2023 – Page 2 – samcooney

Written for RAF News March 2023

Reality is folded in on itself in this playfully mind-bending Filipino drama turned pulp action romp.

Leonor (Sheila Francisco), an ageing screenwriter with a taste for violent movies, is suddenly thrust into one of her own films when she is hit on the head by a television that puts her into a coma, leaving her in the thick of an unfinished vengeance story she had just dug up for a screenwriting competition.

Now a fly on the wall, she writes the story as she goes, observing action hero Ronwaldo (Rocky Salumbides) as he aims to avenge his brother (Raion Sandoval) and save the girl (Rea Molina) from a gang of drug-dealing street-toughs. Meanwhile, Leonor’s son Rudy (Bong Cabrera) with whom she is living back in the real world, tries to comfort his mother and pay the bills, by shopping around her unfinished script.

And so the film jumps from the domestic struggles of Leonor’s family to stunt-work and high body count shootouts. What makes the film within the film so watchable is the B-movie aesthetic straight out of 70s Filipino cinema: funky bass score, and sound effect heavy fight scenes that have instant replays.

Leonor Will Never Die is fun and inventive, able to dip into the action whenever it pleases. As novel as it sets out, it continues to get more complex as it progresses, adding layers and blurring lines of what is in the reality of the story – at one point Leonor’s family cannot find her in the hospital, only to find her in the action movie on the television.

Building to the classic genre showdown, it stays fun but gets a little greedy, piling on the self-awareness and deconstruction until it has nowhere else to go.

Written for RAF News January 2023

The line between the convict on the stand and the witness in the box is blurred in this contemplative, courtroom drama.

Rama (Kayije Kagame) a celebrated author, is in the process of writing a book when she is drawn in to the local trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda): a women charged with the murder of her 15 month-old daughter. Like Cosy, Rama is French and of Senegalese decent, and seems ambivalent about her pregnancy.

Based on a real trial, that director Alice Diop attended, we see the complexity of characters presented through their testimonies, but also in reaction to the testimonies of others. The film is very deliberate in its voyeurism. Long takes focussed on a single person allow you as the audience to become the jury. Avoiding theatricality, it is the nuance, the micro-actions and reactions, that make this film resonate so deeply.

Cosy (played phenomenally by Malanda), is introduced as someone who has committed the most heinous crime of infanticide. Having left her child on a beach as the tide was coming in, she confesses that she is responsible, and yet bafflingly pleads ‘not guilty’. This is just the beginning of this difficult and contradictory series of revelations. As we listen to Cosy speak in defence of herself, she is eloquent, a gifted student of philosophy she has a way with language, and so is able to express a certain messiness that is ultimately human.

This spell is sometimes broken by the pointed questions of attorneys, like for instance after the testimony of the murdered child’s father (Xavier Maly), a more senior man whose sincerity is deconstructed swiftly by some perfectly aimed accusations.

As well as unpicking these personalities, the film throws into question larger ideas and assumptions. The whole legal system is seen as a product of its culture when the defendant claims that ‘sorcery’ was involved, creating a debate around the validity of African mysticism in a Western court of law.

Saint Omer is slow paced and purposeful; it does not pander but simply gives you room to observe. It is simple and confident filmmaking that will appeal to active watchers who like have their views challenged.

Category: 2023

Leonor Will Never Die (2023)

Saint Omer (2023)