Cert. 15 – 92m

*****

Love story set in a pandemic captures something of the emotions felt during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, when this review was written (one of the first to appear on this then fledgeling site) – streaming on the Arrow Channel from Friday, March 24th to Sunday, April 30th 2023

Glasgow, Scotland. Michael (Ewan McGregor) is a chef. He likes to sleep alone, so if he takes a woman to bed, he’ll turf her out afterwards to get back his space. That changes when he meets Susan (Eva Green), who then does the same thing to him. And yet, there’s something between them. They’re drawn to one another. A relationship ensues.

Which might sound like just another boy meets girl movie, but Perfect Sense is different. Behind the foreground of walking along river banks and sleeping together lies a very different backdrop. Susan is an epidemiologist at a local hospital. A man has lost his sense of smell and is kept in isolation. There are other cases all over the country. Suddenly, people are being overwhelmed with grief and losing their sense of smell. Some time later, they eat ravenously then lose their sense of taste.… Read the rest

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Princess

Director – Ed Perkins – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 109m

**

The story of Princess Diana told entirely through archive footage – out in cinemas on Thursday, June 30th

The strange thing about watching this documentary about the fairytale turned tragedy of Princess Diana, if you’re old enough to remember it unfolding over several decades, is that it takes you back to the news coverage removed from everything else that was happening in the world (or for that matter in your own life) at the time. To some extent, that’s a necessity of both storytelling and cinematic narrative.

At this point in the review, I could rehash the story as a synopsis of greater or lesser length. However, since rehashing the story is primarily what the film itself does, there seems little point in such an exercise. If you want to see this, you want to see this and little I can say about it will deter you.

What Perkins has done is to assemble a version of the story solely from archive footage: no vox pops from the great and the good to explain what was happening (although he does include the occasional piece of archive interview footage from Diana, Charles, or both together) or offer ‘expert’ or other insight.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Beyond The Mask

Directors – Jane Harris, Jimmy Edmonds – 2021 – UK – 60m

****

People talk about their experiences of bereavement in the light of the COVID-19 lockdown – now free to watch (donation suggested)

In March 2020, the unthinkable happened as the world entered a global pandemic. In the ensuing year or so many people lost their lives while many more felt and indeed still feel a sense of loss for the ’normal’ life that existed beforehand. Directors Harris and Edmonds are no strangers to bereavement having lost their son unexpectedly at age 22 while he was travelling abroad in 2013 and part of their process of dealing with it was to make the excellent documentary A Love That Never Dies (Jane Harris, Jimmy Edmonds, 2018) in which bereaved parents talk about their different experiences of losing children.

Not everyone has suffered the misfortune of losing a child, but if you’re reading this you will invariably have lived through the COVID-19 pandemic, at least thus far. This latter condition is universal. So, what does the experience of bereavement have to say to our current situation of the pandemic – or, for that matter, what does our current situation of the pandemic have to say to our experience of bereavement?… Read the rest