Bull (2021)

Written for RAF News November 2021

Bull is the name of a London thug, enforcer and son-in-law to Norm, the boss of a local crime syndicate. But when Norm’s drug-addicted daughter wants to separate from Bull, and won’t allow him to take their son, things escalate: a caravan is set ablaze and he is left for dead.

We’re not sure of the details just yet, information is steadily doled out in flashbacks between visits from Bull to each member of the gang. If you’ve seen Neil Maskell on film before, you’ll know that it’s a mistake to cross him. Starring in Ben Wheatley’s films with a fury that sometimes explodes on screen in horrific barbarism, Bull keeps Maskell’s reputation firmly intact.

It’s easy to see why he was a valued asset to his father-in-law; where Norm (an intimidating and insidious David Hayman)

does the talking, Bull gets straight to action – unflinching and apparently unbound by morals. There is a bold matter-of-factness to the violence which sometimes tips into full-on gore. Whilst there is tension, there is no standing on ceremony, no conversation that needs to be had, just revenge to be enacted – which is probably why the film flies by with a lean 87-minute runtime. Written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton, Cherry Tree Lane) there are some clever stylistic touches that take us into Bull’s rage-fuelled mania – with one particularly haunting moment on a Waltzer that just keeps growing in intensity.

It’s in the final moments that things go a little awry, building to a reveal that doesn’t quite pay off. As a quick and brutal revenge thriller though it works fine simply as an excuse to follow this deranged antihero on a warpath.

November 12, 2021 0

Spencer (2021)

Written for RAF News November 2021

Christmas 1991, Sandringham is the setting for Spencer, a fabled telling of black sheep Princess Diana in a marriage beyond repair, struggling to find her place and pushed to breaking point.

The festive period is inverted here to be cold and uninviting. Family traditions appear more detached and ritualistic for the ruling class – each guest is weighed upon arrival, and once again as they leave, to prove their enjoyment in pounds. This the first of many alienating trials for Diana, who feels as though her eating disorder is being put on display.

Not simply taking liberties with the truth, but basking in the fantasy with joyous aplomb, Chilean director PabloLarraín (Jackie) sidesteps reverence and comes at an angle, skewering the subject with humour. Collaborating with writer Steven Knight (creator of Peaky Blinders) the film takes its ‘ghost story’ theme quite literally, committing so fully that it becomes enjoyably absurd. The royal residency becomes an opulent Overlook Hotel, with its roaming apparitions, long displacing halls and walk-in freezers. Food, as it turns out, will become the biggest antagonist of all, with scenes beginning below deck in the kitchen, run like a military operation with scrupulous attention to detail, and ending with the Princess on her knees beside the loo.

Fighting her own demons, Diana also has to contend with the rules of the manor, enforced by all but personified by Major Gregory (Timothy Spall) as the Queen’s menacingly watchful equerry. Treading a line between very serious and silly, it is grounded by the phenomenal performance of Kristen Stewart: endearing with her dry sense of humour, and tenderness with her children, but also amped up in terms of her unravelling.

The theme of duality is tackled head on, with Jack Farthing’s punishingly contemptuous Prince Charles explaining that there is the real person and the one for the cameras. The film then adds a third to the mix, the one behind closed doors but just as contrived.

Spencer is a delight if you’re able to take it as seriously as it takes itself – with a pinch of salt, and shavings of white truffle.

November 5, 2021 0

Viva La Vida (2021)

Written for RAF News October 2021

Predicated apparently on the discovery of a large number of unopened trunks that contained Kahlo’s possessions, now on display in an exhibit at her home, the filmmaker explores some of these belongings and their significance in understanding the person who became the legend.

Frida’s life is split into chapters, introduced with a fun and frenzied montage of graphics and stock archive footage. Herein her life is explored through interviews, primarily those running the exhibitions, though we also hear passages of Kahlo’s own words whilst watching actors interpret the artist, roaming about the mountains or looking longingly out of windows. This varied and unconventional approach is stitched together with narration from Asia Argento who appears between segments, talking intensely to camera in vague rhetoric as though introducing an episode of The Twilight Zone.

This confusion of ideas is messy: information is given at inopportune times, missing the chance to inform the viewer of the importance of themes when they would be useful. There are some elements of Mexican culture that caught with joyous observational footage, but it lacks consistency with the subject and tone. However frustrating, it is always a treat to revel in the powerful and challenging work of Kahlo, and appreciate the pain and hardship that she endured throughout her life.

Unfortunately Frida. Viva la Vida feels like a recorded walking tour through an exhibition, an invasive one at that, though this actually exists in more rigorous detail account looking at Kahlo’s life through her work as recorded by Exhibition on Screen just last year. An admirably artistic take on a documentary that gets a bit lost in its ideas.

October 29, 2021 0

In Full Bloom (2021)

Written for RAF News September 2021

In the wake of WWII, an American prize fighter with a string of losses competes in Japan against an undefeated boxer.

The politics in the background remains just that, as In Full Bloom avoids the path of Rocky IV and instead focusses on the meaning of the fight itself. It becomes less of a show for an audience or the media, and instead dives into the philosophy of boxing through the headspace of these two fighters.

It does this by taking an expressive, poetic form – earning obvious comparisons to Terence Malik through its use of whispered narration over the top of natural landscapes and stirring string compositions. This style is sustained for the entirety of the film, as we follow American Clint Sullivan (Tyler Woods) and the struggle he has in the locker room before the fight when his honour is questioned, or as we jump back in time to see the preparation undertaken by Japanese fighter Masahiro (Yusuke Ogasawara).

At a press conference, Masahiro is asked about his connection to a legendary figure – a former champion living out in the woods in isolation. Avoiding a collapsed montage with upbeat music, we instead see the ways in which this recluse becomes Masahiro’s very own Mr. Miyagi, stealthily honing fighting technique through various tasks and challenges, such as catching fish in a stream barehanded, or hunting whilst blindfolded.

The tone of the film seems to work more naturally with the Japanese characters, whereas dialogue feels a bit simple in the mouths of the Americans, perhaps losing something in translation. By the time of the fight however, none of this matters.

The dialogue falls away, the crowd are blacked out and the camera circles the ring as we watch the first round play out in real time. In a dizzying whir of visuals and sound, this final fight is an explosion of style that pays off all of the films earlier meditations.

September 17, 2021 0

The Djinn (2021)

Written for RAF News August 2021

A mute boy finds a dusty leather bound book with a pentagram on the cover that says it can fill his heart’s greatest desire – surely nothing could go wrong.

Set in the 80s (maybe just to include some 80s style synth in the score), Dylan (Ezra Dewey) has just moved into a small apartment with his radio DJ father now that his mother is no longer around. Even though the dialogue is signed, it is still exposition heavy. They unpack and try to settle down before dad Michael (Rob Brownstein) has to head out for his night shift broadcasting.

This gives Dylan enough time to continue exploring his new digs, returning to the cupboard where he spied the foreboding Book of Shadows. Gathering the bits needed to fulfil this dark ritual, he lights a candle and signs the text from the book into the mirror – unleashing the Djinn. And so all the young boy needs to do now for his wish to be granted, is survive an hour in this cramped three room flat with the satanic demon he just invoked.

The Djinn is a shapeshifter, and so takes on different forms whilst pursuing the boy from room to room, though the most scary would have to be its natural ghoulish appearance which, used sparingly, is pretty unsettling.

Setting the film in this small space is clever in as much as we learn the layout quickly, knowing that if the monster is in the kitchen, there is only one way past it. However it does stifle variety and the cat and mouse chase can’t help but become repetitive, kept alive with the constant jolt of jump scares.

Simple to the point of feeling like one protracted scene, this house invasion horror gets a little stuck for ideas and leaves itself with nowhere to go.

August 27, 2021 0