Tag: parents and children

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Features Live Action Movies

Ava

Director – Sadaf Foroughi – 2017 – Iran – 102m

** 1/2

Available on VoD from Friday, August 21st

Ava (Mahour Jabbari) is a schoolgirl studying music – against the wishes of her parents, particularly her straight-laced and conservative mother Bahar (Bahar Noohian) who thinks music isn’t a real job and her daughter should consider a career that pays. Bahar is a hospital doctor and her husband Vahid (Vahid Aghapoor) is a freelance architect.

By way of a prank, Ava makes a bet with her friends and classmates Melody (Shayesteh Sajadi) and Shirin (Sarah Alimoradi) that she can get a date with Nima (Houman Hoursan) who is currently dating another classmate Yasi (Mona Ghiasi). Her mother hates the fact that Ava and Melody are best friends and spend a lot of time together, not least because Melody’s mum is a single parent.

Meanwhile, Bahar recounts a difficult hospital shift where a girl was found screaming wandering at night although she can’t bring herself to use words as explicit as “pregnancy” or “abortion”. This recent experience is in the back of her mind when she discovers one Saturday that Ava is not round at Melody’s but somewhere else. (Ava is spending time with Nima and misses the bus to get back.)… Read the rest

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Young Ahmed
(Le Jeune Ahmed)

Directors – Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne – 2019 – Belgium, France – 85m

***1/2

Exclusively on Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, August 7th

Belgian teenager Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi) is having problems with his teacher Miss Inès (Myriem Akheddiou). As he sees it, she disrespects his Muslim faith. His life timetable is governed by the time table of not, as you might expect, his school but his mosque. He must attend prayers at a specific time. Actually, his teacher and school are more than accommodating of these demands, but that’s not how Ahmed sees it.

He has long and deep discussions with his local Imam, Youssouf (Othmane Moumen), a radical jihadist and frankly a pretty creepy individual. Ahmed looks up to and trusts him. More than he does his teacher who he accuses on various occasions of betraying the faith, having a Jewish boyfriend and being an infidel. (Incidentally, this being a French language movie the word ‘infidel’ has a direct meaning of ‘unfaithful’ in that language, something I’ve never noticed before.) More than he does his mother (Claire Bodson) who he berates for having the occasional drink or two. It doesn’t help that he seems to regard women and girls as unclean and inferior.… Read the rest

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Parasite
(Gisaengchung,
기생충)
(Black & White Edition)

Director – Bong Joon Ho – 2019 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 132m

*****

Opens in UK Cinemas (hooray!) exclusively for a week at Curzon Mayfair from Friday, July 24th. Also available on Curzon Home Cinema.

Read my reviews of the colour version of Parasite in All The Anime and Reform too.

It’s a safe bet that as anyone going to see the black & white edition of Parasite has already seen the colour version. Possibly several times, as it seems to be a movie in which you see new things with each viewing. In my case, I’ve already reviewed it twice (for two different publications). This review assumes you’ve already seen the colour version. If you haven’t, start with one of those reviews then see the colour version first.

So the big question is, is the black & white edition a waste of space where you’re watching the film drained of its colour and wondering why you bothered? Or does it add something to viewing the film?

The answer happily is the latter. 

I must admit I struggled with the opening scenes in the Kims’ basement flat. The street seen through the window seemed to emphasise length and distance more, but somehow watching black & white takes you back to an earlier period, say film noir in the fifties, and to see the son Kim Ki-woo hunting around for a hackable wi-fi signal with his mobile held aloft jarred with that.… Read the rest

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Alice

Director – Josephine Mackerras – 2019 – UK, France, Australia – Cert. 15 – 103m

****

Available in the UK on Amazon Prime, Barbican On Demand, BFI Player, Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, July 24th

Working mum Alice Ferrand (Emilie Piponnier) has everything she wants in life – a devoted husband François (Martin Swabey), a young son – until one day her credit card is stopped. No money for shopping. No money from the cashpoint.

A visit to the bank reveals that François has been systematically withdrawing money from the joint account for the last year or so. Not only that, but he hasn’t been making the payments on the couple’s flat for the same period. The money from her parents is gone and she is weeks away from losing her home.

When she phones him, she gets his voicemail. Desperate to know what’s going on, she goes through his desktop computer and finds phone numbers. Some of these lead her to a high end escort agency who, as it happens, are holding job interviews. She goes along in the hope of finding out more information and is offered a job. Confronted with a daunting repayment schedule to save her home, after much soul searching she signs up in her new career.… Read the rest

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Wrath Of Silence
(Bao Lie Wu Sheng,
暴裂无声)

Director – Xin Yukun – 2017 – China – 120m

***

Fist of parental fury: mute villager fights hard to find his missing son in rural China, in a film teeming with extraordinary social commentary and… fighting!!! From the BFI London Film Festival 2017

The young boy Zhang Liu tends sheep on a hillside in Northern China not far from a mine where lorries come and go. One day he doesn’t come home. His mother, already in debt for various medical treatments for her swollen legs, is at her wits’ end. The boy’s mute father, the miner Zhang Baomin (Song Yang), has a way of solving problems. Fisticuffs. He beats up people in the local mine. In the village restaurant he plunges a broken meat bone into the eye of the local organiser of signatures to sign away the village mining rights for which he’s holding out but everyone else in the village has signed. He goes around showing a picture of the missing Liu in the hope that someone has seen the boy.

This takes him to a local mining site where he’s inside eating with the foreman when thugs turn up in vans and jeeps to tell the miners a new company has bought out the mine and their service are no longer required.… Read the rest

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Pan’s Labyrinth
(El Laberinto
Del Fauno)

Director – Guillermo del Toro – 2006 – Mexico – Cert. 15 – 119m

*****

In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl must complete three tasks for a mysterious faun in an underground kingdom – in UK cinemas from Friday, November 11th 2006.

Mexican director del Toro is best known as a director of big budget Hollywood horror-ish effects fests like Mimic (1998), Blade II (2004) and Hellboy (2004). More impressive however – and less easily generically defined – are the two movies he’s made in Spain set in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. The Devil’s Backbone (2001) is a ghost story with an alien ambience reminiscent of visionary SF writer J.G.Ballard. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) is arguably even more ambitious: at once a no holds barred fantasy / horror outing and a brutal and violent war drama. And much, much more besides.

Following a fairytale prologue concerning a subterranean princess’ departure from her underground kingdom for the surface world where her former identity is unknown, young girl Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) travels cross-country with her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to live with Carmen’s new husband Vidal (Sergi López), a ruthless Captain in Franco’s army obsessed with stamping out the remaining rebel forces.… Read the rest

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The Bold,
The Corrupt
And
The Beautiful
(Xue guan yin,
血觀音)

Director – Yang Ya-che – 2017 – Taiwan – Cert. 15 – 112m

*****

A dysfunctional family, a property investment scam and sex and drugs meet head on in this impressive, female character-driven Taiwanese drama-thriller – exclusively in these cinemas for three days from Friday, September 4th

One family, three generations of women, each with their own demons. Middle aged matriarch Madame Tang (Kara Wai) is in the process of setting up illicit property deals with a network of corrupt state officials to the tune of $3m Taiwanese. Her scheming daughter Tang Ning (Wu Ke-Xi, writer and star of Nina Wu / 2019) is involved in sexual intrigues and addicted to a lethal mixture of drink and prescription meds. Teenager Tang Chen (Vicky Chen Wen-chi) seems both incapable of forming healthy relationships of any sort with other people and constantly spying on them through gaps in doors or curtains – or just by being in places she’s not really wanted.

Tragedy befalls the Lins, one of the families involved in Madame Tang’s scheme, when they are shot dead in their family home by intruders. Somehow their teenage daughter Pien (Wen Chen-Ling) survives the massacre. Her boyfriend Marco (Wu Shu Wei) is the murder suspect.… Read the rest

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Yes, God, YES

A plea for honesty

Yes, God, YES
Directed by Karen Maine
Certificate 15, 77 minutes
Released digitally on 17 August

Despite its provocative title suggesting a racy sex comedy about religion, this is actually a gentle independent film exploring the everyday inadequacies of American teenagers growing up within a conservative Catholic tradition. Essential life issues, including sex, truth telling, lying and religion, come up.

There’s a rumour going round Alice’s Catholic high school that she (Natalie Dyer) has been “salad tossing”. Having no idea what this means, she spends much of the film trying to find out. Impressed that Nina (Alisha Boe) has been on a four-day camp and seems to have her life together, Alice signs up.

The camp takes place at a Catholic retreat centre staffed by a nun and Father Murphy (Timothy Simons). Alice is immediately attracted to Chris (Wolfgang Novogratz), the camp leader and school football team captain. When Nina asks Alice to surrender her watch and mobile phone “because you’re on Jesus’ time”, Alice keeps her phone hidden to play games on it… [Read the rest]

I review Yes, God, YES for Reform.

Available to view on Amazon Prime and iTunes.

Trailer:

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Eat Drink Man Woman
(Yin Shi Nan Nu,
飲食男女)

Director – Ang Lee – 1994 – Taiwan, US – Cert. PG – 124m

*****

Originally published in Home Entertainment.

Ageing restauranteur Chu (Lung Sihung) lives in Taipei with his three daughters – Christian schoolteacher Jia-Jen (Yang Kuei-mei), high-flying businesswoman Jia- Chien (Wu Chien-lieu) and teenage fast food assistant Jia-Ning (Wang Yu-wen). His problem (as with the mother in Lee’s Sense And Sensibility/1996) is that none of his daughters are married – and the clock is ticking.

Opening (scooter) traffic shot boasts encompassing sound, later rivalled by such DS subtleties as hymn singing (on a wonky Walkman) and a playground full of kids. Better yet are the cooking noises – bubbling, frying, pouring, steaming – rendered more mouth-watering still by accompanying oriental cuisine visuals. Should be watched with a lavish meal ready for consumption by the time of (or even before) the final frame.

Film 5/5

Sound 5/5

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1994 (67th) Oscars.

Originally published in Home Entertainment.

Categories
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Finding The Way Back

Director – Gavin O’Connor – 2020 – US – Cert. 15 – 108m

***

Available on VoD from Friday, July 10th

Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) has a drink problem. He separated from ex-wife Ange (Janina Gavankar) over a year ago. With his life going nowhere, Jack gets a phone call asking him to drop in on the Catholic school where he used to play baseball which turns out be be a job offer for team coach since the incumbent has just unexpectedly had a heart attack. Jack used to be the team’s star player back in the day, but he isn’t sure if he should take the job.

Anyway, he goes for it and finds himself building a bunch of no hope kids into a winning team. He has to fire one who turns up late for practice and build the confidence of the best player on the team who doesn’t believe he should be team captain. He has to stop swearing because it’s against school policy and he must deal with his drinking problem before it gets the better of him. He has bigger personal issues to confront as well– there are reasons why he drinks.

This deceptively ordinary drama accomplishes everything it sets out to do and will hold your attention throughout.… Read the rest